Open Market

Three Italians walk into an adtech podcast and somehow end up discussing local media, A players, private equity, childhood labor, and the emotional damage caused by getting cut from middle-school football.

Ribeye CEO and co-founder Joe Marino joins Joe Zappa and Eric Franchi to explain why building a company is not easy, despite how effortless every founder makes it look on LinkedIn.

Joe Zappa and Eric Franchi sit down for a candid founder-to-founder conversation about what happens when rapid growth exposes weaknesses in your business.

After Sharp Pen Media grew quickly, Joe realized that delegating client work was not the same as building a system to manage it. He shares how client churn forced him to rethink his role as CEO, establish clearer outcomes, use AI to identify account risks and make sure marketing contributes directly to pipeline.

They planned to cover four topics. Joe’s first topic took the entire episode. Some things never change.

This week on Open Market, Allie Colman, Tax Partner and Northeast Technology Industry Leader at Aprio, joins Joe Zappa and Eric Franchi to break down the tax and equity decisions founders should think about before they become expensive mistakes.

QSBS, R&D credits, 83(b)s, exit planning, and yes, a hypothetical $1B exit.

Joe does the math. Eric refuses. Allie saves the episode.

Doug Lauretano, Founder & CEO of Tuple, joins Open Market to discuss why legacy DSPs may be limiting buyer access to valuable impressions.He explains how Tuple is building a next-generation DSP focused on greater visibility, transparent fees, and buyer control.Plus, Doug, Joe, and Eric settle the important question of where to find the best pizza in New York.

Jonathan Moffie, Head of Agentic Product at Magnite, explains how buyer and seller agents are already launching real advertising campaigns. He joins Joe Zappa and Eric Franchi to discuss agentic direct IOs, the future of RTB, human-guided optimization, and why ad tech companies need to move at startup speed.