Year #5

Last night I was hanging by the fire pit with my kiddos, and it dawned on me that I didn't write an article on Bold Screen's 5 year anniversary yet! In the past previous 4 years I usually write something about a week or so before the actual anniversary, but this year I'm right on the date!

2019 was an amazing year for the business. We turned more profit last year than we did in the previous 3 years combined. 2020, as we all know, has been very hard year for all us, in almost every industry. It's been hard on businesses, individuals, and families all over the world.

As always, here are some things I have learned or come to realize this past year:

• People: Again, and always, it's all about the people! Bold Screen, and our new Opn team have amazing people. We are dedicated, alert, smart, and love our clients! We continue to build lifelong relationships with our clients and ourselves.
• Focus: In times of distress, like now, some small businesses may get a bit off track and try a bunch of new things to recoup any loss of revenue or profit. We have always stayed focused on the prize, and rarely try things on a whim to make a quick buck. We stick to our core principles, with every product we offer to clients.
• Cash: I feel very lucky and very proud that we have managed our cash correctly. We are bootstrapped, debt-free and have managed our profits over the years in a great fashion. We know where every penny is being spent, and we don't waste the hard earned dollars on frivolous things that are not good for the business long term.
• Programmatic is Broken: We have to main divisions under Bold Screen, the first is our Mobile Performance business, called Opn. This business is not affected by anything around programmatic, just yet. Our legacy video business has evolved over the past 5 years to be almost exclusively reliant on programmatic pipes working properly. I can rant on this topic for a while, but I won't. DSPs and SSPs need to share everything with the end Publishers. It's a two-way or three-way street. That is all.

5 years ago we set out to build a digital media business focused around industry experience, customer service and transparency. I am confident to say we still do hold all of those core values with every client we work with. We over-communicate, never burn bridges, and always kill-em' with kindness.

This year has been a struggle for us, and lots of our friends and clients in this same industry. We look forward to Q3 2020 and the remainder of this rough year. We will continue to hunker down and grow with our clients, and do right by them while keeping our core values in place.

Onward!