And welcome everybody, to another Smart money circle update. I'm Adam Sarhan. With me today is Tell Jacobson, who's the CEO of Perry. On ticker symbol is PERI Tell Congratulations for becoming CEO and welcome to the Smart Money Circle Show. Thank you, Adam, and thanks for having me. So tell I always like to begin. Can you tell us your journey and how you got to where you are today, please?
Yeah, absolutely. So I've started my journey at 1997. A company called Macromedia Company. We invented the flash which you know most of the web until maybe 10 or 15 years ago were based on and worked there for six years and was acquired by Adobe and then moved from there to a OL part of ICQ. Again, try to figure out how do I how do we grow the company?
How do we grow? Instant messaging company basically back then with no funds and the idea was you know we can go into all those news portals around the world, provide them with our technology of instant messaging. They would promote that and we would ref share the ads. And you know what turned out to be an amazing strategy because after like a year and a half or so, we've made like $45,000,000 in in revenue. That was a big success.
Then manager company in the US came back, was part of the mechanics on the management team, you know, so I learned a lot about our agencies. Think then part of the founding team of a company called Similar Web which we were like 5 people in a room trying to figure out okay. So what do we build now, four years forward? There were like 600 people, you know raised over $100 million. And again, the company was IPO like two years ago and now in the past five years, I've been part of Perrion.
Again, a great turnaround. I was managing the search division and rebuild the Microsoft relationship. We got to the awards for being the biggest supply partner of Microsoft. And now since, you know, we announced it at the beginning of the year, but officially two months ago I became the CEO of the company. And that's, you know, in a nutshell, by 2026 years. Love it. I love it.
So I'm still a AOL user. I have my AOL e-mail which people still give me a hard time about, but I remember the 90s and I remember chatting in the chat room and all that kind of fun stuff, the instant messenger and all that kind of fun things. That's a remarkable storytell congratulations on on your success similar web too. I mean being in that room, it must have been just magnetic or energetic or just who knows.
But I'm really bullish on carry on from where you are and what your, your skill set is and and where the company's position, the valuation, the growth, the earnings are even fantastic. So we've got a lot to discuss, but I'm going to let you speak. Please tell us about your business and some of your competitive advantages. Yeah, absolutely. So at the end of the day, you know Perion is I think it's it's very easy what we do it's, it's hard, the mechanics is hard, but
the story is easy. So everything we do is basically connect advertisers with their consumers and we do that through technology. So we're not a lot of people, roughly around 500 people, but. Our entire goal is how do we build more technology to connect advertiser with consumers. We do that through, you know, we have publisher solution with video display high impact. We have advertiser solution.
You know, we have a division called Undertone, which works with all the biggest agencies in the US with the biggest brands and we're building the creatives and we have the search division. And it would basically do and combine all the technology in one place, 1 centralized place and then we get all those insights that can help us grow into different segments, right. And a lot of time we would invent our own technology in house or we would buy that, right.
So we actually been working on CTV technology in the past two or three years, which grew very nicely. We've built our retail technology which groups very nicely, but sometime we would just buy a company. So we bought like two years ago we bought a company named Vidazoo, which provides, you know, display and video solution for websites and it grows very, very fast. And you know, a lot of publishers kind of publishers love them. We're getting more and more clients. And it works great.
I love it. So you're in a space, the advertising space, we've had a lot of evolution go on in that space and a lot of it's like Darwinism, the strong survive and the strong thrive. Clearly, you're strong and you've survived. So my hat's off to you. It's really, really great story. And even the valuation is very, very attractive. Your earnings are expected to grow significantly over the next several years and they've been
growing quarter over quarter. Sales have been growing double digits over the last four quarters. Earnings have been up double digits and you've got very healthy pretax margins and all that fun stuff. So I'm a big fan. Let's shift the conversation a little bit and talk about risk. How do you handle risk? You've had a very successful career. You've been many places. And what are some mistakes do you see people make with respect to risk management?
Right. So that's a great question and I want to go back to what you just said, you know. We Darwin. It's not the strongest species that survive. It's a specie that's adjusting to change. Is the fastest, right? And and again, I think the fact that we're such a small company in the amount of employees and anything is based on technology, we can do very fast changes. I love it. And I think a lot of companies just. They fall in love with the the angle they took or with the
technology they've built. And they're not moving fast enough. They're not changing what they've built fast enough. And that's what I've seen that in the past 26 years. I was part of ICQ and back then we thought we were positive that the only threat we have is Microsoft Messenger. Microsoft met None of those companies exist anymore, right? None of those products. And nobody could actually see that Facebook is gonna come and messaging is gonna move into social, right?
And I think that's the only thing that people need to remember. Can you change fast enough? And do you have, you know, the, the mentality within your management to change and not fall in love with solution that worked in the past but are not going to work in the future? I love that you know that the common theme that's always looked forward, not backwards, It's like driving in the
rearview mirror. Just because this has worked in the last 10 years doesn't mean it's going to continue to work in the next 10, right? That's actually fantastic. So let's talk about some timeless lessons. Please tell that you've learned that you'd like to share with the audience. You know, I think, you know, going back like 25 years ago, there are two things. One is when I work at Macromedia. You know, 25 years or 26 years ago. The Internet wasn't that sophisticated back then, right?
And we had people selling those software, which were basically a box with a book and a CD. And we had to call all those companies, you know, newspapers or web developers, and to try to sell them that. And you know what I've done is I've built a software that can automatically send faxes overnight to all those companies. And you know, thinking about it now, that sounds kind of
primitive, sending faxes, right. But that was basically performance marketing 1997. And we've made millions of dollars from performance marketing over fax. You know, I would never do that again now with faxes. But again, I you know what? What I've learned is marketing is always the same. Channels might change, but if you can identify the message and the audience and how to get to it as fast as possible, then you know that's the key and that.
And you know, and the second thing is, you know, like again, 25 years ago I was, I was young and I was in charge of, you know, messaging and stuff like that. And I I accidentally sent a message an e-mail promotion. To all our clients. But I accidentally said it. Everybody saw their own everybody's else e-mail, right? Was on BCC, was on C and on two and everybody got pissed.
Like customers again that that took like 24 hours and then everybody forgot about it. But during that time, because I was so young, you know, I came to the CEO of the company, I said, you know, I I quit because I've made that big of a mistake. And he said, you know. Only people that actually do things makes mistakes. So you know, don't beat yourself too much. You know, mistakes are natural. It means that you actually did something. And his response, you know, was so motivating.
And I, you know, I follow the same thing when people make mistakes, and if they own the mistake, that's great. You know, I don't. I don't want people to make mistakes. But at least if they own it and they learn from that, I think that's the best way to grow. Yeah, I love that. That is so powerful. It's almost one of those things where it's like how many times you failed today if you didn't fail. Yeah, you're not doing the right job. I love that. So timeless mistakes that you'd
like to share with the audience. Please. Time mistake. Except for the other one. Not not making those mistakes, just staying back. I love that. Listen, you know I think everybody's making mistakes. Everybody can would would wish they have a time machine going back and fixing things. I think. I think making mistake is natural. I think making mistakes, if you learn from it, that's totally fine and I think great entrepreneurs are the ones who are not afraid of making
mistakes and. They should embrace it. Yeah, I love that. So almost the best thing to do is make those mistakes and lean into it. I love that. That is really, really powerful. OK, next question about leadership. What makes a great leader? And what are some lessons that you've learned about leadership that you'd like to share with the audience? Please. From my experience when I work from other CEO's, I think what
separated. The most powerful CE O's and successful CE O's from others is their ability to lead. I think the I mean the word leadership is, if used correctly, it's actually leading people by example, right? Showing them, showing them the way, showing them that your vision, making sure they have the right tools. They have you know, everything they need to succeed, and if they don't succeed, teach them how to you know. I've I've worked with in so many different companies.
Some CE O's were great leaders, some CE O's were not unfortunately like you would expect statistically. But again, you know, set an example, have a clear vision, have clear KP i's of what you think is successful, and teach people how to get there. You don't expect people to actually know how to get there and surround yourself with people that can actually grow. That's really powerful. Let's talk about adversity and obstacles.
So how do you handle adversity and what are some obstacles that you've had to overcome along the way? Listen, I think in general being a CEO is only dealing with challenges, right? Nobody comes to you when things works right. You've never heard about things that goes. Nobody calls you in the morning and say, you know, today everything works perfect. You don't get out of those phone calls. It's only things that don't work.
And you need to be very resilient about, you know, getting 20 new challenges, 20 new risk factors today and to make sure you know you can handle that, you can make fast decisions. With clear Kpi's. OK, so this is what happened. This is what we need to do. And let's see if that works and to stay calm. Because the end of the day, if if if the CEO gets nervous, everybody else loses it, right? You want to make sure you stay calm, you have the answer, and if you don't have the answer,
you know, that's also fine. Say you know what? I don't have the answer, but I think that's the right way to go. Let's see if that works. I think people appreciate that the what the best piece of advice you'd like to give the audience or give your 30 year old self. I think, you know there's there's a rule saying that. The most simple answer is usually the right one, so don't over complicate answers. If you're looking for an answer, usually is the simplest one,
right? If you believe in a company you know, go with it. If you believe in a story, if you believe in the product, if you believe in the industry, you should be with it. Don't do things you don't believe in and and again, don't try to figure out over complicated answer. If the answer is over complicated, usually not the right answer. Wow I love it. So tell. You've given us a lot of really good wisdom today. Forget the strong survive, it's the ones that are able to adapt
the fastest survive. I love that number one. #2 Think quickly, but stay calm and make sure you have clear KPIs so you can measure everything. And then also from a mistake standpoint, understand it's okay to make mistakes and lean into it. Don't shy away from it because most people are clammed up and they don't live to their potential because they're in fear of making mistakes. And you're just saying do the opposite. It's okay to make a mistake and then own it. Yeah. And own it.
I love it. Well, now this has been absolutely fantastic investors ticker symbols PERI and hopefully tell we'll have you on again soon. Thank you so much today. Thank. You.