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Stephanie:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to cool people in the food space. We talk to a lot of cookbook authors, and today I'm excited to talk to Sally Ekus. She is a literary agent, which, if you've written books or you're trying to get a book published, you know how important the agent process is. She leads a boutique culinary and lifestyle division via @JVNLA and is the lead agent at the Ekus Group. Did I get it right?Follow Sally's Substack Newsletter Not So Secret Agent Sally Ekus:Oh, I was just gonna say, yeah, I lead the Ekus Group. So we're a culinary and lifestyle division within a broader agency.Stephanie:And the Ekus Group was started by your mom.Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:A legend. Your mom has, like, one of the largest cookbook collections that I'm aware of.Sally Ekus:In fact, the largest, according to Guinness. Yes.Stephanie:A couple of months ago, I think maybe it was on your Instagram page, someone posted a picture of her library of her home that is literally looks like a library that you would see in New York city or Washington, D.C. or somewhere fancy with just walls and walls of books. It was so gorgeous.Sally Ekus:Yeah, It's a two store, all cherry wood, gorgeous library. She built the edition. It was a dream edition. It took a lifetime to build. And it is filled with cookbooks, almost exclusively cookbooks. Her fiction and children's books and other personal books are scattered elsewhere around the house. But the library is almost entirely culinary with over 6000 titles. It's really cool.Stephanie:It's amazing. And your mom's name is? Lisa. Please, can I ask you a question? I'm going to go all over the place here, but sure, please. I have a daughter and only one daughter and no sons. So my only child. And there are things that we have in common about cooking and about food, and I always think, like, oh, maybe she'll follow in my footsteps. But then she is quick to point out, like, no, I'm never doing that. But then she's sort of leaning sort of my way.Stephanie:How did that work with you and being in the publishing space?Sally Ekus:Yeah. So how old is your daughter now?Stephanie:26.Sally Ekus:Okay. Yeah. So growing up, my mom had this vibrant culinary business. At the time, it was a PR agency before we did agenting, and it was never supposed to be a family business. She never pressured me or said, you know, maybe one day. In fact, it was just like. If you had asked me before I started working with her, what does Lisa do for a living? I would have said something with books and something in food. So I was like, growing up in this.Sally Ekus:And I was immersed and sort of absorbing by osmosis. And, you know, in the, in my younger years, I would be like, collating press kits for PR campaigns and, you know, I was like earning a allowance, mailing catalogs and whatnot. But it wasn't, it wasn't something she was really like, whatever you want to do, follow your heart. I was on a different path. I went to school for counseling and I was about to go for a master's in social work. And I deferred. I broke up with a bad decision, moved home, started helping out at the agency and realized that I'd been informally training for this my whole life. I really fell in love with it.And I was very fortunate to step into the legacy of her reputation. And then also, once we decided this is something I wanted to do, talk about what the succession plan would look like and really carve out my own, you know, vibe and skill set and cultivate my own list, supporting her list. And so it was really a unintentional natural progression that then became quite intentional and, you know, quite effortful. So I think that's kind of why it worked out. And if, you know, but it's hard to say in hindsight.Stephanie:It's funny too. You talk about this like being in training of knowing this thing and you not even really realizing that until you've left and gone to do something else. And also, it does track that you were going to be a social worker.Sally Ekus:Absolutely.Stephanie:And now you're an agent.Sally Ekus:Yeah. I somewhat sarcastically but realistically acknowledge that I was trained in crisis counseling, active listening, and negotiation. So all of those things play a very big role in the work that I do as a literary agent working with books. But, you know, at the end of the day, it is a book. It is you know, not somebody's. Well, it is somebody's mental well being, but in a. In a different light. So I get to utilize those skills all the time.Sally Ekus:And it feels, it feels quite, quite lucky. And, you know, it's really the client management and author care and author advocacy that I love so much. And that has kept me, kept me in this, in this business for as long as it has.Stephanie:What is it about cookbooks in particular that makes you solely focus on that?Sally Ekus:Well, that I stepped into, you know, that was Lisa's area of expertise. She was one of the very first cookbook publicists. Publicist. She essentially created the category of culinary publicity before there were massive agencies handling, you know, influencers and brand campaigns. And so that was her area of expertise. So that's what I stepped into and was hyper mentored in. And I also equally just felt in love with it. I mean, there are many different things that bring people together, and at the end of the day, it feels like food is that one.Sally Ekus:Through line. Everyone has some relationship to food, recipes, cooking, memory, good, bad, complicated, probably somewhere in the middle. And so to have a little. To have a role in helping to bring that to fruition in published form is a tremendous honor.Stephanie:You are the publisher, or the agent, actually, of Entertaining 101 with Beth Lamana.Sally Ekus:Yeah. Yes.Stephanie:We just talked with. With her last.Sally Ekus:Yeah, I listened to that. It was such a fun conversation.Stephanie:Yeah, she was pretty great. And the weirdest thing happened to me the other day. I was at my radio partner's office, and we were talking about a project, and she had a stack of cookbooks, and I was like, oh, what are you working on? She's like, oh, I'm. I'm helping our friend from Muriel, Karen Tomlinson, put her proposal together.Sally Ekus:Oh, my gosh.Stephanie:Oh, that's interesting. And she goes, yeah, she's got a really great agent already. And I'm like, who's her agent? And it's you.Sally Ekus:Yes, it is. Yeah. I'm so excited to be working with her. Yep. Yeah.Stephanie:Her point of view on food and her storytelling of the purveyors that she works with and her just completely beautiful recipes. I'm so excited for you, and I'm so excited for that book.Sally Ekus:Thank you. Yeah, I mean, that's a great example of really early development. You know, I often say that I work with people, not proposals. You know, we can get to the proposal. I help guide people through that process as an agent. And, you know, this is a great example where it's like, you know, I'm so captivated by the food and the media attention and the accolades and the intentionality of what is happening from the farm to the plate. And so, you know, sometimes chefs work with writers or collaborators to help bring that to the. To the printed page.Sally Ekus:And that's where we're at with that project. So it's in very early stages, which is super exciting.Stephanie:Yeah. You're going to not be disappointed. She is just a great person. She's a great storyteller, and that you had a really good eye to pick her up, because I think she's.Sally Ekus:Thank you.Stephanie:What other projects do you have on the docket right now that you're excited about? I see Potluck Desserts behind you.Sally Ekus:Oh, yeah. Justin Burke, Potluck Desserts. Justin's book came out the same day as Beth's just a couple weeks ago. And I try to rotate in my background the books that are sort of newly rotating. So The Meathead Method over here, that is Meathead's second book. His first book called Meathead, came out almost 10 years ago. And it's all. Both books are all about the science and art and science of barbecue and grilling and outdoor cooking.Sally Ekus:I have books in a bunch of different levels of activity, so that's also fun because I have something that's like, you know, proposal and development and then things that are coming out. So it really, it really runs the gamut. I just saw Frankie Gaw, whose Instagram handle is @littlefatboyfrankie. He's up for a James Beard Media Award, and he just turned in the manuscript for his second book called Asian Americana. So I'm really excited about that. So it's really all levels of development over here.Stephanie:Once someone does their first book, is it easier to market them the second time around?Sally Ekus:Great question. I find that yes, because really, once that first book is to, you know, publishers need you to have or want you to have a big platform to warrant signing a book deal. And then the book helps sort of level up that platform, promotion, name recognition, certainly moving beyond like the core community of that author. It helps introduce new readers, new cooks, new fans to that person's work. And so I find that that second book, third book, fourth book, 10th book, really helps just keep that momentum going.Stephanie:You wrote something recently on your substack that people should follow you because you're a good follow that I really have spent a lot of time thinking about, and I'm probably going to get the name of the author wrong. So you may have to come.Sally Ekus:We can figure it out together. Yeah.Stephanie:The idea of it was is that a new cookbook writer launched a book tour in a way that was a little unconventional and in some ways maybe controversial because instead of the usual like going out to the booksellers and having a Q and A and talking, she hired her friend who is a comedian and really created more of like, I'll call it in air quotes, like a Real Housewives type in person cooking experience. That there was cooking demonstration, there was talking about the book. Do you know who I'm talking about?Sally Ekus:No, actually. Was it one of my clients or maybe a reshare?Stephanie:I think it's a reshare because she has been on the New York Times bestseller list now with her book for a couple weeks and it was the literary agencies kind of looked down on what she did a little bit because it was unconventional and maybe a little.Sally Ekus:I mean, I love unconventional.Stephanie:I kind of did too.Sally Ekus:Oh, yeah.Stephanie:I wanted to ask you about that because I'm, you know, I'm getting ready to launch my own tour and thinking about, like, locations and. Yeah, it really blew my mind to think, like, for me in particular, and people that have really strong performing skills, like, you know, I am, I would say I'm more of a performer of cooking content than I am of necessarily creating recipes. I do recipe development, but it's more about the presentation of it. And I think that's so cool to think about that we're bringing books into this digital age in that way.Sally Ekus:Absolutely. So my overarching advice with every anything in publishing is it depends and you do you like, what fits for one person is not one size fits all for the other book or other campaigns. And so I love to share information, whether it's on my substack not so secret agent or on my social or just with my clients. Like, I like to share. Here's an example or here's five examples of what another author has done, what is helpful, what resonates with you, and like, move on from the rest. You know, how can you evolve this into your own campaign? And cooking is such a tactile experience. It's so experiential in and of itself. It's such a connector.Sally Ekus:It also can be so beautiful alone. Like, do what feels right for you, your book, and share in a way that feels true to you. Because that's what I think really attracts people to come out first and foremost and like, spend their free time and free re and any sort of additional resources they may have and make it fun and memorable. You know, I mean, I think more and more we see brands and individual authors and companies just evolving. You know the term like activation into experiences, into just moments that matter.Stephanie:You mentioned your substack not so secret agent, and I'm wondering if substack is changing or improving the landscape for cookbook authors.Sally Ekus:I think substack's changing all kinds of things. You know, it used to be that at least as a cookbook agent, we would sort of scout on Instagram or TikTok. And now substack is certainly a major player and there's a ton of food content and creators on substack. But even just a year ago when I got on, there's a lot less and I think there's still a lot more room because there's so many hyper focused areas of interest in foods that you have this opportunity. You know, maybe you can't land a publishing deal, but if you can build a community of the people that want your recipes, your voice, your food, whatever it is in that specific space, go for it. I mean, you can be so hyper focused and really build this, this beautiful community. And I love the Substack ecosystem. It's been incredibly generous to me and I try to give back as much as possible.Sally Ekus:Like the recommendations and resharing and discoverability aspect of Substack has been a really beautiful thing to experience.Stephanie:They've really democratized the idea of podcasting too. I've been podcasting for seven years. Actually longer than that, maybe even closer to like nine.Sally Ekus:Wow.Stephanie:Well, I was a broadcaster so it makes sense to go from radio to developing a podcast space and just the ease of ability of doing it now, you know, before you had to have special equipment and people to host it. And it's just gotten so much simpler. And we're also seeing that, I think with video that's making it so easy to go live. You don't necessarily need 10,000 watch hours on YouTube or 3,000 subscribers or whatever, you know.Sally Ekus:Yeah, most of my readers come like my email goes to their actual email inbox though people find me through substack and so it's been fun. I'm not by any means a seasoned or polished content creator, but I've been doing videos as one means of explaining other things about publishing and just kind of seeing how that resonates with people in their inbox versus other mediums. And it's been really fun. They are super lo fi and quite off the cuff. But most people that are not tuning in live to me on Substack, they'll find it in their inbox the next morning, which has been really fun too.Stephanie:I think the lo fi aspects too are almost what people are looking for.Sally Ekus:I hope so.Stephanie:I have not the TikTok algorithm and I are not friends, probably never will be friends. And I don't understand it at all because I can produce like something that looks great, tastes good, you. It's just mouthwatering to watch. And then I can post like a picture of my dog and that will be the thing that.Sally Ekus:Right. Well, I think animals will always outperform us on, on the socials as they should at this point.Stephanie:You know, it's so crazy. It's so crazy. A single subject book has popped into the zeitgeist that I'm really. I think it's a really great book. Sesame, it's called.Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:And it's like a single ingredient versus and they take that. She takes that single ingredient and uses it in many different ways throughout the book. You must see like single ingredient books, seasonal books, like, are there trends in what's hot right now?Sally Ekus:I love single ingredient books or single subject. Oftentimes it's a lower recipe count, somewhere between like the 50 to 75 range, as opposed to 75 to 100 or 125. It just feels like a little bit more giftable, a little bit more impulse buy. And it's really fun to see those. There's always single subject books cropping up. But I think particularly in the shift in the cookbook market, meaning there's a bigger gap between creator led books, big robust cookbooks and then sort of a place for everyone else. And sometimes that place where you can settle in for everyone else if you don't have this massive following is in a single subject book that could be your expertise or deep, deeply researched. I don't necessarily think that's so much a trend as it is something that like ebbs and flows.Sally Ekus:And we see a little bit more of on the cookbook shelf because they've always been there. But now people can nerd out on one thing and they'll go to the cookbook shelf because the food scene just in the zeitgeist has become so popular. There's strawberry earrings and I've got a sweater with cherries on it. So why not a book about just sesame? It's really a time to celebrate ingredients and food.Stephanie:When you are on like Instagram or TikTok and you're trying to relax, like you're not working. And I know that's really hard to even do.Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:Are you following like other creators and other spaces and thinking like, gee, how are they doing this or does that work for you?Sally Ekus:Well, I would, I would just clarify that I don't go on social to relax, but and also I'm almost always working. However, to answer your actual question, I have. Most of the people I follow outside of the food space are in the body inclusivity, body positivity space. I follow some fashion people that are highly inclusive, plus size fashion people that have completely changed my relationship to even the fact that I've said fashion on a podcast interview. I just never would have been that person a while ago. But it's offered me an opportunity to see like color and textures and textiles and just the lifestyle of how we have a relationship to our closet In a new way. Also the home and space, you know, I sometimes represent outside of the cookbook shelf. And so I like to say that I, I represent the home with a focus on the kitchen, but I also, you know, hang out in the living room and I have a tiny human, so I hang out with the kids space.Sally Ekus:And so it's just focusing on other rooms at the home at times has been really fun too. So that's kind of where I dabble on social as well.Stephanie:Speaking of kids, I don't know why this comes to mind, but I always get asked, you know, what are the cookbooks that you should be buying for kids and better homes or not. Betty Crocker's Boys and Girls is still like a best selling book, right?Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:And then there's one other one that I'm going to not think of the name right off the top of my head, but there feels like there is kind of an empty space in Cooking with Kids and Cooking with Families.Sally Ekus:Yeah, there's a few. So I love the ATK books. I think it's a great brand. They've got great recipes for Cooking with Kids. Deanna Cook, who is a story publishing author, has a bunch of kids books that are awesome. And for me, I think sometimes it's not that there's like a lack of. It's just that there's still space for. And the tricky part about pitching and representing those books or selling them is it, is, is it a book for cooking with kids? Is it a book for kids to cook from? You know, and those are different age groups and those are different recipe styles.Sally Ekus:So much down to like the page and the format and the illustrations or the pictures or the how to steps. So there's just so many practical considerations and logistical ones that it's a slightly trickier category, but one that we've, we, we've dabbled in a little bit and there's some great books and I think a lot of space for, for others. The author of Indian Ish did a kids cookbook as well that I found really fun and just wonderful recipes. I forget the name of the book off the top of my head.Stephanie:That Indian Ish was a really cool cookbook.Sally Ekus:Yeah. Yes.Stephanie:There's been some just beautiful, texturally colorful books written by people from more diverse backgrounds. And while it seems like we see a ton of that right now, and we are, it is fairly new in the last 10 years.Sally Ekus:It has become magnified and intensified though our agency. And kudos to Lisa for carving out her space as a Literary agent representing underrepresented voices from the get go. It's been a part of the ethos of our agency since day one. And so to see publishers in the past 10 years really prioritizing marginalized voices is amazing. And also a little about time, you know?Stephanie:Yeah.Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:Okay. Kind of a controversial question. Sometimes people in the media can be a little snooty about influencers and about social media in particular, because I think they feel maybe like people are treading on their. Their authority of space. Yeah, you get people that feel snarky sometimes about, like, oh, they're an influencer. It's another influencer cookbook and kind of eye rolling because there are some not so great cookbooks written by really good content creators, but maybe they're not great at putting it all in a book format or maybe the recipes aren't necessarily great. Once they get past that beautiful shot, do you think that there'll be, like, almost a backlash to this whole genre, as it were?Sally Ekus:I don't know that it would necessarily be a backlash in that a lot of the creator led books, both the great ones and the more challenging ones. I think the positive outcome of all of those books is that it has put this spotlight on food and the cookbook shelf. And I think the more people who are interested in what books are on the cookbook shelf, the better. What I do feel, and I've already started feeling this as an agent, is that the shift back to experts or an evolution to what is the next version of people that have really robust followings, capturing their audience in a meaningful way and delivering content that rings true to that audience and honors what the industry is looking for. I'm already hearing that shift from acquiring editors from publishers that I work really closely with and even in my own scouting. So I feel like we are moving towards the. Thank you very much for bringing a spotlight to the shelf. And where are we going and how can we all support the industry at large and.Stephanie:And the trend that we're talking about or hearing about is more expertise, you know, more of a microscope on something in more detail.Sally Ekus:Exactly, yeah. Which is so fun. I mean, more interest, more books, more. More food, more deep dives.Stephanie:And also, like, I mean, we just start scratching the surface about, like, my husband and I are working on books about place of food. So, like, we've written a fiction book about Croatia that has recipe as a component to it.Sally Ekus:I'm seeing a lot more crossover among different genres, even between fiction and nonfiction. I was just pitched a proposal, probably the first Maybe it's the second one that has sort of a fictional component to it. And I, you know, I don't represent fiction. That's for my colleagues at the agency and other agents in the industry. But it is fun to see how food has like penetrated every aspect of our lives and it's just delightful.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm super excited about that. In just my personal journey, it's keeping it fresh and interesting.Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:You know, my husband is a writer as a fiction writer. And for us to like collaborate on a project together in a way that I know what my lane is and he knows what his lane is is pretty fun.Sally Ekus:Well, I think that's one of the many gifts that have come out of this like creator led book or just like the, the intensification of food in the zeitgeist is that people who are, who are an expert in a certain culinary topic could be a consultant on a novel or who knows, you know what I mean? And it's just, it's blowing the fridge doors wide open.Stephanie:I feel like it's sort of like the white lotus effect for books and cooking and food generally that put that lens on travel and exotic locales. And I just feel like that's the next thing and I'm gonna be there, I promise.Sally Ekus:Cool. Well, it is, it's so fun to just see our beloved culinary space be celebrated across, across genres and like just.Stephanie:To get back to as a little kid going into a bookstore or going into the library and just the joy of, you know, books have been under attack for the last 20 years as the Amazonification of the world has happened. But we're seeing in Minneapolis in particular, like lots of local bookstores are opening again and people are making them multi purpose. So they might be selling cooking things, but also they might have a coffee shop, they might do pastry.Sally Ekus:Yeah, my. One of my favorite recommendations for authors or aspiring authors or just dear friends is to go to your local independent bookstore and talk to the people that work there and ideally talk to the owner and the people who make the decisions about what books to bring in. It is a wildly fascinating conversation.Stephanie:Yeah, it's the best part about a book tour for me is actually like getting to talk to the people that recommend and sell the books and then.Sally Ekus:Also buy books there. Not. I think that's implied, but you never know.Stephanie:Yes. Sally, it's been a delight to talk to you. Thank you for joining the program today. I'll put links to your substack, also your information. If I don't know if anyone's listening is thinking about pitches, but if you are.Sally Ekus:Yeah, I have really comprehensive nonfiction book proposal guidelines that definitely pertain to those looking to write food books, but also are really applicable to anyone that's looking to learn about publishing. So that's a great link to share. And thank you so much for having me on.Stephanie:Yeah, it's great. And keep pitching me your authors. You have good authors. And the books. Beth was a joy.Sally Ekus:Oh, thanks.Stephanie:All right, we'll talk soon.Sally Ekus:Okay, bye.Stephanie:Okay, bye. Bye.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Stephanie:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to cool people in the food space. We talk to a lot of cookbook authors, and today I'm excited to talk to Sally Ekus. She is a literary agent, which, if you've written books or you're trying to get a book published, you know how important the agent process is. She leads a boutique culinary and lifestyle division via @JVNLA and is the lead agent at the Ekus Group. Did I get it right?Follow Sally's Substack Newsletter Not So Secret Agent Sally Ekus:Oh, I was just gonna say, yeah, I lead the Ekus Group. So we're a culinary and lifestyle division within a broader agency.Stephanie:And the Ekus Group was started by your mom.Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:A legend. Your mom has, like, one of the largest cookbook collections that I'm aware of.Sally Ekus:In fact, the largest, according to Guinness. Yes.Stephanie:A couple of months ago, I think maybe it was on your Instagram page, someone posted a picture of her library of her home that is literally looks like a library that you would see in New York city or Washington, D.C. or somewhere fancy with just walls and walls of books. It was so gorgeous.Sally Ekus:Yeah, It's a two store, all cherry wood, gorgeous library. She built the edition. It was a dream edition. It took a lifetime to build. And it is filled with cookbooks, almost exclusively cookbooks. Her fiction and children's books and other personal books are scattered elsewhere around the house. But the library is almost entirely culinary with over 6000 titles. It's really cool.Stephanie:It's amazing. And your mom's name is? Lisa. Please, can I ask you a question? I'm going to go all over the place here, but sure, please. I have a daughter and only one daughter and no sons. So my only child. And there are things that we have in common about cooking and about food, and I always think, like, oh, maybe she'll follow in my footsteps. But then she is quick to point out, like, no, I'm never doing that. But then she's sort of leaning sort of my way.Stephanie:How did that work with you and being in the publishing space?Sally Ekus:Yeah. So how old is your daughter now?Stephanie:26.Sally Ekus:Okay. Yeah. So growing up, my mom had this vibrant culinary business. At the time, it was a PR agency before we did agenting, and it was never supposed to be a family business. She never pressured me or said, you know, maybe one day. In fact, it was just like. If you had asked me before I started working with her, what does Lisa do for a living? I would have said something with books and something in food. So I was like, growing up in this.Sally Ekus:And I was immersed and sort of absorbing by osmosis. And, you know, in the, in my younger years, I would be like, collating press kits for PR campaigns and, you know, I was like earning a allowance, mailing catalogs and whatnot. But it wasn't, it wasn't something she was really like, whatever you want to do, follow your heart. I was on a different path. I went to school for counseling and I was about to go for a master's in social work. And I deferred. I broke up with a bad decision, moved home, started helping out at the agency and realized that I'd been informally training for this my whole life. I really fell in love with it.And I was very fortunate to step into the legacy of her reputation. And then also, once we decided this is something I wanted to do, talk about what the succession plan would look like and really carve out my own, you know, vibe and skill set and cultivate my own list, supporting her list. And so it was really a unintentional natural progression that then became quite intentional and, you know, quite effortful. So I think that's kind of why it worked out. And if, you know, but it's hard to say in hindsight.Stephanie:It's funny too. You talk about this like being in training of knowing this thing and you not even really realizing that until you've left and gone to do something else. And also, it does track that you were going to be a social worker.Sally Ekus:Absolutely.Stephanie:And now you're an agent.Sally Ekus:Yeah. I somewhat sarcastically but realistically acknowledge that I was trained in crisis counseling, active listening, and negotiation. So all of those things play a very big role in the work that I do as a literary agent working with books. But, you know, at the end of the day, it is a book. It is you know, not somebody's. Well, it is somebody's mental well being, but in a. In a different light. So I get to utilize those skills all the time.Sally Ekus:And it feels, it feels quite, quite lucky. And, you know, it's really the client management and author care and author advocacy that I love so much. And that has kept me, kept me in this, in this business for as long as it has.Stephanie:What is it about cookbooks in particular that makes you solely focus on that?Sally Ekus:Well, that I stepped into, you know, that was Lisa's area of expertise. She was one of the very first cookbook publicists. Publicist. She essentially created the category of culinary publicity before there were massive agencies handling, you know, influencers and brand campaigns. And so that was her area of expertise. So that's what I stepped into and was hyper mentored in. And I also equally just felt in love with it. I mean, there are many different things that bring people together, and at the end of the day, it feels like food is that one.Sally Ekus:Through line. Everyone has some relationship to food, recipes, cooking, memory, good, bad, complicated, probably somewhere in the middle. And so to have a little. To have a role in helping to bring that to fruition in published form is a tremendous honor.Stephanie:You are the publisher, or the agent, actually, of Entertaining 101 with Beth Lamana.Sally Ekus:Yeah. Yes.Stephanie:We just talked with. With her last.Sally Ekus:Yeah, I listened to that. It was such a fun conversation.Stephanie:Yeah, she was pretty great. And the weirdest thing happened to me the other day. I was at my radio partner's office, and we were talking about a project, and she had a stack of cookbooks, and I was like, oh, what are you working on? She's like, oh, I'm. I'm helping our friend from Muriel, Karen Tomlinson, put her proposal together.Sally Ekus:Oh, my gosh.Stephanie:Oh, that's interesting. And she goes, yeah, she's got a really great agent already. And I'm like, who's her agent? And it's you.Sally Ekus:Yes, it is. Yeah. I'm so excited to be working with her. Yep. Yeah.Stephanie:Her point of view on food and her storytelling of the purveyors that she works with and her just completely beautiful recipes. I'm so excited for you, and I'm so excited for that book.Sally Ekus:Thank you. Yeah, I mean, that's a great example of really early development. You know, I often say that I work with people, not proposals. You know, we can get to the proposal. I help guide people through that process as an agent. And, you know, this is a great example where it's like, you know, I'm so captivated by the food and the media attention and the accolades and the intentionality of what is happening from the farm to the plate. And so, you know, sometimes chefs work with writers or collaborators to help bring that to the. To the printed page.Sally Ekus:And that's where we're at with that project. So it's in very early stages, which is super exciting.Stephanie:Yeah. You're going to not be disappointed. She is just a great person. She's a great storyteller, and that you had a really good eye to pick her up, because I think she's.Sally Ekus:Thank you.Stephanie:What other projects do you have on the docket right now that you're excited about? I see Potluck Desserts behind you.Sally Ekus:Oh, yeah. Justin Burke, Potluck Desserts. Justin's book came out the same day as Beth's just a couple weeks ago. And I try to rotate in my background the books that are sort of newly rotating. So The Meathead Method over here, that is Meathead's second book. His first book called Meathead, came out almost 10 years ago. And it's all. Both books are all about the science and art and science of barbecue and grilling and outdoor cooking.Sally Ekus:I have books in a bunch of different levels of activity, so that's also fun because I have something that's like, you know, proposal and development and then things that are coming out. So it really, it really runs the gamut. I just saw Frankie Gaw, whose Instagram handle is @littlefatboyfrankie. He's up for a James Beard Media Award, and he just turned in the manuscript for his second book called Asian Americana. So I'm really excited about that. So it's really all levels of development over here.Stephanie:Once someone does their first book, is it easier to market them the second time around?Sally Ekus:Great question. I find that yes, because really, once that first book is to, you know, publishers need you to have or want you to have a big platform to warrant signing a book deal. And then the book helps sort of level up that platform, promotion, name recognition, certainly moving beyond like the core community of that author. It helps introduce new readers, new cooks, new fans to that person's work. And so I find that that second book, third book, fourth book, 10th book, really helps just keep that momentum going.Stephanie:You wrote something recently on your substack that people should follow you because you're a good follow that I really have spent a lot of time thinking about, and I'm probably going to get the name of the author wrong. So you may have to come.Sally Ekus:We can figure it out together. Yeah.Stephanie:The idea of it was is that a new cookbook writer launched a book tour in a way that was a little unconventional and in some ways maybe controversial because instead of the usual like going out to the booksellers and having a Q and A and talking, she hired her friend who is a comedian and really created more of like, I'll call it in air quotes, like a Real Housewives type in person cooking experience. That there was cooking demonstration, there was talking about the book. Do you know who I'm talking about?Sally Ekus:No, actually. Was it one of my clients or maybe a reshare?Stephanie:I think it's a reshare because she has been on the New York Times bestseller list now with her book for a couple weeks and it was the literary agencies kind of looked down on what she did a little bit because it was unconventional and maybe a little.Sally Ekus:I mean, I love unconventional.Stephanie:I kind of did too.Sally Ekus:Oh, yeah.Stephanie:I wanted to ask you about that because I'm, you know, I'm getting ready to launch my own tour and thinking about, like, locations and. Yeah, it really blew my mind to think, like, for me in particular, and people that have really strong performing skills, like, you know, I am, I would say I'm more of a performer of cooking content than I am of necessarily creating recipes. I do recipe development, but it's more about the presentation of it. And I think that's so cool to think about that we're bringing books into this digital age in that way.Sally Ekus:Absolutely. So my overarching advice with every anything in publishing is it depends and you do you like, what fits for one person is not one size fits all for the other book or other campaigns. And so I love to share information, whether it's on my substack not so secret agent or on my social or just with my clients. Like, I like to share. Here's an example or here's five examples of what another author has done, what is helpful, what resonates with you, and like, move on from the rest. You know, how can you evolve this into your own campaign? And cooking is such a tactile experience. It's so experiential in and of itself. It's such a connector.Sally Ekus:It also can be so beautiful alone. Like, do what feels right for you, your book, and share in a way that feels true to you. Because that's what I think really attracts people to come out first and foremost and like, spend their free time and free re and any sort of additional resources they may have and make it fun and memorable. You know, I mean, I think more and more we see brands and individual authors and companies just evolving. You know the term like activation into experiences, into just moments that matter.Stephanie:You mentioned your substack not so secret agent, and I'm wondering if substack is changing or improving the landscape for cookbook authors.Sally Ekus:I think substack's changing all kinds of things. You know, it used to be that at least as a cookbook agent, we would sort of scout on Instagram or TikTok. And now substack is certainly a major player and there's a ton of food content and creators on substack. But even just a year ago when I got on, there's a lot less and I think there's still a lot more room because there's so many hyper focused areas of interest in foods that you have this opportunity. You know, maybe you can't land a publishing deal, but if you can build a community of the people that want your recipes, your voice, your food, whatever it is in that specific space, go for it. I mean, you can be so hyper focused and really build this, this beautiful community. And I love the Substack ecosystem. It's been incredibly generous to me and I try to give back as much as possible.Sally Ekus:Like the recommendations and resharing and discoverability aspect of Substack has been a really beautiful thing to experience.Stephanie:They've really democratized the idea of podcasting too. I've been podcasting for seven years. Actually longer than that, maybe even closer to like nine.Sally Ekus:Wow.Stephanie:Well, I was a broadcaster so it makes sense to go from radio to developing a podcast space and just the ease of ability of doing it now, you know, before you had to have special equipment and people to host it. And it's just gotten so much simpler. And we're also seeing that, I think with video that's making it so easy to go live. You don't necessarily need 10,000 watch hours on YouTube or 3,000 subscribers or whatever, you know.Sally Ekus:Yeah, most of my readers come like my email goes to their actual email inbox though people find me through substack and so it's been fun. I'm not by any means a seasoned or polished content creator, but I've been doing videos as one means of explaining other things about publishing and just kind of seeing how that resonates with people in their inbox versus other mediums. And it's been really fun. They are super lo fi and quite off the cuff. But most people that are not tuning in live to me on Substack, they'll find it in their inbox the next morning, which has been really fun too.Stephanie:I think the lo fi aspects too are almost what people are looking for.Sally Ekus:I hope so.Stephanie:I have not the TikTok algorithm and I are not friends, probably never will be friends. And I don't understand it at all because I can produce like something that looks great, tastes good, you. It's just mouthwatering to watch. And then I can post like a picture of my dog and that will be the thing that.Sally Ekus:Right. Well, I think animals will always outperform us on, on the socials as they should at this point.Stephanie:You know, it's so crazy. It's so crazy. A single subject book has popped into the zeitgeist that I'm really. I think it's a really great book. Sesame, it's called.Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:And it's like a single ingredient versus and they take that. She takes that single ingredient and uses it in many different ways throughout the book. You must see like single ingredient books, seasonal books, like, are there trends in what's hot right now?Sally Ekus:I love single ingredient books or single subject. Oftentimes it's a lower recipe count, somewhere between like the 50 to 75 range, as opposed to 75 to 100 or 125. It just feels like a little bit more giftable, a little bit more impulse buy. And it's really fun to see those. There's always single subject books cropping up. But I think particularly in the shift in the cookbook market, meaning there's a bigger gap between creator led books, big robust cookbooks and then sort of a place for everyone else. And sometimes that place where you can settle in for everyone else if you don't have this massive following is in a single subject book that could be your expertise or deep, deeply researched. I don't necessarily think that's so much a trend as it is something that like ebbs and flows.Sally Ekus:And we see a little bit more of on the cookbook shelf because they've always been there. But now people can nerd out on one thing and they'll go to the cookbook shelf because the food scene just in the zeitgeist has become so popular. There's strawberry earrings and I've got a sweater with cherries on it. So why not a book about just sesame? It's really a time to celebrate ingredients and food.Stephanie:When you are on like Instagram or TikTok and you're trying to relax, like you're not working. And I know that's really hard to even do.Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:Are you following like other creators and other spaces and thinking like, gee, how are they doing this or does that work for you?Sally Ekus:Well, I would, I would just clarify that I don't go on social to relax, but and also I'm almost always working. However, to answer your actual question, I have. Most of the people I follow outside of the food space are in the body inclusivity, body positivity space. I follow some fashion people that are highly inclusive, plus size fashion people that have completely changed my relationship to even the fact that I've said fashion on a podcast interview. I just never would have been that person a while ago. But it's offered me an opportunity to see like color and textures and textiles and just the lifestyle of how we have a relationship to our closet In a new way. Also the home and space, you know, I sometimes represent outside of the cookbook shelf. And so I like to say that I, I represent the home with a focus on the kitchen, but I also, you know, hang out in the living room and I have a tiny human, so I hang out with the kids space.Sally Ekus:And so it's just focusing on other rooms at the home at times has been really fun too. So that's kind of where I dabble on social as well.Stephanie:Speaking of kids, I don't know why this comes to mind, but I always get asked, you know, what are the cookbooks that you should be buying for kids and better homes or not. Betty Crocker's Boys and Girls is still like a best selling book, right?Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:And then there's one other one that I'm going to not think of the name right off the top of my head, but there feels like there is kind of an empty space in Cooking with Kids and Cooking with Families.Sally Ekus:Yeah, there's a few. So I love the ATK books. I think it's a great brand. They've got great recipes for Cooking with Kids. Deanna Cook, who is a story publishing author, has a bunch of kids books that are awesome. And for me, I think sometimes it's not that there's like a lack of. It's just that there's still space for. And the tricky part about pitching and representing those books or selling them is it, is, is it a book for cooking with kids? Is it a book for kids to cook from? You know, and those are different age groups and those are different recipe styles.Sally Ekus:So much down to like the page and the format and the illustrations or the pictures or the how to steps. So there's just so many practical considerations and logistical ones that it's a slightly trickier category, but one that we've, we, we've dabbled in a little bit and there's some great books and I think a lot of space for, for others. The author of Indian Ish did a kids cookbook as well that I found really fun and just wonderful recipes. I forget the name of the book off the top of my head.Stephanie:That Indian Ish was a really cool cookbook.Sally Ekus:Yeah. Yes.Stephanie:There's been some just beautiful, texturally colorful books written by people from more diverse backgrounds. And while it seems like we see a ton of that right now, and we are, it is fairly new in the last 10 years.Sally Ekus:It has become magnified and intensified though our agency. And kudos to Lisa for carving out her space as a Literary agent representing underrepresented voices from the get go. It's been a part of the ethos of our agency since day one. And so to see publishers in the past 10 years really prioritizing marginalized voices is amazing. And also a little about time, you know?Stephanie:Yeah.Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:Okay. Kind of a controversial question. Sometimes people in the media can be a little snooty about influencers and about social media in particular, because I think they feel maybe like people are treading on their. Their authority of space. Yeah, you get people that feel snarky sometimes about, like, oh, they're an influencer. It's another influencer cookbook and kind of eye rolling because there are some not so great cookbooks written by really good content creators, but maybe they're not great at putting it all in a book format or maybe the recipes aren't necessarily great. Once they get past that beautiful shot, do you think that there'll be, like, almost a backlash to this whole genre, as it were?Sally Ekus:I don't know that it would necessarily be a backlash in that a lot of the creator led books, both the great ones and the more challenging ones. I think the positive outcome of all of those books is that it has put this spotlight on food and the cookbook shelf. And I think the more people who are interested in what books are on the cookbook shelf, the better. What I do feel, and I've already started feeling this as an agent, is that the shift back to experts or an evolution to what is the next version of people that have really robust followings, capturing their audience in a meaningful way and delivering content that rings true to that audience and honors what the industry is looking for. I'm already hearing that shift from acquiring editors from publishers that I work really closely with and even in my own scouting. So I feel like we are moving towards the. Thank you very much for bringing a spotlight to the shelf. And where are we going and how can we all support the industry at large and.Stephanie:And the trend that we're talking about or hearing about is more expertise, you know, more of a microscope on something in more detail.Sally Ekus:Exactly, yeah. Which is so fun. I mean, more interest, more books, more. More food, more deep dives.Stephanie:And also, like, I mean, we just start scratching the surface about, like, my husband and I are working on books about place of food. So, like, we've written a fiction book about Croatia that has recipe as a component to it.Sally Ekus:I'm seeing a lot more crossover among different genres, even between fiction and nonfiction. I was just pitched a proposal, probably the first Maybe it's the second one that has sort of a fictional component to it. And I, you know, I don't represent fiction. That's for my colleagues at the agency and other agents in the industry. But it is fun to see how food has like penetrated every aspect of our lives and it's just delightful.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm super excited about that. In just my personal journey, it's keeping it fresh and interesting.Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:You know, my husband is a writer as a fiction writer. And for us to like collaborate on a project together in a way that I know what my lane is and he knows what his lane is is pretty fun.Sally Ekus:Well, I think that's one of the many gifts that have come out of this like creator led book or just like the, the intensification of food in the zeitgeist is that people who are, who are an expert in a certain culinary topic could be a consultant on a novel or who knows, you know what I mean? And it's just, it's blowing the fridge doors wide open.Stephanie:I feel like it's sort of like the white lotus effect for books and cooking and food generally that put that lens on travel and exotic locales. And I just feel like that's the next thing and I'm gonna be there, I promise.Sally Ekus:Cool. Well, it is, it's so fun to just see our beloved culinary space be celebrated across, across genres and like just.Stephanie:To get back to as a little kid going into a bookstore or going into the library and just the joy of, you know, books have been under attack for the last 20 years as the Amazonification of the world has happened. But we're seeing in Minneapolis in particular, like lots of local bookstores are opening again and people are making them multi purpose. So they might be selling cooking things, but also they might have a coffee shop, they might do pastry.Sally Ekus:Yeah, my. One of my favorite recommendations for authors or aspiring authors or just dear friends is to go to your local independent bookstore and talk to the people that work there and ideally talk to the owner and the people who make the decisions about what books to bring in. It is a wildly fascinating conversation.Stephanie:Yeah, it's the best part about a book tour for me is actually like getting to talk to the people that recommend and sell the books and then.Sally Ekus:Also buy books there. Not. I think that's implied, but you never know.Stephanie:Yes. Sally, it's been a delight to talk to you. Thank you for joining the program today. I'll put links to your substack, also your information. If I don't know if anyone's listening is thinking about pitches, but if you are.Sally Ekus:Yeah, I have really comprehensive nonfiction book proposal guidelines that definitely pertain to those looking to write food books, but also are really applicable to anyone that's looking to learn about publishing. So that's a great link to share. And thank you so much for having me on.Stephanie:Yeah, it's great. And keep pitching me your authors. You have good authors. And the books. Beth was a joy.Sally Ekus:Oh, thanks.Stephanie:All right, we'll talk soon.Sally Ekus:Okay, bye.Stephanie:Okay, bye. Bye.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Born and raised in the Midwest to parents originally from Egypt, sisters Alia and Radwa Elkaffas created their Food Dolls platform to share exciting, fast, healthy meals. Born and raised in the Twin Cities to parents originally from Egypt, their recipes from “Pretty Delicious” are flavor-packed, Mediterranean-inspired, and plated with their signature style.Recently, we had a chance to catch up with the Food Dolls sisters on the eve of their cookbook launch for “Pretty Delicious” (pre-order the book here now) when we recorded a “Taste Buds With Stephanie” (episode drops on Fox 9 2/22/2025 at 8:30 am. ) at Radwa's gorgeous home. The sisters were as delightful and warm as ever, and we loved the recipes. “10 out of 10.” We made 3 recipes from the book, “Pretty Delicious”. I also riffed on their Marinated Tomatoes and Feta Dip and made it my own with all the same ingredients but as a baked pasta dish in homage to their talents.Cheesy Tomato and Feta Baked with Pasta and HerbsBy Stephanie Hansen Ingredients* 2 cups cherry tomatoes about 1 pint* 1/4 cup olive oil* 2 teaspoons salt* 1 teaspoon pepper* 8 oz. full-fat cream cheese at room temperature* 8 oz. feta cheese at room temperature* juice of half a lemon* 1 Tablespoon honey* 1/4 cup fresh parsley* 1/4 cup fresh basil* 1/4 cup fresh mint* 8 oz penne pastaInstructionsPreheat the oven to 400°F.Add the tomatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon and honey to a 9 x 13 baking dish.Nestle the cream cheese and feta cheese in the center of the baking dish amongst the tomatoesBake for 22-25 minutesMeanwhile, boil the pasta until el denteRemove from the oven and add the sour cream and stir the mixture, breaking it up combining the cheese and the tomatoes with the pasta making a saucetop with the fresh basil, parsley and mint, and serve hotEPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Stephanie:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish, the podcast where we talk to people equally obsessed in the food spaces as we are. And today, I'm with the Food Dolls. I'm with Radwa and Alia Elkaffas, and we had an opportunity to record a taste buds episode with them that will air at the end of February. I think it's gonna be February 22nd right on the eve of your book being available at stores.Alia Elkaffas:It well, we go live on the 25th.Stephanie:Okay. So you can preorder, though, your book Pretty Delicious right now. And if we talk about cookbooks in particular, the preorder is like it's crazy because what people don't know is all those preorders that you say you want this book, they count towards day 1 sales. And for people like Food Dolls who have such a massive following, it could be the day that launches them potentially to the top of the New York Times, cookbook list. So preorders for cookbook authors are super important. So we want you to get your books when they come out live, but we also want you to preorder because all of that stacked up on that first day counts to get them we're trying to get them on the New York Times bestseller list with their book. Would you like that, girls?Radwa Elkaffas:That would be just a dream.Stephanie:I know. It would. When when we spent time together in your home and watching you guys make your magic, When I left, one of the things that I asked, I'm like, so, you know, what are your intentions? And you were like, we wanna get our book on the New York Times bestseller list. And I think I really think you can do it because you guys have such a huge following. The book is so great. It's pretty delicious. Can we just back up? Like, you guys said you've been doing this pretty much since pre pandemic, but I feel like, you know, you've amassed such a huge following. Like, how did it get started?Radwa Elkaffas:Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me on, and it was so fun cooking with you last week. I well, we definitely started around 9 years ago now, which is so crazy to think that it's been that long. I think when we first started, we didn't really have, like, the best direction of what exactly Sure.Stephanie:No one did.Radwa Elkaffas:And we were trying to figure out social media. Both of our backgrounds were not chefs. We have no we have no photography background, no videography background. We had nothing, but we just knew that we love to cook, and we wanted to share with the world how easy and delicious you can make recipes. And I think that's been it since day 1. Our shift kind of changed a few years later on really kind of honing in on, like, our culture and our background and what we grew up eating, and people loved it. People loved it, and they love our, like, sister vibe.Stephanie:Yeah. You 2 are real life sisters, and are you 4 years apart?Alia Elkaffas:Yes. That's right.Stephanie:And, your background is your parents are from Egypt. Right. So you're you're leaning into that sort of cultural vibe. And what maybe a lot of people don't know, and I know a tiny, tiny bit, but, that Egypt is a very modern place all told. Like, can you just give us a little bit of, why it's a touchstone for you to still be speaking about this food that you guys have lived here most of your lives, but you still feel like this is such an influence for you?Alia Elkaffas:So our parents were they immigrated here in the early eighties. And so we were both born and raised here, but they really tried very hard to keep our Egyptian background alive. So whether it was with food, with, cultures, traditions. So, basically, we're very we're very Egyptian and Midwestern at the same time. So you even see a lot of our recipes. We do fusions between Egyptian and Mediterranean, Middle Eastern food with our Minnesota side.Stephanie:It's funny that you mentioned that today because, prior to talking with you, the way that taste buds works usually is we go out and we have an adventure somewhere. And in this episode, that adventure was with you guys in your home. And then we take what we learned from that adventure, and we come back into my kitchen. And so one of the things that I made was your, what was it? It was the Egyptian orzo with ground beef, and it had cinnamon in it. It was super delicious. The recipe worked beautifully, and everybody loved it. But what was funny was when we were making it, my cameraman said, oh, it's just like a casserole or a hot dish. And so I laughed.Stephanie:I was like, yes. This is like the Egyptian hot dish. That's exactly the mashup.Alia Elkaffas:Exactly. Yep. And that's what we we always say. It's like an Egyptian, hamburger helper, you know, casserole. So it's it's yeah. It's really good.Stephanie:Even down to, like I don't know if you guys ever have had rice aaroni, but it was like a combination between rice and pasta, and you sauteed it just like you did with the orzo to get the color on the pasta. So it was just really it it was a delicious recipe. The other thing that we did that will surprise you maybe is I was trying to think about how to take what I learned from you and your book and the way you cook and make that kinda my own too because I think that's so much of what you inspire people to do. So I took the marinated tomato, and creamy whipped feta dip that we made on the show with you, and I took all those same ingredients literally to the letter, but we made a pasta bake with it.Radwa Elkaffas:Oh, that sounds delicious.Stephanie:Yeah. So you'll see that on the episode. We made it and we made it into, like, a pasta bake because when I was looking at the recipe that you guys made when we were in your kitchen, I was like, oh, this is kinda like that feta where the roasted tomatoes. And so that's the surprise for you that you'll see that we just took your dish and all the ingredients. It was very fun to and it was interesting too because, Michelle, my producer, she was like because she loved your dip so much. And then she was like, and it's so weird that this is the exact same ingredients, but the flavor profile is so different.Radwa Elkaffas:Changes everything.Stephanie:Yeah. And maybe just the roasting of the tomatoes too and the heat and the pasta because that was the one thing we did add. But it was really fun to think about how to take a recipe from your book, but kinda, like, just twist it with all the same stuff. It was fun.Alia Elkaffas:Yep. Awesome. Yeah. And that's what we love to do. We love taking these just these simple ingredients and just turning them into something amazing. You know? You don't need like, you don't need anything crazy and any crazy ingredients, and you could just make something that's really good and with simple ingredients.Stephanie:Yeah. I think that's why we really liked your recipes that also, we made a beautiful chicken dish. Do you wanna describe the chicken dish that we made?Radwa Elkaffas:Oh, that's sassy chicken and potatoes? Yes. And that's the thing. Like, we are busy moms who don't really have a lot of time, so we're always thinking, okay. What can we do that's just easy, delicious, and you could just throw it together. Literally throw everything into the baking dish, make your, marinade, and throw it together and pop it in the oven. So you could do it the night before, so it's a great make ahead, or you can make it the same day, but really just getting those flavors to infuse overnight is awesome. And who doesn't love having dinner the day before? So all you have to do is throw it in the oven when you're ready to eat it is exactly what we love to do.Stephanie:How many days a week do you okay. Let's just back up a second. You guys have I think we determined it was 8,000,000 followers over all the platforms. How many days a week do you actually spend together creating content versus the marketing and the managing of the content?Radwa Elkaffas:I think this that's the beauty of having 2 of us is we do a lot of divide and conquer, which really helps us a lot, and it alleviates a lot of pressure off of each other. There's things that we obviously have to do together, like our end shots. Or if we're filming, like, a recipe clip that we're actually in, then we have to be together. I think we just kinda take it week by week because maybe we have, like, a high sponsored week that we have to do our sponsors, or if we have a lighter week, or we, you know, are going on vacation and we need to film as many as we can so we can have a little bit extra, content. I think we just kind of take it week by week.Stephanie:When you look at your content calendar, how far in advance do you go, or do you just do it week by week?Radwa Elkaffas:I mean, I would love to say that we're the most organized, sisters ever, but we're not. We really just kind of sometimes we wing it. Sometimes even we don't recipe test the recipe. We're like, okay. Let's just try this, And sometimes it is a 100% fail and it does not work. And other times, we're like, we nailed that. Like, it is absolutely amazing, and then we get super excited. Sometimes those are our best recipes when it's just spur of the moment.Alia Elkaffas:I I was gonna say sometimes we have this, like, master plan. Oh, we're gonna make x y z today. It's gonna be great. And all of a sudden, we're in the middle of making it, and it turns into something a 100% different, and and we just we just goStephanie:with it.Alia Elkaffas:You know?Stephanie:Yeah. It's so fun. And the styling of the book, what I noticed when I was at your home is you both have a similar style, but your homes are very curated and full of beautiful art and beautiful flowers, and you have a a real, statement color palette. And that kinda translates to your work online and the book. Have you always been like that since you were little kids? Oh, you're both matching. You have all the perfect lips, the perfect hair, all the stuff.Radwa Elkaffas:You know, it's so funny. Like, our favorite color is really black and white. Like, it's not just something that we created for our brand. It is it's legit what we love. We love black and white. When we went through our brand and what we wanted it to look like, it was okay. How are we gonna incorporate this into our brand? Because what we like at home, this is what we do at home, and we also love it in our clothes. So it's not just we like black and white, and I I this might sound a little crazy that we love black and white and everything, but we do.Radwa Elkaffas:So it ended up being that we love it at home. We love it in the book. We love it in online. Like, it's just so it's it's just part of our, Food Dolls identity at this point.Stephanie:Can you remember the first thing you guys ever made, like, by yourselves just, like, as a kid? Or, like, did you have a first cookbook? Or do you remember just, like, that first thing you really made?Alia Elkaffas:I would I'm pretty sure the first thing we probably ever made together was probably baked cookies. You know? Like, just straight up cookies or a box of brownie mix or something.Stephanie:Totally. That is and, it was always like cookies or brownies because it was kind of a one bowl situation. Right? I didn't wanna make a mess with your mom. Is there a recipe that you feel like, a, gets a lot of attraction, but, b, like, really represents you? It's like, this is the one that we feel like is our statement.Radwa Elkaffas:Wow. That's a really good question. Okay. I will say this. Our most popular recipes are the most shocking that we would have never guessed that these are, like, the most popular recipes. We did, a a baked spaghetti that went absolutely crazy. Would we have thought that that was gonna be our number one recipe on the website? No. We love it, but people went crazy overAlia Elkaffas:it. Yeah.Radwa Elkaffas:So crazy. And it was it's just really shocking to us. But I think we kinda came to the conclusion is our top recipes are, like, the simplest, easiest. Like, you've got these recipe you've got these ingredients in your pantry. So all you have to do is throw it together, and I think that's what always wins.Stephanie:Yeah. And it's always surprising, like, the ones that get the most traction, and you just think like, wow. That's weird. Like, one of mine is this chao chao relish that they bake usually in the south, and I always have green tomatoes that I garden with. So I ended up just having to kind of make this thing, and it's, like, always in the top three. I don't know who's clicking on that recipe that much, but people are. It's weird.Alia Elkaffas:Yeah. It's funny how that works. It's just what what you think is gonna like, people are like, oh my god. This is so good. It's the opposite, and it's like something that, you know, is the most, like, and simple and basic. And you know?Stephanie:When we talk about your Egyptian heritage, and I asked you guys about this when we met, What is it specifically, like for instance, when we were doing the Orzo bake, they the the producer asked, she was like, what do you think about this makes it Egyptian? And I was, like, saying the flavor profiles and the types of ingredients that we use. But is there something that you feel like is uniquely Egyptian that you bring to the party?Alia Elkaffas:That's a really good question. So I'd say a lot of the dishes in the book are not necessarily, like, true Egyptian. It's got, like, some fusion to it with, like, Mediterranean flavors. And a lot of the, like, the real traditional Egyptian recipes might be a little bit more intricate, so we were trying to simplify it by using some of those those same flavor profiles, but not necessarily doing it step by step like our mom would do our aunts or grandma. You know?Stephanie:One of the ingredients in the casserole that we made was tomato paste, and you cooked down the tomato paste. But that like, when you think about tomatoes in warm climates, you know, the flavor is so intense and so concentrated, and you do kinda get that from a tomato paste. I hadn't really thought about that before.Alia Elkaffas:Yeah. That's very true. And we do have a lot of dishes that are very tomato based as well.Stephanie:Yeah. I love it. Okay. So when you guys are, like, absolutely exhausted and the kids are driving you crazy and it's 6 o'clock and you have to put something is there, like, a go to meal for each of you?Radwa Elkaffas:I'm, like, thinking about it because I'm like, okay. There's a lot. I feel like our like, the chicken and potatoes, I think, for sure, to just kind of throw together. But I really do love that to sit overnight. But if I'm, like, in a pinch, I will say the kids maybe sometimes eat something different than I do, because they're so picky. Like, I have a 4 year old, a 9 year old, and one wants, you know, quesadillas, and the other one's, like, fighting me on the chicken and potatoes and rice. Like so I would say that what it's always 2 different things. I'm not even gonna lie about it because they they drive me absolutely crazy about getting them to eat everything all at the same time and and the same thing.Radwa Elkaffas:So I would say for me, it would be the chicken potatoes. For them, it would definitely be some sort of pasta. And we love 1 pot pastas because you can have it ready in 15 minutes, and we have so many 1 pot pastas in our book.Stephanie:Yeah. You do have a lot. I tried to make the dish as a 1 pot with the pasta already in the baking dish and make the sauce right in the pan, but I couldn't get the right ratio of water to pasta. I made it twice, and the pasta kept coming out a little crunchy. So I'm done, and I just make I just made it I just boiled the pasta and did it that way and added it later. But I did try twice to get it, like because I kept thinking it would be so great if you could just do this all in the oven in the one pan. And maybe a different pan or a flatter pan, I could haveAlia Elkaffas:That could be. And it could be also the kind of pasta that sometimes makes a difference as well.Stephanie:Yeah. I should have tried an orzo, but I had a penne. So yep. Do you when your kids are, like, picky like that, do you feel like, okay. No, kids. This is what I made. This is what we're eating. I'm not a short order cook.Stephanie:Or are you more lax and you're like, just whatever we're eating, go ahead. Eat it as long as you eat.Radwa Elkaffas:I would have to say I kind of started, especially with my kids, learning how they are, and I don't care if I make the same thing every single week if I know they're gonna eat it. Why am I gonna sit here and fight every single week to try to get them to try new things? Because I I see I see Alia as, like, the perfect examples because my kids are younger. Hers are older. So now they're starting to eat anything. So I know hopefully, eventually, they'll get there, but we're in this, like, little phase right now where I'm trying to just get them to eat. I just want them to eat. I don't care what they eat. I just want them to eat the dinner.Radwa Elkaffas:So I will make the same things over and over and over again because I know they like it, and I know they'll eat it. SoAlia Elkaffas:I was gonna say a lot of times, like, even, like, for example, we do have, like, a southwest salad in the cookbook. So what I'll do instead of assembling it altogether as a salad, I kind of keep it some of the components separate so all the kids could kind of grab what they do like and what they don't like. So that way, it's like it feels custom to them versus, you know, making it putting everything together and forcing them to eat it as is.Stephanie:That's smart. It's like the Chipotle method. Right? Giving them choices. Yep. I I do think too, like, we spend a lot of time worrying about stuff that's probably not super consequential in the grand scheme of life. Kids are gonna eat, you know. Sooner or later, they're gonna eat. Sooner or later, they're gonna develop their palate whether, you know, they were part of the clean plate club or not.Stephanie:It feels like kind of a weird thing to worry about looking back on my childhood and how much time and struggle there was about, like, what you ate and you couldn't leave the table till you ate it and just kinda dumb. When you think about social media with your kids, I noticed that we don't really see your kids. Is that intentional, or how do you feel like you want your kids to show up as, teenagers and young adults in this profile of their moms being so famous?Alia Elkaffas:Yes. That is a great question. So we purposely, we do not put our kids on social media, and we have very, very little images of images of them anywhere just to protect their privacy as well. You know? And it's like once stuff is out in social media, once it's out in the world, it's out there forever. So, yeah, we choose to keep them up.Radwa Elkaffas:Sure that they have that decision later. You know? Like, it will not come back at us. Like, why did you put me on there? You know? Have that choice later. And so now we're gonna be mama bears and just protect them.Stephanie:I think too we're seeing, the social media I guess Facebook just turned 20 recently, which is hard to believe. But when it first came about, you know, like, we were just on it, and it was new, and it was exciting, and we didn't really think about the big picture. And I think now if I had my daughter's 25. So if I had it I made her wait till 13. And if I had to do it all over again and I was in this day and age, I definitely would I might get my kid, like, a flip phone or something terrible that they can only call me on, but I would have waited because I do think social media adds an element to young, kids' lives that maybe they don't need or aren't ready for it until later.Radwa Elkaffas:Absolutely. A 100% agree with you on that.Stephanie:How do your parents feel about your business?Radwa Elkaffas:I think it took them such a long time to fully understand it.Stephanie:It's probably soRadwa Elkaffas:weird. Grasp what we what it is exactly we are doing. But I we know that they're so proud of us and super excited to see us do this and, you know, especially mom, you know, she was a really big influence for us growing up and in in the cooking world. So we love making them proud.Stephanie:Do you have anxiety about, like, keeping up or, like, always being on the churn? And what do you do for, like, self care?Alia Elkaffas:Oh, that's a great one. Yes. I'd say we do have definitely have the anxiety, but we try to we always talk each other down, calm each other down, and just know that, you know, just talk things through together. But and I'd say probably self care. We like to work out just to kind of, you know, really get the release those endorphins. You know?Radwa Elkaffas:And we we actually do yell at each other, like, stop working. You need to stop working. Stop looking at your screen. Put your computer down. Stop doing this. We do that all all the time to each other.Alia Elkaffas:Yep.Stephanie:What are your favorite types of workouts?Radwa Elkaffas:I would say lifting and walking.Stephanie:What was lifting and walking?Alia Elkaffas:Yep. Same lifting, walking, and, you know, doing some sort of cardio.Stephanie:Yeah. And you have kids too. So you're probably trying to fit it in when you can. And it's hard to, like, go to a structured gym and do all that when you've got a lot of family at home and, a structured gym and do all that when you've got a lot of family at home. And how do you feel about working from home? And does that work for your schedules? Or do you ever visualize, like, someday having an office where you have all your production stuff? AndRadwa Elkaffas:I I love working from home because of the flexibility and having everything at home where you could quickly just, but it it's definitely a challenge to disconnect sometimes because work is home, home is work. So it's hard to, like, break the 2 apart. But it's nice that we have 2 houses. So if we need a break from 1 house, we go to the other one.Stephanie:Yeah. That is nice. Like, just it because it can just feel so much like, oh, you're just in your house all the time doing all this stuff.Alia Elkaffas:And it's it really is hard to disconnect. So it's not like we try to have work hours, but it's like it's almost impossible. So, like, we'll work, and then we'll take a break, even run kids' activities, come back, finish working. So it's like it feels like sometimes it's like a nonstop cycle. But, yeah, that's when we have to put each other in check, say, get off and go take a break.Stephanie:Yeah. Okay. Switching gears, what is your and each of you can have a separate answer, of course, but what is your, like, most used kitchen utensil or gadget or thing that, like, you could not live without?Radwa Elkaffas:Air fryer.Stephanie:That was so fast.Radwa Elkaffas:Absolutely. I have to suck at her on.Stephanie:Yeah. Yep. Really? I I use my air fryer so rarely. It's in the garage. Like, do you use it every day? What are you doing with it?Radwa Elkaffas:Every single day. Like, there is not a day that goes by that I don't use that.Alia Elkaffas:Really? For reheating things, for making things. We actually do have some instructions in the cookbook. Like, if if you wanna make this recipe in an air fryer, how to do that. But it just makes things so much easier even if, like, the kids wanna make chicken and fries or something. You know? It crisps it up perfectly, and it feels like you're eating it, you know, freshly, like, deep fried. You know?Stephanie:Alright. I'm gonna have to get my air fryer out of the garage and give it another try. I just I don't know. It's like, and I have a convection oven too. So I think the convection oven does the same thing, but I don't have kids, so maybe that's different, you know, just the speed and convenience of it being right on the counter like that.Radwa Elkaffas:And you mentioned what we do on there. And, honestly, like, even we do, like, French toast. Like, if you wanna make French toast, you can throw your French toast in there. Or if you make a marinated chicken, just throw it in there, shut it, and it's done in no time. And you don't have to worry about a mess.Stephanie:Yeah. And it goes faster too. You guys will be on a book tour, I'm imagining. Is that all coming together, and how is that feeling?Radwa Elkaffas:It's exciting. Super excited to do that. That's gonna be end of February, beginning of March. We have we're stopping at 5 different cities. So we're really excited about that.Alia Elkaffas:And our last office is gonna be here in Minneapolis.Stephanie:So we're gonna so great. Do you know where you're gonna be or what you're doing yet?Alia Elkaffas:We're gonna be at the Barnes and Noble in Edina. So that'll be where I don't think we have a confirmed time yet, but that'll be on March. It's a Sunday, March 2nd, I believe.Stephanie:Alright. Well, when you know, just let me know, and I'll make sure and share it. It's been super fun just chatting with you guys. I knew just from kinda following you that I like, oh, I'm gonna like these girls. But really, honestly, it was, like, one of my best days. And I just so proud of you, and I feel like you know, how you you meet people and you want them to be successful or you're so proud of their success? That's how I feel about you guys. You really work hard, and you've really earned, everything that's coming your way. And I think the book's gonna be amazing, and it was just it's been fun to just be a little tiny, tiny part of the journey for a second.Stephanie:It's been a blast.Radwa Elkaffas:Thank you so much. And, honestly, your energy that you brought to that table last week was everything. You made us feel so good, and we we we felt like a $1,000,000 after you left. So thankAlia Elkaffas:you for having me. So honored to have gotten to work with you, and now we get to be friends and Yes.Stephanie:I'm I'm actually I just I'm planning, I I I booked a do you know, a Khmeran feast at Vinay? And I've had one for a while, and so I was like, oh, I wonder. Maybe I'll do a gathering of, like, food ladies just to do something fun and different.Radwa Elkaffas:Yeah.Stephanie:Alright, you guys. Your book's gonna be great. Keep me in the loop. I'll keep you in the loop if anything fun's happening. And just thanks for being taste buds.Radwa Elkaffas:Awesome. Thank you so much.Stephanie:Alright. We'll see you soon. Bye. Bye bye. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Born and raised in the Midwest to parents originally from Egypt, sisters Alia and Radwa Elkaffas created their Food Dolls platform to share exciting, fast, healthy meals. Born and raised in the Twin Cities to parents originally from Egypt, their recipes from “Pretty Delicious” are flavor-packed, Mediterranean-inspired, and plated with their signature style.Recently, we had a chance to catch up with the Food Dolls sisters on the eve of their cookbook launch for “Pretty Delicious” (pre-order the book here now) when we recorded a “Taste Buds With Stephanie” (episode drops on Fox 9 2/22/2025 at 8:30 am. ) at Radwa's gorgeous home. The sisters were as delightful and warm as ever, and we loved the recipes. “10 out of 10.” We made 3 recipes from the book, “Pretty Delicious”. I also riffed on their Marinated Tomatoes and Feta Dip and made it my own with all the same ingredients but as a baked pasta dish in homage to their talents.Cheesy Tomato and Feta Baked with Pasta and HerbsBy Stephanie Hansen Ingredients* 2 cups cherry tomatoes about 1 pint* 1/4 cup olive oil* 2 teaspoons salt* 1 teaspoon pepper* 8 oz. full-fat cream cheese at room temperature* 8 oz. feta cheese at room temperature* juice of half a lemon* 1 Tablespoon honey* 1/4 cup fresh parsley* 1/4 cup fresh basil* 1/4 cup fresh mint* 8 oz penne pastaInstructionsPreheat the oven to 400°F.Add the tomatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon and honey to a 9 x 13 baking dish.Nestle the cream cheese and feta cheese in the center of the baking dish amongst the tomatoesBake for 22-25 minutesMeanwhile, boil the pasta until el denteRemove from the oven and add the sour cream and stir the mixture, breaking it up combining the cheese and the tomatoes with the pasta making a saucetop with the fresh basil, parsley and mint, and serve hotEPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Stephanie:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish, the podcast where we talk to people equally obsessed in the food spaces as we are. And today, I'm with the Food Dolls. I'm with Radwa and Alia Elkaffas, and we had an opportunity to record a taste buds episode with them that will air at the end of February. I think it's gonna be February 22nd right on the eve of your book being available at stores.Alia Elkaffas:It well, we go live on the 25th.Stephanie:Okay. So you can preorder, though, your book Pretty Delicious right now. And if we talk about cookbooks in particular, the preorder is like it's crazy because what people don't know is all those preorders that you say you want this book, they count towards day 1 sales. And for people like Food Dolls who have such a massive following, it could be the day that launches them potentially to the top of the New York Times, cookbook list. So preorders for cookbook authors are super important. So we want you to get your books when they come out live, but we also want you to preorder because all of that stacked up on that first day counts to get them we're trying to get them on the New York Times bestseller list with their book. Would you like that, girls?Radwa Elkaffas:That would be just a dream.Stephanie:I know. It would. When when we spent time together in your home and watching you guys make your magic, When I left, one of the things that I asked, I'm like, so, you know, what are your intentions? And you were like, we wanna get our book on the New York Times bestseller list. And I think I really think you can do it because you guys have such a huge following. The book is so great. It's pretty delicious. Can we just back up? Like, you guys said you've been doing this pretty much since pre pandemic, but I feel like, you know, you've amassed such a huge following. Like, how did it get started?Radwa Elkaffas:Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me on, and it was so fun cooking with you last week. I well, we definitely started around 9 years ago now, which is so crazy to think that it's been that long. I think when we first started, we didn't really have, like, the best direction of what exactly Sure.Stephanie:No one did.Radwa Elkaffas:And we were trying to figure out social media. Both of our backgrounds were not chefs. We have no we have no photography background, no videography background. We had nothing, but we just knew that we love to cook, and we wanted to share with the world how easy and delicious you can make recipes. And I think that's been it since day 1. Our shift kind of changed a few years later on really kind of honing in on, like, our culture and our background and what we grew up eating, and people loved it. People loved it, and they love our, like, sister vibe.Stephanie:Yeah. You 2 are real life sisters, and are you 4 years apart?Alia Elkaffas:Yes. That's right.Stephanie:And, your background is your parents are from Egypt. Right. So you're you're leaning into that sort of cultural vibe. And what maybe a lot of people don't know, and I know a tiny, tiny bit, but, that Egypt is a very modern place all told. Like, can you just give us a little bit of, why it's a touchstone for you to still be speaking about this food that you guys have lived here most of your lives, but you still feel like this is such an influence for you?Alia Elkaffas:So our parents were they immigrated here in the early eighties. And so we were both born and raised here, but they really tried very hard to keep our Egyptian background alive. So whether it was with food, with, cultures, traditions. So, basically, we're very we're very Egyptian and Midwestern at the same time. So you even see a lot of our recipes. We do fusions between Egyptian and Mediterranean, Middle Eastern food with our Minnesota side.Stephanie:It's funny that you mentioned that today because, prior to talking with you, the way that taste buds works usually is we go out and we have an adventure somewhere. And in this episode, that adventure was with you guys in your home. And then we take what we learned from that adventure, and we come back into my kitchen. And so one of the things that I made was your, what was it? It was the Egyptian orzo with ground beef, and it had cinnamon in it. It was super delicious. The recipe worked beautifully, and everybody loved it. But what was funny was when we were making it, my cameraman said, oh, it's just like a casserole or a hot dish. And so I laughed.Stephanie:I was like, yes. This is like the Egyptian hot dish. That's exactly the mashup.Alia Elkaffas:Exactly. Yep. And that's what we we always say. It's like an Egyptian, hamburger helper, you know, casserole. So it's it's yeah. It's really good.Stephanie:Even down to, like I don't know if you guys ever have had rice aaroni, but it was like a combination between rice and pasta, and you sauteed it just like you did with the orzo to get the color on the pasta. So it was just really it it was a delicious recipe. The other thing that we did that will surprise you maybe is I was trying to think about how to take what I learned from you and your book and the way you cook and make that kinda my own too because I think that's so much of what you inspire people to do. So I took the marinated tomato, and creamy whipped feta dip that we made on the show with you, and I took all those same ingredients literally to the letter, but we made a pasta bake with it.Radwa Elkaffas:Oh, that sounds delicious.Stephanie:Yeah. So you'll see that on the episode. We made it and we made it into, like, a pasta bake because when I was looking at the recipe that you guys made when we were in your kitchen, I was like, oh, this is kinda like that feta where the roasted tomatoes. And so that's the surprise for you that you'll see that we just took your dish and all the ingredients. It was very fun to and it was interesting too because, Michelle, my producer, she was like because she loved your dip so much. And then she was like, and it's so weird that this is the exact same ingredients, but the flavor profile is so different.Radwa Elkaffas:Changes everything.Stephanie:Yeah. And maybe just the roasting of the tomatoes too and the heat and the pasta because that was the one thing we did add. But it was really fun to think about how to take a recipe from your book, but kinda, like, just twist it with all the same stuff. It was fun.Alia Elkaffas:Yep. Awesome. Yeah. And that's what we love to do. We love taking these just these simple ingredients and just turning them into something amazing. You know? You don't need like, you don't need anything crazy and any crazy ingredients, and you could just make something that's really good and with simple ingredients.Stephanie:Yeah. I think that's why we really liked your recipes that also, we made a beautiful chicken dish. Do you wanna describe the chicken dish that we made?Radwa Elkaffas:Oh, that's sassy chicken and potatoes? Yes. And that's the thing. Like, we are busy moms who don't really have a lot of time, so we're always thinking, okay. What can we do that's just easy, delicious, and you could just throw it together. Literally throw everything into the baking dish, make your, marinade, and throw it together and pop it in the oven. So you could do it the night before, so it's a great make ahead, or you can make it the same day, but really just getting those flavors to infuse overnight is awesome. And who doesn't love having dinner the day before? So all you have to do is throw it in the oven when you're ready to eat it is exactly what we love to do.Stephanie:How many days a week do you okay. Let's just back up a second. You guys have I think we determined it was 8,000,000 followers over all the platforms. How many days a week do you actually spend together creating content versus the marketing and the managing of the content?Radwa Elkaffas:I think this that's the beauty of having 2 of us is we do a lot of divide and conquer, which really helps us a lot, and it alleviates a lot of pressure off of each other. There's things that we obviously have to do together, like our end shots. Or if we're filming, like, a recipe clip that we're actually in, then we have to be together. I think we just kinda take it week by week because maybe we have, like, a high sponsored week that we have to do our sponsors, or if we have a lighter week, or we, you know, are going on vacation and we need to film as many as we can so we can have a little bit extra, content. I think we just kind of take it week by week.Stephanie:When you look at your content calendar, how far in advance do you go, or do you just do it week by week?Radwa Elkaffas:I mean, I would love to say that we're the most organized, sisters ever, but we're not. We really just kind of sometimes we wing it. Sometimes even we don't recipe test the recipe. We're like, okay. Let's just try this, And sometimes it is a 100% fail and it does not work. And other times, we're like, we nailed that. Like, it is absolutely amazing, and then we get super excited. Sometimes those are our best recipes when it's just spur of the moment.Alia Elkaffas:I I was gonna say sometimes we have this, like, master plan. Oh, we're gonna make x y z today. It's gonna be great. And all of a sudden, we're in the middle of making it, and it turns into something a 100% different, and and we just we just goStephanie:with it.Alia Elkaffas:You know?Stephanie:Yeah. It's so fun. And the styling of the book, what I noticed when I was at your home is you both have a similar style, but your homes are very curated and full of beautiful art and beautiful flowers, and you have a a real, statement color palette. And that kinda translates to your work online and the book. Have you always been like that since you were little kids? Oh, you're both matching. You have all the perfect lips, the perfect hair, all the stuff.Radwa Elkaffas:You know, it's so funny. Like, our favorite color is really black and white. Like, it's not just something that we created for our brand. It is it's legit what we love. We love black and white. When we went through our brand and what we wanted it to look like, it was okay. How are we gonna incorporate this into our brand? Because what we like at home, this is what we do at home, and we also love it in our clothes. So it's not just we like black and white, and I I this might sound a little crazy that we love black and white and everything, but we do.Radwa Elkaffas:So it ended up being that we love it at home. We love it in the book. We love it in online. Like, it's just so it's it's just part of our, Food Dolls identity at this point.Stephanie:Can you remember the first thing you guys ever made, like, by yourselves just, like, as a kid? Or, like, did you have a first cookbook? Or do you remember just, like, that first thing you really made?Alia Elkaffas:I would I'm pretty sure the first thing we probably ever made together was probably baked cookies. You know? Like, just straight up cookies or a box of brownie mix or something.Stephanie:Totally. That is and, it was always like cookies or brownies because it was kind of a one bowl situation. Right? I didn't wanna make a mess with your mom. Is there a recipe that you feel like, a, gets a lot of attraction, but, b, like, really represents you? It's like, this is the one that we feel like is our statement.Radwa Elkaffas:Wow. That's a really good question. Okay. I will say this. Our most popular recipes are the most shocking that we would have never guessed that these are, like, the most popular recipes. We did, a a baked spaghetti that went absolutely crazy. Would we have thought that that was gonna be our number one recipe on the website? No. We love it, but people went crazy overAlia Elkaffas:it. Yeah.Radwa Elkaffas:So crazy. And it was it's just really shocking to us. But I think we kinda came to the conclusion is our top recipes are, like, the simplest, easiest. Like, you've got these recipe you've got these ingredients in your pantry. So all you have to do is throw it together, and I think that's what always wins.Stephanie:Yeah. And it's always surprising, like, the ones that get the most traction, and you just think like, wow. That's weird. Like, one of mine is this chao chao relish that they bake usually in the south, and I always have green tomatoes that I garden with. So I ended up just having to kind of make this thing, and it's, like, always in the top three. I don't know who's clicking on that recipe that much, but people are. It's weird.Alia Elkaffas:Yeah. It's funny how that works. It's just what what you think is gonna like, people are like, oh my god. This is so good. It's the opposite, and it's like something that, you know, is the most, like, and simple and basic. And you know?Stephanie:When we talk about your Egyptian heritage, and I asked you guys about this when we met, What is it specifically, like for instance, when we were doing the Orzo bake, they the the producer asked, she was like, what do you think about this makes it Egyptian? And I was, like, saying the flavor profiles and the types of ingredients that we use. But is there something that you feel like is uniquely Egyptian that you bring to the party?Alia Elkaffas:That's a really good question. So I'd say a lot of the dishes in the book are not necessarily, like, true Egyptian. It's got, like, some fusion to it with, like, Mediterranean flavors. And a lot of the, like, the real traditional Egyptian recipes might be a little bit more intricate, so we were trying to simplify it by using some of those those same flavor profiles, but not necessarily doing it step by step like our mom would do our aunts or grandma. You know?Stephanie:One of the ingredients in the casserole that we made was tomato paste, and you cooked down the tomato paste. But that like, when you think about tomatoes in warm climates, you know, the flavor is so intense and so concentrated, and you do kinda get that from a tomato paste. I hadn't really thought about that before.Alia Elkaffas:Yeah. That's very true. And we do have a lot of dishes that are very tomato based as well.Stephanie:Yeah. I love it. Okay. So when you guys are, like, absolutely exhausted and the kids are driving you crazy and it's 6 o'clock and you have to put something is there, like, a go to meal for each of you?Radwa Elkaffas:I'm, like, thinking about it because I'm like, okay. There's a lot. I feel like our like, the chicken and potatoes, I think, for sure, to just kind of throw together. But I really do love that to sit overnight. But if I'm, like, in a pinch, I will say the kids maybe sometimes eat something different than I do, because they're so picky. Like, I have a 4 year old, a 9 year old, and one wants, you know, quesadillas, and the other one's, like, fighting me on the chicken and potatoes and rice. Like so I would say that what it's always 2 different things. I'm not even gonna lie about it because they they drive me absolutely crazy about getting them to eat everything all at the same time and and the same thing.Radwa Elkaffas:So I would say for me, it would be the chicken potatoes. For them, it would definitely be some sort of pasta. And we love 1 pot pastas because you can have it ready in 15 minutes, and we have so many 1 pot pastas in our book.Stephanie:Yeah. You do have a lot. I tried to make the dish as a 1 pot with the pasta already in the baking dish and make the sauce right in the pan, but I couldn't get the right ratio of water to pasta. I made it twice, and the pasta kept coming out a little crunchy. So I'm done, and I just make I just made it I just boiled the pasta and did it that way and added it later. But I did try twice to get it, like because I kept thinking it would be so great if you could just do this all in the oven in the one pan. And maybe a different pan or a flatter pan, I could haveAlia Elkaffas:That could be. And it could be also the kind of pasta that sometimes makes a difference as well.Stephanie:Yeah. I should have tried an orzo, but I had a penne. So yep. Do you when your kids are, like, picky like that, do you feel like, okay. No, kids. This is what I made. This is what we're eating. I'm not a short order cook.Stephanie:Or are you more lax and you're like, just whatever we're eating, go ahead. Eat it as long as you eat.Radwa Elkaffas:I would have to say I kind of started, especially with my kids, learning how they are, and I don't care if I make the same thing every single week if I know they're gonna eat it. Why am I gonna sit here and fight every single week to try to get them to try new things? Because I I see I see Alia as, like, the perfect examples because my kids are younger. Hers are older. So now they're starting to eat anything. So I know hopefully, eventually, they'll get there, but we're in this, like, little phase right now where I'm trying to just get them to eat. I just want them to eat. I don't care what they eat. I just want them to eat the dinner.Radwa Elkaffas:So I will make the same things over and over and over again because I know they like it, and I know they'll eat it. SoAlia Elkaffas:I was gonna say a lot of times, like, even, like, for example, we do have, like, a southwest salad in the cookbook. So what I'll do instead of assembling it altogether as a salad, I kind of keep it some of the components separate so all the kids could kind of grab what they do like and what they don't like. So that way, it's like it feels custom to them versus, you know, making it putting everything together and forcing them to eat it as is.Stephanie:That's smart. It's like the Chipotle method. Right? Giving them choices. Yep. I I do think too, like, we spend a lot of time worrying about stuff that's probably not super consequential in the grand scheme of life. Kids are gonna eat, you know. Sooner or later, they're gonna eat. Sooner or later, they're gonna develop their palate whether, you know, they were part of the clean plate club or not.Stephanie:It feels like kind of a weird thing to worry about looking back on my childhood and how much time and struggle there was about, like, what you ate and you couldn't leave the table till you ate it and just kinda dumb. When you think about social media with your kids, I noticed that we don't really see your kids. Is that intentional, or how do you feel like you want your kids to show up as, teenagers and young adults in this profile of their moms being so famous?Alia Elkaffas:Yes. That is a great question. So we purposely, we do not put our kids on social media, and we have very, very little images of images of them anywhere just to protect their privacy as well. You know? And it's like once stuff is out in social media, once it's out in the world, it's out there forever. So, yeah, we choose to keep them up.Radwa Elkaffas:Sure that they have that decision later. You know? Like, it will not come back at us. Like, why did you put me on there? You know? Have that choice later. And so now we're gonna be mama bears and just protect them.Stephanie:I think too we're seeing, the social media I guess Facebook just turned 20 recently, which is hard to believe. But when it first came about, you know, like, we were just on it, and it was new, and it was exciting, and we didn't really think about the big picture. And I think now if I had my daughter's 25. So if I had it I made her wait till 13. And if I had to do it all over again and I was in this day and age, I definitely would I might get my kid, like, a flip phone or something terrible that they can only call me on, but I would have waited because I do think social media adds an element to young, kids' lives that maybe they don't need or aren't ready for it until later.Radwa Elkaffas:Absolutely. A 100% agree with you on that.Stephanie:How do your parents feel about your business?Radwa Elkaffas:I think it took them such a long time to fully understand it.Stephanie:It's probably soRadwa Elkaffas:weird. Grasp what we what it is exactly we are doing. But I we know that they're so proud of us and super excited to see us do this and, you know, especially mom, you know, she was a really big influence for us growing up and in in the cooking world. So we love making them proud.Stephanie:Do you have anxiety about, like, keeping up or, like, always being on the churn? And what do you do for, like, self care?Alia Elkaffas:Oh, that's a great one. Yes. I'd say we do have definitely have the anxiety, but we try to we always talk each other down, calm each other down, and just know that, you know, just talk things through together. But and I'd say probably self care. We like to work out just to kind of, you know, really get the release those endorphins. You know?Radwa Elkaffas:And we we actually do yell at each other, like, stop working. You need to stop working. Stop looking at your screen. Put your computer down. Stop doing this. We do that all all the time to each other.Alia Elkaffas:Yep.Stephanie:What are your favorite types of workouts?Radwa Elkaffas:I would say lifting and walking.Stephanie:What was lifting and walking?Alia Elkaffas:Yep. Same lifting, walking, and, you know, doing some sort of cardio.Stephanie:Yeah. And you have kids too. So you're probably trying to fit it in when you can. And it's hard to, like, go to a structured gym and do all that when you've got a lot of family at home and, a structured gym and do all that when you've got a lot of family at home. And how do you feel about working from home? And does that work for your schedules? Or do you ever visualize, like, someday having an office where you have all your production stuff? AndRadwa Elkaffas:I I love working from home because of the flexibility and having everything at home where you could quickly just, but it it's definitely a challenge to disconnect sometimes because work is home, home is work. So it's hard to, like, break the 2 apart. But it's nice that we have 2 houses. So if we need a break from 1 house, we go to the other one.Stephanie:Yeah. That is nice. Like, just it because it can just feel so much like, oh, you're just in your house all the time doing all this stuff.Alia Elkaffas:And it's it really is hard to disconnect. So it's not like we try to have work hours, but it's like it's almost impossible. So, like, we'll work, and then we'll take a break, even run kids' activities, come back, finish working. So it's like it feels like sometimes it's like a nonstop cycle. But, yeah, that's when we have to put each other in check, say, get off and go take a break.Stephanie:Yeah. Okay. Switching gears, what is your and each of you can have a separate answer, of course, but what is your, like, most used kitchen utensil or gadget or thing that, like, you could not live without?Radwa Elkaffas:Air fryer.Stephanie:That was so fast.Radwa Elkaffas:Absolutely. I have to suck at her on.Stephanie:Yeah. Yep. Really? I I use my air fryer so rarely. It's in the garage. Like, do you use it every day? What are you doing with it?Radwa Elkaffas:Every single day. Like, there is not a day that goes by that I don't use that.Alia Elkaffas:Really? For reheating things, for making things. We actually do have some instructions in the cookbook. Like, if if you wanna make this recipe in an air fryer, how to do that. But it just makes things so much easier even if, like, the kids wanna make chicken and fries or something. You know? It crisps it up perfectly, and it feels like you're eating it, you know, freshly, like, deep fried. You know?Stephanie:Alright. I'm gonna have to get my air fryer out of the garage and give it another try. I just I don't know. It's like, and I have a convection oven too. So I think the convection oven does the same thing, but I don't have kids, so maybe that's different, you know, just the speed and convenience of it being right on the counter like that.Radwa Elkaffas:And you mentioned what we do on there. And, honestly, like, even we do, like, French toast. Like, if you wanna make French toast, you can throw your French toast in there. Or if you make a marinated chicken, just throw it in there, shut it, and it's done in no time. And you don't have to worry about a mess.Stephanie:Yeah. And it goes faster too. You guys will be on a book tour, I'm imagining. Is that all coming together, and how is that feeling?Radwa Elkaffas:It's exciting. Super excited to do that. That's gonna be end of February, beginning of March. We have we're stopping at 5 different cities. So we're really excited about that.Alia Elkaffas:And our last office is gonna be here in Minneapolis.Stephanie:So we're gonna so great. Do you know where you're gonna be or what you're doing yet?Alia Elkaffas:We're gonna be at the Barnes and Noble in Edina. So that'll be where I don't think we have a confirmed time yet, but that'll be on March. It's a Sunday, March 2nd, I believe.Stephanie:Alright. Well, when you know, just let me know, and I'll make sure and share it. It's been super fun just chatting with you guys. I knew just from kinda following you that I like, oh, I'm gonna like these girls. But really, honestly, it was, like, one of my best days. And I just so proud of you, and I feel like you know, how you you meet people and you want them to be successful or you're so proud of their success? That's how I feel about you guys. You really work hard, and you've really earned, everything that's coming your way. And I think the book's gonna be amazing, and it was just it's been fun to just be a little tiny, tiny part of the journey for a second.Stephanie:It's been a blast.Radwa Elkaffas:Thank you so much. And, honestly, your energy that you brought to that table last week was everything. You made us feel so good, and we we we felt like a $1,000,000 after you left. So thankAlia Elkaffas:you for having me. So honored to have gotten to work with you, and now we get to be friends and Yes.Stephanie:I'm I'm actually I just I'm planning, I I I booked a do you know, a Khmeran feast at Vinay? And I've had one for a while, and so I was like, oh, I wonder. Maybe I'll do a gathering of, like, food ladies just to do something fun and different.Radwa Elkaffas:Yeah.Stephanie:Alright, you guys. Your book's gonna be great. Keep me in the loop. I'll keep you in the loop if anything fun's happening. And just thanks for being taste buds.Radwa Elkaffas:Awesome. Thank you so much.Stephanie:Alright. We'll see you soon. Bye. Bye bye. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Patrick examines the history and traditions of Catholic communion practices. Join him as he explores the reverence of receiving on the tongue versus in the hand, the significance of liturgical rites, and why this discussion is crucial for both new and lifelong Catholics. Whether you're new to the faith or a seasoned believer, this episode offers valuable insights to enrich your spiritual journey.   Patrick shares an email from Alexis about how Relevant Radio and his show have made her a better person and a better Catholic (02:16) Ann (email) – Question about Holy Water and blessing someone Stephanie - How should I address God when I'm praying? (16:02) Joshua (email) – Patrick and Drew are neutered Catholics and anyone with testosterone wouldn't listen to them Laura - What is the best way to receive communion? (28:41) Patrick recommends “Now What? A Guide for New (and Not-So-New) Catholics" Anna - Can you put a photo of the diseased up during a funeral Mass? (46:12)

Joël and Stephanie talk RailsConf! (https://railsconf.org/). Joël shares how he performed as a D&D character, Glittersense the gnome, to make his Turbo features talk entertaining and interactive. Stephanie's talk focused on addressing test pain by connecting it to code coupling, offering practical insights and solutions. They agree on the importance of continuous improvement as speakers and developers and trying new approaches in talks and code design, and recommend Jared Norman's RailsConf talk on design patterns, too! That One Thing: Reduce Coupling for More Scalable and Sustainable Software (https://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2222816) Connascence.io (https://connascence.io/) [Connascence as a vocabulary to discuss coupling](https://thoughtbot.com/blog/connascence-as-a-vocabulary-to-discuss-coupling](https://thoughtbot.com/blog/connascence-as-a-vocabulary-to-discuss-coupling) The value of specialized vocabulary (https://bikeshed.thoughtbot.com/356?t=0) Transcript: We're excited to announce a new workshop series for helping you get that startup idea you have out of your head and into the world. It's called Vision to Value. Over a series of 90-minute working sessions, you'll work with a thoughtbot product strategist and a handful of other founders to start testing your idea in the market and make a plan for building an MVP. Join for all seven of the weekly sessions or pick and choose the ones that address your biggest challenge right now. Learn more and sign up at tbot.io/visionvalue.  JOËL: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Joël Quenneville. STEPHANIE: And I'm Stephanie Minn. And together, we're here to share a bit of what we've learned along the way. JOËL: So, Stephanie, what's new in your world? STEPHANIE: So, I think I can speak for both of us and say what's new in our world is that you and I just came back from RailsConf in Detroit. JOËL: Yeah, we were there for, I guess, it's a three-day conference. Both of us were giving talks. STEPHANIE: Yeah. I don't think we've both spoken at a conference for at least a little over a year, so that was really fun kind of to catch up in person. And there was a whole crew of thoughtboters who were there. Yeah, I feel like we were hanging out, like, a lot [chuckles] all of last week, just seeing each other, talking about, you know, rehearsing our talks and spending time together on...there was, like, a hack day, and we were sitting at the table together. So, I feel like I'm totally caught up on everything that's new in your world, and that's it. That's the end of the show [laughs]. JOËL: On that note, shall we wrap up? STEPHANIE: [laughs] That would not be very fair to our listeners. [laughter] JOËL: Yeah. So, how was the conference speaking experience for you? STEPHANIE: Ooh, it was really great this year. I have not spoken at a RailsConf before, so this was actually, I think, a bigger stage than I had experienced before, and I had a great time. I met Ruby friends, new and old, and, yeah, I left feeling very gooeyed, and very energized, and just so grateful for the Rails community [laughs]. Yeah, I had a very lovely time, kind of being a little bit outside my normal life for a few days. And I think my favorite part about these things is just like, anywhere you go, you can kind of just have a shared interest with someone, and you can start a conversation with them. JOËL: That's really interesting. Do you find yourself just reaching out to strangers at conferences like this? Or do you tend to just hang out with the people that you know? STEPHANIE: Oh, I think a little bit of both. I like to get meals with people I know. But if I'm just hanging out in, like, the lobby or if I happen to get a seat for a talk and I'm sitting next to someone that I don't know, I find it quite easy to just be like, "Hi, like, I'm Stephanie. Are you excited for this talk?" Or, like, "What good talks have you seen recently?" There's an aspect of, like, the social butterfly that comes out of me when I'm at these things. Because I just don't get to have, like, easy access to, I don't know, people with, like, that shared interest or people who are willing to just have a conversation with you normally, I think. JOËL: Yeah, would you describe yourself more as an introvert or an extrovert? STEPHANIE: I am an extroverted introvert [laughter]. I feel like maybe that might be interpreted as a non-answer, but I think I lean more on the introvert side. But you know when you're with a group of people, and there's not, like, a very clear extrovert in that conversation, and then you're like, oh, I have to do the heavy [chuckles] lifting of the social lubrication [laughs] in this conversation, I can step into that role, reluctantly [laughs]. JOËL: Okay. I like the label that you used, the extrovert introvert, in that I enjoy social situations. I do well in social situations. But they also consume a lot of energy for me. I don't necessarily get sort of recharged by doing social events. So, people will be surprised when they find out that I tend to talk about myself as an introvert because, like, "Oh, but you're, like, you know, you're not awkward. You engage very well in different group situations." STEPHANIE: You have a podcast [laughs]. JOËL: And the truth is I enjoy those things, right? I really like social interaction, but it does, after a while, wear me out. STEPHANIE: Yeah, that makes sense. I did want to spend a little bit of time talking about the talk you gave at RailsConf this year: "Dungeons & Dragons & Rails." JOËL: I got to have a lot of fun with the theme. The actual content was introducing people to Turbo by building an interactive Dungeons & Dragons character sheet using vanilla Rails and a little bit of Turbo. So, we're not even writing any JavaScript. We're just using the Turbo helpers, a little bit of Action Cable to mimic something a little bit like...people who are in the know might be familiar with the site D&D Beyond, which is kind of the official D&D online character sheet website. Of course, it wasn't anywhere near as fancy because it's a 30-minute talk and showcasing different features, but that's what we were aiming for. STEPHANIE: Yeah, you know, you've talked a bit about giving talks on the show before, but I wanted to get into what made this one different because I think it could be fun for our listeners. [laughter] JOËL: The way I structured this talk so it has a theme. It's about Dungeons & Dragons, and we're building a character sheet. The way I wrote the talk was it's broken up into chapters. Each chapter is teaching a new feature in Turbo that I want to show off. In order to motivate learning each of these features...because I don't like to just say, "Oh, here's a thing that technology can do. Oh, here's a thing that technology can do." That's boring. You need a reason to learn that. So, I needed a reason to say, "We need to add this to a character sheet." So, every sort of chapter of the talk opens up with a little narrative portion. We're following this character, Glittersense, the gnome, and he's on adventures. And at different points in the adventures, he's going to do different types of roles or need different stats and things. And so, when we reach the point in the adventure where we need that, we sort of freeze frame and then say, "Okay, let's add that as a feature to the character sheet." And then, oh no, it turns out that this feature is a little bit more complicated. We're going to have to learn a new Turbo feature to do that. Who would have guessed? And then, we learn a new Turbo feature together. And then, we go back to the narrative portion. The adventures of Glittersense continue. And then, oh no, we're going to need to add another feature to the character sheet. And that's sort of how the talk is structured. STEPHANIE: Yeah. And you did a really cool thing with the narrative portions, which was you basically performed as Glittersense, the gnome, voice and posture, and a lot of really great acting from you [laughs], in my opinion. JOËL: That is something that came out pretty late in the talk preparation. So, I knew I wanted this kind of alternating story and code structure. Then, like, the weekend before RailsConf, I'm running through my slide deck, and I realized, you know what? What if instead of narrating Glittersense's adventures, what if I went first person for those sections? Glittersense tells his own story. And then, from there, it wasn't a big jump to say, you know what? This is D&D. If I'm going first person and narrating, I really should do a voice. And this is a conversation I had with a couple of people at the speaker dinner. And, of course, everyone's like, "You should 100% do the voice." And I was really not feeling confident in my ability to pull it off. So, for the next two nights, because I was speaking on the third day, the next two nights at the conference, in the evenings, I'm in the hotel room in front of the mirror just practicing my gnome voice to try to get something that got the persona of Glitterense, the gnome, across to the audience. STEPHANIE: How would you describe the persona? JOËL: Very extra. STEPHANIE: [laughs] JOËL: Very high energy. STEPHANIE: Yes. The name Glittersense is very extra, after all. JOËL: [laughs]. I punctuated a lot of the things that he says with just high-pitched laughter. He's also...so, the framing device for all of this is that you're in a tavern listening to him tell his adventures. I wanted a little bit of the sense that Glittersense is maybe embellishing a little bit. I think it may be too much to say he's full of himself, but he's definitely making himself to be the hero of the story, and maybe making himself to be slightly cooler than he really was. STEPHANIE: Yeah. I definitely got, like, a little bit of eccentricity, too, from the persona. And you know when you just, I don't know, meet an older person who has, like, a lot of life experience, and they want to tell you about it [laughter], but you do kind of maybe have a little bit of suspicion around how much they're exaggerating [laughs]. But it was really fun. Everyone I talked to afterwards, like, loved it. And I got to share the little nugget that, like, oh yeah, and Joël only, like, started doing the voice, like, decided that he was going to do it two days ago. And they were just all really, like, blown away because it seemed so well practiced, and it was really fun. JOËL: I got to do something really fun, also, with physical space because Glittersense narrates his portion, sort of the story portions, but then the code portions where we're talking about Turbo, I'm talking in my own voice. And so, when I'm talking about Turbo, I'm standing at the lectern. And when I'm Glittersense, I'm kind of off to the side on the stage and doing the voice. And so, there's this almost, like, two worlds that are inhabited: one by Joël, the speaker, and one by Glittersense, the gnome. And it got to the point where I don't say or do anything. I only move from the lectern to the, like, portion of the stage where Glittersense lives. And the audience starts chuckling and, like, nothing has happened yet, like, no jokes have been told. No voice has happened. No slides have changed. But the anticipation, people know what's coming. STEPHANIE: Yeah. And I think the best part, what I really found just really fun and, I don't know, every time it happened, I just really enjoyed it, when you transitioned out of Glittersense, the gnome, and back to Joël because you were so nonchalant about it. You kind of, like, straighten up rather than having your little kind of crouchy gnome posture, and then just walk across back to the podium. And then, in your normal voice, go back to just, you know, sharing very...not necessarily dry, but just, like, straight to the point. "And this is, like, how you, you know, create a frame in [laughs] Turbo," as if nothing happened [laughs] when even just, like, you know, 20 seconds ago, you were just enthusing about, like, slaying the bandit, chieftain [laughter] known as Glittersense. JOËL: Uh-huh. I think, especially when I open, so I get introduced. I'm off stage. I walk onto the stage, and I'm immediately Glittersense. And I'm telling a story, and the intro goes on for, like, quite a while. It's a big story chunk. And then, at some point, I just walk over to the lectern, drop the voice, hit next slide, and it's my title slide. I'm just like, "Okay, now welcome to Dungeons & Dragons on Rails. We're going to build a character sheet together." STEPHANIE: Yeah, that's exactly the moment I'm thinking of. JOËL: The walking in as Glittersense and just immediately going to the voice caught everyone by surprise. And then, the, like, oh, he keeps going for this. Is the whole talk going to be like this? And then, the, like, just when you think, oh, he's really going for it, the, like, dropping it and going to the podium and title slide. It wasn't intended to be a funny moment, but I think the contrast and the fact that I just switched over was one of the biggest laughs I got. STEPHANIE: Yeah, I mean, I think that attests to how good the delivery of it was because that contrast was very felt. So, props to you. JOËL: I love the idea of, you know, the thought that you put into building a talk and, like, the narrative structure and the pedagogy of the stuff. And, I think, in this particular case, this is almost like a narrative approach called in media res, where you start kind of in the middle. You open your book, or your movie, or whatever in the middle of the story. And then, you kind of come back to the beginning at some point later. So, it starts with some kind of action scene that grabs your attention. So, in this case, my title slide is 10, 15 slides into the talk. We get immediately started with Glittersense and his adventures. And then, once we're sort of all bought into this world, then we move to the title slide and talk about, okay, we're here to build a character sheet and all that stuff. And I think that it wouldn't have had the same impact if I'd, like, opened with that and then gone into Glittersense's adventures. And that's something that was not the case at the beginning. I really reworked the talk to make it in that order. And I think that the talk had a lot more impact for doing that. STEPHANIE: Yeah, definitely. I guess I also just wanted to point out that this is very different from all your other talks. And I think it's really cool that, you know, you are a veteran speaker, but you still find ways to do something new and try something that you've never done before, and yeah, find ways, new ways to, like, speak and engage people and teach. I don't know, do you have just any thoughts about why or how you got into a position to be like, "Oh, you know, I'm going to do something super different this time around" [laughs]? JOËL: So, every talk I give, I try to do something new, something different, to push myself as a speaker to get better. That might be in the writing of the talk; that might be in the delivery. More recently, I've been trying to do more with dynamic presence on stage. So, when I spoke at RubyConf San Diego, I was trying to not just stand at the lectern but to learn to be able to give my talk while also, you know, walking around the stage, looking at the audience, making pauses where it's necessary, not to just be so into the delivery of the talk by just standing at the podium and, like, going through my deck, which is a small thing but I think is an area I wanted to improve in. This time, I was playing around with some more narrative framing and ended up, yeah, like, pushing it to an extreme. And it works with the theme because inhabiting a character and role-playing is the core part of D&D. Not everybody plays a D&D character by doing a voice. You are a little bit extra if you do that. But it's not uncommon for people to do a voice. And so, it kind of fit perfectly with my theme. I just needed to get the self-confidence to do it. So, thank you to everyone at the speaker dinner that was like, "No, you totally got this. You should do this," because I was feeling very unsure. STEPHANIE: It really paid off, so... JOËL: I'd like to circle back to your talk, though. So, you gave, basically, the first talk of the conference. You were the first session after the keynote. A theme that came up multiple times in your talk was this idea of coupling and how it affects different parts of our code and, particularly the way that we structure tests or the way that we feel test pain. How did you, when you were prepping this talk, discover that theme and decide to lift it up? Was that something that you knew ahead of time you wanted to talk about, or did it just sort of emerge as part of the talk preparation process? STEPHANIE: That's a really great question, and I'm glad you picked up on that. So, my talk was called: "So, Writing Tests Feels Painful. What Now?" Originally, when I came up with this idea, it actually started with coupling. I realized that I wanted to give a talk about coupling because it's just something that I was struggling with or, like, had seen other people struggle with and really wanting kind of a discrete resource, wanting to provide that. But as I was just thinking about it, I was like, oh, like, there are so many different ways that this could go. On one hand, it was a very like important topic to me, but also maybe too big of a topic. And so, I actually, like, kind of put that on the back burner. And it wasn't until later when I connected it to another...it wasn't necessarily different at all, but just, like, an extension of this idea is, oh, like, people are struggling with coupling in tests or, like, it manifests in tests. And so, I thought maybe that could be the angle that I took on this topic that kind of gave me a little bit more focus. And I didn't even end up saying like, "Yeah, this talk was, like, born out of just, you know, wrestling with coupling or anything like that." So, it's cool, to me, that you picked up on it as a theme because it was...I had, you know, ended up not being super explicit about it, but it was certainly, like, a thing that was driving the content from my perspective. JOËL: Interesting. So, it started as a coupling talk and then got sort of focused through the lens of testing. STEPHANIE: Yeah. And I think there was a part of me that was like, you know, I don't know if I could just teach the concept of coupling, like, by itself without the framing of testing for people who this is, like, a new concept for them. I realized that maybe it would be more effective to be like, "Hey, like, have you experienced test pain? You know, have you had to mock out a billion objects or changed, you know, made one change and then had to fix, like, a million tests subsequently? Then this talk is for you." And then weave in the idea of coupling in it to kind of start to help people feel familiar with it or just, like, identify it without as much, like, jargon as kind of I've seen when I've tried to figure out, like, how to manage it. JOËL: It's interesting because I think it gives you a, like, concrete, valuable thing to optimize for as opposed to, like, hey, let's lower coupling because then you're writing, you know, quote, unquote, "better code." And you get to feel better about yourself as a programmer because you're doing things the, quote, unquote, "right way." That's very kind of hand-wavy, and I think sometimes leads people down a bad path where they're optimizing things that they shouldn't be. But the tests give you this very concrete way to say, "Hey, we're not just trying to reach the, like, low score record for the app in terms of coupling. We're trying to reduce test pain. Tests are painful. And that pain is telling us something. It's telling us that we've crossed some sort of threshold for coupling. Let's find ways to reduce it, not so that we can feel good about ourselves, but so that our tests are actually manageable." STEPHANIE: Yeah, I am really glad you picked up on that, too, because I feel the exact same way when someone just tells me to decouple something or, like, makes a note that, like, oh, this feels really coupled. I don't know what that means necessarily. And it's not very convincing to just be like, "Oh, you should write loosely coupled code [laughs]," at least for me. What you said just now, it's like, it's not to feel good about ourselves, you know, to write code that way, but, actually, to just feel good about our code, period [laughs]. And, yeah, finding that validation through just, like, actually working with code that is easier to change that is the goal, not necessarily to, yeah, kind of pursue some totally subjective, like, metric. JOËL: So, one of the kinds of coupling that you called out, I think, was where you hardcode a class name of some other class in your object. And that feels, like, really sort of innocuous. Like, of course, my objects can talk to other objects. And maybe I want to, like, refer to a class somewhere. Why is that such a like tricky piece of coupling to work with? STEPHANIE: It's not necessarily intentional sometimes. Like, you just do it because you're like, well, I need access to this class somewhere, and I happen to already be in this file. So, why not just hard-code it here? I do think it's a little tricky because the file that you're writing might be, like, very far down in, like, your code flow or, like, your code path, like, very far from, like, a controller or any kind of entry point into your system, at least based on what I've seen in a lot of modern Rails apps. And so, I think that coupling gets really, really obscured. I have found that, like, if I have to kind of write a more, like, a higher level test, like, maybe a request spec or something, there are times when I'm, like, having to deal with a lot of classes just to set stuff up in a test like that that I didn't think I would have to [chuckles] when I first went about trying to just be like, oh, like, let's just figure out how to get a 200 response [laughs] from this request. So, you're really burying perhaps the things that are needed to set up, like, that full path of execution. And sometimes, it only comes out when you're writing a test for it. JOËL: And you mentioned briefly, in passing, the idea that oftentimes this sort of coupling manifests as a lot of extra test setup because your object that you're trying to test now also needs all these other things that are related in order to be tested. But sometimes even when you hard code a class, though, you can't even just say, "Oh, I want this particular user or something returned." So, you have to then do something like allow this class to receive class method and return, and now you're stubbing. And I don't know how you feel about stubs in RSpec. I always treat them a little bit like a code smell in the like classic sense of it's not necessarily bad, but maybe pause, take a look, and ask yourself, "Why is that there, and should I do things differently?" STEPHANIE: Yeah. I ended up having, like, a lot of examples of stubbing in my example because the code had just been set up where that was the only way that you could access those collaborators, essentially, to, like, make an assertion on them, or have them do something different because you actually needed to go into a different path, right? And I was like, yeah, this should feel weird. You should feel a little bad [laughs] or at least, you know, kind of just pay attention to that feeling, even if you can't really do anything about it in that particular instance. But on the flip side, you know, it's like, yes, it feels a bit strange, you know, but it's not all bad, right? Like, you're kind of learning like, oh, hey, like, I am coupled to this hard-coded class because I am needing to stub, like, a class method that returns it, or that constructs it. And at least you've exposed that, you know, for yourself. One thing that I was running into a lot in my example, too, was that those things, like, weren't obvious when you were just reading maybe, like, the public methods and trying to figure out what was happening in them because they were wrapped in private methods. I was a little bit conflicted about this because there were times when it was already just a single method call, but then it was just kind of wrapped in a private method that actually hid [laughs] the things, like all the dependencies that were passed as arguments. And I found that to be, sure, it looks kind of cleaner. But then all you need to do is scroll down [laughs], and then you're like, oh, actually, there's all these other things involved, but it was kind of hidden away for me. And I found that, actually, like, at least when I actually needed to change things, less helpful than I imagine what the, you know, code author intended. Do you have any thoughts about hiding details like that? JOËL: I'm kind of a big fan. STEPHANIE: Hmmm. JOËL: The general idea, I think, is called the single level of abstraction principle. Whatever sort of public method that you're calling is often implemented in terms of...let's say it does a few different things. It's implemented in terms of, like, these sort of high-level concepts. So, whoever is reading the public method doesn't need to like care about the details of how each step is implemented. So, maybe you're fetching something from an API, and then you're making a database call, and then you're doing some transformation and creating some new objects from it. Having all of the, like, HTTP calls and the ActiveRecord stuff and the, like, transformation all in the public method, yes, there's a lot of complexity happening there, and it makes that obvious. But it also makes it really hard to get a sense of what is happening. So, I like to say, "Hey, there are four steps. Let's wrap them all each in a private method then you can call all of those in the public method." The public method now sort of reads like a very simple sort of script. First, fetch data from the HTTP API, then fetch some data from the database, then apply this transformation, then create this object. And if I'm mostly caring about what this object does and not the how let's say I'm building some other objects that interact with this, that is the information I want to know. Where I care about the actual implementation of, oh, well, exactly how is the ActiveRecord stuff done when I'm doing internal changes to the object, that's when I care about those private methods. I think where it gets tricky, and I think that's the point that you were bringing up, is that if you write code in that way, it has to change the heuristics of how you read code to detect complexity. Because, oftentimes, I think a very classic heuristic for code complexity is just line length. If you have a 50-line method, probably there's a lot of complexity there. Maybe there's a lot of coupling. If it's a four-line method that is written at a high level of abstraction that just calls out to private methods, you scan over. You're like, oh, nice and clean. Nothing to see here. Move on. And so, that heuristic doesn't really hold up in a codebase where you're applying this single level of abstraction. Do you think that lines up with your experience? STEPHANIE: Hmm. As I was listening to you, I was like, yeah, like, that makes total sense to me. But then I also clearly disagreed a little bit [laughs] in my initial...kind of what I was saying initially. And I think it's because that single layer of abstraction was not very well defined. JOËL: Hmm. That's fair. STEPHANIE: Yeah. Where, in fact, it was actually misleading. Like, it wanted to be at that level of abstraction, but it really wasn't. Like, it was operating on things at, like, a lower level and wasn't designed with that kind of readability in mind. So, it was more, like, it was just hiding stuff a little bit, at least for me. And, I think, it certainly would have taken, like, more work to figure out what that code, like, really was meant to convey. It might have taken some refactoring to coalesce at that single level. And that was essentially kind of what I was showing in my talk as, like, how to get to saying, like, "Hey, we actually are operating in the lower level, but I don't think we need to." There was some amount of, like, looking at all of the how to figure out, like, oh, maybe these things we don't even need to expose in this class. And we kind of got to a place where those details weren't, like, needed in that class at all. So, it's one of those things where it's harder than it sounds [laughs]. JOËL: It's definitely an art. STEPHANIE: Yeah. JOËL: And I think what you're saying about some of the coupling being, like, scattered throughout the class, it's something that I see a lot with situations where you're coupled, not so much to, like, a single class, but to something side effectful. So, you're building some kind of integration with a third-party API, and you're going to have to make a lot of HTTP calls. And each of those might be individually simple, and they're all sort of maybe in different private methods or whatever, or they're interspersed among a larger chunk of logic. And that makes your tests really complicated. But there's no, like, one place you can point at and be like, ooh, that's the one place where there's a lot of complexity. What's happening here, though, is that your business object that's doing stuff is coupled to the network, and that coupling is going to force you to do some stubbing. It's going to force you to deal with a bunch of side effects that are non-deterministic in your code. And you used the word coalesce earlier that I really liked because I think that's often a situation where you do have to stand back and say, "Look, there's a lot of HTTP going on here. What if I coalesced it all into an object? Now I have two objects: one that's responsible for business logic, and one that's responsible for just the HTTP calls." And, all of a sudden, the tests just totally simplify. And we've removed some coupling, but that's not something that you would have seen just from reading the code. Because, as you were saying, it's sort of scattered in little bits and pieces throughout your file that don't necessarily catch your eye. STEPHANIE: Yeah. Which brings me to a blog post that I had found a lot of inspiration from in the talk that I'll link. It's called "That One Thing: Reduce Coupling for More Scalable and Sustainable Software." But it's actually about tests [laughs], even though it doesn't make an appearance in the title of the blog post at all. But this is where I kind of got the idea of necessary versus unnecessary coupling in test. Because I had never thought about how, yeah, like, when you write a test, you are very correctly coupling yourself to at least the method and class under test [laughs], if not also the arguments, right? Or anything else needed to construct what you're testing. And literally having that listed out for me in this blog post I think it's a...they use some examples in Java. And so, there's, like, a little bit more [laughs] setup involved. But I think they're like, yeah, these are six things that, like, it's mostly fine if you're coupled to these because that's kind of what needs to happen in a test. But, like, even having something to compare a test I wrote to just, like, okay, these are the things I know I need. And then, you can start to see when you've diverged from that list, when you are finding yourself coupled to some internals of your class. I really...that was actually, like, really helpful for me because, as we talked about earlier, like, it can be kind of communicated so abstractly. But here is, like, a very clear heuristic for when you should at least, like, start to pay attention or be like, oh, this is something that was needed to get the test to run but is now starting to feel a little unnecessary because it's not on this list. JOËL: That list reminds me, or the idea of a list of things to check out for when thinking about coupling, reminds me of the concept of connascence, which is a fancy word for almost a, like, categorization of different types of coupling because coupling comes in different flavors, some of which are tighter forms of coupling than others. And so, having that vocabulary has been really helpful for me when I'm looking at PRs and code review, or even when I'm refactoring my own code. Kind of like that list that you mentioned that you have, now I have some heuristics to look at that and say, "Oh, can I go from a connascence of position to a connascence of naming, and does that help me?" STEPHANIE: Yeah, I like that you mentioned the positional connascence because I also came across a really great metaphor for kind of things that need to change together, like, when that makes sense. And it was basically the idea of a dishwasher and a laundry machine [laughs]. I wish I could recall, like, what book this was from. But it was basically like, oh yeah, like, in theory, you're washing two things. So, maybe they are similar, but then you're like, no, actually, you want these to be a little bit separate because, you know, you don't want to wash your dishes and your clothes in the same machine. I don't know, maybe that exists [laughs], but I don't think it would do a very good job for either goal. And I think that was really helpful, for me, in imagining, like, the difference between kind of coupling and cohesion, like things that...even just imagining, like, kind of where I'm doing those things in the house, right? It's like, okay, that lives in a separate room. And, like, the kitchen is for the dishes, and that could be like, you know, a module if you will. And, like, laundry happens in the laundry room, and how to kind of just separate those things, even though they also do share some qualities, too. Like, they're both appliances, right? And so, that's the way that they are similar, but they're not the same. JOËL: You just mentioned the sort of keyword cohesion. And for our listeners who are not familiar with that term, it refers to an object sort of having one thing that it does well. Like, everything in that class sort of works towards the same goal, kind of similar to the idea of the single responsibility principle. So, in my earlier example, where we're sort of interspersing some business logic, a lot of HTTP requests, and pulling out an object that's focused on HTTP, like everything is based around that, now that object has higher cohesion because it's all doing one thing. So, if you read classic object-oriented literature, the recommendations that you'll typically see are that objects should have high cohesion and low coupling. STEPHANIE: Yeah. Think of a dishwasher and a washing machine next time [laughs] you come across something like that. Because I feel like those are really great, like, real-life examples of that separation. JOËL: Did you go to Jared Norman's talk on the third day: "Undervalued: The Most Useful Design Pattern"? STEPHANIE: No, I didn't. Can you tell me about it? JOËL: It felt like he was addressing a lot of the same themes as you were but from more of a code perspective than a test perspective. Talking a lot about, again, forms of coupling, dependencies, and then, specifically, one of the tools that he focused on to reduce the coupling that we see is value objects and factory methods to construct those. So, for any of our listeners who, when the talks come out, watch Stephanie's talk and are like, "Wow, I would love to learn more about this," a great follow-up, Jared Norman's talk: "Undervalued: The Most Useful Design Pattern." STEPHANIE: Yeah, that's neat because I can see that being a solution to the hard code did class names that we were talking about earlier. And I like how that is kind of, like, a progressive lesson in coupling a little bit. I'm really glad you shared that talk with me because now I'm excited to watch it when it comes out. And in general, I just love learning new vocabulary or finding new ways to speak about this topic with clarity. So, if any of our listeners have just additional mental models for coupling [laughs] different metaphors, different household appliances [laughs], or something like that, I would love to know. JOËL: You would like that, given that our first episode together was about "The Value Of Specialized Vocabulary." STEPHANIE: Yeah, it's clearly undervalued. JOËL: Haha, I see what you did there. STEPHANIE: Thank you. Thank you very much [laughs]. JOËL: On that terrible/wonderful pun, shall we wrap up? STEPHANIE: Let's wrap up. Show notes for this episode can be found at bikeshed.fm. JOËL: This show has been produced and edited by Mandy Moore. STEPHANIE: If you enjoyed listening, one really easy way to support the show is to leave us a quick rating or even a review in iTunes. It really helps other folks find the show. JOËL: If you have any feedback for this or any of our other episodes, you can reach us @_bikeshed, or you can reach me @joelquen on Twitter. STEPHANIE: Or reach both of us at hosts@bikeshed.fm via email. JOËL: Thanks so much for listening to The Bike Shed, and we'll see you next week. ALL: Byeeeeeeee!!!!! AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at: referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.

Ashley Zuchelli shares her journey with Crohn's disease, from the onset of symptoms to her recent diagnosis. She discusses the challenges she faced in finding a doctor who would listen and the frustration of not knowing what was causing her symptoms. Ashley also talks about the impact of Crohn's on her work and how she manages anxiety. Finally, she shares her motivation for advocacy and raising awareness about IBD. In this conversation, Ashley Zuchelli shares her journey with IBD and the challenges she faced in getting a diagnosis. She emphasizes the importance of realizing when something is wrong and seeking help, even when faced with fears and uncertainties. The conversation also highlights the difficulties doctors face in diagnosing IBD and the need for patients to advocate for themselves. Ashley encourages listeners to not give up on their goals, to prioritize their health, and to listen to our bodies and not dismiss symptoms. Takeaways Finding a supportive and understanding doctor is crucial in the journey to diagnosis and treatment. Managing anxiety and stress is important for overall well-being and symptom management. Having a flexible work schedule can be beneficial for individuals with IBD to accommodate flare-ups and self-care. Sharing personal stories and advocating for awareness can help others going through similar experiences. Realizing when something is wrong and seeking help is crucial for managing IBD. Don't let fears and uncertainties prevent you from seeking the care you need. Advocate for yourself and communicate your symptoms and concerns to your doctor. Don't give up on your goals and prioritize your health. Connect with others who have similar experiences for support and guidance. Topics covered in the interview Ashley's Journey with Crohn's Disease Seeking a New Doctor for a Diagnosis Diagnosis and Treatment Managing Anxiety and Balancing Work Realizing Something's Wrong The Importance of Seeking Help The Challenges of Diagnosing IBD Don't Give Up on Your Goals Don't Disregard Your Body's Signals From the show Stephanie: What have you done over the years to help manage anxiety? Ashley: I would say meal prepping actually soothes me and it keeps my mind at ease because I know if I am hungry or if…I'm feeling good that day, I have food ready for me and it just makes me happy just cooking in the kitchen…And then I started doing the HelloFresh program, where I get ingredients sent to me and then I just cook. I don't have to think about the recipes. They have dietary restrictions on there of things you can and cannot eat, so that helps my anxiety—to make sure I have the food I need when I have a long day at work or if we go travel. feeling so great today or, you know, I do have that type of job where if I wasn't feeling well, I can block that time and deal with what I need to deal with. If I had a flare or upset stomach from eating something or just. Stephanie: How do you balance work and work in IBD? Ashley: You know, Crohn's being Crohn's, acting up when it's not the best time, so I was just honest with my clients. Like if I didn't feel well, like I have to go to the bathroom, [saying] I'll be right back. We don't discuss what happens in the bathroom, but they know I need a moment to break away because of issues going on…I am grateful that I have the luxury to make my own schedule when a flare happens. Links from the show: Follow Ashley: https://www.instagram.com/azuchelli4 * * * * * Support the podcast ❤️ at https://www.crohnsfitnessfood.com Shop my favorite products, Read my favorite books, Subscribe to the podcast, Send a little love/coffee

On this week's episode of The Coaches Roundtable, we're bringing you another Q&A Podcast!  In this episode, we answered the following questions: Shaun: Alcohol's effect on being able to lose weight even if you're in a deficit. Stacie: How can you increase your BMR and sustain it? How long does it take for the increase to become apparent?  Stephanie: How do I know when it's time to try a bulk? I've been in maintenance for almost a year now and I would love to try a small bulk in March and a cut in mid April or May. Jan: Need info on foods higher in iron, other than red meat. Is there away to get rid of belly fat? Or is targeted fat loss impossible. Motivation vs Inspiration:: On our journey, what is more important motivation or inspiration? What is better for sore muscles… a hot epsom salt bath or a cold bath? How to not let the scale discourage you. SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS to be answered on the show: https://forms.gle/B6bpTBDYnDcbUkeD7 How to Connect with Us:  Chase's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/changing_chase/ Chris' Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conquer_fitness2021/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/665770984678334/ Visit our Website: https://www.conquerfitnessandnutrition.com/  Work with Conquer Fitness and Nutrition for 1:1 Coaching:  https://forms.gle/A7yZfj9uYJPQtvsL6

Joël recently had a fascinating conversation with some friends about the power of celebrating and highlighting small wins in their lives. He talks about bringing this into his work life. May Stephanie interest you in a secret she learned regarding homemade pizza? RubyConf is coming! Who's submitting talks?! It's hekkin scary. Don't fret! Joël and Stephannie are here to help. Today, they discussed submitting a conference talk proposal from start to finish. Sheet pan pizza (https://anewsletter.alisoneroman.com/p/may-we-interest-you-in-a-party-of) RubyConf CFP (https://sessionize.com/rubyconf-2023/) Speakerline.io (https://speakerline.io/) WNB.rb (https://www.wnb-rb.dev/) Transcript: STEPHANIE: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Stephanie Minn. JOËL: And I'm Joël Quenneville. And together, we've come here to share a bit of what we've learned along the way. STEPHANIE: So, Joël, what's new in your world? JOËL: I've been having a really interesting conversation with some of my friends recently about the power of celebrating and highlighting small wins in our lives, both in, like, kind of sharing it with each other, like, you know, if something small happens, it's good for me to share it with my friends. But also, where it becomes really cool is where the friend group kind of gets together and celebrates that small win for one person, and how that can be, like, a small step to take, but it's just really powerful and encouraging for a friend group. And I think that applies not just among friends but in a team or other grouping in the workplace. STEPHANIE: That's so fun. How are you celebrating these small wins, like, over text? Is that the main way you're communicating something good that happened? JOËL: It depends on the friend group. I think, like, different friend groups will have, like, a different kind of cadence for the kind of things they do. And do they all hang out together? Do they have a group text, things like that? One of the friend groups I'm a part of, we meet weekly to go climbing at a rock-climbing gym, so that's kind of our hang-out. And [inaudible 01:34], we're there to do stuff at the gym, but it's also a social thing. And it's an opportunity to be like, "Oh, you know, did that thing workout, you know, at work?" "You know, good for you," Or "Did you get this project accepted?" And yeah, when small wins come up, it's a great time to celebrate. STEPHANIE: That's awesome. I think having regular time that you see people and being able to ask them about something that they had mentioned previously is so special and really important to me, like, in bonding and building the relationship. I also love the idea of celebrating milestones. So, this is, I guess, more of a bigger win, but milestones that aren't traditionally celebrated. You know, so, yeah, we'll have, like, a party when someone graduates or someone gets married. But I also have really enjoyed celebrating when someone gets a promotion at work. And, you know, maybe that's not, like, a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but it's still so worthy of going out for dinner or buying them a drink. I also will maybe, like, send my friends a little treat if I know that they did something small but hard for them, right? And sometimes that's even, like, responding to a scary email that they had sitting in their inbox for a while. Yeah, I really love that idea of supporting people, even in the small things in life that they do. JOËL: Yeah, and that's really validating, I think when you've done something hard and then a friend or a colleague reaches out to you. And it's kind of like, hey, I saw that. Good for you. STEPHANIE: How have you been thinking about bringing this into your work life? JOËL: I think it's about being on the lookout for things that other people do. And I think one thing I like to do is kind of publicly calling that out. It sounds like a negative thing, right? But just giving people kind of a public shout-out when they've succeeded at something. I think we're all kind of socialized not to maybe talk too much about accomplishments, especially if they feel kind of small and mundane. Being somebody else, I think, gives you a lot more leeway to say, "Hey, no, Stephanie, I see that you did that thing. And maybe it feels kind of like, oh no, you're just doing your job, but I think that's cool. And I want to, you know, just give you a shout-out in the company Slack channel or something." It doesn't have to be something big. You know, I'm not sending champagne to your home. But having that opportunity to just kind of celebrate something small and say, "Wait a minute, let's pause and acknowledge that you just did something cool." STEPHANIE: Yeah, I was thinking about how that's kind of, like, amplifying the win a little bit. I've definitely done this before, too, when I see someone share a win of theirs, maybe in a smaller Slack channel or kind of a personal level, or even just to me individually. And I really want other people to know that that happened to you and that they, you know, did an awesome job. And so, I have enjoyed, you know, sharing them more publicly on their behalf if they are comfortable with it. JOËL: And I'll say on the other end of that, I think it feels really good to be acknowledged by someone else that you've done something that they recognize. It's fun to share a win with other people because you're excited, but it's doubly fun when somebody else shares it for you. STEPHANIE: I agree. I think one thing that you, Joël, do really well, actually, is sharing your own personal wins in a very casual way. That's something I've always admired about you is how you recognize the small wins for yourself. JOËL: It's taken me, I think, a long time to get to that and find a way where, you know, you are sharing things that are fun for other people to see, things that might be inspiring, things that are kind of cool, and that are not just kind of, like, self-aggrandizing, like, bragging about stuff. It can be a fine line to walk. And, to a certain extent, you're a little bit marketing yourself. But yeah, I think I've kind of hit that right balance. STEPHANIE: Yeah, I think the thing that makes it work is that there's usually, like, a challenge or something that maybe you, like, went through a journey or overcame a little bit. And I think that's what is the inspiring part that makes me feel like, oh, okay, so, like, this is a realistic thing that, you know, Joël went through and, you know, he struggled with it maybe. But then, like, ultimately, you know, had some insights or came out the other side with some learnings. And I like that it's real, right? It's not just, "Hey, like, I did this, like, cool thing." It's like, "I went on this journey." And I find that really motivating when I am in that kind of situation next time. JOËL: There's a power to stories, right? And I think especially when you can make something relatable to other people. So, it's not just like, "Hey, I did a cool thing," which, you know, is also fun. But being able to say, "Hey, I messed up," or "I, you know, had this challenging problem dropped in my lap, and here's the journey I went on to resolve it. Hopefully, it acts a little bit as like a here's a template you could follow if you're ever in that situation." But maybe also a little bit of, like, inspiration for others as well, just being like, hey, Joël, messes up sometimes. So, Stephanie, what is new in your world? STEPHANIE: Speaking of small wins, I have finally perfected our at-home pizza situation for making pizza at home, which I have been struggling with for so long. Because I always was excited by the idea of making pizza and, you know, sometimes we would make our own dough. And sometimes, we would buy store-bought dough, but it never ended up being as crispy and cooked well-done the way that I want it to. It was always, like, a little bit mushy on the inside. The dough wasn't totally baked. And I would inevitably be disappointed when I had been, you know, building that excitement for pizza. And the other week, I found a new recipe to try, and I think it will be my new go-to recipe for making pizza at home. JOËL: I don't know if I'm allowed to ask this on air, but what's the secret? STEPHANIE: The secret? Well, okay, the first secret and/or learning that I've gathered is to not put as much sauce, cheese, and toppings as you think you want to because that's definitely what contributes to the under-doneness of the dough. But I pivoted to trying a more grandma-style crust that is kind of more like focaccia; really, you know, it involves a lot of olive oil. And you're cooking it for a while on pretty high heat to ensure the crispness and, you know, that it's cooked through. And, I mean, I love focaccia bread, so I don't mind it as, you know, the base of my pizza. It is a bit different from, you know, other kinds of pizzas. And if we had, like, a really, you know, fancy pizza oven to do the, like, super high heat, like, Neapolitan-style deal, I would also really enjoy that. But you know what? That's just not the reality of my home kitchen. So, I have really been enjoying this pizza recipe by Alison Roman that I will link in the show notes. But yeah, it has really changed my at-home pizza game. And I hopefully won't have any of my, you know, soggy dough bottom problems anymore. JOËL: So, you mentioned just kind of offhand, like, oh yeah, you know, the crust is just kind of, like, how you make focaccia. It sounds like you've made focaccia yourself before. STEPHANIE: I have made focaccia at home, and so I think applying it to Pizza was a real, like, light bulb moment for me. But, you know, it's not, like, totally effortless. But I think it's a lot more forgiving than other types of bread and, therefore, other types of pizza crust. And the one really enjoyable thing about making focaccia is there's a step where you use your fingers, and you're kind of holding your hands like you're playing a piano. And you, like, press into the dough after it has risen a little bit to create dimples and, you know, lets the oil kind of seep into the little holes. And it's very satisfying. It's a very good feeling. JOËL: The kind of the tactile aspect of it? STEPHANIE: Yeah, exactly. It's very fun. [chuckles] So, yeah, it's just an added bonus to my pizza adventures. JOËL: A win on top of a win. We'll take it. So, there's some news in the Ruby community this week because RubyConf has just opened their CFP, their call for proposals. And so, they're asking for people to submit their ideas for conference talks, and if you're lucky, you get picked to speak at the conference. And, Stephanie, I know that over the course of a year, you have a document where you collect conference talk ideas so that you have ideas to work on when the CFP comes around. Are you looking at any of them to potentially submit to RubyConf this year? STEPHANIE: Joël, I have to be honest with you; so far, I only have one idea on that list. [laughs] But that is one that I suppose could eventually become a conference talk proposal. So, when I heard the news, I definitely went down the rabbit hole of revisiting that idea and kind of starting to think about if it's something I wanted to pursue. I think the answer is yes. I definitely got a big push of motivation when I was like, oh, it's open. Like, now I can just get started if I want to. And then I was like, well, it's open for a month, so I could also just sit on it a little longer, you know, put it aside and revisit it when I have a little more time. But yeah, I was pretty excited because I think it gave me the motivation I needed to really think a little more deeply about this idea that I have. Otherwise, I think it would have continued to sit half-baked in my document for a long time. JOËL: And just for all of our listeners, the CFP just opened on July 12th, and it closes on August 20th. So, if you are listening and it's before August 20th, you still have a shot to submit your idea to be a speaker. STEPHANIE: Something that I've talked about with my other friends who enjoy speaking at conferences is how they come up with proposals, and I found that we all have different approaches. And I am really interested in digging into this further with you. But I realized that, for me, I really struggle with just, like, throwing out ideas and submitting them before I feel really confident that it's something that I have interesting things to say really, or, like, kind of adding a new perspective, or maybe approaching a topic that hasn't been approached before. I feel sometimes a bit hindered by my process, where I need to feel really confident before submitting something. Because a friend of mine she was telling me that her approach is to submit CFP for topic ideas that she wants to explore further. So, maybe it is something that she doesn't know a lot about yet, and she's using this process to learn more and dive deeper, and that, you know, gives her a reason to do that, whereas that seems really scary to me. JOËL: That's really interesting because it sounds like kind of an underlying motivation for your friend for submitting these talks is curiosity, exploration. And thinking back to myself, I think I usually submit ideas that have me excited or passionate, so that's kind of my underlying motivation for a talk. What would you say is maybe your underlying motivation when you're pitching an idea? STEPHANIE: Yeah, I think, for me, it is impact and, like, having an impact, especially for something that I've struggled with and wanting to share my experience and, hopefully, sharing something where other people can relate to. It's funny you mentioned that your motivators are, you know, excitement and passion. Because another person that I kind of had this conversation with mentioned that she writes talks based on experiences that have been very aggravating [chuckles] and painful for her. So, that ends up being, you know, a big motivator because she's so frustrated. [laughs] And, you know, wants to share this journey that she went on from a point of, I guess, maybe similar to me, like, making it easier for someone else who might find themselves struggling with the same problem. JOËL: I kind of like the idea of taking that to an extreme, and you're, like, rage submitting. STEPHANIE: Yeah, I feel like there would just be an infinite number [laughs] of topics that you could come up with in that case. JOËL: Like, I'm so angry at this bug. It cost me a week of my life. And now, it is going to get the spotlight on it at RubyConf. And I get to share that moment with everyone, express a lot of emotions, and, hopefully, save everyone else from having to do the same thing I did. STEPHANIE: Yeah. Or this terrible bug cost me a week of my life, and now you all get to hear about it. [laughter] Let me tell you -- JOËL: Yes. STEPHANIE: Exactly all the problems that I had to deal with. JOËL: And, honestly, as a narrative, it kind of works, right? There are different types of talks. Sometimes you go to a talk because you really want to learn a deep topic. Sometimes I just want to go and listen to, like, a good horror story. If someone's a good storyteller, like, yes, there are lessons I can take away from it, and I can be like, okay, this is what I can do. And I heard Stephanie talk about this bug, and so I'm going to use inspiration from that the next time I hit a bug. But sometimes it's also just good to, like, go there and sit and be, like, yes, I've been there. Yeah, kind of following along with the story and, you know, kind of the ups and downs because it is so relatable. STEPHANIE: Yeah. And I like that you mentioned that there are different types of talks that leave the audience, you know, with different things. Because I know some people who have been interested in speaking in the past maybe feel a bit hesitant to because they don't think they have something to say, or, like, they don't have something to share that other people might find interesting. And to that, I really believe that everyone has something that they are knowledgeable about and something that they can bring to others that is valuable. Even if it's not for every single person at the conference if you give a talk that is meaningful to a handful of people, right? Especially because, you know, there's people of all different kinds of levels at these conferences. Those are really important too. In fact, I think it can be even more powerful because they are targeting a specific audience. JOËL: And I think you've hit on a key point, that is, it's great when you're building the talk, but even when you're pitching the idea is, who is this talk for? Who is the audience for this talk? And if the audience is whoever shows up at the conference center, maybe you need to workshop a little bit more. STEPHANIE: Yeah, because one thing can't really be for everyone. JOËL: Right. You're kind of diffusing its impact at that point. You were talking about how sometimes it's difficult to take an idea, flesh it out, and submit it until you're feeling, like, 100% confident about it. I'm curious how the transition goes from kind of the earlier phase of, like, you have a document, and I assume these are, like, bullet points with, like, one sentence, or maybe even just title idea. How does it go from bullet point to multiple paragraphs that might be submittable? STEPHANIE: Yeah, that's a good question. I think it starts as a bullet point because maybe I notice something that caused me pain or caused a teammate pain, and maybe we had, like, kind of an interesting discussion about it. And, yeah, I write it down as something to explore further as, like, is this an idea that can be a little broader in scope, can have a few more applications beyond this particular instance that sparked it? And so, maybe from there, I will think about, like, okay, like, the pain point that I jotted down was coupling and tests, right? And let me go, you know, jog through my memory of other times where I kind of felt a similar thing or was doing some code review and also noted a similar problem. And I think if I am able to find enough, like, supporting examples that might go along with this, for me, it's really a feeling. [laughs] Then I'll try to extract that a little further and come up with a theme, right? A theme that's a little more encompassing because what I hope to do is to be able to come up with some kind of takeaway that can be a strong thesis for a conference proposal. JOËL: And that's kind of how conference proposals work, right? There's a few different sections you have to fill out. But the really important one is the abstract, which is usually just a few sentences. It's character limited. And that's what is got to sell your talk both to the committee, but then also, that's what's going to be publicly viewable. And so, that's what's going to get people excited to show up at your conference room. So, my kind of secret trick for writing a proposal is to do the abstract last. Even though it's that first section on the form, I struggle to write a compelling abstract. And so, I'll go through and fill out some of the other fields that are only for the committee, and there'll be, you know, a lot of detail in there. And then, sometimes, I find that I put, like, really good compelling sentences in there, and I'll pull them out and put them in the abstract and kind of use that to start. But those other sections, like pitch and all that I think they're a great place to start because you get to go a little bit more into detail. And you can talk about here are the themes I want to address. Here are maybe the examples I'm going to be building around. Here's the audience that I want to speak to. STEPHANIE: Audience is interesting for me because I tend to write the kind of talks that I wish I had watched earlier or, like, what really speaks to me. In fact, one of my first conference talks was literally called The Intro to Abstraction I Wish I'd Received. [laughs] So, that is a good place for me to start, is thinking about like, well, like, who was I at the time? Like, what kind of developer was I at the time that I, like, really needed this information or really wished for this information? And similarly, I had mentioned, you know, like, maybe my ideas are coming from conversations I've had with other people. So, I'm imagining those other people, and I'm asking myself, like, who are they? Like, where are they in their development careers? And is there a specific demographic or audience persona that kind of fits them, and, you know, usually there is, right? And what is nice is I can kind of go to them as well and be like, "Hey, like, I have this idea. Do you think this would be helpful for you? Or is this something you would be interested in watching?" And that at least helps me ground it in an audience that is real to me as opposed to kind of trying to imagine who might show up without a clear idea, like, of what they might get a takeaway or, like, be wanting in a conference talk. JOËL: Would it be fair to say that when you're coming up with an idea for a presentation, the audience you have in mind is you or maybe a particular version of you, so you two years ago or you five years ago? STEPHANIE: Yeah, I think that's a really compelling way for me to write these because, you know, I almost think it kind of goes back to the idea that everyone has something to say, right? It's like I have something to say to me, my past self. And I believe that other people, you know, are in that position as well. And so, that's been my approach. But I'm curious about yours because I think the types of talks that you write are maybe less about, like, what you wished you had learned earlier and more for a different kind of audience. JOËL: Yeah, I think they are...I start with a topic that I'm excited about. And then, sometimes, I have to find what element of it that I want to pull out because it can be kind of a whole kind of cloud of themes, and I have to pick one to commit to. Depending on the one I commit to and the approach I want to take, it will define the audience that...or vice versa. I can say, okay, this is specifically for this audience, and that will show how I want to approach it. So, for example, I gave a talk at RailsConf this past spring on the math every programmer needs, talking a little bit about discrete math and how it's applicable in day-to-day programming. And I think I very quickly came to the realization that I wanted this talk to be for people who had never done a formal, like, discrete math class, likely people who don't have a traditional, like, CS background. And so, once I knew this is the audience I'm speaking to, that really shaped how I pitched the talk, what elements I want to bring in, what examples I'm using, what do I want to emphasize during this talk. Finding that audience really helped that proposal come together. Even though I knew...before I found the audience, I knew I wanted to talk about discrete math and how cool and relevant it was to day-to-day programming. But that's not enough. I needed to really fit it to an audience. STEPHANIE: Yeah, I have two thoughts about this. One was that when you were writing the proposal for this talk, I remember you had shared a bunch of your different ideas about the topic to your co-workers. And it was almost kind of, like, a buffet of topics. And you were asking for feedback about, like, hey, like, what is interesting to you? Like, what would be, like, helpful for you to know? And I think that ended up really helping you focus on, like, what your audience would want. But I'm curious, do you recall, like, how you decided that you wanted to target people who didn't have that traditional CS background? Like, why was that important to you? JOËL: I think I'm generally most excited about taking some, like, larger technical insights and bringing them to people who maybe have some of the intuition but don't always know why the things they do work the way they do and kind of bridging a little bit of that, like, practical, theoretical gap. That's the space that I'm probably most excited about when it comes to sharing and teaching, helping people go from things that are really practical and then just throwing just enough theory at them. But keeping it really grounded so that they can kind of hit the next level of where they want to be. Because that's an area that I think I thrive in, an area that gets me most excited to share about. And so, I think, naturally, I'm kind of moving in that direction. But also, like you said, it's talking to other people and seeing, like, what are the elements that are interesting to you? And then, like, once you start seeing some of these, it's like, okay, well, what is exciting in talking about Boolean algebra? Do I want to go really deep on some of the theory? Do I want to say, you know, if someone has a vague notion of this because they've been writing code for several years but don't know the theoreticals behind it? That interaction, I think, was more compelling to me. STEPHANIE: Got it. It's almost like knowledge sharing at just this really high level, or, like, at a really large scale. I like that a lot. JOËL: So, you highlighted something interesting, and that is that writing a proposal doesn't have to be a solo activity, and getting feedback on ideas can totally transform your proposal. Do you find that you reach out to a lot of people to get feedback on your proposals? And what does that look like in practice? STEPHANIE: Oh yeah, I definitely need someone to rubber-duck an idea for me. [laughs] JOËL: So, even at the idea stage. So, you've got that topic sentence or whatever, and then you say, "Someone, can you sit down with me, and we'll just talk through places this might go?" STEPHANIE: Yeah. I have found that really helpful for me. Otherwise, I think I get a little too precious about it, right? If I've just been working on it by myself. And then it feels really scary to submit it and be like, okay, I don't know if this is any good. It might get rejected. But the first time that I did a conference talk, WNB.rb, the women and non-binary Ruby group I'm in, they had organized a CFP working group channel. And so, there were, you know, a handful of people, some of them writing conference talks for the first time, some of them having done it before, just getting together and holding each other accountable, and checking in and asking for feedback. And, yeah, I think finding other people who either have done it before. I've also, you know, reached out to people whose conference talks I loved and felt really inspired by. And if they were available, like, kind of asking them how to get started. But also, like, peer support as well, other people doing it for the first time can be really important in just making it feel a little more manageable, a little less lonely. I think there are, like, more people out there who are interested in dipping their toe in conference speaking than one might think because it can definitely feel very overwhelming. But with a support group, I think it makes it a lot easier. JOËL: So, you've gotten feedback. You've gotten support. You've put this idea together. You're feeling pretty confident. You hit that submit button. And now you can't take it back. [laughs] How does that feel at that point? STEPHANIE: Terrifying. [laughter] Like, for me, I have to exercise it from my mind and not think about it, not dwell on it at all. And like, ideally, you know, when I hear back, I will have forgotten all about it so that, you know, I didn't spend the whole month or however many weeks, like, ruminating about whether or not it was accepted. Yeah, I really struggle with that part, I think, because I, yeah, have a hard time with rejection, you know, I'm just going to say it. [laughs] And, you know, it's hard for me not to take it personally. But I think that's actually one area that I want to get better at is to feel a little less, like, personally attached. And I think working with others helps me with that because it's not just something I've, you know, like, squirreled away and feel very attached to. Working with others and then, like, hopefully, coming up with other ideas along the way, right? Within conversations that we have that might spark ideas for the future. So, knowing that if this one doesn't end up being submitted, there's always next time. There's always another conference season. And also, you know, celebrating others when their conference talks do get accepted that is also really buoying because it helps me direct that energy into wanting to celebrate my friends and inspiring me for next time. Joël, I know you oftentimes submit more than one proposal, and I'm wondering if that helps with those feelings of being too attached to a topic idea or, you know, worrying about whether they will be accepted. JOËL: I think it definitely helps with the attachment thing that I've not kind of put all of my work and all of my...like, pinned all of my hopes on one topic idea. Sometimes it can hurt, you know, if you've got, like, you know, two or three and, like, you just get multiple rejection notices in a day. That kind of sucks sometimes. But I think, in some ways, yes, it does help with that feeling of rejection because you've not tied yourself emotionally so much to a single idea that has to, like, succeed or fail. STEPHANIE: Do you then submit those ideas to other conferences? JOËL: The ones that get rejected? Yes. I've definitely resubmitted ideas. In fact, I plan to resubmit a rejection to RubyConf this year, so we'll see how that goes. Actually, now that I think of it, that could be a really fun opening line for a talk. Like, let's say it gets accepted. And, like, you know, you're on the stage, and you open it, and you're just like, "This talk got rejected." That'd be a fun intro. STEPHANIE: Yeah, it would be. I think, oftentimes, you know, it's not always even about the idea itself, right? It's just about maybe the theme of the conference that year, and what they were looking for, and the direction they wanted to go. And there are other conferences or other another year, right? Where maybe there isn't another talk that touches on the same, like, area. And that will be the opportunity that it is a fit for the conference. JOËL: Yeah, definitely. It is a little bit haphazard to get in. And just because your talk gets rejected does not mean it's a bad idea. It just means that it wasn't the best fit for that conference at that time. STEPHANIE: I actually want to plug a website, speakerline.io, where people can post all of their, you know, proposals that they've submitted, whether they were accepted or rejected. And I found that resource really helpful in, you know, just knowing that, like, very good ideas get rejected sometimes, and that's okay. As well as, you know, kind of trying to get a sense of, you know, for the ones that were accepted, okay, like, what about these proposals really stood out or, like, really shine? And how might I get some inspiration from that to incorporate next time around? JOËL: So, you've submitted a proposal. Terrifying. You're trying to not think about it for a couple of weeks, assuming you're submitting ahead a couple of weeks, I don't know. Are you a last-minute kind of submitter? STEPHANIE: I'm a probably two or three days before the deadline kind of submitter. JOËL: So, you've submitted the talk two or three days to the deadline. I guess, like, a couple of weeks after that to get review. And then, you get that notification that says, you know, you've got a response on your talk from the committee. Are you the kind of person that, like, drops everything and immediately looks at it? Do you kind of, like, wait for, like, maybe a moment where you're, like, more in a good zone emotionally before you open that email to find out if you're accepted or rejected? What's your strategy? STEPHANIE: Oh God, I don't think I have the willpower to wait until I'm, you know, in an emotionally good state. I will just click on that thing. And yeah, I think, I mean, having been on the receiving end of accepting those rejections and once waitlisted, [laughs] which was a real doozy because it's like, great, like, now I have to write a talk. But, like, I don't know if it will actually be given or not. I think this is also where the support group really shines as well because maybe some of my other friends are also sharing the results and making it okay, like, sharing a rejection, right? And I think it's nice to just have, like, an outlet for that, whatever the outcome is, and not having to just, like, sit alone in either the sadness or the happiness, right? Like, we're talking about celebrating small wins. Like, it really is even more special when someone else can validate your success. JOËL: Have you ever had to navigate kind of, like, slight feelings of jealousy where it's, like, another friend gets in? Or maybe somebody else gets in with, like, your topic, and their talk got picked instead of yours? STEPHANIE: Yeah, for sure. I think it's totally natural and human. I think one nice thing, though, is that there are so many conferences all of the time. You know, this is not a once-in-a-lifetime situation, right? And maybe the next conference, you know, the people who submit will be different, the people who review will be different. And you've kind of already done the hard part of writing the thing. I actually was just thinking about a few of my friends are writers, and the submission process for them, you know, of spinning a book proposal or short stories for, like, a magazine or something like that, it's, like, fraught with rejections. And they've really built that muscle of acceptance and, like, knowing that it's not a reflection of their value, and building the resilience to keep trying. And so, yeah, I think definitely going through that process has helped me feel a little bit more comfortable with that, not completely, but I guess it's like exposure therapy, [laughs], isn't it? JOËL: I think that the not helpful answer here is that it gets better when you've given more talks. When you're trying to break in and give your first talk, right? It is such a big deal. And, you know, the high of getting accepted is just, you know, mountain top. But the feelings of rejection are also similarly intense. As opposed to when you've done a few, then it's like, you know what? Win some, lose some. And it's much easier to move on. STEPHANIE: I think another suggestion that I might have would be to maybe start smaller, right? Even giving a talk at work for your co-workers, or even the next step is giving a talk at your local meetup or then a small regional conference. There are so many in-between steps, I think, that exist that bestow the benefits of giving a conference talk, and meeting new people, and feeling good about the impact you're having beyond some of the bigger, more traditional conferences. So, if that does seem really scary or, you know, maybe you've given it a shot and feel a little bit demoralized from trying again, there is a group out there who will benefit and be interested in hearing what you have to say. JOËL: That's a really important reminder because just because a conference rejected your talk doesn't mean that it's a bad idea. And yes, you can shop it around and bring it to other conferences, but maybe think about other venues for the idea. You've already done the hard work of crafting a pitch, so maybe turn it into a blog post and share it that way. Maybe turn it into a pitch to be a guest on a podcast that you enjoy. Podcasts that do weekly guests are constantly looking for interesting people to talk to. And you've kind of, like, done all the work for them, where you can say, "Hey, here's the thing I'm an expert on. Ask me questions about this." And most places will gladly bring you on. STEPHANIE: Yeah, I like to think of conference talks as really, like, a supplement of what you're learning and investing in in your career, right? You know, it is nice to be able to share all of those things in a perfectly wrapped package. But also, there are so many different ways for that to manifest. And there are people who know that speaking is not for them and really focus on writing, and that's, like, their avenue. But yeah, it's not...I don't think it's, like, a pinnacle of, like, something you have to do in your career at all. It's just something that can be fun. JOËL: Yeah, and sharing takes many different forms. It can be a talk in a conference room, but it can just as easily turn into maybe some kind of video, some kind of written work. Like I said, it could be an interview on a podcast. There are so many different ways that you can share your ideas. And just because it didn't fit in one place, now that you've done the work to kind of polish that gem a little bit, oftentimes, it's very little additional work to just convert it to a different form. STEPHANIE: Yeah, I like what you just said about polishing a gem. Really, I think the value for me is having a channel to funnel and reflect on my experiences, and, you know, conference talks happen to be, like, one form of that for me. But I hate to say it's about the journey, not the destination, but sometimes it is. And, yeah, I think everyone kind of has to, like, figure that out for themselves. JOËL: That being said, sometimes the destination is pretty exciting. And when you open that email that says, "Congratulations, your talk has been accepted," wow, what a rush. STEPHANIE: On that note, shall we wrap up? JOËL: Let's wrap up. STEPHANIE: Show notes for this episode can be found at bikeshed.fm. JOËL: This show has been produced and edited by Mandy Moore. STEPHANIE: If you enjoyed listening, one really easy way to support the show is to leave us a quick rating or even a review in iTunes. It really helps other folks find the show. JOËL: If you have any feedback for this or any of our other episodes, you can reach us @_bikeshed, or you can reach me @joelquen on Twitter. STEPHANIE: Or reach both of us at hosts@bikeshed.fm via email. JOËL: Thanks so much for listening to The Bike Shed, and we'll see you next week. ALL: Byeeeeeeeee!!!! ANNOUNCER: This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot, your expert strategy, design, development, and product management partner. We bring digital products from idea to success and teach you how because we care. Learn more at thoughtbot.com.

Joël submitted a last-minute submission to RailsConf discreet math, which got picked up!

Stephanie Neale is a tenured sales chick, builder of high performing teams and the CEO of Blind Zebra, an elite sales and client success training company. Blind Zebra has trained, coached and advised salespeople, managers, VPs and CEOs on all things related to the revenue functions in their companies. Here's what you're going to learn from Stephanie: How to deconstruct the scarcity mindset that limit many entrepreneurs How to streamline processes in a business to scale it from six to seven figures How the money script you have may be affecting you How to let go of money baggage as a female entrepreneur Get 5-Min Growth Playbooks Weekly HERE Explore Membership HERE

Stephanie Neale is the CEO of Blind Zebra, an elite sales and client success training company. Blind Zebra have trained, coached and advised salespeople, managers, VPs and CEOs on all things related to the revenue functions in their companies. Here's what you're going to learn from Stephanie: How to deconstruct the scarcity mindset that limit many entrepreneurs How to streamline processes in a business to scale it from six to seven figures How the money script you have may be affecting you How to let go of money baggage as a female entrepreneur Join the tribe: https://www.shegetsshitdone.com/join

Welcome back to Artbeat Radio! You're listening to our 100th episode! We started in 2012, posting about one episode a year. In September of 2020, quarantine inspired us to find a way to interact more with our greater community. Unable to go on community outings or leave our homes, we decided it was time to post on a weekly basis to maintain our connection. Listen in as we share our favorite moments, our hopes for the future, and interview one another on our accomplishments!  Thanks for listening and tune in next time! For more information about our organization, please visit our website www.ableartswork.org  Audio Transcription: (Please listen on Podomatic or Spotify to view the full transcript) *Intro music by Artbeat Radio staff*  Music, stories, and more! You're listening to Artbeat Radio, a program of Able ARTS Work. Stephanie: Hello and welcome to Artbeat Radio! My name is Stephanie! This is our 100th podcast episode. Wow, that is crazy. Our 100th episode! Looks like we made it! Thank you for listening to our podcast. Hope you like the episode. Alison: Okay, now I remember there was one time when we were doing something and it didn't turn out right and somebody dropped a box. I don't know what was in the box but somebody accidentally dropped a box and then in class somebody got the words backwards. Like they accidentally screwed up the words and that was my favorite part. Brian: Well, I loved Katie Jo also. Interviewed her about her country music and she actually performed for us live. My favorite was interviewing the guy who played Spiderman. He was really interesting. Eric: Guess what folx, the interview with spiderman will be available as of next week! Brian: Stephanie. Stephanie: Yes? Brian: What podcast did you enjoy? Stephanie: I liked “Summer Sounds” because it was really upbeat and it was really nice and I also like that I have my professional headphones. I would like, in the future, to meet my goal, which is to be a person on the radio but talk about my play, which is going to be awesome. Hey Renee. Renee: Yes? Stephanie: What's your favorite part of the podcast? Renee: I loved interviewing Spider-man, Ricky because we have a lot in common and are the same age. Brian: Yeah, I really enjoyed the interview with Ricky Mena, who played Spiderman. Stephanie: I think the interview with Julianna and Matthew was my favorite. And I just like podcast because I just like it. I like it because I get to produce the episode about my play. That's why. My goal is to be on a radio station and be the head podcast talker and to talk about my musical and my jewelry business. And that's going to be fun. Go podcast class! Brian: What I love about working with KLBP a lot is getting my voice heard. Getting my thoughts across. To have some of my thoughts that I have not illustrated before and that's very important to me. It's a terrific radio station to air what we've learned. Tim: Well, I like the guests that we have and then talking about our program and sharing all our details. I enjoyed interviewing our staff and then others from- different staff from different sites and music instructors. I like the most about it how we come together as one. Alison: This is our 100th episode! Well, what do you think of it? Stephanie: I think that it's amazing so far. Alison: I didn't think we'd go this far. Stephanie: I know right? Brian: Aaron, what do you think about the 100th podcast episode? Aaron: I like it. Brian: Did you think that we would make it this far? Aaron: Yes. Brian: It's a real honor to interview you, Aaron. Stephanie? Stephanie: Yes, Brian? Brian: What do you think of the 100th episode? Stephanie: I think it's cool. Brian: Did you think that we would make it this far? Stephanie: No! That's crazy, Brian! Brian: Yeah! Stephanie: Wow. Brian: I'm-I'm with you. I can't imagine that we're up to the 100th. Stephanie: We gotta' keep going. It'll be 101! Brian: Yeah! *laughs* and maybe 102, 3, 4, 5 and so on. *laughter* Stephanie: How do you like this class? Brian: I love it. So much so that I took it last semester and I'm taking it this semester. I can't remember if I took it the semester before. Stephanie: Yeah. Brian: How do you like this podcast? Stephanie: I think it's great! I like- I like my first- I like my classes this year. They're fun! Renee: How long have you been on the podcast, Stephanie? Stephanie: Um...not very long but I think I like it. How long have you been in podcast? Renee: I'm not sure. I just started *laughs* Stephanie: Just started? Renee: Yeah. Stephanie: I wanna keep working on podcast! Renee: Me too! Stephanie: Sorry, I'm just stoked! I'm so sorry *laughter* Artbeat Radio was created in 2012 at the TAP II location in Gardena California. Brian: Here's a clip of our first podcast!  *Dead Man's Bones cover plays softly behind voices* Alison: This was made in 2012. This was the first podcast of Artbeat Radio. it was posted on October 18th 2012. *Dead Man's Bones cover plays louder* *Song fades out* Stephanie: I thought it was awesome. The way that it was presented and the way that they were singing. Brian: I liked it! Alison: It was beautiful. I think the song was great considering it was our first one. Brian: Hope you enjoyed our 100th episode! Have a wonderful day and thank you for listening to our podcast.  Stephanie: Thank you! Renee: Thank you for listening and thank you for coming. Have a beautiful and wonderful day. Brian: Here's to 100 more episodes! Thank you very much ladies and germs. *laughter* Renee: Gentlemen! Stephanie: That's so funny, Brian! Renee: I like that Brian: Thank you! Renee: “germs” that's so funny! I like that *laughter* *Outro music by Artbeat Radio staff*  We hope you enjoyed this episode of Artbeat Radio. For more information, please go to our website. Ableartswork.org. Thanks for listening and tune in next time!  

In this Onward Podcast episode, Stephanie Raffelock talks about the new emerging archetype of mid-life women. Embracing the years is an unburdening, whether you're seventy-five or twenty-five. And women have learned that our value never resided in our age, weight, looks, silence, or submission. Furthermore, women all around us are demonstrating courage and purpose as they stand in the light of truth. Finally, as the author of the award winning book, A Delightful Little Book On Aging and Creatrix Rising, Unlocking the Power of Midlife Women, Stephanie inspires women to embrace the strength and passion of their personal story. Resources Mentioned:  Stephanie's LinkedIn Profile Onward Podcast Episode with Stephanie: How to Live a Vibrant and Engaged Life From Age 50 Onward Order Stephanie's books Follow Stephanie on Instagram Stephanie on Facebook Website - Byline-Stephanie Connect with Emily on LinkedIn  Emily Harman Positive Intelligence Coaching Program  Onward Accelerator Coaching Program Onward: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Onward Movement Facebook Group | YouTube Buy Emily's Best Selling Book Step Into the Spotlight Schedule a Complimentary Coaching Call with Emily Music by Soul Pajamas

This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle another topic from the mailbag. We received an email from a practice owner who is frustrated with a member of their team who always seems to have an excuse for their mistakes or breaking protocols. They asked Andy and Stephanie: “How do I help them self-reflect a little better and to take ownership of things rather than blame it on something or someone else?” Get ready for some serious discussion on how clear is kind. We will also cover the basics of how people are motivated when it comes to accountability. Ultimately, Andy and Stephanie agree that you can't fix anyone, they have to fix themselves. We talk about the key to understanding what might motivate them to fix themselves and how to leverage that to create an environment that supports accountability. Let's get into this... Links: Upcoming events: https://unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/ Oct 9, 2021 from 3-5 pm Eastern time - Join founding UVC member, Dr. Tracy Sands for her powerful workshop called Empowering Your Team to Get Positive and Stay That Way! During this workshop, Dr. Sands will teach you some tools to help get your team to start thinking/acting on the bright side. In this workshop you will learn how to: ➡️ Use everyday tools and games that guide team members to focus on positive moments (without pretending everything is sunshine and rainbows). ➡️ Bounce back from negative situations in a constructive way. ➡️ Get your team to actively practice these skills. ➡️ Empower them to stay in that mindset! Registration is $99 to non-members and free to Uncharted Community members. SIGN UP HERE Registration is OPEN for our October Uncharted Veterinary Culture Conference! Come join us and work intentionally on your practice instead of in it: https://unchartedvet.com/uvc-culture/ All Links: https://linktr.ee/UnchartedVet Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle another topic from the mailbag. We received an email from a practice owner who is frustrated with a member of their team who always seems to have an excuse for their mistakes or breaking protocols. They asked Andy and Stephanie: “How do I help them self-reflect a little better and to take ownership of things rather than blame it on something or someone else?” Get ready for some serious discussion on how clear is kind. We will also cover the basics of how people are motivated when it comes to accountability. Ultimately, Andy and Stephanie agree that you can't fix anyone, they have to fix themselves. We talk about the key to understanding what might motivate them to fix themselves and how to leverage that to create an environment that supports accountability. Let's get into this... Links: Upcoming events: https://unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/ Oct 9, 2021 from 3-5 pm Eastern time - Join founding UVC member, Dr. Tracy Sands for her powerful workshop called Empowering Your Team to Get Positive and Stay That Way! During this workshop, Dr. Sands will teach you some tools to help get your team to start thinking/acting on the bright side. In this workshop you will learn how to: ➡️ Use everyday tools and games that guide team members to focus on positive moments (without pretending everything is sunshine and rainbows). ➡️ Bounce back from negative situations in a constructive way. ➡️ Get your team to actively practice these skills. ➡️ Empower them to stay in that mindset! Registration is $99 to non-members and free to Uncharted Community members. SIGN UP HERE Registration is OPEN for our October Uncharted Veterinary Culture Conference! Come join us and work intentionally on your practice instead of in it: https://unchartedvet.com/uvc-culture/ All Links: https://linktr.ee/UnchartedVet Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle a topic from the mailbag. A practice manager wrote in and posed some great questions about sick days. They have a team member who is repeatedly calling out for very valid personal reasons. But this is nothing new for this person and the team is getting sick of it. (Not to mention the manager is sick of the headache that comes with finding coverage at the last minute.) Sick of the Sick Days asks Andy and Stephanie - How do you approach the conversation with the goal to help the team member minimize the days off yet keep it as a caring discussion and avoid judgement?? Let's get into this... Links: Upcoming events: https://unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/ Last chance for an awesome workshop designed to help you tackle your unruly workflow in the practice!!! Uncharted Founding Member, Licensed Veterinary Technician and Practice Management consultant Senani Ratnayake is going to be offering up a phenomenal workshop for the public on Aug 14, 2021. Senani tackles a problem that is always present to a degree in our practices - workflow challenges. Some inefficiencies might feel normal to us because we've always done it that way and we don't even realize there might be a better way to move forward. This 4-hour workshop (approved for 4hrs RACE and CVPM credit) is here to help. Come dissect your hospital's workflow with Senani Ratnayake, RVT so you can get out of the woods in 4 strategic steps. Then, talk through what it will take to get your team on board to lean into your strengths and address your weaknesses. Registration is OPEN for our October Uncharted Veterinary Culture Conference! Come join us and work intentionally on your practice instead of in it: https://unchartedvet.com/uvc-culture/ All Links: https://linktr.ee/UnchartedVet

What's hot today might be out of the zeitgeist tomorrow. Are people still doing goat yoga? Are skinny jeans really the new mom jeans? There are so many trends to keep track of and so many “next big things,” it's impossible to know what's real and what's just a passing fad. For a business, it's important to understand the distinction, and it's even more important to have products that will thrive regardless of the different cycles your industry will run through. Lopa van der Mersch says she has that kind of product with her company, Rasa, which makes a coffee alternative with adaptogen blends. Lopa has a fascinating story, including inadvertently entering into a cult, navigating tricky co-founder relationships, and building up a business to more than $2M in revenue all from her garage.On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Lopa explains why she believes that her product will be a game-changer regardless of societal trends, and she breaks down how to spot something phony or bad for you, whether it's in a product or even in a partner or personal relationship. Enjoy this episode! Main Takeaways:Finding the Right Match: When partnering with a co-founder, especially one who is a close friend, some things you should consider are their skills and their ability to resolve conflicts. Ask yourself would you hire this person to do this job if they were not your friend? And think back to how you have handled conflicts with each other in the past. If you are comfortable with the answers to those questions, you can feel more confident in that person as a partner.Culture Shock: Growth in any industry is related to what is happening in common culture. When something is trending, a corresponding industry will rise. Today's society is focused on health and wellness more than in the past, so companies that deal with products in that space are on the rise. But to stay solvent even when the trends change, companies need to ensure that they have products that are worth something and add to a person's life regardless of whether it's trendy or not.Let It Come, But Also Go After It: Striking the right balance between organic growth and focusing energy and money into specific channels is difficult. The key is to make sure that you are diversifying your efforts wherever you choose to try to gain attention. Play with the levers of what's working in one area, but continue to invest elsewhere so that when one thing begins to fail, you have other options. 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---Stephanie:Hey everyone. And welcome back to Up Next In Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO at Mission.org. Today on the show, we have Lopa van der Mersch who currently serves as the founder and CEO of Rasa. Lopa, welcome.Lopa:Hi, great to be here. Thanks for having me.Stephanie:I am very excited to have you on. So your history as we talked about before the show started is very intriguing and I think our guests would love to kind of start there and hear a bit about your background, childhood, all of the things about Lopa.Lopa:All right. Well, let's see how long we have. So it's all a question of where do I start, right? I mean where do we plug in? But I will say I think a good place to plug is around when I was 16, I first heard the word enlightenment, I don't even remember in what context and I was like, that. I want that, whatever that is. And I started reading spiritual books on Taoism and Buddhism and I went from being this incredibly miserable teenager, like the most, like special. I know like everybody's miserable as a teenager, but I was extra. I'm extra about everything. And then I kind of went through this awakening process as I discovered this other dimension to life and I was just hungry and I was positive and I saw beauty everywhere and it was great.Lopa:I started getting into yoga and I kept on finding myself wanting a deeper and deeper relationship with a teacher. And then I did find a guru, like a real guru from a lineage in India and studied with him for a long time and learned a tremendous amount. Spirituality was a huge focus of my life. I've probably done six months of retreats over the years. And for a while three to four hours of meditation practice a day and I was hardcore. And at some point in there, I started to sort of question the navel gazing nature of it all and was like, what else can I give to the world? And what else can I bring to the world? And through serendipity in many ways, I found a job in the bio char industry.Lopa:And for those who aren't familiar, bio char is short for biological charcoal. It's charcoal that you add to soil to both sequester carbon and improve soil quality. And I helped co-found two businesses there. I worked for Richard Branson's Carbon War Room while I was there. I spoke at TEDx. It was like I was in the right place at the right time in an industry that was really growing specifically for its focus on being a potential solution for climate change. And then after, I don't know, five years of eating, breathing, sleeping, sweating bio char, and then practicing and doing retreats when I could and all of that, I left that context and went on and around the world trip with my now husband and just at the very end of that trip, we inadvertently as always happens, got into a cult. And no one knows you're getting into a cult when you're getting into a cult. Nobody's like-Stephanie:Okay, how do I even know if I'm not in one right now then?Lopa:It's a great question. So there's sort of two distinctions of cults. We are all in a certain cult in terms of modern society, in terms of our involvement with media and the way that it shapes the way that we think. All of that could be considered a cult. And depending on how you look or who you talk to, that could be seen as a benign cult or a destructive cult. Many religions are benign cults. But in this context we were in what could be considered a destructive cult or another framing that they use in cult academia is high demand group. And so one of the ways that you can assess if am I in a cult kind of situation, how much demand is there for your time, for your attention, for your devotion, for your money? And in this context, we were pretty much 100% of our time was focused on this cult. My husband was working at the time and found it incredibly hard to maintain his job and all of his duties in the cult context.Stephanie:How did you inadvertently get into it? Did you meet one person and they're like there's this cool thing, it kind of sounds like this, and it's just like a community of just like besties. And then you get in there and it just turns into more and more and more work, or what does that look like?Lopa:Yeah. Yeah, it's always gradations. So we met somebody and she was talking about her experiences with this woman. And often people don't think of women as having that, but it usually there's some kind of narcissistic component to any cult dynamic. Not necessarily though. And I will also say too, just because I think it's important to understand, you can be in a cult of two and another way to look at that is an abusive relationship. So that would be considered like the smallest size of a cult and then bigger ones are what we normally think of when we think of cults. So if you're in a relationship and you're like am I in a cult of two, look at how much demand is on your time and how much are they trying to limit the world around you?Lopa:So yeah, we met this woman, she was telling me about her experiences and they were amazing and mystical and psychedelic in many ways. And I was like, all right, this sounds like what I want. Yeah. I want that magic. I want that other worldliness. And so we went to go see her and she's a very powerful, very charismatic woman and there's real great spiritual teachings in there too. Nobody joins a cult just because they're like, oh, I want to get abused. That sounds great. There's something that draws them in. And usually it's a trauma bond that keeps people in because there's like, oh, today it's a little bit of love and tomorrow I'm going to humiliate you and today, you're the best thing ever. And tomorrow I'm going to question every aspect of your sense of self.Lopa:So it started as this charismatic, interesting, powerful woman who had a lot of energy. I did have psychedelic experiences around her. Cool. That's fun. Without any drugs and it's the context there. And there are some things that I probably should have been like um, she gravels and hisses and speaks in tongues and stuff.Stephanie:A little off putting.Lopa:Yeah, yeah. But I was like, well, everybody around her kind of did it. And so that normalized it and was like, oh, well maybe I just don't get it. And maybe okay, if I start doing that, then I'll be more spiritual too. And all that kind of stuff. And with almost any cult or context, it gets more and more insane literally. It's like an onion. The outer layers and people who just come to a class here and there, they might be like, she's amazing. What are you even talking about? This is not a cult.Lopa:And then as you get deeper and deeper in and closer into that kind of inner circle, that's where things like some of her like... Sorry, I'll go back and say for the first six months or so, it was like bliss. It was amazing. It was just awesome. And I felt so seen and so loved and all of that. And then after some time is when, and in spiritual contexts, you're trying in some way to break your ego down. And so the eco breaking down a scene in this context of like, well, I need this and so I'm being humbled.Stephanie:Yeah, you need that abuse and ripping apart every piece of need because I [inaudible] and I need to be separate from that.Lopa:Exactly. Exactly. So this is part of the growth and I just have to sustain it and all of that, and it can be tricky to assess if that is real, is it really actually good? And you do need to be cut down in some ways or we all have times in our lives where somebody gives us a reflection that we really don't like but we really fricking need. And that can really hurt to let it in. I think a prime present tense example is people beginning to see the embedded racism in their system for white people and I think that's a reflection that none of us really want to hold, but we have to. It's important to hold and that's a big ego, like we have to let the knife go in on that one, for example.Lopa:But then in these more kind of abusive context, it's like you have to look very closely at what is this person's motive? Do they really feel like it's coming from I am actually trying to help you in some way. And she always said that she was and this was all for us and all for love and all of that. And when it came down to it, some of the things that really kind of set us off towards the end was just realizing how incredibly unhumble she was and how unwilling to receive feedback or any kind of bi-directional. She gives a lot of feedback in our direction. And then we're like, are you kind of sitting on a pedestal and then freaks out. And so those were some of our cues. And sometimes it is, you find just this tiny little cue, and then that's the thread that lets it all kind of break down and then you realize, whoa, wait a second, what are we doing? Where are we? Why are we prioritizing every minute of our lives around this person?Stephanie:Wow. Can you get out? Because I always hear when you're in-Lopa:It's hard.Stephanie:It's hard to get out. So what does it look like you trying to get out of that?Lopa:Yeah. I mean, it's different for every person. For us, it was an outside reflection from somebody who was a relative stranger who brought up. He was like, I'm sure she's a really beautiful person, but I see some red flags and I'm just a little bit concerned and then gave some examples of other teachers who were very humble. And I don't know if he specifically chose these teachers because they're very humble or what, but it was a strange experience. My husband and I were both on the phone with him at the time. When we got off the phone, it literally felt like a bubble popped.Stephanie:Wow.Lopa:We were, wow. Okay, something changed. And we felt kind of naked and exposed. And then we were like oh, we just need to give her some feedback. She's kind of lost her humility and she's like, I am that, I am everything. And so we just need to sort of remind her of her humanity a little bit, right, because we're all humans. And there was a process of, we gave that piece of feedback and then over the next three weeks, there were 3000 emails sent between the group. I went back and looked at my gmail and it was like 3006 or something, crazy. 3006 or something absurd. I'm trying to [inaudible] language out of my vocabulary. And my husband really saw it quickly and was out and for me, it took a little bit more time where I was kind of questioning myself, oh, maybe she is the real deal and I just can't take it and all of that.Lopa:And therapy was a really big part of the healing and the reconciliation and finding my core sense of self again, which got adjusted over the course of this whole time. It was like, somebody questions your motive once and you're like, oh no, that's not where I'm coming from. And then they do it again and you're like, what do you mean? And then they keep doing it and keep doing it. And you move a little bit off of your center over and over because you start to question yourself, well, maybe I am this kind of showy person and you start to believe that. And that's gaslighting and that's how that happens. So for me, it was a process of kind of reexamining all of my beliefs and all of the dogmas that I'd picked up in the course of my life and all of these different things to get back to kind of what feels like a core solid sense of self and a lot of therapy.Stephanie:Wow. That's intense. Okay. So you get out of this cult and then what happens after that?Lopa:Yes. Well that year was a doozy. I now call it my own personal 2020. Now that we've had 2020, I'm like, oh, that was my 2015 because yeah, I left the cult, 3000 emails, I had an emergency back surgery while I was pregnant, I moved across the country a week later, lost a family member, had an emergency cesarean birth that was traumatic, I had a huge falling out with my family. I was fried. And so Rasa actually really came out of necessity. Necessity is the mother of invention. I was fried and I was like, I need something to help me keep going because now I had a baby waking me up, really precious little munchkin. And I tried coffee. I've never been a big coffee drinker because it's a little too much for my system. I tried coffee and was like, whoa, okay, irritability, jitters, panic attacks, sleep is even more messed up. No. This is a hard no.Lopa:And so I looked at all the coffee alternatives out there and tried them all. And I was like, really? This is it? Come on, we can do better, right? And I've been a big herb person, just an enthusiast. I love herbs. I've always had lots of jars of herbs in my kitchen and stuff like that. And I was like, can't we just put a bunch of really good herbs in there? And then I started to really think about here, looking at coffee in this coffee cup that people just don't even really question, this ritual of drinking coffee, it's even built into so many aspects of our culture in terms of don't talk to me until I've had my second cup of coffee kind of stuff.Stephanie:Community stuff like let's meet up for coffee.Lopa:Yes, totally, totally. People talking about how coffee is their personality. And I started being like, wow, this is something that people often actually used to override their body signals. So like their body's like, I'm tired. The answer is not rest or downshift a little bit or maybe I need a little time in nature or anything like that. The answer is often coffee.Stephanie:Yeah.Lopa:Coffee is the tool of a society that does not give two shits about anything except for your productivity in a way. And we buy into that and we do that. And I say this also in the context of not saying that I'm sure a lot of people listening, entrepreneurs, people out there in the world are like, no, you do not blah, blah, blah, my cup of coffee. I understand that. I really get it. It's not that coffee is bad or coffee is the devil. It's about how you're relating to it. Just like how you're relating to anything. Like a glass of wine with dinner is not a bad thing. It's a beverage, but if you have a real dependency on that, and that is something that you really need and you have two or three or four, it's all about right relationship fundamentally. So yeah, I started looking at that and I was like, wow, everybody's just drinking coffee, coffee jacks up your central nervous system. It causes a cortisol flood from your adrenals.Lopa:So it's literally triggering a stress response which is part of why you feel so amazing. And because the cortisol is there to help you be able to beat the tiger or run away from the tiger or whatever. And I was like, wow, that doesn't necessarily put us into our best selves. When I am revved up, I'm not necessarily kind of grounded in my best decision-making, my cognitive executive function is not operating from that wide spacious perspective. And so I was like, all right, what if we, and then there was this other kind of aha about coffee is also one of the few accepted bitter tastes in our culture.Lopa:We don't tend to love bitter in our society, but coffee is super bitter. And so as chocolate is the other one. And I was like, so there's a bunch of amazing herbs out there. Some of them taste kind of like crap, but if you stick them into this like rich, robust cup and with other things that are kind of masking the taste, you can actually get people to drink something that's going to be incredibly healthy for them every single day and is actually going to help them regulate their stress response.Lopa:And so that's where at that point, I started working with a herbalist. I love herbs and there's a bit of a trend out there of people just being like, oh, there's all these trendy things out there, let's just go ahead and throw them into a bag and sell them. And herbalism is a very, very long standing tradition. That's the original medicine, the people's medicine and there's a lot of science in there too. And so I think it's really important. It's very different to have a herbalist formulated product versus trendy things in a bag products. And so I worked with a herbalist and they actually did the formula. And so that was five years ago. We were kind of in beta for roughly two years. And then we hard launched in April of 2018 and now I am founder and CEO of a 20-person business and things are going great.Stephanie:Wow. That's amazing. So when thinking about formulating the product, did you go into it already knowing I want to have for sure these things in it, or did you really just relinquish control and just say, you tell me, here's maybe the benefits that I want to see or I want it to taste maybe a little bit bitter or not at all? How did that relationship go about?Lopa:With that original relationships, so that was my original co-founder, who was a very, very dear friend and now has a royalty on her formula and we bought her out. We didn't bring out the best in each other in a business context. So that's really good, if you're going to start a business with a close friend, you really want to look at them from the angle of would I hire this person to do these things? And have I ever gotten into significant conflict with this person and how did we do? And because as soon as you're dealing with money, it becomes almost like a marriage, it's way intense. And just our friction didn't quite work, but so she had these herbs that she was already working with. Lopa:And I made suggestions, I was like, I think we should add this. And I think none of them ended up in the final formula, but I was like, it needs to taste good. It needs to be really functional. It needs to have an energy component. It doesn't have to match coffee because coffee, I think is an unsustainable energy spike. But it does need to give people some kind of lift and I wanted it to be gluten-free, have no natural flavors, anything like that. So it's just herbs. And she went to town, we now have a herbalist on staff who is a clinical herbalist and he has reformulated that same formulation probably 40 times or something. And some of that is we've done some major reformulations to just continue to improve the taste and continue to improve the functionality. And then sometimes there's like, oh, this herb has a sustainability consideration and so we're going to swap that out and, oh, we're going to change it to a different source.Lopa:And then that source has a different taste. And now we have to adjust everything. But we actually taste every single batch of herbs and reformulate every single time based on the strength of the harvest of the herbs because you're always adjusting for climate and things that are totally out of our control and we want to have a consistent taste.Stephanie:Yeah. I love that. So the one thing I want to talk about too, and understand more is the industry as a whole around adaptogens because I feel like that word now it seems like it's on every product. And sometimes I'm like, well, how do I know what an adaptogen is? Is it real? Is it not? Because it seems like a trendy thing. And how did you think about that when entering into this industry?Lopa:Yes. Oh man, don't get me started. So first, how do you know what an adaptogen is? And is it real? So these are herbs that have been used for thousands of years in traditional context, in [inaudible], in Chinese medicine. And then in the 1940s, a Russian scientist named Nicola Lazaroff, there we go, thank you. He was basically tasked with giving Russian super soldiers and athletes an edge without a crash. And so he went to work studying all sorts of substances, including herbs and fell on these types of herbs, and he was like, oh, wait a second. This does give them the edge. They can go longer, harder, faster, more, and then they don't have a crash after the fact which is what happens with stimulants. And that's the issue with coffee is you get that crash in the afternoon because it's a kind of an unsustainable lift.Lopa:And so he initially started working with eleuthero which was the original adaptogen. And there are over 3000 studies on eleuthero, it's one of the most studied herbs and all through his research. And that term was coined, I believe, in the early 1950s. And so in order to be called an adaptogen, a herb needs to, we call it the four Ns, it needs to have a normalizing effect on the body. So it helps balance, helps you find homeostasis against environmental, physical, emotional, mental factors, all kinds of stress. It needs to be non-toxic in normal therapeutic doses. So it has to be basically safe. It's not going to, basically safe for most people. It needs to be nonspecific in terms of, there are many herbs where this herb is very good for the liver or this herb is very good for the blood.Lopa:These are herbs that work systemically and holistically in the whole body. And then that relates specifically to number four which is neuro-endocrine. It needs to have an impact on your neuroendocrine system which is your nervous system and your endocrine system coming together. And both of those, I want to go a little bit into the science, but so you have two main pathways that your body uses to communicate that you're under stress which is your hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis and your sympathoadrenal system, hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis is HPA. And the HPA axis is how your hormones tell your adrenals that there's a stress issue. And then your SAS is neuro-transmitters. And these herbs strengthened those two systems, literally like exercise. So they say that it mimics stress. But it's actually in a good way.Lopa:It's a eustressor. So it's actually like exercise is stressful for our bodies but it's in a good way, because we're getting stronger, we're getting more resilience, all of that, we're getting more flexible. And so adaptogens are literally doing that to your body's stress response system. So they have to have that neuro-endocrine impact as well. And this is also really interesting, just seeing adaptogens trending so much, many companies out there, I think, do not understand that there is a scientific criteria. It's not a marketing term. And there's actually a pretty small class of herbs that are scientifically substantiated as being adaptogens.Stephanie:Yeah, I was going to ask like how many are out there that have that claim against them?Lopa:Yeah. So it depends on who you talk to and who you look at. And we're actually working on coming out with a whole here is the definitive adaptogen guide. Here's what actually has the scientific backing. Here's why we chose these particular herbs based on these scientists and based on what we know and here's the list and here's what gets adaptogen washed. And this is a term that we've coined adaptogen washing where somebody calls something an adaptogens and it's not. So there's about, I think it's 39. And that number is changing based on the science. Sometimes they'll do a few more research studies and be like, oh, actually this one drops off the list or they do a few more research and they're like, okay, this one's definitely on the list. But depending on which scientist you talk to, there's either nine or 12 definitive adaptogens and then roughly 20 to 25 other probable adaptogens or secondary adaptogens.Lopa:And to be generous to the industry, we call anything that is probable, possible, secondary or primary an adaptogen. But many things that we see get mislabeled as adaptogens out there are Chaga is not an adaptogen, lion's mane, all the functional mushrooms, people are like, functional mushrooms are adaptogens. Nope, there's just two. And that is cordyceps and Lingzhi.Stephanie:I love Lingzhi.Lopa:Yeah, turmeric is not an adaptogen. Actually there is one other mushroom that's very little known called [inaudible], I think. But yeah, Chaga is not an adaptogen, lion's mane, turmeric. I've heard Matcha be called an adaptogen, [inaudible]. People just kind of throw it on anything. And this is an interesting case of an industry growing because we're overstressed as a culture. And this was going back to one of your questions about did we know what we wanted to put in that cup? And were we aware of that? We want to put the best stuff ever in a cup and adaptogens are the best stuff ever especially as a superior way to stimulate yourself that's more sustainable. And I believe that they're trending because people need them. That's what's happening right now. And there's a pretty uneducated consumer base.Lopa:And so there's a lot of knowledge to understand. And adaptogens tend to grow in really extreme environments which is why they're expensive. They grow on the tops of mountains, in desert, in these kinds of contexts. And it can be hard to actually get a full harvest out of them in the same way as like you could for other herbs.Stephanie:There's definitely a lot of education needed around this space. And it seems like so many new things are popping up. I mean, I was just at brunch the other day where my friends were talking about Ayurvedic diets and oils to use. And I mean, it was so much, I probably was like oh my gosh, I don't even know how to consume all the things you're telling me because it feels like everything I'm doing, I just never knew about any of this. Well, the same thing with adaptogens and understanding what that is. And there's a whole revolution, I think, of this new kind of nutrition and dieting and way of thinking that is going to take some time to educate the consumers on what that actually is and who's a phony and who's real and what's an actual real product or not.Lopa:Yeah. And what's actually going to have an impact. It wouldn't be such a problem, I think to have adaptogen washing if it didn't like also devalue the herb itself. And to another point, if I gave you something and was like, this has CBD and it doesn't have CBD, you'd be like, what the heck? And some people do call CBD an adaptogen, it's not, and that doesn't make those herbs any less amazing. Just don't mislabel them.Stephanie:Yeah, just use the right words.Lopa:Yeah.Stephanie:So yeah. I completely agree. So when you're starting this company, a lot of founders start out and they're really excited. And then sometimes they're kind of like how's this going? Is this my thing? Get a little distracted, and I want to kind of hear how your journey went with getting really excited about this, knowing you had a solution to something, what did that look like after you had landed on, I want to start this company? Was there any hesitation ever or wondering is this even my thing?Lopa:Yeah. Yeah. I think that's pretty normal. I hope to normalize that for people like, I've definitely had entrepreneurs come to me and be like, I'm not sure if I want to do this anymore and I'm like, that's okay. You'll have those days. It's really hard to create something. And yeah, I mean, my trajectory, let's see, that first two years there was a lot, well, the co-founder conflict really kind of clouded, yeah, my situation for a little bit. And so I was like, well, maybe I should do something else. And maybe I should focus on other things. And I just kind of kept coming back to this and I just kept being like, this is a good idea and I feel like it needs to happen. And I couldn't believe that there wasn't something like this out there. And then, I mean, it's been stressful.Lopa:It is a lot of work and learning how to run a business while running a business is hard. If I were to do this all again, I'd be like, oh, wow, this is going to be a lot easier going forward. I've been the co-founder in a few businesses, but it's very, very different to be actually at the helm. And the buck stops at you kind of thing. And yeah, work-life balance has been tricky. I have two kids now. I actually hard launched Rasa when my second son was four weeks old. Tough planning. It didn't quite go to plan as I'd hoped. And there's definitely a sense of the business would take as much energy as I would possibly give it. My kids would take as much energy as I would possibly give them. And so there's this feeling of, it's never quite enough.Stephanie:The mom guilt. The mom guilt is so real. I feel that [inaudible], yeah, I'm in the house recording. My three kids are usually on the other side of the door and I'll just be like should I be out there with them and having to be like, no, boundaries. Most people, well, not now, but used to go to an office and be away and that's okay. You got work to do. And yeah, work-life balance is definitely a struggle especially working at home now in the same presence as kids and family members and pets and all of that.Lopa:Yeah. We actually originally made the Rasa headquarters out of our garage so that I could be closer to my kids. I just wanted to be able to breastfeed for a bit, put the baby down to a nap, come back. And so we were in my garage until last September. It worked great for that time. And I was like, well, we're running a $2 million business out of my garage. This is solid, it's a small garage. It's not like a big old thing. But it was my garage. We had a storage unit in the back. We had a shipping container in our driveway. We had a shed, it was in all of our basements, pretty much every room had something Rasa-related. And so I was like, all right, we got to get out of here.Stephanie:Yeah. Your neighbors are like, what's this girl doing over there?Lopa:I know. They were like, this zoning. It was not up to code, but we're out now. So forgiveness rather than permission.Stephanie:Yeah, yeah, I agree. So I want to talk a bit about Amazon too because I saw that you were part of the Launchpad program, what do you call it? And I haven't had anyone on the show at least that I know of who's been a part of that. So I want to hear about your experience being on that and spreading the word about Rasa and getting in front of new customers and just being on Amazon in general.Lopa:Yeah. I mean, Amazon in general, Amazon has been a really solid channel for us, which is part of why we went with the Launchpad program. It's been just very consistent. The growth has been pretty steady and predictable. The customers there have been great too. We have some really consistent customer retention on Amazon which I think is not what we really expected. We have a lot of subscribers there. And so we were on the Launchpad program for about a year. We actually are just in the process of pulling out of it. They do take a 5% cut and basically, I think if you have somebody on the team who's really managing it closely and is really taking advantage of every single opportunity that they have, I think it's probably a really good program. We did not have that.Stephanie:What are the opportunities that they provide within that program?Lopa:Yeah, there's a lot of promotional potential. Some of those come with additional revenue cut. Some of those just require additional marketing planning and that sort of thing. And I'll say we have tended to... We actually for about the last year have really under indexed on Amazon. I think we could have autopiloted it. And we were like, oh, well Launchpad will be good and blah, blah, blah. So we may actually go back to the Launchpad program once we have our Amazon growth strategy a little bit more, but a lot of promotional opportunities, get on the front page. You get chances to do extra deals. They have the lightning deals and I don't manage the Amazon super closely. So our Amazon guy could tell you a little bit more, but yeah, a lot of emails came through where I was like, huh, we should probably do that, but we don't really have time. We don't really have the marketing bandwidth.Lopa:And I think now I look back and we're like, well, we want that 5% margin back. We can put that into ad spend. And I think that that's going to be a better use of that capital at this time. And if we had actually been taking advantage of all those emails that came through, you can get a dedicated account manager who will help audit your ad spend and all that stuff. If we were doing that, I think it would have been a great program for us. And it was positive, we've seen growth, but not quite enough to warrant 5% on every bag.Stephanie:Yeah. Yeah. That's quite a hefty margin to take out. For them to do-Lopa:On top of their original 30%, yeah.Stephanie:Ooh, that's a lot. So you pulled back to focus more on ad spend. I mean, what kind of channels were you relying on to get the word out? Because even though it is a big trend around this industry, I still feel like it's pretty niche to get in front of the right people who understand it and are ready to buy around this. I think it might be a little harder of a sell to get in front of someone who has to do the research like me to be like, well, what is an adaptogen? Is a good for me? And how did you go about finding the right people in the platform that'll work for you?Lopa:Yeah, well, we're really going after the coffee market and adaptogens are the way that we're doing that. So adaptogens right now, it's a $25 billion industry, but most of that's in Asia and because they have a cultural context around using these herbs in daily life that we just don't have. And so we are actually bringing a cultural context for these herbs through the coffee ritual and coffees is a $465 billion market. So we like that TAM a lot better. So that said, most of our customers are actually coming to us for a coffee alternative and then they're like, oh, it actually supplies all these benefits as well. And I think that's one of the things that we've been kind of working on and finding our positioning and our messaging in terms of yes, it's a beverage and it's delicious and it's intended to replace entirely or replace partially your coffee ritual.Lopa:But then it also has all these ancillary benefits, not ancillary. I mean, we get incredible customer reviews that say that it's just life changing. And so I think there's a way, and I think that's part of why we get an amazing long tail retention on our customers because we're delivering on more than they expected in terms of the impact. But most of our customers, we've been pretty heavily focused on Facebook. That's been our major scaling channel and that's a really interesting context right now because the iOS 14 change. And I think also with the pandemic ending, the buying patterns ending we hope, the buying patterns are shifting a bit as well. And so people are going back to their third spaces. They're going back out in the world a bit more.Lopa:And CACs are only going up. They're not coming down ever. So we sort of had a little... Facebook's been amazing for us. And I have had this little bug in the back of my head for like two years where I've been like we can't put all our eggs in this basket. We had one ad that, I mean, I think this one particular ad had done a million dollars in revenue for us or something. And it was based on something, it was a relevancy score. So in Facebook, they were categorizing by relevancy and it had a 10 out of 10 relevancy and we were like we could just dump money into it and it would just keep returning money. And it was amazing. And then they dropped the relevancy score as a factor all in their algorithm. And it was like our cash cow has died. It just suddenly, because the way the algorithm was prioritizing, it just didn't deliver in the same way. And we were like, wow, we're at the helm or we're at the whim of something that we have very little control over.Lopa:And so we're starting a little bit of a channel diversification strategy just to have a little bit more health in terms of what we're doing in the business.Stephanie:So many companies start out that way that I can think of and I think it's perfectly okay to rely on one channel. I mean, I've talked to a couple where they're like in chat within Instagram DMs, or Facebook chat, that's where our company's at. And I mean, we kind of went through that at mission too. We were very reliant on media and we became the top on there. That was where our business model was headed until one day they made a few changes and we're like, whoa, that just disrupted our entire business. Why are we relying on someone else's platform? We need to get off here and diversify. What kind of channels are you trying out now? And how did that make you rethink, relying on any platform in general?Lopa:Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. If you're diversified, then you have a little bit of a hedge. And so if something changes, you're like, cool, we're going to just flex the lever a little bit more over here. So we've been very under-indexed on B2B wholesale in general. We've never had a salesperson and we just considered it part of customer care. And if somebody came to us and was like, we'd like to order for our store, we'd be great. And that was kind of it. And so now just knowing that you can really scale a business that way, too. We're going to be investing in that a bit more. So we're in like, I don't know something like 600 retail stores at this point and-Lopa:So yeah, wholesale, actually investing in growth on Amazon, PR is something that we've also done almost none of. So actually working to in-house PR, I have come to kind of think of PR agencies as black holes where money goes to die. So I'm really keen on in-housing it. And influencers is also something that we've been very under-indexed on, just haven't put anything towards and it's all been organic, which is great. And we've had a lot of organic movement in all these things, but there's a difference between letting it come to you versus like, okay, now we're going to really focus on this. And then we have some international opportunities opening up as well.Stephanie:Cool. That's amazing. All right. So I know we're getting short on time and I do want to talk about crowdfunding and I know you mentioned you were very excited about that. So I want to dive into why are you guys crowdfunding? Why do you choose that approach? And you also mentioned innovative marketing ideas around that so. I want to hear all the things.Lopa:Yes. Yes. So DTC has allowed this new level of customer relationships and we have a lot of intimacy all across our communications and people always tell us they feel like they're talking to a friend instead of a company. And we love that and incredible brand love as well. And we feel like the logical next step of that is becoming crowdfunded or community-owned. And we've had lots of investors come and knock on our door and be very interested in what we've done and what we've been able to build, bootstrapped especially for a CPG business. And the thing that just kind of keeps coming up and especially for VCs, VCs are very extractive capital. And we actually talk about it internally. Like VCs are the coffee of money.Lopa:Coffee is an extractive energy source for your body. VCs are an energy extractive source of money for your business. And we do a lot of things differently. In our business, our culture is, I think pretty remarkable. We're doing a lot around sustainability. There's a lot of things where we're prioritizing a triple bottom line instead of a bottom line, just the bottom line. And we get nervous about the idea of getting into a relationship with somebody who's like, well, yeah, you can't treat your employees that way and you can't do this and that.Stephanie:You've got to return the fund to be worth it to me.Lopa:Exactly. Exactly. And we know that our customers love the way that we do things and want us to be more and more that way. So we're very excited about that and they just changed the regulations so that you can raise 5 million via crowdfunding instead of just one per year. And so we're very excited about, we're going to be hopefully one of the first to actually close a $5 million round crowdfunding. And some of it, we've just realized like damn, these businesses can be real capital intensive. And we're trying to do this with capital constraints which means people constraints and bandwidth constraints. And then we're trying to do a very high integrity product with a lot of value in the product and compostable packaging and just fair trade as much as we can all across the business and treating our employees really well.Lopa:And all of these different things that just does cost money, cost more. And then we're like, well, we want to grow as well. We want to invest in growth. So we've been basically break even except for investment in growth for a while. And we were like, if we had more capital to invest in growth, we know that the business is financially sustainable and really solid. And so if we just can get that growth capital and so that's basically why we're doing it. And when you're building a brand that people love, going into some of our marketing strategies around this, when you're building a brand that people really love, and then they're also becoming owners of that brand, I think there's a big question about what's secret, and what's not secret.Lopa:And there's a lot of secrecy in the CPG world and in business in general. And we are seeing that the more transparent we are, the more our customers just eat it up. And they love the behind the scenes about the business. And they love just knowing about why we made a certain change in our packaging and stuff like that. That's where we get the most responses. It's kind of crazy. And so we are shifting towards being more and more open about margins, our run rate and including people in these details allows them to be included in this incredible journey of launching this product. And so we're going to be doing a lot more around this. We're kind of working on building the internal content engine to be able to just be a more and more transparent and share more and more about what it takes to do this and the hard decisions and the hard moments where I'm like, oh my God, my kids and this and the business and all that stuff.Lopa:But our customer reviews are incredible, so incredible. We have to be editing them for the FDA. We've had people say that they had a Rasa baby, it's made them more patient with their partners and their kids and all that. And that's why we got into plant medicine. We knew the power of these things. And so I think crowdfunding is a way of getting people invested in the business and having the business actually be like herbs were originally the medicine for the people and now it's going to be a business about herbs for the people as well. And so it just feels like it's really perfectly aligned.Stephanie:I love that. I mean, I think the idea too around transparency, not only does that give your customers things to look at and engage with you, but I think it also invites help too. If someone sees oh, your margins are around this. Let me come in and help you because I think maybe in the CPG industry, maybe they should be around here. I've got this idea around logistics that might help you enhance that. So I think the more you share, the more other people might come in and be able to actually help and want to lift everyone up in the process.Lopa:Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think in the industry, that is really valuable. Sometimes there's always a question of how much feedback you get from where. And sometimes you're like, wow, that's a lot of people that want to help and I don't really know what they're doing.Lopa:But I mean, that said, we listen to every piece of feedback too. And I think going back to the cult conversation a little bit, when you get feedback that you don't like, you have to look at it and say like, okay, if 1% of this is true, what part would be true? And then look at that. And that's one of the nice things too about DTC is that we have been able to actually iterate our products very quickly based on customer feedback. And I think having more transparency also means that we're going to be able to crowdsource product ideas and reformulate things to match people's needs more and stuff like that which we're really excited about.Stephanie:Yeah. Yeah. Super exciting. All right. Let's do a quick lightning round. Lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce commerce cloud. This is where I ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready?Lopa:Yes.Stephanie:All right. What's your favorite Rasa drink to enjoy in the morning?Lopa:Super Happy Sunshine.Stephanie:Okay. Awesome. If you had a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Lopa:It would be about cultivating energy intelligence, emotional intelligence but energy intelligence. Yeah. And my first guest is a great question. I have not even thought about that. I mean, if I could just wave a magic wand, I would actually have Brené Brown because we don't think of the way that we hold ourselves in our vulnerability as being actually kinks on our energy. And I think that her work around vulnerability and shame is actually very energy liberating.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah. I love her. What's up next on your reading list or your podcasts list?Lopa:Oh man. I have such a long list. I'm in the middle of The hard thing about hard things by Ben Horowitz. And I'm also reading a book about the ancient Indian martial arts that I practice called [inaudible] and I'm in the middle of like five books right now. Another great one, oh, just Hunt, Gather, Parent.Stephanie:Oh, I'm reading that now.Lopa:It's so good.Stephanie:So good. Yeah.Lopa:Oh my God, so good.Stephanie:It makes you-Lopa:And it's working.Stephanie:[inaudible] parenting in general like oh, why are we basing our parenting advice off? What does she say? The past 100 years or something when there's time-tested things that work for thousands of years that we can tap into and around the stress of the parenting right now is only on essentially the mom or mom and dad where we're doing the same work that used to be 15 people, grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles. And I'm like, there's going to be a shift though. I think it's going to start heading in that direction again.Lopa:Yeah, I think so too. And on the podcast, Fred, I'll say, I actually was looking at your list of podcasts and I was like, oh my God, I need to be listening to all of these. So well done. I love business-Stephanie:[inaudible] podcast, hey. I love that. Yeah, check them out. They're good ones. Launching new ones all the time too. And the last one, what is the best piece of advice you've ever gotten? It can be business, personal or from the cult, whatever comes to mind.Lopa:Best piece of advice I've ever gotten. Lopa:What comes up is that purpose is a red herring and that so many of us, I think in this, it may be a little bit less for your audience. But I think that this quest for what am I supposed to do and what is my purpose? And I can only really do something once I have my purpose. The advice was stop wallowing and trying to find your purpose and do something. And you will find your purpose in the process of acting. You will find the things that don't feel aligned and then you'll adjust. And so it's about help someone and help something and you'll find purpose in the process of doing.Stephanie:That's amazing advice. And that's actually perfect for our audience right now. I mean, people trying to start businesses and I mean, you probably went through this too. I know I have of, is this my thing? Am I passionate about this? Do I want to do this for the next 100 years? And I love that. Just start doing it and you will figure it out.Lopa:Yeah.Stephanie:That's perfect. All right, Lopa, well, I've loved having you on. It's been such an engaging conversation. It's really fun to hear about your life and Rasa. Where can people find out more about you and your company?Lopa:We are at wearerasa.com and we actually have a discount code for you guys. If you use the code upnext, you'll get 20% off your order. And we're also on Amazon and we're on Instagram and Facebook at We Are Rasa.Stephanie:Amazing. I'm definitely using that code. I cannot wait to try it. So thank you so much for joining us. We'll have to have you back for round two to hear how the company is going because this is such a pleasure.Lopa:I would love that. Thank you.

Description: Pastor Stephanie Williams O'Brien joins Be the Bridge founder Latasha Morrison on the podcast for a conversation surrounding the injustices the community of Minneapolis has endured, the lifelong commitment to racial justice, submitting to the leadership of people of color, and her new book Make a Move all about the practical advice she gives for making decisions and acting in faith. And she speaks words of encouragement for both leaders of color and white leaders. Pastor Stephanie will help you get unstuck in your personal life and your spiritual life, your life in community, and your life of bridge-building. Host & Executive Producer - Latasha Morrison Senior Producer - Lauren C. Brown Producer, Editor & Music By - Travon Potts Transcriber - Sarah Connatser Quotes:“It's an intentional choice to seek out and welcome the authority of leaders in your life.” -Stephanie “This is not about a moment, but it's about a lifestyle. This is not about a short-term commitment. This is about conviction.” -Latasha “Maybe instead of praying that our church becomes more diverse, let's pray that we're people that would actually be safe for folks to come in.” -Stephanie “So read the books, watch the things, but experiment in behaviors that change and shape us, because I think we can behave our way into new thinking. And we can also think our way into new behaviors.” -Stephanie “How are we not willing to hold space for a discussion before we have already judged it?” -Stephanie “If we can just say, ‘God, I want to be on your heels, what are you doing? And how can I respond?' If that was our orientation every day, that's where we're going to figure out how we can leverage privilege and be people who bring hope and help and who learn.” -Stephanie “My prayer is for people not to make the same historical mistakes.” -Latasha LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE Podcast link: https://podlink.to/BeTheBridgeSocial handles/links: Instagram: @LatashaMorrisonTwitter: @LatashaMorrisonFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/LatashaMMorrison/Official Hashtag: #bethebridge Be The Bridge Podcast Survey https://forms.gle/CtssQibbH9Ct7Qdx6 --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

If you look on Twitter or do a quick Google search, you'll find a ton of chatter about the foolproof DTC playbook. Everyone has ideas about the surefire ways that young DTC brands should be setting themselves up for success. Alex Kubo is here to tell you that those playbooks aren't as written in stone as you might think. Alex is the VP of ecommerce and digital marketing at Burrow, a DTC furniture brand, and on this episode of Up Next in Commerce, he explained how and why the Burrow team threw out the playbook when certain aspects of it fell flat. For example, Alex talks about the lessons they learned about the signals that pricing sends, and why it's critical to put the right price on your product to attract the right customer even if that means pricing higher than the playbook says. Alex also dives into what it means to actually be customer centric and how Burrow stays in constant communication with customers. Plus, we discuss why marketing toward buying events or using a spray and pray strategy across a dozen channels is about as useful as setting your money on fire. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Sending The Right Signals: How you price your product or service is one of the most significant ways you signal to customers who you are as a brand and what value you bring. If you price too low, you risk being lumped in with brands that don't necessarily fit with the type of products or value you bring to the table.More Than Words: Saying you are customer-centric and actually being customer-centric are two very different things. To be truly customer-centric requires regularly talking to and learning from your customers and then building experiences and products based on those conversations. You can't just assume you know what customers want, you have to do the work to find out.A Horse of a Different Color: There are best practices and guidelines that many companies follow to get themselves off the ground. Sometimes those playbooks work, but in other cases, you have to toss out what everyone says is the right strategy and go in a new direction. Whether that's in your social strategy, your pricing, or how you're getting feedback from customers, don't be afraid to buck tradition and do something different.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 to Up Next In Commerce. I'm your host Stephanie Postles, CEO at mission.org. Today on the show, we have Alex Kubo joining us, who currently serves as the VP of E-Commerce and Digital Marketing at Burrow. Alex, welcome.Alex:Thanks, Stephanie. Excited to be here.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm very excited to have you here. It was cool reading a bit about Burrow's background and starting at Y Combinator, and I was thinking it might be fun to start there, back in 2016. What did it look like starting the company, and then we can get into today?Alex:Totally. So, I was fortunate that I actually met the two co-founders of Burrow while were on the same business school program in Philadelphia. And back in the fall of 2015, actually, Kabeer and Stephen, the two co-founders and my classmates were both furnishing their apartments as they moved into Philadelphia for the program, and they had two very distinct but related experiences. Kabeer purchased a sofa from West Elm in Philly, and it wasn't going to arrive for about 12 to 16 weeks, which I think, nowadays, people are pretty used to seeing those timelines, but Originally, it was like, "Whoa, this is not Amazon." And so, Kabeer actually used the cart, the dolly in his apartment building and rolled it to West Elm, and picked up a floor model and brought it home, because the lead time was going to be longer than his first semester, so obviously, that was not going to be a great experience.Alex:Stephen went the classic IKEA route, right, where you don't come in to grad school with a ton of money and need to furnish your space quickly. And so he did that, and then ultimately, it's a waste down the road, right? IKEA furniture, you can't move because of the quality of the materials and that sort of thing.Stephanie:[crosstalk]. Yeah.Alex:Yeah. So, the question ultimately became, why can't you have that higher end quality that you might find at a West Elm, or Pottery Barn, or Crate and Barrel, but the convenience, the modern day conveniences that Amazon has made the default expectation of consumers, so fast, and free shipping, and easy delivery process, and be able to modularize that design so that you can set it up and not have to deal with like the IKEA hex key or any of these really cumbersome assembly processes? And so, that concept was born. And out of that came a series of product innovation that ultimately, Stephen and Kabeer got into Y Combinator with just a pitch deck and no product and used that accelerator to develop the product, to prototype the product, and ship it.Alex:A funny little anecdote is that from the time they incorporated the company to the time they shipped their first product was shorter than the period of time that West Elm quoted Kabeer to ship his first couch.Stephanie:Oh, wow. That's great.Alex:Yeah.Stephanie:And what were you doing when they were going through Y Combinator?Alex:I was actually working on my own concept in the health and fitness space and ended up calling time on it right towards the end of the summer because of a number of challenges that I was having on my end, and joined up with Stephen and Kabeer to help build out the demand side of the business. And I had a relatively intimate knowledge of the business and where they were at because we were in all the same classes working on our own businesses. And I had helped them tangentially with sourcing components during our first year of the program, because I have a background in mechanical engineering and they didn't have any background in physical hardware. And so, there was already the groundwork for relationship. And then I was trying to move my own discipline into more of a consumer facing and ground level marketing and product marketing role, so it actually made a lot of sense.Alex:So, we set it up as a brief relationship to make sure that the working relationship was there, which it turned out very quickly, it was. So, I have been tasked or had been tasked with basically just building demand and ran with it since.Stephanie:So, since then, what does the world look like now compared to when you started and you were building up demand? I mean, I'm sure you guys were trying out Facebook and all the traditional platforms that everyone's like, "Every brand should be on Instagram and Facebook, and if you're not here, where are you?" What did it look like then and now?Alex:So, now it's a much more disciplined and much more properly positioned business than it was in the beginning. Two critical mistakes that were good healthy mistakes to make in the early days were, number one, brand positioning and product positioning. We had this idea in our head that... and sort of the classic Warby Parker pricing story of like, they wanted to price it $45, but their advisors and professors advised them not to do that because it would signal the wrong value to the customer. We had a similar experience where, for some reason in our heads, we had to price our couch under $1,000. And we made that decision because we wanted to be hyper competitive on price and make it the default, obvious solution.Alex:The problem that we failed to acknowledge is that consumers nowadays have very limited time to understand the differences and nuances between products. They're not stupid, they're not lazy, but they do have very limited time. And so, you have to be very clear and explicit with them, and part of that is signaling. And one of the most powerful parts of marketing that I think is most often overlooked is a focus on pricing and what that does from a positioning standpoint.Alex:When a lot of shoppers were seeing our product under $1,000 and the fact that it shipped in boxes, which we were very forward with, because we focus so much on the attributes of the product and less on the experience around it, which is another step in our evolution, that people immediately equated those two things, low price and ships in boxes, with a more expensive version of IKEA. So, then it was us talking to IKEA shoppers, and you're not going to convince an IKEA shopper to spend another 300, $400 on a sofa, right? What you need to do is talk to the West Elm shopper, the Pottery Barn shopper, the Crate and Barrel shopper.Alex:So, we actually, for a number reasons, increased prices in late 2017, about half a year after we launched.Stephanie:How much did you increase them by?Alex:Originally, the sofa was priced at 950. By the way, much different cogs, profile as well, at that point. We increased the price to 1,095 to start. So, it was a pretty meaningful difference on a percentage basis, and especially when you talk about margins.Alex:Interestingly enough, everything you learned in microeconomics about the relationship with the supply and demand curves went out the window, because we increased the price and demand shot through the roof.Stephanie:Wow. Did you get it in front of new people? What else were you doing to get it-Alex:I mean, we were doing a lot of the same things in terms of building full funnel architecture on paid social and paid search and that sort of thing, and again, applying a lot of those early D2C playbook type approaches, which ultimately turned out to not be the best approach for us. But nothing changed substantially from a marketing perspective. We were still reaching a lot of the same people, it's just that we were now signaling to those people that we belonged in the comparison set with a higher quality piece of furniture. That helps also, because a lot of our value props, it's much easier to convince somebody who has shopped at one of these higher end brands and had to wait super long or had to go to a showroom and deal with a frustrating shopping experience with this overbearing sales associate, pay for shipping, and ultimately, have to be home to get a piece of furniture delivered, and either take a day off from work. Again, much different world back then than it was today.Alex:But it's much easier to talk to those kinds of people who've experienced those pain points and tell them, "I'm going to take all of that pain away," than it is to talk to somebody who's never experienced those pain points and doesn't need the higher quality piece of furniture, again, the IKEA shopper, and talk to them about all these future pain points that they've never experienced but that we can help them avoid. That's maybe one of the biggest lessons learned, is that people do not think much about the future. They're often very, very focused on the present. And so, as much as you want to talk about why you should go to the doctor every year, why should you should go to the dentist every six months, it's like, people are not going to react until they have a problem.Alex:So, we've experimented a bunch with what is the leading value prop. So, we talked to consumers, and one of the ones that we talked about very early was this concept of modularity and how, when you move into your next apartment, you can just purchase another seat instead of buying a whole new sofa to accommodate the new space, or rearrange the existing configuration that you have to fit the new space requirements. Problem is, people are not thinking about that. They don't really care. They can't think that far in advance of two to three to four years down the road when moving into the next apartment. And so, we've deprioritized that in terms of communication and lead with other things that are more immediate, like fast and free shipping.Stephanie:Yeah. Got it. So, you're mentioning earlier that the D2C playbook didn't work for you guys, where now, even these days, you can search that and you'll find a bunch of the playbooks and people are still saying like, "This is what you need to do to be successful." What were some other things that you did back then that you completely reversed and you were like, "This doesn't work for us"?Alex:Yeah. So, I think, first, was not acknowledging how complex and lengthy the shopping journey is for a piece of furniture online. Obviously, it's a big investment, it's also mutually exclusive with something else, your home, right? Let alone the high price, you're not going to just buy another couch when you have an existing one in your home, right? You need to think about getting that out or you have to do it right at the right moment with a moving event or something like that.Alex:So, the first thing that we had to realize is that what we can't do is architect our funnel around existing attribution technology or just rely on optimizing towards purchase events in digital channels. What we had to do is to look upstream and find correlations and causation between different upstream, midstream, and bottom stream events to really architect a healthy full funnel. And so, most of our campaigns are not architected towards purchase events, they're architected towards or optimized towards something more upstream.Stephanie:[crosstalk] for a couple examples.Alex:Yeah. I guess one interesting one that we've learned over time is there's a pretty clear correlation between add to cart and purchase, and the cart abandonment rate is relatively steady. We do things over time, obviously, to improve that, but it's not something that fluctuates wildly over time. And so, one of the things we can do is just optimize towards an add to cart versus a purchase.Alex:The other benefit of that is it often can happen in the first session. So, when you see a lot of the privacy restrictions right now and a lot of the issues with cookies going away and that sort of thing, it helps us. We've actually always been architected to bear that burden a little bit better than some of our other D2C peers.Alex:And then the other thing, besides the purchase journey, was also that we were just doing way too many things at once. We had, and we still have today, a very lean team. The difference between now and then is that back then, we thought the best approach was to spray as wide as we possibly could and activate 10 to 15 channels with me managing all of them, by the way, and not doing a good job.Stephanie:It sounds very chaotic and not fun.Alex:Yeah. Not at all, not at all. And only until we really peeled back and just focused on a handful of things and did them really, really well, that's when we actually started churning results, but more importantly, honestly, that's when we started actually learning what was working. Because previously, we were just spending a lot of money, we were generating sales, but we didn't really have a clear idea of where they were coming from, again, because the purchase journey was so complex, right? It wasn't a problem that we could solve by just putting an attribution layer in somewhere. We had to really hyper focus on one or two things and do them really, really well.Alex:The concept of growth in the past has generally been focused on the top line. And what that means, often, for a lot of companies, is to just go into as many different channels and try to tap into as many different demographics as you possibly can and then find out what's working and what's not working. I think the issue is that the broader investment community has wisened up to that, right, and they're holding us more accountable on a unit economics and customer economics level, versus just month over month top line growth, which in reality, it's just a vanity metric, right?Alex:So, it is more favorable to take a more disciplined approach, albeit potentially slower top line growth, to really uncover those median sites that you can actually build a solid foundation on and grow a real, scalable, profitable company on versus just something that's just, scaling wildly at the top one but in reality it's just lighting money on fire.Stephanie:So, for a higher priced product like Burrow and a longer buying cycle, what platforms would you advise other brands to look at and optimize for and which ones would you pull back from?Alex:Yeah. So, I think if you acknowledge that it is, there are a lot of things that people have to learn about the product, a lot of things that people have to get comfortable with and confident in the purchase. You think that a lot of these shorter form mediums, like paid social, paid search, right? It's just a quick second and a half interaction with an ad, they're not going to be as effective for a product like ours, and that's true. What we have indexed up on are things that are more storytelling mediums. So, the earliest insight into this was we partnered with a small podcast in late 2017, and it's sort of one of those micro ones, it's not on a network, and just talks about fantasy football. And we just got introduced to the gentleman that runs it, and did a small test, and the results were incredible.Alex:Part of what we've learned over time from that point, rapidly scaled the podcast program for us is that it's highly dependent on the host, and the reason that it's highly dependent on a host is because the efficacy of that channel comes from the quality of the storytelling. And that is really what benefits our brand, is that if we go and we send a podcast host a product and they have the same amazing experience that our customers have, they can talk about it in a much more authentic way, but also, a much more individual way. We've actually matured to not providing very detailed scripts to a lot of our podcasts hosts and just telling them to talk about what has been most exciting for you, and that really brings out the energy in the advocacy for the brand from the host. So, I'd say it's really about focusing on storytelling mediums. So, I lumped other video, long form video into that as well. A little bit less of authenticity, but also helps communicate a lot of these little value props that add up to the major value proposition.Stephanie:So, the other thing that comes to mind is branded content. I mean, I'm thinking about something like Formula One where now the results are out, everyone knows it worked really well for them. It was very, I would think, pretty organic, didn't feel like it was just a brand push. How are you guys thinking about other kinds of content like this?Alex:I don't know if we're at the stage yet where we can start thinking about that sort of thing. I think that Formula One is a great example of taking two powerhouses and linking them together where the sum is greater than or the whole is greater than the some of the parts. So, we're thinking a little bit less about something like that and creating more on a micro scale, I would say, brand and content.Alex:So, when you talk about something like the influencer arena, I am probably the biggest advocate against using influencers in the context that they are used today. And first of all, just to clarify, a true influencer is not somebody that says, "I'm an influencer" on their Instagram profile description, right? A true influencer is somebody that can speak to a community and elicit a response, and often, within a specific category, right? So, I'm not going to give a beauty "influencer" a furniture product and expect him or her to have an outsized impact on the sales.Stephanie:Stephanie:So, you'd focus on the niche influencer who might only have 1,500 followers or something, which is something I think I talked about early on this show, of going through the comments of Instagrammers and seeing, are the people in there asking, "Where can I buy that? Where did you get that from?" Or are they just like, "That's great. Cool. I love that." What kind of engagement are you getting will show if that person has influential power over their community or not.Alex:Totally, totally. And obviously, it's going to vary by a vertical too. This is sort of an extreme example, right? Again, going back to the very considered purchase, even our ability to measure the impact of that is going to be super limited. So, we've actually leaned into the influencer community for, more so is, partnering with actually photography influencers. One of the bottlenecks and problems with our vertical is that our products are very large and our photo shoots and video shoots require massive studios and massive crews that are very, very expensive. Meanwhile, all of these people out there that can already take great pictures and already have really interesting homes need furniture. And so, we can often partner with them in a much more economically scalable way to get a huge diversity and huge volume of content created that can showcase different styles, different aesthetics, different home types, and different personalities, and just build this library of content instead of having to book homes ourselves and go through the whole production process.Alex:So, we've actually been doing that for a while just purely based on economic reasons. But it's interesting to see that now, I think there's going to be a massive shift towards organic for a number of other reasons. When you talk about a lot of the privacy regulations that are going on right now, over the last 10 years, the control of the voice or the conversation has shifted towards the consumer and towards the user. You see like case examples of this with like GameStop, for example. The retail investor just had a massive impact on the market from such a small player, right? Because the control of the conversation momentum is shifting away from the brands that have the big budgets and towards the customers that have the voice, the authentic following.Stephanie:That's the influencer of the year right there.Alex:Yeah, totally.Stephanie:And Reddit. And that's probably where all the other influencers are, an area that I haven't even thought to go, but we've had guests come on previously where Reddit is how they figured out how to build their business, which I haven't even thought to go there. Alex:Totally, totally. I mean, it makes total sense, right? It's experts that are talking because they're passionate about what they're talking about, right, not because they have a vested interest or they are trying to make money off of it, then that's where you get that authentic content from and the actual truth.Stephanie:So, how do you go about incentivizing that or structuring it so it can come in? Because I'm sure a lot of brands are like, "I want my customers to talk about me and take pictures and do all the things," and then they just sit there and nothing comes in. So, what are you doing behind the scenes to make that happen?Alex:So, it's less about focusing so much effort on trying to elicit that response just by trying to elicit it and more about really focusing on that product innovation and that experience that will naturally have that effect on people, right? You don't want somebody to talk about your product in a positive way because you're paying them to talk about it in a positive way, you want them to really advocate, because that means that not only are they talking on the channel that you want them to talk about it, they're also having side conversations. And when people come over to their homes and they're asking, "Wow, where did you get that beautiful sofa from?" They are talking not just about, "Oh, I got it from Burrow," they're also saying like, "And it happens to have these stain resistant fabrics, and it has all of these great other materials, and it was modular, and it was super easy to get it delivered and get it set up." And that's what you really want to go off of.Alex:So, I would say the biggest focus should be on nailing that product innovation and nailing that customer experience, and that's how you can count on that customer conversation to be generated rather than trying to chase down your customers and get them to talk about it in a less authentic way.Stephanie:Yeah, I agree. I think that the days when people on Amazon are like, "I got paid for this review," or something, those will be gone very soon, because I don't know about you, but every time I go through a threat and I see that, I'm like, "Don't trust you, don't trust you." I just want to see the normal person who's reviewing it at their own goodwill, or not, maybe they're mad, but I want that. I don't want someone saying, "I got a free product for this review." That just seems like those days are gone.Alex:Yeah, totally, totally.Stephanie:So, the other thing I want to talk about is product development. I saw that your co-founder and CEO said, "Every single product we've ever launched has exceeded expectations and projections, and that's a testament to our customer-centric research-driven design process," which I want to dive into that and hear. I'm sure many brands are like, "I want every single product of mine to be a success, and I want to expand my skews." So, how do you guys go about designing and crafting new products?Alex:Well, I think one thing that we should clear up is the concept of customer centricity is used so broadly and inauthentically, I think. A lot of brands will claim customer centricity and they'll think that they're being customer centric because that's who their customer is and they just need to make money off of them, and so they'll say that they're thinking about all their needs. The problem is they're not actually talking to the customers, they're assuming on behalf of the customers that they know what that customer needs. Or they're just testing messaging, which is fine. That's been the traditional approach of, "Okay, if I play up this feature or this benefit versus this feature or this benefit, and this one does better, that's what the customer must want," right? But it almost becomes a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy there.Alex:We take it to a much deeper level, not just with our customer community but also our lead community, all of our email subscribers that have yet to join and make an actual purchase with us, and actually going to them and asking them very specific and lengthy questions. I remember the first time we sent out a customer survey about one of the next products that we were going to launch and just wanted to get their input on like, "Is this the right product?" Number one, and B, "What are those little things that really bother you about this product?" And did a ton of just open ended response analysis based on that.Alex:The biggest surprise for me from that was the response rate. For a quiz or rather survey that took probably a solid 10 to 15 minutes of someone's time to go through and really complete in depth, which they did, the response rate was astounding. And that opened our eyes to, "Wow, this needs to become a regular occurrence within our work stream."Stephanie:How quickly were you sending this to them? Was it a week after they got their product and are trying to set it up, or what did that look like?Alex:Well, there's a couple different ones. So, what we have is a couple different touch points that are automated or triggered based on somebody actually making their first purchase with us. So, we had, obviously, a post purchase survey right away, which I think is one of the most underappreciated and can be most impactful survey points that people do, or brands do, rather. We also have an NPS survey, which going back to how do you elicit a response from customers and activate customers, NPS is going to be your biggest indicator of how much of that is happening in the background. And that is actually backed up by an element on the post purchase survey where we ask, "Were you were referred by a friend? Does that friend own Burrow furniture, or do they not, or do not know?" And that can also give us a really solid indication of the impact.Alex:So, beyond the triggered survey points, we also do intermittent studies, and it's almost on a monthly cadence now, of either focuses on new categories in general, or we've already identified the category, we've already identified the specific product and we're trying to nail down colors, color combinations, finishes, specific features, doing conjoint analyses on like, what is most important to this set of consumer? I mean, we've really taken it to a super, super deep level.Stephanie:Have there been any products that you launch based off consumer feedback or maybe early launches where it's like, "Oh, they led us astray with that one"? Because I'd be like, "I want a fluorescent pink couch." And then I'd be like, "Oh, I had a little too much wine that night. Sorry about that."Alex:Yeah. Fortunately, we're pretty good at statistics and we can identify outliers and not get swayed by them too much. There actually have not been. And I think it speaks volumes for this concept of authentic customer centricity where... and you can also cross-compare between the customer set and the subscriber set, right? The subscribers are a great audience because they have not purchased anything from you, or at least the subscribers that are not customers, and there's a reason why, right? Versus the customers, they did find something that you offered already and they've already bought into the brand, and they're responding to you because they're still engaged. And so, that's one set of needs that you need to fulfill.Alex:And then there's the other set of needs, and oftentimes, there's a good amount of overlap, which is great for us, and oftentimes, there's not, and that's when we need to make choices around what does that offering look like and who are we really chasing with that?Stephanie:Yep. The other thing I think you mentioned in the past was around how you start thinking about zoning and mapping out what else a person needs in their room, which means like, "Oh, brilliant, okay, if someone got a couch, a little swivel chair, and obviously, they need pillows." And I want to hear, did that method work, and how have you expanded that since you first started trying it I think maybe a year and a half ago or so?Alex:It did, totally. I mean, you take one concrete example of this is with the advent of coffee tables for us. We first launched the sofa and then we launched our first line of coffee tables, and those were specifically designed dimensionally to work best with the sofa styles that were selling the most volumetrically. So, we knew that there was a high rate of match, right, between them. It wasn't like we were designing for something that we were only selling like 5% of our assortment or something like that.Alex:Where that took another level is in 2019, we launched the corner sectional, and then arrangements and configurations started getting a lot more varied and a lot more... opened up actually, additional demographics as well, with more suburban, satellite city homes with larger room spans. And that opened up a new category, and so what we had to do is to figure out, "Okay, well, if you have a five-seat corner sectional, none of our coffee tables really make sense for that. And so, how do we create a coffee table that works perfectly in that configuration for that customer specifically?" So, that's when you saw in late 2020, we released our Kettle and Signal collections, which are more of a round geometry versus a rectangular geometry. And that happens to work really well with things like a Double Chaise Long King Sofa, where the chaise is wrapped nicely around the round coffee table, or the corner sectional, it creates a really nice conversation pit type feeling.Alex:So, it is very much about understanding how our pieces interact. And then the next level that is, what are the types of rooms that people are using it in? What are the actual dimensions of those rooms? And what logically, could somebody need the most, given that room design and size?Stephanie:It seems like a lot of brands are missing that right now, because oftentimes, I mean, whether it's furniture or a lot of other things, I'm like, "Where is that matching dresser set? Or where is the pillow that goes with that?" And it feels like having to go around and look in different places and trying to find it myself, I'm like, "Why am I doing the work? I just want a kit which is like, 'Here's all the five things that match together.'" But why is that so hard? I don't get why can't brands do that?Alex:I think one of the biggest examples of this is that company brand list that skyrocketed, but they were launching things in such unrelated categories that there was no bond between them. And companies nowadays need to think a lot more about lifetime value than they had to necessarily, in the past. Acquisition cost is growing, and they can no longer just rely on first purchase profitability in order to sustainably scale their business, and they need to think about building a relationship with the customer. And that often comes from creating relationship and being the default brand or site to go back to when they may have that next need and finding that perfect accompanying piece, right? Versus just like you buy cleaning detergent from the company, and you come back and, oh, they're offering soccer balls or something.Stephanie:Pillows.Alex:Yeah, it's like, "Okay, well, that doesn't make sense."Stephanie:Yeah. Which makes me think, I mean, it seems like the world is headed towards a more curated world right now. Maybe back in the day, I would go to a Wayfair or something like that and I'd be like, "Cool, I'm fine with scrolling, scrolling," five years later, still scrolling and looking for what I want. It doesn't seem like consumers want that anymore. So, how do you see the consumer journey and preference adjusting now where maybe a couple years ago, that would be totally fine?Alex:Yeah. I think it's almost a byproduct of the ease of standing up a company nowadays. It is exponentially easier to start a company, a direct to consumer company than it was 20, 30, 40 years ago. So, because of that, the market has just blown up in terms of the number of companies. And so, the paralysis of choice has shifted from like going to an old school Sears or Macy's and just having like a million different options, or as you put it, like a Wayfair, and just tens of millions of options, to now having to build a relationship with a brand and trust that that brand is making the right decisions. And so, that's why we offer a very select assortment of fabric colors, leg finishes, arm styles. In reality, we can house tens of component skews and offer tens of thousands of combinations to the customer, but what's ultimately the most important thing is that we do it in a way that is still a very simple and clean experience for the customer so that they get that sense of they're creating their own product, but not to the extent of being overwhelmed.Alex:I think of myself on old school furniture sites and staring at the screen from two inches away trying to figure out the difference between this gray and that gray, and I'm like... and then you request swatches from them and they come 10 weeks later.Stephanie:Yeah. I've recently been through that experience. It's not great.Alex:Yeah. No, it's not fun.Stephanie:They arrived and I'm like, "What was I trying to buy, again?" [crosstalk]. I mean, it seems like you guys could also have a very localized approach where, like you mentioned earlier, if someone is looking from a very suburban area, like my hometown in Maryland, where my expectations there would have probably been to have a huge wraparound couch, I've got this big living room, versus being in San Francisco or Austin, where now it's like a little bit more limited space, and what can I fit in these small areas? [crosstalk] think about that?Alex:I mean, the first step there that we're taking, it's more from a content driven approach. So, that goes back or loops back to the way that we're treating influencers and leaning into the photography community and the different styles and aesthetics that they have. Because what we are creating are based products. They are beautiful but they don't belong in an architectural [inaudible] editor's home, right? They're not the one-off piece that you design and custom build for 15 grand or something.Alex:And what's beautiful about that is that they stand up to any environment that you're putting them in, whether it's a very eclectic like Austin ranch style home, or the fourth floor walk up apartment in New York, or a more sprawling home in Houston or another geography like that. And leaning in with more of that stylistic approach than necessarily sub-segmenting, "Oh, we're only going to show love seats to this geography, or we're only going to show these massive sprawling corner sectionals to this other geography," because people still have varying needs, a lot of people have multiple rooms. So, we don't want to limit, necessarily, the assortment, but we are trying to diversify constantly the styles and aesthetics that our products are showcased in.Stephanie:Got it. Yeah, that makes sense. So, for the last big point, I wanted to talk about the industry as a whole, like the D2C industry, commerce, what kind of things are you seeing or preparing for behind the scenes for what's to come?Alex:I mean, we could talk about the elephant in the room, which is-Stephanie:Let's talk about it. Yeah, let's do it. I haven't really talked too much about that, because it's been so up in the air, and when's it going to go through? It's more official now, so let's do it.Alex:Oh, yeah, it's official. This is a tough thing, and I think it's a reckoning for a lot of these companies, again, where it's been so easy to start a company and just go on Facebook, and you'll generate some sales, and go to a VC and you'll show 100% month over month growth, and they'll throw a bunch of cash at you. That's changing, and I'm thankful for it as much as I curse the fact that we don't have this GPS anymore, I'm very thankful that we don't, because it's forcing us to mature as marketers. And we're fortunate also that we've had to embrace this appreciation for marketing 101 and really lean into principles and not just trust what the ad platform are telling us, because it's a whole shopping journey.Alex:So, we've built a very healthy, full funnel approach proactively, even without any of this talk about these privacy regulations. That has helped us create something that can stand up in the face of this. There are a lot of companies that have not done that, they've not invested in really understanding marketing 101 and how to build a healthy full funnel without having that very granular level of insight or having automatic triggers in their campaigns and stuff. So, I think that is the most important thing, is like there is a day of reckoning for marketers everywhere in the D2C space to take a step back and really appreciate the principles of marketing and evaluate your program architecture overall and make sure that it's in a healthy state, and not just because your add to cart rates or your conversion rates are really high from this one campaign in this one ad unit, but really, overall, how is your program operating? Where are the weak points and how can you supplement those?Stephanie:Yeah. So, if you were starting over day one today, what kind of things would you look at? What metrics would you look at? What kind of things would you put in place to start building up that healthy funnel?Alex:Yeah. I think we would look at... I'm trying to think if I didn't have all the information that I have today, but I think what you would look at is the abandonment rate through the funnel, right? Of the people who click through to your site, how many of them end up viewing a product? Of those people, how many of them end up adding it? Of those people, how many of them end up actually proceeding to step one of checkout, step two, step three, step four? And find out what that makeup looks like.Alex:And obviously, you're going to spend a lot of time on conversion rate optimization and trying to improve the outputs of each step of that funnel. But that paints a picture of, okay, how broad do you have to invest at the top of that funnel if your ultimate target at the bottom of the funnel is X? And what does that reach look like? And what are the best mediums to do that to actually elicit a response and get people onto your site or into your store or signing up for whatever service you provide? So, that, I think, is what I would take as step one.Alex:The other one is, I would just consider, for the vertical that you're in and the product that you're trying to sell, how much of a story do you need to tell? And that will help inform how much you will need to invest in more storytelling mediums than more immediate click to buy type mediums. Also, how visual is your product? That will tell you how much you have to be content driven versus leaning into things like search or audio formats or anything like that. And that can really help govern your channel choices.Alex:And then the last thing is just, don't fall into the trap of doing too many things at once. There's always something to be said to acknowledging the resources that you have and trying to build a architecture that is best for that set of resources, not just the one that happens to be doing really well for the other portfolio company that your VC backer is constantly in your ear about, you have to focus on what is going to work for your company, your vertical, your customers specifically.Stephanie:Yep, yeah, I love all that. Is there or are there any tools right now that you're very excited about that are either new or just time tested, you're like, "We're going to keep using these forever because they do wonders for our marketing efforts"?Alex:I think a lot of it is less about tools and more about information sources. So, we've partnered with a number of different companies over time to do things like customer enrichment and really understand our customers to a deeper level, again, going back to that concept of customer centricity, not just talking to them directly, but also learning much, much more about them. And I think one of the biggest traps that a lot of companies fall into is they think of their customer as an average customer, and the problem is they're failing to acknowledge that customers are not one monotonous group, they are a system of clusters and cohorts. And what you really have to do is understand what is unique and important about each of these clusters and then create a messaging architecture, channel architecture, product offering that really speaks to each of those clusters individually.Alex:So, from a tools perspective, it's more about these data enrichment, customer data enrichment type platforms, and then using those to create these clusters and cohorts and really understand those customers. Again, for us, an attribution platform, not super helpful because of the complexity and both mix of offline and online activity that it takes to get to the purchase point. Much more about really understanding the customer and then applying a marketing 101 approach to it.Stephanie:Cool. Yeah, that's great. All right. Well, let's shift over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer.Alex:Oh, boy.Stephanie:Ready, Alex?Alex:Sure.Stephanie:Oh, boy. What's one thing you don't understand today that you wish you did?Alex:Shoot. Where do I start? I think I would like to understand more about the global supply chain. I think over the last six months to a year maybe, we've seen, very intimately, the impacts of a broken or strained supply chain, and I think that there's a huge opportunity for D2C companies to innovate on the supply chain side. We focus so much on how do we innovate on the customer side that we focus so much less on the supply side of the business. So, I think that is where... and it will become increasingly important for marketers and supply ops to be speaking and working very much hand in hand to grow a company together. So, I do wish I had more of that background.Stephanie:Yeah, that's great. And you guys just raised around, and I think that money, a part of it, was to focus on international supply chain effort, right? Figuring that out better.Alex:Yes, totally.Stephanie:So, you're already right in the right spot, the right time. You'll have to let everyone else know the insight. You have to come back and tell us what you learn next year.Alex:Yes, definitely.Stephanie:What's up next on your reading list or podcast list?Alex:There's actually a couple books I think that I want to reread. I'm one of those weird people that really likes to read technical books, and so there's a couple of conversations we're having right now about pricing in this book called Power Pricing that I love to read. There's also one by a gentleman named Douglas Holt called Cultural Strategy that I think is one of the most foundational and important books, especially for the world today. And again, how the customer controls the conversation, and understanding how to position your company and your messaging around cultural movements and ride momentum versus trying to create that momentum yourself as you have in the past. The last one is Shoe Dog, actually.Stephanie:Yes, such a good book.Alex:Amazing book. This would now be, I think, my third time reading it, but it is a way to, I think... A lot of people have been talking about languishing right now and the fact that we've been in this environment for so long and we're yearning for that personal interaction, and so tired of being in the sedentary and fixed on a digital screen environment. And I think Shoe Dog can help reignite a lot of that passion, right? Because it's like, "Wow, this multi-billion dollar company started at such a microscopic level." And it really helps you understand the power and the capability you have as an individual to create something like that and can help really reignite that passion.Stephanie:Yeah, that's one of my favorite books. Actually, we have a podcast called The Story that tells the unknown backstory of people who change the world, and we highlighted him in one of the episodes because we were like, "The story is too good not to tell, and tell, and tell until everyone hears it, and gets motivated and starts their thing today."Alex:Yeah, totally.Stephanie:That's awesome. I feel like they need a movie out or something. Do they have one?Alex:I'm sure there will be. I'm sure there will be.Stephanie:There has to be one. Too good of a story not to. What's one thing you're secretly curious about? [crosstalk].Alex:TikTok, I think.Stephanie:Are you all on there?Alex:We are not. From a demographic perspective, in the past, I would say a year and a half, it hasn't made sense. The program is continuing to grow, the demographic adoption is continuing to expand, and so I am interested in what it looks like going forward. I think it is also a challenging medium for a lot of brands that are really attached to high production quality content, because what scales the best on that platform is very lo-fi content, very organic and authentic content. And it creates this shift for a lot of companies in the way that they think about creative. So, I'm curious in that we are actively learning about our potential approach to that channel, but also curious about how does that platform and program evolve over time. I've not heard great things about the ad platform that they've built so far, which is partially why we've been hesitant to really go after the channel, but that will evolve. They will crack that code. And what that looks like, I don't know, but I'm certainly curious.Stephanie:Yeah. We've definitely heard 50-50 on TikTok, some brands saying it works wonders, but they're the ones creating their own content, maybe not an ad partner programs. I also think from a consumer standpoint, how it's going to evolve, because at least me personally, I think I got signed out and I couldn't remember my password-Alex:Oh, no.Stephanie:... and I just never signed back in. I'm like, "I'm not sure I really like it then, or maybe I know that just scrolling is not good for me."Alex:Yeah. That was me with Clubhouse, actually.Stephanie:Oh, same.Alex:I loved Clubhouse for the first seven days and was on it constantly and I have not been back on it for [crosstalk].Stephanie:Yeah. I think it got crowded. I mean, now it's just so busy, so many people talking about so many things, it didn't feel curated. I started feeling like that to me too where it was 50-50 of like, "I like these videos, and next nine, I don't like." I think there has to be curation to keep at least us involved, it sounds like.Alex:Yeah, totally. I mean, honestly, that's what happened with the podcast world too, right? It became everybody launched their own podcast, and then there's so much content. The biggest problem with podcasts now is discovery. The only way you learn about what to listen to is through your friends.Stephanie:Yeah.Alex:And so, that concept of discovery is such a challenge for podcasts right now, and I think that's what Clubhouse is going through at 1,000 times faster through the learning cycle.Stephanie:Yeah. I think the next couple of years will be interesting, because I mean, they've been talking about discovery issues back to even when I worked at Google, figuring out Google podcasts, and that was an issue back in 2017. So, why hasn't this been solved yet? It should be so much easier.Alex:Yeah.Stephanie:All right. Well, Alex, it's been awesome having you on the show, such a fun conversation. Where can people find out more about you and Burrow?Alex:Burrow.com would be the easiest place.Stephanie:What about you? Are you on LinkedIn? What if people want to talk to you?Alex:I am. LinkedIn. Alex Kubo. I'm not sure if you can actually search me and find me, but I'm sure you could.Stephanie:I'll find you. Don't worry. All right. Thanks so much, Alex.Alex:Thank you so much, Stephanie.

From starting a hedge fund to owning the DTC beauty market in China is a career path you don't hear too often. But that's the winding road that Julian Reis has traveled and along the way he's picked up some critical intel about the ecommerce world and Chinese trends that he shared with me on this episode of Up Next in Commerce.There are a bevy of factors to take into account when entering the Chinese market. From the vast differences in the way consumers shop in China to the sheer volume of consumers that can make a huge boom in sales in a matter of moments, there is a lot to contend with. And how does a brand even get in front of a consumer without traditional ads or email marketing? And what about social media? Or regulations? Julian explains how to take all that information into account and build an ecommerce strategy that lets you win abroad. Plus, he dives into how his company, SuperOrdinary is working with top skincare brands to enter the Chinese market, and some of the experiences that can be expected when embarking on this new path. What a fascinating discussion that was so different than any interviews I have had so far, enjoy!Main Takeaways:It's All Chinese To Me: Brands might want to expand to the Chinese market and believe that there is a huge opportunity there, but rushing into the market without doing the proper research could be a huge mistake. Despite the fact that a lot of information is censored in Chinese, consumers there still find ways to access the content that is important to them. Brands need to get more social awareness, learn about what Chinese consumers are interested in and let their actions reveal whether or not you have a product-market fit before trying to make a splash in that market.Platforms vs. Pages: There has been a bifurcation of ecommerce between platforms and webpages. The debate about where to invest more is coming down to how you see your customers acting. SuperOrdinary's theory of the case is that platforms are the way of the future because at the end of the day, customers spend more time on Amazon and Tmall than on a company's website. Therefore, more focus should be on creating content that drives engagement on those platforms. Boom and Bust: In China, the volume of consumers is so much higher and there is so much more emphasis on influencers and celebrities, that if something goes viral, a brand could do millions of sales in a matter of seconds. Being prepared for that kind of boom is very different from working in the U.S., where you prepare for steady growth over a longer period of time.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, CEO at Mission.org. Today on the show we have Julian Reis, the CEO and Founder of SuperOrdinary. Julian, welcome.Julian:Thank you, Stephanie. Lovely to meet you.Stephanie:I'm happy you're here. I'm glad you're not in Hong Kong. I was a little bit worried at first. Like, it's got to be 2:00 AM for this guy, talking on the show. I mean, I would have also appreciated that, but that's okay. Before we dive in to SuperOrdinary, I want to hear about your background because you have a very fascinating background, and I want to hear what led you to the beauty industry.Julian:Great. Thank you for having me. Well, first of all my background, I'm half Australia, half Chinese Portuguese. I was born in Australia, and at the tender age of five I moved to Singapore, where I followed my parents. My dad was working for Pizza Hut. And my twin brother, who's identical, we grew up in Singapore and we kind of were brought into this world to experience all these different cultures, and really thank my parents for giving us such an international upbringing. We all went to these international schools in Singapore, and then Hong Kong, and really got a flavor for all the different Southeast Asian countries growing up. I went to study in the UK to confuse myself even more, and studied economics at University of Nottingham. And Justin, my brother, was in London at the London School of Economics. And we kind of had these parallel paths where we didn't know what we wanted to do after university. And I was always intrigued by the financial markets when I was at university. I always thought that ... This was at the time when we still had analog Internet, dial-ups. I was always curious to see how people were thinking about this global economy.Julian:I applied to probably 150 jobs after university, and got very disheartened that I couldn't move to Tokyo, which I had this dream to always live in Japan. And I found myself finding a job eventually in New York, at J.P. Morgan. I was one of 3,000 applicants to the markets training program, which was a rotation through JP Morgan training program. And I still don't know how I got it, but I was so thankful. I went to New York without even an interview, and basically phoned from downstairs and told the graduate recruitment officer that, "Hey, I'm downstairs. You might as well see me." And suddenly, I got the job. I feel very, very lucky for that.Julian:Went from there to, as a trader, I was trading derivatives in fixed income, which is straight derivatives. And that really started to shape my career, about thinking about the macro markets and how you need to think about the world. And after three years, I moved back to Asia and found myself working at Deutsche Bank and building my career as a proprietary trader.Julian:And then I realized that I would love to try and build my own business. And in finance, you either work at the lease investment banks as a trader ... Because the idea of a hedge fund was still very new. And when I was 27, I decided to go alone and start my own hedge fund. And tried to rustle up as much money from my friends and family, and realized I didn't have that many friends and family. And started my first hedge fund, which was called Pagoda Capital, which was one of the first macro funds in Singapore. I got acquired by Tudor Capital a year later and became CEO of their Asian business, building out their macro strategies in Singapore and Australia.Stephanie:How did they want to acquire you after a year? What were you doing? You must have been doing something amazing.Julian:You know, it was kind of interesting at the time because we were one of the only funds in Asia doing what we were doing. And there clearly was ... And this actually dovetails into what we're doing now because we saw this opportunity to build a business around the Asian markets, and many of these big, large, successful brands or hedge funds in US wanted to get exposure to this market. And the way they did that was find like-minded individuals who were trading, and eventually we came together and built this business. And Paul Tudor Jones is still, to this day, one of the guys I idolize the most in the world. And that gave me my introduction to the financial markets.Stephanie:Very cool. Okay, so your hedge fund gets acquired. You're working there for a bit. And then what?Julian:And then what? I moved to the UK again, working at a new hedge fund which I founded. And I realized that the common thread to all of this was that I really enjoyed building businesses. And I really felt like from zero to one when you're building a business, it's all about hiring the right people and building successful partnerships. And after a couple of years of working in the hedge fund industry, we entered 2008, which was obviously the financial crisis. And what became really apparent and important to me was that this was not sustainable, and that it was really exciting to see what other opportunities there were for me in my life. And at the time, was a very difficult time because to change out of a career or something that you'd been trained in to move to a completely different industry was very scary. And I thought long and hard about making that decision.Julian:And I met this lady who was starting a Groupon startup, and I said, "Listen, if you decide to do something in beauty, come back to me because I think there's a really big opportunity." And I started to see that the Asian population or the communities were really interested in foreign brands. And I was a founding investor of a company called Luxola, which was the ecommerce 1.0, distributing brands in Southeast Asia. And after two years, was acquired by LVMH to become Sephora's digital presence in Southeast Asia. So, really got an understanding about learning, about building and investing in the beauty side.Julian:And then I thought, well, why not try my hand at building my own brand? So, moved to the US to start a brand called Skin Laundry, which is a skincare brand focused on disrupting services. And really proud of what Skin Laundry has become today. It's now in five countries around the world, in the Middle East, London, Hong Kong and all throughout the US.Stephanie:Did you sell that?Julian:No, I didn't. The brand is still operational. I still remain one of the largest shareholders in the business. But really brought a management team in to really accelerate the brand. I think it's a very unique concept, and continues to be a loved brand by the customers. And I think by working and building a brand on that side, really started to, when I was back in Hong Kong and I noticed in China many of the brands that we were exposed to whilst we were in the US were not available in China. And that's where SuperOrdinary was born.Julian:I moved to Shanghai three and a half, almost four years ago now. And kind of just wanted to study how brands are being bought and sold in China. And then the light bulb went off and said to me, "This is an incredible opportunity. All these digital native brands that we see in the aisle of Sephora and Ulta and Mecca, why aren't they available?" So, I started the company and started hiring my first-year employees in a country that I had very little experience in. And I didn't speak the local language. I could only speak pidgin Mandarin. And I said, "Well, this seems like a big enough challenge. Let's go."Stephanie:That's a niche, [inaudible] opportunity. All these brands should be in China but they weren't. I mean, what are some of the top reasons why brands maybe don't even think about bringing their products to China? Because from the outside, it does feel scary, and regulations. And does the customer there even want what we love here? Seems like very different things that they love versus maybe what I might like. What are some of the reasons that you hear brands are like, "I've never thought about that before"?Julian:Well, I think the first thing which you kind of touched upon is the regulation. First of all, animal testing is obviously something that many of the brands, or most of the brands in our portfolio, goes against the DNA of what they believe in terms of cruelty-free. Luckily on May the 1st, animal testing regulations now be announced to have gone away, which is incredible because it just opens up this huge, untapped, physical market domestically.Julian:I think because of that restriction, it was very difficult for brands to enter China, and so everyone hears of these stories about Chinese tourists coming overseas and bringing back suitcases of products in the suitcases, and reselling them locally. And I think what happened was that the government obviously realized that this was happening and said, "Rather than smuggling products into the country, let's create a channel for these products to enter the country on a legitimate basis, and let's make sure that they're real products, authenticated, they're registered, and then they can be sold."Julian:But in order to do this, this channel which we call the cross-border channel, only limits the amount of products that you can sell to an individual consumer in China on a given month or a given year. There's a quota in terms of absolute R&D value. Whilst it's an exciting channel and it continues to grow, represents close to 20% of the ecommerce market, obviously there are restrictions for that. We started our business as a cross-border business which allows us to work with brands anywhere from Farmacy to The Ordinary, to Drunk Elephant, Supergoop!, and we really have an incredible partner portfolio. And to be able to build their presence in China by creating a profile for them on social media in all the different channels, on Tmall, and really build a brand from zero and continue to grow them there across multiple channels. That's how we started.Julian:Now, we currently have globally close to 300 employees in the company now, most of which are based in China. And I think what we do as a business is really provide that one-stop-shop service where we really build your brand. Where we call ourselves not a distributor. I would almost call ourselves the general manager of your brand in China, because we do everything that you would do as a brand owner by operating your brand in a foreign market.Stephanie:Yeah. What are some of the tests that you do to figure out what the market here even wants this? Because that seems like a big thing. If a brand comes to you and they're like, "I'm selling this," and you're like, "That might not even go well here." What are some things that you think about if a brand should even try to enter China.Julian:Yeah. I think, I mean that's the million dollar question. And I think what we do, we've gotten a lot better at it because I think the consumer there is very discerning, even though a lot of the information about that brand is not readily available on Chinese social media. There are ways to get it, and people do find out about it. What we typically do for any brand that wants to work with us is really have initially a conversation to really understand what the point of difference of the brand is. And really just see if there's a product market fit. We do a lot of desktop research around the brand, not only in its home market but in China to see how big that opportunity is. If someone comes to us and says, "Oh, we want to launch blonde hair dye in Shanghai and we think it's a big market because it's big in the UK," we have to question is there a demand for people to dye their hair blonde.Julian:And I think that's what we do, and we've gotten better at, is we test a lot of the products within our team. We have experts in each of the categories that we manage who really are our first port of call in terms of trying to see if there's an understanding or a demand for this product. Remember, all these brands have zero social awareness, and as the market's got more and more expensive to launch a brand, it's really important for us to make sure that if we get behind it, we're going to be able to spend the marketing dollars to get the brand to where it needs to be for it to make sense financially.Julian:After two weeks of very deep due diligence on the brand, we'll go back to the brand founder and say, "Listen, we think your hero product in America is this, but you know what? Actually in China, we think it's A, B and C." That helps us have this conversation and once we get to that point where we think that there's an alignment, we then start working on financial terms on how we would work together.Stephanie:What's interesting is that your background in the hedge fund world seems like it would be so helpful when coming and analyzing brands, and looking for opportunity.Julian:That's right.Stephanie:And looking at competitors and stuff. I mean, it seems like a perfect fit of how you came about even into this world, which is really fascinating.Julian:I think the hedge fund world really gave me an appreciation of data, and really thinking about data in a different way than I would normally do. For us to, whether it's analyzing the influences that we work with, or analyzing the livestreaming broadcast that we'll do tonight with Austin Li, or analyzing LTV and CAC on the brands that we manage, it's really become you're heavily reliant on it because if you don't rely on it, then you start to not make better decisions.Julian:And what we've done at SuperOrdinary is using that data that we give our brands, our partners, visibility into the consumer in China. And that gives us informed decisions on what products to make next. And I think that's really exciting for our brand partners, to know that this product, this moisturizer, may be too viscous on the skin. Or, this tint doesn't blend well with this lipstick shade. It's too bright. All of this information helps guide their product development. And for us to be successful, they have to be successful in their product development. So, data has become a really big part of our business model.Stephanie:Is there a different way they have to go about collecting the data there? Versus in the US, maybe you would do surveys, you would just directly ask, you would do your email marketing stuff. How would you go about collecting that data in a way that keeps you safe?Julian:Well, I think everything you learnt about business in the US market, you leave at the door when you walk through Shanghai Airport. And I think that's where you have to really come in with eyes wide open to say, "How is the consumer interacting?" First of all, there's no websites in China, so you're working through these platforms. And we have a market in the US where you have a very large amount of websites in the US market, whereas in China you have zero websites. But you have all these platforms. The world's bifurcated between platforms and D2C websites.Julian:And our view at SuperOrdinary is that platform is where the markets head to. The websites are where you discover your brands, you learn more about the content, you go to Instagram, you go to Sephora. But at the end of the day, where do you gravitate to? Well, where you're buying your products, on Amazon, on Tmall, on Lazada. And this is where I think we really try to create this vision of where SuperOrdinary is headed. And it's very important that our brands believe in this strategy too, because this is the direction we think beauty is headed.Julian:In China, I think to your question collecting data, the data that we get is readily available. You can see what people's revenues are by looking at Tmall data. But I think what's interesting is that we have a lot of other platforms, like the equivalent of Reddit and Quora that allow us to see what people are asking about brands. They're looking up ingredients. They're looking up what squalane means. They're asking what hyaluronic acid does to your skin. And that kind of data there is really important.Stephanie:I mean, how would a brand even think about getting in front ... I know you're talking about platforms and different ways to think about it. So any brands here are used to paid media and email marketing and Instagram and all that, so I know you have to just completely turn off all those ideas and start from scratch. How should a brand think about entering a new market? Even trying to get their product there is one thing, but then trying to get the word out, especially if they aren't working with a firm like those. How would they even go about that?Julian:Well, I think that historically, when a brand has entered the market it had a number of choices. One is to go through a multi-brand website that sells products and posts it into China. The problem with that is that your product may or may not get to the end consumer, so there's a lot of risk. That channel is obviously a very small one.Julian:Two is to go in it alone. Go to China, hire a team, spend 10 million dollars. Really go nuts. And after five years, you'll have lots of learnings. Pretty much what I've done, and figure out oh my gosh, there must have been a better way to do this. I'm not only spending a lot of money, but I'm losing time.Julian:Really, the way we approach our playbook ... And it is a playbook, because it is after many years of learnings, is making sure that you focus on the brand and what it stands for, making sure that the messaging behind the brand is consistent. You don't want 16 different platforms saying 16 different things about your brand. And also, the other thing is there's no such thing as seeding. You can't just send out 100 packages and expect to receive 100 posts. So, it opens a pay-per-play environment. And that's because the cultures are very different, too. Understanding the culture is very important to know where is your consumer spending most of the time? I think it would shock most people that 88% of the beauty market is Gen Z and Gen Y, Millennials. And more than 50% are purchasing products on their mobile phone. And they're looking to spend more and more on skincare and color.Julian:I think understanding that just helps you frame how do you, again, those consumers. Where are they spending their time? They're spending their time on TikTok, or Douyin in China. They're spending their time on Little Red Book to discover ... And so we at SuperOrdinary have a very large team now that speaks to over 40,000 influencers or KOLs, directly or through agencies. And I think because SuperOrdinary has a very exciting portfolio of brands, we're able to authenticate the types of brands we work with. So, we're able to work with the very best livestreamers in China. We're probably one of the most active in the livestreaming area. And that creates a lot of awareness around the brand.Julian:Building a brand from zero to one is the hardest part. It's the most expensive part of the curve. And then year two, year three should be easier. Getting it right is very important, so providing a very concise go-to-market strategy, making sure that the messaging, whilst it's in local language and it feels local to the consumer, is not different to what it is in the US. We don't want to be talking about a brand and not be in line with the brand guidelines, but making sure that the emojis, the hashtags, the cute names around the products really make sense to the local consumer. There's a lot of hard work that goes in before we even launch a brand. It's not just putting it on Tmall and then putting a price, which is traditionally what a lot of the local TPs have done. We really feel like you have to take a much stronger brand view about building that channel.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, totally agree. What are some of the biggest surprises, maybe, that brands have? When you're going through and you're working with them and maybe you say, "Okay, but we need to do it this way," or, "This is what they're expecting," or, "Influencers are the way here. It's not just a nice to have like it is here. It's like, this is the way to go." What are some of the surprising things that brands maybe aren't expecting when you work with them?Julian:I think volume. Volumes can get big very, very, quickly. It's not uncommon that you will enter a livestreaming event and will do 3 million in sales in 20 seconds. The market is that much bigger. But at the same time, in the US we're used to growth, very steady, 10, 20% every year. And that's achievable. And in China, something could happen where a very big celebrity will go to London and find your product and talk about it, and then boom. It's all gone in China. You cannot find it. And it's just because the absolute size of the market is that much bigger than the US, and that when the community is all on their phones buying and following these influencers, it's very much an influencer-led market and celebrity-led market. I think that shocks a lot of brands. Why doesn't it have some steady growth?Julian:I think they also realize, the shock, the difference is that it's how text-heavy the interaction with media is. While here in the West we're very visual, in the East it's very much about information. Before you even get to the ingredients, there will probably be seven pages of text telling you about the product, the storyline. And then at the end, there will be some more information about the product itself. It's really important to realize that's how they shop. I think that's another one.Julian:I think yeah, I think also the market there moves very quickly. It's very saturated as well, because everyone sees China as almost like the Holy Grail during the COVID environment. I can't tell you the number of times people have asked me, "Oh yeah, this is a must have." Also, I think on the downside is just measuring people's expectations lower. Just because it's a big market, doesn't mean your first year you're going to do 10 million in sales. It's really about it takes time to build a brand. Five years, minimum, in the global market, so why should it be any different in China? My advice is really be patient with your brand. If you give it the love and tender, loving care over the next five years to make sure that it's there in five years. You don't want something doing this and doing this.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, that's what I was kind of thinking when you said okay, you could do 3 million in sales in a matter of seconds. How could a brand think about setting up maybe a longer-term strategy there? Because when I'm putting on my US-centric view, I'm like okay, you've got SEO stuff, you're getting to the top and you start ranking, and then people see you more because you've proved that you're best long term, and Amazon do the same thing. And there, it feels like if it's so based on maybe influencers and celebrities, because you can have these blips of when you can get in front of people. How do you maintain a brand there long term, where it's not just crazy sales and then to until you have your next celebrity or influencer talking about you again? How do you think about that?Julian:I do think that's a billion dollar question. Really believe.Stephanie:I do those in my head, billion dollar questions.Julian:Because I feel like China has gotten to a cycle or a rhythm of doing shopping festival after shopping festival, whether it's 11.11, 12.12, 618, Secretary Day. These events become so gravitational for the consumer because they know they're going to get the best offers on those days. Naturally brands, if you don't participate in them, you miss the traffic which helps get you more and more awareness.Julian:I think channel dispersion is important because you don't want to be so focused on one channel versus the other. But I think with the opening up of the market with the removal of animal testing it's going to allow us to become a much more measured approach. And what I mean by that is just imagine if you could only sell your brand through Target. And you live and die by Target's traffic. Of course you're going to play along the rules that Target might have given you to go and say, "Oh, here you go and sell that."Julian:If you can imagine that you can leave Target now and open up in all these different retailers in the US, now you have a lot more control about your brand. Just like that in China, I think we're going to have this opportunity to build brands in a much more succinct manner, and open the doors that we think best represent the brand and not have to scattergun it through all these different social channels.Julian:And also, it's fair to say that the consumer now will get to touch the brand and the product for the first time in these physical stores. And it's not just Sephora. There's seven to 10 other competitors in China which have got insane new retail experience, so I think the market there is 10 to 15 years ahead of the US in many ways. And that's another shock to most brands, is like, "Oh my God. This really, truly exists?"Stephanie:Yeah. What are some of these experiences that are so far ahead that maybe we should be looking into?Julian:Yeah. I think the consumer, when they go to a retail store in China, traditionally you go to a Sephora which is really much about it's glossy black, it's got music, you've got these beauty assistants that will come in and they would really sell you the product. China has also gone the other way, where they've removed all the beauty assistants and you go in there and it almost feels like a ghost town. But you get to try all these product and sample sizes. There are examples of that. And there's a shop called Harmay, H-A-R-M-A-Y, you can Google it, have a look. It looks like a museum. And they're 10,000 square feet, and it's very Instagram-able. That's a word. But it's one of these things that I think has really changed the way that people are interacting, because people want to drive traffic towards the door, there has to be a reason. Especially when you can buy everything online.Julian:I think that's really exciting. And I think I always get asked the question of, why is livestreaming working in China versus US?Stephanie:Yeah. That's a big one. Whenever people have come on here and talked about ... We had one guest who taught Harvard, and they brought a livestreamer from China over to show how many Harvard t-shirts they could sell, or hats or something. And it was insane. But then also it was like, I don't know if that would work here. I don't know. I just doesn't feel like a similar market around how it was happening. I don't know, it just didn't feel very familiar.Julian:Yeah. I think culturally, in the US and the West we don't like to be sold to. And that's why Instagram is very much a place where you build relationships with the other person. I think that's fundamentally where the big difference is. And remember, livestreaming in China is a business. These livestreamers are starting work at 6:00 PM and clocking off at 2:00 AM, and they do that 365 days a year because it's a business. And they have tens of people underneath them that are helping them bring in product to talk about. I think when you think about this is your starting block, and when you think about in the West, I don't think people will approach livestreaming in the same manner.Julian:I think at the end of the day, the winner in livestreaming in my view is that it will be the platform. I would make a bet that Amazon would probably be the leader eventually, because they're the ones that are going to be able to fulfill and deliver multiple brands and multiple products to the consumer in a very fast fashion. However, it's exciting to watch all these new platforms come about into the space.Stephanie:Yeah. Are there any other trends that you see happening in China right now that you're like, this could work in the US? Or, this should definitely be brought back because people would love that here?Julian:I think China's done a really incredible job of cross-collaborations with really interesting partners, like very nonsensical to the West. I don't know. In the West, you'd see a clothing brand pair up with a skincare brand. But in China, they'll go KFC will do something with a perfume brand. Or, a bubble tea will work with Fenty Beauty. Really, they like to think out of the box in the market, and I think that's really exciting.Julian:I do like the idea of sampling. I think sampling is something that the US has always been involved with, these boxes that get delivered to the customer and these subscription boxes, whether it's Birchbox or BoxyCharm and all these different ones. In China, I see that there's this interest to go and try sample size products at stores. I think that could eventually translate over here, and I think that would be well received.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, I think about Costco. I wonder how much business they've lost because people like samples.Julian:They do, yeah.Stephanie:I mean, yeah. It seems like there is the stores that are okay with letting you try everything. And I know COVID mixed that up a bit and made it harder to do that, but I wonder if it will lean heavier into that because they think that's such a great way to sell. But it seems like some brands are kind of stingier, like I don't want to give this away for free. And it'd be interesting to have a case study of like well, when you get a sample, here's the ROI and the LTV just based off that one, little, teeny sample that you did give away consistently. Not just once a week when you send someone in to be an ambassador.Julian:Yeah. No, I think that's really exciting. I do love the idea that I think the US is incredible at creating these ideas. [inaudible] has done a great job and really given the consumer a more accessible way to try products. But we have to always ask ourselves the question, what's going to drive the end plus one customer to go to the next multi-brand beauty store? And I don't know about you, but how many times do I get ... I'm buying my groceries online because I don't to go and queue up. I mean, this is the trend and it's accelerating faster and faster.Stephanie:Yeah. Yeah, I agree. The one thing I'm thinking about now too is that it feels like in some ways, the US and Chinese buyers are the same, and in other ways very different. Thinking about the sale aspect where it's like, that's big in China. And actually, it's kind of like going away here. Why are we doing these Black Friday events? There's no point. And that's once difference.Stephanie:And the other one I'm thinking about is all these new D2C companies popping up where you see consumers here kind of falling in love with the brand, which is very different than maybe even five years ago. And maybe you didn't always know who the brand was behind the product. Are the buyers in China similar, or are they not really open to new brands? Or do they not really want to hear about the story? What are the differences there?Julian:I think for example when we started SuperOrdinary, we saw this opportunity to bring clean beauty into China. Which at the time, there was no social listing around clean beauty. If you checked out clean beauty packaging, clean ingredients, there was really nothing there. And that was very important. I think the US, where they're ahead of China in this respect, is the brand story, the mission behind it. What does the brand stand for? What's the why? I think those types of ideas are becoming more and more important in China. We're starting to see brands really care about the environment, the packaging, what they do. The say/do ratio, we call it. Julian:But I think one of the learnings we had, and it's why I think SuperOrdinary, we moved to the US to really build out the Amazon business. Because we saw the opportunity of what we were doing in China and reapplying that to beauty on Amazon. Everyone knows the story that there are rogue sellers on Amazon. There's plenty of opportunity. And over one third of all beauty purchases are now on Amazon. And it's like this dirty, little secret we all know. We're all purchasing our toilet paper, our mineral water on Amazon, so why don't we buy our skincare?Julian:We set up a team. We have a team just under 25 people here in the US focusing on building brands, the story, making sure their D2C websites look exactly like they do on Amazon. And it's just been really exciting, because in five years' time from now, I think if you ask yourself the question, "I want to buy a product today and I want it on my doorstep in 30 minutes, who's the player that's going to be able to do that?" And it's not your own D2C website. It's really the part that can actually have the tentacles everywhere that's going to be able to do that.Stephanie:Yeah. Yeah. That's going to be huge. All right, well with a couple of minutes left let's shift over to the lightning round. Lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. It's where I ask a question, and you have a minute or less to answer.Julian:Oh, wow.Stephanie:Are you ready, Julian?Julian:Let's go.Stephanie:All right. If you had a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Julian:I would invite Anthony Bourdain. I just think he's the coolest guy, and I really enjoyed his international aspect on traveling and eating. I love eating.Stephanie:Yeah? He'd be your perfect guy?Julian:Yeah.Stephanie:So, a show all about eating and food, then. I like that.Julian:Yeah, exactly. Definitely nothing to do with ecommerce.Stephanie:Yeah. That's good. Well, when you want to stay on top of new trends that are popping up, how do you stay on top of that? Where do you go? What are you looking at? Yeah, how do you know what's hot?Julian:I'm lucky enough to have three boys, who are 16, 14 and 12.Stephanie:Oh, so they know.Julian:Who keep me on my toes, yeah. I actually ask them, and they find everything on Twitch. I usually ask them, and then they frown at me like, "Dad, what are you doing in makeup?"Stephanie:You can ask makeup stuff on Twitch? Wow. That might be a new-Julian:Yeah, it is. It's true.Stephanie:What do they ask?Julian:Well, they just find out ... They know everything from men's grooming, and they get targeted. And it's so funny, because the young one, he said, "Dad, what's manscaping?" I'm like, "Where did you learn that from?"Stephanie:We'll talk about that later.Julian:I'm learning about new projects and new things all the time.Stephanie:Oh my gosh. That's awesome. That could be a whole, new trend there. Go on Twitch. Ask the people. They'll let you know what all the trends are.Julian:That's right.Stephanie:What was an idea that you thought was brilliant but ended up failing?Julian:Oh, I've got so many of those. I'm trying to think of the one that's the least embarrassing.Stephanie:You have embarrassing?Julian:During COVID, I was like, wow. I was thinking about everyone is staying at home. Everyone is on these Zoom class, why doesn't people create comfortable clothes? Maybe I should start a pajama company. And I quickly had a handbrake on that. So, I didn't do that. But I've also done other things. What else did I do? I invested in a pool cleaning company back in the day, and that was my first, real investment. And I had a very big learning from that because I gave them all the money upfront. And the second day, he never showed up for work. I'm like, "Huh. That was a bad trade."Stephanie:Never saw that dude again? Oh my gosh.Stephanie:All right, what's up next on your reading list?Julian:On my reading list. I guess I'm a creature of habit. I think one of the books I wish I read 20 years ago, it was available, was Ray Dalio's Principles.Stephanie:Yes. So good.Julian:I think he gives you this honest look at yourself. It's very introspective. And tells you how to build teams. I recommend everyone in the world to read that book over and over and over again.Stephanie:Yeah. He's such an interesting person. All his philosophies, and I think yeah, he came and spoke at Google when I was there. And just how he thinks about rating his employees, have you read about this?Julian:Oh yeah, of course.Stephanie:You get a rating.Julian:I know.Stephanie:And if you're this level, you actually just probably shouldn't speak up until you get to this level, but everyone gets access to everything.Julian:I know. The scorecard is like a baseball card. I mean, but it gives you a very different perspective about radical transparency. And also, teaching you how to take constructive criticism in a positive way, knowing that collectively the information in the room will allow you to make better decisions.Stephanie:Yeah. Yeah. Love that book. Well, awesome. Well, Julian, I've loved having you on the show. If people are trying to get into China and they're looking for help, where can people find out more about you and SuperOrdinary?Julian:Yeah. We have a website, SuperOrdinary.co. Not .com. Thank you, whoever took that website away from us. We'll find you. Or, reach me on JulianReis, R-E-I-S, @SuperOrdinary.co. Really, thank you so much, Stephanie. You're wonderful. It's so nice to speak to you.Stephanie:Thanks so much. It's been awesome.

Traditional retailers are facing different levels of competition from all these new ecommerce brands that have popped up recently, and are now being held to new customer expectations that many predicted wouldn't occur for years. Because of the acceleration of digital platforms and online shopping over the last 18 months, brick and mortar stores are in a scramble to catch up or risk being  kicked to the curb. Helping retailers take charge of their digital transformation journey and get in on all of the online action is Sensormatic, which serves retailers with IoT technology to help them with things such as inventory intelligence and accuracy, gathering shopper insights, converting foot traffic, and more. Subramanian Kunchithapatham (KS) is the Vice President of Engineering at Sensormatic and he's been up close and personal with the brands as they implement the new technology that will allow them to compete in a digital world. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, KS tells us what he's been seeing in the world of retail and how he anticipates the industry changing in the coming months and years. For example, he gives us the scoop on how Sensormatic partnered with Intel to turn already-installed store cameras into an A.I.-powered Smart Hub — basically an intelligent store that can provide insights into occupancy, foot traffic, track inventory, and even provide a personalized experience for customers if they have opted in. Hear all about that solution and others on this episode!Main Takeaways:So Trendy: Retailers have a number of new trends to keep up with if they want to compete with ecommerce. Thanks to the rise of online shopping, consumers are experimenting with and discovering new brands more than ever before, which means the customer loyalty traditional retailers have enjoyed is crumbling. Additionally, when consumers do show in-store, they want to do more than just shop, they want an experience. Retailers have to adapt to meet these new expectations by offering new omnichannel and cross-platform shopping experiences to meet customers where they are.Train, Train, Train: To digitally transform any organization means that there has to be an investment of not just money, but time. Employees need to be trained on new technology and strategies for using the data you gather, and the A.I. or machine learning systems you put in place also need time to be trained on the types of data and information they should be gathering and presenting to create the most value.A Future Full of Livestreams: Recently, retailers have been experimenting with the concept of livestream shopping — a brand will livestream an event and promote items, and those watching the livestream can buy the items right from that screen. This type of interactive and streaming shopping experience is going to become more popular as technology continues to advance and as the younger generation pushes that expectation forward.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 there and welcome back to Up Next in Commerce, your number one show for all things commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO at mission.org.Stephanie:Today on the show, I have the pleasure of chatting with KS, who's the VP of Engineering for Sensormatic Solutions, part of Johnson Controls. KS, welcome.KS:Nice to meet you, Stephanie. How are you?Stephanie:Good. How are you?KS:Good.Stephanie:I'm really excited to have you on the show. I was looking through our doc and I'm like, "There's so much stuff that I want to talk to," because I haven't had too many people on the show, with a focus on retail, so let's dive right in. I want to hear, what is Sensormatic Solutions and what does your role look like, there?KS:Yeah. Sensormatic Solutions is a technology company serving retailers globally. We provide IoT technology for retailers. Right from the edge to the cloud, we have several solutions focused on retailers, on the loss prevention side. How to prevent theft in the store, and the inventory intelligence focused on inventory accuracy. Then shopper insights which is focused on what is the foot traffic and how are we converting the foot traffic?KS:The top of all those things, we recently launched a new retail platform called Sensormatic IQ. It's a connected intelligent operating platform that unifies several systems that we put out for retailers. In addition to that, it helps you to connect third-party systems as well as retailer systems.KS:That's the digital journey that Sensormatic has done, and that's what Sensormatic does for global retailers. My role is for product development. A lot of technology transformation within the company has been driven by me.Stephanie:Over these past couple of years, what does the transformation look like? Especially when it comes to retailers, now probably welcoming technology into their locations, where maybe a couple of years ago they're like, "Oh, do I even need this? You really have to convince me," where I feel like, now they have to transform really quickly. Stay up with all these new E-commerce brands. Figure out how to get access to the same kind of data that these B2C companies can get instantly. What does that transformation look like?KS:Yeah, if you really look at the retail industry per se, it's the most digitally disrupted industry, right? There are lot of digital transformation that was happening in retail, much before the pandemic actually. Almost every retailer was looking at digital transformation.KS:The primary reason is, more and more online sales happen. When you look at brick and mortar stores, how do you stay relevant in the brick and mortar space? Because of that there was digital transformation that was ongoing with most of the retailers.KS:The pandemic, what it has done is it has accelerated the digital transformation. Now if you really look at, because of the pandemic, you see more need for unified commerce and more need for self-checkout. They like to see that the store is more healthy and safe. Those kind of needs are driving now. Sensormatic as a company, we have operated for over 50 years and we have a very rich heritage of delivering innovative solutions to solve a retailer's best business problems.KS:Even now, as we are going through the pandemic, we are working on new, innovative solutions, right from sensors to systems to software and AI-based offerings. Looking at, how do we help the retailers handle that disruption that has cast in the industry, and come up with new offerings so that they can proceed with their digital transformation journey?KS:If you really look at shoppers today, what the pandemic has done is, most of the people who have never shopped online, they're forced to shop online. Now, once you start shopping online, you get used to shopping online.KS:Now when you start shopping online, now that is one thing, where the online shopping has increased. Second thing is, when you start shopping online, what you realize is, you may be loyal to your particular brand. Now suddenly you have many more choices. Because you're not going into the particular store and you're shopping online, you have many more choices.KS:Now people want to experiment. Because they want to experiment and it is easy for them to experiment, there is a shift in loyalty that's happening, actually. That's causing troubles for some of the retailers, when people want to shift from their brand to another brand.KS:The other trend that you see among the shoppers is, no longer, shoppers want to really come to store and then only shop. They expect retailers to meet, wherever they want to shop, however they want to shop. Whatever time they want to shop, you need to meet them at their convenience, and not a shopper coming into the store and making.KS:Some of these trends, what happens is, for you to address some of these trends, then every retailer needs to adopt technology at a faster pace. If you have to shop anywhere you want and then, any time you want and then, any place you want. Then you want that item to be delivered to you, or you wanted to come and pick it up from the store, we call it as buy online and pick in store.KS:If you have to enable that, the retailers need to embrace the technology. If they don't have the technology embraced then they cannot deliver that kind of a customer experience. When you don't deliver the customer experience, then the shoppers are going to shift loyalty and go to whichever retailer who can provide that experience.Stephanie:How do you make sure retailers aren't, maybe scrambling to keep up, because I'm thinking, a lot of times if a brand or a big company's lacking or falling behind, and then they start just grasping for everything. "Whatever technology's out there, I'm just going to do it all."Stephanie:Often times, maybe some of those are just fads. How do you guide retailers on, "This is something you're going to need for the next 10 years. This is the way of the future versus this, maybe you don't need virtual reality for everything right now. Maybe that's a fad and it's only for certain brands"? How do you guide them around what's important?KS:Yeah. Actually you can divide it into two parts. One is on the shopper's side, if you really look at it. If I'm a shopper and I want to shop anywhere and everywhere I want, now increasingly, you see that retailers are adopting a messaging app-based shop.KS:If I'm on the Snapchat and messaging to you, by the way, on the side, I'll be able to shop. Even on the messaging app-based shopping, there are one of the retailers, Levi's who recently launched a Bitmojis. All the emojis, they call it as Bitmojis.KS:They dress up the Bitmojis based on the Levi's collection. As you are in the messaging app, you can pick something and then shop. That's on the shopping side where they're looking at, "How do I leverage technology to go shop?"KS:When it comes to back end, once I shop, then whatever item I shop, and if I say that I'm going to come to this store near my home and pick it up from that store, that item should be there in that store. You don't want to have your inventory accuracy. If you don't have all the right information correctly available, the shopper, when he or she comes to the store, they're not going to find the item.KS:We call this as a precision retail. Sensormatic side, having all the technology that will enable the shopper to get the best experience when they go do the shopping, either in online. If they can do the shopping online, and come to the store and pick it up, or you go to the store and order it, and it gets delivered to the home.KS:The retailers need inventory information, accurately for them to deliver the best experience for the shopper. The technology that enables that, we call it as precision retail, because if you don't have very precise information in the retail operations today, you'll not be able to enable a better customer experience.Stephanie:What are some of the things that you think are pretty basic, that all retailers should have? Inventory management seems like a no-brainer. Also, seems like something a lot of retail locations struggle with. What are some of the other things that's, you need to have these five things to succeed?KS:Yeah. I would say that, definitely accurate inventory is a must. You cannot survive without having accurate inventory. Also, a easier way of meeting the customer wherever they are. If you have to meet the customer wherever we are, you need to provide multiple channels for me to shop with you.KS:I should be able to shop from my mobile app, or I should be able to shop from my desktop, or I should be able to come to the store and shop. I should be able to experience. If it is an experiential items, people would like to come to the store, have a very good experience of the item, then make the purchase process easy. Some of those technologies will become important.KS:The next one would be self-checkout and mobile checkout. It has become more prominent now because customers do not want to touch, they do not want to interact with the people. They would like to come in, look at the item, and then purchase and have a frictionless checkout. Frictionless checkout becomes an important technology implementation for retailers to learn.KS:If you take it little bit as part of an experiential store, you need the higher technology in terms of, you need to have much better bandwidth in the store, for you to have a good, digital experience. 5G technology will play a bigger role.KS:Also, experiential stores will have to provide more appropriate content and more appropriate digital experience and digital engagement in the stores. Digital engagement technology is going to be more important.KS:I forgot to touch upon, when I said inventory accuracy, you cannot get to a better inventory accuracy without having an RFID-based solution, at least in apparel retail and some of the other retail categories as well. RFID plays a important role in getting to a higher level of inventory accuracy. RFID technology will play a big role.KS:If you go further, there are going to be other technologies in the supply chain, and back of the store operations. You'll see that robots are playing a role. Not every store and not every category of the retailer will be able to leverage, but there are certain categories, robots will play a bigger role.KS:Then the technology that will enable ease of last mile delivery and then confirmation to the customer. For customer who are ordering online, they're getting delivered with one stroke. Again, that becomes very important.Stephanie:Awesome. What are some of the things that hold retailers back from doing this, because I know when I was talking with Joe from Intel, he was saying, "RFID can solve a lot of problems. Also, retailers, it's hard to get them to do that. There's so many solutions all around, but it's hard to get them to actually implement the technologies, to track the inventory, to track traffic, whatever it may be." What's the pushback?KS:Yeah. I would not call it as a pushback. I would say that most of the retailers, if you're a brick and mortar stored-based retail, and today, you have lot of business processes, well-defined in the store. How do you operate?KS:Now when you implement a RFID-based technology for getting a better inventory accuracy and better tracking of merchandise movement in the supply chain as well, now they need to change a whole lot of business processes on the retail side.KS:When they have to change business process, that means it's a change management in the organization. They need to manage that change more carefully and they need to retrain their employees with the new changed approach on how they are operate.KS:All those things takes lot of effort, and it costs money to get the employees trained as well as, and it also takes time to implement the technology. They need more tech-savvy associates also, in the store. All those things will require effort and money.KS:Whichever retailer has gone forward, and we make life easier for many of the retailers who wants to pursue RFID-based inventory implementation. I would say that you got a retail industry experts in our organization who can help the retailers to navigate this process very less painfully. Then we can help in, how do you transform the business process? How do you go about implementing it? What are the best ways to do it?KS:We bring in lot of best practices in the industry, to help with the retailer, and that's how we solve. We do have many customers whom we have really helped go through this transformation, and then migrated them to RFID-based inventory.Stephanie:What are you most excited about? When it comes to all the things you just listed, what are you really passionate about, that when you talk to a retailer you're like, "This is the way forward"? What excites you most?KS:Yeah. I would say that, it's really, look at AI technology today, it has disrupted every industry, not just the retail. I'm really fascinated about how it is getting adopted within retail.KS:If you really look at it, in the past, almost all the retail stores, retailers have implemented loss prevention security cameras. These are IP cameras for security surveillance. That's what it was used for.KS:Now suddenly with the advancement of AI technology, now you can leverage the existing IP cameras in the store, and then put in ... They call it as a Smart Hub. We partnered with Intel and developed an AI edge IoT box, an appliance. We call it as Smart Hub. That box, you put it in the store, connect all the camera streams to that store. Now suddenly the store becomes the most intelligent store.KS:You can do whole lot of use cases and whole lot of pain points which you can solve for the retailer. For example, given the pandemic time, we looked at, during the pandemic we partnered with Intel. We have been partnering with Intel for almost two years, and we accelerated this development with Intel and started developing occupancy tracking solution.KS:People wanted to have reduced number of shoppers in the store. They wanted to have mask compliance. People should be wearing mask. Then all of the shoppers should be maintaining social distance. All these things are new mandates, and the retailers wanted to maintain the health and safety of the store.KS:We quickly accelerated our AI partnership with Intel and developed this occupancy, social distance and mask detection solution in that while. Not only that, now that we have our Smart Hub, the Intel-powered Smart Hub, that Smart Hub enables you to develop lot more use cases.KS:Now if you are a loyal shopper to the retailer, and if you've opted in and if you're a loyal customer for that retail store, now since you've opted in, the moment you enter the store, I know that, "Hey, Stephanie is walking into the store. She is the most VIP customer. I need to handle her better. I need to address her needs better."KS:We can go and alert an associate to go address to Stephanie because she's a VIP customer. That's one option, one example, I'm saying. This opens up lot more newer use cases and newer ways of engaging the shoppers in the store, just leveraging the existing security cameras.KS:If you really look at other AI technology, all these stores have whole lot of sensors, and these sensors generate data. We put whole lot of sensors from Sensormatic. We generate lot of data. We generate data from inventory. We generate data about strength. We generate data about foot traffic, plus we have lot of camera-based, vision-based data.KS:Now, combining all this data, again we can apply artificial intelligence on the top, machine learning models on the top and deliver very, very prescriptive insights to the retailer. That's the direction we are headed now.Stephanie:I'm imagining a dashboard where you plug in a lot of your cameras. You're getting these insights. What would that dashboard look like for a retail worker who could just go up and look. It's like, "Okay, you need to close the door. You're at capacity, or you need to go and restock this one thing right now"? What does that look like, behind the scenes?KS:Yeah. Actually, take the example of an occupancy. If the retailer can specify, what are the allowed occupancy you want to permit in the store, and then configure that in the system. Then the cameras of the entry and the exit can keep counting how many people are walking in. We can also put a display at the entrance. It can show a red or a green indication.KS:Green means, the shopper can go in, and the red means, shopper cannot enter until it turns green. That's a simple indication. What happens is, there's whole lot of dashboard. Once you have all these data, you can create a whole lot of dashboard and provide.KS:More and more if we look at retail, they don't have enough resources to take care of the store efficiently. The pandemic has put lot more demand on their associates, to do more work, because they need to ensure the health and safety. They need to take care of several other things in addition to their job, which they used to do before.KS:Now nobody has so much time to look at dashboard and come to a decision. We saw this need, much ahead and that's where we have put together a strategy and executed our strategy to launch the Sensormatic IQ platform.KS:Now what happens is, as part of our platform journey we can take all this data. We can apply artificial intelligence, machine learning models and predict what is going to happen. Then once you predict what's going to happen, then we can prescribe an action. That prescriptive action, we can deliver it in the retailer's handheld device or any form, where we can push it to the device saying that, "Hey, now your back door is open, or your fire entrance is locked," or something like that.KS:If you see that in this particular hour ... Let's say I have the historical data of this street. From the historical data I can tell you that in this particular hour, there is a possible organized retail crime can come and hit this store at this point in time.KS:I can send an alert to this retail as a protection manager saying that, "Hey, you're likely to get hit with an ORC crime today. You may want to take a preventive action, and these are the possible preventive actions you can take." You can prescribe exactly, where the retailers need not look at the dashboard and deduce that information and come to that conclusion.Stephanie:Well, that's good. It seems like it would be so difficult to come up with prescriptive outcomes for retailers. I'm thinking about these models that you built in the background, and you've got one that has seasonality. You have another one's being hit by the pandemic in a bad way. The other one's in a good way.Stephanie:How do you think about training these models in the back end, so it works for everyone and gives outcomes that's not just being trained on false data that's, maybe a little blip?KS:It's a very good question actually. Now what happens is, there can't be two differences. Not every retailer will have the same model. The nature of AI itself is like that. You need to retrain the model based on the context.KS:It's not a long time. You take two to three weeks of training in that environment. Collect data and retrain the model for that outlet. That is one. That's bound to happen, when you deploy it. The other thing is, other interesting thing you'll see is, take the example saying that, for retailer A, I say that, "This particular hour, you're likely to get a ORC, crime event happening."KS:Retailer A and retailer B, both are likely to get hit with an ORC at a particular time, but retailer A might respond to that differently. They may want to respond to that differently, whereas retailer B might be want to respond to the same prediction differently.KS:One might say, "Hey, I want to shut down that entrance for an hour." I'm just telling hypothetically. Another might say, "I want to push all the high-value items that are closer to that entrance, to the back of the store." You can take two different actions for the same prediction.KS:That's why any prescriptive action we work on, we need to work closely with a retailer to understand what is their context. For that context, how do you have to respond, and then put that prescription into the implementation for them. It has to be a joint coworking with a customer to make it happen, actually. To make it successful.Stephanie:Yeah. Yeah. It seems like every retailer needs an in-house data scientist who can plug in a few inputs of, "Okay, we're running a local ad campaign this week. It's going to be very different. There's a parade coming on by. Everyone's going to want my Matcha tea."Stephanie:Being able to add their own little inputs that, maybe a model cannot pick up on. You always need human input into any kind of model.KS:Yeah. That's true.Stephanie:Yeah, but the training part seems tricky, when it comes to thinking about, how do you implement retail workers and make sure they're thinking in this data-oriented way? How do you train them? Seems like a hard problem for retailers.KS:Correct. That is where technology companies like ours can play a major role, I would say, that you have to take the complexity out of the retailer. Try to understand the context and then make it easier for them to embrace some of these new technology solutions. That's where we have to do all the heavy lifting, and support our customers.Stephanie:Cool. I want to talk a bit about ... I was reading an article about how you guys, and you were shifting the company from this hardware model, to moving to a more SaaS model with your products, but also Outcome as a Service model.Stephanie:I want you to touch on that a bit because I though it was super interesting. You hear the world where everyone wants to be a SaaS company, of course, right now. That's the way of the future, but the way you explained it, I thought was really unique and interesting about how it's outcome-oriented. I was hoping you can touch on that, a bit.KS:Yeah. Definitely, as I said, Sensormatic has been transforming our portfolio across the board, right from sensors to systems to software to cloud. We did do most of our hardware portfolio. We can ensure that, now, even if you have bought it in the past, we can go back to the customers, some of our old hardware.KS:We have a mechanism to connect our old hardware, IP-enable them and connect to the cloud. We have invested quite heavily in terms of, how do you IP-enable all the hardware and take the data to the cloud? That's done.KS:Now we do get the data for our loss prevention portfolio. We get the data for inventory, and traffic portfolio. Almost all of them have a SaaS offering, and we actively sell all our SaaS offerings in the market.KS:Now, we also built a data lake on the top of all our SaaS offerings. Now, we get loss prevention inventory and traffic data coming into the common data lake. Now that I have the data, which I can correlate between traffic to inventory or traffic to loss prevention. All those correlations, you can do and come up with predictions and then prescriptions as well.KS:There's still, all the SaaS offerings, like any other Software as a Service, we deliver that. When you talk about predictive prescriptive offerings, now what we can do is, the example, previously I gave. You don't want the retail associate to spend time analyzing the data and trying to keep the business context in mind. Then try to solve whatever is the business problem that he has to solve.KS:The only way the retail associate is going to solve the business problem is by taking an action. That action is an outcome, and it's for a business outcome. We will be able to go, analyze the data on behalf of our customers. Based on their context, by taking their contextual input and then come up with a predictions and prescriptions that are specific to that particular customer.KS:When they act on those prescriptions, they're going to get a business outcome. So you can ensure that whatever business outcome they are trying to solve, you can enable that using our technology.Stephanie:Got it. Very cool.KS:When you're able to do that, you call that as an Outcome as a Service, where you say that, "Okay. Now I'm not talking about technology. I'm not talking about SaaS. I'm just going to deliver a set of outcomes, and then that's what you're buying from us. For us to deliver that outcome, we have to use several sensors, systems, software, AI model, everything, to get to that outcome."Stephanie:Yeah. I love that. I think of so many different consumer SaaS companies where it's like, you buy it, you get into this subscription. I'm locked into a year. Then it's like, you don't really use it. Sometimes you don't even know how to.Stephanie:I think of some of these big BI tools where you get in there and you're like, "I don't ..." Then you're locked in. It's so nice, entering into a mindset of, "I'm going to actually have something that shows me a solution right away, how to act on it. I don't have to put on my data hat and start analyzing it and figuring out correlations. I'm going to have something at least guiding me on where to even start thinking about that," which is awesome.Stephanie:Do you see any new shifts or things popping up right now, in the world of retail that, maybe you weren't even expecting a month or two ago?Stephanie:You're like, "These are some new requests that are coming in from clients, where they're trying to understand X, Y or Z, or they're trying to understand this new omnichannel world." Is there anything new that, now you're like, "We need to build this. We need to get on this right now"?KS:Yeah. I would not say as it's directly coming from the client, and I will just tie it back to the shopper behaving trends that we are seeing. How that's going to be the norm in future, and then how it'll shape the retailer.KS:If you really look at it, everybody is looking for a unified experience. I should be able to buy online, and then pick it up in store, or curbside pickup.KS:Now, BOPIS and curbside pickup, we see that many shoppers, for the first time, they experimented with buying online and picking it up from store or curbside pickup. We have seen some surveys, one from Sensormatic, one from NRF and another from McKinsey. All these surveys indicate that more and more shoppers will go for BOPIS or curbside pickup-based fulfillment.KS:This is going to be a norm. You'll have to support it. not everybody is implementing it today, but you'll see that more and more retailers are going to go and implement that way. The other thing, other interesting trend we have seen during the pandemic is livestream-based shopping, where you do a livestream of an event. Then as part of the event, you wear all the fashion clothes that you want to promote. Then people who are watching the livestream can click on the items and then they can make a purchase.KS:Okay, now we saw Walmart do in partnership with TikTok. We saw also, Nordstrom do an event like that. More and more retailers are experimenting with the livestream. I believe that in future, more and more retailers will try to embrace this livestream-based shopping, more than what you see today. I can only dole out some examples now, but one or two years down the line, you're going to see more and more happening in that side.KS:The other area, also catching up is, there are retailers who had big format stores. They are shrinking the format to the smaller format, or experience-only stores. You don't see many doing that, but you see few retailers doing that.KS:The experience-only stores, you have items you'll not be able to buy. You'll not be able to pick the item from the store. You can go to the store, you can experience the item, touch and feel. There will be lot of digital experience to augment that.KS:Then at the end of that experience, if you decide you want to buy it, you place the order. The item will get delivered to your home. That's an experience-only store. That's another concept that's just picking up.Stephanie:Yeah, but the shipping has to be good on that, because to me, I feel like so many shoppers are like me, where they need it quick. If I'm going shopping somewhere, I'm like, I probably want it that day. I love the idea of, the inventory's there for you to try on and see what fits, and get the experience, but I also want it that day, if possible. One-day shipping. Is that so much to ask?KS:I get it. Yeah, I think there are some who'd like to experience, and then they're okay to get it delivered to home. On the same day, if it gets delivered, that's again, that's why we call it a precision industry. They have all the inventory. If they have everything readily available in that area, they may be able to deliver few on the same day. Right-Stephanie:Yeah.KS:... if they go down this path. Smaller format is like, again, bring in more digital experience. Don't consume too much space, and provide a more digital experience. Then stock and operate with a smaller format. That's another trend that's happening.Stephanie:Yeah, which is nice because it feels like there's a lot more opportunity to beta test and see what could work at a much smaller scale than, maybe a couple of years ago, where these retailers are like, "Go hard. Open up a big shop. Have all this inventory." Then they're like, "Darn, didn't really predict that well. This might not be the perfect location for it, or there's not as much foot traffic as I might have thought, because Blue Bottle just went out of business," or whatever it might be.Stephanie:It's nice to be able to have a little testing ground, and then pivot if needed. Consumers are actually okay with that model, I would think, where, maybe back in the day, they weren't.KS:Yeah, yeah. Also, you see another interesting trend that's happening is, now for retailers who are embracing the omnichannel experience where their shoppers can buy online. They're converting some of the stores into a fulfillment store. That's what led to BOPIS.KS:Another trend you'll see is dark stores, where they're converting some of the stores to be, completely a fulfillment center.Stephanie:Yeah.KS:There is no store experience there. You only go to that store to pick the item that you've ordered and then walk out, actually. That's another trend that's happening actually, to support the unified commerce experience.Stephanie:Yeah. What kind of industries do you think are fit to pull that kind of model, because I feel like there are some stores where ... Is there ever a good experience when you go on to certain stores you're like, "It's probably a hard no for this kind of store. I just need to get what I need to get"?Stephanie:What kind of industries do you think, it would work well to just have your store as a fulfillment center versus the Urban Outfitters of the world, you need the full on experience?KS:I think if you really look at, Whole Foods converted one of their stores into a dark stores.Stephanie:Wow. Whole Foods is an experience though. How could you do that?KS:The problem is, it depends upon what you are comfortable purchasing online, without experiencing. Then if you have that, then you can go and pick it up. You know all your standard items, what you normally buy, and you have experienced it already.KS:Now you don't want to waste time going into the store. You just order it. I don't want to waste time and go pick it up, and walk out.Stephanie:Got you.KS:There are items that are very standard. There's nothing much to experience, go down this path. There are items that you have experienced once. Now you like it and you don't want to change anything. You're certain about it. Go order and just pick it up. Those are the areas where it'll pick it up.Stephanie:Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Do you think live streaming is actually going to penetrate the U.S., because I still just don't ... I feel like, actually, people here are getting burned out from live stuff. Clubhouse was big, everyone liked it. Now everyone's like, "Oh, so much work. I have to be on the entire time. I have to think hard and really jump on that deal, if it is live."Stephanie:It just feels like we all got in this stressful rat race of everything live. Now it seems like people are pulling back to the more, at least TikTok. Little bit more preplanned, Instagram, Pinterest, of really think about and be more mindful about their purchases.KS:Correct.Stephanie:Do you think that's coming here?KS:It is coming here. I feel that the Gen Z, even today, it is ... If I go to my son who is 18 years old, I can never take him to a retail store. They still prefer to shop everything online. They would like to see it online.KS:For a certain segment of shoppers, there may be a segment of shoppers who'll still be interested in shopping through livestream or shopping through the app. There will be certain shoppers who still feel comfortable, because we all grew up in an age of going to the store, and experiencing it and buying it.KS:We are more in need for a socially, going out and interacting and getting it. Such shoppers will continue to go to the stores, but there will be a segment of shoppers who'll continue to buy through livestream. Even if everything becomes normal, 100% of stores are open worldwide, there may be a segment of shoppers who'll shop, I feel.Stephanie:Okay. Yeah, that'll be interesting to watchStephanie:All right, well, let's shift over to the lightning round, if we can. The lightning round's brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud.Stephanie:This is where I ask you a question, and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready? Yeah.Stephanie:Okay. What's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?KS:Oh. Anybody who helps me. I grew up in a world of gratitude. Anybody who does any remote help, I feel nice about it. Even small things, I feel very nice about it actually. It may not be a bigger thing.Stephanie:Okay.KS:There are a lot, actually, if you really ask me.Stephanie:All right.KS:I would say, I'm blessed. Every day, I get so many gifts in terms of people helping me.Stephanie:I love that. What's one thing your kids have taught you, that made you shift your idea on E-commerce or retail? You talked about live streaming, but what else have they taught you recently, that you're like, "Whoa, mind-blowing. Never would have thought about it that way, but you're 18, so you know everything"?KS:Yeah. If you ask me, I cannot buy a shirt or a pant without getting a feel for the cloth or fitting. Without getting a feel for the apparel. My kids will not even blink their eye in terms of ordering it. By looking it online, and ordering it online.KS:Even after they receive it, and if it's not good, they don't mind quickly returning it as well, actually. I find that as a hassle, but I learned from my kids that, it's a way of life. The first time I could sense that E-commerce is going to get adopted in a big way was from my kids, I would say.Stephanie:Yeah, that's great. What's one thing, or piece of technology that you don't understand today, that you wish you did?KS:The technology of 5G as well as, currently, people are talking about 6G. I used to work in a telecom industry. I used to play close attention to these two technologies. The pace in which 5G took, caught me by surprise. Then I had to go catch up.KS:Now I'm getting tuned to all the 6G news which people are pushing. Now I'll pay more attention so that I don't do the same mistake I did with 5G.Stephanie:How do you stay on top of all of the E-commerce trends? What do you read? What do you listen to? What do you do each day, to stay on top of that?KS:Yeah. I subscribe to a lot of ... Now today, gathering information is not a problem at all. I subscribe to all kinds of thing. You get McKinsey, Deloitte, Sears-based retail and so many other retail subscriptions and technology subscriptions.KS:Best time for me to catch up on that is mostly in the weekends. I spend couple of hours looking at all the things. That's how I catch with the technology and the trends.Stephanie:Well, KS, this has been such a fun interview. Where can people find out more about you and Sensormatic Solutions?KS:Thank you. Thank you, Stephanie. It's a pleasure talking to you. Hope to talk to you again.Stephanie:Yeah, yeah. Tell me where people can find you though? Where should people look up Sensormatic Solutions?KS:People can find me in LinkedIn, and the company, Sensormatic Solutions' webpage as well, they can find me.Stephanie:Amazing. Thanks so much.

That first online sale plus the first time a retailer agrees to carry your product are always exciting. But when you can't meet the demand of your online customer base or your design process is slowed and shipments are delayed, that's when the headaches come twofold. But when your mission, and your product, is something you truly believe in and think can leave a lasting impact, you take all the good with the bad and keep on pushing forward. For Stojo, a company that produces collapsible, leak-proof cups and containers, there have been wins and losses of every kind, and CEO Jurrien Swarts has been riding the waves as his company tries to get a piece of a $22 billion industry. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Jurrien takes us through what it has been like to design, launch, and distribute Stojo's game-changing product. Plus, he guides us through how difficult it is to scale and market a business, and what it takes to make hard choices like laying off and rebuilding a staff. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Digging the Design: When it comes to delivering a product out to the market, it has to work in a number of different ways. The internal team needs to be invested in the design and believe in that product, but you also have to be willing and able to take outside feedback from customers in order to iterate and expand. Find stakeholders who can contribute in meaningful ways and trust them to keep making the product better.Punch Above Your Weight: Sometimes you have to get scrappy and find ways to compete without the help of big budgets or a ton of staff. In these instances, there are avenues to explore that offer high returns for very little investment as long as you can find the right partners. Influencer marketing is one of those areas and, when small companies make the right connections, they can compete at or above the level of any big brand.Sharing is Caring: In the past, it was uncommon and even frowned upon to share information, best practices, financials, or anything else that could be seen as a competitive advantage. The younger generations, though, value transparency and many DTOC and DTC brands that are run by millennials and Gen Z are embracing the idea of information sharing in order to help themselves become more data-driven.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. I'm your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO at mission.org. Today, I'm chatting with Jurrien Swarts, the co-founder and CEO of Stojo. Jurrien, welcome.Jurrien:Hey. Thanks for having me.Stephanie:I'm excited to have you on. I was looking through Stojo a bit and your background. What was very interesting to me... You can tell me if this is wrong, but I saw a quote where it's like you and your co-founders were reading 4-Hour Workweek and that's how this came about, which to me was wild because everyone's read 4-Hour Workweek, but I've never actually heard of someone creating a company based off that model. I wanted to hear a bit about what was going on back then. Tell me the whole story.Jurrien:It's kind of wild. I was at Credit Suisse and had a colleague. He was actually my manager. We got into this habit of going for runs every day during our lunch hour and we had this two-guy reading book club going. One of the books that we eventually got to was Tim Ferriss' 4-Hour Workweek.Jurrien:If you read it, you could either create something because you're a creative, which today I'll call myself a creative but at the time, I was like, "I'm not a creative. I can't sing. I can't write. I can't..." They were like, "But you can also make something, preferably in China," I think was the guidance. I said, "Well, I speak Chinese. I've always had a thing for product and design. Just personal interest. Why don't we see if we can come up with one of those?"Jurrien:So we started to brainstorm and a few weeks after having read the book, or even maybe a month, Alex comes in and he goes, "I got the perfect idea. How about a collapsible coffee cup that goes in your pocket so it's easy to take with you on your commute and travel?" I was like, "That's not a great idea." I didn't really like it. I was just like, "Whatever."Jurrien:Another couple weeks pass by and I was actually in the shower, where I have a lot of aha moments. What's funny is the more I talked to other founders and other people, a lot of people have a place where they have their aha moments. For me, it's driving on the interstate long-haul between home to whatever or in the shower.Jurrien:I had a vision of my grandmother's daycare setup where she used to have the dishwashing rack. She'd always have the baby bottles lined up, taken apart. If you're familiar with those, they have a plastic reservoir, a plastic collar and a silicone nipple. It creates a leakproof type of seal with the screw on. I realized that if I took a collapsible dog bowl or [inaudible] type cup and put a lid on it like that, we actually could create this leakproof coffee lid that would actually help make this thing work.Jurrien:When I had that discovery, did some sketches and figured out that "Hey, we're on to something here." That's how it all started. That was 2011.Stephanie:So let's get back to your aha moment in the shower. You're like, "I know how to create a collapsible cup that won't leak." What did the process look like after that?Jurrien:Again, dating it 2011, '12. Rapid prototyping was just becoming a thing. They had things like the first 3D printers, et cetera. When you're making a durable good, you have the industrial design thing, you have the CAD files that have to get developed. When we went and priced that out, we were getting quotes of $30,000 to get to a prototype and maybe one or two iterations, way beyond the budget of what are significant others were going to allow us to spend. My co-founder, Alex Abrams, was the guy that I worked with at Credit Suisse. When we got that price tag, we knew there was no chance that our wives were going to sign off on that. We were just like, "Okay, this is done."Jurrien:A month later, Alex is at a Halloween party with his kids and he runs into Ben Melinger, who he was a fraternity brother at UPenn with. Ben had been a consultant and quit that job to work on a concept he had for a water bottle. He self-taught himself how to do CAD drawings.Jurrien:We said, "Ben, how's that water bottle going?" He's like, "I don't really know how to get it launched," et cetera. "Well, we have a project for you if you're interested." He said, "Sure," and so we made him an even partner. He did the CAD for the free, and then we started prototyping. That's how we took it to the next level.Jurrien:I guess for anybody who wants to do a product design thing, if you don't have the money for a designer and industrial engineer and you could expect to spend anywhere from 20 to $50,000 just to get that design work and prototyping done, find a co-founder who can industrial design and bring them in. It's the best way to do it because there's going to be countless iterations. You want somebody who's really vested in the product to make sure that what you come up with is really exceptional, and it's not just somebody who's doing it as a consulting gig and just wants to check it off their list and move on to the next project.Stephanie:I was going to ask, then, about how do you view... Especially maybe back in 2011, it's definitely probably newer but now, it seems like everyone is doing that, launching [inaudible], getting prototypes quickly. Do you feel like it's in a different place now, where you can maybe just go on an Upwork and hire someone to create 20 different designs for you? Do you think the world is different now where you might not actually need to find a co-founder?Jurrien:Yeah, I definitely think that. I mean, I think the power of Upwork and 99designs, things like that, is that it's open to folks who are living in areas of the world that are much cheaper to live in, and so you can actually get incredibly work out of Eastern Europe, out of parts of Southeast Asia, Asia. I've definitely gotten lots of help there.Jurrien:It comes down to your aesthetic and your attention to detail and your ability to curate and manage that process. But for anybody starting out, I'd say go for it. What do you got to lose other than some time and money? Usually, you get really good learnings from that stuff. I think that's totally a viable place to go. The other one is if you're college age or recent graduate and you had an engineering school in your school, you might have people that you can find that way as well who'd like to do it just for portfolio building, or just maybe you want to start a company together.Stephanie:Love that. What was your first sale like? Do you remember getting that first sale?Jurrien:Well, yeah. We had two first sales, if you will. We're an omni-channel business. We have our website and we do Amazon, and then we sell to brick and mortar retailers.Jurrien:The first sale was when we launched our Kickstarter in June of 2014, when we got that first backer and then the euphoria around that, having created a product, done a video, put together a campaign and then pressed Go was... It was really, really incredible.Jurrien:And then what was the fun thing about that was we went from zero dollars and passed our goal of 10,000 prior to midnight that same day. That was really great. Ultimately, we did... I think it was $128,000 on Kickstarter, so 12, 13 times what we'd set out to raise, which was... We needed the 10K to cover the tooling. That was really exciting.Jurrien:And then when we actually went commercial... So I left my job at Credit Suisse in the summer of 2015. The coolest thing was when the MoMA Design Store buyer came and found us somehow—probably through Kickstarter—and asked for samples. And then they actually bought our cup, and so we were being sold in the MoMA Design Store. It's like our first retail relationship. That was really special, as somebody who cares about art and design.Stephanie:That's awesome. So then after you were there, is that how other stores... You're in Anthropologie, I think Whole Foods. Is that how they found you, by just having that first retail customer, or did-Jurrien:No.Stephanie:... you get those partnerships in other ways?Jurrien:I mean, that was a slog. 2015 until May of 2018, I was a one-man band. My co-founders kept their day jobs and were involved in various ways, but for all intents and purposes, I was the one that I was all in. I had to learn and teach myself every aspect of the business.Jurrien:Frankly, I wasn't very good at the sales part of it. We got a little stop-start with Bed Bath, but our packaging wasn't quite right. We had supply chain issues just because of cash flow. We didn't have the right merchandising.Jurrien:It took bringing on a professional consultant, who's actually still with us today, is great, who really knew the retail category and specifically hydration and coffee tumblers. It's a pretty big category in the US. It's like a 22 billion-dollar segment.Stephanie:Wow.Jurrien:If you think about it, every major retailer, gas station, dollar store, every store is selling hydration. Getting somebody who really knew how that worked and then just slogging it out for a bunch of years, going to the trade shows, getting press where you can, evolving our product... We started with a 12-ounce cup, which was great for New York City-based commuter who goes to the corner deli and gets the 10 or 12-ounce cup of coffee that's the standard coffee in New York City. It also really works out really good for the UK, Australia, countries where they drink smaller beverages. But guess what? In the US, most people drink 16 or 20 or 24-ounce coffees. Our cup actually wasn't really optimized for scaling in the United States.Jurrien:It took until 2018 until we introduced what we call the biggie, the 16-ounce cup, and we added a straw because southern part of the country actually drinks a lot of sweet tea, iced tea, iced coffee for most of the year. Moving away from a hot-only, small, single-serve cup of coffee to something that's more common to the US market, that really helped propel us.Jurrien:And then we also moved away from... We started with some really primary colors. When I decided I was going to start a brand and really grow Stojo into something, I really liked how S'well approached the market. The way that I saw that play was they went hard after a very certain demographic, the [inaudible], female, millennial, Gen Z consumers. I saw that we could probably do something like that.Jurrien:Being in New York City, Brooklyn, I thought that's a pretty natural fit for me to target that demographic and try to have my sustainable product be almost like a fashion accessory. When we did that, that's when I think we started to appeal to the Anthros, the Madewells, the Food52s, the Whole Foods, et cetera.Stephanie:How did you go about that? Because I look at companies like S'well and a lot of the brands that are in Anthropologie and I'm like, "How they got there is so much through marketing." I mean, you can walk in maybe a TJ Maxx and see tons of S'well style [inaudible], stuff like that, where oh, looks pretty similar but the way they did it, like you said, attracted a certain kind of customer where it's like, "I'm a fan. I'm not going to [inaudible]."Stephanie:How did you go about it to become like that as well? What did you start implementing? What kind of marketing were you doing? What did that look like?Jurrien:A lot of it was, I think, just intuitive in the sense that since a very young age, I was always a consumer of brand. I liked brand. I would buy products based on their aesthetic, their utility, but also what the company's doing and saying.Jurrien:One of my favorite brands of all time was United Colors of Benetton. What appealed to me growing up in a really small northeastern mill town which was predominantly white, almost 99.9%, was seeing this just calico quilt of different representations of human beings and bright colors. Everybody in the photo shoots always looked like they were having a great time. I was just like, "Yeah, man. That's what I want in life. I want to be around beautiful, different people," et cetera. Jurrien:I think that always stuck with me. When it came time for me to helm my own brand, what I wanted to do... And I was also watching things like TOMS, Honest Company, looking at the Acumen Fund and their activities. I came from Credit Suisse where I was tangentially involved in a lot of socially-responsible investment activities for clients. I said, "You know what? I want to build a brand that does this, that's mission and purpose-driven."Jurrien:On the one hand, I have my sustainability message, and then I have control over the storytelling and the imagery that I want to put out there. What I want to do is appeal to people who want to support brands that they think are conducting themselves in society in the right way because it's the right thing to do and not because they have to do it or because it's the most expedient or the most profitable thing to do. I think that's the stand that I took, and then the rest was more... Because we're bootstrapped, I got a little bit more sophisticated in terms of the look and the feel of Stojo every year as I was able to hire people and bring on professionals. When we were shooting our own photography and I was doing my own graphic layout in PowerPoint, it's a very different look than when you start actually hiring designers and paying for photo shoots and then leveraging influencers, et cetera. There was an evolution.Stephanie:It seems like to build a brand like that, you have to rely pretty heavily on influencers. When I think about some of the brands that have really shot up recently, it does seem like that's one of the most strategic angles, to partner with someone who has your values and ideals and also the audience you want to reach. Is that a big part to your marketing playbook, or just a small part of it?Jurrien:It's huge. But interestingly, we've only really started intentionally and systematically, strategically, tactically flexing into that since, I'd say, August of last year. What happened was the height of the pandemic, we had to let go of half of our staff. We were about 20 people. We cut back to 10, to the most necessary. Really hard to do.Jurrien:But when we did that, one of the things that came from that was that we let go of our CMO, who was very high salary, recruited from a big place. The remit that he had was to help us scale this really quickly. We thought we were going to scale a lot faster than we ultimately did.Jurrien:When that all fell away, I just partnered up, actually, with my romantic partner, my life partner, Megan. She joined the team as a fractional CMO brand creative lead and she started implementing all these things.Jurrien:We were like, "What are we going to do with no budget? How can we do this? We got to get really scrappy. We don't have any money to spend. We have to be breakeven or profitable every month we can."Jurrien:The influencer strategy is one of those things that if your brand has the right market acceptance and fit and you can relate to the right individuals, it's a really, really interesting way to go. We've had a bunch of success there, but we're really still only getting started. But there's definitely a ton of brands that are those challenger brands that have done a lot of incredible work utilizing that. We're always watching what other people are doing and learning from it.Jurrien:Frankly, there's a lot of us who are starting to talk behind the scenes, management teams and making intros and talking to each other at roundtables and just sharing a lot of data and information. It's making us a lot more scrappy, successful. We're starting to punch above our weight, I think. A lot of DTOC brands are doing that.Stephanie:Yeah, because I was going to say it feels like the DTOC world is much more eager to share best practices and talk behind the scenes versus... I mean, we have podcasts covering basically all the C-suite and I hadn't really heard of a bunch of CMOs getting together and talking about best practices or the first 90 days, or CIOs. It seems like it's harder to do there, then all these new DTOC brands are like, "Let's all work together."Stephanie:How are you finding that community? Why do you think everyone's so eager to work together and share successes and failures?Jurrien:Well, I think it's structural and it's generational. If you got a big incumbent brand, they are recruiting from a very well-known set of folks in the C-suite. They've been doing what they're doing and it's working. They're sophisticated and they know their stuff.Jurrien:It works for them, given their size and scale. When you have billions of dollars in revenue and you're like, "My marketing budget is 10% of revenue," you know what you've got month to month, quarter to quarter. When you're a millennial or Gen Z-run brand, a lot of us just started doing it out of hey, happenstance from necessity.Jurrien:There's a lot of studies out there that if you're reading the blogs in Medium and LinkedIn and stuff like that that talk about... Even the New York Times, Wall Street Journal talk about how millennials are way more willing to share and talk about their personal finances, their negotiating tactics, how much they're making per salary, how much they paid for their house, their car.Jurrien:I think there's a lot of us understand that being transparent... And we kind of chatted about it a little bit about my personal approach to it before the show. When you share information with other people, if you're doing it to brag or whatever, that's one thing, and I think the older generation always thought that sharing is distasteful. You don't do it. It's not done.Jurrien:But I always ask, "Well, I don't know these things. You know these things. I'm asking because I'm trying to gather information and make data-driven decisions." DTOC brands and really good startups are all taking in data and tracking KPIs. They're making data-driven decisions. Not to say everything's data-driven, but there's a lot more of it.Jurrien:In our industry, everything's pretty opaque. I don't have the money to spend $10,000 for research on this one little thing, but I can certainly hop on a call, have a beer, share a coffee with somebody and just pick their brain.Jurrien:I think a lot of us are starting to do that. When you lead with vulnerability, transparency, authenticity—which these are all values we share and aspire to in our team, and it's part of what Stojo's about—and you say to somebody, "Hey. I don't know everything. I'm here to share anything you might need or want to ask but today, you have some information that I need. Would you be willing to share it? This is how I'm going to use it." 90% of the time, people are super thrilled to just be connecting on a real level and finding somebody that "Oh my God, this person respects me. They're a peer. I can help them and they can help me."Jurrien:It's a beautiful thing and it's really a metaphor for where we need to go as a society, is instead of thinking about everything as zero-sum games, just talking about how do we all get to happiness and balance and Shangri-La or whatever... I'm overstating a little bit, but this idea of just because I'm winning doesn't mean you have to lose. We can all win. We're going to be around for a long time. Who knows? Maybe one day, we'll collaborate together on something, et cetera.Jurrien:I try to foster that as much as I can. I really encourage people who are on the fence about hey, will this make me look weak or naïve or whatever, don't let that get in the way. Just think about what you have to gain, which is information that you didn't have before you asked the question and took that chance. What do you have to lose? Somebody that you don't really know is going to, I don't know, talk about you or-Stephanie:Not respond?Jurrien:Yeah, exactly. Or say no. I think training yourself to do that is part and parcel with becoming an entrepreneur and a leader.Jurrien:We shared our parenthood. The cool stuff about a lot of what happens in a startup environment and especially in me as a CEO, it's very similar to being a parent. You're kind of the CEO of the household. A lot of the stuff you're strong at or weak at extends to both areas of your life. You can actually get a lot of learnings and personal growth through comparing and contrasting methodologies and approaches at home and at work.Stephanie:I think there's not much of a separation between those two, especially now. The other day, I did this human design reading and test. Have you done this before?Jurrien:No, no.Stephanie:You might like it.Jurrien:Sounds awesome. Tell me more.Stephanie:Essentially, it tells you, "This is the design of who you are and how you might operate." I'll send it to you afterwards, actually.Jurrien:Oh, please do.Stephanie:You would really dig it. You need to have someone who understands how to read it, but it was very applicable to life and with kids and your partner, and then also thinking about business. It was saying certain things to me that I think I never had words, of like I felt a certain way, but then when she went through and was like, "Oh, Stephanie, you are an unconscious alpha. You need to lead in this kind of way, but you don't feel like you should be an alpha." I mean, it sounds a little woo-woo, but everything she has gone through I was-Jurrien:No, it doesn't sound woo-woo at all.Stephanie:I was digging it. It made me rethink how I even thought about myself when it came to work and life and just how it's all one and how to approach it in a completely different way than five years ago where it's like keep it separate. Don't try and mingle them together. That's when it gets messy. It was great.Stephanie:I think that's where the world's headed. Certain people are trying to just adjust to that new way of thinking now and is this even okay. It's okay.Jurrien:I love that. Please share. When say that, it's interesting. There's a lot of dogma that we are raised with as children that worked for the prior generation, or maybe it didn't, and we're stress testing everything nowadays.Jurrien:The one good thing about all the information sharing and the putting everything out there is that you get to try and think about and discard things a lot faster. You don't have to be pretty about it. I think this rapid prototyping and hacks approach that started with startups is now spilling over into dieting... Or not dieting, just the way you eat, the way you live, the way you sleep, the way you relate to your family and friends. I think it's going to bring about some really rapid shifts in human consciousness for the better.Stephanie:I mean, the whole world is changing that way. I think that's where any bubbling up around... Even the US right now is having issues because people are starting to... They're meeting people 3,000 miles away. They're finding their community in different ways. It's not all just based off like, "I live here" anymore and we're the same within this one city. I mean, now people are thinking very different and finding their communities and having more of a voice by coming together more than we've ever had before.Stephanie:The whole world's changing so rapidly and people are trying to figure out, "How do I keep up with this? Do I stick with our roots of how my parents' parents' parents have always done it this way, or can I expand and do something different and live like a nomad and go where I want and find my people and have an impact on the world in a different way?"Stephanie:So tell me a bit about was there an inflection point with the sales at your company where it's like you were a solo person for a while, your other co-founders were working full-time, you were trying to build these partnerships and you're like, "I need a consultant that can help me with retail." When was there an inflection point where you're like, "Whoa. Now, we're off to the races. I need to hire. I need help"? And how many [inaudible]? What was that level when you're like, "Now, we're about to go fast and I need to hire [inaudible]"?Jurrien:Let me give everybody just a really high-level overview on what happened from 2014 to today. We raised capital on Republic, the crowdfunding site, so a lot of that information is public to the extent it's appropriate and stuff.Jurrien:So we were bootstrapped. I started with 125K from my family and a friend, just a small little check to get started, plus the 128K that we did on Kickstarter. Before that, I think we each chipped in 10K. I think we had 20K and then we did the 128 capital raise. We did another failed, but 20K Indiegogo in 2016. Raised 125 in capital, then did a small bridge round before I raised my first round. I'll just lay that out because I think it's instructive and informative for people who don't come from the typical equity-raising background.Jurrien:In 2015, I had a half year of commerce. That was internet and online. We did about 200K in sales. The next year, we did 340,000. The next year, we did 405,000 or something like... I can't remember the exact numbers. This is all me by myself, so 2015, '16, '17.Jurrien:In 2018, we came back from some trade shows. The houseware show happens in the spring in Chicago and in Frankfurt. I actually got some international distributors. Suddenly, the orders started coming in from them because Asia and Europe were actually ahead of the curve over the US in terms of buying into sustainable, reusable products. We actually started getting distribution in foreign countries.Jurrien:The orders started coming in and there were too many. I'd just had my second child, who was not even a year. I wasn't getting sleep and I was just overworked, just dogging it. I had to hire a person.Jurrien:I hired Jake, our COO. He's still with us today. He came from MALIN + GOETZ. I brought him in. I interviewed him on a Friday and I had him at work on a Monday. I was like-Stephanie:Wow. When you know, you know.Jurrien:... "Dude, I need your help." Yeah. I just was like, "This is the guy. I want him in here." He started on Monday and he took over all these purchase orders that had come in.Jurrien:We thought we were going to do a million dollars in 2018. We ended up doing 2.7 million dollars in revenue.Stephanie:Wow, wow.Jurrien:That's when I was like, "Okay, I have a growth trajectory here that will look good enough to investors to try and raise a small C round." I did a pitch night at WeWork, where I was using their offices. We ended up getting I think second place in this pitch. They made a 75,000-dollar investment. With that, I was able to raise basically about 700K, which brought my lifetime capital raise to a million bucks.Jurrien:From there, we hired the team in 2019. I got somebody focused on sales and marketing. I got customer service. I got a designer. And then we ended up, at the tail end of the year, bringing on after we did not get picked to go on Shark Tank... Because we were holding for that to see if we got an investment. They passed on us, and so I decided, "Okay, I'm going to plow ahead and then beginning of 2020, I'm going to raise another round."Jurrien:We were able to get to 6.5 million in revenue, 6.5 or 6.7 in revenue in 2019, and had a team of 10. And then the plan was to raise our mini A or our next seed B or whatever you'd call it. We didn't really fit in a good category, but we're going to try and raise two to four million dollars at the next level evaluation.Jurrien:So I started hiring the team out. That's how from January to April 1st, we hired and we were at 20 people. We'd extended the last two offers right before the pandemic hit, and they were set to start on April 1. I think we gave them their offers the week before the pandemic hit. They were going to start two weeks later. We're up to 20 people and we're on a trajectory where we thought we were going to double revenue again. What in fact happened was we were unable to grow year over year in 2020.Jurrien:We'd hired a team that was supposed to preside over a 14 or 15 million-revenue company and we were going to be a six million-dollar revenue company again. We had to cut the staff. It was really, really difficult to manage through that. I'd never done that before.Jurrien:That's where we're at now. We're at the 10 people range. We're starting to hire again. We're pretty confident that we're going to have a doubling of revenue again this year. It's looking like a really strong year. We have some amazing launches coming up, et cetera. We're starting to build.Jurrien:What was kind of a blessing in disguise was that when we cut back the staff last year, we realized that what we really needed to be much more scrappy was a different kind of a team than I had envisioned. A year ago, I was one person. I'd never scaled before, never managed that many people, all these things.Jurrien:Today, where we are today is we know much more what we need, and we have agencies to fill the gaps where we don't have justification for a full-time head. Now, our forward-looking hiring plan is much more based on profitability, certain KPIs that we have and then just very real needs that we've already established because we have agencies and we're paying them X. We know when that expenditure gets to this, then we can justify a full-time head. There's a lot of great learnings from going through that, even though it wasn't easy.Stephanie:Sometimes I think those forced adjustments end up being the best learning... I mean, we had to go through the same thing at my company had to lay off half the team not due to COVID. It was back in 2019. At the time, it felt like the worse thing that could ever happen, crying on the phone. Most of these employees were my friends.Stephanie:But now, looking back and being like, "So many good lessons in that." [inaudible] how to hire, like you said. Do you actually need a full-time employee? How do you justify an FTE versus an agency versus having a one-off contractor? It ends up being a hard lesson but longterm, sometimes companies that go through this blitz are able to come out on the other side stronger than before.Jurrien:Very much agreed and actually, I'll call something out again, I think, for the benefit of any listeners who are those entrepreneurial-minded, startup type people shooting for the sky because I'm one of them. That's why I'm sitting where I sit. If you talk to investors, a lot of times investors are not those people. They're actually the pragmatists and the realists. They've literally seen thousands of businesses like yours do either one of two things. They're usually much more disciplined and pragmatic. I think a lot of times, COOs, CFOs, those type of people also tend to have those personalities.Jurrien:What ends up happening is as an entrepreneur who's like, "I just need to make sure that we don't stall. We got to get it done. I have to make a decision now so I can go on and do the other 50 things on my plate," a lot of times there's a lot of inefficiency in that decision-making process. It's just guessing. What has to happen over time is the company needs to be run less on the seat of the pants and less on intuition and much more on discipline and just time-tested tactics of sound business principles.Jurrien:That's what, at a very high level, happened to you in 2019 and what happened to me. As a founder going through that injects you with a sense of realism and it matures you.Jurrien:It gives you wisdom, I think, that prior to that, because everything was on the up, you didn't really have that. You didn't have time for naysayers. You were defying all odds. Now, it's like no, it's not just about my vision and me anymore. It's actually a company and I have a responsibility to all these people. Accounting principles are going to define whether or not I'm still a business a year from now. I have to listen to those.Jurrien:I think that's the shift that can happen. It's really powerful when you go through that lesson. Your company doesn't implode. You come out through the other side of it. Those are learnings you're never going to unlearn.Stephanie:Yep, yep. I also think the emotions lead the scene where it's like during the time, you're just like, "Horrible," crying, the worst. Thinking about it now, it's how I would even operate, it's like you just... It is a cut-and-dried thing. You've got good margins or you don't. You're profitable or you're don't. Here's your [inaudible]. If it's not there, it's not there. There's no amount of friendships and feel-good anything that's going to fix that-Jurrien:Exactly.Stephanie:... I think, was one of the one of the top lessons for me.Jurrien:That actually ties back to that point that I made: if you don't take care of yourself first, you can't take care of others. If the company isn't sound and it can't pay its bills and keep the lights on, you can't employ all these lovely people who of course depend on you and trust in you and rely on you. But you have to make decisions as the leader in ways that will keep the boat afloat or keep the greater good going. Sometimes, you unfortunately have to make decisions that aren't popular, you don't like, you feel terrible about. But it's not about that.Stephanie:Thousand percent agree with all of that. I know we are running out of time, but I want to do the lightning round with you because I think you're going to have some epic answers.Jurrien:Oh, geez. No pressure.Stephanie:Uh-oh. Lightning round's brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready?Jurrien:I think so.Stephanie:All right, first one. I'm secretly curious about what?Jurrien:What the profitability metrics are of the top 20 DTOC brands.Jurrien:The real deal on the numbers.Stephanie:That's a good one, I thought, though. Something wise my elders taught me was...Jurrien:To always make eye contact and listen to what the person's saying and give it a moment before you respond.Stephanie:That's a good one. You're very good at that. You made eye contact the whole time. Good job. What's up next on your reading list or on your podcast list? What are you diving into these days?Jurrien:Jesse Pujji did a podcast, Invest with the Best, I think it is, where he was talking about his approach to performance marketing. I've listened to it twice and I want to hear it again because it's so thick. That's one.Jurrien:Then there's this other podcast that I can share. I'm terrible with names and remembering things like that, but it was two of the original folks, the early hires at Amazon. They talked about the Amazon memo and narrative and the PR/FAQ approach. We're actually employing that at Stojo right now. Again, very incredible paradigm shift in the way of managing and sharing and presenting information and coming to decisions. So two things I'd highly recommend to people.Stephanie:Cool. I'll have to look that one up and drop it in our show notes. What do you when you want to feel more joy?Jurrien:I like a little bit of cannabis as a night cap and I really like to run.Stephanie:Nice. All right, and the last one. This may be a little bit different than cannabis, but same same. What's one thing that will have the biggest impact on e-commerce in the next year?Jurrien:Oh, that's funny. I think the battle of Facebook-Apple. I'm really interested to see what happens there, how we figure out how to continue with attribution and respect people's rights to privacy.Jurrien:My gut, if you think about the right thing, is we should attribute a commercial value to everybody's data. I as a individual should have the right to monetize and share that data. People should pay for it. Because I'm okay with people having my data because I think it leads to better decision-making and better functionality of the whole machine, but I want to know who's got it and how they're using it. I think there should be value for it for anybody.Stephanie:I agree. All right, Jurrien. Well, it's been such a fun interview. Thank you for coming on the show. Where can people find out more about you and Stojo?Jurrien:God. Look me up on LinkedIn. Check Stojo's Instagram and our website, obviously, and then give this podcast a listen.Stephanie:Yes. Do it. All right, well thanks so much for coming on. It's a blast. Been a blast.Jurrien:Thanks so much for having me, Stephanie. And Hilary, thanks for your work on the back end there. Really appreciate it.

The online buying experience is always evolving, so it’s table stakes for companies to be on their toes and ready to adjust when the market tells them to. Especially when the company we are chatting about today was founded in 1948! But being prepared to adjust and actually making it happen are two different things. At DICK’S Sporting Goods, its customers, who are referred to as “athletes” are truly running the show, and Scott Casciato, who serves as the VP of Omni Channel Fulfillment & Athlete Service at DICK'S, is the man who takes their needs and delivers a seamless experience to them via DICK’S ecommerce platform and throughout their 700 retail locations. And with their ecommerce sales increasing by 100% in 2020, Scott and his team have had to rethink many things like: how to scale up operations during peak seasons, why testing every iteration on the website is key, how to perfect the buy online pick up in-store experience, and determine how to take their athlete's feedback and transform it into a funnel for change. This episode brought back a lot of nostalgia for me, thinking about the days of wandering the aisles of Dick’s in my high school days looking for a new lacrosse stick or soccer shoes. So it was fun to hear about how much has changed, and  what investments the company has been making lately in creating the best customer experience possible for its athletes. Also, tune in to the end to hear Scott discuss the importance of great vendor relationships, how to future proof logistics, and the new in-store experiences that Dick’s is betting big on. Enjoy! Main Takeaways:The House Don’t Fall When the Bones are Good: Having a strong foundation is the most impactful thing a company can do to prepare for surges in traffic that might come during peak seasons or after highly-successful campaigns. You have to do the work, go through the load tests and constantly be improving the technology stack because there are no shortcuts when you are creating a scalable platform that can withstand anything you throw at it. With last year being a perfect case study to reflect on, dive into the data and pivot if needed so you’re ready for the surge!Bet On It … Then Test It: Building out an online experience that works requires constant testing. You can plan for outcomes and bet on how you think people will react, but until you test it, you can’t ever be certain. As Scott mentioned, following the path the data reveals can be surprising and sometimes opposite of what your intuition is telling you.Experiences For The Future: The shopping experience is going to continue to change, and the strongest companies are planning for the future by paying attention to trends and then creating experiences — both in-person and online — that will drive engagement with consumers and build trust and confidence in the company’s authority in the space. By investing early into an experience or a specific market, you set yourself up as the expert in that specialized vertical and become the retailer of choice for consumers.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, ceo@mission.org. Today on the show we have Scott Casciato, vice president of Omni Channel Fulfillment & Athlete Service at DICK'S Sporting Goods. Scott, welcome.Scott:Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.Stephanie:I'm really excited to have you. So I have this deep love of DICK'S Sporting Goods because there was a location in my hometown, eastern shore of Maryland, which I feel no one even knows where that is on a map. But back in high school, I would go almost every week and just kind of peruse through the aisles and look for new lacrosse sticks and shoes. And I didn't really have much money, but I remember just loving the experience and being there probably for three hours with friends, just kind of hanging out. So I was so excited when I saw you guys on the lineup where I was, "Yes, something I know well."Scott:Was that your sport growing up, lacrosse?Stephanie:Lacrosse and soccer.Scott:Nice, nice. That's great.Stephanie:Deep love there. So I'd love to hear a bit about how you got into this industry, because you had a funny quote where you said, "I don't know how I really ended up here," and I'd love to start there, how did you become the vice-president of Omni Channel Fulfillment & Athlete Service at DICK'S Sporting Goods?Scott:It goes back... I spent the early part of my career in software, supply chain software, and kind of even on the sales side, then moved into the operational side and then got into management consulting and did a tour duty in the management consulting ranks. And I got introduced to the founder and co-founder of a company called ModCloth that I was with previously. And they were looking for somebody to run fulfillment and customer service. And I just said, I don't know anything about, I mean, I know supply chain, but I don't really know anything about direct consumer fulfillment at the time. And the founder of that business was, "Yeah, I know, but you're smart enough to figure it out." Right?Scott:So and I have a bent for really high growth, high speed businesses, and it just kind of the way I grew up in my career and that was a really great opportunity. So I did that and I spent five years there scaling that business really significantly, hyper growth phase and it was awesome. I learned a ton about fulfillment and service. And then about five years in, I had this great opportunity to come to DICK'S. And the thing that was really interesting to me is, the question was how can we build a great service organization for DICK'S Sporting Goods? I'm like, "Wow, if I could do it at a much smaller company, what would it be like to come to such a great brand and try to do it here?" And and we did, right?Scott:And so we spent a lot of time building that for the first four years of my time at DICK'S and then had an opportunity to take fulfillment on. So it's interesting that I have some of the aspects of that, that previous role that I had only, a scale that is much larger and just been very, very fortunate to be with such a great business. And it's been awesome to work with the team at DICK'S.Stephanie:Okay. So you are leaving ModCloth, I mean, that's like strictly ecommerce and then you're coming to this, I would say very omni-channel company. I mean, you have over 700 locations across the US, quickly moving to digital, at least over the past couple of years. Tell me a bit about what that transition was like?Scott:I mean, and at the same time we were really building... We were just starting our transformation to building our own technology. So it was a massive... It was basically rebuilding what we had already had from an ecommerce business perspective. And I think fundamentally a lot of the things that I came in and the tools that I had were relevant, right? How you scale a business. I mean, that stuff is somewhat the same. I think one of the biggest changes was or a few of them were one, just having more teammates that knew a lot of stuff that could really help and drive the initiatives and the progress forward, whereas in a much smaller company, right? It's you're wearing so many different hats and you're doing so many different things here.Scott:It was a shock to me to say, oh, there's somebody that can help with reporting or data analytics and help us with these answers. So that was awesome. And then I just think we were all learning, right? So we were learning what we needed. We were learning what we wanted to be in customer service, we were learning what we wanted to have in terms of digital capabilities. We were learning how to run that business as we were deploying new technology, right? So how do you do pricing online appropriately? I remember a lot of conversation. How do you display things? What's the right... How do you check? What's the right checkout flow? And then we had, as all businesses do, you have to make a lot of trade-offs because it may not be the most elegant thing right at the beginning, but we just got to get it up and running, right?Scott:And so having those conversations can be tough, right? Everybody, and especially our business, we just have this DNA where we just relentlessly improve, right? And so it's tough to launch something and know that it's not the perfect solution, right, and then making sure that you go back and you iterate and you keep going, right? We just did that for a long time. But it was a lot of fun and it's really tiring, but it was a lot of fun.Stephanie:So that's amazing. What was one of the maybe projects or things that you felt most strongly about that you got maybe the most pushback on that people are like, nope, that's not a good idea?Scott:I would say, well, we had a lot of conversation about how we were going to set up, for example, in my world, we were going to set up customer service. And we continue to evolve that. I think it wasn't that people were saying it's not how we want to do it, I think it was really more what I was saying about, we want to own more of that customer service experience, right? So we had always been outsourced. And as we moved, as we did the transition, and our previous outsourcer did a great job. And as we move to the next wave of that evolution, we decided we really need to keep an outsourced view in some form or fashion of customer service, but we really wanted to try to start to build our own, right, because we were, "Wonder what we could do on our own?"Scott:So this conversation about, [inaudible] how do you scale for the hockey stick effect that we have at holiday, right, while maintaining the great experience that we have? And we want to in source, but then we want to scale a holiday. We just had a lot of spirited debate about that. So that was part of that conversation.Stephanie:Very cool. And so are you guys kind of now balanced approach when it comes to customer service, depending on what's incoming and how to route it?Scott:Exactly. Right. So we have a team of internal service people that take various types of contacts, and then we have a few outsourced partners that we work extremely closely with. And we balanced the volume across there. And then at holiday time, we scale up across all. And so it's turned out to be... And we're measuring that experience relentlessly. So it's been a great symbiotic relationship, I think, across all three of those.Stephanie:Well, now that you've touched on holiday, I do kind of want to go into peak season and maybe talking about, I mean, you mentioned that you went through this big technology evolution and implementing new things to try and get to where you are now, what did that look like, especially when it comes to preparing for big surges? I mean, I saw your ecommerce I think went up 100% in 2020 or something, so you guys have had massive growth. What did it look like behind the scenes to prepare for that plus peak demand?Scott:I think it's been this... We're very happy that we started when we did, right? when you think about what happened over the past 12 months and what has happened in the ecommerce world and the growth that everybody has seen, we're fortunate that we started four years ago down this path. Because the foundation that we built really allowed us to scale this year really quickly. We've been through all the load tests dynamics that you go through at holiday, we've built the technology stack that can support the traffic that we knew that we were going to get. We've been through the trials and tribulations of how to test, what to test, where to find the failure modes, and we've got really talented people that work on that stuff every day. We've built controls internally to manage where things might not be working appropriately and to be able to balance that.Scott:And as you think about what happened last year, specifically with curbside, it is the example of, it took us four years to become an overnight success type of situation where [inaudible].Stephanie:[inaudible].Scott:Right.Stephanie:[inaudible]. Who knew?Scott:Totally. So I think it was scaling for holiday. We scale every year for holiday. I think last year was one that we didn't quite know, nobody knew what was really going to happen. But I think we over-prepared, and we executed an extremely successful holiday because we just had every... It was so great to see everybody so engaged in solving that challenge and really thinking through every aspect of what might happen in holiday from fulfillment through the web traffic through customer service. And we really came together as a team and figured out all the ways that things could go right and wrong and covered it all. And we had a great holiday season because of it.Stephanie:That's great. So what areas do you think businesses are maybe under-prepared? Is it in the fulfillment piece? Is it in customer service? What are some of the top pillars that you guys covered down on that maybe some people might not be fully prepared for?Scott:I think that we do a great job in measuring and really paying attention to the athlete experience across all measures, right? I think we've pivoted from, I think historically in most businesses have been in a place where you manage internally, right? You're managing things like conversion or traffic or speed to athlete and things like that, and to be the customer, traditional service levels and customer service. I think those are all important, but I think if you take the outside in view, right, and you're looking at things like how are we measuring the experience, what's happening to that customer when they're out there and they're buying from us? But are they buying from us again, right, as an articulation of their commitment to the brand?Scott:And then how do we influence that purchase behavior? And how do you think expansively about that in terms of not only the shopping experience online that they have, but the post-purchase, the delivery experience, the customer service experience, how are you really measuring that data and getting good information and causal information to figure out how you can drive really great lifetime value? And I think we do that and we're really starting to do that really well across our business. And we've gotten so much support for that outside in view, across our leadership team as well that it's become a real engine of thinking across our teams.Stephanie:I mean, it seems like that holistic view is really hard for a lot of companies to get to though. I mean, I hear about a lot of companies trying to consolidate their tech stack, marketing stack, put it all in one area that things actually are connected and you can have attribution and you can see the LTV. How do you guys think about having that view that allows you to make decisions?Scott:I mean, I think that it's philosophical at some level and don't get me wrong, it's hard because I think when you look at the business on a day-to-day basis, all retailers, right, especially those that are public are driving towards hard goals. We take a much longer term view of things generally across the business, which is really refreshing and great. And so it allows us to really make good decisions. When you think about what we're measuring, how we're investing, we're not investing, I mean, obviously we care about the quarter and we care about the year, right? Don't get me wrong, but I think we're making investments that are in the long-term interest of this brand and our customers. I think, we're a really large small business in that regard. And I think we've been able to energize our teammates to deliver that experience on the front line, but also make the investments on the back end of the house that allow us to do that.Stephanie:And I see you guys have been making some big tech investments. I saw, I think Commerce Hub, you did a multi-year deal with them. And I saw something about the vendor partner program that you have. We can kind of plug and play into a bunch of vendors and have an endless aisle. And I was, wow, that could be game changing to be able to pivot quickly and offer, get to the consumer, right, wherever they are, whatever they need, especially in times right now where it's very uncertain. So it seems tech is a big piece of that, towards that investment philosophy right now.Scott:It is.Stephanie:How are you figuring out what you need and how to put the proper pieces in place?Scott:I think we have over 500 vendors in our drop-ship program. And connecting to it has them, and understanding what the inventory is, and getting them to send us the right inventory, and then order information back and forth in real time is incredibly important, which is why we made the investment in Commerce Hub, it has been a great partner for us for a few years now. And it's easy to use. So I think that's that was great for that aspect of our business. I think our vendor relationships are super strong and we're fortunate that we have them because it allows us to be really creative in the way that we go to market. Scott:And I think we're also continuing to build great brands internally, right? And so if you think about, we just recently launched our first brand and it's been a great success so far. It's great stuff. We had got our [inaudible], if you haven't tried it, you should.Stephanie:I haven't. [inaudible].Scott:That's awesome. It's a partnership that we did with Carrie Underwood about six years ago, and it's quickly become our number two selling women's line.Stephanie:Wow. That's awesome.Scott:And then we launched our DSG brand a few years ago, or a year and a half ago, which is really a value-driven brand and with very high quality, right? So when you think about the continuum of our brands, we have very specific and different strategies and they're complex depending on what we're trying to achieve within a given brand or category within that brand. But I think we're fortunate that we've built such great lasting relationships, because again, I think it gets back to, we take a longer term view of things and we really, I think we treat our vendors as partners.Stephanie:Yep. So key, especially in this industry where so much is happening, so much is changing quick and people can get burned really quickly too.Scott:Right, right, right.Stephanie:It also seems being able to plug into a vendor system like that is important, especially around... It seems a lot of companies are doing private label type of things and launching their own brands. I mean, it's not fully reliant now on the big brands and being able to have that flexibility to pull people into your ecosystem that maybe could have never sold at a DICK'S Sporting Goods before, that seems amazing and really allows access in a way that wasn't here maybe five years ago.Scott:It really does. We're always looking for those bets to make with new and upcoming brands. And our vendor director job channel is a great way to sort of test some of these things. So that's definitely, you hit the nail on the head for us. It's a strategy that we actively have and it's nice because my team who manages that part of our business we'll work with our merchants to say, "What could our strategy be with the supplier or partner X?" Right? Some of these folks are small businesses that can't handle our volumes. So if we buy a little bit more, we can test some of them or we can test it in the vendor direct channel. So it's been a real tool for us.Stephanie:Testing's interesting too. I could see kind of doing AB test quickly and see if people like this product and if they like this one more, okay, here's what we're going to go. Maybe we'll circle back with you next year in a much less risky way to bring people in.Scott:We've gotten really good at testing and specifically on the site with how we're thinking about the experience online. And we test almost everything these days, right? I mean, there's some stuff that I think is just go do things, some go do things that we do. But I think generally speaking, we've really developed a muscle around building an experience and testing it and iterating on it to figure out what's really resonating with the athlete most. So everything from shopping experiences on our site all the way down through the conversion funnel to fulfillment, right? And speed and how we're communicating with our athletes.Scott:So I think we've learned so much, and I'm like constantly reminded when we get these, we all kind of make bets, right, when we launched these tests like what do think's going to happen? And I think I'm wrong so often, it's so important to test.Stephanie:Yep.Scott:Good. Because what you think the consumer is going to do they just don't. And even when you think about surveys, I think there's this everybody lies concept, right? And it's true...Stephanie:And depends on what state they're in or where they're at in the day.Scott:Right, right. So I think it's just so invaluable to us.Stephanie:And we do surveys on the show sometimes just to see who do you want on, and how am I doing? And it's, well, it's depends on probably where that person is, if they're happy, if they're sad, it could be different depending on the place that they're in.Scott:For sure.Stephanie:So what's an example of a test that you ran where you were so sure, you're like this one's going to win, everyone was kind of on board with one scenario winning and then the results come back and everyone's wrong?Scott:That's a good question. We just ran one recently that I did win on, which is the one that was top of mind for me coming into this. Let me talk about that one for a second. So the one we launched on same-day, we're trying to figure out what are our athletes appetite is for same-day services. And we did definitely get a lot of engagement on the test. I kind of thought it was going to be more than it was, but it was still interesting, right? So I think that's something that we're going to continue to have conversation on.Stephanie:They wanted it, the majority of the [inaudible]?Scott:I think they did. It wasn't as much as I would've thought, really.Stephanie:Because that's an interesting one that some people on the show said, people just want to know when it's getting there, they're okay if it's not same day, versus if it's more of a commodity product, you better get it to them the same day. And to kind of seems it depends what it is and how much delayed gratification someone can have on it, it depends, it seems.Scott:Yeah. Some of the tests that I think that we've run that have been less intuitive, I just think how products are set up on the site and how people search, right, and find products like you would think that sometimes when you put the best or most visible sort of notable product of the top search results, that's going to create a better conversion and sometimes it just doesn't, right? So it's really people come in I think with a lot of intent around how they're shopping and sometimes what you think is going to happen just doesn't because I think there's so many different ways that people shop.Stephanie:Yep. How do you think about shifting the website either, from what you learned from last year or when you're approaching peak season, are there certain key elements that you adjust knowing that maybe the consumer's are in a very different mindset than they were at any other time in history probably?Scott:Yeah. I think I can speak more to the way that we think about fulfillment in this regard. I always, I historically had thought, that's another example of what I thought was going to happen. I historically thought that during, for example, Black Friday weekend speed was really important, right? I need it, I want to get it fast. And it turns out that weekend in particular speed is not the most important, getting what you want is the most important, right? So getting the deal is the most important. I think it makes sense because most people are thinking, I've got three or four weeks that this thing can get to me. I'm not super concerned to get it next week, just to make sure that I get it, right?Scott:So that's one that we adjust in terms of making sure that we're really being honest with how we're going to fulfill. Thankfully we've got an extraordinarily resilient fulfillment network and we do really well in speed and but historically had been surprised as we've really measured that one over Black Friday weekend. It's really about getting the deal, not the speed.Stephanie:Versus Christmas when everyone's probably last minute shopping, it's probably opposite.Scott:Very different.Stephanie:Okay.Scott:Very different. And as you get into December and you get through towards the ground cutoffs and you get, depending on what's happening, the speed becomes a real issue. Last year was was nuts. I mean, FedEx was running commercials, right? They talked about the speed or buy early. And we definitely saw a little bit of a shift in terms of how people were thinking about buying.Stephanie:So how are you building up that resilience fulfillment network that you mentioned to be able to basically say I can offer anyone the endless aisle, we have unlimited of these, in one moment and then be, okay, now next month got to go, got to be there in three days or less type of scenario?Scott:I think you mentioned it when we kicked off the show, it was we've got over 700 fulfillment locations when you think about our store network, which is a blessing for us because it allows us to really, not only be closer to our athlete and get things there faster, but also allows for a lot of flexibility when... It's just load balancing, right? When you think about a business that has a couple of three, in my past one fulfillment center, when that thing gets backed up, or you have a labor problem or you have whatever the case, would be trucks that don't show up on the receiving dock or the outgoing dock, you're kind of backed up, right?.Scott:And so while that definitely happens across everybody's network, including ours, having all of these different nodes that are moving product out each and every really helps mitigate the risk. And so it also helps us, at peak time, it helps us staff up and get stuff out. And we have we've built a really sophisticated way to manage the way that orders are routing. So we're able to identify where we might have congestion points, for example, and try to proactively avoid those as we see those things happening, right? So we can move orders to one node or another, or block a node if we've got a weather issue or something, or we've got, in the fall when you have hurricanes in Florida, right, or in the Southeast, we're able to really change the way that our orders route to get product out of different places that aren't having those issues.Stephanie:And is that kind of done in the background where it's looking at all these different inputs and then kind of making decisions that you can come in and adjust if you need to, but it's already routing it for you in the background?Scott:Yeah. So part of it's automated part of it's people, right? And it's still a lot of people, right, washing the switches each day. But we've got a great team of people that are communicating, we're communicating out of our stores to my team and fulfillment. We're communicating from my team into stores and we're using the technology that we've built to really manage the capacity and the inventory across the entire network.Stephanie:It seems that is so important too you when you essentially have two business units when it comes to fulfillment, you've got your store locations with one set of data, inventory is probably very hard to track because it's always getting grabbed, it's always getting shipped out, and then you have just maybe a fulfilment center that's a whole different beast probably. How do you get to that consolidate view? Is that part of the backend tech that's kind of looking at it at a higher level, treating it all as one?Scott:It is and it's definitely complex for the reasons that you noted. And it creates, sometimes it can compromise how close we can get to the athlete if we think we've got a unit in Austin, Texas and we actually don't. The fortunate part is instead of canceling that order on you or that unit on you, it's going to go to maybe it'll go to a Dallas store, right? And we can still stay pretty close to you and get it to you. And we're also trying to look at things like, how do we keep packages together? Of course, anybody that's listening to this that manages freight will say, yep, really important from a cost perspective. And frankly, even from, as I mentioned earlier, that athlete experience, people want to get one box, right? I don't want to order three or four different things and get three or four different boxes. And sometimes that's unavoidable, but we're trying everything we can to not let that happen.Stephanie:Oh, blessing.Scott:Totally, right?Stephanie:I get, one company I'm not going to mention their name, they will send a can of soup, anything a bone broth. I mean, it's in these little bags and they just come one at a time. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I just would have rather just gone to the store and picked it up myself than getting random of one item at a time."Scott:It's so wonderful when the customer experience need and the business need align, right? So when you think about, nobody wants to ship more packages to you, right? We want to get it to you, we want to get to you fast and we want to get it to you in one package. And that's also a great experience for you. It's the same thing we talk about with customer service, which is a traditional metric that people manage as average handle time, right? How long are [inaudible]? And I'm so careful, we collectively are so careful with this metric because it can be so disastrous to the teammate that's on the other end of the phone if they think they're being managed to a handle time, right? I don't want to just get you off the phone, however, and you need to use it for all kinds of different scheduling and making sure you have enough people on the team.Scott:But what's really aligned is generally people want to get to an answer pretty quickly also, right? I want to have an efficient, valuable use of my time. I want to get to an answer and then I want to move on with my day. So that's another example of where if we can do it right and align those desires, we're going to create an awesome experience.Stephanie:The unintended consequences, pizzas is such a tricky thing with thinking about designing roles and KPIs. I mean, I'm doing it right now. I'm thinking about sales and building a sales team and being like, oh wait, this might incentivize bad behavior.Scott:You got to really think about it, right?Stephanie:You just think really strategically about it.Scott:The outcome or the impact is very different than the intent in some cases.Stephanie:Yep. Are there any external inputs right now that you think companies aren't preparing for? I'm thinking about the algorithms that are kind of running everything behind the scenes when it comes to your fulfillment and things like that. Is there anything that you guys are watching now that maybe you weren't watching a couple of years ago and letting it help influence how things are routed or how things are kind of being redirected, anything like that?Scott:I mean, I think we're constantly trying to get to be more precise, and we're very fortunate that if everything goes right, we can get you an order really, really quickly. So we're really trying to pay attention to, where are things not going perfectly and we've called this thing the perfect order, what's our perfect order, right? And how do we get more of those? So we're spending a lot of time thinking about how we can perfect our fulfillment network. And I mean, it is, as you can imagine, just an infinite number of variables that dictate how this thing goes. But we're working a lot on that. I do not think that...Stephanie:[inaudible] like local stuff, because that's something that kind of came to mind. You're paying attention to weather and higher level things are you down in the weeds of, okay, well there's a festival this week here so that means... Is it that [inaudible].Scott:It can be. I mean, for example, when we're doing a hot market event, so Super Bowl, NCAA Tournament, they're national events, but their inventories largely local, right? So we're really paying attention to what the traffic is doing and the inventory is doing it at those local levels for sure.Stephanie:I'd love to talk about events a bit because I know that's a focus is the athlete experience online and in person as well. And I saw that you guys are opening more retail locations. You're opening, I think I saw a golf center, I soccer center, I mean, these full on experiences. And I'd love to hear how you guys are thinking about that.Scott:I'm glad you mentioned that we're really proud. We just opened recently the House of Sport up in Victor, New York, which is an expression of what we think the future can be for DICK'S Sporting Goods. And it's really an experiential retail location. So you can go in there, obviously we've got golf simulators and we've got fitting in there. We've got rock walls to climb. We've got an outdoor fitness field where we're doing things and we're engaging the community in different ways. So we're running clinics and figuring out how we can get local teams into their... Engaging in the community in this way has been a part of our brand since 1948, right? So I think, if you read the story of DICK'S and how we were involved in the Binghamton New York community, when the business was founded, it'll give you a sense for why this is important to us.Scott:And we just believe that, we say it all the time, we believe that sports makes people better. So how do we think about engaging in the community where we're at? We've done this forever in community marketing, and you see how we donate equipment to local teams and so forth. This is kind of another evolution of that, where we think we can make a big impact, we can change the way that people think about retail. And I think it'll quickly get to how do we merge the online and the brick and mortar or traditional retail experience? So I think that's a place that is really exciting to us right now.Stephanie:I was just thinking about, how do you create, you have a view where you know this person came in to this event and they were using the golf simulator, and they really liked this club. And then they either bought in store or maybe four weeks later they ended up online and bought the one that they were using? Do you feel you're moving in a direction where you're going to have that viewpoint? And it's not a hard time to get there.Scott:Yeah, I think we're getting there. I think we're really focused on data and analytics, right? And so I think our ability to stitch together these experiences, we're building that muscle. I don't think that we're totally there yet, but we've got really smart people that are thinking about this. And I think we're moving in that direction because that's the key. We're not really worried about what channel you buy in, right? I think it's more about, are we the retailer of choice for you, right? And however that experience, the experience that we can build for that, it's important to measure it because then I think it unlocks the investment in the targeted areas that are going to drive more of that for our athletes. So I think that's where we're really focused.Stephanie:Have you thought about creating essentially kind of a guide shop, but you have the soccer experience or something, and then just a small shop where maybe you can look at a few other things, but then essentially you're going back online to order whatever you played with and got to experiment with, or are you doing full on retail location as always, and then often this area we're doing our experience center?Scott:We haven't done really pop up experiences, guide shop experiences like that. We're moving more towards, how do we create a more scaled experiential experience in store and then how do we measure that in terms of who might go online to buy.Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative). I love that. I'm excited to see... I need to visit one of those stores, especially the soccer one. I mean, I don't know what it's going to be happening there, but I want to be there.Stephanie:I want to hear, which I feel you'll have a great answer for is what are you all most excited about right now over the next one to two years? What are you most passionate about?Scott:We're excited about a lot of things. And as usual, we have a very full plate. So I think things that we've already deployed that we'll continue to refine, things like our curbside program or a buy and pickup in store program for online, we're really excited about that. That's got a long runway of improvement, enhancement, and creativity that's going to be placed into that program. We are really excited about this merger of... I'm really excited about the merger of stores and online specifically around becoming a trusted advisor to our athletes. So if you think about the breadth of the teammates that we have, and when you walk into our stores or you talk to our people online, everybody's got a passion, right? Your passion is lacrosse and soccer.Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Scott:How do we think about unlocking that potential, right, in terms of then being able to help our customer, whether that customer is buying first player pair of soccer cleats for their son, to getting ready to play club soccer, to getting ready to go off and play soccer at a D1 level or beyond, right? So how do we look at that continuum of expertise and really become that trusted advisor, both online and in our stores? And I think that is incredibly exciting venture. And we do it well today. I think there's an opportunity to do it even better. So we're really excited about that. We're really excited about the assortment, right, that we're going to continue to launch online. I think it's going to be differentiated. I think it's going to keep our position in the market really strong.Scott:So I think the product that we put in there, the expertise that we put in there is going to be differentiated in the market, right? And that I think is probably more incremental and more incremental expression to the core business. And then we're going to continue to press. Game Changer has been a great business for us for years. And that team is great. And they continue to build a technology that service the baseball market. But we're always looking for different ways that we can expand or innovate across the industry.Stephanie:I love that, you know what? We need like, what do you do after college? I always think about that and I'm like, I loved playing sports. But then you start working, and then you have kids, and then you're, I still want to play, but how do I get back into it? And something is missing there, Scott. [inaudible].Scott:No, but I love... So that's who we want. That's another sort of persona that we really want to love to serve in our stores. Because I'm one of them.Stephanie:I'm your person.Scott:Right.Stephanie:We're the people.Scott:We're the people. And I think what we want to be able to do, I love talking about this. I think in our stores and online, our ability to listen and inspire, right, how do we help you meet that goal, right? "Hey, I'm doing a couch to 5k first time. I'm starting to get active." Or, for me, the 5'8 guy that always had a dream of the NBA that never came to fruition because my vertical is about that high. I still play. I want to make sure that I can get all the gear that I need to be competitive, right, or to achieve my personal best.Scott:So I love the fact that we can really positively impact people's lives in that way. And I think we want to make... I would love to make sure personally that anybody that walks into our store and knows that we're not just a sporting goods retailer, right? I think we want to make sure that we're helping, we want to facilitate you achieving your dreams. And then we talk a lot about that internally. So if we can translate or transmit that feeling to our athletes, I think that's really powerful.Stephanie:And also makes me think about creating custom leagues too, where it's, this is a different kind of league. It's not the traditional school. It's not even people creating their own volleyball leagues. It's we are a part of this. We're making sure that this can happen for people who struggle to even find those networks. I mean, I know back when I was in DC, I looked for where's some other women who play lacrosse? I don't really want to play with guys who are going to be checking me and I count find it, super hard to find. I mean, it's easy to find some sports in a community setting, but it's very hard to find people in certain other sports settings.Scott:You're right. There's a social, I don't want to, careful to say social network, but there is this idea of how do I plug into people that are me within a certain geographical area, right? That would be interesting. That's really interesting. Thanks for that one. Let me...Stephanie:Take it back to leadership. We just need a parenting kit. It's, here's everything you need so that we can go play our sports and then your kids are entertained. They get many lacrosse sticks. You go there and then I'll go off on my own so I can actually play, give me the kid.Scott:I love that idea.Stephanie:I want to think like such parents. Anyone who's not a parent is probably, "What are y'all talking about right now?"Scott:What are you talking about? Yep.Stephanie:Yep. All right. So let's shift over to the lightning round. Lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready?Scott:I think so.Stephanie:Okay. So I'm sad, I haven't asked this yet and don't know this, but what is your favorite sport?Scott:Basketball.Stephanie:Oh, nice.Stephanie:And who's your favorite sports team?Scott:It's always been the Chicago Bulls since back in the day, which is probably blasted me because I live in Pittsburgh. So to not say football and the Pittsburgh Steelers is a problem.Stephanie:You'd probably get egged.Scott:Probably. But they're close second.Stephanie:That's good. What is the nicest thing anyone's done for you?Scott:Oh, wow. I'm going to struggle. I'm going to go to my kids. I think my kids being, this is going to sound so cheesy, but it's so serious. The way that my kids treat other people with respect and kindness, I think is the thing that comes to mind for me first. And I know that's probably not the answer that you would normally get.Stephanie:Nope, I like it.Scott:To me that's pretty important. So I'm really proud of them. And I think that's probably the best thing that somebody could do for me.Stephanie:I love that. There's so much you can learn from kids. I think about that all the time. So I'm the person who is here for those cheesy kind of kid answers. You're in the right space. What's one thing you don't know that you wish you understood better?Scott:American history comes to mind?Stephanie:That's a good one.Scott:I don't think that's on topic, but that's the first one that comes to mind.Stephanie:When you want to feel more joy, what do you do?Scott:It's going to sound crazy. I tell people, thank you.Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Scott:Right. So I just believe that there's a lot... I get a lot of energy from being grateful, right? And so that's what I do. If I'm really feeling a little down or if I'm really stressed or some of the times the way that I work out and I get the endorphins mode going, that's one way to do it, and the other way is to be grateful for things. So I feel that's the way I get a lot of energy.Stephanie:I love that. All right. And then the last one, I mean, it seems you guys are very much ahead on a lot of things within the ecosystem. What do you do to stay on top of the trends? Are you watching other companies? Are you reading things, what are you doing to stay on top?Scott:I think it's a combination of experiencing and reading. I don't read nearly enough, it's hard, right? There's so much the content that comes out and not enough time. So I'm trying to just experience things out in the wild right? I'm talking to a lot of people, whether it's parents at a game or if it's just my own experiences online, and I'm trying to translate that to what's happening and why companies would do things a certain way. And then my team is doing the same thing. So I think we're trying to stay close. We're trying to stay close that way and certainly reading and engaging in conversations like this also kind of help.Stephanie:Good. That's awesome. Well, cool. Well, Scott, thank you so much for joining us. It was really fun to hear all about what you guys are up to. Where can people find more about DICK'S Sporting Goods and find you?Scott:I think www.dickssportinggoods.com. For the story of Public Lands and Golf Galaxy, and you can find me at LinkedIn, on LinkedIn.Stephanie:Amazing. Thank you so much.Scott:Thank you so much for having me. It's been a great time.

It seems like selling a product that is designed to make you feel good should be a cake walk. But as we all know, business is never easy, especially when you’re breaking into the supplement and nutritional bar space, which is overcrowded with industry giants such as Clif bars and KIND. So what’s an upstart company with a solid product and good intentions to do?On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, we found out when we talked to Chris Bernard, the co-founder, CEO and Chief Mood Officer for Mindright, the good mood superfood. As it turns out, there are a few ways that a small new company can make a splash, especially in the digital space. Chris explains how organic reach outs and authentic connections formed through his partnership with Rob Dyrdek has helped Mindright create an influencer and ambassador community that wins against influencer fatigue. Plus Chris, he digs into why a content strategy that blends humor and education is what gets the attention of the digital audience. Enjoy this episode.Main Takeaways:Be Serious… But Have A Laugh: Fun and funny content is a great way to build a relationship with consumers and to sell the lifestyle that you want your brand to be about. But you also have to balance real education and sales tactics into your content along with the comedic elements so that customers can get the full picture of what a brand is, why they should buy it, and to convince them to complete the purchase.Can I Get A Sample?: Free samples used to be a staple at grocery stores and markets everywhere, and those samples were a key way that new companies created buy-in with potential customers. Now that the industry has shifted away from that model, finding a new way to hyper-target customers with influencers, deals, and content is the best way to bring customers into the fold.Influencer Fatigue: Consumers are wise to the influencer strategy these days, and their fatigue is real when it comes to consuming influencer content. In order for brands to fight that fatigue and win engagement, building buzz around future products rather than current offerings is one of the best ways to do it.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, CEO at mission.org. Today on the show we have Chris Bernard, the co-founder and CEO and Chief Mood Officer at Mindright. Chris, welcome to the show.Chris:Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.Stephanie:It's good to have you. Would you rather have me call you Bernie? Which one do you want?Chris:My friends and my coworkers call me Bernie, but whatever you're comfortable with.Stephanie:I'm your friend.Chris:Okay, call me Bernie.Stephanie:All right. I like it. So in the beginning, I like to always hear about your background, your journey and how you got to Mindright. So maybe if we could start there. What did you do before Mindright, we'd like to hear.Chris:What I did before Mindright was I was in action sports for a little over 15 years. I represented brands like Burton Snowboards in their sales and marketing channels as an independent contractor. I left that business in 2015 and I invested in a company called, Buff Bake which was protein snacks and protein cookies, nut butters and I came on board with them as part of that investment as the CEO and I helped them run that company for a few years until I was ready to try something new and had an idea and ended up launching this Mindright.Stephanie:So did you have the idea for Mindright right after Buff Bake or was there something in between there?Chris:It was something in between and it just evolved very quickly into what it is today.Stephanie:Okay. What was your original idea? And then what is it today?Chris:Vegan cookie dough.Stephanie:Well that sounds good. I dig that.Chris:It was okay. It wasn't great and that's why I kept it out of the vine and I think we'll probably get into it. But one of the things that dismissed the idea was it really for me, I was looking for something condition specific. Functional foods are really driving the category right now and it's all about condition specific. Foods that drive beauty from within, through collagen, immune support, sleep support.Chris:It's really how we came to Mindright. We started to see this trend in supplements and when you're looking for trends that are going to be shifting to food and beverage, you always start with supplements and you see this rise of adaptogens and nootropics and brain supplements and anti-aging and it's just skyrocketing growth in supplements. It was this idea of how do we support our lifestyle through our mindset, our long hours, our drive, our energy levels through ingredients that support cognitive function. And that's where we started was this idea of cognitive food support and I came to my partner with this idea, he absolutely loved it. At the time the working name was Feed Your Brain.Stephanie:Cool. I like that name.Chris:And it was just really focused on brain health.Stephanie:Do you have a background in this world? How would you even know? When I'm thinking about brain health, I'm like, "Feels like there's so many things. I should be doing facial or I should be doing this. I should be doing so many things." Did you have a background in this where you already knew this makes me feel good? Or did you have to learn all about it?Chris:No, I just knew I wasn't feeling good. I always feel this brain fog and slow and besides this fact that you just hit 40, things start to slow down a little bit and you're looking for ways to support your lifestyle and just keep your edge and just keep moving forward and you start researching and there's a lot of great information around brain health, mental wellbeing, nutrition and other things that support those functions.Stephanie:Okay. And so what were some of the ingredients that you started finding that you're like, "We need to have this in some kind of bar."Chris:It was like lion's mane, Gingko biloba, both of which didn't make the cut at the end.Stephanie:Oh, how come?Chris:Well this is where I was going was, as we started with Brain Health, my partner who is a very big advocate of testing and research pushed to really go out and survey a group around 350 people. And while cognitive function was important to them, what indexed the highest was, "Do you have foods and ingredients that help me feel good? Happy, good mood. I want to be focused and feeling good." And this theme of feel good, just kept popping up and popping up and we took a step back and it was indexed so high. Like, "Why don't we just lean into good mood?" We've got a set of ingredients. We've got some data behind some of the ingredients we're using to really support enhancing your mood, decreasing your stress and giving you energy. All the things you need to feel good. So we need to do it. And that's how Good Mood Superfood was born.Stephanie:Cool. And did you always know that it would turn into a bar or did you have other thoughts early on?Chris:We had many thoughts and we still have many thoughts. This was our way of really standing up the brand, getting a feel for our branding, our message, bars is just the starting point. We have a really dynamic innovation pipeline of other snacks, drink blends, hydration drink. Things that will help support other areas of brain health.Stephanie:Very cool. So let's talk a bit about your partner and how that working relationship is and how you even landed him as your partner.Chris:So I was introduced to Rob Dyrdek, legendary TV personality, former skateboard, a professional athlete. Rob has a show on MTV right now called Ridiculousness. I grew up watching his other shows, Rob & Big and Fantasy Factory, as many of us did.Stephanie:Rob & Big, that's a good show.Chris:It was amazing. So then we just look forward to every week watching. He's just such a character and dynamic human being. But what people don't know is he runs a really diverse, exciting venture creation studio. He refers to himself and the people around him as do or diers, people that are interested in investing in themselves, growing businesses from the idea stage to the exit. And he's invested in several brands, primarily at the startup stage. And when I came to him, I was in the transition period in my life. I didn't know why I was meeting him.Chris:I was going to go in and just introduce myself. And I brought Buff Bake with me just in case he was interested in investing because always looking for investors and he made me tell him my life story from the day I was born until the day I ended up sitting in the chair in front of him.Stephanie:Wow. I should have done that.Chris:It's not that interesting. But he really liked it. And I spent 55 of my 60 minutes talking about myself and then he's like, "Okay. So what's up with these cookies? What's up with this Buff Bake? He's like, "Okay. Those are really good. I like them but I really like you. If you have some ideas or you want to do something, come back and let's talk about it."Chris:I left and I got a call two weeks later from him, wanted me to come back again. Again, didn't really know why I was going there. He wanted to pitch me on some ideas. And it just flew over my head. I went home, I called his COO and I was like, "What's he looking for?" He wanted an idea from me. He wanted to work on something. So I had been in the background working on these cognitive ingredients, paired with superfoods and brought it back to him as a whole package. I came in with fully developed samples around bars and coffee creamers and bites to really articulate what this could look like. And he was so excited about the presentation. He just sealed the deal with me on the spot and we were off to the races.Stephanie:That's amazing. What does the partnership look like with him? How's he involved?Chris:He is very, very involved. He wants to be very involved in the creative process, but also through all the funding, the financial rounds, building the infrastructure of the company. He has built a really strong team around him. Managing the finance arm, managing the marketing project teams. So it's an extension of my team. We are true co-founders, he's very, very involved in the business and he and I are either working together on the daily basis or he and his team are fully integrated in.Stephanie:That's really cool. And it seems like once you get access to him and then you had his network, it brings in other investors as well.Chris:Yeah. So that's the next thing that happened. So we stand this thing up and we start to go out to bring in some strategic capital to help push things along. We started with some traditional resources and private equity and some strategics within the space. And then we started talking to his network a little bit and all of a sudden we saw how excited they were and one conversation led to the next, led to the next, the next thing you know it's Marcus Lemonus from the profits. Jonas was extremely excited about the project. He now sits on the board with myself and Rob. Joe brought his brothers on as well. Jordan McGraw, Travis Barker, Ken Roxanne. It's just this star-studded list of really great mindset celebrities and athletes. Very, very exciting.Stephanie:It seems like you have your own portfolio of influencers. You can get the word out there. While most people you're trying to even think about, "How do I even tap into one of those?" You've got this whole little Rolodex just working for you.Chris:Right. So it's exciting. I think that being able to have that leverage and that advantage really puts us in a unique position to tell the story.Stephanie:Awesome. So tell me a bit about, you said that you were getting samples when you were going to go and show him what you could do. What did that process look like? Because to me thinking about even making any kind of food and then getting the packaging and then getting ingredients that maybe some people aren't the most comfortable with. If you hear some of the words you'd be like, "Well, what is that like? Is that even safe?" Tell me what that process looked like to even find someone who could make the bar that you wanted to taste good and have all that ready for the sample day.Chris:It's funny. You start with the manufacturers. Every manufacturer has a food scientist, R&D, most of them do. Food scientists and R&D department. And most of the time, if they're excited about your project, they will help your R&D. It comes with strings attached and not always do you end up owning your IP, which is important if you're interested in exiting your company at some point, but you learn the process of what goes into R&D products.Chris:And I came in, you come in with a brief and your core tenants for, "These are the ingredients that I would like to use as superfoods. These are the outputs that we'd like to achieve, enhance mood, stress, energy. These are the functional ingredients we're thinking about." And then you work with the ingredient suppliers to understand efficacy and transparency around their ingredients. And you let these guys do their job and you like what you like and you don't when you don't. And I think we did about 13 rounds of this bar until we landed in a place that we felt really good about.Stephanie:That wasn't just you testing it or were there other people trying it?Chris:It was Rob and the entire team. His close team is a team of five.Stephanie:That is awesome. What kind of lessons did you learn when going through that process? Anything that you would maybe do different?Chris:Well, I'll tell you one thing. We tried to be everything but the kitchen sink. We wanted to be keto, we wanted to be paleo, we wanted to be zero sugar. We wanted to be everything. Vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free and have functional ingredients that support incredible, feel, good vibes and decrease your stress. And we were realistic that not all of that was going to work and our guiding light really became taste. If it doesn't taste good, I don't care if it has all those things, it's just not going to work for us. So we planted a flag and it was about taste. And we want this thing that tastes good. And if it has five or six or seven grams of sugar, we use a coconut Palm sugar, which we felt really good about. It was therapeutic. It was like, "Okay, great. We don't have to use sugar, alcohol, or stevia or erythritol or anything. We're going to use coconut Palm sugar. It's a low-glycemic sugar. It tastes great. The bar still has 50% less sugar than an RXBAR or competitor. And we felt really great about that.Stephanie:That's awesome. How do you view the landscape right now? Because I know when I go into certain grocery stores, I'm like, "Wow, there's so many bars." There's the original type RXBARS but now it feels like there's so many offshoots. Everyone's trying to do lower sugar. Maybe not what you're doing, but how do you make sure that you're staying ahead of them and also differentiating yourself where people are like, "Oh, obviously we can see why they're different than all these other bars."Chris:I think again, it came down to taste, great amount of protein, our base values of, it is plant-based vegan, it is dairy free, it is protein packed and low sugar were really important to us. But I think we'll continue to stand out with what our functional message around supporting mood through these super foods and ingredients. And we are just sticking with that.Stephanie:How do you get in front of new people though? I'm thinking about back in the day, samples where you're like, "Oh, I would never have thought to buy that, but now I can see it's healthy for me and good." How do you approach that now trying to get in front of new people and have them try it for the first time?Chris:It's difficult, especially through a global pandemic of people at home and not having opportunities sample in the markets or elsewhere. And for us, it's just leaning into our influencers, our investment community, paid ads, really important. Finding unique ways to drive trial, pinpointing and targeting specific communities. It'd be really great to be everything to everyone but if we could just focus on this core group that's committed to their mindset. They're coaches, they're hustlers, they're the boss, they're the mom and they're focused on what it takes for them to be successful every day. We call them the happy hustlers. That's where we're starting. Our initial reaction was the right one. They're really resonating with the product. They're speaking about the product for us organically. And we're just going to continue to focus on that community right now. And then it'll just hopefully grow from there.Stephanie:It also seems like you have a really good idea around your social presence and how you want to present yourself. It's like a fun whimsical looking, at least your Instagram feed and it's not overly product driven, but it's more selling the lifestyle behind it which I really liked.Chris:Exactly. That's exactly right. And that's what's resonated the most is people are realizing that Mindright is a lifestyle. It's not just about the products. We want to support you beyond that. And as you'll see over the next couple months, we're really going to lean into what it takes to have a better mood, to put the work into your mental wellbeing and really drive home this good mood movement. And being approachable and fun, makes it just easier to pay attention and watch and fun and funny is part of feeling good. And that's the message that we want out there.Stephanie:It sounds like your content strategy you're about to ramp up around those areas. How are you going to keep it balanced between educational, which I feel like a lot of people need education around the ingredients and why they're added and how they need to be mixed together and then the other side around even outside of the product. Like you said, just good mood and how to feel happy and mindfulness and it's like a whole different business over there. How are you thinking about balancing that and connecting with the right audience?Chris:It's just that. It's balancing, trying different things. It's balancing being funny with incorporating lifestyle and people enjoying the product. You're going to just start to see more direct response and testimonials. We are looking to partner with therapy based apps and other entities that help make mental health and wellness really accessible. We're going to have our investment team and our influencers talking about the work that it takes to get Mindright. It's not just, this bar is not going to solve your problems, it's not. But if you focus on your nutrition and you incorporate things like the importance of sleep and getting exercise and some type of a meditation routine, all of these things combined bring you to that next place.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah. It's not just try one thing and all of a sudden everything will be solved, like many things and there's no magic potion.Chris:I think that that's where other companies that are trying, mood or all of these other cognitive functional ingredients, they could fall short because they're making it just about that. And I think that we'll go along for the ride and we'll be there to support our customers along the way.Stephanie:That's great. So you just mentioned influencers. I'm going to go and I want to hear how you view working with influencers because we've had quite a few brands on the show and they talked about it. Some people, amazing experiences if you find the right person who is all in, it's not just sharing a quick message of like, "Here's my teeth whitener and it works great for me go buy it." Versus maybe the ones that are really in they're even part the product development. How do you view a good working relationship with influencers? And more than one, since you have many that you have to balance.Chris:I think for us, it's about being authentic. If it's not something you enjoy and you truly believe in it comes through. You see it and you feel it. And I think having our influencers part of our ambassador program, which we're just at the early stages of building out, is a really important part around building the authenticity of their message. Our influencer program is very small right now, we're still identifying how they're speaking about the brand and what are the best ways to do that. But what we've gotten so far comes from a really organic place. We haven't paid for any influencers yet. All organic because people are enjoying the product and sharing the message with their community.Stephanie:Are you sending them free samples or is it more your investors giving it to their friends who are other influencers probably. And then it's organically happening through that way?Chris:A little bit of both. We identified people that live within our community that we would like to target and say, "Hey, we'd love your feedback. No expectations. You don't need to post. We just ask you tell us how you enjoyed the product. How'd you feel? What do you think about the packaging?" And then it just happens organically.Stephanie:How do you view the longterm strategy around influencers? Because sometimes it feels like they'll have this excitement and a big blip where their network sees it. And then there's maybe diminishing returns and people are either hit over the head with it too much. Or like, "I bought it. It's good." Or the person's not as excited anymore as they were maybe in month one. How do you keep them engaged or be like, "Okay. We're kind of good for now."Chris:We see that fatigue all the time. And I think for us, it's the excitement around what's coming. It's creating community around the lifestyle and the future launch of our new products. The bar is here today. It might not be here in three years from now. It's about continuing to evolve and supporting our needs today.Stephanie:Makes sense. So tell me a bit more about this ambassador program that you're building.Chris:We're at the early stages where we're leaning into this mindset community from happy hustlers. We have three investors on the team that live and breathe in that space. And that's Chris and Lori Harder, their lifestyle coaches and then Lewis Howes who also has a podcast, The School of Greatness. And just really leaning into what they do and how they do it and their communities coming to us and we're setting them up and they're incentivized by product. One of the angles that we're working on right now is charity. When they post, we will support a soon to be identified a mental health charity with an investment.Stephanie:When they're posting about the bar or the company, something like that, then it's like, "Okay, that's a point towards this charity or effect."Chris:Exactly. Those are the early stages. We're still in development. It's still being worked out. We're less than two months old in the market, so we're close.Stephanie:Are there other ambassador programs that you look at where you're maybe taking some key learnings from where you're like, "I know this one works well and I want to implement some of those strategies into Mindright as well."Chris:Yes. A lot of them are custom built though. There's a lot of really great app solutions that work really well and incentivize through product or discount or payment. We want to try to be more organic. I've seen some great custom ones that are gamified, that built community around this excitement around this app itself and the message. So work in progress.Stephanie:That'd be cool to circle back and hear what you ended up building and how it's working and the results. So tell me about your distribution strategy and where you're thinking about selling. Are you on Amazon? Is it just your website and how do you think about where you actually want your bars to be sold right now?Chris:It's everything digitally native. So we are alive on our website getmindright.com. We're on Amazon. We're looking at a various array of subscription box companies. But the really big one right now is all of the delivery convenience guys. So this new evolution of convenience, prime is not good enough. It can't be there the next day. It needs to be there in 20 minutes. So we're looking at partnerships with goPuff, FastAF, Dot. We're in the process of vetting those guys out right now and seeing which one makes the most sense. And I think that can meet format. It's just growing and exploding right now. Through COVID people were forced to adapt to Amazon and delivery service and it's here to stay. It's here to stay. Those conveniences will never change.Stephanie:Are you worried about maybe your brand and the story not being told correctly when you're starting to have many outlets for your products going out and you can't fully control the messaging or?Chris:Yeah. I think that's why picking the right partner for these delivery services is key because we want to make sure that we have the ability to tell a story, whether it's this big or in a banner. It's really partnering with the right team to help make that happen. And then we have a lot of work to do on our end. And I think that our community will help push people to these services. Amazon, getmindright, goPuff, that's where we go and they'll really rely on on that. It's challenging.Stephanie:Yeah, no. Especially when you have so many different people you're vetting right now and thinking about all of the control that you could be losing but also all the access that you're going to be gaining. It's tricky. Because this is a commerce show, I want to hear about your ecommerce strategy around what's working. What do you think that you're doing on your website that maybe is unique and others haven't tried out yet or that you're like, "This is a good tip that more people need to know about."Chris:I think it being less templated and more just an experience where it just feels fun. It makes you dive a little bit deeper to find out what's going on. What works for some people doesn't always work for others and I think this format is working well for us right now.Stephanie:Do you find yourself being able to look back at maybe your experiences at Burton and other places and pulling some lessons from there? Or is it such a different market that you're like, "That probably wouldn't work for this product."Chris:I think it's very similar. I think at the end of the day, you're selling an item that you're passionate and excited about and what is the best way to share that with your friends or your customers? It's very similar in that sense.Stephanie:Yeah. That's cool. So where do you guys want to be in one to three years? What are you hoping to achieve?Chris:We're looking to achieve this just amazing platform of good mood foods that span across really great retailers, Whole Foods, all the natural channels. It would be really great to see it everywhere obviously, but this really accessible approach to foods that help support your mood.Stephanie:Have you started talking to Whole Foods and other retailers like that?Chris:We've had some early conversations, but we really want to stay firm on this digitally native approach. I think that one thing that I'll add is testing is worth spending money on. Just test landing pages, AB testing, digital testing, customer testing. It has opened my eyes to this completely different world. And it is a true science. And when you understand that word that works, that picture that works, that landing page that just converted, it's a science. And then you can continue to really invest towards those things that are working because you know there's turn on that.Stephanie:Yeah. I agree. What is a finding that maybe came out of some of those tests where you were like, "We would have never changed this, changed the product, change the website, but now that so many people are saying this, we're definitely moving forward with that.Chris:I would go back to the beginning where Rob and I, Mindright. There was two different names before Mindright. And now I look back, I'm like, "Neither of those would have worked. Mindright should have always been number one." We tested Mindright. Mindright worked really well but We wanted to brand the ingredients themselves. And we were like the unstoppable blend. We're unstoppable. This mentality of you cannot be stopped, masculine. And we were so sure of it and it failed miserably.Stephanie:They were like, "I don't like that."Chris:No, no. So now at the happy brain blend.Stephanie:That makes me feel happy. That's more on brand.Chris:Yeah. And then from that moment on we're like, "That's our guiding light." It makes me feel happy. Does it? Yes Or no. Okay. It's in.Stephanie:And how are you doing these tests? How are you going about trying to get this feedback? Are they surveys or what are you all doing behind the scenes?Chris:Yeah. Surveys. Right now, we've moved to more surveys. We're surveying around our current database of growing email subscriptions and then we're going to start doing some stuff through Instagram, social media. But the original testing went through a market research firm.Stephanie:All right. Well, let's shift over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready?Chris:No.Stephanie:Nope. Be right back. Need to go get some more tea. Get In the right mood here. All right. Well, we will move on anyways. If you had a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Chris:Oh my gosh. My podcast would be about thinking big. My whole life I never thought big. I thought pretty small and I put roadblocks up in front of myself and I think that now as I sit on a board with Rob Dyrdek and Joe Jonas, literally anything is possible and it would be about stories and ways to help open up your mind to anything is really possible. And I think as cheesy as that sounds, it really is. And I feel like here in my home with my kids and now that we're talking about getting Mindright and this positive growth mindset and to hear them talking about it, it's a real thing. I don't have a title yet. I'll let you name the podcast.Stephanie:There you go. I'll help you name it. Who would you bring on for your first guest?Chris:I bring in Rob. He is an amazing person to talk to about all of this stuff. His mindset is just next level with what he does to keep his energy and his success where it is. It's remarkable.Stephanie:Awesome. What does your mindfulness practice look like?Chris:I'm sorry.Stephanie:What does your mindfulness practice look like? How do you stay centered and balanced and not getting pulled everywhere when doing a startup?Chris:I think for me, I committed to getting up early every morning. I have to be up by 5:00,5:15 or else I can't do the things that I want to do for myself, which is exercise or just have a moment of meditation. Whether it's a minute or five minutes or 20 minutes. I try to do that every morning. I have four kids so life is really hard sometimes. Here they are.Stephanie:I feel that.Chris:So it's get up early, it's a few minutes of meditating and just understanding where I'm at and being really grateful for that. Exercise, 30 minutes. That is my non-negotiable. I have to get 30 minutes in, if I don't my day is just off and once in a blue moon we have a sauna that was gifted to us by-Stephanie:Wow.Chris:It was miracle. That's another podcast.Stephanie:Yeah. Okay. I want that friend. Gift me a sauna.Chris:It was some local guy just giving it away. He was moving.Stephanie:What area of California do you live in because I don't know about many local areas being like, "Here's a sauna. Do you want ice staff as well?"Chris:I'm on the hunt for one of those. So, if you know one. I started fasting, so I intermittent fast. I don't eat my first meal until 12:00 or 1:00. And I found it's really helped with inflammation and energy and I feel great. I also stop thinking through COVID I just-Stephanie:So impressive.Chris:30 days and then you felt great and 60 days, I'm like, "Wow, I feel awesome." And it just stuck.Stephanie:All right. Last question. Two more questions. What's one thing that you don't understand today that you wish you did?Chris:What don't I understand. I don't understand a lot of things let's be honest.Stephanie:Good answer. Just everything. Lots of things.Chris:No. I think for me, part of the reason why we're starting digitally native is almost a personal challenge to myself. I know retail really well, I know relationships, building brands, building distribution, working with brokers. I don't understand digital that well. And it can be frustrating at times because the learning curve is pretty steep and it's always changing every day because you're learning something new and I think digital marketing I don't know very well.Stephanie:Well, you'll be learning it with this company. So that's great.Chris:It'd be great to hire the right people to help you.Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. 1,000% to that one. All right. And then the last one, what one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Chris:I think it's these convenience delivery guys. I think they're going to change the game for a lot of people. FastAF is a really good example of what's happening with commerce outside of food and beverage, because they're delivering unique gifts. You need a gift and you're going to a party in an hour, they'll be there in 20 minutes with this beautiful candle or gift item which is just changing the way that we do everything.Stephanie:Yeah. Oh, I completely agree. All right. Well, this has been such a blast. I feel like my mind is really in the right place now after this interview. Where can people find out more about you and Mindright?Chris:Check us out at getmindright.com or on Amazon.Stephanie:All right. Cool. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show.Chris:I really appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Repeat customers are the heart and soul of just about every business. But when your product is something that you purchase maybe two or three times throughout your life, how do you create a repeat experience that will sustain your company long-term? That was one of the questions that Chip Malt had to answer when he co-founded Made In Cookware, a digitally-native kitchenware company that launched in September 2017 and is disrupting this $17B cookware industry.And the solution he came up with was a good one: produce the highest quality products possible, have a deep understanding of the industry you’re entering into, deliver an all-around experience that goes beyond those products, then keep scaling to bring more must-haves to market.This episode was such a fun one because we dove into the history of the cookware industry, long term partnerships they’ve set up in France (their knives are made from the great-great-great-granddaughter of a French knife maker who invented the modern chef knife in the middle of Central France), secret recipes for their cookware ingredients, the best cooking tip he ever learned, and more. Enjoy this episode.Main Takeaways:Make It Memorable: Customers today are looking for experiences. In order to secure a sale or differentiate your brand, bringing a next-level experience to the table is a proven tactic. Partner with the people you are connected to in your industry — influencers, celebrities, etc. — who are fans of your brand and create something special for potential customers.A Living Legacy: Connections are made constantly in personal and professional life. Smart business owners use those connections to their advantage. When you can tap into a reservoir of friends, friends of friends, family connections or business relationships of the past who can speak on your behalf or join you in a new venture, you immediately start to create a sense of legitimacy that can spread more easily to those you have yet to connect with.First Time, Best Time: There are many examples of brands that have launched products quickly because they thought it was better to get a product to market than wait for perfection. But the opposite approach is also worth consideration. Rushing a product to market that isn’t up to your brand standards might be what dooms you with new customers who find you for the first time through this subpar product and then judge the entire brand based solely on that experience.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. I'm your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO and Mission.org. Today on the show, we have Chip Malt, the co-founder and CEO at Made In Cookware. Chip, welcome to the show.Chip:Awesome. Thanks for having me, Stephanie.Stephanie:Yeah. I'm really excited to have you here. I might not be the biggest chef, but I feel like I'm still down to talk all things cookware and maybe you can train me up on what I should be doing, and I need all the help I can get. That's my caveat to start this show.Chip:Awesome. We're happy to do so.Stephanie:Yeah. I like that. So, I want to dive into the background of Made In Cookware because I think you have super interesting story where, correct me if I'm wrong, you started and co-founded the company with a childhood best friend and you guys have a lot of history in the industry with your family and family's family, and I would love to dive deep into all that background before we get into the actual company of where it is today.Chip:Absolutely. Yeah. So, we started the company, or officially launched it, in 2017. So, we're just over three years old, now entering our fourth year. But really, the story began a long time before that, as you mentioned. My co-founder, Jake Kalick, he comes from a hundred year old family that has experience with cookware. So, his great-grandfather in Boston where he grew up started a business that outfitted restaurants and hotels, their kitchens with everything from walk-in refrigerators to knives to cookware to a lot of stuff that we're selling today. So, he comes from almost 10 decades of experience in the cookware space, or his family does. Then Jake and I grew up together. We actually went to preschool together.Stephanie:Wow.Chip:We were in the yellow and blue room together, then we went to pre-kindergarten and went to a school that was the same all the way from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade when we left for college. So, our history goes back 28 years and we're 33. So, almost to the beginning of when you can even start to remember, and we've been best friends ever since. So, it's been a pretty incredible journey. We've been able to mesh his background, his family's background, his family's history into our childhood friendship into a business and have fun doing it. So, it's been a pretty cool journey so far.Stephanie:Yeah. Were there ever points when you guys veered apart, came back together? When did you know or even think, oh, we should do something together?Chip:Yeah. To be honest, and it's nice that he's not on this podcast because he can't defend himself, but I don't think growing up I would ever start a business with him. I was more of the studious one.Stephanie:I know too much about you.Chip:Yeah, exactly. I was more of the studious one. I would say he would copy off me in high school if we had to simplify it, and also that I remember me in the space, in the cookware space as well. That's his background and his journey. So, it's been really cool. To be honest, the startup world and starting a business, I feel like the public only gets to see the glamorous side of things. But it's a lot of hard work. It's a lot of ups and downs. For just as many amazing days and successful days we have, you have a really tough day as well. So, going through that with someone you're close with that at the end of the day, you can just have a beer and destress is a pretty incredible experience.Stephanie:Yeah. So, when taking best practices and lessons from maybe his family history and how they've been doing things, what did that feel like, taking this company and maybe bringing in new practices and new ideas? Was there any bit of a struggle behind that where they're like, "No, no, no. We've done this for a hundred years. We know what we're doing. Come on, Chip. Just follow the lead"?Chip:No, we get that a lot. At some point or at some level, we are cutting out his family business. His family is a distributor. They take some of the incumbents who we're competing with now and then they sell them to restaurants and act as the middle man. Ecommerce and direct to consumer in general is a cut out the middle man strategy, and so we get that question a lot. Are they mad we're displacing that to some degree? No, his family's been nothing but supportive. They're super happy we're maintaining the history into something new and just evolving it into the way that the world is moving. So, they've been awesome.Chip:His family and his knowledge of just the product and the industry has been absolutely crucial [inaudible] starting a business. When we walk into a kitchen and we're talking to a Grant Achatz, who is one of the best chefs in the world, he's able to talk about BTUs of the burner that Grant's using and the oven and why it's better, and he's able to talk the talk. It really gives us an air of authenticity and an air of just immediate warmth when we have ... Food in general is a very relationship driven business. It has a lot of credibility when we're approaching partners.Stephanie:Yeah. I saw that you're in crazy restaurants, really big ones. Top chefs use you guys. How did you even get in the door of those people? Because to me, I think you can be really smart around the product stuff and why you need it, like you're talking about the BTUs of the burner and all this stuff. You can have that, but if you can't even get your foot in the door or get in front of those people, you can't really go anywhere. So, how did you guys make those relationships and get in there?Chip:Yeah. I would love to tell you that we sat in a boardroom and whiteboarded out the perfect strategy and absolutely nailed it off the bat, but that was clearly not the case and that's not how it played out. The way the company came about, and taking a step back, what we do is we sell kitchen goods. So, knives, cookware, multiclad stainless steel, carbon steel frying pans, down to wine glasses and table top items, and really anything to outfit a new kitchen you're walking into, Made In will provide that.Chip:Our ethos to start and our launching hypothesis was that food is so emotional and people are spending so much money going to a Whole Foods or a farmer's market and getting super excited about a marvelous grass fed steak from a local rancher who is 30 miles away and it's beautiful cut and then they're coming home and they're cooking it on a frying pan that's a hand-me-down that they couldn't even name the brand of, and it's ruining that steak. So, there is this behavioral disconnect of the beginning part of a process and all the care that went into it with the actual cooking at the end of the day, which was delivering the final product.Chip:So, we wanted to make people care about their cookware in an emotional way as much as they did the ingredient they were grabbing at the farmer's market. For us, that was meshing Jake's family history, that a hundred year old family history, with the craftsmanship approach of the manufacturers and partners that we work with. So, a good example of that is our knives are made from the great-great-great-granddaughter of a French knife maker who invented the modern chef knife in the middle of Central France. This area is the birthplace of cutlery, has so much deep history.Chip:You walk through and everything about this town is dedicated around knives. There's still the old factories with the old windmills that would power the old forges and it's just pure and center all knives. What we wanted to do was make a product and go back to that source and resource and tell that story so that when you pull the knife out to cut the steak that you just fell in love with, you also know all the craftsmanship and all the story that went into that knives.Chip:So, it was this approach of blending love and care on both side, a product to ingredient. So, that was in launch approach, and we carry that ethos through all our product lines. Our bakeware we just launched is from a proprietary recipe that's over 200 years old from the center of France as well, and that's what carries through every single product we make. That actually attracted all these partners. So, most stuff in our industry comes off of a boat oversees in Asia and is nameless and faceless and has a name printed on it, all looks the same, and no one was putting this time and attention and care into the supply chain portion.Chip:As soon as that happened, Tom Colicchio approached us and he said, "Honestly, I've been working in this industry for decades waiting for a company like you guys to come along. I want to partner with you guys," and he invested in us. From there, it was a snowball effect. Tom is just an incredible human being. Everyone respects him. He was able to be the first stamp of approval, along with our supply chain store being the second stamp, that started to attract a lot of amazing shops from around the world to be part of our brand.Chip:I'd say the last point in that, these aren't traditional influencer or endorsement deals. So, every chef we work with, they're authentic customers of ours. They're buying for their restaurants. It's not a pay to play deal. This is a real authentic relationship.Stephanie:That's awesome. Yeah. That's a theme I always hear and I think even for our company as well, that first customer is like the stamp of approval. Once you get the one big whale, then you can just be like, "Well, look. So-and-so is using it," and you can find their network. Yeah. Once you get that first one, I think everything gets easier. How did Tom hear about you? Were you guys doing some marketing tactics to get in front of him?Chip:No, through the grapevine. We approached Danny Meyer's fund as an investment proposal and we were too small. It was too early for them. They write 20 and $30 million checks for growth stage businesses and we hadn't even launched really yet. So, he introduced us. He was like, "Would you like to meet our friend, Tom Colicchio? He writes angel checks, and would that be okay to make the intro?" Obviously, we were trying to play it cool. We were like, "Yeah. I think we'd be okay with that." But obviously, we were ecstatic and super excited.Chip:We emailed Tom and didn't hear back from him for months were like, "All right. That clearly is not going to happen." All of a sudden, we got an email from him two months later out of the blue that was just, "Hey, guys. Landed back from filming Top Chef for two months. So sorry for the delay. Can you meet in New York tomorrow?" I don't know if he thought we were in New York as well. But obviously, we're in Austin, Texas and we were like, "Sure," and booked an immediate flight and more or less had a handshake deal to partner with him and get an investment from him that day. He was just a super awesome guy, super genuine, and believed in what we were doing, most importantly.Stephanie:That's amazing. So, what did that initial startup look like? You have an infusion of cash. What were your next steps? Was it already mapped out, or now you're like, "Whoa. This is really getting us to that next level. We need to change how we were thinking about it"?Chip:I had come from the apparel space, which I was working at a company called Rhone, helping them with digital marketing. So, if you were saying, "Hey, Chip. I need to go buy some stuff right now. I don't even know where to start," is generally the refrain we hear, and that was different from the apparel space because no one is looking at a T-shirt and saying, "I don't know how to use that. I don't know what to use that T-shirt." I put it on my body. We know that, right?Chip:So, the first year is all about learning what people really cared about, how to market our product. Our product is a performance based product. It will fundamentally make the food you cook better tasting, but how to deliver that in a way that makes sense to the normal consumer and it's not too chef-y, especially when we have all the chefs behind us. That was a huge learning process.Stephanie:Yeah. Someone once gave me a really big cast iron skillet and I remember being like, "Thank you so much. What do I do with this? How do I clean it?" And she's telling me, do salt and this and that. I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. Can I cook my engineering in here?" I tried a couple times and it just was burning and, okay, education is key around stuff like that. The one thing I was reading that I thought was really interesting too was your post-purchase engagement of basically using that as a training funnel, because you were maybe having people come in and complaining because they didn't really know how to use the cookware, and so you used that as a channel to start training them right after they purchased and maybe were checking in on the shipping and trying to see where their product was, that instead you would guide them to the website to train them. I'd love to hear how you thought about that, and do you still do that today?Chip:Yeah. I think we're very lucky in the sense that we have some of the best chefs in the world that are, again, our authentic partners and using our cookware. So, we thought a lot about and we sat back and we're lucky enough that because we work with these people, we're able to go into a restaurant and then the chefs generally come out and explain exactly how they made the dish they're serving us and there's very personal experience that heightens the entire enjoyment of going to that restaurant.Chip:So, we're sitting there and we actually kind of have a duty as a company, we have this entire group of chef partners and this entire group of home consumers to be the bridge between those so everyone else can have that experience and heighten their enjoyment of the use of the products. So, we work with these chefs. Grant Achatz taught us how to make an omelet, and he's known for this crazy molecular gastronomy. But actually, Grant Achatz grew up cooking in his parents' diner making eggs, and now he can do it the best in the world.Chip:We talk a lot about what can Made In do that no one else can, and we have this two-sided relationship that no one else does. So, how can we bridge that gap between the consumer and the chef in a way that really values and adds value to the consumer's process, and to us, that's education. So, you buy a carbon steel frying pan or you buy a piece of bakeware. Nancy Silverton, the best baker in the world, is going to give you a recipe to enjoy that product. If you buy carbon steel, as you said, carbon steel to us is a better cast iron, but there's a learning curve. The chef [inaudible] in New York is going to teach you how to season it, teaching you how to ... Wait. What the hell is that salt thing that that person was talking about, what that is, and how to use it, and that's coming from a real expert in the space.Stephanie:Oh, that's a really unique and interesting strategy. You're using the chefs as your influencers to train, and I feel like a lot of these chefs know how to speak in a language that'll connect with me so you don't really have to be like, "Wait, wait, wait. You're going too intense here. Let's dumb it down a bit." It seems like a lot of the best chefs have learned how to be the, what's the one, the Chef Ramsays of the world. Or there's another one I follow that's really good too on Instagram. Anyways, he does things in a way where I'm like, "I can do that," and it's just like, it's only five steps, it looks beautiful, but here's the two things that'll really take it to the next level.Chip:Yeah. Tom Colicchio and my co-founder, Jake, they both have the same philosophy, which is that you really get to enjoy cooking once you can just do the fundamentals. As soon as you break free of the recipe, you can actually start to enjoy the creative process [inaudible]. We talked about that a lot too, right? It's like, it's never been easier to order Uber Eats and have any meal you want delivered to your door within 40 minutes at a pretty good price. But people are cooking more and more, and why is that? It's because people actually love the process of the creativity behind it, of the expression behind it, of just the sense of accomplishment, or people do it to destress, or they're doing it for a specific diet.Chip:People are doing it for a very personal reason, and if we can give them the fundamentals of, hey, this is just a technique of how to sear a steak correctly, we don't need to give you, okay, add salt at the end or add a [inaudible] on it. That becomes your personal sense of creativity and your enjoyment for it. So, I'm just taking that to heart as well. If we can give you technique and how-tos as opposed to step by step by step recipes with the chefs who have gone to culinary school, who have done all this technique work for you, then it'll be a really powerful experience for the home consumer.Stephanie:Yeah, that's cool. What are a few of the top maybe cooking tips or tricks where you're like, "Once I learn this one thing, it changed my whole worldview on cooking"?Chip:Yeah. Definitely heat control. I think that is where most home cooks get in trouble. You talked a lot about just burning your eggs, or something like that, and it's not a hard concept, but there's everything flying around the internet of you need high heat to sear, and that's just not true, and low and slow is the best way to cook, etc. It really becomes down to your personal preference and style. You can sear a steak on low heat if you just do it correctly and give it its proper time and you can still have the exact reaction you want.Chip:Tom Colicchio is a low and slow guy and Grant Achatz tends to cook on higher heat. Everyone is doing it in their own way. So, I think for me, and even in my personal journey, understanding heat control and learning it correctly was the biggest unlock because that applies to the most amount of dishes that you cook. I think a good example of that is Tom Colicchio talks a lot about listening to your meal. So, when you have a pan and you heat it up, no oil, because most people will heat it with oil and burn the oil on and have a lot of dishes to do. So, you put a stainless clad piece of cookware on the burner, heat it up to temperature, dumping cold oil, let that heat up quickly, and then put on a cold steak.Chip:What is that cold steak going to do? It's going to drop the temperature in the pan. So, at that point, you need to have more heat into the pan to get that sear. But once everything gets up to rise, if you leave that high heat on, it's going to overcook everything and burn that oil again. So, then lowering it down. Everything on that is done to just paying attention to heat control.Stephanie:Is there any pushback that you guys have felt? You're in an industry that, to me, feels like an older one where people are like, "Oh, I've always used nonstick and it's fine." Now, it does feel like thing are changing where people are like, "These pans are toxic. They're not the best for the environment. There's a lot of things that you should think about." What kind of education around just using the products, but what else are you encountering right now when you're trying to push into this industry?Chip:Yeah. People do have a preference towards nonstick. It's the biggest objective business market to attack, and I think that's why you get the most amount of entrance into the nonstick space. It's also the most just Wild West of marketing as well, which we try and stay out of. The big push right now is "ceramic". I put it in air quotes or visual quotes because it's not actually ceramic. It's a Sol-Gel coating that looks like ceramic, and so the GreenPans of the world a decade ago dubbed it ceramic because it sounded nicer and sounded more premium. But really, it's a Sol-Gel coating.Chip:This was back in the day when DuPont was dumping stuff in water and all this stuff. So, they created this decade long fearmonger marketing tactic that a lot of companies have latched onto over the decades, and now GreenPan's actually in a class action lawsuit about all their face claims.Stephanie:I used to have a GreenPan.Chip:Yeah, exactly.Stephanie:I had to throw it away because I'm like, "I don't this is good to cook on."Chip:The problem with those too is Sol-Gel and "ceramic", which is how the normal person listening to this would hear it as, it doesn't last long. By definition, it's called a self-sacrificing surface. Every time you use it, it removes some surface. It scores four out of 10 on a durability score.Stephanie:That goes in your food, doesn't it?Chip:It does. But it's made out of what makes hair conditioner. So, you can eat your hair conditioner [inaudible]. But whatever. But just in terms of business, we're making performance based tools. We're not making a marketing gimmick company. Our gold standard is would this hold up in a commercial kitchen and would Grant Achatz or Tom Colicchio or Mashama Bailey, would they want to use this piece of cookware in their restaurant? You will never see a ceramic pan, a GreenPan pan in kitchen because that would last one week in a commercial kitchen.Chip:So, then they're making all these claims about better for you, better for the environment. If that thing's ending up in a landfill a week later, two weeks later, a month later, whatever it is, it's up to you to determine if that's actually better for the environment. [crosstalk] Yeah. Exactly. So, we're not in that game. We don't play in that game. We're here to make great tools that the best chefs in the world and the best home cooks and people who love to cook can use.Stephanie:Yeah. So, what kind of marketing are you guys finding most effective right now? When you said a lot of the other cookware brands are maybe using the fearmongering and just making claims that maybe aren't always the most accurate, what are you guys finding success in?Chip:Yeah. So, we love to tell the manufacturing story and the craftsmanship story. So, I'm just talking a lot about bakeware right now because we just launched on April 8th, and we went out to the factory in France and watched ... It goes through 50 people's hands who touch and inspect this and have been doing it for 30 or 40 years and it's such a beautiful process and it's pouring this clay and porcelain that is proprietary to them. I think there's one person who actually only knows the recipe and we're sitting there being like, this seems like a single point of failure as a business owner. You should make sure this person doesn't [crosstalk]-Stephanie:Oh, you're good.Chip:... [crosstalk] something. Like put it on Google Drive with a password protect or something. I don't know. But it's such a intimate, unique process and our customers love to see that, and the customer that appreciates that is our customer. Everything we make in the bakeware space is hand painted, and so we have these white porcelain with blue rims and red rims and every single piece is literally hand painted by brush. That's just so different than a lot of our competitors and what they do where the coolness comes from applying some coating that's powder blue or something like that. It's just totally different.Chip:So, we want to express that and for us on the marketing side, showing that is really beneficial because one, it is all the work we're doing, like scaling and working with these artisans and craftsman, is tough. It's tough business. But it's also really rewarding and our customers see how much care and attention and time goes into each one of their pieces.Stephanie:Yeah. That's great. When I think about, it feels very exclusive, like you have direct access to the person doing this who know the recipe. How do you put a moat around that so maybe other brands can't just come in and be like, "Oh, we know this one style of copper cookware," which is beautiful. I was looking at that like, "Ooh, that would match my one Moscow mule I have." But how do you put a moat around it to make sure that other brands don't just come in and steal your one single person who has the recipe?Chip:Yeah, yeah. It just goes back to Jake's family history and being so authentic in the space. He was working with a lot of people who were friends of friends who connected us to the right people and really, the only reason why we got a foot in the door was because of being in the space for 100 years. Most of our, or all of our competitors do not have any family history or any reason to be in it, other than seeing a white space and a market to go attack kind of thing.Chip:We don't talk too much about moats. To be honest, we have a very familiar relationship with all of our manufacturers, craftsmanship partners, and everything. Go out, spend multiple weeks. Our knife manufacturer told us she loved us and felt like we were her children and kids and sons at the end of it. So, these are real relationships and it's less about, hey, can we sign and exclusive for 10 years to lock out competitors and more how can we treat them like family, how can they treat us like family, and so they wouldn't want to do exactly what you're talking about.Stephanie:Yeah. How do you go about doing that? How do you instill that trust and relationship, and other than just being a nice, friendly person, which obviously you are, what else do you do so they really feel that relationship and you're like, "Yep, I'm not even worried about it because we got that"?Chip:Yeah. Some of them have invested in us. Internally, we have a mantra of hospitality first, and that goes towards everything from treating every customer who walks through our door or walks through our website door, whether they're spent $19 or $900, like we are a three Michelin star restaurant. So, what can we do to make you feel better, to enjoy the experience better, to, if you're having a problem, fix it, to do service recovery if you've had an issue? If UPS failed to deliver, how can we help you get to the answer that you need? All that stuff.Chip:That extends from customers as well as buyers, vendors, and manufacturing partners as well. So, what does that mean? It's treating them fairly on terms. It's treating them fairly on our business growth and practices and being an open book for them and sharing information and in negotiations, dealing with them in a friendly manner, and getting to a result that [inaudible] zero sum game, but it's beneficial for both sides. For us, that is the name of the game because it gets out of a let's solve for the six month term, and this is going to be a business that'll be around for two decades, three decades, forever, we need to make sure that we're treating people correctly.Stephanie:Yeah. I love that. So, when thinking about your customer, like you said, they can come in and buy a $1,200 cookware set and it's going to last a long time. It's not something where it's like you'll be back in a month. I'll see you when you need a replacement. How do you think about garnering that passionate customer base where it's like you have a good LTV on them? You're like, "They're going to be around for 10 years," because I've seen that you also are able to get wait lists of 10,000+ people who sign up for new products that you're launching. So, I want to hear how you think about that and keep your customer engaged, even if they ... life cycle of when they need a new product might be a long time from when they buy their first one.Chip:Yeah. So, we've been fortunate enough to have really strong cohort and repeat customer behavior. We're only three years old at this point. Our earliest cohorts have repeated over, on blended average, over 100%. So, industry average is 20%. [inaudible] 5x industry average. It's, again, in a product category that, as you mentioned, our product should last you your entire life. So, that's something we had to solve for and think about. Our first belief is that product quality is the biggest driver of longevity and happiness in cohort behavior.Chip:So, if your product stinks and you're the best marketer in the world, that's a short term gain. [inaudible] you can have actually a subpar experience with an amazing product and that's actually the better trade. Again, we try to solve for a great experience with a great product. But if we have only one chip to put it in, we would always put it into the product category because we believe that is what drives behavior. So, when we're going out, and one of our early investors and main investors had a really great point, which was you don't know how someone's going to find you. It could be a blog article about some tail skew that you just launched or cutting board.Chip:It's not, of course, you, but if that is their first experience with Made In, they are going to believe that everything else is like that cutting board. Right? So, everything you launch needs to be okay in a great experience. Or sorry. No. Everything you launch needs to be a great experience if that is their first product they've ever bought. So, don't launch tail skews that aren't up to the quality standards that you want, that don't have the manufacturer and craftsmanship story that you want, that don't have a good unboxing experience.Chip:So, we've taken that to heart because I think you see a lot of ecommerce companies just launch a whole bunch of stuff really quickly without that thought and attention behind it. Again, you don't know how people are going to find you. You're going to Parachute Home and you need a candle. If that candle doesn't come in an amazing box that represents the Parachute Home brand well, then you're probably not going to come back and buy their sheets. So, when we think about a product line and our offerings and cohort behavior and [inaudible] to answer your question, it all starts with product experience and product quality, and then again, that hospitality first mantra, treating our customers correctly, giving them customer service if they need it, and that will drive longterm behavior.Stephanie:Yeah. Oh, that's great because I think, like you said, a lot of brands do think about what are the loss leaders that you can put out there and just get people in the door, the quick hits? Like you said, I've bought many things for the first time, starting off with smaller price points, just to see, dabble in it a bit, see what it's like, and then be like, "Nope. I'm so glad I didn't buy that expensive $100 item because I just bought a bracelet for $10 and it was horrible. And yes, it was $10, but I'm still mad about it."Chip:Yeah. When I was at the apparel company and I was running analytics for them, we did a lot of basket cart analysis on which product ... taking everyone's first cart and basing out the SKUs that made up that first cart and then which of those SKUs led to [inaudible] second carts. Then we found an interesting mantra, which we've taken to heart, which was the lowest price point product of the most premium category was included in the most baskets that drove the highest repeat. To your point exactly on that, it was people who were trying to figure out, hey, is this material worth this extra amount of money I'm about to spend on it? I'm going to test that out, buy the cheapest one in that category.Chip:So, it was that product that we hadn't spent a lot of time and attention on, and all of a sudden, you're like, "Wow. This actually is the most important product of our entire company," because it's everyone's gateway and it's showing the material, but it's not a tough price point to hit on a first basket, and if we can show well on this first basket with this product, then they'll be great customers over the longterm. So, I think exactly what you mentioned is interesting.Stephanie:That's a good one. It makes you think about maybe adjusting margins on that first lower priced item, give it higher quality, lower your margins if you need to to keep that price lower, get them in the door, and then they'll probably go up from there when they have a really good experience with that cheaper item. I don't know if all brands do that, though. We will find out. Interesting. So, when developing new product lines, you're talking about the quality piece of it. But how quickly can you guys develop products, or are you more slow paced, like we just want to make sure it's perfect and it could take us a year to come up with a new product line because we're working with these artisans in France or knife makers or whatever you're doing?Chip:Yeah. It's been a mixture of both. We've had products that came together very quickly and was a match made in heaven with the craftsman who we reached out to and it just got to market in the way we wanted very quickly. We had a product, cast iron product that we were trying to launch in 2019 that got to the one yard line and we had spent a year and a half on it. We invested $50,000 of tooling and a ton of research and time and effort and all this stuff. It just wasn't up to the quality that we felt represented the brand and we scrapped that project at the one yard line, and now it's been a three year project.Chip:So, I'd say it's very variable. We are very aware that once we put that product out, it reflects on the rest of the products. So, if we put out a bad line and it doesn't carry the same quality and care and attention that the rest of our line does, it could reflect on ... Are they doing everything else half-assed as well? So, I would it's been a mixture.Stephanie:Yeah. How do you ensure that you're going to have enough inventory, especially when it's being handcrafted? We've had quite a few people on this show who have similar stories around ... We had Yellow Leaf Hammocks on in the early days and the women in the villages there were the ones making the hammocks, and of course, that can cause maybe sometimes supply issues. How do you even plan for that when it's like, well, this is one person's recipe and there's 50 people who are touching this product to get it out there, and maybe Joe got sick, so there goes his recipe for a week, we don't know how to create it anymore? Even plan when it's so, yeah, custom, I guess?Chip:Yeah. To be honest, that's been one of the biggest challenges of this business is our unique moat and value prop and everything is also the biggest challenge in the business. I think those naturally go hand in hand together. But you hit the nail on the head. It's about finding these craftsmen that make these amazing products, and they've never seen a company scale 5x year over year. They've never seen a company go this fast and just attack the market in this way.Chip:So, it's about, again, going back to being good partners with them, sharing multiyear forecasts, helping them invest in new tooling and new lines and things like that and working with them directly. It's a huge, huge challenge. But we've seen companies who get to this point and then take it and move everything to an automation facility and hurt everything that they built in the first place. So, we're not doing that. It's more about being great partners and figuring out the challenges with those partners.Stephanie:Yeah. Cool. So, when it comes to an ecommerce perspective, I like your example earlier about how to think about certain metrics and what you use to analyze. What are some other things maybe you pulled in from your past marketing experience into this business where you're like, "We've always relied on these principles, or I always look at these metrics every day to make sure everything's going okay"?Chip:Yeah. We look at star ratings by product line. Those are obviously very important for us. It's what is the benefit of ecommerce? In the early days, it was the cut out the middle man story. That's gone away now. It's, okay, direct relationship with our customer, one to one management of that relationship, and we believe more of that mantra, right? So, it's, at the end of the day, we always say at the end of the day when you buy something from Williams-Sonoma and you walk out of that store, you're never going to hear from that salesperson ever again. Your relationship with Williams-Sonoma and that salesperson who just spent a half hour with you is over.Chip:For us, it always begins at the time of purchase. They've bought from us. We now have a direct line to them, we can provide them content, we can provide them customer service. Our relationship is just beginning, and a lot of that goes into product reviews, a lot of that goes into monitoring return rates and how many customers exchange or return products. For us, that's a proxy for product quality. Then cohort behavior is a huge one as well and those three together give us an idea of how the product into customers viewing the company full circle is behaving and is trending. Those are probably the three we focused on most.Stephanie:Yeah. What are some of the behaviors that you're looking for when you say the cohort behavior is one of the biggest ones? What are you guys looking for and how would you adjust it if it's not going the way that you want?Chip:Yeah. So, cohort behavior, you're looking for trends up and to the right, and home space. When we launched in the home space, what we tend to see in this space is a diminishing marginal curve on cohort behavior. So, after they've bought all the things from you, then they don't ever come back again. So, you see cohort behavior one to six months kicking up to the right and then six to 12, a little bit less, and then flat from 12 on, or whatever it is. Right?Chip:So, we wanted to make sure that we didn't follow that trend because that meant, all right, we no longer have a relationship after 12 months, just out of an example, with that customer. So, what can we do to maintain that customer within our relationship and what can we do to provide value to them, whether that's content and recipes and how to use things better, whether that's new products? So, again, we started with just stainless clad cookware, we've launched carbon steel cookware, knives, wine glasses, plates, silverware, copper bakeware, all from these amazing facilities and stories. If we can treat them right in the beginning, then obviously they'll continue to support us throughout that journey.Stephanie:Yeah. What's some of the most engaging content? Is it the educational stuff? Is it the stories around the artisans making the product? What really pulls people in and then keeps them coming, not just a one off hit of, "Oh, that was heartwarming. I like that," and then you don't see them anymore? What keeps them there longterm?Chip:Definitely the manufacturing and craftsmanship stories. Those get the highest feedback and results from us. To your point on inventory being an issue for companies like ours, have that be a portion of it and then have that portion go through a pandemic where demand is increasing and manufacturers are closed in Europe for months because of COVID outbreaks. It creates a tough dynamic, and with and around those stories, we've generally heard the refrain of, "I don't care when this stuff comes to me. Just make it in the right way," and I think what these videos and this content does is show you that were making it in the right way.Chip:It's not like we're delivering medication that needs to be ... If you don't have your oval baker on Monday, you're not going to be too upset about it. Obviously, we're striving for best in class delivery and fulfillment and have a great team who does so. But we're not delivering life needed items. We are delivering craft products that are going to last you a lifetime, and if that takes an extra week, by showing people that, the care and attention that goes into it, they generally have that refrain of, "Do it the right way and get it to me when you can."Stephanie:Yep. Yep. I definitely feel that. How do you feel about being shown up in marketplaces or Amazon? I know there's a couple artisan marketplaces where they highlight some of the best products. To me, letting someone else tell your story, or even on Amazon, you can only tell it in a certain way. How are you guys approaching that?Chip:Yeah. Amazon's interesting because I think the mentality on Amazon has shifted a bunch over the last five years. The ecommerce space in general five years ago, I think, would have said, "No way. Amazon dilutes my brand. Amazon doesn't let me tell my story. It's going to cannibalize all the marketing efforts I'm doing over here." [inaudible] we're seeing a shift away from that mentality and people and brands racing towards displaying on Amazon. I don't think it means Amazon is still doing a great job of letting brands tell their story. To me, it's still a search engine and people tend to not get to the brand page ever.Chip:So, I don't think it's necessarily an Amazon win and that they're helping perpetuate all this effort and craft that we're going towards. It's more, I think it's becoming just such a necessary evil in terms of [inaudible] and people are growing these brands to get scale and need to find the incremental sales, and where else to go but wholesale and Amazon? So, Amazon's been interesting. We're not on Amazon. Almost 100% of our sales come through our own dotcom. So, we're not really on marketplaces either.Chip:In general, we have a kind of anti view on all of those. I'm not saying that will be forever. Again, each channel has diminishing returns at some sort of scale. Fortunately, we're not at that point. But yeah. We tend to like to tell our own stories and craft a message and own the relationship and provide the value to the customer.Stephanie:So, what's on the radar for you guys for the next couple years? Where are you headed? What are you hoping to do in maybe one to two years?Chip:Yeah. So, we're at the point, and when we launched this, we wanted to "own the kitchen". I realize that's an overused, cheesy phrase and hopefully, all the listeners didn't just roll their eyeballs. I swear-Stephanie:I didn't. [crosstalk] Own it, Chip. They're going to own it, everyone. Come on.Chip:Exactly. But for us, everything comes down to the why and it's not just to sell more things. It's, okay, a kitchen is part of the home and people like aesthetic congruency within their home. So, it doesn't make sense to have a different bakeware company vs. different knives vs. different cookware and pull those all out and now you're serving them all on a table to a dinner party and they all look different and it's not a reflection of what you're trying to do for your home, which again, is very personal to you.Chip:So, with the launch of bakeware, we're actually at the point right now where if you're moving into a new home you can buy almost every main vertical you need off of madeincookware.com. It can all show up in one box and it can look the same and it can feel like part of the same system and you know that everything comes from an amazing backstory with amazing craftsmen.Chip:You don't have to go research do I want [inaudible] vs. Henko vs. Made In knives, then All-Clad vs. Made In Cookware. You don't have to do 500 different pieces of research. It's a seamless process for you to do so. So, that was our main brand goal, and we got there a little bit quicker than we thought we would with the launch of bakeware now. So, we're super excited about this being the first year where you can literally pull out a butcher block and cut a knife and prep your food and then cook it on Made In and then serve it on a Made In dish and serve it with wine and all that stuff and never touch anything but Made In, which is pretty cool.Stephanie:That's cool.Stephanie:Cool. Well, let's move over to the lightning round. The lightning round's brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I ask a question and you have [inaudible] or less to answer. Are you ready, Chip?Chip:Yes.Stephanie:All right. So, I'd say you're probably an adventurous guy, from what I've read about you. What's one thing that you would never do?Chip:One thing I would never do. Good question. As of interest, I am, I'm not a huge water lover in terms of ... I do scuba dive, but I would never kite surf [inaudible].Stephanie:No kite surfing?Chip:Yeah.Stephanie:Wow. Okay. But don't you fly planes?Chip:Yes. [crosstalk] I'd rather go up than down, and climb mountains ever.Stephanie:Okay. Okay. What's a crazy story from flying a plane where you're like, "I almost died this one time, but here I am"?Chip:Yeah. My 14th hour, so about a third of the way through the private pilot's license, we had an engine out failure. It was right outside DC and we were descending beneath the DCA airspace, the Reagan airspace to sail out of it. It was with my instructor. It's the first time in the training process that you go and land at a separate airport and come back. The first 10 to 12 hours are just all at your local home base airport doing takeoffs and landings. So, we had just crossed the Potomac. He asked me to descend below the airspace, pulled back the throttle, and the engine just quit.Chip:He said, "Give it more gas. Don't throttle back that much," and I [inaudible] and it didn't kick back in. We declared an emergency, to make a long story short. When you declare an emergency, this is the Reagan now, they give you a dedicated person to help monitor your situation and he told us, "Okay, there's an airport two miles to your left. Can you make it?" "No." We declared a mayday situation. It had just had snowed two feet in the DC area at that time, which was pretty rare and lucky for us, and ended up crashing in a snowbank in someone's backyard.Stephanie:Oh, my gosh. I heard about this. I lived in DC.Chip:Did you?Stephanie:I heard about this. Yeah.Chip:It was probably 9:00 AM maybe. This lady came out in her robe with a coffee cup and just was so confused that there was a plane in her backyard, and we were sitting there kind of dancing-Stephanie:[inaudible].Chip:... because [crosstalk] yeah, we did this. We were safe.Stephanie:Oh, my gosh.Chip:She took us in and gave us hot cocoa. I was in school. I was at Georgetown at the time and I was missing, I had an 11:00 AM exam and emailed the instructor and said, "Hey. I know you said no excuses for missing exams, but here's the story." I ended up making it back around 12:30, three hour exam, walked in the classroom, and he stood up, stopped everyone, and said, "I will never accept any other excuses ever again for missing a thing," except for I was in a plane crash and landed in someone's backyard two hours away from the city.Stephanie:Oh, god.Chip:Which was pretty crazy. He ended up being a former Navy pilot. So, kind of, I think-Stephanie:Felt that.Chip:... touched a good nerve with it. But it was definitely one of the crazier experiences in my life.Stephanie:Wow. What year was that?Chip:2009 or '10.Stephanie:Okay. Yeah. I remember when I lived in Potomac area and I remember hearing about this. I don't know if it was you or not, but I remember a plane landing in someone's backyard and it was in the newspaper for a week.Chip:Yeah.Stephanie:[crosstalk] was you. That's cool. So, you've done four or the seven summits. Which one's been your favorite and why?Chip:Denali in Alaska was by far the most wild experience. That's the only one that's totally unassisted, no porters, no mules, not anything. You take a plane that lands on a glacier with your backpack and a sled and they say, "See you in 14 to 21 days." It was also the toughest. That is 120 pound packs over 14 to 20 days. We got stuck. So, we actually were making amazing time. We got up to the 14,000 foot camp. The mountain's about 21,000. So, it's the last major camp before doing your ascent, and about 10 days of -40 degree weather came in. So, we were stuck there.Chip:It was kind of a weird experience because the days were sunny and nice, but it was absolutely freezing and anyone who left the camp, 100% of them got frostbite and had to be evacuated. So, we sat there. We were running out of food. If we got through the last day of food and things opened back up, then we did a rapid ascent and summited on the last day we were able to. But you're out there in the wilderness. It's absolutely stunning and beautiful. You're kind of with yourself for ... It's quite a different experience than some of the others, which are a lot of tour groups, a lot of assistants, a lot quicker. So, it was a wild experience.Stephanie:That's cool. I mean, below 40. Wow. No, thanks.Chip:Funny story is the kid who actually had a [inaudible] job, he was a friend from earlier, but he was working at Walmart ecommerce at the time. We actually received our first investment via satellite on that climb for Made In.Stephanie:Wow.Chip:He was like, "What is that?" Then two years later, he joined us as our head of logistics. So-Stephanie:Oh, that's cool.Chip:... a lot of things came from that journey.Stephanie:That's a fun story.Chip:Yeah.Stephanie:Man. So many things all coming together. Cool.Chip:Yeah.Stephanie:What's one thing that you don't understand that you wish you did?Chip:All this stuff that's happening with physics right now and how molecules can go through walls and power all that stuff. I don't know. It seems very cool and I wish I got it, and I've had a lot of conversations around it. Every time, I feel like I'm high or something and I don't quite get it. But other people seem to get it and I wish I did.Stephanie:I haven't even really heard about this, or maybe I just don't know what this even is. So, I guess I'm in that same camp of I don't understand and now I'm going to start looking into that.Chip:Yeah.Stephanie:The last thing, what one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Chip:Probably the mass move to 5G. Everyone is, I would say, still in the camp of mobile as the first touchpoint and then convert on desktop or desktop conversion rates and AOV are still [inaudible] out of mobile, development still is mobile, second in most cases, and even though [inaudible] about mobile first development for the last decade. I think obviously as the more widespread 5G world gets out there, the focus on mobile maybe finally will get through to people. That's the most important meeting of ecommerce.Stephanie:Yep. Cool. Well, thanks so much for joining the show. It's been fun learning about the world of cookware and seeing where you guys are headed. That's, yeah, amazing. Where can people find out more about you and Made In Cookware?Chip:Yeah. Everything is sold through madeincookware.com. That's M-A-D-E-I-N cookware.com. We have everything from full kits if you're moving and need to outfit a full kitchen down to everything is also sold a la carte if you just need to fill around an existing group of cookware. So, we're excited and we have a full team ready to help you out if you have any issues as well.Stephanie:How amazing. Thanks so much, Chip.Chip:Cool. Thank you for having me on.

Mini malls, shopping centers, and large department stores all still exist and remain popular despite their digital counterparts But online marketplaces are where more and more brands are gathering to not just sell goods, but to get a better 360 view of their customers, and gain access to sell products from other big name brands that fit their marketplace niche. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, I explored that idea a bit more with Jason Wyatt, the Executive Chairman at Marketplacer, a business dedicated to creating marketplaces. We dove into the various ways that Jason has seen marketplaces evolve, especially in recent years. Plus, Jason talked about some of the incredible innovation that he’s seen take place  thanks to marketplaces — including the birth of Providoor, an Australian marketplace for restaurants that was built as a reaction to COVID-19 and reached a $100 million run rate within 12 weeks. We talked about how the marketplace connections made that possible, and also how the B2B landscape can be revolutionized thanks to marketplaces. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Getting The Bigger Picture: By creating a marketplace, businesses can get a much deeper picture into the attributes of their customers, while also gaining access to inventory and products to sell from big name brands. The key to success? Curation.We Have A Connection: One of the greatest advantages of a marketplace are the connections that can be formed within them. Especially from a B2B perspective, because for so long those buyers have been left out of the ecommerce equation. They desire the same level of connection and ease that those in B2C have come to expect though, and marketplaces have provided a way to create community and engagement that has made B2B selling and buying much easier.Long Live Loyalty: Big brands have long tapped into loyalty programs as a way to earn customer trust and keep them coming back. By expanding point systems to usage within a marketplace, brands are now becoming even more trustworthy and respected in the eyes of consumers, who can all of a sudden get more bang for their buck. Additionally, the rise of wide-ranging marketplace loyalty strategies will likely become a new way for retailers to attract customers to newer marketplaces.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, I'm Stephanie Postles CEO at mission.org and your host of Up Next in Commerce. Today on the show, we have Jason Wyatt, who currently serves as the executive chairman of Marketplacer. Jason, welcome.Jason:Hi Stephanie, thanks so much for having me on the show today.Stephanie:Thanks for hopping on at 7:00 am. I think you're one of the earliest guests I've talked to over in Australia, so I appreciate you coming on and joining me for a fun chat.Jason:No worries at all. It's just a pleasure to be on the show and talk to your community.Stephanie:I was hoping we could start back in your... way back in the early days when you were 13, because I saw a fun story about what you were doing back then and a little entrepreneurial spirit that was going on, and I was hoping you can kind of share what you're doing back then so people can get to know you a bit before we dive into Marketplacer. This is all around a loan that you got from your dad if you know what I'm talking about.Jason:Well, I might, I was actually... I was a mad sports fan, as the majority of Australians are in this country. And I was playing tennis at the time, if I'm on the right track with this story. And we used to play a lot and pretty competitive. But my brother was a lot better than me, but I used to sort of grab onto his heels, but we constantly used to break racket strings. And we didn't come from this massive affluent family. We come from a family of just, the harder you work, the luckier you get. But dad, what he did do is he loaned us the money to buy our own stringing racket. He just said, "If you keep breaking these strings, well you got to fix them yourself."Jason:My brother and I took advantage of that situation. We figured we had an unfair advantage versus the other tennis players within the group. And then what we actually did is we turned that into a little tennis racket stringing business. So at the age of sort of 13 or 14, we were making a hundred bucks a racket, stringing out sort of four rackets a night and we had a little good business going on. I suppose the entrepreneurial spirit sort of started at a very, very young age where we had a problem to solve and then we solved it for other people.Stephanie:I love that. It definitely rang close to home because I was out in my neighbor's yard, raking, weeding doing anything I could just to earn $5 here and there. And I love hearing about how other people had that itch early on too, and seeing what it turned into later on in life.Stephanie:I'd love to jump into Marketplacer a bit and hear what is it? When did you create it? And what are you guys up to today?Jason:Marketplacer is probably the most fascinating business that I've ever been associated with, because it enabled so much global connection and enables people and businesses all over the world to sell things they don't own and to really supercharge commerce. And the story started back when my co-founder and I, Sam Salter, we just had a simple idea 13 years ago to make it easier for people to buy and sell bicycles. And we created a business called BikeExchange. Think of cars.com for bikes. You're buying a new bike and you want to see everything in one single destination or you're selling your bike and you want to sell it to a community that's a trusted community, has a sense of belonging behind it. And we created BikeExchange. But in doing that we had some really, really big, tough entrepreneurial problems to solve.Jason:We had to come up with a sales and marketing plan. We had to come up with a customer success program, but most importantly, the technology never existed. So, we not only have to be great salespeople, not only a great customer focused, but we had to become technologists at the same time. And we just thought, in everything, in creating a business, in creating a marketplace on a global scale it's a problem that we could help other entrepreneurs or other businesses now actually start to use a platform to enable them to be able to create it. So the story was born out of solving our own problem, out of eating our own dog food in a technology term. But now we help people all over the world in 10 countries solve that marketplace journey, of really just making it easy to connect a customer and community to make it easier for them to sell things they don't own and to supercharge commerce. And I'm sure we're going to unpick what that means in a lot more depth over the next hour or so.Stephanie:That's awesome. What's wild to me is that building a marketplace is notoriously like the hardest thing you can do in commerce. Everyone struggles with supply side, demand side, how to build which one first, and you're not only doing it once. You're replicating it, using your software and doing it with multiple industries. How do you even go about approaching it, especially if it's a new marketplace?Stephanie:You had your bike one, I know earlier you were talking about meal delivery from restaurants, how do you even think about building a new marketplace and solving for both sides of the market?Jason:It's a really good question because we always identify what we consider to be an unfair advantage when we help our clients and customers really figure out whether it's a worthwhile strategic project for them. Because it's a strategic project to go through, that marketplace journey. And the unfair advantage has really been always anchored around two core elements. The first being an existing community or audience or customer base that you know they want to buy more things from you. Or you know you can connect them up in a single destination to improve that customer experience. And the second is more often not the ability to have an in-depth knowledge of the supply base, a connectivity into that supply base and product base. You can actually really exploit the now and explore the future around connecting those two sides of those marketplace journeys.Jason:The evolution and the story of a marketplace has really evolved over time too, from the humble beginnings of a BikeExchange when we first started. It's now in 10 countries, and now we're out around the world and listed on the Australian stock exchange in January of this year.Jason:Thank you, awesome team effort by the team. To really large retailers and brands and, and all types of traditional types of business saying, "Hey, I've actually got one or probably two of those unfair advantages and how can I make it easier for me to grow and drive growth within my existing customer base, without the limits of capital and without the limits of actually producing all of the products, but enhancing my customer experience along the way?"Stephanie:How do you figure out, I mean, how I'm envisioning is that you would probably have like a lead brand who's for the bike one or for the meal delivery one you'd have to have kind a lead person who's owning that marketplace and then they're onboarding other brands as well. And other customers, is that how I'm thinking about it? Because I can't imagine having 20 BikeExchanges where every bike company is, "Well, I want my own marketplace. And I want mine." It seems once you have one, it's probably good enough and you have to be a part of that one.Jason:It's a really, really good question.Jason:There's different types of marketplaces, but the evolution that is really happening at the moment is, take SurfStitch for example. SurfStitch is actually a commerce cloud customer. They're a pure play surf wear brand. They sell hard goods, soft goods and clothing and bus fashion around it. But they've got this community, this tribal community of surfers and they're really a successful business, great growth really, really well leveraged on the commerce cloud stack. But when they looked at their business and they looked at their strategic path, they're constrained by warehouses, they're constrained by the capital, but they had in the back of their mind that they thought that, if we could have the full range of surfboards, instead of only taking 20% of the range of surfboards in all sizes, by connecting up to the wholesaler warehouses.Jason:And then to unpick that to the next layer, when you think about it, a surfer is quite a soulful person. They love the outdoors and are they only surfing? Or are they going hiking on the weekend? Are they exploring the outdoors as well? But I don't want to put a hiking gear in my warehouse. That's too risky, but I could go and connect up to Patagonia to take a full range extension from Patagonia without owning the inventory. So by taking a marketplace strategy or really a growth strategy, what they were really able to do is make it easy for them to connect that to a supplier base, to improve their customer experience and really enhance that 360 view of what that customer is trying to do. Not only from a data perspective, but a product and an experience perspective.Stephanie:Got it. That makes a lot more sense now. And it also just seems the role of curation is so important and whoever's curating the best products and not just throwing a thousand things into one marketplace, really thinking, like you said of, okay, you might be hiking, but you're probably not cooking too. Like I'm not going to put cookware in my marketplace with Patagonia stuff and surf boards. It seems like curation is huge when it comes to that. And also knowing what's trending and what their customers will like is a big part.Jason:Yeah, but it also enables this strategy, the ability to fail fast within there as well. If you put it a camping stove on there or a shower after you go for a surf, to clean yourself off, you haven't bought it. You've had a go at growing in there. It didn't work customers didn't like it. So just turn it off.Jason:With Marketplacer what we really focus on as well, is a really strong vetting engine for the sales force customer and any of our customer community so that they... it's just not a free for all, for all of the products flowing through. It's that ease of connectivity into the supplier base. And then it's the strict controls and measures that you can put in place to enable your customer experience within the marketplace strategy, not just "the everything for everyone" experience. If that makes sense?Stephanie:Yeah, it makes sense. I was going to ask when it comes to marketplaces, how do you guys think about marketplace or versus the Amazons and the eBays and Etsy's of the world that seem like they are kind of creating custom curated collections in a way too. But not as much of a niche level where I would say "Okay, we're going to be doing bikes and here's your community and your people." How do you think about the landscape of marketplaces right now?Jason:It's a very interesting landscape, because it's kind of a bit of a cross matrix at the moment, Stephanie. In that there's B to B, B to C and B to B to C plays within what we're trying to do. And then if you take the types of marketplaces the other way, so all three of those really go across all three gamuts. And then if you take the types of marketplaces, you've got the niche and the tribal based marketplaces, and we put media organizations into that bucket. If you imagine all of the great magazines, like we power lots of magazine marketplaces, where Time+Tide is a good example of a watch marketplace, where they have the beautiful content, they have the trust within the industry. They had a community of people looking to buy watches, but they didn't have that connectivity into the supply. But now they've got it. Another really great example is FishBrain, which is the world's largest fishing marketplace.Stephanie:Didn't know that existed. That's awesome.Jason:I'm not a big fishing person, but think of Strava fishing. Think of a really, really large... I think they've got over 13 million users within the United States now. They wanted that into a commerce play, but they didn't want to own inventory. They didn't have a buyership, they didn't have product developers. It was too difficult to do it. So what they did is they partnered and they connected into the world's best fishing suppliers to create a marketplace. Now that has over 60,000 products to sell that you can just buy.Stephanie:Is there ever a chance of them getting lost. When I hear 60,000 products within a fishing marketplace, how do you get found in that big marketplace?Jason:That's an interesting one. So fishing is probably the best industry to do it because what I have learned about fishing is there's lots of micro products for the local areas. So there's lots of little lures and lots of little different tackles setups, the different communities and different areas. There's lots of niche products within the niche. That one makes a ton of sense to have a really big, broad breadth of inventory within that.Jason:So if you think of the tribe, the addressable market behind people trying to take that convergence of content into commerce and contextual commerce, that space is born for a marketplace. Isn't it? It's an affiliate 4.0 where it can connect into the supply banks. Then you look at brands and retailers and franchise groups and cooperatives. If you actually look at the structure of all of those businesses... Co-operatives and franchise by default are marketplaces. They're a masthead brand their third-party inventory is owned by their franchisees groups. What we're finding in this space is we're just increasing the offering that they can have.Jason:We connect up their franchisees group into a single destination. For example, actually within Australia, we run the largest tire business called Bob Jane T-Marts and Bob Jane T-Marts are a really large franchise group. They're a $600 million business. And tires are a complicated product. They seem simple, but they're incredibly complicated because you've got to match every tire to every car to every wheel ever made, ever sold.Jason:But by creating a marketplace strategy within that, they're really famous for solving one problem. We connected up all the franchise groups via our marketplace technology. But if you think about it, what they really have is car data and car ownership data. What else could they sell a person at the BMW, other than tires and wheels that could enhance their car driving experience? You'll start to see lots of these franchise groups, not only connected in unifying their customer experience, but actually starting to think about how can they enhance their customer experience without the cost of capital burden placed that amongst their franchisees group or cooperative structures and buying groups are in the same bucket.Jason:Then if you just think of traditional retailers, whether they're a pure play or a bricks and mortar or a blend of both. Which the world has a blend of both now, right? There's no real, just pure play or bricks and mortar retailers anymore. So the problem they're trying to solve is exactly that problem we talked through with SurfStitch. How do they enhance their customer experience in store or online. Where they can range extend or category extend, to supercharge their commerce journey within that.Jason:And that last sort of bucket within that is that brand or wholesaler journey. And the brand and wholesaler journey is a really interesting one because it does really touch on those three sort of core verticals that I said at the start being B2C, B2B and B2B2C within that.Jason:The first one's pretty obvious from a B2C perspective, if you're a brand and you can see a perfectly complimentary product, why would you want them to leave your platform to buy it from another platform? Why wouldn't you just connect it up to enhance your customer experience?Jason:If you sell shoes for example, I'm going to dumb it down, but if you sold shoes, how could you connect up with a sock company that had the best brand to associate the shoes with socks without actually owning all of those imagery behind it? And we've seen lots of great examples of that. We actually power the Nokia marketplace. If you're thinking of buying the phone, what other connected product and you put in within that connected ecosystem and Google are a partner of Nokia phones globally now, and all of the Google products is going to be available on the Nokia marketplace.Jason:You can start to see this connectivity piece really, really drive home within that. And then from a B2B2C perspective is how do you not cut out your stockists? How do you find a way as a brand or a distributor in a modern world not to cut them out. Whether it's a marketplace, a unified experience, but what our marketplace platform can do is connect it all up. You can cut your retailer into these third party product sales, but without, without actually going against your traditional business model. And we're seeing a fair bit of that momentum behind it as well. Then the growth space and it's going to be really interesting, because I think that the world is saying how, from a B2B perspective, from a traditional brand, when you're selling to retailers when you're consolidating in a B2B industry, how does a marketplace make sense?Jason:There's Alibaba and then there's not much. The interesting play within there is the unfair advantages to businesses is pretty similar then than it is to a B2C perspective. Their unfair advantage is really anchored around their existing stockists or retailer base that they sell into. They've got a great community of sales representatives or sellers on the floor, who are going around and servicing them. How can they then connect up to other suppliers in other industries that could actually self to that community and we make it easier to do that. And there's a really sort of large demand at the moment behind B2B marketplaces as well. It's an interesting thing to call these things marketplaces. They're not all marketplaces, but what we're doing is we're connecting the world to enable supercharged commerce.Stephanie:I love that. I want to hear a little bit about the revenue numbers. When brands embark on this marketplace journey, what are some stories when a new company starts revising your guys' tech?Jason:It's a really interesting story and journey behind it. I'll give you one example during, during COVID, the world's a different place and we all know that, and there's not much point in delving into what's next after COVID. I think everybody's thinking about what's next after COVID but what we fundamentally know today. It's just a different world. It's a different world than it was in the past. And the power of connection during COVID in a digital sense, drove some of the greatest innovation stories that I've seen for some time. And I'll share the story of Providoor. In Australia, this is a case study we rolled out.Jason:It's nearly exactly this week, last year to the day and a great friend of mine, but a celebrity chef Shane Delia. He owns some of the best restaurants in Melbourne and he's got cooking shows on TV and big personality, vibrant, enthusiastic. Had 150 staff behind his restaurant business at four restaurants, one at the airport. The institution restaurants you know, think of Mamasita in New York. These are like famous restaurants within this country. And he emailed me and he just said, "Jason, I'm stuffed. I've got all of these people, I've got food, I'm just throwing into the bin. I've got leases that I've got to pay, but I've got this one glimmer of hope."Jason:"I've just done a trial where yeah, I'm doing ready, sort of made precut food where the customer just has to finish it off at home. So it's like they're getting the magic of a restaurant quality experience in their home."Jason:And he said, "I've done it for a couple of weeks and I'm selling like $5 to 6,000 a day." And I said, "Well, talk me through the problems that you've sold." And he said, "Well we've solved this packaging, we've figured out how to I get it to the customers with the boxes." He did this in a week, like extraordinary innovation. He's, he's sourced the products, the lined boxes, he's got the dry ice, he's fixed the packaging for this. So the tumor is sort of doing, you know, that those types of volumes in a small way. And I said, "How are you delivering them?"Jason:He said, "Well I've got no choice. My chefs are preparing it, My chef's are driving at 35K around Melbourne, to drop it off at people's doorsteps at 4:00 am in the morning." And I said, "Well, you've probably got to solve your logistics problem in a real quick way. But there's something in this, because there's a demand." You're not doing any marketing, your unfair advantage is you're... I call him a B grade celebrity, he probably thinks he's an A grader. But he's got this celebrity audience that he can tap into. He's got trust within the community. The other chefs will trust him. He's never gonna do anything wrong by that industry or community and customers just loved it. If we could solve a couple of problems, i.e, how do we make it easy for all restaurants to sell in the same way and create a marketplace around it.Jason:And then how can we make it easy for people to get the delivery experience behind it? I think you've got the bones of a really good business. Shane's a pretty good hustler. And five weeks later, we'd pulled every string in the world to get Providoor live. Where the best restaurants within the Melbourne CBD was selling to a 35 kilometer radius of the Melbourne CBD, get it delivered in two delivery slots AM and PM. They would cross stock. The trucks would drive around Melbourne pick up every box. Cross stock it into a single parcel. So you would only get a single parcel. You could order from all the restaurants in one. If you were entertaining in your home or just wanted to release from COVID, or you had a birthday party, or mum and dad couldn't get to the restaurant, then you could actually experience it. And after a 12 week period he was on a $100 million rate. Solving those capital problems.Stephanie:And this was from other restaurants as well that he onboarded onto essentially the marketplace that he created. It started with his restaurant. He brought on others as well. What does the cut look like for him versus the restaurants that are also selling on the marketplace that he essentially established?Jason:Yeah, it was again, really interesting. Shane took, I think it was a 15% slice of the pie. So he actually...Stephanie:Who decides, or you decide when you create the marketplace how much you...?Jason:Yeah.Stephanie:Nice, okay.Jason:It's part of the marketplace platform, when you create a marketplace. We solve all of those commission calculations and you choose, as running that marketplace, what each seller gets, and you can change it by product or category. Now you can do really complex commission calculations, but we also manage all of the seller payouts. You imagine that volume in that period of time, if you're cutting checks, so you're doing individual payments it's un-scalable. So that's why he had to... besides the fact that's why you needed a marketplace platform to, to scale at that rate, but it just shows you if you can leverage those couple of unfair advantages and pull it together in a really neat way and solve a problem, how big you can get quickly.Stephanie:That's crazy. It sounds like you kind of want to make sure you have an audience first or partner with someone who does already have, like you said, that tribe, who's kind of waiting that you can tap into that. How do you go about even convincing customers to come and buy on a marketplace? Are you doing anything around exclusivity where it's if you're selling your bikes or your box meals or whatever on Marketplacer, you can't also sell, I don't know, on DoorDash, do you have DoorDash in Australia? Or something similar.Stephanie:How do you think about creating that moat around the market places that are building up?Jason:I think any business, whether it's a marketplace or not a market place, you create moat. And if you could get the number one selling product of the world and get it exclusive to your business, whether you own it and send it yourself, or whether it comes direct from the supplier. I would a hundred percent recommend that every single day of the week.Jason:In Shane's situation and in Providoor's situation he solved some pretty big problems. No one else in the world, in my opinion, in a five week period could have created this marketplace. And then secondly he partnered exclusively with the logistics company that was an under utilized fruit. You imagined it was a fruit delivery business where they were delivering to corporates, their fruit boxes. And they went from a hundred percent capacity to 0% capacity, but then Shane took them back to a hundred percent capacity. So you've got to, you have to find very innovatively, underutilized, cold, refrigerated delivery network in a really short space of time. He created a couple of really, really solid moats that enabled it, nearly impossible for somebody else to do it in that period. But they were just extraordinary. But the short answer to your question, I'd always promote a moat.Stephanie:So try and make things exclusive, if possible. How do you bring... what are some of these brands methods of bringing their customers onto a new platform? Because that does kind of feel like it could be an experience that might cause a bit of friction of like, "Oh, I'm always used to either just buying directly from your website or just buying from Amazon." What kind of tactics should a brand use if they're trying to convince someone to come and buy on a new platform that maybe they haven't heard of before.Jason:You're talking from the end consumer experience when they're buying from you. It's all around trust in the process. It's in that front end customer experience or any communication around it, it's about building trust and rapport around building a marketplace community. And there's many techniques you can use around that.Jason:Some companies choose not to even say who the seller is on the marketplace. They take a really hard supplier agreement and they say, here's your SLA supplies. If you don't supply under these terms and conditions in these ways, then we're going to exclude you from our community, moving forward. Other marketplaces take the opinion of, "I'll let you rate my supply. I'll let you rate your seller." So it's going to be a customer led trust build up around it.Jason:Other marketplaces over time have put their own sort of ratings and experience... the one thing I'll say around the customer journey when you don't physically own the product is you've got to be really clever and your communicative style. The items might not appear in one parcel, items maybe sent at different times. And if you can bring your customer and community along that journey, they're very attuned to it in this world that you don't get one single parcel from one single vendor every single time and boxes can appear on different days, just as long as the communication strategy around when they're turning up. I mean, the timelines as a customer's experience is really well handled. I think it's a problem that's that's well solved in market.Stephanie:Always good to make sure you're doing it in a trustworthy way where your customers are like, of course I'll go where something's being sold and there's good curated products there. What are some best practices around developing that community and keeping your community engaged and making them want to come to your marketplace that you built up. What kind of tactics do you see happening behind the scenes that are working?Jason:We're seeing at a little bit of scale at the moment, the loyalty programs being attached back into the marketplace strategy. And I think it's a space that's going to be really interesting moving forward, whether it's loyalty or membership economies or subscription economies around it, it's something that's definitely an interesting space.Jason:Take Myer's another example within our region, but Myer's a really large department store. It's the Macy's of Australia. It's the number one department store. They've had some really challenging times, pre COVID and obviously during COVID. Big box department stores, lots of inventory, really expensive leases. And they've kind of been kicked off from every corner. Right. But what they did have is they had an incredibly loyal customer base that actually had a brand affiliation with Meyer, but most importantly had a really strong brand affiliation with the Meyer loyalty program, because it was such a good rewards program.Jason:When they launched their marketplace, they actually gave the customer base the same points that they would earn on Meyer across all third party marketplace products. And you could use your points to buy from all of the third party products.Stephanie:That's imposing.Jason:Exactly. And we won a, I can't say who, but we've won a major global airline at the moment where instead of just being able to book airfares using your airline points, now you can buy 40,000 products using your points, promote burn perspective from your airline miles. So I think what you're going to find is this community of traditional loyalty programs or earn and burn points systems, being able to tap into really broaden their range to become really big, meaningful marketplace strategy, loyalty program.Stephanie:That's super smart. The one thing that's coming to mind is thinking about data privacy and how does the sharing work, especially if you're onboarding other brands onto your platform, I'm guessing I would want access to that customer data. I'd want to be able to talk to them, especially if I'm shipping something to them, or even someone's viewing me as a person that's shipping it to them, even if I'm not really in the backend. What does the sharing of the, maybe customer information look like, in a way that's probably protected and keeps everyone safe.Jason:Say for example, we're talking to the commerce cloud community. If you're a commerce cloud customer, you're the merchant of record in that instance, aren't you? You're always controlling the customer record. You're controlling, you're receiving the funds yourself. But you do have to share the customer address and you do have to share some details of that customer because they've got to receive the items. You've really got to make sure your supplier agreements are quite stringent around data privacy. And then within the marketplace platform, there's a couple of configuration points where you can mask email address and not mask email address. So there's configuration around customer privacy settings that gets forwarded through to that end seller within there as well. But what we actually find is that the broader supplier or seller community is unbelievably respectful of the end customer because they're attuned to selling in this methodology now, and they know if they break or breach those privacy laws or those privacy policies that you set up as a marketplace operator, is that they're going to be cut off and, and they're going to lose that whole channel.Jason:We've had basically no problems of that over the journey of Marketplacer. It's something that's a very small, minimal risk.Stephanie:Amazing. Let's talk a little bit about ads. And I'm thinking about you're this big marketplace. Maybe if you're the fishing one, you've got 60,000 products, I could see you guys having an entire ad unit or the person who maybe is owning the marketplace, starting to create a demand side platform when it comes to delivering ads. And how are you guys approaching that right now with all the brands that you're onboarding?Jason:The world of relevant display and sponsored contents and contextual commerce, back in to market places is a real interesting space. Because if you can not only just send your products to a third party marketplace, but then you can buy specific media around it and launch products within it. It's super exciting. We're actually integrated into Google DMP, and all of those great ad serving systems within that. And what you'll find especially as the world moves into a headless commerce situation, is that the brands can put whatever DMP they want into the commerce cloud headless stack. They can be really quite innovative around, not only just creating traditional revenue streams for the product they own. Not only creating modern revenue streams in the fact that they can sell things they don't own, but now they can actually turn their traditional retail businesses into a media business as well, which obviously comes at a much higher gross margin than physically owning the inventory.Stephanie:Any innovative stories that you see happening around the advertising space within Marketplacer? That brands are maybe trying just new and different things because of the operating model of this new business they didn't have access to before?Jason:The obvious one that just comes to mind is actually BikeExchange. BikeExchange does exactly that every single day of the week. It connects live into all of the retailers. As part of the Marketplacer platform... because some of the problem in the marketplace scenario is how do you make it easy for your sellers to connect? How do you make sure that the inventory is accurate and live? How do you make it so that when a retailer of stock list receives the order, that they can just seamlessly process it, without having, necessarily a billion spreadsheets rolling every direction for everything they sell. We sold that in a really nice, elegant way where if you're on... and if you've got an existing POS system, so point of sale system or an existing e-commerce engine, we built pre-built connectors for the majority of them in the world.Jason:If you're a bike seller selling on BikeExchange and you're on Lightspeed and you wanna send your inventory into the BikeExchange marketplace, it takes minutes. What would typically take hours? Why is this important from a media perspective? It's because then the brands on BikeExchange or Specialized or Trek, or any of the big brands when they're launching a new product, they can actually drive the leads into stores that have stock available today. You can get very clever around your display and media allocation and where you drive the sales to. And a physical stockists level within that marketplace strategy, which is pretty cool.Stephanie:That's huge. I think about the times I try and order stuff Home Depot. And it takes me 15 minutes trying to find what store you can go to pick it up. I'm like, why is this so hard? Just don't show it to me if it's not within 20 miles of where I'm at.Jason:Exactly. And that sort of relevance posts, zip code, allocation and inventory allocation is something that comes out of that marketplace assistant, but it's all structured around live connectivity back into the source seller system. Obviously if a seller wants to connect manually and they've got a few products or they've got a CSV uploader, or they've got a great API, but it's this pre-built connector platform that's enabling our marketplace at the scale at a rapid rate.Stephanie:That's awesome, so where do you all want to be in the next two to three years? What are you planning and prepping for and building for right now, other than scaling and IPO'ing and doing all the fun, things like that.Jason:I think what really drives us at Marketplacer is we just want our customers to grow and to grow in a really sustainable way. Where they can, they can enhance their customer experience. So we've really launched hard within the United States today. We've announced that Salesforce ventures has actually bought a stake in Marketplacer and that enables us... yeah, we're so humbled by it. It's such a great experience to deal with that Salesforce community, but what that enables is any commerce cloud customer globally to now really look at Marketplacer as the way to significantly grow your business and grow your customer experience within that.Jason:It gives us deep access to the Salesforce product team. Gives us deep access to the implementation partner community. It gives us deep access to the actual Salesforce customer success team. What that really enables us to do is to help that Salesforce commerce cloud community grow and connect up to all of these great suppliers, make it easy for you to supercharge that business. And it's a core focus of ours over the next sort of 12 to 18 months, for sure.Stephanie:That's awesome. After hearing all this I'm like, why wouldn't you try this out? Why wouldn't you want to be a part of a marketplace, start a marketplace, so many opportunities and easy ways to scale that maybe it would be hard for single brands to do on their own. That's amazing. Congratulations. That's huge.Jason:No thank you so much and it's a big shout out to how the commerce cloud Salesforce, commerce cloud leadership are thinking at the moment. They're really putting that customer lens first and, and you're trying to grab those trends and you build it back within their community as well.Jason:It takes a little while for you to get your head around it. But when you dumb it down, we make it easy for you to sell products that you don't own. So you can supercharge commerce and grow. That sort of one line, and that sentence can start to really resonate with you. And maybe out of today you're not thinking this is my path, but it might just get those thought bubbles going to say, Hey, what about this supplier? What about this supplier? And if I only had those products, I'd love to try that one, but I don't want to buy it. It starts to connect it all up.Stephanie:Really good way to explain it. All right let's jump over to the lightning round. The lightning round is of course, brought to you by our friends at Salesforce commerce cloud, which they got many shout outs well-deserved throughout this interview. So that is great. This is where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready Jason?Jason:I'm ready.Stephanie:We'll do the hard one first. What, one thing will have the biggest impact on e-commerce in the next year?Jason:I'd like to say the evolution of Marketplacer.Stephanie:That's okay. You do you. You can say whatever you want.Stephanie:What's one thing from 2020 that you hope sticks around throughout 2021?Jason:The ability to put the customer first and solve problems from a customer lens, when there was no other way to do it. And I think that transformative thinking of traditional businesses in that lens is going to put them in a really good light moving forward. We saw the acceleration of five or six years of thinking and thought, and decision-making in the space of six weeks. And just, don't let that go. Don't let that go. Let that stick with you forever. Because I think it's a unique opportunity.Stephanie:What's one thing you don't understand today, that you wish you did?Jason:French. No, I actually don't personally know how to program. I've never been a programmer and it's been to my advantage because I've never got sucked into it, but one day in life, I'd love to actually learn how it all stitches together and works.Stephanie:There you go. Well, that's a good skill to have these days. Let me know if it's hard, I'm guessing it is. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Jason:It would probably be about surfing to be honest. And it would have to be Kelly Slater.Stephanie:There you go. That's a good one. And then the last one what's up next on your reading list?Jason:It's actually interesting, because I bought it yesterday. I'm actually reading about gut health at the moment and the benefits of gut health. So I bought the CSIRO gut health book to understand how that can have benefits right throughout your life, from sleeping patterns to energy, to that holistic sort of view that the power of food and what it can do for you or, or can't do for you.Stephanie:Good, you can send me a TLDR of what I should be doing and I'll just listen to you.Jason:It doesn't mean I'm going to do it though Stephanie, this is the problem with reading. You don't always do what you should.Stephanie:We will do it. We will manifest it into our life. We will do it. All right Jason, this interview has been so fun, really a good time hearing about Marketplacer and where you guys are headed. Thank you for coming on, where can people find out more about you and Marketplacer?Jason:Traditional channels marketplacer.com and Jason White on LinkedIn and Marketplacer on LinkedIn.Stephanie:Amazing. Thanks so much.Jason:Thanks so much Stephanie, appreciate your time.

Lindsay McCormick knows a thing or two about pivoting. After all, she went from planning to live in a van and travel around the country selling her sustainable toothpaste bits to launching a transformative and still-growing company that has taken the internet by storm and has left the big brands shaking in their boots. Bite Toothpaste Bits was the company Lindsay never meant to start, but a viral video helped launch her full-time into the world of ecommerce after she went from 6,000-lifetime sales to 200,000 in a single week. Needless to say she could no longer manufacture everything from her living room, and instead was thrown into the deep end trying to find production and shipping partners that could not only make her very specific products, but do so in a sustainable way that stayed true to Bite’s ultimate mission. There were challenges around every corner, but Lindsay navigated through them all, and on today’s episode, she shares that rollercoaster ride of a story . Plus, she explained why she thinks it’s so important to keep content creation in-house, the reason she’s always testing new channels and leaning into video content — I mean, it is what launched her company — and she reveals why she’s not scared at all about the big-name manufacturers making copy-cat products, in fact, she’s excited about it. Hear all that and more on this episode!Main Takeaways:Don’t Fight The Fog: Breaking into new channels means divorcing yourself from KPIs and metrics and walking into foggy and unknown territory. Embrace that journey because not only will you eventually be able to measure success, the opportunity cost of not taking the risk is too costly not to try.Pay It Forward: Going viral comes with its pros and cons. While the huge boost in sales is a dream come true, fulfilling orders becomes a major problem that has to be solved quickly or you risk losing all of your new customers. As a sustainable business and a small business at that, Bite fought many battles to find manufacturers and fulfillment centers to partner with that met all their needs and price points. As Bite has gotten bigger and found the right partners, the company has also outfitted those partners with some of the tools that they can use to help support and grow other small businesses.Teach Me Your Ways: Educating consumers is one of the most important things an ecommerce site needs to do, especially when the product offered is something that requires a change in habit and/or expectations. Customers who take the time to learn will be more likely to repeat orders, and they will also be more likely to be understanding of things like extended shipping times.Make Em Sweat: It can be intimidating to go up against giants in an industry, but showing even a little bit of success in grabbing market share is something that will leave those big guys feeling pressure to make a change. Not only should that be encouraging to you as a disruptor, but in the world of sustainability, when the big guys start making changes, the small impact of a disruptor grows exponentially.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. I'm your host, Stephanie Postles, Co-founder and CEO at Mission.org. Today on the show, we have Lindsay McCormick, CEO and Founder of Bite Toothpaste Bits. Lindsay, welcome to the show.Lindsay:Thanks for having me, Steph. I'm excited.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm super excited to have you on here. I was looking through your background and it looks very interesting because I've never had someone on the show who had a background in production, working on HGTV shows, like all my favorite things. I was hoping we could start there where you tell me a little bit about how did you get into the world of TV and YouTube and what was that like? Then we'll talk about your company afterwards.Lindsay:Yeah, for sure. I didn't actually mean to start a company, which we can definitely get into, but I was working as a TV producer on the show House Hunters, and I was traveling all around the country filming. Whenever you're filming that show, you'd only be somewhere for a few days. So before I got into TV, actually, because I wanted to make nature documentaries and documentaries before even getting into TV, I was a surf instructor and snowboard instructor. On the off season, I would travel and make YouTube, little YouTube videos. That was like, oh my gosh, back in 2011, 2012. It was like at the beginning of YouTube and the beginning of all of these putting stuff online, and it was really fun.Lindsay:But through working as a surf instructor and snowboard instructor, I was seeing the plastic washing up on my surfboard and the climate change impacting our mountains. I wanted to get into media. I had been really, really influenced by a lot of documentaries. At the time back, it was like Blackfish where about really mammals [inaudible]. I was like, "You know what, I think media is this amazing way to tell important stories and I want to learn how to do that." I started at the bottom, I was an assistant and I was making nothing, working insane hours, but I loved it. I worked my way up over the years and then actually got to be producing. I went from shows on Travel Channel to then HGTV. That's what I was doing before Bite.Stephanie:That's amazing. What did the day-to-day look like as a producer for things like that? Because I watched House Hunters, I watched all those shows. What were you actually doing? I saw that you even did branded integration, which to me is very interesting and I want to hear what did that look like?Lindsay:Yeah, I loved it. It was so fun. For branded integration, that was different. I had previously been what was called a show producer on House Hunters. All the shows are they're all different because they need different things. But, basically, you're in a producing team and your team is responsible for an episode, and you basically like there'll be certain amount of teams and you just volley around the episodes. Like your episode one, then another team's episode two, episode three, episode four, and then you come back and you're episode six. You're like one, six, 12. Basically, you're responsible with your team from start to finish to make the episode.Lindsay:It's that would be for show producing I was helping, basically, it's funny because it's actually really similar to running a company because you're just trying to make sure everything happens, get everything together, deal with all the fires that they pop up. I had great bosses, the best bosses, I learned a lot from them. Then for integration, so that's something that I saw a huge opportunity in, and it was basically so now that people are fast forwarding through commercials or in that team going, "Oh my God, what am I in the '90s?" [crosstalk]. Yeah.Lindsay:It's commercials are important, but they started doing something, it was basically like a new work for product placement. That, actually, helped me a lot too now, like that I have a company, because it's understanding how to organically integrate a brand with an episode. So that was my job where basically there would be brands that were paying the network an enormous amount of money to be integrated into the shows that I was working on. I would be the ping pong ball going between the brand and the network and our production company, and actually being on the field and making sure it all happened. And being able to take these abstract concepts that we had figured out and make sure we hit all of the marks to get every shot that they wanted, and then deliver it to them so that it gets placed into the episode.Lindsay:That was something that is really helpful because now we're making videos for our company and I'm like, "Well, we need this, we need that. This is how we're going to experiment and this is how we know if something's working or not." Branding integration, and now it's like content in general. When I was working on that a few years ago, that was like a separate thing, but now it's everything is branded integration. I feel like there's brands are integrating into all this content because they have to, it's so fragmented. Yeah, that's the whole long thing.Stephanie:I love that.Lindsay:[crosstalk] background, but then somehow all came together.Stephanie:Oh my god, I love the background. That's why I was really excited for the show today. When I'm thinking about branded integration, I always think there's still so much untapped potential when it comes to content. We've had a couple people in the show who are essentially creating their own shows and movies and all of that. It's maybe 80% about the story and then they, of course, have their products in there as well and really cool stuff. How do you think about success when it comes to that? When you're talking about now working on that for your own company, how do you know what could be successful, what works? How do you go about approaching that?Lindsay:It's so important. It's so important, and we started from a video. I had selling Bite online. We had a little bit of traction with some vegan and zero waste bloggers. We had a video just go insanely viral on Facebook, and that's really what launched the company. It was like I already knew video was important and now it's literally the whole reason that company exists type thing. For us, we take content and video very seriously. It's not something we outsource. We're an incredibly small team and we still do all of our creative in-house. It's all either being done like the story and everything. Because it's, for me, it's about being able to take sustainable... Like sustainability is an incredibly nuanced topic that has so many details that you have to dig into. But you have to be able to communicate it in a very easy way.Lindsay:I think that it takes a lot of thought to be able to do it in an entertaining, but also truthful and authentic way. I think that's where my background comes in of being able to be like, "How do we take this and basically distill it down into the most digestible way?" We put a lot of time, and I think any brand that's growing right now have all of the things that you outsource. I see it a lot, I'm in a lot of entrepreneurial groups on Facebook and everything, and everybody wants to outsource their creative because it takes so much freaking time. But it's like the last thing you should be outsourcing because it's literally your brand, it's your brand, and it's your vision and it's your voice. I give major props to the brands who are still doing it in-house.Stephanie:Yeah, you're fully leaning into that. You've got your YouTube studio that you're creating. I feel like you're living by that truth, which is great. Let's dive in a bit into Bite Toothpaste Bits, tell me what is the company? I also would love to get into how you started the company? Because I think it's such an interesting story about buying a van and being ready to go all around the country and just having this toothpaste idea and selling on Etsy. I want you to dive into all of that because I think it's really fun.Lindsay:Yeah, and I love, you have done more research than any, I love it, everything in advance. Because I was traveling and I couldn't find an alternative, and it was from that, it was from throwing out those little toothpaste tubes where I was like, "Hey, wait a minute, I have..." When I traveled for my shoots, I had a little go kit. I had my shampoo, my conditioner, my face wash, my body lotion all in a reusable thing. Because I didn't want to use the hotel stuff. I knew that, that was wasteful. But then I was throwing out my toothpaste tube every other week, and I was just like, "This is like a thick plastic. This is not cool." I started looking into alternatives and that's when I learned about all of the harsh chemicals that are in there where it was Sodium laureth sulfate, PEG, artificial dyes and flavors that I don't even use in my body care.Lindsay:I was like, "I'm using this in my mouth. What the heck?" Plus I'm vegan, and I found out that a lot of the stuff, a lot of commercials do these tests on animals and I was like, "Did not know that." So that was the, "Whoa, I want to make sure that this is something that I'm doing everyday twice a day. How can I do this better?" I couldn't find anything that checked all my boxes, and so I started... I think in typical producer fashion, it's like you find one little thing and then you just get obsessed with it and then expand. Originally, I didn't want it to be a tablet, I really wanted it to be like I was trying anything besides a tablet because I didn't want to have to buy a tableting machine.Lindsay:They were even $1,000 and this was supposed to be a hobby, and that seemed pretty obsessive. I was just like, "Lindsay, you have to calm down. You're not going to spend $1,000 on a hobby." I ended up taking online chemistry classes and then talking to dentists and dental hygienists like on Facebook, whoever I graduated high school and college with.Stephanie:I thought you were on Reddit threads trying to figure out the chemistry of toothpaste?Lindsay:Yeah, and I was on Reddit threads trying to figure out how to make drugs because once I realized that I had to make a tablet, I was like, "Shoot, how am I going to make a tablet?" Everything that I was finding online was big industrial like $100,000 machines. No one was giving instructions on how to use the little machine, so I was like, "Who is using these little machines? Who does this?" I was like, "Oh, yeah, drug-Stephanie:Drug dealers.Lindsay:... people who make drugs." I was on Reddit being like, "How do you make ecstasy?" But I'm sure I'm on numerous-Stephanie:Watch list.Lindsay:... FBI watch list, for sure. Well, and even when I bought my machines, I actually had to register with the DEA because the machine that you get, the little TDP-0 and the TDP-5 is so used in these things that they want to track them, which I think is great. But I was just like, "This is crazy. What world am I in?" That was the beginning of that, then figuring out how to make tablets and toothpastes, and it was like, "This was for me." I figured my parents are very supportive, they would use it, and then my friends who also care about the environment, they would. It also needed to be effective. I'm not going to be giving this all to people that I love and then ruining their teeth. It was really there were a lot that was high stakes for me to make sure that it was good. That's how it all started, just in the living room, like bottling everything myself to working this machine.Stephanie:Then you want to go and you buy a van. You want to be going and traveling the country in your van, and I guess the plan was just to sell on Etsy and your friends and things like that. Then what happened?Lindsay:I was fully anticipating, I have a photo of me holding cases of this Vegan Ramen. Because I was like, "I'm going to be so broke. I'm going to start my own business and I'm going to quit my job in TV, where I was making good money and my boyfriend and I are literally going to live in a van." We bought a van, we signed, it was the biggest purchase I'd ever made. We bought this on... It was, what is it? 4/4, no, 8/4, so August 4th we signed the paperwork for this van and started ripping it apart because we were going to turn it into a tiny home. I was in, then I was going to quit my job and we were going to start selling. Then August 8th, Bite went viral, and all of a sudden-Stephanie:Wow, what happened?Lindsay:... it was like the video on Facebook.Stephanie:It was a video?Lindsay:Yeah, so at that was that point, we had the vegan community talking about us and the zero waste community talking about us and women's health had reached out and was like, "Hey, we're featuring women businesses trying to do really cool things. Could you shoot some stuff on your iPhone and tell us about your story and we'll put a video together and we'll probably put it on our Facebook." I was like, "Yeah, no problem." Literally, shot it at 6:00 in the morning before shoot. If you look at it, my hair was terrible, I was barely wearing any makeup. I was on my way to LAX. It was in the bathroom before I went to LAX. Then I didn't hear from them for like a month and a half, nothing.Lindsay:Then on the 8th, my phone started going so crazy with ching, ching, ching, I thought we had gotten hacked or there was an error or something. But it was basically what had happened is that the video had gone up on Facebook a few hours before and just went full steam viral. We went from I had done $6,000 in sales the whole year prior to over 200,000 within a week and a half. It had two million views within the first eight days. Then what happened is that ripple, so then it was like Business Insider wants to make a video and everybody now is calling and I'm just like, "Okay, we're going to make the video, yes."Lindsay:We're just pushing out and then, basically, then what happened too is that the women's health video happened and then it did so well, it got syndicated through Hearst outlets, online outlets. Then it was like Cosmo, Oprah Magazine, all of these started playing it. Then that's, basically, that was the company. That's when we started, and then [crosstalk]-Stephanie:Like that is my van life plan.Lindsay:Well, yeah and I was just like, "Oh my god, we literally moved in with my parents." Because we had already put 30 days in on our house. We had moved and everything and it's just like, "Okay, this is crazy." Yeah, it was definitely, the van, we still have the van. It's beautiful and it's sitting in Pasadena not used.Stephanie:Wow, that's such a fun story. I was getting goosebumps thinking about all these orders coming in. So what was the content in your video? Why did it resonate with people so much? What were you talking about?Lindsay:I think what the was, was just talking about these toothpaste tablets and the problem with toothpaste tubes. I think that was something and it was very much like it showed me in my living room with the machine and it just explained what was in the tablets. There was really nothing special about the video and we've seen other brands in our space try to make it almost frame for frame and it doesn't have the same steam at all. But I think it was just the right video at the right time with the right message. Then I think also is that once that happened, nothing about that video was big. Every single thing is like you go to our website and we've listed out, we're incredibly transparent.Lindsay:Now we're finally getting all of our certifications but we've been doing it even before. It's like palm oil free and all these different things. I think that what it was, is it really just spoke to those people who wanted to be able to make a change and just didn't have an easy way to do it. I think, I guess we didn't even really talk about our product, but it's a dry toothpaste tablet and it comes in a glass jar and then compostable refill pouches. Now that's actually like the refill system is super everyone's doing it in a different way, but we were, definitely, we were the first ones to do it for toothpaste tablets, and one of the first to really get that mainstream in personal care.Lindsay:I think that it was just people were like, "Oh, wait, this makes so much sense." We see comments all the time on it being like, "Why didn't I think of this?" You're like, "Yeah, I know because it's so obvious." But we didn't, no one thought about it, so yeah.Stephanie:That's so fun. Also just your energy and your vibe and that's probably why the video did well. They just see you and they're like, "Obviously, Lindsay is the best." And act surprised.Lindsay:I think maybe I come off very unintimidating and I think people like that. Because it's just I think, and that's something too, and I say this, if I can figure this out, literally, we all can, we all can.Stephanie:Okay, so you have that small scale operation with your tablet maker and then you start getting all these orders. What did the backend look like to keep up with, I think, you said 200,000 in orders in a week or something? What did you do when the prior year you only had 6,000 in sales?Lindsay:It was literally the most stressful point in my entire life. I had, had one panic attack in my life before that and they became a bi-weekly thing and I was just like, "What have I done?"Lindsay:It was insane. Luckily, my boyfriend, who is now my co-founder, we've been together for six years and he has a business background. He was actually running a startup at the time, which we didn't even get into. His startup had to get shut, like they shut down the week that we went viral. Totally unrelated, and so he had a venture backed startup and that was his jam. Then it just sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. There's some time it didn't work, and so he shut it down the same week that we went viral. Luckily, he had to-Stephanie:Good timing.Lindsay:He had time on his hands and he knew how to do this, and so basically he started running the war room. I'm sitting there making the tablets still and he was just like, "Stop making the tablets. You will never be able to make these tablets." He's like, "We need to find a manufacturer. We need to do all of these different things." That's what we had to do. We were back-ordered for two months I was sending out these pleading emails to our customers just trying to explain what had happened. We found a manufacturer, we had to find a fulfillment center. I was still shipping these out of my house. Then we also had to get business insurance. We had to basically set up a company immediately, and we did.Lindsay:It was really stressful, really crazy. My mom actually flew in from Virginia to help. Because, at that point, we had, had to leave our place in West Hollywood because we were going to live in the van. Then we moved in with Asher's aunt and uncle, and then my mom flew out to help, and then we moved in with my parents because we were like, "What family can we live with?" Because we had totally screwed this up. When I look back at those times, it was just it was so unexpected and amazing. It felt like I had this, all up until then, I had this baby bird of a company that before it went viral, I'm trying to keep this thing alive and feed it and nurture it and love it.Lindsay:I feel like as soon as we went viral, it was that baby bird was actually a Pterodactyl or something, and it grew and immediately was trying to eat me. We were just like, "How do we make this work?" Now I definitely feel like we're working with the Pterodactyl. We all understand each other, and it's definitely working way better.Stephanie:That's so fun. Did you keep that, like the growth that you had from that first week where you were like, "Whoa, 200,000," and that week, did you continue that growth and where are you guys at today and how big is your team?Lindsay:Yeah, so when that happened, then the next question is how do we sustain this? Because there are so many companies that have the blip and then go off forever. We were like, "We do not want that to happen." Luckily, we had a Facebook pixel set up. We had all of our tracking set up, so we could do retargeting, which is so important. We were able to just keep the momentum. From that, we were able to do Shark Tank, from that we had way more press opportunities happen, and so we were able to just keep feeding this cycle. We ended up having now this, which is a new site. We were the most cared about video in 2019. Those kinds of things just keep on going, going, going.Lindsay:Then in 2020, I was one of Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business, which also then gave us, for the first time, like street cred, real cred in business. It all just fed into each other. We were, in 2019, there were two of us full-time, and by the end of 2020, there was five of us full-time. By now, in 2021, we're nine and we'll probably be 11 by the end of the year. We're keeping it small, but growing.Stephanie:Yeah, very cool. You got an offer from Mark Cuban on Shark Tank, but you turned it down. What was the thought process behind that and what was that experience like?Lindsay:He's so amazing. I can't believe I turned it down for Mark Cuban, an actual billionaire. When we went on Shark Tank, we had our like what we were going to do and what we were going to negotiate. I, basically, was I knew it was going to be a whirlwind and emotional. My background's TV, it's a high pressure situation and I knew that. I was like the only thing that I can do is... Asher and I had decided what our negotiation was before that, and if we went, we couldn't go over. We were like, "If it goes over, we have to say no," and we couldn't get to where we needed to be, and so we had to say no. But it was also we went on there. The name of the game on Shark Tank now, looking back, is definitely negotiate.Lindsay:We went in being like, "We want a partner, so we don't really want to negotiate." We just want to be like, "Hey, this is what we think is fair." But I think that's not really how the Shark Tank thing goes. But it was such a fun experience.Stephanie:Yeah, that's really, really cool. Now where you guys are at, how do you go about advertising and marketing? How do you get in front of new audiences and keep finding... I mean retaining your current customers, but also finding new people? It sounds like Facebook, you guys are there, you're doing re-targeting. What other channels are you exploring and finding success with now?Lindsay:Yeah, that's the game. It's always finding the new ones, and so I actually put a lot of my time into that. We were on TikTok before many brands were taking it seriously. We're on Clubhouse literally all the time. It's so fun, and we're constantly testing out things while optimizing our bread and butter channels. I think that that's something that is really, really important to do. No matter how big or small you are is to just constantly be trying to have the pioneering spirit on the new stuff, and know that you're not going to win all the time. We are constantly learning like, "That didn't work, that didn't work." But it's like you're looking for the things that do work because it really helps, and if you're the one looking for that and you find it for anybody else, it's really good.Stephanie:Yeah, it seems like it'd be hard to vet if a channel... You think about like Clubhouse, TikTok probably has more metrics now. But how do you think about evaluating if that channel is working? Especially, when you're coming from a background in TV and branded content, and I'm sure all the brands were like, "We need metrics," and you had to really tie to different KPIs. How do you think about that now when it comes to, especially, exploring new things?Lindsay:Yeah, for us, it's we try not to let early channels get dictated by that. Because, and that's exactly what you just, if you're tied to making sure that you immediately see the ROI and having the KPIs, you're not going to be able to find those new channels because it's going to be really obscured at first. But it's understanding, for Clubhouse, it's like this is a way that I like to talk to people. It's a very authentic way. Even though there's no way for us to really track anything, I know that it's really important. Because it's important, we're going to be there. Eventually, we'll find a way to track it. Eventually, we'll be able to see that. That's also why it's put in a different bucket.Lindsay:For us, it's not put in with the same Facebook, Instagram, where it's like, "No, we know what that's going to look like." These things, it's we know they're going to be weird and we're going to let them be weird and just explore and have fun. I think that's really important too is like have fun. Not going into it and being like, "This needs to work." Going into it and being like, "How can we make connections? How can we get the word out? How can we learn and teach?" I think that's been really good for us.Stephanie:Yeah, are you finding areas to do product placements in shows? So I'm thinking your packaging is so beautiful and different and I'm just imagining it being in different TV shows or movies, or just places where you're like, "Whoa, what is that?" Especially, with your background, I'm sure you always see opportunities of like, "We should be there."Lindsay:Yeah, well, it's funny too because a lot of my friends, and we were still in LA, so I'm in a team producing in this world, so it's like, or I was. All my friends are on all those shows, so I'm like, "Well, here's some bite for your shoot. Here's this for..." Trying to get just because that's they need it. I know because I was that, and so it's constantly we at least had it behind the scenes, which is super good and important. Because it's the same people on all the different things. But when it comes to, yeah, getting it on camera, we want to, and there's a few companies that actually do that. But we have not explored that yet, but I love the idea. I love the idea of it. I feel like we haven't really, which is pretty ironic considering my background, we haven't touched TV. We've done everything outside of it, but not yet TV.Stephanie:Oh, wow, I'm excited to see you eventually get in there. I was thinking earlier you were mentioning how you had to find manufacturers quickly. How did you find the perfect partner who also had the focus on sustainability and using the ingredients that you wanted? Because I could see, especially, for, to me, the toothpaste industry, I feel like has just started coming around where people are like, "Oh, maybe you shouldn't have fluoride in there. Maybe you shouldn't have all these other chemicals and ingredients and whatnot." Then if you add on the sustainability piece, it feels like a lot to bring to a manufacturer who's maybe like, "I just do Colgate stuff. That's what I do." How did you go about exploring that and finding people who would fit within your company mission?Lindsay:Especially, at the beginning, everyone said no. It was impossible. It was literally me begging people and getting ghosted all the time. Just being like, "Please, I have like..." At that point, we had a lot of money coming in from orders that we couldn't fulfill. I was like, "I have all of this money, can you please just make my product?" No one wanted to do it, exactly. I was just like, "This is I don't know what I'm going to do." Because not only, as a client, especially when we were small, we were a huge pain. We were asking for, and exactly what you said, they had to be using these very specific ingredients that I had bought from Whole Foods and they [inaudible]. We couldn't go to toothpaste manufacturers, we were going to vitamin supplement anchors. Because we're like, "Who the heck makes tablets?"Lindsay:They had never worked with so many agents, they've never worked with really like any of this stuff. Then when I tried to go palm oil free, oh my god, it was like the end of the world. It was like such, and then we were like, "Oh, by the way, not only do we have this incredibly complicated tablet that we want you to make, and it has to taste good, and it has to break apart perfectly, and it has to also be able to withstand being shipped across the country." So it's like this whole thing, "It also needs to be in glass."Stephanie:Yeah, I was going to say the final piece of glass.Lindsay:Oh my god, and that's not something that they do. This is when you go to these manufacturers, it's like a huge, basically, it's a tumbler. They throw all of the plastic bottles into it and it shoots it out onto the line. That's basically how, I mean, you throw like thousands of plastic bottles. Into this big, it's called the scrambler, into a huge barrel basically. The barrel shoots out the plastic and then the pills get put into the plastic on the line and then it gets whatever. Not only did we have a glass, so it needs to be put on, like hand put on. But then we had these aluminum lids that kept denting because, typically, it's like these plastic lids.Lindsay:When they put them on and the machine, basically, goes through these two pieces of foam, that screws the lid on. When it's plastic, it's fine, nothing happens. But when it's aluminum, it scratches and crushes. Now we have to have people hand tightening our breaking thing. We were like, "And by the way, it needs to cost this." We were like it was so hard. Everyone said no. We finally found one that said yes. Then it's now it's like, "And we like working with small businesses." But then we're like overwhelming them with orders because if we just keep on getting orders. It was hard. It's like people are like, "Oh, they're good problems to have." You're like, "Hey, yeah, but they're actual problems still. We still think it's a real problem."Lindsay:I think that, and even our fulfillment company is it was incredibly hard to find a fulfillment company that will commit to not using plastic tape, so hard. When we finally found one who would even... They didn't even commit, they were just like, "We'll try to use paper tape." We're like, "Okay, that's fine." We were with them until we were big enough, and then [inaudible] companies wanted us. So then it was like, "Oh, hey, we know your plastic free. We bought a paper tape dispenser just for you guys." We were like, "Oh, we'll come to you." That's really cool because now it's there's other brands that are smaller than us that can work with that fulfillment center, and they don't have to have the same battle that we did. It was definitely hard, and the bigger you get, the easier it is.Stephanie:How big? What's that tipping point when manufacturers started reaching out to you all?Lindsay:That's a good question. The thing is, is that we're in a good spot now where it's like, but then what happens is that you then start, you still, then start outgrowing where you are. Because we were working with small, now we're at medium, and it's like, "How does that feel?" I think what we're doing this time, and we're learning as we go, instead of going to a bigger manufacturer, we're actually in the process of setting up other manufacturers around the US. Right now, we're literally made right up the street in LA. But we're going to also have one on the East Coast and then possibly one in the Midwest, and that would be the way that we would do it instead as opposed to going through a bigger. We like working with small businesses. We like supporting that, and so I think that's how we're going to go.Stephanie:Yeah, which I think is probably more helpful when it comes to logistics and shipping and being able to route orders and [crosstalk]-Lindsay:Exactly.Stephanie:... orders from your East Coast facility and, yeah.Lindsay:Right, and we don't offer a rush shipping either because that's the highest carbon footprint essentially. So being able to have a... we have our warehouse here in LA, now we have a warehouse in Chicago, so we can still get orders to our customers much faster without having the rush thing, just fricking sweet.Stephanie:Yeah, that's great. What issues do you encounter with people who come to your ecommerce website and they're trying to learn about it? What things did you have to solve on there that maybe you weren't expecting? Whether it's around like education or how to use this, or what is this and what things are you working on around the customer journey?Lindsay:Yeah, it's a huge education puzzle because it's something that we brush our teeth twice a day, every day, since we're like four years old, three years old. Asking a customer or asking someone to break that whole concept and use a tablet is a really big deal. Especially, we're all on autopilot when we brush our teeth. It's like who's thinking about that. I think that for us, it's trying to explain, it's not only explaining the problem, like the billing toothpaste tubes and the plastic problem, in general, which thank goodness is getting way more attention now than it was previously, which I think is just so important. It's like not only do we have that education thing, but then we have the actual using of the tablets.Lindsay:So you need to pop it in your mouth, you need to bite down, you want to use a wet toothbrush. Then if people aren't getting the foam that they want, it's explaining like bite down a little bit more. This whole thing, very, very hands-on. Then the final piece of the puzzle is the fact that we're subscription, and the fact that we don't use rush shipping. In the world of Amazon where everyone's expecting their thing to end up the next day, ours takes like a week to get there. But it's we're carbon neutral, we offset the carbon. We purposely choose slower routes because it has the least footprint. It's like there's an education piece every step of the way. But, luckily, we have really curious customers who that's important to them.Lindsay:Instead of being penalized for our stuff getting there slow, typically, they're like, "Oh my gosh," as soon as they realize why, they're like, "We get it and thanks for doing that." I think it's definitely a totally different way and way more work the way that we're doing things. But, in the end, it's the most important thing.Stephanie:Yep, and it sounds like you made a conscious decision to not be on Amazon. What was the thought behind that? Was it the sustainability aspect of it, or you just wanted to keep your customers in a place that you can fully educate and bring them on board, or how did you think about that?Lindsay:Yeah, it's funny because I get this question a lot, and I guess, just for all of the reasons why you would assume for an eco-friendly brand not to be on Amazon, is true. At the beginning, I had to make that choice and I did, and then I just haven't changed it. It's not something that we would like... I'm not saying we would never ever do, I don't see us doing it. But if there was one of the criticisms we get a lot is accessibility because we are only available on our own site. We're not in retail and we're not on Amazon. I've done that for a lot of reasons, control is one of them. I know when it comes out of my site, it's not packaged in plastic, it's not I know exactly where it is. If there's a problem with the order, we can look it up.Lindsay:It's this whole it's I like that hands-on approach, but it's not... You do compromise on accessibility, and so that is something that one of the things that we get is you guys are really trying to do the most good, then why wouldn't you make it accessible to everybody by being on Amazon or being in Target? For me it's like, "Well, I'm not ready to think about that yet. Maybe you're right, I'm not even thinking if that's right or wrong yet, but I'm not ready to even look under that thing." But so as of now, no.Stephanie:Cool. Makes sense. Let's talk about product development because I know you have a new whitening gel product coming out, and I want to hear what that process looked like when you were so focused on your toothpaste bits. Is that how... Yeah.Lindsay:Yes.Stephanie:Then shifting over to starting to create new things and listening to maybe customers and what the market wants. How do you think about developing new products and the logistics behind it and all of that?Lindsay:Yeah, new products are so fun. We listen to our customers, I think, obsessively. I'm constantly going through our DMs, I'm constantly going through Instagram. We have places on the site where we're asking for their feedback. It's so important to me to have that really tight relationship with them, and so that's how we knew. We have our 2K servers that we came out with mouthwash and we came up with mouthwash as a direct response to what they've been asking for. We have our toothpaste, it's really minty, but it's not like pow in your face like commercial minty. We do that specifically because there's a lot of people who we want it to be natural mints. You can really only get it so minty, honestly.Lindsay:But also we want it to be just a lighter mint, but what people are asking for is a really pow in your face solution. We were like, "Okay, let's do mouthwash." That's what our mouthwash tablets were or are, and you basically just pop one into in your mouth, you bite down and they're made with nano-hydroxyapatite, just like our toothpaste tablets, so it's good. Not only does that help to strengthen your enamel, but it also helps, basically, it coats your teeth and it makes them look whiter and brighter. Like not only that, it makes your teeth look nice and shiny. It's like minty, it is like in your face.Stephanie:It turns into a mouthwash from a tablet?Lindsay:Yeah, and that was something that was super fun to make. It has similar ingredients, but then we've also used like... We basically put other things in there that just immediately dissolve in water. When you put it in there and you take a sip of water, it just dissolves super fast and gets all over your mouth. Basically, it turns into mouthwash. That was super fun and that was our customers asked for something like that, and so that's what we made. Then we have our bamboo toothbrush, which has castor bean bristles, which is actually really rare. Most bamboo toothbrushes are made with nylon or polyester bristles. So we did castor bean because it will compost down to plant food essentially.Lindsay:Then same with our floss, it's made of PLA, polylactic acid, which gets a bad rep sometimes because it's one of those industrial compostable things, but it's so thin that it's not like the same as when you get like a cup of this made of PLA. But the reason we get that is the only other option is silk and we're a vegan company, and were like, "We're not going to do that." Also soap, but soap floss broke too easily for me. I use all of our products, so I'm like, "If it's not working for me, it's not going to work for our customer." Then our most recent one is our whitening gel, and so that was something that, again, our customer had been asking about because it's whitening, especially, whether it's the lights or the the trays. Those syringes, like the plastic syringes, not like [inaudible], those syringes and the whitening strips are not recyclable.Lindsay:It's like those are going in a landfill and our customer and like me too, you're doing what's best for the planet, but you also you want to be able to whiten your teeth and you want to be able to wear makeup and do these things. We were like, Okay, how are we going to make this solution?" It was actually way harder than you would think because whitening gel, it expands and contracts because of the peroxide in it. When you put it in glass, it's way less friendly than plastic, which will expand with the gel. It was actually quite a hard nut to crack, but it was really fun and we're the first and only ones to ever do it. We launched it last week and it's just sales have been amazing.Lindsay:That was one of the things too that we're constantly trying to figure out, "How much do we order? How is this going to do?" We're like, "We don't have any data and no one's done this before. How are you supposed to know?" There's a lot of gut thinking that goes into what we do as well.Stephanie:I was just going to ask about how you plan for the order management and how much to even make, and how do you think about that when you haven't created a product like that before?Lindsay:I stress our ops guy out all the time.Stephanie:You're like, "You got it."Lindsay:Yeah, I'm like, "We don't know." We, literally, get on the phone and we're like, "Okay, what do we think it's going to be?" Then try to figure out like what's our lead time and how fast? It's always coming up with plan A and then plan B, and then what's the ripped cord plan? What's the perish shoot of like, "We've sold through this in three days. What do we do?" Type situation. Yeah, we're always coming up with those kinds of things.Stephanie:That's cool. Yeah, I'm excited to try the whitening gel. I want to try this mouthwash. Now, I'm like, "I'm just going to spend the whole day just working on my teeth, trying all the things."Lindsay:You and me both.Stephanie:Where do you want to be in a couple of years? What are your goals? What are you guys focused on right now?Lindsay:That's a good question. I really like where we are now in terms of I want to be doing what we're doing, but just bigger. I think that we've seen some really positive things since we've started this journey. I love basically being the thorn in the side of these big companies. I think one of the things that has happened really recently that people think is scary or bad, but I think is actually incredibly exciting is we've seen the big guys, like big pace, like get into our space. They're starting to come out with their own toothpaste tablets. They're starting to launch these things specifically going after our customer. For me, that's the most exciting thing ever because we, as a small brand, can do a lot but we can't do it all.Lindsay:The plastic problem and the reason we're in this to begin with is because the big guys have made unsustainable choices and have been caught in this race to the bottom, and they've been doing these things. For them to see us basically improving out the market, being like, "Hey guys, this works, hey guys, this works." Then them feeling pressured to have to then be like, "Oh, we're losing part of our market share to this little company. This is super annoying. Okay, fine, we'll release a two-face tablet." Even if they're not doing it for genuine reasons, they're doing it, and that's keeping plastic out of landfills. It's showing that people care about these things and it's going to ultimately help the movement.Lindsay:If we're the ones that are there, it's like, "Cool, you guys released toothpaste tablets." We already have like other products that we're releasing that's going to do the same thing in other spaces. It's like, for me, it's I love that position. If we can just still be there on the fringe and still pushing these big guys and showing out that there's a market, that's exactly where I want to be. I just I hope we're doing this but more.Stephanie:Oh, that's cool. I definitely could see these companies coming and trying to acquire you. Then a lot of those brands, I think, need to garner more trust. Like you said, whether it's genuine reasons that they're doing it or not, if they were to take a company like yours and triumph pulled into their own, it'd be great if they could take your best practices and level them all the way up to the top of the company. Might be hard doing that. I'm trying to even think about like what that integration process would look like, and trying to maintain the clarity behind the message and the brand and the mission and everything. But I feel like they're going to come and just try and scoop you up.Lindsay:I don't know. Well, and the whole point is to get... If we can show that customers want this and then the big guys start doing it, that's when like accessibility no longer because as long as they do it right. If they don't do it right, I will be tweeting about the store [inaudible]. Yeah, as long as like they're... and it doesn't, and that's the thing too is for sustainability it's like, "Yes, I would love that we all want to save the planet and we all want to do this." But also if your company's behaving in a legitimately sustainable way, just because you see that there's a market opportunity, that's the same to me. Because the at the baseline, it's still helping the cause. I think that's where we're really trying to push. I really want that.Stephanie:That's cool. Amazing perspective. I love that. All right, well, let's hop over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud, our basic sponsors. This is where I ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Lindsay?Lindsay:I'm ready.Stephanie:Okay. What's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?Lindsay:Oh my gosh, that's a really hard question.Stephanie:You can take time to think about it though.Lindsay:Yeah, I got a minute. I got one minute.Stephanie:While I drink my water.Lindsay:I guess the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me. With that, is that I'm thinking of so many different things. I'm not like, "Oh, I can't think of one thing." I'm like, "I'm thankful for so many different things." I guess the first thing, though, and I think it's because we were just telling the story. This is going to sound so cheesy. I really think the amount of for [inaudible], like first customers gave us at the very beginning when I was sending these emails being like, "I'm so sorry that I have your money and I can't deliver your product for two months." They were like, "It's cool." Like that literally would bring me to tears.Lindsay:I would get those emails and I would be crying on my bed, and Asher would be like, "What's going on?" I'm like, "This customer said it's okay." Because that was a really stressful time. I'm sure there's like way more meaningful things, but that's the first one that came to mind.Stephanie:I love that, yeah, not cheesy at all and that's awesome. What one thing do you not understand today that you wish you did?Lindsay:One thing that I don't understand today that I wish I did? I guess like investing or something. The first thing that he said, I was like Bitcoin.Stephanie:We've had people say that.Lindsay:[inaudible] let's bring them down. Just putting too much time on Clubhouse, okay.Stephanie:Yeah. Hey, there's Bitcoin clubs, you can just hop in.Lindsay:Yeah, I know, but I don't think that would help me understand it.Stephanie:You can get up on stage, just ask all your questions and you'll be good.Lindsay:Yeah, I think that was like maybe if I did one understand that actually I should probably think of more meaningful things. But, yeah, I'll say that. I'll say that for now.Stephanie:Okay, cool. Another question, I feed my creativity by doing?Lindsay:Going on a run.Stephanie:Going on a run?Lindsay:Yeah, random, but that I know off of that [inaudible].Stephanie:If you had a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Lindsay:Oh, I love that. I would love to do like sustainable journey type one where it's a... but it would need to be done in a non-boring way, which is why I haven't done this yet. But I would love to have, honestly, I would just love any excuse to talk to Jane Goodall. I would literally start podcasts to just talk to Jane Goodall. Yeah, I would just basically orchestrate a way to have a podcast to talk to her.Stephanie:I love that. We are working on potentially putting together a sustainability podcast and looking for a sponsor right now. Anyone out there you can get in, and Lindsay is ready to hop in and talk to Jane. We already have everything set up.Lindsay:Yeah, any time. Any time.Stephanie:The last question, what one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Lindsay:What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year? I'm thinking, this is important. I would have said the iOS thing, but we've already been through that and that didn't really do all that much. I would say the incredible amount of brands that are starting up and the competition in the way that that's going and brands'' abilities to adapt and what we were talking about, pioneering those new acquisition channels. I think that will be the biggest make or break moment for a lot of the brands that have popped up over the last two years. I hope that continues to go up and stuff.Stephanie:Yeah. That's a good answer. I do sit there and wonder like how is this going to play out with all these new D2C companies popping up so much competition? How do you stand out? It'll be interesting watching.Lindsay:Yeah, it reminds me of what happened with TV in a way where it was there used to only be those channels, like certain channels. Then, all of a sudden, the internet came and then it was really fragmented. Then there were so many and you're like, "Where are all the eyeballs? How do we get eyeballs?" It's like the same thing, but with brands. It's cool. It's a good thing for the customer, that's for sure.Stephanie:Yeah, I agree. Well, Lindsay, this interview has been so fun. You're a blast, of course. We'll have to have you back for round two, hopefully, in the future. Where can people find out more about you and Bite Toothpaste Bits?Lindsay:Yeah, on our website, so it's either bitetoothpastebits or bitetoothpastebits.com. They can come to us, and then on social media is just @bite, so B-I-T-E.Stephanie:Amazing. Can't wait to try everything out and thanks for joining us.Lindsay:Thanks.

One of the hardest things to do in ecommerce is creating an online experience that truly showcases every aspect of a product. This is especially true in the world of luxury goods, where allowing customers to touch, feel and admire the craftsmanship of a product. And at the same time they are expecting an indulgent in-store experience which is tantamount to the story of the brand. Just the in-store experience can serve as the main selling point and create word of mouth like no other.  Throughout his career at places like Brunello Cucinelli and Boggi Milano, Fedele Sforza has had to meet that challenge head-on and figure out a way to create a luxury ecommerce experience that matches and works in tandem with the luxury in-store experience. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Fedele tells us exactly how he’s been able to do just that, and he explains why ecommerce leaders have to be evangelists within a traditionally retail-based environment. Plus, he details how to use data and technology as a window into the needs of your different customers, which you can then leverage to create personalized shopping experiences across channels. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Showcasing Luxury: The in-store experience is a much easier place to showcase luxury items and create a one-of-a-kind, high-end shopping experience. Online, there are fewer ways to showcase craftsmanship or cater to a consumer. But it’s not impossible, and it should be a priority to create a personalized and extravagant experience online that can match or work in tandem with what happens in-store.Friends, Not Enemies: When a company begins to prioritize and invest in ecommerce, often the retail side of the business sees that as a threat. An ecommerce leader’s job is to be an evangelist and show the ways that both retail and ecommerce can work together, share data, and create experiences that cater to customers in a more personalized way. If that collaboration happens, not only will customers have a better experience, but the business will see a boost on the bottom line because sales are being optimized across all channels.Curating Connections: Rather than making a list of channels in which you have to market, start to think about finding ways to form connections and create experiences with customers in the places where they want them. Not everyone is in the headspace to buy something when they are scrolling through Instagram, but they might be interested in purchasing something when they are at an event with friends. You have to find ways to connect with people in all places and in unique ways so that you are top of mind whenever they are actually ready to purchase.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 there, and welcome back to Up Next in Commerce, your number one stop for all things commerce. I'm your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO at Mission.org. Joining us today is Fedele Sforza, who's currently working as an ecommerce and omnichannel consultant, working for large and small companies. Fedele, welcome.Fedele:Thank you. I appreciate your introduction.Stephanie:I'm excited to have you on. I was actually about to namedrop all of the companies you've worked on ecommerce back in the day, but then I was like, "I should just let you do it, because I don't want to botch that." So, could you walk through the places you've been and how you've got to where you are now?Fedele:Yes. Since we started, I've worked for fashion companies in Italy where, as well, we have a lot of them. I started at the company which was in the denim, it's called Dondup. Fedele:Then, I worked for Brunello Cucinelli, which is a big company already known all around the world for its craftsmanship. It's a luxury brand. There, I worked, in terms of creating digitalization in the company, not just ecommerce, not just the website, but also creating a sort of experience of luxury, which is the most difficult thing usually.Fedele:When you have the possibility to create an upper-level experience, you are doing well. It's always difficult to communicate a product like that, with that price point. With all the technologies that we had, we did quite good, trying also to personalize in an artisanal way, which is something a little bit different from a lot of companies now. I did the rollout, also, of the entire ecommerce worldwide, using Salesforce Commerce in that case. We connected also the part of the service and the Marketing Cloud for the automations. There, we had also the part of omnichannel, which means, in that case, return in store, pick up in store, and all these kinds of activities.Fedele:I worked for Aspesi, which is a small company, medium. Core business was the outerwear, female luxury outerwear. So, the company was starting to adapt themselves to the commerce, selling on line, ecommerce. In that case, I had the opportunity to create a sort of alignment with, also, all the marketplaces, like, for example, Farfetch and also some other retailer online, which is the most difficult thing, when you would like to find a balance between your buyer to consumer sell, and the other kind of selling, like from marketplaces and direct to consumer retail as well.Fedele:And then I went to Boggi Milano. For me, it was a good opportunity to experience very well the omnichannel part, Boggi to run this store around the world. The great thing was trying to connect a single view of the customer in order to give the same experience everywhere.Fedele:I think the possibility to use all the digital platform was very good for me. I think that was a great experience in order to understand how to create a loop in the journey of the customer, and that's Boggi Milano. Then, I decided again to jump from the place. I take the opportunity to move by myself after a while, because I had a lot of requests from companies to help them to create a sort of next-level image online and giving them the possibility to create their business online; which is something especially for a startup that seems difficult, but actually, after a while, a startup is sometimes better also than working in a complex ecosystem. It's starting from scratch. And now, here I am.Stephanie:That's awesome. I mean, obviously you've had a ton of experience. I want to hear a little bit about what the landscape looks like in Italy when it comes to ecommerce. Because a lot of these companies you've worked for ... I mean, Boggi Milano, I think, has been in business since 1939. You're tackling companies that have been around for a long time, probably have certain things set a certain way. What does the ecommerce landscape look like in Italy, where maybe it's different kind of challenges than what we would see in the US?Fedele:I think that Italy is now getting faster on the road of innovation. I think pushed from this situation probably. What I saw is that usually you arrive in companies, especially in the clothing companies, where there already some systems that you should try to adapt in a sort of, let's say, your way to work with that kind of processes. Fedele:In this way, I think that people understood the importance of the ecommerce and not just like a window, because that's something very old, but like something that it's a sort of place where you see all the results of the work of the entire company. I think it's not just a part of the brand image, but also of the strategy of a brand, the positioning, etc.Fedele:Usually, especially in the companies where you find a lot of craftsmanship, you need to adapt the experience that you have online. Especially in companies that are in the luxury, you need to show to the customers that part of the experience. Especially in the image online, sometimes you are struggling. In this case, you try to find the way to adapt the model that, for example, store managers are using into the stores, for example, which is something that is trying to do storytelling. And that's something that you bring also online, not just to put in some contents into the online store or the website, but also understanding that maybe if you can try to personalize each kind of content for each kind of customer.Fedele:For example, I had the opportunity to, especially in the last year, use content specific for [cross-saling]. When you know already that the customer is more into, let's say, trousers, it's better if you stop communicate them shirts, for example. Maybe they already have a shirt, no? In that case, you can use the marketing automation to figure some email directly to them. Maybe you understand, for example, that they don't like to receive emails. Maybe you use another channel, like it could be ... Another channel in advertising, or it could be ...Stephanie:Texting.Fedele:... For example, texting. Or, maybe, I think the next level will be something that is more direct. Because especially in the luxury stores, usually each store manager [inaudible] of a customer. And the same way, if you imagined ecommerce like someone that is an ecommerce manager, like someone that is managing customers in terms of information, and maybe helping them directly find something they really want. Not pushing them with email. We receive already tons of email, no? It's better to find a personalized way.Fedele:For example, in this case an idea could be live shopping, personal shopping, which is something very interesting that probably everybody will adopt in the future.Stephanie:Yep. The one thing I want to circle back to is around selling luxury goods, because we haven't talked too much about that on the show and I want to hear how you approach that from an ecommerce perspective and how you actually showcase luxury. What are you doing when it comes to the ecommerce presence and maybe what things are you pulling from retail to support that, or lessons that you're pulling into ecommerce to show that this is a high-value item, it's worth the money, here's why?Fedele:The first thing that ... I know that could be obvious, but it's the first thing to do usually, is to create digital assets that are really powerful. For example, in one case in Brunello Cucinelli, if you go to the website, you can see that images on the product are very well-done. They are not just normal images like, for example, could be in a normal platform that you find online everywhere. They are trying to give the projection of the product, the quality of the product, for example. Especially for a product that is maybe more than 1000 euro, it's important to understand the feeling.Fedele:Another thing that is related the image of the brand, in this case, is also the lifestyle. You are not just selling, for example, a shirt, a sweater, or knitwear, whatever: you are selling an outfit, you are selling a part of the experience of touching that kind of item. Usually, with this part of the image, you help the customer following them through the services that you have the possibility to contact them. For example, understanding what kind of item they like more and maybe during the session of purchasing, following them, through a chat, for example, that could be interesting. Understanding the pages that they are maybe not browsing and maybe skipping and understanding better when they talk.Fedele:I think one part of this could be the conversational part, also, if we want to resume it. This would be something that will be stronger and stronger, probably, in the future. This is something that usually helps a lot, like storytelling directly, which is live. And not just that, because I think that also the possibility to give the emotional [inaudible], someone that is talking to you, it's something also important. We see mainly, in the websites that you can browse actually, people that maybe they are going around without maybe purchasing, just browsing, browsing, browsing.Fedele:The most effective thing that I used usually was putting conversational chat, could be, for example, that maybe as [inaudible]. It means that, for example, understand that you are in the product page that you would like to buy and maybe in that case there would enter an agent that could be not just a service agent, but a personal shopper, which is something that knows the product, for example, and could tell you something more. Not just giving you information about shipping or returns: something more that is related the product, specifically.Stephanie:I was just going to ask about that. I could see, for a luxury brand, you can't just put bots and conversational bots on the website: people going there are probably looking for that in-person, curated experience that they would experience when going into a retail location of maybe a Boggi Milano. How do you think about having customer service on the website that kind of replicates it, to something that they would experience when they go into the store as well?Fedele:Probably will be a sort of mix of the two things. One of the things in the future that we will see is that probably people in the stores will help the selling online. Let's imagine how it in a technic way could be a chat that is popping up and when this figuration knows that probably there is a person that is a hot lead, in that case maybe there will be someone in the store that knows that this is the customer, maybe logged in. And in that case, there will be ... Or one person that in the store is using, I don't know, an iPad or maybe a smartphone or whatever, understanding the customer and giving him all the information that he needs about the product, for example. So, there will be a sort of, also, optimization of the sale agent or people that are standing into the stores, for example, merging all the information about the product and information about the customer in this case. Fedele:But regarding this typing of selling was called before show- rooming, was something like that. I think that more and more it will be applied to all the kind of customer. The most difficult thing is also approaching, for example, to a kind of customer that is not digitalized. In that case, no ... In this case, maybe the best thing is trying to contact the customer, helping them maybe to book an appointment and giving the possibility to going to the store and maybe after that trying to give them the possibility to try the selling online.Fedele:One of the things that probably we will see in the future is also the part that stores should not be anymore warehouses, just warehouses, but will a sort of experience point. In this case, you will merge probably what you have online with the offline.Stephanie:How are you advising brands to do that now, especially when maybe things are starting to open back up? I know you're talking about having these pop-up shops and maybe a guide shop you can go in and try stuff on, but what are you advising around how to think about it over the next year or two, of what's going to work?Fedele:Talking about this part and what I was saying, for example, one of the struggling points is the warehouses should be all around. You cannot have just one store with this item. Probably, in the future warehouses will be hybrid, let's say fluid, where all the customers could see online what they had; probably, also, into the store. For example, one thing that could be, and I experience that is very helpful into the store, is having an iPad with the entire catalog, let's say a replication of the ecommerce, somehow. In this way, selling what you have not in the store, but selling what you have into the online warehouse. Online means everywhere, probably.Fedele:I think that the best thing is not having a stock that is stopped in one store, but a stock that is moving from one to the other store, in order to have the largest possible SKU numbers in terms of stock options. I think that another thing is the training of people into the stores, for example. Giving them the possibility to understand that behind the digitalization there is not the cannibalization of the store. There is something that could be another way to sell something that you probably don't have in the store. It's another way to, let's say, something that would become a sale agent 3.0 or 4.0; I don't know how many numbers we are having now. Helping them to become more tech-advanced.Fedele:Especially in Italy, when you go in the store, maybe you see people too much connected with the store, with what they have into the store. But they are not thinking that maybe they could understand if a customer is a loyal customer, what kind of item he bought, what kind of size preferences he has. It's something that is happening already probably into some online stores, but not yet in everywhere.Fedele:One thing that I will see, next trend will be ... Sorry, if I say the name is [digitalization]. When the store becomes digital. Especially in Italy, I saw a couple of stores that are starting to become more and more like that. It's like Adidas and Nike, for example. They are using a lot of part of NFT, virtual reality, and all these kinds of aspects that will be helpful for each person that is going into the store. There are a lot of possibilities now; I think that our role is to help brands to start to approve these kinds of digital assets and putting in the store to give you an extra experience.Stephanie:Yeah, I was just going to say that it seems like especially for luxury brands, figuring out what kind of experience your customer wants and what's going to draw them in ... I'm even thinking, back in my California days, there was this one little strip that was like a street and all the shops opened up, and they all had wine, so of course I'm going to be there, and appetizers. And I remember the different kind of events: some of them have bands, and it was all very unique depending on what the items were and what they were selling, but it left a really good impression. And every year I'm like, "Oh, I need to go back there." I forget what it's called, whatever the name is. But I would go back there because of that experience and then have really good brand awareness. "Oh, that was the one that had the really good cheese board and wine, and had the band playing." Or whatever it was.Stephanie:How do you think about luxury brands creating events like that and experiences that match what their customers want? Or maybe creating partnerships that they weren't doing before this?Fedele:I think that one part of this kind of asset that we're still exploring is the content personalization. Actually, I didn't see yet, for example, a website that is adapting to what you really would like to see. When you have your experience, for example, it's like, for me, I like wine, too. When I go into wine stores, they know that I like strong wine, something [inaudible] with a full body. And the sales assistant knows already that probably I don't like some other kind of wines.Fedele:This is something that probably in the retail is working, and the retail will having extra information with the data, through the iPad or whatever. Already there are in place these kind of things. The good opportunity for the stores online is the fact that they have data probably and they maybe just need to convince a little bit more to have the navigation logged, for example. But they are not yet adapting the experience of browsing into the store with the content personalized for each one.Fedele:I think that the next big thing is this one. Not just the content that are, let's say, set with some rules, already preset, but something that works with artificial intelligence. There are already in place some tools and platforms that are working in this way. I talk about Salesforce, because it was one of my experience. Salesforce ...Stephanie:Tell me more about that.Fedele:... As Einstein and the next best option, for example. Well, already has data, already has data about the navigation, already has data about the content that the customer would like to see and the content that they skipped. Already has data regarding the purchasing. Already has all the information. What you need to adapt is the system [inaudible] and front-end and back-end as well that create this kind of experience that is unique for you, removing all the other information and images, whatever that probably that customer doesn't want in general.Fedele:This is also very powerful, because think about conversion rate optimization. What is the higher way to create better conversions? Removing all the friction, removing all the aspects that the customer doesn't want. All this information already exists. I think we are still missing the real personalization of the contents. There are still people, probably, that they don't like, they want just to browse. There are stores that are full of these non-personalization possibilities. There is place for everyone, probably.Stephanie:Yeah. I don't know much ... I know Salesforce. Commerce Cloud has Einstein, but tell me about when you were thinking about implementing AI, especially for a company with maybe quite a few products. What did that look like? What were you trying to solve and then what did the process look like to actually get that going? And then what kind of results did you see? Kind of like a mini case study.Fedele:I think that the ... For example, in case of Salesforce, let's think about one possibility, which is [inaudible] of the product, of prediction of the, "You may like this." Usually when you go on the website and you see, "You may like this," usually is not something that you like.Stephanie:Yeah, like, "No, I'm good, actually. I don't need a toothbrush along with my t-shirt."Fedele:Yeah! I think that two parts of the possibility of content personalization are these, in specific way in the products: you have all the data that helps you, for example, to understanding what kind of item would like this person. In that case, you can really give personalized content that you could like. But not just that, because it's not just into the website. Also, connecting, for example, the marketing information, let's say Marketing Cloud in this case, could give you the possibility to send email, which is the channel that we all use, sometimes we abuse, but more personalized. Not just putting any item. No, you find the new collection. Oh, okay.Fedele:Could be better to say, "In the new collection are the items that you always looked for. It's this." And maybe, "Wow, you understand it is this." Okay. Not enough. You can connect those to the automation to, for example, advertising with the personalized content. I had the opportunity to see some tools like, for example, I don't want to say the name. But there are some tools that are working very well already with the banner personalized into the content. They personalize the image and also the tone of voice and also the copywriting in the banner.Stephanie:Wow, that's cool.Fedele:Yeah, it means that you can see really ... For example, I saw some luxury brand that they used an impersonal form to talk with people. Maybe sometimes they could understand that a personal form in [A/B] testing could be better. In this way, maybe they could perform this kind of A/B testing using personalized content, like, for example, in the banner and whatever.Fedele:There are already these kinds of aspects and it could be very good. Another point that we saw before, for example, could be that maybe this person is browsing every day, because at the moment stores are closed. He's browsing every day and probably is really interested in one item. Could be maybe if you try to push one of the sale agents to talk with him, if he knows him, and understand in some way if he needs help buying online, for example. Or maybe convincing that you could buy; maybe you can also return. Or maybe, "You take it and when we reopen the store and you try the other size, whatever."Fedele:There are already these touchpoints. They're important for each company to put all together these touchpoints. Sometimes, in my experience, I found a universe when you arrive. Data everywhere.Stephanie:I was just going to say. A lot of companies we've talked to, it does feel like things aren't very connected. I mean, how you're saying you take Salesforce Commerce Cloud, then you plug in their Einstein, then you plug in Marketing Cloud, and you've got this whole suite where the data's all talking to each other, informing ad campaigns and marketing campaigns, and it all comes together. A lot of companies we've talked to, like you said, it's a universe and marketing team's not talking to the tech team, who's doing the ecommerce implementation, who's not talking to the ads team. It definitely seems like there's a lot of room over the next year or two to bring everything together and maybe reduce the tech stack so it's more uniform and connected than trying out all these one-off tools here and there that create individual databases that are hard to tap into.Fedele:Yes, I think that, as I told you before, our role sometimes is to be an evangelist into the company. Really, sometimes is also the more human part of being mediator in all the roles. One of the difficulties that I found in my previous experience is also, for example, talking with the production department or talking with the retail departments. Sometimes, especially for the ecommerce, we were seeing we are against the retail. Now that they understood that we are servicing them, because we are the biggest window, if we think about a website. They are understanding that we could also collaborate somehow.Fedele:For example, some data that we are collecting, they could be helpful also for the production team. Sometimes they come to us and they tell us how many views has this product, to understand, how many returns we had with this item. "We had too many." Okay, maybe next season we don't do this. And this will adapt, also, the model of a production system, which is something very powerful, actually. So, we are a sort of mediator sometimes, because we are in this ...Fedele:And when I talked about a digital mindset is something that would be really helpful. Also, for the human resources, starting to find people that are really mediators, but also they are innovators somehow. Also, in a little part, a little digital specialist or whatever. But at least they know what they are doing. This is something that is happening now: we are forced to stay at home and we use a lot of technologies devices. Maybe my father now is more evolved than me, probably, somehow, when he was condemning me about staying a lot on the computer, but now is working more than me. He's using digital more than me sometimes.Stephanie:A fast-changing world. A lot of people are jumping on that maybe wouldn't have otherwise. The one thing that I have started to think about is, because things are moving so quick and we're all at home and behind screens, I think there's an area where we can lose touch with the human experience and what people are seeking when they go to a retail store. I'm even thinking about when you were saying about how someone's browsing every day on the website and maybe a customer service person should reach out.Stephanie:But imagine if you take it a step further and you come back the next day and it's the same one. Like, "Oh, Stephanie's here again." "Hey, welcome back. Any new questions today? I know we talked about this yesterday." But thinking about why do you go into retail? Sometimes it's fun to see the same person, where they have context with you, where they know what you maybe already bought in a more personal way. Same coffee shop person, where it's like, "That's my girl! She always knows how to make my coffee." But thinking about how to bring those kind of experiences online, I think, is something that's maybe been missed because we've all behind screens and not as much in-person interactions, where we're kind of forgetting, "What do we seek when we go in person and want to go into a store and meet someone, and talk to them?"Fedele:I think that I did the thesis of my master's degree that was regarding social media in this case, social media relationships that matter. I think that the point is really knowing the customer. Think about back in the years, we started to talk about not anymore the brand at the center, but the customer at the center. I think we like to put the customer at the center, but at the same time we like to put, especially in the fashion sometimes, the brand image of the brand at the center and then the customer. I think this way we need to put again the customer at the center, understanding whatever he likes and creating this better relationship with them.Fedele:What you told is something that is really important, especially considering what is happening in the stores. I think probably the other point is not creating a service theme, but a personalized system theme, so people that they ... Like is happening in the stores, a portfolio of customers where they really study the customers. Also, in my experience, especially in the startup, I start really looking at each order that is coming from each person that is coming to understand what they do, what they like. This is good for me because it helps me to understand where I should improve something and how, maybe, I could talk with them. What is the tone of voice? What kind of aspects I should touch when I talk with them?Fedele:This is something that is not just a segmentation, but this is something that is more related fluidify the relationship that you have. In the past, I think we had too many [inaudible] behind one cluster, another cluster, etc. Now, I think that with the artificial intelligence, we have more possibility to predict some kind of aspects regarding the customer and doing some actions that are really being connected with him. I see one thing that could be strange in one of my previous companies, for example, we used to try to do some kind of upselling writing after looking at the order, understanding that we, for example, sending an email with the followup. "We are preparing your order. We see that you bought this and this. We would like to thank you, blah blah blah, and we would like to suggest this kind of matching." And there's also written, handwritten sometimes, whatever it is. And giving him, also, the possibility to, for example, see the outfit preview through the email, whatever it is.Fedele:Usually it happened that the customer starts to understand that you really are focused on him. He didn't not just buy online an item; he bought something that is an experience personalized.Stephanie:Oh, I like that. I don't think I've ever had an email ... At least from where I buy. Maybe I don't buy enough luxury things; I definitely don't. But maybe that's why I haven't seen that, where it's like, "Oh, you bought this shirt, here's a pair of pants that go well with it, and shoes." I've never seen that level of personalization, which I actually think would be helpful, instead of just, "Oh, hey, Stephanie. I'm going to personalize your name and what you bought." Going that extra level to be like, "Here's how to complete the outfit," or, "Here's how to actually wear it," or what to do with it. I don't know. That's way different.Fedele:It's a sort of personal shopping. It means that you have people that really knows the product, knows the collection, knows everything of that. You need also a sort of human touch, and also for who you can do that or not.Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative). And not making it just be the stock image that was on the website. Like, there was already an outfit; I don't want to see that one. I want to see something that feels like it's custom to me and not just what the model was wearing. Because if I wanted that, I would've bought it at the time.Fedele:Yes. Also, this was personalized in one case. For example, taking a picture from the showroom, we had the possibility to stay in the showroom where we had all the items of the collection that we are putting online, and matching directly and taking a picture and sending through the email. Then, in the followup, you can also write, manually sometimes is also nice, especially when we complete the order, we were putting something had written. And this is more personalized, I think.Fedele:Well, I think that this part of personalization that is transmitting something that is not just technology is very important for the luxury and especially for the fashion, etc.Stephanie:Yep. We had on a company called called Handwrytten, spelled with a Y instead of an I. It was interesting hearing about the level of increased conversions with handwritten notes coming from the brand. It's, I think, especially important for luxury. But then I also wonder, is everyone going to start getting handwritten notes because now it's easier to get those digitized and look handwritten, and maybe it's not going to be something that people want anymore? I don't know. It feels like if you abuse something too much, people get used to, "Okay, now everyone can get handwritten letters." And it looks like writing, now maybe it's saturated the market in a way that customers don't want that anymore.Stephanie:It feels like a really quickly evolving area, but maybe still an opportunity there.Fedele:Yeah, sure. And think about also the reduction, for example, spamming, which is something that is a part in this case. You increase the conversion rate, but you decrease also the losing time in doing things that probably are not working. We have a KPI, so we know already that there are some people that really don't care about emails anymore. So, it's something that maybe we should understand if there is another channel. Maybe this channel could be also sometimes a postcard.Stephanie:Yep. Are you experimenting with any new channels right now at some of the startups and larger companies that you're advising?Fedele:Not yet. I would like to, for example, in one kind of brands I'm working with, which is wine, it's a winery.Stephanie:Perfect.Fedele:I would like to give the possibility to have an extra assistant, which is, for example, a sommelier [aporte], which is someone that is giving you really a possibility to choose the right wine for you, for the right moment. Maybe connecting the loop, because they offer also the part of wine-tasting in the winery. But maybe at this point, you cannot do. I think that giving the possibility to, for example, give an experience that could be live, the first step, it's important, but also with this kind of ... The video, of talking directly with the person could be helpful.Fedele:And then, in the next touchpoint, maybe also creating a sort of relationship between the two. And that's a part that I'm working with. Well, I think that especially in the items that I'm working now, I work with another company which is a small startup, but is innovating a lot. We are doing spirits, uncommon, totally uncommon, which is made by Selvatiq plants, for example, botanicals. It's very difficult to communicate to the customer the differences between a gin that is industrial and a gin that is more artisanal, for example. Or a soda that is more artisanal.Fedele:Especially when you ... I felt, when I talk with people and I explain sometimes, when I had the opportunity to give the possibility to try them live, I saw that they really experienced more and more, and they buy directly. Also, some friends, that they say, "Okay, they would never buy." No, when they experience, they understand that there is something good behind and the storytelling helps a lot in this case, so it's something that helps.Stephanie:I like that. I had a really good wine experience last night, now that we're on the wine topic. Have you ever heard of this wine called 19 Crimes?Fedele:19 Crimes? No. I will check it.Stephanie:Everyone on the show always talks about, you can't just put technology on something. You don't want to just apply the newest and greatest things. "Why do you need VR and AR right now?" And everyone always says that. But last night, I got these two wine bottles, 19 Crimes. I bought it because it had Snoop Dogg on the label. I didn't know why, I was just like, one had Snoop Dogg on it and one had some very old timey figure on it. I was like, great, apparently these were criminals, that's why they're on this wine called 19 Crimes.Stephanie:And this wine company has an AR app, an augmented reality app, and you hold your phone over top of the wine label and then the figure jumps onto your table and starts making this whole scene about why this guy is a criminal, what he did, and it's just this whole world on your table and he gets pushed into the wine bottle. It was amazing, it was such a cool experience. Such a conversation starter, even people in my house who don't drink wine, like my mother-in-law wanted to come, look at it, see what was happening; she wanted to see Snoop Dogg talking, which I'm like, "Do you even know who he is? I don't know what he's about to say; you might want to cover your ears. But it was a really, really cool experience.Stephanie:It kind of made me think a little bit differently about where technology can be applied to create an experience like that that you're going to talk about. Now I want to go back and buy all the wine bottles that this brand, 19 Crimes, has because I'm like, "I want to see all the stories," what kind of AR experience they've built around this. It was awesome. Everyone should go check it out.Fedele:Well, I think that this is important for the future, especially in the everywhere world, not in terms of ... You were experiencing something that was online at your home. But could be in the store, could be everywhere. Most important part now that we need to understand that people are really everywhere and they don't want to talk about anymore channels, for example. But you need to understand where they would like to have that kind of experience, could be virtual reality or whatever. But it's something that is connecting in the same moment where they really would like to buy something, for example, or maybe know something, which is super important for me.Stephanie:Oh, I like that. Not all about the channels; you have to think about where your customer's enjoying it. Like you said, I don't want to be on social media, I don't want to be posting pictures on social media. It's like if you're having wine with your family or friends or whatever, you kind of want to be present there and only take out your phone if it's for maybe something that you can share together and not just be staring down at your phone and being a hermit. Sometimes I do that too, but ...Fedele:Yeah, also this point of the digital detox, let's say something like that. That could be something that is not just one person that is looking at his phone, because probably we did in this last year, will be important in the future. What you told is nice, because you shared something that you saw. It's not someone that is by himself watching something, but sharing. And this is also a way to network the product, for example, in this case watching on the side of the bottle, sorry if I go back, also on that.Fedele:I think that we are starting to find these kind of new elements, but it will be something that we will approach in the immediate future.Stephanie:Yeah. I completely agree. All right, we have a couple minutes left and I want to make sure we don't miss the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I ask a question and you have a minute or less, one minute or less, to answer. Are you ready?Fedele:I'm not ready.Stephanie:You're not ready? Okay, take a few deep breaths, shake it out of it. All right, we'll do the hardest one first and then it'll be fun ones after. Okay. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Fedele:I think that in the future there will be more and more personalization. We need to understand where are we and where we could go with our product, and stopping pushing people with just emails or whatever and understanding really what is behind each customer and adapting each content to each customer on the channel that is wherever it is. Everywhere channel, I would like to talk about. I think that data and blockchain also will be also the next big thing, especially in a loyalty process will be something that could be really interesting to be early adopter, probably.Stephanie:Oh, that's good one. I need to bring on a blockchain expert for retail and ecommerce.Fedele:Sure.Stephanie:That'd be a good one. Let me know if you have-Fedele:I'm working with one of the companies on something regarding the blockchain and I'm experiencing something that could be really interesting, especially ... For example, we talked about the wine [online] loyal system that is with a blockchain model adapted to it. It's super interesting. I think that somehow there's still someone that is not pushing, probably that is the economic model that we are touching. We need gloves to touch it, but I think that will be the next big thing as well.Stephanie:Yep. I agree. I'm a big blockchain advocate. So, you advise all these companies, you've worked with a ton of companies over the past decade or more: how do you stay on top of ecommerce? What are you reading? What you newsletters are you subscribed to? How do you stay on top of the industry?Fedele:I like to browse in general. I like a lot when I see content written by people that are experts in the topic. For example, I have many possibilities to look around online. [inaudible], for example, is one of the platforms that I like, because usually I find some genuine content. Also, well-written, for me. In fashion, there are many others. I always liked, for example, Business of Fashion, which is a website, super powerful. They do an annual report with all the information and I like also to understand what is the next trend, for example in this case, on fashion, technology, whatever.Fedele:Well, now I'm focusing more on the sustainability, to be honest. Not just for greenwashing, because it's not at all. I think these are mainly the ways that I find out. I experience also somehow with, in my case, I use a lot Spotify. I like podcasts through Spotify to listening maybe when I'm doing something else. I like to understand. And one way that I use also is students in my courses at university, because they are really somehow asking you something that is the next thing what is, you know? Sometimes I use the dialogue with them. So, also, networking directly with people will be also one good thing.Stephanie:Oh, I like all this. That brings me to my next question, then. You're a professor, like you just mentioned: what is your favorite lesson that you're teaching your students?Fedele:Usually, in my case, they like to understand more about the online experience in general, understanding more, like you asked before, how you sell luxury online, for example. And how you can transmit the artisanal projection of an item online. For me, these are the parts. Now, usually they are really focused on the digital, because I usually teach in a university that is in poly design, which is a design university, and they are really focused on understanding what will be the store of the future, for example. So, giving all the dots to connect, it's a good thing.Stephanie:Awesome. Well, Fedele, it's been awesome having you on. I've loved learning about the world of luxury and omnichannel and everything else. Where can people find out more about you and your work?Fedele:Thank you very much. For me, it was really nice to talk with you, especially crossing the idea between US and Italy, and giving the next big trend the possibility to go up.Stephanie:Yep, yeah. I've loved having you on. It's been a blast.Fedele:Thank you very much.Stephanie:Thanks. And then, Fedele, I would just say, "You can find me here." Wherever you want people to find you and we'll splice it back in to the audio. But if you want to say, "You can find me on LinkedIn or Twitter," just say that real quick and Hillary will put it back into the audio.Fedele:Sure. You can find me in LinkedIn and Instagram, if you like pictures, because I like to take photos. And, well, you can find the brands I'm working with, which is, for example, Selvatiq and there are many others. Well, I'm online, so you find me with my name and surname, usually, Fedele Sforza.

No digital transformation is the same, but when a massive B2B organization embarks on that journey, you better believe that there will be a lot of lessons learned that can be applied to any other company. That’s why we wanted to talk to former Chief Digital Officer at Univar Solutions, Ian Gresham, who led the digital transformation and ecommerce implementation at this $9 billion multinational industrial distribution business. Look around at the things around you, make up, dish soap, skincare, solvents for your car. Univar probably has a part to play in that. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Ian tells us about the experience of bringing a massive organization into the world of digital commerce, and he reveals some of the biggest learnings from the experience that he is using now as an executive advisor to multiple businesses. For example, how should ecommerce leaders frame the building of a platform to get buy-in from the top down, and what kind of strategies should you implement to drive adoption of your platform? Interestingly, it’s a combination of moving fast but also taking it slow — tune in to learn what that means in practice. Plus, Ian shares more tips and discusses some of the insider details on the projects he’s currently working on. Enjoy! Main Takeaways:If You Build It, They.. May Not Come: When going through a digital transformation, many companies fall into the trap of believing that if they simply build and launch an ecommerce website, their customers will flock to it. In reality — and especially in the B2B space – there is an education and adoption phase that needs to happen to actually make an ecommerce site successful.M-V-P!: It’s wise to take an MVP approach to building an ecommerce platform because it forces you to focus on one specific feature that you can provide that solves a problem for a customer reliably well over and over. By offering that one solution, you can drive faster adoption of the platform because you are not overwhelming customers with a multitude of features, some of which they don’t want or need. New features can come down the road, but adoption needs to come first. And the entire organization needs to be on the same page that building a platform is an ongoing process with no set start and end date because there will always be new things to add or improve.It’s About The Journey: In businesses that rely on face-to-face interactions, the omnichannel experience is becoming more important than ever. To digitize some of the interactions and drive the adoption of more online tools, you have to start from the bottom up and understand every kind of customer and customer journey that exists within your business. From there, you can start reallocating headcount to digitize certain processes and send other resources to handle high-value customer interactions so that you know you are investing in the parts of the customer journey that are most in need.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 Stephanie Postles, your host and CEO at Mission.org. Today on the show we have Ian Gresham, Chief Marketing Officer and Digital Officer, and currently an Executive Advisor to multiple businesses. Ian, welcome to the show.Ian:Thank you very much, Stephanie. It's great to be here.Stephanie:I'm excited to have you here. I just was looking through your background and we did not cover on our call that I thought you went to University of Maryland, which I am from Maryland, so-Ian:That's right. Go Turts. Fear the turtle.Stephanie:This is already off to a wonderful start now that we have that connection. I love that. I wanted to kind of start with your background. I see you've been in a lot of marketing roles, and I wanted to hear how you got interested in marketing, what that journey looked like.Ian:Yeah, sure. I don't remember exactly how marketing became an interest. In business school, I was looking at a number of things. I think perhaps that it was the fact that it was pretty people-oriented, and it's sort of an extrovert function in business if you will. That was pretty exciting to me. There were some pretty school businesses in the Maryland area that were recruiting at the business school there, and ultimately I ended up starting my career with Black and Decker. I worked on the DeWalt brand, and it's just a great place to learn a ton of great marketing and sales skills, and get out there and interact with the world.Ian:They put you out there on the street selling and talking to real people very quickly, and it was a lot of fun.Stephanie:Are there any lessons from Black and Decker where you still use them today, or you think back to advice you got or campaigns you were running? Or is it totally different now?Ian:I guess I think that for one, they set the standard very high for brands to create excitement and create products and experiences that their customers love and are loyal to. We used to get on the DeWalt brand pictures of people who had DeWalt themed weddings. I have had the good fortune in my career to work on a few other brands like that with Craftsman and later... And Sherman Williams, we had a brand called Purdy, which is a brand of paint brushes and applicators. They make these paint brushes here in the US by hand, and painters can tell a Purdy in their hand when they're blindfolded. They know the feel of the wood. They know just how these things feel and work, and they believe in them.Ian:Anyway, to be able to work on a brand like that at Purdy, we got a video of a guy who had a funeral for a paintbrush that he had used for years and years. When it finally just wouldn't go any further, he filmed a little memorial service and buried it in his yard.Stephanie:Oh my gosh.Ian:Anyway, DeWalt's the same way. Black and Decker, they just set the bar very high in terms of brands that create amazing loyalty and amazing customer experiences, which I have tried to carry through my career as well.Stephanie:I want to dive into your time at Univar, because that company is obviously huge. I think it's what, a $9 billion company, Fortune 500.Ian:Yep.Stephanie:9,000 employees or so.Ian:Yep. Yep.Stephanie:I want to hear about your work there. First of all, what is Univar and what did your role look like there?Ian:Sure. Univar, now Univar Solutions, is a pretty global multinational industrial distribution business. So, very B2B. We sold chemicals and ingredients into many different industries, everything from food ingredients to food manufacturers, to ingredients to personal care product companies like cosmetics companies, shampoos, sunscreen, lotions, paint and coatings, adhesives, industrial use. It was just a super diverse customer base. Thousands and thousands of customers, hundreds of thousands of products, and just millions of transactions. Lots of repeat business.Ian:Some of the products we sold were very commoditized. Some were highly specialized and patent protected, and exclusive ingredients that took a much different sales approach. The customer experience around that was very different too.Stephanie:What was your role when you first started at Univar? Then where did you transition to over time?Ian:Yeah, so I spent a couple of years as the first CMO at Univar, and put in place the first global corporate strategy, built out a lot of the core marketing frameworks with market research, with brand standards, articulating our value proposition, enhancing the value proposition, and aligning how we were communicating that and the brand identity globally. Then after a couple of years somewhere along the way I picked up a responsibility for ecommerce. A couple of years into it, the CEO talked to me about this opportunity to become the first Chief Digital Officer.Ian:When we had that conversation, he made the point that he really didn't want a technical person in this role. He wanted a commercial person in this role who could think about value creation and how we leverage digital to create value for our customers and suppliers, and to differentiate ourselves in a pretty fragmented marketplace with a lot of competitors of all different sizes. To me, this was really exciting. If I think about my whole career, I'd spent time in these companies like Black and Decker, Sherwin Williams, companies that made mostly consumer-facing products that really thought a lot about innovation.Ian:Then to make the transition into B2B distribution, one of my observations was innovation was not as common as daily there as it was in these manufactured product companies. I think a huge opportunity that I saw was with digital this is a way for a distributor to innovate around customer experience. A distributor doesn't typically make products. What they make is a unique customer experience, and they deliver on that better or worse than their competition. Digital is a way for that type of business to really create a better customer experience and solve problems that have remained somewhat unsolved.Stephanie:Very cool. Were you nervous taking on not only one, taking on a role where you're really the first CMO, and now it's like and now you're going to be the first Chief Digital Officer, were you hesitant to take on a new role that the company had not had before?Ian:Yeah. When I had the conversation initially, one of my thoughts was I don't know if I'm the right person for this. But that conversation around wanting somebody who had the commercial mindset rather than a technical mindset was reassuring. I think if you look at chief digital officers as a position and the people that sort of reside in those roles today, there are few different walks of life that find people there. Sometimes it's a technical leader. Sometimes it is a commercial leader, and maybe sometimes it's a transformational sort of complex project leader type person.Ian:It's not uncommon to have a marketer in that type of a role. As I think about marketing as a field and CMO as a role, what's clear in today's world is that digital is becoming really important to marketers. It has already, but the CMO role in general has evolved a lot and it continues to evolve. Much of the change is around digital and the power of data. As I thought about this role, to me it felt very relevant to my career, and it felt like the right skill set to be adding to my toolbox.Stephanie:Yeah. Yeah, very cool. What did it look like behind the scenes when you were entering into this new role? After you started observing for a bit, what did the process look like and where did you want to evolve it to?Ian:We had already started someone. We had an ecommerce platform we had just launched, and we had some analytics work that was already underway. We had some thoughts on how digital would help in supply chain and some other ways. The idea with creating this chief digital officer role was to put it all together to create a bigger wholistic vision, to prioritize and think about which of these things do we really want to do, and what sequence do we want to do them in, and how much are they all worth to us, and what is the investment going to require?Ian:The first thing to do was start to put the elements together and continue progress for accelerated progress in the things that we already had started. Fortunately, I really enjoyed a lot of the work we were doing there. It was very customer-facing. It was on the commercial side of the business, so we had an advanced analytics team that we rapidly were growing. We were doing AI and machine learning. We had a ton of transactional data, very good CRM data, and we were able to create a lot of value out of that by identifying insights that were commercially actionable.Ian:We had a couple of marketing automation systems in place, and we were choosing and moving to one. We were using that pretty effectively to reach out and activate with our customers as well as the ecommerce platform itself. We were still really trying to drive adoption of the ecommerce platform. I guess one of the lessons we learned was we were moving.... There assumed to be a lot of pressure to have a website, an ecommerce system, a customer portal where our customers could transact. There was a bit of a race to build it and launch it. We did.Stephanie:[crosstalk] you launch it, and what did your tech stack look like? What was the perfect fit for a company of Univar's size?Ian:We were using very heavily the Salesforce B2B commerce stack. That's what we built our commerce platform on, which was originally CloudCraze then became B2B commerce for Salesforce. I'd say we had a pretty good experience there. We were able to launch a platform in weeks, not months.Stephanie:Wow. [crosstalk]. That's super fast for a company that size, because we've talked to other people who were like, "Oh, 28 weeks." It's a whole thing.Ian:It was incredibly fast. We had both a strong internal team using very good development processes, and moving fast. Also, we used outside support for the build as well. We spent some money on it. Speed and money sometimes are inversely correlated. This was kind of an example, but we built it. I guess the story that I think is relevant here though is that... Let me just say, my story is one of helping lead a company that's pretty early in a digital transformation stage, not the bleeding edge. I think that looks like a lot of the companies out there who see digital transformation as an opportunity, but an overwhelming one. Where do we start? How do we get our house in order to get going?Ian:We just knew we needed a platform and there was a race to launch it. We launched it. What we learned was the Kevin Costner movie, "If you build it they will come," Field of Dreams, is not necessarily the case in ecommerce. You have to drive adoption. You have to have a great product that makes something better for customers to use it, prefer it, and stick with it. But also, you got to do some hand holding with some of these customers that have been doing things the same way for a long time. Digital transformation is about leaving an old state of affairs and moving to something new and better, but change requires support and communication.Ian:Honestly, we had to do some handholding with customers to show them what's possible, show them how easy it is, and then once they've used it a lot of them feel like "Yeah, this is great. I like this. I didn't know this was that easy." They're just not even open to thinking about something new because they have a habit in place.Stephanie:Yeah. How did you scale that adoption? Because when I'm looking, I think you have over 100,000 customers. How do you scale adoption? Are you giving them training videos? Other than the [crosstalk] handholding, what did you guys do to really pull them onboard?Ian:Yeah, we did do some one-on-one calls. We had some webinars. We had programs where we were getting our Salesforce and customer service reps to have the same conversation on scale across all of their customers. We were trying to activate it across all our touchpoints to introduce it to customers and have that conversation with them. If they needed more support, we could put them on the phone with somebody who could help them answer questions and demo it. We had automated or sort of recorded demos they could watch online.Ian:All of that still felt like it wasn't as fast as we had hoped it would be, adoption. That was one of the lessons that we learned. I guess another thing I would suggest is it's really helpful to know what are your most valuable features, and focus them on that first. If customers need to... One of our most popular features was having a library of customer documents where they could access at any time. In the past, they had to call somebody, they had to email somebody, they had to wait. Well, this is 24/7 that they could go access documentation, is a regular thing that customers needed.Ian:Once we introduced that, it became a no brainer for a customer to say "Oh, okay. That's where I go? Thank you. That's a solution to a problem that I've been less than satisfied with in the past." I've talked to other companies that maybe handling payments was their way in, where once they started taking payments online and managing payments online, adoption went through the roof. It was one feature that customers really felt was superior to the old way of doing things, and that helped to drive adoption.Ian:There were a few things like that where we zeroed in on key features. Another key feature that we had a lot of popular success with, and was highly used on the site was Two Clip Reorder. 80% of our business was repeat purchases. For a customer to log in and then see their last several orders and be able to immediately access those and reorder turned out to be a very popular feature. I guess for a company starting the work, that it was important to do is, to really think about the customer journey today and what are those moments along the customer journey that you can make better quickly, and focus in on those and try to create the right solution that'll drive adoption around those features, is my takeaway from that.Stephanie:Yeah, and that's such a good reminder for a platform. I would see a lot of people, if you try and throw all the features, most people are probably not ready to get power user of a brand new platform and they're like, "I want to know every single feature on here," so just presenting them with the things that are pretty uniform, like you said, payments are a big thing, reordering is a really smart way to get people in the door. Then start maybe dripping out the extra features that would overwhelm them from the start.Ian:I would take it further upstream than that too, Stephanie, which is to say maybe you don't need to build a platform with all of those features on it out of the gate. If you take a true MVP view, focus on what are the moments in the customer journey that you can digitize successfully and give them a superior experience, and start there. Maybe you don't need as many features on your platform to start with, but build something that does perform very well and earns their adoption, and then add other features as you go. Beyond adoption, it's even how do you start faster and get out of the gates with some traction on it earlier?Stephanie:Yeah. Did you have any surprises from either customers or maybe your internal employees who you were also trying to train up on this new platform? Anything that you look back and you're like, "Oh, we should have probably done it this way. We could have avoided this if we would have approached it a little bit differently"?Ian:Boy, there's probably a good list of things that we would have... We learned along the way by doing. I guess I would say one of my biggest takeaways was probably we could have started smaller and been a little more rigorous or embrace that MVP concept even more.Stephanie:Rolling it out for a pilot group type of thing? Like smaller in that sense? Like don't do it [crosstalk] on there?Ian:Or is less complexity to begin with. An even simpler platform and prove that you can drive adoption around that, it's easier to explain, it's easier to build. Then there's less to change and iterate as you learn more about how to make it even better platform. But one of my takeaways I think is really embrace that idea of MVP. You can think about narrowing the scope of the customer base you launch it to. You can think about limiting the products. You can think about a lot of things to make it smaller and more manageable, and get it out the gate and just have data coming in on what's working and how is it generating value. Then build complexity around that. Know what works, and build on success rather than... This is what makes it intimidating for people who are starting the journey is, seeing the complexity of all the problems that need to be addressed, or all the features that you need.Ian:If you compare yourself with Amazon, yes it's going to be a very expensive, very big project. But you don't necessarily need to have all of the features and benefits to start with. Start small. Move fast. And work in the world of results to understand what's working and where to double down on success and invest in scale.Stephanie:How would you get your leadership team to agree on "Here's the five features that we know that maybe 80% of our customers want," how do you get everyone in the same room to all agree when everyone probably has very different customers and they all heard different things, even if it's one off their like, "I know this is important to a customer. It's very big revenue-wise for us." How do you [crosstalk] agree on something?Ian:First, I think it helps to start with a long range vision. I guess one of my other learnings would be that I've seen companies that become system-focused like "We need a platform. Let's build it. Let's turn it on. It's going to cost us $X million and take a year and a half to build." They think about it as a project with a start and an end. The reality is, you need to just think about how fast can we get to the starting point and how do you make that as fast and reasonably good as possible for their MVP. Then assure people that this is not a project that has a start and an end.Ian:It is a journey that has a starting line, and MVP is sort of how you're racing to get to a starting point. Then a multiyear potentially perpetual journey building that out. I think when you get the team in the room, you've got to have some data. You need to have data around your customer segments, around their preferences and needs. You need to sort of have an understanding of the customer journeys that exist. I think it's important to realize that it's easier to digitize simple processes than complex ones. There's a logic to we got to start small. Let's take recurring purchases with existing customers who know exactly what they want, and they buy it regularly.Ian:How do we just automate a repurchase? That's super simple. The customer would prefer to do it that way anyway versus... Later, you to get to things like troubleshooting or selling differentiated products that are a first time purchase to our customer that has a high performance need. Leave the high value add complex work to people and start with simple processes. Add complexity as you go. I think you can, between using real customer insights and the logic of what is possible in the digital world in terms of solution creation, and using a longterm like a three to five year journey map or a journey roadmap. We can assure people, "We can't get to you first, but these are the building blocks that we have to put in place in order to get to that level of complexity," and something that serves that unique customer need.Stephanie:Yeah.Ian:But there may be some things that'll never be digital or in the foreseeable... They're just too complex and they don't have the scale. You may have some one-off customer problems that only occur several times a year, and it just doesn't make sense to invest the kind of cost and a digital solution for some things. People might need to hear that too along the way.Stephanie:Yeah. What did the change management when it came to employees look like? Was there any pushback? Because I could see as an employee being like I always talk to my customer like this, we're on the phone, I do the order for them. We have this relationship. Don't mess with that. What was that like behind the scenes trying to train the employees up, get them onboard, and what kind of things [crosstalk]-Ian:Yeah.Stephanie:[crosstalk] for that.Ian:I think there are two great things to discuss on that. Great question. First, I would like to talk about Agile and how Agile played a role in adoption in our own employee environment. Second, really we had a very robust change management approach going into place at Univar Solutions that is worth talking about. First of all, Agile, this is where I became a real believer in Agile and certainly there was a lot of resistance. There were sales people who said "I don't want anybody touching my customer without me knowing about it. You shouldn't go take them a price or an offer, or anything like that without me approving it first."Ian:A lot of businesses out there are like that still today. There's a lot of trepidation about change. Really, we just had to find a support somewhere in the business who believed that they had an opportunity. The reality is that the speed you can move in digital is an opportunity. We could touch the entire national customer base for a given product in seconds, where it might take weeks for our traditional Salesforce to get out in front of those customers. We found somebody who wanted to work with, and try, and experiment. We put together a plan to target the right customers with the right offering given out there via marketing automation.Ian:We started at a very small scale, and it was to be honest, so small. We knew going into it, this is not going to move the needle at all. It's just too small. Everyone was being too cautious. But we ran the experiment and it came back, and sure enough we just didn't have enough scale to get any movement. But that was what we learned from it. We took it as a learning. We started too small. We need to open the target zone here of customers. The second trial we did, very quickly with a larger customer base, we started to see some progressing results. We picked up a few other learnings. So, we quickly ran a third iteration of it, and by that time we sent this experiment out, this message to customers, and we got real traction on it.Ian:The conversation which started from "Wait a minute. I don't know, why are we messing with customers without salesperson involvement?" to within about three to four weeks having results that were very promising. The conversation flipped, and the business team was saying to the digital and marketing team, "How can we do more of this? What do you need from me to do more of that? Because that felt good. That was a great solution that aligned with my business themes." In that sense, Agile, this idea of start small, run real experiments to get real data, and then once you prove a hypothesis about something that works, the discussion about investing and scale is much easier and you actually have a pull for the solution rather than pushing it into the business teams.Ian:I think first, Agile is a great adoption tool and a process for working cross-functionally with the rest of the business to help drive adoption of digital solutions. Second, I wanted to talk about change management. I would say I commend Univar Solutions for the approach here where part of this came in as well as it relates to an acquisition, and a lot of change that we were rolling out, because we were integrating two companies. I guess I would say as companies think about investing in digital, they're really thinking about how they spend every penny and they make those pennies go as far as they can.Ian:Usually, it is not natural to say "We need to hire people to help communicate." Meaning, communicate through and train our employees, communicate and train our customers. It feels like can't we just have existing people have that conversation? But the reality is, we did hire a change management leader. We started staffing out change management roles to integrate with customer service, to integrate with sales and to interact with customers. I guess a learning, looking in the rear view mirror was, that is the way to do it.Ian:You might even want to have customer adoption teams or cross-functional teams that involve adoption leaders throughout the company.Stephanie:What did this role look like? I mean, you're bringing someone in. Their role is to do change management. What does their day to day look like? How are they supposed to be partnering with teams?Ian:We had a leader at Service Central level who was thinking about putting together training programs, putting together communication, and coordinating timelines and rollout structures, and plans. So, full-time they were... Now, they weren't just working on digital. They might have been rolling out other major changes in the corporation, but digital transformation is something that fits that bill. My point is to have a dedicated structure in place, probably with a leader whose overseeing it, and potentially ambassadors in a variety of cross-functional teams or functions, like sales, customer service, sales ops, and even customer-facing adoption sort of agents is very fruitful.Ian:If you've invested and you believe in an ROI that will come with this, then adoption is an important factor that limits your ROI. I would just suggest that the company starting and going down this journey are thinking about all the investment and systems, and infrastructure of digital. Don't spare too much on adoption in favor of technology because you will be spending money on technology that's poorly used. It's worth the investment to drive timely, effective adoption and satisfaction with everybody in the ecosystem.Stephanie:One point I'm thinking about is all these things are changing, and a lot of the managers... I mean, I've seen this in the past companies I've worked for, well we need more head count. We always need more head count. For what's happening behind the scenes here, you just need to throw more people at it. How did you approach your teams who probably were all saying something similar I would assume? Did you supply more heads to try and solve problems? Or were you like "Hey, let's rework the talent pool. Let's put people on different roles." What did that look like?Ian:Yes. The answer is yes. No, certainly, you are thinking about head count, but this is where as a B2B business we started talking about omnichannel and sort of reconfiguring how we handle customer needs. In a business that has traditionally been very sales driven and relied on field sales reps to deal with face to face with customers for a lot of things, which many businesses out there still do, we started to think more about these customer journeys. There's simple, there's more complex, and there's very complex types of customer journeys, or events on a customer journey that need support.Ian:How do you start digitizing from the bottom up, the most simple, and how do you drive adoption of those? You can build a plan that drives the customer to self-serve options in order to reallocate head count into new... Sort of reinvest it into higher value activities from handling regular orders and replenishment orders to digitizing that and then thinking about how are we reallocating head count to digitize more complex processes, or to handle more high value added customer engagement opportunities. You can go from customer service handling manual work to more sales reps that are technically proficient and able to go sell a high value customer on a high value solution.Ian:As you up the continuum of complexity with digital, you're continually reinvesting head count by creating a self-serve option, driving adoption, and then moving head count into a higher value space.Stephanie:That's great. Yeah, I can see a lot of companies struggling with that now, and thinking how do I put these people in new roles, and then train them. Is it worth all that? Or should I hire someone who's already done this before? Tricky place to be, but I like that.Ian:Yeah. You can think too in today's world post-COVID, I think there's a continuum from digital to sort of inside... Or let's say digital, customer service, inside sales and then your outside sales or national count. Sort of that hierarchy of the types of resources you're applying against customer needs. The inside sales team becomes an even more potentially bigger team. They make more calls a day than outside sales rep can, and in an omnichannel environment they have the tools that you're investing in with ecommerce and digital to be even more efficient and have more intelligence at their fingertips to handle those customers as well.Stephanie:Thinking about intelligence at your fingertips, I want to shift back to the topic of AI. I know we mentioned it earlier that you guys are starting to experiment with that. You have a really big catalog at Univar. You have high frequency of transactions, a lot of stuff going on. What did that look like, introducing that into some of your processes? What did that world look like?Ian:Yeah, sure. Let me say, I am such a huge believer in AI and machine learning, and the opportunity here. This is sort of a revolution that's just starting. We were building out AI and machine learning use cases and deploying those, and integrating them with our entire sales and customer service ecosystem sort of. I think first, if there are companies out there that are wondering about this, I would say a lot of people quickly go to debates about is it AI or not? Or is just a formula?Ian:I saw a couple authors of a book Competing in the Age of AI. I saw them speak recently and one of the authors said "Look, you can get into a debate if you want to. I suggest that you just forget about that. It's not even worth debating. The reality is, if it is, if you're using algorithms and automation to do something a human used to do, let's call that AI." AI isn't all about sort of recreating human-centric consciousness or something, or super complex. More and more, the vast majority of AI application is going to be in super focused problem solving sort of settings.Ian:That's what we are looking at, at Ford. I would say any company out there that has lots of transactions, lots of customers, lots of products, any of those combinations probably has a great opportunity here because if you've got the data from transactions, from your CRM system, and especially if you have a large catalog and you're only selling a portion of that to most of your customers, there are insights hiding in all that data. In a B2B environment, it can be very valuable to understanding and optimizing your pricing.Ian:Pricing is hard to manage, and there are a lot of variables. AI can allow you to put many variables together and create some really sophisticated ways to monitor competitive things, or going on regents to look at how you're pricing customers across your own business, but bring some timely intelligence and automation to recommending optimum prices. AI allows you to predict and prevent customer turn. You can put together dynamics across a variety of variables that might indicate when a customer's regular purchasing cycle is changing, and there may be other factors involved that would indicate that this customer is likely to leave us.Ian:We've had a few things that are not correlated with success here and retention. Certainly, everybody has experienced as a consumer going online and seeing customers like you also bought. AI allows you to see and make those connections with more certainty and a higher understanding of what's the probability of success on these things in order to invest in automation and turning that into a feature, or marketing automation.Ian:This was super exciting, and we had success building teams out internally, bringing in data scientists and setting them loose on different business opportunities where they could build an algorithm and then we connected it through marketing automation or ecommerce to drive real financial benefit and results for the company.Stephanie:Yeah, that's awesome. What kind of insights did you get, or "aha" moments where you're like, "We never would have stumbled on that without building out these algorithms"?Ian:An example would be that we had a customer segmentation model in place but AI created an outcome that had 34 micro-segments of customers that was driving certain activity that was really generating value. No human could manage coming up with 34 micro-segments of customers based on many different variables. That's an example of how AI is able to piece together insights that just humans wouldn't get around to and couldn't connect on the right kind of actions probably with that in place.Ian:Like I said before, if you're a business that has a lot of transactional data, AI might be for you. If you have a lot of customers, a variety of customers, AI might help you. If you have a big catalog that you're trying to sell to a lot of customers, AI might help you. I think that there are plenty of businesses that think it's too farfetched or too sophisticated. I'm a believer that it's more within reach than people think, and that that's not just for any one business but it's already starting to change everything about online merchandising for some businesses, and marketing automation.Ian:It's worth diving into.Stephanie:Awesome. I spent a lot of time diving into Univar because obviously the company is amazing. Your story there, all your stories, are awesome. I also want to hear about what you're doing today. I know you're advising, an investor. Tell me what are you up to these days?Ian:Yeah, so I've started working with another sort of distribution business that is starting their own digital transformation, a very similar story. I believe that there are plenty of them out there. Also, I've been helping a business where I'm an investor that is called Parcel Home. This is an IOT connected device. It's launching in Europe. It's been in Europe for a couple of years and we're getting ready to launch it in the UK. Essentially, it's a delivery box that install outside your home on your front porch or out by the street. It's IOT connected, so with your phone you can access and monitor it. You can delivery people codes, so like if you were to purchase on Amazon, you'd just go in your delivery instructions and instruct them to use a code on the box.Ian:When they get there, they punch in the code. It unlocks. They leave your packages in the box. They close it. Then as you get home it notifies that you have received packages today. Make sure you go get them. You can enable other people in your home to use it, and you can set one-time codes for somebody who's just coming by to pick something up or drop something off. Or set it up as a recurring solution for all your deliveries.Stephanie:I can't believe that [crosstalk] haven't had that yet. I'm just thinking about how archaic dropping off a box of Amazon, there's a $500.00 item in there potentially, and it's just sitting on my front porch for [crosstalk].Ian:I know. I had the same thought. People buy multi expensive things, and then the package gets left on your front doorstep and it feels like really I think in that situation it's like security is essentially the fact that it's concealed in paper or cardboard. The only thing protecting it is the fact that somebody's not sure what it is, but it's sitting out there outside your home for a while.Stephanie:Could be a baby bottle. Could be a high end TV. I don't know.Ian:Yeah, $500.00 handbag or something like those, yeah. We see and there are some sort of online communities for neighborhoods where we see people talking about package theft. We know that's an issue.Stephanie:Oh, I know that from being in the Bay area.Ian:Weather is an issue. If it's left outside and you have precipitation or things like this, it can damage packages. I think now there are places where it's just not okay to read the package because of threats of theft or something, so they have to ring the bell or knock on the door and interrupt now what are Zoom or Microsoft Teams, or whatever online meetings. It's a nuisance as well.Ian:Anyway, this is a startup business that has been active in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and launching in Denmark here this spring as well as UK later this year. And really, direct-to-customer. So, building out regeneration assets and processes, a sales and marketing funnel and the processes to support that, and thinking about, as many companies are now, living in an almost purely digital environment and interacting with customers in that way.Stephanie:Yeah, that's awesome. Do you feel like you have certain lessons from the past that you're able to bring to this company to kind of help accelerate their progress? Or is it just such like a different field and startup where you're really having to kind of relearn the industry and what startups are doing versus really large Fortune 500 type of companies?Ian:I think it's some of both. It is. As you're launching, there are some fundamentals that even startups may or may not have the talent or resources in place. They just need to do some of the blocking and tackle about marketing and PR as you're entering a new market. How do you approach PR? There are some basics about press engagement for instance, that I can help with, but we're also learning about influencers, micro-influencers, and how to... That's an ever-changing game. There are new sort of marketplaces of influencers where brands can go and evaluate who are the influencers with audiences that matter to me, and how do I transact with them, or come to a mutually beneficial agreement to work with certain influencers? How do I scale that kind of work and what kind of investment do I need to do that?Ian:It's an important way that brands are reaching people now. Every moving target, with new platforms: TikTok, et cetera. It's a combination of executing on known best practices and staying in touch with what's working today. In a startup, you have a business that in the course of a year their commercial processes may change many times over. You add one additional person into the working team, and suddenly new processes emerge, or people reallocate different tasks. So, it's a very dynamic environment in that way.Stephanie:That's awesome. Yeah, I will be watching them closely. I'll be excited to see them expand, and hopefully they come here.Ian:Yeah.Stephanie:Well, let's shift over to the lightening round. The lightening round is brought to you buy Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I ask a question, and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Ian?Ian:All right, I guess I am ready. I didn't even know about the lightening round.Stephanie:It's easy [inaudible]. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Ian:I honestly think we'll see... If we rewind, people have entrenched behaviors. Take my family for instance, we were buying groceries online from a source. Everything got disrupted. We were a loyal online customer, but certain products and processes changed and we had to change to adapt to what our needs were. Many customers change brands and change their choice of where they purchase these things in the last year. I think the question will be, where did things land? Do people stick with the new brands that they've adopted? Or do brands settle back into a way that they win their customers back who've experimented and gone somewhere else? I think we're still in the turbulence of COVID.Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative), yep. I agree. What do you predict then? Do you think people go back to kind of what they knew before? Or do you think now it's so ingrained with the new stuff they've been doing that that's the new way of living?Ian:I think more and more people will stick with their new solutions. To me, some of that is surprising because honestly we have bought through Amazon and Whole Foods, which I would think Amazon has got this under control, but for certain reasons a Target has over-delivered on new solutions and the product is [inaudible]. We had stopped buying from them. That's an example where competition moved fast and have different relationships with some of those customers now. I think that businesses better get used to where things are now, and it's going to be hard to re-win customers that they've lost.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah, same thing with Walmart. I feel like they've stepped it up in a huge way-Ian:Yes.Stephanie:On very quick delivery. I ordered a planter the other day and it showed up the same day. I didn't really understand the delivery process because it seemed like just some random person, but I'm like, "Hm, my planter's here," in that same day.Ian:Yeah.Stephanie:Which made me kind of rethink where before I'd be like, "Yeah, I'm not going to Walmart because it could take a couple of days, and shipping and all this." But yeah, they stepped it up.Ian:Yeah. I totally agree. They've done a great job.Stephanie:What's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?Ian:The nicest thing anybody's ever done for me? Whoa, that's tough. Other than my wife bearing children? I would say that [crosstalk]. That's a big one. It's hard to beat that.Stephanie:That is a good one.Ian:I don't know if I could top that. That's a big deal. And as a father, there's this moment where you're like you're going into that experience and you realize "I really don't control anything about the things that matter most to me. I just have to sit here and hope it all goes well."Stephanie:Yeah. Yeah. If you were to have a podcast what would it be about, and who would your first guest be?Ian:I think I'd have to have a podcast about what people are passionate about, and the lengths that they will go to to pursue their passions. I don't know who my first guest would be, but I think that the most interesting conversations are when you talk to people about stuff that they really love, that they love doing, and that they... That's what lights people up. I think I might start with unexpected guests, people that are sort of somebody in your own neighborhood that nobody knows, but there are amazing things happening that people are...Ian:I love these sort of stories of real humans of, kind of stories where somebody just went to great lengths. I read a great story that's a good example. A little restaurant in Baltimore that made Fusion Asian food, there's a woman who came to visit her kids in Baltimore regularly. Loved a certain dish they had there. Then she came down with terminal cancer. She lived in Connecticut there in Baltimore, and the kids this woman had called the restaurant and said, "Hey, can we get the recipe? We'd just like to prepare it for her in her final weeks."Ian:The owner of the restaurant was like, "You know what, where does she live? We'll be there." They drove six or seven or eight hours and prepared it on the back of the tailgate of their truck, and knocked on their door and brought this food to her. Anyway, that sort of thing is... That makes for great stories.Stephanie:Oh, goosebumps over here. That's amazing.Ian:Yeah, totally.Stephanie:We need that podcast. Someone sponsor this. Ian needs a sponsor. Oh yeah, that's really great. I'd definitely listen to that. What one thing do you not understand today that you wish you did?Ian:Let's focus it back on ecommerce.Stephanie:Okay.Ian:A big question that I don't see an answer to that I really think is a big opportunity is, if I think about real world brick and mortar shopping it's a very rich experience. If you think about walking in a store and walking back to the department you're going to, you past thousands of products and many, many, many opportunities for a retailer to sell something to you: visually, stimulations, [inaudible] signs, POP, that kind of thing. Digital ain't there yet.Ian:It's a long way away from it. At best, we're saying customers like you also bought, or... You know what I mean? It's a cross merchandising that gets relegated to a side banner or below the fold kind of merchandising. It's hard to imagine replicating the richness of an in-store experience, but I'm really curious to see how that evolves because brick and mortar is becoming less and less... It's not going away, it's just that's a rich experience of hard to replicate, and how many online browsing occasions do you need to replicate or replace all of those stimulus that retailers or brands can present you with in-store effectively?Ian:I guess I'm wondering, without that in place what's the output of the whole system here? Do people become just way more replenishment purchase-oriented and less new purchase? Or can we find other ways to effectively introduce people to products they didn't know they were looking for?Stephanie:Mm-hmm (affirmative), that's a good one. Definitely something that I'll be watching closely over this next year, because I love retail. I love going into stores, especially if they have a good experience, good curation, the collection. I feel like you can't beat that, even in a digital world and things like... Yeah, it's hard to get there.Ian:The real world shopping can also be a social experience that online is not anywhere close to replicating either. How you share it with somebody, it's a little different experience online too.Stephanie:Yeah, and you go with someone and... Yeah. Well, that is a great answer. Ian, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. It's been a pleasure having you. Where can people find out more about you and your work?Ian:Reach out to me on LinkedIn. It's LinkedIn slash in/slash... Whatever. IanLGresham.Stephanie:I'll link it up. [crosstalk].Ian:Yeah, there you go. I'd love to connect with you. If there's anybody that has questions about digital transformation or how to connect with customers in that way, I'm happy to have a good conversation about it. Thank you, Stephanie, for having me today. It's been a great conversation.Stephanie:Thanks so much.

Let’s be real, talking about sex makes people uncomfortable. But it shouldn’t! And that’s one of the driving principles behind Maude, a modern sexual wellness brand that is disrupting a taboo industry and making sexual health more a part of the overall health and wellness conversation. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, I chatted with the founder of Maude, Éva Goicochea about how she built her company with a combination of excellent content, a growing and vibrant community, and a go-to-market strategy with patience and empathy top-of-mind. Éva also gave us some insight into the lessons she’s learned from bringing Maude into the retail market, and how she goes about assessing customer acquisition and community engagement. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Getting To Market: Ideate quickly, go to market strategically. Get to know who your customers are, what they want, and what problems they need solved before pushing a product to market. Not only do you need to take into account what your customers want, you also need to consider the associated logistics and cost that product will have to your business. You have to decide if your company is the one that should be creating it and whether the market size is big enough to jump through whatever hoops there are to actually bring that product to life.Content is King: Obviously, businesses want to sell goods on their websites. But it may actually be a better strategy to build a site that is less transactional and more content-driven and educational. In doing so, you can attract a casual audience, who are more likely to turn into buyers when they are already on your site.Bidding Wars: When wholesaling or working with retailers, a unique problem arises if those retailers try to outbid your brand for keywords and search terms in order to win more customers. Whether or not to fight to win those bidding wars comes down to assessing the value of the customer acquisition method. Is the customer more valuable as a native buyer or do you get the same or more value by having your wholesale partner see success selling your product?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, CEO at mission.org. Today on the show, we have Eva Goicochea, the CEO and founder of maude.Éva:Hey, it's nice to be here.Stephanie:I'm excited to have you on. I feel like this is gonna be a very intimate fun conversation, the first of its kind, no puns intended. I would love that before we dive into maude and what it is, I always like to start with the beginning stories. Tell me a bit about what you did before founding maude.Éva:I'm going to try to tell the short version because I think it all connects.Stephanie:Perfect.Éva:I studied advertising in New York in the early 2000s, very analog time. I went back to California, became a legislative aide in healthcare, and then moved to LA and went back into marketing, and worked with a lot of brands, but then I was one of the early employees at Everlane. I think that those two experiences really shaped how I got to maude, and so I started working on maude in 2015 after leaving Everlane in 2013, and here we are.Stephanie:Awesome. What did the early days of maude feel like? Where did the inspiration come from? What is maude? Tell me about how the early days were back then.Éva:Maude was born out of this conversation I had with some friends of mine, who were also founders in a business with me called Tinker Watches. We started talking about sexual wellness and like, "What is the industry that has just never been changed?" This is one of them at least for the modern consumer. It's changed many times, but I think to the modern consumer. I was like, "This is the idea I've been waiting for between the healthcare background and what I thought I would pursue, which was a master's in public health and consumer brands. This is what I want to work on."Éva:Everyone's like... I can't tell my grandma that I sell condoms. I'm like, "I'm going to do this," and so I started working on it. The early days were very similar to COVID for most people, which was heads down at my house working on this idea, not ever feeling super connected to the outside world, and then here we are many years later. It's something that's just grown a lot.Stephanie:That's amazing. What kind of products do you offer now?Éva:We launched in 2018. We had condoms, lubricants, a vibe. Then later on that year, we had a massage candle. Now, the business is about 75% sex essentials, and 25% back and body products which are meant to be used with a partner or alone. That's the profile of the business now, but we launched with these four products saying, "Customers should be able to go to one place and find them," and that really resonated.Stephanie:That's amazing. I mean, how do you even view the landscape now? Has it changed since you've got into it, or is it till the same? What does that look like now?Éva:So much. I mean, on one hand, you see copycat brands, and that's always a little frustrating. But at the same time, I think it's indicative of what is happening in the space. I think it's indicative of what's happening in the space, which is that people are starting to ask for sexual wellness to be considered a part of personal care and reframe that way. They want to see products positioned in that way so that they can shop with the same comfort you can when you're dealing with something like beauty. That's what you're seeing.Éva:We're a brand that fits right there, because we have these products that are bath and body and then also sex. It's really interesting. I think you're going to start to see the products. I mean, I know you are because I know where we're going in terms of retail, but you're going to start to see the products in places that maybe you wouldn't expect.Stephanie:I mean, I'm thinking about even a couple years ago, it's like if you're going to get something, you're going to the back aisles of a CVS, and you're like, "Is anyone looking?" Ka pow. Grab it real quick, run, and check out. They'll look away while they're paying for it. There is this stigma around any items in the sexual wellness industry, but I like how you guys are changing that, especially around your content for the company.Éva:Thank you.Stephanie:You have these amazing products, and you have... It's nice because you don't have a ton of products. You can either have this, this, this, which I think is important especially in the early days of changing this industry. But how do you approach it from a content perspective that brings in new people like I was just describing who maybe would be like, "Well, I'm not going to buy this stuff online?"Éva:I think it was... It was really this choice that we made early on. We had the blog, which is called The Modern from day one. The idea was can you build a world around the product, because we knew we weren't going to have many products. We didn't want to be an over sorted brand, and people were reading it. They just kept consuming it. Then we started to get feedback, and then that turned into seeing what was working and what wasn't. Now, it's been built out into these three verticals. One's called the essentials, which is for an 18 to 25-year-old audience. The modernist is 25 to 45, and then the golden is 45 and up.Éva:It's grown so much. I think we get more traffic on the modern on the product side of the site to be quite honest with you. That's probably because we produce so much content, but it's been great. I think it really positions the brand in the right way, and we're showing content that we want to see in the world.Stephanie:How do you create content that resonates with people? How do you approach that and get in front of new people and know what's going to attract them to the blog to then eventually, hopefully, sell some of your products?Éva:I think, obviously, there's a bit of a science, right? You're looking at the search. What's happening in search, and what are people looking for? But then there's also, I guess, the pattern of behavior around what they've been looking at for the past three years, and what really resonates there and then asking them. That's where the art comes in, because you're really trying to be as empathetic as possible, and as you start to really decide and see who your audience is, then you think about all the things that they need. We try to think of it with both lenses, which I think is the only way to create content.Stephanie:What are your top performing content? What articles you got going on, where you're like, "These bring in the most traffic, or people really love this article?"Éva:It's funny, because for a very long time, it was sex in the wild west, which was one of our-Stephanie:The what? Like Oregon trail type of sex?Éva:Yes. It was sex in the wild west. I mean, it was the shortest piece of content ever, because when we first started, it was more like a Tumblr than it was a full blog. For a long time, that was one of the biggest traffic drivers. It was so funny.Stephanie:People are searching for that? I won't even know the keywords to type in to even think like, "What did they do back there?"Éva:I know. I don't know if it's because there's not many resources for this we were just getting, and it was making it easier for it to float to the top of the search. I'm not sure, but that works really well. We don't dig into it too much, but astrology and sex works really well. There are all of these funny topics where I think people are thinking. It's just these... I would say they're more cultural moments than they are just the WebMD version of content that resonates with our customer.Stephanie:That's pretty fun hearing about the kind of content that works. Now with COVID and everything, what have you seen with this market? I'm guessing, like we mentioned before, that you've had a crazy demand. People are all at home trying to have fun. What new trends are you seeing pop up this past year or two that maybe you weren't seeing before that?Éva:I definitely think that one of the biggest trends that we've seen which makes complete sense is when people are on the site. We used to see it more when it was a nine to five world at night on the weekends, and we still see that, but there is more of a consistent traffic on the site for the whole day, which is interesting. I think we're also just seeing a lot more. There's a lot more press around it being a part of your life and your holistic health, which I think is the right approach. That's how we should think about this.Éva:I like the fact that people are thinking about it, and they're more health related and psychologically. It's psychologically tied to your happiness too, so I think that's important, but we see that a lot. I feel like before, people talked about sex in this compartmentalized way, and now they're talking much more about intimacy. That's always the way that we've approached it anyway, so we were in the right place at the right time in terms of messaging.Stephanie:That's cool. The other thing I was reading about with your brand was that, I mean, you not only lead into content as a big part of even starting the company and less about paid ads maybe in the beginning, but you also focused on PR, and you partnered with a celebrity. I want to hear about how you... Who is it? How did you get that partnership, and how did all of that accelerate growth in the beginning?Éva:The PR was interesting because I was actually just looking at our first piece of press today for some reason, and that was in the beginning-Stephanie:Like ever.Éva:Like ever. That was in the beginning of 2017, which was interesting. The first thing that I did because my background in brand building is also in design, and so I threw up this website in 2015 for maude, even though we weren't anywhere close to being ready to go to market. We started getting inquiries about press, so I knew then that it was a topic people were going to want to talk about. Okay, cut to 2017, we actually had a real landing page, and we got our first piece of press. We use basically our renderings of our products, but that was an important piece in getting maude off the ground because the brand awareness happened so far in advance of launching that by the time it got there, we had built in community.Éva:We had captured those emails, and people were excited and ready. I think that that's a really interesting approach for people to take. I don't know that I would give your brand a year [inaudible] too long, but for us, that was about the amount of time was and then... The celebrity partnership, which is with Dakota Johnson, came about... Her team approached us and said that she was really interested in the brand. At first, I was very hesitant to take on any celebrity investment, because I'm not really interested in putting a name to the brand in that way.Éva:When we partnered with her, it's very much about being behind the scenes, so she's been working with us as a team behind the scenes, and that's been great.Éva:We'll work on products. We talked through what does the next year look like? Anything that we work on hasn't really come to market yet, because it takes a while for any of these things to happen, but it's a lot of just behind the scenes working on really what is the creative direction of the company.Stephanie:Okay, cool. I want to dive a bit into product development, because this is such an interesting area to me like, how do you go about creating products knowing what your customers want? What does that lifecycle look like, great sexual wellness company?Éva:I think for us, I mean, we started working on the product in 2017, which is why we knew what it was going to look like, and so we had about a year. Every product that we make essentially has a six month to a year cycle before it gets to market. We do that for a number of reasons. We don't just take products to market quickly. We definitely work with our customer. We survey them and ask them questions and look at feedback, and then we also look at really what's happening in the market.Éva:Are there products that we can make in a better way? Are there things that we should be... Are there problems we should be solving with our brand? It's this collaborative process with the team to look in this 360 view and say what's really happening, and should maude even be making it? Because I think there are brands-Stephanie:How do you decide? What parts should you be involved in, and which things have you said no to?Éva:I think it's mostly, "Could it be used..." All of our products are meant to be used by yourself or with a partner. How can we be the most inclusive whatever your status is, whatever your adult age is, whatever your gender? That's one way to look at it. I think the other way to look at it is does it make sense with the other products? Is it additive, or is it random?Éva:There's a lot of hurdles to get a product to market. Condoms are class two medical devices. Our lubricants are the same thing. When customers are like, "You're inclusive. You should make all of these things," we say, "There's a couple things. One, is there a regulatory hurdle, and then two, is there a minimum order quantity that we just can't as a small brand get to?" Then the third would be like, "If we could do both of those things, is there a market for it?" That's just real brass tax. Do you take a product to market?Stephanie:Interesting. The other thing I'm thinking about is your ecommerce strategy with your products. I mean, I think a lot of consumers are used to, like I said, buying things in a certain way not really thinking too much about it, definitely not probably standing in the aisle and be like, "Hmm, which one do I want? Let me read the back of everything and see the description." How do you think about developing that ecommerce strategy in a way that people know what it is, know the benefits and do want to hang out and look at it, but also understand it afterwards, especially for someone new coming in and being like, "I'm not from this world?"Éva:I think it's interesting that you asked this because I would say that we could do better in the ecomm strategy given the fact that all of our bottles are brown, so we-Stephanie:Wait. All your bottles are brown.Éva:We have two lubricants. They both look the same, so we've had the same challenges. Our thought was that we create these products that look great in your bathroom or on your bedside table that you wouldn't be embarrassed to have out. But I think in some ways, it's also like, "Okay, but do you know what they are?" What we found in terms of ecomm is to be really clear about how you're shopping for them. Our site is merchandised in a way that's pretty clear and that you can find things in a couple ways.Éva:One is by usage, so if it's before, during and after sex, or just buy the actual type of product. That seems to have been helpful, but I still think we have work to do on that front, because I do think you're right. People come to the site, and they might be uncomfortable, or they might not know what goes together. We're actively trying to make sure they don't just see a sea of brown bottles.Stephanie:That's interesting, trying to put two things together to be like, "This could be a package," and like... Do you have something that shows up on the side of your website that is like, "Here's something that pairs with it?" What kind of maybe tests have you done where you're like, "This one converts well. They add more things to the cart," versus, "When we had it this way, it didn't work out?" Any little findings there?Éva:I mean, there are some products that people just like adding to their cart. One of them is the massage candle, because I think it's something... Universally speaking, I don't know that everyone knows what a massage candle is, per se, but a candle is very easy to understand, so that works as an upsell. I think that if you're pairing a product, if you're getting the vibe, for instance, and you get suggested the lubricant to use, I think that makes sense to people. If it's a bath product, there are other bath products that go well with it like the wash, which is our body wash goes really well with the massage oil.Éva:There's ways for us to basically guide you through the journey, but I still think it's probably one of our biggest challenges is to make sure that people know what else we have.Stephanie:Do you study other brands to see how they're doing things, or are you like, "We're such a different unicorn that there's really no one else that we can look at when it comes to recommendations and trying to figure out who needs what it at what point?" How do you figure out good practices that you want to try and implement?Éva:Well, so it's a bit of a conundrum in a couple of ways. I think the first way is that if you look at a let's call it a skincare site, usually, those things are maybe it's shopping by system. Let's say that they just have one cream or one face wash. That's easy to understand. If it's by say problem, it's distinctively called out, so it's for oily skin or dry skin. We don't have... That's not how you shop the site. In one way, some of the products are a system, but they're not based on a problem.Éva:It's still something for us that we have to, I think, solve for. One of the things that we're really.... I wouldn't call us precious about it, but I do think that we try to be very kind and empathetic about is making the customer feel comfortable, so we don't want to scream anything on the site. I think there are times though that were to tone down. This is a good question.Stephanie:What about quizzes and things like that? If someone comes and they're not really informed on what you guys are selling, have you tried out any quizzes that guides people to what they might want and in a way where they're like, "I didn't get there myself. You told me to get there?"Éva:It's funny because originally, the site was just a quiz. When we first launched, it was like it walked you through, and you ended up with seven different kits basically. There was a couple things, learnings, all things that anyone listening should know. We named the kits one through seven. That's not really helpful. You don't know like... You're like, "I can't remember what number I am." I think also, we didn't have enough options. The only real difference between the kits was how many products were in them, and then if it was shine organic or shine silicone lubricant.Éva:We're still figuring out the best way to bundle. I think that customers... What's interesting, and I think it will happen and improve over time, is that people are starting to see it more as, like I said, something between sexual wellness and beauty, and so they browse the site. There's actually a pretty high conversion on the site. They're browsing the site because I don't think they feel uncomfortable, which was [inaudible].Stephanie:Cool. The one thing that we've talked about in previous episodes is around UGC. That's the best way to get people to buy things if it looks organic, and my friends would use it. I feel like that'd be really hard for your brand to get [inaudible]. I mean, you might get flagged on Instagram.Éva:We do get flagged on Instagram. I think for us, it's just been that's where the bath and body products come into play. We've started to introduce more UGC because we've been seating out more bath and body products for people to try, but it's a really interesting line to tow between messaging around like, "Here's this really soothing body care, and how does it relate to intimacy," but we can't be explicit on Instagram and Facebook, so navigating this category has been really interesting, challenging at times.Stephanie:Did you consciously develop something that you could use on Instagram to then try and get that traffic back? Were you thinking about that before you even developed the body wash type products?Éva:Yeah. It's interesting because the condoms and the lubricant technically can be sold. The ads can be posted on Facebook and Instagram, but the language starts to get tricky. The reality is that there are real people looking at your Facebook ads, making the decision if they should be shut down, which always gets into really funny territory. When we launched the burn massage candle, we're able to start really ramping up ads, but it's really amazing what's allowed on Instagram and what's not allowed.Stephanie:Yes. I mean, I could go down the entire wormhole of certain people who've been banned and other people where it's like, "That is definitely a very bad site, and there's a lot of bad things happening there. How are they still on here?" It's an interesting world. What kind of ads are you creating? I think a lot of times about humor can always be fun around certain topics, and get people in. Do you guys approach it that way, or are you strictly content, educational? How do you think about your ads?Éva:They're just really beautiful straightforward ads. I would say that, again, they always lean more towards beauty. The funny part is that we... I mean, not to use the word funny, because I'm about to say maude has a sense of humor. It's just typically in the captions or in the writing or in the quippy parts of the content, so that could be brought out more. The ads are generally just like how to use the product, and they're beautiful.Stephanie:That's cool. We were talking a bit before the show about retail and how you were thinking about it. Tell me a bit about what your plans look like when it comes to entering into retail.Éva:We are actually... Our business is about 20% retail. We're in a lot of-Stephanie:Oh, you're already there.Éva:We're already there, and it's growing. We're launching in a bunch of new retailers this year. The retail angle has been interesting. We first started out... I can't remember who our first retailer was, but back in 2018, we were definitely in a lot of smaller boutiques. We were in hotels, which makes sense, and started going into bigger retailers. What was happening and what we still see happen is that the merchandising teams would be fighting over where we should be in store.Éva:Now, it seems like the beauty teams are winning. We're seeing maude. It's going to get positioned in a lot of the beauty categories in retail, in these doors not just online. I'm very curious to see what it looks like there.Stephanie:How do you think about connecting the story and the brand and approaching that omni channel experience? What kind of things are you trying out and learning through all of that?Éva:The kinds of things that we're working on is really sticking to the script for the brand, because we see a lot of crossover audience that comes to us via Instagram, and then finds us out in the world in retail. Whereas I've definitely worked in brands that try to cater to each retail audience, and they've test a lot. We try to just really be very distinctively on brand all the time so that people remember us. I think when you're really a new brand or a younger brand, it's important for you to be memorable and top of mind.Stephanie:How do you stay memorable? What do you do especially now that you say there's people popping up like competitors or copycats? How do you differentiate yourself to make sure that you're not blending in with someone else who enters into a Urban Outfitters?Éva:I think it's more about what's the product assortment and then what's our creative strategy, which hasn't been copied quite yet. The other thing is... I've said this on other podcasts. I don't want to completely sound like a broken record, but I think there are really two types of companies. One is product, and one is mission-based companies, very appropriate to what you do.Stephanie:Perfect.Éva:I think that our company is a mission-based company, which means you can't expedite the process of growing community and brand equity. I think that that's what makes maude really ahead of other brands that are trying to do it. It's like they'll have to build their own communities and their own look and feel, and customers will either get it or resonate with it or not.Stephanie:I mean, do you find that you have the ability to stay connected with your customer afterwards? How do you keep the conversation going to then increase the lifetime value of that person and bring them back and stay within your community? What kind of things are you doing behind the scenes to ensure that happens?Éva:Our biggest KPI internally has always been NPS and customer reviews and satisfaction. We have really, really high NPS, and we focus on making sure that they are engaging with our emails, and whether or not they're coming back to buy from us is more a matter of do they need it? What do their sex lives look like? Can we even control that? We can't do any of that work for them, but we can be there. It's staying top of mind through the content, and then making sure that they're happy. We check on them often, and then try to listen when they're not happy.Stephanie:How do you encourage reviews for your product? I could see, like what we were saying earlier, people being hesitant to review something where their name's on there, and someone identifies them. How do you get people to come in and drop some valuable insights into your review system?Éva:They'll get a notification to review the products so many days after purchase, which people are pretty open to doing. Actually, that's all we do. We don't encourage. We don't give discounts for reviews. We're really purist in a lot of ways in terms of how we gather data and what we ask our customer only because we're really respectful of this category and what it means for them to be disclosing this kind of information, and so we want to be as thoughtful as possible. The reviews that we get are amazing, and they're amazing a number of ways.Éva:They're heartwarming and funny and maybe too raunchy. You're like, "Okay, thank you. I didn't need to know any of this," but I think getting people to feel like they can safely write that is what we're trying to do. We're a pretty respectful brand.Éva:I mean, there are other ones that I think are like... a lot of reviews where people will say like, "I lost my spouse, and I just didn't know if I can navigate this alone, and this has made me feel like I'm a person again or lovable," and these things you will just be crying in the office. It runs the range. There's lots of reviews.Stephanie:I mean, I feel like that authenticity is key, though, when people are especially exploring a market that they've maybe never looked into before. Reading reviews like that is, I think, what sells the product by itself, because there's probably many other people who've comment and like, "That's me. I'm in that position right now. I feel sad like that." Trying to get customers to speak like that, I think, is game changing if you can get them to do that, which is why I'm so impressed that you get reviews like that because to me, I can see a lot of people holding back and not wanting their name on something and just being nervous about that whole thing.Éva:I know. I'm like, "I wouldn't write a review like this," but you should read the reviews.Stephanie:No.Éva:After, you guys need to read the reviews because they're very funny. I do have one other funny review that I'll bring up. Somebody used the burn massage candle, which has this great scent. It's really an amazing scent. It took us a while to develop, but she was like, "It made me feel like I was going at it in the redwood forest instead of my dinky no ho apartment." I'm like, "Oh my God."Stephanie:These people are good copywriters. Can I hire them?Éva:One woman wrote about the vibe. She was a powerhouse, a workhorse, an icon. That got turned into an email.Stephanie:That could be the tagline of the product.Éva:I know.Stephanie:Your customers should be the ones putting in their ideas, and then you just take their names and their tagline.Éva:I know.Stephanie:Man, that's good.Éva:That was good.Stephanie:Where do you see maude heading over the next maybe one to three years? What are you guys excited for, planning for?Éva:We're planning to go into one or two other categories. I think we're really deepening the product categories we have, and then venturing into a couple others all around intimacy. If it can be in the before, during or after category, we'll make it. I'm really excited about that, because I envision this maude. We have one in the office, so I guess it's easy for me to do. But I envision a maude shelf, and I'm like, "Okay, what does that complete experience look like?" I'm so excited to build that and then to see it come to life on these end caps and then these retailers is just...Éva:It's incredible. Then to go back to the reviews for a second like how much these products have impacted people's life, I think that that's where I'm really excited to help continue to solve for their needs, and also create products they really like and that have made their lives better in a small or sometimes big way.Stephanie:When thinking about retail, I know I keep getting back to this. I'm just so impressed that you guys are going this route and having success in it. What kind of lessons did you learn when exploring the retail path? What would you do differently maybe if you were to do it over again?Éva:I would say that the biggest thing I would do differently is probably not have launched in a category or in a corner of a store that wasn't really where we should be placed. An example of this is within Urban Outfitters, which again, Urban Outfitters as a brand has been really a good partner to us. It's not our age demographic, but I think in terms of... They've always been good about building out beauty. At first, they wanted to put the vibe in tech and the other products in beauty. I'm like, "The problem with this is that it creates this sense of novelty," and we actually have something launching this week around why we don't call devices toys.Éva:It relates back to why this should not be a novelty in the electronics section of your store. That'd be one.Stephanie:I mean, that'd be weird if it's next to some key chain, cellphone cover, and there's a vibrator.Éva:There's a vibrator. Honestly, I don't know that anybody even bats an eyelash at that sort of positioning because they have been called toys, and they've been made to be these novelty items for so long, but our whole ethos is that we're a brand for all genders, but in particular women, cis women have not... The vibrator has been treated like it's this thing that's an add-on, and for many of them, it's not an add-on. Why can't it just be with the rest of the products?Stephanie:Did you have pushback when you told them like, "We want to have our products together?" Are you even able to tell them where you want your product to be?Éva:We can ask it and guide them. I think over time, they were like, "These products should be here," and then they built out sexual wellness as a part of their beauty both online and in store. Then it was an easy solve.Stephanie:Cool. That's a good tip. Any other lessons or experiences from getting into retail that were insightful?Éva:I mean, we've had conversations with retailers where we go down this long journey of they need certain testing or they need certain things, and we have all of these quality controls, and we have all of this testing on our own, but some retailers are so specific, and then you get to the PO. They're like, "And we want 10 units." You're like, "We've just gone through seven weeks of your editor testing, and you're 10 weeks of this, and you want 10 products." I think that's an interesting lesson is who's really the volume driver, and then who's really...Éva:It's about brand positioning, and what are the risks you should be taking for each.Stephanie:Now, do you go into it with a minimum quantity from the start of like, "We're not going to mess around with 10 units if you're going to make us spend six weeks doing this?" Could someone new do that? Can you only do that now because you've been doing this for a while? Could a newer brand come in with those expectations of like, "Tell me how many units you guys plan on ordering before I do the work," or you just have to go through that phase in the early days?Éva:I don't know that they would have told us. I do think that there are trade offs around. For instance, what we've learned now with retailers is a lot of them online will outbid you for your Google search terms. If you've made all of this effort, they've only bought 10 items, and guess what? They're putting a lot of search dollars behind it. Is it worth it? I'm not sure. Is it worth it to Sam in the xyz.com, whatever? I don't think it always is. It's just a trade off around how are you acquiring a customer? Where are they finding you, and does it really matter if you're in... I won't name names, but...Stephanie:I mean, that seems like a very important point that I actually not heard anyone bring up yet about the retailers outbidding you on your own keywords. It seems like there should be something in the contract that says, "These are my set of keywords I go after. You can't touch them if we're a partner."Éva:We're only learning that we can even push that now. I think there's a lot of things as a smaller company where you're just like, "Okay, sure. I'm so excited to be in blah, blah, blah," and then lessons learned.Stephanie:Oh man, that's a good lesson. I'm glad I'm pushing this. I feel like a lot of people could actually learn from the stuff and go into it with different expectations than... It is easy probably to be like, "I've got Urban Outfitters. I've got whoever," and then to be like, "Oh, maybe I should have asked for more upfront." Ask for what you actually think is fair.Éva:I think you're also like... We didn't put a stockist on our page, because, one, we couldn't keep up with where we were, especially when we were in these independent retailers. If you think about stockist, it's really for the benefit of the customer, right? At the same time, it's like, "Well, then why are we in some of these places, because we know they only ordered 10 products?" This is all up to you as a brand, but think about these things and really what is the value.Stephanie:That's great. Good tips. I love it. All right, well, let's shift over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a question, and you have one minute or less to answer. Are you ready?Éva:I'm ready.Stephanie:All right. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Éva:This is interesting. I think probably to your point, it's content. It's building out a site that is less transactional and it's more about building a memorable brand, because I don't know about you, but I track brands. I'm like, "There are so many brands coming out." If I can't see a deeper story, or if I can't connect with something that I'm going to remember, it's just really hard for me to think about them.Stephanie:What do you think the world's going to look like in a couple years? Because like you said, it does feel like there's so many new DTC companies popping up, and it actually seems like it's hard to trust who's saying what and if that's their mission, and if they're doing what they're saying they're going to do, because now, anyone can launch really quickly, and then also go away really quickly if they need to. Where do you think the world's headed because of all that?Éva:I think it's in examining all of their channels, finding where they really are speaking to their community. When I mean content, you don't have to go to the site and find a blog per se. But if you can find a community, whether that's on Instagram or Tiktok or some channel where you can see evidence of them having a connection with their customer, I think that's really important, because I have been to a lot of sites where then I go check out their social channels, and they've been around for long enough, and there's just like no engagement. It's really interesting.Stephanie:That's working out really great. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about, and who would your first guest be?Éva:Oh, this is a good one. I actually just started a podcast.Stephanie:Nice. What's it about, and who was your first guest?Éva:Well, so we haven't booked the first guest yet, but I will tell you who I want the first guest to be. The podcast is called The Una. It's about the first and the few females in a particular industry. It could be any industry, whether that's politics or finance or the spirit's industry. We want our first guest, although I think it's going to be much harder to land now, to be Deb Haaland. If you didn't know, she's now the first Native American Secretary of the Interior. She is from New Mexico, which is my home state, but I think because she's now the secretary of the Interior that it's going to be a little harder to land her, so wish me luck.Stephanie:Come on, Deb. Get on the show.Éva:I know.Stephanie:That's awesome. It sounds like a very cool show. I'll definitely be listening. When is it going to launch?Éva:Well, so we're starting to do the outreach because we did the trailer finally. If you go to theunapodcast.com, you can see or listen to the trailer.Stephanie:Very cool. What's Up next on your reading list?Éva:I just watched the Dieter Rams documentary, and I've been reading the book which is the 10 Principles of Good Design only because I think it's the way to bring me back to why we have maude, why we do what we do at maude. By the time this actually airs, the team will know, but I'm taking them to a screening of the Rams documentary, and we'll then talk through the book. That's what's up. I'm getting through the book.Stephanie:Very cool. What's one thing that you don't understand today that you wish you did?Éva:I mean, I don't know if I wish I did, but I really don't understand the allure of clubhouse. I'm like, "I don't understand. I don't get it."Stephanie:We've had a couple people say that, so you're not alone. Don't worry.Éva:I don't. I think that it's a pandemic phase, but I could be wrong.Stephanie:Well, we'll have to do a check back in six months or a year and be like, "Was Eva right or?"Éva:Although I have heard people like... They listen to this... For instance, our director of product listens to people talking about Sci Fi. I think that's a great use of clubhouse. Otherwise, when it's just talking heads about the same things, I don't know.Stephanie:I agree. All right. Then the last one, what's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?Éva:Oh, well, I mean, this is going to sound cliche, but my husband is actually a mechanical engineer. He's the one that's designed... He designed the vibe. He designed our second product drop.Stephanie:Wow.Éva:He doesn't work for maude full time. He really builds the business with me when needed as if he were a part of it. I think that's the nicest thing that anyone has done for me.Stephanie:That's pretty amazing and awesome. Go him for stepping in and helping like that. Was he unsure if he wanted to design sexual wellness [crosstalk]? Did you have to be like, "Come on?"Éva:No. His take on design and the usefulness of design, which I would actually joke goes back this Rams documentary is like, "These products are really everyday items, and they shouldn't be made to be used that way." I think he liked the fact that maude was turning it into an everyday object instead of making it phallic and loud and all these other things. I think he was just like, "Great. Let's make this product better."Stephanie:Oh, that's awesome. That's amazing. Well, Eva, this has been so fun having you on the show, such a different interview, which loved, and it's fun hearing about maude and the industry and all that. Where can people find out more about you and maude?Éva:Well, with me, it's if they follow me on Instagram. It's evagoicochea.com, which is really long, but I'm sure if you type in E-V-A-G-O-I, you probably will be able to find me. Then maude is getmaude.com, M-A-U-D-E, because we could not just get maude.com.Stephanie:Amazing. All right, everyone, go check it out. Thanks so much for joining us. It was a pleasure to have you.Éva:Thank you so much for having me.

Brands are facing fierce competition in this ever-evolving ecommerce landscape. More often than not, shoppers do a general product search on Google or Amazon, where hundreds, if not thousands, of brands fight for the sale. It’s a hard arena to win in, and every company is trying to find shortcuts and strategies to give them an edge.You’ve probably seen some of those strategies — for example, the products with a bunch of random SEO words jammed into the title so that the item appears higher in search. There are plenty more wacky Amazon tricks of the trade that brands have tried. Goal Zero is one of those brands trying to figure out the secret sauce but approaching it in a much different manner. Patrick Keller, Head of Marketing and Ecommerce at Goal Zero, may have finally solved the mystery — but the answer is not what you might be expecting.On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Patrick tells us that there are a few key strategies to unlocking more conversions on Amazon, and how they view authenticity and increasing brand awareness.TLDR: it takes great messaging, some big bets, and a lot of long-term thinking. Oh, and some pretty cool products, too. Hear all the details on this episode! Main Takeaways:Always Be Iterating: Producing marketing material is not a cut-and-dry process. Define your target market, set KPIs, and establish a timeline, then create a system that lends itself to AB testing and iteration. Don’t be afraid to create assets and then break them into pieces to test in different ways. You’ll learn more about your customers and the market in general that way, which you can then expand on when you embark on larger campaigns.Dream Big: Taking bigger advertising risks with a long tail is often a good way to get more bang for your buck. By investing in large-scale projects with a cinematic quality, you have more of a chance to use that content for much longer and build brand awareness with a larger audience that might miss a one-off campaign.Consider This: Figuring out a way to bypass the consideration phase on Amazon is one of the big challenges facing brands today. Because of the amount of options Amazon shoppers are presented with, companies that might have converted easily on their own site are losing out on Amazon. Whether through influencers or targeted campaigns, building brand awareness and loyalty is one of the methods brands are using to start bypassing that consideration phase and actually convert more.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:Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. I'm your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO over here at Mission.org. Today on the show we have Patrick Keller, Head of marketing and ecommerce at Goal Zero. Patrick, welcome to the show.Patrick:Hey, thanks for having me. It's fantastic to be here.Stephanie:I'm excited to have you on. I think I needed Goal Zero back in the snowstorm in Austin. So I'm in Austin, I forgot to tell you that. But we did not have power. We were struggling over here, and I did not have any products that I apparently needed. Now I went to Goal Zero's website, and I realized, this is all I needed. I just didn't know about it.Patrick:That's it. That's it.Stephanie:I'd love to start there. What is Goal Zero?Patrick:Yeah, exactly. Goal Zero makes portable power. It ranges from small portable power to use to back up your phone all the way to really massive energy storage that you can use to run key segments of your home for days. We play in that portable power. It's all battery based, so it's clean, renewable and really easy to use. That's it in a nutshell.Stephanie:Yeah. It also looks nice. I mean, I saw in some of the product pictures it's on your counter. You have this huge battery power portable battery station. I'm like, "Okay, I would have that around because it's not a big, huge thing like other energy sources," at least like backup generators and whatnot that I know my parents used to suggest that I get back in the day.Patrick:Yeah, no. It's new technology, but exactly right. I mean, I think that's one of our differentiators, and our industrial design is something we're proud of and we spent a lot of time working on.Stephanie:Yeah. That's great. Before we dive more into Goal Zero, I was hoping we could walk through your background a bit. Because I've seen you have had an interesting ecommerce journey, and I'd love to hear where you started and where you've been.Patrick:Oh, man. I hope we don't take up the whole interview with my background because it wasn't a straight shot, that's for sure. I left college with a marketing degree and became a fly fishing guide and then followed my passions to a company called Orvis based out of Vermont, where my first role was really analyzing the performance of catalogs. Now, do we give pants more square inches? Do we give shirts less? This product needs to be more heavily promoted. This was back in 2005, 2006, when ecom was still in its infancy. It was a lot of educational resource. Yeah, we should have a website, but we don't really know exactly what to do with it.Patrick:My next role really was, well geez, you're doing a good job of building the overall conversion rate on our catalogs. Can you do that with our website? So we started building out the early days of web merchandising. Can we promote products and boost and bury and use common metrics like sales per page view to actually drive a significant improvement in website conversion? Honestly, it was a huge success. That was big.Patrick:That led to eventually me taking a side step into catalog, and I managed the Orvis catalog business for a few years as well as their email. That was really good at understanding customer segmentation, how to go through and parse lists, how to find demographic overlays and psychographic overlays and just really use customer data to make sure your catalog was mailed to the right people and the right message was delivered. That set me up really well for a foray into digital advertising. How can we make sure that our digital ads are as focused as our catalog ads? Ran the digital advertising for Orvis for a few years.Patrick:Then I'm from Utah originally, and I wanted to move back out West to the Wasatch. So I took a job with Sundance catalog. Same thing, grew their whole ecom business and then eventually Goal Zero approached me after about four years at Sundance and said, "You want to come work for this scrappy startup down in Utah?" I said, "Yeah, let's give it a shot." It was absolutely awesome. It's been just a rollercoaster of a ride, and Goal Zero has in the last five years, has 4Xed their revenue, so really explosive growth and really fun.Stephanie:That's really fun. What does your best day in the office look like at Goal Zero? What are you doing these days versus when you first joined this scrappy startup?Patrick:Yeah. Well, I mean we're a lot bigger, so we have more resources and we're doing a lot of different techniques that we're just... We couldn't even imagine these types of techniques four years ago, mass media, television, some of those things that we're stepping into. A good day at Goal Zero we still like to be outside, like to be active people. So a couple of us will go and do a backcountry ski in the morning, come down to the office, have some meetings, talk strategy, talk about how we're going to deliver messages, who we're going to target, what's the best way to convey a message about this somewhat nascent product and category. And then finish it off with maybe a beer after work and call it a day.Stephanie:Man, this is the life. I need to come over and join you guys for-Patrick:It's not bad. I'm telling you, we have a lot of fun.Stephanie:... banging beers.Patrick:Yeah. We have a lot of fun.Stephanie:That's awesome. How does it differ? I mean you're at Orvis. I mean, I think they've been around for like 150 years or something.Patrick:Exactly right.Stephanie:Okay. You're selling a fun, leisurely fly fishing type products and all that, then moving to a utility product where you feel like you don't really need it until you need it, like my Austin experience. Did you have to shift your mindset to selling a product like that?Patrick:You know what that hardest part is, is everyone knows what a fly rod is. Everyone knows what a pair of khaki pants is. There's no explanation. You start at a certain just understanding and then you talk about benefits. With a portable power station, very few people in the US know what a portable power station is, so you actually have to start a step back and say, "Let me introduce you to something you have never heard about, and then let me convince you why you need this anywhere from $400 to $5,000 thing in your home."Patrick:It's a much longer burn and really, it's a lot more complicated in how we educate customers. It doesn't start with oh, do I buy an Apple iPhone or a Google Pixel? It's just not that simple. You have to say, "Hey, let me make you aware of this thing and that this thing exists and then walk you down the funnel for just a long consideration?" A few people will buy who have done research offline or through other various means will buy the day they come to the site. Most of them, it's a 90-plus day transaction.Stephanie:Wow.Patrick:We'll see a slow burn for 90 days and then a lot of conversions.Stephanie:What are you doing in those 90 days to bring them down the funnel? What do those tactics look like behind the scenes? Because I'm even thinking of me, me trying to explain the product at the very beginning. I'm like, I don't even know what you would call it and how do you even explain this, because it's just not something that I'm even used to buying and talking about. So I'd be interested to hear, what does that look like behind the scenes for you?Patrick:Yeah. We break it into two parts. There is the before you've come to the website, and that could be PR. That could be trade shows. That could be television, radio, podcasts, a variety of ways where we're just trying to say, "Here's something that could be really beneficial to you and your family and just all the things you like to do. Come to goalzero.com.Patrick:Once they've come to goalzero.com, then we can open up a whole host of opportunities of how do we get educational messaging? How do we do differentiation between us and our competitors? How do we do differentiation between us and gas generators? We'll spend a lot of time reviewing our website saying, "I'm not sure this is the best way to talk about home energy storage. Let's change that up." We'll put you through and try to get you to sign up for emails. We'll do a bend and browse. We'll do a marketing display. We'll try to find you on Amazon. We'll try to find you in retail stores and say, "Hey, if you want to actually see this thing in person, check out our retail finder."Patrick:We use a company called Locally, which actually does an inventory feed to us so that we know now what do they carry at Goal Zero in a blanket statement, but we know that this product specifically is in stock at this store at this time. So we can drive customers to go see it in person and give them a chance to touch, feel, pick it up, explore it a little bit before they transact.Stephanie:Yeah. That's really interesting. In talking about top of funnel, you're saying you guys are trying everything, like TV, mass media, podcasts. What are you exploring there and how do you view things like TV versus podcasting, which everyone is seeming to try and lean into that now? What are you guys seeing on that front?Patrick:Yeah. It's funny, we're definitely stepping our toes into it. We're not doing anything full scale national wise yet. I think the first one we're doing is probably a national podcast. Last year in 2020 we did a lot of TV commercials. We said, "Let's start with something that seems to have a high level of success, so there was two areas. Number one is California with the power shutdowns, right? Any time the winds get over 20 miles an hour, Northern California shuts the grid down to prevent fires.Stephanie:Oh, I know. I lived through that.Patrick:Yeah, exactly.Stephanie:I moved to Austin, and then a snowstorm hit. I'm like, "What the heck?"Patrick:Exactly right, right? We said, "Geez, if it's going to work, it's going to work in California first. Let's try that." So we did a really kind of cool TV commercial. We spent a lot of time walking customers through the versatility and just showcasing this product and saying, "Come to... " Then we hit them up with immediately social media messaging. We had a custom landing page where they could come to and just really say, "Chances are, you've never heard of this. Let me just explain and walk you through all the benefits this product provides."Patrick:We got them to sign up for emails. We were able to hit them with display. Then we mirrored some of that over on Amazon as well saying, "What we're doing at goalzero.com, should people choose to shop on Amazon because it's easy and convenient, let's make sure that a lot of that content is transferred over there as well." We also did the Gulf Coast, so Houston all the way down the Miami. We targeted a lot of TV ads there as well. It was a record year for storms, for things like tropical storms and hurricanes, and so we wanted to make sure that this is the people who are highly aware of power outages. Their power was out for a good portion of weeks on end in some cases for a good portion of the summer.Patrick:We targeted those two areas, and we had very specific metrics all the way through. Some of it was how much traffic are we going to drive to the website? Based on that traffic, what does the conversion rate and the AOV need to be in order for us to hit our sales goals? We worked closely with other agencies to say, "As we're planning this out, do you think we can drive this much traffic? What are the reasons or what do we need to do differently? What is the call to action?" Then we did a lot of AB testing.Patrick:We would have the full 30 second commercial, and then we'd cut that down into 10 and 15 second shorts that we can do a lot of YouTube and digital advertising with. We'd have five different variations that we could just go through and say, "This one seems to be driving the most traffic to the site. This one seems to have a higher conversion rate. Let's blend these two together and target those."Patrick:Long story, I think that it was a really cool experience. We learned a ton and I think the results were promising enough that we're excited to continue to push into broader audiences and more and more mainstream.Stephanie:Yeah. That's a really cool test. How did you think about attribution from TV, whereas YouTube, very easy running your 15 second clips on there, but did you have a certain CTA on the ads on TV to be able to go somewhere, or how did you think about tracking that? And what did that ROI look like versus just something anyone could get into, like a YouTube or yeah, direct advertising?Patrick:Yeah. We did a lot of it in just comparison saying, "Here's the geographic DMAs these things are running in. How does that compare to areas where it's not running? Do we see a lift over time?" And then just measure that. I'll give you an example. We took a look and said, "During the time these ads were running, what was the daily average traffic to goalzero.com from California?" Right? We said, "Oh, we saw a 300% increase." What was it on non-target DMAs? Oh, it was flat. We're down five. We can get some just basic looks at saying, yeah, it appears to have driven high levels of traffic.Patrick:From there, we went through and said, "How many of those people came specifically to our landing page that we had set up," which used power landing page. That was a good indicator of whether they were just randomly coming or were specifically coming because of this. In the case of the Gulf Coast campaign, it was nice because even within a specific state, there were some DMAs that got it and some that didn't. California was all of California. You had to make a few more assumptions about yeah, this appears to have really increased traffic over the control group.Patrick:But with the Gulf Coast we could say, "Well, geez. We hit Houston, but we didn't hit Austin. What are the differences between there?" We hit Houston but not San Antonio. So we could go through these specific DMAs and see lifts. It was a rudimentary kind of AB test that we learned a lot from.Stephanie:Yeah. That's great. What was your favorite campaign that you guys ran? Because I could see some really fun, creative ways to sell Goal Zero. So what kinds of things did you guys experiment with, or any fun campaigns that you're like, this is a good one?Patrick:No. I came from a highly analytical background, so when I took over the creative team, I was always like, "Well, we got to put numbers behind it, and we need to... " And that learning to embrace my creative side has been really cool. We ran a campaign for our 10-year anniversary called Ode to the Road where we went on a two-week road trip and stopped at all these cool places and produced a lot of really cool content. It was this traveling video blog, and we could follow along as you went. It was so much fun. I mean, you have to watch it.Patrick:It's just really cool people, really engaging content, and just again, it goes back to showing the versatility of what we can do and what our products could power. It's things like we set up Dometic fridges full of cold beer and ice cream in the middle of the Pacific Crest Trail. So people would be coming out of the desert after these long, arduous miles and they'd say, "Do you want ice cream? Do you want a cold beer?" It was like, "Oh my God, trail angels!" It was just fun, cool stuff. We had a massive outdoor dinner on the coast in Santa Barbara, and the entire thing, the grills, everything was powered by Goal Zero. Yeah, it's creative, cool, engaging content. It's a lot of fun.Stephanie:Wow. Yeah, that sounds really cool. I mean, that also just makes me think branded content, and it could be full on series, Netflix series is the way of the future. I mean we've heard from so many guests that organic and natural is definitely the way to sell nowadays, but also having your product integrated in a way that doesn't feel salesy. To me, branded content like that seems like the way of the future. Have you guys thought about exploring that even more? I mean, which also goes back to the whole companies turning into media companies and thinking that way now going forward. How are you thinking about that for the next couple years?Patrick:Yeah. Well, I think a lot of it is we're listening closely to the voice of the customer, right? One of the things I really like about Goal Zero and I really like about my job is it's just, there's surprises around every corner. Right? You'll hear these stories about, "Hey, I used Goal Zero to power this obscure, weird thing," that you just never even thought of. Suddenly, you hear that there's a ton of people doing this and you can start building campaigns and start building content around that.Patrick:One of the things we like to do is we'll run periodically a how do you Yeti. Yetis are portable power stations, it's been called. You get these great stories back of people being like, "You know what? I use it to power my insulin pump when I'm outside. Normally, it's prohibited. I can't be more than a couple of hours away from an outlet because I need the power for my insulin pump working. Now I can go backpacking."Patrick:We had a story on that Ode to the Road. A man was powering his prosthetic limb with some of our products to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. So I think you're right. I think there is a ton of stories that we look at and say, "How can we tell a story that aligns with our core values, that aligns with us as a brand, and then softly references some of our products in the background?"Patrick:It's mostly a question of is it authentic and is it engaging? And is it engaging to a mass of people? If we can answer those questions and then we can say, it has a loose tie to a specific product or to a group of Goal Zero products, then yeah, we're looking at producing higher quality content, more cinematic style content that we can then use on TV, we can use in a variety of ways. Then at a larger scale, we always partner with cinematic expeditions. So a lot of our ambassadors will go out and say, "We're climbing Everest. We need to power all of our RED cameras and power our drones and power all of the backup storage." Our stuff does that, and so we'll sponsor that movie or that Nat Geo episode or whatever.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, I think that's also just much longer term thinking than quick hit campaigns and always having to think about adjusting ad units every single day and ad fatigue. I feel like sponsoring or creating content like that will have longer ROIs and could be relevant if you have them shot in an evergreen way for years to come, which I think is why it's such an exciting angle to be thinking that way.Patrick:I think for us, what we always look at is brand and category awareness. It's one of those things going back to what we discussed earlier, which is nobody knows what a portable power station is. It is a really long burn to get somebody to understand it, identify that they need it, and then pull the trigger on a very expensive item. We do, we go back and just realize that part of that brand building, part of that awareness is just, it's critical. We have a product that when people get it and they're like, "I need this," yeah, it clicks. But we have to continually get that word out there through really engaging, authentic content.Stephanie:Yep. Did you have to make any quick pivots when the pandemic hit? Because I could see in person, like you're mentioning, touching it, being able to pick it up, see how light or not light it is would be an important part of the sales process. Did you have to pivot to a different strategy when people could not as easily go in stores and maybe even now are still reluctant to go out and see it in person?Patrick:We saw a massive shift to online, for sure. Our partners were selling predominantly online. Our goalzero.com and Amazon increased dramatically. I think the biggest shift we had to make was just the unexpected surge in business. We didn't plan for 100% growth as a result of COVID, so our inventory was an issue. Kudos to our supply chain team. They were pulling in orders and doing whatever we could to actually get enough inventory to support it, and even then, we still ran out for periods of time, long periods of time.Patrick:I think that was probably the biggest thing we faced was it wasn't a lack of interest or people weren't willing to buy online. It was yeah, they easily transitioned and then we just managing inventory, managing expectations, how do we alert people that we're back in stock? Those are all things that we had to deal with as well as just managing growth internally as an organization.Stephanie:Yep. Did you have to change anything substantially around your inventory management and the logistics and the backend that now are completely different than what they were maybe a year ago?Patrick:Yeah. I think that we set up an allocation meeting between all the departments and just said, "Here's how we're going to look at this and make sure that we're trying to service all of our wholesale partners, make sure we're servicing our utility partners, make sure that when people come to goalzero.com, they can use Locally to find product or hopefully be able to buy it there as well."Patrick:I wouldn't say that it was a massive shift in how we did things, but it was a lot more focused. We would have meetings twice a week with the executive team specifically on that topic of are we servicing our customers to the best of our possible ability? I think that was just the amount of time spent, it used to be a monthly meeting, and now it was two times a week. So really, more than anything it was just the focus was always on, when's our next shipment coming? When will it arrive? When can we start selling it? When can we get this out to our wholesale partner? I mean those were very common conversations.Stephanie:Yeah. That definitely seems hard, especially when you're growing as quickly as you all were, to try and scramble. But I also think that now customers seem to be okay with things, inventory, maybe not having something in stock as long as it says it's going to be in stock this date. And you can buy it now and I'll ship when it's ready. It just seems like that messaging maybe was missing before all this where it's like, if I have clear expectations and I know when I could get it, I'm fine if it's not in stock right now. But a lot of times you would just try and order something a year ago and it just wouldn't be there and you wouldn't know why. And is it coming back? It was just kind of like a black box.Patrick:Yeah. We stubbed our toe a bit on customer service side of things. So Goal Zero, we measure NPS religious. It's just something that we really hold near and dear. We have best-in-class NPS. The last few years we've averaged about 70, which is Costco, Apple, in essence, leading NPS levels. A big portion of that is our solution center. People can call in, ask questions. And just the inundation of calls, it was taking half an hour to answer the phone. So having to rapidly staff up as well as just implement new technology, the ability to have customers leave their number and we would call them back when they finally met their queue.Stephanie:And changing...Patrick:Changing the verbiage on the website saying, hey, our call center's completely swamped. Can we chat with you here? Can we answer you in an email? There was just a whole bunch of things that we had to implement very quickly and very effectively because just the unexpected volume that came through was a bit shocking.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean that's cool to think about how you guys pivoted, though, to just send customer service requests in different directions depending on where the resources were strapped at, which I think a lot of companies still need to do that or even just a simple, "Let me call you back," type thing, as long as you call back.Stephanie:Now that you're out of scramble mode, what are some of your favorite things that you're testing out right now? It can be around the website. It can be around logistics. What are you most excited about where I think this could have big results on conversions on reducing the 90-day sales funnel, but we're not sure yet?Patrick:Oh, totally. Yeah. I think there is endless opportunity. I think it's not a matter of opportunity, it's how we prioritize it. What is the biggest bang for the buck? We're actually in the process of re-platforming right now as we speak. Patrick:I think the thought process there is we have the ability to... We're currently in a lockstep environment, so we have to outsource all of our dev work. It's just, it's slow. I think we want to be a lot faster, a lot more nimble, and the ability to go through our funnel and make sure that we are converting at the best possible rate is a key strategy for 2021. Right now we have a group of executives, my ecom director, and some of my senior staff all focused on how do we explain our home energy storage, right? Because, it's complicated.Patrick:I think, Stephanie, you said, "I was in Austin. I could've used your stuff." But if you would've come to the site, you would've been like, "Geez, there is 40 things I can choose from here. What's the right one for me?"Stephanie:Yep.Patrick:The questions we get all the time are, "What will it power and for how long?" On a singular item, that's easy. Oh, this will charge your cellphone three times. This will run your full-size fridge for a week. But when you start putting in mixes, hey, I want to run my fridge. I want to run my kitchen lights. I want to run my ceiling fan. There's all these circuits you can wire in or hard wire into your home. Now you start complicating things and making a very complex process.Patrick:So we'll go through that process of saying, here's all the things that a conservative user can power for how long and this is the kit for you, all the way to hey, if you want to just live high on the hog with power usage and not conserve at all, yeah, here's the kit for you. There's various myriad of things in between. It's a complex, complicated conversation that is very easy in store. It is very easy at a trade show. It's really hard online, and so we spend a lot of time thinking about how to best say that.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, it brings me back to my Google days trying to think about how to explain how much storage people need on phones or what that looks like and talking more technical terms of how much storage you need. No one knows you need this many gigabytes, this many. Who the heck knows?Patrick:Totally.Stephanie:Versus you could say, "This'll hold 20,000 pictures and all the podcasts you could ever download," or whatever you want. That's when you're like, "Oh, okay. I'll just choose that," or I don't need that much. And putting it in more layman's terms or just pictures, I can imagine you just being like, "Steph, you can power your whole house if it's under this square feet and you have this many appliances and you're good."Patrick:That's it.Stephanie:I'm like, "Okay, great." I just want to just know that and nothing too technical.Patrick:That is absolutely it. On the flip side, there is absolutely people who want to get crazy in the weeds. Some of our engineers, because we bring them into the conversation, they're like, "Oh, this is not enough data. I need to know exactly the watts and the amps and the voltages." They're dissecting everything. Then there's me, who shows up, to your point, I'm like, "Just tell me what to buy. I want it and we're good to go." So we have to find that balance of providing both customer types, both shoppers the experience they're looking for.Stephanie:Yep. You're just like, "Will this run my kegerator?"Patrick:That's it, yeah. After I get done skiing, will my beer be cold?Stephanie:Yeah. That's all I need. That's all I need in life. That's cool. Are there any other big things like that that you're also focusing on other than the messaging? Which I think a lot of brands struggle with that, especially as they approach something more technical or when they're trying to... We've heard a lot of them talk about the difference between selling your mission and selling your product. How do you think about that and all that, so it's definitely a theme that I've heard. But is there anything else that you guys are working on that you're excited about?Patrick:Yeah. We've got a couple big initiatives. I think the next one is looking at how we target potential customers and really getting deep into the not just demographic but psychographic conversation. Our current customers I think we have a really good understanding of. And our ability to target them, to message them, to find out how and where they're shopping, why they buy our products, I think we do a reasonably good job of.Patrick:People who are not in our current sphere but are absolutely looking for our product, we got to get better at saying, how do we speak to these people who may not be on social media? They may not be Amazon customers. How do we find them, engage with them, speak to them? That's a big push for us and something that we're spending a lot of time on. Some of the other things we're looking at is, again, expanding our mass media campaign, doubling down there, continuing to push TV, podcasts, radio, billboards, just getting on a broader level again all through this kind of brand awareness.Patrick:Then lastly, we're coming out with a new content series, to your point. Super high-end cinematographic-type shooting and camera work and really robust, engaging stories that we're excited to share with our customers.Stephanie:How do you think about selling on Amazon? Because to me, people who are on there, they get a much different experience versus going on your website, they can go through all the video series and really get in with your brand and go from start to finish in probably a better way than when you're on Amazon. And you're clicking around and browsing, and you've got competing products all around you. How do you approach those two different platforms?Patrick:Yeah. That's a recent discussion for us. Historically, Amazon is always an afterthought like, hey, we're just going to throw our things up there and people who want to shop on Amazon could shop on Amazon. If they want to buy from Goal Zero, that's where they're going to find the rich content. That's where they're going to find all the great stories and the great videos. We're going to send them to retail stores where they've got experts. So Amazon was like, yeah, we'll put it up there. And for the people who want to just type in Goal Zero, buy our product, we're there.Patrick:We went and did a sizing exercise, and we said, "What is the size of the power station market on Amazon?" It's grown tremendously, significantly. We said, "Well, we got to start playing here meaningfully." So this year, specifically, we're doing a lot of work around top of funnel. Can we look at attracting customers and making them aware who are starting their shopping process on Amazon? Normally, what we're saying is, "Start it via TV, PR, trade shows, goalzero.com, and then eventually come and transact on Amazon."Patrick:We're saying, "We want to actually find people who their very first search for backup power or home resiliency is on Amazon." Attracting those people and then working them down the funnel, I think that we're a premium product. Amazon is a marketplace that really stresses on lower cost value products. So what we've seen is we're really good at driving the traffic and we're really good at converting the traffic. Where we get stuck is in that middle phase, consideration phase, where people are like, "Well, geez. There's 25 different power stations I can look at." And we convert some of them, but some of them get spun off into competitors.Patrick:I think one of the things we're looking at is saying, how do we actually take that middle consideration phase and almost eliminate it? Can we bring people back from Amazon to goalzero.com, where they learn without all the noise of the marketplace, the myriad of ads, and have them really get the full Goal Zero experience, see our differentiators, see why we as a brand have succeeded, and then bring them back to Amazon to convert.Patrick:I think that in conversations with Amazon and just around, I think that's one of the things that premium brands struggle with across the board is geez, we're really good. Our content's good enough to capture them. Then people who see the premium differentiators are going to buy. It's that consideration phase where just you lose a lot in the shuffle. That's our focus is make them Goal Zero diehards before they actually are ready to convert on Amazon.Stephanie:Yep. It does seem like Amazon's also changing when it comes to customer expectations of going there and being ready to buy more expensive products. I mean, I do think back in the day, like you said, you would just go there and just be like, "I just want the cheapest commodity type good. It's probably on Amazon." And now I mean Amazon's selling high-end furniture and live plants that are really expensive.Patrick:Totally.Stephanie:It seems like they're shifting their customers. They're adapting to their needs and being ready to sell higher end things, which to your point, is maybe a great place to start when it comes to getting the people right where they start searching in there and then targeting them afterwards to get them to convert in either place maybe, as long as they just don't lose sight of why they were looking for, potentially, your product to begin with.Patrick:Yeah, no. I agree. I think Amazon is making a concerted effort to not always be the budget brand or the value brand. I think that from my own personal experience and just talking to consumers, sometimes you get burned on Amazon. You'll go and you'll buy a product because it's the cheapest, and it's a knockoff or it doesn't work, or there's no instructions, or there's no customer services. It's just a poor experience.Patrick:I think Amazon is recognizing that and saying, let's make sure that it's not only price that's driving the flywheel, that service and that credibility and that it's going to be right the first time is there. Because they're super focused on customer service, and these bad experiences are bad for them and bad for the other brands on the marketplace. Yeah, we've had that engagement and that conversation with Amazon, and they seem like they're willing to help us as a premium brand reach our goals.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah. I think when talking about credibility, to me user-generated content is a big part of that, of being able to go on Amazon or on your website or social, literally wherever you are, seeing someone who looks like yourself maybe or reminds you of your situation. And being able to see them having that product is exactly what is needed, especially for a product that's maybe harder to sell, that's more technical.Stephanie:If I saw someone like me, single mom, three kids, living her best life, but then needs something like that, I'm like, "If it's good enough for her, it's good enough for me." I think that's the way of... Amazon, I think, is trying to head in that direction, but I still think needs more help when it comes to encouraging people to continue to post their organic photos in a way that's going to help your brand sell.Patrick:Yeah, no. I agree. We've just started dabbling into driving traffic to Amazon with influencers, right? Normally, we drive them to goalzero.com, again, going back to the fact that we just have a much better experience on goalzero.com than we do on Amazon. But if we can take people who have big followings of trusting people that say, hey, this is why I use Goal Zero, this is how I use Goal Zero. There's videos, there's content. It's real.Patrick:They're actually using it and then we drive the transaction to Amazon. That seemed to be a good way to bypass that consideration phase, like get them adapted in saying, yep, I'm absolutely buying Goal Zero because it reflects my core values, because it aligns with who I am as an individual, absolutely.Stephanie:Yep. Have you seen higher conversions or did you do any split testing between having an influencer drive to your site versus to Amazon? And did you just see higher conversions on Amazon, I guess, because that's a platform that everyone recognizes, you trust the shipping on there? Is that what you saw, or did you see something different?Patrick:No. The campaign is actually just starting, and so the early read is yes, we are seeing that we can effectively drive consumers at a less expensive rate to Amazon. They're going to convert at a higher level than what we've seen in the past. We're not doing an A/B test per se, but if our conversion was X percent, it's now gone up by three or four or five points.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah, okay. Very cool. Then how do you think about interacting with your customer if they came from Amazon versus if they came from your website and they are much more knowledgeable already about your brand and your mission? Do you approach those customers in different ways?Patrick:Yeah. That's a good question. I think that we definitely approach customers in an educational standpoint, meaning if you know exactly what you want, you're a lifelong Goal Zero fan, we're not going to talk to you and force you through this funnel of education and learning about the brand and all our differentiators. We're going to fast track you right to the buy box. But absolutely, we've increased the number of videos. We've increased a lot of our A-plus content, and we're actually going through and just really talking about our differentiators.Patrick:I think one of the things that we got caught up in was trying to play the Amazon game, right? As premium brand, we'd be like, "Well, let's keyword stuff our titles, and let's try to figure out how we're going to drive thousands of reviews," and all these things that you just felt you had to do on Amazon. We took a step back and said, "All of the stuff we do for goalzero.com is going to absolutely work on Amazon. We just have to do it the same way. We have to be ourselves and be authentic to our brand."Patrick:We stopped talking about keyword stuffing and started talking about hey, we're designed in the USA. Our offices are in Salt Lake City. We give back 5% of our profits to humanitarian efforts. Come check out our social impact and what we stand for as good citizens and stewards. We started talking about who we are, why we're premium, what we are and what makes us different from the rest of the competition, specifically on these budget brands on Amazon. And we're starting to see improvements to...Patrick:I think more than anything, I think just we're getting back to doing what we know how to do, which is really good marketing and just applying that really good marketing to Amazon versus trying to be like, "Let's say it completely different and be this whole and weird alter ego on Amazon," and just getting back to our roots. I think I'm proud and I'm happy of where we're heading.Stephanie:Yeah. That's a really good reminder, too. Yeah, get back to your roots and not get caught up in the frenzy of the platform. I mean yeah, I'm thinking about the certain listings on Amazon with the titles of so many keywords, and you're like, "Wait, is this the newest iPhone cover or not? I don't need to see every single iPhone that's ever existed since 2000." Yeah.Patrick:Totally.Stephanie:A good reminder for anyone, large or small companies, to stay grounded and focused on what your goals are and not get caught up in the platform.Patrick:Yeah. And it's easy. You're like, "It's Amazon." It's going to make or break you. What we found is Amazon, fortunately for us, Amazon has always been a small channel for us. It's never been a primary channel. Our wholesale, our utility, our goalzero.com are all significantly larger. The ability to come back to center on that is easier than if you are an Amazon brand and 90% of your revenue is flowing through there. I can imagine it's a very different conversation, but my recommendation is absolutely, stay true to your brand and do the things that got you there in the first place.Stephanie:Yeah, I love that. All right, let's shift over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you read, Patrick?Patrick:I hope so.Stephanie:All right. What's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?Patrick:The nicest thing anyone ever did to me was early in my career I got a bit of advice that has helped me throughout my entire journey. It was the CEO at Orvis, and he said to me, "Success is easy when people want you to succeed." I've built my entire career around that saying, how do I add value to myself, to the organization, to everyone around me in a way that makes a lot of people's lives easier, makes people lives better? If I can do that, then yeah, success just comes naturally. That bit of advice has stuck with me for 20 years, and I still, I think about it daily.Stephanie:Okay, that's a good one. I like that answer. I'm going to start thinking about that too in my daily walks of life. No, that's great. What's one thing that you believe around ecommerce that many wouldn't agree with you on? It can be a trend. It can be something you're bullish on right now. Maybe you get pushback from your current CEO.Patrick:Yeah. Yeah, no. I don't know if a lot of people disagree with me, but I think there's a tendency to have a hard time differentiating between common practices and best practices. For me, a common practice is something that everybody does and it's just easy to say, "Oh, we should do that too. We should absolutely have an email signup box when the popup the second you come to the homepage." I hate those comments. I always say, "No, let's test it, make sure it's right for us." Sometimes they are and sometimes they're not. I think that making it a best practice means it has to be for you and your business and your company and the ability to differentiate is really critical to success.Patrick:Secondly, I would say there is no magic bullet. Success in ecommerce is a ton of elbow grease. It's a constant hustle and just always working a little bit harder and a little bit better. Because there's no technology, there's no new platform, there's no new nothing that's just going to solve all your financial troubles. It's elbow grease.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah, that's great. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Patrick:If I were to have a podcast, it'd probably be something outdoors, skiing, fishing, whitewater rafting. Let's see. Yeah, I think my very first guest would probably be Steve Rinella, and we would talk about hunting. I think we would go and talk about the nuances of it. Not the harvesting of animals per se, but the higher level just headiness of it, like how you be able to get out there and become a true conservationist, to truly explore nature in a way that's just so much more intimate than going for a hike with your dog. It's a really cool experience, and I would love to just pick his thought on it because he aligns with me.Stephanie:That's great. I know nothing about hunting or any of that, so I would for sure listen to that episode. What's up next on your Netflix queue?Patrick:Oh, geez. I'm probably way late to the game, but we've been watching two shows. I think the first one is Outlander. It's like this woman travels through time in Scotland and it's a cool story. Then the other one is just more comic relief because it reminds me of my big Irish family. It's called Derry Girls.Stephanie:Okay. I have not checked out that one yet. That's great. All right. Then the last one, what one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Patrick:In the next year or long term? I think-Stephanie:In a year.Patrick:In the next year. In the next year, I think just the shift... The aftereffects of COVID are continually forcing customers who were brick and mortar to jump into the ecommerce space. I think that's going to drive competition. It's going to drive awareness. It's going to elevate the whole ecommerce world. I think that it's going to be a big push, and I think that we're going to see people realizing that you have to be on ecommerce. You can no longer be solely a brick and mortar. Now, you can do both, but I think that's going to be the biggest thing we see in 2021 is just the continued rapid growth of ecommerce as a whole.Stephanie:Great. Patrick, thanks so much for hopping on the show with me and spilling all your secrets. It's been really fun. Where can people find out more about you and Goal Zero?Patrick:Yeah. Go to goalzero.com. I have a bio on my management page, and you can also find me on LinkedIn. Yeah, I think that's the best way. Thank you for having me. This has been fantastic, and I really enjoyed the chat. Hopefully, we can, post-COVID, go skiing and have a beer.Stephanie:I hope so. I would be so down for that. I need that in my life right now. Thanks so much.Patrick:All right, thank you.

Ecommerce has come a long way from its early days as a separate part of the company that you set up and just hope to see returns on. Now, ecommerce is pivotal for just about every organization — but there is one faction of businesses that still lags behind. There are $17 trillion dollars worth of B2B payments made every year. Yes, trillion with a T. And half of those payments are still being made manually. Clearly, there is a massive shift that still needs to happen in the B2B space, and Deloitte Digital is helping make those digital transformations a reality.Paul do Forno is the Managing Director at Deloitte Digital, and on this episode of Up Next in Commerce, he helped us understand the struggles B2B brands are facing and how moving them into the digital space could spell a massive change in the ecommerce industry. Paul also dives into some of the major trends he’s keeping an eye on in the ecommerce world, including how ecommerce continues to scale around the globe, most notably in Latin America. Plus, he shares some tips for businesses who are overwhelmed by the amount of channels and platforms they suddenly have to play in. Spoiler: he says do less. Tune in to hear more!Main Takeaways:Massive Call And Response: Bigger brands are struggling to stay connected to their consumers in a way that scales. Today, customers are looking to have a more authentic relationship and connection with the brands they engage with and support. For enterprises, connecting one-to-one is nearly impossible, so they are investing in tools like A.I. and conversational platforms to keep up with this newer generation of customers who crave connection.Dinosaurs Still Exist: So much B2B activity is still done manually, which means that there are trillions of dollars of transactions that could be moving online if/when B2B companies finally shift their activities to the digital space. The problem is that many B2B companies are miles behind their B2C peers in terms of optimizing the digital space for their many personas. It will take a lot of tools and transformation to bring those traditional B2B companies into 2021, but it will be necessary because the next generation is not interested in manually doing business and would much rather work with companies that have effective digital tools.Do Less: Brands can get caught up in the hype and the attempts to keep up with the Joneses. Instead, they should focus on being great at one platform or marketing activity. Plus, it’s critical to never forget the basics — like making sure your email list is generating the leads and engagement it should be to power your business.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. I'm your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO at Mission.org. Today on the show we have Paul de Forno, the managing direction at Deloitte Digital. Paul, welcome.Paul:Thanks. Excited to be here.Stephanie:I'm excited to have you. I was looking through your background and I saw you were on a list of the hundred most influential people in ecommerce and I was like, we need him. We need Paul. Why do you think you got on that list?Paul:I think first of all, in some ways I'm the old guy who's been around carrying the ecommerce flag for a long time, so I've been doing ecommerce for 20 years. When you've been around that long, 20 years ago it was, trust me, ecommerce is going to be big, honest. Most of the big companies just looked at me and said, "Yeah, it's just a tiny percentage. We don't have the time to focus on it." I've gone through the whole lifecycle from, "Yeah, I don't think ecommerce is going to be big," to, "Oh my god. What are we going to do? Everything is ecommerce."Stephanie:Yep, what did your journey look like? What have you worked on over the years, and then what does your role at Deloitte Digital look like now?Paul:Yeah, I've had some pretty interesting projects all along. We help customers at Deloitte, we're one of the largest implementers and SIs all the way from strategy, studio design, implementation, and run ecommerce and digital platforms. Kind of soup to nuts, end to end for some of the largest Internet retailers both B2C and B2B. My background, I've worked with some of the largest retailers and brands in the world, getting them online, selling, and also supply chain and connecting up all of those things.Paul:I've had the great experience of 20 years ago working with some of the earliest big retail brands of them ... It's kind of funny, when they first started, they treated ecommerce like a store because at the size that they were, on some of them, they were like ... And literally, they would call it store number 1099 and that's the way they treated it almost like a completely separate channel over the to the side. Yeah, let's put some money over there and grow and then see what happens. That from over time, then it became more of a challenge of omnichannel.Paul:How do we make sure that the channels aren't fighting against each other because we dealt with some retailers that literally would ... They wouldn't want returns to come in to the store because those sales and we're not getting them credit, right? That came back and if they exchanged for something else, and so they would be internal fighting because the bonuses of the executives weren't aligned. We've gone kind of like it's off to the side, it's big enough to challenge, to now it's almost the reverse. Retail wants to get more love from the ecommerce side.Stephanie:Yeah, it's a funny and an interesting flip that we see. We've had some guests on the show who said the same thing, like when I started out in ecommerce, they had us in a different building, like on the campus that they were at, they're like, that's the ecommerce team, they're doing their own thing. We've had a couple people say how siloed they were and now, like you said, interesting how retail is like, come on, come give us a little love now.Paul:Yeah, exactly.Stephanie:When you're looking through all these trends that are happening right now, I know that back in the day you were going to a lot of conferences, you were flying all over the world probably, and now I see and follow you on Clubhouse. Tell me a bit about how you're staying on top of the trends and what kind of things are you discussing now on Clubhouse or wherever else you're doing these virtual events?Paul:Yeah, I'll maybe separate ... Definitely right now as we're speaking it's almost a year to the day that I haven't been on a plane. In the last 20 years, over a 100,000 to 150,000 miles a year that I've been flying around.Stephanie:Oh my gosh.Paul:One, my wife has gotten to know me.Stephanie:Hi, Paul, nice to meet you.Paul:But, it's given me a lot of opportunity to connect digitally and do more research and some of the new tools, like you talked about, Clubhouse, and I'll come back to that. I think what this has just done is accelerated ecommerce and how important that is and commerce everywhere and brought it forward, and there's a lot of interesting trends that have popped out. Some of the things that may not be as evident, so in the past year, one of the biggest growth areas just for convenience has been around the growth of commerce around groceries, because we had to, right? You got a lot of the biggest stores growing and anywhere from 70% to over a 100%, and so a lot of the innovation has happened in groceries because it needed to, right? The companies that invested more have done well.Paul:For example, if you look at how Target has done, right? They were able to stay open because they had groceries and so they actually grew and were more profitable and a lot of that why they grew was their investments in shipped, a number of different way they pick from their stores, and so it's amazing that not only did they grow that much but their profitability on the ecommerce channel went up which is almost unheard of in a time like this. They executed unbelievably well.Paul:Then on the other side, another interesting related to the grocery which kind of because it forced people to try something new, the largest growing segment on online grocery was actually baby boomers, and it's because they never were forced to do it. They were always used to going to the store, and so we really see that as a watershed moment of hey, to get over the hump, hey, this isn't as bad. Then as soon as you try something and you do it a couple times, it's going to change how people behave.Paul:we expect the adoption rate going forward for boomers, for example, and older will continue. It won't necessarily be at the same rate, but is an important threshold that they'll continue to embrace it.Stephanie:Yeah, I agree. All right, so when thinking about these new consumers who are online who weren't thinking this way before, how are you advising brands to communicate and talk and do things differently? Because it is such a different generation coming online. We've had quite a few people mention you have to think very differently when it comes to customer service or even the whole unboxing experience. People want different things. What are you seeing among your biggest brands right now around what's working to connect with this brand new group of users who are not online before?Paul:Yeah, there's a whole bunch of battling trends that are in here. In fact, on Clubhouse we had a discussion around the eco considerations of delivery, and that got into we brought in a packaging expert and one of the interesting thing that we talked about is that, hey, everybody has all these cardboard boxes, right? People would love to find out opportunities to minimize what kind of packaging and we all probably had the experience of getting a huge package and having one little item in it. I think the whole consideration around eco and environmental is something that I just saw some research, that's at the top of the list of considerations.Paul:Things such as that and packaging and reducing it is a factor of when you're designing for stuff. Looking for opportunities that you can batch up or minimizing the packaging or making it recyclable and also balancing having a great opening unboxing experience, and so you have to balance those things, right? The environmental side and also the brand side, which is hey, the expectations of brands such as Apple put on, on this hey, you want this great experience in opening. There's a lot of non ... Things that you didn't have to worry about even 10 years ago because if you look at some of the studies of what gen Z and beyond are looking for, those considerations are much higher up than they were for other generations.Stephanie:It definitely seems like it can set up some of the newer based for failure though because it seems like you always have to stay ahead and be trying something new where it could kind of take you off your path of building a great product and a great company when you get too focused on some of that stuff. How do you think about the trade-off to stay focused but then also stay on top of consumer expectations that seem to have very rapidly changed in the last year where I wasn't really hearing a lot of consumers talking about eco-friendly packaging and really caring about that, and now it seems like that's a huge thing that we're hearing time and time again about this is a new expectation that you have to keep up with now.Paul:I think a little bit about it is around just the how do you be authentic brand? In many ways, some of the trends that we've been seeing is around less production, right? Some of the advertisement or even things that are helping to actually convert much higher are actually user-generated content that people in authentic ... You want to see how real people act, real people and real products, as opposed to a runway model or a runway person showing off this great ... Because of that, first thing we would say is try and be authentic to your brand and especially right now the over-production is actually a hindrance on many brands.Stephanie:For some of the larger brands you work with, I mean, I could see that being hard for them to want to keep up with the times but then also staying authentic to your brand. Like you said, I know it has gotten some companies in trouble for trying to do the cool thing, keep up with whatever that trend is, try and jump on something. When these big brands are coming to you, what are they struggling with right now and how are you working with them around this new UGC kind of content that a lot of these smaller D2C companies are like, yeah, of course, that's what we're going to do, but when it's a large company, they're like, I don't even know how to do that and how do you flag it and how do you think about the content coming in. Can I even trust it? How are you guys guiding them down that path?Paul:I think that for many larger companies in many ways it's kind of a how do you manage dealing with this on scale? Because in some of the smaller brands, dealing with a few interactions, it's somewhat easier, but when you have thousands and thousands of followers, how do you manage that on scale? What they mostly get concerned of, they want to be closer to the consumer and listen to them and interact, but being able to scale that in both a combination of AI related tools and responses, but also people responses that can do it in scale that are tailored to the brand voice, that's the challenge. We kind of work through different strategies to help them get through that.Stephanie:What are some other things that these brands are struggling with? What are you hearing right now that they're trying to work with you on?Paul:Yeah, and we work with brands both from B2C to B2B, and so I'll actually give two examples just to get a broad spectrum. On the B2C side, I think the ... And depending on the different segment. The B2C side on CPG we're seeing massive spikes because of all the purchases that we've seen especially going through stores, and that's a lot of the food, CPGs are just spiking. They're trying to figure out, okay, great. This is a great opportunity to scale. How do we now embrace and engage and maybe put out some direct to consumer feelers to learn?Paul:In many ways, a lot of the CPGs are going way more direct. Some of the largest scale CPG companies are doing record numbers of doing ecommerce, but they also partner with massive retail chains. They're trying to balance of not stepping on their channel conflicts, and so many are using ecommerce as a mechanism to explore, do special arrangements, special formulations, and learn and get data. As we see, for example, in that area is just there's been so much innovation going on, they're trying to keep up to the pace. They struggle with, well, what do I do first? How do I prioritize on some of these? Most of it is around helping to prioritize and segment some of the ideas to get them into marketplace faster.Stephanie:Trying to keep up with what's happening really quickly, I've seen a lot of them acquiring these smaller D2C companies and kind of putting them in a mini innovation hub where it's like we don't want to disrupt your process but we want to learn from you. Do you see that as a successful strategy for some of these more legacy brands to be able to learn while also keeping their brand identity or is that not really working?Paul:Yeah, I've seen some awesome acquisitions and unbelievable great talent that some of the large ... Just to stick to the CPG space, that's been probably the most aggressive of picking up new brands and learning, right? I think it's actually a brilliant ... That's why some of the premiums are getting paid. It's not just necessarily for the product and what margins, it's also from the know-how, because what ends up happening if you look, and this is something that that's probably the area that Club CPG on Clubhouse is probably one of the largest clubs and they have an amazing talent there, and there's been a number of acquisitions and they're on there talking about their story.Paul:What's really good about doing some of those acquisitions is these people have been very close to the customer, right? They've really interacted, as opposed to you're getting perhaps a new executive who's rotated around, right? These people understand the customer and had that relationship, had to build up the D2C. They really know all the different channels. They're able to provide that voice to the customer and how to go direct so much more. I've seen it be really successful and understand especially some of the early purchases that they've made. It's actually worked out really well, more from the people experience than even the product.Stephanie:It does seem like you can lose sight of that the larger you get, especially the more data you're getting. It's hard to get as informed and be able to actually find trends or themes. When you're working with a lot of these companies, what is your measurement of success when you're like, okay, we are going to transform this company. We're going to bring you guys to 2021 and what's relevant now. How do you look back and see if a digital transformation was successful?Paul:First of all, it's important that we judge success by the way companies measure their success. When we work with different companies, we try and understand what are their outcomes of success and their success can be ... The first thing you think, how much revenue did you grow? But some might not be. If it's a new brand and they want to get out there and they're trying to change their positioning, their goal might be a number of stories that got out, building brand awareness, changing the perspective, and so we always start with making sure that we understand what are their key outcomes and then provide some guidance on how do you get to those key goals.Paul:Looking at from a digital perspective, kind of like as I was saying before, it's also important to have an understanding of the voice of the customer and the sentiment. It's one thing to say what people might ... When you interview them. It's almost more important to see what they actually do, right? And using different tracking NPS scores, using different ... Looking at the data of actual purchase stories and mapping it onto example profiles. That then provides much more of a richer ... Even from compared to people say what they do is different than what they actually do and looking for actual intent in what they've done, and so making sure we're getting the right data is really important as well.Stephanie:Even if they have a lot of different outcomes, it seems like the solutions that you could bring to them could be kind of similar though. From what I've heard, there's a lot of decentralized processes going on, so you need to figure out a way to pull them all in and reduce your crazy marketing tech stack. Have you seen that on your side too that people might have very different outcomes but right now a lot of people have similar solutions or the solutions that you're presenting to them are kind of the same things?Paul:Yeah, in many ways some of our ... What we do to help customers in some ways is to help ... There's probably so many voices in the room and so many stakeholders is how do we help them bring them together and help to prioritize and to facilitate that conversation? Because that's the real hard part when you're dealing ... If you just have your own one product and your own single [sheet] you can make a decision and go.Paul:When you have hundreds of product lines and executives around the world and how do you facilitate the discussion, that's really what we help to do. Be it similar strategy to other companies or not, you need to help bring the internal alignment, and that's sometimes the hardest part because once you get to execute, many companies can do that. The harder part is how do you get agreement and prioritization with the different stakeholders.Stephanie:What kind of advice do you give for anyone who's struggling with that right now? What do you guys do to gain that alignment and have a go forward plan?Paul:Number one thing is start small and try something. You could spend forever talking about it and don't be afraid to fail. Get something in the market. We try and do agile sprints, and so from a development perspective we've been doing agile for a long time but we're also pushing into doing agile marketing so that we get into the same kind of feeding into that, so that okay, let's get something out there, let's try it, learn, and then from there go through the experiment, prove it, or make the changes and then scale, and keep that on an ongoing basis and trying to institutionalize that that it's an ongoing, you need to keep ...Paul:That's the business and how do you keep rolling that, because before when ecommerce was quote unquote more of a side business, it was more of a set it and forget it. Well, let's set it up. We'll set up the implementation, then we'll look at it, we'll make some changes every once in a while where now your core commerce business is your lifeline and some businesses it's over getting to 50, 60% of your overall business. You need to continue to change the priorities and especially as all of the changes that have come down the line from Facebook, from Google, is changing your whole marketing strategies.Stephanie:What about from a B2B perspective? I know earlier you said, okay, we got these two different viewpoints. What do you see in the B2B world? Which sometimes gets forgotten. We don't have many B2B people on the podcast very often and it'd be interesting to hear what does that side of the world look like.Paul:I've been focused more on that in the last year or two because it's such a big growing area. Just to lay the land, to understand how big B2B is, from a B2B perspective, just in the U.S. there's $17 trillion dollars of B2B payments done.Stephanie:Wow.Paul:That's just in the U.S. Right now-Stephanie:That's massive.Paul:It's completely massive and half of that is done manually. Meaning, if somebody writes a check, they send the check off, it's wired. It's not done digitally, and so when we talk about B2B commerce, again, people right away think B2C, it's just about the order, but actually when we talk about ... Or, the other myth or misconception that frustrates B2B people is, well, if just make it a cooler screen and easier to use on the web, then you'll be better, right? Then those are the myths and putting lipstick on problems.Paul:if you actually look into what the B2B challenges are, number one, many B2B purchases are very complex and there's many personas. It's not like, hey, I like this shirt, got it, they converted well, I've optimized, I buy it. Some of these deals are million dollars, half a million, and you need to go to procurement, you've got the business, you've got the people using it. It has to go through an RFP process, you have to buy versus ... Right? It's so much more complex on the number of personas, that's an important thing. There's no quick, easy, CX solution. Not to say that CX isn't important, but it's not like B2B. The first thing, if you start from that premise, that helps.Paul:Then the bigger pieces is traditionally how B2B sold was handshake over lunch, right? Traditionally, middle age guys shaking hands and "Hey, let's do this deal. There we go," and the last thing I want to do is look at the damn website, right? Well, obviously we know that's all changing and last year was the big thing in the workforce, millennials are now the largest part of the workforce. Guess what? Many of those, it's not all men. They're retiring at a very fast rate. Your expectation of your sales people are hey, where are my digital tools? When you talk about B2B commerce, it's about what are all the digital ways to interact, to be easier to do business with as you sell?Paul:In fact, what ends up happening is the top three things that people like for B2B commerce is order status, product information, and just doing a quick re-order. When you look at that, it's more about, hey, how do I make my life easier interacting with my customers? That's just important to understand the difference between B2C and traditionally on B2B side.Stephanie:What kind of opportunities do you see in the B2B world then? Do you see any new innovations coming about? Obviously having a platform that can meet the needs of the customers and to me it seems like it has to be personalized depending on what the business is and how your customers order, but what do you see right now that could be coming in the next couple years to help B2B?Paul:Well, kind of seeing where B2B is in their lifecycle, and so in many retailers, they're now onto their third iteration of a platform from B2C, and for most B2B, they're on maybe their first or they haven't really, right? Many of the B2B clients we're dealing with, oh, we put something up in 2004 and we've just been living with it and we still have to use IE to access it, and so we're dealing with web 1.0. They can't get it on their phone, and so a lot of it is just we need to make it easier for them and looking for ways to make the sales person's life easier.Paul:In the analogy of how B2C commerce is trying to be omnichannel, on the B2B side, it's helping your sales person and CRM. The lines between CRM and B2B commerce have blended together and it's really a tool to help the next generation business person to, hey, all my follow-ups, my data, you might get leads. Did you know your customers are looking at your products? You'll get that lead information, and so that you can follow-up with them or hey, have you deferred ... How many times has the business guy gotten a call? Hey, where's my order? I haven't got it.Paul:They end up spending half their time, and so the other big learning that we've got because it involves sales people so much is that you have to include them early and often during the process. For example, we had this happen one time. We had a customer come to us and say, "Man, we just spent all this money on this great new ecommerce platform for B2B, and we're just not getting the adoption." A couple lessons learned and they asked us to come in and do an assessment. We went in, we started talking to the customers and the customer said ... We ended up hearing this three different ways.Paul:The customer is like, "Oh, man. I love Joe. He's my best salesman, but he told me that if I put my sale through the B2B commerce, he's not going to get a bonus so I just called him to make sure he got his bonus." It's like, oh my god, of course you need to get the sales persons incentives align such that they don't get penalized for using the website, and that was like, oh yeah, that makes sense.Paul:Also, you want the sales people to be ... You want them to evangelize and get them to embrace leveraging it. That's such a key ... That change management in B2B and getting your sales people involved is super key for success.Stephanie:Yeah, which seems like it's a big training aspect to it too, make sure that they fully understand it to where then they can essentially sell the customers on using it and can act as customer service as well, because I'm sure their customers can be like, "I don't know how to order it on here," and if the sales person is like, "I don't know either," that's a big red flag. Are there any other hiccups like that that you've seen either in B2B or B2C where companies are like, oh, this isn't working. This new platform that we're using isn't working and you're like, well, let's talk a little bit about how you guys even thought about implementing it and you left out a big piece like this. Any other stories around that?Paul:Yeah, and number one it's always about ... It's so important getting the voice of the customer and getting representative people early on to provide input and feedback, because what ends up happening is if you don't listen to ... And we've had examples of rolling out systems trying to solve for what we thought was the problem but it wasn't really the problem. The way you bundled orders or the way products were bundled and you prioritized that and you didn't get the adoption, when actually they're focused on another set of problems or departments. That whole piece about getting user input early and often is so critical. The number one thing as you roll that out, you need the voice of the customer.Stephanie:In times like this that are changing so quickly, how do you think about separating the signal from the noise? I can see just so many companies try to keep up with other smaller brands and there's so many new things to try right now. It seems like it's hard to know what's actually going to be a lasting trend where you actually should put that as part of your processes or your platform. There's just so many tools and plugins and things. How do you all think about separating the two and being like, this one's a longer term trend and this is just something short that we see dying off in a year or two?Paul:Yeah, a couple of things that we do and obviously there's things that you want to lay out and over long-term and shorter term, but number one, look for ways ... First of all, understand what your brand promise is. Depending on your brand promise, you might prioritize things different, right? If you're a luxury item versus if you're an item at the dollar store. You have different brand promises and you want to be consistent to your brand promise, and so that's the first thing.Paul:The second thing as far as in general on commerce is continuously look for friction points. Do your tests with your customers and see what are things that are causing them to stop. As you go through all the different steps of the purchasing journey, if you're seeing friction points, how can you reduce that friction? Meaning, hey, this page seems really slow. I don't know why. Let's reduce that. Hey, this content is not connecting well. How can we use other ... For example, and I mentioned it before, hey, getting authentic content of the real users' pictures. That will help people convert higher.Paul:It's an ongoing iterative, so I think what you have is this ... And you're always plotting this, like how can you reduce friction and bang for the buck in a short-term that you can do versus a longer term investment that might then pay back, because it's easy to be like, okay great, we need a 3D VR AR strategy. We're like, well, how is that going to help your $10 item? Obviously that's an extreme example, but if you have a brand promise and you look for ways to reduce the friction to make your life easier, and similarly on the B2B side, that's why I always stress when I define B2B commerce, I like to say it's not about the purchase. It's about making your business easier to do business with, reduce the friction.Stephanie:I love that. What kind of longer term investments are you seeing being made right now that they might not see a payoff for a couple years? Because I know that Deloitte and I think Salesforce partnered on coming up with scenarios for the next three to five years, and so it'd be interesting to hear what you're seeing being implemented based on maybe the scenarios that these companies so all you get is put out there, which ranged to me from happy to very sad scenarios. I'm like, I guess it just depends how you're feeling that day which one you go with. I went with the happy ones.Paul:Especially for companies such as CPG that aren't used to having direct relationship with their customer, for example, big investments that take a while to really understand is the data, right? Getting real data direct from your customers that you then can build on. Those are things that it's not like, okay, a couple weeks, a couple months and you got it. It's something that over time you build up and you start to learn from, and so that's probably one of the biggest areas of especially getting your first party data, and especially since as you might have heard here recently, Facebook is reducing some of the data that they're sharing and how you're able to market and so is Google. Building up your first party data as a brand or building up your email list is so critical, and the benefits that you'll build definitely increase over time.Stephanie:It seems like it's an easy thing to say, yeah, obviously build up on that one-on-one connection with your customers, build up your email list, but it also seems like it's going to be very competitive because every brand is trying to do that now. It seems like every commerce company is turning to a media company that are all trying to have their blogs and newsletters and be on Tik Tok and Clubhouse and everywhere. How do you think brands can compete and build up content that actually pulls people into their community so they can have access to that first party data?Paul:Yeah, so I think the tactics on some of those platforms on core data and getting some of that primary, that's onto ... I think once you get into content and being outward brand, outward bound, I think the focus is and kind of the things that we've talked to our clients about is try and be good on one platform first. It's easy to be like, oh my god, we're so behind. We got to have a Tik Tok. We got to have Facebook, we have to have all the platforms all at once. We kind of guide them on, okay, start with one that's as close to your authentic brand as you can find, and then try and build it and iterate on it and master one before you really try and go after another because, again, there's limited resources and limited people. Trying to spread across all is a lot worse than trying to be good at least on one.Stephanie:Where do you normally find yourself suggesting brands start out at? It seems like Instagram is always a good bet for any company that has product pictures and things like that, but is that usually where you send them to or is it always very varied?Paul:Yeah, it just depends on where they're at. Some brands have ... Again, some of this stuff isn't cool, but SEO and email marketing have some of the best returns and they're super still unbelievably effective. Focusing on those and making sure those are solid, you get some of the best brand for the buck ... You get your bang for the buck. Sorry. Because it's easy to go the shiny happy route, but the core of understanding kind of the SEO and how it's connecting on all your different content and how you're coming up in search results all across and mobile related, that's still ... And again, email marketing on ecommerce, we did a study here recently and saw that some of the most successful brands are their leads are coming from up to 40 to 50% of their net new sales are coming from email related.Paul:We make sure that you have your core fundamentals ready before ... And you might do this like a portfolio, right? Like hey, maybe you're dipping your toe into ... Get a few Tik Tok videos out there and explore with a couple people, and know that you're not going hard on that but making sure that you get your fundamentals down first.Stephanie:Yeah, that's such a good reminder I think just for business in general but to stay focused and make sure that you're not getting caught up in the craziness and everything new. Make sure you have your email list good and that you actually own that and you're sending out good stuff. I don't know if this question could get you in trouble, but I'm going to ask it anyways. What is something you believe around ecommerce that many don't agree with you on?Paul:Huh. I'll have to think about that one. It's kind of funny in some ways because I've come through the whole ... I'm the old guy in ecommerce, and so I've been the one being like, ecommerce is going to be bigger than it is. I feel like in the last six months that now I'm the hey guys, retail is not going away. Retail has been here for hundreds of thousands of years. It's not going away. There's a lot of proponents out there, I won't name any names, but ecommerce is everything, and I'm the ecommerce guy and I'm like, no it's not. Understand it's too easy to say things are black or white for clicks, as opposed to understanding the nuance.Paul:If you look at in China, they just met a massive milestone. They're now over 50% of retail is via ecommerce. If you look at the states, relatively speaking, depending on which calculation you're looking at is anywhere from 17% or 22%, let's say it's somewhere in between that. Less than half of the penetration in China, and so I don't think over the long-term retail won't be 100% ecommerce, right?Paul:Over time, it might get in the U.S., because of the way we're distributed and the ease of buying at retail, you might get up to 50, 60% in the next 10 years but you're never going to get to a hundred and ecommerce is not everything and more the conversation should be retail has just many forms. I'm now pivoted to make sure that we don't forget the importance of these great real life experiences and then how you can balance and leverage commerce online.Stephanie:That's great that you've had to flip now to defend the other side. I'm assuming you think that retail is going to be changing though in some way or shape or form.Paul:Of course.Stephanie:How do you see that playing out?Paul:I talked about the grocery and that's a great example. They are now changing the way they see their line ... Because one of the biggest growth areas in this past year has been about BOPIS, buy online, pick-up in store. You probably saw, like you might have gone to a store and there's all these pickers. If you go, like half of the people in the store were employees picking for pick-ups. Just recently Walmart announced how they're going to re-jigger and automate so that parts of their stores are add-ons will be automated specifically targeted towards BOPIS.Stephanie:Wow, interesting.Paul:They're looking at maybe rolling that out over the next year or two over 200 stores. It's pretty significant. Then if you look at Kroger, they bought Ocado which is one of the largest robot ... Being able to bring together delivery in stage and they're looking for closer to the store to provide support for BOPIS as well. What you're going to see is this the way real estate is leveraged very differently than the big huge aisles with the big cart. It may be optimized slightly differently.Stephanie:Yeah, that's something I've been thinking about optimizing retail locations, and when I think about having someone go and buy my groceries, all the dry goods just get what I need, but when it comes to my fruits and veggies and things like that, I still think people sometimes they have a certain kind of avocado they want, they have a certain color banana they want. It seems like there's a way to segment the store and the stuff can just be picked out for you because you know what you want, and then there's another part of the store that you can still go in and interact with and grab the things that you want because there's actually preferences around them. I don't know what that looks like but it seems like an interesting thing to think about.Paul:Exactly. It's just going to change.Stephanie:Yep. Just a minute before we hop into the lightening round, I did have a question around Internet or ecommerce penetration. You were mentioning that and it does seem like there's a lot of opportunities all around the globe because certain areas have very lower ecommerce penetration because of a lot of reasons. Are there any regions that you're betting on right now or that Deloitte's looking into of there's some opportunities coming up here once X, Y, and Z is solved?Paul:Yeah, the area that has the biggest potential for growth right now that is behind ... If you look at just relatively speaking, to give everybody a perspective, from an ecommerce adoption, China is number one, Europe and the UK are generally a little bit ahead, and a lot of that has to do with they're smaller and it's easier from some of the delivery. The biggest growth area that we see right now in the next short-term is around Latin America.Stephanie:I was just going to say Latin America. I've heard a lot of VCs that you probably follow mentioned how they're going to be up and coming with them.Paul:Mercado Libre based out of Brazil is one of the fastest growing and there's also another shop app that's just skyrocketed out of Brazil, and so they see Latin America, because again they've been behind on the retail penetration and they've been behind, but this whole COVID just pushed that all along. I think that's the next big massive growth compared to everywhere else.Stephanie:I was just looking at them yesterday so it's funny you mentioned that. All right, well let's move over to the lightening round. The lightening round is brought you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud is our awesome sponsor. This is where I ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Paul? All right. First one. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Paul:It might actually be how this shipper container problem right now, all the ports are behind and not clear when some of the massive packaging and shipping issues around the world get sorted out. That might be the determinant, because if you can't get the products around the world, you might not be able to deliver what you want.Stephanie:That's a good one. Do you see any resolution with that? I don't understand what the problems are there. I've not looked into the shipping container world, so what's happening there and what could solve that?Paul:It's kind of a combo of stuff, and this has happened in a number of industries. It's kind of fascinating because it also kind of effected the way we planned. When you went back to a year ago into the spring and when you went back to all the historical of what happened when you had a large change and potential recession and what the impact was, you went back to, well, the shipping container industry went back and said, well, all our historical ... We got to pull back. They pulled back. What ends up happening, because of the ecommerce shift and spike, their demand very quickly ... They pulled back and it's hard to then build it back up when you're dealing with massive ships and containers around the world.Paul:By late summer, they realized oh crap, we're way behind and we need to catch up. That was part of it. Then you have a bunch of issues of hey, people on the essential front lines are just getting COVID and they can't deliver it, right? You have a combination of conservative planning, COVID actually effecting people, to geopolitical problems of hey, we don't want to receive packages and you're looking at different areas in the world that actually impact that. That's just another part of it that contributed to it. There was an article in Detail just this past weekend in New York Times that went into a little bit more detail.Stephanie:That's an interesting one and that's a lot at play. That'd be a good field or area to watch. Next question. If you had a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Paul:Oh, man. I've actually been kicking around potentially doing ... This might be a little bit of what are the slow ways to be successful at ecommerce, right? Because it's funny because I've been on Clubhouse now for six months and you've got all of these entrepeneurs that hey, make seven figures, eight figures in a month or two, but the thing ... ecommerce seems overly easy to get into, but to scale and be successful is very hard because there's so many factors that play a part of it that you don't have full control of it. If I had a podcast that I would do, I would say the slow way to success to ecommerce.Stephanie:I like that. I've seen a lot of those people on Clubhouse, their bios of I'll scale you to a million. I'm like, nah.Paul:Yeah, right away it's like, next.Stephanie:Yeah, I just don't trust it, not for a second. What's up next on your reading list specifically around ecommerce trends? What are you reading every day to stay on top of the latest?Paul:It's something that I probably spend a couple hours a day reading lots of stuff. I actually use Feedly, I have all these keywords that kind of feed in, and I follow a lot of ... There's a lot of great podcasts out here. Of course, I got to plug my friend, even though he works at a competing company, he used to work for me, Jason Goldberg. The Jason and Scott Show is probably the best ecommerce podcast out there.Stephanie:Yep, I like theirs too.Paul:He's also a personal friend. I've known him for a long time. There's a whole crew of people out there that are passionate about it, and so I'm kind of geeky about it. It's funny, Jason as the retail geek but in some ways I'm more the ecommerce geek.Stephanie:Yep, I like it. That is a good one to stay on top of. I like that. Then the last one, what one thing do you not understand that you wish you did?Paul:Oh, man. I've come more from ... I'm more on the strategy and the technical side and the implementation. While I understand the marketing side okay, I really don't have the in-depth digital marketing side of it and I'd love to be able to spend more time and really focus around that area of how to really effectively connect. That's almost like another side of the brain that I have not spent the time on there.Stephanie:Yep. That's a good one. All right. Well, Paul, thanks so much for coming on the show and giving us a glimpse into what you're working on at Deloitte Digital. Where can people find out more about you or where can they follow you at?Paul:The easiest ... I'm quite active on Twitter, on deFornoP, you can follow me, and I try and share a couple articles a day of ... I curate good stories on both B2C and B2B commerce and people can also reach out to me at Deloittedigital.com or on LinkedIn.Stephanie:Amazing. Thanks so much, Paul.Paul:Awesome. Thank you.

Word of mouth is still the best marketing tool, even in today’s digital world. And in this time of the ecommerce boom, brands are constantly working to build buzz for their products. Whether that’s through ratings, reviews, social posts, or unique ad campaigns. But there’s one highly coveted strategy that’s been bubbling to the top of the stack, and every ecommerce leader knows it is the way of the future. User generated content. And a company called Yotpo is here to help with that. Yotpo is one of the top platforms that companies such as IKEA, 1-800-FLOWERS, Chubbies and more lean on to help them build communities, generate UGC, and create loyalty programs that yield the kind of engagement most brands only dream of. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, I asked the co-founder and CEO of Yotpo, Tomer Tagrin to give us an inside look at how Yotpo is generating 5X more engagement and content creation than is typical. Plus, we also dove into the future of loyalty programs and personalization. My one-sentence takeaway: definitely start leaning heavily into loyalty and maybe let off the gas a bit on personalization. Why? Tune in to find out! Main Takeaways:Do What You Know: Success in ecommerce is becoming more about the community you can build to support you. So the question founders are asking themselves — and Yotpo — is how do you build that community? The answer is pretty simple actually, you just have to follow your own interests. A founder starts a company for a reason, and they typically personify the exact target customer their company is going after. So dig into that link and create content and strategies that would resonate with you, the founder.  Long Live Loyalty Programs: Every brand should have a loyalty program, otherwise there are opportunities and dollars being left on the table. The only way to access those opportunities and cash, though, is through a very brand-specific program. There are no one-size-fits-all loyalty programs. Brands need to understand what they want to incentivize for in their loyalty programs, who they want to target, and how they will reward the behavior they are trying to generate through the loyalty program.  Partial Personalization: By deploying personalization tools, you can sometimes open Pandora’s box of never-ending adjustments and adaptations in order to create individualized experiences. At a certain point, the return on that investment starts to diminish. Customers are all different, but they don’t all need to be treated as unicorns. Create segments of customer types, and personalize the experience to those subsets.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, CEO at Mission.org. Joining us today is Tomer Tagrin. The co-founder and CEO of Yotpo. Tomer, welcome.Tomer:Hey, thank you for having me.Stephanie:I'm excited to have you. You might not know this, but a couple of guests who've come on the show actually have mentioned you guys. We had the CEO of Live Tinted come on, and a couple more. They said your company-Tomer:In a good way or in a bad way?Stephanie:In an amazing way. They said it was game changing.Tomer:Thank you, thank you.Stephanie:Yeah. When I saw you coming on, I told our producer Hilary, I'm like, "This is awesome. So serendipitous." But in your words, I'd like to hear what is Yotpo, and why did you start Yotpo?Tomer:Yeah. You want the short version or the long version?Stephanie:Long if it has a lot of little interesting tangents.-Tomer:You got it, you got it. I'll give you maybe the opening gambit about your points, then I'll tell you maybe the story in a more detailed way.Stephanie:Yeah.Tomer:The best way to think about Yotpo if in retail, it was about location, location, location, online, it's about consumer attention. In a world where every brand is an ecommerce brand, right from Miss Stephanie in Tomer t-shirtcompany.com, up to PNG, everyone is fighting over consumer attention. That's what we do. We help ecommerce brand win over consumer attention by consolidating the marketing stack and really enable them to build great experiences for consumers, because that's the only way to win over consumer attention. We actually started as a reviews company, and we started from a very ... 10 years ago from a personal story that we had a friend in my group of friends that each year made fun of us, that we didn't buy him anything for his birthday.Tomer:11 years ago we decided to do something, and he was big on photography back then, so we bought him photography [inaudible] and because I'm the geek, I [inaudible] online and I find him a fancy SLR camera. We bought him that, he was super happy. But what happened is that the teacher, after the second lesson told him that we bought him the crappiest camera we could have bought him. And all of my friends made fun of me. Then I went back and we saw that my decision was based on reviewers name like Stephanie 123, and I don't know anything about it. That is okay. Let's do that. Very, very good, and basically find authenticity of reviews. So, we built our entire technology based on that, and making sure that whoever writes reviews is a real person that actually bought a product.Tomer:If she or he are an expert in the field, we'll also let you know. We really ... wherever to disrupt let's call it the reviews in ecommerce, especially on the SME, it was also a great time. We were much luckier than small. It was a great time to enter ecommerce, or ecommerce marketing. We grew with a lot of the Shopify, the B commerce. We were very focused on the lower end at the beginning, and now we have Ikea and PNG and 1-800-Flowers, but we were for years focused just on the lower end. I think five years ago, we understood that the bigger problem for ecommerce brands is that they're super busy, they're very small and nimble, and they have just too many point solutions to deal with, so we need to consolidate everything because the consumer experience actually flow through each one of them. I'll give you one example.Tomer:I remember one of our customers telling me a few years ago, he said, "Look, Tomer, when someone gives me a one star review, I still ask for a referral, and that's the dumbest thing I can do as a brand." Right? Of course, but they just weren't able to connect those dots together before [inaudible]. We completely re-architecture. We went through a lot of different things to make sure that it's one platform to really help you win over consumer attention. It was something very, very important. That's our mission in life today. Since then, we built two more products, we acquired two more companies, we completely re-architecture the platform itself. We changed the go-to market, we've been through a lot. Now we're in the face of adding a new product every let's say 18 months.Stephanie:Wow. That's a lot of new products, because yeah, I was looking through everything you did. I'm like, okay, you do reviews, you do referral programs, you do smart loyalty programs, and everything seems every time I talk to a commerce brand, I do always think, wow, you guys have so many tools and technologies you have to plug into. How do you keep track of it all? What does the marketing tech stack look for someone when they come to you? What things are they, "Hey, can you help us consolidate all these crazy processes?"Tomer:Yeah. Usually customers don't come with us to consolidate, it happens, but not a lot. We actually build the company that we commonly just ... we can have five different products in the market, use the general reviews, what we call VMS. It's a Visual Marketing Suite, a referral product, a loyalty product, and an SMS marketing product. Walking on two malls, one of them is going to be launched let's say in two quarters, another one in four quarters, and sorry. Basically you start with the ones that you can start with just loyalty, or actually SMS now is our fastest growing part of the business. Then we show you that through the synergies in the product, it actually makes sense for you too ... I'll give you an example. If you launch a loyalty program, the best way to communicate with your most loyal customer is through SMS.Tomer:We make it very easy for you. If you want to send a loyalty campaign for customers that are likely to buy in the next 90 days, and gave you a five star review, and referred a friend, to send them an SMS with a new loyalty offer, we make it very, very easy for you. Where in the other architecture, it literally use [inaudible] taking weeks to orchestrate all of that. For us, you can start with whatever product you want, it doesn't matter for us. That's how we build everything because we don't want to force the customer to consolidate. Once you start seeing the synergies and it makes sense, that's where the exponential value starts. Actually, in our high touch customers, we see now that more than 60% of the customers actually use buying and using two plus product, so they are multi product customers, and that's something super, super important for us. From time to time, customers come to us to consolidate, but not always.Stephanie:Yeah, awesome. Just to give a little context too, tell me about some of the recent news around funding that maybe you guys just went through. How big are you, and who are some of your clients. Name drop some people if you can. So our audience knows you all are legit, you're on the unicorn status. I'll call you that. You might be like, "Don't call me that." I just did.Tomer:I actually have a joke in the fundraising that we did. We just closed a $210 million round at a $1.4 billion valuation, from great investors and definitely on our path for the next stage to become a public company. I always had a slide actually in the fundraising deck that said that despite of the valuation, we are not a unicorn, we are Flamingo. We are building a Flamingo. Why is that? Because Flamingo is a real animal and we are building a real business to provide real value to customers over time. It's a very unique animal.n It's actually part of our culture. It's a joke, but it's actually something very, very ... that we take very seriously.Stephanie:I love that.Tomer:Some of our customers, Ikea, Unilever, 1-800-Flowers, we also have 30,000 paying customers. A lot of the cool brands, the Chubbies, the away, the movement, all of the poster Childs of D to C are as well usually choosing Yotpo, but also some of the largest brands in the world. I think they come to us usually because our products are really ... we like to call it easy to start, easier to scale, and really trying to think about merchant, and really trying not to use buzz words, not to use fancy things, just really helping those brands grow faster in a very direct way. We are 500 people, or a little bit less, and I don't know any other group of people that are so focused on helping brands win over consumer attention. That's literally what we think of every day.Tomer:Also, I think that ecommerce is one of the largest changes of our generation, and we believe that we have a real shot to become one of the most important companies in the history of commerce. I always tell the company telling me that ... I have two young boys, and one of the things that for me I want them to think about Yotpo is they were a huge driver forward for that something that called digitization of retail, or the shift to e-comm, or whatever you want to call it. Very much we are super, super passionate about helping those brands.Stephanie:That's amazing. Congratulations. That's awesome funding-Tomer:Thank you.Stephanie:...awesome investors. You're really cool. I love that Flamingo reference. I want to use that just for myself now.Tomer:We call it be a Flamingo in a flock of pigeons. That's our phrase internally.Stephanie:That's good. It seems like the perfect time right now too, because customer acquisition is getting really expensive. Everything I've heard on the show is that, organic, natural, UGC, that's what's working now. Tell me a bit about how you think about the customer acquisition world, and why organic natural content or reviews, helps more than anything else right now.Tomer:It's a great question. First of all, I'll maybe share a funny story. Let's say six months before COVID started, we actually had a customer advisory board. We meet customers and we ask them questions. One of the phrases I add that stuck with me is that one of our customers said that buying a Facebook ad is more expensive than a fifth Avenue store. Definitely you know Instagram, Facebook, Google are extremely, extremely expensive, and I don't think it's going to slow down. They want to be like a lot of other consumer fronts, at least in the near term horizon. When you add on top of that, Amazon, so the question is how do you win? You win by building a community. You win by giving your customers a great experience.Tomer:Part of that means social proof, part of it means making sure that you are very transparent, part of it means that you need to focus on customer lifetime value, because it's so hard to bring, and you need to make sure they're coming back. Loyalty, I can tell you it's really top of mind. Then for us, we entered loyalty in 2018, we are now the fastest growing loyalty platform for ecommerce brands, and we power some of the most sophisticated loyalty programs out there, and it's just amazing to see that even in the election, there were brands that giving points for customer to show that they voted, and there are customers that hate the point system because it's they lose their brand and they just have a VIP tier experience, which is super awesome. There's so much to do with that, which is fascinating to see how much brands are able to innovate.Tomer:I think we definitely live in a world to your question, I'll circle back that whatever walks, you cannot win just by being great in paid anymore. It doesn't scale. It can scale to a certain number but it won't forever. Now the question, how do you build your brand? You build your brand by your community. That's what we are very, very focused on as a company.Stephanie:What are the ways that you advise your brands to build that community? Especially if you come and you're like, I don't have a community. Where do I even start with that? I would think you need to acquire customers first, but then that's pricey. Then you're not even thinking about retention yet because you don't have anyone to retain. What are the maybe building blocks even get to that next level?Tomer:Yeah. I'll share a story. Are you familiar with Chubbies, the brand?Stephanie:Yeah.Tomer:Chubbies they have a great story on how they started. It started from an email that they used to send. I don't know if you ever saw one of those emails. Super straightforward, so targeted to the buyer persona because they will, the buyer persona. It's a really great group of founders that were just able to provide great content, and their customers actually want to buy Chubbies because they feel that this is the brand for them. You have movement that were very, very early on, very, very good on Instagram ads. I think today it probably means that you need to do everything well, there is not a hack, so you got to at least experiment with paid, you got to experiment with content, with organic. You have to invest, but in general, when you look at mission-driven brands, the founders are usually, they are the buyer persona, or they know the buyer persona very, very well.Tomer:Then it just become easy. Do stuff that are interesting for you. Do stuff that you would like to buy from. I think that's where we see the brands that are growing the fastest at the moment. I think there was also probably a year, a year and a half ago, there was a huge trend in drop shippers that's now actually declining, which is a good thing. I think it's easier for brands now to stand out. I think that the bad news is that you need to do good in multiple fronts, but the good news is there's so much demand at the moment for great brands that you just need to focus on your buyer persona.Stephanie:Yeah, that makes sense. Another interesting thing that I was reading about was how ads that have reviews in them are the highest converting ones. Which makes sense. I even think about, if I see someone's picture with a review on it, an organic picture, I don't want just the product picture, or even if that came on and she'll be five stars, check it out. I would go there all day versus a normal ad.Tomer:It's actually something we built a few years ago, and the hypothesis was, it was also based on our customer feedback that they think that social ads with social proof will work great on social media. That makes sense. Then what we did is we made it super easy and we work with Facebook and Instagram to make it easy to incorporate your user generated content, and then we started to experiment with that. We learned that, the studio photos that you have actually work like walls then real authentic and customers' photos, so, we really build a lot of technology to encourage customers, and how do you get more photos, and then make it just very, very easy for you to use it on your social ads. It works phenomenally well. I think in general, one of the key learnings that we learn as a company that we're established to establish trust between brands and consumers. That's what we founded the company.Tomer:I think that, especially if you're a newer brand and you're just now starting, you have to focus on how do you create trust? The best way to create trust is by what real people are saying. I can share with you endless amount of data showing you that products that just have five star reviews convert much worse than like 3.8. Which is insane, but it makes sense, because nobody believes everything is perfect. Authenticity, transparency are so key in a world where again, customer acquisition cost is super expensive because if you were able to bring a customer and she or he had a bad experience, it's bad unit economics. You cannot scale that business.Stephanie:Yeah. I think the interesting thing too, about organic reviews, even if they have a 3.8, is that you can oftentimes go in there and find, oh, this person's talking about something that I really don't care about. I'm even thinking about this and maybe Tomer you're in the same place where it's looking at daycare's, preschools, and all this. Some of them have a four-star and people are complaining about the wait list. I didn't want to pay a wait list fee, and you're, 'Okay." That shouldn't have brought it down, but that's real, and now I trust it a bit more, and now I'm interested in exploring it, and not just looking at a high level review. What I wonder is, how do you get people to review? How do you get them to submit photos? I don't have the time a lot of times, even though I love products, I just don't have time for it. How are you incentivizing customers to do that?Tomer:Yeah. I'll share a few stories that I think you'll find they're funny.Stephanie:We all have funny stories.Tomer:When we started, we didn't know a lot on the reviews industry. So what we did, Amazon, Amazon has a page called Amazon top reviewers. These are people that wrote, I don't even know how many reviews. We looked at their names or handlers, and we searched those people on Skype and Twitter, and we bombed them, and wanted to interview them. We spent hours and hours interviewing Amazon top reviewers, and I think it was eBay top reviewers, just trying to understand why people write reviews, what incentivize them to write reviews, and why other people are not writing reviews, and that's how we formed the new approach and the reviews industry. I think definitely we make it easy for you. You talked about, you don't have time. We build a technology called email review that you can leave the review inside the email.Tomer:It's one step, it's really easy to do. That's super, super important. The second thing that's really, really important is knowing when to ask for reviews. For example, when you buy a mattress, you need to experience with the product a little bit more before you will be willing to give a review versus a t-shirt. I think those are important. The last thing that I can tell you, which is really, really interesting, and this is why user generated content is so connected to loyalty, is once you identify who are customers that are likely to be loyal, those customers are much more likely to generate content for you, photos, video. After someone upload a photo, I can tell you now, if you're not a Yotpo customer, ask them to join your loyalty club. There's five X more chance that will happen. How do you take one interaction of the consumer with your brand, and translate it to the next step, and how do you take them in the customer journey step by step by step.Tomer:That's why we are big believers you need to consolidate the marketing stack because it is one customer, one journey, and it's not silo. I think it's a frictionless experience, is knowing when to ask, and knowing who to ask. It's super, super important. I think when we started Yotpo, we always heard the phrase of 1% of people write content, 9% of people reply to that comment, and 90% are just reading that content. Today we are more closer to five to 6% are generating content almost, which is a five X or six X improvements when we started. A lot of it is that consumer behavior, a lot of it is our technology, and a lot of it, I think is just brands are evolving and understanding the importance of that. But it's just fascinating when we ask about photos for example. There are brands that you would never imagine, never in your life, that people will ... I remember I was scrolling through one of our website, and they will say they are selling metals. Literally blocks of metals. That's what they said.Tomer:They have thousands of reviews, thousands of reviews. People write reviews and super passionate reviews. We also have an NLP engine, a natural language processing that can give us and the merchant, positive sentiment, negative sentiment, and show you the score. People are super passionate about it, and apparently people are passionate for ... Different people are passionate for different things. You just need to find those people that are passionate about what you build. That's what I always find super, super inspiring.Stephanie:That is a really interesting take though around how you just need to have that passionate audience and finding them. But what also is interesting is how you guys are ingesting the data in ways that, I think I've been there for a while, but you keep saying consolidating it. I've always thought okay, you get all these good reviews, but oftentimes, I might not want to see their review for 99% of the products that I'm not looking at. If I'm looking at stocks at a company that has a hundred skews, I really just want to be able to zoom in on the reviews of those stocks and not see everything else.Tomer:Even more than that, what we did now, if you go to Yotpo customers, is we build an NLP engine, Natural Language Processing that can pull up topics from the content. Let's say if you ... I don't want to take your pre-school example. If you want to just read about the waiting list, you can click waiting list and read just all the content talking about that. You want to read about the teacher, about the food, about whatever you want, you can. Especially on mobile, I can tell you that really, really increases conversion because who has the time to scroll through 300 reviews? No one. Once you have the relevant topic and a search bar, and the topics are actually accurate, then you start to really improve the quality of content that you are able to read, and you as a consumer really are able to get the information that you need in order to make a buying decision.Stephanie:Yeah. What do you think about curating reviews from other platforms? Do you guys also incorporate Amazon and walmart.com? How do you show in a holistic way? Or I also think a lot of those consumers are very different people who shop at Walmart, are different than Amazon versus on your website.Tomer:Yeah. In general, we are big believers that we need to authenticate. I mentioned how we started that these are real people that actually bought your product, so we just do it from the content we generated. I can tell you in our photos, we curate from Instagram or Pinterest, because we think that makes sense actually from specific hashtag, or specific accounts of the brand. I can tell you ... I'll give you another example that's been explosive for us. Let's say if you are a brand that want to increase your review count. Let's say you sell a lot on Amazon, you sell a lot direct, but you want to increase your review count on your direct SMS, the best example. Our integration, when you can send review quiz through SMS, amazing. Just amazing results.Tomer:I highly recommend it for anyone that wants to increase their social proof, is to leverage SMS and SMS marketing. This is why when for us it's you use our SMS marketing product and reviews under the same data platform. That's what we work. Our platform theme works on is to make that experiences literally a click of a button. Send review request, and that's it. I think in general, we are not a big believer from curation of content. It's more about generating that content and giving you more tools to generate authentic content that we can authenticate.Stephanie:Yeah, that's great. I think just thinking about making things frictionless for the end user. That's going to change everything. Especially with reviews, I'm thinking if you send me a text, an SMS, that just said, just review it and you don't pop me around a million other places-Tomer:Exactly.Stephanie:-I'll hit the start count. If I don't feel adding in words right now, I won't, but making it easy to where I'll actually interact quickly, I think is the way of the future. Even earlier on Amazon, it was asking me to review something on my homepage. I tried to click five stars then it shot me over to another page and wanted me to write stuff, and then I just exed out. I'm like, "No. It's too much work. I have two minutes before this interview." I was just trying to say, “I liked my pair of shorts I bought."Tomer:I can tell you it's the same thing in loyalty by the way. We see that loyalty, because loyalty you also see that in brand. But loyalty is a very complex problem. In order for a brand now to launch a loyalty program, they need to give it some thought. It's not a cookie cutter, because every brand has their own thing. On the flip side, if the experience won't be dead easy for the consumer, or frictionless for the consumer, consumers won't engage with the loyalty program. This is why we really focused on building an experience that it's going to be really easy for your consumers to understand what's in it for me, and how to engage with your loyalty program. Because if not, if it's like you said, a link to another page and then I need to ... it's not going to happen. They're not going to join your loyalty club. In general, in every product that we have, we are very, very focused on a very frictionless consumer experience, because we learned so many times, it won't work if it's complicated. It just won't.Stephanie:Yeah. How do you think about building up a good loyalty program? I'm sure a lot of your clients ask, what are some pitfalls that you've seen before, and how do I make it frictionless, and fun, and engaging? How would you advise them on creating one from scratch?Tomer:Yeah, there's a lot actually and it's a complex topic that we are super passionate about. But, if I need to summarize it, I'll say that one, like I mentioned complex problem, but it has to be an easy consumer experience. Second it's not one size fits all. You really need to understand, okay, why do you want to incentivize for? Let's take Chubbies, another example that we started. Chubbies has a great loyalty program across categories. Let's say if you buy shorts, they want you to buy a t-shirt, they will incentivize you with points to do that. That's super, super important. For Chubbies the point system it's basically a mechanism to incentivize certain behavior that you want, that works extremely well. You need to figure out what behaviors do you want to encourage. Another example is ThirdLove. I don't know if you're familiar with that brand.Stephanie:Yeah, I do know them.Tomer:They also use our loyalty program. For them it was all about the brand, meaning they didn't want to use a point system, they actually wanted to use a VIP tier system. You do a certain action or you spend a certain amount, and then you get certain VIP tiers level that you can get different parts from free shipping products, discounts, whatever you want. That's been working phenomenally well for them. I think early on just in 2021, you have to have a loyalty program. I think we are past the days that, yeah, I'm not sure. You are losing a lot of money, you're leaving a lot of money on the table, but you need to first figure out what do you want to incentivize for? What is the behavior you want to encourage?Tomer:That's super important. Then, what are you willing to give, and how do you make it easy for consumers to engage onsite? You can send different emails, you can run different social campaigns, or social contests. There's a bunch of things, but eventually it's all about how do you build a relationship with your most important customers? With the customer that you care the most on? It's a very emotional experience on one end, on the other end, it's that simple. You need to see ROI. It's all about customer lifetime value. The analytic needs to be if you're not sure if your loyalty program is not working or not, it's probably, it doesn't work, because it's very easy to understand that it's working, and it's about increasing customer lifetime value.Stephanie:I think that's a good point too, about knowing your customer and what they're going to want to see. For something like a ThirdLove, I can see why they want to be seen as it's more premium, you're part of the club. We're so much more higher end than a Victoria's Secret or whoever else they're competing with, versus the Chubbies, their client probably doesn't need to see that to feel like they're part of the club. They just want the product.Tomer:Exactly. It's such a strong brand that if you buy Chubbies you're already part of the club. It's one of the best ways definitely. I'll give you another example. Maybe I can give you also to share some light about the connectivity. Let's take another one of our customer that you probably know, Steve Madden. Let's say you are a junkie of sneakers, that's your thing in life, Stephanie. You are the number one in their VIP tier program. Literally number one. Then you get sneakers and you give them a negative review because the shoelace was off or whatever. They want to know about it.Stephanie:Sounds like me.Tomer:They want to know about it and they want to treat you a little bit differently. Taking that loyalty data, or the review data and injecting it back to loyalty and help desk, and doing all of that, is so, so important in order to provide a great consumer experience. That's the only way to do so. We see that time and time again, you can not live with silo. That's one of the biggest tips that I can give is that whenever if you're a Yotpo customer, you're not a Yotpo customer, it matters less. It's about the connected experience.Stephanie:Yeah. Personalizing it is huge, and having a customer not feel they're talking into a black box. If I say, “Hey, I'm not happy with something," and then like you said, they're like, "Here's some points to just buy some more of it," or something, that's probably-Tomer:I'll tell you another joke that we use internally. Personalization, I hate it when product managers come to me and talk about personalization because I won't call it the graveyard of ecommerce, but I think the problem with personalization, it's an endless problem. There is always something to improve, but eventually for the consumer, there is a diminishing value in keep on personally up until the point. For us, it's more about look at sub segments of your customers and how you treat them differently, and how do you help the marketer really test and try certain things, but trying to personalize it. You can do that all day long and it won't move the needle necessarily. It's just about understanding from that specific customer, what sub segment they belong to, and then how do you treat that sub segment differently?Stephanie:That's really interesting. I like that. It's not like everyone is a unique snowflake. However, they probably do fit in some buckets, and you can treat those segments pretty similar, and now we have methods for them. I liked that.Tomer:Exactly.Stephanie:I'm thinking about all this data that you guys are getting, and the way that you're reacting to it and making new products and helping these brands, what data is out there that I guess you could call it dark data, that you feel could be tapped into, but you're like, we just haven't gotten there yet, but there’s always data that's out there that you feel you're still not fully utilizing. What are brands usually have access to, but they're just not fully capitalizing on it?Tomer:From the brand or from Yotpo perspective?Stephanie:I say brand perspective.Tomer:Brand perspective, I think the most interesting thing is actually analyzing the content itself of the reviews. I can give you two examples. One of the best examples which I love. Are you familiar with [inaudible].Stephanie:No.Tomer:From these scores they're actually doing phenomenally well. A phenomenal brand. For them, we actually were able to analyze the content. We have a engine called insights from the natural language processing, and we learned something really interesting. That a lot of the content was written "I'm so happy. My boyfriend bought me that and that." "I'm so happy. My husband did..." We actually told them, "You know what? We think you should launch a couples line, because a lot of your buyer persona, it's not the sheets He buying for his girlfriend, for his wife, it doesn't matter." It's one of the most successful launches they ever had. Or we have another furniture brand that I won't mentioned their name, that we showed them that the number one reason for returns of the product is actually the smell of the sofa, and they need to fix that, because they have a real problem in that.Tomer:Actually looking at reviews as a let's call it [inaudible] and that your ability to analyze on scale, and have a really smart again NLP engine that can show you what customers are saying in slice and dice, it's fair. All the volumes per a customer behavior, per location, per segment is so, so important. You can get so much in product teams, marketing teams, service teams for sure. You can get to learn so much from it. I think that's a dataset that a lot of brands are not spending enough time looking at.Stephanie:Yeah. It makes me think gone are the days where you would have people come into a room, and they try out your product and you hear feedback. It's why. Now you can just get thousands of data points, use NLP, digest the data and figure out how to change your product going forward.Tomer:Exactly that.Stephanie:Makes it funny thinking about that. What about from a Yotpo perspective? What data do you want to get access to, to inform either your current products or new ones?Tomer:Something that we think about a lot is it's very clear that commerce is going to be like Omni channel. Or is. Some of it will be marketplaces. Most of it will be direct to consumers. Some of it, maybe it will be on social, some of it maybe will be on Google, who knows. Everyone is trying that transaction will happen now at Instagram, on Google shopping, or whatever. For us, it's how do you give more value when you sell on Amazon? How do we give more verdict? We just launched a partnership with Walmart that you can syndicate all your content with a click of a button. If you sell also on Walmart, all of your content will be there as well, so you'll sell more on watermark. For us, it's really about how do we take more data? We're now working with Facebook and Google on a bunch of really, really interesting stuff, and how do we just help you to be a better Omni channel brand? I think.Stephanie:What data then are you looking at to be a better omni-channel brand? What things are you tapping into that maybe you weren't able to a couple of years ago?Tomer:For us, with every new product that we add, there was a huge data injection. Just think about, let's take SMS and loyalty. It's so valuable that you have the two products under the same data platform that you can really for the first time send new SMS'es for just your loyal customers. Just your highest VIP tier, you want to send them an SMS because you know that SMS will convert the best because they are your most loyal customer. You can do that. I can tell you sending an SMS just saying, thank you, thank you, after someone referred a friend. You would be surprised how much that increased customer lifetime value. I always give our product team our ideal experience is let's say Stephanie, one store will start opening up again. Think about you going, buying at the store that you are one of the most loyal customers, buying a ThirdLove offline store once they'll have one, and then the second you walk out the door, you get an SMS, "Thank you for buying with us again. We really appreciate that."Tomer:How awesome is that? Who doesn't want to build that brand? I think from a data standpoint, the more products that we have, we really understand better the different segments of your customers, and make it easy for you to launch different campaigns. For us, SMS, for example, was a huge vision. That's something that we didn't have, a new execution layer. Loyalty was a huge addition. I think every product that we keep adding, we are learning much more on the brand. We're learning much more on the customers of the brand.Stephanie:I like that. It definitely seems there's a lot of room, especially for in-person retail experiences to complete that journey and to also be helpful as you walk into a store. But to a point where it doesn't get creepy where it's "I see you in the makeup aisle right now, and I would go with this one over that one," that's probably is taking it a little too far, but it still seems there's room for brands to interact more because I don't get many messages right now, and the ones that I do are very generic and not helpful. I sometimes wonder, why don't my, a customer service rep, take a picture and send it to me and be, Hope your day is going well." I think I would like something personal and funny like that, more than just come in and get 20% off today.Tomer:I can tell you what we're hearing now from brands is that they are sending so many generic SMS that they actually... an SMS is ... it's not a cheap channel. It's not like email. You need to actually pay for the message for the carrier. You really need to think carefully, “Okay, maybe for customers that gave me one star review, I need to ask a different SMS and send them, 'Hey, how can I change the experience? I'm sorry, what can we do?' versus customers that raved about the price, and maybe send them an SMS talking about a discount of customers that talk about the service, say send a picture of the customer service that helps them. That connectivity is I think what's really, really important.Stephanie:Yeah, I agree. Where do you see the world of UGC in general transforming to over the next couple of years?Tomer:I think UGC will definitely move towards a place that how do you take the content you're able to create, and leverage that in multiple places in your email marketing, in your SMS marketing, on your social ads, on Walmart, on Amazon, on Etsy, wherever you are as a brand, how you interact with consumers, that's where you need UGC to be at. I think that's super, super important. The second thing is that, what do you understand from that UGC? That's something that I feel that as a company, we are just at the tip of the iceberg. There's so much to be done there because these are the most important signals from your customers. That's something that we are very, very excited about. The question is, will there be a new form of UGC? Stories, voice.Tomer:There's a lot of things that we play around with in our hackathons to really trying to help pave the way of what's next in UGC. I can tell you it's very early, like videos actually for now for us now is a new format that's also been growing really, really quickly. Will there be a new format? That's also really, really interesting.Stephanie:How do you view influencers versus UGC? Because the way the market's headed right now, I wonder if the whole influencer scene will start to die off, because people will keep wanting more authentic interactions and relationships, and they want to buy from people that feel more like them. How do you see influencers playing out all that?Tomer:The influencer is another really interesting field. First of all, I think it depends. Again, it's not a one size fits all. It really depends on, what do you want to achieve with influencers? I think people understand today that just giving the Kardashian your product doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to increase sale. They can really, really help, and you can see Kylie cosmetic. But the top influencer was actually building their own brands because they understand that's where the vast majority of revenue is, and that's something we see a lot in. Now you see micro influencers. I think you probably need to do both, and different purposes. I think a UGC is more let's say the basics. You need to have social proof. For me, influencer it's more about another channel like paid.Tomer:Like a Google ads, you now have influencer ads, if you want to influence attacks, and it works, and you need to do it very, very well, but it's actually not related to UGC. UGC it's the foundation of your brand. You cannot do Google ads, you cannot do influencer ads without it. I think in general influencer is really interesting, but I also think that brands and influencer today, they see that in order for it to work, they need to be authentic. Stephanie:I completely agree. All right. The last question before we jump into the lightning round, do you integrate with awesome platforms like our sponsor, Salesforce Commerce Cloud?Tomer:Yes, definitely. We are a big partner of Salesforce Commerce Cloud. We're actually I think one of the fastest growing solution on Salesforce Commerce Cloud at the moment, and they've been great partners of ours. We have really amazing brands. We started with reviews, now with loyalty, SMS is coming in just a few weeks I think. Yes, definitely. I think it's one of the best platform for the enterprises that we see in the market.Stephanie:I completely agree with that. With that, let's jump into the lightning round, which is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I ask a question, and you have 30 seconds or less to answer. Are you ready Tomer?Tomer:Of course. I was born ready.Stephanie:If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about, and who would your first guest be?Tomer:What a great question. I think if I need to do a podcast, it will be just some great ecommerce stories, and I think just like one of the best people I know from the industry, his name is Scott Perry. He's now the leading everything related to ecommerce in Jerome, before that he was involved with furniture, he's just freaking awesome. He's just really, really awesome. The other one that I really, really love is actually Lauren from Shopify. He's another really awesome person to spend time. He basically found the Shopify plus.Stephanie:I like that. It might be a little competitive with our podcast. However, competition is healthy, so I'll accept it.Tomer:No, I think what you're doing by the way is super, super cool. It's really, really interesting, and anyone in ecommerce should ... these are exactly the type of content that people should be listened to, if you care about ecommerce.Stephanie:Thank you. I love that. Man, it's good thing I brought you on. What is the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?Tomer:The nicest thing that anyone ever done to me. I think definitely I'll say my wife. We have two young boys. She saw me in some really, really tough nights, and she was there to really help me pass through those tough nights. I would definitely give it to my wife.Stephanie:Shout out to your wife. I hope she listens to this. That's great.Tomer:Of course she will.Stephanie:Yeah, she will. What one thing do you not understand today that you wish you did?Tomer:I don't know. How do you get a crying baby to stop crying?Stephanie:I, after three boys, I still don't fully know that one. That's just a question that can't be answered.Stephanie:All right. The last one, what is the last ecommerce purchase you made that you're most excited about?Tomer:I'm actually super excited. I don't know if you can see my background, but I bought from a society six. It's one of our customers, and it's actually a great story to end with. I think I can share about the Yotpo culture. When we founded Yotpo, you know that how every startup is saying that they started at a basement and yada yada. Our office was a real basement, meaning it was an apartment building, you would go down, turn left. There was no lights, no nothing. Even for people that were willing to interview for two people start startup, we got some feedback that their office is too hardcore. We didn't have money for furniture, and we didn't know what to do. I stole for a different time. I had a bunch of Sesame street puppets at my apartment. So I brought them to the office and that started to be our vibes.Tomer:Then when we moved to a real office, we took them with us, and then when we started opening offices across the globe, people thought that they need to bring Sesame street stuff with them. Then when we moved to the home office in COVID, I said, "Okay, we need to bring Sesame street stuff." I bought from society six. We never forget where we coming from, where we came from. Sorry. I think that's maybe one of the things I'm most excited about, and I just bought ... Actually there's another one. Because I keep buying from our customers. That's my thing in life. I buy just from our customers. There's an Oura ring that helps you sleep better and analyze your sleep. I don't know if you're familiar with that.Stephanie:No. What's it called?Tomer:Oura ring. It's really, really ... I don't know if people can see, but it's-Stephanie:You can explain it to anyone who [inaudible].Tomer:It's a ring that basically tracks, with an app tracks, how you sleep, how you need to give you let's say guidance on how to better sleep. I'm super excited to test it. It just arrived today, and I'm going to test it. Excited about that.Stephanie:What things do you think it'll tell you? To sleep better, quarantine your kids off in a room where you can't hear them, or?Tomer:I wish. I wish someone would tell us that, yes, yes.Stephanie:You got that. Tell me how that works. That sounds awesome. Well, Tomer, thanks so much for joining the show. It's been a pleasure. Where can people find out more about you and Yotpo?Tomer:First of all, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure, and I think we in Yotpo are big fans of the podcast, by the way. We have a few episodes that we mentioned, it's actually a thing. You can just go to Yotpo if you want to meet personally. It's tomer@yotpo.com. It's nothing too special, and feel free to reach out.Stephanie:Amazing. Thanks so much.Tomer:Thank you for having me.

The world of ecommerce is constantly changing — this last year being a prime example. How people shop in 2021 is radically different from how they shopped in early 2020, so forget about thinking about comparing today’s world to a decade ago. Although that is fun to see how much has changed. Now, it’s all about keeping up with your customers, which is why for our first official roundtable episode of Up Next in Commerce we wanted to bring on two people who have been on the cutting edge of the industry for years. Ashima Sehgal is a Software Development Manager at Amazon Music and Jon Feldman, a Senior Marketing Leader for Salesforce Commerce Cloud. These two go way back to their days working together on ecommerce implementation at Restoration Hardware, which was a journey in and of itself, and while they remain close friends, they sit on the opposite side of the fence when it comes to certain aspects of the future of ecommerce. We get into all of it in this episode, including discussing whether shopping at the edge is the future of the industry or just a passing fad, and how to get buy-in when selling a new implementation. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did!Main Takeaways:Make It Easy: When pitching or selling an implementation, the key is to tell the right story and make it hard for the business to say no. Highlight the pain points that their business is facing, and play up how you will solve those problems from beginning to end and be a great partner throughout the process. But one thing to remember, don’t try to tackle everything from the start and be upfront about what is prioritized and what is put on the backburner. Edgy Opinions: There is a lot of debate on the future of shopping at the edge and whether or not it is a fad. Regardless of whether it sticks, businesses should be harnessing the power of meeting customers where they are and selling to them in those places, but the base ecommerce platform should not have to suffer as a result of those efforts. It’s All A Simulation: In the last year especially, there has been a lot of talk about the death of retail and the rise of an ecommerce-only economy. That is a myth. While 2020 and early 2021 undeniably changed the way people shopped, it was more of a blip in the timeline and not a true indicator of the future, which will more likely be a blend of in-person and online experiences.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 to Up Next In Commerce. I'm your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO at Mission.org. Today's episode is going to be a really fun one. It's our very first official Roundtable and we have the two perfect guests joining us. First up, we have Ashima Seghal, the software development manager for Amazon and Jon Feldman, a senior manager of Product Marketing at Salesforce. Ashima, Jon, how's it going?Ashima:AwesomeJon:How's it going? Stephanie:Good. I'm glad to have you here. So I heard you guys have a little background, you've worked together in the past and I wanted to start there so people can know your relationship, like how do you all know each other? And maybe, Ashima, I'll let you start with that.Ashima:Yeah, I feel like Jon and I have worked together forever now. 2008, I moved to the U.S. and I met Jon, the first company I joined. It was a consulting shop, we work together to help people build their ecommerce websites and features on it. And, he's mentored me through that period to help me understand better where my interest lies. And he's also helped me grow my management skills and given me opportunities as he grew in the ladder in those organizations, I saw some opportunities come my way as well. And then, we worked together recently in Restoration Hardware. As a director of engineering, he and I worked together in terms of prioritization of what should be done when and working closely with the business, in terms of understanding how to get to the customer, how to go get features quickly to market and so on and so forth. So, a lot of history there to explore.Stephanie:And that really talked Jon up. So Jon, is that your recollection as well?Jon:No doubt.Stephanie:And what was your favorite project that you all worked on together?Jon:My success in ecommerce is deeply intertwined with working with Ashima. I mean, we worked very closely, both at Access Group where we did a zillion implementations. And then, when we went to Restoration Hardware, we had a really beautiful relationship and so far, I had the crazy ideas and she had the practical skills to do those. And so, it worked really symbiotically. So I feel like we've seen a lot of stuff and built the systems so yeah, really delighted to be sharing this.Ashima:Yeah. One funny story, I can tell you was we work for Falabella in Chile, and it was a Spanish speaking Morgan, I didn't understand as much Spanish so I would speak my English louder thinking they would understand me and Jon would be like, why are you yelling at them? I'm like, I'm not yelling at them. They just don't understand me. I'm trying. So, that was some happy moments.Jon:I remember that. That's wonderful. That was back at the building of [inaudible] or whatever.Ashima:Exactly.Stephanie:My gosh, that's awesome. And Restoration Hardware, that seems like a really good company to work on, especially from an ecommerce perspective, because when I was looking through articles and whatnot, it was talking about how they were resisting moving to ecommerce for a while. So, were you guys working there when that was still undergoing, when they didn't really want to make that move or were you already past that hurdle, and already ready to start implementing things?Ashima:I can go first and then, Jon can add to that. But if Restoration Hardware wants, they don't want anything to do with digital, they would close their eyes and close that shop today. The reality for them is they want to be beautiful. They want customers to come and touch them and feel them. They want people to experience it and then, love it. And digital is a hindrance to that because digital is very removed. It's away from the customer, however beautiful an image you put on digital, the fabric is something you can't feel and that's what they're selling. They want you to experience it. Then, going into building restaurants in their business than going into hotels half that is an extension of that. But we were more of an idea shop. We were enablers for them, not that loved and given as much money but still help them run 90% of their business through auto management and so on. So, we were critical to their success, but didn't get as much love I would say. Jon?Jon:No, I totally echo that. I think that Restoration Hardware is at its core, a luxury business and they want that luxury, in person experience. And it's really interesting because it was fascinating to be there during a time when there was all this transition to digital and everybody's like, well of course you need these nine things and to have like a real hard no, the experience is fairly impersonal and manual. I think it was really frustrating at the time. But it's really impacted my thinking since that I challenged the ease shopping at the edge. It's definitely something we're seeing. There's huge growth in it, right? It's a big area, certainly, Salesforce can't stop talking about it. But, from a Restoration Hardware standpoint, it's growth, but is that the growth that's important for my brand, which really affected how I evaluate some of that stuff.Ashima:Right. Another important thing is that we were always asked to do one day in their store, and Jon did it and we did it like all of us employees did it. And it was fascinating, because you could see why that was important. You could see that they wanted customers to come every day, look at a cushion and buy that and keep the relationship going. That is what they thought the bread and butter was. I met this lady who comes in every two, three months and buys a new big thing for her house. She has lots of money.Ashima:And that's the 1% that they're targeting. And that's what's running their business. They don't care about the 99%. They don't want to be digital, because they don't want to be for the masses. They know who their customer is. And that's what I learned in Restoration Hardware, that they were so aware of who their customer was and they were very successful. Look at the stock price now, right? That's part because they understand their customer. And we were just like I said, enablers. So, we were a step removed from that painting and so embedded in engineering, but if you talk about business, they were geniuses, I would say.Jon:Yeah, no doubt. Gary, he has built an unbelievable business. Restoration Hardware was a very difficult place to be in IT but it is an unbelievable business.Stephanie:Were there any big projects that you remember that you felt really strongly about? You're like this could go through and you just got like, Nope, sorry. We are not doing that.Ashima:Many of those.Stephanie:Maybe your favorite memory?Ashima:Yeah, we brought in so many different awesome implementation options for [mobile] and people just didn't buy it. It's like my cat who knows I'm here but pretends I'm not here. It's like that. Restoration Hardware acknowledges mobile is important but just does not want to invest in our mobile experience. I still say our because I feel like I'm connected to the brand but it is still sucky. Right? So I feel like mobile was the big, big one and why it's painful is because we brought in so many different ways of getting it in, like let's do it incrementally. Let's get one page there. Let's just get on iOS like, no.Jon:One of the strongest members I have is one of the chief merchandising officers who I want to be really clear is a lovely person, I follow her on Instagram, we're still buddies, is super brave but sitting at one of those tables in the center of innovation and whatever it's like it's the big show building and Restoration Hardware is really designed, if you're a vendor to be like, yo, this is the place, holding up herself and being like, who's going to buy a couch on this? Right? And I was like, man, we got a long way to go. Technology is not the place these guys are hanging out so-Ashima:Right.Jon:Man. So, before I get into... I want to dive deep into implementation because I know you both had background in that. But before that, I would love it if Ashima, you can explain maybe your current role at Amazon and then, Jon will go over to you just so everyone knows who we're talking to.Ashima:Yeah. Like I said, I'm software development manager there. I manage teams that run the front page of music app. So my team is a full stack team, which translates into iOS, Android web engineers, as well as Silverstack engineers who come together to build features for browsing, how customers discover music more easily, and highlight the personalization capabilities that we have under the hood and make it more obvious for customer experience improvement.Stephanie:Pretty cool. All right and Jon.Jon:That's awesome, probably the highest performing team at Amazon Music, I assume.Stephanie:I would think so too.Jon:[crosstalk] Ashima took the technology path after leaving Restoration Hardware and I was like, I can't do another project or I'll be dead. So I went into marketing and now, I do event content and I do all the flashy video stuff for Salesforce. It's a ton of fun. Ashima, your worst nightmare, I am paid for thought leadership. People pay to listen to the crazy stuff I say.Stephanie:I do want to dive into the implementation piece. I want to hear a bit about, we haven't actually dove that deep into that side of things on the podcast. Usually, I have brands on big and small, but we don't go into the weeds there and because you both have seen a lot of implementations in your career, I was hoping you can go through what makes a successful ecommerce implementation, like what does that look like, any case studies, I want to know how someone can make sure to put their best foot forward when thinking about that?Ashima:Yeah, in my experience, the best way to sell an implementation to a business stakeholder is to highlight their top three pain points, what is it that you're struggling with the most like in case of Restoration Hardware, or even my current company, we would ask them, what are the features you wanted to get in in 2019 and still haven't been able to get out of the door? And how can we increase velocity? Velocity is a word business loves. They want their things out the door, in front of the customers as soon as possible. That's one. Two, I feel really strongly about instrumentation and collecting metrics. If you don't know where your customer is and how they're using your site and what they're thinking as they're using your site, it just is pointless in many ways, because you can't make progress in any specific area, if you don't know how well or bad it's doing.Ashima:So those two avenues of velocity and instrumentation connect with business a lot. And then, also giving our business a sense that we're not boiling the ocean, we're going to go slow, start at point A and take you through to point B and won't abandon you midway and here's how it's going to go and give them an early peek into what an implementation would look like, is again, something that just strikes under with business and I feel like they understand our side of the problem.Stephanie:Okay.Jon:I couldn't agree more with agreeing on a language from an IT standpoint with the business and how you can evaluate the success of it. So ahead of time, you know that the business values this and IT values this and is the project to achieving that yes or no, rather than some... because the worst situation is where people start pulling metrics that no one's ever measured out of the air. And it's like, in the last week, our average card size is down 82 cents, you can chase that rabbit pretty deep.Stephanie:I was just going to ask that about metrics. It seems like at least back in my Google days, everyone was always operating in different metrics. I worked with product teams and [inaudible] teams and they didn't really see eye to eye with what was important. So, how would you present that to leadership in a way that connects with everyone who's your manager or manager's manager, and not just presenting business metrics that don't make sense to an engineering team who's like, well, wait, this is actually the bigger infrastructure problem while business is like, but what about my average order size? How do you think about that good balance without overwhelming them with hundreds of metrics?Ashima:Right. I feel like I agree with Jon that metrics and exclusivity don't make sense but if you connect the funnel that, here's where the customer started, we can see that we have so much value in this detail page and this is the button they're clicking the most. And if I improve this experience and reduce the number of clicks, it's going to get us this much left in the final revenue number. I feel like starting and ending, creating a story out of it has the best impact.Ashima:If you throw out a caught value number from the middle, maybe that won't resonate as much but creating a story, creating here's where we start, here's where we see most value. And this is where it's going to end, might have a better-Jon:No, totally. And I can think of two reasons why that's important. One is that it provides a north star for the project as it's going. These projects are multi month projects with different stakeholders and a lot of movement in them. And so being able to touch back to here are the use cases that we all agreed on that we're doing I think, is really critical. The other is it's interesting because it's table stakes to the level you're talking about is to have a broad agreement with the business and IT about what it is you're building full stop and while you're building it. I can think of implementation we did in Emeryville, which was, super lovely people but they were ultimately trying to save the business by replacing their ecommerce engine and as the business degraded, the energy around like we're going to get this new site out and all of a sudden the boat's going to float again. It just doesn't bear out that way. If you don't know why you're building and how that's building your business, technology alone is not going to do it. [AD READ]Stephanie:Yeah. And I love the idea to around having to have a story for it. I don't think I've heard of many, especially, engineering managers speak that language before, which I think is awesome. But I mean, we talk about that in our company all the time about, every podcast needs to be told and the hero's journey type format, even our show notes, everything needs to be told in the story, it needs to open up loops. I'd be interested to hear how you structure that to connect with other people. How do you think about building a story in a way that's going to sell leadership and excite them for something that they might not be able to see like the changes that are happening after a year or so?Ashima:Yeah, and I might be preaching to the choir. You guys are much better than me in this business but I feel like you have to know your audience. If you're going into a VP discussion, your story is going to be totally different and if I'm selling it to my senior manager, he's going to look for what is my [inaudible] AWS. What story are you telling? So knowing your audience, and creating the story based on it is super important. We pay a lot of attention to documentation and story writing. That is why all engineering managers are, well, could have been all of them, rounded part of just knowing what will resonate with that particular team member is super important so that you can bring out just those facts in that conversation and sell that specific point. Jon, I don't know if you have any-Jon:In marketing, we call those personas.Ashima:Personas.Stephanie:Tell me one more thing, Jon, how do we approach that?Jon:How do we approach aligning the stories with a persona? Yeah, I totally agree with Ashima, you have to know your audience, you have to really be able to know what the people want... like any big project like this, it's only going to be successful when it's a mutual success. So understanding how you can talk to somebody and say, we're going to do this and it's going to help you this way, and we're going to need your involvement this way, right? Knowing how to have those conversations is the way to, I think, introduce people to these big projects and get them excited about it. But then, also really being focused on, here are the problems that this project solves for you, constituent of this project, because if people don't have any skin in the game and there's no clear connection between their participation and some better outcome, they're not going to want to do it.Jon:A lot of it is people have some sort of vision, we came in at the point where people already had a vision that they were going to do something at the ecommerce thing and we filled in the blanks of here's what your store would actually look like and here's how your use cases actually match into a finished product. And so, I think she's really right, that you really have to know what the people who are consuming the information about the project need to hear to feel great about it to feel like it's a solution to their problems.Ashima:The other important thing to remember is the the reviews that go well are the ones where you're not tackling 10 problems. I feel like you should look at your story again and find the two problems that you're trying to solve, don't talk about 20, 10. The ones that are successful are the ones that are saying, here are my two problems, working backwards from it, here's where we need to start and here are the big milestones we're going to touch as we work towards it. So working backwards, shortening your storyline to one to two problems that you will solve and never say you will solve everything because you will never be solving everything. There's just too many things that you could fix.Ashima:As an engineer, I could find 1001 things to fix on a particular implementation, on a system. But are you trying to save cost? If cost is your end goal, your story should be just focused on cost. If getting customers specific feature is your goal, that's what you should be focusing on. If you try to do too many things, the audience gets confused. And then, you don't get consensus with it. Because they're like you're asking too much of me. I can't make all these decisions today. So, you don't get good outcomes of this conversation.Jon:Totally. I think that that's a really good insight all the way around when you do an engineering project because it's... particularly one of the sides, right? You live and die on the success of it. And in a very real way, it sucks but a lot of it is also politics and the visioning or how the perception of your project is in the company, and projects that are incrementally spinning off benefits, even if they're not huge, but reliably doing it in my experience, get a lot more love and attention than the, there's going to be this unbelievable bang on Thursday and everything's going to change, right?Jon:Those big bang projects, I think, can be very traumatic for everybody involved. And so, I think the idea that you start with something that works, and then build on top of that, rather than, I got to get all 10 of these perfect at the same time, it's a much harder climb.Ashima:Yeah. The last thing I would say about this is, be honest and upfront about what the trade offs are because you're not going to make everybody happy out of an implementation. Never have I seen that in my career making everybody happy.Jon:Of course.Ashima:So, the prioritization is key to success, like I was saying, picking through problems and solving them. But even within that, you're not going to be able to fix everything, right? If you set the right expectation as a consultant, as an STM or whoever you are in that meeting, and say, this is what I'm going to be able to do in this timeline. And, this is what I'm not going to be able to deliver up front, that might make you lose some customers, but you'll probably gain more customers out of that and I feel like that's a more honest conversation, you earn trust.Stephanie:Yeah, I was thinking-Jon:Yeah, total radical transparency, being upfront. We had a mentor Ashima and I, who would say, hold your client's feet to the fire. Every time he'll be like, are you holding their feet to the fire? And that idea that all of these are partnerships and that a strong vendor relationship is not a vendor who is complacent and like, I'll do whatever you want but is actually holding your feet to the fire and being like, if you don't do these two things, these outcomes are going to happen. And I'm not going to be injured the same way you are, but you got to get on it.Stephanie:Now I know where you got that line from Jon, you pulled that on me last week.Jon:Some inside baseball, Stephanie is outstanding at holding her clients feet to the fire. It's really great, because long ago, I learned that people in business negotiations very rarely say stuff, just to say it, right? There's always something that happens. And I was like, this is the third time I've heard this. It's consistent every time.Stephanie:Yeah. So how has the landscape changed when it comes to maybe either re-platforming or moving to digital for the first time? What were the maybe the two to three biggest problems that were being solved back when you were at Restoration Hardware or before then to now where before maybe people were focused on costs or just simple things? What's the focus now that people are trying to achieve when going through any kind of digital transformation or re-platforming? What are they looking for now?Ashima:I feel like business and engineering are looking for different goals. Engineering is looking to break down the architecture. When Jon and I did initial projects, most of the systems were monolithic. And there was this one giant deployment doing everything and when it broke, everybody cried. We've moved on from that world into the new brave world of Azure and AWS, and every other small or big company trying to get into the buzzword cloud but what that really means is that the implementation goal from engineering side has changed. We've felt more empowered to make small changes. I don't want to boil the ocean. I don't want to switch all of my implementation but I'm going to change this part of this page and just live with it and then, see how it goes.Ashima:And that's a big empowerment factor because then, I'm not stressed about changing everything at once. Right? I can go make micro changes. From business point of view, I feel like the challenge is about understanding younger customers and that's a totally different challenge from engineering because you have to run more user surveys. When we were doing implementations, I barely saw anybody doing user surveys, and coming back to me with a product doc saying, here's what I found. This is what people want, and it's going to be awesome. It was like, I have some intuition. I want to implement incrementality and this is what we should try and do and we'll see what happens. I feel like business is smarter now. I see many more people doing user research, user deep dives, experience deep dives ahead of time to know why they're building something, what would resonate, how do I get that 12 year old into my service so they will stay with us until 40 and I have a continuous revenue stream. So, I feel like the business landscape is changing from that point of view. Jon?Jon:Yeah, it's really interesting that you say that. It reminds me of a million years ago, like 2000, 2001. I was at ATG, which became Oracle commerce. And we were at some crazy Swedish auction bidding site and in Stockholm, I remember the CTO comes in and he's like, are there any features of ATG we haven't turned on yet because we should turn them on and I was like, that's bananas. And so, I think that initial like, I just need to be online. I don't really care what it is because I just need to hold the hill like just to physically be there I think is less important than to Ashima's point. There's a lot more intentionality about like, I want to produce this experience for my customers, and it's tied into a larger journey rather than like, if I'm not selling online.Jon:Although, actually, you said two things I was really interested and the first is that, just to say it out loud, right? At Salesforce, it's not a monolithic, kind of is monolith, right? Like we have micro services or APIs but it's all behind the curtain. It's not pure micro services in the way that someone else would but provides it all API stuff. I hear what you're saying about engineering teams having more ability to make small changes and being able to just get in and do stuff, because stuff is more easily manipulated, because there are more places, I don't know, from access. But, I think that also comes with a lot more ownership. I mean, you need an engineering team that's capable of doing those things, or more maintenance in that scenario.Ashima:Yeah, absolutely. You can't microservice the heck out of the system. You have to be intentional about it. But I feel like in the last five years, our overall engineering pool of people have learned this and it's no longer an anomaly. More people are doing this, it doesn't matter what language you're using, you could be on C, C++, or you could be on Golang. I feel like there's lots of people who have experienced it, learnt it. The bigger companies are now doing it, the Walmarts are all microservice based so we're no longer in the world where people were just experimenting with this and created hundreds of them. I feel like we're more intentional now, we've learned from our experiences.Ashima:The pool of engineers we have now are more experienced. This is not a new thing for them so, I feel like I have seen... maturity is the word I was looking for, that people are becoming mature in their implementation and more intentional about it. It's no longer monkeying with this new concept like-Jon:No, totally. Not only their robust skills in the marketplace, but their design patterns as well that people can fall back on. It's not like I'm now writing the very first of these ever on the internet.Ashima:Right.Jon:Awesome. That's really interesting. I've already answered the question.Ashima:The other thing I would mention from business side, which I really appreciate is people are trying to do one thing and one thing really well. You could go to the play shoe store, and you see kids shoes, they do that awesome. I love those shoes or the furniture I recently bought. These companies who are doing small things less inventory, trying to make the business profitable but doing those really, really well. I feel like that's a huge switch from ecommerce that Jon and I are used to where I am this shop that is going to sell everything under the sun and tell me how to sell it and that was hard because every product is different and categorization is different. The search has complexity and those were really hard problems that we were solving. I feel like businesses are becoming smarter in deciding where they're good at and what they should be doing.Stephanie:Yeah. [crosstalk]Jon:Shopping at the edge is this big idea, right? That all of a sudden, you can't keep people within your website, that all of a sudden, those four walls of your website are gone and now people are going to be shopping in marketplaces or on Amazon Music or at the Hertz checkout thing, or you're renting your car, you can buy whatever, right? And I think it's a compelling idea and I think it really speaks, Ashima, to what you're talking about in terms of little engineering things to make it easier. Like all of a sudden, you're like, now I can really easily ingest orders from the Hertz kiosk. It's not a big lift to do something like that.Jon:And we're seeing crazy growth and I think it speaks a lot to that engineering crowd into the marketing idea that you'll have a lot of control agility to be able to do this stuff. So I mean, as a Salesforce employee legitimately, it is something that we're investing in making happening, but I don't know, it'll be interesting to see how brands navigate it. Because certainly, it's a different model than I'm used to putting on the internet, certainly different than I'm used to using personally, but then, Ashima's point was like, kids today, right? Stephanie:I was going to say exactly what you just said, Ashima about how now, it used to be kind of chaotic, because businesses were trying to do everything. But now to think about, it seems like businesses have to be everywhere to sell, consumers want to shop everywhere. I mean, I know Jon mentioned shopping on the edge, that term which we've brought up a few times in the show and I want to hear how you guys think about that. Because I talked to quite a few brands who say that consumers are on TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, they're over a walmart.com, they're on Amazon, how do we keep up? We need to be selling everywhere quickly. And maybe Jon, I'll let you start because I know you have a strong opinion that maybe doesn't go well with what Ashima thinks?Jon:I think Ashima and I naturally falls in different sides of this. I think in addition to brands now not necessarily needing to have a gigantic... you can have a very focused set of skus that are easy to merchandise and understand. You also don't need to own all the software and stuff that you once did. It's much easier for a brand to be like, I'm going to exist to sell beanies. They're going be the greatest beanies in the world and assemble, it's the software stack for the brand stack, getting back to that, assemble the software in a way that, frankly, a physical brand that has a lot of legacy stuff is going to have a much harder time following you along. Ashima:I'm not opposed, or I don't think it's something that's not happening, it is happening. Shopping on the edge is happening. My point is that, as an engineer, as an engineering team, it doesn't preclude me from building a strong ecommerce site that's going to be my core platform. I still have to do everything in my power to make that as a strong space, that it can be stable enough to take regular orders. So the engineering effort to chase 50 different places is hard. But I feel like all teams probably first need to focus on making their core platform strong, right? It has to be.Ashima:And the second point I would make is only small... only X5 of your customers are coming from the edge shopping and that is why it's harder to understand exactly how to show your features and what will work for them and that's where my point about user case studies might work. But the bigger bulk of customers still going to come back into your site to explore other things that you have. So if you have X number of dollars, where would you get the most value out of them? Would it be just a shiny poster on Instagram, and bringing them back to your site or putting in your engineering dollars and making that one click work from Instagram? So that's where I struggle what would give you the best bang for your buck? Jon.Jon:Yeah, no, it's, I think, a great point, right? When you're talking, I'm like, man, I definitely want that core platform that's like robust and could do anything.Ashima:Yeah.Jon:I think what you're saying about user stories is ultimately the right answer, though, because when we think about core platform, I think you and I, Ashima, generally, we think about big robust servers sitting in a box somewhere, able to handle any trade, but that's not what every brand's priority is particularly something you want so-Ashima:Yeah.Stephanie:Yeah. Essentially say, they didn't even know they needed a website. They were just like, if you... I am trying to think, who we had on who is... a more recent episode where they're like, well, if we're selling on Instagram or Facebook or wherever it may be, no, it was a bot within Facebook Messenger. And you go on there, it's a personalized bot and then, they can say, this shirt would fit you perfectly and you can buy within Facebook Messenger. And she was making the point of like, why would you even need a website, if you can sell within Messengers or through Dms which is where the world is moving right now? Who cares what your website looks like [crosstalk]Jon:I guess, right back to this Ashima's point about user stories, right? Which is that ultimately, it doesn't matter if you have... pure in the server box of ecommerce definition, if your users are all on TikTok and they're going to buy through some crazy thing, you'd be bananas to invest in the giant server solution or in a traditional ecommerce solution. You want something that can flexibly follow wherever your customers are and knowing that if you don't own the store they're in, that they're probably going to move around a lot, right? It's not going to be TikTok forever. And so, you need the ability to service that.Ashima:Yeah, I feel like I'm a little bit biased being in Amazon, just the pink hat makes me think that I'm not just selling to TikTok customers, I'm thinking big. I have my customers everywhere. So it might be that for your brand, that might work. But for the [inaudible] of the world, they have to have strong presence on their own platform, and TikTok might help. I recently made a big purchase of couches I bought from article.com and I didn't do the shopping on the edge but what was super helpful was to look at Instagram photos of people using that furniture in their house and how it's set up.Ashima:It enabled me to buy it. So again, I was thinking one of the investment people are making is an AI and augmented reality and so on and I don't know if it's worth it because you the Warby Parkers of the world which are sending you the thing at home or the Instagram approach where you're showing people how your product looks in someone else's home. I feel like that's so much more effective to me as a customer that, making this guess of where my dollars should be spent is a hard problem. And I just am not fully convinced that shopping at the edge should be your end goal if you're a big hump.Jon:No, I think even in the most robust Salesforce marketing, we're definitely not suggesting, turn off your channels, shopping at the edge is the only way. 104% [crosstalk]. don't even need it anymore. it's going to be really interesting Ashima because my kids have Amazon accounts, I think. I don't think they've ever bought anything but turns out, all this management of your kids accounts trying to keep them affiliated like Apple , not doing a great job, Amazon, not doing a great job. Anyway, that's not where they go to shop for stuff. It's all social. I'm like, I need a cable, I go immediately to Amazon. They will not do that.Ashima:That's a really great point because I feel like there's a generational gap that I am starting to understand better as my kids are growing up, living my life through them a little bit and that's a great educational experience for all of us learning, how are people adapting to these new things? What are they connecting with? What are they not connecting with? And so on and so forth. My kids don't even read books, it's all audible. I'm like, I'm going to listen to story that I pick so the life is very different than... why I call shopping at the edge, a fad is it's working really well for this generation but for how many years? The next thing is going to replace it is my opinion and that's why having a core strong platform will get you over this hump into the next one.Stephanie:What do you think could be the next thing now? It's piqued my interest of like, what do you see coming after shopping at the edge just dies? No one does that anymore. What are they going to be doing next then?Ashima:You know-Ashima:I have started to see people use Airbnb experiences and Amazon explorer experiences a lot. Just yesterday, a friend of mine said they've gifted their friend or their wife a Valentine's gift of our tour in [inaudible] somewhere in Korea. I'm not saying name right.Jon:Korea?Ashima:It was awesome. Yeah, it was awesome. Lik this person walked through the markets, who then, they could show them the product. It was a very personalized tour so, I thought that's like the next big thing. And even an ecommerce opportunity like if you're buying from here in a shop in Korea and they can ship it to you.How unique is that? I think there's lots of potential and then, doing online experiences. I'm going to do a cooking class with you and then, I'm going to buy all of these pots and pans and ice from you because it looks awesome. I feel like that could be the next big thing.Jon:No doubt because we've got this live shopping demo that we do which is that it's like we have... it's funny because I thought of you when I narrated. I was like Ashima is going to be like this is never going to happen but it's that, there's an Influencer, you can buy stuff on the side so it's interesting to hear the facts.Stephanie:I think that's the way to go. Yeah, I mean, I think about we had someone saying that they... Andrew from Ideoclick, he teaches or does something with Harvard Business School on ecommerce and stuff. And, she was mentioning they had an influencer from China come in and show what shopping looks like and what her fans do and it was within three minutes, she'd racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales of a Harvard sticker. And they're like, that's power.Jon:Totally.Stephanie:It was new to me. I mean, I get it. I buy shirts and clothes and all this stuff on Instagram just by seeing people I follow I'm like, they remind me of myself and that shirt's cute. So I guess maybe not top level.Ashima:Yeah. Well, I use Airbnb a lot. We go out a lot and one of the things that I really enjoy is that something that that person is using in their house, I sometimes come back and buy it because I've experienced it. I've worked with it for two, three days and I loved it and I'm like, I should have this fixture or I should have this knife or I should have this other thing that I've experienced now, lived with it and I feel like that's such an awesome way to promote product, where you can touch and feel it and experience at no extra cost, but then, also buy it if you really like it. So, if Airbnb uses it, they should give me some money. But-Stephanie:We've got affiliate Airbnb, come on.Jon:Right? I think you're really, right and I also think about Twitch because I do some deejaying stuff so I am on Twitch a lot and there's not only crosssection between product buying but also, in terms of rewarding the influencer directly with cash, that your experience where you're like, this is great. I love being here and they're also selling stuff.Stephanie:How are you guys thinking of retail then, you talked about touching, feeling things and experiencing that, obviously, retail hasn't been at the profile lately. How are you guys thinking about that?Jon:That's why all these predictions, they are really a little tricky because this physical digital thing is all screwed up, well, not screwed up but vastly affected by the pandemic and that's incredibly changed everybody shopping habits. I mean, I bought stuff online, I never buy again and so, if I'm really honest, I am not sure the Twitch DJ stream outlives clubs opening. I'll talk about how Twitch is going to change the world and it's all great but I don't know if people are going to hang out online all day if they can go out once a week.Stephanie:Yeah. [inaudible] I am ready to get out.Jon:Yeah. Like everybody-Stephanie:[crosstalk].Ashima:Absolutely.Jon:For me, in person is going to be a big trouble. The camera's not going to get it done anymore.Ashima:Yeah. I feel like this is a blip, I feel like retail and in person shopping is going to come back with vengeance once things open up, we all get vaccinated and be safe. I generally think this is a blip. I feel like retail's going nowhere. It's going to be back. Restoration Hardware is all ready for it, I'm sure.Jon:[crosstalk] Do you think that they'll shift...yeah, totally. Do you think it'll shift the market place, right because I agree, I think we are going back to in person something but the Best Buy down the street has evolved so many times. During the pandemic, they were a fulfillment center then, they were a store , then, they were like outside only and now... I just don't know that it makes sense for Best Buy to have that big retail store and not have a [inaudible]. I agree they'll come back but, I don't know if it's going to be the same.Ashima:Yeah. With Fry's stores closing last week which was a sad event in my household. My husband loves Fry's.Jon:That was really sad. Bad day.Ashima:Yeah. You are absolutely, right that it's going to look different. It's going to be more personalized as, I think, we discussed before, it will look different. There's also going to be a disparity, the big guys are going to have money, they're going to come back the same way, the Targets, the Walmarts, they are going to be the same. The little guy or the medium guy has to make some sense of what will get them through this hump and keep them going. I don't see a [inaudible] store coming up near me, even if they were planning to, I think those plans will be delayed but I feel like some of it is going to back the same way it was, earlier.Stephanie:Yeah. The one thing we keep hearing is more about curation when it comes to stores, that people want to go there for an experience, you go to a pottery ban, you go to West Elm, whatever it maybe and you're lik, this is my space, this is my style, I come here because I don't want to think but then, I also think about me and I'm like, I go to a T.J.Maxx and it's just, all over the place and I thrive there. I'm like, this is my spot. Find something fun and I don't know what to expect so, I think it just depends on the shopper.Ashima:I love that comment because it's very hard to create emotions online. Pe`ople don't have the patience of going through things and things online. This feeling of hunting and finding gold in that aisle, that's going to stay with us, again, there's a demographic that loves it and that demographic is waiting for being vaccinated to get out there.Jon:And you think that digital needle in haystack experience doesn't exist in the same way it does, I mean, like T.J.Maxx, I found this unbelievable bargain.Ashima:It does in some cases, where you guys talk about Instagram and finding something you didn't even know existed. Sure, it does but not in the same way. Finding the $5 t-shirt that you didn't know exist in T.J.Maxx is like, that's new.Stephanie:It's my day. Walking out of T.J.Maxx store snapping, maybe Jon, he looks very confused about our conversation.Ashima:Yeah.Jon:No, it's cool. There's a Ross up here. I know what's up.Stephanie:Ross-Jon:Ross is like the... you could get, Ross is a second store, right? It's just lost inventory so anything can be there.Stephanie:Extra lost. No one goes in and doesn't get lost. All right. Well, Ashima and Jon, this has been an amazing round table. So fun having you guys on. We definitely have to do it again, where can people maybe find out more about your work. Ashima, we'll start with you. Where can people find more about you?Ashima:You can find me on LinkedIn, a lot about me, things I write or things that are relevant to me so LinkedIn is the right place.Stephanie:LinkedIn. All right. Jon, what about you? Where can people find out more about your work?Jon:Yeah, totally. LinkedIn is a good place or just search for Salesforce and my name. I write a lot of Salesforce stuff, number one blog ever. Number one performing blog.Stephanie:Yup and you have an amazing stay conversation for it. Everyone should check it out, methodical trans in there. We've referenced it a few times in our newsletter and it is very helpful for anyone who's either trying to start an ecommerce shop or trying to transform into a big brand. So, thank you guys so much for doing this show and we will see you next time.Ashima:Thank you very muchJon:Thank you.Ashima:Take care, Stephanie.

By now we’ve all heard about the thousands of businesses that pivoted to ecommerce in the wake of the pandemic last year. What we haven’t heard as much are the lessons both companies and consumers have learned in the process.On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, I was excited to dive into those lessons and more with Israel “Iz” Moreira, the co-CEO of Doughp, a company that sells edible (and delicious) cookie dough. Prior to 2020, Doughp relied heavily on its brick-and-mortar stores and the foot traffic they delivered. But Iz saw potential in expanding the company through ecommerce channels, and, luckily, laid the groundwork for the infrastructure for that pivot even before COVID-19 forced Doughp to shutter its retail doors. With a now fully-online company, Doughp has started to centralize and increase its shipping capabilities and has seen success, but it wasn’t a cake (or should I say, cookie dough) walk. Iz explains some of the hardships Doughp faced on its journey to ecommerce success, including how little information-sharing there still is in the business world when it comes to cold shipping. Plus he dives into the recent revelations he’s discovered about whether free shipping actually matters as much as you think it does. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Secrets Are No Fun: Multiple players in the ecommerce space have reported struggles in optimizing the logistics of cold shipping. Some have figured it out on their own, while others have known the answers all along and have been keeping them close to the vest. Competitive advantages are still alive and well in the business world, so the level of information sharing when it comes to cold storage is still quite low in order for places like grocery stores and meal preppers to maintain their edge.Lead With Mission: Depending on your industry, you should be thinking about how to best reach customers in a differentiated way. Testing is required to find the right strategy, so don’t be afraid to experiment with personalization and messaging. And if you are in a more commoditized industry, finding that one thing that separates you from the rest of the pack is going to be the difference between a customer choosing you or not.Does Free Shipping Matter?: While 2020 was a struggle for most, there were some bright sides, including the education of consumers on the world of shipping and logistics. As more consumers became educated on the hardships businesses face when it comes to shipping and handling, the customers have become more willing to pay for shipping.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, your number one spot for all things ecommerce. This is your host Stephanie Postles, CEO at Mission.org. Today, I'm chatting with Israel Moreira AKA Is. Welcome to the show.Israel:Hey, thank you for having me, Stephanie. Nice to be here.Stephanie:I'm really excited to have you on here. I'm excited to have a company on here called Doughp, which I've said now multiple times, "Why was I not innovative enough to create a company called Doughp?"Israel:Yeah, I have to give full credit to Kelsey though. She was the marketing brain behind this brand. So, it's really interesting. Coming from Brazil, Doughp was not part of my English skill. So, when I first heard it, I was like, "Wait, what is this?" And then it makes sense.Stephanie:So, maybe let's start there before we dive into what Doughp is and your role there. Tell me a bit about coming from Brazil. When did you come over to the US? Why? What was that process like?Israel:Yeah, for sure. So, I have a civil engineering background. I went to school for civil engineering, started working in construction in about 2010, 2011, some time ago, and eventually became a project manager for a construction firm in Brazil. I loved working in construction per se, because of all the changes and all the new stuff going on around. Being a project manager is really relevant in any industry. You can just transfer that skill set across multiple industries. So, I love doing that, but living in Brazil was not something that fulfill me per se. I would say, safety in Brazil, public education, public health, everything you hear in the news here about third world countries, most of it is true.Israel:So, being raised there, my parents always told me like, "Oh, if you ever have an opportunity to leave and study abroad, just go do it. All the other countries out there, they're way better for you to have a better career." So, I had that mindset built into me in my upbringing. Israel:So, in 2015, I decided to make the change. I did a backpacking trip to the United States and Canada, because I wanted to be in an English speaking country. English was always my second language. So, I was like, "Well, I've got to go during the winter and find out if I can withstand the winter and the place that I'm going," because the summer is fine, right? I was born and raised under the sun. So, I did this backpacking trip of 30 days going across the US and Canada, which was awesome, but it led me to find out that I wanted to be in Berkeley in California. So, I applied to a course there, an international student course that gave me the ability to stay here studying business management and marketing, which were not my strong suits.Israel:I was always a project manager. So, I wanted to know how to manage a business. The marketing side, because I'm so focused on operations and finances, was never my strong suit. So, I wanted to be a little better in that regard. And then after studying here, I was able to secure a job in San Francisco, which my head was just blown away by that. Yeah, eventually just stay here, working in SF, and then the love story begins between me and Kelsey. But after working for Product School, which was a company I was working for in SF, I joined Kelsey at Doughp.Stephanie:Yup. So, Kelsey founded Doughp, which is a raw cookie dough bar, but it doesn't have raw eggs in there, right? Is that the right way to explain it, or maybe you can do it better justice?Israel:No, that's correct. I like it. It does not have any raw eggs. We use heat-treated flour. So, it's super safe for consumption. So, the whole idea of this is to bring nostalgia by the scoop. So, you just probably grew up here trying to eat the cookie dough that your mom or somebody in your family was baking. Everybody was saying, "No, you can't eat it, because of the eggs and you're going to get salmonella and whatever." So, Kelsey did found Doughp in 2017 to solve that problem. It's an interesting story as well, because in 2015, she became sober. She was struggling with alcohol, working for Intel for 10 years. In becoming sober, she rediscovered her passion for baking.Israel:So, she just launched Doughp in 2017. In 2018, she started the Pier 39 store that she used to have in San Francisco. It was a rocket ship, I got to say. She then launched in Oracle Park in a kiosk. And then in 2019, Doughp opened the store at the Las Vegas Strip. So, in 2019, Doughp have basically three brick-and-mortar operating stores.Stephanie:That's awesome. So, everything was brick-and-mortar at that point. When did you enter into the company? What year was it? What does your role look like as Co-CEO versus what Kelsey works on?Israel:Right. So, let me start with the second question, the Co-CEO role. Kelsey and I have very different skill sets. She is a marketing guru and a business development wizard, I got to say. She's great at that. I'm great in operations and finances. So, we have very defined responsibilities, if that makes sense. So, whenever she comes to the problem, obviously, I'll be the sounding board, but she's the one that's the expert in marketing, for example.Israel:So, if there's anything coming up in a marketing campaign, then she's the one who's going to say, go or no go, the final word. Vice versa, in operations and finances. So, it's a really fortunate situation, I got to say, because it makes it easier, right? Especially having a relationship as well. Right now, I'm speaking from the office. We try to keep all Doughp matters in the office. So, the relationship also happens, but it's a challenge. But anyway, I think we have a very fortunate situation in this skill set.Israel:As far as your first question, when did we transition into the ecommerce? When did I join the company?Stephanie:Yeah. When did you join the company? Because that's where I want to get into the path to Shark Tank and all that. So, what year was it that you joined?Israel:Right. She went to Shark Tank before I joined the company. So, she went to Shark Tank in 2019. So, right after she opened the store here in Las Vegas, she went to Shark Tank. I joined the company late 2019. So, it was about six months after the Shark Tank episode aired.Stephanie:You are in the midst of the growth then, because I was listening to an interview with some stats around... I think it was in November 2019. You guys were maybe shipping 30 boxes a month. And then by April 2020, you were shipping 3,000 boxes per week, which is crazy growth. So, I want to hear. I mean, it sounds like you were right in the midst of that, of entering into... She was on Shark Tank. She didn't get a deal. But then she started opening more retail locations, grew like crazy, and then COVID hit. Tell me a bit about that.Israel:Right, exactly that. So, you just summarized everything. I joined the company in November of 2019, which was exactly when we were doing the small amount of boxes a month. When I joined, one of the first things I did with her was to have a big brainstorming session about all the operations that she was doing, right? So, at the time, she was doing catering events. She was doing a little bit of wholesale, a little bit of ecommerce. She also had the stores. So, it was a very wide breadth of operations and not having a lot of success in any of them per se, right?Israel:So, the stores were still the bread and butter of the company, but none of the stores were growing astronomically. We were already seeing some foot traffic decreases. Happening so much so that as soon as I joined the company, I was like, "We got to make sure that the unit economics of these stores are a little better," right? So, we were paying way more in rent than we should be paying based on foot traffic. So, renegotiations started happening back then. So, out of that brainstorming session, we used a very rudimentary framework, I would say, but it was super helpful to understand what type of work was being done in each distribution channel to serve customers versus what type of return that was giving to the company.Israel:So, the outcome of that situation was, "Okay, brick-and-mortar is still the bread and butter of the company. We are not going to change that, but we need to find one other channel, not five, six, seven, whatever she was doing back then, that will be the 20% revenue, right? We're going to keep the brick-and-mortar 80%. We're going to have one of these as 20%." Ecommerce was the one we decided just because of the "infinite possibilities" of having foot traffic not being limited by foot... It's not actually foot traffic. It's actually eyeballs. So, we decided to go into ecommerce in November of 2019 together. That's when we started shifting all of our resources into growing our website and our paid acquisition channels and our social media strategy.Israel:When the pandemic hit, thankfully, we were ready. So, although it was awful for the brick-and-mortar stores, it was great for the ecommerce because people were at home. They were not very happy being at home. They were trying to find novelties to fill the time, right? They're just not happy at home. Being an impulse buy, a nostalgia buy, we just skyrocketed. That's why 3,000 boxes a week happened.Stephanie:What kind of things did you have to adjust on the back end when it came to logistics? I mean, I'm thinking about shipping perishables. It's one thing to ship it to a retail location. You've got it all set. You're planning for your orders on average every week. How do you prepare for shipping all over the country or world? How did you set things up to prepare for that?Israel:That was a big learning experience, I got to say. There's a lot that co-chain shipping entails. Back in 2019, we knew almost nothing about it. So, there was a lot of talking to people that are already in the space and flying and driving to fulfillment centers and co-packers and seeing how they work, really learning how they work. But at the same time, we didn't have all the resources to go into a co-packer and a national last mile distribution contract. So, we have to be scrappy as well. So, we had to use all the resources that we had.Israel:In March, when the pandemic hit, I had staff of the store and I had the space. I had no customers to serve. So, that helped us in that I started using those resources to fulfill the ecommerce orders, right? So, January, February, we were already having some growth, not astronomical, but still some growth. I was already using that labor to fulfill the orders. And then in March, when the pandemic hit and ecommerce just went through the roof, I was able to use our staff to help there. But as far as the logistical implications, we have a lot of limitations, because of cold shipping, but now I thankfully can say we know what we're doing.Stephanie:That's a plus.Israel:Yeah. When we first started, finding coolants and insulation that will be able to keep our product refrigerated through the time in transit. Also, making sure that you find that sweet spot between the winter and the summer, because in the summer, we'll need more coolant, but you also can't forget about the coolants in the winter. It was a big challenge, but now we got it dialed in.Stephanie:I mean, it seems like this area of cold chain shipping and logistics has a lot of room to grow, because we've had a couple people on the show who... We had Yasso on. It's like frozen yogurt bars. Everyone talks about building their packing materials from scratch, depending on what you need, which seems insane to me. It seems like there should be some shipping materials. If you need something under this temperature for five days, here's the box to go with. Why do you think this industry is lagging behind like that when it seems like this is the way forward? I mean, everyone's going to be doing grocery delivery and online orders much more frequently now. It's the way we're moving, but it seems like that area has definitely lagged behind.Israel:That's a great question. I do think there's a wide or a vast lack of information around there. There's a little amount of players that know a lot, right? So, if you talk to some specialist companies in packaging and box design and coolant design, then yeah, they will know everything, but it's proprietary information, because it's their product. So, they don't want to be sharing this with many people. So, you don't find a lot of that information online consolidated in a how-to book. That's the first problem.Israel:The second problem is we had grocery stores operating before all this happen. Now, obviously that trend of going into ecommerce was already happening. But when the pandemic hit, it just accelerated exponentially. So, the speed with which the information is shared was not equal to the speed with which people needed that information. So, we have this major gap right now in which some players know what they're doing and some players are still trying to figure it out.Stephanie:Also, it seems like as a middle ground if you don't have the resources to invest in your own shipping materials, you could do the middle ground of working with grocery stores and letting them take care of it, ship it to the grocery store. They can do the online orders, the in-store pickups, and all that stuff. You don't have to figure out the logistics from end to end in the beginning.Israel:Right, right. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I think that's why most brands did not adventure into the ecommerce space, I think. Now, we're just seeing so many brands going into ecommerce, because people are at home and they're not buying from grocery stores as often, which is a whole different conversation, right? Are they ever going to go back to whatever normal is, or are they going to continue buying from ecommerce? My take on that is that they will continue to buy from ecommerce not as much as now, but definitely, they're not going back to what that rate was before. So, yeah.Israel:So, having this central player is also another reason why the information was centralized, right? They have this competitive edge, and they don't want to give it away to their competitors. So, if you're talking about Whole Foods, they have their own distribution chain. So, they have their own ways to make their profit at the end of the day. So, they don't want other competitors to find out what they're doing, I bet.Stephanie:Yup, yeah. It makes sense. So, when you were going through these transitions of going from mostly retail to ecommerce, what were some of the areas of the business that needed the most adjustments? When you're focused on retail, you're thinking about foot traffic. What neighbors do you have moving in? What other stores are nearby? You're mentioning unit economics. It seems very different when you're shifting almost completely to online sales. What things that you have to adjust or completely cut out from the business? The whole way of thinking, what do you have to change?Israel:Well, the unit economics of the two channels are very different, right? So, if you're thinking about a brick-and-mortar store, you have to consider labor as one of your biggest costs, along with ingredients and packaging. And then as you go into ecommerce, ingredients and packaging are still there. They're not going to go away. So, the major difference is shipping, handling and shipping. So, these are the major differences. Some people consider shipping within the cost of goods sold universe. Some people say it's out. But then after shipping, it's a contribution margin. Whatever you may say, shipping is a major cost to serve your customers on ecommerce channel. So, that is the biggest change, I think, we've seen.Israel:Ingredients and packaging as we're selling the same product do not change. Operating expenses and SG&A, we'll have a whole different conversation as well. Because as you go into ecommerce, you're acquiring customers in a very different way as you mentioned. You're not dependent on foot traffic. You're not dependent on a shopping mall management, what happens with the world, flights. Especially in the Las Vegas Strip, it's a very tourist-based area. So, going away from that gives us a lot more independence, but at the same time, because everybody got into that space last year, it got very competitive. So, although the cost structure is different, that competition makes it hard.Stephanie:Yeah. Did you have a customer base that you could tap into from your retail locations, where you've got these loyal customers coming back? Maybe they're getting points. Did you already have that baseline to tap into and be like, "We're moving to retail. We'll see you there"? Or did you have to start from scratch?Israel:So, it's a 50/50 response here. Yes, we did. It was great, right? We had a lot of customers through the Pier 39 store and the Las Vegas Strip store. They were indeed activated for the ecommerce. Whenever we were ready to ship, we sent a blast saying, "Hey, guys, here we are. We can ship to your house now." This was January, pre-pandemic. So, that part was great, but at the same time, we just grew so much in March and April, that I would say most of our customers right now did not go through our stores before. So, although we did tap into that, that's not the majority of our customer base.Stephanie:So, then how are you thinking about customer acquisition now? Because once again, it seems like such a different hat you have to wear of how to attract customers in the online world versus I could do a billboard. I could go out and give out samples of the cookie dough. What are your top performing channels right now that you guys are leaning into?Israel:See, our top performing channels are paid advertising and social media organic. I think we have a very different scenario here than most brands that you see in the grocery stores. It's because we lead with our mission and our giving back, right? We have a mission. We talk about mental health and stigmas around mental health. We also give 1% back to the community. That's just not something that other brands out there do. So, if you associate that with a kick ass product, which is what we have, then you have the winning formula. I think this is the way that we lead with our brand messaging. This is what's made us so successful so far.Stephanie:How do you think about balancing that? Because we've had a couple brands on the show who also have missions. We've had Bombas on. We had BLK & Bol‪d Coffee. But they also talked about the unique balance between thinking, "Do you sell with the mission, or do you sell with the product and then showcase the mission afterwards?" Because it depends on who you're getting in front of or who you're trying to reach. How do you guys think about that balance of we have an epic product. and we have a great mission without muddying up the website. Israel:That's a very interesting question. I think you said the answer in the question.Stephanie:I just answered my own questions.Israel:I actually agree with your answer. I think it depends on who you're trying to sell. It depends on what your product is. I think there's many ways for you to do this. In our particular case, we tried to lead with the mission. I think as you go into a commoditized industry, leading with the mission is more important. If you're not in a commoditized industry, then your product has major differences against its competition.Israel:So, it makes sense for you to lead with more of your product and how it is and why is it better than a competition. Although we have differences from our competition, it is a more commoditized product, right? If you go to a grocery store right now, you're going to find Pillsbury, Nestle, and other big brands right there. So, leading with the mission in this case, I think, is more relevant.Stephanie:I like that point. That is a good way to think about it. Depending on the industry, you should think about how to reach your customers. I also think you could maybe segment the customers depending on what they're searching for, what they're interested in, if they're past customers. We've talked a lot about loyalty on the show and how you should be giving different messages depending on who the customer is and how they've engaged with your product. Do you guys think about doing a more personalized approach depending on how your customers are interacting?Israel:Yeah. That also talks very closely to our landing page strategy, right? We have different offerings for different customers. So, it makes sense for you to segment your customer base and say, "Okay, I got to potentially have a loss leader to have this customer in the door. And then I'll make sure that this customer loves the product enough that they will come back because of the mission." So that's one potential strategy, but again, it depends on what customer you're trying to sell to and what your product is. In our case, we have many different customer personas. We try many different approaches to each of them every single day. So, there's a lot that goes into A/B testing and understanding what performs better to each audience. So, that's a lot of our time.Stephanie:Yeah. What are some of your favorite experiments that you've run or results where you're like, "I wasn't expecting that, but now we're leaning into that strategy after deploying that"? Any good stories around that?Israel:Yeah, shipping.Stephanie:Let's hear it.Israel:Shipping is very interesting. We've run many, many tests around shipping. It seems to be a seasonal thing or it has something to do with a pandemic. We're not quite sure about the reasoning behind it, but it seems like in the very beginning of the pandemic, people are more sensitive to the free shipping messaging, right? You were testing free shipping against the $2.95 shipping. Free shipping would convert like crazy versus the 295. Whereas now, it seems like people are more understanding of the world situation and how shipping works and how expensive it is for brands to ship.Israel:So, right now, the latest test that we ran about shipping, we didn't have a very significant variance in conversion between... I think it was a $9.95 shipping versus a $7.95 shipping. So, giving discounts on shipping right now is not as relevant as before, which to me just blows my mind because what you think in shipping, you consider Amazon, right? Customers are getting spoiled with Amazon, "spoiled."Stephanie:I'm spoiled.Israel:Exactly, you just go on Amazon. I literally went on Amazon last week on Friday to get some vitamins and I got the vitamins on Saturday morning.Stephanie:Yeah, I got a leaf blower in one day.Israel:Wow.Stephanie:That's a whole different level of being spoiled, but I mean, I'm all for it.Israel:Exactly. That talks closely to how expansive their distribution network is, how many warehouses they have, and how much inventory they hold in each of the warehouses to be able to do that, because as you centralize, it's easier for you to keep control of what you're doing and keep your processes consistent and whatnot. That's what we do.Israel:But as you want to reduce the time in transit, you have to do that. And then you need more labor, more headcount to make sure that everything happens, and more inventory. There's more cash tied up into that inventory. It just goes crazy. But most people that don't know what goes behind running a business just think, "Oh, well, this brand doesn't know what they're doing, because Amazon is doing it in a day." So, there's a lot of educating consumers about shipping and logistics for them to understand why Amazon is able to do this. Whereas the small brand that you're trying to support cannot do that. It doesn't make sense on their unit economics.Stephanie:Yeah, I mean, I think that's the silver lining of 2020 is that a lot of people did experiment with new DTC companies. They went places they would have probably never shopped before then and were buying things directly from brands. So, I think they probably became more accustomed to paying for shipping to where going forward, that might be a more normalized thing, or going forward, people will just be like, "You need to just include that in the cost." Because oftentimes, I do think if you were just to increase the cost by a couple of dollars and tell me I have free shipping, I probably would be happier and just not care where it went. You can charge me for it, but just don't show me that extra line at checkout.Israel:Right, right. That's exactly how we did that first test. We just did exactly the same total cost for the customer. One had the shipping as a separate line item, and the other one had the shipping baked into it. Again, the free shipping converted way more. But now the last time we ran it, it didn't. So, yeah. Who knows what's going to happen now?Stephanie:Yeah, I mean, that's definitely a good test to run. So, what's next? What are you guys preparing for right now? Are you going to re-enter retail? Are you going to start working with wholesalers? What are you guys planning for over the next one to two years?Israel:That's a great question. It involves a little bit of forecasting in times of uncertainty. To the best of our ability, we forecast that potentially until late this year or probably mid-next year, we're going to be back to whatever normal is. So, there's many other channels that will come back to normal aside from ecommerce, right? Ecommerce is now our bread and butter. We're heavily focused there, but we foresee some opportunities, for example, in grocery stores and wholesale that we might pursue as well. So, that depends a lot on where the market is. I think by now, we know exactly how to pivot and persevere whenever needed. We learned that lesson during the ecommerce and pandemic shift.Stephanie:Would you re-enter retail with... Would you do anything different now, where you've had a year plus to think about it and think through the strategies that you were using before? Would you go about it a different way?Israel:Retail as in to brick-and-mortar stores?Stephanie:Yeah, brick-and-mortar.Israel:No, no, that's definitely not in our intention for the future. I think retail can work in some ways, but that's not something we want to do anymore, just because right now, we have this brand awareness. We have this momentum that the brand generated with the ecommerce shift and everything that's going on around us that we just think limiting your product to one single store that depends on the foot traffic around that store is not where we want to be. So, on the brick-and-mortar side, no, I don't think we would do anything different. On the ecommerce side, perhaps we would have started earlier.Stephanie:You can't have that kind of hindsight, but yes, I'm sure everyone's like, "Why didn't we do this a couple of years ago?"Israel:Yeah, definitely.Stephanie:What about samples? So, that's always my thing with everyone who's come on the show who is in the CPG area and foods and snacks and all this stuff. I mean, I always think about Costco, which I love so much. I miss their samples a lot. I think about a product like yours, especially with buying it online, it's like, "Well, I don't know how it'll taste. It'd be nice to be able to try it out in a small amount first." That's why I think retail is so great. So, how do you guys think about introducing it to customers like me, who would be maybe harder to sell to online without really knowing if I would even like it?Israel:Right. Well, I think you touched a very important point in the wholesale/grocery store channel, which is they do their own experiential marketing. Some of them do. Some of them have fairs and other types of experiential marketing. That's one thing that we'll definitely tap into. Organizing our own events is something we thought about, but not depending on real estate that's under a lease agreement, if that makes sense, right? Because an event, you're going to generate all that buzz and bring potential customers to your event.Israel:Maybe you can even do brand partnerships to generate even more buzz. Those people will come and try your cookie dough or whatever product you're selling, and then potentially buy from you at the grocery store or the ecommerce side. Whereas if you have one space, you're going to have to conduct business as usual. You're going to have to hire staff and keep staff and train staff, keep the lease. There's a lot of difficulties that encompass operating a retail store. I think for what you're saying, acquisition of customers, I think there's other ways to find that.Stephanie:Yeah, I love that. I think there's going to be so much pent up demand around people wanting to, like you said, getting into these experiences and experience brands but in a different unique way, whether it's events where you try something out or meetups or whatever it may be. I do think a lot of people who are changing quickly with the times will see it how you do around, "We don't need just one location. We can tap into the Walmart's and the Whole Foods, and then go to these events and just not be so reliant on one channel or one retail location."Israel:Yeah. I think that brings us to a very important point that's happening because of the pandemic, which is the decentralization of population density, right? If you look at population density of San Francisco, LA, New York, Chicago, all the big cities in the US, there's many people that just left.Stephanie:Got out of there. I'm one of them, peace. Bye, California.Israel:So, do we. Now, we're in Nevada. There's a lot of people that just don't need to be in a physical space. They just work remotely. There's no sense in keeping all the lease or whatever mortgage you have for nothing. So, that creates a very interesting moment for the industry, because there's a lot of other cities that otherwise would not have had so much foot traffic or population that now do, right? Las Vegas now has a big boom. There's a lot of people moving to Las Vegas. So, initially, you would have thought, "Well, I'm only going to launch events in New York, LA, SF, Chicago, Dallas, because these are the biggest cities." But now, it makes sense for you to go a little scrappier and do smaller events in cities that were not that big.Stephanie:Yeah, I was just thinking that too of exploring micro events that seems like it'll be a lot more logistically, because to actually tap into that same maybe amount of people that you would have before 2019 or before 2020, you really have to do a different approach, which seems like a lot of new and different kinds of work that many brands probably weren't and maybe still aren't prepared for.Israel:Totally agree. I believe the brands that are the most prepared in the ecommerce world are the ones that are going to succeed in the experiential events side of things, because they're going to have to ship cold product and make sure that the consistency and quality is kept throughout the time in transit. The companies that are doing the best in ecommerce are the ones that are going to succeed there.Stephanie:So, when thinking about experiences and focusing more on maybe the longer tail, like you said, the big cities, how do you think about leveraging influencers? Because to me, that could have a big impact too if you have events going on and you get an influencer from some city in Alabama, probably will have way better results than pulling in a Kardashian. How do you think about utilizing them over the next couple years?Israel:Well, that's a great question. That's a great question. Definitely, something I did not think about, but now, I think-Stephanie:I got the wheel spinning.Israel:Yeah, no, I think you got the wheel spinning. I think if we're starting the events in these smaller cities, I think the local influencer is going to have a better result as you said, right? Instead of spending millions in a Kardashian, for example, we could spend way less than that but distribute it across 20, 30 influencers in 20 or 30 different cities and bring more people to the event for sure.Israel:I think for the acquisition side of things, that will help because people will try our product, but at the same time, we have to make sure that the people that come to the event don't come only because of the influencer. They have a very good experience there as well provided by us, right? So, leading with the messaging and the 1% giving back. We're not here just for you to see this influencer and just for you to try this cookie dough. We're also here to foster raw conversation about mental health and addiction recovery.Stephanie:Yup. Yeah, that's cool. Also, maybe brings up a point of having volunteer events and smaller micro activities like that to bring people in for the mission. And then you've got the cookie dough, and you're making this well-rounded experience that people walk away with. They're like, "That brand had a really cool thing that I wouldn't have known about unless they hosted it."Israel:Yeah, love it. That's a great idea.Stephanie:You're welcome, man.Israel:I'm taking note of this.Stephanie:But I am thinking now about attribution piece too, which I think is going to be a big thing that brands have to think through over the next couple of years of, "How do you know if your efforts are paying off?" The world's changing so quickly. If you're moving to these more smaller locations to focus on things that are becoming more distributed, it seems like there's going to be a lot of work to do around, "What's actually working and what's not?"Israel:Yes, yes, you just find a situation there, right? Attribution in marketing is the hardest part, because some marketing pieces are going to be for brand awareness. How do you quantify that? It's super hard. So, a good approach for that is to just put everything in the same bucket and say, "Okay, revenue this month versus spend in marketing this month and just have that metric follow you through times for you to see whatever changed this month is doing okay or is not doing okay."Israel:So, obviously, it's a very simplified metric. There's way more refined metrics, I would say, for you to use in each and every channel, but that is a quick indicator of, "Okay, you're messing something up," or "Okay, well, something's going on that's doing well here." So as attribution goes harder and you mentioned it quite well, when you said, "When we start spending in these events and other stuff, how do you know that that person actually purchased from your website because of the event or because they saw an ad on Facebook or because they watched Kelsey on a podcast or me on a podcast?" There's limited ways for you to find that. So, I think that's a good way for you to gauge your results.Stephanie:Yeah, yeah, it's going to be a tricky world going forward. All right. Well, let's shift over to the lightning round. Lightning round is brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I ask a question and you have 30 seconds or less to answer. Are you ready? I just saw your eyebrows though.Israel:I'm ready.Stephanie:That's your game face, I guess. All right. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Israel:Experience, customer experience. I think when you receive a box from a brand, if you're the brand, you got to make sure that that box is the best you can do for that customer to have a great experience, because the convenience factor is there. Yes. But if you tell them or if you send them an experience that's underwhelming, you're not going to keep that customer. So, I think that's the most important thing in ecommerce.Stephanie:What's your favorite thing you did to your unboxing experience that you're like, "I'm real proud of that"?Israel:Is that still under the 30-second limit, or can I expand that?Stephanie:This is a new one. Yeah, this is your next 30-second question. I just added on.Israel:I think as of now, the coolest thing that we do is to send a note card for each and every one of our customers talking about our mission and what to do with the product. If there's anything that's wrong with the product, please contact us. I think some brands don't take the care of telling their customers how to reach out to them in case anything goes wrong. I mean, let's consider I'm the customer now, right?Israel:I'm paying whatever I'm paying for a cookie dough to receive cookie dough in my house. Something happens and I'm not happy with the product. I'm going to go after it. I'm going to go ask the brand, "Hey, I just paid this amount of money for cookie dough. I could have paid way less in the supermarket. Can you please make it better?" If you're not ready for that, then you're not going to succeed in ecommerce. You've got to be ready to make sure that the customers have the best experience. So, sending that card and making sure that they know what to do and how to reach out to us has been a great victory for us.Stephanie:Yup, yeah. I love that. I think gone are the days of, "There's our chat bot. You can talk to them. Try and solve it through them." Nope, people are over that. That was something that maybe worked in 2019 for a little bit, and everyone was headed in that direction of tech can solve everything. It can take out your whole customer service team. It can solve all your problems, but I think now people are looking for that experience. They're looking for the brand to actually solve their problems and help them.Israel:Totally agree.Stephanie:All right. Next question, if you had a podcast, what would it be about? Who would your first guest be?Israel:Wow, you got to tell me that these things are coming now. The wheels are spinning here.Stephanie:Sorry, I can't. It's the lightning round.Israel:What an interesting question. If I had my podcast, I think it would be about hustling. There's so many people that do so much cool stuff. We never hear about it. there's people that are intrapreneurs. They're entrepreneurs inside their own organizations. They're still in their job, but they're doing very cool stuff within their companies. There's a lot of glamor around just entrepreneurship and whatnot. So, the hustling side would be interesting for me to hear. Who would my first guess be? That's a great question. Does it have to be a person that's alive?Stephanie:Nope, they can be whoever you want.Israel:Okay. I would probably interview Steve Jobs.Stephanie:That sounds good. I would listen to that.Israel:Oh, cool. I think he must have had very cool stories about hustling. There is some controversial information about his managerial skills, but I do believe he was a hustler. Apple is what Apple is very much because of what he's done to it. So, that would be a very interesting conversation.Stephanie:Yeah, I think that'd be really cool. I mean, yeah, there are so many people within companies. You see new product launches. You see new features. I think people just associate it with, "Oh, that's the brand." That's Google. That's Facebook. That's whatever. But there's people inside there who maybe had that idea and actually brought to fruition. I want to hear from this people. That's a good one.Israel:Exactly. Yeah, there's so much PR around the people that are on top of the company, but little is said about the people who actually bring those ideas into life.Stephanie:That's a good one. All right. What's one thing you don't understand today that you wish you did?Israel:Oh, wow. Interesting question. Israel:Well, the wholesale world has a lot of question marks to me right now, just because we're not in it very deep, I would say. So, I would love to learn more about the wholesale and direct grocery store channel. I will probably know a lot more in a year. We can redo this.Stephanie:I know.Israel:My answer will be-Stephanie:We'll do a round two. When you guys start exploring wholesale, you come back with that. And then the last question, what's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?Israel:Wow.Stephanie:We go deep here.Israel:Yeah, I love it. I love it. Israel:Okay. So, when I was doing this backpacking trip in 2015, I think it was in Vancouver, Canada. I had just missed my flight going to Toronto. It was the first flight I've ever missed in my life. I was very upset, very upset. So, I just went into this Starbucks shop. I was like, "Okay, I'm going to have this coffee. I'm going to just de stress. I don't want to think about this." I was alone. There was this gentleman sitting on a table right next to me. We ended up striking up a conversation. I was a little stressed because of the flight, but still, whatever. I'm just here to make friends and see what it's like to live here.Israel:And then this guy, I just told him everything about my life, but I lead with what I was doing in Brazil, right? I was like, "Well, I'm a civil engineer from Brazil, yada, yada." And then in the middle of the conversation, he's like, "Oh, so who are you, Israel?" I'm like, "What's going on here? I think this guy is a little odd. He didn't hear what I said." And then I'm like, "Whatever. I'm just going to say it again." And then I started saying, Well, I'm a civil engineer from Brazil, yada, yada." And then he stopped me in the middle. And then he said, "You are not defined by your job. You are defined by your passion. What's your passion?"Israel:And then it made me think like, "Oh, my God. I describe myself by my job today. I'm literally here trying to find a new city for me to live in. I'm trying to lead with my job." So, I think that was really kind of him to do. It was an interesting thing. I don't know that he thought it was going to be so impactful for me. By the way, if you're listening to this, I don't remember your name, but you're really cool, dude.Stephanie:You're the best.Israel:Yeah. So, as I went through my backpacking trip, I just kept that question in my mind over and over again. I was like, "I got to find my passion. What is the passion that I'm trying to solve here or trying to pursue in moving to the United States?" That eventually got me into a very deep reflection. Civil engineering was not my passion, basically. That's the bottom line of that reflection. My passion is education. I want to do something around education. I think education is the key to change the world.Israel:One of the things I want to do whenever I do have some more time... Right now, I don't. But one of the things I want to do is to found a nonprofit in Brazil to help with education in underserved areas. I think that's the key to go. I'm so grateful for the education that I had in Brazil all in all, because that's why I'm here, right? If I had not had that education, then I wouldn't be here. So, that's a long winded response.Stephanie:That's a good one. I think that is awesome of that person to give those thoughts. I've had that same reflection when I was living in the East Coast. People were very much into, "What do you do? What's your degree?" Always starting off with that. And then when I moved to California, it was very much not that. And then moving to Austin now, it's like, "What do you like to do? Do you like to hike? Do you like to paddle board?" That's a different conversation, but it makes you think very differently about, "What do I like to do? Who am I?" So, I love that. That's a turn for the philosophical and I am all about it.Israel:Love it.Stephanie:Thanks so much for joining the show. If people want to try out some Doughp, where can they get it from? I'm going to keep saying it like that, Doughp.Israel:www.doughp.com. It's D-O-U-G-H-P.com. You can also follow us on social media. Most of our handles are @Doughp.Stephanie:Amazing. Thanks so much for coming on. It was a blast.Israel:Thank you for having me. I had a blast.

Innovation is risky business, especially if you’re a hardware startup. But it’s not just risky on the part of those inventing a new product. The early adopters of that product are putting a lot on the line, too. Which is why certain industries, like retail, have remained mostly the same for decades. Retailers only want to bring in something new if the operational cost of installing and using the innovation are minimal, and if it doesn’t require a massive overhaul of a retail space. This is exactly what Lindon Gao found out when he started exploring this space. Lindon has been on a mission to disrupt retail since his first application for a smart security tag was accepted by Y Combinator, and while that hardware didn’t take off, Lindon kept going until he landed on an idea that stuck. Today, Lindon is the CEO of Caper, a company bringing smart cart technology into the retail space with increasing success. In fact, Caper’s tech could be coming to a store near you, as the company recently agreed to partner with America’s largest grocery retailer, Kroger, to bring smart carts into chains all over the nation. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Lindon talks us through how Caper is finally bringing change into the world of grocery, and he explains how smart cart technology could have ripple effects on ecommerce, personalization, and the entire customer journey. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Where’s The Easy Button?: Implementing new technology isn’t easy in retail. The operational headaches of launching anything new often outweighs the benefit of most of the new tech being presented. Incorporating new tech as a retailer requires finding innovations that don’t need large system overhauls, already naturally fit into the customer’s store journey and provide an added benefit (i.e. more customer data, more opportunities to upsell, etc), to make the investment worth it. Do You Want a Receipt?: Smart receipts are one of the top ways to keep track of consumers after they make a purchase. Receipts offer a window into consumer behavior, and also provide a new area for personalization and follow-up conversations that keep customers engaged.It’s Not Either Or: When it comes to ecommerce and grocery, it is not an either/or question. Both in-store and online shopping will continue, and, in fact, the move toward ecommerce will only push the in-store experience to be even more efficient and streamlined.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're chatting with Lindon Gao, the CEO at CAPER. Lindon, welcome to the show.Lindon:Thanks for having me, Stephanie.Stephanie:Yeah. I'm really excited to have you on. So, tell me a bit about Caper. I was doing a little bit of background digging. And maybe, actually, it'd be great to start with your background first. I saw that you were involved with Y Combinator. So, maybe starting off there, and then we'll get to Caper.Lindon:Sure. I joined Y Combinator shortly after I left investment banking. So, prior to YC, I was an investment banker in Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, have had quite a number of corporate lives, and didn't really feel like I belonged in finance as much as I belong in startups. I started my first startup when I was 14, my second one when I was 19. So, I've always had a lot of passion for the startup industry. And when I realized that there was a big opportunity to potentially pursue in physical retail, I decided to quit my job to start Caper. And we were lucky enough that we got into YC. And our first application, I remember at the time, we-Stephanie:That's lucky.Lindon:Yeah. And we built... At the time, we were actually building a different product. We built a smart security tag. You know those that beeps at the door if you try to steel in Zara? We made it such that it will unlock upon payment. So, just imagine, on Black Friday, you could walk into a store. You could take out your phone, tap on that security tag, pay for it, and the security pack will unlock, and then you can leave the store.Stephanie:Smart.Lindon:Yeah, so...Stephanie:What happened with that? I still need that?Lindon:I could get into that a little bit actually. So, we built a prototype for the smart security tag. And then, onsite during the YC interview... YC interviews are ten minutes. So basically, within 10 minutes, you have to knock out everything. And they will be firing questions at you. They will be cutting you off during the interview. I've thought about something that was very interesting. Since we only had 10 minutes, I wanted to convey industry urgency, our market. So, I printed these t-shirts where it says, "Did you know that customers will leave the store if they have to wait in line for more than five minutes?" 33% of customers will leave.Lindon:So, I printed it out on a t-shirt. And I walked in. And all of a sudden, the interviewer is... At the time, it was... I remember it was Geoff, Geoff Ralston, who is the president of YC. He looked at it and it was, "Oh. Interesting t-shirt." And we started talking. And I remember, at the time, our prototype was working 50% of the times. So, when we did the demo, the prototype... We were hoping that it will unlock. So, we're praying, praying, praying. And it did. So, if it didn't-Stephanie:Whew.Lindon:Yeah. So, if it didn't unlock, I think I would probably go back to finance and be an investment banker by now, but luckily it did. So, we got to YC. We build the security tag out. We signed on a couple of really, really large apparel customers. And we launched with Rebecca Minkoff in Soho. But we realized that the tech was really difficult to scale, because you need to apply the technology onto every single garment. That means that it was a gigantic operational overhaul. Every week, the store stock needs to maintain it somehow to make sure that all the new inventory that comes in are tagged, and are synced, with the specific unique identifier for each garment. And that just proved to be too much.Lindon:And so, we built it for about a year and a half before we realized that we were just being stubborn, and it was too difficult to scale to market. And that's when we decided to pivot.Stephanie:Very cool. So, what happened next after that? Is that when you... Had you already been thinking about a smart checkout grocery option. Or did you all have to huddle and start brainstorming to be like, "What's next? Where are we going to go now?"Lindon:It was very difficult at the time, because we were not a typical YC company, in that we are a small portion of the hardware companies in YC. And hardware companies are not very popular. So, when we-Stephanie:They're expensive.Lindon:Exactly. It's very capital intensive. Investors don't like to invest in it. So, after we did our demo day, we didn't raise so much money. We raised like two, three hundred K, in total. Typically, YC companies, they come out, they sign a million dollar term sheet on the demo day. And there I was, after demo day, some of my buddies were signing term sheets left and right. I was just like, "Hey. You guys want to chat?" And they were like, "Ah. You guys go hardware, not really."Lindon:So, throughout the whole time, it was very difficult. So, when we built it, built a security tag for about a year and a half, none of us were getting paid. At the time, it was four co-founders and two early employees. We lived and worked out of a house in College Point in New York. It's right by the LaGuardia Airport. And yeah, all we did was just we woke up. We worked. We'd eat together, and work, and we'd go to sleep.Stephanie:I heard you got in trouble for buying orange juice [crosstalk].Lindon:Where did you hear about that? Yes, I did.Stephanie:I just did a little creeping on the internet.Lindon:It was a very funny story. My co-founders are extremely frugal because we really didn't have too much money. We were bringing $7,000 per month. And we'd buy groceries together. I'll walk into a grocery store... It was a habit. I usually drink orange juice. And I dropped it in. My co-founder's like, "Do you really need to drink this? This is like six bucks." I'm like, "All right. Maybe you're right. I don't."Stephanie:Oh my gosh.Lindon:So, it was pretty tough. But it was also very interesting in that the passion really bonded us together. And that's why our team is extremely cohesive, even today. We barely have any attrition in the company. And our team is like a family. So... yeah. So, we built a security tag for a year and a half. And at the time, when we decided to pivot, we had probably less than probably 100K or something left in the bank. So, we really didn't have too much money, and we couldn't do too much with that amount of capital, especially in a hardware.Lindon:So, we kind of huddled together and we were thinking about what sorts of things should we pursue next. Or should we just kind of close up, just go home, and start applying for other jobs? And we decided that it was the retail, the grocery, just general physical retail industry has been extremely under innovated over the past decades. If you were to walk into a grocery store after world war two versus today, it will essentially be this... It's basically the same.Lindon:And we just couldn't understand retailers are not innovating. So, me and my co-founder, Ahmed, took a slightly more drastic approach in that we're saying, "Hey. You know what? Before we decide on building anything, let's go out to the market, and let's talk to grocery store owners." But before we went to the market, we were brainstorming. What are some of the things that we could do with our capability? So, we thought maybe... If we retrofit the entire store with sensors and cameras, maybe we can enable a check out free experience [inaudible] retail stores.Lindon:So, we had this thesis in mind. And ironically, probably six months later, Amazon go kind of launch with the same idea. But we took a very diff-Stephanie:That's not an app. What year was this? And where was Amazon at then? Who solved it first?Lindon:Yeah. So, we thought of... Amazon probably thought of it first because they built it. But we thought about it as well. But we kind of took our idea. But we approached these stores and we just asked questions. So, I remember, it was during the winter of 2016. It was very, very cold. Every day I would wake up. Me and Ahmed would wake up at 7:00. We'd go down to the train station, and we'd just take it to any stop. And then, after we'd get off, we would just walk into any grocery stores that we see on Google Map. And it's a very different place.Lindon:You go in, and a grocery store would be like, "Well, what the hell are you guys doing? If you're not buying anything, just get out." So, we went through a lot of that. But there were grocery store owners and managers who were willing to talk. So, we just asked them, "Hey. What are some of your top pain points? And what are some things that we can do to help you innovate your store?" And interestingly, we saw a huge amount of sentiment from the grocers and retailers who are telling us that they do want to innovate. But their concern is that a lot of innovations requires a lot of infrastructure, operational maintenance, and overhaul. And that makes it very, very difficult.Lindon:So interestingly, when we presented our "Amazon go" idea to these store owners, most of them freaked out. They were saying, "Hey. Why are you trying to renovate my store? How much does this infrastructure cost?" I'll say, "A couple hundred K." And they would say, "Look dude, even if you give it to me for free, I wouldn't want it." So, I was shocked.Stephanie:[crosstalk]Lindon:Why? Yeah. And they were like, "Look. It took me six months to install wifi and amplifiers in my store, because I need to rewire my ceiling and install amplifiers in the gigantic store to make sure everything is in line. Do you think you could come into my store to renovate my entire store, and install thousands of cameras? And do you actually think that could work?" So, we're saying... So, we're like, "Okay. You're right." And the store owner's said, "If you want to make anything work in this industry, you have to make sure that it is something that you bring it to our store and it just works. It shouldn't require infrastructure overhaul. It shouldn't require operational overhaul."Lindon:So, we really put that to note. So, we kind of went back to the drawing board, and we thought about, "How can we build a technology that just works?" And we kind of stumbled upon this idea that, if we compact computer vision and sensory fusion directly into a shopping cart, which is the most common tool in physical retail, we could enable the same type of experience at much lower maintenance. That really also tied back to our first idea of why we failed the smart security tag idea, was it would require a lot of operational maintenance.Lindon:And we thought that the smart cart could really overcome a lot of these barriers. So, we built the technology. Actually, before we built it, we just did a 3D rendering of the cart. We took it to the store owners. And immediately, within two months, we signed over probably 30 contracts. So, that was when we saw a huge pick [crosstalk].Stephanie:With the cart that didn't really work? The cart was...Lindon:A picture. It was not even a cart that didn't work. It was picture rendering of what it looks like, and I just described what it would do. And the store owners were very, very interested to sign on. So, that was how we got started.Stephanie:Okay. Cool. So, you got 30 new contracts. I'm guessing you had to go out and raise some more money though. Because, with only a couple $100,000 in the bank, even with 30 contracts, I'm assuming you wouldn't have been paid... at least net 90, probably, or more. What did you guys have to do to get that first version of the cart made?Lindon:Yeah. So, very interestingly, and very luckily, my co-founder, hardware co-founders father, actually owns a manufacturing facility in China. So, we have a very-Stephanie:Lucky, lucky.Lindon:Yes. So, we had a very unique hardware advantage in that we were able to prototype, and built our first versions of the shopping carts directly at his factory. And that was also one thing that, I would say, is our unique competitive advantage, in that we're able to iterate all hardwares on a monthly basis. Typically, it takes six months to iterate, on a typical hardware. It takes us a month. And that was the reason why we're able to accelerate our product development cycle so quickly.Stephanie:What were some of the early features in the cart that you either got rid of... What does it look like now versus when you first created it.Lindon:When we first created it, it was a lot of duct tape, a lot of weird components in there. I think I remember, when we built our first version, we were trying to demo this to a very large European client. And we shipped it over to France. And the entire cart broke. And I spent two days in a hotel just piecing things together before my client meetings. I actually used glue in there too.Stephanie:Oh my gosh. And it wasn't computer driven at that point, right? Or did you already have AI in it, or not yet?Lindon:Not yet, at the time, because our idea was that AI was going to take a little more time. So, while we're building the R and D branch of our government, we were going to go to market first with the barcode scanning version. And that was a very explicit strategy that we had, because we didn't want to be a heavily research dependent or research oriented company. We wanted to go to market, to understand the market as we go.Lindon:So, we built the shopping cart with a scanner, with a screen. And it also has a low cell which measures the weight of what's inside the basket. And I remember, when we first launched a very, very small trial inside one of the stores in Long Island city called Ruth Seller. We saw users try to use it. The scanner was very... It was a very small scanner that pointed at the side. And no one knew how to register the item into the cart. So, we did a lot of different changes to our scanner model, changes to the screen, and the low cell. And also, low cell was very, very difficult. Because it's not common knowledge that the scale is inside your grocer...Lindon:Your typical grocery stores are regulated by the government. It's regulated by the consumer affairs, because if your apples are a dollar per pound, and your scale is off, and it's wrong, then you're cheating the consumer. So, it's protected by the consumer affairs. And to be able to pass that certification requires us to send them our cart. And they will put it in a furnace, put it in a freezer, put in automatic weight into our cart and out of our cart 400,000 times. And we need to be reading accurate to 0.005 pounds. So, there's a lot of additional engineering in a hardware infrastructure that kind of went in there just to get the first versions of the carts right.Stephanie:Wow. That's intense. So, early days, it sounds like the cart was... It wad kind of like having a checkout conveyor belt on the cart. You could scan it. You could weigh things. And you could check out. And that was the gist of it.Lindon:Pretty much.Stephanie:What does that look like today?Lindon:So today, it's completely computer vision powered. We could directly drop items into the cart. And we're launching these into retailer stores very, very soon. And it's one of the paths where we took, where we thought about, "How do we make computer vision scalable?" Because inside a typical grocery store, you have at least 50 to 100,000 unique items. And for each one of these items, we need images of what the item looks like from different angles.Lindon:So, in a way, when we started building the scan version of the cart, it really paved the way for the scan less version. Because, as customers are using it, they're collecting images for us. You scan a Coca Cola. You put it inside the cart. Now, we know this is a Coca Cola. And then, using our cameras, we're able to collect over 120 images for us to train. So now, we have over 100s of millions of images in our data bank. And now, we're able to directly enable the scan less version of the cart.Stephanie:That's smart. That's like Tesla, how it's always kind of learning as it goes, learning from other cars. You're learning from every time someone's putting something in the shop.Lindon:Exactly. Exactly.Stephanie:That's great. And then, I also read that it does some product recommendations. Tell me a bit about that.Lindon:Yeah. So, you actually tapped into a really, really interesting space. Product recommendation is a big part of our system. Because when we walk into a store, and you shop for groceries, typically you will probably spend 30/40 minutes in there. And you probably spend five minutes at the checkout, but 35 minutes in your journey as you browse through the store. And when we were launching the carts and working with grocers, we realized that the bigger piece of the opportunity in innovating retail is actually not automating checkout.Lindon:That's a piece of the experience that we can make very seamless. But it's not the whole picture. The whole picture is, how can we help customer shop through the store during that 35 minutes, and provide them a very digitized and personalized experience. So, the personalized recommendations is a part of that which drives the digitization of the store, where if a customer puts in the milk, for example, we could give them recommendations for cookies, Oreos, cereals, and so forth.Lindon:And, as we go on, we're going to start implementing, for example, things like recipe recommendations. "Hey. I notice you have pasta and you have meatballs in your basket. Would you like to have some Parmesan cheese to go with it because we notice that you might building a recipe for meatball pasta?" Or "We notice that you have gluten free items inside your basket. Would you want us to recommend additional gluten free items inside your basket?" And that really creates another layer of digital platform, on top of physical retail, that really never existed before. Right? You have ecommerce, which is a gigantic digital platform. But also, now, in the physical stores, you have a digital platform where you could browse through the stores and interact with items around you through Caper.Lindon:We could eventually help you trace the roots of where your products are coming from. We could also help you count calories of what you've been purchasing. So, there's a lot of different ways to play in this market right now. And that's the most exciting part.Stephanie:Yeah. It also seems like there's an opportunity to kind of see the location of the shopper, and showcase coupons or things like that, based off the aisle that they're at. Because that's always something I think about is... Getting a random coupon in the mail, you're like, "Well, I'm not going to that store. And now, I forgot about it,' versus if I'm there, and I'm on that aisle, and it's like, "Oh. You can have a dollar off an egg." Okay. I'll get those eggs then, much easier by-Lindon:Exactly.Stephanie:... transaction than trying to bring something in store.Lindon:Exactly. Exactly. And through that... So now, we have some basic recommendations plus nearby deals. And we've been able to see average basket size pick up in some of the... I can't talk about the larger stores, because we're [inaudible]. But the smaller stores, we've seen more than 18% average basket size increase, on a very consistent basis.Lindon:Because if we're able to get the customers to buy a couple more things, that actually drastically helps the retailers top line as well.Stephanie:Yeah. So, tell me a little bit about, what does the landscape in general look like for autonomous check? I mean, now we're talking about location based stuff, personalized stuff. How do you view it interacting with ecommerce? What does the omni channel experience look like over the next couple years? Or what are you guys planning for?Lindon:Sure. So, I could start by just talking about the autonomous check out market. And maybe we can probably dig a little more into the ecommerce part. So, here is the general landscape. Basically, you have the Amazon go formats, which are... The start ups, little companies, are building cameras on the ceilings to directly enable all cashier less checkouts. So, this means that you will have to install hundreds of cameras on your ceiling, on top of building a process, and installing GPUs inside the store to make sure that we're able to process all these images and make sense of it.Lindon:The cameras will be used for two purpose. The first purpose is object tracking, which is you track how people are moving around the store. Because you need to apply that item to that particular person so we can't lose track. The second part is the cameras are also being used for pinpointing where items are inside a store. So typically, what a lot of... We've seen companies where, basically, they use cameras to label where items are inside the store. So, they don't directly do recognition of that particular item, but they label based on where it is inside the store.Lindon:And then, there is the other form factor, which is, instead of using the cameras to label where items are in the store, they use smart sensors, basically weight sensors inside the store, where if you pick something up, the weight sensor would detect it and it will know, "Okay. Coca Cola weighs 100 grams." So, you just picked it up. You picked that one bottle of Coca Cola. And that's what Amazon does. Amazon does a lot in Amazon Go. And then, there's the other form factor, which is a lot more similar to, basically, what Caper does right now, which is we compact everything into a device like a shopping cart, or shopping basket. And customers will pick it up and directly use it.Lindon:All the compute is done locally inside within this boundary. And it's also very, very interesting. I think, probably three months ago, Amazon Dash Cart came out, which is the smart cart iteration of the Amazon Go store, which I thought... And I thought it was very, very encouraging for the industry, because Amazon is known for their innovation in the physical retail through Amazon Go. And Amazon Go has been scaling to have 20 stores or so. And all of a sudden, they came out with Amazon Dash Cart. Because everyone thought Amazon Go was going into Whole Foods, was going to go into Amazon Fresh, but it didn't. And that was precisely the moment when we were happy to find out our thesis has been right all along.Lindon:Because we went out there to talk to the grocery store owners. And they told us that it would be operationally intensive to maintain. So, that's kind of the landscape. And then, beyond the Amazon Gos and the Capers, you have additional self scanning apps, which Walmart had implemented before in their scan and go program. That really didn't really take off, so they canceled it and kept it to a smaller membership, like Sam's Club, I think. But that's kind of the overall field. When you're really thinking about which type of form factor works, again, kind of going back to my earlier point, the most important factor is return on investment for retailers.Lindon:If they're investing in the technology, what is the cost of the technology? And what is the cost of maintenance for the technology? For in our security tag example, the cost of the technology is low. Each tag costs like eight cents. It's not worth too much. But the cost of maintaining the technology is big because I need to get the store staff to consistently apply it. One of the concerns on the maintenance of the technology for the Amazon Go form factor, is that it requires the stores to consistently update where all the items are inside a store. So, you definitely need someone else in the background to monitor and make sure your inventory is 100% accurate. Otherwise, you're going to start catching the wrong items.Lindon:With Caper, on the other hand, with our thesis, is that you could do whatever you want inside a store. It's none of our problem. All we care about is what you put inside the basket.Stephanie:Yep. One thing I'm thinking out too is, how do you continue the conversation with people who use Caper shopping carts? I mean, to me, I think of it as, if you at least have an app, you kind of can continue the conversation with that customer once they leave. When they come back in the store, it's like, "Oh hi, welcome back. Here's what you got last time." I'm even thinking about Whole Foods and Amazon check out on Amazon right now.Stephanie:How do you guys think about keeping track of consumers in a way that's helpful and personalized when they get back in the store?Lindon:Yeah. So, that's an awesome, awesome question. And this is something that we've been thinking about a lot, which is, how do we tap into consumers? Right now, one of our first ways to do this is to interact with them through the receipt that we sent them. So, we personalize the receipts. We can send them recommendations on the receipt. And when you come back, we give them unique identifiers that they could log in and we could recognize them. On top of that, we also integrate with retailers loyalty program, so that we're able to track and we're able to understand the shopper's purchase history.Lindon:So, that's kind of one part of it. The second part, which is more of a long term vision is, as we increase penetration in the market, we want to come out with a Caper app, where you could track... Shopping lists is one of the biggest pain points that we have heard from our shoppers. They want to be able to build shopping lists, and come into a store, and upload it inside in our cart. And then, we'll tell them where everything is inside the store. So, that's one piece that we're going to build in. And two is, we really want to build something that's a little more what we will call the Caper lifestyle.Lindon:What the Caper lifestyle is, is that, your diets and what you eat are guided by AI. So, if you have a particular fitness goal, when you go into a grocery store, we give you recommendations of recipes of items that are going to help you get there. And that's a much, much more healthier, and more informed, and AI driven lifestyle that you could pick up. And... Yeah. That's our very exciting future vision, but we're not quite there yet.Stephanie:I mean, that's really cool. That's just... I mean, it's like the trends right now you see around media blending with content and tech. And that kind of seems like where you guys are headed is starting here, when it comes to the tech piece, and then start introducing the media and functionality, community building, and encouraging healthy behaviors based off what someone wants to do. That's awesome.Lindon:Completely. Completely, because we interface with the customers, at the right place, at the right time, right, as they're inside, in their store, as their deciding what to buy. So, we have a lot of opportunities to provide our recommendations to the customers. And hopefully, that can enrich their shopping experience.Stephanie:Yep. I also like that you guys have the ability to track based on the receipts. And it just kind of opens up a whole discussion around making things that maybe were normally not useful, like a receipt where it's like, "Well, I'm not going to return any of these groceries. Just throw it away." Putting something on there that makes you want to keep something. And it's kind of like finding-Lindon:Completely.Stephanie:... arbitrage opportunity that maybe many are overlooking.Lindon:Yeah. One of our mottoes is, "Making the mundane into something magical". So, that includes making the shopping cart into something that's magical, so that when you put items in there, we just magically recognize it, into something like what we just talked about on the receipt side. It's not... traditionally, not very interesting. But we want to start enriching every part of your shopping experience that way.Stephanie:Yeah. That's cool. So, you're talking about increasing market penetration. And I saw that you guys signed a big deal with Kroger. So, I want to hear... First off, congrats. That's amazing. I want to hear a little bit-Lindon:Thank you.Stephanie:... about that. How did you strike up that partnership? And what does that look out on a national roll out?Lindon:Yeah. So, it's a very, very exciting deal because it is definitely a step towards the right direction in terms of accelerating the adoption of digitized stores. And Kroger's came to us initially. We had reached out them. But I would say a good portion of our clients are most effective when they reach out to us. And that was a part of... the early part of the process as to how we got to know Kroger, or how we got started on the project.Lindon:They've been looking into this phase and thinking about what could potentially make sense. And we decided to start working together, very fortunately. And throughout the process, there were definitely a lot of learnings. But fortunately, Kroger wasn't our first client, so we had gotten a lot of the initial warp up out of the way. And so, we were able to deploy in their stores very, very quickly. And I think one piece that was quite interesting was that, when Dash Cart came out from Amazon, it really accelerated the Kroger's process. Because there they were, Amazon, making additional innovations inside physical stores, and now they're actually... Before, people were saying Amazon Go wasn't going to scale to a larger store.Lindon:And Amazon proved people wrong by developing the smart cart. And that was a validation of what we have built. And that accelerated the process as well.Stephanie:What kind of lessons did you learn, or would you tell someone else, when you had that first partner versus moving to something like a Kroger?Lindon:It's definitely night and day. We started first by working with a local grocer, a smaller grocer called Food Cellar. The store owner's extremely friendly, very open minded, wanted to try new technologies. So, we launched with him first. But as we started working with him, we realized that grocery is a extremely complicated market. It's not like a typical convenience store where everything is just bar coded and stuff. Inside grocery stores, you have promotional deals. Buy one, get one free. Buy one, get one 50% off.Lindon:The promotional part of the pricing logic was very difficult. And also integration into the store's system was also very difficult, because we need to connect to their point of sale system to make sure that we know the latest pricing of what costs what. And we also need to push back that information to their inventory systems to make sure that their overall records are well maintained. So, that part also took a little bit of time. But I think most importantly is really just figuring out the overall flowing process. In grocery stores, you have... They sell produce. Produce are weighted. So, how do we facilitate that to make sure that it's very easy for customers to understand that this is the way that they add produce?Lindon:On top of that, there is also buffets, coffee beans, beans, different types of... They also have a bakery with coffee. And they also have a pizza little section in the store. So, really understanding every single part of that was very, very essential. So, we really learned... We did a lot of learnings at the local grocery store level. And we also ramped up to Kroger. And before we launched Kroger, we actually launched Sobeys, which was one of the largest super market chains in Canada. And by that, we've realized the complexity of a larger enterprise organization, how their system is structured, how their processes work.Lindon:And then, all through all that learnings, then we started working with Kroger. And with Kroger, we're still learning along the way. Physical retail grocery is a complicated space, but we have really figured out a lot more things. And now, we're able to move a lot more faster.Stephanie:Yeah. That's very cool. It also seems like there's going to be a tipping point where you train the machines, and then just so much data. But then, you don't really have to do that anymore because there's only so many products. There's only so many bottles of ketchup.Lindon:Right.Stephanie:Where it's like, "Okay. I know what that is now." As you start rolling out into future stores, it seems like you'll get over a hurtle, then it's kind of like on to the next thing because you've tackled that and they're good.Lindon:Yeah. Completely. Because the initial wrap up is always the toughest. But once you kind of get through a certain critical point, then you realize that, "Okay. We have all the images that we need. We have the integration system, the infrastructure we need. We have overcome a lot of the hardware issues," which I didn't mention. The hardware issues are also another beast. And so, I think, from our first store, which it was probably launched about a little over... probably over two years, until now, we just learned a ton along the way.Lindon:So, we really... A demo environment... Coming out of a demo environment/a pilot environment into actually a production environment where customers are using it on a consistent basis, where thousands of transactions go through our system on a daily basis, it's different scale. It's a different beast that we have to manage.Stephanie:Stephanie:And did Y Combinator come back to you now that things are going pretty well? Or did they ask to invest now?Lindon:Well, Y Combinator has always been a co-investor along the way.Stephanie:Oh happy, I thought they didn't... Oh, Y Combinator. I'm thinking about the investors at Demo Day.Lindon:Oh. The investors at Demo Day, yes. But we're a little too big for their tech size now. So...Stephanie:Yeah.Lindon:Definitely, when we started building and started fund raising, it was a different product. And it was a different market dynamic too. Back then, it was like 2016/2017, there were... Cashier less check out wasn't even a concept. It was like back in 2008 when self driving wasn't even a thing, and you were trying to build self driving. People were like, "You're crazy." Cashier less check out for retail is kind of very similar to that.Lindon:But I think a lot of the recent tailwinds in the industry... It really started first with Amazon Go. And then, Amazon acquired Whole Foods. So, it really spurred up Amazon's intention to tap into the physical retail market. So, it got a lot of people nervous. And then, it kind of evolved into... Recently, you have COVID, which accelerated the need for a more automated checkout process, because cashiers are very prone to COVID risk. You see more than 20% of cashiers were diagnosed with... tested positive with COVID at some point in their lives. And that makes it a very difficult decision for both the retailers, and the shoppers, and the cashiers. Because you have cashiers who are consistently exposed to thousands of people on a daily basis.Lindon:Shoppers want to make sure that they're safe. And retailers want to make sure that their shoppers are safe, and their employees are safe as well. And that kind of accelerated the interest in the market.Stephanie:Yeah. Do you see curbside pickup and people shopping for you as a threat to the business model?Lindon:Yeah. This is very interesting. So, this kind of comes back to... draws a full circle on the ecommerce portion now. I do think that grocery and general retail is going to continue to be more ecommerce. That's one part that I definitely recognize, and definitely am aware. And ecommerce is very interesting in that, during COVID, physical stores are actually doing substantially better. Because we systematically shifted the demand from food, basically from restaurants, into cooking at home for yourself.Lindon:So grocery, general retail, kind of enjoy a lot of that market expansion. And then, on top of that, then ecommerce came in and chipped a little bit of the market away from them. But then, when you actually think about the overall landscape of retail, Instacart is the largest ecommerce player. 100% of their transactions are [inaudible] physical stores. So, it doesn't reduce the traffic inside stores. If anything, it really increased the need to be efficient inside a store. And that's where Capers come in as well. We can help facilitate delivery shoppers to make them more efficient by telling them where all the items are inside the store, and get cashier check out free so that they can walk out of the store.Lindon:So, curbside pickup also, also the same. You need someone inside a store to go walk around the shelves to pick up everything. So, where I see the future of retail really converging is that you are going to see a lot more retailers. Not only are they going to optimize their stores for the shoppers, but they're also going to optimize the stores to make sure that it also becomes the local fulfillment center. Because these are the distribution modes that are closest to your house. These stores are just a mile away from your house. So, I don't see in store activity going down at all. In fact, I see in store activities... It's going to continue to pick up.Lindon:And that also increases the need for technologies like us to make in store experience more pleasant so that, when people come back to the store, they enjoy and love that experience as they interact with food around them, but also make it extremely efficient and expedite it. So, I'm very bullish on the overall check out free industry.Stephanie:Yeah. I see there being opportunity as well, expanding into the Home Depots of the world, and all the stores where it's like, "Ugh. This aisle is a little too much for me. I just need to know where to go to get what I want, and then just walk out and not wait in a crazy line." So, it seems like there's a lot of other industries that would probably be waiting for this...Lindon:Completely.Stephanie:... after you guys were fully secured.Lindon:Completely. We could expand to all retail formats. So, we're very excited to explore that.Stephanie:Cool. All right. Well, this has been such a fun interview. I probably could keep going, but I'm going to shift over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Sales Force Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask a question, and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready?Lindon:Okay. Sure.Stephanie:All right. What's one thing from 2020 that you hope sticks around in 2021?Lindon:That's a really tough one.Stephanie:It can't be like, "Oh. I hope people continue to shop more in person and not go to restaurants." It can't be something that benefits your business.Lindon:Okay. I hope that my team momentum keeps up, because 2020, ironically, is one of the years where my team has really gone together, despite COVID, and really accelerated our development. So, that's one thing that... That was good. And it really proved that work from home... Actually yeah, work from home is here to stay.Stephanie:Yeah. I agree. People will not want to go back five days a week anymore.Lindon:Yeah.Stephanie:What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Lindon:Cost of delivery. If cost of delivery goes down, ecommerce would also take off.Stephanie:Yep. If you had a podcast, what would it be about, and who would your first guest be?Lindon:The cockroach way. I thought about that. I was going to write a book about it.Stephanie:About what?Lindon:How do you survive building a startup, earning, I don't know, $2000 a month. It was one of those things. Because we burned $7000 per month for two and a half years. So, not buying orange juice and all that stuff, that was real, and definitely want to talk about that. So, who would I want to invite? An entrepreneur that was very referable, very, very cheap.Stephanie:Your co-founder?Lindon:Yes. Yes. He will be a great one. He's still referable today, even though our team [crosstalk]. Yeah, at least... Well, I mean, I'm paying for it myself now. It's not on the company. So, he can't stop me.Stephanie:There you go. What's up next on your Netflix queue?Lindon:I watch a lot of stand ups, Kevin Hart.Stephanie:Yep.Lindon:Yeah, it's awesome. After a long work day, you can sit down and just watch some Kevin Hart.Stephanie:Yep.Lindon:It's great.Stephanie:Right. And I think you'll have a good answer for this last question. What one thing do you not understand that you wish you did?Lindon:The complications of scaling a team. When we scale from sea drown to the series A, to beyond, my role has really evolved from a independent contributor that's on the route to execution, to middle manager, which is managing the execution level people, to managing middle managers, to managing managers of middle managers. And along this way, I really learned a lot about management and growing as a CEO. So, that was something that I wish I had known a little earlier, so that I'm able to roll my team along more effectively.Stephanie:Good one. All right, Lindon. Well, thanks so much for joining the show. It was a pleasure to have you on. Where can people find out more about you and Caper?Lindon:You can find me on LinkedIn. And you can also find out about Caper on Caper's website, caper.ia.Stephanie:Awesome. Thanks so much.

When people scroll through Instagram these days, they can’t avoid the ads and the influencers pushing products. And that’s not a bad thing. In fact, more and more often, ecommerce is taking place in channels other than on a brand’s website, which is why so many companies are looking for ways to optimize how they execute commerce at the edge -- this means meeting customers where they are. Paloma has one way to do that, by turning messenger platforms into sales channels, which creates a more personalized shopping experience for customers, and a .5-to-10x higher conversion rate for brands.On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, I was joined by Kelsey Hunter, the Co-Founder and CEO of Paloma, to give us the inside scoop on why brands should be investing in conversational commerce. In the last year, Paloma has helped partners convert $9 million in sales, and she explains how that happened by simply diverting ad traffic away from a website and into a chat instead. Plus, she discusses the future of conversational commerce and how the low barrier to entry into the ecommerce industry is forcing everyone to adjust quicker than ever before. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Website Woes: Moving forward, a brand’s website will become more of a secondary piece of collateral when it comes to driving conversions. It will still be critical to have a fast, highly-efficient website experience, but more of the interactions and conversion efforts will be focused on other channels where customers are spending more time.Get To The Party: The worst thing a brand could be doing right now is not experimenting with and setting up processes in Facebook Messenger and other messaging apps. Customer service and the customer experience are two of the leading drivers of conversions, and ignoring a channel that allows you to provide a proactive and personalized experience is a huge wasted opportunity.Far Out Future: The future of commerce is being written right now with shops that are opening with simple Instagram product posts and telling customers interested to go to a PayPal link. More new brands are foregoing the traditional channels and website launches, so the barrier to entry is much lower. As more competition enters the market in this way, traditional brands will have to keep up with their own easy, personalized commerce options.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 to Up Next in Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postals, co-founder and CEO at mission.org. Today we have Kelsey Hunter joining us. The founder and CEO of Paloma. Kelsey, welcome to the show.Kelsey:Thank you, Stephanie. It's so good to be here.Stephanie:We're excited to have you on. I was just thinking I'm like, "How do I know I'm actually talking to Kelsey and not a chatbot?" She's put up a virtual screen and it might not even be Kelsey back there. I'm not sure.Kelsey:I have a history of pretending to be a bot, so.Stephanie:I actually, I read that. I read that you spent a little bit six weeks pretending to be a chatbot to learn how they worked.Kelsey:True.Stephanie:That's fun jumping off point. Tell me a bit about being a chatbot. What's that life like?Kelsey:It is wild. Let's see, I was working at a startup in New York that we offered mobile commerce solution for brands and publishers. So I was really deep in the mobile commerce space when the messenger API opened up. And as we're getting side projects, of course then, decided that messenger would be a good place to try to test things out.Kelsey:And before even building anything, I pretended to be a bot just to see how it would work. That's what sparked all of this. It was like, "Oh wait, if you can talk to people directly, people will talk to you about themselves." I'm asking people questions, they're telling me way too much information. That was really the spark for me. Then I said, "Oh, why are we making assumptions online? We can just ask people and they will very happily tell you things to help figure out what they should buy and why."Stephanie:That's cool. So you were doing this at another company. And then you're like, this is the business in and of itself. And that's how you went to create Paloma?Kelsey:Yeah. It was a totally side project outside of the company that I was working with. But all of the pieces tied together for me. That company is called Button, and when I left Button, I did a little bit of other experimentation in the channel. Actually, worked with a team to build a open-source software, to help people call Congress on Facebook Messenger, which was one of the first software tools that was like a MailChimp for the space, which is really cool. But brought it all the way back around to commerce and launched Paloma at the end of 2017.Stephanie:Cool. So tell me a bit more about Paloma. What is it? What does it do?Kelsey:Paloma helps brands turn Facebook Messenger into a sales channel. Essentially, we work with a lot of D2C and ecom brands across every product, category, audience, price point, and we help them drive traffic into messenger instead of their website where their customers get a more personalized shopping experience, that's powered by our software. So what that might look like for a furniture brand would be, they're running Instagram and Facebook ads and they can set them to open up a Messenger conversation instead of opening up a website landing page.Kelsey:And once in Messenger, our conversation, we'll ask them questions like what room do you want to design? What are the colors in that room? Do you have cats, dogs? Any other kind of style preferences. And then we'll dynamically route the customer to the right products based off of what they've shared. By helping the customer make the purchase decision, we're effectively seeing anywhere from two to 10X increases in conversion rates. And that's a little bit of very cap on, on how that works.Stephanie:That's awesome. I feel like just thinking about, I follow all these influencers on Instagram and they're always selling stuff, which normally I'm like, I want a lot of this. But if you respond to them, they definitely can't keep up. If you're like, does that size, would it fit me? Is that Off-White? Is that Real-White? It seems like there's a lot of opportunity everywhere to have a chatbot set up that personalizes the experience and also helps it scale.Kelsey:Exactly. And what you just described is one of the reasons that we see so much opportunity in that space. And the reason why customers messaged in the first place is because when it comes to online shopping people don't shop on websites. That's just where they transact now. But they're making decisions by what you're talking about, watching influencers, DMing folks, talking to friends, watching YouTube videos, TikToks.Kelsey:So you're basically piecing together all these different parties to figure out, should I buy this? What's the right thing for me? Whereas if you walk into a storefront, for example, you can get all of that figured out in a matter of minutes. You can talk to an associate, they're going to ask questions. Everything that you just described can happen there. There's nowhere like that online. And that's where messaging channels open up that opportunity for the brand to be part of that purchase decision process. So instead of leaving it up to all the third parties, the brand can do it themselves and they can scale it through these kinds of automated conversations.Stephanie:Very cool. And how do you go about setting up the responsive? Is it very custom based on the product? Like, do you work with a brand early on to be like, here's probably what they're going to ask you or they're telling you. What does that look like behind the scenes?Kelsey:We definitely curated a lot to the brand, a lot to the product type and to their customer demographic. So for example, Facebook recently published a case study of the work that we do with Wallow, which is a brand that sells titers, strollers. Basically goods for families and their kids. So they're really great products, but it's actually not so much about having a lot of skews. They don't have a ton of skews. It's more about why should somebody buy this Wallow stroller and how is it going to fit into their family and lifestyle?Kelsey:So essentially what we do is we'll work with them, look at the products that they sell and try to understand their customer type. In their case, a lot of their customers will buy for themselves, but there's a pretty good chunk that are gifting. So for example, the first question we ask is, is this for you and your family, or is this for a gift? Who are you gifting for? And then as customers answer these questions, we can speak to how it will fit into their lifestyle. How old is your little one? Are they eating solids yet or not?Kelsey:We don't actually need the customer to ask questions because by us asking questions first, we can preemptively answer how the value prop works for them. How it fits into their life. So we can say, "Well, they're eating solids is getting very messy. This high chair is very easy to clean." And so you're effectively accomplishing both along the way. It's basically just a really good sales conversation.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, that's really smart and I think it's a different mindset where a lot of times, when you think about chatbots, the consumer has to initiate the conversation. Has to think of the questions. And it makes me even think about when I'm hiring... I'm trying to think what I was hiring. But they're like, "Oh, do you have any more questions?" And I'm like, "Well, what do people normally ask you? Like, what's the normal questions because I don't know what to ask you."Kelsey:What should I ask. Yeah.Stephanie:If I'm buying a house or whatever it is, what are the top 10 questions you get? And so that's great being like, we'll do all the work for you. Here's some of the questions that we know will start a conversation. So it's actually less work and less cognitive load. Where you can get to the end point and still leave being like, I know what I'm talking about now with this product.Kelsey:Exactly. That's 100% right. And it's actually a really classic UX design issue. Which is actually my original background. Basically, when it comes to any digital interface or any interface at all, if you don't know where you can go, you're not really likely to do it. You're not going to walk up to a pitch black tunnel and be like, "Yeah, I feel confident walking into that."Kelsey:That's like an open free from bot conversation or like you get on a customer support call and it's like, "What can we help with?" And you're like, "Well, depending on what I answer, what's the likelihood you'll have any idea what I'm asking?" It's not great. So we find that structuring and providing a really clear interface for the customers to navigate also makes a huge difference.Stephanie:We talked about this a lot on the show that shopping is moving to the edge. Everyone is shopping on Social, they're shopping on Amazon, Walmart it's everywhere and not always on the website anymore. Do you think that websites are going to become like a secondary thing, where it's like, yeah, it's a nice to have. But people are actually on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. Going directly to Amazon, they're not really going to always go right to your website.Kelsey:That's exactly right. It's going the way of retail. And that's not to say it's going to go away. It's just that it's not the primary anymore. We see a website as like the catalog and it's a transacting location. In a lot of cases that's useful, but it's not necessary anymore. And we see that with how new sellers are starting today. Especially with COVID, everything accelerates so rapidly. But one of the really interesting trends is, you've got new shops opening up just with Instagram pages and saying, "Hey, DM me for this product and I'll send you a PayPal link."Kelsey:I think those kinds of very low tech indicators of the fact that that's where the market is heading. And, I think you're 100% right. The website's really not necessary. And there are tons of great antique shops I follow in New York that are doing just well without it.Stephanie:Yeah. That's cool. So what other trends are you seeing among sellers right now? Maybe anything new popping up and you're like, pre-COVID we actually weren't really seeing this and now there's a big trend to just opening an Instagram page and selling through DMs. What other things like that are you seeing?Kelsey:I think that's huge. I think that I'm really interested in these future QVC type of models. But that's just because I grew up watching those. I don't know, did you ever watched the knife show?Stephanie:I did not watch that, but.Kelsey:The show was wild.Stephanie:Well, there's a [crosstalk].Kelsey:I think it was on a lot when I was in college. We'd always end up like late night. The knife show would end up on at very late hour and it was just like, "Hey, here's some knives and we're just going to cut all sorts of stuff with these knives." Like the silliest thing. It was so funny, but-Stephanie:[crosstalk] the Blender show. It wasn't called the Blender show, but where they [crosstalk] random things in the blender and I'm like, [crosstalk].Kelsey:Exactly. The same kind of stuff.Stephanie:How much time do we have on our hands apparently?Kelsey:It was so silly. It was like cutting shoes and weird things like that. The humor of it, I think it was really fun. And I think that online, we're seeing a lot of that, like humor come into commerce in a way that I think it's really fun. And that's really what it should be. So I like things like that. But I do think that the new selling methods are probably what some of the most interesting things to me is just, what's the version of opening a store today versus before. And like the barrier to entry is just so low now. It's pretty phenomenal. So I'm excited for that.Stephanie:Yeah. Cool. And how do you advise brands to being proactive when it comes to starting conversations versus being reactive and just taking the inbound? Because if I'm thinking like, I'm a new brand, I don't have any inbound. What's the way to be proactive and like reach out to people with your product?Kelsey:What's really nice is that these channels are often first, which I think is really important for there to be a great customer experience. If we want these channels to succeed, if we want these brands to succeed, we need to make sure that we're being really mindful of the consumer. But what's really, really nice about Facebook Messenger while it is tough to work on another platform, play by someone else's rules sometimes, but there's a ton of great benefits there.Kelsey:And one of them is the acquisition funnel. So brands are currently running ads from Facebook and Instagram and stories, all those normal places. And all they have to do is set up the exact same ads, but they can change the destination of the ad click to open a messenger conversation instead of a website. And so we're able to say, "Hey, we're basically giving you a new ad type that you can leverage. It's going to drive to a higher converting destination." And there's no reason not to try that.Kelsey:Basically, it's a win-win from the standpoint of, it's really easy to test. We can guarantee traffic and make sure that we're properly vetting it and controlling the volume. And you can compare it one-to-one to your ads that go your website. So it makes it really easy for brands to get started. And it makes it easy for the consumers because they're doing what they don't normally do, which is click on ads. So that's the most common way to start.Kelsey:There are other ways of getting customers into the channel and you can do it with short links, with QR codes, we'll link from an email, a pop-up on your website. There's a lot of different methods there. And we have partners that do all of what I just described, but ads is a really common format because again, it's just a very seamless acquisition funnel.Stephanie:Cool. And is there anything that brands are doing right now in messenger or Instagram DMs, where you're like, that's actually the wrong way to do it? Anything that you would advise brands not to do or have seen things going wrong?Kelsey:Yeah, that's a great question. I think not doing anything at all is what I would say is the worst thing. Because, whether that's Instagram DMs and you're just not responding to the people that message you there, and that's a huge, lost opportunity. We understand that it's really hard to scale responding to people individually, which is why platforms like ours can help. But I'm just not doing anything, you're losing customers every time you don't respond to them because they want to engage with you directly for a reason.Kelsey:And every time they do that, there's an opportunity for that to become either a customer or a recurring customer. So let's say that's probably the worst, but in terms of actually doing things that are, are wrong, I don't like any of the spammy stuff and I don't like any of the things where it's not clear to the customer what's going to happen. Those are the things that I find frustrating, but in terms of how to do that, well, there's not as much going on with that anymore because Facebook really did crack down on some of it. So I'll say what I didn't like before was, there was a trend where there's an opt-in check box that you could put on your website that basically said, "I'm opting into Facebook Messenger with a business."Kelsey:And that's still something that you can use today, but at the time you could actually put it on your website pre-checked. Oftentimes customers wouldn't necessarily notice it or see that it was there or see that they had opted into something. But what was even worse was there were lots of sites that were putting them behind the scenes. So it wasn't actually visible on the page at all. So a customer would add something to their cart. And by submitting that add to cart, it was opting them into messages without them knowing it.Kelsey:And then they would get messages later if they abandoned their purchase that were like, "Hey, here's the 10% off. Here's a whatever go buy that thing you were looking at." Which inherently is not a bad workflow, but to do that without letting the customer know that's what's going to happen, really not great. I'd say that's the worst thing I've seen in this space, but you can't do that anymore. And I'm grateful for it.Stephanie:Yeah. Well, that's good. How do you keep up with the changes that Facebook's going through? Because it seems like they've been definitely on like a roller coaster where very popular. And then, I feel like they kind of went through a trough where it's like, does anyone use it anymore? And now I feel like it's growing again. Even among my friends, it's like people are using the groups now and Messenger.Kelsey:The groups are huge.Stephanie:That's the only reason I go on there for the most part, but how do you keep up with what they're even doing behind the scenes and how the buying groups on there just changing. And then coming back and then leaving, and then there on TikTok. How do you keep up with that?Kelsey:I think it could be really easy to get distracted or feel like that's very volatile. The approach that we've taken is actually just been to have our own point of view that is rooted in something just so fundamental that it doesn't matter what the policy changes are really. We won't be disturbed by them essentially. So we've looked at Facebook Messenger as a sales channel since day one of the business. And we've been around just over three years now. And of the platforms that were popping up at the time were MailChimps for Messenger, were abandoned cart notifications and things like that.Kelsey:And that is really easy to get disrupted by policy changes. But if you're fundamentally saying, this is a place where you can more effectively get a conversion from a customer and have a better experience for them. There's actually not a lot that that Facebook could do that would really interfere with that in a way. Unless they just fully said, "Hey, you can't actually use the API at all anymore." They just shut the API down. Then it'd be like, okay, fine. But even if that were to happen, the US market for messaging is inherently multi-channel.Kelsey:Messenger's not being first or last for us. It's going to be one of many. So, that's the way that we approach it as yes, we keep up with the trends. We are a platform partner, so we're pretty in tune with the roadmap and what's going to be happening there. And that's really important. The relationship is really important to make sure that you can prepare for your business. But at the end of the day, I think having a really just underlying fundamental platform approach to what we're doing, enables us to avoid a lot of the mishaps that we've seen affect other business models.Stephanie:Yeah. Cool. And you just mentioned like messaging is just the first, are there other areas that you feel like there's a lot of opportunity that brands can be selling in right now. Or maybe it's not even ready yet, but in the future it's coming down the pike.Kelsey:Yeah. I think anywhere where consumers and brands can have a direct conversation, you're going to see things evolve for that. And it might depend on the platform, if the platform is incentivized towards it or interested in it. Facebook supports this because they believe in messaging as the future of consumer behavior. It's something that's been around since the beginning of the internet, we've been chatting. I don't think that's going anywhere, but Facebook is also really highly motivated to monetize on it. And so, there's opportunity there.Kelsey:But would someone like discord do something like this? I'm not sure. I'm not sure if they're like motivated towards that or if that's part of the business that they want to be building. But I really do see that any messaging channel where you can have that kind of interaction, there's no reason not to produce a better shopping experience there and tried to scale that. It's kind of infinite, I think.Stephanie:I wonder if chatbots on websites, like native chatbots have muddied up a bit. Where it's like, we've all had that bad experience with a chatbot where they're talking and you're like, "Get away, get away. You're not going to be able to help me. I already know it Verizon, stop." [crosstalk]. I wonder if that has hindered the market, with certain people being open to buying via chat bot when they've had experiences that are subpar on maybe certain websites.Kelsey:At the start of these platforms opening up and these APIs opening up, you had people making bots left and right. And they were very low quality. It tarnished it a little bit. I think tarnished it a bit for the consumer and for the brands, because, when things opened up, brands started testing things and they weren't getting performance results. It wasn't their fault. It's really hard. It's like launching your first website and then not working super well. It's like, well, yeah, this is a totally new... It's where the start of websites existing. It's like, yeah, that's tough. It's tough to figure it out. It's a whole new learning curve.Kelsey:So I think that in terms of, what can happen there. It is very easy to tarnish their reputation, but again, it's not going anywhere. So as long as again, you have an opportunity to drive a better experience. You should keep iterating on that. And again, it's like if you have customers that are willing to do directly, it's always an opportunity to do better and to turn them into a better customer for you as well. There is also really huge difference between like the customer support experiences like that, and these types of sales experiences. I think there's a pretty clear line between the two and a lot of that depends on the customer's intent.Kelsey:If you're coming from an ad to shop driver, for example, you know that's what you're doing and you know that that's what you're being helped to do. And it's pretty straightforward. But if you're going in with any level of support need, there's a lot of opportunity to get that wrong. So it's really tough.Stephanie:Someone's already coming in with a heated mindset and one wrong word from chatbot. Ooh, I'm hot.Kelsey:Exactly.Stephanie:The one thing I think about too is the payment piece and how to make sure that customer journey is frictionless because even when I hear, Oh, some brands have a PayPal link, which I think is great. Or like an MVP, get something out there. And also, show there like, do I even know my PayPal login? Like, Oh, I don't know.Kelsey:Exactly.Stephanie:How do you think about, making the checkout experience frictionless where it's not a million different options and people know it's very be fast and easy.Kelsey:Currently we actually drive to check out on the brand site and we find that works really well because it's the trusted destination. You have all of the tooling and UI that you need to be able to have a good seamless checkout experience. And that works really well. Checkout is on our roadmap to be able to process that and manage that. And we won't be like a payment processor. We have partners we're talking to on end, but in terms of the checkout, there's a lot of ways to handle that.Kelsey:And I think that there's been so much best practice learned from mobile shopping as it is, that can be leveraged there. And there's also a ton of testing opportunities, but we really do look to... We're not trying to reinvent wheels here. Stephanie:That whole space is evolving so quick and just talking to the team at fast and continuing to be here and see what they're doing with the one-click checkout. I'm like, it seems like there's such an opportunity to have that right. In every form of like, you've got your cart already loaded in like your Instagram DM, and you can just hit checkout and all your payment information save and drop onto the next Instagram site.Kelsey:[crosstalk].Stephanie:There also seems like there's a good opportunity for Amazon there. I always look at all those Q&A sections, where it seems like how much time do I spend looking at toothpaste? Is it fluoride-free? It's for my kids, is it fluoride free? Does it not have this, that, that. All these questions, but I'm actually going through the whole product page for a thing of toothpaste so much time wasted. But it would be really nice to have a Messenger on there where you could just say, "Hey, does this have this and this?" Instead of me trying to zoom in on the ingredient list, or like, look at all the reviews for something that's like $6 or whatever it may be.Kelsey:Yeah, exactly. I hope Amazon's listening. They should come talk to us. We haven't seen anything quite like that, but we have talked to brands that sell on Amazon and we have done experiences in Messenger that link to Amazon product. That is something that we've experimented with before. And I think that you have to your point, why scroll through a million questions and answers that aren't necessarily relevant to you? And one might be, when you could just have the brand get to know you better and then tell you what you need to know.Stephanie:Yeah, exactly. So when you're first starting to work with brands who are implementing chatbots, what kind of metrics do you maybe advise them to look at to see if it's going well or not? Because a lot of people I could see being new to this, not even knowing like, well, what should I expect for conversion? Or like, what's good. What's bad. Like, how do you advise them around that?Kelsey:That's a great question. So first and foremost, and I think this is a little bit of what might have gotten wrong in the early days of the channel. Businesses care about performance. They care about conversions and CACs and return, and all those things. So, we want to make sure we're mapping to that because if you don't then at the end of the day, they're going to be worth your time if it's not performing on those metrics? Probably not. So first and foremost, we can own conversion rate. That's the KPI that we really truly measure against. Because essentially we're saying if you drive traffic here, instead of your website, it's more likely to convert. That's our thesis. And so if that's true, that's what we're going to start measuring against. And we'll do that by looking at what's your conversion rate from a standard click to site ad.Kelsey:So purchases you're getting out of link clicks. And then when you run a click to Messenger ad, we'll do the exact same thing. How many purchases are you getting out of those ad clicks? And that should be able to tell us if it's a higher converting channel for you. Fundamentally we've seen anywhere from 50% increases to 10X increases in one case and anywhere in between. So it's not abnormal for that to be the initial result. But then in terms of the other things like captain role, as they should benefit from that better conversion rate. It shouldn't be approached necessarily differently than any other conversion tests that you're running.Kelsey:That being said, we have a ton of insight into the full funnel that we can leverage to optimize. And so, all of our partners start with at least a three month program because we know it takes time to warm up and we want to make sure we can iterate. And we do that on a weekly basis. So you might start with X result in month one, by the end of month three, it should be much better. And so the way that we can do that is looking at everything from a customer clicks on an ad, they land into Messenger. Do they respond to the first message, which basically ops them into the channel?Kelsey:Are they completing like a quiz? If there's a quiz or personal shopper? Are they clicking on products back to the website? And then are they adding to cart? And then are they purchasing? So we have a slightly different funnel. You're going to get your ad performance from ads manager and see the link clicks and add to carts and purchases. Paloma is going to see everything in between. So we'll be able to know exactly where people are off and why. And be able to iterate on that much more efficiently than if it were traffic going to a website, where are they clicking? How are they browsing? There's like a ton of more opaque data from a website side. From our end we can literally just see, okay, you have too much drop-off on the first question. So let's not ask that question. Or, Hey, everybody is answering the same way to this one question, that doesn't need to be there.Kelsey:Or, people are clicking on the products. Maybe we need different product batches or whatever that may be. So we'll be able to get a lot more of a finer detail on that. And we have benchmarks for each. We expect our partners to get at least a 30% opt-in rate, maybe percent completion on any type of quiz or personal shopper experience. And then at least 50% of traffic clicking back to the website. And then from there add to carts and purchases depends on what they would normally expect to see. It's kind of a lengthy answer.Stephanie:It's good to know metrics like that to aim for. How do you plug into a brand's inventory system and then also make matches. That will be something that I want to look at. I can just imagine me going in there and not knowing what I ever want being like, "I want a picture." And then someone's showing me something and maybe like, "Oh, not that one." How do you guys personalize it and show something I want, but also make sure that you're not tapping into inventory, that's like out of stock.Kelsey:So we basically can ingest inventory into our system, keep that up to sync, keep that availability up to sync. And so anytime that we're building experiences, you're able to make sure that it's the right things getting shown. In terms of what to show customers based on their selections. We have this like start matching dynamic product matching system where basically the customer's responses get associated with the inventory.Kelsey:So all of your boots are associated with like a boot selection or all of your things that come and break colors would get associated with like bright colors. If you were asking about color preference. And some of these qualities are not things that would normally be tagged onto your inventory. So we're basically expanding on that. So we make the association between the two and as customers make the selections, we basically just filter down and display all the things that would then relate.Kelsey:So like Andy swimwear, for example, if you chose one pieces and some coverage and a lot of support, you're only going to see the products that, apply to all of those qualities. And it's really simple for us to create those. Something like that can take like 10 minutes to build, whereas a quiz to put on a website can cost thousands of dollars and take two months. And so, that's kind of part of the magic and secret sauce of our software.Stephanie:Yeah, that's cool. I was just thinking about, okay, to even create that kind of filtering and navigation options and all that can take a long time. And tagging it and making sure that it's actually can be searchable. And then if you can just have it in a DM or Messenger, that's great game changing.Kelsey:Yeah. It's really fun. It's a very simple, we have like own drag and drop interface to just jag product on to the selection options. They're tagged with that in the future. And then as customers answer, we just know what to show them.Stephanie:Cool. Where do you see the future of commerce headed or chatbots and commerce intersecting. What does that look like to you maybe three to five years down the road? Where do you hope it looks?Kelsey:Really, again, I like to look to what people are doing now when they're just starting out and also at other markets. So really in terms of the future of commerce, we believe very strongly that it's on messaging channels, that that is the next door front. And so, what does that look like? It's customers going to DMs, it's brands driving traffic to DMs and customers just getting much better shopping experiences there, converting there, checking out there. And new stores not having to even open up a website. Again, I don't think website's going to necessarily totally go away, but it's just going to be a smaller part of the puzzle. If you look at what's gone on in other markets like China with Weechat, they're way ahead of the game. And that works really, really well.Kelsey:And it's a huge chunk of the commerce ecosystem out there. So we've been a little bit slower to that, but it is happening. It's happening a little bit more multichannel, and I think that's really interesting and that's a really fun challenge is that, we don't have the monolith app that will do it all. We have a lot of [crosstalk] apps. I think it's great because everyone likes to have their own different way. We're always getting new social networks and apps out there and it's fun. It's really fun. So basically, I'm not sure how many different tools there will be in the future, but we very strongly believe that messaging is the next channel and destination for commerce to happen. And we're effectively building the platform to power that. Stephanie:That's great. It definitely begs the question about keeping things organized when you're selling on so many different channels. And there's probably going to be dozens of messaging platforms that people are using. I'm just imagining a brand, trying to keep up where, they go from selling on their website and then maybe dabbling in Amazon, maybe on Walmart. And then all of a sudden it's now, you can sell on Pinterest and Instagram and Facebook and TikTok. How do you think a brand would be able to keep up or do you see anything right now? Like any innovations that are allowing brands to organize everything in one central place that they can keep track of what they're doing?Kelsey:There are definitely a lot of interesting tools. I think that what comes before the tools are just the people, expertise. I think that's what we're seeing, services and agencies that will help with coordinating all of those things or know how to best launch on Amazon. And then once you've launched on Amazon and all these other places, then you go, okay, well now I have everything in too many places I need a more scalable system. And that's when you start seeing softwares get put in place. And I don't think any come to mind immediately, but I think there's some really great tools that are coming up to try to glue things together and basically to piece together, all the different supply chain and logistics issues.Kelsey:And there's some really great things out there for that. But we're also seeing new commerce platforms that are inherently taking those things in mind. So we have a lot of commerce players that exist that are trying to catch up and trying to add on these different channels. But then you have new players that are from day one saying, "We know it's not just about one place." So you've got things like, headless commerce and no code tools and platforms like Paloma that will from day one say, "Hey, this isn't just about a single source of shopping. It's about a lot of things."Stephanie:Yeah. I completely agree. All right, well, let's shift over to the lightning round. Lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce commerce cloud. I'll ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready? You look a little nervous. Wow.Kelsey:I don't know, that's scary. It's a little daunting.Stephanie:No, it'll be fun. It'll be fun. What one thing will have the biggest impact on e-commerce in the next year. I have a feeling you're say message shopping and Messsenger.Kelsey:Obviously messaging. I'll just be repeating myself a little bit, but I think messaging is a bit. It's already been exploding pretty quickly and it's growing faster than ever. We drove almost 9 million in partner revenue last year. And that's just as a small, early stage team, so there's a lot ahead of us.Stephanie:Yeah. That's cool. What, one thing do you not understand today that you wish you did?Kelsey:Just so many people things. I find people so fascinating. I'm constantly seeing how people chat, but I would just love to talk to people about their experiences with all of these experiences and with all these different kind of shopping channels. And, I think that it's not something that I don't understand. It's just something that I'm always eager to understand people's behaviors more. So that'd probably be it. [inaudible].Stephanie:What's up next on your Netflix queue?Kelsey:I am so behind, I need to watch Bridgeton and literally everything else. I've been doing a Buffy rewatch. So I'm just like living in a very different time.Stephanie:What is a book that has really left a very big impression on you? You're like, "I always think back to this book for either business or life."Kelsey:Oh, that is a great question. I'd say, well, what are the ones that comes to mind, it's Italo Calvino. [crosstalk] is the author. And basically, it's a person telling stories about visiting a lot of different cities. And when I was younger, I found that it was just... When you're reading, it's all about picturing what's going on. And as someone who, if you didn't grow up being able to travel a lot, it stuck with me. I was like, I want to be able to do that someday, but also just being able to picture it from a book is really, really nice. I still have like the images in my head of different passages from that.Stephanie:Oh, that's cool. All right. And then the last one, what's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?Kelsey:Oh my gosh. I feel like people are so nice. What is the nicest thing anyone's ever done to me? Oh gosh, there's too many things.Stephanie:Wow. You must be a very... People are sending all this nice stuff you way. [crosstalk] people around you, can I have some?Kelsey:When you run a business, or when you start a business, it's all about getting help. That's the best way to be able to succeed is knowing what you don't know and how to get help. So I will say I'm very good at getting help, but what's like the biggest part of that is having people be really nice and great. And so, there are just a lot of people that have helped along the way that I literally would not be where I am without that. From little things like making the introductions, not everyone has access to the networks that you need. And so, the people that believed in me more than the business or more than anything else, that's really huge.Kelsey:And so, I've just got like some really great, great people that helped along the way. I can't pick a single thing, but I'd say like some of our investors, some of just the people I've worked with in the past and they're really just root for you. And will be there when you say, "I have no idea what I'm doing. How does this work?" Or, "I need some help."Stephanie:I thought so. Good answer. All right, Kelsey. Well, it's been a blast having you on the show. I love learning about Paloma and your story. Where can people find out more about you and Paloma?Kelsey:You can learn more about Paloma, getpaloma.com, G-E-T-P-A-L-O-M-A. And me I'm on Twitter, LinkedIn at Kelsey Hunter. I think it's usually Kelsey AH. So feel free to message me, check out the site, chat with us. We're always around.Stephanie:Amazing. Thanks so much.

You’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 create my own stuff?"Deepica:Yeah. Well, here's the deal [inaudible] I never grew up saying I wanted to be an influencer or even be famous, but I did grow up saying I wanted to be a CEO and run my own business. And so, when you fall into something like this, it's very weird. But I think what got me through the years where I was just an influencer and didn't have the business side of it was, the end goal was the same. I wanted to change the face of representation for people who look like me, period. So whether that's in the media, or through my own beauty brand, the net goal was the same, and it still is the same.Deepica:And so, what I realized was, I had this opportunity to create a brand around myself that was really once in a lifetime, honestly. And I was just like, "I want to focus in on this and really learn everything I can about the beauty industry." Which at this point, I knew a decent amount. I worked at Birchbox, I had a lot of beauty brand contacts. And really, what I did was, after I quit my job, I emailed all my contacts and I was pretending to be my own assistant, and I was like, "Hello, I'm the assistant to Deepica Mutyala, beauty influencer with 10 million views, Today Show beauty expert, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, if you want to work with her, whatever."Deepica:And for every 100 emails I sent, I got one reply, and that one reply led to my first job where they asked me my rate, and I had no idea what to say. And then, when they said, "Okay," I realized, damn it, I could have asked for triple. You just learn as you go, and you're your own assistant, producer, editor, manager, agent, sometimes lawyer, which I don't recommend.Stephanie:Nope.Deepica:I'm like, "Bad idea."Stephanie:Yeah.Deepica:But you just learn as you go. And so, I think for me, what got me through being the girl who was waking up and taking selfies, and posting it for literally a career, I got paid to do that, was that I really saw a narrative in the beauty industry that didn't exist when I was growing up. There was no token brown girl, there was always... And even then, there wasn't really a token black girl growing up, that was still in the... Now, I feel like we're finally... It still has so, so much work to do, but I do think that we now have representation happening more than I ever saw growing up, but there still is this tokenism that happens where... I felt like for three years, as grateful as I am, that I've been able to work with every beauty brand under the sun, like a L'Oreal commercial to a Samsung ad that aired during the Golden Globes, and just any beauty brand I could have dreamt of.Deepica:I also realized there's plenty of people out there that deserve the shot to also do that, and there shouldn't just be one of me. There is not just one white girl on the campaign, why shouldn't there be more brown girls in the campaign, more black girls in the campaign? That experience as an influencer is what led me to launching LIVE TINTED as a community platform prior to launching the actual product itself. I didn't plan for that, again, being a community brand wasn't a thing growing up either, but it was lived in experience that truly inspired the idea that, before this launches with a physical product, let's create this united community where they dictate our future decisions.Deepica:And really, for me, honestly, I was craving a home where people were talking about things in the beauty industry that was not a thing, heavy topics like colorism. But then, other topics like facial hair, and things that you just didn't say. And so, we created this almost like collective home where every day we were just posting about faces that I felt like you didn't traditionally see being shown in campaigns. And it just started to organically grow into this very, very engaged community, which then at a point, I was like, "Let's create products for them, it's time." And that's kind of what led to our first product launch in may of 2019.Stephanie:Yeah. We had a really cool company on... Food52, same thing, they build up a huge community first, and then, afterwards, she was like, "Oh, it was only right to then start creating products to service that community." But my biggest question is always like, how did you build that community? How did you transfer the audience from TV to then go into your community? Or from Instagram, or YouTube, or wherever you were, how did you pull them in and get them engaging in a way where you're like, "They're here for the long haul and now I can move on to phase two of a product?"Deepica:Yeah, no, it's a good question. I think for me, I feel very grateful that those three years as an influencer, I created a community of people who felt very connected to me, because again, there wasn't a lot of brown girls doing this. And so, I felt like they would be ride or die for anything I put out into the world. But that is, to me, a huge responsibility, and it was like, "Okay, so now, if I create this brand, I don't want it to be about me, I want it to be about something so much bigger than myself."Deepica:So, if I had just launched it, which a lot of investors in the beginning were saying to me like, "Why do you have to create this community first and spend money on creating content as a community platform and things? You already have a following, create a product, show proof of concept, and build it out." I just didn't listen, and I felt really strongly that LIVE TINTED was bigger than my own identity, it was about a larger multicultural group of individuals coming together and finding common ground in industry where I felt like people were so divisive.Deepica:And so, I really wanted to kind of bridge that gap and create a really powerful, I think, warm home for people. Which, I think, a lot of brands are saying they're doing now, and it's awesome, right? I'm not hating, I think it's all for the greater good. But people are smart, and they can understand when some people are being performative versus not. And I feel very grateful that since day one, we've had values and core beliefs that we've... Of course, they evolve, but the core belief around diversity and inclusion is the pillar that has stood strong since the beginning.Deepica:And so, for me, on an actual tactical level, the first 20,000 followers, I would say, came directly from my following, from... I remember before we even launched it, I was trying to find photos of deeper skin brown women online, and it was virtually impossible. I was just searching and the team was searching, and I was like, "You know what? Let's use the power of social media." And I just posted on my Instagram, "I'm working on a project on stories, if you see any deeper skin melanated brown women, use #livetinted." I'm not even kidding, within minutes, the #livetinted was flooded with just tags. It was just like this community of women who have been thriving to be seen. They are just craving for this industry, who has neglected them, to pay attention to them.Deepica:So, when you ask, how I did it, sure, my following definitely helped do it, but what really did it was that there was just a natural need. These people didn't have another home, and they were excited to finally have it. And so, I also think that it grew from just being a South Asian Brown collective to being much larger. Because again, I talked about topics that were very specific to me and my life. I didn't force it and try to speak to something that I didn't know personally. And with that, I recognized colorism is not an issue in just the South Asian community. To be honest, I'm learning so much as we build this brand that... I had no idea, this is something that so many different cultural backgrounds face around the world.Deepica:And that actually, excited me, because I realized that there is an opportunity to create a brand with pillars that, like I said, unite people from all different cultural backgrounds rather than divide. And so, it just organically grew from there, just by talking about things that I lived in and experienced in my life.Stephanie:Yeah. That's very cool. So, how many people are in your community now?Deepica:Well, it's a tricky number, because I say 600,000 because I include my community as well. Because quite honestly, my whole brand has shifted to just LIVE TINTED stuff, Which I love. Yeah, we're a little over 600,000.Stephanie:Cool. And how do you think about keeping them engaged on the different channels? What are you doing now that's maybe different than when you started out in what? 2015, 2017?Deepica:I mean, yeah, because my brand started in 2015, and then LIVE TINTED started in 2018. But you have to evolve with the times. Perfect example is, hello, TikTok.Stephanie:Yeah. Actually, my favorite influencer is an Indian girl on there with her dad.Deepica:Oh yeah, she's amazing. I love her.Stephanie:What's her name?Deepica:Sheena? Is it Sheena? It's starts with an S.Stephanie:Yeah. She's so funny. But you never see her dad, it's always just his responses to things that she's doing. I've never seen her dad anyways in any of her videos. But she's my favorite. She's hilarious.Deepica:I'm obsessed with her. And yeah, I feel like there's this understood brown community bond where you're rooting for each other, because it's like, so many of us were told to be doctors and go down this traditional path. Yeah. One of my goals for the brand is to spotlight not your traditional beauty influencers, but people like her who are just creative creators. I think there's this incredible creative community that I've come across just from building LIVE TINTED that deserves so much spotlight. We have big plans to only continue to spotlight them in a bigger way as the brand continues to grow, Which I'm excited about. What was your question, again?Stephanie:[inaudible] Yeah. Okay. So, [inaudible] I like to derail things every once in a while, but back to saying... You said you had to change with the times, from what you used to do to what you do now, and you said, of course, TikTok, what are you doing today to keep your audience engaged? And how do you think about treating the different platforms different, [crosstalk] people right now are connecting with them best?Deepica:Well, I think, first and foremost, I don't try to pretend like I know something that I don't know. And so, luckily, at this stage in the business, bringing in an intern that's in college that can do TikTok for us, because I'm like, "Wait, what is this dance move? What's going on?" So, I think hiring subject matter experts is something that I feel like, finally, oh my gosh, because I've been just doing everything for the longest time that now, it's like, let's hire for people to do what they're good at.Deepica:But of course, you have to have a pulse and know what to even hire for, right? It's like, am I looking for an email expert? You have an X amount of budget, if you're going to focus in on email versus... Social versus paid versus all these other marketing levers, you know what makes sense? For example, for us, influencer is such a critical part of the business, because a lot of them are my personal relationships, but we need to continue to grow that network to the people... Just like the girl you just mentioned, there's a whole community of people that are continuing to create and build every year, and so, for me, it's about staying on the pulse and making sure you feel comfortable evolving with the times.Deepica:Facebook is still a powerful, powerful sales channel, for sure. And so, we do need to be relevant on there. But if you're a small team, and you have to pick and choose your efforts, for us, it's been deprioritized, and eventually, we'll get back there. But I'm way excited about LIVE TINTED impacting the next generation and helping them be a more tinted future, where everyone sees beyond the hues of their skin.Deepica:And so, I get really excited about tapping into a younger audience because they are the future of this entire industry, than going towards maybe an older audience. So, these to me, are just the little things you have to keep your mind on, what is your goals? What is the audience you think that you can really tap into? And what are they doing? And then, you decide your marketing leverage based on that.Stephanie:Yup. So, how are you thinking about tapping into TikTok then? I mean, you're mentioning partnering with an influencer who isn't a beauty influencer, but could still probably drive results. And I know earlier you said influencers, and you kind of cringed too in thinking about that. So, tell me a bit about, how do you partner with them? Does it work? How do you make sure that it works? All the details behind them.Deepica:Yeah. I cringed because I feel like the word influencer has been so like... It's been created into this like comedic relief for people, and I think that's what makes me cringe. But one thing that I feel really, really strongly about, is the value of these creators. I think of them as creatives that are just really changing the landscape of marketing. And I think that it's just the word influencer used to really make me cringe because I felt like it wasn't respected. And as somebody who went through being an influencer, and I still am an influencer, at the end of the day, [inaudible]... By the way, something people forget is influencers have always existed, they were just called celebrities before.Deepica:The definition is evolving and changing, and it's going to continue to evolve and change. If you have a platform and an audience, you are an influencer, you have an influence of some sort. And I think it's actually a really powerful thing, if you think about it, because it makes you realize, anyone can be an influencer, and it makes people empowered to use their voice. But the part that I get really excited about, like I said earlier, was this creative community, and how we can work with them. The same way I told you, these girls were just wanting to be seen. These creatives are just wanting to be seen, and they've never been given the opportunity to be seen. So, how is it that LIVE TINTED as a brand can tap into these people, and really invest time and effort as an internal team to search for these people, and work with them, and not go against the grain, and go against who everyone else is wanting to work with?Deepica:Listen, we're still a small company, so paid partnerships is something that I can't wait to be able to do. It's like, are you kidding? I went through it, I want to be able to do it for other people. So, we're working on trying to grow those relationships now. So, when we have a full budget in place, we support these, I would say, underdogs, versus going towards the people that everyone else was going to, because that's no fun.Stephanie:Yeah. And I mean, that's a big theme that I'm hearing too, is finding more of the micro-influencers who have a very engaged following, but they might only have a few thousand followers, versus a million, but those few thousand are ready to convert and really buy the products, and do the things that you're doing. How do you go about finding those people? I mean, it seems hard to have to go through TikTok and Instagram, and find people that might not show up on your feed right away, if you are kind of searching through all that.Deepica:Well, there's a lot of cool tools now that we've actually just invested in, which... Honestly, for me, my plan was to do it the old school way, of just investing the time, finding people, and I think, that to me, was the way to go, but there's supplemental tools, like there's this new platform... I sure don't know if it's new, it's new for us, called GRIN. And it's a way to manage your influencer partnerships and relationships, so you can actually have data and analytics to back up why you're doing certain decisions. And it's like, traditionally, in PR, you send products out, you hope somebody posts about it, who knows if they do? Tracking that is really... It's just a lot, so you need to have the manpower to be able to do it.Deepica:And now there's these tools in place that make it a little bit more scalable, which is really great. But I don't think anything can beat the just human aspect of finding a gem of a person and saying, "This is who I want to grow with." And I now, luckily, now that there's a team in place, I can spend my time doing those things, because, first of all, I truly believe that is the special sauce that comes from a brand, is those little efforts you put in that take time, that really set you apart from the others out there. I don't want to be the person who partners with the biggest TikToker, and not just because of the financial reason, which I think... I don't want to speak for other people, but I think a lot of times, the theme is to go to micro or nano influencers because of budget reasons. And to me, it's really exciting that they're untapped, and have a voice, that they're... You just want to continue to empower that voice, I guess.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah. I love that. So, how do you think about strategic partnerships, or when it comes to when you're getting investors? I mean, I'm thinking, okay, you have Bobbi Brown who is very big in the makeup space, what did that look like? Did you have that in mind when you partnered with her, like, "Oh, maybe you can kind of showcase my line along with your brand?" How does that work? And how did you think about picking strategic investors instead of just going with the first person who might give you money?Deepica:Yeah. That's actually exactly what happened too. So, I learned so much through my fundraising process, so it was my first time doing it, and what I came out of it realizing was, nothing is more valuable than experience, and that includes a cheque. I think I was taking people's cheque, but really, what I was taking was their experience, that's what I wanted to learn from.Deepica:And so, I had a couple term sheets where it was like one large cheque from one VC... Which, by the way, that whole process is a whole thing in itself. But I feel grateful to say that... I actually don't feel like I had as much trouble being a woman of color getting investors on board as much as I think I've heard a lot of my other girlfriends who are women of color, specifically, black women, which is just all sorts of messed up in its own, that... I feel very, honestly, grateful that I didn't go through that, but I also think it's really messed up that I didn't go through that as much. But that process has taught me so much in what I want to do in my future of... There's so much I want LIVE TINTED to do to help other women who want to create their own brands. But when I went through that process, I was like, "Wow, I really don't want one person this early in my business to dictate my decision-making."Stephanie:Yup.Deepica:You're learning so much in the beginning, and the last thing you want is for someone who knows nothing about your business, who just gave you a cheque, to say, "You need to go into this retailer, or you need to do this partnership, or grow this, or hire this person." So, instead, what I did was tap into a network of people who I worked my off to build my entire career, and tell them, "I'm launching my own brand, and you've been somebody who has been a mentor in my life in some capacity." And really positioned it as an opportunity to be a part of the growth of what I'm building. And I feel very confident about that. I still feel that way. I know and I feel very competent about what I'm building, and what the impact it's going to have on the world.Deepica:And so, I went to all of these mentors or just advisors in my life, and they put in more angel cheques, strategic angel cheques, really, just to get their advice. I'm learning from their mistakes. Andy Dunn from Bonobos, the other day, I sent my annual investor update, and he was like, "Just continue to focus on profitability, don't overspend on marketing, learn from my mistakes." I'm learning from all of their mistakes. Payal Kadakia from ClassPass, she would say, "Focus on your why, don't ever get distracted from the why." And Bobbi Brown, she was the first to tell me, "Go on a motherfucking date." That's what she told me to do. She literally, told me to go on it, and she used that word. So, that's why I said that, I apologize [crosstalk].Stephanie:That's okay.Deepica:But that's Bobbi for you. She is such a dope woman. She is no BS. She told me, she was like, "At the end of the day, you will succeed because that's who you are, but you don't want to look back and wonder, what was it all for if you don't have someone to share it with?" And so, maybe that's a part of the reason I came back to Texas, and I'm kind of taking a step back and zooming in on things. But they all give me different advice for their own nuggets of what they went through. And Hayley Barna from Birchbox, is now a partner at First Round Capital, she put in a personal cheque, and I feel like I could always call her to ask her about fundraising advice, because they've obviously raised so much money.Deepica:It's just truly invaluable to be able to talk to people who've gone through the mistakes and the wringer to say, "I'm thinking about [inaudible]..." I'll give you an example right now. Food52, I love what they're doing. You mentioned them earlier, I love what they're doing. I love the idea of a collective ecommerce shop where you're creating content to commerce. I think it's really smart. And I've gotten distracted in the past of wanting LIVE TINTED to also be that as a collective home for inclusive beauty. I wanted to create the next sephora.com that truly zoomed in and focused in on, you won't be on our site unless you are caring about inclusivity. That doesn't mean you have to be a POC owned brand, we will absolutely prioritize it more than most people do, but I had this vision.Deepica:And at the end of the day, I think the biggest, hardest thing for founders to remember is to stay focused, eye on the prize, and I think... That doesn't mean I don't want to still do it one day, but we have way too much momentum happening as a singular brand that I think I just have to stay focused. And these kinds of founders in my life, if I called them, and I'm like, "But what if we, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." They will all pull me back and say, "All in good time, young grasshopper." [crosstalk].Stephanie:That's awesome. And I mean, that is the time when a lot of founders do kind of want to start seeing profit, want to go big, want to experiment a bunch of different areas, and I think that's really smart. And I also love Bobbi Brown's advice too. I mean, I love the personal aspect when you find people like that. Deepica:Another thing, on the Bobbi Brown thing, her specifically, we met through the DM.Stephanie:That's great.Deepica:Yeah. You can connect with anyone in the world, you have no clue what the power of social media... There's so much negative that comes with it, but there's so much positive. And I remember on my launch day, I was in New York City doing a ton of press, and I went to Jersey to meet with Bobbi Brown in person, and she was like, "Wait, your launch day is today, and you're here?" And I was like, "Yeah, you're Bobbi Brown." [crosstalk].Stephanie:I'm here.Deepica:Yes, of course, I'm here. Because to me, she was doing inclusive beauty before inclusive beauty was inclusive beauty. And as a Jewish woman who grew up in New York, I just find it to be so impressive that she recognized that... She sees it as like... Obviously, I care about making sure that everyone feels represented, that's how she sees it, and I feel like I wanted to learn from that person. I want to create my own Bobbi Brown cosmetics one day, and I feel like with her guidance, I'm well on my way.Stephanie:Yeah. That's cool. So, I mean, you have a lot of good mentors and investors. I mean, Andy Dunn is another good one. He actually was our first investor in our company too-Deepica:Oh, wow.Stephanie:[inaudible]. So, good people you got there. What is something that they're guiding you on right now for 2021? How are they kind of... I mean, Andy has Walmart, but he got to look at... He has a lot of things that he can see around ecommerce at Walmart. What are people like that saying right now? Like, "Hey, Deepica, you need to start preparing for this. Or we're seeing this shift at our company, so maybe you need to kind of pivot, or adjust, or do something different to be ready for this new world." Anything high level like that?Deepica:I think the biggest theme and general advice, is slow and steady growth for the win. And that's very different from what I was told when I was first fundraising in 2018, it was all about the next billion dollar unicorn company. And I have a couple of people who were unicorn companies, Payal Kadakia as an investor, and it's like, they are all also advising me like, "Just don't get caught up in the noise, don't get caught up in the quick turnaround story." And the more I'm seeing what's happening in this bubble, that's kind of bursting, it's like, "I'm so happy that we didn't take on a ton of funding, we're growing slow." And I'm going through the fundraising process right now for our Series A, and the reality is that we don't need to fundraise right now. It's this back and forth of like, we're doing really well and we can go really slow.Deepica:But at the same time, like you said, Andy is with Walmart, and one thing we're exploring right now is retail partnerships. And so, one thing that I think is very apparent now is, it's a very different ecommerce and D2C climate than it was five years ago, as we know. And I think the idea of being omni-channel, it's not an option. We have to be omni-channel to also beyond just like the business and the metrics, because myself being, again, that 16 year old girl who dreamt of having her own beauty brand, it's about impact too. And I want my physical products to be able to be touched and held by people who are in store. And again, go down those beauty aisles and actually see yourself represented. And I feel like we're the brand that needs to do that in a big way.Stephanie:Yes. Beauty feels hard to me though from ecommerce. I mean, I'm just thinking about... I went to Tarte, which is of course, a beauty website, and I was ordering things on there, and it still feels so hard to figure out what you need to buy based on your skin tone. And it's asking me all these crazy questions, which you're probably like, "Yeah, those are obvious ones." Like, do you have a pink with a yellow undertone there?Deepica:Undertone.Stephanie:I'm like, "I..." And it literally has 50 options, and I'm like, "I don't know, am I pink? Am I yellow? Am I green? I'm not really sure." So, beauty feels hard. I mean, I know obviously, being in retail, being in person is important, but during this time right now, where that's been a little bit harder, how did you think about adapting your ecommerce experience in a way that people could know what they wanted, or what was meant for their skin? It just feels so hard.Deepica:And it is really hard. That's totally true. We're actually going through a site revamp right now, and it's all going to focus on community, which I know is such a buzz word. But the best thing we can do is tap into all these people who, again, have been just dying to be seen and be featured. And they're not like the person with all this following, whatever, this massive following. And to me, what we can do is... The best marketing tool we have is them, and see them, the product, have them create the content, have them be the things we feature on our website, so people like you can go directly to the site and see themselves and say, "Oh, well, I look like her." It just helps.Deepica:I think Rent the Runway is the first example I saw of a company that... I remember shopping it and picking a dress, because I saw girls who had my body type, and I was like, "Oh, well, she..." All the reviews, I think it was [inaudible] that they used on their website that is really great customer review experience. And I remember when we created livetinted.com, I wanted to use [inaudible]. So, we do for our review system, because I wanted it to feel really real, a yelp kind of situation where you're truly feeling like you trust that person telling you which product works for you.Deepica:So, it's tough, but there's tools and ways to make it better. And I think just leaning into people and humans, and having them be a part of the experience, and creating a really strong customer service experience so they want to meet that review, is all important.Stephanie:Yeah, that's great. I also think that technology is evolving to a place now where... You should be able to have your face in front of your camera, and take a picture, and then be like, "Here's exactly what would go best with your skin tone or something."Deepica:It's getting there, and there's apps and stuff too where you can do that, but lighting is such a factor. We're getting there, but with beauty, it is tricky. And I think all the tools I've seen this far, none of them have worked for me. That was one of the business ideas I wanted to do in college, I was like, "It's just too hard to shop for beauty online." We'll get there though.Stephanie:Yep, I think so, too. All right. So, let's shift over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a question, and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready?Deepica:Yeah, sure. Okay.Stephanie:All right. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Deepica:I would say new ways of leaning into people and community. Yeah. I just said that, but we're currently revamping our ecommerce site, and the biggest thing we're focusing it on is people and experience, and tapping into the human aspect of what people are looking for when they're buying something, which is as emotional as a color corrector to solve their dark circle issues. And so, I think if you continue to focus in on people, community, how they can drive purchase decisions, you'll thrive in the ecommerce world, especially in beauty where things are very... You want to see yourself reflected.Stephanie:Yep. I love that. What's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?Deepica:Wow. Is this personal or business? I mean-Stephanie:Whatever comes to mind, whatever you want.Deepica:This is the first thing that comes to mind, because we just talked about it. You should always value every person you meet in life, because you never know where it's going to lead, and come back, and connect, and help you in the future because... I didn't work directly with Hayley at Birchbox, but when I quit my job for her to... She introduced me to XFactor Ventures, which is our first VC that came on board, that gave us our first cheque, which then created a ripple effect that made other people think we were legit, that created another ripple effect. And I think that confidence in somebody who only... I worked with her but at a very bird's eye view and stuff, and so it's kind of like... I'm so grateful for that. And not just her, just generally, I think, when I think about the people who have taken the bet on me, I think it really makes me feel like I'm here for a reason, and I have shit to get done.Stephanie:Yep. That's great. What ecommerce tool are you most excited about right now?Deepica:Right now, it's GRIN, that's the one that we're literally doing trainings on right now. We're really trying to optimize. I think the influencer partnership space is something everyone's trying to figure out and find a way to scale, and I'm hoping and hopeful that GRIN can help us do that.Stephanie:Yeah. Wow, that's awesome. We will check that out also. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about? And who would your first guest be?Deepica:Well, I'm working on getting this started, but it's going to be... It will be called Hue To Know, which was... Instead of [inaudible] To Know, Hue To Know.Stephanie:Yeah. I like that. That's cute.Deepica:And we had a whole video series for LIVE TINTED when we were just a community platform, where we interviewed people, they came on, and they talked about their identity and culture, and it was all these... To me, they were dope creatives, again, people that you should know about that you may not, like a black Muslim rapper, or a gender nonconforming South Asian artist. And these people who were like, "I'm going against the grain and creating a path for myself, and living tinted." That's really, to me, what that means, and what LIVE TINTED stands for. So, I want to bring them on as a guest, and create it into a podcast form. And my first dream guest would be Meghan Markle, because I think she's incredible.Stephanie:That sounds great. Well, if you need help getting off the ground, you know who to call.Deepica:Great. Okay. Cool. Yeah.Stephanie:All right. And then, the last one, what is your favorite business book where you often go back and think about it, or read quotes from it, or whatever it may be?Deepica:Man, I wish I had it so I could show it to you right now. This was a pile recommendation. It's called Financial-something, Financial Terms... Financial... I'm going to have to find it and send it to you.Stephanie:[crosstalk].Deepica:Yeah. But she told me... Before you go into fundraising process, as a person who's never done it before, there's a lot of terms that get thrown around, like convertible notes, and cap tables, and all this stuff. I didn't know what I was doing, so she was like, "It's going to feel like you're reading a dictionary, and it's going to be dense, but you want to be able to walk into those meetings with full confidence, and I highly recommend that you read it." And so, I have to look for the book and find the name. There's a lot of different terms in there, so I'm blanking on the title itself.Stephanie:Yeah. I think there's a good book that it reminds me of called Venture Deals by... I think it's Brad Feld-Deepica:That's what it was.Stephanie:Oh, is that what it is?Deepica:Damn it, it was Venture Deals. You're right. Yes. Yes.Stephanie:Okay. Well, [inaudible] because I'm like, "That's a good one too." Where I remember-Deepica:That was it.Stephanie:... when we were thinking about raising money, I'm like, "All these terms, I don't know what they are. Pre-money, post money, cap table. Oh my God, what are we talking about?" So, that's a good book for anyone raising money right now.Deepica:That was it. Mm-hmm (affirmative).Stephanie:Awesome. Well, thanks so much-Deepica:[crosstalk] But it's a good book, but yeah.Stephanie:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a good book. And then, after you read it, you're like, "Okay, I'm done with that for a while." Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining the show. It was so fun having you on. Where can people find out more about you and your work?Deepica:Well, I'm obviously, going to plug LIVE TINTED first. LIVE TINTED is L-I-V-E T-I-N-T-E-D, livetinted.com. @livetinted all on social. And then, you can also follow me at @deepica, D-E-E-P-I-C-A on all social outlets.Stephanie:Amazing. Thanks so much.Deepica:Thank you for having me.

What 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 doesn't use it. They're building a search platform more than they are building a browse platform. And I do think these other eCom players, this is where they can win over Amazon, is they make the shopping experience more enjoyable, they encourage browse, and they curate the assortment.Stephanie:Yeah. We just had on a company called The Fascination. It was about discovering new D2C companies and being able to browse around. But once again, that's highly curated versus just going to a category and being like, "Whoa, let's see what's here today. Oh, there's like 1,000 things. No, thanks." So if we're in a search world now, where you need to optimize for that instead of just worrying about being the number two water bottle, showing up in the category, how should a brand be thinking about that? How do you optimize for search? Are you bidding on keywords? Do you have to use just Amazon platform? Or is it more of like a holistic approach of like, you got to have a good product, you have to have good reviews, and all encompassing?Andrea:Well, certainly it's a whole package deal. There's not like one thing that drives all of the success. But I do think that really understanding that customer and the process we go through at Ideoclick and manufacturers could go through a similar process on their own is we identify these customer search groups. Identify the customer that you're going after and the product that meets their needs. And then from there, what are all of the search terms that customer might search when they're looking for that product? And then bouncing that against if there's any search philosophy. Amazon publishes that data, so it's knowable to know if a search actually has any volume associated with it. And then that's your customer search group. And then we're able to measure progress on achieving placement in search on that customer search group relative to the competition. So the way that we're doing that is, in a brick and mortar world, this would be like market share.Andrea:Like you'd say, "What are my sales over the entire category sales?" And in ecommerce what we do is share of search search. So we say, "What are all of my positions within those first 20, 30 search results relative to the entire set?" And obviously, there's some weighting associated with that, because like if you're up on top, that's more valuable, drives more sales than if you're like down at the bottom or the customer has to scroll a lot on their phones. So measuring that share of search for your customer search group relative to the competition.Andrea:And it does a couple of things that I think are a lot better than a brick and mortar market share model. The first is it very quickly identifies who your competitors are. So if you didn't know which... Most manufacturers don't know who their Amazon competitors are, and that's because manufacturers, when they're checking on their products on Amazon, tend to search for their brand name. So of course you're going to get your products. But if you take a step back and instead of searching for your branded facial moisturizer, you search for face moisturizer, you're going to see an entirely different picture of who's turning up.Andrea:And so this allows you to really measure your percentage of that customer experience, essentially, going back to the customer. And in addition, it gives you more of an upstream look at what's about to happen. So market share is, it already happened, your sales occurred and now you're measuring as a percentage of a total. This allows you to affect what's going to happen in the future, so it's an upstream, maybe an input metric versus an output metric. And then lastly, the share of search is measuring like a finite amount of the first or second page, which is really, as far as the customer is typically going on like a basic search...Andrea:And that looks a lot different in terms of number of brands than what you might see in like a finite category on a brick and mortar shelf. So there may be more brands, more types of categories represented, and measuring that as the percentage of a customer experience really allows you to develop some advanced strategies against those competitors.Stephanie:Is Amazon providing the tools so you can see your share of search, or are you doing this for your customers? Or if I was by myself trying to be like, "Who are my competitors?" Would I be going through the first three pages and being like, "Here they are? How do I figure out that share of search?Andrea:Yeah, it's really tricky. So we have software that does it for us, and share a search is our proprietary offering that we provide to our clients. But it wouldn't be hard to do a very simplistic view of this, which is identify like five terms that you think matter for your product, run a search and count how many of the first page you have. It's not a difficult activity. To get more nuanced about it and track it over time and track all the competitors and all of that, obviously you need some software, but you can do a really simplistic look. And this is often what we do for a manufacturer who is considering working with us, we'll take a look, we'll do a quick share of search audit and do exactly that exercise.Andrea:What are the five terms that we think matter? How much of the page they have, and who else is showing up? And you can really quickly see how you fair relative to those competitors, not just in the position of search, but like how many reviews do you have versus the competition? What's your star rating? What's your price point look like? What is your packaging look like? It's a very fast view of how you compare in this marketplace. And there are some really aggressive brands out there. We have clients that come to us and they say, "I'm private equity backed, I am a new go-to-market brand," no one has ever heard of them, "I have no distribution, and I want to get distribution in Costco next year, in a year. What is your plan for me?"Andrea:And we have a program for that. It involves a really, really large marketing investment. But but that's what these traditional manufacturers are up against, are these really upstart brands that are doing pure play Amazon and really trying to make a presence for themselves. And while they feel like ankle biters when you're just looking at the Amazon search results, next year when they are in Costco, they're no longer ankle biters.Stephanie:Yeah. Which is what's great about it. How do you think about when someone comes to you and says they want to be in Costco... I mean, I've read amazing articles about how Costco will make sure that your product... Like their product always has to be slightly better, but they'll also still work with you to make sure that your yours is selling as well. So one example was like Starbucks. They made sure that their coffee, Costco brand, Kirkland brand was a little bit better than Starbucks based off whatever criteria, but then they also made sure that Starbucks was also being sold, or whatever the brand name was, in a way that it wasn't cannibalizing.Stephanie:But Amazon feels a little bit different when they come out with white label versions of things. You see that, and you're like, "Oh crap. There goes my products."Andrea:Look out.Stephanie:Yeah. That's the one thing that I think sellers are scared of now, is Amazon just copying you? How do you deal with them?Andrea:Well, I think you touched on a couple of things. The first is the beauty of a value-added retailer like Costco for a manufacturer. In that model, in the value-added retailer model, the retailer takes responsibility for the inventory, for the promotion, for making sure it sells, for the profitability, for curation, deciding what the product should be. All of that happens on the retailer side. And that's true across traditional retail, whether you're talking about an ULTA or a Nordstrom or whomever, they own that responsibility. In marketplaces, the responsibility is all shifted back to the manufacturer, so they decide what assortment they're going to carry, they decide how they're going to price it, they have to promote it and market it. And it's a really different model.Andrea:So I think that's one interesting thing about what you were talking about, is that Costco does that. And when retailers complain about Amazon or say how much of their business Amazon's stealing, I think it's important to remember they're there to lean into their strengths, which is providing this value add for these manufacturers and reducing a lot of that burden, and usually, producing a higher profit margin for that manufacturer because they don't have to take on all of that work themselves. On the private label front, it's really interesting what Amazon's doing there. Some of the categories like consumables are getting up to about 10% of the sales being Amazon private label, which is really... And fashion, I think, was maybe even higher than that.Andrea:As a part of Amazon's antitrust hearings, they had to release that data and you have to dig around to find it, but it shares the percentage of each category sales that are driven by Amazon private label. It's really interesting. And manufacturers will often come to us and they'll say, "Oh my gosh, my life is over. Amazon just launched a private label in my category." But I think really, it's an opportunity for the manufacturer to really be more on their toes. And a great example of that is, if you take a look at Amazon Basics, they have a luggage spinner. And if you search luggage spinner, suitcase, or whatever, you see Amazon Basics and you see Samsonite and a bunch of others.Andrea:And the Basics, it's like a third of the price and it looks just the same. And I think what's really interesting here is that Samsonite has an opportunity. If you actually click through to the product pages, you still can't really see a difference. But as a part of an article I was writing, I then went to the Samsonite manufacturer site and actually specked out what's really different about it, and there were enormous differences. It was like a TSA compatible lock, it had all of these extra features that weren't even coming through on the product page, that certainly weren't coming through in the title and the search results and the hero image.Andrea:And so I think Amazon is going to usually come in at this lower price point and this more value driven offering. And for these manufacturers who have better bells and whistles on their products, talk about them. I mean, it's classic differentiation stuff, just the way you differentiate looks a lot different in an ecommerce marketplace. Like you have to do it through the images and you have to make sure that the bullet points really display that, you have to have a title that calls out something about the feature that's really unique. I do think Amazon's seeing a lot of success with their private label because they are able to leverage their own platform and they know it best.Andrea:But through share of search, we've also identified enormous holes in their strategy from a marketing perspective, like entire categories of keywords they aren't bidding on, and then you can get really granular and really go after those holes that Amazon's left wide open. And I think it's because I think the reason Amazon has those holes is they're using an algorithm to drive their private label. It's not people back there saying, "Okay, we got to bid on these five keywords. These are the ones that matter, and here are the features that everyone cares about." And then I think if you don't have a point of differentiation against Amazon's private label, it's time to take a real hard look at your product, because if it's that copyable, it's not just Amazon private label that can copy it.Andrea:But also, if you often look at the differences between the top selling product in the category... Soup's a great example, you can search chicken noodle soup on Amazon, and Amazon has totally innovated the packaging and the format of the product to address all of the customer complaints. Canned soup is terrible online, it dents. No one really likes to eat anything out of a can anyway. So Campbell Soup showing the can traditional format, you look at Amazon's chicken noodle soup, it comes in a reclosable box, which is one of the top complaints in the reviews about the Campbell Soup, which is like, "I can only eat half of it. And then what do I do with it?"Andrea:It ships in its own container, so they're all nicely tightly packaged into a box so it doesn't dent or get damaged in the shipping. It's way more profitable for both the retailer and the manufacturer. So I think there are some areas where Amazon's really innovated on the behalf of the customer and it should be keeping manufacturers on their toes.Stephanie:Yeah. That's such a great point. So many things to unravel there, thinking about, you need to be different and leaning into your differences. And the whole point of having a product is to have a great story and showcase your features and don't get complacent. I love that. I could see even being able to look through the data and find opportunities, just like Amazon is, of like going through reviews and seeing what is someone complaining about? Oh, so many people keep talking about this, creating a whole spin off product, I guess Amazon could do the same, but it seems like there's a lot of opportunity in the data that's already there too.Andrea:There is. And I think this is one area that large established CPGs really struggle, and it's because they have so many brands and they carry so many products. If you're a nutrition bar and you only have 20 items on Amazon and you're growing really fast, it's really easy for you to look through the reviews on your 20 items and come to develop some insights and say, "Okay five people are complaining that they think it's a little bit too sweet, or 10 don't like the sugar content," or whatever. And you can re adjust your product in your next product development cycle. But if you're a large established CPG working across so many brands, so many different categories, I did my air quotes there.Andrea:But if you're a large established consumer brand, maybe you've got 1,500, 2,500, 5,000 items, there's no scalable way to do that right now. And I think that's an excellent business opportunity for someone to get into, which is like really analyzing some of that consumer feedback. I actually just had an MBA student from Northwestern reach out to me through a connection wanting to talk about like that very business idea. She's like, "What about all the customer reviews? Who's got data, that's mining that?" And I'm like, "No one." There are some players out there like Reviewbox and I think Profitero, and maybe even Salsify to some degree that allow you to access them, because Amazon doesn't even provide them, you have to just look at them, and develop some basic insights and maybe some word clouds and things like that.Andrea:But there's so much more to be gained from those reviews that would really help inform product development.Stephanie:We've even heard from so many of our guests talking about the long tail reviews or where the insights are. I think we had someone from HP and then Stitch Fix, of course, talking about like, that's the ones that you need to dive into to see... If someone's providing paragraphs of data to tell you how to make your product better, you better be looking at that and seeing, are enough people saying that? To pivot whatever product you're working on.Andrea:Yeah. You really need some natural language processing technology to really make the most of those reviews. But either Amazon has it or they're just really good at it, because if you look at... I could give so many examples of this, but if you search short-sleeve wrap dress, they have an Amazon Basics, it's a top seller, I even have it. It's a great dress.Stephanie:How did they stick that one up?Andrea:And relative to like the top three other results, I mean, you go through the negatives on the other top three results, and it's like, "It's too short, so it's not work appropriate. It doesn't wrap enough to be able to sit down in it well enough at work. It doesn't come and extended sizes." Those were the top three complaints. And Amazons comes out with an offering that's more conservative, slightly longer, comes in extended size. It immediately just addressed all of the things, all of the negative reviews about the other top three sellers. They've either got something that's helping them do that, or they're just really good at it.Stephanie:Yeah. But I think that also just plays to the point of needing to be diversified and beyond all the platforms. I look at Walmart right now and so many influencers are showing me stuff from Walmart, I'm just even thinking... I've bought rugs in the past month, I bought an egg chair from Walmart, all because these influencers are talking about stuff at Walmart, which also I think has increased quality a lot, and they are becoming a larger player. Maybe their tech and backend still needs a little bit of work and out of stock issues and all that, but I do see them coming up strong. Target also. How do you advise the companies you work with to think about all the platforms and be on all of them and optimize for each one in a unique way?Andrea:Yeah. And I think that's really the million-dollar question, because up until a couple of years ago, those other eCom platforms didn't really matter as much, up until last year, they didn't even have ad platforms. The world is moving and changing so quickly. I actually was just giving an internal speech right before this to our employee base and I was like, "Retail, if you really go back, is meant to be a really simple business. It's, a manufacturer has a product, they sell it to the retailer, and the retailer resells it." And the people who grew up with that model, it's relatively uncomplex or simple process. But if you just look at what's happened over the last five years, even five years ago, you had to be advertising on Amazon and search engines like Google and maybe even Facebook at that time.Andrea:Now, there's social live streaming, there's social media networks, and you have retailer ad platforms. The level of complexity that these manufacturers are faced with right now, and if you think about the ones who lived through all of this, they weren't attracted to this field because it was a technology field, they were attracted to this field because it was really based in sales and product. And so the level of complexity that they are faced with is an enormous. And I was in a share group the other day where a manufacturer called the...Andrea:In our space, we're like the service providers, it's super fragmented, it's a ton of point solutions that help these manufacturers be successful across all these different platforms. He called it a Frankenstein, and this company that was presenting at the share group was working with 35 different service providers from data and analytics to execution, to strategy and execution and strategies, where we set to operations and EDI and inventory management, and how do you allocate inventory across all these platforms. So there's certainly no perfect answer to how do you think across the different eCom platforms, but I do think it's important to really think about, where's your customer?Andrea:Is your customer shopping on Walmart, Target and Amazon? And most of them are because most of them are cross shopping. Where else is your customer shopping? What category specific players should be really important to you? And then where are you most profitable? And where can you get a good ROI? And what platform do you use for what? For Target, it's a little bit more about that curated assortment being on trend with merchandise and being associated with, Target gives your brand a little bit of a boost.Andrea:Walmart stands more for value, Amazon is about assortment, and obviously, price and all of that, but I think really aligning yourself with the marketplaces that are core to your brand's identity feels really important. So the customer, what's consistent with your brand, and then in terms of the investments to make across them. A lot of the fundamentals are pretty similar, so that's good, you have to have those, you have to be retail ready. And the ad platforms are similar, but different in very important ways. And so I think when you think about how to allocate those investments, then it really comes down to profit and what you're trying to accomplish, if it's awareness, if it's maintaining your position in the market, whatever it is.Stephanie:Yeah. I always think about the opportunity that exists for manufacturers of creating a piece of tech that allows them to plug in all the inputs that they have to deal with, even when I'm having companies come on and say, "Oh, we feature D2C companies on our website and they have a backend place to log on." And like, okay, that's one place. Then they're on Amazon and then they're on Walmart, and they're trying to figure out their own inventory stuff. There's so much stuff for them to keep track of that it feels like there's no unifying source right now for them to be able to get a holistic picture of their company as a whole.Andrea:In fact, I got this urgent call yesterday from this guy, this colleague of mine that I've worked with in the past, and he's teaching a course at Harvard right now called The Future Of Work in one of the courses. And he called me yesterday, he's like, "Okay, I'm preparing for this thing, I'm making a deck, I'm showing this crazy environment that we're in with all these providers and all these different things that these manufacturers have to keep track of." He's like, "Who are the service providers who can help them unify it?" And I was like, "There aren't any. It's not because you didn't look hard enough, it doesn't exist."Stephanie:I always think like, "Who is out there?" I even asked an exec, I'm like, "What do you do?" And they're like, "Oh, it's just hard." I'm like, "Someone needs to solve this."Andrea:Someone needs to solve it. It would be a really big job, but even just take like logistics like 3PLs. So you can outsource your warehousing and your purchase order fulfillment either direct to customer or to retailers to a three PL. I just did this as a part of an industry trends report. There are tons of 3PLs 70 some percent of them have fewer than five customers each. So it is a super fragmented industry. It's so fragmented in fact that the new trend is a 4PL. And a 4PL is a broker that helps you manage all your 3PLs.Stephanie:I have not heard about that yet.Andrea:Isn't that crazy? That's like a new cottage industry, is 4PLs, and that's the broker that helps you manage across the other PLs, I guess the other 3PLs. And that's just in logistics. So it's a really challenging space and I think what ends up happening, the ones that end up suffering... Right now, I think the manufacturers are suffering because all of this complexity deteriorates their profit margins. And then they also have to advertise on the reseller platforms now too, which is new, and pay and pay for that. But I think in the future, eventually, if no one figures this out, the customer's going to have to pay for it because the prices are going to go up.Andrea:The manufacturers can't shift from 5% of their business online to 50% of their business online, which is a much lower margin business for them and not raise their product costs. I just don't see how that happens. So hopefully, someone will figure it out.Stephanie:Yeah. Do you see any manufacturers doing it well right now where you're like, "Oh, I just talk with someone and they are doing it this way," that seems like it's streamlining at least a piece of the process. It might not be all of it, but any stories there that highlight someone doing something really good?Andrea:I think there are a few folks who are doing a really nice job designing for online. So that's first and foremost, make the packaging and products such that it's low weight and it ships economically, because that's number one. If you can't do that, if you're trying to still try to sell dry bags of conventional dog food or cat litter online, you have no future in that. And so we've certainly seen like Clorox do some really interesting things in the litter space, Purina36:10 they're doing lightweight litter. There's some great examples of companies designing for online.Andrea:So, how do you build a sustainably ecommerce business? Well, make sure that it can ship well or the retailers aren't going to want it, and you don't have a future in it. So I think there's some good examples of that. Clorox is also doing, they did a green works product a while back that instead of selling three bottles of spray cleaner, there's one bottle with two tiny concentrate refills, so it's less water, it's less waste, it's more sustainable packaging. I'm certainly seeing some really cool stuff from some upstart brands. There's one called Ethique, which does shampoo and conditioner bars.Andrea:That's, again, less weight, ships really well, online store as well, it doesn't leak. And then we're certainly seeing a lot with Liquid I.V. and all of the electrolyte powder drinks. So moving from selling it as a bottle that has water in it that you can't ship to powder. So some interesting stuff on designing for online. I think there are some companies who do a really nice job like aligning their org structures to support ecommerce. I think some good examples of that would probably be, L'Oreal does a really nice job there, P&G has a pretty solid and smart eCom department.Andrea:There are a few CPGs who do a really good job there. And then I think the one that everyone seems to struggle with those logistics, especially the larger CPGs, they're built to scale products and ship truckloads and not necessarily fill direct customer orders or ship like super small quantities to all these little Amazon warehouses. So I think logistics is really been hard on the CPG industry, ecommerce logistics.Stephanie:Yeah. I only see it getting harder and worse. I'm thinking about my interview with Domm from Fast, and him talking about one click checkout where they'll batch the orders on the backend for you buy, buy, buy all in separate transactions, but that's still also encouraging one-off orders that maybe you wouldn't have had otherwise that maybe brands aren't used to, someone just coming in and buying one shampoo or something because normally they have limits. So I only see it getting more difficult as technology gets better and they figure out how to make things easier to buy, it just makes it harder logistically.Andrea:Yeah. And I'm starting to see, I just feel like ecommerce retailers have gone I've really come a long way on this in the last couple of years probably to compete with Amazon, but I can't remember which retailer said, he was Wayfair, I was shopping on the other day. And they suggest that, they're like, "Batch my orders, you can select it. It's like defaults to batch my orders, so they all show up on one day or you can check the other boxes, no ship them each as they become available. And Amazon has been also doing that because in ecommerce, at least on the Amazon, the average order's one.Stephanie:Yeah. And I think that's what Domm said that Amazon's been doing this for a long time, it's that most ecommerce companies aren't doing that. So that's why on Amazon, you can always go and hit, buy now, buy now, buy now, and you don't even think.Andrea:And they'll try and batch it.Stephanie:They'll try and figure it out, but you don't even have to worry about a cart anymore. And that seems to be the way of the future, but I'm just thinking about these smaller brands who are trying to, up and coming, trying to get their foothold and then be like, "Oh my gosh, customers are expecting to be able to just hit, click buy for one thing, and I wasn't prepared for that."Andrea:I think we're going to continue to see... We'll certainly continue to see Amazon grow, they had an amazing quarter, but also I think we'll continue to see customers really being less loyal. And I think that because these other retailers are really upping their game. And if you look at, there was a study that came out that showed the top reseller app downloads in 2020, Walmart was right there under Amazon. And granted Amazon is a huge in-store base, so we need to take it with a grain of salt. Wayfair was on there, Wish, all these other retailers.Andrea:And so I think the pandemic has forced us all to shop more online, but also due to product availability, shop more across retailers. And as a result, we have discovered that the shopping experiences on some of these other retailers sites are more favorable to the types of products we're looking for. Maybe even more fun or more curated or whatever it is that you're looking for, and I think the retailers are starting to figure out how to be more efficient with batching orders or, remember when you used to have to go get your credit card every time you placed an order online?Andrea:They're all saving it now, I mean, stuff that we take for granted because Amazon set a really high bar. Stephanie:Yep. I love that. I know we don't have a ton of time, so I want a quick touch on Bezos. I know he just recently stepped down as CEO from Amazon, so I want to hear your hot take on what does that look like for Amazon of the future? How do you see that changing things?Andrea:Yeah. Well, first I should probably say, I don't know, Jeff personally, and I don't have any inside information. I've been gone from Amazon for five or six years now, but I do think if I were him and knowing what I know about him as the fearless leader, he's an inventor, that's what he's really good at, he's really good at inventing and disrupting industries and inventing on behalf of the customer experience. And when I look at what he has really had to focus his energy on the last couple of years, even pre-COVID, you had the antitrust investigation, they were under intense scrutiny for their treatment of their warehouse workers, counterfeits on the site and fake reviews, labor unionization efforts, here in Seattle, they've been under just a ton of intense pressure for contributing significantly to local elections.Andrea:Our local government put in place a headcount tax just to stick it to Amazon. And it's been really intense here, and also a lot of discussion about their role in increasing housing prices and driving the Seattle's homelessness epidemic. The stuff that he's had to deal with, a super public divorce, all of that stuff. And then you layer in COVID and all of the operational complexity of that that he had to deal with, nothing in there is inventing. And if I were him, I would not only be exhausted because I think the best way to exhaust an inventor is to tax them with a bunch of drama.Andrea:And so if I were him, I would be exhausted, and I'd be really bored, there's no inventing in there anywhere. They've made some really interesting inventions, I guess, disruptions more, I think of them less as inventions, more of disruptions as it relates to transportation. And in the earnings call yesterday, they said half of their packages now are being delivered by their own fleet. Incredible. They are a huge transportation company now, and they'll probably license that out and just walk out, but there's not a lot of inventing happening now, it's all about scaling, managing under scrutiny and really going head to head against some super fierce competition for ad dollars and for customers.Andrea:And so if I were Jeff, I'd be looking at the future and I would just be like, "Not interested, if I were an inventor and I was Jeff. So I think that speaks to why he would step down, I think timing it with going out on the high note with the Q4 earnings being just astoundingly positive probably makes sense. It's interesting, I don't know a lot about Jassy, but I think he was the CEO of AWS for a very long time and he's really good at scaling a business and scaling a business against adversity or fierce competition. If you look at what they are up against with Microsoft, and I think they even like filed a lawsuit against for an RFP that they didn't feel like was handled correctly, he really has gone head to head.Andrea:And I think that that's maybe signaling that Amazon's going to be a bit more about scaling and more about competing and a little bit less about inventing going forward, which maybe that's the stage that they're in.Stephanie:Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, with a couple of minutes left, we have a quick lightning round. Lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask a question, but this time, you only have 30 seconds or less. Usually I get people a minute, but you're so quick, I'm like, you can't have a minute. You get 30 seconds.Andrea:I'll do my best.Stephanie:All right. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Andrea:I'm going to go logistics. I think the ability for other retailers and D2C to prevail against Amazon or compete effectively with Amazon, is going to be their ability to ship fast and for us to see some consolidation and maturity in that industry.Stephanie:Yeah. I love that. If you were to have a podcast, which you're about to, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Andrea:Our podcast that we're going to have is Melissa Burdick of Pacvue, who is a competing agency for us in the ecommerce advertising space, and myself. And we're going to be doing a hot take on ecommerce current events. And my job as VP of strategy is all about staying current on ecommerce trends and news. And it's even hard for me to keep up, there's so much happening right now. And so we wanted to really try to provide a value to the manufacturer community of helping keep them current and tell them what they need to know. And then more importantly, tell them what we think it means for them.Stephanie:I love that. I can't wait to listen. What's up next on your reading list?Andrea:On my reading list, oh gosh. Well, I guess on my reading list is a lot of research because I'm trying to write a book about eCom.Stephanie:You're a busy lady.Andrea:I'm a busy lady. I'm trying to write a book about ecommerce and really transitioning our thinking beyond that physical aisle, kind of some of the things that we talked about today. So a lot of my research right now is reading some other pieces of thought leadership around that. And in fact, on my immediate reading list is I need to read a case about Unilever for my class with Harvard on Friday morning, and it's all about Unilever and how they have successfully transitioned to an ecommerce framework and mindset.Stephanie:Oh, I could come to your class too, that sounds good. Awesome. And then the last one, one thing do you not understand today that you wish you did?Andrea:I don't understand, well, I think a couple of areas, one is that as a manufacturer thinking about when is the right time to invest in the most forward-thinking ecommerce technology, which in my mind right now is live streaming. And I don't know a lot about live streaming, I'm learning more about it, I'm certainly watching some of it and trying to participate in it. So nascent here in the United States, but in China, it is incredibly powerful. And in this Harvard class, they had a woman who's a super influencer in China comes to the class and she live-streamed in the class and she was selling Harvard t-shirts, and I think she sold, I don't want to say like hundreds or thousands in a minute.Andrea:It was insane. And then they projected what was on her phone to the screen and we got to see it. And it really blew my mind that we're in such a different place as it relates to ecommerce. So I don't understand it super well, and I want to understand more of it so we can do a better job of helping our brands transition.Stephanie:Yeah. That's a really good one. Definitely one I don't fully understand either, but I know it's very different market there, so maybe people shop differently, but any insights, bring in my way, because I don't get it either. Cool. Well, Andrea, it's been a blast having you on, I hope we can bring you back for round two in the future because I feel like I could probably keep going on for an extra hour if I didn't have a meeting in a couple of minutes, but where can people find out more about you and Ideoclick?Andrea:You can follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter, you can visit my website at Andreakleighconsulting.com. I write and speak and post very frequently about ecommerce. And you can find Ideoclick at Ideoclick.com.Stephanie:Amazing. Thanks so much for joining us. It was a blast.Andrea:Thank you. Thanks for having me.

We’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 resident on the user's device and Stephanie, when you're out shopping on your computer and you get to check out, Honey will pop up and say, "Hey, I've got coupons for you. Do you want them?" You as the user you're probably like, "Yeah, I'd love to get a discount. I'd love a better price, if I can get it without having to do any work." Honey does all the hard work for you.Matt:We think that's not really in the best interest of the merchants because they own their website and now someone is injecting code in and disrupting the user experience, disrupting your revenue. So just like it is in this malvertising world, the same phenomenon is happening over here. The difference is Honey is owned by PayPal. Wikibuy is owned by Capital One.Matt:So the folks that I would call "bad actors" in this world are actually fortune 100 companies. They're folks that you would expect to be able to trust. And what they're doing is they're actually injecting code in to disrupt the user experience and disrupt revenue. And so that's the problem that we've gone out and solved.Matt:We just launched our product that's called cleanCART. And what it is is it's a Shopify app and it gives Shopify merchants the ability to protect their carts at checkout and make sure that they can prevent this sort of code from disrupting user experiences in revenue. So it really is giving control of the websites back to the merchants.Stephanie:Oh, interesting. So when you implement that you just can't get coupons or are there other pieces that it kind of protects as well, or the user can't see coupons from a Honey or something, or are there other things that your app is also protecting against?Matt:So we're in, I would say the second inning of the baseball game. So early stages. We're really focused on to start is blocking the automation of these coupons. So we don't want to block you as a user going in and manually inserting the coupon. We think that's the intended use case. But what we think is unfair is that someone is standing beside you at checkout and handing you a mitt full of coupons and actually not even handing them to you, they're actually giving them and just scanning them all to make sure that they all have a chance to work.Matt:If you think about this analogy, the grocery store would never let someone come and stand beside the checkout and save you 30% off your grocery order while you're already ready to pay. And I think that's the phenomenon that we're trying to solve for in the earliest days, which is, let's prevent the automation from happening. Let's not prevent people from manually inserting coupons. Let's give control back to the merchants because it impacts them in so many different ways. Obviously, it impacts them from a revenue loss perspective.Matt:I talk to merchants every day. Many merchants are complaining that these injections are literally scraping and pulling 30% off of their cart value at checkout. So someone who had $100 cart, they go to checkout, Honey runs and it knocks their cart value from $100 to $70. That's kind of bad for the merchant, especially if that person was going to convert anyway.Matt:The other key thing is Honey and Wikibuy and these other discount extensions have made it really hard for merchants to have discounting strategies that they can track. And so what's happening is that promo codes are ending up in the wrong hands. It's creating an attribution nightmare for merchants where they think that this social media influencer or this Instagrammer, or this YouTuber is driving tons of sales and lo and behold, Honey has grabbed that coupon and is injecting it.Matt:And now every order that comes through where Honey was present on the page is applying that person's code. And so now the merchant not only has bad data that is going to ultimately drive their marketing decisions but now, they're also losing revenue and they're paying out affiliate fees to folks that generally didn't deserve that affiliate fee. So I think it's created a bit of a nightmare.Matt:And so, we felt this kind of pent up demand for this product. And that's exactly what's happened is that no one has solved it. We think we're first to market. And we think it's important that people are fighting for the merchants. There's been 10 years of growth in e-commerce over the last year. The pandemic driving a lot of that.Matt:And we think it's important that merchants really get control of their websites, get control of their margins, get control of their revenue and really get the right data to make the right data-based decisions of how they're going to run their marketing programs.Stephanie:Yes. I think that's a really cool story. You were just talking about how you were looking at a problem that people were complaining about, and then now you guys are like, "Well, let's solve it." Because I've read, I'm trying to think where this was, where they're talking about going to Reddit and looking at some of the threads of people talking about problems that keep occurring and occurring and how you could build businesses just based off Reddit threads. And you guys did that, just looking at problems with what merchants were struggling with. So a really cool example of how to build a business is look at all the problems that are going on and jump at solving it.Matt:Well, and I think the other key thing here is as you know is solving the problem, but also during that process of your hypothesis that you're going to develop of what you're trying to prove, it's you also need to prove that people pay for it. And that's, I think part of the foundation of what we've built here, obviously on the malvertising side, but also on the e-commerce side is it's a big enough problem. People need to protect user experiences.Matt:If you think about just in the internet in general, it's very expensive to create content. It's very expensive to drive traffic. And once you've done those two things, why would you leave it to chance that someone might come to your website and have a crappy user experience? Protect your user experience.Matt:It happened last week on the Harvard Crimson on the crimson.com where somebody was on Crimson and they got one of these redirect ads that took them to this landing page that said, "Hey, you're a Verizon customer click here and take the survey and answer these nine questions and you'll have a chance to win." And this user actually took to Twitter and said, "Hey @thecrimson, which is, I think their Twitter handle, you've got a crappy user experience. Why are you letting this happen?"Matt:I never even saw a reply from the Crimson. But when we did some investigation on what was going on, they don't even have protection on their website. So it almost feels irresponsible at this day and age to not be protecting your asset because your asset generally speaking, isn't your website, your asset is your users.Matt:And so protect your users, make them feel confident that when they come to your site, they're going to have a great experience. And so that's really what we've focused on is just delivering technology that solves a problem that people are willing to pay for. Because obviously without that, we don't have a business.Stephanie:So when thinking about like the Crimson example, that's all from a bad ad being run on their website, correct?Matt:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Stephanie:Someone was able to buy that ad unit have bad JavaScript, and then that's when they were sent to that Verizon survey. I'm I thinking about that, right?Matt:You're totally thinking about that right. And what's interesting about the thread is that when this woman went on to Twitter and said, "Hey, this is what happened. And here's a screenshot," there were a whole bunch of people that piled onto the thread of like, "Oh, here's what I think is happening." "Oh, you have a virus on your computer." Or, "Oh, you have a bad extension on your computer or whatever." Everybody had a hypothesis of what's happening.Matt:And so we actually went and captured the threat and reverse engineered it and said like, "Here's exactly what's happening." And yeah, it's all coming through ads in that case. And there's so many great things of the open programmatic ecosystem.Matt:So programmatic media being able to buy a single oppression at a time by single user real humans, real devices, real networks, like you know I'm having a one-to-one engagement with this person and in the malvertising world, that's a feeding ground for bad actors because they get to do the same thing.Matt:And quite frankly, they're better at it than any other advertiser out there because they're the ones who know how to pay 20 cents CPM and buy an ad and actually get 100% click-through as opposed to the rest of the world that's just hoping that they get a half a percent click-through rate. And so they figured out how to buy that ad, that ad renders on your device.Matt:And then usually it's like an onTouchEvent. So when you actually just touch the device, they put a transparent overlay on your device. And that turns into a click or they'll auto click something on your behalf, or however they decide to inject their technology. But yeah, it's as simple as that. And I think it's lucrative, otherwise-Stephanie:They wouldn't be doing it, yeah.Matt:What they do is they try to do it at the lowest possible level without getting caught. So if you think about sophisticated marketers, what do you do? Well, you pick the right users, you maybe frequency caps so that you don't lambaste them with ads. You want to hit them at the right time with the right message and all that sort of stuff.Matt:And so these bad actors have figured out how to very elegantly and in a sophisticated fashion, they'll hit you with that ad. But the reality is they'll probably frequency cap you to one so you can't reproduce the experience and that's how they evade getting caught in most cases.Stephanie:Yeah. Very interesting. I didn't understand the whole backend of how that works. I mean, I do spend a lot of time thinking about building incentives for advertisers because we build up our own ad networks to advertise our podcast and we bring on partners all the time.Stephanie:And it's really funny thinking through how to build incentives for especially newer advertisers when you might say something like, "Oh, we'll incentivize you based on a download." Then all of a sudden you're getting all these fake downloads. No, not downloads. We'll incentivize you based on consumption. Like, does someone listen to the episode? They wanted to hear it.Stephanie:And then you see instead of actually having good people come through and consume the episode, the advertiser will say, "Okay, I'll pay you to review the ad or review the podcast, which makes it show that you were consuming it because you had to for maybe a minute to then be able to review."Stephanie:And it's always interesting trying to figure out, I mean, and these people are not good actors maybe, I'm not really sure. But it's always very interesting thinking, how do you incentivize people to do the right thing and actually deliver and not try and always get around the rules and just meet a number which I'm sure a lot of the platforms deal with the same kind of thing, but-Matt:It's interesting you use the word incentivized, and that was a dirty word in the early days where most advertisers didn't feel that the word incentivize was a good user because they didn't truly have the intent to do the thing that you want because they were being paid or a bounty or whatever the thing is.Matt:I saw the evolution of incentivized in my mobile career where it became really hard to get people to consume video commercials, like 15, six second whatever that metric was. And in the games world, they figured out this thing and they actually rebranded it instead of calling it incentivized video, they actually called it rewarded video. And-Stephanie:I feel like that's a little more, I don't know.Matt:Well, listen, and so I talk about one of the apps that I love is this app called Candy Crush. And I've been playing candy crush for almost 10 years now, I think. And when's the last time you played the same game for 10 years? Like never?Stephanie:Yeah. That's impressive.Matt:But they've artfully integrated video into their app. And I think if you run out of lives, you can watch a 30 second spot that is unskippable. So you have to watch the whole thing. And then if you, do you get rewarded with that extra life or whatever it is, maybe a lollypop, I don't know. But yeah, so I think there's different ways to approach it. But you're right, usually when you figure out the bounty, everyone else figures out how to capitalize on the bounty.Matt:And I think the interesting thing with Honey and Wikibuy is they've figured out how to get paid for the bounty or get credit for the bounty when lo and behold, they didn't really do anything. All they did was they had code that was resident on the machine that allows them to kind of get credit for that user purchasing when I think it's questionable whether they had any influence on that.Stephanie:Yeah. I've kind of thought that too, when seeing different Instagrammers with their promo codes for e-commerce site. And I always thought like, "Oh, how does that attribution work?" Because I mean, she's sharing it here, but I'm sure it's very easy for someone who doesn't follow her to also find that code outside of a Honey, but just be like, send it to my friend, "Hey, use this code." They never even followed her and now, they've got 25% off or something. So it does seem like attribution can be tricky, even if someone's not using Honey. How do you think that world's changing right now to make it easier for merchants to track where their sales are actually coming from? It feels very messy.Matt:Oh, I agree. I think it's a total mess. That's why we focused on the automation because I think that's one of those low hanging fruit, but big problems. Honey will tell the world that they have 17 million or so users. I don't know if Wikibuy which is now called Capital One Shopping, I don't think they announced how many users they have. But what I can tell you is both of those companies are spending a tremendous amount of money acquiring new users.Matt:Every time I log into Twitter, usually the first ad that I get is from Honey. All throughout the Christmas season, the holiday season just recently Capital One which owns Wikibuy Capital One Shopping, they were running TV commercials for this product with Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta. So there's like a tremendous push for them to grow these user bases.Matt:In talking with merchants and we've got, I don't know, we've got maybe 25 merchants using our product right now. And we're in closed beta. That problem that you just mentioned, which is, "Hey, I worked with an Instagrammer and I gave them a code. And all of a sudden two days later, I've had a vitamin company tell me that story. I've had a sporting goods company tell me that story. I've had a toilet paper company tell me that story.Stephanie:They're using Instagrammers?Matt:They're using Instagrammers. They're using YouTubers. They're actually using podcasts as well.Stephanie:I mean, interesting to see how they're partnering on toilet paper.Matt:Because they're partnering for the audience on these podcasts and they're hoping that they can get that audience to find out about their product and again, then they're incentivizing them to come and become a customer. It's basically the same net story. The vitamin company told me they're like a supplement company. They partnered with one of the biggest triathletes in the world.Matt:Let's just say they had 50,000 or 100,000 followers, but you've got to imagine they're probably rabid followers. If you're into that, then that's probably the gold standard of who you would listen to. And that person did some blog posts and did some Instagram posts and posted their code and as soon as it happened, they saw a surge in sales attributed to that person.Matt:Now, the marketing person at the company was like, "Oh my gosh, we figured it out. We nailed this. We knew that people would be rabid about that person's content. We knew that person had so much influence to get people to come and buy." And then they're like, "Oh my God, it's Honey." Because literally they went from zero sales to 80% of their sales that had coupons was that person on Monday.Matt:I think it's a frustrating problem. And I think the sophisticated marketers have woken up and are like, "Man, we're bleeding money." One merchant told me that when they started kind of parsing out the attribution that Honey was costing them. They did about a million and a half in revenue online per month, so call it a $15 million business give or take. They believed that these promo code extensions were costing them about 150 grand a month, 10% their overall value.Stephanie:I mean, we just had a guest who they ranted about their hatred of Honey, I mean, even on the show. So I think it's maybe a couple episodes before maybe when yours is going to go out.Matt:Call me. We can help.Stephanie:Yeah, I'll send the link so you can hit him up.Matt:Absolutely.Stephanie:He was not a happy dude about Honey. But I guess when I think about promo codes, it kind of feels archaic to me. Maybe this is just a me thing, but it feels like where QR codes were where all of a sudden they're gone and you don't even think about them anymore. Promo codes kind of feel like that to me too of just, it feels like a manual old way of attributing things.Stephanie:How do you think about attribution when it comes to influencers and stuff or anyone, without having to use a code? Are you guys even thinking about a new way of doing things or do you hear of people trying new ways of attribution that isn't like I'm putting in a manual like Stephanie 20, to get my 20% off? Is there a new way of doing it?Matt:I mean, we're thinking through all those things. I think the challenge is specifically if you're using these one-to-many mediums. In a perfect world, I think you'd have a unique code for every user and so you'd have to authenticate. We'd know that that code went to you Stephanie and if you redeemed it, I would know that you actually bought something and you bought something because of this engagement that we had. I think in these one-to-many mediums it's, how else can you do it? And some of the challenges that the one-to-many mediums like think of YouTubers.Matt:One of the companies that we're working with has a problem where they have a very high dollar ticket item. Their item that they're selling is about 1,000 bucks. And obviously, if somebody grabs a code of 20% off that you're losing 200 bucks, it's a lot of money. Their problem was that they were doing YouTuber videos and they were publishing a code within the YouTube video to reach the audience. And for them, it was extreme sports, the audience that they were going after.Matt:Well, literally the next day, and I don't know if you know how Honey works. If you have a Honey on your machine, the very first thing that Honey does is it scrapes out anybody who manually puts a code in. So in order for Honey to be able to grab that code, it has to happen once where a real person saw the code and was motivated to go and type it in and buy.Matt:If that happened to me, if I got that code, I would go in and type it in. And if Honey were on my machine and then I hit okay, Honey will scrape that code out and now everybody who comes after me gets access to that code whether they saw that YouTube video or not.Matt:The problem for this company is spending a lot of money engaging with YouTubers and creating videos and obviously, doing the presentation layer of these offers. Well, once Honey gets a hold of the code... And what they've also found is that Honey and the other extensions, are not very merchant friendly. The relationship between Honey and these merchants is actually quite adversarial. And so it leaves them with no other option.Matt:I guess the two options: one, you just keep running your YouTube thing and you resign yourself that you're going to be paying out a 20% discount to everybody who comes and has Honey; which that stinks, that doesn't feel right or you need to reach out to the YouTuber. You need to recut the video. You need to recut the voiceover. You need to kill that code. You need to put a new code in. And so it's made this sort of marketing endeavor with YouTubers and Instagrammers and you name it very hard, because you're actually turning off codes.Matt:We saw one email which was interesting. I always say to people, let's remember we're all consumers too, you and I buy stuff on the internet, even though we're deeply entrenched in the businesses that we're running. I have Honey on my machine, so I can understand what that user behavior is, so that I can actually talk with merchants.Matt:One of the folks on our team bought a pair of shorts from one of these companies that advertises on Facebook and Instagram. And they were out of stock after he had ordered it, so they sent him an email. And they said, "Hey, listen, sorry you didn't have it but guess what, here's a code. You'll save X percent. But please, make sure you use it within the next 48 hours because Honey has been grabbing our codes and we're going to shut this code off."Matt:How can people market, if you constantly have to play whack-a-mole. And if you now think of the analogy, it's back to what we do in the malvertising side. If you aren't going to solve things with software, you're basically playing this long cat and mouse game that you won't win.Stephanie:I mean, that's why I think about merchants turning on and off codes.Matt:It's a nightmare.Stephanie:We were handing out swag and me just trying to... I had unique links that could work for more than one person and just thinking, "That could be tricky and go really bad." But I guess that's why I just think codes just feel, like I said, a little bit archaic. Why can't I just go to a YouTube video?Stephanie:I mean, the internet knows so much about me and where I'm at anyways. It should say, "Hey, Stephanie watched Matt's video where he was talking about this toilet paper." And then all of a sudden she's at our website, you can say, "Stephanie, a 20% coupon awaits you when you go here."Stephanie:And then when I get there it should know who I am and then be like, "Your coupons applied. And it will be applied for the next three days on this website or whatever, because I know where you've been and what you saw and where exactly you came from." Why can't it just work?Matt:I mean, I wish it was all that simple. Listen, we are taking obviously, technology solution to what we think is a longstanding and challenging problem. And in the malvertising world, the people in ad operations were literally playing whack-a-mole. Like, "Let's figure out where this bad ad came from." "Turn that demand source off." Or, "Turn that buyer off." And guess what, the bad actors, they just pop up again.Matt:And so we believe that, and I've seen and talked to merchants who are like, "Listen, here's how I solved the Honey problem." And they're like, "We actually created promo codes for 10% off, but the promo code was Honey is stealing your data."Matt:Because if you use Honey, you know that when Honey pops up it'll actually tell you the codes that it's implementing. They went on a mission to discredit and put the fear of God in their buyers that Honey was doing... They were like, "Honey is doing nefarious things with your data." And guess what, Honey D listed them as [inaudible].Stephanie:Well, there you go. Now, you know how to do it, I guess.Matt:The irony is, is that was three months ago that I talked to that merchant. And yesterday they cameback in and said, "Listen, we have a problem again."Stephanie:Honey added us again.Matt:No, this time they've got a Wikibuy problem. The problem is going to be never-ending, I think. Ultimately, we're hopefully going to give e-commerce companies the tools that they need to go out and be able to operate their business and focus their time on the things that really matter, in my mind, which is driving incremental revenue; not playing whack-a-mole with your promo codes and having to go recut YouTube videos. Hopefully, that's one of the big things that we help solve for.Stephanie:That's cool. I mean, I do like the idea of that one merchant you were mentioning where they said, "If you act within the next 48 hours or whatever, it'll only lasts this long." And I just had a guest yesterday who said that. I think it was either Burger King or McDonald's made it so if you're within 20 feet or something of a McDonald's they would send you a code and say, "You have five minutes to get to a burger King to get a free burger or something."Stephanie:And I'm like, "That's interesting." That's a good way to make people act quickly if you know something's expiring, I know I act a lot quicker. But I mean, of course, solve the problem that's number one. But I do think that's an interesting marketing tactic too.Matt:And make it measurable. I think that's the key thing is that... I often say, "What gets measured gets managed." And so hopefully, what we're doing is we're taking one of the things out of the equation that is making measurement really challenging for merchants. Again, using the triathlete example, yes, the marketer was high-fiving the rest of their team going, "We finally solved this." And then when they actually looked at the data they were like, "Damn it. I guess we got to go back to the drawing board."Stephanie:It's also just so tricky too, knowing how much of those people would have bought otherwise or not. So even looking and being like, wow, we have all this attributed to this one promo code and maybe it was because of Honey. But how many of those people would have bought if there wasn't some promo in there? It's just hard to know.Matt:We're solving that problem. We're giving merchants some deep analytics on exactly what's happening on their site, because we think there's a blind spot there where they don't know. For instance, how many users actually came to your site that actually had an injection capability? One of the extensions of Honey, Wikibuy, Piggy, Amazon Assistant, you name it. So we give them that lens.Matt:And then we give them the lens of, what were all the promo codes that they tried to inject? What was the most popular promo code? And stack rank those things and then going deeper down to conversion rate. And guess what, what we're seeing in these early days is that when you block Honey and Wikibuy at checkout, the vast majority of users actually still convert.Matt:And so that to me is the icing on the cake which is, guess what, you take control back of your website. You take control of your margins. You take control of your revenue. You now have the data you need to be able to go out and drive incremental sales. We think that's pretty powerful.Stephanie:I mean, that makes sense. I've heard a couple of times that also, discounts don't matter as much as you would think. I think they were talking about, they did a study between 10% off and 20% off. And actually, they were kind of the same when it came to consumer happiness. And what can be worse though, is if someone has the ability to go in and put a promo code in or something and then it doesn't work.Stephanie:I don't know if you remember those days of just going to the internet promo code for macys.com and trying out 10 different promo codes and all of them failing. I was way more unhappy then, than just not having one at all, just buying at full value.Matt:Let me tell you the opposite of that which is the worst-case scenario, in one of our merchants experience and that's why they're using our software. They're in the home interior space, so they do drapes and carpets and wallpaper and all that sort of stuff. And they were trying to build favor with interior designers because they wanted interior designers to know their site and know their stuff and all that sort of stuff. And so they did a very exclusive but unfortunately, a promo code that Honey got ahold of that gave interior designers 50% off.Matt:Well, lo and behold, as soon as one designer used that code and also had Honey on the machine, that code then got swept up in the Honey and everybody, every order that had Honey was now getting 50% off. Their customer service nightmare was that they couldn't afford to give every consumer 50% off, so they actually had to cancel orders; believe it or not.Matt:They called customers and said, "We can't honor your order with that coupon because that coupon was not intended for you." Created a customer service nightmare for them. And that's what they want to do is, they want to control their user experience. They want to control their revenue and their margins.Stephanie:Oh my gosh, that's horrible.Matt:Out of control. But think of that disaster of having to call someone and say, "Hey, I know you wanted to spend $500 with me, but only pay me 250 bucks. I can't give you 50 off but I can give you like 15 off, that's kind of what you were probably entitled to." So anyways, just trying to get control back in these merchants hands and let them control their destiny.Stephanie:I love that. When thinking about back to the now advertising piece, how much do you think it's on the publishing platforms? Is it their responsibility to make sure that they continue to increase their efforts to make sure bad actors aren't out there anymore?Stephanie:I mean, I know they're probably doing a lot. A lot of people like to hate on the publishing platforms and they want them to always do more and more and more. Is it maybe on them or maybe not on them anymore to continue to try and track those bad actors, who like you said are kind of popping up here and then they shut down and then open up a new account and do one off things and then shut down again. How should we think about leaning on the platforms like that?Matt:Well, I say to folks, the value chain in that industry is actually quite wide. And so from the bad actor who's putting their hands on the keyboards to the consumer, there's a whole bunch of players in the middle. I think it's on everybody to really have defenses in place and to make sure that they're protecting...Matt:So if you're at the front end, if you own the demand side platform that the bad actor's using, you need to have your own checks and balances to make sure that you're not bringing in malicious buyers. But all through that value chain, the onus is on everybody. But at the end of the day what I say is, the only person that can be responsible to that end user, is the publisher.Matt:Pick your publisher, if you are Fox News or you're the New York Post or you're the Washington Post, you're the one that has that ultimate relationship with Jenny or Johnny consumer who is surfing your site and consuming content. So you're the last line of defense. You're the one that created the site. You're the one that drove the traffic. You're the one that is using ads to monetize your traffic. It's really on you I think, ultimately.Matt:Now the publishers, all those folks that I named and there's millions of them, they all want to look upstream and they should. And they should hold everybody accountable upstream. But I think they're the ones that are really the that last line of defense.Matt:Because if you go to one of these sites and you have a crappy experience, you don't really care that it came through an ad. Like the woman at Harvard Crimson last week, she didn't know the origins of why it happened. And here's the other crazy thing, she knew that when she went to the Crimson, she was delivered a crappy experience.Matt:Now, the crazy part. First time we've ever done it, we actually did a private webinar with the end user because we wanted to explain to her here's exactly what's happening. She told us this story, she said, "Listen, I use ad block." And obviously, the risk to publishers are, if you don't create great experiences, your users are going to start using ad block.Matt:What she said was, in the desire to get real news and in the desire to really understand what's going on in the world and in the desire to actually make sure that real news publishers are actually getting compensated, she turned her ad block off and this is what happened.Matt:So shame on the Crimson for not delivering a great experience, because guess what? Now that user's like, "I'm not turning ad block off the next time I come to your site. You're not going to get paid for the traffic that I'm going to generate." So again, it really goes back to the publishers, the onus is on them.Stephanie:And thankfully, I think there is like new technologies popping up that maybe we'll be able to enable them or even just thinking about implementing. I mean, I've seen some advertisers looking into blockchain and having that as being kind of like a more source of truth to be able to know a one-to-one relationship and knowing who's behind... You don't know exactly who's behind what, but if you have it in a way where they sign up and they can't just start creating a million different accounts because they've got their one single one that they can go off of, it seems like there's a lot of ways that it can improve over the next couple of years that maybe hasn't been so easy the past decade or so.Matt:I agree. Obviously, there's industry bodies all trying to figure this out together. There's companies like us who are innovating and coming up with new and unique techniques to block these sorts of nefarious actors. I do think the biggest and most important thing is to recognize that the bad actors aren't just sitting still waiting for somebody to solve this problem. They're innovating honestly, a more rapid rate than many of the industry leaders that you would expect that have hundreds or thousands of people trying to solve this problem. Bad actors unfortunately, are innovating at quite a rapid pace.Matt:So the problem I think is going to evolve and change. We've seen it evolve to not just being ads but obviously, compromised Chrome extensions that just seems to be a great vector. And so I think you're going to see the problem move around and especially, if there's a lot of money in it. If there's ways for these guys to make money, you're going to see them salivate with... You're going to put up this defense and they're going to figure out this way to get around it.Matt:And there's so many different browser types. There's so many different machines. There's security flaws. There's zero-day. There's so many ways for these guys to actually buy and target, to only focus on iOS 13 and below and blah, blah, blah to reach their audience.Stephanie:So tricky. Hopefully, it'll get solved over the next decade. Cool. Well, with a couple minutes left, let's move over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Matt?Matt:I am ready.Stephanie:All right. First the harder one, what one thing will have the biggest impact on e-commerce in the next year?Matt:Listen, I think it's been the gold rush for e-commerce merchants over the last year. In many cases I talk to merchants, they're like, "It was raining money last year." Sales were up five X, 10 X, who knows. I think the next year is going to be that year where folks actually look to efficiency, and they look to figure out where there are holes in the boat that they haven't had to look before.Matt:And I think that plays to our product because I think in many cases when it's raining money, you almost turn a blind eye to some of these sorts of things. But I think now folks are like, "Listen, if I can be more efficient. If I can take control of my revenue and my margins, I'm going to do that."Matt:So I think that's probably, this is the year of people now are catching their breath and they've figured out their distribution and they've figured out their fulfillment and their warehousing and all that sort of stuff and the panic that they had to do to keep up with the pandemic growth. Now, I think it's a deep breath of like, "Okay. Now, let's look at the math."Stephanie:Yeah. I agree, that's a good one. What one thing do you not understand today that you wish you did?Matt:What one thing do I not understand. I think the affiliate landscape is complex. I think there are a lot of legacy ways in which people have calculated incrementality and I'm not sure if they're all believable. And I hear a lot of feedback from merchants where it's kind of like they just brush it under the rug and they're like, "I know I'm probably paying for stuff that I didn't really get, but let's just let it go." I think every percentage point matters. That ecosystem, because I hear there's good guys and there's bad guys and I'd love to really dig deeper on that. And I think that's a big opportunity for us as a company.Stephanie:That's a good one. What's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?Matt:Wow. The nicest thing that anyone's ever done for me.Stephanie:I like to go deep.Matt:Yeah. That's a deep question. I think I've been fortunate throughout my whole career in that, I have been given opportunities that I probably wasn't ready for. And by the way, I had never been a CEO before I was at this company. And so, who knew that I'd be able to do it.Matt:But I think it actually starts way back to when I first graduated and I was seeking my first job. And I had a mentor that took a risk on me and gave me my shot. And I worked my butt off and hopefully that translated and he and she felt great about what I was doing. So I think the nicest thing, I've just been given opportunities that I don't think I deserved and hopefully I earned that respect and trust over time.Stephanie:That's a good answer. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Matt:Wow. This lightning round is hard.Stephanie:Good. Needs to be.Matt:If I were to have a podcast. I love gadgets. I'm one of those guys that buys the infomercial type stuff. I bought one of those Rotisserie Showtime girls 20 years ago, I still use it.Stephanie:Worth it.Matt:Maybe it could be interviewing people who've built made for TV products and really understanding the backstories behind how they came up with the idea and how successful they were and God knows how much money we all made them.Stephanie:That's good. We had Kevin Harrington on the show, he was the original OG shark in Shark Tank. He basically made the infomercial. And it was very interesting hearing his perspective of how it started, where it's at now and Shark Tank.Matt:I'm fascinated by that ecosystem, it's super cool. And by the way, I always do buy one of those stupid things for my wife for Christmas and she hates me for doing it because she's like, "You're just burning money."Stephanie:I had fun buying it and watching the infomercial today.Matt:Believe it or not, one of my coworkers gave me a Squatty Potty for Christmas.Stephanie:I actually feel like those have good value though, the science is there. It's just a weird thing to buy your wife, if you got that for her. Someone gave it to you, got it.Matt:I was given it, by one of my coworkers, "By the way it works."Stephanie:And their marketing, I think that's the Harmon Brothers who did their marketing with the whole unicorn and they did the Poo-Pourri thing.Matt:Oh yeah, it's super cool. I love those kind of gadgets.Stephanie:That's a good one. I would listen to that show. All right. And then the last one, what's up next on your Netflix queue?Matt:Well, on my Netflix queue, I think I've got three episodes left on the Queen's Gambit.Stephanie:Love that show. That was a good one.Matt:I'm a documentary guy. I actually will tell you that I've been kind of hooked on HBO Max for a little bit. And I just finished the Tiger Woods documentary last night, which was fascinating. Nothing that you hadn't been told before. This guy through adversity has come back multiple times; knee surgeries, winning on a broken leg. So I'm into those sorts of stories. One of my guilty pleasures is The Bachelor, so it's on my DVR. I'm playing catch up on that.Stephanie:That's great.Matt:I love reality TV and that sort of stuff.Stephanie:I like where your head's at, me too. Well, Matt, this has been a very fun interview. Where can people find out more about you and clean.io?Matt:So you can find me at matt@clean.io. So if you want to send me an email, obviously happy to help you guys in any of your challenges and would love to hear your challenges if they're similar or if they're different than ones that we're solving for. Hit me on LinkedIn, so you can find me there. And our company website is clean.io.Stephanie:Awesome. Thanks so much for joining us.Matt:Thanks Stephanie. Thanks for having me.

For 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 to have good data. And without good data, you're kind of, you can't do machine learning, you can't do artificial intelligence, you can't do personalization. But right now it's the CIO, which I think needs to hire the revenue operations person to really get that done.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah. And a side note, if anyone's like, "I really want to hear more from CIOs," we have a whole podcast called IT visionaries where we interview CIOs from fortune 500 companies. So go check it out. So okay. You get your data all set and correct at the company that you're working with. What's the next thing that you encounter that's either an issue or that you see happening a lot right now?Dan:Well, I mean, just to make sure, I mean, the taxonomy, the data dictionary like you said, which I think is possibly a more common term or a schema. I mean, there's just so many ways to call this, which is ridiculous. The integration of the tools I think is really, really important. A lot of companies don't understand the way that tools can now integrate. We have a concept that we call data recycling. You typically see companies that are looking for what's known as we want our source of truth or our single record of truth. And for us, we find that to be a really, really bad model. What you should be trying to do is mirror your data across many, many different tools over and over and over again, and then recycle this data throughout the entire tools. If you have a single record of truth, which is always great, that means that you're helping one team and holding back many other teams.Dan:So we try to make it so that we recycle the data as much as we can and that's through basically data recycling. Leveraging a customer data platform is always really helpful for this, leveraging tools like Zapier, leveraging tools like tray.io, Workado is always really, really good, but you have to string the systems together along in a very, very structured manner to make it so that that data can even flow. Because even if you call everything the same, if nothing's connected in the right way, you're still not going to make any progress. So integration is also a key part of that.Stephanie:Yep. Cool. So now thinking about a little bit farther down the line like maybe when it comes to actually either interacting with the customer or guiding them around on your website or something, what things can be improved there because I've talked to quite a few companies or people on this podcast who say, "Any plugins, get away with all the plugins, they just slow your website down. You just need to focus on website speed. But then you were mentioning earlier how much do you love tools, and so tell me more about that.Dan:Yeah. I mean, I definitely think website speed is extremely, extremely important. I mean, when you're a large ecommerce company, speed is obviously paramount because it affects everything from SEO rankings to people actually converting on the website. But I also think you have to very much focus on personalization and creating a customer journey for the user. I think there's two kinds of use here. I mean, one marketing automation is great because it enables you to do so much, but sometimes we lose the human element and we kind of forget that people are still humans. They want to have a communication channel with us. So you want to make sure that you can personalize the experience and tailor that experience as much as you can. But at the same time, you just don't want to overdo it. So we focus a lot on personalization throughout the website, getting people back to where they want it to be, back to where they left off.Dan:And this would be, so as an example where you don't want to use a plugin because you want to let them use their experience. As things are happening on the website, we can track that in real time. We can save that in marketing automation, we can save that in any tool. So when the person leaves the website, we can very easily send them an email saying, hey, picked up where you left off. Especially if it's ecommerce, right? Last product that they viewed, they don't need to add it to their cart. I think it's the stupidest thing that we do. We send cart abandonment emails to people when they add something to their cart, because we think they have interest. If you send people an email which showed them the last five items that they've viewed, it adds the same value, right?Dan:Just because I added it to my cart, yes, it means I'm interested. Just because I didn't add it to my cart doesn't mean that I'm not interested in it. It means I probably have a five-year-old that's distracting me and I didn't get to add it to my cart. So we see allowing people to pick up where they left off as a really, really easy thing to do. But personalization in helping them accomplish their journey I think is the biggest thing. Marketers job is ... I come from a developer company where the marketer's job was, we were there to manipulate and trick people. And it's like that's not my job.Dan:But a marketer's job in my opinion is to basically help somebody accomplish their goals by serving them what they wanted in the first place. Right. It's to create that magical customer experience, knowing what they already wanted and serving them that on a silver platter, not tricking them to figure out, oh, you should've bought this, right? And I think that's where growth hacking went bad a few years back is it got a little like slimy and really it's about how do we just create the best customer experience for them through personalization?Stephanie:Yeah. So sometimes I think that personalization that I could see it going too far and I've talked to this a bit on the show before of like when you call in on the phone and it's like a robot and they're pretending to type, and they're trying to personalize it to your name and they're jacking with your name or sometimes you get an email and it's so over the top, like Stephanie, I saw this, this and this and it made me thought of you and whatever. I'm like, "Oh, creepy." How do you walk that fine line of giving people something that is helpful, but not being creepy.Dan:Yeah. And just because you're using the word creepy, it brings back some awesome ... I have a webinar and deck that I did before COVID happened. I was traveling the country doing this talk about automation without being creepy. But what does creepy really mean? So what I advise everybody who's listening to this podcast, grab your cell phone and I need you to go to your text messages and I want you to text (415) 915-9011. I'll just say a number again, (415) 915-9011. And I just want you to text the word creepy to that number and then follow along with the text prompt. There's a bot that will follow along with creepy. And then if you're really, really well known on the internet, you're going to get a super creepy email that will surprise you on what the internet already knows about you and that we have access to through your email. So either way, nice experiment for your people to go try, but-Stephanie:I want to do that now. Now that piques my interest. I don't know if I'm well-known enough on the internet though, but we'll see. It'll pull things from like Facebook. I'm like, "Here's what you're doing, Stephanie, back in high school."Dan:Yeah. We'll see. I mean, and usually the minimum that you're going to get is like we get your zip code or it might have your wrong zip code, but there's for myself and had over 300 attributes. I was like, "Holy crap, the internet knows way too much about me." But that being said, you do follow this line of creepiness to straddle, right? And you have to understand like target as an example can predict with nearly 90% accuracy that you're going to be pregnant within three months or you are pregnant within three months and that's crazy data science that you have and that blurs the line of creepiness. What you have to understand is that you don't want to impact life moments like that. Always, you don't want to precede those things, but what you have to figure out is how do you understand what they're looking for and then just serve that element to them?Dan:Because with an email address and with your IP address, we can basically find out anything we want, which is really, really terrifying to think about. So you have to make sure that you're just superseding what somebody is probably already looking for and there's definitely enrichment that you can get. So knowing that it's raining in somebodies area and sending them an email is not necessarily a bad thing, but you don't need to tell them that you know that you know it's raining, right? Like don't say, "Hey, it's raining, you should buy an umbrella." But yes, it's okay to send them umbrellas and rain boots and things like that, which banana republic knows how to send emails based upon that but they don't say it's raining. So there's a lot of ways that you can be helpful to somebody without telling them that what you're doing. But I mean, you can be really creepy if you want.Stephanie:I mean, I think that it sounds simple, but I like that where it's you have all this information, but you don't have to be like, "Hey, here's the zip code you live in? And apparently there's this festival going on right now." Like you can send something where it's like, oh, how did you know? Cool, okay. That's helpful because now I know of an event or whatever nearby without you saying, I know exactly the attributes of why I'm sending you this email because of this or whatever. So that's interesting.Dan:Yeah. There's an API for that too. When you talk about the events, I immediately think of companies that have APIs that allow you to have events and people's areas. So definitely an API for that nowadays.Stephanie:There you go. So what are some of your favorite tools that you're using where you're seeing the biggest success with right now? And it can be marketing tools., it can be stuff around like helping the customer journey. I mean, what comes to mind where you're like, "Oh, 2021, I'm really leaning into these things or we're implementing these things on our customer's websites."Dan:Yeah. So there's probably two primaries that I would go with. One, I'm super big fan of text message marketing, but I think a lot of companies get it wrong in the fact that they use it as a promotional channel and they use it as spray and pray. So I think text is really, really big. We use a software called autopilot, which is our marketing automation tool. They have an integration with Twilio so you can build a Twilio bot. So earlier I said, "Hey, text this number and text this word to it." It adds you to a subscription list and then it will automatically send you information and it can talk back and forth with you. And those types of technologies are where you really get some interesting engagement from consumers in regards to your services. So definitely is a real unique channel, but I wouldn't say that that's something that you would leverage on your website all the time.Dan:However, as somebody's going through your checkout flow and you collect their cell phone information, this is a way that you can reach out to them. Hey, we shipped your order to you and it has arrived today, right? Provide them helpful tips and then say, "Hey, you received your order. On a scale from one to five, how did it arrive?" And things like that. And providing this two way communication channel is really, really good for consumers. It gives them a communication channel. You do have to connect it to a support system and things like that. But customers really find it unique when you're trying to have a two-way conversation with them compared to like buy my 20% off thing.Dan:People hate getting those spam promotions. They hit stop more than you would like to think. So I think that for me, leveraging the SMS bots, whether that be through Autopilot and I think there's a company called Text In, which does really, really good there. There's another company called salesmsg.com. And no, I'm not talking about the Panda Express MSG, but salesmessage.com. They're more integrated with HubSpot or more meant for sales teams, but they work really, really good for customer support too. So text is huge for me. And then the flip side-Stephanie:How do you think about engaging people in texts? Because that's an issue where, I mean, I even think about like World Market right now just sent me a text this morning, like oh, 20% off. They send it to me like every week. I'm like is every week, 20% off week? I start to lose interest and I just haven't had the time to hit stop yet. But how do you think about building a flow that's going to keep your customer actually engaged and excited to see your texts coming in? So I feel like it's a two-way thing instead of just blasting them with promotions.Dan:Yeah. It's got to be really personalized. And this is why when we think about text messages, we think about it from a helper perspective. Right? So we have to think about like the things that are going to optimize their customer experience, not the things that are going to help us, right? Sending somebody a 20% discount is not helping them, that's helping us. So when we think about the change in that fundamentals is of course like when somebody is coming through your website, like hey, you can of course, hey, do you want to be updated with sales and promotions? Right. But I would target it more, hey, do you want to be made aware when we launch new skirts or hey, do you want to be made aware when we do these specific things, and try to only send the messages what's they're requesting which is going to help them in whatever they're trying to accomplish.Dan:And you get unique opportunities like when somebody is going through the checkout experience, right? Like, hey, do you want us to keep you aware of certain things that they're already interested in or hey, do you want to be shipping notifications? Do you want us to keep you aware of your shipping notifications? And those are good ways to get people going, but asking questions is going to get you much more than, hey, here's 20% off. Right. So I think asking questions, that's where the bot part comes into play is asking the question, like do you feel that our customer experience is optimal? Can you reply back with a one to 10 on how your checkout experience was? People respond back with a seven or two or a five. That's the interaction they're looking for, not hey, here's 20% off, right?Stephanie:Yeah. Unless you walk in the door. That's when I always think I'm like, if I walk into the door of a retail location and then I get that text, cool. I'm happy with it. But if you're just sending it to me when I'm at home ... Yeah. It is so possible. I know I'm like, they've got the beacons in the stores, you can do it. There's so many ways to do it now, but I don't see many brands at least retail locations doing that quite yet. But maybe I just don't go into retail stores obviously.Dan:Well, yeah. Yeah. The retail stores is hard. Yeah. I mean, I definitely think if anybody on this podcast wants to do that, let's do that because I know how to do that, leveraging radar, mobile apps and all that stuff. So like totally cool. I think my favorite campaign was by Burger King. They said if you were within 500 meters of a McDonald's, we will send you a free coupon for a free Whopper and you have five minutes to buy it. So if you had the Burger King app, came in within 500 meters or so I think it was even maybe a hundred yards of a McDonald's, you would get an instant push notification, you have five minutes to get your free Whopper. Holy crap. I mean, can we say contextual?Dan:But yeah, that's all possible. I agree with you. If I walked into JC Penney and JC Penny sent me a 10% off discount, I would totally use it. We were working with an ice-cream retailer, which I can unfortunately say the name. They're trying to create a loyalty program, but they couldn't figure out how to do it. And we're like, "Dude, just put a fricking number on the side of your building that says text loyalty now to this number and you're in our loyalty program. And then connect that to beacons and you can do more stuff with it, connect it to your app and do more stuff with it." And-Stephanie:Did they do it?Dan:No, they didn't listen because they were too traditional, who needs technology either way. But [crosstalk] is super powerful.Stephanie:That'd be a really good thing to do now that I'm in Austin area. So hey, anyone listening from Austin, give me a shout out. I'm here now. Yeah. But that's a good area to do that because there's so much like artwork and graffiti that turns into artwork on all the buildings out here, but people pay attention to it. So I think it does depend on the city you're in of like, are people open to that or will they see it and be like, "Man, there's writing on a building."Dan:Yeah. I think text is awesome. I mean, you just, people suck at it and I think people suck at most marketing in general. They just try to spray out there and hope for the best. So the one other technology, there's two technologies that we're testing a lot right now. One is called ConvertFlow, convertflow.com which is really, really good. The other one is right message. And both of the technologies are relatively the same. They're a pop-up technology that happens in your website, except for they're integrated in with your marketing automation solution and they also track a lot of what's going on on the website. So you can provide real time personalization to the website based upon what people clicked or what people did. And for anybody who follows the B2B space, there's like these drift chat bots.Dan:So if somebody comes to the site, a pop-up comes up, what is your goal today? Did you want to see a demo? Do you want to see this? Do you want to see this? People click on it. And then only the chat bot is able to control like what happens next. The difference with these technologies, specifically ConvertFlow is that when those types of things come up, you can click on something, it will drive you different places on the website, but it can also change the headline copy of the page. It can also change like things that are happening. So if somebody comes back, it can be like, "Welcome back, Dan. We hope that we were able to help you in your last visit. Last time you left off, you were looking at socks, let's go look at socks again, right? Or is there something else we can help you find?"Dan:And then of course you could constantly be contextually changing the experience for that user. For us, ConvertFlow has one of the most powerful engines to it and it's super cheap. These two twins created the platform, super, super cool guys, but they're really good at that. And then the flip side would be right message, which right message is more of a kind of a chatbot-esq. It doesn't change your websites, but it does constantly provide you personalization to push people down the funnel based upon what they sent.Stephanie:Cool. Like how many tests should a company be running to see what works and then how much should they pull it back and narrow it down to?Dan:Yeah, man, you should be running tons of tests. I mean, there's a linear line between the number of tests that you run and as well as the growth that you can create at a company. So I would just say you should run as many as you possibly can, that you can hit statistical significance with, speaking of which we have a tool for that. If you Google AB testing calculator Chrome extension, go check it out. It'll help you know if you have statistical significance. But yeah, I mean really, you should be running tests all the time. You shouldn't be launching anything that's not a test in our opinion. That's a big part of our business.Dan:So companies like Hydro, we run all of their AB Testing experiments and we're always running tests, right? So like for me, you should not be doing anything unless you're testing it. The thing that I would just add as a caveat of that is you have to have enough traffic to run the test. You have to hit statistical significance and you have to know what you're doing from a data perspective because false positives, I lost a company $125,000 in 24 hours because I had a false positive. I made a mistake. Luckily, this was a long time ago, but-Stephanie:What was the false positive? Tell me the story, or backstory of that.Dan:Yeah. I mean, a great problem that you have is that people only focus on one metric. So when you create an AB test, the test, I worked at a company called codeschool.com. Going back to that developer centric company, we were an online education company for developers. We created an experiment called the summer school campaign or summer camp campaign. And I had optimized the AB test for sign-ups and then purchases. The problem was we didn't optimize the test for lifetime value. Lifetime value was 75% less on the winner of the test. So we saw an immediate increase in conversions. We got super, super excited, come to find out that those users were 75% less valuable based upon that test.Dan:So there's a thing known as you have to basically reverse look at tests. So when they've been running for two months, go back and look at that to see if it hurt lifetime value, it hurt retention, anything like that. But we basically had just wrote a headline, which wasn't 100% percent true to the developer. Like it wasn't 100% in line, so they wound up churning after their first I think it was two months. The other users who didn't see that headline stuck around for like six months. So it was just-Stephanie:Okay. So was the headline, it made them think it was something that it wasn't where they came in-Dan:Yeah.Stephanie:Okay, got it. Yeah.Dan:That's what the developer said that we manipulate people and it was like, no, we just had a misalignment in regards to what we wrote. I wasn't trying to manipulate somebody, but either way, that's marketing.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, to me, that's just always a good reminder that all of this is a long game and anything that's focused on like a quick hit and trying to pique someone's interesting and get them in, it's probably not going to work out long-term.Dan:And if anybody knows of Kissmetrics, that was the whole reason why the company went out of business and got sold to a private equity firm is there was too many people at the leadership level that were focused on quick hits and it's what put us out of business. You got to focus on, you've got to have a good mix of short-term and long-term focus and why we've been so successful and are still successful even at our company and our clients, we focus on the longterm as much as we do on the short term.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah. Very cool. So when thinking about marketing and all these data attributes that you can have on your customer, how do you think about a, sorry, a potential cookieless world?Dan:Oh, it doesn't bother me at all. Cookies, whether you like it or not, the cookie is not going to die. It's third-party cookies they're talking about which are going to die. It's not first party cookies. The problem that people don't understand is we've already come up with millions of solutions to create better first-party cookies, if I could talk, better first-party cookies, which we hide third-party cookies behind. So I mean, we just had a whole debate about this last week.Dan:Cname cloaking and proxies and all this stuff. There's already a ton of ways to kind of hide it and change it. The cookie's not dying. It's just the way that the cookie gets used is what they're saying is going to die. But cookieless world is going to happen. Is it necessarily going to be ... I almost want to say it's a false or that the cookie is going to die because you can't completely kill a cache in a user's browser about what we know about the user or you'll break the internet.Dan:And the internet is not prepared to completely get rid of all those technologies, so there's always going to be a hack around it. So we have a technology called utm.ao that we use for campaign tracking. So if anybody out there uses UTMs, they have a stupid UTM spreadsheet. We solve that problem. But the real problem is that the technology is now making it so that before you even before you even get to the website, we know who you are. So that's all going to be passed to the website through URL parameters, and there's all kinds of hokey stuff there. So I guess like I'm not that stressed, if that makes any sense.Stephanie:So why are other people so stressed? Because I listened to different ad tech podcasts and other marketing shows. And I mean, there's been so many conversations where people are stressing about it. So why are you so chill about it then and they are so worried?Dan:Yeah. Well one, if you're an ad tech company, Apple's out to cut your throat, right? Like there's just no way around it. Facebook is in a complete battle with Apple, which I think one, Apple is totally doing this for a promotional stunt because their job is to own your data, right? Like don't let them fool you, they know every single thing you do and they hold it on. It's the reason why they're one of the most valuable companies in the world is they know every single action you do. So for a Facebook, it's definitely really, really concerning because they have to be able to get companies like, and I'll just use one of our clients, King's Wine to figure out how to do Cname cloaking and proxy changes and stuff like that, which is really, really hard.Dan:But if you're using myself as like your consulting firm, like that's our job is to figure that stuff out and to solve those problems for you and to deal with it. So I guess like for me, I'm not stressed because that's what we do. But for the ad companies, like how the hell did they get everybody else to know how to do that, right? They've got to teach mission.org how to load a advertising pixel in this certain way and there's no way that mission.org is going to figure that out unless they hire me. So that would be the reason why there's the big difference is I actually know how it works. Most people have no idea how any of this stuff works.Stephanie:Yeah. Okay. Well that's good then. So then no one has to be worried and just hire someone who can help you, sounds like the gist of it.Dan:The general thesis of it. And it's expensive. It's a lot of service that stuff. So I mean, the problem is that 95% to 98% of the internet is not going to be able to understand it or fix it and that's where a lot of people are really panicking on how do we get this done? But there's always a hack.Stephanie:Yeah. And a certain point though, I wonder if Apple is going to have to change the way they do things. I mean, I know that they have been like ruling the market for a long time, but I see now that they're trying to get into something like podcasting and they have big competitors out there who already know how to do podcasts advertising, and they know how to show the dynamic ads and actually showcase metrics to the advertisers. There's so much competition when it comes to that. I can see Apple having to change the way they do things and provide more data and show the ROI instead of being like the black box of like yeah, just put it on here and it's in your best interest because we're a big platform.Dan:Yeah. Well, we have to remember that they did invent the pod cast and that came from the iPod. But they're allowed to, I mean, I think when you have that dominance, you're allowed to be slow to things. I mean, when we think back, I used to run a bunch of mobile app companies and like they sucked at giving us data about the mobile app. So we had to figure out all these other things. But when you're the gateway to the rest of it, right, when you're the heroine of the drugs, you can be a little late to solving your problems and that's unfortunately how Apple is. So they're going to be late to the party, but when they step on the throat of anybody else, they make changes. And I think the easiest way to think about it, does anybody remember the QR code? And it hasn't gone anywhere, but all the QR code apps, there's none of them, they're gone because it's part of your camera now. So when-Stephanie:It's funny how you forget about that. Like I remember being like, "Oh, which QR code app is the best one that I need?" And it's like, they're all the same, just pick one.Dan:And now none of them are around, just like the calculator apps. And like when Apple wants to ... And in our business, one of the things that we try to help our customers figure out and this is something I hope all of your podcast people listen, if you've never read the book, Crossing The Chasm, it's a really, really good read. But you have what's known as basically these innovators, which are out front. Most innovators die, right? They just don't live forever. And what we've recommended to our clients is be the early majority, right? Don't be the person always out trying to be a hipster because then you wind up finding out that like, hey, this stupid business idea blows up. I mean, I was put out of business one time by Facebook changing a feature like, oh my God, I can't believe Facebook changed a feature I went out of business.Dan:There's definitely things that other big companies, when you build on their platform, you have to be aware of that if they just decide to get into that space, you could go out of business or you could not have a feature which your business is around. So we always recommend people don't always try to be the innovator, wait for there to like be something solid, wait for something to be proven, wait for something to be figured out. Because if you're always going from the next hot flip to the next hot flip, and you're always a hipster, you're going to spend 10X more money than I am, and I'm going to still make the same amount of money if not more than you and that's always fascinating.Stephanie:Yeah. I also recommend that book and it's come up a few times on here. It's a really good one. I mean, how do you think about companies relying on a platform? Because I see so many brands right now just launching on Amazon, for example, and not even worrying about building out their own website presence or even developing their own community. Like how do you think about that?Dan:Well, I think my opinion would be different if they would have been doing that 15 years ago. Right. But if you've ever read the book, The Everything Store About Jeff Bezos, just understand he is coming for your throat too. I mean, they're just like Apple. If you read what they did to the book publishing industry, I'm like, "Holy crap. Wow, they completely gutted that industry." So for now I mean, there's not much you can do about it. You have to play with it. But I think it's definitely imperative that you create your own online presence. And I think this is where Shopify is trying to come fill a void is there is definitely, you have to do both at the same time because at any time Amazon is just going to come out with Amazon basic of your product and you're done. They've done it hundreds of times, if not thousands of times.Dan:So you do have to build your own kind of side sliver as a brand. And I think the best book that I think I've ever read, which made me understand not only my childhood and why I am the way I am as an adult is the book Antifragile.Stephanie:Yeah. You seem to love them.Dan:Yeah. It's such a great book. But you have to have optionality and if you put all of your cards on Amazon, well, you don't have any optionality. And I think creating those options is a huge business. I mean, I read 42 books last year. So we want to get into like talking about all the cool things I learned just last year on that stuff. But optionality is huge. I think it's really, really important.Stephanie:Yeah, we've had a great guest on from, let's see, it was Taylor Holiday from, I think something collective. I can't remember what his company was, but he said, "You need to figure out how you can basically win even when you're wrong." So like when your models are wrong, which to me I'm like, "Yeah, you're talking about being anti fragile and making sure that you won't fail, even if your models set you in the wrong direction, how can you still benefit and have upside?" Which I thought was really interesting to frame it that way.Dan:Yeah. And I think in regards to the platforms and I'll try to bring this back to like the marketing technology platforms, there's a lot of optionality that you can look at and you need to have a backup plan to your backup plan in regards to marketing technology tools. I mean, Marketo got bought by Adobe and that's going to revolutionize the way their product works. And I mean, there's a lot of things in Marketo that suck already and Adobe buying it just means that it's going to slow down, right?Dan:So you have to be prepared to be able to say, "What's my backup plan to Marketo? And if I was to switch, what is that going to take?" And that's one reason why we recommend a lot of companies to leverage customer data platforms because it makes switching easy, but then you run into the same problem. Well, if you have a customer data platform and all of my data goes to the CDP, well, what happens when that CDP gets acquired? Right. What happens when Twilio buys Segment for 3.2 billion? How does that change my ... what's going to happen to the CDP? So you just have to ask those questions, like what are my other options with these platforms when I choose it and how much am I baked into this tool? And if I lost this tool tomorrow, what would it take to replace it?Stephanie:Yeah, that's really good to have a mindset like that and be thinking about all angles. So really good. So from a general ecommerce standpoint, what kind of trends are you guys preparing for in 2021?Dan:Well, first one, just going back, the death of the cookie.Stephanie:Or apparently you're not preparing at all and you're like, "I'm good."Dan:No, I mean, we started ... I mean, if Google the death of cookies McGaw.io and we wrote a blog post about this a year ago. So we've been tracking this for a long time. I think that the biggest thing that we are focused on, the biggest thing that we see in ecommerce right now, everybody wants to do multi-touch attribution. Everybody's trying to figure out how do they do multi-touch attribution to better align their return on ad spend. Because the key problem that you have is all these retailers are spending millions of dollars a year on advertising spend. And then if they look in Facebook, they see a conversion in Google, they see a conversion in LinkedIn or whatever the platform they see a conversion and they're attributing one sale to five different conversions. So they're really trying to say, "We understand that those five conversions we see in these different platforms or from one purchase, and we need to be able to pull that data together." So touch attribution is huge.Dan:We're extremely well-known in that space so a lot of companies are working with us on that, but every company is a unique snowflake for multi-touch attribution. Recommendation engines are probably the other thing that we see a lot of companies really trying to figure out. There's a cool technology called blue shift. Really, really good for ecommerce especially if you have thousands of products. They use machine, excuse me, machine learning to consume your catalog. And then also use machine learning to distribute that catalog as a recommendation to people based upon the best channel that suits them at the best time for them. Blue shift is crushes it. Great technology, Josh, the CMO or CGO, chief growth officer is a good buddy of mine.Dan:So we see a lot of the trend in regards, how do we make proper recommendations on the right channel at the right time with the right message. And then the last thing would just be customer data platforms. So those are the big three trends. I mean, one of the reasons why we're crushing it right now is like we know CDPs better than almost anybody else, customer data platforms. And customer data platforms, it's not a fad, it's not a trend. It really is the future on how you need to manage your data and your customer data specifically. So those would be the three big things that I would lean on for 2021 and going, especially into 2022.Stephanie:Cool. So you were just mentioning channels. What kind of channels are you guys most bullish on right now? Maybe are there any new ones out there? We've had a lot of people mention TikTok. You and I were talking about Clubhouse earlier. Is there anything that you guys are kind of shifting your focus towards and trying out?Dan:Oh, I love TikTok. Man, they tried to hire me as a brand ambassador and I so wanted to do it, but we had to turn it down and I love TikTok. I spent so much time on there. It's ridiculous.Stephanie:I do too. It's great.Dan:I think TikTok is great, a really, really cheap channel, but you got to learn how to do it, but it's a harder curve so I think that's good. I think that there's a lot of ... YouTube, oh my God, YouTube, YouTube, YouTube, YouTube, YouTube. We haven't even hit how valuable YouTube is. I mean, they're going to be ridiculous. So I think between those two channels, figuring out video is going to be really, really important for companies across the channels with TikTok and YouTube. I think if you can't figure that out in the next five years, you're really going to struggle. There's a cool tool called Fleeq, F-L-E-E-Q.com, which will help you do that for video. So I think YouTube and TikTok are huge if you want to be successful. I think there are some other really surprising ones. Like I always try to tell people you should invest more in Bing. Bing's really cheap. I always think that's always really, really good.Stephanie:I haven't heard Bing yet. That's a new one. Okay.Dan:Yeah. It's just so cheap. Not as much volume, but just the per dollar comparison is good. And the last one that I'll just say is direct mail. Like, oh my gosh, it's so cheap.Stephanie:What are you guys doing in direct mail right now? Because that was also something I've brought up a couple of times of like so many people are now at home and I am delighted when I get mail that's not something spammy where I can actually look through a great catalog and like, oh, this is actually cool stuff. And I always mention the Trader Joe's pamphlet where I'm like, "They have really fun content that also sells their products as well." But it's, I mean, I look forward to that one. So how are you guys approaching the direct mail piece?Dan:Yeah, so depending upon what the integration ... I mean, there's a company called lob.com, which makes direct mail really, really easy. And we leverage autopilot as our automation tool and we've been able to, I mean, personalize tons of stuff. In regards to giving people recommendations, we are able to literally write text on the postcards saying the technologies they use through data enrichment. So there's a lot of stuff that you're able to do there, but we have to remember is like sending somebody a thank you card or a birthday card in the mail as direct mail like happy birthday. It's your birthday coming up soon. Right? Like that's not hard, but people love it. And with COVID, I think the best quote that I had somebody say to me into COVID, the most exciting part of my day is walking to the end of my driveway and collecting my mail. And I was like, "What?"Dan:So I think it's just a great medium to use. And if you build it as part of your automated personalization journey, I mean, once again, you don't have to know it's raining in somebody's area to send them direct mail. Right. But you can know that it's going to snow two weeks ahead of time or there's a good possibility, you could send them a coupon for snow boots. Right. Like I just, the options are endless. So yeah, I mean, I think it's great. Hey, you abandoned your cart and you left these three things on and you print like three things on there. I mean, the personalization is really, really crazy and awesome.Stephanie:Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. All right. So we have a quick lightning round brought to you by Salesforce commerce cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready?Dan:Can I admit I'm scared? Yeah.Stephanie:You can admit it. Yes. All right. I'll start with the easier ones first. So you sound like a little bookworm. What are the next three books on your list?Dan:Oh, next three books. I don't know. I'm not prepared for that one. I think Atomic Habits-Stephanie:I usually ask one, but I'm like, "That's too easy for you." You have to tell me three.Dan:Yeah. I'm slacking on my book thing because I had a goal at the end of the year to hit 20 books and I demolished it. So I could probably say my last three books, but Atomic Habits, Billionaire Plan and Maverick. Those are the three books that I want to finish right now.Stephanie:Cool. Where are you traveling to next when we can travel again more easily?Dan:Oh, well that's an easy one. I fly to Snowshoe West Virginia and less than four weeks to go snowboarding again and I'm super excited for that trip. I traveled multiple times during COVID so-Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, I have too, but some people haven't. So if you were to have a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Dan:We are in the process of creating a podcast of what we call The Stack and we'll be talking to VPs of marketing and CEOs about their marketing technology, sales technology and customer success technology. My first interview is hopefully going to be with mission.org and figuring out how you guys manage your marketing tech stack.Stephanie:All right. Yeah. Bring us on. And we also have a whole marketing trends podcast where we interview CMOs. So then we'll have to bring you on that one as well.Dan:I think that'd be great. I think it would be a lot of fun. This has been awesome. You are amazing at this. Good, good work. I thought this was fun.Stephanie:Thanks. Yeah. I mean, we talked about in the beginning, what was our line was just don't be generic. So I think that was a good motto of our interview. All right. Two more questions. What's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?Dan:Nicest thing that anybody's ... My godfather took me for my first snowboarding lesson when I was like eight years old. It's the best memory I think of my entire life because it's something I've used forever.Stephanie:Oh, I like that. Alright. And then what one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next few year? And it can't be the three things that you mentioned earlier.Dan:Oh, come on. The next biggest thing in ecommerce that's going to happen. Amazon will start to die. They're going to get ... I think Amazon is going to get split up because Jeff Bezos will want to do it. I think that's going to be one of the biggest things that happens in ecommerce in the next five to 10 years though. I don't know how long it's going to take, but I think that and Congress realizing that Amazon, they're too big.Stephanie:All right. Well, that's a good answer. I'm glad that I punted the other three so you had to think of a new one. All right, Dan. Well, this has been an awesome interview. Thank you for not being generic. Where can people find out more about you and McGaw.io?Dan:Yeah, so definitely you can go to McGaw.io, but I'm most active on LinkedIn, so go to LinkedIn and search up Dan McGaw. There's three of us, but you'll be able to find my pretty face. Go there and send me a connection request and play along. I've got over 25,000 followers there and I try to stay active.Stephanie:Amazing. All right. Thanks for joining us.Dan:Yeah, thanks so much. And the one thing I forgot, look up Build Cool Shit, my book which is all about how to build a marketing tech stack. If you go to McGaw.io, I'll send you a free copy. It's on the headline, but I forgot all about it. I have a book called Build Cool Shit. So I forgot that's-Stephanie:We will link it up. Don't you worry. Cool.Dan:Thank you very much.