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Learn how to scale a startup with Mobify’s CEO & Co-Founder

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Date: March 16, 2017

Name: Learn how to scale a startup with Mobify’s CEO & Co-Founder

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Presenter: Igor Faletski

There are key success factors which all successful entrepreneurs need to follow to have successful startups in technology sector. Brainstation Vancouver invites Igor Faletski, the Co-Founder of Mobify, to discuss his entrepreneur experience in tech space. In this presentation, Igor Faletski will share his leadership principles that help him start and scale his company. Entrepreneurs will learn his business insight on building the right culture in an organization.

Igor Faletski is the CEO and the Co-Founder of Mobify. He has passion to make mobile commerce simpler and effective. He is also the External Advisor Council for Simon Fraser University in the faculty of applied science. He was a Front-end Engineer for HSBC and Incognito Software before he started his business. Moreover, he was awarded BC Business top 30 under 30 in 2014 and he was the finalist in Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the year 2013.

Fireside chat with Igor Faletski

Igor Faletski was born in Russia and came to Vancouver when he was 16 years old. When he was young, he loved computer and owning a computer was his childhood dream. While he was attending Simon Fraser University, he started to learn Startup. He originally had a career plan of becoming an engineer, but he saw the opportunity of growth in mobile phone platform. He founded his first company and eventually turned into Mobify.

Faletski believes the environment in the faculty of applied science was not a place for entrepreneur. It was a place to enhance the ability to build complex system. However, Faletski has the eager to work on hands-on for future education.

Innovation was his link to e-commerce. He explained his professor took his idea of bus schedule system to press release. The idea caught the attention from Translink. Afterwards, Faletski formed a company to sell that software system to Translink. Faletski emphasizes selling to government is a slow process, which can take over a year.

Faletski found his other co-Founder, who he met at school. Faletski believes school is a great place to meet future business partner. All Mobify’s co-Founders have similar background, so it was easy for them to divide up the work. However, they are weak in business. They needed to take additional business development courses and they had a mentor to help them in business. Eventually, they were able to take software from retail to enterprise consumers.

Faletski believes the key for success for is never stop learning. It is important for entrepreneurs to control how they learn. Entrepreneurs need to have enough passion on what their companies are going to be in the future.

“Jump in first, figure it out later”

“build parachute as you fall”

At the beginning, it was “sink or swim”. The pressure forced Faletski to take necessary actions to be successful. It helped them increase velocity. Now, Faletski concentrates on coaching program because he believes investing in people is the key to success. Helping team to level up is one of the top priorities.

Faletski mentions there are 3 core areas to be a strong leader.

  • Visionary
  • Relationship
  • Execution

Visionary focuses on making good decision. Relationship builds on good foundation, and execution helps entrepreneurs keep track. As company gets bigger, entrepreneurs need to learn how to leverage with other employees. Building an effective communication culture is essential. Design mobile friendly environment is important because it can help entrepreneurs understand their core value from people.

“Culture fit is the key. The right culture gets the right people involve”

Faletski believes many great startups start in Vancouver, but they eventually branch out. Vancouver is a friendly environment for startups, but there is still a gap of global experience. Vancouver has great opportunity, but it is still at mid stage. Top talents and investors are still in United States. Faletski emphasizes there is nothing wrong with Vancouver; however, Vancouver is categorized in a friendly, but not competitive environment.

Faletski had the opportunity to interact with Microsoft. He defines Microsoft as a more customer centric. It is a good future partner. Faletski advices young entrepreneurs to join an existing startup to gain experience. By spending time in big waves that have long term vision, they will build up the foundation of their network. Faletski is looking forward to virtual reality, Bitcoin, and finance sectors. As for artificial intelligence, Faletski believes there is a big trend on machine learning. Machine learning is the key engineering skill in the future. There are more mobile companies coming in future.

“What is next to mobile? More mobile”

Faletski uses twitter following, podcasts, and books to enhance his business development.

Questions and Answers

At early stage, investors were not paying attention to Mobify. They notice Mobify when opportunity grows. Faletski is fortuned to have many small companies come aboard with Mobify. Culture is not the perks for Mobify; in fact, it is how Mobify executes. Mobify focuses on performance culture because execution is the key to compete with others.

Faletski focuses on 3 principles in performance culture.

  1. Communication
  2. Accountability
  3. Leadership

Communication helps everyone to be on the same page. Accountability focuses on corporate goals and how to track these goals. Leadership helps new leaders know they matter to the company. Faletski believes investing in middle management is an important part of success.

In the hiring process, entrepreneurs need to ensure candidates have the culture fit. The next ten new hires are what determine the culture in company. Entrepreneurs should have conscious bias on hiring process. Company cannot be great without diversity. Faletski looks for curiosity and the characteristic of taking on execution.

Originally, Mobify shows only 1% traffic in retails. Now, Faletski notices people are now shopping everywhere. Entrepreneurs need to create shopping journey experience, yet people are looking for simplicity. Website is still strong in Canada and United States, but in Asia, WeChat is growing. Canada is still behind in payments, and consumer adoption in Europe is still ahead.

When it comes to investors. Faletski believes if the company is not successful, it does not matter how much ownership they own. They need to make sure investors fit and they should not just go for money. Faletski suggests entrepreneurs too look for vision fit, long-term fit, culture fit, an extension leadership. Advisory board is great as long as it has to address to the gap. Mentors are great if their messages align with company value. Moreover, entrepreneurs can form a peer group to evaluate each other.

Speaker Series – Shannon & Sarah of PlentyOfFish

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Date: March 31, 2016

Name: Speaker Series – Shannon & Sarah of PlentyOfFish

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Presenters: Shannon Smith, and Sarah Frew

Talent is considered to be one of the most valuable assets in any organization. Moreover, many entrepreneurs do not realize the key success behind any innovative company relates to retention strategy. Brainstation invites Shannon Smith, the Public Relations and Communication Manager of PlentyOfFish, and Sarah Frew, the Human Resources Coordinator of PlentyOfFish, to share the strategy behind the success of PlentyOfFish. In this presentation, entrepreneurs will learn how PlentyOfFish attracts and retains top tech talent. In addition, they will discover the strategy on how PlentyOfFish become a thought leader in the Vancouver tech sector.

Shannon Smith is the Public Relations and Communication Manager at PlentyOfFish. Within short 6 years, she managed to help turning idea into one of the top dating site in the industry. To engage with clients, Shannon Smith started her blog on process of online dating. Sarah Frew is the Human Resources Coordinator at PlentyOfFish. She has the passion to help organization to attract top talent. Moreover, she managed to turn her passion into career in PlentyOfFish.

Shannon Smith shares the history of PlentyOfFish. The idea of PlentyOfFish came from the Founder, Markus Frind. He started the website to help young singles to find happiness in life. In 2008, Frind hired his first employee after the members reach to 10 million users. In 2010, the site had modest employee base with a strong customer base. PlentyOfFish site was monetized through self-serve advertisement platform and Adwords. In 2011, PlentyOfFish released its first mobile app for iOS and Android smartphone.

Currently, PlentyOfFish has reached the team of 75 serving over 100 million users. PlentyOfFish is now available over many platforms, such as iPhone, iPad, and other Android platform devices. With over 4 million active daily users and 5 different languages, PlentyOfFish changes the way they monetize their product. PlentyOfFish was acquired by the Match Group in July 2015. The acquisition provides PlentyOfFish a new General Manager and valuable information sharing to serve users a better experience.

Sarah Frew mentions the culture of PlentyOfFish focuses on “Fun and casual”. The organization integrates the philosophy of “Work hard and play hard”. Frew believes the success of the culture environment comes from collaboration, which is the number one priority in PlentyOfFish culture.

Frew states 3 important keys in hiring process.

  1. People
  2. Scale
  3. Product

PlentyOfFish looks for staff members with multiple talent skills and strong passion with their work. Since the scale is over 100 million users, staff members must have the ability to turn these million users to million stories. Stories are considered as product in PlentOfFish. They expect to send stories out to the world to enhance the existing culture.

PlentyOfFish invests in many company retreats and team building activities. Smith emphasizes company retreat is an important annual tradition since beginning. It is an opportunity for staff members to strength team bonds outside of office. PlentyOfFish puts effort into team building activities, such as Escape Room, scavenger hunt and solve murder mysteries.

PlentyOfFish was relatively unknown in Vancouver tech sector. To become leaders in Vancouver, PlentyOfFish involves in charity. For example, PlentyOfFish hosts “Tech’s got talent” fundraising to attract 19 tech companies together and over 600 attendee. The event is able to raise over 50 thousand dollar donation. PlentyOfFish hosts a speaker panel called “Levelup Vancouver” featuring Bruce Croxon from Dragon’s Den. The event attracts over 400 attendees.

PlentyOfFish also hosts a game show. For example, PlentyOfFish hosts an event called “Tech Jeopardy”. It attracts over 200 attendees and collaborates over 9 different tech companies. Lastly, PlentyOfFish gives back to community. PlentyOfFish provides different industry meetups. PlentyOfFish gives staff members places for their host gathering events. PlenetyOfFish staff members volunteer in many community activities, such as Belkin House or servants of hope over the holidays.

“The innovation drives in dating”

To collaborate with other tech companies, Frew explains the company involvement with the “Hackathons” event. Team members will partner with a developer and build whatever they dream up. Successful ideas that have successful result are able to make it to production. For those who do not have programing experience, PlentyOfFish creates “unhackathons” event to solve people’s problem for business idea.

Frew shares the retention strategy behind PlentyOfFish. During the hiring process, each candidate will have 15 minutes interview. All candidates can meet with the Chief Operating Officer. The purpose behind this strategy is to allow all candidates to meet many of members as much as possible. Each candidate will be provided with challenges. Challenges would able to help organization to find the right fit. PlentyOfFish utilizes new hiring tool, such as video tools, to attract attention from people out in the world.

Smith shares PlentyOfFish retention strategy. Staff members are encouraged to take professional development courses. They are promoted a work life balance. Many retreats and team bonding activities are able to gather clients together. The Environment for PlentyOfFish has open door policy that allows all members to connect with upper management. Members are encouraged to utilize all resources, so they can be proactive in the market.

From basement to a billion

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Date: February 12, 2016

Name: From basement to a billion

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Presenter: Sean Clark

Inspiration is the driving factor for young entrepreneurs. Moreover, inspiration can also trigger young entrepreneurs’ motivation to go forward. Brainstation Vancouver invites Sean Clark, the co-Founder of Shoes.com, to share his experience of entrepreneur journey. Sean Clark will reveal his turning points in his startup. In this presentation, young entrepreneurs will learn the mindset behind this leader of e-commerce industry in this generation.

Sean Clark is the co-Founder and the Chief Revenue Officer of Shoes.com. In addition, he is also the co-Founder of Shoeme.ca. Sean Clark left the position at Coastal Contacts to pursue his dream in e-commerce industry. Sean Clark is the first successful entrepreneur who operates premium shoe retailer in Canada online. In addition, many young entrepreneurs consider Sean Clark to be the new role model in e-commerce in this generation.

Sean Clark’s dream started in his parents’ basement. He considers his root of success all begins in the basement. In fact, he believes he is only half way there.

In his 20s, comparing with other places, Vancouver was not an exciting city. Clark had the thought that Vancouver does not have the ecosystem that will afford to compete with other cities. Clark decided to travel everywhere and this had opened many new perspectives. Clark considered travel experience is the best way to build up his education. Until he met his soulmate, who lives in Richmond, he decided to set root in Vancouver. This choice changed everything for him.

While pursuing his Master, Clark had the eyes set on the e-commerce industry. Clark believed e-commerce is the frontier of innovation. He knew where he wanted to go. He sought the opportunity to meet with Roger Hardy, the current CEO of Clearly Contacts, to gain the opportunity to work in the Corporate Development team for his internship. After completing his master, Roger Hardy reconnected Clark and hired him to work in Costal Contact as the Regional Manager in Sydney. In this position, Clark learned the structure of e-commerce. He also got the opportunity to look at the whole e-commerce in a larger scale.

In 2011, Zappos announced the company will officially exit the Canadian market. Clark realized his opportunity has finally arrived. He resigned his position in Coastal Contact and moved back to Vancouver to pursue his dream.

Clark admits he did not know anything about shoes, but he knew there was a huge demand of shoes. Based on statistic, it was a 7 billion dollar market and only 2% were purchased online. Until Canada is caught up the market, Clark bet online shoe business will eventually drive up to 10%.

With the help of his friends, Clark managed to retrieve the list using API from other online sources. Clark was able to provide shoes options online for buyers and sell them in advance. The online traffic showed many places are sold, and the system was working. Clark would buy the retail products from other places, send and package in the basement, and mail it to buyers.

Clark mentions he tried to promote his company in many trade shows; however, no one signed up and also got kicked out of the show. Eventually, he figured out the reason.

“Brand A is needed for brand B and brand C”

Clark changed his strategy. He uploaded the brand B and brand C products on the webpage and showed to brand A. He convinced brand A that brand B and C are in the business, which forced brand A to be part of the system. He took down brand B and C products from the website and upload brand A products. He went over to the brand B and C and convinced them brand A is already in the system. He successfully got brand B and C to sign up with his company.

“Influencer is important”

Clark only picked certain brands because he had confidence that other brands will eventually join. Even though many major brands signed up the company, the company was facing the problem of insufficient cash flow. Instead of going with traditional purchase order routine, Clark convinced all suppliers to adapt distribution landscape strategy, which is pay after selling. Clark had the vision of all brands to go direct online, which would take down all the barriers of entry.

Sales were increasing, and company did not purchase anything. However, Clark was experiencing many personal challenges, such as health. Whenever there was obstacle, Clark would push through it. Life style had been changed dramatically for Clark.

Two years later, the company was running out of cash. Clark needed to fire a half of his staff members. He was done. Because of ego, he did not want to listen to anyone. He got kicked out and lost his family and friends. He called it his rock bottom moment. His brother took him in and He decided to change. He called his life coach and started to seek for support. He wanted his life back. After He surrendered, the company sales went up. When he sold his business, he started to try Icon Man competition.

Clark believes the challenges have been changed and the culture has differences. It does not matter how much he struggles because life is a path. People need to go through life the best they can.

“3 steps forward, 2 steps back. Success has no short cut”

Questions and Answers

To face Amazon, Clark believes the company needs to differentiate from United States. The company needs to give people the reason to come back. The company provides a story for people and Shoes.com is still remained one of the biggest buyers in Amazon.

The Iron Man training helps Clark to release pressure. It reminds him the important values he has. Clark indicates the company was facing the insufficient cash flow was caused by underestimating the rate of cash burn and overestimating the flow of income revenue.

Clark mentions he is lucky to meet Roger as his mentor. There is a pattern in e-commerce and Roger is the one who shows him the pattern. Young entrepreneurs cannot do everything on their own. Clark suggests young entrepreneurs to be in a mastermind group.

Whenever there was IT issue, Clark would call Shopify customer support. In this age, resources are everywhere. Clark believes sometimes young entrepreneurs need to have the confidence to convince them things people do not believe. This is a sales skill. Young entrepreneurs should promise the moon and sell the dream.

Shoes.com will open a retail store in Vancouver in the future. They are not opening the store to sell shoes; in fact, this is a marketing strategy for Shoes.com to share the brand story every month.

The logistic has changed from basement to warehouse. Clark emphasizes “Light assets” is the key. The company will leverage the dropship and sell products before they pay for it. Many competitors are throwing the company under the bus. The competitor advantage Shoes.com has is that they are outspending every competitor. Speed and capital are the key to success for Shoes.com.

Originally, Clark only has Shoeme.com as the domain. Shoes.com was owned by a big shoe company. Because of acquisition, the company acquired the domain.

MBA helps Clark to present in a group effectively and efficiently. The social capital is what MBA brings him in business. Clark reveals the company’s return of customer is 40%. Shoes.com uses Twitter and Facebook for social media. Both generate significant amount of organic traffic to help the company’s organic result.

“From basement to a billion, and we are only half way there”

5 tools every digital marketer needs and how to use them

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Date: September 2, 2015

Name: 5 tools every digital marketer needs and how to use them

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Presenter: John Morton

Digital marketing is a tool every entrepreneur needs to grow their businesses today. In additional, it is important for entrepreneurs to be aware how to use them effectively. BrainStation, an organization that offers digital education beyond traditional, invites John Morton, the Digital Strategist at Catalog Digital Agency, to share the 5 essential tools for all digital marketers to create impact in the current market. Entrepreneurs will understand different alternatives to create brand recognition for their businesses, and improve their social engagement with various of communities.

BrainStation has the vision to crate an ecosystem that fosters innovation. By working with leading technology experts, their members will receive practical knowledge from 3 different sectors: digital marketing, web development, and user experience design.

“Dream big and make your mark in the tech space”

John Morton is the digital strategist from Catalog Digital Agency. Morton is also the lead educator for Digital Marketing program in BrainStation. With the background of music industry, Morton pursues the opportunity to connect people and business online. Morton is the founder of FluidArt Management, and company that supports many bands and musicians with their marketing. Moreover, he has the passion to educate many entrepreneurs to make advantage of digital marketing.

Morton believes digital strategy is the practice of using digital tools to listen and respond to lead-nurturing cycles, connect brand experience and activate consumer relationship. Digital strategy can lead many entrepreneurs to accomplish their desire objectives and meaningful conversations.

Morton shares 5 different digital tools that will help entrepreneurs in their businesses.

Digital Tool #1: BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a tool that helps entrepreneurs to find the right influencers on the web. By determining the right influencers, entrepreneurs can develop robust content strategies. Many entrepreneurs use BuzzSumo for their research on their competitions, trends, and topics.

Morton emphasizes this digital tool is mainly used for aid topic searching. Entrepreneurs can benefit from this tool when they are building communities. BuzzSumo will identify the best platform for entrepreneurs and enhance their web presence.

Morton suggests entrepreneurs to find influencers and add them to their personal network. Entrepreneurs can listen and respond to these influencers to build long term relationship. With the right topics, entrepreneurs can compare contents to find the edge of their market.

Digital Tool #2: Canva

Canva is a tool that helps entrepreneurs to create and edit graphics. Canva is simple and easy to use and it has the basic photoshop functions that entrepreneurs need. Many entrepreneurs use Canva to create useful social media work and SEM display advertisement.

Morton believes many entrepreneurs do not have the time to learn photoshop primary skills. Instead, Canva is an easy and hands-on application that can design the right media for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs can develop new logos and images online.

Morton suggests entrepreneurs to make use of Canva and delete the photoshop software on their laptops to save hard drive space.

Digital Tool #3: Strikingly

Strikingly is a web development tool that helps entrepreneurs to build their personal landing page. Strikingly has user friendly functions that can drag and drop images to create landing page for business. Entrepreneurs can use this tool to build their portfolio for their clients.

Morton mentions Strikingly can also host domain for business websites. It is customizable and diverse. Strikingly takes care of most SEO basic and it has good user support. This also includes landing pages for SEM and mobile integration.

Morton suggests entrepreneurs to develop and insert Google structured data into custom code to boost the SEO for their business website.

Digital Tool #4: IFTTT

IFTTT stands for “If this then that”. This is a very powerful automation tool for entrepreneurs to connect with any social media network, plug-in, API and sites. IFTTT is a web and application base and it will automate digital marketing for entrepreneurs. Many entrepreneurs use this tool to pair actions to implementation.

Morton believes IFTTT can help entrepreneurs to take advantage of community receipts. It also can help their clients to automate their social postings. IFTTT can pair up with social network and platform to impact SEO.

Morton suggests entrepreneurs to use IFTTT to sync with their Google accounts or business pages. Entrepreneurs can utilize IFTTT to duplicate Facebook posts to show up on their Google accounts to increase SEO.

Digital Tool #5: SEMrush

SEMrush is a strong tool that provides competitive analysis of client’s competitors in SEO and SEM. SEMrush helps entrepreneurs to gain strategic insight, understand businesses, gain keyword insight, and many other predictions.

Morton wants entrepreneurs to use this tool for keyword research. SEMrush will help entrepreneurs to determine competitor spend and Google Adwords.

Morton suggests entrepreneurs to use SEMrush to match a significant dip in organic search traffic with a Google algorithm update.

There is another useful digital tool called SEO SiteCheckup that can help entrepreneurs’ business. SEO SiteCheckup can crawl any site and give an in-depth analysis of the search.

SEO SiteCheckup is used for delegate manual crawl and summarize into a report. The report will tell entrepreneurs how to fix their site. The report has enough information for any client preparation and up-sell.

Morton suggests entrepreneurs to make use of SEO SiteCheckup report to prospect businesses.

There are also many alternatives for these tools.

Alternatives
Buzzsumo Klout, PeerINdex
Canva Balsamiq
Strikingly Unbounce, Squarespace
IFTTT Zapier
SEMRush KISSmetrics, Mixpanel
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