Jeremy Bloom on Authenticity Reinvention and the Power of Community

What happens when you go from leading hundreds to launching from scratch—and decide to do it all in public? Jeremy Bloom, founder of OhHello and Co-Founder of Marketecture Media, joins Adam Katz for a no-holds-barred conversation on reinvention, resilience, and the future of adtech.

From viral dance intros to bootstrapping an AI-driven mentorship platform, Bloom shares how authenticity, grit, and a little bit of chaos have shaped his journey. He dives into Marketecture Live, the must-attend adtech conference built for real talk, not fluff, and why he believes mentorship is the industry’s greatest untapped advantage. Plus, get a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s really like to merge media, community, and business—without losing your sanity (or your hoodie).

Inside:

• The bold vision behind Marketecture Live and why it’s shaking up industry events
• AI, advertising, and the future of mentorship in an industry that never stops evolving
• Why Jeremy sees himself as the Phil Jackson of adtech, not the MVP
• From WWF theatrics to Ultimate Warrior nostalgia—because life’s too short for boring

If you love media, tech, and a good underdog story, hit play.

TRANSCRIPT

Adam Katz
We got our friend Jeremy Bloom today, so how are you, buddy?

Jeremy Bloom
Oh, hello. Hey, Adam. So I'm great. I'm excited. We're going to be talking about some awesome things. OhHello.

Adam Katz
So let me ask you, where do you come up with on your podcast, the dance in the opening. What was the logic? Was it to make people uncomfortable, get them excited, change the mood? What was the mindset?

Jeremy Bloom
If we're talking about OhHello versus Marketecture right now because I'm sure there's a nice helix DNA between all of it.

It all comes together, in this, while we're all thriving and chaos here. So the method of madness for the dance essentially was two years ago when I was first building out the first version of OhHello which fell on my face multiple times. Fucking so very, very hard on my face multiple times for about a year and a half, after being at the pinnacle of my career and managing close to several hundred people, half $1 billion, helping to.

Right an S1 throughout my career being number 2025, that company that went public then got acquired by Adobe, that was to mogul. So I've had some awesome career successes, but I've also taken a lot of different swings that I don't always talk about. And so something that those that have known me for a long time know about me is that what you see is what you get.

I have no hidden agenda. I didn't have a hidden agenda 20 years ago. I didn't have a hidden agenda ten years ago. And I definitely don't have a hidden agenda now. And two years ago, when I started the first couple pods and throwing them on LinkedIn, very few people were putting any kind of content on LinkedIn. It was all self-congratulatory.

Yeah, you got a promotion, nice job. And there was no sense of, you know, your be your authentic self. And the way that I was looking at it was, okay, here I am creating a new business. I have no idea, like if this business is going to succeed, but I'm going to put it out there, I'm going to do this in public.

I'm going to show people that you can be in your you can be in your low 40s at the time, and you can go and just try something new, take a new swing, and you can reinvent yourself. And that's what I wanted to do. And so I wanted to showcase in front of people that know me, people that don't know me, that you can go like this.

You can. You can dance. You can have fun. Because people are scrolling with their thumbs and no one really gives a shit. They're just going to smile. And they can be like, all right, that guy's fun. Like, he's doing something different. And then the people that that play along with it, the people that actually we'll do a little bit of a shoulder shimmy when we do the oh hello pop.

When we put it on LinkedIn and elsewhere. They're having fun too. They're being real. And that's what oh hello is about. It's bridging authentic connections and helping people.

Adam Katz
Very cool. Would you say that has anyone on the pod then, like, stood up and really broke it down? Or it's all just been like a shimmy. What's what's been the MVP dance so far?

Jeremy Bloom
Yeah, we've had a few people without naming names that have bumped into their desk. We've had a couple, a couple of people afterwards saying, oh, shit, that really hurt my neck. Like, I wasn't expecting that. Like, dude, you're in your 50s and you didn't stretch. Like, that's what happens. We've had some heavy hitters that weren't expecting it.

And so when I said to them, I'm like, hey, do you want to do you want to do a little bit of this? And they've had, you know, ghostly faces going, no, no, no, not in front of my investors, not in front of my, my old college alumni. I'm like, come on, this is fun.

Adam Katz
You should put a compilation together.

Jeremy Bloom
That's so funny. I found a guy in Fiverr, about 15 months ago, and I put the first year's worth. I have a compilation. I put it out there, I will, I'm going to. I'm going to put. I'm going to. This excited me. Thank you. Adam. I'll give you a tag when I post. I'll repost it.

As the audience has gotten bigger and both the businesses, all the businesses between, the Marketecture Media umbrella and OhHello incorporated have continued to ascend and the audiences for both and the and, a lot of people haven't just seen as many of the shoulder shimmies as they should. So thank you for -

Adam Katz
Let's switch. I got you, man. Any time. Yeah. Let's switch gears to, to something big. I mean, you're coming up on a big, big debut of a conference that you got to throw. What? What inspired you to start throwing conferences? Where do you think that's it's going to stand in the make up of the million dates? In this industry. What what makes you excited about it?

And what's your end goal with it? Like, obviously you're off to a great start. What what are you kind of thinking?

Jeremy Bloom
Well, you asked me about six questions all in one. So I'm going to try to handle Abcde, E and F all at the same time. I was just interviewing, on a pod right before this, as I had mentioned to you, Zika, the, the co-founder of the CEO of Innovid, and he had said to me, I'm like, so, you know, when you started this 17 years ago, I was like, world domination, world domination.

And I'm kidding. That is not for me. I don't care about world domination. I want to have fun. So to me, I've always been entrepreneurial and so I want to hit on my Marketecture live. We are so excited. For those listening, for those watching on March 17th in New York in Midtown, we are having our first Marketecture Live conference.

We are getting 400 of the smartest minds in advertising, media and technology. And the conference, the theme is Thriving in Chaos. It is all about AI. It's about innovation. It's about, just the evolution of change that's taking place on a daily basis. Nonstop mergers and acquisitions. That seems to be about three each week. Craziness in terms of is the cookie deprecating?

Is it not deprecating? New companies evolving, AI companies just popping up left and right, company companies rebranding. And we've got some extremely heavy hitters speaking. We've got all that we have, for example, Brett Wilson, Eric Franchy and, and my co-founder, Eric Pappano, who are going to be, doing a startup basically pitch for a bunch of AI companies in advertising, which I'm super excited about just having an AI based company, which is oh, hello, incorporated.

OhHello.AI, so it's going to be fun to watch a bunch of other entrepreneurs, but specifically from Marketecture What I'm excited about for this, these 400 people, is we're not doing panels. It's 400 people coming together for a day. It's Saint Patrick's Day, it's Adtech god. Adtech God is all about community. So our vision. And because now I'm going to hit on on the other five components of the question, I -

Adam Katz?
Want me to give you another 38 components.

Jeremy Bloom
Ah, I might be able to riff, so I'll be able to riff. I'm confident. Our vision for this, if you ask me, a year ago, and we didn't know each other a year ago, and I've, I've enjoyed getting to know you recently.

And so, if you asked me a year ago, I would say. Now, actually, if you ask me about 18 months ago, I was flustered, flustered, frustrated. We hadn't released the consumer version of OhHello.Io. We then released the consumer version of OhHello.io. I went from being relatively high on the totem pole at different companies, but I and a co-founder of different companies, I then wanted to build my own thing.

I took a big step back. I decided to bootstrap, technology business. And after a while, I'm like, oh, shit, this not only is this really hard and I knew it was going to be hard, but I'm also a dad. I've got two kids, I have a wife, I've got a mortgage, I've got college to pay for, and I want to set a good example to my children to my wife, to my extended family.

And so I've always been entrepreneurial, where I've had different businesses that I might not put on LinkedIn. And then I also decided it's time, after creating all the different song and dance pods that you would see on LinkedIn, interviewing so many amazing mentors within the marketing, advertising and technology and media ecosystem. It helped and helped me come up with the idea when I was talking with my friend, a very good friend behind Adtech God.

As Adtech God continued to ascend within our advertising ecosystem and community. We decided we're like, hey, let's let's start something here. Like let's commercialize the vision. A lot of people are following ad tech god. A lot of people want to be involved with this community, adtech God independently. So I was doing my own OhHello podcast to create just guerrilla marketing for OhHello.IO

ATG was starting a podcast. ATG started the slack channel behind the scenes. I was providing some guidance and partnership on the commercialization of the strategy behind it. And then we decided we just realized there are a lot of holes in our industry, and there's a lot of bullshit in our industry, too much bullshit in our industry.

And so we realized that let's do something fun, which goes back to the whole purpose of where we were 2 or 3 minutes ago. Let's have fun at Marketecture live. So let's have fun. And so we created this video series at the time called the AD Tech Forum, and it had this kitschy, irreverent, snarky kind of like Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter or an Adult Swim kind of feel.

And very few people have a real talk show kind of shows in episodes and series that they put on LinkedIn. And so we decided to create the show.

While we were building this Ari Paparo came up to ATG and I, and I've always had a lot of respect for Arie. And I had Arie. Come on. Oh, hello. I was helping to build as a co-founder, previously another company, Arie was an investor in that company. And Ari and I were catching up and he's like, what are you guys building over there.

What are you and adtech god up to like I want in I want to buy you. And I started laughing and so did ATG and we're like, I can't just buy us. And but we both had and had and have a tremendous amount of respect for everything that Arie has accomplished and done for, the advertising industry, the tech industry, the ad tech industry.

And he's just such a smart business operator and entrepreneur. So we decided to come together, the three of us, and be the three co-founders were it was essentially a merger amongst the three of us where we are all partners and co-founders of the new Marketecture Media. And when we came together, because this really hits on the question, Adam, is, what did we want to achieve?

We wanted to unify the community. We wanted to create a place, an ecosystem for, For people of all ages, all levels. To find a community, to find a network, to find education, to find not to come, to get information. That's not bullshit is what it comes out to. There's so much bullshit and just fluff in our industry.

We all three of us have been there, done that. So we bring a sense of authenticity. We bring a sense of what you see is what you get. And so when we're able to provide just that sense of rolling up your sleeves and and showcasing that this personality is a real person. And we've been in the trenches like so many of our partners, we understand the different problems, different trials and different trials and tribulations that they're going through.

We decided at the time we're like, okay, well, let's create a Barstool Sports like environment. Let's create a ringer like environment, but for advertising, for adtech, for media, for marketing. So inch by inch with every different product and show and different content that we put out, that's what we're building. And so one of the elements that we decided to do, I will completely give this one to Ari, the video series I will take credit for.

The conference was all Ari like, let's put on a conference. I'm like a conference. It's like, yeah, let's do a conference. Like, I don't want to do conference sales. Like that's I was, I've been I was managing hundreds of people and like, that's not me. And let's try it. Let's, let's try conference. And so we've got our first Marketecture live which is.

Yeah. And there we go. So that was my very long winded answer, but I wanted to be able to provide the backstory.

Adam Katz
Listen, I gave you a big, big question and you got to the right answer. I mean, ultimately, when I look at what you're doing, you know, I simplify. You know, I asked you a long question. You gave a long answer. I'll simplify some of the thought process.

Jeremy Bloom
Please do.
Adam Katz
For every jam I could throw on to. Right. But in the end, when you think about Jeremy, like what you're doing, what I like is a lot of people don't have access to mentorship. Right. And I think that's part of the biggest challenge. I mean, some people are blessed to be around that. Some people are not.

Jeremy Bloom
Yeah.

Adam Katz
And I think it's important that you guys are doing that, I love that. I think the second thing that I like, listen, you're having fun being authentic. That's what that's what it's all about.

Jeremy Bloom
Life's too short.

Adam Katz
And number three, I'm a fan of the conference.

I think you have great people. I mean, to me, people lead to people. You could throw the best conference you can throw. Authentic. I'm going to be honest or not. Yeah, but you're bringing together an awesome collection of human beings who have a lot of brainpower or a lot of will, a lot of grit and success, you know, so when people are around that, that breeds success, success breeds it.

And so I think you're bringing together a really successful group of people who whether they'll be raw or not. Well, we're going to find out. We'll talk about it, post it. You know, because sometimes it's going to be raw, it's going to be crazy, and then it's not. So we'll find out.

Jeremy Bloom
It's still a conference.

Adam Katz
We're going to wait.

Jeremy Bloom
But when you've got adtech god on your side.

Adam Katz
You know, we're going to see. Because one of my favorite things, like, like all of you coming to this crazy conference and like, you go and, you know, no one even took a shot. So like, we'll see. All right. I've been to a lot of parties.

We're gonna have fun with it. But the point is, I think what I am impressed with is just the beauty of the mentorship and community that you're bringing together. Right. Well, we're going to find out if you hit that last grand slam, which I think you're going to I, I, I’m a believer, but we're going to find out.

So we're going to, we're going to report back to everyone on Breaking Through The Mayhem after. But switching gears a little bit, right. As you know, you manage a lot of people, right? How did you go from managing a lot of people to enjoying being kind of a solopreneur? Obviously you have partners here and there, but like, how do you stay motivated when it's I know obviously kids, family, college, you said all that.

But like how do you wake up every day and just say let's go. Like, what's kind of that driving force for you and what keeps you going every day?

Jeremy Bloom
Awesome question. I've got multiple things that keep me going. I am as gritty as they come, and I genuinely mean that. I wake up and I am at the same level of energy all the time.

I'm, I don't I'm I'm not high energy and I'm not low energy. I operate at the same speed. And that's, I think, what surprises a lot of people. I don't have tremendous highs and tremendous lows. I don't weave and flow like a lot of people do. I realize that this is a journey. And so for me, I genuinely wanted to when I was leaving Adobe and I decided to leave it.

So to mogul, which was such a wonderful, wonderful experience, from being early and helping to be a part of that team to building such a fantastic and phenomenal culture and just a transparent, accountable platform with amazing leadership like it was, everything about it was it was. And looking back, especially just it was just awesome. It was so fun.

It was such a great part of my life. And then we got acquired by Adobe. Great company. So much respect for it. But I wasn't able to just be myself, I wasn't, I was kind of just a cog in the wheel. And in the summer of 2020 during Covid. So a few things are different. A few things happened.

One, myself and a couple other people, we had to move over 100 people from our team, onto other teams. And luckily we didn't have to let go, but we still had to create a plan and move 100 people, some that I had worked with for five, ten different years and, communicate to that, communicate that to them.

Adam Katz
Is there anything worse than that when you really when you really.-

Jeremy Bloom
Yeah. Death. Death is a lot worse. So. Yeah, I mean so and with it so that's so within that same week, so I know where you're going and that, that, that is very accurate. I almost lost my son. So this is really relevant.

No, no, no, I'm not trying to say this in a shocking way. I'm not trying to -

Adam Katz
You set me up for I'm going to start crying now.

Jeremy Bloom
Don't. He's great.

Adam Katz
All right. Good.

Jeremy Bloom
No no no no. Like no. He's great. He's great. He's nine and a half. He's thriving like I am. I have a post on LinkedIn I put about this and like so with my wife who's also in our industry, we almost lost our son through a drowning incident.

On Father's Day. He's great. He's great. We also have my daughter. So my son is nine and a half. My daughter's 12. They're awesome. Like, but the reason I'm saying that is it was a jarring effect that summer in the middle of the pandemic here, I helped and was part of moving 100 plus people. Almost lost my son, who's more meaningful to me than working in a company.

And in the grand scheme of things, life is very short. And so entrepreneurially I knew that I wanted to I realized how short life was and I wanted, and I had even said to my financial advisor, to my parents, to my closest friends, that I've known me for a long time. I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur.

I was an entrepreneur in my early 20s. My first career was being in sales immediately, no book of business working on the South Side of Chicago and not a great neighborhood. Commissions off the bat. So like, it's that gritty, roll up your sleeves kind of mentality. And so that helped get me into the, the into the waking up and just getting shit done kind of momentum of who I am and what I do now.

And the reason I brought up the summer of 2020 was, I went to a startup. We were moving really fast. We raised a ton of money. We then made a pivot. I realized how meaningful some of the people that I had previously worked with, some of the people that I had worked with there, and just how strong like connections and how you even said for the conference, like, all right, well, we'll talk back after the conference.

Let's see who's in the room. Let's see if those 400 people like, you know, what takes place. And so when I was thinking about that and I saw how many people in the in 2021 and 2022 were losing their jobs in marketing, advertising, tech sales, shit, I got to do something about this. Everyone's just whining and I'm not a whiner.

And so as people as I saw so many people whining on LinkedIn about like, oh man, this sucks. That sucks. Mike. Well, yeah, it sucks, but someone's got to do something. So I developed Oh Hello.io again. Now .AI, and part of the reason for it was to create a platform, a community, a sense for, for for people to find connection with one another because most people were working remotely, some people were working hybrid at that time during the pandemic, and many younger folks and many people that were in the middle of their middle of their careers didn't have mentorship or they didn't know who to go to or they didn't.

They just felt lost or stuck. And so I wanted to find a bunch of empathetic leaders in the space that would donate some of their time. So basically like, like a marketplace, a demand side platform. So we had demand for some of the top people and advertising, marketing, media and tech. I'm sorry, with supply rather than supply of.

Yeah. It's been a long day already.

Adam Katz
I don't know if it's a long day. Just you know, we're going through a lot of ups and downs of thought, you know? So just sometimes you just gotta, gotta get back on it, right?

Jeremy Bloom
Got to get back on the track. So thank you Adam. So we've got the supply over here.

Adam Katz
Stop dropping in the baton when you're supposed to pass it to me. You know, that's how you think about it.

Jeremy Bloom
Well said, well said. Well, this is good. Very good collaboration. So we've got the supply.

Adam Katz
I'm not running fast enough. I didn't put my arm. I don't put my arm back at the right time.

Jeremy Bloom
Well you helped me there. So we've got the supply. We had the demand. We had a great feature that took place in an ad age about a year ago, made the pivot and decided to do a B2B platform. So what motivates me to wake up every day is the fact that I get out, create a platform to help businesses, and help employees find connections.

To find guidance. Advice, on one on one side, one part of my brain. And so I'm bridging those connections. And those employers are creating connections and opportunities for their employees. And so it's and always on. 365, 24/7 global network of mentors where they're matched through AI there's going to be AI note taking there's going to be a bunch of AI that's being built right now.

We're actually at this is likely going to come out in the next week or two. We are going to be raising soon on that side. And then over here on the Marketecture side, I'm having a blast. I'm having so much fun because I get to work with two incredibly smart, talented individuals, and we've got this great tripod between the three of us where we all have different skill sets that really just, balance each other out.

So that's what motivates me.

Adam Katz
What is there? What is there even to say? I think we may have to wrap up now, but in terms of, just throw your mic out and let's just be done. In terms of other switching gears a little bit, as I was thinking, who would you say you are as a sports athlete? If you had to describe yourself, who would be the athlete?

Jeremy Bloom
I'm going. So you and I were talking earlier and we were talking about Kobe Bryant. We're talking about Michael Jordan. I am a team player. I am, I would be more of the, I'd either be more of the coach. I'd be the Phil Jackson. I would rather be the Phil Jackson, the coach behind the scenes. It's motivating the team. I don't care about being the MVP. That's not me.

Adam Katz
Who do you think's the greatest coach of all time?

Jeremy Bloom
I would say Phil Jackson for sure.

Adam Katz
Interesting.
Jeremy Bloom
Yep. LOL. You're also talking to the Chicago that I grew up and I was born in 1980. I grew up with the 90s

Adam Katz
I mean, could there ever be a better entrance music than the Bulls?)

Jeremy Bloom
No. Of course not .

Adam Katz
When that comes on.

Jeremy Bloom
The other answer, I would say, like, if I would say the mid to late 80s WWF wrestlers of putting on like a true show. So like what was going through my head is the actual, theatrical performances of The Bushwhackers and -

Adam Katz
Who was your favorite wrestler?

Jeremy Bloom
So like, I loved Just Macho Man and The Bushwhackers and like, just the way that they would like, just -

Adam Katz
You know that I had every single one of them, every character, every wrestling figure, probably of all time. Who do you think is my favorite wrestler of all time? If you had, if you had to make a guess.

Jeremy Bloom
The Ultimate Warrior, if you just.

Adam Katz
That is fucking weird.

Jeremy Bloom
Staring you in the eyes right now.

Adam Katz
Dude you got it. Yeah. The ultimate warrior. But actually, you're 1,000%. So I used to come running down my hallway shaking everything in the house. I had the wrestling buddy. I mean, he's one of the worst in-ring wrestlers of all time. But the energy,
Jeremy Bloom
The energy, the theatrics.

Adam Katz
Energy, yeah, just the whole thing. And I'll tell you something, I. I don't usually tell the audience a lot about me, but I'll just kind of I'm a big crier.

Jeremy Bloom
I respect that.

Adam Katz
Like if I'm watching a good movie. But like in the Jim Valvano speech or it's like, you should cry every day. I don't disagree, right? When The Ultimate Warrior came back, did you know this story?

Jeremy Bloom
Keep on going.

Adam Katz
So he came back to the WWE a couple weeks before he died. It was the first time they welcomed him back. I don't know if you know about this and you should watch it if you haven't. They bring him back like there was a strained relationship between the WWE and Ultimate Warrior, so they brought him back because they were going to put him induct him in the Hall of Fame, and they bring him back for raw.

And the crowd went nuts. Like it was like, kind of like, we're not to say that I love Bob Knight, but it was when Bob Knight was brought back to IU for the first time in 40 years. And, The Ultimate Warrior gives a speech. You got to go watch. And it's weird because he dies a couple weeks later, and it was legitimately like a speech that he would want of you to heard that would last forever when he passed away.

It's you're just so they end up doing like one of those, like, the montages that only they know how to do. Yeah. And you'll watch it. It makes you cry. And it's him speaking over the montage, all the things that he had said. So it was kind of just, oh, go when you get a chance you to Ultimate Warrior.

Jeremy Bloom
Yeah I will. If you asked me half an hour ago if we thought we'd start talking about WWF from the 80s and 90s, I would have said no, probably not.

Adam Katz
You were thinking of more sleep away camps.

Jeremy Bloom
Yeah, exactly. Well said.

Adam Katz
There you go. So you were thinking of how the geography would get that we know each other, but they said, but the point is, yeah.

That's why I like to ask some fun questions here for. Great. Because you never know where you're going to get. Last thing, you know, I was thinking about with you. We'll close with this right. If you had to put together your last outfit ever. What do you think people are thinking? You're wearing? Is it this hood? Is it a hoodie and shorts?

Jeremy Bloom
Hoodie in mesh shorts. I'm very Adam Sandler. Like, I've got, I would say I have two personas. My LinkedIn profile photo shows me with a flashy sport coat, because for 20 years of being a sales leader, I used to have and I still have a few newer ones, some flashy sport cut.

But guess what? I leave my house to go put on my flashy sport coats once every couple months. Once every few months, when I'm at home and when I'm doing pods and talking to friends and growing businesses, I dress for comfort. I don't need to have buttons, I don't want to, well,

Adam Katz
it's more fun to have buttons when we're when you're when you have a six pack, right? You know, that's what I kind of learned

Jeremy Bloom
Yeah. Well said. Yeah. You know, very well said.

Adam Katz
You know you want to wear the sweatshirt. You know. You know what’s the most comfortable sweatshirt.

Jeremy Bloom
What?

Adam Katz
Skims.

Jeremy Bloom
I think they should be a sponsor. I really think Skims and Skims have that deal with Nike that they're doing right now. So I think Skims should pay us both for talking about Skims.

Adam Katz
But can you believe that that's actually that comfortable sweatshirt?

Jeremy Bloom
Of course I can I of course I can I really can

Adam Katz
I got one and I think I've worn it 17 days in a row today. I took it off of this because like if you get it.

Jeremy Bloom
Did you wash it at least between?

Adam Katz
I try to, but I'm not the greatest. I'm not the greatest. But, I actually wear shorts every day, even in the winter. I'm that guy. So, literally right now, I'm, I'm actually. You can't see it, but I'm doing the same thing. You are, I am too. I'm the guy that gets made fun of for wearing a scarf and shorts.

Just so you know, because my next. The key to my life staying warm. If the next good life's good. So, listen, it was a lot of fun having Jeremy on. Obviously, we went all over the place. It was fun to learn about, you know, your background, your career. How you are getting there a little more about who you are, the grittiness, the way you would think about being a coach versus the actual athlete?

I thought that was one of the most unique answers I've ever heard.

Jeremy Bloom
Thank you Adam.

Adam Katz
And in closing, we got to get him a nice sweatshirt. Right? Maybe we'll get him. Maybe we'll get him a mentality sweatshirt and a hat. But thank you so much for joining us today.

Jeremy Bloom
Thank you. Really appreciate your time. Thanks everybody.