Meeting Title: Brainforge <> Honey Stinger | Lifecycle Intelligence Sprint Date: 2025-10-23 Meeting participants: Byron Pittam, Robert Tseng


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1 00:00:14.680 00:00:15.829 Robert Tseng: Hey, Byron.

2 00:00:16.100 00:00:17.410 Byron Pittam: Yo, man.

3 00:00:19.570 00:00:20.810 Robert Tseng: How’s it going?

4 00:00:20.810 00:00:21.909 Byron Pittam: Good, how are you up?

5 00:00:23.190 00:00:25.430 Robert Tseng: Been a crazy week for us, but

6 00:00:25.640 00:00:29.170 Robert Tseng: Doing better. It’s, peace and calm that’s been restored.

7 00:00:29.550 00:00:30.430 Byron Pittam: Nice, yeah.

8 00:00:30.430 00:00:31.540 Robert Tseng: Yeah, thank you.

9 00:00:31.540 00:00:36.370 Byron Pittam: somewhat a little… a little ridiculousness, right? Like, it’s, you know, it’s boring if you’re not…

10 00:00:36.780 00:00:39.119 Byron Pittam: If you’re not doing… doing it right.

11 00:00:39.120 00:00:43.120 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, no, I think it’s… it’s interesting, because, you know.

12 00:00:43.300 00:00:49.200 Robert Tseng: Some of our… there’s always, like, a delayed, like, communication chain, where…

13 00:00:50.130 00:01:04.099 Robert Tseng: you solve one problem, and then not all the right people know that it’s been solved, and so, like, it seems like it’s the same problem, but it’s… it’s just, like, letting the next person know it was… it was okay. And, yeah, I don’t know, it’s just, like, a weird…

14 00:01:04.410 00:01:07.949 Robert Tseng: weird situation that, I don’t know, we’ll…

15 00:01:08.110 00:01:18.289 Robert Tseng: I feel like it’s… it’s… for bigger companies… for bigger clients that are… have more teams and more cooks in the kitchen, it’s kind of hard to get everybody on the same page, so…

16 00:01:18.290 00:01:28.189 Byron Pittam: That makes sense, yeah. It’s also, like, there’s, you know, what we’re dealing with right now is we have budget, but it has to be, you know, approved on how to be used, you know, and, like, I’m like, you know.

17 00:01:28.420 00:01:36.030 Byron Pittam: Wendy, just full stop, Wendy’s kind of looking at this, my boss is looking at this proposal and kind of figuring out what we have room for this year.

18 00:01:36.030 00:01:36.430 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

19 00:01:37.470 00:01:52.880 Byron Pittam: it’ll be kind of a, like, we find out in the next couple of days, and then we sprint to the end of the year, or, you know, figure out how to dabble it in the next year a little bit. I’m excited to move forward, especially with kind of the understanding that Walmart-Amazon side of things. I think that was a good unlock.

20 00:01:52.880 00:01:54.190 Robert Tseng: Sure. Great.

21 00:01:54.810 00:01:56.989 Byron Pittam: Mostly because,

22 00:01:57.280 00:02:04.449 Byron Pittam: Yeah, I think, like, did I… I don’t know if I mentioned this to you guys, but, like, overall, we’re up 55% on Amazon this year.

23 00:02:04.450 00:02:06.370 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mentioned that the last call.

24 00:02:06.370 00:02:10.470 Byron Pittam: Okay, and we’re up 2% organically, so I’m paying for everybody.

25 00:02:10.800 00:02:12.840 Robert Tseng: Oh, okay, did not know that, yeah.

26 00:02:12.840 00:02:19.880 Byron Pittam: Which is fine, right? We’re moving some of our, you know, some of our… sorry, I sneezed.

27 00:02:20.060 00:02:24.210 Byron Pittam: Okay. Our retargeting efforts to 60-90 day.

28 00:02:24.210 00:02:24.760 Robert Tseng: Okay.

29 00:02:24.760 00:02:28.560 Byron Pittam: back windows, to see what that… that impact that has on it.

30 00:02:28.560 00:02:29.120 Robert Tseng: Ugh.

31 00:02:29.810 00:02:37.999 Byron Pittam: So, kind of, yeah, maybe there’s something there, too, to kind of understand, what, you know, I think, yes, if we have our organic.

32 00:02:38.000 00:02:54.179 Byron Pittam: audience, and we can send them directly to the brand store page with new product, or discount, or coupon, or subscribe and save offer, or whatever, then I think that’s helpful. I just don’t currently want to use our Klaviyo list that way. Yeah. I’d like to keep them coming to HoneySinger.com until we know.

33 00:02:54.900 00:02:55.540 Robert Tseng: For sure.

34 00:02:55.540 00:03:03.129 Byron Pittam: So, yeah, I think there’s also kind of the… we’re starting to put together SMSs that say, like, you know, the sunset flows and stuff that are, like.

35 00:03:03.500 00:03:05.749 Byron Pittam: Yup, we haven’t heard from you in a while, like…

36 00:03:05.800 00:03:23.999 Byron Pittam: you interested in staying with us, and, like, kind of figuring out how to get them off, right? Yeah. Like, whether that be a 10% discount, which is what’s currently in there, and I was like, I think that’s a little too small, like, but, like, it’s a, like, you know, the other piece is, like, update your… your preferences, and so we can work on them, but, like.

37 00:03:24.480 00:03:33.229 Byron Pittam: I’m not going in there to trigger on preferences, email flows, and or campaigns, right? I mean, we can create segments, and that’s what you guys can do, but… Yeah.

38 00:03:33.700 00:03:38.529 Byron Pittam: But yeah, I mean, I think there’s something to be said for, yeah, figuring out how to…

39 00:03:38.910 00:03:40.880 Byron Pittam: How to put these people in the right buckets.

40 00:03:41.230 00:03:43.689 Robert Tseng: Okay. Yeah, no, that makes sense.

41 00:03:44.600 00:04:01.789 Robert Tseng: Okay, well, I mean, we… I know we threw a lot more on this doc than was on the original proposal, just… I was trying to flesh out some of the details that, based on our last call. Yeah, I mean, I tend to over-scope, and then we kind of talk through what we need, and, yeah, so I’m… I guess you and your team already reviewed this.

42 00:04:02.000 00:04:06.529 Robert Tseng: Do you have a starting point you want to go to, or do you want me to kind of just…

43 00:04:07.170 00:04:16.770 Byron Pittam: If we go forward with, kind of, Amazon, I assume you just need access to 1P, right? To our Vendor Central account. Do you need access to any ads console or anything like that as well?

44 00:04:17.170 00:04:23.819 Robert Tseng: Well, I mean, if they’re all paid ads driven, then I feel like, I mean, it’s always got better for us at understanding how they’re coming in top of funnel, so…

45 00:04:24.390 00:04:32.890 Byron Pittam: We have 3 slash 4, right? We have a Canadian-sponsored search, so that’s… that’s managed by Horizon.

46 00:04:33.000 00:04:33.559 Byron Pittam: Slash it.

47 00:04:33.560 00:04:34.759 Robert Tseng: Other agency, sure.

48 00:04:34.760 00:04:43.999 Byron Pittam: an agent. Well, Horizon is… we’re not taking any cash from Canadians, in any way, shape, or form, so we have to have that separation. So, Horizon’s our distributor.

49 00:04:44.180 00:04:45.170 Robert Tseng: Oh, okay.

50 00:04:45.170 00:04:55.589 Byron Pittam: And then the manager of that account right now is Nick Renaud, from Acosta. Acosta’s kind of brand managing kind of the Amazon ecosystem in general, and that’s where Nick

51 00:04:55.920 00:05:09.200 Byron Pittam: Mike, will come into play a bunch, and we can kind of figure out that access, but… Sure. Amazon, the four accounts. Amazon Canada, Grain Group, our ad agency out of New York, has… has their own kind of… they’re doing…

52 00:05:09.420 00:05:28.430 Byron Pittam: streaming TV and kind of stuff like that over the top, like, big brand awareness plays. Then we have our sponsored search, and the Acosta DSP as well. So, at least the Grain and Acosta DSPs are talking to each other, like, we’re able to kind of push the audiences into the more conversion-oriented stuff that Acosta’s doing. Yeah.

53 00:05:28.460 00:05:31.689 Byron Pittam: But there are 4, which is great, yay! Yeah.

54 00:05:31.690 00:05:49.370 Byron Pittam: Walmart Connect is, I mean, just messy to me, like, all the legacy accounts are still in there, right? Like, if you go into Walmart Connect, there’s the brand store, there’s the 1P, there’s the 3P, there’s the SS, there’s the DSP, there’s the, like, the APIs, there’s all that kind of other shit in there, so I don’t know if there’s…

55 00:05:49.370 00:05:52.350 Byron Pittam: Anything you guys know how to clean up and make a simpler

56 00:05:52.350 00:06:07.759 Byron Pittam: process. We’ve had 3 different agencies now manage that stuff, and we’re back with Acosta to kind of manage both Amazon and Walmart ecosystems. Okay. So I think that’s good, but there’s some white spider stuff that’s stuck in there. There’s some,

57 00:06:08.350 00:06:26.720 Byron Pittam: I guess it’s mostly white spider, but then XVaris did some stuff last year, before we realized they were kind of in over their head, on some of that stuff, so there kind of are those legacy accounts that other people set up. Yeah. I think maybe even a cleanliness in there, if you do guys have Walmart Connect shops.

58 00:06:26.720 00:06:37.830 Byron Pittam: Yeah. To kind of make that better. But once again, yeah, I don’t want to, like, disturb anything, especially kind of, like, you know, the historic… I think a lot of people like that stuff in there just for historical…

59 00:06:37.830 00:06:46.350 Byron Pittam: Sure. Information, but it’s… I don’t know how much we’re gonna look at 2021 and, like, be like, we’re making decisions based on that.

60 00:06:46.350 00:06:46.730 Robert Tseng: God.

61 00:06:48.720 00:07:02.060 Byron Pittam: But yeah, so those, you know, I think those two would be… would be awesome. You know, we’re pushing into Target Marketplace. It’s not that big a deal for us right now. We’re getting, kind of, 60 to 100 orders a month there. They tend to be onesie-twosies.

62 00:07:02.640 00:07:06.500 Byron Pittam: And we only get, like, the actual ship-to address, we don’t get any information.

63 00:07:06.740 00:07:20.329 Byron Pittam: could be worth… that’s going through our B2B, not our Shopify direct-to-consumer site. So different site, gated on the back end, once again, but we’re allowing people to buy those full-size products through… through that.

64 00:07:20.520 00:07:28.139 Byron Pittam: So, could also be a good… good place to look, right? I think we were at 350 or so odd orders since we launched in June?

65 00:07:28.270 00:07:38.140 Byron Pittam: So, you know, a decent list. I assume a lot of those are not repeat, you know, because they’re… they’re honestly buying at full price, which is…

66 00:07:38.430 00:07:40.249 Byron Pittam: great, I guess, but, like.

67 00:07:40.250 00:07:40.650 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

68 00:07:40.650 00:07:46.339 Byron Pittam: you know, you get a lot more benefits. The one… the only benefit they really did is the 5% off for the red card, if they use that.

69 00:07:46.370 00:07:46.930 Robert Tseng: Right.

70 00:07:46.930 00:08:00.729 Byron Pittam: And that’s it. $50 shipping threshold’s still there as well, which is the same as our site. But if 5% is moving the needle to get them to try a new product, that’s great. The problem with Target Marketplace, and just, I’m giving you way more information than you need here, is.

71 00:08:00.730 00:08:01.060 Robert Tseng: Sure.

72 00:08:01.060 00:08:06.360 Byron Pittam: Some of our 13 best SKUs are not available on Target Marketplace right now, just because they’re…

73 00:08:06.680 00:08:20.239 Byron Pittam: turds and don’t understand how to work systems, so I’m still trying to get through and get, kind of, some of our best items on the marketplace. The good thing right now is that people can, like, it’s most of the stuff that’s in-store that they can’t get on the marketplace.

74 00:08:20.490 00:08:24.990 Byron Pittam: So, if they can find it in store, which is always a crapshoot right now at Target, yeah.

75 00:08:25.280 00:08:40.380 Byron Pittam: then they can go ahead and buy the honey, or the vanilla, or the cookies and cream waffle. I just want them to be able to buy the, you know, they’re buying in 6 counts at Target, or they buy via us, Marketplace, 16, so they kind of have more… more just… it’s just more quantity.

76 00:08:41.030 00:08:43.249 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay, that makes sense.

77 00:08:44.059 00:08:57.259 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think kind of the first step of getting… whatever we get access to, typically just go in and look at what’s actually active. Yeah, I’m sure there’s a lot of skeletons in the closet, things that are kind of inactive. Probably, like, cleaning those up is usually not the highest priority, so…

78 00:08:57.630 00:09:04.129 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think, yeah, if Amazon’s the place to start, I mean, it seems like highest growth and biggest opportunity there.

79 00:09:04.790 00:09:11.159 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I feel like that’s probably where we would start. Walmart would obviously take a look at, and then Target, so that sounds…

80 00:09:11.740 00:09:25.380 Byron Pittam: Let’s put them back to HoneyStringer.com, right? I think what you’re mentioning here is the recharge, the destiny, the power reviews, stuff like that, that we could also play in. You know, I think long-term, we’re out of recharge, so as much as we can kind of

81 00:09:25.580 00:09:30.240 Byron Pittam: you know, make that data clean and understand it, like, I’m still…

82 00:09:30.530 00:09:36.180 Byron Pittam: hanging my hat on, like, Shopify, like, come to the… come to the, you know, come to the party with your own service.

83 00:09:36.370 00:09:36.740 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

84 00:09:36.740 00:09:55.959 Byron Pittam: They do soon, and then we’re out of recharge. So, yeah. But the store locator and all that stuff, based on Nielsen data, anything else, if people interact with that, like, maybe we’re able to kind of push that into Klaviyo that’s saying, like, this, you know, profile went, like, has been to the store locator 20 times, like, they’re probably not going to purchase online, they’re probably looking for something in store.

85 00:09:56.130 00:09:58.260 Byron Pittam: Yep, we can kind of hit them that way.

86 00:09:59.060 00:10:09.769 Byron Pittam: But, you know, I think there’s something to be said for, and this is where we can either get with you or Unveiled, is, like, those flows eventually for those, you know, 10th, 12th, 15th orders, subscription orders, etc.

87 00:10:10.040 00:10:10.550 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

88 00:10:10.550 00:10:20.239 Byron Pittam: we can make easier. And I, you know, there’s the other piece, and this… I don’t… this kind of falls between the cracks right now while we’re kind of hiring for this position, but, like, there’s something to be said for the…

89 00:10:20.560 00:10:23.229 Byron Pittam: Like, sale periods, which now we have, kind of.

90 00:10:23.350 00:10:29.650 Byron Pittam: 2 full site-wide sale periods and 3 collection-specific site, you know, sale periods.

91 00:10:29.650 00:10:30.230 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

92 00:10:30.410 00:10:33.840 Byron Pittam: I want to… email those…

93 00:10:34.290 00:10:40.769 Byron Pittam: those profiles that have subscriptions and offer them the same discount for, like, 2 or 3.

94 00:10:40.770 00:10:52.009 Robert Tseng: subscriptions, right? So, like, that’s just… it’s not easy, and right now it’s all… it’s manual. They have to go in and, like, add a subscription, or a discount code, or something like that, that’s good for, kind of, three… the next 3 orders.

95 00:10:52.160 00:11:09.089 Byron Pittam: But if you have any other thoughts or tech stacks on how to kind of make something like that sweet, I’d love… I’d love to kind of incentivize those subscribers to not cancel this Black Friday, Cyber Monday subscription, and then, like, you know, start back up in January once they got through this, like, you know, 30% off stash.

96 00:11:09.090 00:11:13.969 Byron Pittam: But give them, like, 2 orders of 30% off, for being a subscriber.

97 00:11:14.230 00:11:14.890 Robert Tseng: Sure.

98 00:11:15.110 00:11:19.530 Robert Tseng: Curious if you have any sense of, like, kind of, custom, like.

99 00:11:20.590 00:11:30.189 Robert Tseng: is… what’s the frequency of purchase between, like… I mean, we’ve worked with companies that are, like, literally mealbox subscription, doing, like, every week, and then that… that kind of, like,

100 00:11:31.110 00:11:55.690 Robert Tseng: the inactive week and be able to shorten that, you know, between their two purchases, like, that’s, like, a really big unlock for them, so if we can get them to order four boxes before they… before they, like, pause or whatever, instead of their, you know, bench… the benchmark was, like, two, like that, that’s a big unlock for them, but I don’t know what… what that threshold is for you, where maybe they… I saw you flash some fingers, I wasn’t actually… I wasn’t too clear, but maybe they’re purchasing… doing three purchases, and then

101 00:11:55.940 00:12:00.649 Robert Tseng: And then that’s, like, kind of, like, when they… when they slow down, or… I don’t… what is… what does that look like for…

102 00:12:00.650 00:12:05.310 Byron Pittam: I haven’t been totally in the weeds on this. It was kind of between 2 and 3, was like.

103 00:12:05.310 00:12:06.139 Robert Tseng: 2 and 3, okay.

104 00:12:06.140 00:12:09.549 Byron Pittam: Big fall-off point, so 2.2 orders is where it was, right?

105 00:12:09.550 00:12:10.040 Robert Tseng: Okay.

106 00:12:10.040 00:12:23.900 Byron Pittam: We’ve increased the total size of our, you know, our subscriber base. That’s been great. Like, you know, I gotta look back at the final numbers. I was kind of putting together an initial, like, here’s how I’d like to track this week over week. Yeah.

107 00:12:24.200 00:12:35.400 Byron Pittam: But, like, the average, if you just pull it, you know, and do the, you know, the full, like, frequency divided by the number, it’s about 45. So, people are falling between that 30 and 60 days.

108 00:12:35.400 00:12:41.850 Robert Tseng: And that’s where, once again, we pushed our Amazon look-back targets to 60+. 60, 60+, yeah, okay.

109 00:12:42.060 00:12:56.920 Byron Pittam: people on Amazon are buying 16, people on HoneyCero.com are also buying 16, if we’re just talking about waffles. That’s a decent amount, right? And if they want, you know, flavor or variety or anything else, they’d probably get two. So then they have 32, and like, people aren’t eating one waffle a day, right?

110 00:12:56.920 00:12:57.370 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

111 00:12:57.370 00:13:06.289 Byron Pittam: They’re probably eating 4 on the weekends and 1 or 2 during the week. So, it still might average out to 6 or 7 a week, but, you know, they come in spurts.

112 00:13:06.290 00:13:07.080 Robert Tseng: Right.

113 00:13:07.080 00:13:11.140 Byron Pittam: Somebody goes for a hike, as you know, right? And they… Yeah.

114 00:13:11.780 00:13:18.950 Byron Pittam: So, yeah, I would say it’s still around 45 days for recharge, but we can kind of get that information as well.

115 00:13:18.950 00:13:19.530 Robert Tseng: Okay.

116 00:13:20.940 00:13:21.760 Robert Tseng: Cool.

117 00:13:21.950 00:13:31.069 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and then I get curious, like, on the recharge site, so, I mean, I think stitching together the audiences from the different marketplaces is going to be one of the technical challenges.

118 00:13:31.630 00:13:48.609 Robert Tseng: I mean, I think, basically, you know, I kind of… I have a section here on how do we actually enrich across marketplaces. So, part of it is, like, asking Amazon and Walmart to give more data than you would get out of the box. We know what it’s like to negotiate with them to get more for Subscribe and Save, because there’s not much they give you right off the bat.

119 00:13:48.610 00:13:51.200 Byron Pittam: But we have a good… we have a good account rep right now that we.

120 00:13:51.200 00:13:51.819 Robert Tseng: Okay, great.

121 00:13:51.820 00:13:52.230 Byron Pittam: oops.

122 00:13:52.230 00:14:11.190 Robert Tseng: So maybe you’ve maximized that point, and then… then there’s, like, some probabilistic matching there, where we’re basically, you know, we’re not… if we’re not able to match them directly on email and address, which a lot of the times you can’t, you’re doing one or the other, and you’re kind of making some assumptions. It’s like, same email, obviously same email, you can match it, but let’s say,

123 00:14:11.470 00:14:17.820 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’ll say, you know, say… then we look at, kind of like, geo-specific,

124 00:14:17.820 00:14:40.459 Robert Tseng: like, if, you know, even if we’re not able to get, like, their full address, like, you know, based on IP or whatever, all these things, we’ll be able to get to at least zip code or something, and that’s, like, a big unlock for being able to match, match customers. You say that most, you know, customers are really just purchasing from one platform and staying on there. I think that’s kind of… we’d like to be able to show you, show you, like, what that actually is, and, you know, link…

125 00:14:40.690 00:14:49.260 Robert Tseng: you know, are they making a couple purchases on Amazon, and then they’re kind of switching over to .com or something, or… Yeah, I think that’s also something.

126 00:14:49.260 00:15:06.140 Byron Pittam: That’s what I’m trying to kind of prove out, is, like, they stock up on HoneyStringer.com when we have their email address, right, for those two main sales, right? We have them November and June, slash early July. And then between that, like, I hope they go to Kroger, or grocery, or, you know, Target, Walmart, and kind.

127 00:15:06.140 00:15:06.540 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

128 00:15:06.540 00:15:17.759 Byron Pittam: more there, so we’re kind of… we’re feeding the full… the full funnel. Sure. I don’t know who I’ve talked to this week anymore, because it’s kind of bonkers, but, like, our, you know, based on Amazon’s fulfillment, you know.

129 00:15:18.140 00:15:24.520 Byron Pittam: mightiness, if you will. Like, our margins are only about 10% different between

130 00:15:24.780 00:15:29.199 Byron Pittam: Honeysinger.com and Amazon. I mean, obviously, Honeysinger.com is better, but, like.

131 00:15:29.200 00:15:29.860 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

132 00:15:29.860 00:15:31.680 Byron Pittam: It’s marginal, because.

133 00:15:31.680 00:15:32.270 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

134 00:15:32.270 00:15:39.429 Byron Pittam: and this is a stat, you know, we can get NDAs or whatever else later, but, like, we might sell 800 pallets of honey waffle this year.

135 00:15:39.900 00:15:40.470 Robert Tseng: Wow.

136 00:15:41.590 00:15:48.700 Byron Pittam: Amazon, right? Like, that is crazy. And they, like, take a pallet and sell it the same day. They take another pallet and sell it the.

137 00:15:48.700 00:15:49.050 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

138 00:15:49.050 00:15:52.270 Byron Pittam: Like, they’re selling, you know, on average, two and a half pallets a day.

139 00:15:52.270 00:15:52.950 Robert Tseng: Yeah, God.

140 00:15:52.950 00:15:54.789 Byron Pittam: Like, that’s crazy! So, like…

141 00:15:54.790 00:15:55.260 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

142 00:15:55.260 00:15:58.810 Byron Pittam: We can never reach that scale anyway, just with our logistics.

143 00:15:58.810 00:15:59.250 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

144 00:15:59.250 00:16:03.669 Byron Pittam: And it, you know, costs us 9 to 12 bucks to send out a package, it costs Amazon 3.

145 00:16:03.950 00:16:04.560 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

146 00:16:06.780 00:16:08.770 Robert Tseng: No, that makes sense. Okay.

147 00:16:08.770 00:16:14.320 Byron Pittam: Most of their packages, I feel like, are going last mile, as opposed to, like, all of ours are going from Chicago, right?

148 00:16:14.320 00:16:23.809 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, you don’t have a… you don’t have the privilege of being able to distribute your zones or whatever, but, I mean, we could help on that as well. Like, we’ve been… we’ve done that, yeah.

149 00:16:24.210 00:16:24.769 Robert Tseng: That’s a good.

150 00:16:24.770 00:16:35.759 Byron Pittam: Another thing, I don’t know, we’ve talked about logistics side of things as well, is like, maybe you can talk with Jason on this, because he brought it, our logistics guy brought up today, like, we used to ship to 20 DCs, and now we’re.

151 00:16:35.760 00:16:36.380 Robert Tseng: Okay.

152 00:16:36.380 00:16:37.190 Byron Pittam: 60.

153 00:16:37.310 00:16:40.419 Byron Pittam: So they are getting more micro-targeted, you know.

154 00:16:40.420 00:16:40.780 Robert Tseng: Yep.

155 00:16:40.780 00:16:54.109 Byron Pittam: to be that last mile, and, like, we’re trying to go pallet, we’re trying to kind of go bigger, and have, like, just one label slapped on the side of something so that we ship to six FCs, or DCs, however you want to look at the bigger, smaller combo there. Yeah.

156 00:16:54.120 00:17:03.009 Byron Pittam: But, like, yeah, we’re just trying to… our, you know, the logistics manager had his direct report on the phone call today, and he was, like, basically, like.

157 00:17:03.370 00:17:06.830 Byron Pittam: like, an Amazon order takes 3 days of my time a week now.

158 00:17:08.810 00:17:16.569 Robert Tseng: just for, like, master cases and kind of making sure we have all the labels printed out. Like, we’re trying to, like, push minimums up a little bit to be…

159 00:17:16.569 00:17:25.239 Byron Pittam: 5 master cases instead of just one, but, like, you know, maybe there’s something in there, too, we can kind of clean up on the Amazon front, just to make it more efficient.

160 00:17:25.849 00:17:32.119 Robert Tseng: Okay, that’s good to know. Yeah, I mean, I feel like we should just go in and just deep dive to Amazon when we get in.

161 00:17:33.469 00:17:34.309 Robert Tseng: Okay.

162 00:17:34.469 00:17:38.539 Robert Tseng: I mean, as far as, like, kind of the timeline goes, like, sure, I mean, I think these are all, I mean.

163 00:17:39.509 00:17:53.109 Robert Tseng: these are the big buckets. I think we can kind of… I think this is really, you know, the way that working cadence and kind of how I see this going is, obviously we get in, we’ll poke around, and then ideally, like, meeting you weekly, so that we can, you know.

164 00:17:53.139 00:18:04.919 Robert Tseng: make any adjustments that we need to to scope. Maybe we end up finding that there’s a lot more that we should do in Amazon that’s urgent, and we should just double down there. But generally, I think these are all the, kind of.

165 00:18:05.229 00:18:10.629 Robert Tseng: points that I feel like we can confidently touch within, within the, within the proposed, like, through end of year.

166 00:18:10.810 00:18:11.520 Byron Pittam: Okay.

167 00:18:11.910 00:18:12.510 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

168 00:18:13.060 00:18:21.999 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess kind of just to try to talk through… so, I mean, obviously your time with BFCM coming up, I kind of flagged that as, like, a possible risk, so…

169 00:18:22.000 00:18:36.950 Robert Tseng: you know, anything that we do, like, we’re not gonna go and touch anything that’s, like, you know, affecting direct operations, you know, anything. It’s just pulling data, and we’ll be able to stitch it in a kind of a monitor-only mode like that, and we’re just gonna be… gonna be sharing with you

170 00:18:37.190 00:18:39.619 Robert Tseng: More, like, insights of, like, what we could do.

171 00:18:40.250 00:18:53.490 Robert Tseng: And then, yeah, I mean, I’m not really sure… the point is just to avoid any disruption. So, we’ve worked with these types of situations where we’ve entered, we’ve worked with a client where their peak, or whatever kind of big…

172 00:18:54.240 00:19:04.520 Robert Tseng: kind of promotion that they don’t really want anything to break, like, yeah, we can parallelize our effort and not impact anything, won’t impact operations that way.

173 00:19:04.890 00:19:06.210 Robert Tseng: And then…

174 00:19:06.400 00:19:19.580 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think it’s really just kind of once we… getting familiar with your reps, knowing your key people as they’re kind of giving us access into things so we can ask questions, I’m sure there’s always custom configurations, in these different setups, so…

175 00:19:19.580 00:19:30.839 Byron Pittam: No, I mean, I think Amazon should be pretty straightforward, but yeah, I mean, once again, I think that most of the people that you’re going to be dealing with Amazon and Walmart marketplaces are going to be the FAFSA teams.

176 00:19:30.840 00:19:31.430 Robert Tseng: Okay.

177 00:19:31.430 00:19:50.429 Byron Pittam: So, and then, you know, once again, there’s a different brand manager for each of those, Walmart and Amazon, but same ad team. So, the ad team can kind of… that’s the most information we generally get, is from… from paid. Yeah. You know, obviously, we get number of orders and all that stuff, but, you know, we can poke into subscribe and save and things like that as well. Okay.

178 00:19:51.000 00:20:09.480 Byron Pittam: But yeah, I mean, I don’t think there’s much disruption on the Walmart Connect and, you know, Vendor Central that we’re going to be able to do anyway. But once again, diving into Klaviyo and back into Shopify, I think, will be good, and then as long as you’re, in your mind, understanding that we have that target marketplace that’s kind of in that weird B2B zone for now.

179 00:20:09.480 00:20:17.319 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So we can make sure your team’s aware of that. The other thing, and I just keep trying to validate this with people, like… Sure.

180 00:20:17.570 00:20:27.670 Byron Pittam: pretty tangential here, but, like, our sales team wants to move to HubSpot to manage, communications with sales contacts.

181 00:20:27.670 00:20:41.450 Byron Pittam: I’m really trying to keep them out of that line of thinking, because I’d like to do everything in Klaviyo with nurturing and lead gen and all that stuff. So, I mean, I’m curious your thoughts on that, because they’re also looking to kind of, like.

182 00:20:41.450 00:20:48.419 Byron Pittam: Yeah, like, it’s, you know, I know that Klaviyo does not do a great job of, like, predicted next order date, yeah.

183 00:20:49.200 00:20:49.770 Byron Pittam: But…

184 00:20:49.770 00:20:54.569 Robert Tseng: Maybe for your B2B side of your business, for HubSpot, that makes sense, but your B2C, probably not.

185 00:20:54.570 00:20:57.100 Byron Pittam: No, definitely not B2C, yeah, but I…

186 00:20:57.230 00:21:05.920 Byron Pittam: Yeah, I just, like, I… I just keep thinking that, like, my little e-com team can add so much more value if they stay in Klaviyo and figure out how to make it work.

187 00:21:06.160 00:21:06.590 Robert Tseng: Hmm.

188 00:21:06.590 00:21:12.309 Byron Pittam: But, I also… I just don’t want to third… we’ve… NetSuite’s our single source of truth. It’s… to me, it’s all.

189 00:21:12.310 00:21:13.020 Robert Tseng: Sure.

190 00:21:13.020 00:21:26.190 Byron Pittam: You know, but then there’s, like, our tech stack, right, is that Klaviyo and kind of Shopify side of things, where… Yeah. And then, kind of, now we’re adding HubSpot as a third for, you know, the B2B side of the Shopify data, which…

191 00:21:26.190 00:21:32.989 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’m not quite sure, like, what they think they’ll be able to do better in HubSpot compared to what you… on the previous side.

192 00:21:33.490 00:21:47.079 Byron Pittam: Let me send you this, and you can take a look at it, too. We’re talking Klaviyo tomorrow. Klaviyo just historically hasn’t been good at sharing out information with what they’re… how they’re adding tech, so they don’t have a lot of this information on their site.

193 00:21:47.230 00:21:52.299 Byron Pittam: But their B2B sales rep thinks that they can handle it all.

194 00:21:54.770 00:21:57.839 Byron Pittam: I’m not trying to get in the middle of too much stuff here, but…

195 00:21:57.840 00:21:58.450 Robert Tseng: Okay.

196 00:21:58.450 00:22:00.169 Byron Pittam: There is something to be said for, like…

197 00:22:00.350 00:22:02.460 Byron Pittam: I just want to simplify this, and like…

198 00:22:02.700 00:22:05.969 Byron Pittam: I don’t want to help to manage different things, and I don’t want to all of a sudden, like.

199 00:22:06.140 00:22:11.279 Byron Pittam: Yeah, have something… Another check stack to manage it, like.

200 00:22:11.520 00:22:15.830 Byron Pittam: my direct report has to go in to send out an email. Yeah.

201 00:22:16.900 00:22:28.879 Robert Tseng: I will say, I mean, we use HubSpot on our business, and obviously, for B2B, it makes a lot of sense. I think account-based marketing is very easy to do in HubSpot, and they integrate… they play well with everybody, so it’s, like, super easy to integrate.

202 00:22:29.550 00:22:40.959 Robert Tseng: you know, nobody’s actually working out of HubSpot on my team. We have them… all the alerts are going into Slack, they can… they can trigger emails, Slack, like, everything. So, like, we… you can customize it very well so that it’s not really, like.

203 00:22:40.960 00:22:52.099 Robert Tseng: going into another tool, so I think that’s the benefit of HubSpot. I’m sure Klaviyo doesn’t do that. They want you to only be in Klaviyo, so that’s prob… maybe that’s, you know, that’s… that’s something to consider as well.

204 00:22:52.100 00:22:54.280 Byron Pittam: But I put the things in the chat, I’m like.

205 00:22:54.440 00:22:57.169 Byron Pittam: I guess Klaviyo’s not gonna be a good forecasting tool.

206 00:22:57.600 00:22:58.310 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

207 00:22:58.310 00:23:04.050 Byron Pittam: I have no idea what HubSpot’s gonna do differently to be a good forecasting tool. Like, that, to me is… that’s NetSuite. Like, that’s what NetSu

208 00:23:04.390 00:23:09.520 Byron Pittam: supposed to do. Order trends and alert notifications, like, Klaviyo can absolutely handle that.

209 00:23:09.940 00:23:14.110 Byron Pittam: Like, customer files for standing PO uploads, like.

210 00:23:14.110 00:23:14.730 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

211 00:23:14.950 00:23:20.420 Byron Pittam: I don’t really know why we need that, but… but… Yum.

212 00:23:20.810 00:23:25.740 Byron Pittam: I think all this stuff will sync with Klaviyo anyway, with regard to profiles and things, but…

213 00:23:26.080 00:23:28.219 Byron Pittam: It’s just one less… one step removed.

214 00:23:28.570 00:23:39.339 Robert Tseng: Curious who’s, like, do you have, like, a go-to, like, marketing technologist person in your, you know, on your team? No. It’s, like, who… you make all the decisions, I guess?

215 00:23:39.340 00:23:47.310 Byron Pittam: Oh, I mean, I’m… this is, like, our… so we have a… the person who’s pushing this is kind of our sports marketing guy who manages team sales.

216 00:23:47.310 00:23:48.020 Robert Tseng: Okay.

217 00:23:48.390 00:23:57.209 Robert Tseng: So think, like, we do sell a lot to NFL teams, NCAA teams, and… Yeah. …or NBA, and Major League Soccer, Major League Baseball. Sure.

218 00:23:57.210 00:24:05.559 Byron Pittam: So, I mean, to me, it’s like, I think about it more of, like, even a higher level than what they’re going after. It’s like, MLS season starts about the same time every year.

219 00:24:06.210 00:24:09.759 Byron Pittam: Subtract a month, send an e-blast. Right? Like…

220 00:24:09.760 00:24:10.160 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

221 00:24:10.160 00:24:14.059 Byron Pittam: text forward, like, none of these guys need, like, a fancy schmancy, like.

222 00:24:14.450 00:24:19.029 Byron Pittam: MLS logo put on an email for them to prove that it’s real, right? But I’m like.

223 00:24:19.600 00:24:40.329 Byron Pittam: great, like, it’s, you know, every NCAA football team has their spring game, right? Like, send something before that, like, hey, like, let’s make sure you’re, you know, the juniors beat the frickin’ freshmen, right? Like, and send it out. But that’s the kind of stuff that, like, I think, you know, like, the order frequency and things like that, too, it’s like.

224 00:24:40.330 00:24:42.229 Byron Pittam: We can have people who place

225 00:24:42.270 00:24:49.209 Byron Pittam: 1 to 3 orders a year in a segment, and 6 orders a year, and 10 to 15 orders a year, and, like, remind them every one.

226 00:24:49.210 00:24:52.260 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s predictable. It’s what you’re kind of what you’re getting at, yeah.

227 00:24:52.260 00:24:52.890 Byron Pittam: Yeah.

228 00:24:53.210 00:24:56.270 Byron Pittam: But the data needs to come to me from NetSuite.

229 00:24:56.570 00:24:57.160 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

230 00:24:57.970 00:25:01.030 Byron Pittam: I don’t know how much you guys have worked in NetSuite in the past, but, you know.

231 00:25:01.030 00:25:08.239 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, we do big ERP migrations, so it’s usually out of NetSuite into something else.

232 00:25:08.260 00:25:26.059 Byron Pittam: And I think what we’re realizing, like, we hired a NetSuite admin four years ago, and what we were thinking, you know, we were thinking, like, oh, great, we can just fix what’s wrong. And, you know, update the data, and, you know, like, I think there’s something to be said for, like, we should have probably just started over.

233 00:25:26.390 00:25:26.740 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

234 00:25:26.740 00:25:29.400 Byron Pittam: And we didn’t. So, here we are.

235 00:25:30.180 00:25:30.800 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

236 00:25:31.460 00:25:32.510 Robert Tseng: Okay.

237 00:25:32.650 00:25:34.440 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, I mean, I think…

238 00:25:34.440 00:25:54.280 Robert Tseng: the… and I’m not gonna add more to your tech stack at this point, but, I mean, in order for all these systems to play nice together, you need middleware, I guess, and so at some point, like, you’re gonna… I mean, a lot of this data management is not gonna take place within… no one of these tools is gonna own the data management. You’re gonna have to develop your own data platform of sorts, so…

239 00:25:54.280 00:26:00.390 Byron Pittam: What would you recommend, based on, kind of, the vendors, the example vendors you have down here? Any… anything on here, or is it even above that?

240 00:26:01.020 00:26:18.730 Robert Tseng: Yeah, also, I mean, these are all the kind of categories… just to kind of prime you on, like, what… what’s typically stuff that we see. So, I mean, I don’t think you need a BI tool right now, and, you know, attribution, whatever, we’re not really talking about paid marketing, so, like, I mean, I’m very opinionated on that side, because that’s the world I came from, but that’s separate.

241 00:26:18.730 00:26:24.799 Byron Pittam: Looker… we’ve got a Looker dashboard set up that I can walk you through with our… our grain group advertising.

242 00:26:24.940 00:26:44.529 Robert Tseng: Your agency probably set that up for you, right? And, like, they maintain it? Yeah, okay. I mean, that’s typically what it is. But yeah, it’s probably just, like, transactional data, or, like, paid media, paid media, data, data. The most valuable thing is probably something that’s, like, a CDP kind of tool for you. I mean, Klaviyo does have a lot of the same functionality.

243 00:26:44.530 00:26:53.110 Robert Tseng: But in order to, like, what… like, if you want to, like, replicate HubSpot’s functionality, I haven’t looked into the documentation too closely, but I would assume that

244 00:26:53.380 00:26:58.430 Robert Tseng: that if you want… I’m just trying to put myself in the shoes of the person who’s requesting HubSpot.

245 00:26:58.500 00:27:13.759 Robert Tseng: Yeah, they want account-based targeting, in a way that they… I’m sure the Klaviyo… Klaviyo, at best, gives you, like, labels, and it doesn’t really do a job of, like, rolling people up into, kind of, these accounts with, like, very specific definitions or whatever. Like, that’s not really what it’s built for.

246 00:27:13.760 00:27:19.629 Robert Tseng: So, but that to me is, like, that’s just a different type of segmentation that’s not, like, an…

247 00:27:19.720 00:27:24.519 Robert Tseng: That maybe it’s not easy to set up in Klaviyo, but if you have your own

248 00:27:24.780 00:27:36.860 Robert Tseng: like, analytics warehouse, so, like, like a data warehouse, like, you would be able to do that. And so that’s kind of where all the data management eventually, like, kind of moves to. Like, you have your own managed warehouse, pretty much.

249 00:27:37.440 00:27:41.179 Byron Pittam: Like, just to ask the stupid question, like, Netflix does not…

250 00:27:41.610 00:27:43.169 Byron Pittam: That is not a good option for this.

251 00:27:43.170 00:27:47.570 Robert Tseng: Yeah, NetSuite’s not a good option, I think. Yeah. So…

252 00:27:47.650 00:28:05.300 Robert Tseng: I think, NetSuite’s good for kind of, like, logging how cash goes in and out, and then being able to get you… get into the format that your finance and accounting teams need, but it’s not a great operations tool, which is, like, I think why so many teams end up exporting data out of NetSuite anyway.

253 00:28:05.310 00:28:24.410 Robert Tseng: Because in order for it to be usable for marketing, ops, and, you know, typically the two, like, kind of are at odds with kind of how the business’s performance is going, it usually needs to… it needs to be in a different… needs to live in a different source, or a different place. It can still be the source of truth, but it needs to…

254 00:28:24.410 00:28:26.829 Robert Tseng: The way that you break out transactions, kind of like…

255 00:28:26.840 00:28:37.440 Robert Tseng: when you register a sale versus when the cash comes in, like, any of that reconciliation effort, NetSuite doesn’t do a good job of visualizing that, or, like, kind of making that clear for all… for everyone at the table.

256 00:28:37.890 00:28:44.459 Robert Tseng: So, and they’re very… they’re very light ways to kind of stand this up now, even by way of just, like, working with you as we’re kind of…

257 00:28:44.470 00:29:02.340 Robert Tseng: starting to pull… once we get in there, pull data from different sources, like, I’m gonna end up having my team spin up a local warehouse, like a… like a local warehouse anyway, because we prefer to do all of our analysis and stuff in SQL over, like, you know, random other things.

258 00:29:02.340 00:29:14.979 Robert Tseng: And so, yeah, I mean, I think when… once we get there, like, it’s not usually the star of the show, it’s just, like, a means of, like, getting… getting to what… what we want to… what we… the outcomes that we want to drive towards. So, I wouldn’t worry too much about, kind of, like.

259 00:29:15.340 00:29:21.530 Robert Tseng: the… like, how to… how to stitch together everything yet. We’ll have to go in and, like, really map this out. Yeah.

260 00:29:23.940 00:29:24.730 Byron Pittam: Okay.

261 00:29:25.410 00:29:31.550 Robert Tseng: Cool. Okay, well then, I know you said you have to talk to, I forgot who your… what your boss’s name was again.

262 00:29:31.550 00:29:32.550 Byron Pittam: Wendy.

263 00:29:32.550 00:29:41.509 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, yeah, let me know if you have any questions on this, otherwise, yeah, I guess, you know, we’re ready, yeah, we can sign on you, we can do anything.

264 00:29:41.700 00:29:44.450 Robert Tseng: But yeah, ready to get started whenever you are.

265 00:29:44.620 00:29:48.009 Byron Pittam: I’ve never heard of Amazon Redshift before, that’s exciting, Robert.

266 00:29:49.910 00:29:54.960 Robert Tseng: Is that… that’s a joke, right? Because they just… Oh, okay, interesting.

267 00:29:54.960 00:29:57.830 Byron Pittam: I haven’t heard it, like, I haven’t heard it called, like, Red Shift.

268 00:29:57.990 00:30:01.810 Robert Tseng: Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. Well, Redshift actually went down earlier.

269 00:30:01.810 00:30:05.759 Byron Pittam: But that’s… but the AWS is the stuff that’s above that.

270 00:30:05.760 00:30:25.749 Robert Tseng: Right? Yeah. But was it Redshift specifically that broke under the AWS umbrella? It wasn’t… yeah, well, it impacted all the AWS services, microservices. Yeah, Redshift is specifically their, what they call an OLAP, it’s like a… it’s their analytics processing warehouse product, which that actually… yeah, that got impacted.

271 00:30:25.750 00:30:33.840 Robert Tseng: We have other clients that are set up on Redshift, and they couldn’t see anything for, like, a day, which is not great. So that was part of the firefighting earlier this week.

272 00:30:33.840 00:30:36.180 Byron Pittam: But, but yeah, I think that’s.

273 00:30:36.180 00:30:43.840 Robert Tseng: That’s the… that’s the unfortunate state of… of, you know, there’s… there’s like a… pretty much like a duopoly of, like.

274 00:30:43.940 00:30:49.609 Robert Tseng: Warehouse… manage warehouses, and if one goes down, then everybody’s… everybody just goes down, so…

275 00:30:49.610 00:30:55.650 Byron Pittam: I like to think it’s a good thing I haven’t heard of Redshift specifically, Robert. Like, I don’t… you know, that’s… that’s… that’s the weeds.

276 00:30:55.650 00:30:59.510 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that’s good. Yeah, you don’t need to know that.

277 00:30:59.830 00:31:15.709 Byron Pittam: Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, man. Yeah, I’ll, I’ll send another note to Wendy as well. I know that she kind of talks to John on Mondays, our CEO. But yeah, I think this is, for me, it’s, super helpful, once again, clean things up, especially before we have this new hire in.

278 00:31:15.710 00:31:22.440 Byron Pittam: And kind of hand off a clean book of health, if you will. And then have kind of insights going into 26 of where we think we can go.

279 00:31:22.800 00:31:37.309 Robert Tseng: Yep, yeah, I’m excited. I’ll probably make a couple tweaks based on the notes from this call, just to kind of, like, kind of order of priority, kind of do what we talked about, Amazon to… Amazon to Walmart, and then kind of some of these details.

280 00:31:37.600 00:31:41.560 Robert Tseng: but… but yeah, I think other than that, it should pretty much stay the same.

281 00:31:41.840 00:31:50.310 Byron Pittam: Okay, then I’ll just give… maybe I’ll give my boss, the live doc. I just had downloaded one. Okay, sure. So yeah, I’ll give her a link to the live doc.

282 00:31:50.910 00:31:52.410 Robert Tseng: Alright, that sounds good.

283 00:31:53.190 00:31:54.229 Byron Pittam: Thank you, sir.

284 00:31:54.230 00:31:55.070 Robert Tseng: Thanks!

285 00:31:55.070 00:31:55.550 Byron Pittam: Bye.