 Hey, Brian. Thank you for joining me on stage. It's great to have you here today. How are you enjoying Helsinki so far? I love Helsinki! Yeah! Go Finland! Finland! Great. And what happened to your arm? Oh, the most Canadian thing you could do. Ice hockey. Yeah, so I'm Canadian, so I might think I feel like I'm very finished too. Yeah, who plays ice hockey? I can't play right now, but later. Yeah. Great. So what does keep do? So keep is quite simple. We said in advertising today a lot of it is take, take, take. Let me take your attention. Let me put something here. Look at me. Look at there. We said instead of just taking, why don't we give? Why don't we reward the user instead of just advertising to them? So in your phone, when you're using your apps, you do a lot of things. You play, you watch, you run, you cook. And what if in those moments a brand could actually reward you? You could finish a run and Gatorade could be there to reward you with something. So that's what keep does. Fantastic. And what kind of customers do you work with and what is the kind of value that you've been able to drive for them? So most of our customers today are the big brands that many of us are familiar with and we realize that to make big impact, these guys are spending, you know, billions of dollars. And if we could take just a tiny slice of this, show them the value that instead of just a taking fashion, you give and you're there in the right moments, and we call it moments-based marketing, at the right moments in time, you could be very effective. Excellent. And you started keep when you were just 19 years old. So considering what you know today, what do you wish you would have known at the time? So I'd say most of the things. So I'm an old man at 26 now. You can punch me later. It's okay. But at seven years in, and by the way, a lot of us, I know our founders and just remember these things, it's a marathon. It's it's not a sprint. And at seven years in, I think most of the lessons, if I can even claim that I've learned ones that are conclusive, is around working with people, right? It's around, you know, just the most important things and the most cliche things around recruiting and making sure that when you're working with someone, you let them do what they are most inclined to do. And so, you know, my book, I talk about it as superpowers. One of the biggest lessons is we actually ask people in interviews, you know, what is your superpower? And the reason is because everyone kind of should know what it is. If they don't know, we help them find it. But your superpower is where you end up spending all your energy to hone in on and make yourself better. And instead of spending all your time trying to fix all your weaknesses, which it'll never work, right? Because when you get to a certain point in your adulthood, all your energy should go into your strengths. That becomes one thing we try to highlight and really make a big part of how we hire and who we work with. So that was one of the big lessons. Great. And what do you think is going to be the biggest changes coming up in advertising during the next three to five years? So I think right now, and I hope I can explain this for those of you who aren't neck deep in advertising, we use a lot of lingo, we make up a lot of words and terms, and I'm sure a lot of industries do this too. But I think put simply, advertising for a long time was based on content. It was based on you're watching a TV show and we'll show a video. You're playing a game and we'll show another video and make it playable. You're doing something, it's all around content. Because that was technology that was available at the time around media was when you're watching the food channel, you might most likely be interested in food, right? But what's happening today with connected devices, aka just the smartphone in our pockets is also a connected device, is we can now see behaviors, we can now see actions and things that people are doing. So I asked the question, instead of being there, let's say you wanted to target someone who's trying to be healthier into fitness. You could buy an ad in Men's Health Magazine. Or why not be there the moment he's just finished running? So that is the big change, I think the shift is going to be around behaviors and what people are actually doing rather than just media. Because a lot of us in this new generation, we don't consume media the same way we used to. I don't own a TV. I'm sure a lot of you don't own normal set-top TVs where you have your cable. It doesn't happen as commonly anymore. So the way you can reach people have to be, again, very mobile-centric but also behavior-centric. Yeah, and what does 2018 look like for KEEP? What are the main things that you're going to be focusing on? It's connected devices. So we actually made an announcement that we're integrated into Amazon's Fire TV. So you can now get rewarded for binge-watching, which is a behavior, by the way, so that's why. But another really fun one we actually did was there's a connected toothbrush that Oral-B has. And it's a very expensive toothbrush, but it's awesome. I highly recommend you check it out. But we're actually going to reward people for their toothbrushing activity as well. So it sounds kind of like a novel, fun, quirky thing, but it's a bit of a peak of the future, which is our connected devices, our connected home. Let's say you hit your energy savings goal and your nest can reward you. These are the types of things that we're looking at and the future, and not just the future, like 2018 and what we're already executing today. OK, that's fantastic. So as you know, I mean, YouTube, they've during the past few days, they've had their second kind of boycott wave during this year because ads have been placed together with inappropriate comments that have been on videos. And a lot of advertisers are pulling out. What's your advice to brands that are advertising on platforms like YouTube and Facebook? And how can they make sure to stay relevant? And how can they protect their brand as well when advertising? So that's the main topic. I think a lot of us, we have ad blockers installed. Safari, the new version is allowing you to stay hidden from the advertisers with your cookies and your data. It's there's a lot of consumer blowback, right? We are resisting. We're saying why. And by the way, I have to remind you why you get to use Facebook for free. Why do you get to use Google for free? Because of advertising, right? And I think people sometimes forget that the world's biggest two Internet companies are funded primarily by advertising dollars. So it is why we are able to be able to live our digital lives. So just don't forget that part. But I think what we're forgetting, the brands are forgetting is that again, they can create the most beautiful ads. They can create the most funny ads. They can put all this energy and investment into the content. But the one thing that I think a lot of brands have forgotten is timing. When are you the most receptive? The reason why we're rejecting things is because like blah, blah. And you guys remember, like, you know, again, like ad blocking is me ignoring you, right? I'm basically I don't want to see you anymore in real life when I'm having a conversation with you and you're ignoring me. What should I do? Should I just speak louder? Right? That that's essentially what advertising has been. It's like, you're going to ad block me. Let me find another way around you. Oh, it's really hard to see the ad when you like accidentally over, you know, hover your mouse over, boom. You know, like it's just like it's it's we're not trying to be unique. We're not trying to take the smart approach of let me be there when you actually want to engage with a brand. Because you guys have to remember we have brands all throughout our daily lives. We use a brand. The first thing we do when we wake up in the morning, right? We use a brand when we drink our coffee. We use a brand every moment in the day, pretty much. And I think the brands have to make it less just about them. They're very me, me, me, me, me. And I think being where people already are and being respectful of the timing and the receptivity is the most important. And so the advice I have for them, too, is the reason why these things happen with YouTube, you guys probably saw the blocking was because there was like, you know, really inappropriate content combined with the brand messaging. This was all a result of programmatic advertising, a result of programmatic buying. Programmatic is an automated way, very overly simplified of an explanation, but an automated way to present advertising to the right people. But I think there's a pendulum that's shifting a lot of the times when things are overly automated, very quickly do they become less automated, right? More people want to do things more direct. So the advice the brands would be instead of being so faithful in over automation, attempt to use some of your time and energy into creating high impact relationships with publishers that actually as a direct buy, you can do a lot more. Thank you for that. And Brian, you mentioned that one of the things you've learned is really about focusing on superpowers and how many people are you now at Keep? 107. 107. And there's a lot of startups in the audience. What kind of advice do you have when it comes to building a team and making sure that people can focus on their superpowers? Like you mentioned. Yes, so I think there's so many, but on the team side, it's complementary superpowers, right? So you don't want people who both of them want the same title. Both of them think they're the best at the thing. So for me, I actually used to do graphic design, my quick background. So I play ice hockey. I play a lot of video games. That's my background and I play I designed. So but I had a co-founder who was also really awesome at design. And I thought I was pretty decent at design. I wanted to do some design stuff in the beginning. But then I looked at what he was creating and I was like, OK, you're going to decide you could take it. So he was in his lane. And then when you entrust people, you empower them, right? And I always learned that you have your version of perfect as a founder. You're very much a perfectionist, but everyone else has their version of perfect. You let them do their version of perfect. Very magical things can happen. And and I think as well, there's a very big management philosophy. We have it keep. We call it subservient management. And it's what it sounds like you're a servant to your employees. Managers is not about telling people what to do. Management is about actually empowering them, enabling and removing obstacles is really how it works. And for me, it was mainly as philosophy that reflected who I was, because I look like I'm 12. I realize this and I go into a room. It's not like I can say them. I'm the most experienced CEO. I'm not and I never will be because there will always be someone more experienced. And when you go in there, when you bring this person in, you said I picked you because you're the best at this. I'm not in any place to tell you what to do. You tell me what to do, right? And I think that's really the the philosophy now that you're hiring people that are autonomous, that are that are actually self guided. That's that when you tell someone to do, it's an ultimate sign of mistrust. Thank you. And we're also accepting audience questions. And Brian will actually be donating a book to the best question received. So I don't know their names associated with questions, but you'll have to like self identify when I tell you that the question that you asked was the best and then I'll give you the book. Yeah, we don't have any questions so far. OK, all right, let's keep going. So hopefully we'll get a few in. But Brian, then thinking about kind of your journey as a founder to to where you are today, what are kind of the moments that you feel have been most decisive when it comes to where we're keep us at this time? So I think you're always constantly innovating. It's funny because at seven years as a company, we already feel old and think about companies that are actually a hundred years old. But you can imagine how they feel. And I think, you know, there's a lot of this this dynamic around always having a mechanism to try new things. So in our team, we have an element or sort of a division called growth and their growth managers. And growth is a is I know buzzwordy word, but essentially their job is to come up with, you know, sprints and new ideas and test them and make sure that they actually can be continually applied. But the moment you stop innovating, the moment you stop swimming, you're dead. And I think Gary V says this really well. I was like, wake up in the morning and think of the biggest way you're going to put yourself out of business and then start to invest in those things, right, because there will be people trying to put you out of business or they don't even do it intentionally. And if you're able to think of it on your own, then it's a much more powerful thing rather than relying on people around you to the end and having these things scare you and then be unexpectedly taken aback by something. You know, that's not a good thing at all. Yeah, thank you. And we have a question which comes to your funding and, you know, you've raised over 30 million dollars in venture capital funding. What's your advice to startups out there looking to raise money? I get this question a lot. I think you should absolutely raise because there's capital available right now. So do it if the question is, do it or not? Because people always ask, well, I want to bootstrap whatever. I'm like, there's so much there's I would say in the market today and please if there's better data and I'm doing this anecdotally, I'm sure there's something that supports it. There's more I think venture capital than there is good ideas and good teams. So it definitely is a founder's market, not an investor's market. And when you go out there, you can you can always join accelerators and incubators and lots of programs that have, you know, sort of small amounts and small amounts meaning like a hundred thousand dollars, which to be honest, like our first round, I don't know about you guys now, but like seed rounds are like four million dollars. This is ridiculous. Our seed round was three hundred thousand dollars. OK, and that was the most money I've ever seen in my entire life at obviously at 19 years old. But it was there was more than enough in the early days to vet things out. And I just think that's one thing. So be conservative, understand that the goals that you're being put against are a lot more realistic. And I was like making a joke as I wish it was like 2012 where no one understood what the meaning was of profitability. Like it was like a foreign language. But now everyone is very fixated on your business model working and profitability being shown very early on. So make sure at least when you raise this money, you have a path to achieving these financial objectives. Otherwise, you're just dealing with funny money and you're not going to feel good inside. Ultimately, it's can you sleep at night, right? If you're a psychopath, you can. But most of you aren't psychopaths. Well, maybe you are because you're an entrepreneur. But I always tell people you're creating true value. You know, it's really simple things. Is your customer buying your product and are they continuing to buy your product? It's really that simple. If you have no customer that wants to buy your product, then it doesn't work. If they're not going to continue to buy your product, then get the hell out of there, right? So there's very simple things and it's always customer based and people sometimes forget this. Yeah. And then going to content marketing, we have a question about the role of influencers and co-creation. Now that content marketing has got a lot of buzz. What do you think the role of them will be? So I love how we do it in advertising. We like to give things names like content marketing and native advertising and whatever. And really at the end of the day, this is just good content, right? That is with the objective of helping explain the value of a brand in your life, either through aspirational, if there's an influencer that you aspire to and this influencer is aligned to the brand. So I think there's always gonna be a place for this. It has been since the days of any celebrity and any thought leader. And I think it makes sense to continue to have that be part of the mix. But it isn't for everyone. I think how many of you guys have been on LinkedIn recently and you're reading like basically every second post is some expert saying that they're awesome at something. And it's like sometimes it's best to stay quiet. Sometimes it isn't the best model just to talk about everything all the time. Scarcity in my opinion is king. And I think that's something that hopefully a lot of brands and other influencers keep in mind. Your value is not in frequency. It's in scarcity. And we have time for one more question. So digital advertising has been measured by clicks. How do you think this should change? Yes, thank you. Okay, whoever asked that is gonna get the book. But basically what they're hinting at is right now in advertising there's a lot of common metrics, CPC or CTR click through rates and then CPMs and CPCs. So cost per thousand impressions and cost per clicks. So I think that there's two big movements in advertising right now. It's outcomes-based marketing and people-based marketing. And in English what that basically means outcomes-based as you pay on the outcome. So it's not just CPC anymore. It could be cost per purchase, cost per subscribe, cost per conversion. And this scares a lot of people by the way but it is the future is cost per outcome. And then the people-based marketing what is the latest trend around it? There's this thing called ABM account-based marketing and you go down and can you actually convert that individual still comes down to that outcome but it's looking at that person. Like if I found you on your phone, the TV, the billboard, the magazine, whatever it doesn't matter, it's still you. If I'm paying on the unique individual that becomes much more powerful too. So the technology and the data, we can send spacecraft to Mars, we can do crazy things but we can't seem to figure out if someone watched an ad and bought the shit in a grocery store. Like for some reason people still think that that's an impossibility, it isn't. And today if we can actually make people responsible for it and then pay based on that, the world will change. One more thing I'll tell you, you guys have seen all these articles on Buzzfeed and other types of publications where they click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click hole. The reason why they're making you click, click, click, click, click is because the way they're paid is on impression. The moment the advertising economy moves from impressions to outcomes, it will actually have radical magnitudes of change in how content is created and how we actually experience the web. It won't be around frequency anymore. In fact, it'll be around actual quality. And I know it's a very bold prediction and I don't think it'll happen in 100% like total carte blanche change but you will start to see this more and more and more publishers in the coming years where it'll be less about, I just want you to look as much, like the schizophrenia of it is gonna be gone, it's gonna be about true quality because if they don't care about you clicking 10 times anymore, they don't need the 10 impressions, they only want you to care. Do you care about the brand and can they make you care about it? And that will be the most important metric. Great, well, hey, Brian, thank you so much for this talk and a person called Mira is the winner of the book whilst there she is. Mira, fine, fine me over there, thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.