This week three years ago, I was a VP at a mid-sized publisher with a free hand to do what I want and find deals for the company I worked at.

By week’s end, three years ago, the company got acquired and became part of a 400-employee operation.  Naturally my role as VP changed.

By year’s end, three years ago, I was out of a job.

I started WatchMojo in January 2006 and “dealmaking” was moot.  I had to lay down the foundation to a company with no blue print or play book to model anything after.

By 2007, the foundation was laid and we had to start scaling:

- first content (in 2006 and onwards)
- then distribution (in 2007 and onwards)
- now it’s all about monetization (in 2008 and onwards).

As I went from an internally-focused to an outwardly-oriented executive, my role changed once again.  I am now back in dealmaking mode, which is where I like to be… but what’s really interesting about it all is just how much I’ve had to step up my administrative and operational skills.

While we continue to sign partnerships (a full slate to be announced later this week) I realize the need to structure the company in an even more efficient manner. Between systems, procedures and control mechanisms, you’d almost think we were a Fortune 500 company.

Yet we’re a lean and mean fighting machine:

I like to say that we’re a dozen employees with hundreds of distribution partners and a library of thousands of clips generating millions of streams per month.  To make that happen, it’s all about being on the ball admin-wise… which is something that was probably a weakness three years ago today.