Company: YellowHammer Media LLC, New York, NY
Company Division/Group: mWebb Communications
Company Description: YellowHammer Media Group (YHMG) is a full-service, performance-focused digital advertising agency, launched in late 2009 by young veterans of the digital agency and online media buying worlds. Its mission: to develop pro-advertiser technology solutions that would fundamentally improve the $25 billion online display market.
Nomination Category: Management Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Management Team of the Year

Nomination Title: YellowHammer's 7 Young Partners Drive Nearly 500% Revenue & Employee Growth in 2011 - By Taking Risks and Transforming the Online Display Ad World

Tell the story about what this nominated management team achieved since January 1 2011 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

YellowHammer(YHMG) drove nearly 500% revenue ($9mn to $44mn) and employee growth in its second year (2011). Started with one personal credit card – without a dime of funding - competing against big, deep-pocketed companies - they became the “quiet giant” of the $25 billion online display world – AND their unique management team’s vision and risk-taking is why.

YHMG was founded by four VERY young – yet VERY experienced – digital ad visionaries, who walked away from cushy executive jobs to transform the broken, inefficient advertiser/web publisher ecosystem.
Average age of the sevenpartners: 28; average online ad experience: ten+ years… because several founded and sold companies before leaving high school!

YellowHammer’s management accomplished its 2011 “mark-making” year by developing breakthrough, timely ad-optimization technologies, taking a “moneyball” approach – and risking everything to score a major client homerun…leading to others.

The online ad industry is rife with middlemen-brokers, more intent on grabbing larger shares of advertiser budgets than driving high-quality customers - so the YHMG team created an everything-executed-in-house agency - focused on accountability and ROI.

Furthermore, the industry lacked transparency: advertisers were in the dark about where their ads ran and at what return - and were held hostage to flawed performance metrics favoring agencies chasing the cheapest leads, rather than high-quality customers. So, the team created the first dashboard with a 360-degree window into where advertisers’ ads ran, and at what “Return-on-Ad-Spend.”

Meanwhile, with hyper-local online business models exploding, YellowHammer invested precious resources to develop game-changing technologies to ensure the right creative is served to the right audience, at the right place/time. And, just when this technology arsenal was established, their biggest opportunity - and risk - came knocking. A powerhouse daily deal company entrusted them with a multi-million-dollar, 210-city campaign.

Because YHMG knew that their technology would microscopically fine-tune the ads’ local relevance - not just down to cities, but neighborhoods (ribs served up in Dallas, sushi in San Francisco, and no downtown Manhattanite served an uptown deal) - they took a strategic, if significant, risk at a major portal homepage:

3 media buys, totaling nearly $3 million, across just 3 days.

If the ads didn’t convert, YellowHammer probably wouldn’t survive: unlike big agencies that force affiliates to eat their failures, YHMG’s own money was on the line. And that first few-hundred-thousand-buy consumed virtually all company cash flow.

But they DID convert. And how! - generating 34.8 million clicks and 4.35 million members. The advertiser increased YHMG’s budget, word spread, and heavyweights like Groupon, OneKingsLane, BeyondTheRack and Lott18 jumped on board.

YHMG is a super-young start-up with a super-young management team, but arguably no one has done more to transform “the way things are done” in display advertising. More “moneyball” than superstar, YHMG focuses on team-built solutions: no egos, hierarchical rank-obsession, showy offices, or marketing/sales staff, period. Every partner is equally empowered and has serious “skin in the game” - a big reason this “quiet giant” of a $25 billion industry is both “quiet” AND a “giant.”

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Provide brief (up to 200 words total) biographies of the key members of the management team:

YellowHammer Media Group’s management team consists of seven partners, whose game-changing solutions are fundamentally improving the $25 billion online display market This team (average age 28) increased company revenues from $9 million to $44 million in 2011.

The seven partners are (alphabetically):

Sam Appelbaum, VP, Business Development: former “rookie of the year” and Senior Network Manager at Epic Media - current driver of YHMG’s soaring business development.

Jared Christopherson, CIO: 12-year vet of successful start-ups (who developed software at Daxco at age 15) - head of YHMG’s innovative application development process.

Jeremy Elbaum, CRO: former revenue-driving executive at Epic Media - go-to-market strategist and revenue chief at YHMG.

Joe Hirsch, CMO: 10-year veteran of online advertising space – YHMG’s “ad server cowboy,” and head of media, creative concepts and publisher relationships.

Ryan Hubbard, CTO: co-founder of eVariant; creator of cloud-based marketing platforms – charged with the company’s revolutionary ad-optimization tool development.

Hagan Major, CSO: Founded/sold ClickHype in high school, creator of Linbucks social network ad service, consultant to major online companies – Responsible for executing the company’s strategic plans.

Mitchell Richler, CEO: 12 years in online performance marketing, former Epic and Webstorm Media exec – and chief overseer of YHMG’s strategic mission, operations and resources.