From PhD Student to Tech CEO
By: Colette Nataf
Tags: Facebook Marketing, Startup, Artificial Intelligence, Facebook Ads, Marketing

Five years ago, I was an Economics PhD student studying Auction Theory at the University of Maryland. I was on track to learn the theoretical foundations of multi-priced auctions and how human and buyer behavior affects the overall outcomes.

I ended up moving to Silicon Valley and founding an AI marketing startup instead.

If you had told me five years ago that I would be running a profitable startup and supporting clients like Curology and Peloton, I would’ve been shocked. But more often than not, success doesn’t happen the way we pictured it.

Learning through failure

It was during my PhD years that I became a performance marketer, although not on purpose. As a side project, I had started an ed-tech company with a software that helped students ace the SATs. It was 2013, and after talking to all the marketers I could find, I was left with a lingering question:

Why weren’t people telling me to run digital advertisements to acquire more customers?

The marketing advice I kept getting felt like it was from the 1990s. Friends and mentors told me to go door-to-door, send direct mail campaigns, and build relationships to grow my business. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that digital was the way to go.

I decided to trust my gut and began running Google AdWords campaigns, using all the bells and whistles to make the best ads possible. It was a complete failure. I had wasted $500 and felt the sting on my $20k/year grad student salary. But even at that low point, I still had a hunch that I could use my penchant for data to drive business growth.

Fueled by frustration from the lack of growth with my ed-tech business and my looming master's graduation, I took a crazy leap of faith. My husband and I packed up our house, piled into the car with the dog, and moved across the country to Silicon Valley.

Climbing the ranks

When we first moved, there was no plan — just a hunch. Neither of us had jobs lined up. But I knew I was good at math and a fast learner, so I convinced a startup called MileIQ that I could figure out how to run effective advertising campaigns. It was the break I needed. Just six months later, we got acquired by Microsoft and I was feeling the rush of startup life. The ups and downs of Silicon Valley can be addicting, and I was in deep. Only a year after graduation, I had gotten four job offers in San Francisco for Directors of Marketing and Directors of Growth positions.

Shortly after the acquisition, I joined Intercom and I knew that I would get them to a unicorn valuation. I was there for three months and completely overhauled the way the company thought about buying ads and acquiring new users. Using the skills I learned at MileIQ, I was able to help Intercom achieve fantastic results.

I had an idea that I took to the leadership team at Intercom. I bet that a computer could do the same work I was manually doing day in and day out. The team told me to give them three years to fully execute and implement this strategy.

I didn’t have three years to wait around, so I decided to start consulting on the side. In September of 2015, I had my first few consulting clients. I was helping companies effectively run their Facebook ad campaigns at the time. But once I started making enough money to afford my crazy San Francisco rent, I took the “entrepreneurial” leap. I left Intercom and Lightning AI was officially born.