Scaling Europe
00:20:04 · Omer Kaplan, Sebastian Johnson
[00:20:04] S1: I think that media is becoming very expensive and it's not going to change. And I think that as a result retention is key. I think that you need products that are not based on a one time only kind of experience and that you have customers and a community that keeps buying. And of course you need to know how to measure it and optimize, and it's a big part of what we're doing and how we're thinking. But I do think that this will be a very strong shift and most companies will go through being very kind of retention led and not just transactional led. [00:20:42] S0: And are there companies that you've either worked with or spoken to or looked at that you believe are hitting that kind of gold standard of huge scale? That you think, okay, we want to turn 10 or 20 smaller brands into companies like that who have done it phenomenally well?
00:20:42 · Sebastian Johnson, Omer Kaplan
[00:20:42] S0: And are there companies that you've either worked with or spoken to or looked at that you believe are hitting that kind of gold standard of huge scale? That you think, okay, we want to turn 10 or 20 smaller brands into companies like that who have done it phenomenally well? [00:20:59] S1: You know, think they are amazing consumer companies. I think that most of them have succeeded because also luck was there, right? Because they really kind of had a bull's eye on a product market fit, right? And what we're trying to do is systemize it. I think of the examples of great consumer companies that they'll tell you, I don't think that they succeeded because they had this playbook and they knew what they were doing. I think that they really, you know, groans one day in the morning, thought, okay, instead of taking this green shake every morning, let's make something much more fun and have a daily pack of gummies. And I assume, I don't know, I thought it was a good idea. They didn't know it would be so successful. But I think that it's exactly something that you can make a playbook around. And it's something which, of course, we're doing. [00:22:05] S0: And sort of taking the luck out
00:22:05 · Sebastian Johnson, Omer Kaplan
[00:22:05] S0: And sort of taking the luck out [00:22:06] S1: of it and adding a structure and a process around great products. Yes. It's really knowing if your product is great. And then if it is great, then execute it. And by the way, when we execute, we want to solve every hurdle. If there is a need for UA financing, we'll get it solved. If there is a need for investment in the company, we are building the ecosystem to solve that as well. We literally want to get to a point where if somebody was onboarded to be a scale partner with ZyG, and I'm telling it out front, we're going to be very selective, but if somebody was accepted or was onboarded, their chances to succeed are extremely high, and we are devoted to making it work. [00:22:56] S0: And you're obviously speaking to a lot of ecommerce brands. You're living in this... Deep in this world. In the tech world that we live in, everybody's using AI or is playing around both in their personal lives but also a lot [00:23:08] S1: of tools. How much are consumer ecommerce companies using AI to help them scale already? Or is that something that you're not seeing at all yet? I think right now most of them are using it to be more effective, So to shorten processes, to use LLMs on their day to day activity. I don't think that they're using it in transformational way yet. I think that they, and I think that most of them, not all of them, need a partner in order to really leverage AI disruptively. And I think it's not there yet.
00:23:08 · Omer Kaplan, Sebastian Johnson
[00:23:08] S1: of tools. How much are consumer ecommerce companies using AI to help them scale already? Or is that something that you're not seeing at all yet? I think right now most of them are using it to be more effective, So to shorten processes, to use LLMs on their day to day activity. I don't think that they're using it in transformational way yet. I think that they, and I think that most of them, not all of them, need a partner in order to really leverage AI disruptively. And I think it's not there yet. [00:23:48] S0: Interesting. And then looking forward, you're partnering with you know, a range or a large number of e commerce companies. In twelve months, what will success look like? Like how will you say, okay, ZyG Score has been an enormous success and is that because you've got, you've 10x'd 10 companies? [00:24:09] S1: Is there a metric you're looking for? Success will be that every consumer company in the world that is selling at least million in dollar a year, and have this kind of repeat mechanism or a high enough AOV, something that can work on D2C, like $40 and up for example, that their dream is to be selected by ZyG. So literally everybody will want to try and get their ZyGnal and then their ZyG Score. That will be the de facto benchmark. And it will already have many dozens of case studies of companies that we literally took 10x, 20x within a year. There will be success in a year, and it will happen. [00:25:01] S0: And ZyG Score at Scaling Europe, anybody
00:25:01 · Sebastian Johnson, Omer Kaplan
[00:25:01] S0: And ZyG Score at Scaling Europe, anybody [00:25:03] S1: can use it, anybody can contest the very first scoring, right? Anybody who sells... We to see this meaningful traction. We're not validating ideas, So anybody who's selling at this million dollar threshold... [00:25:17] S0: Can get their ZyG score. [00:25:19] S1: Yeah, and the 40 AOV. If you hit that point that [00:25:22] S0: you want to hit where everybody wants to become a partner, you're going to have this absolutely phenomenal database of all of the fantastic ecommerce companies in the world. What are you going to do with that? Is that just going to be used to kind of reinforce and relearn your benchmarks? That in itself is going to be incredibly valuable. [00:25:39] S1: Listen, we've done it before. It's obviously going to make... That's the flywheel that we're building. I think it turns you better. So that's exactly the flywheel that we're building, it's going to be... Obviously, a very important part of it. [00:25:56] S0: And what advice would you give to e commerce brands today? Know, like if maybe if they are at that 1,000,000 or coming up to that 1,000,000, what should they be doing to think about either getting ready for their ZyG Score and getting their application in or just improving their business and scale with AI?
00:25:56 · Sebastian Johnson, Omer Kaplan
[00:25:56] S0: And what advice would you give to e commerce brands today? Know, like if maybe if they are at that 1,000,000 or coming up to that 1,000,000, what should they be doing to think about either getting ready for their ZyG Score and getting their application in or just improving their business and scale with AI? [00:26:10] S1: So I think that first of all you kind of need to define who you are as a company and what's your superpower. Because I think that it's very rare to find companies or entrepreneurs that can be really amazing physical product entrepreneurs, but also amazing kind of growth or scale or tech experts. And some companies out there, I think that they have okay products, but they built these sophisticated marketing machines, which is one track. And many other companies, they have this amazing product but it's not within their DNA to really build the machine that you need to scale them. And I think that you need to understand what you do best and you need to focus there. And if the conclusion is that what you do best is the product, then it's more realistically to succeed if you'll find a partner that can really solve scale. Because I really, really think that it's almost unfair to expect from an entrepreneur to be able to do all of these together. [00:27:36] S0: Yeah. And it's interesting because in in tech, you sort of expect tech founders to be managed... To be able to manage the rest of their tech stack. E commerce is is different, right? You don't... You're right. It seems unfair to be able to be creative experts, brand experts, I product