Podcasts about tivan amour

If you have a cooler or an insulated lunch bag, you likely have an Igloo product. Although the brand has such a vast wholesale network, a direct-to-consumer (DTC) experience was key to establishing a direct line of communication with consumers to build out its product portfolio.Early on, the focus was on acquisition. But then, Kizzy Ezirio, Digital User Experience Director at Igloo, and her team wanted to focus on using direct engagement channels to collect more robust data about customers and have more intimate conversations. That's how Igloo's SMS strategy has made a big impact. During this episode of Retail Remix, Kizzy joins Tivan Amour, GM of Conversational at Attentive, to discuss how to:   Build out a high-quality list to support SMS strategies;   Combine triggered messages and high-touch, personalized messages to create a seamless experience that aligns with consumers' unique preferences and expectations;   Integrate high-quality content and compelling incentives into SMS messages to drive engagement and action; and  Use data to refine and optimize SMS strategies and the overall digital brand experience. RELATED LINKS  Learn more about Attentive Concierge  Learn more about Igloo 

Tivan Amour is a serial entrepreneur, leader, and SMS expert. He is the CEO of Tone, which was acquired by Attentive in 2021. Both work as SMS marketing solutions designed to increase revenue for ecommerce brands. Now Tivan serves as the General Manager and Conversational for Attentive. His last business, Fortified Bicycle, was acquired in 2019 after six years of continued growth. He also served in the past as a FedEx board member and a student entrepreneur mentor at BUILD. In this episode… SMS marketing can sometimes feel like a relic from a different era. After all, most people focus more on apps and websites than text messages in today's age. The truth, however, is that SMS marketing can be more effective than ever. Not only are people using their phones at greater rates than in the past, but they are valuing companies that reach out. A genuine relationship between you and the customer is becoming the essential piece of marketing. This is the viewpoint of Tivan Amour, a serial entrepreneur who has seen how effective SMS marketing can be firsthand. His first business found success when he started implementing text messages for abandoned carts. After that, he founded his own SMS marketing company called Tone in 2017, which was then bought out by Attentive. If anyone knows the power of text messages, it's him. Guillaume Le Tual invites Tivan Amour, CEO of Tone, to discuss why SMS marketing may be an unexplored tool for your ecommerce brand. The two go over how text messages work and the unique benefits over other forms of marketing. They also discuss a host of topics, including discounts, where ecommerce is heading, and why having your own app may not be as great as it once was. Hear it all for yourself on this episode of the Ecommerce Wizards Podcast.

Sponsored by Peter Fasse, Patent Attorney at Fish & Richardson: https://www.fr.com/team/j-peter-fasse/ Tivan Amour, repeat founder, bristles with energy but is also capable of contemplation. He is a growth hacker familiar with the Socratic Dialogue. He is hugely ambitious yet generous with the less fortunate.  It was great fun interviewing him and he taught me a bunch of things. Among these were the real value of Techstars to founders and some pointers on growing a customer base. Here is a list of the topics covered: Tivan Amour Bio What Effect Did Working for AT&T While Still in College Have in Tivan’s Life? Tivan as a Product Manager at Abercrombie & Fitch Tivan Starts His First Company Tivan Decides Boston Is Just Right for Him What Tivan Learned from Volunteering at BUILD How Tivan Structures His Day Tivan’s First Company Pivots Genesis of Fortified Bike – New Way to Market to Bike Shops – Cutting Out Distributors Fortified Bike Goes into Techstars The Real Value of Techstars to the Founder Changing Co-founders com Has Won Plaudits from Experts for Its Efficacy – Tivan’s Advice on Building a Website

Join Sal's Investment Syndicate: Link to Syndicate Page Trying to create a bike startup, repeat founder Tivan Amour builds a texting tool that quickly outgrows the original business and is then launched as an independent company. Listen to the founding story of Tone (tonemessaging.com) and how it’s allowing brands to speak directly to customers. A great chat with one of my favorite founders. Highlights include: Sal Daher Introduces Tivan Amour, Founder of Tone How Tone / Save My Sales Was Born Out of Fortified Bike The Story of Kyle the Super Bike Salesman Kyle Stumbles Upon the Idea of Texting Bike Clients Who Don’t Complete the Sale Texting Proves Out as a Massive Driver of Sales “…so, we turned that potential lost sale that would have been $750 into an actual conversion within a couple of days that was worth 50% more, right?” Friends in e-Commerce Urged Tivan to Turn the Texting Platform into a Business “In Techstars, one of the mantras that I think was drilled into us was to sort of be open to serendipity and do things that don't scale…” “Lo and behold, in the first month we started getting our first couple thousand-dollar paychecks from brands that we were making tens of thousands of dollars for.” The Texting Platform Starts Becoming More Scalable Tivan Decides to Sell the Still-Growing and Profitable Bike Business and Focus Just on the Texting Platform “…from those initial 50 beta customers to about 10x, so we have just under 600 customers that we do this for.” “You have to have customers who tend to like being texted, which from what we can tell seems to be most brands that we've talked to. There's very few where customers don't enjoy the instant communication.” “We figured out how to automate our first 25% of all messages in the platform in our first version of AI, and that was in 2019.” “Almost 50% of the interactions are now being done by AI and the other 50% by a human agent.” “We think that the key component here is that there's always a human readily available to make sure that the authenticity is still there…” “…if anyone ever feels like they're talking to a chatbot with us, we missed the mark.” “We believe that people buy from people they know, and by combining humans and the right tech, we can create that experience for every business.” Tone’s VC Raise “Over the last 15 years, a lot of it has become automated, so messages that you're getting from businesses are kind of preprogrammed and when you fall into a certain segment of customer, you'll just get that message.” “What we're actually doing is creating conversations with these customers, and it feels very different than getting that marketing automation email from a business or even a marketing automation text message…” Tone Allows for Two-Way Conversation Between the Brand and the Buyer “Customers are going to decide how they want to engage with you, and it's up to you to leave every door and window open…” “There's text message marketing and that's everyone, and then there's text message relationship automation, which is what we do.” How Tivan Navigated Taking a New Business Out of an Existing Business “…so when people call me and say, "Hey, I'm thinking about starting this hardware company or this eCommerce brand, here's the knick-knack that we sell. I know that you did a lot of manufacturing in China and would love your ideas on it." My first question is, can you think of a technology startup that you'd rather start?” “…the biggest learning for us was how hard cash flow is in consumer brands. For us, for every $1 million that we wanted to make, we had to sink $300,000 at least in inventory, and then sit on it for six to eight months before we even got to payback.” “We weren't necessarily the ones that should have been running a business like that, and it's great to be kind of in a supporting role that I think better fits us.”

90% of startups fail, so why do we only hear from the 10%? Let’s tackle the topic of failure in business. In the tenth and final episode of Making It Work, we speak to Tivan Amour of Save My Sales, Aqila Augusta of Edge Entity, Rahim Diallo of Ginjan Bros, Dana Donofree of AnaOno, Diana Ganz and Jeanne Foley of The Groomsman Suit, Heidi Hale of Heidi J. Hale Designs, Brian Munoz of Penny Luck Shoes, David Patrick of Shark Wheel and Liz Powers of Artlifting. From “lucking out” and making it big to learning when to call it quits, we ask all of our entrepreneurs what success means to them and whether they’ve found it yet. So should you hang on and go for broke or cut your losses and call it a day? Tune in to find out.

Invest Alongside Boston's Top Angels: Link to Our Investment Syndicates Two of Boston’s most active angels, Marlene Boyaner of Golden Seeds and Doug Bates of Walnut Venture, talk to Sal Daher about angel investing, fundraising, building a startup and various other topics. The panel takes challenging questions from an audience of startup founders. Highlights include: Marlene Boyaner bio. Doug Bates bio How Marlene went from intrapreneuring at CIBC & Capital One to angel investing. Golden Seeds is on the organized end of the spectrum among angel groups; Marlene likes the way it operates. Entrepreneurship was a natural for Doug Bates due to several examples of in his family. Founded a successful business with the woman to whom he was married at the time. Put his wife’s idea through a thorough MBA-type scrutiny and became convinced it would work. Golden Seeds seeks to ensure that women get their share of startup funding and invest in businesses where they can see the possibility of an exit. They are generalists, no industry focus. When Golden Seeds started women got only 3% of startup funding, now women get 27% of such funding. Women now start 50% of all businesses so it seems that Golden Seeds has room to grow. Startup Parade: Fortified Bike from which was spun off Save My Sales. Doug admires founder Tivan Amour who has been interviewed on the Angel Invest Podcast (Link to Tivan Amour's Podcast). Sal is also an investor. Fortified Bike was a theft-proof bike business which proved to be a hard ride. While trying to get the bike business up the hill, Tivan built a highly effective texting tool that drove sales very powerfully. That’s the business that became Save My Sales. Tivan demonstrated integrity in the way he migrated to Save My Sales by giving investors in Fortified Bike stakes in the new company. Startup Parade: Clean Fiber has a prosaic business but an extremely sound one. The team is impressively high-performing in building out a new production process for producing insulation with recycled materials. Doug likes the boring but lucrative niche they occupy. Startup Parade: Marlene Boyaner brought up Day Zero which has technology to determine at the outset of treatment what is the best antibiotic to use on an infection. Currently, patients with severe infections are started on broad spectrum antibiotics until the result of cultures allows the determination of the ideal treatment. Startup Parade: Marlene Boyaner also mentioned Acivilate helps people involved with the justice system get better results in terms of lower recidivism. Although this is not an industry Marlene would have anticipated investing in, the ability of the team was so compelling that Golden Seeds has backed Acivilate. Startup Parade: Sal GainLife which has been building software to help disability insurers get better outcomes with workers who are out of work due to an injury. Founder Sean Eldridge and his team have gotten impressive traction with insurers. Here is Sean’s interview on this podcast, an episode called “Transforming Lives”: Interview with Sean Eldridge Startup Parade: Meenta founded by Gabor Bethlendy and Stephan Smith is building Stripe for science, a workflow platform to make the notoriously inefficient process of scientific experimentation more efficient. Gabor was also on the podcast, here’s the interview with him: Interview with Gabor Bethlendy of Meenta Doug Bates believes that angel investing requires a high level of understanding of the industry in which the startup is being built. Powerball vs. Moneyball; Doug is a moneyball investor, i.e. he likes to take small, highly-analyzed bets that are likely to pay off consistently. Marlene talked about Golden Seeds’ focus on portfolio companies having defensible businesses, i.e. businesses that cannot be easily copied by competitors. Golden Seeds also needs validation from pilot programs or repeat sales. Golden Seeds looks for teams that are coachable and resilient. They liked big markets. Each big Golden Seeds chapter sees three pitches per month. Office Hours is a great way to connect with Golden Seeds if you don’t have connections. Sal asks for your review on iTunes to help the Angel Invest Boston podcast found by listeners. Doug and Marlene tell us the best ways founders can connect with angel investors. Sal on the proper way to use LinkedIn to connect with angel investors. Hint: it does not involve sending mass emails to people you don’t know. Resources for founders raising money; start with The Capital Network, a non-profit dedicated to supporting founders. Marlene says keep pitch decks crisp and to the point. Less is more. Doug says pitch decks should address greed or fear. Don’t go into the weeds. Marlene adds that they have to explain how the product works in layman’s terms. Sal recalls Joe Caruso urging founders to make sure angels listening to their pitches understand what the company does. Here’s Sal’s interview with Joes Caruso, the CEO Whisperer: Interview with Super Angel Joe Caruso Doug: the most important subtext of due diligence is that it’s all about evaluating the founding team. Doug: the golden mean between dogmatism and lack of conviction. Founders should understand that Golden Seeds has a process; no on-the-spot answers. Doug urges frequent communications with investors. Monthly is good. Sal urges founders to occupy investor mindshare with monthly reports. Audience Questions: Jake Kayser of YourAgora asks questions about how angels invest directly or through entities. Paul Livingston, Ph.D. of EdTech Advisory Group ask questions about how investors view educational tech companies. Caleb, a senior at Babson, had a question about how to engage angels. Davin, a Babson student asks for advice on having an entrepreneurial career.

Tivan Amour is the co-founder and CEO of SaveMySales, an AI-powered SMS sales team for online brands. As a serial entrepreneur, Tivan has started companies in urban transportation, real estate, and e-commerce. He currently serves on the FedEx Entrepreneur Advisory Board and loves to kite surf.

Tivan Amour is reinventing how urban bikes are designed and sold. This is a tall order. The competition is ferocious. Wise counsel is justifiably skeptical of the possibility of success in this endeavor. Yet, Tivan is gaining traction with his approach. He may be defying the odds. This young repeat founder bristles with energy but is also capable of contemplation. He is a growth hacker familiar with the Socratic Dialogue. He is hugely ambitious yet generous with the less fortunate.  It was great fun interviewing him and he taught me a bunch of things. Among these were the real value of Techstars to founders and some pointers on growing a customer base. Here is a list of the topics covered: Tivan Amour Bio What Effect Did Working for AT&T While Still in College Have in Tivan’s Life? Tivan as a Product Manager at Abercrombie & Fitch Tivan Starts His First Company Tivan Decides Boston Is Just Right for Him What Tivan Learned from Volunteering at BUILD How Tivan Structures His Day Tivan’s First Company Pivots Genesis of Fortified Bike – New Way to Market to Bike Shops – Cutting Out Distributors Fortified Bike Goes into Techstars The Real Value of Techstars to the Founder Changing Co-founders com Has Won Plaudits from Experts for Its Efficacy – Tivan’s Advice on Building a Website

Boston-based @FortifiedBike Co-Founder and CEO @TivanAmour is no stranger to big challenges. Launching "The Defender" on Kickstarter as a test netted thousands of orders for the theft proof bike light and gave him the confidence he needed to join Co-Founder @SlavaMenn. With a full bike now on the market, revenue ramping up hard, and positive cash flow in sight, Tivan and I dig into a number of juicy topics for early stage entrepreneurs. What is it like to have 40 investors on the cap table? What is the right cadence for reaching out to investors? Why did Cadillac only have a limited number of key versions made in the 1970s? What are the three jobs of the CEO? Is it possible to lower headcount and keep growing revenue? How does the focus of a startup change, or not change, when becoming cash flow positive? What is it like going through TechStars Will going to business school prepare you for entrepreneurship?

March 30, 2015 Bicycle Kickstarter Tivan Amour & Pro Skateboarder Dan MacFarlane