I’m re-working the vision for Flaunt based on the unique angle we’ve found in the Shopify market. Here’s a peak:
Some context first — Flaunt got started because Chris and I were like “brands are doing crazy stuff all over the internet (Roblox, NFTs, etc), how are they measuring and driving ROI on this stuff?”
We saw Chipotle launch a loyalty campaign on Roblox and we said “ooooh. Rewards and promotions might be a big piece of this digital-first landscape.”
So we kept pulling on that thread.
Turns out, there was a tide across all businesses towards focusing on existing customers and owned channels.
We let that thread pull us here and there and everywhere, got our hands dirty doing work for lots of different clients, and then ultimately, found a place where pain was red hot, the market was large, and we were driving lots of impact. Shopify.
The problem we have stumbled upon — e-commerce retention teams have too many cookie cutter user experiences, too many siloed tools and datasets, and not enough deep insight and resources to pump out great work that grow repeat customer sales and develop strong customer relationships.
Cool! A nice home for a business.
But! This space is VERY crowded.
So we sort of waded around in this ecosystem prioritizing doing great work for our limited number of initial Shopify clients. And had a healthy level of skepticism.
“What were we doing that was unique?” We were beating much larger, very entrenched competitors with Figma screens.
We started off powering a loyalty program, but evolved to provide a radically different experience for retention teams that was beyond loyalty programs.
We have developed three core SaaS tools:
* loyalty/referrals
* retention analytics
* promotions
And three fractional employees:
* strategist
* analyst
* coordinator
Our SaaS tools do NOT compete with these other tools, but our fractional employees measure and operate some of them on behalf of clients:
* email
* sms
* subscriptions
* customer service
* e-commerce
* reviews
* on-site recommendations
* product quizzes/surveys
What I think our opportunity is looks like:
* Create an intelligent retention platform that supports the strategic, multi-channel, cross-functional, and analytical realities of e-commerce retention teams without playing the same game as others, becoming watered-down “one-stop-shops”.
* Prioritize embedding these fractional employees into retention manager’s workflows.
* Be GREAT at the SaaS jobs we are already in market with (given the market was weak enough in those areas to welcome us in).
* But DON’T be everything to everyone (sms+email+subs+reviews…etc)
* Play the ORCHESTRATOR game.
Give each retention marketer (and agency/consultant) a strategist, analyst and coordinator at their disposal.
Give them 10x the insights, 10x the output, and 10x the impact on their organization.
Big vision. Tiny current team. And only one thing I know for certain about the future:
“You’re wrong, act accordingly.”