Starting with the right connections drives startup success

LinkedIn puts startup on the new business development map

Within only three years, Addictive Mobility has evolved into an award-winning premium mobile advertising technology company. With offices in Toronto and Los Angeles, this social targeting specialty company has earned a reputation for excellence in its field. Its AMO mobile advertising network allows advertisers and agencies to leverage social networks and social media to develop cost-effective advertising campaigns that zero in on their target audience.

Building new business foundations

Like many entrepreneurs, Addictive Mobility CEO and Founder Nussar Ahmad says the prime focus at the outset was to drive business, expand products into different markets and provide the best value to clients.

Ahmad says that LinkedIn has played an important role in his company’s evolution since its very first days. “We first used LinkedIn to build our contact list and facilitate introductions to media buyers in various cities, particularly in the US,” he says. “Now we also use it to showcase our achievements and latest news.”

Effectively tackling lead generation

Given the company’s selling proposition is to use social data to monitor, listen and engage users, working with a social network such as LinkedIn to build their own business makes sense.

In fact, Addictive Mobility leads come exclusively from LinkedIn. “We’ve broken down the business to specific markets: Los Angeles, New York and Toronto. We’re interested in finding out a lot more than just names and titles when looking for contacts. The best thing is, in our target markets, almost everyone we look for has a LinkedIn profile.”

Gaining customer insight

Ahmad says LinkedIn is better than traditional contact databases because it gives his team insight into which brands potential clients managed and their work history. “With LinkedIn Premium we can find the right people and their areas of expertise. That gives us a good understanding of them before we make contact.”

“Nothing else is as comprehensive. LinkedIn is powered by actual people and the information is verifiable. Databases can easily be outdated, but information on LinkedIn is always current.”

~ Nussar Ahmad, Founder and CEO, Addictive Mobility

LinkedIn has been a lot more effective than purchased customer lists or databases, he adds. “Nothing else is as comprehensive. LinkedIn is powered by actual people and the information is verifiable. Databases can easily be outdated, but information on LinkedIn is always current.”

Growing the talent pool

LinkedIn has been such a successful prospecting tool that Ahmad has expanded their use of it to seek out potential partners. “When looking for partners, we can see the connections they have in their network and find the right people we are looking for, such as product development or publishing contacts,” he explains. “We’ve found quite a few good ones that way.”

As they work with LinkedIn more, and the company continues to grow, Ahmad is looking at LinkedIn Recruiter for finding new hires.

“We don’t use LinkedIn enough and want to get our company more involved with it. It’s a great tool for helping us connect more to relevant people for our business.”

An important professional network for startups

For a startup in particular, Ahmed believes that LinkedIn is a good, cost-effective way to meet people in the industry and find out who’s who. “I think of it as a soft way to cold call people. It’s the best tool out there for a startup. I highly recommend it because anyone you want to meet, you can get to through LinkedIn.”