As we enter 2012, we are excited for what the new year holds for Chitika. We are also excited about what we have accomplished in 2011! Let’s take a look back at all of the great things that have happened at Chitika over the past year.
On December 14, Chitika CEO Venkat Kolluri was a featured panelist at the ILM West Conference in San Franscisco. Venkat joined an all-star group of experts for a discussion on the future of SoLoMo, lead by moderator; Mike Boland and Jed Williams Other panelists included; David Courtney (CEO of Jwire), Steve Espinosa (Founder and CEO of AppStack) and Ankit Gupta (Co-Founder of Pulse).
At Chitika, we are always on the lookout for smart people who can think on their feet, don’t shy away from challenges, and will always explore innovative ways to solve problems (as stated on our Careers page). At Chitika, we have an impatient bias towards action. At Chitika, we are not afraid to say what we do.
At Chitika, we get shit done.
TiE Boston held its Annual Gala Dinner in Boston on November 8th, where Chitika CEO Venkat Kolluri was honored with the “Crystal Award.”
If you haven’t already heard about it on our Facebook page – Chitika is hiring for a variety of positions.
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Chitika CEO Venkat Kolluri will be speaking at TiECon East this evening on the entrepreneurial process and his inspirations for co-founding Chitika.
For the first time, the conference will feature TiE Stars, our very own charter members (Amar Sawhney, Ash Ashutosh, Asa Kalavade, Venkat Kolluri and Venkat Krishnamurthy ) who will speak about what inspired them to create great companies and value for the community.”
-TiE-Boston
TiECON East brings together great people, be it innovators, investors, or mentors. Networking sessions such as PowerLunch on Friday are what the TiE magic is about. It is indeed a rare opportunity to meet my entrepreneur friends, Jit Saxena and Kedar Gupta amongst others in the charter member circle to discuss and share ideas on your venture.
Today is a big day for the Chitika family: we’re making a huge change to our branding by completely changing the name of our company. No longer will we have awkward conversations with potential partners like “I really like what Chittyville does,” or “hey, could I buy a banana from you guys?”
“Everyone thinks our name has something to do with bananas,” says our co-founder and CEO Venkat Kolluri. “Well, it doesn’t. The word ‘Chitika’ means ‘in a snap’ in Telugu.”
In order to ease the confusion, from now on Chitika will be known as ‘Aritipandu’, another Telugu word, but one that should create less confusion over our brand.
“Now, people won’t be confused over whether or not we sell bananas,” says Kolluri. “Aritipandu pretty much says it all.”
For those of you who don’t speak Telugu, ‘Aritipandu’ translates to banana. Given how successful our Banana Party was at AdTech Chicago in 2007, we feel we’re on to something here.
Big news from the awards front, our recently-launched Chitika Mobile Ads are one of three finalists to win the annual DPAC award for Best Mobile Advertising Network Innovation. The winner will be announced on Deceber 9th at the DPAC Awards ceremony in New York. Fingers crossed!
We’d like to thank the Academy… and all of the hard-working engineers who spent weeks locked in the server room with only a bowl of runny gruel every afternoon until they completed the first mobile ad that worked perfectly on non-mobile sites.
Find out more about the Mobile Ad Unit at chitika.com/mobile, and if you’re into digital advertising drama, pick up a ticket and head to the DPAC Awards on December 9th in New York.
Recently, our corporate recruiter Margaret Hartwig was featured in a Mashable story about recruiting for startups. Since we’re hiring, I thought it might be a good idea to run through a few things that we – like other creative, flexible tech firms – tend to look for in a candidate.
Willingness to fail. If you’re not willing to fail, you’ll never take risks, and without risk there is no home-run reward (see the stock market for examples). We look for people who are confident enough in themselves to do something borderline crazy, because they think in their heart that it’ll work.
Willingness to succeed. Goes hand-in-hand with willingness to fail, but if you want to work for fast-moving tech firms, you’ve got to be ready to succeed and deal with the pressures that come with it. Success breeds expectation; if you hit a home run, you’d better be ready to hit another one… and another one… and so on. Slow and steady does not win the race in this industry; fast and furious does.
Fight for your ideas. Fight hard. If your idea is awesome, prove it; and if your boss pushes back, be ready with data showing just how much merit your plan really has. At some point, someone didn’t invent the light bulb because their boss told them it was a stupid idea. They missed out on success, wealth, and notoriety. We don’t need that person; we need the person who told their boss exactly why it was a GREAT idea, and went on and did it.
Fit into the culture. Companies like Chitika are not IBM or Dell; there’s a core of intelligent, creative people who love the job and work together like a family (a family that innovates in a snap of the fingers). There’s no dark, solitary back room for you to plug into and work away quietly if you don’t get along; you’re part of the family, or you’re part of another company.
These guidelines should apply to any creative tech startup, not just Chitika. If you’re in the greater Boston area and think these describe you, check out our current openings, and contact our recruiting department to schedule an interview.
GeoDomain Expo is the sharing of information and best practices among the Associated Cities member/operators and is the reason why Associated Cities has become one of the most important coalitions of independent media owners on the Internet.
Vik Chhabra, Director of Business Development at Chitika, was asked to present on the: Developing Any City panel.
Not all cities are created equally. What core strategies can be used to monetize any city’s potential, regardless of size or tourism numbers (or lack thereof).
Vik Chhabra speaking at GeoDomain Expo 2010
Alden DoRosario, Co-Founder & CTO, Chitika spoke on a panel about “What Works for Ad Networks: Technology Challenges” at AppNexus Summit 2010.
Alden was joined on a Technology Panel with others who represent the richness of innovation happening in the ecosystem of technology. Click the video below or click here to watch.
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