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Open Market

Open Market

By: Joe Zappa & Eric Franchi
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About this listen

 Open Market is a podcast about building companies in the advertising industry. This is not another news podcast. Rather, hosts Eric Franchi and Joe Zappa dive into the stories of successful companies to help listeners understand how to replicate that success. Guests such as Brian O'Kelley, Jonah Goodhart, and the Vanderhooks join to share their advice.Copyright 2025 Joe Zappa Economics Leadership Management & Leadership Marketing Marketing & Sales
Episodes
  • Corey Ferengul on the 6 CEO Personas from Startup to $500M in Revenue

    Corey Ferengul on the 6 CEO Personas from Startup to $500M in Revenue
    Apr 22 2026
    Aperiam Partner Corey Ferengul joins Eric Franchi and Joe Zappa to break down the six CEO archetypes — sales, product, CTO, visionary, operator, and CFO — and how each one shows up at different stages of a company’s growth. They walk through how these personas evolve from scrappy startup mode to scaled organizations, where they succeed, where they struggle, and when new leadership layers need to come in. They also discuss the tension between vision and execution, why certain archetypes fade or become liabilities over time, and what it takes to build a balanced leadership team.
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    40 mins
  • Consumable CEO Mark Levin on Bootstrapping a Big Audio Business

    Consumable CEO Mark Levin on Bootstrapping a Big Audio Business
    Apr 14 2026
    Consumable CEO Mark Levin joins Eric Franchi and Joe Zappa to share the founding story behind his audio advertising company and why he chose to bootstrap in an industry dominated by venture-backed players. They discuss what it means to make audio “addressable everywhere,” why the channel has struggled to meet its potential in the past, and how advertisers are reacting. Mark also breaks down how he built the business from the ground up, including early customer acquisition and go-to-market evolution. Finally, they explore the tradeoffs of bootstrapping, advice for founders considering that path, and what the future of audio looks like as a performance channel.
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    29 mins
  • Eric Interviews Joe: The Sharp Pen Story and CEO Evangelism

    Eric Interviews Joe: The Sharp Pen Story and CEO Evangelism
    Apr 8 2026
    Eric Franchi turns the tables and interviews co-host Joe Zappa on the founding story of Sharp Pen, how the agency evolved into a CEO evangelism machine, and what’s broken about traditional PR that they set out to fix. They dig into the company's product-market fit moment, what didn’t work early on, the biggest client wins and failures, and how Joe gets executives to say things they’d never put in a press release. They also cover where Sharp Pen goes next and what advice Joe has for adtech CEOs looking to build a voice in a noisy market.
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    34 mins
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