Scaling Europe
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
00:27:36 · Sebastian Johnson, Omer Kaplan
[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 [00:27:51] S1: think that regardless of ZyG, or with connection, but also in general, I think that what AI is kind of making all of us do is that so many things can happen now much easily, that every person needs to really crystallize what is their superpower. What is that one thing that they do better than everybody else? And you want to make sure that you are best at that because if before you could be jack of all trades and you could be... Most of those trades, I don't know if you can say that most of those things AI will do. So the one thing that you know how to do best, focus there. Do you have a view on what generally is for e commerce brands and the balance between product and brand? You mean how do they divide between the ones who are more product oriented, the one are more... [00:28:48] S0: When you look at the ecommerce brands that are really successful, do you think it is those that have really laser focused on an incredible product? Or do you think that actually sometimes it's not necessarily the product quality, but the brand and the marketing that they've kind of put around it?
00:28:48 · Sebastian Johnson, Omer Kaplan
[00:28:48] S0: When you look at the ecommerce brands that are really successful, do you think it is those that have really laser focused on an incredible product? Or do you think that actually sometimes it's not necessarily the product quality, but the brand and the marketing that they've kind of put around it? [00:29:02] S1: I think that you really need to do everything together in a really good way. I think it's hard to find companies that does. You'll mainly find amazing brands that have this amazing product and maybe they're also amazing on retail, but it's hard for them to do D2C. Or you'll find the other way around. But I do think that you need to have an amazing product. I think that there are no shortcuts there. So I think at first you need to make sure that you really have this amazing product. And then figure out, is it realistic that you'll now do all of what's needed in order to scale? Or do you need a partner to basically take that and deliver the outcome? [00:29:55] S0: Yeah, okay. We mentioned briefly the rise of these sort of like personal agents that we're seeing: Manus, Instinct, GrockBot, Docs. Again, lots of people in the tech world are using these quite a lot. We're seeing quite low adoption generally when it comes to actually buying things. So, he and I, I'll use Instinct to find me a range of options for things I might want to buy. I haven't quite got to the level of trust I then go and tell it to buy things, but lots of people have. Should e commerce brands be thinking about that already and how that's going to impact their scale?
00:30:27 · Omer Kaplan
[00:30:27] S1: Yeah. So this is obviously one of the most interesting discussions being held right now in ecom. And by the way, there are two approaches here. And I can argue for each one and then I'll tell you what I think. But the approaches are that in a year, let's take only a year from now, I think that more would be presumptuous, but let's take a year from now. I think in a year from now, there is a chance that this would be still mainly like Gen Z and Silicon Valley and early adopters, and maybe like 2% or 3% of ecom. And then what the companies will need to do would be something similar to how they're looking at GEO today. They'll need to have visibility. They'll need to be able to measure how many of their transactions are being done agent agent. And they'll need to know how to optimize that. But it wouldn't disrupt their entire way of navigation and store and all of that, and a website and all of that. And then there is the other way that this is going to be life changing. You're already going to see like 40% adoption in a year. My personal assumption is that we'll get there, but it will take some time because the biggest type of community who buys, who is kind of the main driver in acquisitions in e com, they are a bit more mature, like US based users. I think it's going to take some time before they adopt that technology. But I do think that you want to be prepared. I do think that these companies, of the value that we also offer, but I do think that these companies already need at least to have visibility to how is it changing and to be ready to act relatively quickly if that's becoming something which is more like a default.
00:32:26 · Sebastian Johnson, Omer Kaplan
[00:32:26] S0: And so reacting or acting quickly, and to your point, it's going to be GEO. Do you see a world in which the flows themselves change? Because at the moment, it's agents using flows booked for people. That's kind of how it's working at the moment. Do you see a world in which that changes? Do we have specific agentic flows for agents to come and buy products? [00:32:46] S1: No, think it's going to be agents buying from agents. So I think it's first going to start with commodities. So if you're buying diapers and you know what you're buying, then obviously it's your agent who will speak to the agent of, whether it's Walmart, and they will do a transaction. I think it's going to take longer for products that people love the browsing experience. You want to have that type of fun. I don't think that that's going to go away, but I do think we're going to see some very interesting shifts the near future, but it will take some time. [00:33:24] S0: Amazing. Well, look, thank you so much for taking the time. I think it's really exciting what you're building. I'm very looking forward to seeing some of the first partners come out. Again, we'll catch up when there's a lot to talk about. [00:33:34] S1: You for having [00:33:35] S0: Thank you. [00:33:35] S1: Have a good time.