Source: Scott Writes Everything

By Scott Cohen

For the next edition of the Email Snob Interview Series, I talk email with Matt Blumberg, Co-Founder, CEO and Chairman of Return Path.

Scott Writes Everything: Matt, thanks for joining me. Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me a bit about your background.

Matt Blumberg: I’ve worked in the commercial internet scene since 1994, which sounds like an awful long time ago! Until 1999, I was the GM of MovieFone’s (777-FILM) online business. Back in 1996 or 1997, we built a very cool email application called MovieMail, which was probably one of the first real commercial email programs. You signed up with your email address, a zip code, and preferred movie genres, and you got a customized email every Thursday with show time information that was relevant to you, links to buy tickets, and paid advertising from Hollywood.

This was a long time ago–so long that it was basically before there was much of a concept of the “email service provider” industry. We did everything from scratch and quickly built up a list of 500,000 to 1,000,000 subscribers by promoting the service on our website and through the interactive phone service. Although it didn’t generate a ton of revenue for us on its own, it taught me a lot about email.

Return Path’s original product and business from 1999, Email Change of Address (ECOA), was a clear win based on the experience I’d had with MovieMail. People switched ISPs or jobs, never came back to tell us, and all we were left with was a pile of bounces. That’s the business problem that ECOA was designed to solve. Since then, Return Path has changed a lot and is now 100% focused on email whitelisting and deliverability, a related but different problem.