Mike Nardella built an ad agency while an undergrad at Boston College. That work would eventually lead to the founding of Relevize, a platform that facilitates the interactions of big brands with their local partners. Trends in social media are presenting big opportunities for this Boston-based startup.
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Highlights from the interview:
Sal Daher’s Intro
Chance Encounter at Venture Lane Startup Hub
What Mike Nardella’s Company Does and Why It’s Important
“Yeah, local connections, brand awareness and... You know, this works across a ton of different industries.”
“But now all of a sudden, 600,000 potential patrons of Boston are coming across something from Landsdowne and that's free for the partner, for the pub itself.”
The Founding Story of Relevize
Running a College-Focused Ad Agency Led Mike Nardella to Discover the Opportunity Presented by Local Partners of Huge Brands
The Competitive Landscape for Relevize
Fast Traction
Circa 2025: “, I really see us being the be-all, end-all for those partner-based interactions and those actionable partner-based campaigns.”
Relevize Also Sees the Potential of in Where Influencer Marketing Is Going
Sal Daher Talks About Squadle and Invites Accredited Investors to His Syndicate List
How Is Investing in a Company Like Relevize Going to Produce an Attractive Return?
What’s Most Promising About Relevize Is that a Thin Layer of Technology Can Allow the Creation of Huge Value Across Many Industries?
“…the value prop for them is so high, to be included in these brand dollars in these campaigns... We once had 50 Irish pubs on board in 48 hours.”
Mike’s College Entrepreneurship Experience
“… when I was in college, my extracurriculars were almost important than my curriculars a lot of the time.”
Mike Nardella’s Acting Career
“…I think being able to deal with that constant rejection really helps you become an entrepreneur because you know, it's a game-“
Mike Nardella Puts in a Word for V Foundation
Transcript of “Relevize”
GUEST: CEO AND CO-FOUNDER MIKE NARDELLA
Sal Daher’s Intro
SAL DAHER: Welcome to Angel Invest Boston. I'm your host Sal Daher, an Angel Investor who delights in the fascinating tech companies being built in Boston's singular startup ecosystem. Because of the unique concentration of great universities here, Boston is a massive exporter of great startup ideas and a huge importer of capital. This startup-rich and capital-poor environment gives me the opportunity to invest early in great companies that'll be changing our world, companies such as Squadle. I'll tell you a bit about Squadle later.
SAL DAHER: Now I'd like to introduce my guest today, Mike Nardella, co-founder and CEO of Relevize. Mike, welcome to our studios.
MIKE NARDELLA: Hi Sal, thanks for having me.
Chance Encounter at Venture Lane Startup Hub
SAL DAHER: It's tremendous that you came in. I'm grateful to the really great people at Venture Lane's Startup Hub for connecting me with Mike. I happened to be there meeting with Christian. You know, I met Mike and I was like, "I got to have this guy on. He presents so well."
MIKE NARDELLA: Christian's the best, isn't he?
SAL DAHER: He's awesome.
MIKE NARDELLA: One of our newest investors.
SAL DAHER: Oh, he's an investor?
MIKE NARDELLA: And probably one of my favorite [crosstalk 00:01:05]. Don't tell anyone else I said that.
SAL DAHER: He's created a really tremendous you know... Betsy's awesome. You know, Ross. I think at least four startups that I had invested in are at Venture Lane and it really [crosstalk 00:01:20]-
MIKE NARDELLA: It's a great place, I can't recommend it enough. Any startup founders listening, there's no better place to grow in Boston.
SAL DAHER: ... And we hope that it's going to become the future home of the Angel Invest Boston podcast. Talking to about building a facility there for recording the podcasts.
Mike Nardella’s Bio
SAL DAHER: But anyway, Mike Nardella studied economics as an undergrad at Boston College where he learned things far more practical than economic theory. You know, marginal benefit, marginal cost and that kind of stuff. He's not a pointy-headed intellectual type.
SAL DAHER: At college Mike rolled up his sleeves and got involved in building a business that helped major brands market to college students. He was also involved with Boston College's Accelerator where he is now a venture partner. He was also a professional actor. This guy has a really interesting life. We'll talk about that later.
SAL DAHER: Mike is not just a workaholic who's just thinking about his career and building a startup and that's all he thinks about. He also thinks about giving back to the community. He is co-director... as a volunteer position, of the Next Generation Committee of The V Foundation for Cancer Research, a really valuable not-for-profit enterprise that is funding research being done by not the famous researchers but the people who might have the new ideas, the stuff that's coming up with the goal of basically just doing away with cancer. So I applaud you Mike for being involved with this.
MIKE NARDELLA: Thanks. Great cause.
SAL DAHER: In 2018 he started Relevize with the idea to help brands mobilize their partners' growth. We'll explain what that means in particular. It's a really interesting aspect of marketing. And Mike is a very astute marketer. But anyway, let's get to it. Relevize. Mike, please tell us what Relevize does and why it's needed.
What Mike Nardella’s Company Does and Why It’s Important
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, of course. So you said it well. You know, we enable companies to grow through their partners and we created a software platform for them to do that. Right now online, we live in a world of access and first-party data. You know, segmented brand awareness, segmented audiences, and there are just so many companies out there that really depend on their partners to grow but it's just not the case that they utilize these audiences, they utilize this access of their partners in their marketing and advertising.
SAL DAHER: Can you unpack it a little bit in layman's terms?
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, for sure. Can I give you an example?
SAL DAHER: ... Sure.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah. So one of our clients we've done great work with, Diageo... You know, they own Guinness, Smirnoff, Captain... They own about half the bar.
SAL DAHER: I love Guinness.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah. No, Guinness is fantastic. I've had a couple this week. But yeah. So for them, they serve Guinness at over 60,000 bars and restaurants across the US. All these bars and restaurants have their own following, have their own brand recognition and awareness, have all of their own first-party data. You're not going to go to Diageo HQ to buy a Guinness, right?
SAL DAHER: No.
MIKE NARDELLA: You're going to go to-
SAL DAHER: They maybe don't even have it in the building.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Exactly. You're going to go to your local pub. So you know, for those salespeople, for those marketers, it would be really nice to have access to those segmented brands across the country and that's exactly what our software platform does. We have a partner portal where all those pubs can go online and onboard for them is as simple as a couple of clicks, and then the senior marketers and salespeople at Diageo can utilize all of their partners who are... You know, of course their clients in their marketing and sales campaigns.
SAL DAHER: So, they're kind of activating the local connections that the partners have with the patrons to strengthen the brand and to help the brand grow?
“Yeah, local connections, brand awareness and... You know, this works across a ton of different industries.”
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, local connections, brand awareness and... You know, this works across a ton of different industries. So another client of ours, Kraft Heinz, if you look at... We recently did a promo with Planters Peanuts with them and working with their partner, 7-11. And I think you would think, "Well hey, 7-11, not a small pub or bar or restaurant," but when you look from a shopper-marketing perspective at Kraft Heinz, one of the biggest companies in the world, you start to see that the amount of partners that they have... 7-11 is one of thousands-
SAL DAHER: Yes.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Of big retailers, right? Here we have Roche Bros but you also have Stop & Shop, Big Box, Value, Dollar convenience stores. Each one of those houses a unique brand identity, unique first-party data, unique audiences that they speak to. And none of that, even in the real world where you associate that purchase with you know, say CVS, digitally none of that is connected right now.
SAL DAHER: What does a partner get from it? I can see what the brand gets, but what does a partner get?
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, of course. Partner success is one of the biggest drivers of our business, in growth obviously. But if you look at a local bar or pub, I would even argue that the benefit to them is even greater. So if you look at a local bar or pub with the Guinness example, right?
SAL DAHER: Right.
MIKE NARDELLA: If you're receiving-
SAL DAHER: My mouth is watering already. I love Guinness.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Yeah, could we get a couple of these?
SAL DAHER: Oh, yeah. Raul.
MIKE NARDELLA: Since our-
SAL DAHER: Note to Raul, we should have Guinness in the podcast.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Yeah. A nice Monday morning Guinness. But yeah-
SAL DAHER: By the way, coming attraction. Raul's going to get a mic and then he's going to chime in and comment on things.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... I'll feel like I'm on Joe Rogan's podcast with Jamie.
SAL DAHER: Exactly. Yeah, yeah-
MIKE NARDELLA: That's great.
SAL DAHER: ... We'll do that, Raul. Because Raul has a lot to say. He's not a shy person, it's just that he doesn't have a mic.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, of course. And yeah, thanks for setting all of this up, Raul. But yeah. So in the Guinness example, the local pub. They're always looking for more promotion from the people that they're paying, the suppliers, right? And the inability to get that is mostly a structural issue where there's really no way for the supplier to do that. It's also a legal issue. That's a whole other thing with-
SAL DAHER: Oh, wow.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Alcohol and the three-tiered system. But I think speaking from the pub's standpoint, if you see a Guinness ad on Instagram and it comes from here in Boston, Landsdowne Pub or you know, Bell In Hand, that's an ad. A promotion that the small business would've never paid for.
SAL DAHER: Right.
“But now all of a sudden, 600,000 potential patrons of Boston are coming across something from Landsdowne and that's free for the partner, for the pub itself.”
MIKE NARDELLA: But now all of a sudden, 600,000 potential patrons of Boston are coming across something from Landsdowne and that's free for the partner, for the pub itself. And so for them, they've been over the moon with these campaigns.
SAL DAHER: That is tremendous to hear. Please tell us a founding story. I'm really big on founding stories.
The Founding Story of Relevize
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, of course. So before Relevize, I had what started out as an email newsletter company. So we were an aggregate email newsletter. We had about 200,000 readers across 60 universities. We would send this thing every day, and that was back in the early days of the re-rise of aggregated newsletters. What that eventually became was a media buying agency. In 2014, we had a couple of brands look to us and say, "Hey it's great that I can purchase inventory in your newsletter, but we want more. Have you ever heard of these things called Facebook Ads?"
MIKE NARDELLA: And so we were like, "Sure," you know, "We'll start buying [crosstalk 00:08:14] from you guys."
SAL DAHER: Yeah purchasing inventory means to buy ads on-
MIKE NARDELLA: ... By media, yeah.
SAL DAHER: ... Oh, different types of media.
MIKE NARDELLA: Same way you purchase billboard, you could purchase an ad in a magazine, a newsletter... You know, Facebook Ads and there was an appetite for more. We had clients like Microsoft, Best Buy, Nestle brands, Keurig... And yeah, so we started buying Facebook Ads. Over the time, I was working at the time with one of my current co-founders, Patrick Allen. He was our tech lead. He built a nice little dashboard for our clients where they could see... Just like our newsletter was segmented by school, if we purchased media at a specific school, they can see how... Say Ohio State was performing against where I went, Boston College, right?
SAL DAHER: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
MIKE NARDELLA: If I bought not only the newspaper but Facebook Ads at Ohio State and any online media like Mike's Fashion Blog or Tim's Sports Blog, and really see how the Surface 2 was performing at... Say you know, Ohio State versus all the other schools. So we dabbled in the hyperlocal, we realized there was a lot of this desire for what they were calling at the time hyperlocal.
Running a College-Focused Ad Agency Led Mike Nardella to Discover the Opportunity Presented by Local Partners of Huge Brands
MIKE NARDELLA: I think after we ended up selling that agency to a guy named Ben Sutton, he was the founder of IMG College, we thought to ourselves, "What is at the heart of this unscalable local campaigns, where people are doing really one-offs?" And we realized it wasn't just the idea of something local, it was the idea of like partnerships because all of these things came through... Whether it was an influencer, or whether it was a local publication or a local bar, it was always some sort of partnership.
SAL DAHER: Very good. Very good. Please tell us about your co-founders and what they bring to the table.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, of course. I mean, this is probably the thing I'm most excited about. The people I'm working with, I love them to death and I think they're extraordinarily talented. You know Patrick Allen, like I said he's basically my work husband. I've talked to his wife about this before, you know, I see him more than she sees him. Not anymore because they actually just got a new house in Southie, which is great for them. But he is ruthlessly pragmatic, very high level. He's the CTO of the business. You know Peter Sidney, my other co-founder, super-bright, super dynamic, former investment banker. So you can imagine the work ethic.
MIKE NARDELLA: And then we have John Chang, the newest member of the team. He's a full stack engineer, Harvard guy, one of the first employees at Runkeeper, former VP of Engineering at Workbar, one of the WeWork competitors. Him and I were always friends and he was always working on small projects. So his most recent one was an augmented reality rock-climbing wall. And so he ended up exiting that and selling that business and you know, he was looking for what's next, bought in to what we were doing and joined the team. Newest member. Right now, we're actually hiring so if anyone's listening, we're looking for an account executive, our first member of our sales team.
SAL DAHER: This is a great company. If you're an account executive, I can tell you that Mike is a very energetic guy and that they work at a great place-
MIKE NARDELLA: Look it up on LinkedIn.
SAL DAHER: ... Yeah, it's a nice environment. Great. So who does Relevize see as its competitors and how does it compete with them?
The Competitive Landscape for Relevize
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, of course. From the highest level, potential competitors for us are Adobe and Salesforce. You know, there's a lot of CRM-type, PRM-type things like Impartner, a lot of ways to work with your partners actionably like SproutLoud or Promoboxx... But you know, we see our differentiator in that we're more of a push system instead of a pull system so we like to give the reigns over to the senior marketers and salespeople who have been doing this for years and are really professional, know what they're doing and make it really easy for the partners to participate.
MIKE NARDELLA: So you're not calling upon 10-, 20,000 people to take different actions and hoping that everyone follows through. It's more about connecting to your partners and allowing to work on their behalf with their approval. So yeah, I think for us it's more about we have all this data, we have all this access. How do we make it actionable and scalable in a really simple way?
SAL DAHER: Excellent. Excellent. You're just barely a year in. What's your traction like?
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, of course.
SAL DAHER: We've heard about Diageo and you know, Kraft Heinz.
Fast Traction
MIKE NARDELLA: I think our background, having a marketing agency for so many years really allowed us to get a little bit of a headstart when it comes to the clients and the bigger names and I think we've been lucky to work with some good clients and have good case studies. You know, right now our software was released, the software that we're working with now, about February of last year. Since then we started working on software subscriptions so we're at about 300K in annual software subscriptions to date and... Yeah, we have a handful of great clients that we're working with.
SAL DAHER: Okay. Where do you expect to be in five years?
MIKE NARDELLA: In 2025... I think right now when you look at the landscape, and I know I've mentioned this a few times. You see a lot of this segmented type data and I think that's what we've seen over the past 10 or 15 years. Digitally you've seen kind of the creation of this access, the creation of this data. It's all out there now, right? And now we're just trying to figure out how do we use it?
MIKE NARDELLA: And I think the next five years you're really going to start to see these systems put in place, like what we're doing, to effectively allow these companies to utilize all of the access and data that's out there. So I think in five years for us... You know, we're industry-agnostic, so we see our software has the ability to work across every single different industry because there's so many different companies, it depends on their partner to grow.
Circa 2025: “, I really see us being the be-all, end-all for those partner-based interactions and those actionable partner-based campaigns.”
MIKE NARDELLA: And yeah, I really see us being the be-all, end-all for those partner-based interactions and those actionable partner-based campaigns.
SAL DAHER: Oh, interesting. What kind of businesses... You know, we talked about a couple. One, consumer packaged goods.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yep.
SAL DAHER: The other one, drinks.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yes, and food and beverage, consumer packaged goods, right? Like just like you're not going to go straight to the Diageo headquarters, you're not going to go buy Charmin straight from P&G-
SAL DAHER: No.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Your toilet paper straight from them, so you also have any traditional supplier-retailer relationship.
SAL DAHER: But that's using partners.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yep.
SAL DAHER: Okay.
MIKE NARDELLA: So, anything in retail, really. Right? And then you have things that you wouldn't necessarily think about like software resellers, right? In technology you know, a ton of the larger companies like Oracle sell a lot of their software, sometimes even 100% of their software, through partner resellers. And these resellers can be $100 million, billion-dollar companies.
MIKE NARDELLA: And the simplest form that we've seen a lot of now is influencers, right? Influencers are partners too.
SAL DAHER: Oh, yeah.
Relevize Also Sees the Potential of in Where Influencer Marketing Is Going
MIKE NARDELLA: We see that nugget of technology of connecting a partner the same for an influencer as it is for a 7-11 with Kraft Heinz, right? It's just about how do you utilize that connection.
SAL DAHER: Unpack a little bit what an influencer does.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, for sure. You know, an influencer has their own following, their own audience, their own brand equity and their own voice. Usually today what companies are calling on these influencers to do is to create content on their behalf, right? And that's the whole idea of pay-to-post, for them to utilize that voice. Our view of the world is that paid media is the future so as pay-to-post continues to get mitigated on these platforms I think what these companies are trying to do is roll it up into their ad platform, right? So utilizing that audience obviously comes with a price, actually.
SAL DAHER: So then basically the influencers are going to start writing ad copy? Is that what you're-
MIKE NARDELLA: So I-
SAL DAHER: ... Kind of like audience-specific ad copy?
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Well they're already writing ad copy, right?
SAL DAHER: Okay, right.
MIKE NARDELLA: Technically-
SAL DAHER: Yeah, right.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Because if they're making a post for their own audience on behalf of a brand-
SAL DAHER: Right.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... That's the ad, right? The question is who's seeing this ad, right? And how are they seeing this ad?
SAL DAHER: Oh, okay.
MIKE NARDELLA: How often are they seeing this ad? Because a post to a feed might not do it justice in 2021 when all of-
SAL DAHER: Okay, so if you have a platform that can take... Okay, so this audience, then I have a look alike audience over here, they might be interested in this feed too, so that can be kind of part of the advertising part [crosstalk 00:16:00]-
Mike Nardella:
Yeah, or even take it a step further, where 10 years ago... You know, small businesses had their own Facebook pages and when they used to post, all of their followers would see it and then all of a sudden Facebook said, "Hold on a second." Now you have to pay to do what's called a boosted post so that your following will actually see the post.
SAL DAHER: ... Right.
MIKE NARDELLA: I can see pay-to-post going in a similar direction, where a company like Facebook could say, "All right, to actually reach your followers and because it's a sponsor by brand, you need to make this an ad," right? And those endpoints are obviously purpose-built for paid media and paid advertising. This is something all these big companies do every day anyway, this would just make it more scalable.
Sal Daher Talks About Squadle and Invites Accredited Investors to His Syndicate List
SAL DAHER: Wow, interesting. Coming up next, I will ask Mike Nardella the burning question that is on the mind of all angel investors. How is investing in Relevize going to give me the 20 or 30 X return on my money that I like so much? By the way, I'm not an investor in Relevize just to be clear.
SAL DAHER: However, before we do that, I'd like to tell you a bit about an interesting company which in I am an investor, a company called Squadle. By the way, have you run across Squadle? They're BC guys.
MIKE NARDELLA: I have not. I actually saw that on the sheet. I need to look into it because I'd love to connect-
SAL DAHER: Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting-
MIKE NARDELLA: ... To them in BC.
SAL DAHER: ... Company. A totally different area. I'll tell you the story. It's a SaaS platform that all the nitty gritty stuff that gets done in the kitchen in these fast food restaurants, or in the front desk, they're all in binders. You know?
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah.
SAL DAHER: They have to check the temperature and stuff. They have to check you know, has this thing been cleaned? Has that thing been cleaned? The filter, this or that... All of that used to be you know, the checklists in binders. If there's an inspection, they have to have that readily available. So all of that has gone into an iPad with checklists, an iPad that connects to digital thermometers that can keep track of the temperature in the refrigerators. There's a thing for you to check the temperature in particular food items for food safety.
SAL DAHER: And so, all of that used to be done by hand, now it's being done by Squadle in a way that cannot be fudged online. It's real-time and they're drinking from a fire hose right now because they just signed up. You know, they've been chasing... Kind of like the dog who caught the car. They've been chasing the car of McDonald's for a while and they caught the car.
MIKE NARDELLA: They caught McDonald's, yeah. And now they're like, "Oh god."
SAL DAHER: They've got McDonald's stores calling them. It's kind of like... You know, "What is your close rate?"
MIKE NARDELLA: Now it's like-
SAL DAHER: "100%."
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Hanging on to dear life.
SAL DAHER: Like every call they get is like, "Yes, we want it in-store right now." They're going through a little bit of growing pains because of that but they are just going. You know, growing very fast. It took them several years to just zero in on this. Getting certified with a company like McDonald's takes a long time. And so they're with McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts and they're... You know, they've got other players but McDonald's is the big player.
MIKE NARDELLA: The big one, yeah.
SAL DAHER: Yeah. They're going to be in every McDonald's. You're not going to see them but if you see somebody with... Instead of a binder, if the binder cabinet is empty and somebody is walking around with an iPad... And by the way, they do use iPads. They tried other tablets and it didn't work as well, they weren't as durable.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yep.
SAL DAHER: And so, they stick with it, yeah. Which is expensive but it's the better thing. So the point of this is to say that this the kind of interesting company that shows up here in Boston, or like Relevize. There are lots of really smart people who go to the schools around here and come out and start companies. So this a really idea-rich-
SAL DAHER: Cash poor [crosstalk 00:19:24].
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Go BC! I cannot even list all the great schools that are around here.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, you're going to have to connect me.
SAL DAHER: Le Zhang is his name. He's a tremendous founder. So the point here is that I'm an early investor in this company. Oh, I got to put this in. To paraphrase Marc Andreessen, software is eating fast food now.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah. Yes.
SAL DAHER: I had this line in here, I had to put this in. So software's finally gotten around to eating fast food.
MIKE NARDELLA: Was this a review? Was this like he was discussing Squadle?
SAL DAHER: No. Marc Andreessen-
MIKE NARDELLA: Oh, okay.
SAL DAHER: ... Years ago he said that software's going to eat the world. Which just, absolutely it has. It's changing everything, right?
MIKE NARDELLA: Yes.
SAL DAHER: But there's some sectors that lag and the kitchen in fast food restaurants is one of those.
MIKE NARDELLA: Oh, yeah.
SAL DAHER: And now it's eating that part of it, too. But anyway, if you're an accredited investor and you want to participate in really interesting companies in the Boston startup ecosystem, do me a favor. Go to Angel Invest Boston, fill out the accredited investor questionnaire, and then we can talk. We can talk about some of the interesting companies that are going on, as a potential investor.
How Is Investing in a Company Like Relevize Going to Produce an Attractive Return?
SAL DAHER: But anyway, going back. So Mike, how is investing in an early-stage company such as Relevize going to produce an attractive return to an investor? Am I right that Christian-
MIKE NARDELLA: Christian Magel?
SAL DAHER: ... Yeah. Is he an investor?
MIKE NARDELLA: Yes. He's one of our newest investors.
SAL DAHER: Awesome. Yeah, I guess you mentioned that before.
MIKE NARDELLA: I think part of the pitch for moving in. No. To Venture Lane. No, it was well after that. But yeah, I think in terms of return-
SAL DAHER: By the way, Christian Magel has been interviewed in this podcast. A very savvy investor. The guy has built like two really substantial businesses. He's a very successful investor. Listen to his podcast. But anyway-
MIKE NARDELLA: ... And an incredible mentor and advisor.
SAL DAHER: ... Awesome guy.
MIKE NARDELLA: I mean, he's helping us out-
SAL DAHER: Awesome guy.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Like a ton, every single day. It's great to be working out of the same office as him, right? But yeah, in terms of you know, when you're looking at startups you're looking for is the sky the limit, right? Like what's the possible ceiling on this thing? I think what makes our company very interesting is the idea of being it that horizontal technology, right?
SAL DAHER: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
MIKE NARDELLA: It's like one thin structural layer that's the same for an influencer as it is for a software reseller as it is for auto manufacturers to car dealerships as it is for Diageo and their beer, food and beverage, CPG... You know, really anywhere where you have those partner-based relationships, retail-based relationships, reseller-based relationships, you can apply our technology.
What’s Most Promising About Relevize Is that a Thin Layer of Technology Can Allow the Creation of Huge Value Across Many Industries?
MIKE NARDELLA: And you know, we don't want to be everything for everyone so the actual functionality of the platform is you connect to your partners, you can communicate with them to get approval, right? To run campaigns, and then you deploy paid media campaigns. So being that super simple infrastructure I think will really allow us to dig our roots in across many different industries and I think that's the most appealing thing about us.
SAL DAHER: This is tremendous. You know, marketing... Dealing with small or medium enterprises, it's kind of like the graveyard of startups, okay? So many startups have just floundered because the cost of acquiring customers is so high, it's so difficult... And you guys seem to be just swimming in this.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, I know.
SAL DAHER: It's amazing.
“…the value prop for them is so high, to be included in these brand dollars in these campaigns... We once had 50 Irish pubs on board in 48 hours.”
MIKE NARDELLA: I think that's one of the first questions we get is like, "How many of our partners do you think will participate or onboard?" And I think... Like I said, the value prop for them is so high, to be included in these brand dollars in these campaigns... We once had 50 Irish pubs on board in 48 hours.
SAL DAHER: Wow.
MIKE NARDELLA: And I mean, part of that is also just the simplicity of it for them, right? Making it a couple clicks to onboard and then using SMS or text message to say, "Hey, are you okay with this, yes or no? Do you want us to change anything, yes or no? If so, here's a list of things we can change." You know, limiting that automation to make sure that you're not asking too much of the small business owner or the medium enterprise or whatever it is, right? And you're getting buy-in from the correct people. So I think the scalability of it is definitely important.
SAL DAHER: So, review with me again the value that the partner gets. So basically the partner gets to kind of ride along on the publicity campaign?
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, participate in the campaign, right? Once again, it's a small retailer-
SAL DAHER: Basically, tie themselves to the big brands around.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Yeah. Just like they're not going to buy a billboard on Route 93, which I took to get here today, they're not going to buy ads on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram-
SAL DAHER: No, they're not.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... For themselves, right?
SAL DAHER: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
MIKE NARDELLA: And so, when you have these companies spending literally billions of dollars on these campaigns and now they have new channels, their partners to spend through and get higher ROI on their ad dollar while also including their most important person, their customer or their partner. It's a really powerful thing. And for the partner... You know, once again they're not driving growth for themselves in this way. So being able to work off the people that they're paying for their product to do so.
MIKE NARDELLA: I mean, even for a software reseller, right? Like they need to generate leads. Oracle wants the lead to think of Oracle top of mind when they come into this reseller. "What have you done for me lately, Oracle? Why am I going to talk about your product first and foremost?" It's like, "Well let me drive you some leads on LinkedIn through your brand voice, and when they come in the door keep our product in mind."
Mike’s College Entrepreneurship Experience
SAL DAHER: Tremendous. So Mike, you've had a very interesting career. So please tell us about your work in... You touched on it a little bit, street mitigating that you started in college, your college entrepreneurship experience.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, of course. Ever since I was like a kid, I was selling Livestrong bracelets. Well not Livestrong bracelets but like little chachkies out of my locker. Whatever it may be, right? So this was in my blood from an early age and I think that comes from my family, but-
SAL DAHER: What did your family do?
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Yeah, so my father was a real estate developer. He had a law degree but he went out on his own and was like, "I'm going to-
SAL DAHER: Oh, wow. Okay.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Start my own business." Jersey guy, he pitched Sam Walton on an offer he couldn't refuse to bring Walmart to the Northeast.
SAL DAHER: Wow.
MIKE NARDELLA: Because it wasn't traditionally a business that would work-
SAL DAHER: No.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... In you know-
SAL DAHER: No.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Densely-populated areas.
SAL DAHER: That's right. They started out in the second and third-tier cities.
“… when I was in college, my extracurriculars were almost important than my curriculars a lot of the time.”
MIKE NARDELLA: Yes, exactly and so... You know, they were kind of avoiding the Northeast and my dad was definitely a bit of a hustler kind of pounding on the door there for a long time until he got his shot. And I think... You know, for me when I was in college, my extracurriculars were almost important than my curriculars a lot of the time.
SAL DAHER: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
MIKE NARDELLA: And I think like that's always where I've been driven. And yeah, so I started this email newsletter with a buddy of mine, Billy Chamberlain. At first it was more of just having like a voice and more of an editorial kind of thing but then it kind of grew over the course of three or four years and now we were doing this thing on a ton of different colleges. That was actually the reason it ended up becoming ultimately unscalable because of having 60 editors at 60 different colleges is really tough to maintain, right?
SAL DAHER: Yeah.
MIKE NARDELLA: Right? So-
SAL DAHER: You'd need a software platform for that.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Yeah. Exactly. There you go.
SAL DAHER: Do you know who you should talk to?
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, I think I-
SAL DAHER: You should talk to FineTune Learning.
MIKE NARDELLA: ...Yeah.
SAL DAHER: They're the platform that is helping the college board correct all the AP exam essays.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, it's-
SAL DAHER: I'm an investor of the company.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Nice.
SAL DAHER: It's... On a platform like that, you could have 60 editors.
MIKE NARDELLA: Exactly. Patrick actually built our own platform for these editors to submit articles to send out, 60 different emails a day, every day at 6:00 AM. But yeah, content aggregation was really big, so I think we kind of rode that wave at the time. I got involved with a couple other email newsletters that I'm still a little bit involved with to this day and then that eventually became the media buying agency. I got to represent some great brands, learned how to position things in a specific demographic and how to effectively work with these larger companies.
Mike Nardella’s Acting Career
SAL DAHER: Now tell me about your acting career.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah. This was kind of super serendipitous. When I was younger, I lived right outside of New York City. We had a neighbor who was a photographer and said to my mother when I was really little, "Hey, you should get him to do kids' catalogs. I know somebody, we'll take a couple pictures." One thing leads to another, I'm doing some kids' catalogs, I have this agent in New York City and you could see how this snowballs.
MIKE NARDELLA: The agent's daughter decided to become a talent agent. And when you're a talent agent you can only represent a couple people in a demographic and she said to her mom, "Do you have any kids who you think could read a script?" So I remember going in there, I was probably in fifth grade and I read a Burger King script. She ended up representing me at the time. I mean, over the years now to this point I've done SNL, I was the Chuck E. Cheese kid in Chuck E. Cheese commercials, I was in PBS KIDS. Did you ever see in-between the commercials, they're jumping around on the trampoline? I was the generic white PBS kid and-
SAL DAHER: The generic white kid.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Yeah. Well because I had the... You know, they were-
SAL DAHER: "Hey, get a GWK for this."
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Yes. And... Get a GWK for this. So, yeah. One thing really led to another there, ended up getting represented by one of the bigger talent agencies in the space, Abrams Artists, and by the time I had got to high school... And this was the same agent... It was me, Frankie Muniz, and I think like Dewey from Malcolm in the Middle. She had like a few kids in our age class and she was like, "Okay, it's time to go to California for two months and start really making a thing out of this." And my parents... This was always a hobby.
SAL DAHER: Right.
“I got to play Drew Brees in Madden in Times Square. That was definitely one of the highlights.”
MIKE NARDELLA: This was never like, "Oh my god, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life." And my parents were very much so education first and said no to that and that's kind of where I took a step back after it snowballed to an extent. But still did a ton of voiceovers. You know, banks, pharmaceuticals, commercials. More recently I did a EA Sports commercial with Drew Brees for Madden. I got to play Drew Brees in Madden in Times Square. That was definitely one of the highlights.
SAL DAHER: Oh, wow.
MIKE NARDELLA: It was a lot of fun. It's been crazy. And then translating that to the startup world-
SAL DAHER: Oh, yeah.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Is actually I think for me, growing up when you're going on you know, five or six auditions a week and you need to go on about 100 auditions before you get one job and every person you're going in is really nitpicking... And they're not nitpicking on things that are surface level, they're kind of like-
SAL DAHER: No.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Nitpicking at your soul.
SAL DAHER: Yeah, it's the existential things, right?
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah. Or just like-
SAL DAHER: "Why are you on this earth? You're a waste of space."
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Yes, exactly. Or just like simple things like, "Oh. You know, he's too ugly for this." And so I think-
SAL DAHER: Not generic enough.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Yeah. And being able to-
SAL DAHER: "He's too ethnic, he's Italian."
MIKE NARDELLA: ... There you go. Italian and Syrian, interesting combo.
SAL DAHER: Oh, you're Syrian?
MIKE NARDELLA: Yes.
SAL DAHER: Oh, my family's Lebanese.
MIKE NARDELLA: Oh, there you go.
SAL DAHER: Yeah it's like, "He's too ethnic." You know, the ethnic thing gets in.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah. And I think for me dealing with that constant... And I know this sounds crazy, constant rejection, right?
SAL DAHER: Yeah.
“…I think being able to deal with that constant rejection really helps you become an entrepreneur because you know, it's a game-“
MIKE NARDELLA: On a daily basis you're doing all this work, driving in, and I credit my parents to this. They really put up with this but also were putting on all that work just to get that one job, right? Because you'd go through 100, 200, 300 auditions before you get... You know, I got to be on SNL and that was great for my whole family. And I think being able to deal with that constant rejection really helps you become an entrepreneur because you know, it's a game-
SAL DAHER: Oh, because you're always getting rejection. If you're trying to raise money, it's all rejection.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Exactly, it's a game of numbers, right?
SAL DAHER: Yeah.
MIKE NARDELLA: For our recent angel round, we could've talked to probably 100 different angels just to have the 10 invest that invested. So I think it really helps condition you.
SAL DAHER: Yeah. It's basically every successful actor is a successful salesperson because they're always getting gigs. They always have to get gigs.
MIKE NARDELLA: And think about, "What's the next one," right?
SAL DAHER: Yeah, what's the next one.
MIKE NARDELLA: Like, you walk out of a room where everyone just kind of rejected you or said something bad about you and you're like, "Okay, I got it. What's the next thing?"
SAL DAHER: "I can deal with this." I listened to an interview with Laurence Fox, the English actor, and he was saying exactly this. He was saying, "Oh well you know, the easy part of being an actor is acting. The hard part is getting the gigs, getting the jobs because it's just a high rejection rate. Even if you're a really successful actor, most of the time you're rejected for parts and being able to pick up and go on after that is the really hard part."
MIKE NARDELLA: Obviously there's the romanticized version of the starving artist and I think that's on the fringe of someone who just picks up when they're 28 and moves to LA and is like, "I'm going to be a famous actor." Then you have the superstars who you see every day, the household names, and I think people don't realize there's this whole swath of people in the middle [crosstalk 00:32:00]-
SAL DAHER: It's a gradation, yeah.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Right? Of career-builders who are-
SAL DAHER: I have friend, Nat Lovell, his half-brother is Adam Baldwin.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Yeah.
SAL DAHER: Not one of the Baldwin brothers. He's Adam Baldwin, he is the guy from Firefly. The big guy in Firefly.
MIKE NARDELLA: Oh, okay. Yeah.
SAL DAHER: He is the loyalist officer in The Patriot... You know, when he's ordered to burn down the church with people inside and so forth.
MIKE NARDELLA: And you can see how this becomes a career, right? And it-
SAL DAHER: This guy... You know, he's not like Al Pacino, $180 million rich, okay?
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Exactly.
SAL DAHER: He has a very nice life. Beautiful wife that he's been married to since they first got married-
MIKE NARDELLA: Yep.
SAL DAHER: ... And a nice, upper middle class existence, sends kids to college, pays the mortgage and everything else... And he has been in... He was in Full Metal Jacket and so he's a serious working actor-
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, when people think of-
SAL DAHER: ... Pays the bills.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Serious working, they think of unions and the Screen Actors Guild, SAG-AFTRA is one of the biggest unions. People don't realize there are I think 200,000 members. That's like a small city, you know? And a lot of those people, they have enough... I'm in the union, you have enough credits to get into the union. You don't need to be a superstar, you got to do a couple of things but it's still a barrier for entry.
SAL DAHER: Right.
MIKE NARDELLA: You still need to have something, right?
SAL DAHER: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
MIKE NARDELLA: But then there's a lot of people who are a part of that union who do make a career out of it, right? And I think that's why it actually exists is to protect those people, protect their wages, protect their career and their way of living.
SAL DAHER: That's really fascinating. It also helps because actors have to be conscious of how their audience is responding.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yep.
SAL DAHER: You know, feedback from your customers. When you think about it, to be a successful working artist, actor or actress, means that you are somebody who understands your craft-
MIKE NARDELLA: Yep.
SAL DAHER: ... You can overcome difficulties and rejection, which is constant. You have to be a good steward of your money because you know, you make a big chunk of money on one job and then there might not be another one for six months.
MIKE NARDELLA: Sounds pretty similar to startup life, huh?
SAL DAHER: It is a lot, very similar. You know, Justin Real it talks about how baseball, the best batting statistics are like 300. You know, batting 300 is outstanding. So most of the time you miss your swing at the ball. And startups you miss 70% of the time.
MIKE NARDELLA: Oh, yeah.
SAL DAHER: So, you got to be able to deal with rejection.
MIKE NARDELLA: 80%, 90% of the time depending on what you're doing, right?
SAL DAHER: Oh, yeah.
MIKE NARDELLA: If you're working in consumers, it's probably 99%.
SAL DAHER: 99.
MIKE NARDELLA: But your company can thrive off of that one.
SAL DAHER: So, Mike Nardella, as we are wrapping up this interview, feel relaxed to address any topic you want. You know, you want to talk about the sky or whatever... You know, just tell us what you think would be valuable for our audience of people who work at startups, founders and of angels who would like to listen... To hear what it is that you have.
Mike Nardella Puts in a Word for V Foundation
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah. I think just zooming out here for a second, I work with The V Foundation for Cancer Research. A really, really great charity and I just want to pump really quick we have an event April 18th at the New York Public Library, going to have over 1,000 guests. Victory Gala, it's called, thevictorygala.com, and I think one thing to realize is that... You know, we've done a lot of work raising money, The V itself has given $250 million to cancer research as a whole, but we're really at the precipice of utilizing all of this new technology we've been building out for the past couple decades.
MIKE NARDELLA: You know, you've seen crazy growth in this space. I saw you had actually someone biotech who was working on cancer on the podcast a couple months ago.
SAL DAHER: Oh, yeah. Several people, yeah.
MIKE NARDELLA: And I think it's our responsibility as the next generation to finally achieve victory over cancer and victory over other things that now are only just starting to become possible, right? So now's not the time to kind of rest on our laurels-
SAL DAHER: No.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... But it's the time to go... I hope I get to see it in my lifetime, but I really do believe. You know, when we got into this and we formed this Next Generation Committee and the CEO of The V, Susan Braun, amazing woman. She always says, "The goal is to go out of business." Right? Like the goal is to cure cancer, we don't want to be working together in twenty years. And I think that's now insight more-
SAL DAHER: It is insightful.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... More than ever.
SAL DAHER: I am familiar with some of the technologies. You know, one of my portfolio companies has a technology that enables some of these therapies and they have... Roche has an immune therapy. About a month ago they started dosing their first patient. They should be getting some results I hope soon-
MIKE NARDELLA: That's fantastic.
SAL DAHER: ... For immune cure that's not like... Gillian Isabelle describes the horrible effects of chemotherapy on patients. Chemotherapy, remarkably, it's a really brute-force method-
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, it is.
SAL DAHER: ... It attacks the fastest-growing cells in the body.
MIKE NARDELLA: You're poisoning yourself.
SAL DAHER: And you know it's like basically it kills stuff like the lining of your mouth, the lining of your stomach and other sensitive parts of your body. And because the cancer is fast-growing, so it targets those fast-growing places and so people get horrible mouth sores and so on and her startup is dealing with the effects of chemotherapy. I can see a future... You know 10 or 15 years where all of this is kind of relegated to history.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah, and it's great that you're invested in her. Let me just shout this out because this is actually our mission. My co-director-
SAL DAHER: I'm not an investor in her venture in particular, I'm invested in SQZ Biotech-
Mike Nardella:
... There you go.
SAL DAHER: ... Which is powering new therapies.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah. In a similar vein, my co-director Marla Milone... An incredible woman, she's 25 years old. She went into remission right around the time I met her about a year-and-a-half, two years ago, and she beat cancer on her own. Now she's like, "Okay it's time. Let's go cure cancer." Right? And I think one of the things that's core to our mission as the next generation of supporters is obviously when it comes to donors, there's a lot of older wealth.
MIKE NARDELLA: And then when it comes to research, there's lot of PhDs who have been in the field who have been publishing for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years and we're starting to see a lot of the investment money in these older scientists who have been publishing forever and are continuing to publish. It's really easy for them to raise money. And there's no problem with that, right? We need a lot of that.
MIKE NARDELLA: What we need to see more of is these young researchers who are-
SAL DAHER: Yes.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Coming out of schools like Kansas, The Research Triangle in Raleigh-Durham, even up here in Boston. And they know how to utilize all of the new tools. They know how to utilize all of the technology of the future and they want to do research but they're struggling to get grants against some of these older, more refined, published scientists.
SAL DAHER: Yes.
MIKE NARDELLA: And so, part of our mission is actually to help support them and kickoff their careers, be the first people to-
SAL DAHER: This is really valuable. You know, because big science is a bit of a gerontocracy, you know?
MIKE NARDELLA: Yeah.
SAL DAHER: I think like the average primary investigator is like 71 [crosstalk 00:39:01].
MIKE NARDELLA: Absolutely. Which is great. It's great. People are working-
SAL DAHER: They're brilliant people but the thing is you know, you've got to get some fresh blood in because that's where these new ideas are coming in.
MIKE NARDELLA: ... Yeah, and people are working longer than ever. So it's great that people's average age is 71 and I think that's a product of what we've been able to do extending life. I think that... But you know, part of our mission like I said... Like you mentioned-
SAL DAHER: No. No, but these are the primary investigators-
MIKE NARDELLA: Yes.
SAL DAHER: ... That get funded.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yes.
SAL DAHER: You know, so the 33-year-old primary investigator-
MIKE NARDELLA: Exactly.
SAL DAHER: ... Is not getting the money.
MIKE NARDELLA: It's just hard for them to, when you have somebody who is so accredited.
SAL DAHER: Yes.
MIKE NARDELLA: Right? And this person may be a brilliant researcher from MIT.
SAL DAHER: They're not taking moonshots anymore because they're afraid of failure.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yes.
SAL DAHER: They prefer to rest on their laurels and so forth. I mean, Bob Langer is one of the exceptions because he has a system in his lab that basically encourages young people to take really crazy risks. But you're right. Patrick Collison of Stripe has said that there's a ton of money going into scientific research and yet the big breakthroughs are not going up commensurate to this increase in the resources coming in. So I think your approach of funding the other researchers is tremendous.
MIKE NARDELLA: It's a wave.
SAL DAHER: Yes, it's such a big-
MIKE NARDELLA: We've been at it for two years, the support is absolutely incredible. ESPN, BNP Paribas, KPMG... All sponsors of last year's event, this year event too hopefully. Constellation brands, so it's really exciting stuff.
SAL DAHER: ... That is tremendous. Mike Nardella, co-founder and CEO of Relevize, thanks a lot for making time for this engaging interview and give my best to the happy tribe at Venture Lane.
MIKE NARDELLA: Yes.
SAL DAHER: I'd like to invite our listeners who enjoyed the podcast to review it on iTunes. This is Angel Invest Boston, conversations with Boston's most interesting angels and founders. I'm Sal Daher.
SAL DAHER: I'm glad you were able to join us. Our engineer is Raul Rosa. Our theme was composed by John McKusick. Our graphic design is by Katharine Woodman-Maynard. Our host is coached by Grace Daher.