From startup to corporate… and back: A Blippar insider’s story

Laurie Benson began her career in New York at Grey Advertising, later helping to launch two TV networks and spending 13 years corporate publishing. This year she sidestepped into tech, and now works with Blippar as Special Advisor. Here she talks about her journey from startup to corporate...and back again:

Growing up in Minneapolis, I always dreamed of moving to New York to work in the glamorous world of advertising.

And, brutally determined, I did just that, beginning my career as an account executive at Grey Advertising in the bright, shiny Big Apple – back when it still was all very Mad Men!

But there is nothing more exhilarating than being part of a young company, somewhere where you’re there from the beginning, and where you watch it blossom and grow.

Working with Blippar now takes me back to the heady days after my time at Grey when I was part of the launch teams for Home & Garden Television (where I stayed for five years) and then Oxygen Media (two years), a pair of US-based TV networks for whom I set up their commercial operations.

Laurie at Blippar HQ in London with OIive the office dog

I was at the heart of the companies from the outset, building two businesses and two teams from scratch. It was an exciting time when everything seemed possible, and where rolling up your sleeves and getting stuck in to every part of the process was a team activity.

Both enterprises grew at warp speed, and we all grew alongside them, both as individuals and as a team. It was an amazing way to begin a career. HGTV had so many fans that I used to get treated like a rock star if I was carrying my branded HGTV bag through airports! Oxygen media, meanwhile, got up and running in a record amount of time. Too fast, perhaps… When we first went on air everything was ready, but a sudden power cut plunged us into darkness for 30 seconds! It certainly was exciting....

I’d always yearned to live in England, so when the opportunity arose to become Publisher of Time and Time.com for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, I returned to the hyper-corporate world. I spent four years in the role, eventually leaving to take a similar position at Bloomberg.

But after four years my entrepreneurial urge reemerged, and I decided to push myself into exploring all the exciting developments that were happening in media. So much was suddenly changing with technology that it was impossible for me to turn down a role somewhere like Blippar.

The company sits on the cutting edge of the augmented reality and image-recognition industry, and works with dedication, creativity and enthusiasm on building interactive solutions for brands and publishers that will really engage and delight young readers and consumers.

Laurie in her corporate day at Bloomberg

Working in such a range of environments – startup, corporate, print, TV, tech - really gives you a sense of how all manner of organisations work - both young companies and big corporations. It's key to understanding a broad range of clients, and a powerful tool to have at your disposal.

But life in startup world is quite different... particularly the wardrobe; when I left Bloomberg and joined Blippar it was good to bin the Armani and get back into the jeans. Gone are the heels, and I've even dared wear trainers into the office.

Despite joining Blippar as someone much more at home with traditional methods of communication, I am quickly getting comfortable with the tech landscape, and even find myself using words like ‘hack’ and ‘hashtag’. (Though I must confess I'm still not entirely sure what our server team does! And I really miss the large IT departments you find in big corporate firms, who would rush to my rescue every time I suffered a computer malfunction!)

All my years in the corporate world are going to be enormously valuable at Blippar, in which my role as Special Advisor means I explore how Blippar can go to market across different business verticals to expand their business and truly become ubiquitous.

I plan to use the experiences I’ve had all over the world - as well as the many friends and contacts I have made along the way - to help guide Blippar as we expand the business globally and get the word ‘blipp’ into the dictionary.

Here I go again!