#17: Go Home, Clickbait, You're Drunk (Tony Haile, Chartbeat)

Traction: How Startups Start | NextView Ventures

There's no denying the sheer creative power of the internet, but too often, it turns into a race to the bottom -- more clicks (and therefore more clickbait), more pageviews, more impressions, more ads.

When Tony Haile first became CEO of Chartbeat, the analytics startup based in New York City, he faced this massive problem of an internet teeming with clickbait headlines and short-term thinking. He also faced challenges like competing directly with Google Analytics (and the annoyingly competitive price point of "free"). It was his first experience in analytics, too, and he wound up selling his product to a user base (writers and others in editorial) that historically strayed away from data.

Easy, right?

This episodes also includes…

1. The tradeoffs Tony made to compete with a goliath like Google
2. Tips for media and other content-driven platforms (including blogs) for rethinking its key metric from clicks and pageviews to something else -- and the tech breakthrough that helped Chartbeat create it
3. What the future holds for an internet that's becoming increasingly divided between gaming systems and refreshing creativity

Follow Tony @arctictony and visit chartbeat.com to learn more.

And let me know what you think of the show — tweet me (Jay Acunzo) @jayacunzo. You can also subscribe to receive every episode plus weekly insights and resources about gaining startup traction: bit.ly/nvsubscribe