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Today he is 21 years old Adam Cohen is the CEO and founding father of the company Contacta fast-growing promoting technology startup valued at over $16 million. But just a 12 months ago, he was just one other college student attempting to make his way in the world. “When I was at UCLA, I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” Cohen admits. “I didn’t even like what I was learning.” One fateful day, he was leaving the Equinox sauna reading a book Wall Street Journal when every thing modified.
Sign on the road
The story of Stic’s conception sounds almost like divine intervention. Cohen was reading an article about “dead advertising” when his Uber pulled up with a magnet on the side promoting a nail technology company and a phone number. “It immediately caught my attention,” Cohen says. This easy sign sparked an idea: What if drivers could complement their income by placing ads on their cars?
He hopped into an Uber and started bombarding the driver with questions about how many miles he drove a day. She told him it was about 100 miles a day, or 3,000 miles a month, about 70% of which was covered by Uber and delivery services. “I pointed out that she drove 30 unpaid miles a day and asked if she would be interested in getting paid for those miles by putting an advertising magnet on her car,” Cohen says. Her answer? “Hell yes!”
The quick option to profit
Stic is not the only ad tech startup focusing on out-of-home (OOH) promoting. However, its user-friendly business model sets it apart from other corporations in the industry. “We send them a sticker for free, they stick it on their car and all they have to do is start driving,” Cohen says. Once the removable ad is applied, drivers activate the Stic app, which tracks every mile they drive, enabling advertisers to succeed in specific markets and enabling drivers to earn mileage-based passive income – as much as $0.14 per mile. Unlike its competitors, which frequently require drivers to pay an upfront fee – sometimes $125 for the screen only or $95 for the wrap – Stic allows drivers to make money without spending any money.
Cohen explains the problems with traditional vehicle promoting models: Drivers pay out of pocket, which involves long installation times, often spending six to eight hours wrapping their cars, only to exchange the ads a week later. “It’s inefficient,” Cohen says, referring to his competition’s business model. “You only earn money if you stay in these specific areas for about eight hours, and if you don’t, you don’t get paid.
For high-mileage drivers, such as those working for ride-sharing companies, the earning potential of Stic is significant, offering a new way to earn money from your daily commute and participate in the gig economy. “Where I live, there are people who drive 80 miles a day to get to work,” Cohen says. “They might as well just put a sticker on it and make some extra money.”
Pressing the gas
Cohen attributes his rapid success to former Pay Pal CEO and billionaire Peter Thiel’s “Zero to One” philosophy. The philosophy is that the Most worthy corporations are those who create something latest, relatively than attempting to be the best version of something that already exists. Cohen believes his company falls into this unique category. “If I wanted to start a sunglasses company, I could just Google how to do it: find a manufacturer, design the product, find a distributor, and so on,” Cohen says. “But with Stic, there was no plan.”
He cites Uber as a successful example of this philosophy, explaining that Uber was not revolutionary because of the idea of ride-sharing, but relatively because of the autonomy it provided drivers. “You don’t have to buy a whole taxi medallion and buy a taxi and go to all this crazy expense,” Cohen says. “You just need to present your driving license and you are approved. Now you can drive a car and earn an income for free that you never could before. So Uber ordered taxis.”
But Cohen didn’t just borrow Uber’s concept, he also built Stic with an API-based machine learning platform that tracks traffic patterns, much like giant ride-sharing maps require in real time. This technology detects aspects akin to pedestrians, cyclists, buses and vehicles nearby. According to him, this system is simpler than traditional billboards because the moving nature of the ads places them in unexpected places, attracting the audience’s attention more effectively. “We give drivers the obvious,” Cohen says. “We are essentially creating an advertising Uber.”