MarTalks- The #1 Ecommerce and MarTech application podcast

The area of API-first ecommerce has seen relentless optimization of the customer experience. Decreasing page load speeds, personalized shopping, and the ability to adopt other new features more quickly can all contribute to happier shoppers, and more revenue for brands.

But what happens when the conversion of experience into dollars falls at the last hurdle? At checkout, an unintuitive or outdated experience could be the difference between closed sale, and a wasted customer journey. 

Jordan Gal has been on a mission to improve online checkouts. He’s now started two businesses to address the problem. His current venture, Rally Commerce, offers a streamlined payment process that allows retailers to quickly adopt payment methods without protracted integration processes. 

On the latest episode of Martalks, Jordan joined me to discuss: 

• the limitations of legacy ecommerce checkouts
• prioritizing customer choice as part of an effective product strategy
• the importance of following your nose as an entrepreneur, and trusting in the market as adjudicator of your success

You can also read a summary article of this podcast on the Rosenstein Group website: https://bit.ly/3uZDVKf.

Rosenstein Group: martech & ecommerce executive search

Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies.

Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO.

Visit RosensteinGroup.com to find out more.

Businesses’ inability to use their marketing data effectively is a widely-understood problem – but understood no better, perhaps, than by Brian Kotlyar.

A career marketer, Brian first rose to the rank of VP at Dachis Group in 2010. Since then, he’s made a career of driving growth for startups which solve customer data challenges – most recently at composable CDP vendor Hightouch.

Hightouch is one of a wave of data startups now helping brands extract the value from more complex martech stacks. With more systems and touchpoints, come more possibilities for data-led marketing – but with a greater challenge in turning those possibilities into profitable business initiatives.

In this podcast, Brian and I discuss:

• the data challenge facing modern marketers, where time and resources are wasted on technology briefs, often simply in order to assemble and maintain usable audiences for campaigning
• the role of the composable CDP in addressing this problem, specifically in enabling brands to optimise use of their existing data resources
• the value of human capital for startups, based on Brian’s extensive experience of recruiting teams as a leader in martech.

You can read a summary article on the Rosenstein Group website, here: https://bit.ly/3tUsmDz

Rosenstein Group: martech & ecommerce executive search

Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies.

Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO.

Visit RosensteinGroup.com to find out more.

Evan Liang is the founder and CEO of LeanData, an industry leader in account-to-lead data matching.

He describes the company as “revops’ best friend,” and explains how it allows sales and marketing teams to optimize sales processes by turning the data management ‘burden’ into a valuable asset.

You can also listen to the podcast, and read a summary article here: https://bit.ly/3Q8qdwB

Rosenstein Group: martech & ecommerce executive search

Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies.

Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO.

Visit RosensteinGroup.com to find out more.

Reading the mainstream business press, you might think that tech companies are going begging in their pursuit of investment capital. But when you work in martech, there’s another story.

There has undoubtedly been a slowdown in startup investments over the past 18 months.  

There is far less appetite for larger, cash-hungry businesses without the metrics to show near-term profitability. Instead, investors are looking to make smaller investments, far earlier in a business’s life cycle, in order to achieve strong ROI at lower risk.

In this special episode of Martalks we assemble insights for martech leaders who are planning their pathway through the present economy, with some practical suggestions for how to secure their businesses’ ongoing success.

We’ll look at:

• The types of companies most affected by the investment slowdown. While the investment ‘slowdown’ plays out amongst more mature scaleups in certain solution categories, early-stage firms, particularly those which propose to have a direct impact on companies’ profitability - are continuing to experience significant momentum.
• Then, we’ll look at some examples of businesses which have scaled successfully – including during previous downturns - and see what lessons can be applied to todays’ scaleups.  Those lessons include pivoting/positioning your product and business model, to leaning off partnerships in order to affordably grow your marketing footprint.
• Finally, I’ll share some thoughts on the role of effective leadership in winning investment – and new business - that I’ve picked up through over two decades of collaborating with, and investing in, early-stage martech firms. There are certain leadership profiles that are always better set up for long-term success, but the current market will more quickly shake out those leaders who are cut from a different cloth.

You can read a summary article of the podcast on The Rosenstein Group website: https://bit.ly/3P7dRDe.

Rosenstein Group: martech & ecommerce executive search

Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies.

Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO.

Visit RosensteinGroup.com to find out more.

In the exciting world of startups and scaleups, it’s important to remember that some of the biggest implementers of MACH solutions are actually long-established, enterprise system integrators. 

With expertise and client relationships pre-dating composable commerce, these companies are well placed to understand the client’s history with technology, business practices and digital maturity. This allows those organisations to recommend technologies and resulting implementations suited to their client's ambitions and scale as well as offering highly sophisticated digital strategy, change management and customer experience development, competitive intelligence, and brand positioning.

Chris Harrison leads Capgemini's ecommerce practice. One of the most respected thought leaders and ecommerce experts in the industry, after decades of experience as a technology leader and consultant, at Accenture, Aquity, DTE and Ford, Chris is ideally placed to lead the Capgemini's new MACH business practices, critique and refine technology implementation processes and develop industry leading best-practices.

You can read a summary of this podcast on the Rosenstein Group website: https://bit.ly/3KStVrf

Rosenstein Group: martech & ecommerce executive search

Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies.

Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO.

Visit RosensteinGroup.com to find out more.

A composable inventory optimization tool, Invent Analytics is designed to eliminate the guesswork and introduce greater profitability to brands’ demand chains.

Founder Gurhan Kok joined us on The Martalks Podcast to discuss how his technology works, and to describe his successes with likes of Camper, and Academy Sports + Outdoors.

You can also listen to the podcast, and read a summary article here: https://bit.ly/3OutDc7.

Rosenstein Group: martech & ecommerce executive search

Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies.

Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO.

Visit RosensteinGroup.com to find out more.

Often, tech startups are founded by individuals with a background in software engineering. That’s great for creating a standout product, but soon enough, specialist expertise is required to flesh out other leadership functions.

Nowhere is this more important than HR, people and talent acquisition. The martech industry’s relatively high churn rates, international client bases, and occasional rapid growth stories, are all factors requiring an expert hand to steer the company’s team and culture towards ongoing success.

One such leader is Alex Pusenjak, VP for People & Culture at Fluent Commerce, an API-first order management system based in Sydney, Australia. During Alex’s time at the company, the team has increased from 70 to 170 people, with hires made across the US, Europe, Asia, and his home country.

Alex joined us on the Martalks podcast to share his experience as people leader of a rapidly scaling supply chain technology company. He explained the difficulties startups have in hiring across international borders, how to improve the effectiveness of hiring managers, and how the c-suite can facilitate their HR teams in attracting and retaining candidates.

You can listen to the podcast in full below, or read some key takeaways from the dicsussion here: https://bit.ly/3NNcZ6j.

Rosenstein Group: martech & ecommerce executive search

Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies.

Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO.

Visit RosensteinGroup.com to find out more.

Most brand-side professionals know what they want to achieve from digital transformation – but are not necessarily clear on which technologies will get them there, or the implications of individual choices they make along the way.

This has created a valuable role for consultants in guiding brands through this change: aligning the strategic needs of the businesses with specific choices and solutions that they’ll need to achieve desired outcomes.

One of the leaders in this space is Rick Watson, the CEO and founder of RMW Commerce Consulting, bringing 20-plus years of experience to the table as a consultant, and also as a solution founder. 

In this episode of Martalks, we discussed topics such as helping businesses understand the technical implications of adoption, and the importance for vendors of building trust with your network through your marketing efforts.

You can read a summary article of this podcast on our website: https://bit.ly/3OLVYeL

Rosenstein Group: martech & ecommerce executive search

Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies.

Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO.

Visit RosensteinGroup.com to find out more.

As API-first commerce solutions continue to proliferate, vendors will increasingly need to look for product strategies that differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Gordon Cooke, the co-founder and CTO of the platform UpStart Commerce joined us on the latest episode of Martalks to explain how his product’s management tool is helping retailers manage the complexity of MACH, and how they work closely with agency partners to simplify adoption for their clients. 

You can read a summary article of this conversation on our website: https://bit.ly/40FY2Hv.

Rosenstein Group: martech & ecommerce executive search

Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies.

Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO.

Visit RosensteinGroup.com to find out more.

As chief digital officers look to invest in their customer journey, there is significant debate over the optimal technical architecture for content management and delivery.

Deane Barker, Global Head of Content Management at data experience platform (DXP) Optimizely, joined us on the latest episode of Martalks, to share his view on the importance of selecting the right content management infrastructure for a given business model.

You can read listen to a summary article on our website: http://bit.ly/3nOOVGD

Rosenstein Group: martech & ecommerce executive search

Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies.

Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO.

Visit RosensteinGroup.com to find out more.