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The TL;DR:

• Let’s Chat D2C: The Rise of AI in Ecommerce

• Building in Public with SCALIS: January 2025 Investor Update

• What I’m Thinking about this Week: Build or Buy? Knowing What to Choose as a SaaS Product Owner.

• The D2Z Podcast: In this week’s episode, I sat down with Travis Stephenson, a Serial Entrepreneur, to discuss his ideation process, the importance of solving personal problems, and how he leveraged referrals and cognitive biases in marketing.

• App Highlight: Fathom - The Meeting Notetaker I Can’t Live Without.

• Upcoming Events: I’ll be in Miami all week!

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Let’s Chat D2C: The Rise of AI in Ecommerce

In 2025, the e-commerce landscape is undergoing a significant transformation, with AI-driven personalization emerging as a pivotal trend. Businesses are increasingly leveraging artificial intelligence to analyze customer behavior, preferences, and purchasing patterns, enabling them to deliver highly personalized shopping experiences. This shift is not merely a technological upgrade but a strategic move to meet the evolving expectations of consumers seeking tailored interactions.

AI-driven personalization encompasses various applications, from dynamic product recommendations to customized marketing messages. By processing vast amounts of data, AI algorithms can predict what products a customer is likely to purchase, thereby enhancing cross-selling and upselling opportunities. This level of personalization fosters a deeper connection between brands and consumers, leading to increased customer loyalty and higher conversion rates.

Major players in the e-commerce sector are at the forefront of this trend. For instance, Shopify has introduced “Shopify Magic,” a suite of AI tools designed to automate tasks such as generating product descriptions and managing discounts. These tools not only streamline operations for merchants but also enhance the shopping experience for customers by providing relevant and timely information. The integration of AI into e-commerce platforms signifies a broader industry shift towards embracing advanced technologies to stay competitive.

As AI continues to evolve, its role in e-commerce is expected to expand further. Future developments may include more sophisticated virtual shopping assistants, enhanced visual search capabilities, and real-time personalized pricing strategies. E-commerce businesses that proactively adopt and integrate AI-driven personalization into their strategies are likely to gain a competitive edge, offering customers the seamless and individualized experiences they increasingly demand.

Building in Public with SCALIS: January 2025 Investor Update

Below is my update that I sent last week for January 2025 to all current and potential SCALIS investors. Hope this helps anyone else building their own biz this year!

TL;DR:

• Active Customers: We have 6 live paying customers who are actively using the platform to hire, representing $4.2K of ARR.

• Pipeline: Grew pipeline to 175+ companies representing $3.25M of ARR.

• Product Demo: Our VP of Product walks through the entire SCALIS platform (will include Reporting/Analytics and Offer Letters shortly)

• Pitch Deck/Fundraising: Oversubscribed but willing to let in more money from founders and strategics this month only.

The Great:

• We were selected as one of the top 5 HR startups in the country by HR.com and will be pitching our platform in Oakland 3/11 at their annual event in front of a panel of judges.

• Our flywheel for jobseeker growth is CRAZY. We just had our first 1,000+ net new jobseeker account creation day, and we're barely scratching the surface of how much scale we'll see from this as we start to onboard companies who have more than one or two open roles and aren't just relying on organic traffic.

The Good:

• We're generating 10-20 demos per week through our outreach systems, but need to change our target for immediate revenue growth (see below).

• Signed 3 new badass talent advisors, including talent leader at Netflix - Viet

• We're into a nice cadence now with our weekly all-team meetings, weekly updates emails, employee appreciation efforts, etc. The team is really starting to bond and come together.

• Our new podcast TalentHack is going live this month. Our podcast CareerHack (whose audience is jobseekers) has already gotten us into so many doors with companies. Our new one will be an audience of talent professionals.

• Hiring Shouldn't Suck™ has officially been trademarked!

The Bad:

• Our pipeline generation is tremendous, but the platform needs to catch up to the core ATS features these businesses expect and need to make a migration. Once our offer letters and reporting/analytics hubs go live, we will unlock 70% of this pipeline (March). Once our sourcing tool goes live, we will unlock the remaining 20% (April). 10% of the pipeline requires SOC2, which we're not prioritizing yet.

• Shifting sales outreach to SMBs in the interim as we've had tremendous success closing them and providing immediately value. These are only $29.99-$99.99/mo contracts.

The Ugly:

• Our platform has been put through the ringer with the 6 active SMBs using it, unveiling quite a few bugs and one critical system feature that failed. We now have multiple backups in place for the critical system feature that failed (also identified a few other places we can put in redundancies) and all of the bugs have been addressed, but the perfectionist in me was dying mid-January.

What I’m Thinking About This Week: Build or Buy? Knowing Which to Choose as a SaaS Product Owner.

In the rapidly evolving SaaS landscape, companies often face the critical decision of whether to build features in-house, white-label existing solutions, or integrate third-party services. This “build vs. buy” dilemma requires careful consideration of various factors to determine the most strategic and cost-effective approach. It’s one I’m constantly battling at SCALIS.

Building In-House: Developing features internally offers complete control over functionality and customization. This path ensures that the feature aligns perfectly with the company’s vision and integrates seamlessly with existing systems. However, it demands significant resources, including time, skilled personnel, and ongoing maintenance. Companies must assess whether they possess the necessary expertise and whether the long-term benefits justify the investment. Also, will the additional time it will take to get to market hurt?

White-Labeling Solutions: Opting for a white-label solution involves incorporating another company’s product into your offering under your brand. This approach accelerates time-to-market and reduces development costs. While it allows for customization, there may be limitations compared to building in-house. Additionally, reliance on external vendors can pose risks if the third-party product changes or becomes unavailable.

Third-Party Integrations: Integrating third-party services enables companies to offer additional functionalities without significant development efforts. This method is cost-effective and allows access to established technologies. However, it often requires customers to maintain separate accounts or subscriptions, which can complicate the user experience. Moreover, dependency on external services means less control over feature updates and potential data security concerns.

So far at SCALIS, we’ve opted to white-label some feature sets that are not core components to our platform but provide significant value to our users. White-labeling also allows us to bring it to market faster than competitors (and we can always build it ourselves later on down the line).

This Week’s The D2Z Podcast

#140 – Creating an Entrepreneurial Playbook

🎧 Listen Now 🎧

In this week’s episode, I sat down with Travis Stephenson, a Serial Entrepreneur, to discuss his ideation process, the importance of solving personal problems, and how he leveraged referrals and cognitive biases in marketing. Specifically, we explored the following:

💡 Identifying personal problems can lead to successful business ideas.

📈 Referrals can significantly boost revenue for digital products.

🧠 Cognitive biases play a crucial role in marketing effectiveness.

🔑 Modern technology has made starting a business easier than ever.

🚀 AI is set to revolutionize business operations and marketing strategies.

App Highlight: Fathom

Fathom is an AI-powered meeting assistant that automates the recording, transcription, and summarization of virtual meetings. By integrating seamlessly with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, Fathom eliminates the need for manual note-taking, allowing professionals to focus on the conversation. Its ability to sync call notes directly into CRM platforms like HubSpot makes it a powerful tool for sales, customer support, and internal team collaboration.

Key Features

• Automated Recording and Transcription: Fathom captures every meeting, providing real-time transcriptions for easy reference. This ensures critical details don’t get lost and allows for seamless follow-ups.

• Instant Summaries & Action Items: Within seconds of a meeting’s conclusion, Fathom generates a concise summary, highlighting key points, decisions, and next steps.

• Highlighting and Sharing: Users can mark important moments in a conversation, making it easy to revisit or share key insights with team members.

• CRM Integration (HubSpot, Salesforce, and more): Fathom automatically logs call notes and summaries into HubSpot, ensuring that every conversation is properly documented without manual data entry.

How I Use Fathom for SCALIS

At SCALIS, we rely on Fathom to streamline our sales and customer success workflows. Every discovery call, product demo, and client check-in is automatically transcribed, summarized, and synced into HubSpot. This means our entire team has instant access to call logs, action items, and follow-ups without the risk of human error. Instead of scrambling to take notes, we focus on the conversation, knowing that Fathom will handle the documentation.

With all of our meeting data organized in HubSpot, we can quickly track customer sentiment, identify trends in client feedback, and ensure no detail slips through the cracks. This integration saves us hours each week and keeps our pipeline running smoothly.

Upcoming Events

I’ll be in Miami all week!

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