Today we’d like to introduce you to James Heller. He and his team share Wrapify’s story with us below.
Let’s start with James’ story. We’d love to hear how he got started and how the journey has been so far.
An entrepreneur since his teenage years, Wrapify CEO and founder James Heller started a digital marketing and IT consulting company that set the foundation for him to become a marketing leader in tech for Fortune 50 companies. In 2015, Heller put all of his personal funds toward launching Wrapify, a performance-driven OOH ad-tech platform with $9.2 million in funding, providing brands with the ability to deploy high-recall OOH paired with retargeting and digital attribution to create a very effective omnichannel brand experience. Since its inception, Heller has led the vision behind the Wrapify product and has been the cultivator of talent and sales team sledgehammer, while leveraging his marketing background to support the brand’s identity.
In 2017, Heller was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 – Featured Honoree. He has also been a Launch Festival Speaker and is on the OAAA Innovations Committee. He has led Wrapify to be named an Inc. 500 Company at #309 in 2019, a 2018 Ad Age Titans Finalist, a 2017 DMA Hot Zone Finalist, a San Diego Venture Group “Cool Company,” and one of Inc.’s “Hottest Startups of 2015”. Wrapify has 200,000+ drivers nationwide and counts Anheuser-Busch, Petco, and eBay as clients.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road traveled for Wrapify has been a long one. We started with four co-founders, and now we are down to one. Over the years, we have learned a lot from our past sales process and operations, in particular. We have learned from our mistakes as best we can and are now using them to grow and scale effectively. We are very proud of our hard-working team, culture and product growth over the last couple of years, as we are very strategic and focused.
The other struggle we have come to know is that raising capital as a San Diego-based company has been tough. We are trying to pave the way as this local business community continues to grow, especially in the tech space.
Please tell us about Wrapify.
Since the beginning, our biggest theory has always been relentless persistence. We have generally found success in not just working harder than everybody else near our industry, but also in not easily accepting no for an answer.
With a powerful combination of OOH, digital and the gig economy, Wrapify empowers Fortune 500 brands to reach audiences in an omnichannel environment – while delivering measurable, actionable analytics to prove its effectiveness. This high-recall ad-tech platform combines the impact of out-of-home advertising with the scalability, targeting and accountability of digital.
Brands including AT&T, Coca-Cola, and Salesforce drive awareness, attribution, and conversions with Wrapified vehicles across channels and devices. Wrapify enables brands to target and scale ad campaigns nationwide across screens and channels as well as access data in real-time to measure performance.
200,000+ drivers in the U.S. use the Wrapify app to earn extra income simply by driving. Founded in 2015 and recently named #309 on the 2019 Inc. 500, Wrapify is headquartered in San Diego, CA. Learn more at wrapify.com.
Image Credit:
ALL PHOTO CREDITS: Wrapify, Inc.
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