My CEO Life

Since my departure from the REA Group a little over 4 months ago, i have been starting a new business called Classified Ad Ventures.   I am often asked what it is about so i thought i would post an overview of the business and what we are doing.

Classified Ad Ventures has 3 foci – Inform, Invest and Innovate around online classified businesses.   We are initially focusing on the online real estate vertical.

Inform

Inform is about providing players within a particular industry vertical with high quality information on what is happening.  Our goal is to become the “go to” source of information.

The first site we launched was Property Portal Watch which provides the owners and operators of property portals around the world with information, news and views on what is happening within the industry.  This niche site now has 10,000+ visits each month and is rapidly positioning itself as a credible source of information for the industry.

Following up Property Portal Watch we recently launched Property Ad Guru. This site provides Realtors and agents around the world with information on how they can get the most from their online advertising spend. As we build out the audience for this site, we can then launch products and services through this channel to a global audience. Well that’s the theory

More sites that inform industry participants will be launched over time.

Invest

CAV will take investments in classified sites around the world focusing on those that are early in their life cycle with the objective of providing high levels of growth in the investment.  To date CAV has investments in a number of online businesses including the REA Group, Homethinking, and Arts Hub.

Watch this space. 

Innovate

As we explore the online classifieds world and provide information to participants in various verticals, we are noticing opportunities to provide new products and services .  A goal of CAV is to develop (either directly or with partners) a number of new products and services to fill the gaps we have found.

1. Cool Company Award – Redbubble, Artshub and 3eep All Do Well

   The Australian Anthill Magazine has just released the winners and finalists of its Cool Company Awards for 2008. These awards cover a number of areas including innoation, global growth, online business and the x-factor award. The great news is that...

2. Going Global – Organic Growth Case Study

   During my time as CEO of the REA Group, we grew the business from a small operation based out of Melbourne, Australia with 25 people to a global business, operating in 11 countries and 720+ employess. One of the most...

3. Launching Property Portal Watch (in Beta of course :))

   I have been very busy since leaving the REA Group (realestate.com.au) a few weeks ago. One of the things that i have been working on is the launch of Property Portal Watch. This site is designed to provide readers with...

4. Who am I?

   For the last couple of years i have been writing this blog with a degree of anonymity.  I did this so i could comment freely on the things that were happening around me.  However i realise that this doesnt really...

5. Customer Expectation Setting

   One issue we came across the other day was about how to set customer expectations. As a rapid growth company, you are constantly developing new products and you have customers constantly wanting things tailored to their own requirements.  If we...