Listen Here

| |

Conversation
Highlights

 

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech’s most innovative B2B founders. In today’s episode, we’re speaking with Vinay Jain, Founder of MadMen AI, an AI and marketing platform that’s raised $4.5 Million in funding.

Here are the most interesting points from our conversation:

  • MadMen AI helps brands create winning ads every week while saving on testing costs: By analyzing past ads and competitor data, the platform generates creative strategies that deliver better ROI for SMBs, improving metrics like ROAS and profitability.
  • MadMen AI’s unique creative ‘brain’ continuously evolves: The platform acts like an ad agency, utilizing data from past ads, competitors, and customer input to consistently optimize creative strategies in a dynamic feedback loop.
  • Built for ease of use for busy SMB marketers: MadMen AI simplifies the ad creation process by mimicking the services of an agency, but without the overhead. Users input key data like brand assets and competitors, and the platform generates optimized ads.
  • Two customer types are key for MadMen AI: One type handles media operations in-house but uses MadMen AI for creative generation, while the other outsources the entire ad process, including budget management, to the platform.
  • Delivering measurable results for SMBs: One case study highlighted how MadMen AI helped an online education client go from losing $500 a month on ads to generating $30,000 a month in profit, thanks to data-driven creative optimization.
  • The future of MadMen AI includes expansion into video, UGC, and new ad platforms: While the current focus is on Meta image ads, the company plans to extend its capabilities to video ads, Amazon, LinkedIn, and more.

 

Actionable
Takeaways

Automate Creative Strategy with AI to Scale Efficiently:

MadMen AI leverages AI-driven agents to create high-performing ad creatives by analyzing previous campaigns and competitor data. This allows brands to automate creative strategy and scale ad spend efficiently without the overhead of a traditional ad agency.

Optimize Ad Performance by Focusing on Data-Driven Insights:

By tracking 150 parameters per ad and feeding insights back into the creative process, Vinay emphasized the importance of constantly iterating on what's working. Founders should focus on continuously refining ad creatives based on real-time data to maximize performance.

Human-AI Collaboration Improves Creative Output:

While AI powers much of MadMen AI’s platform, human experts still play a key role in providing feedback and creative input. This hybrid approach ensures that the technology optimizes ad performance while allowing human intuition to fine-tune creative elements.

Target SMBs with a Simplified, Full-Service Solution:

SMBs often lack the time and resources to manage complex ad campaigns. By offering a solution that mimics a full-service ad agency with an intuitive user experience, MadMen AI provides a streamlined alternative for brands spending at least $10,000 per month on Meta ads.

Extend AI Capabilities to Emerging Platforms and Ad Formats:

Vinay sees significant growth opportunities in expanding from image ads to video ads and other formats like UGC. Additionally, platforms like Amazon and LinkedIn present new frontiers for AI-driven ad optimization, providing founders with untapped avenues for growth.

Recommended Founder
Interviews

Hersh Tapadia

Co-Founder & CEO of Allstacks

Hersh Tapadia, CEO of Allstacks: $16 Million Raised to Build the Value Stream Intelligence Category

Stoyan Zulyamsky

Co-Founder of Costimize

Stoyan Zulyamsky, Co-Founder of Costimize: $5 Million Raised to Revolutionize Cloud Finance Management

Matthew O’Riordan

CEO of Ably Realtime

Matthew O’Riordan, CEO of Ably Realtime: Over $82 Million Raised to Build the Future of Realtime Experience Infrastructure

Ramiro Berrelleza

Founder and CEO of Okteto

Ramiro Berrelleza, CEO of Okteto: $18 Million Raised to Build the Future of Cloud Development

Anish Dhar

Co-Founders of Cortex

Anish Dhar and Ganesh Datta, Co-Founders of Cortex: Over $52 Million Raised to Improve Developer Productivity

Paul Stovell

CEO and Founder of Octopus Deploy

Paul Stovell, CEO and Founder of Octopus Deploy: Over $170 Million Raised to Build the Future of Deployment Automation

Benjamin Wilms

CEO and Co-Founder of Steadybit

Benjamin Wilms, CEO and Co-Founder of Steadybit: $7.8 Million Raised to Build the Future of Chaos Engineering

DeVaris Brown

CEO and Co-Founder of Meroxa

DeVaris Brown, CEO and Co-Founder of Meroxa: Over $19 Million Raised to Empower Engineering Teams with Better Stream Processing

Gary Hoberman

CEO & Founder of Unqork

Gary Hoberman, CEO & Founder of Unqork: Over $400 Million Raised to Pioneer the Codeless as a Service (CaaS) Category

Alan Shreve

CEO and Founder of Ngrok

Alan Shreve, CEO and Founder of Ngrok: $50 Million Raised to Help Devs Deploy SItes, Services, and Apps

Ben Kliger

CEO and Co-Founder of Zenity

Ben Kliger, CEO and Co-Founder of Zenity: $21.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Security and Governance for AI, Low-Code, and No-Code Development

Ori Keren

CEO and Co-Founder of LinearB

Ori Keren, CEO and Co-Founder of LinearB: Over $70 Million Raised to Build the Future of Software Delivery Management

Yingjun Wu

CEO and Co-Founder of RisingWave

Yingjun Wu, CEO and Co-Founder of RisingWave Labs: $40 Million Raised to Make Stream Processing Simple, Affordable, and Accessible

Mike Malone

CEO and Founder of Smallstep

Mike Malone, CEO and Founder of Smallstep: $26 Million Raised to Build the Future of Certificate Lifecycle Management For DevOps

Tomas Reimers

Co-Founder of Graphite

Tomas Reimers, Co-Founder of Graphite: $22.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Code Reviews

Eden Full Goh

Founder & CEO of Mobot

Eden Full Goh, Founder & CEO of Mobot: Over $17 Million Raised to Power the Future of Mobile App Testing

Ron Efroni

CEO and Co-Founder of Flox

Ron Efroni, CEO & Co-Founder of Flox: $28 Million Raised to Empower Developers with Reproducible Environments That Span the Enterprise SDLC

Martin Mao

CEO of Chronosphere

Martin Mao, CEO of Chronosphere: $250 Million Raised to Build the Future of Observability

Yadhu Gopalan

CEO and Founder of Esper

Yadhu Gopalan, CEO and Founder of Esper: $100 Million Raised to Build the Future of Android Device Management

Saman Farid

CEO & Founder of Formic

Saman Farid, CEO & Founder of Formic: $60 Million Raised to Build the Future of Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS)

Matt Butcher

CEO of Fermyon

Matt Butcher, CEO of Fermyon: $26 Million Raised to Power the Future of WebAssembly

Marc Minor

CEO & Co-Founder of Higharc

Marc Minor, CEO & Co-Founder of Higharc: $80 Million Raised to Build the Home Building Cloud Category

Paolo Fragomeni

CEO of Socket Supply

Paolo Fragomeni, CEO of Socket Supply: $3.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of P2P Computing

Tom Hacohen

CEO and Founder of Svix

Tom Hacohen, CEO and Founder of Svix: $10.5 Million Raised to Power the Future of Webhooks

Derric Gilling

Co-founder & CEO of Moesif

Derric Gilling, CEO of Moesif: $15 Million Raised to Build the Future of API Analytics

James Evans

Co-Founder and CEO of CommandBar

James Evans, Co-Founder and CEO of CommandBar: $24 Million Raised to Build the Leading AI-Powered User Assistance Platform

Joshua Aaron

CEO of Aiden

Joshua Aaron, CEO Aiden, $3 Million Raised to Build the Future of Software Packaging and Deployment

John Li

CEO and Co-Founder of Vimcal

John Li, CEO & Co-Founder of Vimcal: $7 Million Raised to Build the Future of Calendar Productivity

Robert Whiteley

CEO of Coder

Robert Whiteley, CEO of Coder: $85 Million Raised to Power the Future of Developer Productivity

Dylan Etkin

CEO and Co-Founder of Sleuth

Dylan Etkin, CEO and Co-Founder of Sleuth: $25 Million Raised to Make Engineering Teams More Efficient

Lukas Gentele

Co-Founder & CEO of Loft Labs

Lukas Gentele, CEO of Loft Labs: $5 Million Raised to Build the Virtual Kubernetes Category

Michael Corr

Founder and CEO of Duro Labs

Michael Corr, CEO of Duro Labs: $4 Million Raised to Power the Future of Hardware Engineering

Mike Long

CEO and Founder of Kosli

Mike Long, CEO and Founder of Kosli: $3.5 Million Raised to Deliver Secure Software Changes at Scale and Deploy to Production with Speed

Sophie Novati

CEO and Founder of Formation

Sophie Novati, CEO and Founder of Formation: $9 Million Raised to Build a Virtual Fellowship Program for Software Engineers

Gil Feig

CTO of Merge

Gil Feig, CTO of Merge: $75 Million Raised to Help B2B Companies Build Customer-Facing Integrations via It’s Unified API Platform

Andrew Wolfe

Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Bloomfilter

Andrew Wolfe, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Bloomfilter: $7 Million Raised to Power the Future of Process Mining

Zach Lloyd

CEO and Founder of Warp

Zach Lloyd, CEO and Founder of Warp: $70 Million Raised to Build a Better Terminal

Chetan Venkatesh

CEO of Macrometa

Chetan Venkatesh, CEO of Macrometa: $38 Million raised to Build the Hyper Distributed Cloud for the Next Generation of Applications

Tim Kraska

Co-Founder of Einblick

Tim Kraska, Co-Founder of Einblick: $6M Raised to Build the Visual Data Computing Category

Romaric Philogene

CEO of Qovery

Romaric Philogene, CEO of Qovery: $4 Million Raised to Help You Deploy Your Apps on AWS in Seconds

Prakash Chandran

Co-Founder and CEO of Xano

Prakash Chandran, Co-Founder and CEO of Xano: $5.4 Million Raised to Build the Next Generation of No-Code Backend Development

Pascal Weinberger

CEO of Bardeen

Pascal Weinberger, CEO of Bardeen: $18 Million Raised to Build the Future of No-Code Automation

Ayal Yogev

CEO and Co-Founder of Anjuna

Ayal Yogev, CEO and Co-Founder of Anjuna: $42 Million to Build The Future of Confidential Computing

Casey Rosenthal

CEO of Verica

Casey Rosenthal, CEO of Verica: $17 Million Raised to Build the Future of Chaos Engineering

Evan Kaplan

CEO of InfluxData

Evan Kaplan, CEO of InfluxData: Over $170 Million Raised to Build the Leading Time Series Provider

Tom Tovar

CEO and Co-Founder of AppDome

Tom Tovar, CEO and Co-Founder of AppDome: Over $26 Million Raised to Build the Future of Mobile App Security

Costa Tsaousis

CEO and Founder of Netdata

Costa Tsaousis, CEO and Founder of Netdata: Over $30 Million Raised to Power the Future of Infrastructure Monitoring

Yana Welinder

CEO and Founder of Kraftful

Yana Welinder, CEO and Founder of Kraftful: Over $3 Million Raised to Help Product Builders Create Better Products and Communities

Omri Gazitt

CEO & Co-Founder of Aserto

Omri Gazitt, CEO & Co-Founder at Aserto: $5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Authorization

Lasse Andresen

CEO and Founder of IndyKite

Lasse Andresen, CEO and Founder of IndyKite: $10 Million Raised to Empower Teams to Move Beyond Legacy Identity and Access Management

Harpreet Singh

Co-Founder and CEO of Launchable

Harpreet Singh, Co-Founder and CEO of Launchable: Over $12 Million Raised to Build the Future of Software Testing

Egil Østhus

CEO and Co-founder of Unleash

Egil Østhus, CEO of Unleash: $16.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Feature Management

Liam Randall

CEO and Founder of Cosmonic

Liam Randall, CEO and Founder of Cosmonic: $8.5 Million Raised to Power the Future of WebAssembly

Jacob Moshenko

CEO & Co-Founder of Authzed

Jacob Moshenko, CEO & Co-Founder of Authzed: $15.9 Million Raised to Build the Future of Authorization Infrastructure

Paul Kim

CEO of Notifi

Paul Kim, CEO of Notifi: $12 Million raised to Build the Future of Web3 Communication Infrastructure

David Siegel

David Siegel of Glide

David Siegel, CEO of Glide: Over $20 Million Raised to Power the Future of No-Code Application Development

Tommy Dang

Co-Founder & CEO of Mage

Tommy Dang, CEO of Mage: $6.3 Million Raised to Build a Modern Replacement For Airflow

Ravi Parikh

CEO and Co-Founder of Airplane

Ravi Parikh, CEO and Co-Founder of Airplane: Over $40 Million Raised to Build Better Developer Infrastructure For Internal Tooling

Matthew Kinsella

CEO of Infleqtion

Matthew Kinsella, CEO of Infleqtion: $150 Million Raised to Build the Future of Quantum Technology

Johnny Dallas

CEO and Co-Founder of Zeet.co

Johnny Dallas, CEO & Co-Founder of Zeet.co: $6M Raised to Power the Future of CI/CD & Deployment

Kevin McNamara

CEO & Founder of Parallel Domain

Kevin McNamara, CEO & Founder of Parallel Domain: $44 Million Raised to Power the Future of Autonomy

Honey Mittal

Co-Founder, CPO & CEO of Locofy.ai

Honey Mittal, CEO of Locofy.ai: $3 Million Raised to Build the Future of Frontend Development

James Hawkins

CEO of PostHog

James Hawkins, CEO of PostHog: $21 Million Raised to Build the Future of Product Analytics

Suresh Mathew

Founder and CEO of Sedai

Suresh Mathew, Founder and CEO of Sedai: $18 Million Raised to Automate Cloud Management for Critical Decisions

Marcin Wyszynski

Co-Founder and CPO of Spacelift

Marcin Wyszynski, Co-Founder and CPO of Spacelift: Over $22 Million Raised to Build the Future of IaC Management

Holly Tate

CMO of Leadr

Holly Tate, CMO of Leadr: Building the Future of People Development Platforms