Richard K. Kahn, CEO of eZanga.com, has been a leader in the online advertising industry since 1993. He founded SEM and search engine eZanga in 2003. Over the past 15 years, Richard has specialized in all areas of the Industry. In 1993, he organized and wrote an e-magazine that later transitioned into his next endeavor, the First Street Corporation, an Internet Service Provider. Mr. Kahn operated the First Street network out of his home and managed the customers and sales from an office nearby. In 2000, he sold the company to a publicly traded organization. In 2001, Rich joined AdOrigin Corp., a pay per click advertising network, as the COO.
Richard Kahn became a published software programmer by age 12. In 1999, Rich co-founded Paid for Surf Corp., which reached its first million dollar revenue in five months of operation. Throughout his career, Richard has held positions with leading corporations including Verizon Wireless and Bloomberg.
eZanga is also the birth place of Traffic Advisors™, a proprietary anti-click fraud technology. Traffic Advisor’s finger printing technology is one of the most advanced systems to detect and deter click fraud in online advertising. It enables users to “cherry pick” the good traffic in a real-time fashion, while the bad traffic simply gets rejected.
What are you working on right now?
We are working on three large programming projects that will help us significantly increase revenue for the company, increase quality traffic for our clients and give us better services for our users.
3 Trends that excite you?
- PPC advertising continues to grow.
- Although we have come a long way, Internet Advertising is still in its infancy.
- The fastest growing demographic on the internet is the 55 and older community.
How do you bring ideas to life?
When I have an idea I usually spend a lot of time thinking about it, how it would work, the best way to implement it, etc. Then do some brainstorming with my team if needed, then lay the plan to bring it out. Sometimes I can entrust my team members to fully carry it out, other times I have to do it myself. Either way, as long as it gets done I am happy.
What is one mistake that you made, and what did you learn from it?
The mistakes that standout in my mind always revolve around entrusting the wrong people to get things done and then putting my faith in them too quickly. I generally believe that all people are hard workers and want to do well, but have been proven wrong too many times. This has forced me to be more careful on how soon I entrust others to get things done.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
Once you make a decision to do something, after you did your homework, believe it’s a good idea: DON’T STOP UNTIL YOU SUCCEED! Determination and persistence will get you to succeed more often than an idea. Very few ideas blow up and make their creators successful without hard work. Remember, everyone has ideas, those that pursue them with an obsession are the individuals that succeed.
How long have you had the entrepreneurial bug?
I have been coming up with ideas, selling stuff, and having that entrepreneur spirit from an extremely early age. I was always looking for ways to make money. I grew up with very little and knew that was not the life I wanted for myself. I designed robots when I was in 4th and 5th grade, I built my first computer game when I was in the 4th grade, software that I wrote was published in a magazine when I was 12, I was the top sales person in cub scouts, and on and on. Like myself, I believe most successful entrepreneurs have that spirit early on, however some do develop that through life experience.
Outside of business, what do you like to do?
I enjoy spending my free time with my wife and children. I enjoy taking vacations, going to my kids sporting events, eating out, just about anything that involves spending time with my family. For mini breaks from the day, I also love watching movies either at a theater or at home on my couch. When you spend all day thinking and problem solving, nothing relaxes me more than watching others go through it on the big screen.
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