Stop Coding, Start Calling: How MediaRadar’s Founder De-Risks Startups
Todd Krizelman joined my Cornell Tech class this week, and his founder journey is one of the most unique in tech, and chock full of lessons in start-ups and life.
In 1994, he co-founded theGlobe.com, a first-generation website. It was an ad-supported social media website that was early to market, years before the rise of Facebook. In 2006 he founded MediaRadar, Inc. – a quietly massive, profitable B2B data company servicing the media market – built out of the public market spotlight.
Going from one of the loudest hype cycles in history to building a business “brick by brick” gives Todd a rare perspective. We covered a lot of ground in class, but here are the three lessons that hit the hardest:
1. Take the Risk When the Cost is Zero
Todd started his first company in his dorm room at Cornell. His advice to the class was simple: start something when you can. Your personal risk profile will never be lower than when you are young. When you have no mortgage, no dependents, and low opportunity cost, the ROI on taking a massive swing is completely asymmetric. If you fail, your downside is just going and getting a regular job. Take the risk while the cost of failure is essentially zero.
2. De-Risking & Willingness to Pay
What do the best founders do differently at the very beginning? First-time founders build in a vacuum because writing code feels like progress. The best founders obsess over willingness to pay upfront. Todd didn’t guess what the market wanted for MediaRadar. He de-risked the business by doing an uncomfortable volume of calls to test assumptions before launching. A great product idea is worthless if customers won’t pay enough to fund a profitable business. Stop coding, start calling.
3. Find the Right Partners
The biggest takeaway was about valuation and partnership. Founders are conditioned to fight for the highest possible seed cap. But Todd deliberately optimized for the right partner – specifically working with David Frankel from Founder Collective and Scott Friend at Bain Capital Ventures (BCV). There is a massive case for lower, grounded valuations with top-tier partners. It removes the crushing pressure of hype, brings actual operational expertise to the table, and gives the entrepreneur the breathing room to experiment, miss a quarter, and grow into their next round without facing a fatal down-round.
We are taught that success looks like magazine covers and viral launches. But the most durable companies are often built by founders who test obsessively, take risks when the timing is right, and embrace the quiet, unglamorous work of building brick by brick.
Grateful to my 2x school classmate and friend Todd for telling his story to my class.
