Andy Sernovitz, Gaspedal Ventures

nPost.com: I am Andy Sernovitz of Gaspedal Ventures. Can you please give us an overview of Gaspedal Ventures?

Andy: Gaspedal is a general contractor; you need something done at the intersection of Internet marketing, direct marketing you call us up, and we will take care of everything. The way we do that with a relatively small operation is that we have a network of over 150 companies that we work with. These companies provide anything that you need; from big to little, simple to complex, specialty services.

nPost.com: A one stop shop then. You are a middleman for 150 products and services provided by your network.

Andy: What is interesting these days with the growth of the Internet, you hire one gigantic firm and they do everything for you. So many of these products and services have become commoditized, that you can cut half or two-thirds out of a project by picking up a piece here and a piece there, you just need someone to coordinate it.

nPost.com: Which is where your organization comes in.

Andy: Our real expertise is in networking, building dynamic relationships.

nPost.com: As we all know, the key to business success is to establish long tern professional relationships. How did you go about building and establishing those relationships?

Andy: We have been doing it for ten years, and in the last 6 months we have made 500 additional contacts, and have been signing strategic relationships. I used to run a trade association called the Association for Interactive Media, which was the first Internet company trade association in 1993. I then sold it to the Direct Marketing Association in 1999. Building relationships is the core expertise of a trade group. Gaspedal uses those techniques for building relationships and putting it into a for-profit environment.

nPost.com: How does your revenue model work?

Andy: We work for cash, which is a new type of revenue model. We work on a monthly retainer.

nPost.com: When you connect a client with one of your vendors do you then have a revenue sharing agreement?

Andy: We get paid in a number of different ways. Vendor will pay us a referral fee for presenting new business, clients will pay us retainers for supervising projects, and everything is completely transparent. Everyone knows exactly who is paying who, and how much. We are very much like a coin sorter; you put it all in the top and we sort it all out.

nPost.com: With the overall downturn in the market, have you seen a change in customer needs and issues?

Andy: Well in San Francisco everyone is in trouble, because it is a one-industry town. New York is a very different market than nationally, normal companies are actually increasing their online presence. These companies range from insurance companies, to banks, to toy manufacturers. When you take the example of the toy manufacturer, where eToys is spending 100's of Millions of dollars, a rational market driven company is not going to get involved in that type of competition. There is very little upside. Now that the market has collapsed, within weeks of eToys going under we started getting calls from toy manufacturers. They were now ready to get into the online space. Their rationalization of the market, and the environment being reset to reasonable standards, allows for a greater upside. The end of the pure play dotcom is more than offset by the inrush of traditional companies. These companies are ready to create a $500,000 website, start email marketing campaigns, TV advertising, print mailings, etc. That is where the New York market is bouncing back. The punch line here is that dotcoms are hurting but the Internet continues to grow.

nPost.com: What are the key differentiators between yourself and your competitors? There are a number of individuals in this area that are aggregating resources under a consulting umbrella, how do you differentiate from these individuals?

Andy: It is an easy thing to claim. Everyone is a consultant, and has a network. That network for most people consists of a Palm Pilot with a lot of names in it. For us the network is a scalable living process backed by proprietary technologies, and trust in the business. Our expertise is in building those networks, it is the art of matching people together and making sure that everyone wins.

nPost.com: Lay out the process for when a client first contacts you, say an insurance company.

Andy: We like to focus on normal companies. An insurance company comes to us saying that they are ready to online; that they want to perform customer service online, digital signatures, agents fulfill transactions themselves, reduce the flow of paper, etc. We then put together a project plan. We are not into putting together a MS Project plan; they lead themselves too well to project creep. We simply figure out what needs to get done. It is 1 part strategy and 4 parts experience. It isn't all that unique anymore. We literally pick up the phone, and work out who can fulfill these requirements best. Sometimes it is one firm, other times it is a number of firms.

nPost.com: And Gaspedal acts as the project manager throughout the process?

Andy: Correct, although we use the term General Contractor, because it is very similar to the house building metaphor. You could hire your own electrician, tile man, plumber, but it is much more work than it is worth. We pull all the pieces together and ensure that they are working right. We are also able to replace vendors quickly and efficiently.

nPost.com: So there is a lot of flexibility within your system, because of the overall number of relationships you have been able to establish?

Andy: Yes, but also because we use these vendors again and again. We have established long term relationships with them. Whenever you hire someone, it is usually the first time you have ever worked with him or her. We are in essence a stabilizing force. We reduce the risk, and we save a lot of work. Clients don't have to go through 40 different PowerPoint presentations, which are all the same. It doesn't really matter what their real skills are, because you have no way of truly knowing. We have documented experience with our vendors, working with clients we are able to establish what their needs are, and which vendors can best meet those needs.

nPost.com: This type of approach saves a significant amount of money.

Andy: Well, we do charge a healthy retainer. There is a reason people keep hiring us, and that is because in the end our solution is cheaper. We are able to refer the right person for the right need, and we also approach things from a totally different way than anyone else. We suggest things that no one else would ever suggest.

nPost.com: What is one example of that?

Andy: Yahoo! Shopping. Yahoo!'s shopping platform is one of the best ecommerce platforms available. It is completely customizable for individual client needs, it is used by thousands of companies, and it is $400 a month. If you were go to a web design firm, they would build you one completely from scratch for $50,000, when a better solution costs $400 a month. It is insane to do otherwise. There is a whole support community available of other users, and full support by Yahoo!.

nPost.com: What is the current scope of Gaspedal Ventures; city, state, or national?

Andy: We try and stick to Manhattan.

nPost.com: And your vendors, are they also based in Manhattan?

Andy: They are heavier here, but we have vendors everywhere. It is much more important to get the right firm. There is something about being able to look the person in the eye, and that is why we are very New York centric. We rarely take clients that we can't reach by NYC Subway.

nPost.com: Do you have plans to grow outside of NYC in the future?

Andy: The opposite, we have turned down clients that are outside of our area.

nPost.com: What is the long-term strategic plan for Gaspedal Ventures?

Andy: We have come up with a scalable consulting firm. Which is really the weakness in the consulting model. For Accenture to serve a client a great strategist, support people, and the massive infrastructure of engineers takes millions of dollars to run.

nPost.com: You are tapping into an established infrastructure that is already available.

Andy: Ten years ago, there was this virtual corporation craze, and everyone was going to be a virtual corporation. It turned out that it was very difficult to pull off, because the technique and skills required to maintain those virtual relationships is relatively complex. We focus on the network, and enable our clients to tap into that network. It gives them the benefit of that network immediately. In essence we are providing Accenture level services and complexity with a very small staff and we are able to get it done very quickly.

nPost.com: What are the overall issues that you are facing in the economy in New York, and the World Trade Center attack?

Andy: The tragedy has really affected everyone, no one is quite back to work yet. This is the first week that we have been comfortable being on the phone. As you can imagine, we are on the phone with people all day. We are fairly tapped into things, and we have found that people are at 50% productivity and focus. Everyone is a little hesitant, and pulling back. People are unsure whether or not to invest in new ventures.

nPost.com: What are you doing to cope with that?

Andy: We are giving them time. We have also been communicating with are clients and vendors, to start to establish normal business ties again.

nPost.com: Are you currently profitable?

Andy: Sometimes, it really depends on the month.