Earned smiles
Meet AdWallet’s founder
Adam Greenhood, founder of Albuquerque startup AdWallet, is always smiling. And he has a lot to smile about.
AdWallet was created four months ago, and it is already attracted the attention of local investors, Google and nearly 20,000 users around New Mexico.
Greenhood is a California boy who moved to Albuquerque for a job and fell in love with New Mexico. He says he has no intention of leaving.
But Greenhood’s smile goes deeper than that. He was born with a cleft pallet, which required years of surgeries and braces to repair. His smile is earned.
Greenhood has a background in advertising. Over the last year, he has been taken with a notion that he feels could be a million-dollar idea: pay people to watch ads.
AdWallet allows companies to upload commercials and get a guaranteed viewership from users. Users are paid 50 cents to watch an ad and then answer a question afterward.
AdWallet, to Greenhood, is a win for advertisers and a win for consumers.
So you were born with a cleft palate?
I was. I have a cleft palate, which is pretty rare.
What I have is bilateral cleft lip and palate, which is about one in 5,000 kids have that.
Luckily, I was born into a family of dentists and plastic surgeons and orthodontists. So literally, the humans I needed to repair my face were all part of my family.
But what’s interesting is that when I was born, the story goes, the doctor told my mom, “Hey, you know, he’ll never be able to talk clearly; he’ll be pretty shy. Just ready yourself for someone who is not going to be very outgoing or want to talk.” And (then talking) became my profession.
At what age did they repair your palate?
Well, you are born with it, and it’s actually a fairly easy plastic surgery.
But if you are born with it outside of the United States, you’ll die from it because you can’t eat. It’s basically your whole palate has a hole in it.
And so when I was born, I had four surgeries within two years. The first one, you have about three months after you are born. And it’s about 200 stitches to basically restructure your lip in the hopes that you can eat and speak.
And I had braces for 12 years after that. My daughter has braces now, and she’s had them for three months, and she has to have them for two years. And I’m like, “I had them for 12 years. I don’t want to hear anything about ... your brace issues.” (laughs)
What was USC film school like?
It was great. I didn’t have a class before 2 p.m. They were all three hours long, because you had to watch a movie in a theater. It was amazing.
The film school had three different sections: There was critical studies, then you had the production school, and then there were 24 of us that were screenwriters.
So it was kind of funny. We were all interested in writing movies, and we had to take a couple of classes where it was like, “This is a camera and this is how it works,” but we were writers. We almost didn’t know which way to aim the camera.
What did you do after college?
So, when I graduated I worked for a really large agency in Los Angeles called TBWA\Chiat\ Day. And they are a global creative agency. Their biggest claim to fame is Apple. They are the agency that really launched Apple for the last 20 years.
So the clients I worked on initially were Apple and Taco Bell and PlayStation and Nissan.
I worked there for two years.
Why did you leave?
I sent my portfolio out all over the country. I was 24, and I just wanted to see something else outside of LA.
There was an agency at the time (in Albuquerque) called Rick Johnson and Co., and they were kind of the main agency here.
They were looking for a junior copywriter, and so they flew me out and put me up in Santa Fe. And I didn’t know anything about Albuquerque or New Mexico. I could barely find it on a map. I mean, I was 24. I was just excited that someone was going to fly me somewhere.
I went up to Santa Fe and loved it and then visited with the agency and said, “You know what? I’m 24, I’ll move to New Mexico.” So I stayed at Rick Johnson for five years and eventually became their creative director.
Then about 11 years ago, Del Esparza, who had a small agency at the time, was looking for a new creative director. And we met and he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
And I enjoyed my 11 years at Esparza. I got to do some of the best work of my life and had a great relationship with Del. I still have a great relationship with Del. And really got to shape how that agency looked and felt.
What brought you around to AdWallet?
Frankly, over the last few years, advertising has been changing, to the point where I started to lose confidence that people were actually watching ads.
And so, one night I actually was talking to myself in my home office about how do I get someone to pay attention to an ad. Then my wife, God bless her heart, down the hall, through two doors, all she heard was, “Who are you going to pay for their attention?”
That’s when I had a moment of clarity. Why wouldn’t I pay someone for their attention? Attention is a very valuable commodity these days. It should be actually valued.
What do you do for fun?
Golf, mountain biking, (hiking), camping.
I am an avid reader of almost everything. I love writing. I love reading. When I go to buy a bunch of magazines, I think people joke because it’s all over the map. Like I find the most ridiculous different subjects.
What’s your favorite movie?
Oh yeah, that’s easy. So this is sort of funny. My favorite movie is “Rocky.” The original, awardwinning screenplay by Sylvester Stallone, Rocky.
And the reason is it’s the only movie that comes on that I would find as a kid, and even now, I always stop when its on. And it’s the only movie that makes me get off the couch and start swinging at the air.
Even though there are many close seconds, “Rocky” is my favorite movie.