Why being an entrepreneur runs in Arjun Arora’s family

Arjun Arora

Being an entrepreneur runs in Arjun Arora’s family. He’s a third-generation entrepreneur – his grandfather and his dad were both entrepreneurs, as is his younger brother, and he says being an entrepreneur is something that has always been in his blood. “Starting my own company was something that I’ve always wanted to do from a very early age, and when the time was right, I made the entrepreneurial jump,” he says.

Prior to starting his own business Arora was the head of business development for Yahoo! Real Estate. While there he noticed an opportunity for retargeting – targeting advertisements based on previous online actions that didn’t end in a conversion. “Because Yahoo! was undergoing some structural changes at the time, it felt like the perfect opportunity for me to pursue my goal of starting my own company,” he says. “With the help of some great angel investors I was confident that I could help democratize and greatly improve retargeting.”

Arora started ReTargeter to help small and medium-sized businesses find users after they’ve left their website. The tool allows companies to retarget people with display ads, and it can increase conversions on sales pages by up to five times. Since launching in May 2009 they’ve added customers including Milo.com and have appeared in the small business media, including on John Jantsch’s popular Duct Tape Marketing blog.

While his company did raise a small angel round, they reach profitability without any additional funding. Arora says bootstrapping was a big challenge in the early days, and his team is still extremely cognizant of where their dollars are going. “The hard part is trying to scale within our means to become as big as possible. We’re very scrappy when it comes to spending, and ourlean focus helps us pivot quickly in response to changes in the online advertising environment,” he says. “Given our current scale, we are excited to ramp our growth while maintaining our scrappy mentality.” His team finds unique ways to save money, including building a couch out of cubicle walls to accomodate new team members.

Arora says marketing was, and continues to be, a challenge for his company. “Educating the world about what we do has always been a challenge.  We’re constantly testing many different avenues, and our goal is to find the best high-volume/low-cost channels to reach our desired audience.”

He has a few pieces of advice for entrepreneurs who are just starting out. First he says relationships can take you a long way. “Building your personal and professional network early on will deliver a huge value in the future,” he says. “Networking is all about giving and building long term relationships.” He also says entrepreneurs need to have a great work ethic – you need to be ruthlessly efficient about your time and work to take your company to the next level. And for anyone contemplating starting their own company Arora says you just have to do it. “You can have all of greatest ideas in the world, but if you don’t act on them, they just stay as ideas.”

He says hiring the right people can make or break your company early on, so you want to hire people who are not only hard working and naturally intelligent, but who also fit into the company’s culture. “I firmly believe that building and maintaining a strong company culture can do wonders for your team’s productivity and overall morale.” Arora tries to cultivate a fun culture – the team tosses Frisbees around during meetings and they have several sound systems in the office for post-work fun.

In terms of what’s next at his company, Arora is currently focusing on client acquisition – his idea is to scale quickly while maintaining their top-notch customer service. “With that said, we are also consistently on the forefront of innovation. Our core retargeting product adds a tremendous value to any SMB with branding, sales, and social engagement,” he says. “We’re consistently offering new ways for our clients to use our technology to meet their marketing goals.”

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Have a question for Arjun? Ask him LIVE tomorrow, Thursday October 28th, at 2pm EST. Submit a question now at Ask.Sprouter.com/arjun