NewCo Blog

Brian Monahan’s picks for NewCo NY

By night, Brian Monahan is the Co-Founder of NewCo.  By day, he is the VP of Marketing for Walmart.com.  Below are his recommendations for NewCo NY 2014

Wednesday, October 1

9:00a: Simulmedia

Simulmedia’s CEO Dave Morgan is the Godfather of audience-based media targeting.  A three time successful entrepreneur, he has always been at the cutting edge of where the digital advertising industry is going.  Whenever I find myself in the same town as Dave, I try to corner him in a bar and just pick his brain.  At this session, Dave and I will do that on stage.

10:30a: General Assembly

We’ve been fortunate to visit with over 700 companies across multiple industries since we started this NewCo project three years ago.  All the disruptive innovation we’ve seen has convinced me that we need some serious innovation in our education system.  Sadly, I have not seen much that is really grooming the skills for the modern economy.  And then there was General Assembly….

12:00pm: Chartbeat

The two years I spent running the IPG Media Lab felt like working on a dissertation on how advertising truly works.  After wiring up and eyetracking god knows how many poor subjects, I walked away convinced that attention is the most precious commodity in the word today.  Chartbeat is leading the way in quantifying that quicksilver.

1:30pm: Retoy

Mainstage presentations at the Cannes Lions are the TED Talks of the Ad Industry.  One that absolutely blew my mind was when the CEO behind the licensing company for Hello Kitty talked about inventing a character that spawned an empire.  I suspect Retoy is playing in the same space for the connected era.

3:00pm: Superfly

We at NewCo believe very much in the power of Convocation.  Nobody does it better than Superfly, producers of Bonnaroo and Outside Lands.

4:30pm: Ghostery

It’s 4:30pm.  Do you know where your data is?  Ghostery can help you find it.  In an era when Data in the new oil, you might to know who is trying to drink your milkshake.

Thursday October 2

9:00am: AHAlife

Tough call with my old colleagues sure to put on a good show at the IPG Media Lab.  Of all the cities we’ve visited at NewCo, New York always has the most innovative retail models.  AHAlife is one of those companies challenging us how to think of retail.

10:30a: Kickstarter

It’s not just for the fringe from NYU Film School or the readers of MAKE Magazine.  A former co-worker of mine just successfully Kickstarted the children’s book she always wanted to write.  Kickstarter has gone mainstream and I want to learn more.

12:00pm: Qnary

It is only a matter of time before consumers realize the value of their data and discover the tools that help them effectively manage and profit from their data.  Reputation management is the first use case for personal data management.  But this iceberg goes very deep.  Qnary has been working in this space before most of us started to wake up to the implications of the data era.

1:30pm: Purpose

The primary attribute of a “NewCo” is they are mission driven.  The top of their site reads, “Purpose moves people to remake the world.”  Hooked me line and sinker.  I’ve got to learn more about these guys.

3:00pm SeatGeek

Look, going back and forth from Craig’s List to StubHub to the DoublePlay Window to find last minute tickets to a Giants game is a high class problem but it still sucks.  What if I could see all my options in one place and quickly find the best deal?  Bam!  Hello SeatGeek!

4:30pm: OrderGroove

I plan to wrap up my NewCo NY experience with another retail innovator.  Spear Fishing is the bain of any online merchant’s existence.  OrderGroove seems to have some ideas on how to lock customers in for long term relationships.

Look forward to seeing you out there!  Plan your logistics ahead, wear comfortable shoes, and enjoy soaking in how the greatest city in the world continues to reinvent itself.q