David Metz, CEO of Prizeout, discusses his entrepreneurial journey from Wall Street to building a successful adtech company that has raised $64M, allowing.
David Metz, CEO of Prizeout, discusses his entrepreneurial journey from Wall Street to building a successful adtech company that has raised $64M, allowing users to withdraw rewards and receive bonuses from partner platforms. The discussion also touches upon the business model of Prizeout and the importance of profitability versus VC funding.
If you're going to be an entrepreneur, start earlier because in your 20s, it's [music] just about figuring things out and you need very little. The older you get, the more responsibilities and all of that. So, I would have just said start early. [music] All righty. Hello everyone and welcome to the Dealmaker Show. So, today we have a founder that has done it multiple times. you know there's going to be quite a bit of lessons learned that we're going to be uh discussing you know and and quite the story uh we're going to be talking about building scaling financing you name it also starting companies with family members you know transitioning from different fields you know segments uh a lot of really good stuff research so far a very inspiring conversation without further ado let's welcome our guest today David Mitts welcome to the show >> thank you I appreciate you having me >>
so originally born and raised Christine, Long Island, New York. Give us a walk through memory lane. How was life growing up for you? >> Awesome. Um, grew up parents, um, still together, still alive, knock on wood. Uh, older brother, younger brother. My parents were entrepreneurs themselves. They owned an irrigation business. Um, so I definitely grew up uh knowing well not knowing what entrepreneurials was but knowing um the work that it took to get them where they got to. So I was kind of always steeped in what entrepreneurialism meant and is. >> So are entrepreneurs born or made? >> It's a good question. Um probably a little bit of both. I think risk tolerance is not something that's learned. you either have it or you don't and you certainly need it um to be an entrepreneur. Um also what it takes, right? Like my parents sacrificed a ton, right? I saw, you know, there
were there were Christmases where we didn't get Christmas presents because it was a choice whether to, you know, keep somebody on payroll or let them go, right? So seeing those hard decisions, it became normal for me. like I thought that is how everyone you know not until I grew up and I grew up in a pretty bluecollar town I never knew doctors or lawyers or execs that that didn't exist where I lived right um so you know that was a the entrepreneurialism was the only way that I knew so definitely it would became more normal to me where for most people the risks that most entrepreneurs take is probably seemed crazy especially when you look at the outlet it's like nine out of 10en startups fail and all of Now for you obviously um you know you you were quite competitive uh you played lacrosse and that really got you through college and all of that. I guess that competitiveness how do you
think that has served you you know also when it comes to ambition and and having your own projects? >> Um I am 48 now so my athletic career is way behind me. Um, the closest thing that I get to those highs of wins um is when you close a deal or you something big happens to company, right? It's it's pretty similar. But if you ask me if I could go back to, you know, 19-year-old David when I was playing um division one lacrosse, would I rather be in the locker room or on the playing field? It's probably the locker room. You know what I mean? that team camaraderie and having a team here at Prize Out is the closest thing to having that locker room, you know, having a goal and achieving something together and everyone doing their job. So, um, and also it helps to be competitive, right? Uh, because you want to win. Um, but, you know, I've tried to replicate my experience in athletics here
at the company, right? And there's a lot of things that are similar to that experience. And we'll talk about the company in just a little bit, but obviously there's a couple of things, you know, there leading into it. U I mean, you've started a few companies. So, right out of college, you went to Wall Street, you know, you got your your your chops there, and then eventually you started your first business. So, walk us through what were the sequence of events there until you were like, you know what, I'm going to I'm going to test this thing out of launching my own thing. >> Yeah, I've always done entrepreneurial things. When I was in college, I worked for a financial advisory firm and this was at like 99200 when stock market was going crazy. Um, and I was kind of doing stock market challenges and doing well. And I started talking to some of the financial adviserss and they're like,
"Wow, you're really doing well." So I somehow convinced them, you know, being a 19-year-old to give them give me their money in the form of give me access to your amerit trade account and I would trade it for them and they would give me 20% of their profits and I was managing in college about 20 of those trade accounts. Nothing of that is legal. I'm sure it goes against like every SEC law. Um but I did quite well. Um and from there, you know, not having any experience whatsoever, um I wanted to learn properly how to be a trader. But that was my first kind of uh entrepreneurial thing. Number one, I had to sell them, right? Convince a 19-year-old to give me access to your merit trade, right? I came up uh this was before I knew what two and 20 in the hedge fund world was. So the 20% was by accident. Um and I had to execute, right? and when things, you know, when I didn't have a good trade
and they're like, "What happened?" Like, I had to have tough conversations, right? So, that was my first kind of, you know, official startup. I did have not I didn't have an LLC or anything like that. Um, but I was doing a sophisticated thing that I was just kind of finding my way into. Um, so that was really my first and then post uh working on Wall Street, I had an idea for online classifides. I'm sure you remember this, but you know, in the in the mid 2000s, Craigslist for was everything. You want to buy a apartment, you want to sell your couch, you you want to uh go on a date. Literally, it was taking the newspaper model and bringing it online. I don't know if you've been on Craigslist. >> Oh, yeah. It has not changed. It is literally the same thing. Um, so anyway, I took that model and I just added like a social element to it. um where there was reviews and things like that
because it you know if you someone said they were going to buy your couch you trusted them that they were going to come in your apartment and not kill you right um so that was called Flugpo I think at our height we had like over 1.5 million listings predominately in the New York area um and then unfortunately that I started in ' 06 08 happened right um and then like funding and everything like that happened. Um, so we exited at a nominal um, amount, but it was my first real taste of being an entrepreneurial. Um, and then once, you know, once I had that, it was never looking back. I could never go back and and work for a company again. >> I mean, I think that at the end of the day, you know, um, an outcome where you're able to get it to the finish line, you know, it's it's still an outcome and, you know, there's still like great lessons, you know, to take away with you. I guess in
this case, as you were mentioning, an aqua hire. Now an aqua hire how should people especially all the founders that are listening now how should people think about aqua hires? Yeah, it it takes on different meanings I think throughout the decades because aqua hires all the rage right now, but the aqua hires that are happening now are for real money because a lot of it is built around AI, right? Because AI is such a new industry. There's not much talent. Nobody went to school for AI, right? Most of it is self-learned. So, back then, um it was mo more for like the assets and people, right? Um, and then you're usually not keeping everyone. Nowadays, aqua hires can be really really profitable because the the the skill set that the people have and specifically towards AI are really valuable. There's companies getting bought by two $300 million in aqua hires, right? Because that talent is
real. Um, so it's definitely changed from then than it is today. >> So after that, you know, you went at it with your brother. So you guys started a board game and you saw like 30,000 units or so. I mean it was a you know heading in the right direction but but I mean you saw the business with your parents their irrigation system that they own in Long Island and the experience you know with your brother perhaps you know like you got a different type of uh taste or or or what did you get from that? I mean what how was that for you guys? Yeah, I think one of the reasons you we started it um was we were both kind of not doing anything. So, let's do something together, right? And then as it grew and got more and more success, you know, it just becomes more about the future, the money and things like that. And it came to a point where it's like, what do I value more, the potential or my…