jobpostings catches up with the 25 year old owner of MetroLeap Media Inc. He's currently taking a semester off from studying Business Admin at Simon Fraser University, and was the ACE Canada National Student Entrepreneur Competition Champion in 2009.
JP: Can you tell me a little bit about MetroLeap Inc., what it aims to do, and what makes it unique both from a user perspective and a client perspective?
MT: We're a content based company, and our primary asset is metrolyrics.com ' the third largest music website in the world and North America. We get about 50 million unique visitors a month and we serve over a billion ad impressions every month. From an advertisers standpoint, we have a very large audience that's closely related to the music industry, so for any brands looking to penetrate the music market, or relate to the music market, we are a natural fit.
As a company, we strive to be the most comprehensive and accurate lyrics database out there, and we add secondary content, such as music, news, videos and pictures to keep the users engaged and give them the entire music picture rather that just the lyrics. We're making sure we provide anything and everything about song lyrics; it's really about encompassing the entire music experience around music lyrics, and bringing that to the user.
You're a student and a CTO. Can you describe an average day in your life, in terms of balancing the school books and maintaining your company?
Typically, I wake up between 6:00am and 6:30am. The first thing I do is check my email ' usually before breakfast ' send off any important emails, then I head off to work or school. The way I schedule school is a maximum three hours a day, either first thing in the morning or at the very end of the day, and night classes if possible. From the office, I have an early morning meeting with all of the developers, make sure everyone is on track, and from there either go to school or catch up on the rest of my emails. Studying is usually over the weekend, but what I find is key is paying attention in class. If you pay attention in class, you can spend half the time studying and do equally well, if not better. Once I clued into that, I didn't have to study more than a couple of hours every couple of days.
So when the business started taking off, were you ever tempted to leave school?
School for me is not what school means for a lot of other people. For me, it's more about educating myself and making myself better than a means to a career. I have my career, I have my job and I'm not looking for anything other than this. So I take a different approach to school: ÔÇÿWhat am I going to learn' rather than ÔÇÿI can't wait to finish so I can go out and get a job'.
Aside from confidence, what type of personality traits do you think an entrepreneur needs?
You need to be vocal, and you need to communicate your ideas the right way, and you need to have leadership qualities. At some point in time it's going to be more than just you. You're the leader, and if you can't communicate a proper vision, if you can't communicate the product, the values, and everything in a meaningful way, you're really not setting yourself up for success. So communication is being able to formulate your thoughts and connect with other people so they believe in you and the product as much as you do to help give the product the best chance of success.
Any advice?
One of things I keep noticing is that when I go to different universities to speak, is one full seat, one empty seat. Not taking that opportunity to network and start communicating early on, and building up your skills as a communicator, as someone who is approachable and somebody who is confident in approaching other people, is a shame. School is an ideal place to do that, so start building your skills early on, and start getting that support group. jp