Why Leave DoubleClick? Kevin Ryan’s Journey From Ad Exec To Wiki Master
The ShopWiki comparison shopping site is still very young. It officially opened its doors on April 19, 2006, but already it crawls more than 120,000 online stores. The “Wiki” part of ShopWiki is the customer review and shopping guide section. Anyone can edit the Wiki, and give advice on anything from picking the right digital camera to finding the right housewarming gift. They recently put out a call for user-created video reviews, and released a search technology that allows users to search for products by color.
While the comparison shopping website genre may seem crowded, “it’s the only space I know of where there are probably six companies and each one of them is worth 500 million dollars,” says Ryan. He also pointed out that most of them like Shopzilla, Shopping.com, PriceGrabber, and Kelkoo, the leading European comparison shopping site have been sold to larger companies, and that it’s much easier to compete against a large diversified company than an independent company focused exclusively on one thing.
I asked Kevin if ShopWiki was something he was grooming for acquisition by a larger company. In proper Kevin Ryan-style, he indicates that, just like his stint with DoubleClick, he was in it for the long haul. “It’s funny people used to ask me this about DoubleClick in the beginning, and I said ‘I think DoubleClick will be independent for a long time,’ and DoubleClick’s still independent,” he says, adding, “I think ShopWiki will be independent. I think we’ll be able to build it up just like we did with DoubleClick, take our time, and become a leader.”
It’s the experience he gained working at DoubleClick that keeps him going. Not just the ad experience, but also the experience of handling a diverse customer base. “A typical week I would go visit iVillage one day, Wall Street Journal the next day, a comparison shopping engine the third day, a small startup the fourth day, and then AOL the fifth day, and then maybe next week we’d be in Europe doing the same thing,” says Ryan. That international vision will help when ShopWiki announces their expansion into 5 other countries this fall.
So even though ex-ad exec Kevin Ryan’s next adventure takes him far away into the realm of consumer services, the heart of an ad man and an entrepreneur still beats behind his ribs. “I think all startups are risky,” he concludes. “But I think we were pretty confident, and are still very confident that we’ve created some innovative technology and that there’s an opportunity to do it better.”
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