🔊 Issue #27: Podcast Advertising
From Aquaponics to audio advertising, one entrepreneurial alumnus' journey
💬 Welcome to issue #27 of Between the Lines
Podcast advertising tips, a career fair, exclusive Claremont job oppies, a $400M acquisition, major fundraises, self-driving taxis, and even carbon-sequested shampoo. This week’s issue has it all.
Jump on in — the water is warmer than a Claremont dorm without AC in the middle of August. 🔥
~ Josh & Miles
📢 👥 Community Voices: Podcast Advertising
Author: Jack Oliphant
Jack is a CMC '13 graduate. He is a 2x time Ironman finisher as well as a marathon enthusiast. For the last seven years of his career, he has worked in digital media publishing and podcast advertising. He recently went into business for himself in Oliphant Strategies to provide sales and advertising solutions for D2C e-commerce businesses.
This past July, I followed the entreprenuerial spark yet again, remained true to myself, and founded my own freelance consultancy to work with D2C e-commerce companies moving into a multichannel marketing approach – specifically as an agency of record (AOR) to help them plan, buy, and optimize their podcast advertising. Alongside the ever-growing creator economy, podcasting has now become a surging industry with over $2B in expected revenue by 2023, and so much M&A that it’s hard to keep up. For the past few years now, I’ve become entrenched in this podcast AdTech ecosystem, and I’d like to share some of my learnings.
This week, Jack joins BTL and shares his entrepreneurial journey in the podcast advertising space and provides a few insights for D2C brands.👇
📣 Pardon the Announcement: Winter STEM Career Fair
Have full-time STEM roles or intern positions you’re looking to fill? HMC is helping host an upcoming virtual Winter STEM Fair on January 27th, 2022.
You and your team will have the opportunity to recruit top STEM talent from all seven of the Claremont Colleges. Which gives you access to 5,500+ STEM majors at SEVEN selective and diverse institutions. Register today!
They will be using the platform Brazen, which has a robust system to easily accommodate video, audio, and text-based chats. Registration for the fair is open on Handshake, and they would love to see some Claremont-founded companies attend. Reach out to Jeanette Martinez if you have any questions or are interesting in attending.
💼 Who’s Hiring?:
WestComms is a boutique PR agency focused on helping VCs, startups, and crypto projects expand their reach into key audiences. Claremont alumnus Mike West is behind the outfit, contact Mike directly if you'd like to get involved!
Intern (remote): No experience required. We'll teach you PR from the ground up and give you experience across a wide spectrum of industries.
Associate Account Executive (remote): 1-2 years experience in communications, marketing, advertising, operations, or startups in general. You will work directly with account leads to develop PR strategies and messaging while researching existing narratives.
Account Executive (remote): 2+ years experience in communications, marketing, or advertising. You will lead PR initiatives from idea to execution and own your work directly with clients.
Account Director (remote): 4-6 years experience leading PR campaigns, running accounts, and managing teams. You will own deliverables across multiple clients and manage teams of 3 - 4.
BEGiN is an award-winning education company that brings high-quality learning to kids globally. Their mission is to give children the best start possible through a comprehensive portfolio of digital, physical, and instructor-led learning experiences that build foundational skills and a lifelong love of learning. BEGiN’s brands include HOMER, KidPass, codeSpark Academy (founded by CMC alumnus Grant Hosford), and Little Passports. They’re backed by top names in early childhood development, including LEGO Ventures, Sesame Workshop, and Gymboree Play & Music. Reach out to Jamie Pruett if you’re interested in learning more.
Project Manager (Remote, West Coast): 3+ years of project management experience, startup/growth phase background, and collaboration across multiple departments
Senior Engineer, Backend (Remote, US & Ontario): 5-7 years of experience in web, game, or related software development,
All other available positions: including engineer, analyst, marketing, and finance roles
Make sure to check out the other 5,000+ open jobs at 400+ Claremont-affiliated companies here on our Storyboard. Plus, make sure to create a profile and enter your preferences to get alerted to new job postings relevant to you, be they the 750+ remote jobs, 180+ internships, or 30+ part-time positions available. We’ve published research that shows that Claremont-founded companies that disproportionately hire Claremont talent outperform — so pay attention Claremonsters!
As always, if any of these roles catch your eye 👀 , apply and mention Between the Lines. Or if you are an employer and are looking to hire tip-top Claremont talent, fill out this form to have your jobs featured.
🗣️ Conversations on the Interwebz:
This week’s top read 🔥
Congratulations to HMC founder Daniel Lubarov and the rest of the Mir Protocol team on their Claremonster-sized, $400M acquisition. Daniel helped co-found Mir back in 2018, and they are now a leading team of cryptographers and engineers working to scale Ethereum with zero-knowledge proofs.
Everything else you need to know….📖
PO graduate Arye Barnehama and Elementary Robotics just raised one of the largest LA startup funding rounds of December 2021. Launched out of Bill Gross’ Pasadena-based IdeaLab accelerator in 2017, Elementary is gearing up to rapidly expand its headcount and product offerings on the heels of raising a $30 million Series B, led by Tiger Global.
Some great advice to any new grads out there on why you should consider joining a startup (especially a Claremont one 😉), courtesy of Sam Corcos at Levels.
Can’t get enough Between the Lines? Follow and connect with us on Twitter!
🍽️ BTL Snacks:
💸 VC funding reaches few heights….. Venture funding in 2021 broke records across the board. Find out more from Crunchbase (Founded By Claremont graduate Michael Arlington)
🧴 Carbon Shampoo….. Lanzatech and CEO Jennifer Holmgren (HMC) raised another $30M (that’s $310M in total if you were counting) to continue converting carbon into myriads of products. They’re also looking to expand to Belgium and maybe even Wall Street
🚕 Taxi but hold the driver….. Cruise and Claremont founder Dan Kan are rolling out autonomous taxis next year for SF
📈 Statistical significance vs oomph….. Been a while since your last stats class? Hear from PO Professor Gary Smith on the problems he sees with the current fixation on statistical significance in academic literature
Feedback? We love to hear it. Hit us with an email. 👊🏼