Our Story

Hi, I’m Kenny Katzgrau, the creator of Broadstreet. We’re a small, fun and dedicated team of thinkers, dreamers, engineers and misfits that cares deeply about what we do. Here’s what we do and why we do it.

In 2012, I worked at Yahoo on an ad tech platform that, to this day, gives me an immense amount of insight into digital advertising strategy.

Back home in Red Bank though, I was presented with the challenge of helping a local news publisher save an advertising relationship. That publisher was John Ward of Red Bank Green, and his advertiser was definitely going to cancel.

The advertiser has decided that they only needed social media – no advertising. We’ve all heard that one.

So alongside the publisher and John Crepezzi (a good buddy and engineer at Patch), we came up with a thing called “Editable Ads.” They were like normal banner ads, but the content would pull in whatever was on the client’s Facebook page and show that.

Could definitely have a better name, but regardless, the advertiser was impressed. They stayed on. And they’re still a paying advertiser for Red Bank Green to this day.

That experience of making an effort to impress someone as part of the sales process never left me.

I realized that there was so much more that a publisher, especially a local or B2B publisher, can do to impress advertisers, win their business, and keep them happy.

That’s how Broadstreet was born. We exist to help our publishers earn a significant share of the marketing budgets that will otherwise go to Google and Facebook.

If you want to get really deep on why that strategy works and probe my thinking, read my Ten Advantages whitepaper, the one that earned me a subpoena from Google and the Department of Justice (really).

I fundamentally believe that well-informed communities, both local and in business, are the rock on which democracy is built — and that our work is important and necessary not just from a commercial standpoint, but from a more idealistic standpoint as well.

Every day at Broadstreet is an opportunity to move the needle for this industry and have some fun doing it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

That’s who we are and what we stand for.

PS: In 2023, I purchased Red Bank Green and became its publisher, began building out the most innovative local news organization that I could imagine. The story continues.

If you’re a publisher and would like to benefit from the 10+ years of work and insight, here’s how to learn more.

If you’re a capable individual looking to write the next chapter of your own story, and ours sounds compelling, consider joining our story.