Hosted By

Rabah Rahil
CMO at Triple Whale

Guests

Jeremiah Prummer

The Building of KnoCommerce - ROAS W/ Jeremiah Prummer

In this episode of ROAS we sit down with Jeremiah Prummer the CEO of KnoCommerce and talk about everything from personal life to the hardships of building a SaaS company #ROAS

Notes & Links

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- Rabah's Twitter: https://twitter.com/rabahrahil
- Jason's Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeremiahPrummer

Transcription

Jeremiah Prummer (00:00:00):

There's a common issue where digital first brands don't really understand who their customers are very well. So you've got a lot of data. You've got purchase data, and this is what you all have, right. Is like all the purchase data, all that kind of stuff, which is really, really valuable, but there's a missing element. And I think that that element is still missing on the reality is it's a really hard element to unlock. And so I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that we've unlocked it. Like we have a lot of plans, a lot of things we want to do in the future. Um, but at least we have given brands, the ability to ask their customers

Jeremiah Prummer (00:00:31):

Question

Rabah Rahil (00:00:39):

Is that I've been circling on the calendar. Uh, there has been some scheduling issues all on my side, but I have brought you the survey. Sivant Jeremiah primer, Jeremiah, how are you? My friend,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:00:54):

I'm doing well. I am doing well. Thanks for having me.

Rabah Rahil (00:00:56):

Of course. So I am out in Austin as always in the Morgan at HQ. Where is this podcast find you today?

Jeremiah Prummer (00:01:03):

Uh, I'm in technically Aurora, Colorado. So just outside Denver. That's where I live. So, uh, working from home, you got my, uh, ceiling van in the background right now.

Rabah Rahil (00:01:12):

So lovely, lovely ceiling van. The audio sounds fantastic. So thank you for that. Oh, good. Yeah. How long have you been in Colorado?

Jeremiah Prummer (00:01:19):

Uh, let's see. So 2015. So what is that? Seven years? Um, so yeah, been out here seven years, uh, lived in Montana previously and grew up in Northern Idaho before that,

Rabah Rahil (00:01:31):

So, oh, wow. So you're a you're outdoors boy, then those are, those are proper. Yeah. That's, that's some great nature out there.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:01:38):

Yeah, it was actually funny cuz when we were moving here, everybody here would be like, so you gonna go skiing a lot when you're here. And I was like, man, I spent my whole life 15 minutes from a resort, like driving three hours. Doesn't sound as exciting. So oh, oh yeah. Yeah. It's definitely, definitely a mountain boy. Um, and I think that's one thing I love about Denver. Like it's, it's got the mountain culture, but it's a city, so it's still got all the city things too. So, um, yeah, not, not like full on like a rural, uh, mountain culture, but it's similar at least. Right. So yeah,

Rabah Rahil (00:02:07):

Not like West Virginia mountain culture more, more than, than Montana is Wyoming. Right. That the cowboy kind of very, yeah, I love that. Uh,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:02:15):

Exactly.

Rabah Rahil (00:02:16):

Boise's coming up right. It's it's starting to be this little hotspot now.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:02:21):

It is for sure. Yeah. I mean I, so I grew up like way up north by Canada, we had like yep. Bears in our backyard, moose and carers and things like that. So, um, yeah, so I didn't, I haven't spent like a ton of time at Boise, but it was always like the it's the hub, right? Like when you live in a state where it's a million people and 600,000 in one place, it's like, <laugh>, that's where you go for anything really important. So yeah.

Rabah Rahil (00:02:47):

And you guys have the proper bears up there, right? Cause they're brown, uh, Kodiak or kind of the big ones cuz Colorado has the baby bears. You just, you have the, the fun little black ones where they're still kind of mess you up, but you, you semi have a chance against one

Jeremiah Prummer (00:03:00):

Of those. Right.

Rabah Rahil (00:03:00):

Brown bear. It's done. It's all over. Like it's, it's totally football park

Jeremiah Prummer (00:03:05):

For sure. I mean like Grizzlies, weren't super common like around my hometown, but like they're there, you gotta be careful. So you go hiking. I remember this one time I was out hiking with some friends and uh, we went out ways and we were coming back and there was fresh bear poop in the trail. Um, so like bears chilling right behind us following us around, I guess. I don't know what, what they're doing exactly.

Rabah Rahil (00:03:27):

That's bears, terrifying bears are absolutely terrifying. The, uh, did you, did you hike with bear spray or anything like that or you guys are just raw dog at? No worries. Just we'll figure it out.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:03:37):

<laugh> uh, depends at what point in my life. Um, <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (00:03:41):

Fair enough. What the risk profile was.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:03:45):

Yeah. Uh, as I got older, I definitely carried bear spray all the time. I would say when I was a teenager, I was not quite as intelligent.

Rabah Rahil (00:03:52):

Uh, I love that. Um, so for folks that don't know you, um, you started a bunch of things that I want to get into, but yeah, most recently, most notably probably uh, no commerce, correct?

Jeremiah Prummer (00:04:05):

Yeah, yeah. That's correct. So, um, yeah, we do, we do surveys for e-commerce businesses primarily in Shopify. Um, but yeah, that's, that's the business. So, um, been doing that for a couple of years, we actually started it and were incubated within a marketing agency. So that was kind of like our three seed round. So to say, yeah, very

Rabah Rahil (00:04:25):

Cool.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:04:26):

Um, so, and it was a good friend of mine, Pearson CRAs who owns the agency. He and I been friends for 10 years, um, or close to 10 years anyway. Um, and so that was kind of how we got it all kicked off.

Rabah Rahil (00:04:38):

So how to rule boy, like you get involved in a marketing.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:04:41):

Yeah. Um, so I went to school at Montana state university in Bozeman, Montana. Um, another

Rabah Rahil (00:04:48):

Beautiful place, supposedly.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:04:50):

Yeah. Bozeman's amazing. Uh, right outside Yellowstone. Um, and in 2010, I believe it was this, uh, there was a, a tech company there that sold to Oracle and so it was like a $2 billion exit. Um, yeah, so significant. Right. Um, and it basically, yeah, <laugh> basically created a bunch of millionaires overnight and uh, so I was in college at the time. Um, but it's kind of turned into a tech town. Um, I started my first startup in college. Um, we, we tried to build like the Twitter for text message marketing, um, which was 2010, like super early, right. Um, like text message marketing is common now, but back then people were like, why the hell would I text my customers? Like that's not, <laugh>, it's not something I'm gonna do unless, uh, the politicians were the only, only ones that wanted to use it

Rabah Rahil (00:05:39):

<laugh> but

Jeremiah Prummer (00:05:40):

The idea was that you could like subscribe to like local happenings, um, and get alerted that like, Hey, this restaurant has, you know, 10, 10 spots available tonight for, you know, $20 or whatever. Um, not, I guess it'd be more like a show restaurant sort of comic thing, but like that kind of stuff. Um, but yeah, we just, we were boots strapped. We didn't have enough money and text message marketing back then was super expensive. So, um, it's still expensive, uh, just to be clear, but, uh, it was significantly more expensive back then.

Rabah Rahil (00:06:14):

Well, into also the rails were more expensive. I mean, back in the day, like you were like, oh, well hold on, Jeremiah is on the same plane as me. So

Jeremiah Prummer (00:06:21):

RAA

Rabah Rahil (00:06:21):

Actually you text him cuz if I text him, they're gonna charge.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:06:25):

Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (00:06:26):

Because I'm old. So I remember, uh, you pay per message and I would just get so infuriated when people would text me KK and you was like, dude, you just cost me a whole message. At least use it. It felt so

Jeremiah Prummer (00:06:37):

Efficient. Yeah, for sure. There were like hacks where you could, like, you could like email a email address. That's tied to a phone number. I don't know if you ever did that, but that's that it's free. Um, but you have to like get the right email address for the right carrier. Um, super messy, like not, not doesn't really work at scale.

Rabah Rahil (00:06:57):

Amazing. What'd you call it? What was it called?

Jeremiah Prummer (00:07:00):

Uh, so it was, we'd started like a, a company called viewers. And so it's a friend of mine that was kind of his, his idea, but the specific product was via text. Um, so like get, get notified via text. So, um,

Rabah Rahil (00:07:15):

Not a horrible name. Pretty

Jeremiah Prummer (00:07:16):

Good. Yeah. I mean <laugh> we were young, uh, I think I was 20 at the time, so yeah. It, it was fun though. Amazing.

Rabah Rahil (00:07:25):

When did, uh, Colorado glasses come into play?

Jeremiah Prummer (00:07:28):

Yeah, so I actually, from, from that experience, I actually built a, uh, a WooCommerce extensions business, um, after that. So that was kind of like the next thing that I did. Um, that's how I met Pearson, who he was a, he was a merchant at the time. Um, I ended up working with him on his website, but yeah, starting in 2012, I, I started building that business. Um, and so that was kind of like, that actually was successful and I did have like a mini exit, but I basically sold my parts to my business partner. Uh who's in the Netherland, so he's still running it today. Um, but I took, I took what I got out of that to start Colorado glasses. And that was a sunglass high wear brand. Um, basically bootstrap to use my, my own money had, uh, a friend and my dad gave me a little bit of money.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:08:14):

Um, but man, it goes fast. Like <laugh>, if you've ever any sort of physical goods business, uh, you buy a little bit of inventory and at least in my case is basically out of money. And so from there it was like trying to make it work and it was hard, hard stuff. Um, yeah, I don't, I actually tweeted about this the other day, but like it, um, I think what I really struggled with and I actually love the, the name of, of this podcast. You are not your RO as like almost this idea of identity and like tying your identity to your work. Um, and I don't know if that's entirely the, the objective or the goal, but like that was such a huge problem for me. And, and especially when it's your startup and it's struggling and you're just trying to keep this thing alive.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:08:57):

It feels like you're dying a little bit too. And so, um, that, yeah, it was a super hard time. Um, basically spent two years trying to do that, but I, you know, it was bootstrapped took out, took on a lot of debt, um, and just tried to like do basically tried too many sales channels. Um, and so we saw like, like a lot of local events and festivals and stuff did pretty well. We did about 200 K in revenue our first like full year. Um, but it wasn't enough. So, uh, it was, and just like, we just couldn't, I think if, if we would've had money and been able to like one, if I wouldn't have made so many mistakes early on <laugh> and, and efficiently used money, but two, like if we would've had a little bit more bandwidth, I think it could've been okay. But, um, I think we would've done something with it cuz people loved it. People loved the company, the product, all that, but um, just getting to scale is hard. So, um, I definitely relate with all these brands that are trying to make it happen.

Rabah Rahil (00:09:54):

Yeah. I think that's one of the misconceptions of DTC, um, is that it is incredibly capital intensive. Mm-hmm <affirmative> people think, oh, we'll just scrap some money together and start a business. It's man, you're holding inventory. You're paying people. You're a lot of times too, unless you can get like the cash conversion cycle, right. It can get really hairy. Yeah. Cuz you, you might not get paid for 90 days or something like that. And so it's just like, you have the money, but like it's not coming to you yet. So like what do you do in the meantime, if you're not capitalized, like how do I bridge a gap? How do I pay my employees? How do I, or how do I make the next PO to then? So I don't run outta stock. Like it it's, I think it's a very big misconception out there that you just scrap, scrap some money together and you can make it work or it's a really capital intensive industry.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:10:36):

I mean, you can go like on Alibaba and put together a purchase order for something for <laugh>, you know, five, $10,000 you get get some product, but like that's just one piece of it. Like there's so much more that goes into it. Um, and yeah, it's, it's easy to, to just to have it, not work work in terms of like the, the numbers and your profit margins have to be good. And um, I think that's another thing too. Somebody looks at and they're like, well, this, this product costs me $5 to make like technically speaking. But by the time you actually like deliver that to the customer, it's actually like $15 or $20. Right. So, and then you gotta have enough margin for, you know, do you wanna do wholesale? Can you actually make your ads work? All that kind of stuff. So yeah. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (00:11:19):

<laugh> exactly. So this is just delivering the product. How are you gonna acquire the customer? How are you gonna like pay your employees to do like, there's just all oh, I'm solely with you. Yeah, for sure. So is this the company that was the dumpster dive tweet <laugh>

Jeremiah Prummer (00:11:32):

Yeah. How was that? It's

Rabah Rahil (00:11:34):

Such an incredible, it's such a vulnerable tweet, man. It is incredible. It's it's such a, so for people that don't know, he first off he should follow Jeremiah is one of the, my favorite follows on Twitter, but his pin tweet is actually, uh, ultimately the too long didn't read paraphrasing was, um, now I'm doing well, but before four years from when I, this tweet I was essentially dumpster diving to kind of make ends meet. And it it's a big, big shift right. From <laugh> scrapping it together to having your first exit. Yeah. For like meaningful exit.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:12:03):

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Um, yeah, it was just a hard time. I think like at that time I actually did have a job and I had money coming in, but I also had $3,000 a month debt payments that I had to make <laugh>. And so like, it was literally, I mean, like $200 on the bank account at a time sort of thing. Like I was laid on rent every month by like a week and always had to pay like $50 late fee in my landlord and all that. Right. So it was like that whole, that whole thing. So, um,

Rabah Rahil (00:12:32):

Poverty's tough,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:12:33):

Man. It is. Yeah. And

Rabah Rahil (00:12:35):

It

Jeremiah Prummer (00:12:35):

Layers on it. It absolutely does. And I think like at the end of the day, I'm really grateful for that. I think technically like I, my family was impoverished when I was really young, like, uh, up until about 6, 7, 8 years old. Um, until my parents started a business that was successful, um, like we, we had food stamps and Medicaid and all that kind of stuff, but I didn't, it's different like as a child, you don't really notice, uh, at least in, in that context, like it felt normal, but as an adult, it's like how, yeah. How, like, what happens if I can't make this payment? Like that stress, so, so hard, like hard on your relationships, hard on everything. So I think like, uh, I, I, at the end of the day, I'm grateful to have been, have gone through that even if it was only for, you know, basically a year or two. Um, but yeah, it was hard. I'm not gonna, I, I wouldn't wish that on anybody and frankly at the end of the day, like my situation was better than a lot of people. So I'm also not gonna sit here and say that like, <laugh>, that I've been through the hardest things. There's a lot of people that are, that go through much worse. So

Rabah Rahil (00:13:40):

Yeah, for sure. I, I, I had similar kind of experiences where, uh, you know, I, I didn't put a full tank of gas

Jeremiah Prummer (00:13:46):

<laugh>

Rabah Rahil (00:13:47):

For years. Cause you know, yeah. I got three bucks in account. We'll throw, we'll throw three bucks in the gas and we'll figure out how we're gonna get the next, the next $5 in the tank. And um,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:13:57):

And what did, what did that feel like for you at the moment?

Rabah Rahil (00:14:01):

Pretty horrible, man. I mean, it was to your point, it was that, um, a lot of the identity and I, like, I knew I was destined for greatness. I knew I had the ability to do things and I just wasn't mm-hmm <affirmative> like, it just wasn't cutting my way. And then, um, to your point too, you just get into these, um, kind of like, uh, feedback loops, but in a bad way, right? Yeah. Like, so you, you, the rent payment, then you bounce a check and then you these things. And so it's like, you don't have the money and now you have six or $700 in like ancillary fees that weren't there before. And so it's just like, how, how do I pay this stuff? How do I get? And you're just never, uh, it's almost like breaking the wheel. Like it just comes into this really.

Rabah Rahil (00:14:43):

So I just went really minimalist and it just like, I just cut it and it helped me out too, cuz it, it got away from a lot of the, um, waste where I started to live a really efficient, more meaningful life. But uh, yeah, it was very hard, man. It's hard where you, um, be they always say like rich people and poor people. Like it's never great to be in poverty, but man, like rich people have like other problem, but I'll tell you what man, having money and getting all those problems is way better than when you're trying to figure it. Out's true. Like it is, uh, it is not the path. And uh, to your point, like I wasn't ever like never gonna have a meal, but like I remember actually one time where my mom would get me these little gift cards cuz she would, uh, go shopping and stuff like that.

Rabah Rahil (00:15:30):

And she would get credit card points and obviously like I wanna make it on my own. I don't wanna like, you know, lean on my parents for too much and stuff. And plus they, they, weren't not wealthy at all. I mean we're low to middle class, middle class at best kind of thing. And um, so in college is trying to make it work, get out of college. And I remember that I didn't have any money to eat, but all I had is these fancy gift cards. So I was getting steaks like Longhorn steakhouse and stuff like that. So I was just like, how backwards is my life right now that I have no money? The only thing I have to get food with is like these gift cards of these fancy restaurants. It was just such a, you're

Jeremiah Prummer (00:16:05):

Just like eating a third of the steak and saving up for two more meals.

Rabah Rahil (00:16:10):

Why am I doing it? Was, uh, it taught me a lot, man. It taught me a lot. And I think there's definitely, um, a lot of value in going through trials and tribulations. But to your point, I wouldn't wish not anybody. I think there's smarter ways to go through it where, um, you, you can have some kind of backstops and stuff like that where I didn't where like it, it could have cut left or right. And I would've been really, really, uh, uh, behind the eight ball, but um, such as life, you know, we, we, we both came out. Okay. So hopefully this will help people. But I do think that one thing that was very helpful to me was understanding, and this does get challenging when you have like a really menial, horrible job. But I think there's two paradigms in life. There's a time you have more time than money and more money than time.

Rabah Rahil (00:16:56):

Yeah. Um, I was just, I had more time than money and so I would just learn, I, I would, this was YouTube was really burgeoning. I was a nerd, so I'd actually go to the library a lot. And so there was a lot of things that I was really just trying to better myself, but it's a challenge when you have to work, I could eight to five, nine to five where you just hate your life. It's very, um, brainless kind of stuff. And then you gotta turn up to do that. So I'm not saying it's easy, but um, yeah, it's a yeah. Interesting time. Sure, man,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:17:24):

For sure. I mean, I, uh, along those lines, I think my, I, I can't say it's my favorite job, but in some regards, my, my favorite job I've ever had was when I was a dorm janitor in college, cuz I would like, it was 7:00 AM to 3:30 PM on Saturday and Sunday, everything is silent. Just put in headphones, just go about my day, do the work. Like I didn't have to think about what I was doing. I got to think about like whatever I was podcast I was listening to or uh, music or, or just think like hours to just like, think about things. And I, I haven't had that sense that kind of just like <laugh> yeah. Eight, eight night hours a day for, uh, two days a week. Like that was pretty sweet. Um, so, and it eight would, if that was all I was doing, I'm sure I would've hated it eventually, but like having that space and time was, was really nice in that regard,

Rabah Rahil (00:18:15):

Man. I, I can totally empathize with you cuz now, I mean you're also in the executives, in the C-suite as the CEO and I'm CMO at triple well and um, we very rarely get, I mean, pretty much in, in executives at decision machine. Right. So you're just synthesizing information, like do that. You do that, you do that like constant, there's never this like, Hey, I'm gonna take two to three hours or I'm gonna take the weekend and just like, and think about all the hard problems. And then so I think jobs, its either jobs or gates has the think weeks where they'll just yeah, go off the grid for um, so maybe we need that at triple well, cause I, in a, in a weird way I do miss it cuz uh, my whole life was pretty much individual contributor up until now. And so that was cool. You just get to like, to your point, you just get to log off and be like, I'm gonna think of a really brilliant way to code this or do that or do this. And that's just not the case. So when you're in this, in the C-suite as man,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:19:10):

Sure. It feels like anything that takes more than five minutes is like really hard to do. <laugh> it's like I put it,

Rabah Rahil (00:19:16):

Why are you wasting so much time? Yeah.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:19:18):

Well it's like, if it's gonna take me more than five minutes to do it, I'm not doing it for a week. Like whatever, whatever it is. Like I, I don't know. It's it's not always true, but that's how it feels at least so yeah,

Rabah Rahil (00:19:31):

Yeah. Yeah. It definitely feels, it, it, for me, it's almost like the, um, you're just on this like roller coaster and you're just constantly just like, and you're just going by and you're like trying to fit stuff on the shelves, but um, what was one of the things that you used to kind of get you through those dark times? Was there any frameworks or beliefs or values that you're like, Hey, this, you know, just keep on going and it's always darkest before the Dawn kind of stuff or like how, how did you kind of peek through those, those really, you know, that's

Jeremiah Prummer (00:20:00):

Unique. Times's a good question. I think there's a couple things that one, like I've always in terms of like pushing through the hard stuff, I've always had a lot of, um, self-belief for lack of a better term, like believe that like believe that it's gonna happen, believe that I'll be able to overcome all that kind of stuff. I will say though, what that time did for me was it clarified for me that that's not always true. And so, and I think that's a realization that has been really important for me and this is something I struggle with constantly, cause I always want to do more than I really have the capacity to do. And so, um, that was like really the first time in my life though, where like I hit that wall over and over and over and over and I just couldn't get past it and, and that happens sometimes.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:20:47):

And so, um, I think like for, for the day to day challenges, like the role that I'm in now, it's perfect because like <laugh>, that's kind of how it is. Right. And I'm sure that's what you experience. Like there's always more than you can do. Yeah. Um, but I have, I still struggle with that. Like my, the last two weeks, my family's been sick a lot. My daughter's been home from daycare. Like I've had, you know, I'm putting in 30 to 40 hours of work, but then like 40 to 50 hours of childcare. Um, and that's my capacity. Like I can't put in 50, 60 hours, like I would normally do. Um, which I, and just to be clear, like I enjoy doing, that's kind of like my, my number that I'm comfortable with. Um, and so I just can't do that right now. And so for me, it's really difficult cuz I feel like I'm, uh, like I'm not doing enough. And at the same time I have to realize that that's all I'm capable of right now. And so, um, I think that time, that really dark time was good in, in opening my eyes towards that being the reality of life. Um, at the same time, I, I wouldn't say that that's a struggle that I'm like fully through with. So, um, <laugh> I dunno, maybe ask me again in 10 years maybe I'll uh, have it better figured out, but yeah,

Rabah Rahil (00:21:59):

Yeah. That that's beautiful, man. I love that. I think that there's a certain aspect. So I use something called time blocking because um, like before I would just, oh, of course I can get all this stuff done. And then when I, so for people that don't know time blocking is essentially exactly what it sounds like, where you say, Hey, I'm gonna do this during this time, this, during this time. And so my day is essentially my whole week actually is totally planned out from when I wake to, when I go to bed. Um, even my social activities, cuz I just, I die of vacuum. Like I can't, I don't know what it is for me, but like I ha like if you gimme free time, I waste it. It's, it's this really odd thing that I have. But if you, if I like take a second to just segment that stuff, but it's also, it makes me honest because I'll, I'll start putting, I'll have my like little to do list.

Rabah Rahil (00:22:42):

I use something called Accu flow. And then basically if I star something in Gmail, if I bookmark something in slack or if I get assigned a task and a sauna, it goes into this little inbox for me and then I can just move stuff over my calendar. And then I realize like, oh man, I, I'm not gonna do that. And for me, a lot of the anxiety was self-induced because to your point, like I would just overcommit. And then I feel horrible because even though I was actually being like, quote unquote productive. Yeah. I was never getting it, getting it all done because I had this infinite list and it was, it built a very like bad psychological loop for me where I never felt accomplished or there's always, always something more, always something more. And it's like, you, you, you need to feed the dream and you need to, uh, you know, every now and then on the, the road to success, stop at the mile markers and say, Hey, you know, I'm doing good. I'm not saying you should marinate there, but yeah, you should definitely like there there's something to that.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:23:35):

Yeah, man. And I think that kind of gets into the second piece of that time for me, which is I get going back to like the podcast name, this whole identity thing. And like the, for me at that time, my identity was very closely tied to my work. And um, I'm a, I'm a Christian and you know, I've got this idea of relationship with God. And so like when you talked about beliefs, like that's a big thing for me. But like during that time it was very much like I got this, I got this, I got this, I got this until I don't. Um <laugh> and so, um, I think what, what was really eye opening for me, I was actually like on a church retreat when I came to the realization realization that like, man, like God cares about me, regardless of what I do, it has nothing to do with my it's beautiful accomplishments because, and just to, to take that step further, if I believe it has something to do with my accomplishments and I'm a fairly accomplished person or I'm less accomplished than somebody else, that means that God would believe, would think more or less of me or, and more or less of others based off of that.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:24:40):

And I, I don't believe that's the way it is. I, I don't think that that's the way it can be. Um, and so like for me, that was also a really big thing just to be like, man. Okay. It's O it's okay. For me not to, I don't know, like <laugh>, by being perfectly honest, like you all raising all that money was, uh, I was like super excited about that. And at the same time, slightly jealous I'm like, man, we just exited for a way lower valuation. I don't like we've been on a similar time trajectory path, I guess. Um, yeah. Well, I mean, but like we're not as big, right? We, we didn't, we, um, there's different cycles and seasons and markets and all that kind of stuff. And like you guys hit one perfectly and we, the way our product works, it's not quite the same.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:25:22):

And so it's easy to look at something and be like, I should have, I should have been able to achieve that thing that somebody else did, um, without stopping and saying, no, it's okay. Like this is perfect. This is great. This serves a need for, for a ton of people and like doing that is enough because if I don't believe that's enough, then it, then it means that I don't believe what other people are doing is enough either. And I don't want to be that person. So I think that's been a really big thing for me.

Rabah Rahil (00:25:50):

I love that. Yeah. And I think it's so easy to get on that hamster wheel, um, where it's just like more and more, more, more, more versus like, to me, like I'm on hyper capitalist. Absolutely. I love accomplishment. I love all this stuff, but at the, at the end of the day, like, or, and this is just my kind of personal values. I think the only thing in this world that really matters is absolutely deep connections with humans you care about and so resources and all that stuff can help facilitate that. But if you're gonna live in golden palace by yourself, it's like not, that's super unappealing to me. Like, I, I don't want that at all. And so all, all these things to your point, like I had a big kind of identity crisis too, is like, do the work, do do the best you can.

Rabah Rahil (00:26:29):

And there's definitely, you know, like some values to that where it's like, I'm not saying be a slacker and stuff. Like I do believe action breeds action. And you do need to like put in the work. And I, in a weird way, I do also believe in man station. Like, I think you need to see where you want to go and then try and like make that come to life. But at the end of the day, man, if you have people around you that you love and you can love yourself and then love other people and help people that are less fortunate than you kind of live a better life. I don't know. I think there's honor. There's, there's honor in that. And there's, there's nothing wrong with that. And if you don't have three coms in your bank account, it is what it is.

Rabah Rahil (00:27:02):

Maybe, maybe like if you're religious, maybe that's not what your God had planned for you or what have you. But at the end of the day, you're never gonna be like, man, I should have worked more. You know, it's, it's definitely gonna be like, Hey, I should have won on that trip. I should have reacted. And you know, had a better relationship with my kids or my significant other stuff like that. You're never talking about, oh man, I should have, gosh, I should have wish I would've had 20 more points in my portfolio this year. You know what I mean? This is like it.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:27:27):

And the reality is, man, if you got money in your bank account, you're ahead of 90% of people in this country.

Rabah Rahil (00:27:35):

If you're born, if you're born in the states or the UK you're ahead of like 90% of the world, like just being in those two countries, you just have. So in Canada you have so many advantages that like all these people are, or you're just you're, you're so advantaged. So yeah, I think they're there that's something that too, that I always, uh, I can't remember who told me this, but ultimately like if you wanna get motivated, look at where the people are and if you want to feel gratitude, kind of, you can look at where people were or it's just like, Hey, you're fine. Or it's okay. Like if you compare yourself, it's like, mm-hmm, <affirmative> gratitude for me is just such a grounding activity where it's like, dude, it's okay, it's fine. Right. You don't have yacht, but you're not going hungry. Like, and it helps too to have, have those, uh, reference points too. Right. Where I remember where I could barely literally put, I put $3 of gas in my car and I kind of didn't know. Or the, the other thing you were talking about, which was the worst where it's like, I have X amount of dollars that can't pay the bills. Right. So what bills am I not gonna pay? Like, it's like, dude, I'm, I'm picking up. This is for,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:28:33):

And I, yeah, relax. Like, and there's a certain point where like, you don't even know what to do with the money anyway. So like, and it doesn't even take that much. <laugh> like, that's the crazy thing. It's like, I mean, I can figure something out, but like, I don't need it. Like, what am I gonna do? You gotta, you gotta start to put it to work.

Rabah Rahil (00:28:52):

That's literally what the wealthiest people say is like, I'm at a certain point where like, I couldn't even spend this in my lifetime. Even if I bought yachts and yachts and yachts or whatever, like ridiculous egregious islands and stuff. I have so much money that I, I not only can I not say it, I can't absorb any of the value from it. It's like you have 10 houses. How are you? What, what are you gonna do with 10 houses? You know what I mean? And so I think you see, that's why you see a lot of people go into kind of a philanthropic bent because it's like, I've already made it. My games kind of played, like maybe I can help other people that are less resourced, you know, trying and build their path. Um, what a fun, main segment. I'm gonna one more, one more for you in the main segment and then we'll wrap it up. Um, what is the nicest thing someone's done?

Jeremiah Prummer (00:29:35):

Interesting, man. I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to go with my wife. Like at the end of the day, she has put up with a lot over the last 10 years. Oh yeah. Um, and I mean, it's like, it's hard sometimes. Uh, it's been hard, right? Like she's, she's let me be an entrepreneur. She's let me go through a lot of things. And I mean, even having a kid and trying to figure out work stuff and I think she's, um, yeah, she's just put up with, with a lot. So I appreciate her a ton and um, yeah, I, I, I wouldn't be who I am without her, for sure. So

Rabah Rahil (00:30:12):

That is definite brownie points there. Great answers. I need it right now. Great answer. Well play, sir. Whoa, that's beautiful.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:30:18):

But it's true.

Rabah Rahil (00:30:21):

It's yeah, I, to be, to be fair, I'm the, uh, I'm not married, I'm engaged, but, um, I came on full time as CMO in September, but really hit, hit it in October. And um, for those first few months, it wasn't really shown up the best I could have in, in my relationship. So it definitely takes, uh, a very unique partner for kind of early stage stuff. Cuz there's just, there's just a lot, absolutely that you can, you can do better, but okay. All the, the fluffy, fluffy stuff, people know you now let's get into the nerdy stuff. This is the value add segment. This is why the people bought the ticket. Um, why did you start? No. What, what holes in the market? Did you see your like question? What

Jeremiah Prummer (00:31:00):

Was the thought process there? I mean, I got, got started in e-commerce in 2012, so I'd been doing it for a while and then my friend Pearson was running at an agency. And so we, we both had, uh, there's a common issue where digital first brands don't really understand who their customers are very well. So you've got a lot of data, you've got purchase data and this is what you all have, right. Is like all the purchase data, all that kind of stuff, which is really, really valuable, but there's a missing element. And I think that that element is still missing and the reality is it's a really hard element to unlock. And so I'm not gonna sit here, here and tell you that we've unlocked it. Like we have a lot of plans, a lot of things that we want to do in the future.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:31:41):

Um, but at least we have given brands the ability to ask their customers questions. And really the vision was like, there's a few different ways you can kind of do that. There's a tool called inquiry labs. That's like a post-purchase survey tool. Grapevine is another one for Shopify, but again, it's like ecosystem specific, it's single location specific. And then you've got like your type form or your survey monkey, which like they don't connect the customer to that information. Um, and so it was really like, how can we, how can we make this more, um, like easier for brands to deploy for one and then two, like actually connect it back to the customer and back to that data. So again, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you we've got it all figured out, but, um, we commerce believed in us enough and our vision to, to buy us. So that was good. And, um, that unlocks a lot of resources and puts us in a position where, um, I think we, we got a lot of really cool things that are coming and I'm excited to get all of that done. So it'll be different in a few years.

Rabah Rahil (00:32:40):

Sure. I love it. And we have a lot of future or future, uh, mutual customers that speak incredibly highly of you that, um, you know, use some other things in this space and then they pretty much landed on you where, um, you're the soup deserve for, especially too. What's really interesting is the spectrum of clients that you guys serve where you do have some kind of like startup early stage people and yeah, some, some people printed money as well. So it's, it's pretty, pretty interesting to see how, uh, you guys are able to service kind of quite the, quite the, again, spectrum or band of, uh, different style or businesses that are.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:33:11):

Yeah. And that's one of the challenges, honestly, really cool is that so like we have brands that we work with who are doing nine figures in annual revenue and we have brands who set up the store two days ago. Um, and that's part of the strategy. That's what we want. That's how we get to this point of unlocking that insight about the customer. However, um, it's they have different needs. And so that's been a, a big thing that we're we're working on constantly is how do we do that? How do we make it? Like, we, we wanna make it really affordable for both brands, but affordable means different things for the guy that just started his store. That's probably free for the guy that, uh, is doing that a hundred million a year affordable might be a hundred thousand dollars, right? Like, um, <laugh> so it's just different and trying to make sure that we're meeting them where they're at is, has been the hard thing.

Rabah Rahil (00:34:02):

That's beautiful. Yeah. And to kind of build on the difficulty there. Um, yeah, absolutely. The value absorption is gonna be different, right? Where at those, those bigger, bigger stores where you get one or 2% lift that's significant money, whereas you get one or 2% lift on a store doing $10,000 a month. It's like,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:34:19):

Yeah, absolutely.

Rabah Rahil (00:34:19):

You're not gonna fill it. It's just, it's negligible in a way. Um, I love that. What are the best parts and what are the hardest

Jeremiah Prummer (00:34:26):

Parts? Um, best part is just getting to engage with so many brands doing really cool things. So I think like we spend a lot of time just talking to our customers, uh, which is ultimately what we want our customers to be doing with their customers too. So that's the, that's the, the, my favorite part, the hardest part is data scale. And I'm sure you all deal with us too. Like dealing with data at scale is hard and like, and expensive. That's the thing too. Like we have, we have merchants who are doing that kinda like a hundred million a year in revenue sort of volume. Uh, maybe not quite that. No. Yep. I mean, I guess they, they would be paying us this so a hundred dollars a month is what they're paying us, which is amazing for them. They love it. They're never gonna turn it off at the same time.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:35:13):

We're actually losing money on that customer. So we, we do believe that it fits into our larger mission and, and our plan. And we know there's ways that we can help them do more later and charge more money. But at the same time like that, that kind of stuff, it does get expensive. And, um, at the, I mean, I guess I do believe though that as we scale and as our systems become better and more efficient and all that, uh, it does become less expensive on a, a per, per user basis or however you wanna define that, but yeah, yeah,

Rabah Rahil (00:35:45):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We we've had the same challenges with some of the unit economics yeah. Of the, uh, you know, uh, story.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:35:52):

You guys have a lot more data than we do

Rabah Rahil (00:35:55):

500 million, uh, a year. It's like, we have a lot with this, especially if you have the picks,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:36:00):

Basically like every single page view, all of that being stored.

Rabah Rahil (00:36:04):

Um,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:36:05):

It's insane. Yes.

Rabah Rahil (00:36:07):

Yeah. It's a lot, it's a lot, but it's necessary. And to your point, like we'll, we'll work out the unit economics when, when necessary. They're not, they're not incredibly distorted, but right.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:36:16):

<laugh> yeah. We, I wouldn't, there's no way I would have a free trial for the pixel either.

Rabah Rahil (00:36:20):

<laugh>

Jeremiah Prummer (00:36:21):

Yeah,

Rabah Rahil (00:36:23):

Yeah, exactly. Um, you don't have any gray hair, you have a fabulous head of hair, but Colorado gave you more gray hair, Colorado glasses,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:36:30):

Or I would say like doing it alone. Uh, it was, and I wasn't actually alone just to be clear. I had a friend who was, uh, basically a business partner in that, but like, we did not have the same support. We did not have the, we didn't have funds. So I think one of the rules that my wife and I kind of put in place after that experience was that I'm not doing another startup where I don't get a paycheck. And so I did get a paycheck for no, that was one of the things. And it's, I mean, I'm, I'm underpaid, but it's not like, but it's enough. Right. And so at the end of the day, like that's, that's the thing. And so there's over. Yeah. I mean, 12 years of, of being an entrepreneur, you kind of have to set some, some rules and guidelines and, um, and that was that one. So it means I don't get the same payout and I even went back to her. I was like, Hey, we would've made like way more money <laugh> if I would've just worked for free for a year and a half. And, uh, she was, she was like, yeah, but it's not happen, I guess, like, all right, cool. Maybe, maybe the next one. We'll see it.

Rabah Rahil (00:37:26):

Yeah. Maybe the next one. Yeah. I love that though. That's a really good, um, actual rule, I think.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:37:32):

Yeah. Life stage matters.

Rabah Rahil (00:37:33):

I mean, again, depending on where you're at in your life, but uh, not having cash, not for sure not having cash flows because

Jeremiah Prummer (00:37:40):

You can't, it's not sustainable if you

Rabah Rahil (00:37:41):

Don't have it

Jeremiah Prummer (00:37:42):

Truly is.

Rabah Rahil (00:37:43):

That's,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:37:43):

That's the big thing. So

Rabah Rahil (00:37:46):

Yeah, no, you're basically buying a lottery ticket and then who knows, and then by the time you do get out, you might be diluted to all, you know, and so doesn't even for matter. Yeah. There's just, there's some tons of nuances. Um, no. Did you see the acquisition coming? How'd it work is cuz this, they, they, they just kind of blindsided. You said, man, you're sexy. These look great. Yeah. I mean we knew cut you a check

Jeremiah Prummer (00:38:10):

How's that it was not part of the plan. Um, so it, but you hit certain inflection points. And when we were looking at like, what do we want to do? That was the, and I talked to a few other entrepreneurs and, and interestingly, I talked to a lot of people who are raising money and they're like, man, if you can exit exit, like if that's on the table, because there's, you're not guaranteed anything, if you raise money like yet. Yeah. You may get like, you may get a, a really big payday someday and your odds get better. The more rounds you raise, all that kind of stuff. But like at the same time, like there's, I don't know. I just kind of, that was eyeopening for me to talk to so many people who would raise money that said if, and X that's on the table and you, and you feel comfortable with the numbers, take it.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:38:51):

Um, and so I think that was, that was a big piece of it. So, um, and it's essentially our seed round is kind of the way I describe it. So instead of us raising the seed round that we were gonna raise yeah. Uh, we exited, which means we get the cash, which is nice. And then, uh, they're committed to helping us grow. So, um, I, I, I think it's been a, a win-win, so don't get the crazy valuations. Don't get the, the shot at a hundred million dollar paycheck someday. But at the same time, um, I get to pay off all my debts from Colorado glasses. I get to, um, to set my family up for something better. And that's a win as far as I'm concerned. So exactly. Yep.

Rabah Rahil (00:39:33):

And you still get to drive the boat. Huge. Yeah. But you, you put together, which is another really fulfilling. Yeah. That's fantastic. I love that. That's awesome. Um, how do you see the next two to three years unfolding commerce?

Jeremiah Prummer (00:39:47):

I think so the couple of things, one, I think the privacy stuff is just gonna keep pushing forward. So I don't think we're done with that. Um, so that's something I'm thinking about all the time. I think customer acquisition is going to change. That's another thing I'm thinking about all the time. So, um, I kind of look at it as I, I think Facebook and I, the big social platforms, basically Google that kind stuff. I think that's gonna be kind of like your, your low quality branding budget for lack of a better term. And I think like a lot of people are, I think there's gonna be other smaller targeted ad networks for lack of a better term that will show, show up. So community based sort of things, Instacarts that kind of stuff. Right. Um, I have no idea how effective Instacart ads are, but like, I think there's something really powerful there that if they unlock it, they'll be able to drive a lot of revenue for CPG brands and all that.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:40:36):

That's gonna be more valuable than putting out Facebook ads. Right. So, um, so those kinds of things I think are gonna be important. And then the last thing that I think about a lot is merchant price sensitivity on like the tax side in particular, when you have cost of goods climbing, the way that they are, when you have, um, the cost of delivering your product climbing, getting it in hands, like there's all these things that you ultimately can't control. The one thing you can control is how much you're spending on your tech. Um, how much are you spending on your employees? That kind of stuff. So I actually do think that, like, we've seen a lot of tech companies come out here and they, they basically are charging based off of your revenue. Um, and I don't, you guys do that to some extent too, there, I think that it works and it doesn't work.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:41:22):

It depends on the, the type of tech. Right? So with something like a triple whale, I think it makes sense, especially on the pixel side, cuz like there's a, there's a cost to like directly associated that traffic. But when you are an upsell app, that's charging based on a percentage of revenue. I think the guy that's charging $49 a month for his app that unlocks everything is gonna beat you because the big merchant is gonna take that. Right. So, um, I think we're gonna see a big shift in the way tech has to start charging, um, merchants as well. So that's a, another big piece of it.

Rabah Rahil (00:41:57):

I love that. And I totally agree with you. I think there's certain times that usage based makes sense, but um, I think there's other times where like rev like business, business objectives and stuff. I totally agree with you. And I think that, um, like for example, like clavia of course it makes sense to charge by email, you know what I mean? You get bracketed and bucketed, but um, I'm with you. I think that there's gonna be a big shift in that. And then also to your previous point, um, who is I talking to? I think Sam from regatta or I can't recall who I was talking to, but um, the too long didn't read was a promotion on Uber eats yeah. Was like absolutely smashing for them. And so it was kind of what you're talking about, like an Instacart, like these different kind of inventories that are fairly obscure. Like if you find the right vertical is gonna be a much more, uh, efficient and effective deployment of your paid media than just going into like a Facebook ads or something like that. And then, uh, kind of furthermore for us, why is even better is because then the attribution gets even won

Jeremiah Prummer (00:42:56):

For sure. These little it's

Rabah Rahil (00:42:58):

Things. Aren't like, how are you gonna measure the lift there? And so it's like, um, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. People helping people. Yeah, totally.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:43:06):

That, I mean like, cuz essentially the problem is that it's harder to target the right person. And so if you just go to where that person where you know that person's hanging out, then that's a totally different scenario. So yeah.

Rabah Rahil (00:43:21):

Yeah. And furthermore, to build on top of that point, I think that, uh, quite frankly, the economics have been sussed out on Facebook where I think there's very little arbitrage now. Like I think they're fairly priced. I think the ads are fairly priced. Like you could still make money on Facebook. It's still like a great ad buy, but it's nothing that it was like five to seven years ago where they're just insanely underpriced and you would just put a dollar in, you get seven out. Like how does this work? Yeah. Just keep doing that. Where now I think they're not overpriced. I think they're actually accurately priced. And um, you you're as a media buyer, I want to go to a place where there's arbitrage and then to your point as well, there is some inefficiencies in the targeting, which kind of distorts the economics even more where before the targeting was amazing and they were underpriced. So you had like both of these tailwinds behind your economics where now you, you really don't even have either one's fairly priced and well

Jeremiah Prummer (00:44:12):

Like, so I've got a, friend's a, um,

Rabah Rahil (00:44:14):

Uh, yeah, that's very astute.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:44:15):

He's a influencer basically at the, the tech developer world. He works in Netflix. He's got like a, he gets like a hundred thousand plus views on YouTube every month and he just wants to make it as an influencer. And uh, and like that's what he wants to be able to switch into someday. And so he's selling ad space for dirt cheap <laugh> to prove that it works right. And that's essentially what happens in these smaller markets. Like that's what they're doing. They're, they're trying to prove it works. And then you start to add systems in place and people to manage and all that and it has to become more expensive. And so yeah, I totally agree with you. Like there, I think that we'll see kind of cycles of these newer platforms. I mean, that's kind of what TikTok is today. And so yeah. Who knows what TikTok is gonna look like in two years? Uh, or even a year. Yes. Uh, but I don't think it's gonna be the same cost

Rabah Rahil (00:45:02):

A hundred percent. Yeah. Yep. I couldn't agree with you more. I couldn't agree with you more and that, I mean that ultimately transparently, that's what we're doing. We're, we're sponsoring podcasts, we're sponsoring YouTube channels. We're doing these things that like, if you take into account, like our return on ad spend as well as our CPMs. Yeah. They're just, they're just blowing outta the water, the, the traditional actual paid channels, which is it's it's really incredible. See, uh, okay. Two more questions then we'll get you into the rapid fire. Um, what is one thing people in e-commerce in the e-commerce C um, aren't talking about that should be

Jeremiah Prummer (00:45:34):

Man. I, I, I guess that'd kind of go back to my last point. I, I think the, the, the economics for retailers is the, or for people that are selling online. I think that's the biggest thing that we're not talking about. That if you are a brand doing a hundred million dollars a year and you've got all of this stuff, that's basically eating away at your margins. That's, uh, it defeats the purpose of scaling. The entire point of scaling a business is to increase your margin. Um, and, and so like, if that, if that doesn't work, you're either going to cut back and do the things that work unless of the other things, or you're gonna find a ways to cut costs. So to me, I think that's one of the biggest things that I don't see anybody talking about, but I think we need to be talking about it more. Yes, <laugh> exactly

Rabah Rahil (00:46:22):

The, the fancy term for, as the unit economics where your, your, your unit economics are like, it doesn't matter if you're making a hundred million or a million, they're the same. And it, because people are taking percentages, not flat fees. And so it doesn't matter how big or small you are because it's, again a percentage. Okay. I love it. This was right. The warehouse. What are some tips for setting

Jeremiah Prummer (00:46:40):

Up post? So I'm try to be unbiased here. Uh, I like to <laugh> I like to promote other systems as well. Um, cuz I think at the end of the day, I want everybody using a survey regardless of if you're using ours. So that's kind of my, my approach. Um, so, uh, if I'm just gonna start it off with this, if you are using our system, use one of our, um, templates. So we have prebuilt templates for the stuff that are super powerful. And basically like we've, we've spent a year and a half optimizing them, so they're ready to go. You just need to modify whatever little things you want to, um, and deploy it. So that's kind of first thing, but regardless of what you're doing, um, I'm gonna say start with a super easy question and make up multiple choice. So start with a, how did you first hear about us question, um, or something else?

Jeremiah Prummer (00:47:27):

Maybe you're doing a cus uh, survey for returning customers, but just start with, uh, like I'm just gonna select this option and then boom. Um, and that first question then sets the tone for everything else. So you want it to be friendly. You want it to be engaging. You want it to be easy. And so let them select that question. Um, if you're using our system on like a radio question, we automatically move you to the next, you can go back and edit if you want, but like we're, we keep them flowing through quickly. And that's part of the reason why we have like a, it's like a 87% average response or completion rate on these service. So initial, initial response is like 50 ish percent completion though. Percentage of people that fill out the entire things, 87%. Um, yeah. And, and a lot of it's because like, because of that flow, right.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:48:09):

So sensational, um, ask, definitely ask open ended questions, but put to them at the end. Uh, so let people give you other data first. And then if you need to ask anything personal, so let's say you're collecting a birthday and you want to deliver like a, uh, birthday campaign. You could do something like that, but like, save that question towards the end, cuz people are either gonna skip or they're gonna drop off like some percentage of them. We just know that one in five people is just not going to give you their birthday. So put that question at the end. Um, and then I think if you're using, if you're using qui I'm sure this is the same, cuz I think you have to actually like hit submit on every single question, but you'd actually be collecting every single question response. Um, regardless of if they answer all of them.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:48:51):

So let's say they answer five or 10 questions. Um, yeah. So like inquiry does that cuz you like have to hit the submit button. I'm pretty sure they do it anyways. I, I, I don't know a hundred percent, but I would guess, and it would make sense. And then for ours when we move you to the next question or if you hit next, we save the response from whatever question. So like, yeah. So like traditionally with like a survey monkey, you would yeah. It's clever. You have to fill out the entire thing. Yeah. Typeform doesn't yep.

Rabah Rahil (00:49:19):

Typeform doesn't it's batched.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:49:22):

Yeah. And it's a lot

Rabah Rahil (00:49:23):

More and we lose

Jeremiah Prummer (00:49:23):

All this. It's a lot more expensive for us. Like honestly, that's part of our scaling issue. Cause like there's database calls than every single one. And that's like the types of things

Rabah Rahil (00:49:31):

That we

Jeremiah Prummer (00:49:32):

Have to deal with. But like at the same time, you know, if somebody's only gonna answer two questions, we want you to have that data. And so that's why we do it that way. So, um, and again, I think with inquiry they'd be the same just based off of like what I've seen from their survey flow. So, um, <laugh> I do want you to use no and I, I promise you it's more powerful and more affordable, but um, just in, just in case you want other options, that's the one I would look at. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (00:50:02):

That's fair. And to be fair, we're integrated with them and then we're actually bringing you guys on very shortly. Yeah. So you can do both soon, um, rapid fire time. You ready? All right. Okay. Cool. Bits or bites business or uh, not bits bits or Adams businesses. What do you choose? Do you want, uh,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:50:22):

Cause you have SAS

Rabah Rahil (00:50:23):

Business and you ran actual inventory business, which

Jeremiah Prummer (00:50:25):

One would work better? I think inventory is more impactful. I think it matters more to the world. So

Rabah Rahil (00:50:31):

Yeah.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:50:33):

Um, so that's my, that's my approach. There's a difference

Rabah Rahil (00:50:36):

Between that.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:50:36):

I've never, uh, walking around town and seeing people wearing your products, like in a place like Colorado, Colorado glasses was our brand. Right. I still see people walking around wearing our products. Like that's something really powerful about that, knowing that that's having an impact on every single on that person's daily life. Right. So, um, and not to say software doesn't, but it's just different something different about it.

Rabah Rahil (00:50:57):

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's what of

Jeremiah Prummer (00:51:03):

Course underrated for

Rabah Rahil (00:51:04):

Sure. Okay. Cool.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:51:05):

Types of insight. We said

Rabah Rahil (00:51:06):

Customer surveys, overrated or underrated

Jeremiah Prummer (00:51:08):

Insane. Like I got one example, very large brand. Uh, they just bought some, uh, credit card data. The data told them that their average shopper was a woman in her mid to late forties. Uh, they ran surveys found out that their average shopper is a woman and, or the credit card at least is for a woman of that age group. But the actual customer is a teenage girl. So, um, like you, you, you're not gonna know that by buying that third party data, right. The only way you find that is actually by asking your customers so highly underrated, completely changes their entire marketing strategy. So

Rabah Rahil (00:51:48):

That is a really cool man. I like

Jeremiah Prummer (00:51:50):

It. Uh, I'd say

Rabah Rahil (00:51:51):

Colorado overrated. Your underrated.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:51:53):

Yeah. I it's hard. It's hard though. Cuz like people love Colorado. So, um, I think from a, I'm gonna say like, especially from like a, uh, if you want to build a company, it's a great place. And so I think that's, that'd be my caveat there. Like I think it's people look at the bay, they look at New York. I mean, Austin's kind like that too. I think it's still probably a little underrated for like building a company, but yeah, it's, it's a great place. Ooh. I think that's overrated. Um, I

Rabah Rahil (00:52:23):

Newsletters overrated. I

Jeremiah Prummer (00:52:25):

Know <laugh> no, I mean we, we actually haven't officially kicked it off yet. You guys, you guys, I love the idea and we're gonna do it. But I think the problem, these letters is that we're all only capable of digesting a couple of them. Right. So like how do, how do we solve that problem? And then I think that's why I say overrated. I don't know how to solve that. That's gotta be a way though. Right? That's a big business. Somebody can figure that out. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (00:52:50):

Be really good. Yeah, no I'm with you. It, candidly whale mail has been one of our biggest jokes sectors, but um, it was, it gave me a ton of gray hair for a really long time. Like it's a, it's a, it's a big, absolutely like a proper, newsletter's a big lift. It is a big lift for sure.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:53:10):

Uh, overrated

Jeremiah Prummer (00:53:12):

Building shop Shopify specifically overrated. I wanna say that. Um, I think if you're talking about Shopify, it's a very specific ecosystem. If you wanted deliver a product like for our app, we cannot rely on Shopify to bring us customers. Like we, what we're doing is not the thing that the, the merchants who are searching Shopify apps are looking for. So, um, and I, I would say you're probably in the same situation, right? Like in fact, you guys aren't even listed. Right. So, um, I would say unlisted. Yeah. Yeah. We're so like servicing Shopify merchants. Definitely not overrated, but like specifically for Shopify, totally overrated as far as I'm concerned.

Rabah Rahil (00:53:55):

Yep. Yeah. I love that. They started making some weird changes to their uh, yeah. The app home store, page and stuff. And then yeah. I'm with you, it's, it's a challenge. You're not really getting overrated.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:54:03):

You're

Rabah Rahil (00:54:03):

Kind overload that you used to, um, NFTs overrated.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:54:08):

Um, yeah. I don't know about you, but like the background, there's just something about that. That like NFTs is our, I just don't believe in it. Um, NFTs is like a, like a ticketing service or like some sort of utility. Yeah. But like, I don't know how that's, I don't think it's dramatically better than what we're doing today. Yeah,

Rabah Rahil (00:54:32):

Yeah. That I can get up on board with. I think the use case of art for NFT is just terrible, terrible, but something like ticketing and stuff like that is actually interesting. Cause then you could also stop the, the perversions of like, you could say this ticket can only be three X more yeah. Than the base price or something. And there, because there is just so many distortions

Jeremiah Prummer (00:54:50):

In yeah.

Rabah Rahil (00:54:52):

Um, like Ticketmaster and stuff will actually buy up the ti anyways, we won't go down that road, but yeah. I think it's a really good,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:54:57):

Oh man. It's a really good

Rabah Rahil (00:54:58):

Question. Um, um, entrepreneurship, overrated,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:55:00):

I'm say overrated. Um, I mean, if I got, if I gotta pick one, I'm gonna say overrated. I think it takes a certain really,

Rabah Rahil (00:55:08):

I love this answer

Jeremiah Prummer (00:55:09):

Personality to really thrive in it. Um, and I think even that personality is gonna struggle at times. Right. So like there's, it's, it's a hard place to be. Um, and going back to like what we talked about earlier about cash flow, having money in the bank, all that kind of stuff. Um, there's, it's, that's not overrated having, having a, a paycheck. And so like, there's that, but I will say I'm one of those people. I just can't, I can't stick it out in a business as an employee. Like I, I just can't, I've never been that way. I've never like, so like personally, I don't know. I, I I'm always gonna be an entrepreneur, but I would say like slightly overrated.

Rabah Rahil (00:55:56):

I couldn't agree with you more. And that was something that, uh, I had a really strong time with where, uh, yeah, I think it's okay for people to be employees. I could think there's, it's totally fine. And there's people that just have certain risk tolerances that aren't, aren't aligned with entrepreneurship and there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. And I had a really hard time, like rationalizing that to myself where it's like, dude, it's totally people want to go from work to X, to Y yeah. They wanna turn off. They wanna spend time with their play video games, whatever they wanna do. Like there's nothing wrong with that Robin. And I'm just, I'm, I'm more of your cut of jib where like, that just doesn't appeal to me. And like I'm just constantly on. And I think that, uh, I used to be very more entrepreneurship Maxy. Everybody should start a business where I'm, now I'm much more aligned with you where it's like, if you have the, the, the gene, if you will do it, but if not, um, it's totally fine. Generate value,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:56:47):

Cannot build a great company

Rabah Rahil (00:56:49):

Fair market way and live a really, really meaningful life.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:56:53):

So it's, uh, I, I think everybody should consider it. I think a lot of people try it. I don't think it's like a lifestyle for most people.

Rabah Rahil (00:57:02):

<affirmative> yep.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:57:06):

Oh man. All right. Uh,

Rabah Rahil (00:57:08):

Um, what's your favorite meal and

Jeremiah Prummer (00:57:10):

Why? Very specific, but <laugh> very basic, but my, my wife is from Cameroon in central Africa. Uh, whenever we go back and visit. Yeah. Um, whenever we go visit there's there's uh, oh, cool. The way that they grill beef on the streets, like the street sellers, incredible. My favorite thing. Uh, and it's like, it's like a dollar for like, well, probably like two or three bucks. Like if you really want to get it right. But like, um, yeah. It's like, it's inexpensive, it's delicious. And it's just like the thing that I always want that I can never get enough of, they call it soya. Um,

Rabah Rahil (00:57:49):

Oh, I love it. Is there a, a Navy

Jeremiah Prummer (00:57:51):

It's

Rabah Rahil (00:57:51):

Like the, for

Jeremiah Prummer (00:57:51):

Or anything like that? There's like the, um,

Rabah Rahil (00:57:54):

Soya

Jeremiah Prummer (00:57:54):

Northern like Muslim tribes that, that are like the ones that, that, that came from. And they just do like this really good. It's like a lifestyle thing. Right. So like, there's something about that. That's different than like going and getting a steak at a restaurant. So,

Rabah Rahil (00:58:09):

Yeah.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:58:14):

Um,

Rabah Rahil (00:58:14):

I love it. So

Jeremiah Prummer (00:58:15):

There's a podcast called

Rabah Rahil (00:58:16):

Startup therapy,

Jeremiah Prummer (00:58:17):

Which I actually don't listen to as much as I should absolutely love it. It's just a couple of guys. Who've been doing startups for a long time. Yeah. startups.com is like the, um, parent company. Yeah. So they own, yeah. A bunch, a bunch of companies, but like the two guys that are familiar, the guys there yeah. That have a podcast and it's incredible, cuz it's a lot of this kind of stuff like, Hey, you don't have to, you don't have to sell for a billion dollars to do something cool. You don't have to like risk your entire life savings to be an entrepreneur. Like those kinds of things, digging into that. What does it look like to like live a, live a life as a healthy entrepreneur? Um,

Rabah Rahil (00:58:57):

It's beautiful. I love it. Favorite place travel

Jeremiah Prummer (00:59:00):

To and why? Uh, like if I was gonna go on a vacation, I love Mexico. Um, like sunny, warm, inexpensive. <laugh> relatively speaking all about it. Um, and then I, I do love going like, um, I love going to places that are like Cameroon, like going, hanging out there. Like there's something cool about being in a place that's totally different. I'm the only white dude I see. For weeks. A lot of times. Yeah. Like, and a city of 2 million people like totally different lifestyle. Totally different way of being. And I, I like experiencing that.

Rabah Rahil (00:59:37):

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Okay. Last question. If you could have dinner with three people dead or live fiction or nonfictional, who would they be? So you're sitting on the

Jeremiah Prummer (00:59:48):

Table with

Rabah Rahil (00:59:49):

There's four seats. You're at the head.

Jeremiah Prummer (00:59:51):

Cause there's like so inviting. I literally have a list of people I wanna meet in person this year. You're you're on that list as well. Um <laugh> so yeah, I was okay. I was looking at that. Awesome.

Rabah Rahil (01:00:04):

It's gonna be great. We're gonna, we're gonna have the way Lisa

Jeremiah Prummer (01:00:07):

Gotta come out. So yeah, I've kind of been like planning. How am I gonna meet up with all these people? It's gonna be so much fun. Um, alright. I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do people that I know and interact with constantly that I just have to connect with this year. So one of most Pearson craft, he and I've worked together for years. Literally, literally never met in person. So, um, kind of insane, but like we've made a lot of money together and <laugh> done a lot of cool things and never been face to face. Uh, Amit who runs ind CPG is amazing. She's awesome. Um, I don't know if anybody listening knows her, but she's just like one of the biggest champions for CPG brands. I'd love to sit down and chat with. Um, okay. Yeah. She's super cool. Um, so those are like couple of people that I follow her

Rabah Rahil (01:00:53):

Twitter actually.

Jeremiah Prummer (01:00:53):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I guess another guy to Andrew Foxwell. So I'm actually going to be sitting down with him soon, uh, which will be super fun. So, um, yeah, he's been, I've known him for a long time. Um, kind of before D C was hot. So, um, and he's been a, somebody I've worked with a lot over the years too, so yeah,

Speaker 4 (01:01:16):

Rapid fire

Jeremiah Prummer (01:01:17):

<laugh>

Rabah Rahil (01:01:19):

I love it. Jeremiah, you made it through rapid fire. I should have known all, all your wilderness, blood and training. You, you you've prepared for this. Of course you've made it through, um, this time is yours taken how to connect with you? How can they sign up for no

Jeremiah Prummer (01:01:33):

Music? No, uh, you can go to no commerce.com and just to be clear too, we don't just do post-purchase service. We do everything so we can be your MailChimp or not MailChimp. Definitely not your MailChimp. We can be survey monkey for you. We can be type form. We can be post-purchase service, like whatever you need. We've got you covered. So, um, I think that's like, that's the first thing I would say there. And then, um, yeah, we're, we're just all about helping. So literally if you use a competitor and just want some feedback on how you can do better with it, we're we'll even have that conversation with you and we love doing that. So, um, and yeah, you can follow me on Twitter, just, uh, Jared, my primer is my handle and, uh, LinkedIn to happy to connect with you in other place. Yes. <laugh> subscribe to our newsletter. It is coming it's planned

Rabah Rahil (01:02:19):

And start newsletter make him, we just haven't

Jeremiah Prummer (01:02:21):

Got done yet. So yeah.

Rabah Rahil (01:02:30):

Jeremiah, thank you so much for the time. And this is one of my favorite podcasts. It's it's really cool to see somebody like so awesome. Real life success. There's there's a lot of times where you see really awesome humans, not, not materializing to the best of their being and you are, you are living your best life man, friend. It is really, really cool to see, to, to be able to, uh, again, watch from the sidelines and see how, how you can do it the right way, where you're just, you're just one of the most, really just down there and across all treat, everybody that knows you speak so highly of yourself. Thank you so much for coming on my friend. You crushed it. I really appreciate it. If you wanna get more involved with triple well, we're at try triple well.com and we do have a newsletter as well called well, mail goes out every Tuesday and Thursday. You can subscribe right on our Twitter page, which is at triple well. Um, that's it. That's 34 in the books. Jeremiah. Thank you so much, man. It was, it was super awesome. Go follow Jeremiah, go sign up with no, use a template, start printing more money. And that's all we got for you folks.

Podcast

The Building of KnoCommerce - ROAS W/ Jeremiah Prummer

March 18, 2024

1:03:42

Hosted By

Rabah Rahil
CMO at Triple Whale

Guests

Jeremiah Prummer

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