Yieldex wins Amazon AWS Start-up Challenge!
We won! Out of nearly 1000 startups who applied, we won!
This is a great validation of our fantastic technical team. We have been chosen as one of the most innovative users of Amazon’s cloud computing technology. We could not have done this without your hard work. Thank you!
This was a great experience for us. The Amazon team was very professional throughout, the event was well-managed, and they even made a cool video featuring our development team. The press release went out tonight, and there was even a blog post that beat mine.
Here’s the blow-by-blow, for those who want all the details:
We pitched the panel of judges, all senior execs of Amazon, at 1pm. They had 50min presentations from each of the seven finalists, and had been going since 7am. We did our standard pitch, and did a great job talking about how important AWS is to us. They seemed to appreciate the presentation, but were somewhat poker faced, so while we felt we did a good job, it was hard to tell their reaction.
Later in the afternoon, we had a “VC speed-dating” event, where we had 10 minutes with each of 5 VCs. The firms were all first-rate (BlueRun, Hummer Winblad, Madrona, Greylock, and CMEA). Our product is pretty complex, so it’s hard to get across in 10 minutes, but we did our best, and each of the VCs seemed to get it quickly enough. All were interested in following up, but again, hard to tell how we ranked.
Then there was a reception while the judges and the VCs deliberated. They had invited 200 other startup people to come hear how the seven finalists were using AWS. My guess is closer to a hundred people were in the room, and we had to do another 10 minute presentation on AWS, with slides, to this group. We managed to do it in only 5-6 minutes and get our message across. Finally, around 9pm, it was time to announce the winner. We were jubilant when they picked us – I let out a shout of joy and a fist pump, to the delight of the audience.
Andy Jassy, the SVP of AWS said some nice words and gave us the traditional golden hammer. We were then invited to take a whack at an old rackmount server they had, to symbolize the destruction of our own servers. John and I both hammered it pretty hard, but we barely dented it – those steel frames are tough.
Then everyone came up to congratulate us, and we shook hands with big grins on our faces. We took a couple of pictures, approved the quote in the press release, and talked with the Amazon folks some more. All great stuff.
Finally, we headed out for a celebratory dinner. Once again, thanks to everyone in the company for your hard work – we did the talking, but we could not have done this without all of you.
Hooray!
November 21st, 2008 at 3:38 am
Congratulations, Tom, to you and your team! Keep up the great work.
November 21st, 2008 at 4:03 am
I think I may be interested in your product, but the website doesn't explain with the clarity I'm looking for, what you do and why you are a superior choice to say, OpenX. Do you allow for managing ads both from direct sales and content networks?
What I would really like would be a short video explaining what you do.
November 21st, 2008 at 2:00 am
[...] and its founders, which consists of industry veterans from Matchlogic and NetGravity (check out CEO Tom Shields’ blog post on winning the award). The prize comes in addition of a previous seed funding round from Sequel [...]
November 21st, 2008 at 5:29 am
congrats tom – great news.. must be fun to be back, involved in this sort of stuff
November 21st, 2008 at 7:03 am
Congratulations! Keep on changing the world.
November 21st, 2008 at 8:15 am
Tom, congrats on the win! This is fantastic recognition – and I can say I was there the first time you met with Yieldex
Too bad the discussion was over my head within about 20 minutes of sitting down!
November 21st, 2008 at 8:27 am
Nice win Tom! I started paying attention once I saw you were one of the finalists. Keep it going!
November 21st, 2008 at 8:30 am
[...] distribute ad campaigns effectively and predict how they are delivered. CEO Tom Shields made a blog post at winning the prize,stating at one place: Andy Jassy, the SVP of AWS said some nice words and gave [...]
November 21st, 2008 at 9:23 am
[...] 2週間前に、われわれがAmazonのWeb Services Startup Challengeというコンテストの最終予選を通過した7社のスタートアップを紹介したとき、Yieldexについては「ウェブ・サイト運営者向けオンライン広告最適化エンジン」と要約した。今回はもう少し詳しい説明が必要になったようだ。というのは、このYieldexがコンテストで最優秀賞を受賞し、5万ドルのキャッシュと、5万ドル分のAmazonのサービス、そしてAmazon.comからの投資の申し出を得たからだ。Yieldexは似たようなサービスで似たような名前のYieldBuildと混同しやすいが、簡単に言えば、ウェブサイトの広告管理サービスだ。ウェブサイト運営者は、似たような広告のダブリを防ぎ、どのような組み合わせで広告が掲載されることになるかをシミュレーションすることによって、効率的な広告キャンペーンを実施できるようになる、という。一定の広告スペースから最大の収入を得られるよう管理するシステムだというのだが―それが本当ならすばらしい。しかし、ウェブサイトの広告収入を最大化するのがそもそも広告管理システムの目的ではないのか？ しかもそういうシステムは―優劣はあるだろうが―すでに数多く登場している。広告管理システムを使う理由は、広告収入の最大化を図ることが第一のはずだ。しかし、Amazon.comは毎年、同社のクラウド・コンピューティング・サービスを利用しているアメリカのスタートアップからもっとも革新的な１社を選んで賞を与えてきた。応募スタートアップは毎年何百社にも上っている。だからYieldexが今年の最優秀賞を得たのについてはしかるべき理由があるはずだ。そういうわけで、まずはYieldexとそのファウンダーたちに「おめでとう」と言いたい。ファウンダーたちはMatchlogicやNetGravity出身の業界のベテラン揃いだ。（CEOのTomShieldsの受賞の喜びを語るブログ記事参照）。この賞金を得る前、同社はSequel Venture Partners、First Round Capital、Woodside Fundから金額は不明だが、シード資金を調達している。CrunchBase InformationYieldexInformation provided by CrunchBaseCrunchBase InformationAmazonInformation provided by CrunchBase[原文へ]（翻訳：Namekawa, U） ShowListings(“arc3″); ShowListings(“arc2″); AddClipsUrl = ‘http://jp.techcrunch.com/archives/20081121yieldex-takes-top-prize-in-amazon-web-services-startup-challenge/’; AddClipsTitle = ‘Yieldex、Amazonのウェブ・サービス・スタートアップ・コンテストで1等賞を獲得’; AddClipsId = ’2CBE02C952CFE’; AddClipsBcolor=’#78BE44′; AddClipsNcolor=’#D1E9C0′; AddClipsTcolor=’#666666′; AddClipsType=’1′; AddClipsVerticalAlign=’middle’; 次の投稿へ 前の投稿へ トラックバック [...]
November 21st, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Congratulations!
November 21st, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Congrats Tom – that is an amazing accomplishment!
November 21st, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Nicely done,Tom! Congrats.
November 21st, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Congratulations. Been following from a distance but would love to speak with you about how we can utilize this from an advertiser/agency perspective. darrenherman at gmail
November 21st, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Congrats Tom and team. Very well done.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:35 pm
[...] More [...]
November 23rd, 2008 at 6:06 am
Congratulations, Tom! Glad to see the success.
November 23rd, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Congrats! You should use this blog post to elaborate more as to what your company does! There are a bunch of folks who will read this blog post and no other…make it count!
June 30th, 2009 at 9:26 am
[...] Oxyfish » Blog Archive » Yieldex wins Amazon AWS Start-up … [...]
June 30th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
[...] Oxyfish » Blog Archive » Yieldex wins Amazon AWS Start-up … [...]
October 13th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Congratulations!
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July 16th, 2010 at 12:28 am
Congrats! You should use this blog post to elaborate more as to what your company does! There are a bunch of folks who will read this blog post and no other…make it count!
July 14th, 2011 at 5:09 pm
Congratulations! The sweet taste of success is sweet indeed. This is a very uplifting story.
November 17th, 2011 at 6:36 am
Congrats! You should use this blog post to elaborate more as to what your company does! There are a bunch of folks who will read this blog post and no other…make it count! Çelik Kapı