Helping B2B Marketers Automate Paid Campaigns

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Gil Allouche, CEO of Metadata, located in San Jose, CA, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Metadata is a B2B Saas technology company that's building the first B2B Marketing OS. This Marketing OS eliminates most of the manual work involved with B2B advertising and demand generation, like audience targeting, automating campaigns, automatically optimizing campaigns to what drives the best revenue, and personalizing the web experience for prospects. Our customers are marketers responsible for driving revenue at any B2B company.

Tell us about yourself

I've been an entrepreneur for most of my life, even as a child, with my first business selling fireworks. I ended up getting trained in software engineering but gravitated towards marketing roles. In the several marketing roles I held, I kept running into the same problems - I was spending too much of my time on marketing tools and not spending enough time on strategy, creativity, and brand marketing. I saw that the B2C world had developed all kinds of software that could solve my problems - but no one had done it for B2B. So, I used my software development skills to build tools for myself - and quickly realized there was a market for them. I quit my job and started Metadata.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

This is easy - it's building a company and culture that attracts and retains very high-caliber employees. Before our Series A, I was able to hire several go-to-market leaders in Sales and Marketing that would almost never join that early of a stage company. And most of them also invested in the company early on because they could see the opportunity. We've also been able to attract talent from all over the world. We currently have 12 countries represented within our full-time staff. And several of our customers have come on board as full-time employees as well.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

The buck stops with me, so ultimately, I'm responsible for the successes, failures, and everything in between. At the same time, I have very close relationships with a lot of the staff. And sometimes, what's best for the business may not be what's best for some employees. And vice versa.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

Don't wait for _____to happen. And that ____ is anything. Don't wait for money, don't wait for certain conditions. Make quick decisions and take action.
Make the equity pie larger and give employees a piece of it. This will attract the right type of employees and instill an "owner" mentality.
Don't make decisions out of fear. If you're scared of something, lean into it.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://metadata.io/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilallouche/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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