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Moving into the DTC space after operating only in retail is a tricky tightrope to walk. You have already-established partnerships that you don’t want to jeopardize and a consumer base that you don’t want to cannibalize. But you also want to bring innovation and new products to your loyal customers, and you want to build more personal relationships with them along the way. So how do you win in all areas? Or can you win in all these areas?Andy Judd is the CMO at Yasso, Inc., and finding the answer to that question is currently at the top of his todos. . Yasso sells frozen yogurt bars, which side note, are the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. Yasso just recently began its journey into the world of DTC. Ultimately, Andy knows that building a profitable DTC arm of the business is one of the toughest challenges in the ecommerce industry today, especially when shipping frozen goods, but he’s done it before, and his tapping into all his knowledge he’s built up from prior roles at companies like ONE brands and Campbell's soup!On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Andy tells us what the move to DTC has been like so far, including the added challenges to logistics when it comes to shipping frozen novelties, what strategies he’s been using to ensure transparency with retail and third-party partners, and why he wants everyone listening to understand that ROAS is not the same thing as ROI. Enjoy this episode … and maybe also a Yasso bar!Main Takeaways:Deep Freeze: The logistics of shipping frozen foods are still being fully fleshed out. For certain products, such as frozen fruit, or even cartons of ice cream, you have a bit more leeway in temperature states and the risk of thawing and refreezing. With something like a frozen yogurt bar, you have absolutely no wiggle room, which means that there has to be multiple layers of pressure testing, route optimization, and quality control in order to ensure that customers are getting the product they expect instead of a puddle of froyo. It is only after you have optimized every step of that process that you can feel comfortable moving more to a DTC space.ROAS Does Not Equal ROI: In ecommerce, ROAS is one of the metrics you hear about often. And while it’s important, it’s also critical to note that ROAS does not equate to ROI, because ROAS often does not account for incrementality. So be very careful when you are measuring your success and be sure to take into account all of the other activities that bring in revenue and returns. Doubling Down: As Andy put it best, “I have a general principle of double and double and double and double until it breaks. You double until that ROAS really starts to decay at a rate, and then you know where your ceilings are.” A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats: When you are selling DTC on a third-party platform, it is important to be upfront and transparent with your retail partners. Talking through who you’re targeting, how you’re pricing and why bringing incremental customers into the business helps all parties — more brand-loyal customers will buy across all platforms, including in retail — will make for a much more productive relationship.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder and CEO at mission.org. Today on the show, we have Andy Judd, the Chief Marketing Officer at Yasso. Andy, welcome.Andy:Thank you, Stephanie. Great to be here and look forward to today's discussion.Stephanie:Excited to have you here. Like I said, I am getting hungry now thinking about this conversation. My stomach actually just rumbled. I don't know if anyone heard that, but that's how I feel about this conversation today. It's going to be a good one.Andy:Yeah, no, I'm excited. I think we've got a lot of exciting things happening on the business that I think we can offer some interesting perspective to the community.Stephanie:Cool. So, I saw that you have been in the CPG space for over a decade, starting all the way back at good old Campbell's Soup, which I'm like, that's a good history there of really knowing what you're talking about.Andy:Yeah. I've been extremely blessed and fortunate to work with some great companies along the road, those large blue chip companies like Campbell's, down to smaller emerging businesses like Yasso today. Each of them is definitely different culturally, business model, go to market, marketing approaches, not only from the size of the businesses, but also what's taken place over time. I appreciate you said one decade. In that lead up, it is a bit longer than that, but-Stephanie:I think I said over, but I didn't put numbers.Andy:Over, yes. I appreciate you not going all the way to, but yeah, I've been very blessed to work at great companies, great, amazing teams and leaders that have shaped a lot of my thinking. And now I'm happy to hopefully give back some of whatever wisdom I've collected back to your community too.Stephanie:Cool. Well, to start, I want to hear, from a very high level, how do you view the food and beverage industry today compared to maybe even just a couple years ago? How has it changed and how did that lead you to creating Yasso?Andy:Yeah. The speed of change is definitely picking up pace, and I'm not even talking about the realities of the past year, because that's a whole different kind of situational change, but the speed of change has definitely changed a lot. When I started my career, there was a very set number of customers, and we had a lot of customer consolidation happening, but then really, the marketing landscape started to evolve. Obviously, around 2008, 2010, Facebook came on and just rewrote the playbook dramatically. It took a while to internalize that, particularly in the food space, I think we were a little slower to adaptation.Andy:Analytically, I don't think we were quite ready for that moment. But once we kind of got our feet underneath us as a space, it really took off, and now it's how fast can you run to the newest platform to get the most efficiency before the system goes, particularly as an emerging brand, finding those places where I can flank, get the most bang for my limited dollar set versus some of the larger spenders is really important. And I think it's bred a new capability set for today's marketing leaders, that is constant evolution. While, yes, I run, to some varying degrees, the same purchase funnel, the activity that's happened within it, wildly different.Andy:I gave a speech to my alma mater and some marketing students and walked them through like, "When I started my career, here's what we did. We ran TV commercials and a newspaper based FSI. Waited 18 months to see if it worked, and then probably made a decision before we even got the results to do it again, and it's just wildly different from how we activate today."Stephanie:Yeah, that's great. So, you have all this experience, I'm guessing you're starting to see opportunities. What led you to Yasso and what did that process look like?Andy:Sure. So, I joined the Yasso team a little over a year ago and had known the founders for a bit, and known our CEO for even longer. And like many moments where they recognize the step change from kind of the what got you here won't get you there, brought in a new management team to implement a double down on the growth strategy. So, great product. I won't talk too much about the product because you are hungry, but it is a fantastic product. Super creamy, super delicious, great nutritional, clean label, it really does have all the components. But really, it was a bit landlocked on the East Coast, founded and formed in Boston. And this team is rapidly building out that distribution footprint, investing and building the brand.Stephanie:Yeah. Also, how can you go wrong when the founders are kindergarten friends? I mean, that sold me right away.Andy:Absolutely. Yeah, Drew and Amanda, I will say this, have been just fantastic to work with, both in the principles they've set as an organization from a company culture perspective, and how we value employees, and what benefits we give them, to how we make an impact in our community. We do have a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization called Game On! Foundation. That's a big part of it. And then just this amazing product. As a marketer, I love that moment where it's like, "Build a brand. Here's this amazing foundation."Stephanie:Yep. So, what did your first 90 days look like? Of course, you always come in and kind of study things, see how things are working, but then what did your first 90 days look like? What did your playbook look like to start solving some problems there?Andy:Sure. It was a busy first 90 days. I had just come off of another transaction and was one of the last management members to join the organization. And so marketing, to some extent, needed to catch up. We were also moving the company from Boston to Boulder in that moment, and so there was definitely a team rebuild that happened there. So, first 90 days was establishment of strategy, getting the structure identified and a lot of recruiting, whilst simultaneously starting to build the components of activation to get us to ice cream season in 2020, which I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about, the sheer pivot that took place. Andy:So, strategy, put the playbook in place, get the key components, the critical components lined up, get the right team. Stephanie:Cool. So, you were just mentioning old school close tactics. What are you talking about [crosstalk] for anyone [crosstalk]?Andy:Yeah. Literally, couponing. I mean, I'm not kidding. Now, that evolution of incentive based activation has changed, right? The platform in which you may do that today looks a lot different than the platforms that we used to do that a while ago on. But yeah, I think there's reality to finding consumers and giving them incentives into trial and activating that personal truth in retail. It is not our largest investment, but it's an important one as we think through that funnel, particular in a category like this where taste is so critical that if I can get someone to push past that by giving them a little bit of an incentive and then know that my product is just lights out, is a great way to do it.Stephanie:Yeah. And are these coupons digital? Are they emailing coupons out? How are you doing that?Andy:Yeah. It's a number of different... So, we definitely operate that on owned basis through CRM. So, we definitely give incentives through kind of consumers that we've got into our ecosystem. That is, by far, the most valuable ones, which is keeping those people moving. Then there is outreach programs like Ibotta, that we've used, Shipt, Instacart, which also have, obviously, a shopping mechanism to them to drive trial. I'm sure we'll get into that at some detail as we talk about our omnichannel applications.Andy:And then some in-store placements, tried and true, IRCs, at shelf, to draw the consumer our way. This is definitely a very open trial based category where y'all want to try new things, and I'm looking for options, and if I can grab a millisecond of that scan at shelf by violating that with a save, definitely can do that. So yeah, it's definitely all components digitally, organic and owned, as well as in retail.Stephanie:So, let's dive into omnichannel, which you mentioned a little bit ago. Tell me a bit about how you guys had to potentially pivot post COVID, how you worked with your retail partners. I mean, I know that we're talking about how it can get kind of tricky too when you're, I guess, overly heavy on retail, and then all of a sudden, you're maybe trying to shift to DTC, and you don't want to make your retail partner sad. How did you guys think about that and explore that, especially over the past year?Andy:Sure. So, this brand was, I don't want to say 100% retail when I joined, but for this purposes, let's say it was 100% retail. Very limited investment, even on concierge based programs like Instacart, or even no investment on your platforms like Fresh, or walmart.com, it was very limited in that regard, and there was no DTC at that moment. Some of that is driven by frozen temperature state, right? I don't think... no third party platform has fully figured out that last mile in full temperature state. Retailers are definitely getting their closer and closer, Fresh is definitely pushing the boundaries there and building out an incredible footprint now. And I think COVID has exacerbated or built a lot of momentum to figuring out that for refrigerated and frozen temperature state products.Andy:We already had that in our plan. I think that all indicators of the consumer behavior was headed that way. COVID just made that evolution go faster. So, per my earlier point on change is just getting faster, COVID made this change faster. And so the dramatic shift that we saw, we knew we had to run pretty quickly. So, we were already strategically aligned to what that would look like, and for us that is four primary components of omnichannel. One is obviously DTC, and we'll talk about the intricacies there. Two is the concierge based programming and making sure that we're actively engaged there. Three is third party, and four is partnership with retail, primarily through online pickup and delivery.Andy:And so when we think about DTC, that's one component, but given that we're frozen temperature state, we really have to think broadly because of logistical challenges of working through shipping individual frozen Greek yogurt bars to a consumer's home and making sure that it gets there and it's not a puddle of Froyo is really challenging, particularly in an environment where FedEx is flushed with volume, logistics providers still haven't fully come to terms with the incremental volume in the system. So, it's definitely not without its operational, logistical challenges, but four components for us as we thought through that strategy, and we're diligently building each of them up, some of them simultaneously, and some of them we've kind of said, "Hey, we'll come to that one in a bit because these are more critical to success in the short term."Stephanie:Yeah. So, before we get more into the four pillars and the omnichannel piece, I do want to maybe jump into the operations aspect of how did you figure out this frozen shipping in a way that maybe others haven't so far?Andy:Yeah. So, let's start with our product DNA first. We make frozen novelties in a bar shape, so there's no forgiveness in that delivery, and we have to be pretty flawless against that, unlike, let's say, frozen fruit or even frozen ice cream pints, right? That can have a little bit of give, and the pint carton will hold its shape and kind of refreeze, no different than when you come home from the store. Novelties does not have that. If I have a little bit of give, that's not going to refreeze in what I believe our brand lives up to from a taste and sensorial experience.Andy:So, first and foremost was, we did a ton of pressure testing through a pretty in-depth thermal testing program. We vetted a nu…
Full show notes at the publisherThe world is moving toward being decentralized in every area from the internet to big business. What that means is that the way we do things will change, and in some cases, those things are already vastly different than the norm we all have grown accustomed to.Funding and investments are one aspect of the business world that for a long time have operated in silos. But the tide is shifting, and David Koifman is helping to democratize the world of investment through his work at Kickfurther.Kickfurther is an investment platform that uses the power of crowdfunding to help CPG companies fund their inventory and production runs. Most of the deals on Kickfurther are fully funded and closed within minutes, which proves there is an appetite for this kind of investment in the general market. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, David explains the model and its benefits to both businesses and investors, and he explains how crowdfunding will continue to make an impact on ecommerce companies in the decentralized future. Main Takeaways:Democratizing Investment: For too long, companies have been at the mercy of financial institutions to help fund early production runs or other operational costs. And while that solution works for some, we think that new solutions are still needed. Opening up investment opportunities to the general public is a peek into where the world of funding is headingKeep Proving Yourself: When a company gets a bank loan and pays it off, the business is seen as more successful and its credit rises. A similar thing happens when a company uses crowdfunding for inventory: by delivering the inventory the crowd has purchased and then opening up a new round of funding, a business is building credibility with a consumer and broad investor audience that it otherwise would not have been able to reach.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This is Stephanie Postles. And today we're talking to David Koifman, the head of growth at Kickfurther. David, welcome to the show.David:Hey Stephanie. Great to be on the show.Stephanie:I'm glad to have you. So I was looking through your background and I was hoping we could start there because I saw that you've been in sales and partnerships and business development, and it seems like you've had a wide ranging career. So I wanted to hear a little bit about what you did before Kickfurther, and what brought you here.David:Before Kickfurther? I was in marketing right out of college. And then I went into the world of startups in financial technology. I began as a sales rep and grew within a small organization to a much larger organization, led the team, and basically built out sales account management partnerships. And then we were getting to a stage of growth where I wasn't feeling the excitement that I initially felt and joined the team at Kickfurther to do it all over again. So I've been here three and a half years. It's been awesome. We've grown tremendously, and I'm very excited about the next few years to see where it will go.Stephanie:Awesome. So you've always, always had the startup bug, where you're looking for that crazy hectic environment, fast growth.David:Yeah. It's like I see myself as a sales guy who doesn't like just selling. What I like is building the sales process, building the team, understanding the customer. So a little bit more beyond just knowing individual customers and building a book of business.Stephanie:Yep. Got it. So tell me a bit about what Kickfurther does.David:So Kickfurther solves a unique problem that every consumer goods business faces in their early stages of growth. You'll see a lot of companies are funding on platforms like Kickstarter, Indiegogo. These are crowdfunding platforms where businesses raise money to fund their first production run. Production run is when a business is producing inventory. Inventory is the product that they sell. So as that business completes their crowdfunding campaign or determines that they have product market fit, they will need to come back and order more product. Sometimes, they're buying that product from a supplier, maybe a manufacturer in China or here in the U.S., somebody that produces a finished product, and then they receive it in their warehouse and they sell through it. Sometimes they're buying a bunch of raw materials and making a product themselves. Usually that's the case in food or some health and beauty applications.David:But the bottom line is that costs a lot of money, and the faster the business grows, the more they have to invest into inventory upfront. You have to pay for that inventory, it takes months to produce, and then you get it into a warehouse and then you start selling it to customers. And then your customers start paying you. So there could be a long amount of time from when you need to outlay that cash to produce the inventory until you're able to recoup that revenue and put it into the next production run. So as businesses grow, they encounter this cash flow pinch, and Kickfurther solves that pinch. We have developed a marketplace on kickfurther.com, where we will vet companies and structure deals. And then a community of users will come to those deals and participate in purchasing the inventory for that business. The business will then produce the inventory, sell it, and pay back Kickfurther and the users who participated in the deal; we'll make some money and get to do it all over again.Stephanie:Yeah. Very cool. It reminded me of, I saw quite a few real estate investment platforms like this too, where you get the fund, the next three or whatever it may be. So it seems like they're popping up in different ways to have a Kickstarter approach, but also getting people in the market who have the funds to be able to fund this inventory or investments or whatever it may be. So is that the main way that Kickfurther is different, where it's sourcing investment from the community instead of traditional lenders or actual investors?David:Yeah. So I mean, what we're doing is using the power of crowds rather than financial institutions. There's a lot of solutions out there that take money. They borrow money from banks and other financial institutions, and then present it to businesses and take a cut. And what we're doing is creating that opportunity for any individual on the internet, somebody who has money sitting in their bank account, and they want to use that money to make money by participating in a purchase of inventory for a consumer goods business. And so what we do is, it's not a loan. It's not an investment, it's actually a consignment agreement. So what we're doing is purchasing inventory for a business and consigning it to them to sell on our behalf. And as the business sells that inventory, then that triggers the consignment, and then we invoice them for it and they buy it back plus their cost of funding.Stephanie:Got it. Okay. So how do you make sure that you're bringing on companies onto your platform that won't make you nervous, where it's like, are you actually going to sell all this inventory? Because I'm not trying to cover that cost.David:Yeah. Well, there's a pretty thorough diligence process that we go through for every business that goes on the platform. We evaluate everything from their revenues to their supply chain, to how they distribute that product. And it's all verified through documentation. So it's not like anybody can come to us and say, Hey, we need money," and then just go up on the platform. There's a diligence process, just like there would be going to a bank or any other financial institution. I would say our uniqueness is we look at supply chain and distribution, and we assess risk in a very specific way. It's different from a bank. So some of our customers, everybody wants to go to a bank. Bank money is the cheapest. You want to go to a bank and get a line of credit and fund your business that way.David:However, if you're a small business, whether you're a restaurant or a clothing store, the bank looks at you the same. They say, how long have you been in business? Are you profitable? How much have you sold? Whereas we're looking at a very specific sector of small businesses that are consumer goods, businesses with supply chains. And we understand the intricacies of that supply chain and then how they get that product to their warehouse, get that product from the warehouse to the customers, and collect that money through their distribution channels. And so we use that information to determine who has access to capital on Kickfurther.Stephanie:Got it. Yeah, what's cool is that you guys are acting as like the trusted source, so that the community doesn't have to do as much due diligence, or I don't know if they do any at all, but you're acting as like the mediator, to be like, "We've done all the research. We know this company, and it's for the most part trustworthy," and then people can come in and fund that based off of your research and due diligence.David:We do verify all the information that's presented about the company. The individuals still do decide which deals they participate in. And that's based on what they read in the public profile. Some of them will go investigate more. Some of them will actually ask questions on the platform. So you have the ability as a participant to ask the owner or CEO questions before you participate, or during the deal, about distribution or how they're making products, or what if they're worried about competition? Any topic is welcome. There's a lot of additional diligence that an individual can conduct before they make the decision to participate.Stephanie:Cool. And is there a risk rating of, okay, this company is more of a startup one, this is going to be their first time raising money here; we're going to give them a risk rating of this? so maybe you have a higher payoff because of that if they end up selling all the inventory, or how do you guys think about the risk-based approach when it comes to getting investment?David:It's not as simple as just boiling it down to a one to 10 scale or something like that. But there's a lot of categories which each one of the customers that we fund will be shown in. And so you can look at how many years in business, what their revenue range is, how many different wholesale buyers they have, how many times they've gone through the supply chain and produced with their supplier. So there's a number of different elements that, that are categorized in terms of risk.Stephanie:Got it, cool. And what is the average return for someone? If I were to go in there and invest right now in a deal, is there an average range of what you make over one year or that a longer time horizon?David:So the deals range in duration from two to 10 months. So the way we compare deals is on a profit per month basis, and businesses will offer anywhere from one to two percent per month. And so you can annualize that in a way where, if you participate in a deal and then that money comes back to you, then you can redeploy it into another deal. And if you continue doing that, let's say 1.5% a month will translate to about 18% per year.Stephanie:Got it, cool. So what kind of struggles do you see ecommerce brands having right now when it comes to ... Obviously not having money to fund inventory is the high level problem, but maybe what kind of sticky situations do you see brands getting in by either waiting too long to get funding or not even thinking about it. What are some stories that you have around the whole inventory funding?David:Yeah, I think the biggest thing to do is to be proactive and understand what solutions are out there and how to use them before that need comes around. Because being desperate is the worst time to be looking. And if you've run out of inventory as a business owner, you're missing out on opportunities to sell. So like you could have a really successful Q4, and then you get to Q1 and people still want to buy your stuff, but you're all out. And then you placed an order with your supplier, and the supplier takes two months to produce. And then maybe you're in a position where you have to air freight instead of going on the water and you have to pay a lot more money to get it there faster. So there's all sorts of obstacles that come into play. And that's ecommerce.David:A lot of the businesses that we work with are multi-channel sales. So they're selling ecommerce and then they're selling to target or Best Buy or REI. And those companies will place orders, if you don't deliver those orders when you say you will, then you're probably going to lose that opportunity or at least jeopardize it in the future. So it's important to make sure that you have the inventory ready when you're going to need it. And you also don't want to have way too much. So if you buy a lot, and then you don't sell at the rate that you expected, you have a lot of cash sitting in the form of inventory in your warehouse. Sometimes it's going to go bad, if it's a crude product or it's just cash that you want to spend on advertising to sell the product, but you can't because you don't have it.Stephanie:Cool. So if I'm a new brand and I'm looking to crowdfund my inventory, what are some best practices that attract the investors in the crowd? What kind of things do you see connecting with people? How would I write up a good post right now to attract funding for someone to help with my inventory?David:The most important things are that you've done it before. So we don't work with businesses that are doing their first production run. We did in our very early days, and, as you can imagine, it's much higher risk. So we only work with businesses that have at least $150,000 in sales. And once they've demonstrated that, it's good to talk about how you work with your suppliers, what sort of things you do to ensure that you're going to receive the product that you want to receive within the timeframe that you plan on receiving it. So being conservative with time estimates, making sure that you have testing in place so that once your supplier says the product is ready, that somebody goes in and looks at it and you don't get a bunch of broken stuff.David:And then once it arrives, it's important that you have reliable distribution. People want to see good reviews. People want to see lots of reviews. And I would say, if there's somebody who's selling to a wholesale customer and they just have one customer who is placing large orders, that's pretty high risk. Because if that customer decides they don't want to buy anymore, who are they going to sell that product to? So those are the kinds of things that users on Kickfurther are taking a look at, reading through the profile, to decide if they're going to participate. One thing I will say that we haven't touched on is how fast these deals fund. So it's good for us at this point. It means that there's an imbalance in the marketplace in our favor. So the deal flow that we put up gets funded oftent…
Full show notes at the publisherWhat happens when you can’t own the direct relationship with your customer? In the ecommerce world, you would think that’s pretty rare, but companies in big and highly-regulated industries deal with this problem daily. Anheuser-Busch is one of those companies and its team has had to be innovative in the ways they gather insights and create relationships with customers. Arabella Watters leads Category Development and Insights for ecommerce at Anheuser-Busch, and she is helping bring creative solutions to understand exactly who AB’s customers are, how they shop, and what they’ll want in the future. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Arabella dives into the roundabout ways that AB has had to gather data, and she explains how important it is to have a two-way relationship with retailers in order to share data that is useful to both parties. Plus, she explains why we can all learn a little bit from our international peers and what sorts of innovative approaches ecommerce brands can implement on their own right here in the U.S. Oh, and Arabella teases some exciting influencer content coming up soon that AB put together with Travis Scott that you’ll definitely want to check out. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:It’s a Two-Way Street: With retail partners, sharing data goes both ways. Whether it’s out-of-stock data, landing page placement, or general consumer insights, there’s information that both sides need to have access to. Establishing a reciprocal relationship of data-sharing will not only take the partnership further but transform how you can serve consumers.Digging For Data: Accumulating and then analyzing consumer data is the only way to get a 360 view of who your customers are and how they shop. But in industries that are heavily regulated, such as alcohol, having a traditional ecommerce experience is not quite possible, which means you have to get creative. Put on your creative hat and listen in to hear the many tactics you can use to get intel on your customers in a fun and unique way.Take What You Can: Although China is far ahead of the U.S. when it comes to ecommerce adoption, and how it has permeated through just about every industry — alcohol included — there are still points of inspiration and innovation that can be brought to the American market. Creating full omnichannel experiences and engaging with customers at every touchpoint on the customer journey are just two examples.Premiere Partnerships: Influencers are a dime a dozen these days, and it’s easy for a brand to pay for someone with a big following to promote a product. But the ROI from that is negligible. What works better is a more authentic strategy in which a brand forms a true partnership with an influencer or celebrity who is truly connected to the product and the campaign in a personal way. That authenticity resonates with audiences better than most other marketing activities.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey everyone, welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder and CEO at Mission.org. Today, we're chatting with Arabella Watters, the Head of ecommerce for Category and Insights at Anheuser-Busch. Arabella, welcome.Arabella:Thank you. Happy to be here.Stephanie:I'm excited to have you on here. Is it too early for a beverage? Or ...Arabella:Yeah, it's only 10:30, otherwise, I'd definitely would be having a seltzer next to me, for sure.Stephanie:Yeah. So speaking of seltzer, I was think that you're the perfect person to talk about all things D to C alcohol, not just because you're working at Anheuser-Busch, but because of a company that you actually started out of college that I saw you were taking an entrepreneurship class, and you actually took your project and ran with it, and I want to kind of start there because I thought that was really cool, and I was like that's impressive. Probably no one does that that I know of unless maybe you're at Stanford that's a little bit more normal, so tell me a little bit about that.Arabella:Yeah, definitely. I think it's a good segue into how I got to AB for sure. So I founded that company, Mojo, with my partner, exactly like you said, during college. So we were taking an entrepreneurship class, had this idea, and just decided to run with it because it felt like a really kind of rich and impactful idea that could actually go somewhere. I'd say it's super interesting when I think about how it kind of came to be and came to fruition. My partner and I at the time had both been studying abroad during our junior year. We actually were in South Africa, and had just a lot more exposure to kind of the alcohol and drinking culture in a less regulated place, which sounds really interesting and funny, but in South Africa, you can buy wine whenever, the drinking age is a little more relaxed and people are getting a bottle of wine, having a picnic, going for a hike, all of that.Arabella:Kind of more casual, outdoor, daytime drinking behavior. And we found it very, very, one, fun, and two just interesting and kind of something that was missing from the alcohol market in the US. So I've always liked wine. I grew up in California so it was something I was familiar with, but we kind of had the realization that wine in the US was very much so kind of stogy, a lot of different options without a lot of different differentiation, and the majority of the time it's very heavy red wines that make you fall asleep, and hard to drink.Arabella:So the insight that I kind of had was that there really was this growing opportunity for more easy to drink, lighter, social beverages that could be portable, you could take them on an adventure, you could drink during the day or during a more active activity. And I'd say so that was really kind of the thought that led to Mojo, which was basically a wine spritzer based off of this drink in Spain that was wine and Coca Cola. I think it actually was such an amazing experience to have and to dig into those insights and build that brand because now that was five years ago, but we're seeing that same trend of easily more portable, lighter, more sessionable drinks like seltzers or canned cocktails are really growing at such a huge speed. So I do feel validated that one, that was an insight that was definitely something that was a real trend that was growing, and two it really kind of exposed me to the alcohol biz early on.Stephanie:You were just ahead of your time. You're just a futurist.Arabella:I like to think of that too. It's funny though, now looking back when we were pitching it, it was kind of just this counter culture idea of oh you want to put wine and make it sparkling and you think people are going to drink wine outside during the day? And now people are chugging seltzers left and right during the day, so it's pretty much the same thing. So it's nice to feel validated now for sure.Stephanie:I'm sure that was a really good experience. So what ended up happening with that?Arabella:So I think the other less fun and more kind of realistic part of the experience was getting exposure to A, the legal landscape of alcohol in the US, so super challenging, a lot of barriers to entry whether it's getting permits, getting the ability to be registered as a wholesaler and selling to retailers and all of that stuff. So I'd say that in itself was challenging. We got through it, but the bigger challenge was just in order to really have the scale to get a beverage company off the ground, you need to have a lot of capital, and like you said we were pretty close out of college, had done a couple entrepreneurship pitch contests to get some funding and had gotten some funding through crowdfunding sites, but didn't have a huge amount of money at our disposal.Arabella:So I think what kind of is full circle for me is while we had to make the hard decision to not continue pushing on with it since it was so expensive to be getting a proof of concept, now I get to be at AB where it's such a huge scale operation where those things aren't a problem. So I like to think I can take some of those learnings and apply it to my job now.Stephanie:Yeah. I was actually just going to say you were in this kind of D to C world if you would have been fully launching and everything, and I'm sure Anheuser-Busch saw that and they're like that's exactly what we need, someone who was ready to start talking one to one to a consumer, like have the idea to do that. How was it when you transitioned to Anheuser-Busch and you're working on ecommerce for category and insights and all of the sudden you're like oh I actually can't talk to my consumer directly, it's like a roundabout three tiered system that I don't even know who I'm selling to really.Arabella:Yeah. You hit the nail on the head. It's definitely adjustment, it's definitely different. I think when I was thinking of joining the team, what I was really drawn to was exactly what you were saying, that there kind of was this gap in understand of who the ecommerce alcohol shopper was, and I love insights, that's definitely my passion point of my job. I love the whole job, but understanding the shopper really is what kind of gets me up and going in the morning. So yes I was drawn to this new channel that it was a new way people were shopping, that there really wasn't a huge amount of information available.Arabella:I think now being actually faced with it and not having access to direct sales data and to actual onsite metrics because we're working through the three tiered system with retailers definitely has been a challenge. Although I do think it's really kind of forced me to think creatively and think about how we can structure our research and our insights approach, and take directional insights that we have from in-store and take them to online and say what is similar here, what's different? It's pushed me to kind of go above and beyond to think about how to approach the problem of who the shopper is and that in itself has just been incredibly valuable.Stephanie:Yeah. I was thinking that too, you really have to get creative to get data in your industry, and I thought what AB is doing around merchandise and shops and all that is really interesting. I saw a quote where someone at your company said, yeah, we essentially launched these stores and we consolidated them so that we could get shopper data, because we really can't get that easily anywhere else on ecommerce. So tell me a bit about that approach and do you think the people buying merchandise are the same ones probably buying the alcohol in store?Arabella:Yeah. I mean it's super interesting to think of that. I don't know if it's the exact same shopper always, but what I do know is that anyone who's probably buying merchandise from us is definitely a brand loyalist, because you're not going to want to wear a Bud Light sweatshirt if you don't really love Bud Light and feel really strongly about the brand.Stephanie:But I saw a crop top in your store and I'm like that's cute. I don't know if I ever would have worn like a Busch branded T-shirt, but that crop top, it's something. I like it.Arabella:Yeah. You know what, the Bud Light merch is actually really fun. I have a beanie that I wear sometimes and I get endless teasing from my friends but I love it. So yeah, I mean I think it's definitely brand loyalists, or to your point, people who feel, each of the brands that are within AB have such strong brand voices and such legacy and such power pretty much in the market, and so I think the merchandise, while it doesn't directly relate to us selling beer, it does do I think some great work in furthering the brand awareness and people feeling like they're connected to the brand and want it to be something that's part of their day to day, and I think the ability for us to, I think where I'd love to do a little bit more work with the merch business is thinking about how we can kind of create more of a one stop shop experience, so how can we partner with retailers to get that Bud Light crop top paired with a Bud Light six pack and get it bundled together so we can merchandise and sell that in one fell swoop, because I think that sort of would be the ultimate goal that we can get the shopper having the actual product and also that brand loyalty experience.Arabella:But I know that's a huge, huge priority, because to your point, we can't capture the data, but I know with the merch biz, that's a big focus for our next year in 2021.Stephanie:Yeah. So what other creative ways are you all going about to find customer data so then you can personalize that experience in one way or another, like what are the things that you're trying out that you're having success with right now?Arabella:So we pretty simply just work as an insights-driven org to be bringing as much data that's specific to the retailers as we can. Stephanie:Yep. And how do you think about out of stock issues? So we just had a guest on from Intel where they were saying they're trying to work with all these retailers, he was from the internet of things group, and he was saying there's so much opportunity with retailers where they oftentimes don't understand their inventory, things can remain out of stock for an entire day and they'll say that they're on it but they actually had no idea, how do you handle that from a tracking perspective to make sure that your retailers are keeping your stuff in stock and it's being tracked properly?Arabella:Yeah. So that definitely has been one of my big goals for this year is to really get more of a data specific perspective on out of stocks, on how we're doing on the shelf online, everything that you're saying. So we actually just partnered with a digital shelf tracking company, Profitero, I feel like you guys maybe have heard the name before. So our big plan with them in the next year is basically to take on all those things you're saying and give it more of a data lens so we can be reporting out weekly and tracking what products are out of stock and what we should be communicating to the wholesalers to be getting them updated and fixed, because we know that from an ecommerce perspective, out of stocks are a huge, huge issue because in store, you're out of one pack of Bud Light, well the shelf is stocked in a way that Bud Light is a brand that has multiple SKUs, you could easily just grab the other one that's there and go on your way.Arabella:Online, when something is out of stock, a lot of retailers will simply remove it from the site so you don't even see it, so that recognition that we get with our brands is completely gone if the product doesn't even show up on the site, and then you see them moving to a different competitor or substituting in a different way. So I think that really it's a huge, huge piece, and it's especially huge with our pure play partners, so those who are only online retailers, because we're able to have a little bit more of a direct connection to them as well and work through those things.Stephanie:Got it. Cool. So the one thing I'm thinking about too is attribution around marketing campaig…
Full show notes at the publisherIf it seems like a new DTC brand is launching every day, that’s because it’s true. In every industry, across every vertical, on every channel, the next “big thing” is competing for your attention, your clicks and your cash. As a consumer, sifting through all that noise and filtering out which companies are worth your time can be a daunting task. And as a brand, it begs the question: how do you set yourself apart from the ever-growing pack?One option is to find a trusted source to vouch for you. Matthew Hayes can be that source, and his new marketplace, The Fascination, is where he wants to lift up some of the most worthy DTC brands coming to market.The Fascination is a product recommendation and reviews publication focused on emerging and purpose-driven direct-to-consumer brands, large and small. Users of the platform have the ability to filter through vetted brands, digest the company’s story, and even transact all in one place.On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Matthew dives into lessons he learned while building Leesa Sleep, why curation is so important in the rapidly expanding direct to consumer space, and gives his take on why the convergence of media and commerce will be the one thing that impacts ecommerce the most. Plus, I even pull out a few stories from his trip to Richard Branson’s Necker Island.Main Takeaways:Curation Station: The saturation of the market with a new DTC brand every day is creating issues for consumers and brands alike. With so much clutter, it’s hard to stand out. Through measurable metrics, in-depth reviews, and by holding brands up to certain benchmarks, The Fascination created a space that customers can trust, and brands want to be listed. Layers of Use: For a brand to stand out, The Fascination has found that being mission-driven, promoting social good, and leaning into and highlighting the unique aspects of your business will be the most effective strategy. Lessons Learned: While not everyone can pick the brains of the biggest entrepreneurs in the world, when you get the chance, it’s wise to listen. Matthew was able to visit Necker Island and spend time with Daymond John, Marie Forleo, Tim Ferris, Seth Godin, and Richard Branson. Tune in to hear what advice they gave that has been helping him to this day.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey everyone. And welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder at mission.org. Today, I'm chatting with Matthew Hayes, the co-founder at The Fascination and previously on the founding team at Leesa Sleep. Matt, welcome to the show.Matthew:Thanks for having me.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm very glad to have you on. So I was hoping we could start with maybe Leesa Sleep. Because when I saw that I'm like, "Whoa, you were like an OG in the D-to-C space," and I thought they'd be a good jumping off point.Matthew:Yeah. So I was part of the founding team at Leesa. Yeah, we launched it back in 2014 before everything exploded. Right? So we were very early. We were one of the first BedInABox brands to get out there, Tuft & Needle came maybe, I don't know, six months to a year before us. Casper was literally right before us. And then we were out right around Thanksgiving of 2014 and that whole industry just exploded under our feet. We had the wind at our back for most of our tenure, especially our growth years. But things are a lot different now and t's a different ball game in terms of launch and growing a D-to-C brand in 2021.Stephanie:Good. Tell me a bit about the differences. I mean, obviously the world is very different and there's a lot of new trends coming out about what to expect over the next couple of years, but are there any lessons that you took away from Leesa that are still relevant or is the world just like in such a different place now?Matthew:No, I think it's still really relevant. I think a lot of the stuff that we were learning as we grew is incredibly relevant to the way that we launched The Fascination, the way that brand founders are thinking about things now. When we first launched in 2015, cost of acquisition were beautiful. Like all day we could scale the auctions across Facebook and Google, were very, maybe a fifth of what they are now just in terms of competitiveness. Just, I mean the mattress industry specifically there was 180 entrants after we launched, so a huge amount of volume coming into that space and just generally in D-to-C. So the cost of acquiring just pure play digital customers was going up and people were seeing the writing on the wall and starting to diversify into brick and mortar.Matthew:And so I think that was one of the things that we realized, is we've got to have a diverse channel mix. And so we struck the partnership with West Elm, we leaned more into Amazon. We looked more at international and we actually set up our own brick and mortar stores. So I think the combination of that brand awareness and exposure helped our brand tremendously. Whereas a lot of brands stuck it out, stayed pure plays and they learneD-to-Costly less and overspending on acquisition.Stephanie:Yeah, that's definitely the biggest thing that I see from the past couple of years or past decade is like before you could just focus on paid acquisition, like throw a bunch of money at it and one's really, they're going to come to you either way. And then now it seems like a lot of the, I guess the brands that are ahead are more media companies now, and there's a big spectrum between paying for people versus organic or versus starting a community and then launching a product to them. So it does feel like a definitely a different world than just like pay, and grow, and scale up as you go.Matthew:Yeah. I mean, we're seeing that a lot actually. And I think our notion of how to build a profitable business with The Fascination is quite a bit different. No, we're not a pure play own D-to-C brand selling our own products, we're essentially a marketplace, but what we've done is we've seen the success that media companies have had in building an audience that's super loyal whether that's The Hustle, or Morning Brew or The Scam, all of this audience aggregation and demand with these customer demos, there's so much that you can do with it. And so, we saw a bit of an opportunity and the fragmentation that was happening across D-to-C brand for popping up literally every day. And you start to become a little leery of, is this a good brand? Is this is a good product? Does this align with my values and tastes? And we saw this need for curation across all spectrums of D-to-C really. And we saw an opportunity to really create a media platform and a commercial platform around that.Stephanie:So let's dive into The Fascination a bit. So it's a marketplace. You guys are curating D-to-C brands. I saw you have filters focused on the product technical quality, also the soul of the company. Tell me a little bit more about The Fascination. How do you allow brands into the marketplace? Yeah. And any other details around the platform?Matthew:Yeah, so I mean, people are basically referring to it as a marketplace meets magazine, which I think is an accurate description. It's basically at its core, it's a product recommendation and reviews publication specifically focused on emerging and purpose-driven direct to consumer brands. So in much the same way that Wirecutter or the strategists reviews top products and writes those objective third-party reviews and recommendations, as a media publisher we're really doing that, but we're focusing in on a subset of these D-to-C brands that are new and emerging and have purpose driven values.Matthew:And the idea is to create a single platform where people can come and discover new brands, they can read reviews and research those brands and products, and they can shop deals all in one place. So it's a linear play from discovery all the way through to purchase.Stephanie:Yep. So who are some of your favorite brands on the platform right now?Matthew:There's so many good ones.Stephanie:[inaudible].Matthew:Yeah, I know I'm going to get in trouble for this. We've got badges across the site, which are really cool. The badges call out things like women and minority led businesses, or organic, or made in the USA. And so like Girlfriend Collective is one of our women and minority led brands. Haus is another-Stephanie:Even Haus on, yeah.Matthew:... Yeah, they deal the [inaudible] and great products, great brand story.Stephanie:Delicious.Matthew:Delicious. Yeah. I was just chatting with the founders of Huron, which is a men's skincare line. Awesome story. And then we've got the big names that you'd expect. Like we've got Allbirds on the platform. We've got Warby joining soon if they're not up already any day now. We've got UNTUCKit so, those it's a nice mix of the old school D-to-C incumbents with a lot of really cool emerging brands that honestly I'm intimately involved in direct consumer and a lot of these brands I hadn't heard of for the first time.Matthew:So if you think about like, as it broadens out the halo from the bulls-eye of our tightest demos, there's going to be so many people that are discovering these brands for the first time. And that's really what we want. We want some of these big names to attract people into the site, and then we want a lot of our awesome emerging brands and products to be discovered while you're there.Stephanie:Yeah. That's great. So how are you convincing these larger brands to join the platform? Because I'm thinking your space, I think also is very competitive. I mean, the world right now is headed to a place where everyone wants curated collections. I mean, they don't want to spend a bunch of time everywhere. They want it all in one place. We had the CEO of Fast on talking about, you need the one-click checkout and be able to allow people just to check out instantly and not have to bulk it into a cart. It seems like your space is very competitive too. How are you convincing the Warby Parkers? And the older brands who probably are approached by quite a few marketplace platforms to, "Oh, join us." Why are these brands going with you?Matthew:Well, I think we've really a ton on the story and the user experience and just the overall look and feel of our digital product and what we stand for. I think it's also in our favor that we have been D-to-C operators ourselves and we can really empathize to what these founders need. And we've been fortunate to be in the community for several years now. So we had a few close partners that our spring pad, if you will. Not to mention Nick Sharma as an advisor, who's great at pulling in brands.Stephanie:He was on our show too, man, I was just-Matthew:Yeah, I know.Stephanie:... fortunate.Matthew:And so yeah, between that, and we had some really amazing brands reach out the first day that just totally shocked us. We have a type form application that comes through and we had a couple of 100 brands, including some of the biggest names in the space on day one, which it was super exciting. And just a lot of founders getting really excited by seeing their brands mentioned in our round ups, or seeing products being shared. So I think that the validation that we're starting to provide, and really empathizing with what brand founders need is something that they're really clamoring for. And I think word it gets out fast.Stephanie:Yeah. That's great. So is there any trends you're seeing right now around what customers are most excited about? I mean, I'm guessing you have all this data now and you can see, okay, a bunch of people are coming on during quarantine and buying Haus. We need another type of Appertiff or something to offer that's similar because we see so much engagement there, any trends?Matthew:I think that one of the things that we've seen that's really interesting is our roundup pieces on brands that are making an impact and just the social impact stories are really, really resonating with consumers. And the brands are sharing the stories, which is just amplifying the message that much more. So the general consumer sentiment that we're getting from a qualitative perspective is that a platform like this is very much needed and like, thank you for building it. So I don't think it's even halfway to where we want it to be, or it could be in terms of the overall product development evolution, but we're going to get there quickly.Stephanie:Yep. So how, when you're... You just said that certain stories that you're telling around the brands and the social good aspect of it are really resonating. Is that your main play when it comes to acquiring new customers on your platform is by writing good pieces of content, having the brand share it to get in front of their audiences as well, or how do you think about acquiring new customers?Matthew:Yeah, I mean, customer acquisitions, it's always a challenge for a marketplace like this. And that's why from day one, we didn't approach it as a pure play commercial marketplace where you're just aggregating and selling products. From a consumer perspective, that's really not serving the overall need that we're trying to address, which is discovery, research, and shop and convert. And so the research aspect of that is really where we're going to focus a lot of time and attention and work. And what I mean by that is writing really in depth, thorough product reviews that are authentic, that are meaningful, that consumers value and ultimately Google values that content really highly as well. And so, what I'm getting at is the SEO and organic traction and such. It's going to be a big part of how we grow organically, keep our acquisition costs low.Matthew:There's a lot of performance marketing things that we can and will be doing. Brands have had tremendous interest in doing paid marketing partnerships, whether that's white listing on Facebook, or sponsoring newsletters, or any sponsorships. I think there's a tremendous amount of demand for that. And we really are just dipping our toes into the very first test there. And then I think PR and having, as I said, our brands amplify, our content is also, it's just going to be a latent, organic way to continue to build low cost audience. I mean, I think if you think about the way that Leesa scaled and a lot of those 2015 brand scaled, we know that we can't run the same playbook and build a sustainable business.Matthew:And so as we were launching in early days, it's like being a media company is really hard, right. Coming up with really engaging content every single day, pumping it out, like the Morning Brews and Web Smith's of the world, I take my hat off to those guys because it's not easy, but I think you can already start to see the rewards that we're going to reap from that.Stephanie:Yeah. So what channels are you... Well, maybe actually first, let me talk about the content piece, because that's top of mind for me is, a lot of people say you just need to create good content and that's the key to finding great people. How do you go about brainstorming s…
Full show notes at the publisherYou’ve heard it time and time again on this podcast: That influencer marketing not only works, but could be the key to unlocking massive business potential for your eComm business. Influencers have the power to take a product – or an entire brand – from unknown to a trending topic product overnight. And sometimes, the community that they build is so valuable, it creates a jumping off point for a business of their own. That’s what Deepica Mutyala did when she launched LIVE TINTED. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Deepica takes us through how she progressed as an intrapreneur at BirchBox before she took the plunge and set out on her own journey. And it all started after one beauty video that she made went viral on YouTube. Deepica explains how she went about building a community based on a mission to bring more diversity to the industry, and how she’s been able to tap into that community to create content and launch a successful business with products designed specifically for her community. Plus, Deepica reveals some of the advice she got from her investors and mentors like Bobbi Brown and Andy Dunn. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Deprioritize the Big Channels: It’s okay to deprioritize big marketing channels such as Facebook in order to explore and engage with users elsewhere. Facebook will always be there, but you might catch lightning in a bottle if you are willing to adapt and explore new platforms. It’s Not a Dirty Word: Influencers tend to get a bad rap, but the truth is that anyone can be an influencer, and that influence can be nurtured for the good of a community and a business. By tapping into the power of a community, growth becomes much more attainable.Start Where You Are: Intrapreneurship is an avenue you hear about less often, but is a strategic way for anyone with bigger dreams to learn the ins and outs of business. By embedding yourself in a business that works, volunteering to help in every department, making connections, and taking all of your learnings to build an initiative internally or on the side, you can advance as a true entrepreneur much faster. More Than A Check: Fundraising isn’t just about filling your bank account, it’s also about adding to your knowledge bank. Deepica tapped into mentors and investors like Bobbi Brown, Andy Dunn, Payal Kadakiam, Hayley Barna and others to learn from their experiences and invite them to be a part of her own growth. Tune in to the episode to hear some of the advice they each gave to Deepica!For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey everyone, and welcome back to Up Next in Commerce, this is your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder at mission.org. Today, we're talking to Deepica Mutyala.Deepica:There you go, you nailed it.Stephanie:The CEO of a beauty brand, LIVE TINTED. Deepica, welcome.Deepica:Thanks for having me.Stephanie:How many times do people pause when they're like, "I'm about to botch your name, I know it, I know it, ah, there it goes?"Deepica:I mean a lot, but I appreciate the pause and effort to get it right, versus just blatant lack of attempt to try and get it right. So, I appreciate you trying. Thank you.Stephanie:Good. Yeah, thanks. Stephanie:So, I was doing a bit of research, as I always do on my guests, and I'm fascinated by LIVE TINTED. I mean, you have such a great story, so much stuff [inaudible] want to dive into, but first, I think it'd be fun to kind of talk through how you got here, your background, What did you do before you founded LIVE TINTED?Deepica:Yeah. So, I actually started my career on the corporate side of the beauty industry. In college, my first internship was at L'Oreal in New York, and post-college I had a brief stint at Limited Brands, which is now L Brands at Victoria's Secret, which is no longer there because they went bankrupt. So, I was there for a brief stint, but the whole goal and end game was to one day create my own beauty brand. I was that 16 year old girl who grew up in Sugar Land, Texas who said that... I was going to change the narrative of what I saw when I was going down the beauty aisles.Deepica:When I was a kid, I shopped at Walmart predominantly, honestly, that's where I shopped for beauty because, going to shop for beauty wasn't really a thing in my family's life, so when we were just getting groceries at Walmart, I would divert to the aisles and go look at makeup. And I would find myself not reflected in the ads, and I would also not see any foundation shades that worked for my skin tone. And I literally, remember telling my family at 16 that I was going to change that narrative one day, and everything I've done for my career since that point was to get me to starting LIVE TINTED.Deepica:So, it's kind of crazy being now back in Texas, like I was telling you earlier, that it's just really full circle being here, and finding doodles of me writing out what I thought my brand name was going to be, and talking to family members who are like, "It's just crazy that you're actually doing it." Because this is what I wanted to do. So then, after nine months at Limited Brands, I quit my job to take a risk on a startup called Birchbox, which at the time was the hottest tech company... Not even just beauty, but I think overarching, they created a whole category of subscription model that really created a whole new category.Deepica:And so, that was really cool, incredible experience working for two bad-ass female founders who, in my parents' eyes, were really okay with me working there, and taking a pay cut, and going for my dream, because the two founders went to HBS.Stephanie:Oh my gosh.Deepica:And so, they were like-Stephanie:I also read the quote from your... You were saying, "Oh, my dad all growing up would hand me a stethoscope," and then you would instead grab lipstick or something, and I thought that was really funny.Deepica:[crosstalk]. Yeah. It's kind of an Indian tradition where... There's this ceremony that happens... I think it's after your first 100 days, and we just did it for my nephew, where they put things in front of you [inaudible] like a book versus different things to see what you would gravitate towards. And instead of me gravitating towards anything that was in front of me, I was grabbing my mom's lipstick in her [crosstalk].Stephanie:In the purse digging over there.Deepica:Yeah, yeah, which is so funny, and crazy, and full circle now, but yeah, this was always the dream, and it's wild for me to look back and reflect. But I worked at Birchbox, and in true startup culture, you can create opportunities for yourself at a startup. And so, I made it very clear to the founders that I wanted to one day create my own beauty brand, and they gave me opportunities in the company to do that. Then, I had to do it a lot of the times, in my free time, it wasn't like... I still had to do my day job, but if there was projects that I could work on in my free time, I did it, because I saw it as Birchbox was my business school.Deepica:And they always said it as founders, right? But I truly felt it. I really felt like working there was an incredible network of really smart people, and I got to... Literally, you have an idea, you can test it, and just go for it. And so, I got to work on product development at Birchbox. I got to work on influencer partnerships at Birchbox. And when I did that, was my first time being like, "What is going on in this influencer world? And how much are these girls getting paid? What is happening?" Some random girl at Iowa getting paid this insane amount of money to do a YouTube video, and I was just like, "This is wild."Deepica:So, as I was doing that, was when I realized there was nobody who looked like me on YouTube creating content, and I kind of just saw it as a fun hobby. I was like, "You know what, Deepica? At the end of the day, you're not quitting your job, just do it on your weekends. And at the end of the day, all the people in your life that text you questions about makeup and things like that, you can just say, 'Go to my channel, stop texting me.'" So, really, I didn't think much of it. And so, January of 2015, I picked up my iPhone... Because again, I didn't know what I was doing video content wise, I had no clue how to... Ad revenue wasn't even activated. I didn't know.Deepica:And I picked up my iPhone and held it vertically instead of horizontally. The production, it was like I knew IGTV was happening before IGTV was happening. I did it in a vertical mode, and I used red lipstick under my eyes to mask dark circles... And people who are hearing this are probably literally so confused, but-Stephanie:I read that too, I was like, "Well, it'd be funny if I showed up with red lipstick under my eyes."Deepica:Oh my God, that would have been awesome. Yeah, no, I used red lipstick under my eyes to hide dark circles, and I guess that was crazy to 10 million people, because that video went viral, and yeah, has millions and millions of views.Stephanie:And it worked. For anyone who's like, "What did that look like?" I looked at the pictures and the video, it actually works.Deepica:Yeah. So, here's the deal, I basically... That was my biggest beauty concern my whole life, how to hide my dark circles? And it wasn't talked about, people didn't talk about it because it's such a specific problem to specific communities of people. And so, I just did the video that I had learned when I was on set one day, where a makeup artist was using a color corrector under my eyes, an actual product made for under your eyes, and I was like, "What are you doing putting red lipstick under my eyes." And she was like, "Oh no, it's a color corrector, it cancels out the darkness, so when you put on your foundation, you really can mask your dark circles, because you have extra pigments that require kind of additional correction." And I was like, "Well, what's the difference?"Deepica:My brain is always thinking about hacks and simplifying things, and so that doesn't change with my beauty routine. I want to always simplify things. And so, she basically, said, "Not much." And so, I filmed this video and it went viral, and when the video was at 4 million views, I got a call from the Today Show to come on to do the segment on air, and I quit my job that day. I kind of just had this moment of, this could be a cool 15 minutes of fame, or I could turn it into my dream career. [crosstalk].Stephanie:That's amazing. What did the founders say? Because I'm guessing, you had a pretty close relationship with them. I mean, they were letting you essentially, be an intrapreneur within their organization, and test things, and learn, and try, how did they feel about that? Because I saw that they were some of your first investors along with Bobbi Brown, which I'm like, "What? How did you get in front of her?" So, what was that process like leaving and getting them to invest afterwards?Deepica:Yeah, it was really tough. There's two co-founders, and they just had different mindsets, right? One of them was more like, "You are all on a Birch tree, and you're all acorns that will fall into the world." I remember she said... And she's the one that's currently an investor in my company, "I want to see you grow and thrive." And the other one, it's not to say that she didn't want the same thing, but she was really excited about me growing within the company. And listen, she had every reason to feel that way. She helped me get so many opportunities within the company to be able to create what I have been able to do today, and she gave me those opportunities, but it was more like... I was really close to her too, I worked more with her directly. So, of course, it was like one of those bittersweet things, but they're both incredible and really supportive.Deepica:But it was really scary to... I remember when I got... The day I got the email from the Today Show was when I pulled her into a room that day at 6:00 PM, towards the end of the day, and I just was like, "I feel like I have to go for it." And she gave me a really big hug and said, "She's really happy for me." But you could tell it was like a bittersweet thing, which I appreciated, because at the end of the day, that means she felt that I made an impact at the company.Stephanie:That's great. So, what was the Today Show like? Did you go on there and do a tutorial? Tell me a bit about that.Deepica:Oh my gosh, it was wild. So, my sister came on and was my model on air. So, she flew in from Texas. My dad was backstage sitting next to Kid Rock, which was hilarious. Picture this immigrant Indian dad who's like, "What is even happening? My daughter is on national television. And who is this guy with a beard and long hair, what's going on?" It was the moment where I realized that I was meant to do exactly what I'm doing in that moment. I was not nervous, I felt like that was... I was just meant to be there, it just felt that way. You know that Eminem song... What is it? Lose Yourself? You get one shot, one opportunity. I was listening to that backstage, and I literally felt like I had four minutes on national television to show people that a brown girl can do this.Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative) Oh, that's great.Deepica:Yeah. I felt like I could be the Indian Hoda, and just be the next news anchor on the Today Show. I still feel like... I love doing live television, I think it's like... There is a beauty in the imperfections that come with it. And it was surreal, is what the word is, and incredible. And I remember after it was over... The hustle and bustle of live television is very real. The second the segment is over, they're like, boom, boom, boom, moving onto the next thing. And I was like, "That was so fun, let's do it again." Most people were just like, "All right, lady, we're moving on." But then, there was this senior producer who came up to me and she was like, "You should do it again."Deepica:And I was [inaudible] around, and it's so cool because my dad is in the background recording it, so I have all this on camera. But she just was like, "We can't believe it was your first time doing national television, we'd love to have you back regularly." And that was really cool for me, because everyone told me that when you go on national television, it's a cool moment in your life and you move on, and I feel like I proved the exact opposite, that if you have what it takes, you can make things happen for yourself. So, I became a regular doing beauty segments on the Today Show, and was a full-time influencer, which is a thing.Stephanie:Yeah, I saw that. That was one of the first things when I was looking into your bio a bit, and it's like, "Oh, Deepica is an influencer, and I think she's just signed a deal with WME." I'm like, "Oh." So, tell me, now you've got the status, and you're super popular, how did you think about capitalizing on that, and to get out of just being an influencer, and then being like, "I'm going to creat…
Full show notes at the publisherWhat if we told you that you may be approaching Amazon in all the wrong ways? Many brands, especially more established ones who started out in brick and mortar, have been playing a game of catch up while trying to quickly figure out how to sell on Amazon and win. But it may feel like a confusing place to win. Especially if a brand is trying to apply a brick and mortar sales approach, like winning a category, to online platforms like Amazon, Target, or Walmart.But we all love a good underdog story, which is why we invited Andrea Leigh to the show to share her secrets. Andrea is the VP of Strategy & Insights at Ideoclick, a full-service ecommerce optimization platform. Before Ideoclick, she spent nearly a decade working for Amazon, so she is coming to the table with a true insider’s view and strategies in her back pocket that she’s seen work on Amazon and other marketplaces.In this interview, which was one of my favorites I’ve ever done so far this year, Andrea and I discuss why brands need to accept the death of the category and start thinking about how to stand out against an entire competitive set. Doing that means repositioning your brand and winning the share of search, it means optimizing for SEO, and it also means going back to the basics of differentiation so that you’re not just another option in a sea of products that look exactly the same. Plus, we talk about selling across multiple ecommerce platforms, and how to think about Amazon releasing “white label” product lines. I hope you enjoy this discussion as much as we did!Main Takeaways:Category Chaos: Brick-and-mortar shopping lends itself to categorization, but in the world of ecommerce, particularly on Amazon, categories are not something brands should focus on. Customers shopping online are fed suggestions based on their entire history of shopping, so when they search for something like peanut butter, they don’t just see Jif and Skippy, they see that and then anything peanut butter adjacent that might resonate with them even a tiny bit. With this in mind, brands need to figure out how to compete in entire segments, rather than specific categories.One Metric To Rule Them All: Share of search is one of the best metrics an ecommerce brand can look at to measure everything from how customers are finding them, to what the customer experience is when they search for something, to who the competition is in their set. Mining For Gold: One of the places that Amazon has excelled is aggregating consumer complaints, and then coming out with an Amazon Basics product that addresses all of them, which then becomes a top-seller. CPG brands large and small should be employing a similar approach. And, they should be highlighting the bells and whistles of their product that separates them from the white-label product that any marketplace offers because that is what differentiates you from the mass amount of search results a consumer will be combing through.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey, everyone. And welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder and CEO at Mission.org. Today on the show, we have Andrea Leigh, the VP of strategy and insights at Ideoclick. Andrea, welcome.Andrea:Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.Stephanie:I'm excited to have you on too. I was looking through your bio and I saw that you were at Amazon for almost a decade, and I'm sure you have some good juicy stories from that those 10 years.Andrea:I do. It was a wild, wild ride. I think when I started, I was employee 4,012 or something like that, and then when I left, 99.9% of the company had started working there after me, so I was literally a dinosaur. Yeah.Stephanie:Oh my gosh. That's amazing. So what were, high level, some of the things that you did at Amazon and are any of those things still relevant today?Andrea:Yeah, I think they're super relevant. I spent my entire career there working on their ecommerce business, and everything from the early days of helping launch their price matching software, the software they use to price-match other retailers. I worked on Harry Potter book launches back when print books were the only way to read books. We also had some things that we did with Oprah's Book Club. I worked on the launch of the grocery category on Amazon.com, and the Fulfilled by Amazon program there, helped launch the baby registry and built the baby category after Amazon severed ties with Babies R Us.Andrea:I was general manager for Amazon Fresh for a little while. At my last three years there, probably the most exciting, I moved onto our Canada business and I launched 15 product categories for Amazon Canada. I ran the Prime program up there, and then I also managed our transportation network. And that was probably my most exciting role because it was certainly cross functional. But I think the common thread is, and probably why I liked Canada so much in the later years was just, I really, really enjoy working with the manufacturer community.Andrea:I think that the process that they go through to really understand the customer, to build products, to address customer needs, and then to figure out how to connect consumers to the values that they've built in their products, I think is just really exciting, and figuring out how to do that online is even more exciting. Certainly, in the early years of Amazon, we spent a lot of time working with brand manufacturers and partnering with them because we weren't very big back then and we were really trying to get these categories built and to get customers shopping online for things besides books.Andrea:And I found that to be really enjoyable because every manufacturer has a unique set of challenges. It's like a puzzle to be and to collaborate on. And that's still what I get a chance to do today at Ideoclick and really, really enjoy that process of helping manufacturers solve those puzzles. And we certainly don't have all the answers, but I think it's a similar process to go through with each manufacturer to identify where they are on their ecommerce journey, and then help them figure out how they're going to build a sustainable business.Stephanie:That's awesome. So tell me a bit about Ideoclick. How did you think about creating Ideoclick? And what is it? What does it do? How does it help companies?Andrea:Yeah. We're an ecommerce optimization platform, and we're a hybrid of a software solution and a services organization. And my husband actually started Ideoclick about 13 years ago. We were both working at Amazon together at the time, he left and started Ideoclick and I stayed at Amazon for 10 more years. And I joined up with him about, it was probably like four or five years ago now, to help him run Ideoclick. And really, it came from the same place that I was talking about earlier, really wanting to work more closely with the manufacturers, help them figure out how to navigate Amazon.Andrea:As Amazon became bigger and bigger, not only did it become more important to the manufacturers' business, but it started to become a little unwieldily in terms of how to be successful, how to make sure your products stand out, and how to negotiate and operate. With such a big player, that's so unique and looks so different from brick and mortar, which is what most manufacturers have been really accustomed to for so many years. And so Ideoclick was really born out of that to help manufacturers navigate these waters. And we are a full service, white glove providers.Andrea:So we do everything from setting up the items in the digital catalog, writing content, running all of the automated advertising on Amazon, Walmart, Target and Instacart, and also going back and assisting with operations, managing the chargebacks and fees that the retailers often slap on the manufacturers and recovering some of those fees. So we're a full service agency, we're in a category called managed services.Stephanie:Got it. So what are some of the biggest maybe missteps that manufacturers or sellers are making on the platform where you're like, "I've got all these secrets from an exec at Amazon that I know how to prevent that or why you shouldn't be doing that." What kind of things are you preventing from happening when you're working with them?Andrea:Yeah. I think my answer would have been really different a couple of years ago, especially COVID impact on ecommerce. Amazon's not the only game in town anymore, and these other platforms, more specifically Walmart and Target, but if you look category by category, they're a becoming a really big player in each space, whether it's Wayfair for furniture, or Sephora and ULTA for beauty, or Chewy for pets, there's a player there that's starting to represent a sizeable portion of the business. So a couple of years ago, I would've said getting these Amazon foundational things right is the most important and it's the biggest misstep.Andrea:But I think now we would say not having a strategy across all of these eCom players is a real big misstep, and shooting from the hip, because I think we're in a world where these retailers are in fierce competition with one another, they're price-matching each other, they're very closely watching what one another is doing. And you don't want the customer to suffer as a result of that. And so having a strategy that does things like differentiating assortment or helps you figure out how you're going to allocate your ad budgets, now that all these platforms have ad platforms associated with them as well.Andrea:I think that shooting from the hip is probably the most common misstep that we see. But I think some of the same things still hold true from several years ago, which is just getting those foundational elements right. There's certainly little tricks you can do and little black hat tactics that will get you some more reviews real quick or help you get to the top of search. We don't focus on that stuff, it's not sustainable, most of it's against Amazon's policies. So it's really about making sure your products are in stock, making sure you have the correct information on your product pages, making sure that you've got resources internally within your organization to support ecommerce and to drive it, making sure that you have good SEO and you're making use of the ad platform in appropriate ways.Stephanie:So now that you just mentioned SEO, I do want to talk a bit about categories. I know that you've been on, maybe a brand or whatever it may be for a while around like, categories aren't the way forward anymore, and that you really need to optimize for search, just like you would anywhere else. So tell me a little bit about how ecommerce owners should think about that going forward. Why is Amazon not as focused on categories anymore? Or maybe the buyer's not focused there?Andrea:Yeah, I think it really starts with the customer, and the customer not being as focused on categories. I can tell a little story that might help illustrate it. We had a manufacturer come to us and say, "I'm like the number two or three bottled water brand in the world, and so I should be number two in my category on Amazon." And there are a number of reasons why that thinking is a little bit out of date or flawed. When a customer goes to Amazon and searches for bottled water, they don't just see bottled water, they see tea and electrolyte water and powdered electrolytes for water and ice, flavored water, and all kinds of things that are category adjacent. But they may also see things that are out of category.Andrea:Peanut butter is another great example. If you search peanut butter on Amazon, you're going to get some peanut butter, you're going to get peanut butter crackers, you're going to get peanut butter bars. And it's not because like Amazon is not thoughtful about deciding what to return in those search results, for example, they're returning those products because those are the products customers are buying. Their algorithms are very, very smart. And even from an advertising perspective, you can't win those ad slots unless there's a history of customers making that search and buying your product.Andrea:And so the concept of a brick and mortar category totally makes sense if a customer is going to a store, they're going down an aisle, they're presented with bottled water, they choose from what's available to them, and then they move on to shop at a different category. But eCom customers don't shop that way, the category is dynamic, it's continually evolving, shaped around that customer. And what they've specifically looked at when retailers are using automation and personalization. And so you can't really apply that same mental model to ecommerce. You have to really think about that entire competitive set.Andrea:And so that manufacturer who thought he should be number two or number three bottled water brand his competitors on Amazon, aren't just bottled water, as we stated, they're tea and they're electrolyte water and all kinds of other things. So his competitive set is different, but also because ecommerce platforms and more specifically, Amazon, has frictionless entry, so any manufacturer can sell on Amazon, the competitive set is going to look a lot different than in a brick and mortar store where you have like a buyer making assortment decisions.Andrea:So, whereas there might be five or 10 nationally recognized brands in a brick and mortar store and maybe a couple of local players and private label, on Amazon, there is a huge long tail of brands that are not nationally distributed, maybe only sell on Amazon so that competitive set looks entirely different. And I think that's a big misstep that manufacturers make, is applying that same mental model, trying to look at like market share and category and ranking category, versus moving their thinking to the ecommerce world where there's really no such thing as a category.Stephanie:Yeah. The only time I can see categories being helpful is if you're in the browsing mood where you're like, I'm going to be having a baby, and I just want to see, what do you buy for babies? So like if you're in that browsing mood, which maybe isn't always high intent to buy, more just kind of looking around and maybe you buy, or if it's a curated category, like here's the guest for Father's Day. I have found those helpful where I'm like, I don't know what to get my dad, and on the homepage, it's like, "Here's a whole... " Maybe it's not a category, but the whole curated collection, pick one and go.Andrea:And that's where I think some of these category specific players win over Amazon. They do encourage more browsing because they are curated assortment, because their browse and data are really clean, and it's a more enjoyable experience. But if yo did try to shop by category on Amazon, the data shows that more than 90% of customers just go and start searching, you would maybe not like what you found. It's an overwhelming experience, it's not curated in any way. And then the categorization data is bad because Amazon does…
Full show notes at the publisherIn 2008, the economy had tanked and John McDonald was left at a crossroads. Rather than withdraw into comfort, he took the opportunity to do something a bit crazy. John was a woodworker who spent time at trade shows, and someone once suggested that he make cabinet doors that fit with IKEA cabinets. With nothing to lose, John launched Semihandmade to do just that. Now, a decade later, Semihandmade has seen consistent double-digit growth year over year and has been featured in countless blogs, interior design social posts, on the feeds of influencers worldwide, and in the homes of tens of thousands of people. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, John tells the story from start to finish, including how he built a successful ecommerce custom cabinet model on the backs of the IKEA brand, and how he’s now launching into the DTC space with the first US-made custom cabinet DTC offering, BOXI. From finding the right partners, to building an omnichannel approach that doesn’t handcuff your resources, to challenging yourself to strive for more, you’ll learn something from John and his story that just might help you level up your ecommerce business, too. Main Takeaways:Perfect Partners: For ecommerce brands taking on an omnichannel approach, there is no reason to tie up a lot of your resources into retail spaces and showrooms. Instead, exploring partnership opportunities with other brands in a similar category might be a mutually beneficial way to expand your brand, the brand you partner with, and offer an in-store experience to customers who seek one.Meeting the Moment: The world of home furnishings and interior design is changing rapidly, especially as A.I. and VR technology enter the marketplace. With that tech, users are gaining more flexibility to design their own spaces without leaving home, which means there is an opening for DTC companies that are tech-first. Step Up or Step Out: You can’t let competition scare you, let it inspire you to raise your game. By surrounding yourself with the best and forcing yourself to compete against them, you have to level up to simply survive, and succeed expectations to grow your business in a meaningful way.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Up Next In Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, Cofounder at Mission.org. Today, I had the pleasure of chatting with John McDonald, the Founder and CEO at Semihandmade and also Boxi. John, welcome.John:Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.Stephanie:I'm really excited to have you on. Before we get started, I was hoping you could give me a little background, and for anyone who doesn't know what Semihandmade is and also Boxi, how did you start it? What is it? How do I think about it?John:Sure. Semihandmade is a company that's been around, I guess, just over 10 years now. We're based in Southern California. We make doors that fit IKEA cabinets. What that means is, if you want to buy a kitchen, bathroom, closet media system, IKEA, for the most part, gives you the amazing flexibility of not buying their doors. For a kitchen, you'd buy the cabinets, you'd buy the interior components. Then we have over 40 different options from entry level doors to some really high-end, one-of-a-kind offerings.Stephanie:I love that. Do I think of it like white labeling? You take IKEA's [inaudible] and then you can add like rose gold fixtures on it, yeah?John:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The credit, obviously, goes back to IKEA. This is an ever expanding ecosystem that's been around probably for 15 years now. People that make amazing slipcovers that you can put on their sofas. People that make furniture legs, companies like us that make fantastic cabinet doors. It's a way to get a really high-end look for a really mid-level price.Stephanie:Cool.John:I'm even fortunate to grow quite a bit with that.Stephanie:That's great. How did you come to this idea?John:I'm always honest and clear that this was ... It's a spectacular idea that somebody gave to me.Stephanie:Who gave it to you?John:I think his name is David Stewart. I think he's a photographer. Look, I'm 53. I don't know if I'm older than a lot of the people you talk to.Stephanie:A little.John:I came to things a little bit later. I had moved to California from the East Coast when I was 21. Well, wanted to get rich and famous, work in the film business, didn't really have any kind of plan, bounced around with that, was writing, not making any money like everybody else I knew waiting tables. Then I woke up in my early 30s and said, I got to do something with my life. It was post 9/11, which is a wake-up call for a lot of people. I tried a bunch of different things. Then I somehow landed in woodworking and furniture making at first and cabinetry. I got good at it.John:Through the late '90s and early 2000s, that's what I was doing, Southern California based custom furniture and cabinetry company called Handmade. I worked hard. I approached it like a business into my late 30s, which was different than a lot of other people I knew, the craftspeople, spectacular artists, but just no head for business, no interest in business. I always looked at it like as a business like any other. That's what I was doing through, again, the early 2000s. I was networking and blogs just started to happen. I was doing a lot of woodworking shows but also design shows. At one of those design shows in 2008, I think somebody came up to me, this guy randomly and said, "Have you ever thought about making doors for IKEA cabinets?"Stephanie:Was that something that others were doing? Why did he have that idea? Then was like, I'm going to tell John to do that.John:It's interesting. Again, I always want to give credit where credit is due. On top of him, there was a company called Scherr's based in North Dakota that has been making doors for IKEA cabinets just a little bit prior to that. People are always making their own doors as well. It is because IKEA lets you not buy doors when you buy their kitchens. I don't know why he mentioned it. I think part of it was because when I did those shows, it was a show called Whelan Design, which is a great show in Southern California at the time and back when Dwell magazine was really in its heyday and just an iconic brand.John:I was always like the one off independent company. It was me and all the big brands. It would be like Kohler and Caesarstone and Sub-Zero. I was there alongside them with my little custom furniture setup. I don't know if he took a liking to me, but we just spent that day, the Friday and then the following day just talking about it. I had no idea what he was talking about at first.Stephanie:That's awesome. Then for people listening, I know when I first heard of your brand and was looking through it. I'm like, oh, it's just like a small thing, a big thing. Then I was looking through some of the stats and you've been named like the fastest growing private company every year by Inc. magazine [inaudible].John:Well, yeah, one of. Yeah, one of many. Inc. 500 originally, we've been on that list, I think, six or seven years now.Stephanie:You've had double digit growth for almost a decade, year every year.John:Yeah. It's exciting. It's, again, one of many things. I try to be candid and clear, but I never expected this. I never thought in a million years I'd be doing this. Every year that we were fortunate to grow, even my ambition or dreams, it got bigger. It's like get to a million, get to two million, get to five million. It's been exciting. Believe me, I don't take it for granted. That's why I enjoy doing things like this, because I always ... At 40, I was newly divorced. I didn't have any kids at the time. I have a son now. He was nine. I lived in my shop for a year, because I got divorced.John:I didn't have anywhere to live. I had options, but I wanted to hide. I lived in my woodworking shop. I lived on my sofa with my dog. I just said, I got to do something else. It was a huge wakeup call. Then that's when the conversation I had, I think, six to nine months prior. It was like, maybe I should try this. Again, in terms of the second acts in life, whatever, I was 40 and had no clue. 10 years later, more than 10 years later, it's different.Stephanie:Yeah, that's very inspirational. Cool to hear about and cool to see where you can start and where it can grow to. How did you grow the company? From starting out where you're woodworking, you're building stuff, and then you're like, okay, I'm going to buy IKEA stuff and make it better. How did you get in front of people and be found in general?John:Like anything, Stephanie, it's like you look back on it and as much as it was, a long journey at times were so challenging, whatever. You get through it, and you gloss over it. It's only when conversations like this that I do get an opportunity to look back. The reality was, again, I had a nice custom furniture cabinetry business. I had some really good clients. I work with some good architects and designers. Then in 2008, the market tanked. Everybody went in the dumpster. I had to do something else. Things had slowed down.John:I started saying to a couple designers and architects, "What if we try to do integrate some IKEA cabinetry into the custom project." Because at the end of the day, a box is a box, and you're just going to see the outside of the beautiful panels and the doors. There were a few people that took a chance on that. That's how it ... It's like anything. I was 100% custom in 2009. Then it's like, okay, you can start mixing it in and starting to organically ... I don't even know what kind of ... I wasn't doing advertising. Blogs had just taken off.John:Apartment therapy had seen see me at a design show and written about me, which was amazing. That was a really big deal. L.A. Times did a story on me, which is incredible. Yet it was always organic. Through 2010 and 2011, it became, okay, now we're doing half custom, half IKEA. Then every year, it's a little bit more headed towards full IKEA. The truth is, I don't know when it was, maybe 2013, when it was fully just making doors for IKEA. It was fun. It was always a steady progression, always growing every year.Stephanie:Yeah, sustainably growing, which is a lot different than a lot of the brand.John:Yeah, profitable every year. Beginning, doubling every year, which, again, was not what I expected. Part of that, what's funny too is I have a lot of incredibly supportive family, but also friends, guys that I grew up with. When I was in California at 21, or 22, or 29, or whatever, they were amazing. They love me. They were supportive, but they probably had no clue where I was headed. I didn't either. Now, it's fun. I gave them a hard time constantly about the fact that they probably gave up on me.John:Not in a bad way, but it's just ... I mean, I do think that there is a time to cash in your chips. It's great to have dreams. There was an interesting like Scott Galloway kind of thing recently about if you should follow your dream. His overly simplistic thing is definitely do not follow your dream. Because unless you're willing to pay your bills to start because following just exclusively your dream can be incredibly impractical. The people that you admire, suddenly, the people that I admire weren't these head up in the clouds kind of people. They worked really hard. I geek out on founder stories, things, podcasts like this. I'm fascinated by that. It's never an overnight thing, or at least it's rarely. Again, I'm 53 now. This is all house money.Stephanie:Wow, that's awesome. When you started, getting more money, you're doubling growth, more revenue, obviously. Where did you invest? How did you think about investing that? Because I'm sure you're like, woo-hoo! I'm going to go have fun now.John:No.Stephanie:No?John:It was never like that, no. It's interesting. I would say I like nice things like some people do. I'm pretty frugal. In terms of the business, everything lives inside the business. I had a partner at that point. Up until three years ago, we made everything in-house. I was the original guy making the doors and packing them up and then shipping them in New York or different places. Then my partner at the time, Ivan, came on board. He was the guy cutting the doors. Now, we were fortunate to grow.John:Eventually, we had close to 35, I think 35 or 40 people that were working in production. Up until three years ago, we topped out at 75 people and half of them were making products. Now I'm proud to say we don't make anything in-house. Everything, it's made around the US, some at the top manufacturers in the country. That was a huge shift. To answer your question, everything is in the business. That's why you see revenue numbers are different than other things.Stephanie:Yeah. What were some mistakes maybe that you remember where you're like, ooh, I would have avoided this if I were to do it again, or especially in the more maybe the past five years or something. Not early on when you're just ...John:Right. If we're going to say 10 years ago, the mistakes that I made were unavoidable in the sense that I was creating this out of thin air. Ivan and I were just making stuff up as we went along. We were two guys. He's a little bit younger than me. He came out from Boston. I came out from Philadelphia to be writers. In some ways, no business starting this kind of business. In the last five years, it's probably the mistakes that I've made are ... I don't know, maybe waiting too long to really build up the team, which is not to say that we didn't have good people, we did.John:Part of my job now is just looking at the next 12 months and 18 months and say, hopefully, where are we going to be? Where do we think we're going to be? What are we going to need then? As someone who is ... Again, I think pretty honest about their limitations or whatever, we only thrive with people that are smarter, better, or more experienced than me. That's one of the biggest changes in the last at least six months, where we really just hit the gas and brought in some really amazing complementary pieces.Stephanie:Yeah, cool. How do you think about building on top of another company? What if IKEA changes their cabinet line or does something different, did that ever worry you, building a business that's ... I mean, a lot of businesses are built on another businesses, obviously. How did you think about that?John:We've always been after market. With IKEA, it's pretty well documented. We've gone up and down with them. I think in most ways, they appreciate what we do. Certainly, it's undeniable that we sell kitchens that people wouldn't normally buy if we weren't available. They also, I think, hate a little bit that we're there. I don't know this is arrogant or anything to say. They're not going to change their model because of us. They're never going to not sell doors. Even if they did, I would say to people like, "Then just buy the do…
Full show notes at the publisherWe’ve all seen it — maybe some of us have even fallen for the trick — you’re on an ecommerce site and a big “Wheel of Savings” pops up. This innocent-seeming discount offer, though, isn’t what it seems, and it’s doing damage to the end-user spinning the wheel, and the site the wheel pops up on. The world of malvertising and browser extensions has been causing headaches in the ecommerce world for years and brands are constantly looking for ways to fight back and regain control of their websites. Matt Gillis is helping with that mission. Matt is the CEO of clean.io, which offers real-time protection against malicious actors and code for some of the most-trafficked websites in the world. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Matt takes us through some of the methods bad actors are using to install malicious code on ecommerce sites, and he gets into the nitty gritty of why browser extensions like Honey and Wikibuy are hurting brand bottom lines, and why those extensions are making marketing attribution nearly impossible. But he also offers some solutions, too, so that ecommerce brands can finally win back control of the user experience. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Good Guy or Bad Guy?: Traditionally, malvertising is done by bad actors who infiltrate websites and take over through ads. But in the world of ecommerce, the bad actors are actually manifesting in the form of Fortune 100 companies that profit from website extensions like Honey and Wikibuy, which disrupt the user experience of the customer on the original ecommerce site. Solving that problem is the challenge for ecommerce brands that want to take back control.Sneakily Effective: In the malvertising world, the bad actors are at the top of the marketing game. They can achieve a 100% click-through rate at little to no cost because they are using sly, untraceable strategies. Targeting and eliminating those malvertisers is critical in order to level the playing field for ecommerce marketers to have success moving forward.Last Line of Defense: Publishing platforms hold most of the responsibility for the end-user experience. Everybody has a role to play in minimizing the risk of malicious buyers or advertisers, but ultimately, the publisher is the last line of defense against malvertising moving into the user experience, and they should be held accountable.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey everyone. And welcome back to Up Next In Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles co-founder at mission.org. Today on the show we have Matt Gillis, the CEO at clean.io. Matt, welcome.Matt:Stephanie, thanks for having me. I'm excited.Stephanie:I am very excited to have you here. We were just talking about how cool your background is, and I think that's actually kind of a fun place to start of where you're at in the world. And tell me a bit about your background.Matt:Yeah. Hey, so I'm in Baltimore and we actually just took possession of this office in February, right before the pandemic. And so the irony is I've been here every day since the pandemic started pretty much.Stephanie:By yourself?Matt:But I'm by myself. So we have 4,000 square feet. We just did the mural right before the pandemic and no one on our team has been able to experience it pretty much. But yeah, cybersecurity company located in Baltimore, we're about 45 people, I guess you could say solving this problem of untrusted and malicious JavaScript that is ruining user experiences in revenue across the internet. That's us in a nutshell.Stephanie:Cool. Well, I am really excited to dive further into clean.io. Before we do that though, I was hoping you can kind of go through your background because I saw you've worked at places like AOL, you've been in publishing. You've been in ad space. Tell me a bit about what you did before you came to clean.io.Matt:So full disclosure, I'm old. And so I've been around a little bit. I've had some fun. But yeah, I think key things I've spent probably the last 20-ish or so years in a couple of different capacities. Right out of university, I started in the mobile industry and mobile at that time was just making phone calls, that's it. There wasn't even texting then.Matt:In fact, my job back in those days was I would stand on a golf course at a golf tournament and let people make free phone calls because that was the cool thing to do then. No one had cell phones and if they did, they were like those brick ones. You remember those ones that you couldn't fit in your pocket?Stephanie:Yeah. And you were the cool guy like, "I've got access to an awesome phone, anyone want in?"Matt:Yeah. And listen, men and women would come up to me and they'd be like, "Can I call back and check and see if I have any messages?" And so that was the cool thing to do then. I know it sounds so crazy that was a thing at some point, but yeah. So I worked at mobile operators in the early stages of my career.Matt:So I worked at Bell Mobility in Toronto, Canada. I'm from Toronto. And then I moved down here to work at Verizon Wireless. And at the end of my tenure at Bell Mobility and my tenure at Verizon, I was focused on some of the services that you live by on your cell phone today. So this was in kind of late '99 and then the early 2000s of things like video on demand on your phone, playing games on your phone, downloading ringtones on your phone, I'm sure you did that.Stephanie:Oh, ringtones, yeah [inaudible].Matt:They were, obviously a huge business at some point.Stephanie:Now if my phone rings I'm like, "Stop it, what are you doing? Who's calling me? Don't call me, text me."Matt:Put it on mute. Yes, exactly. So I was kind of part of the foundational days of things that you would do with your phone, before the iPhone. And then I went and took a swing at being an entrepreneur and joined a little small video game company. Our biggest game was Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? We did a lot of TV game shows. So we did, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? And things like that.Matt:So I kind of walked the mile as a publisher for a while and then Capcom, which is the Japanese video game company acquired us. So I ran their publishing business for a few years and I got to experience what it's like to be a publisher and how hard it is to make money.Matt:And that was kind of in those early days of the iPhone where I'd say to people, "You'll go and spend $5 on this latte, but you won't pay $5 for unlimited use of a game over a period of time." And this is back in 2008, 2009. And so we had a real struggle and people weren't wanting to pay for our games. They want them free and free became kind of the thing on the iPhone.Matt:And so recognizing that struggle, I actually joined this company called Millennial Media, which was one of the earliest mobile ads platforms for app developers, helping app developers make money with ads. Some of our biggest customers at the time were like Words with Friends, if you've played Words with Friends-Stephanie:Yes, I have.Matt:... ads in every game. So we were kind of one of the foundational tech partners with folks like Words with Friends and various other games across the internet and apps. Did that for eight years through an acquisition with Verizon and AOL. And then we acquired Yahoo. So I ran the publisher platforms business at the combined entity of those companies, which was awesome.Matt:And one of the biggest problems in my time over that period was this thing called malicious ads, or malvertising as they call it. You probably are familiar with when you're scrolling away on your phone and all of a sudden it redirects you and says, congratulations, you won an Amazon gift card. And you're like, "I didn't click anything." Or spin the wheel for your chance.Stephanie:Yeah. I did that once I fell for it. I was like, "Oh, I spun it." I couldn't help it.Matt:Never spin the wheel, Stephanie.Stephanie:I only did it once, but yeah, afterwards I'm like, "That was a bad call. Why did I do that?"Matt:Yeah. So it was a big problem in my past life. And there were a few folks that were solving this problem and two of them were folks that I had worked with at AOL. When I left, it was called Oath at the time, which is Verizon Media now.Matt:I went and had lunch with these guys and they told me that they were spinning up this company called Clean Creative and set to solve this problem of malvertising. And I didn't have a job and it was getting too cold to golf. And so I said, "Hey guys, can I be an intern?"Matt:And so I came and hung around for a couple of days a week. And I was like, "You guys are really onto something here because this was a massive problem in my prior life." And so I said, "Hey, can I have the keys?" And they obliged. And that's how I'm here, started as the CEO two years ago. And we've kind of been blowing it up ever since. That's awesome.Stephanie:Yeah, such a fun story. So what is your day to day look like now? And what's your best day in the office look like while you're there by yourself? Are you around skipping around bicycling around the big office? What is your days look like?Matt:I do pace and I get my steps in over there. Day-to-day, we're startup, so we're small. And so as any of your listeners would know at a startup you do everything, and you take the trash out and you sign big contracts, hopefully you raise money. You kind of do run the gamut. So it's a little bit of everything. If you've worked at a startup you know that generally speaking, there's epic highs and epic lows. And so you have those days where you are the king of the world and you and your team are high-fiving and celebrating. And that's a little different now because you got to do it all virtually.Matt:Part of being at a startup is you get that culture of everybody generally speaking, being in an office like this, but we're a widely distributed culture now. We were before the pandemic where we kind of had, I don't know, five or six or seven locations among all of our people, but now we have 40 locations. So it's just like any other gig except there's really no net underneath you. You're walking this tightrope and hopefully you get to the other side.Stephanie:Yes. I definitely feel that.Matt:It's fun though. Isn't that why you do it?Stephanie:I mean, yeah, it's definitely really fun. Other times you're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm responsible for so many lives." And then other days it's like, "This is fun." So it's a good balance.Matt:Yeah. I mean, I won't lie. I had months of sleepless nights when we were raising money. We most recently raised our series A and we started raising it in March, right at the beginning of the pandemic. And yeah, all these people's jobs, for me, the pressure was on me to make sure that we could raise money and continue on this mission.Matt:The reality is, is the people behind the scenes are the ones that actually made my job easy because they're the ones that enabled me to go and tell the story of our massive revenue growth and our massive traction and our product market fit and all of that sort of stuff.Matt:Startups are hard, but there's a reason that many people once you leave the big company and you actually go and take your swing, that becomes the thing that you keep doing and doing and doing because you like having that euphoric feeling.Stephanie:Yeah. No, I definitely agree. And I mean, I think it's a good reminder too, as the CEO at any company to kind of get out of your way and hire a team that can support you and do things, but then let you do the higher level things like selling, raising money, such is a good point for, I think a lot of business owners who want to kind of stay attached to, "I've always been coding." Or, "I always did this part of the business." You need to step away and find people who can step in for you so you can go on to the next thing.Matt:Yeah, and focus on your strengths. Don't try and overcompensate and really... We did this thing called StrengthsFinder with our leadership team. And it was really about figuring out what are the strengths across this group of people that are practically leading the company. And you go, "Okay, well, I'm really good at this, this and this. And you're really good at this, this and this. Wow. We compliment each other. I should continue to keep doing this stuff. And boy, we should just let you handle all of this sort of stuff." So yeah, hire a diverse team and hire people that are way smarter than you and you'll be successful.Stephanie:So how have you seen the digital security landscape change? Maybe even over just the past year or two, what new things are popping up, what should e-commerce owners be aware of right now that maybe wasn't happening last year or two years ago?Matt:I would say that where we cut our teeth was in this malvertising space and what it is, is malicious JavaScript that's kind of being injected into the user experience through ads. And what we've seen is that the bad actors, the people that are doing it, are getting even more sophisticated over time. They have figured out how to get around the systems. They've figured out how to get around the checks and balances.Matt:And we kind of stumbled into this e-commerce world where we were protecting, we're protecting some of the biggest websites on the internet. There's seven million websites that run our code. Probably many of the websites that you go to everyday either to get your news or to read entertainment gossip, or that sort of stuff if you do.Stephanie:No.Matt:I'm not saying you do Stephanie, but we protect all of those sites; every single page view on those pages, we make sure that the user experience is protected and revenue's protected. And by the way, in that world, it's folks that I would say, delivering malicious JavaScript. What we started seeing in the e-commerce world is there's this whole phenomenon of what I would call untrusted JavaScript.Matt:Now in either case, the premise is you own your website. You should be able to control everything that executes on your website. You should be able to protect your user experience. You should be able to dictate your user experience because it's your website. On the malvertising world, what we saw happening was if folks had ads on their website, they had lost control of the user experience. They had lost control of revenue because any bad actor could just buy an ad and take over the user experience and get you to spin the wheel.Stephanie:Only once, but yes.Matt:Only once, but it happened. And so in the e-commerce world, what we've noticed is there's a lot of stuff happening on e-commerce sites, just like there is in any website that is without the permission or without the authorization of the person who owns the site. The biggest problem that we kind of dug in and gone to solve for is, if you ever heard of these things called Honey or Wikibuy?Stephanie:Yeah.Matt:So these are Chrome extension, Safari extensions, Firefox extensions. They sit r…
Full show notes at the publisherFor more than two decades, Dan McGaw has been engrossed in the world of marketing technology. And through the years, there has rarely been a new MarTech tool that Dan hasn’t given a shot. Why has he placed such an emphasis on knowing the latest tools available to marketers? Because every company, big or small, needs to invest in tools that will elevate their business rather than slow it down. Some tools are better than others, and sifting through the rubbish to find the diamonds is a daunting task. That’s where Dan and his company, McGaw.io, come in.On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Dan discusses all of the marketing technology he’s bullish on at the moment, and why he believes ecommerce companies will be investing heavily in certain tools and operational activities. From campaign tracking, to multi-touch attribution, to recommendation engines, to personalization, Dan’s toolbelt has a tool for you, and he also has some comforting words for anyone who is worried about the potential of a cookieless future. Main Takeaways:Text Me Back: Companies are misusing SMS messaging as simply a way to send promotional messages. Instead, brands should think about texting as a way to open two-way communication with their customers, especially through the use of direct questions and interactive exchanges.An Easy Way to Personalize: There are opportunities to personalize the shopping experience that are being left on the table. Brands reflexively choose the easy option of sending a cart abandonment email reminding users what they left in their cart. What would be more effective is sending an email that utilizes their entire shopping history, including things they didn’t add to their cart. Just because they didn’t add a particular item, doesn’t mean they weren’t interested. After all, they simply could have been distracted or otherwise disposed of before making the transaction. C is for Cookie: Despite the fact that many people are worried about the death of third-party cookies, they will not completely disappear. And, in fact, there are actually already alternatives to cookies available that work in a similar way. Find out what they are and how to use them by tuning in!For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey everyone and welcome back to Up Next In Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder at mission.org. First things first, I would love it if you could hit subscribe and leave a rating and review, let me know how I'm doing and what you guys are interested in hearing in the future. All right, onto the show. Today, we have Dan McGaw, the CEO and founder of McGaw.io. Dan, welcome.Dan:Hey, how are you today?Stephanie:Good. How are you?Dan:I'm doing amazing. I'm living the dream right now. So having a ton of fun.Stephanie:You are. So tell me a bit about McGaw. So I was reading about your background and what you were known for, and someone called you the godfather of the marketing tech stack and one of the original growth hackers. So if I'm setting you up big here, let me know. But tell me, how did you get those names and what does your current company do?Dan:Yeah, great question. Well, I got those names from other people calling me, which is pretty fascinating to say the least because I remember the first time that I heard that I was like, "What?" But then it kind of caught some legs. So I've been in this space for over 20 years. So I've been doing marketing technology marketing since 1998. So I've been doing mass emails since before mass email was even a thing. So I just have been around for a really long time and I've been in the marketing technology space since before there was even a concept known as marketing technology. So definitely have had a long history of doing this. I've been an entrepreneur for a long time, even have been, another funny, fancy title that I was given is I am a United States ambassador of entrepreneurship.Stephanie:I saw that too. I didn't know what that meant though so I was afraid to put that one out there.Dan:Right? So I was selected by the United States State Department to be an ambassador of entrepreneurship to Mexico and I was flown to Mexico and I had to advise a bunch of companies and corporations and colleges on how to build entrepreneur ecosystem. So it's just been really fascinating. I think that the big thing that I will just say is I have a really big mouth and I'm always out there doing something stupid and I'm not afraid to say how I feel. So it's kind of wound me up with some cool places and I've done some really cool stuff, but yeah, I've had an amazing career. Everything from working at a cemetery, to making pizzas to now of course doing some really bad-ass marketing technology stuff. So I hope that helps.Stephanie:So what'd you do at the cemetery? Now you've piqued my interest there. We'll just have a conversation about that now.Dan:Yeah. Right. And that was the creepiest job I've ever had, but so awesome. I just did, I was a lands crew person and I weed whacked and I blew leaves. I think I was 14 in middle school, but I've always had the hustle so I just wanted to work and make cash. And I mean, I started my first company when I was 13 and was very successful in that business. So I've always just wanted to make money and that's actually how I got into marketing technologies. I saw marketing technology was going to blow up and we chose a vein in there and stuck with it and it worked out really well.Stephanie:That's cool. So how did you see that area was going to blow up? I mean, you're saying that it was before there was even a terminology around it. How did you see this as an industry I want to get into and now I know what to actually do to even be helpful.Dan:Yeah. Fascinating question. So my first company was basically in the music business. We started one of the first online booking agencies for DJs and producers. So everybody here has probably watched the Fyre documentary on Hulu or Netflix. I literally did that same exact business except for I was not a fraud, which is so fascinating. We started an online website and bulletin boards marketing DJs and producers that basically would do raves. Today we now call it EDM and it's all this big billion dollar industry, but back then it was like nothing. And I was just young and didn't know what the hell I was doing. And so I said, "Hey, we're going to figure out how to promote these DJs because I love raves like any ..." What 13 year old goes to raves? But either way-Stephanie:Yeah, really. Where are your parents? We don't know where Dan went. He's been gone for a week.Dan:Supporting me a 100%, crazy enough, but I started that and then really started figuring out the internet and none of our competitors were using the internet. They were still just like relationship based. And as we went through that process, I learned a little bit about development, HTML and nobody was doing anything. So so far in like those days, AOL didn't even have a concept of mass email. You had to get white listed to send mass emails. So I just kind of started doing it to come to find out that there wasn't really any technology back then to do this stuff. So before there was all this tech to be able to make it happen, I was already kind of making it happen manually. So I got really involved, naturally Google analytics which was urchin came out and like ad tech became and there wasn't MarTech. It was just ad tech at the time, Google analytics and traffic tracking.Dan:I got really big into UTM tracking, which is kind of the first bit of it. So fast forward a little bit to like 2000, I think like 11 or something like that, Kissmetrics was a large analytics company. I got hired there as the head of marketing. I was hired to replace Neil Patel, one of the founders. So I wound up becoming like the head of marketing at one of the rocket ship analytics companies. But all the stuff in between the middle there was kind of you just made it up as you went. And then 2011, 2012 was when MarTech kind of like took off and I saw that as a humongous opportunity. So I've just kind of have stayed in that industry.Stephanie:Okay, cool. And what brands do you work with today for context?Dan:Yeah, really, really good question. I mean, our clients weren't ... So our company mission is to help companies of all sizes realize that their customer data is their most valuable asset. So we work with some really, really small companies all the way up to some really, really big ones. So some big ones that people would know like King's Hawaiian Bread. We do a lot of their implementation work. We are managing their ecommerce. Hydro.com, which is like the Peloton of rowing. We do work with them. Some other people might be familiar with like forksoverknives.com. They were a long time client of ours. We no longer work with them, but I mean, we helped blow them up. These are some really popular brands that people would be aware of, but we also work with some of the MarTech companies. So even Kissmetrics has hired us. Segment.com has hired us. Looker which is owned by Google has hired us. So it's really across the board. It's been a lot of fun.Stephanie:Cool. And what kind of challenges do you see the bigger brand struggling with today? And is it kind of similar to maybe with the smaller brands that you work with? Like same kind of thing or are they very different problems you have to focus on?Dan:I think the problems are exactly the same. I think the tactics which are being used are slightly different because the tool set changes, but there's two primary problems that most companies have and that's when they come to us, which is great, is they either lack visibility into their customer journey or they lack the ability to engage in the customer journey. And this is a pretty big problem that every business faces is that they can't see what's happening in that customer journey or they can't act in there. And that's where the marketing stack which is what our specialty really is, is we help companies basically connect all the tools together, integrate them, operate them and be able to gain visibility into that journey so they can provide engagement there.Dan:And this is one of the biggest problems that you're facing in marketing today because everybody's figured out ad tech. Everybody's figured out email automation and everybody is kind of trying to figure out analytics now, but there's still this huge middle and bottom that nobody understands and that's really where our company kind of sits nice and sweetly. So the customer journey is huge right now. I mean, that's what everybody's focused on.Stephanie:Cool. So where do you see companies going wrong right now in the customer journey? Like are there similar things or like you guys all keep doing the same thing and it's messing everything up or is everything very different, all the problems that you maybe discover as you were starting to look into how the brands are operating.Dan:Yeah. The biggest thing that we see that that's fairly consistent, and it's the thing that no marketer really focuses on is it's the taxonomy of the integration. So like what does taxonomy mean? So every time that somebody does an action or we learn an attribute about somebody who's coming through our funnel, that's got to have a name to it. It's got to have a label or as you might call, nomenclature. We've got to all call it the same thing. And that's a big problem that we see across organizations and I'll try to put this ... If you're working with an online education company, the marketing team is calling it a signup, but the development team is calling it an enrollment, but customer success is calling it a registration. And the problem is when this happens and the data all goes into the systems, you now have three attributes for the same exact action, and it makes it really hard to tie all these things together.Dan:So the fundamental problem that we see most companies have is that they just don't have a consistent taxonomy across the stack. So when they finally start looking at the customer journey, they have it all in different namings, and then they have to spend all their time transforming things to get them to line up. So that foundational thing is the last thing everybody focuses on, but when they get that right and it works across the entire stack using a unified taxonomy, which sounds so technical but it really isn't, they really are able to create magic because now everybody is calling the first name of a customer by first underscore name in the analytics, but in the attributes you see in marketing automation is Fname. Right? So that's usually the key problem that we see is that taxonomy is wrong. And then the second problem that we see is that the tools are not connected.Stephanie:Yeah. So it's funny talking about how the taxonomy is wrong. A lot of people listening might be like, that's so easy. And I'd say for a startup like starting out, it's very easy if you know to do that from the start. Like of course, have your variables, make sure they're exactly what you want and train people up, have your data dictionary, whatever you may have so everyone uses the same term. But actually when it's a bigger company which I've seen like back in my Google days, everyone's operating off different things. How do you bring the org together and all the different departments to be able to not only agree like this is the variable, but then make sure everyone's using it that way? Because that's actually a lot trickier than I think some might think.Dan:Yeah, it's extremely, extremely hard to get that cross department alignment. And it's fascinating because like this is one of the things that a growth team would ultimately help with, is kind of cross department alignment in regards to these things. But growth is always focused on action, not necessarily planning. So a new companies or I don't want to say new companies, excuse me. The new role a lot of companies are rolling out is revenue operations, marketing operations, sales operations, revenue operations is the big position that SaaS companies are hiring because it straddles across marketing sales and customer success And that's the big thing that's happening. And I think in a lot of the enterprise companies, you're going to see a lot more of these revenue operations style roles that are coming out that try to align it.Dan:Because everybody's realizing if your data's crap, okay, great, we can't do any of these cool things. This is where a lot of companies are getting their CIOs involved. I think the conversation over the past two years has really shifted away from, hey, we're just talking to marketing technology. So now the CIO calls the shots for all of this because the CIO is the one who makes the decision on business intelligence and all that. So I think a lot of CIOs own the problem. I don't think that they understand the problem because it's outside of their purview, which is sales and marketing. So I think it will be really, really hard, but it's really important for a company t…
Full show notes at the publisherConvenience is king. Everyone wants the easiest experience possible, but, they also expect that experience to be seamless and delightful at the same time. When it comes to shopping, ecommerce has been able to bring all those elements together better than in-store retailers. But even though brick and mortar retailers are facing an uphill battle, Joe Jensen believes that they aren’t going anywhere, and there are still massive innovations to be seen to make a more cohesive experience. Joe is a vice president in the Internet of Things Group and the general manager of the Retail, Banking, Hospitality and Education Group at Intel. He is helping brands across all industries and of all sizes become more nimble and data-centric. According to Joe, there are simple changes retailers can implement to solve big problems so long as you’re asking the right questions.. Like, what if you could solve all of your inventory issues with a simple technology that has already been in existence for years? And how can brands leverage in-store experiences as more of an enhancement to customers who typically enjoy online shopping but crave something more in-person?On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Joe answers those questions and more. Plus, he explains how and why traditional retailers should be utilizing more data just like their ecommerce competitors, and he gives a first look into the technologies that will be making an impact on the future of retail. Main Takeaways:Curation is the Cure: The role of retail is changing, and the retailers who lean into curated experiences will be able to better meet the new expectations of consumers. Rather than offering a little bit of everything, stores will want to give customers a deep dive into a specific brand experience, because that is what they crave when they are shopping offline.Bring On The Data: When digitally-native businesses start to open brick-and-mortar locations, they insist on having as much data captured as possible about the customers who enter their stores. Traditional retailers don’t want or feel they need the data simply because they’ve never used it before. But the nimble retailers that use all the data at their disposal will be the ones to win even against their data-heavy, digitally-native competition.Incoming Technology: From computer vision to full RFID implementation, technology is going to change the way shopping happens for both the customer and the business. But, don’t expect these changes too quickly. Despite the fact that using RFID technology would solve nearly all inventory issues, many brands are hesitant to implement that wholesale change. Why is that? And what will be the catalyst to finally change? Tune in to find out.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey everyone and welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder at Mission.org. Today on the show we have Joe Jensen, vice president and general manager of Retail Banking, Hospitality and Education Business at Intel. Joe, how's it going?Joe:Oh, fantastic. Beautiful day here in Phoenix.Stephanie:Good. Yeah, I'm glad to hear it. That is a mouth full title, but I feel like you deserve it when you've been somewhere for 36 years, I saw?Joe:Isn't that scary. I didn't even think I'm 36 years old, so it's weird.Stephanie:That's amazing, actually. I want to just start there. Tell me how did your journey begin at Intel and what are you doing today? What's your day to day look like now versus 36 years ago?Joe:Well, I started as a product development engineer at Intel, and I worked in a bunch of different product disciplines as an engineer. My original life plan was really to leave Intel at about year 10 and go to a startup, but by year 10, Intel stock options were so attractive that I ended up being so that fully handcuffed into the company.Stephanie:Yeah. As with most tech companies, I was this close to staying at Google for the same reason. I'm like, "Oh, it's hard to leave. I see my options vesting in year three and five and seven," and you can just extrapolate it out and it'll keep you there. But it's good-Joe:I shifted from engineering to the business side in about year seven, and I've done a ton of different business startups in the company. I think one of the things I'm most proud of, I've started three businesses that were at zero and have hit over 500 million a year.Stephanie:Oh, wow. So what are the businesses that you've worked on?Joe:Two different ones in an embedded space, and then now the Retail Banking, Hospitality. Education is added into that, but that business started, gosh, it started at single digit millions and we grew it to, well, we're the largest business within the IoT space in Intel I can say.Stephanie:That's cool. So tell me a bit about when you're saying IoT, and then retail banking, now education, how do I imagine what you guys are doing for your partners? What are you providing them? What does that look like?Joe:In our space, the IoT space for Intel is really where IT for an enterprise meets the real world. So in the case of retail, it could be digital signs, point of sales systems, inventory management, building management, time clocks, any system that might be connecting into IT. If you go into the manufacturing side, which is in my space, the manufacturing units, it's where equipment data flows in off of manufacturing side flows into the enterprise.Stephanie:And how many opportunities are being missed right now by not implementing? I would say data analytics like you're talking about. When it comes to inventory I know that Walmart for a while was trying to figure out how to track out of stock issues and it was really hard even when they had the cameras going around the lanes because they couldn't see behind what was in front of it. I don't know if they figured it out yet, maybe you know better than me, but what opportunities are being missed by not having this implemented into retail stores?Joe:As an engineer, I really think about root cause and what's the underlying problem, and we really believe that inventory inaccuracy is one of the underlying problems in physical retail. The problem we have is if customer can't find it in the store, it's out of stock. It doesn't matter if it's in the backroom, doesn't matter if it's hidden behind some items on the shelf, it doesn't matter if it's misplaced. If the customer can't find it, it's out of stock. We have data and research that shows that 1% of customers who experience an out of stock will go through the whole journey of they search on the shelf for it, they go track down a staff person to go find it, they dig through the rack or they don't find it. They say, "Hey, hold on. Let me go check in the back." They go look in the back and then come out and then maybe they go to the POS and they look to see if another store has it, or they'll ship it to your house. 1% of the shoppers are that patient.Stephanie:That's me. I'm that 1%. I did that the other day at Pottery Barn. But then I was very upset at the end because I was like, just like what you said, let me look in the back. Not there. Let me look at our partner stores. Not there. Let me look online. Ooh, it's not the size you want. And at the end I'm like, "Ugh. Okay, goodbye. I never want to come back again." I love Pottery Barn, but.Joe:Talk about a study that showed that if a customer experiences that out of stock frustration five times in a store, they stopped going.Stephanie:Yeah, I can see that. So how do you go about solving something like that to get all your systems on top?Joe:It's really tough. I still think RFID is going to play a key role. Japan has a huge labor shortage problem. They just said because of the aging of their population, they don't have enough labor, and the government decided four or five years ago to put a big push on RFID, and they're mandating by 2025, all consumer goods that are sold in China have to come from the manufacturer RFID tagged. They've also funded a kind of research-Stephanie:And that essentially keeps everything inventoried, right? Then you don't have staff to work.Joe:Yes. What happens is you don't even need staff to check out now because consumers will put their items in a basket, step the basket on the checkouts, and it'll read all the tags and then we'll just pay and go.Stephanie:So it's like the Amazon Go store where they're experimenting with, but I don't know whatever actually happened to that. I went into one in Seattle maybe two years ago, but are they still around? What happened with the Amazon stores like that?Joe:They're still running. They do a tremendous amount of business. I don't know how much of it's because of convenience and how much of it is the novelty. I suspect that they're augmenting a lot of that with human capital behind the scenes. I do think that you're going to find retail bifurcating into two types of retail. You're going to see the hyper-convenient side, which is you just want to take all the friction out. How do I take all the hassle? How do I take all the friction out for the shopper? And I think for staples day to day things, you want to go pick up fast food, fast food should be fast. I won't throw the chain under the bus, but there's a new location near our house, and I swear there's a three-hour wait all day, every day.Stephanie:Oh my gosh.Joe:Fast food just isn't that good for me. I'm not going to wait in line for three hours to get my fast food. And so I think on the hyper-convenient side, that's a big part of retail. Then on the other side, we're calling hyper experience. With hyper experience, shopping is an enjoyment and a pastime for a lot of people. And during the pandemic, obviously you can't go to the mall. You can't go shopping like you used to, but that will come back, and that you want to go and get experiences. You don't want to go to department store A and then walk down the mall to the department store B. And if you close your eyes when you walked in, you wouldn't know which store you're in.Joe:Now, if they all have the same assortment, they all have the same brands, they all have the same brand micro stores inside their department store, what's the experience that you're delivering to the consumer? If you go try to find a piece of clothing and it's out of stock, how's that experience? That's not a very good experience. So yeah, it's funny. I had one of my engineers in China explaining how he really has everything delivered. All his groceries, all his food. China is just hyper convenient from that perspective. It's cool and I love it.Stephanie:But they're used to it. They grew up like that, though. I feel like here, if you try and introduce some of those conveniences, it'd be like everything should be done this way. I don't know. I think Americans are a little bit more like, "Oh, that's weird," because we just know we have to do like this.Joe:It's really cultural differences, but I love this quote from him. And he said, "If I'm going to bother to put pants on and leave my apartment, it'd better be worth it."Stephanie:That's pretty great, and true. I feel that.Joe:It's like if I need batteries, do I want to get in the car and drive and go buy batteries? Well, if I do that and go to the store and they don't have that special battery, then it's really disappointing because now I spent 20, 30 minutes going out of my house to go get something because I wanted it right now and then they don't have it. This is why consumers do it a few times, they just start ordering online.Stephanie:Yeah. And I think the product, like you said, has to be worth it. How are you guys thinking about the experiences piece? Because we've had quite a few guests come on the show who've talked about their retail locations and turning them more into an experiential place, where you go there and you've got the certain music, and the vibes, and maybe you've got a yoga class going on over here and you're going there, not just to maybe pick up your product that you did order online during this time period, but you're also going there to maybe experience something that you wouldn't get elsewhere.Stephanie:A lot of people are saying retail's dead and I definitely do not see that happening. I'm like there is pent up demand to go in person and to go into stores, but I do think now there's going to be a new level of expectations of the consumers, not just going to want to go and shop around, they're going to want something else. How do you do that?Joe:I think that the role for retail is changing in terms of what experience means. If you go back 30 years ago, 40 years ago, shoppers didn't know what the new fashions were until they went to their favorite store and they saw what the new fashions were. So you went to your favorite store whether you're a Neiman Marcus shopper or Macy's shopper or a Target shopper, you went to the store to see what's available, what's in now. And there was that discovery and learning and value proposition that that store was giving you by bringing you things that fit your demographic. Today people know what's current as the store learns what's current. It's what the celebrities are wearing between social media and how quick things are in internet time. There is really no discovery value proposition for mass merchandise things.Joe:Where we see real success is curation. So you go to a store that's not a little bit of everything. It's a store that dives deep into a lifestyle or deep into a fashion style or deep into a demographic, and you go there and you immerse yourself in that brand, and then you immerse yourself in what that brand is about. That's the discovery. If you're someone who likes West Elm, and the style that West Elm delivers, you go to West Elm to see things that would be hard to find on your own elsewhere. If you wanted to go find your own curation, it would take you months of time on the internet trying to go discover all that stuff. But you can go to a store where their buyers have pulled that look together for you.Joe:If you're a Pottery Barn shopper, same kind of thing. You go to Pottery Barn and they've curated a set of things that fit a certain demographic and the lifestyle that they're looking for. So I think you're going to see a lot more of that curation. We did tour in New York City a couple of years ago, and the stores that were really doing amazing well were really deep into that curation idea.Stephanie:Yeah. I love that. I completely agree. I'm thinking right now about going into a Crate and Barrel or something like that, and I'm looking to find new things of a similar style, instead of going somewhere that's exactly the same that I can just find online. That's a really interesting take. How are you viewing the omni-channel experience of making sure that's frictionless when someone's looking online and then going into th…
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