The best companies have very bright futures says tech investor Geoff Lewis. He says that the way he always thinks about private company valuations is as a discount on the future versus a premium on the past. Lewis says that the future is bright for Lyft because only half a percent of the rides in the US today are shared rides so there is a lot of room to grow.
Geoff Lewis, the founder of Bedrock Capital and an early tech investor in many companies including Lyft, recently discussed the future of Lyft, social media, Bitcoin, and more on CNBC:
The Best Companies Have Very Bright Futures
The way that I always think about these private company valuations is as a discount on the future versus a premium on the past. I learned this from Peter Thiel who I worked with for many years. The best companies have very bright futures.
If you think about Lyft, for example, only half a percent of the rides in the US today are shared rides. The entire remainder of rides in the US are normal rides. So there’s a lot of room for a company like Lyft in the US alone to grow if they can even capture two percent of rides in the US.
There Are Some Dogs that are Going to Go Out This Year
I think there’s a pretty bright future for the good tech companies. Quite honestly, there are some dogs that are going to go out this year and they’re not going to do well. But ultimately, the great thing about technology is the macro tends to matter less in the long term for the really enduring tech companies.
You want to find these businesses that have these really durable revenue models that are going to be able to grow for many years going forward. It’s a hard hard thing to figure out.
The Trend for 2019 is the End of Trends
I’m personally very interested in new approaches to financing education and new approaches actually getting an education. I really do think the university and the college system is very broke and there are new financial instruments out there that can really help folks through education. We have some exciting stuff that we’ve been working that we will be talking about in 2019.
Beyond that, I’d say the trend for 2019 is the end of trends. We’ve gone through so many hype cycles in technology and I really think we’re in an environment where we just have to find one-of-a-kind things that don’t fit into any easy to categorize categories. I think that makes the job of being an investor a lot harder.
Instagram is set to start developing analytics tools that will inform companies what products are being bookmarked by users. The information can help brands in their ad targeting campaigns.
Instagram formed a team in 2017 to transform the app into a conduit for online shopping. With that goal in mind, the team launched a new tool last month that allowed users to bookmark products that captured their interest. Now, Instagram is working on creating a tool that will tell brands which of their products are being saved.
The company is reportedly planning to release this feature in early 2019.
Layla Amjadi, Instagram’s product manager, explained to CNBC how challenging it is to maintain all the products that have interested users on different sites. She added that this is a problem they are excited about solving.
Instagram’s bookmarking feature could be used for advertising purposes in the future, with users seeing more ads about items they have specifically saved. But Facebook, Instagram’s mother company, does not have the necessary tools for this yet. It’s also not offering any similar feature at the moment. However, companies should consider the analytics tools Instagram is creating as the first step to this.
The platform looks at bookmarking as a “reconsideration problem” where consumers like an item but are not yet making a purchase due to several factors. For instance, they may not have the money for it yet or they’re waiting for a particular style or color. Amjadi believes that with their bookmarking tool, the company can help users reconsider their choices at the right time.
At the moment, Instagram seems to be more focused on ensuring that they’re “nailing the consumer experience” of the app’s shopping element. Amjadi revealed that the company wants its users to feel like they’re window shopping. It’s an experience that she believes people crave, which is why they’re trying to build a “personalized mall within Instagram.” It’s also a good way for consumers and brands to establish a fruitful relationship.
“For us, our partnership with Amazon was all about new customer acquisition,” says Lands’ End CEO Jerome Griffith. “If you look at searches online, more people go to Amazon to search for clothing than anyplace. If you are not there you are not relevant.”
Jerome Griffith, CEO of Lands’ End, discussed the recent turnaround of Lands’ End and the reasons for it on Fox Business:
We Are Doing Well Because We Went Back to Basics
We’ve had six quarters of sales increases and five straight quarters of EBITDA increases. The company is on a good track right now. We are doing well because we went back to basics at Lands’ End and made Lands’ End what Lands’ End was meant to be.
We Veered Away From Who the Customer Was
The company has a very loyal consumer base. In fact, the conversion rates online are some of the best in the industry. That means the customers like what we give them. What happened over the years is we sort of veered away from who the customer was. We seemed to be saying we want a different customer. Now we don’t. We know who our customer is and we want them.
If You Are Not on Amazon You Are Not Relevant
For us, our partnership with Amazon was all about new customer acquisition. If you look at searches online, more people go to Amazon to search for clothing than anyplace. If you are not there you are not relevant.
If Tariffs Come We Will Weather the Storm
Right now we are extremely well diversified, we don’t have one country that we are over-penetrated. So even if tariffs come into effect I think we will probably weather the storm. This company is really focusing on our business fundamentals, top line growth, bottom line growth. Outside of that I can’t affect what the market does on a day in and day out basis. I tell the guys here worry about what you can affect, not what you can’t.
Walmart is looking at delivering groceries right into your fridge says Walmart Ecommerce President and CEO Mark Lore. And the step after that Lore says is delivery without even ordering, presumably using IoT technology to keep track of your refrigerator inventory.
Mark Lore, President & CEO of Walmart U.S. E-Commerce and Founder and CEO of Jet.com discussed the future of ecommerce on CNBC’s Mad Money:
Our Stores are Hybrid Warehouses
This is very exciting and this is one of the reasons why I was so excited to come to Walmart. There are 4,700 stores within 10 miles of 90 percent of the population, fresh and frozen and every one of these stores just about, and we’re doing pickup free pickup on groceries in 2,100 stores and started rolling out same-day delivery as well. We should have 40 percent of the population covered by the end of this year and 60 percent of the population covered by the end of next year.
Our stores are hybrid warehouses. But what’s really interesting is that we’re moving stuff in full truckload quantities. If you think about it, these stores that are doubling as warehouses are already profitable before the first pick. So we have a lot of like good turning inventory and the food is fresh.
Stores Are a Huge Advantage with Same-Day Delivery
We’re charging for delivery and customers are paying for it so that’s sort of a wash. We’re picking product in the stores that already have a really good sort of marginal profit because the stores are already profitable and our fixed overhead is covered.
I think this is a big advantage (over Amazon) and one of the reasons why I’m so excited to be at Walmart. Stores give Walmart a huge advantage in this sort of like Omni approach to retail.
Walmart Planning Delivery Right Into Your Fridge
Think about the next level from that, delivery right into the fridge. Basically a one-time code, they come in with the camera on their chest, you can watch it on your iPhone and see them come in and put it in your fridge and leave. This will build confidence and trust in these Walmart associates doing the delivery. Imagine going to work and coming home and there’s the stuff in your fridge already. That’s the next step.
Take it a step further, not even having to order it. How about just being able to keep you in stock on everything you need and just not even having to think about it.
Prolific entrepreneur Jon Taffer who is the producer and host of the popular TV show Bar Rescue says that the most common denominator of failure is excuses.
“The common denominator of failure is excuses,” says Jon Taffer on an episode of Business Rockstars. “Years ago when I had all my restaurants, we had a line on my daily revenue report for comments. They would write, snowing no business. Then the next day they would write, cold no business. Then the next day they would write, first nice day no business.”
“I learned that if you give somebody a line for an excuse they will use it every time,” explained Taffer. “So I took the line off the piece of paper because there are no excuses in business. Fact of the matter is when we fail it’s because of us and the choices we make, the decisions we make, the people we hire, and the things we do and don’t do. Passing blame to me is the most influential element of causing failure.”
Wouldn’t it be great if your business could be in real-time contact with your potential customer while they are looking at your ad or business listing in a directory or search engine? With Yellzz Super Ads, businesses can do just that. Yellzz has partnered with various marketplaces, directories, and is currently in a small pilot with Microsoft Bing to enable their lead generation service for businesses.
Sharon Mayblum, Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer at Yellzz, recently discussed on ILTV Israil Dailyhow Yellzz is taking the lead in lead generation by creating real life, real-time interactions with customers:
Imagine, for instance, you’re selling a car or you have a mobile repair shop and you’re advertised on a classified website. Do you just place the ad and wait for someone to call? It really doesn’t work that way because there’s a lot of competition. You need more engagement. What we do is give the advertisers superpowers. Now they actually can know when there’s a potential customer online looking for their product or service. Not only do they know that they can engage with that customer and ask him to chat with them or send a coupon in real time.
How Does Yellzz Work?
It really depends on the marketplace we’re working with. When we partner with a marketplace they decide on the business rules that really work on that website. What happens is if a customer is looking for a specific car for, instance, then we know to alert the right seller and let the seller start engaging with the potential customer.
It’s the real advertiser, the real service provider or seller who is interacting with you. Now you as a customer, when you go into a website, you don’t have to download anything to start engaging. You get a chat invite and you can start engaging with that potential seller without giving any details and without logging in. You don’t have to give your Facebook account or email or anything. You just start engaging with different sellers, getting different proposals and closing the deal with whoever you want to close it.
Yellzz in a Pilot with Microsoft Bing Search Engine
We are working with classified websites such as Web.com which is a huge American company. They have 3.5 million websites of SMBs in the United States and we’re in the websites and the directories in the UK. We’re also in Asia in Singapore and in Southeast Asia. We’re starting to work here in Israel with a major player that I can’t really reveal the name yet.
We’re also actually in a very tiny pilot now with Microsoft on the Bing search engine. Hopefully, you’ll see our capabilities on the Bing search engine pretty soon.
About Yellzz
Once driving a steady flow of customers was good for your business, but today it’s no longer good enough. Faced with cutthroat competition online and consumers who are constantly on the move, small business owners can no longer afford to just wait for the phone to ring. Make way for Yellzz and the age of the Super Ad. Super proactive, super interactive, with powers of conversions that are out of this world.
Yellzz Super Ads has the power to see the invisible traffic and transform it into sales by giving small business owners the proactive sales enhancing tools they need. This includes letting them know when someone is taking an interest in their product or service, enabling them to initiate real-time peer-to-peer engagement, and allowing coupons to be made and sent in an instant to entice the prospect to choose their service.
Motorola Solutions CEO Greg Brown explains how China went from a great business opportunity in the mid-1980s to an intellectual property stealing concern following their acceptance into the WTO in 2001.
Brown says that when China implemented the indigenous cellular standard PDT, that in essence if Motorola wanted to play there and continue to provide systems, they would have to offer up the IPR associated with that. Following that China became less and less attractive.
Greg Brown,Motorola Solutions CEO, provided a great picture of how China has stolen intellectual property from Motorola and many other US companies who do business there in an interview on CNBC:
For Years, China was Great
Historically, you can even go back to 1972 when President Nixon first arrived in China, he spoke on a Motorola provided satellite phone following the Kissinger talks. You fast forward, and in 1986 Bob Galvin led a delegation there, and in ‘87 Motorola invested and had a manufacturing and R&D footprint. For years, China was great, and the Motorola story was great, and revenue boomed, investment boomed, and collaboration boomed. Then China joins the WTO and things pivot a little bit.
To Do Business in China Motorola Had to Give Up IP
The Chinese market matures and China moves toward indigenous standards. At the time there were cellular standards called CDMA, TDMA, that ultimately went to GSM. China had their own and they called it TDS CMEA. We in the US had WiFi. They had their own and it was called WAPI. In policing, China implemented an indigenous standard called PDT, police digital trunking, that in essence said Motorola if you want to play here and continue to provide systems, you have to offer up the IPR associated with that. China became less and less attractive.
We had a lot of firsts historically. We had the first mobile phone with Chinese characters, and the first mobile phone with global positioning – GPS. At the time Motorola built the largest contiguous network in China. All that is great.
Chinese Firms Huawei and Hytera Stole IP
Historically, we had litigation with Huawei around trade secret violations. We sued them in 2010 and was settled in 2011. But as we sit here today we have a lawsuit ongoing right now with a Chinese company called Hytera. They’ve done three things; patent infringement, trade secret misappropriation, and copyright infringement. Pretty egregious, vast multi-year campaign. We’ve sued them in the Northern District Court of Illinois, Germany, where we won both cases by the way, Australia pending, and most importantly in the ITC where we just won a final determination that in fact Hytera took IPR and infringed our patents. So we are awaiting the implementation of an import ban in January.
Need Level Playing Field in China Where IP is Not Stolen
Recently, Australia has said they are concerned about Hytera 5G Gear. New Zealand has made that determination. In Britain, the U.K., just announced a few days ago, that they want to pull out Huawei 4G out of their core. I get the high stakes and I get the two juggernauts (US vs China) competing. We are all for competition, robust, let the customer win, and everybody brings their best game to the party. But when it is not a level playing field and IPR is stolen, we just are saying compete on a fair and firm basis.
Business in China a Fraction of What it Used to Be
We’re still in China, but we don’t do manufacturing in China and we don’t do R&D. We have sales and sales support staff. It is an okay market for some of what we call our PCR equipment. We have collaboration with some local Chinese partners. But to dimensionalize it, like 15 years ago we were over $3 billion in revenue and 15,000 people, today we are about $170 million in revenue and 170 people. What we are is the Western leader and alternative in mission critical communications, command center software, video surveillance and analytics.
Based on a successful delivery trial in China via Alibaba and Uber Eats in Miami, Starbucks has announced that they are adding delivery nationwide. Starbucks COO Rosalind Brewer says they are still looking at the total cost of delivery very “carefully” but they are emboldened by the higher average sale with delivery orders.
Starbucks Delivery via Uber Eats Expanding Nationwide
We’ve had a great trial in Miami and we chose Miami because we know what the temperatures are in Miami. We’ve seen great drink consistency. We’ve seen really good leverage on the ticket, so we’re seeing both food and beverages being ordered. We’re seeing a much larger ticket when we see a delivery from Starbucks.
We’re really pleased that we’re doing this partnership with Uber. We’re learning a lot about technology integration and that’s the real result here, just really making sure that the technology comes together and then we deliver the best product for the customer.
The question around is this a profitable opportunity for us is one of the things that we’re evaluating because it does cost more to deliver coffee. But we are seeing an expanded ticket and that average ticket is really what we need to see happen as we approach delivery. We’re encouraged right now but we’re actually monitoring that very carefully.
Learned From the Alibaba Partnership in China
We’re using a lot of the learnings from China in terms of things like packaging. Not only is it an automobile delivery, we’re seeing that it’s bicycle delivery as well. So we’re understanding that very well. We’re also understanding what is the offering? Should it be the full menu and what dreams do best when they have to be delivered?
State of the Starbucks Economy
What we’re seeing right now is that something like a Starbucks cup of coffee which some assume is an affordable luxury, we’re really comfortable right now. I will tell you one thing about our holiday season that we’re in right now. We learned a lot from what we did last year and we’re really encouraged by the reusable red cup that we entered this year.
We’re doing marketing campaigns and every time we see the Starbucks name mentioned in media we get a pop in our performance. So we’re really pleased with what we’re seeing and we’re a little bit less concerned with the turndown that everyone’s talking about.
When you look at what Starbucks is doing particularly in China and in the US is that we’re still opening new stores. In China, there is still a lot of addressable market for us to participate in. You’ll see us be pretty bullish on the work that we’re doing with new stores and we’re adding delivery which is all incremental business. At this time there’s opportunity for us to continue to grow but we’re watching carefully some other things that are happening globally.
Beverage Innovation is Our Biggest Driver of Growth
The biggest driver of growth for us going forward will be our beverage innovation. You saw us earlier this year introduce a new espresso. You’ll see us bring more of our learnings from our roasteries in terms of what can happen with our beverage innovation. You’ll see us talk more about our Cold Platform, things like our Nitro Cold Brew, and then some of our other beverages that are really doing well for us right now.
It’s no secret that personalized marketing can solidify brand loyalty, improve customer experience, and boost profit margins. In fact, one recent study showed that persuasive personalization can have a positive impact on revenue by as much as 15 percent.
However, personalization is a challenge in itself. Traditional marketing would make use of what the shopper bought and their body language, but that’s not so straightforward with eCommerce as the decision-making process is different when consumers buy online.
What is Digital Body Language?
It’s a fact that most people use their feelings more than logic when they make purchasing decisions. This means that marketers can’t just rely on what customers bought in the past since there’s often no logical or repeatable pattern to reference. Instead, they’ll need to have a better understanding of the customer’s state of mind.
A more effective strategy is to look into the shopper’s digital body language. This refers to the amalgamation of signals and digital gestures made by consumers, like taps, scrolls, zooms, and the movement of the mouse. In short, it’s how people behave on social media, websites, emails, etc. For instance, how many times they post on a social media platform, what platform they usually use, how many times they visit a site and what they click on when they’re at a specific website.
Digital body language is a good way of discerning patterns and can help in understanding a shopper’s mindset and behavior. Marketers can measure this data objectively and learn where the client is in their shopping journey, what products they’re interested in and even when they should be sent a sales offer.
How to Boost Sales With Digital Body Language
Internet users always leave a trail of their actions online. As a marketer, you can use that trail to your advantage. Digital body language can give you a broad overview of your demographic. For instance, you can track the popularity of each page on your website to find out what content your customer’s like. Meanwhile, your customer’s location will give you an idea where to concentrate your efforts. The more data you accumulate, the more you can improve your sales.
Determine if the Shopper is a Good Lead
If a consumer has visited your site, cookies or a tracking software will tell you how many times they visited, the dates and time, and even what pages they went to. If the shopper visited your site several times a month, then you know they’re interested in your brand and are potentially a good lead.
Improve Your Website Design
A consumer’s digital language can also give you ideas on how to improve your website. If the visitor is taking their time browsing your product page, it could mean that they’re interested in what they’re seeing. A slow scroll down the page can also mean the visitor is invested in what they’re reading.
However, a visitor clicking on your page several times in rapid succession could mean they’re confused or frustrated. Perhaps they’re expecting something more interactive or they’re looking for something specific and can’t find it. The same goes for rapid scrolling. The customer might be navigating from page to page because they’re confused with the layout. This type of behavior can tell you what pages you can improve.
Provide Real-Time Response
Once you have a good grasp of your customer’s digital body language, you can work on providing them with a more humanized and positive customer experience in real time. Banners, pop-ups, recommended content, and customized call-to-action buttons are good examples of real-time responses.
Live chat is also an effective response to a shopper’s digital body language. For instance, if the prospective client is hovering their mouse over a button, it could mean that they’re hesitant or confused. It’s the perfect time for a chatbot to appear and offer help or even recommend a product or deal.
Digitalization is the Future
You can’t stop digitalization, especially now that they are means to understand shopper’s online behavior and emotions. While the majority of your site’s visitors are likely to be anonymous, you can tailor your site to read their digital body language. This will help you collect vital information about them, like what time is the best to send an email or whether they will be interested in a webinar or white paper. It will also help you build a good relationship with current and prospective clients.
About a year and a half ago Chick-fil-A decided to go back to their roots of being a people first business in their use of email marketing. They scrapped multiple email databases and multiple email templates and most importantly focused on answering real customer needs through personalization generated from many customer touch points.
This has led to a five times increase in membership to Chick-fil-A One and a 20 percent increase in conversions. “Email is certainly not the only driver of that but we have seen email being the biggest driver of keeping somebody engaged or re-engaging them,” says Emily Randall who runs interactive digital media at Chick-fil-A.
Emily Randall, Interactive Digital Media, Chick-fil-A, recently gave a talk at MediaPost’s Email Insider Summit on how they successfully transformed their use of email marketing to not only match their founders people first philosophy, but to also more effectively engage with their customers:
We’re Not in the Chicken Business, We’re in the People Business
The founder of Chick-fil-A, Truett Cathy, often said we’re not in the chicken business, we’re in the people business. So we think a lot about hospitality. We think about going the second mile for our customers and hopefully, you’ve experienced that if you’ve been to a Chick-fil-A.
Today we have about 2,300 locations across the country so it gets a little bit harder to know all of our customers by name like Truett did when he opened the first restaurant but what we have rallied around stems from what Truitt said.
Changed From Batch and Blast Emails to Personalization
When you know someone’s story you can care for them personally. The team really thinks about what are all of our marketing touch points and how are we caring for people personally through the each of those touch points? We think about each of those touch points and ask is is this a deposit on the customer relationship or is this a withdrawal?
We took a look at our email program about a year and a half ago and we said, hey, this is actually a little bit more of a withdrawal. We’re doing this batch and blast approach with our email program, it was pretty messy, and so we decided that we needed to fix it in order to start adding value to that relationship with our customers. This is really about becoming modern marketers.
We decided to partner with MessageGears which has allowed us to personalize some of our emails. So today, it’s about a year and a half later and we looked at how do we actually do this and what does this look like? One, we have about three times the email database that we had about a year and a half ago so we have definitely seen growth. A big part of that is because of Chick-fil-A One our membership program.
Balancing Scale and Personalization
Then we think a lot about balancing scale and personalization. One of our differentiators is the local ownership and so we want to be able to take stories that are happening personally and then highlight those in email at scale. We also want to be able to take stories that are at scale, like our national campaigns, and then personalize those. That’s a tough balance that we’re still trying to figure out.
We also are balancing local email where we let our operators email directly, they email their customers. These are people who transact with their restaurants, so they don’t have access to everybody in our membership program, but anybody who transacts with their restaurant they can email.
We on the brand side give them templates and we give them the tools to be able to send out those emails. We share best practices and then each template is just one single message. They can load in their picture, you can actually see their face, they can add their signature, and they can tweak the copy. Sometimes it’s about a limited time offer like our peppermint chocolate chip milkshake or it could be information about closing for a renovation. They can also send really personal emails to even just one person if they want to.
Pulling From Multiple Data Source to Personalize Emails
We also balance that from an air cover standpoint from the brand with two emails a month. We have all kinds of different messages flowing into into this one. What’s nice is that we can see the people that they have emailed. Where our biggest opportunity on the brand side is thinking about the entire audience that doesn’t fall into one of their local CRM systems. What does win-back look like? What does re-engagement look like? That’s where we can uniquely help on the brand side that the operators don’t have access to.
With our email wireframe we’re pulling in multiple different data sources including customer profile data, transaction data, and then location. We have a lot of other sources as well so we’ll tweak the message or the creative based on where somebody is in their journey with Chick-fil-A. For example, for a particular spot in our email we had different options that we could plug in based on if somebody had never mobile ordered, if they’ve scanned and not mobile ordered, or if they mobile order all the time. We would tweak that depending on where they were while taking a mobile order action.
Email is Our Biggest Driver of Keeping Somebody Engaged
We start out with at least 32 base segments per email. We also have at least 500 different versions. We have seen about a five times increase in overall memberships since we started this personalization. Email is certainly not the only driver of that but we have seen email being the biggest driver of keeping somebody engaged or re-engaging them. We’ve also seen about over 20 percent increase from a conversion standpoint for people who receive the email versus a control group.
From an attribution standpoint, we are able to measure that. It’s incredible how you can tie action in email to actual sales. I come from a background of social media marketing and we can’t tell those types of stories in social. It’s really incredible that we are able to start to share these stories of success and actually measure attribution in this email marketing channel.
Focus on What’s Important to the Customer
What’s next for us is going back to the basics and just seeing people as people. You can’t think of them as an email address which is way easier said than done. We want to continue thinking about what’s important to our customers and continue with research to understand what is it that they really want from us?
This means not jumping on technology just to jump on new technology. It’s really easy to get caught up in the new bright shiny thing and for us, it feels like we’re still learning. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for us out there but I think going back to the basics of just who are these people and how do we organize our program in the right way has been a huge step in the right direction for us.
Mavatar CEO Susan Akbarpour says that their blockchain powered mCart system is helping retailers track influencer driven sales… forever. That’s right, using their decentralized marketplace/influencer marketing attribution platform mCart retailers can now determine exactly where sales are coming from forever. This enables manufacturers and retailers to engage and incentivize influencers to create even more organic content marketing on social media, apps, websites, and in video media.
Susan Akbarpour, Mavatar CEO talks about how her company’s blockchain powered mCart platform is helping retailers track influencer driven sales forever in an interview on Fox Business:
Walmart is Using Blockchain to Automate Inventory Management
Walmart is using blockchain in different capacities, for inventory management systems and tracking many things. There are many parties involved when we are talking inventory management from point A to B to C to D. If you are using Excel sheets or a traditional inventory management system it’s not efficient and it’s not cheap. Every one of these movements needs to be tracked and need to be recorded.
Blockchain is helping to make everything automatic and very efficient and fast without back-office services that cost retailers. There are barcodes and many parties involved so you really need to track all of these systems together and blockchain makes it fast and very cheap.
We’re helping Walmart to partner with traditional media companies and actually power their product sales with the power of content. This is helping two traditional industries that are affected today. They are bringing content and Walmart and other brick and mortars are bringing products and we are creating Amazon-like marketplaces fueled by the content of the media. So we are licensing our software to media companies to lend their content to promote the product sales. We’re tracking through blockchain everyone who is influencing those product sales.
I will give you a very nice example. Remember the JLo dress in Grammy’s 2000. It broke the internet. Eric Schmidt, the then CEO of Google, said that search inquiry is what made us think of doing image search. But no one, including JLo, CBS, Grammy’s, and the designer Versace, didn’t gain a penny out of that influence.
Even today, if you search that keyword in Google, you see that Google still shows an advertisement for the counterfeit and similar dresses online. Blockchain through our mCart technology is tracking that influence to every single influencer and distribute the value that they create and the commission that they could get from Versace between all of them forever.
And guess what, Fox and CBS and Disney and all of these guys are promoting millions of products every year. You guys don’t have to use push advertisement as a revenue model
Consumers have now shifted up to 11 percent of their shopping online and this means that the US needs to get rid of 11 percent of their physical stores, according to former Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren. He says that overall the consumer is healthy and spending but that doesn’t mean that physical stores shouldn’t close to match supply and demand.
Terry Lundgren, former Macy’s CEO, discussed the health of the economy and the need to close more physical stores on CNBC:
The Consumer is Healthy and Spending
If you just look at all of the numbers week after week you’d have to say that the consumer is in very good shape, as good a shape as I’ve seen this consumer. Obviously, GDP is driven by consumption and the numbers are good. You’ve watched retailer after retailer putting up really good numbers, top, and bottom line. They’re even raising earnings and guidance in some cases, and getting no credit for that by the way in most cases for their stock price. I think that has nothing to do with how the consumer is responding.
I think the consumer is healthy. I think the consumer is spending. I think the stores are busy. More consumers are shopping both online and in-store and I think that’s really good for business because they spend more when they’re in a physical store than they do when they do it when they’re online. We’re set up for a very decent finish to the year.
This Country is Way Over-Stored
There has been an oversupply of physical retail stores in this country, and it’s this country by the way. This country is way over-stored. We’re at 23.2 square feet per human being in the United States versus 16 in Canada and 4.8 in the UK and then they get smaller from there. We’re just way over-stored, so there has to be a contraction. I can tell you in the case of Macy’s two years ago they’ve done this and closed 20 percent of their stores.
That’s what has to happen because of this shift to online that has occurred, which has been the reality. It’s still only about 10 or 11 percent of all retail sales by the way, but it is growing. You have to get rid of 10 or 11 percent of the physical stores just because of that and that hasn’t happened. So the answer is no we’re not there yet but when that does happen over time, supply and demand is back, that’s when you’ll see the physical stores begin to grow again.
Lance Armstrong says that he was one of the original Uber investors staking them $100,000 at a valuation of just $3.7 million. There are reports that Uber’s projected IPO will value the company at $120 billion. Armstrong wouldn’t say what percent of Uber he still owns but it is conceivable that his stake could be worth $1 billion or more today. Armstrong has battled many lawsuits after his doping admission on Oprah and the Uber investment was key for his family. “It’s worth a lot. It’s saved our family,” he says.
Lance Armstrong discussed his massive Uber success story in an interview on CNBC:
Lance Armstrong an Uber Billionaire?
When I met Chris Sacca he was at either Google or Twitter and Sacca’s personality is larger than life, we were having fun and we kept in touch and then some years later, probably around 2008 or 2009, he left to start his own venture capital fund called Lowercase Capital. He called me said looking for investors, would you invest. I’m thinking to myself this guy has a huge personality but he’s also very smart, very well-connected. Why not?
Invested $100,000 in Uber at a Valuation of $3.7 Million
So I invested in Chris Sacca. I didn’t even know that he did Uber. I thought he was buying up a bunch of Twitter shares from employees or former employees and the biggest investment in the Lowercase Fund One was Uber. It had a valuation of $3.7 million. I gave them a hundred thousand bucks. It’s worth a lot. It’s saved our family. I follow Uber very closely.
I’m Actually Worried About Travis (Kalanick)
I do know Travis Kalanick a little bit. Chris Sacca brought him to one of the tours. In hindsight, I think Dara has done a great job and with what they’re poised to do it is pretty impressive. I can’t like that (Kalanick’s firing) right, I mean I was that guy. Travis is Uber and Lance is LIVESTRONG. Is there not some hybrid solution here? You’re out of control, time-out? But again, in hindsight, they haven’t missed a beat.
I’m actually worried about Travis. I’ll email him sometimes because he’ll say things and I’m like dude, I’ve seen this movie and it’s got a real shitty ending. Of course, his ending has a lot of zeros on it. But you can’t question their decision now. I get it man. I get that this is your baby and you want to fight for it and you want to protect it and you will do anything, say anything, do anything, go anywhere, confront anybody, but in this day and age, 2018, you can’t.
The CEO of Walmart Doug McMillion says that the company has a lot of work going on to change the company. He says that the company is becoming more digital and is changing how they work from within to get faster, more nimble, and adapt to what’s happening in retail. McMillion is a real advocate of change within the company, pointing out that what has happened to companies like Sears can happen to us too.
Doug McMillion, CEO of Walmart, recently discussed how Walmart is becoming more digital and is adapting and changing in order to compete and improve the customer experience:
Changing How We Work to Get Faster, More Nimble and to Adapt
We’ve got a lot of work going on to change the company. The company is becoming more digital and we’re changing how we work from within to get faster, more nimble, adapting to what’s happening in retail. Those plans result in lower costs. We’ve been lowering prices for customers and we need to keep doing that. We’ve got to build this ecommerce business in a way where it delights customers all the time. We’re improving in many areas as it relates to that.
Then kind of the magic of Walmart is how we put it all together. Grocery pickup has been really great for us, we’re learning how to do deliveries. There’s a lot in front of us in terms of what we control and what we can do and that’s what we’re focused on. There’s a transition going on and change that is happening inside of all businesses and across industries. It’s certainly happening within Walmart.
We’re Learning How to Put Automation in Place
We’re learning how to put automation in-place like floor cleaners that are autonomous, and also an industrial robot with a camera on it that’s looking at the merchandise in the aisle so we know where things are. It’s learning how to communicate with a device that goes up and down the aisle that checks to make sure that things are in the right place, that they’re priced right, looking to see if we have inventory above if it needs to be pulled down, and helping us as associates do our jobs better.
I think over time automation will reduce jobs, there will be a period of disruption, but with our turnover in retail, we can manage through that. We want to train people, upskill them so that they can learn to do new things. As this change is happening now we’ve already seen new jobs like personal shoppers emerge, we’ve got about thirty thousand personal shoppers in the United States now that are picking grocery orders in the stores for pickup.
Grocery Pickup Business has Grown a Lot
One of the most popular things we’ve got right now is a grocery service where you can order on your mobile app, pick a time slot and on your way home from school with the kids swing through and we put it in your trunk and you take off. That business has grown a lot and there are people that now have new jobs creating that order for you. Folks come out to the car, put in the trunk for you, talk to you for a few minutes, and that’s gone really well.
What I really think will happen is we’re going to find new jobs, delivery jobs, and jobs related to customer service in the stores. We want to improve the environment the stores, we want our fresh food presentation to be better, we want our retail presentation to be better. We will redirect some of those positions towards that.
One Constant at Walmart is Change
The truth is after learning from so many people, a little bit from Sam Walton, David Glass, Lee Scott, Mike Duke, and the leaders at Walmart. We know that retailers come and go. Businesses grow and they don’t change enough and they decline over time. Retailers do that on a bit of a faster cycle so we got a healthy paranoia and always have.
If there were a group of Walmart associates around here right now and we asked them the only thing other than our purpose and values that are constant at Walmart they would fill in the blank with change. We adapt, we learn, we learn from competition, we focus on the customer, we’re always changing.
People Are Rethinking What Walmart is as a Business
I carry an app that’s got the top-ten retailers by decade back to 1950. There are company’s on here, TG&Y, E. J. Korvette, the rise and fall of Sears and others. It’s just a reminder that this can happen to us too. Part of what I do within the company is trying to make a case for change, point to a strategy and a vision for our associates.
We’ve got great people and they rally and move and change. It’s now happening at an accelerated rate inside the company causing people to rethink what Walmart is as a business and it’s really exciting.
Cloud adoption is just in the very early days says Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block. He says that over the last few years we’ve been in a perfect storm of cloud and mobile and data science and artificial intelligence coming together that have given companies the opportunity to reinvent themselves and reinvent their business models. Block says that this has been an incredible wave and a global phenomenon of digital transformation.
Keith Block, Salesforce co-CEO, discussed the global phenomenon of digital transformation in an interview on CNBC:
Cloud Adoption is Still in the Very Early Days
I believe we’re in early days. Salesforce will be celebrating its 20th anniversary very quickly and we’ve had a meteoric rise. We’ve been the fastest enterprise software company and in the top five software companies in terms of growth to $10 billion. We just gave our guidance to $13 billion and we’ll do $16 billion for next year. But cloud adoption is just in the very early days.
Incredible Wave, Global Phenomenon of Digital Transformation
What we’re really seeing right now is this incredible wave, this global phenomenon of digital transformation. Over the last few years, when you think about this conversion, this perfect storm of cloud and mobile and data science and artificial intelligence, these amazing technologies that have come together, it’s given companies the opportunity to reinvent themselves and reinvent their business models. I think classically of a company that is a B2B company that now wants to become a B2C company and that’s where Salesforce really plays beautifully in terms of getting closer to that customer.
MuleSoft Completes the Wave of Digital Transformation for our Customers
Specifically on MuleSoft. A great example is really having the holy grail of the 360-degree view of the customer, where you have information about the customer, where you can personalize the experience for the customer, where the customer feels like they are personally engaged with the companies that they do business with. MuleSoft is an amazing integration technology and we’re very lucky to have it. It really completes the wave of digital transformation for our customers in the sense that it’s allowing you to unlock data from any source.
Cloud Brings the Ability to be Agile, Nimble and Flexible
Think about decades of legacy data that have been built up and built up and built up and CEOs want to know how do we access that legacy data in a very agile and in a very quick fashion so we can serve it up to our systems of engagement? That’s why the marriage of Salesforce and MuleSoft has really become very compelling for CEOs all over the world. At the end of the day what the cloud brings you and what we bring at Salesforce is the ability to be agile, to be nimble, to be flexible, and actually bring something we refer to as a beginner’s mind. Completely taking a step back and saying, how do we reinvent, how do we innovate, how do we go quickly?
You can move, because of the technology that’s available today, far more quickly than you could in the age of the legacy system. It starts with that, bringing a point of view, speaking the language of the industry, understanding that talking to a bank is different than a telecommunications company. These technologies apply in different ways. Those are very fundamental than what you see with some of the legacy technology companies that are still using the same motion.
CEOs Must Commit to Digital Transformation
The second is it’s all about trust and making sure that you have a trust-based relationship with your customers. The third thing that I would tell you and I think is very very important is that we live in a world today where because of that convergence, that perfect storm of technology, we now have this global phenomenon called digital transformation. The most important aspect of that is the commitment from the CEO. The CEO has become and must be become the Chief Transformation Officer.
Digitalization is not something that’s coming, this is something that already exists, says Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan. He says that 25 percent of their sales are done on digital. Moynihan says his goal is to bring the whole banking system to the digital age to make it more efficient for customers.
Brian Moynihan, Bank of America CEO, discussed the digitalization of banking and much more during an interview on CNBC:
Digitalization is a Big Boon for Everybody
Digitalization is a big boon for everybody in a sense in that you can continue to provide better service for the customer and take the cost structure down which then can pass through to the customer. The way to think of all this work on a consumer side is that we have 26 million mobile customers, 25 million digital customers, about 1.5 billion logins last quarter. This is not something that’s coming, this is something that already exists. About 25 percent of our sales are done on digital.
Digitalization Improves Service and Reduces Costs
All this is extremely important in how we run our franchise. What that has done for the customer is give them better services on their time, the way they want to do it, 24/7. At the same time, it reduced our operating costs so we can take out overdraft fees on point of sale debit, ten years ago now almost. What allowed us to afford that was to change the operating structure. That makes this very good.
Small banks and larger banks are participating in digitalization. We helped small banks to drive digital payments. The volumes are growing 100 percent per year for us with that and across the board.
Bringing the Whole Banking System to the Digital Age
The goal is to bring the whole banking system more and more to the digital age and make it more efficient for the customers. The key is that on the commercial side it also goes on. Everyone talks about consumers, but on the commercial side, the same impacts going. CashPro Mobile, a product we have, is up and operating very efficiently. When you think that a treasurer of a company would sit down at their desk to do an interface to send it, they want their mobile interface because that’s their daily life. It’s all good for all of the companies.
Groupon announced a business model transformation that moves them away from email and daily deals. Groupon wants their website to be a place for consumers to find great deals and information and also be a utility for merchants to use every day to grow their businesses, says Groupon CEO Rich Williams.
Groupon is utilized by customers who receive email deals around four or five times a year and Williams sees a huge opportunity to transform Groupon by getting customers to view the site as a deal and lifestyle platform, potentially increasing usage to four or five times a week.
Rich Williams, Groupon CEO, discussed Groupon’s transformation plans with Jim Cramer on CNBC:
Groupon Announces a Business Model Transformation
The core of our plan is based on our marketplace model and concept. That’s moving us away from email and daily deals really to being a utility for consumers and merchants to use every single day to grow their businesses, in the case of merchants. In the case of consumers, a place where they trust when they’re hungry, when they’re bored, when they just want something to do on the weekend with their kids, we’re where they’re going to find the best prices, the best deals, and also the best selection and inventory of those transactable offers local markets.
I think people have a very narrow perspective of what a turnaround is. Most of that it’s like hey we need to cut some cost or we need to just tweak our product around the edges. When I say it’s a transformation, I think we have a good business today, we’re trying to build an amazing business. We have a good product today, we’re trying to build an amazing product. We’ve got to transform how we work the products we deliver to our customers, really fundamentally change how consumers think about us every day. That’s more than your typical turnaround has to attack and the good news is we’re well on our way.
Still a Huge Opportunity in Local
Local is a huge space and it’s a space that got a late start if you think about the online and mobile revolution that we’ve gone through over the last 15 or 20 years. Products started first with folks like Amazon in the late 90s. It wasn’t really until folks like Groupon and Yelp came into the mix late into the 2000s where you started to really get people to push. For sure locals late and it is a challenging space. I would say we’re producing billions of dollars of value coming out of the local space. We’ve grown our inventory and our relationships with small businesses by 60 percent over the last three years. We’re making headway and we see that as a massive prize that’s worth fighting for and we like our position in the market.
People use us four or five times a year currently. Our opportunity in local where you shop most of the time is four or five times a week. That’s what we’re building toward and those are the metrics to look at long-term where we have a lot of customers buying more frequently in a profitable way. I think we’re we’re wildly undervalued. We have strong free cash flow and we produce a lot of adjusted EBITDA that’s not reflected in our share price today and just shows that we have a lot of opportunity to grow that for folks over time.
Bitcoin.com founder and CEO Roger Ver is incredibly bullish on the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem despite recent reports of hacking. He says that if it wasn’t worth something or wasn’t useful hackers wouldn’t be wasting their time trying to hack it. Ver is focused on the bigger picture of taking cryptocurrency mainstream. He says that we need to build an economy that is actually using cryptocurrencies as currencies rather than just a lot of speculators speculating.
Roger Ver, founder, and CEO of Bitcoin.com, discussed the current state of cryptocurrencies from his home base in Japan with Bloomberg:
Incredibly Bullish on the Entire Cryptocurrency Ecosystem
Part of the excitement of cryptocurrencies is that nobody knows if it is going to go up, down, or sideways in the short-term. I’m a fundamentals investor so I’m investing in fundamentals. Long-term the future is brighter than ever. There is more awareness, there’s more adoption, there’s more stuff happening all over the world, so of course, I’m incredibly bullish on the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem and bitcoin cash specifically.
If anything it has brought additional awareness to the ecosystem and the fact that such big players are involved and the fact that hackers are trying to hack it is showing that it’s worth something. If it wasn’t worth something or wasn’t useful hackers wouldn’t be wasting their time trying to hack it. If anything it’s just more bullish signals that cryptocurrency is here to stay and here for the long-term.
The Industry Should Regulate Itself, Naive to Think Politicians Know Best
The industry is the group that’s the most knowledgeable about the industry. So, of course, there the ones that have the most incentive to make sure they do a good job in not letting their customers’ funds be hacked, not letting bad things happen to their users, because if bad things happen to your customers your customers are not going to be your customers anymore. So to think that a politician in some office somewhere knows more about how cryptocurrencies work and how to keep them safe from hackers I think that is just naive. It’s the industry participants that know the most and have the most skin in the game so they are the right ones to be handling this.
We Need to Build an Economy That is Actually Using Cryptocurrencies
We need to build an economy that is actually using cryptocurrencies as currencies rather than just a lot of speculators speculating. That’s been the entire goal of bitcoin from day one and the very title of the white paper, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. That’s the goal of Bitcoin Cash, both the ABC camp and the SV camp. I wish every cryptocurrency good luck if they are trying to bring more economic freedom to the world by making them useful as currencies for the world.
I think we need to build the tools to make it easy for people to use cryptocurrencies as money to buy and sell things, pay their bills, pay their rent, and even pay their taxes. We just heard about the State of Ohio excepting bitcoin cash and bitcoin through BitPay for taxes. That’s a pretty big step toward mainstream adoption. Not that I’m a big fan of taxes, but that’s about as mainstream as it gets when governments start accepting bitcoin currencies for taxes.
According to the Wall Street Journal Amazon is testing larger format stores with its Amazon Go cashierless technology as a prelude to a Whole Foods rollout. The WSJ appeared to have spoken with several insiders. “It is unclear whether Amazon intends to use the technology for Whole Foods, although that is the most likely application if executives can make it work, according to the people.” There are predictions by some experts and entrepreneurs that virtually every physical retail store will be checkout free within 5-10 years.
Walter Robb, former Whole Foods co-CEO, discussed the possibility of Amazon adding its cashierless technology to Whole Foods in an interview on CNBC:
Amazon May Go Cashierless at Whole Foods
I just think is part of a larger revolution that’s happening in retail and in food in general. The customers are having more and more options. Amazon Go, which is now up to 13 stores already has this deployed in a smaller store format. The application of this to a larger selection of products, most Whole Foods stores have about 35,000 units, is very exciting and very interesting.
I think we’re just seeing this massive wave of disruption and innovation in retail in general. What this does is, if you call the grocery business about $2 trillion in the US plus or minus, what you’re seeing is all these new ways in which the customer can get their food. This is part of that choice. I think one of the things that people miss about the Amazon Whole Foods merger is the fact that physical retail really matters. What this does is say, okay we’re going to try to make the physical experience a little more streamlined for people so it contrasts with the online experience. I think you just see this bevy of choices the customers never had and we couldn’t even imagine five years ago.
Whole Foods and Amazon Culture Clash Smoothing Out
It’s still early but I think Amazon and Whole Foods certainly have different cultures and different styles, but I think that Amazon has very smart and capable people and I think the cultures are beginning to find their way, both their work processes. If you think about what we at Whole Foods gained from Amazon, we got tremendous first best-in-class technology and data capabilities, the digitization of Whole Foods, was significantly accelerated.
I think for Amazon they got a great brand in fresh foods which they’d struggle up to that point. They got the knowledge of the customer in the physical stores versus just the digital world and they got proximity to about 85% of the US population. It was a real win-win-win combination. People forget that food is probably the largest sector in the economy. This is a very significant deal that happened and I think a proxy for the fact of how business and commerce in general are evolving so quickly.
On-demand is an infrastructure for the future of retail says Alibaba CEO, Daniel Zhang. He envisions a world where virtually every product, even pharmaceuticals, will be available to be delivered on-demand 24-hours a day to customers.
Daniel Zhang, Alibaba CEO, discussed the future of retail on CNBC International:
On-Demand Delivery to Power the Future of Retail
On-demand delivery is an infrastructure not only for the food delivery business. This is also an infrastructure for the future of retail. In terms of food delivery, I think today more and more young people need these services and they either don’t have time to cook or they simply don’t don’t cook so the people need this food delivery.
When we look at this on-demand delivery network this also can serve many other product categories. For example, people can order some medicine from some pharmacies at night if they catch a cold. This could be an infrastructure for the future of integrated digital business.
Every Business Will be Powered by Cloud
Cloud computing is our long-term strategy and we strongly believe that every business in the future will be powered by cloud. We are very happy to build this crowd infrastructure in the new digital era and support all the business to go digital. I think cloud will be the main business of Alibaba in the future.
Voice is the Next Entry Point of the Internet
We believe that voice is the next entry point of the Internet. If you look at the history of the Internet we have the PC times and people got into the internet by clicking. Then you have the mobile internet where people go to the internet by scrolling the screen. Now it comes to the voice age where people can go to the virtual world by our voice.
That’s why we started to work on Tmall Genie and we strongly believe this could be an entry point in the living room when people want to go to the virtual world. This is also how people not only enjoy the services by the voice but also can monitor the equipment and the facilities in the home.
Salesforce is booming and the reason is that virtually every company in the world is going through a huge digital transformation, according to Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff. “The reason why is every company that we’re dealing with is going through a huge digital transformation and every digital transformation begins and ends with the customer,” says Benioff.
Marc Benioff, co-Founder, Chairman, and co-CEO of Salesforce, recently discussed the companies latest financial results and explained how the digital transformation is powering their continued massive growth in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC:
Fastest Growing Enterprise Software Company of All Time
We see hitting our big goal which is $22 to $23 billion in revenue within two fiscal years. By fiscal year 2022. Now here we are we’re giving fiscal year 2020 guidance for the first time at $16 billion. Salesforce remains the fastest growing enterprise software company of all time and that’s incredible. I don’t think the company has ever been stronger or been in a better position.
These revenue numbers are incredible and way beyond our expectations for the quarter It’s awesome. We had a great quarter, the third quarter was phenomenal. We’re giving phenomenal guidance for the fourth quarter and certainly, we’re all praying and hoping to improve on that by the way and now we can see a strong fiscal year ahead in fiscal year 2020 as well.
Every Digital Transformation Begins and Ends with the Customer
I don’t think the company has ever been stronger or been in a better position. The reason why is every company that we’re dealing with is going through a huge digital transformation and every digital transformation begins and ends with the customer.
Just look at one of the largest deals we did this quarter, it’s a nine-figure deal with one of the largest banks in the world and they’re just rebuilding how they deal with their customers. That’s an amazing story for us just to see everybody go through this transformation. It’s everything that is customer facing for one of the top five financial institutions in the world.
Another one that I can give you the actual name for that is doing something just as exciting is Citibank. Michael Corbat has done a fantastic job as CEO of Citibank. We’ve been working on the retail transformation there and this quarter they opened the door for us and now we’re doing the wealth transformation as well. We couldn’t be more excited about everything that Citibank is doing.
Every Company is Transforming Their Customer Relationship
Every company is transforming their relationship with their customer. We’re going from a world where if you don’t have a digital one-on-one relationship with your customer you’re just not going to be that successful. You can look at some of the huge successes that we’ve had in the quarter. One of the stories that I love is Uber. Uber has a tremendous need to have a relationship not only with you the consumer but also with the driver and their own internal operations. As we’ve been able to improve our relationship with Dara Khosrowshahi and other executives in the company, we’ve seen them really transform their relationships with their customers.
Apple has been a great opportunity for us, we’ve worked on that for so long. Of course, we all use our Apple products all the time at Salesforce. Now we have a strategic alliance with Apple and we’re encouraging our customers to do what we do which is take their information on the road. All of our products work natively now on iOS. We have the ability to automate every enterprise around that incredible platform and we see customers doing that.
ServiceMaster Building a 360-Degree View of the Customer
Another great story during the quarter was ServiceMaster. This is a company that has a lot of brands such as Terminix and many others. This is a huge field service operation but it’s also the integration of their call center, their contact center. They’re trying to build a 360-degree view of the customer, so of course, you’re working with their technicians in the field and they need to have a strong institutional memory of you back in headquarters. That’s a digital transformation that is so exciting for so many companies where they protect their homes.
Who’s Not Going Through a Customer Transformation?
We’re the largest and most important CRM company in the world. We’re number one in CRM by market share and revenue and by revenue growth. It’s a big industry and all the players are doing well because every company is going through this customer transformation. Who’s not going through a customer transformation? Everywhere I go in the world this is happening and it’s been going on and it’s not going to stop anytime soon.
It’s about sales, it’s about service, it’s about marketing, it’s about commerce, it’s about analytics, it’s about applications, it’s about good building community, or in the case of one of the great customers that we have, DuPont, it’s about integration. We had this fantastic acquisition this year, MuleSoft, the ability to integrate everything together. This is so important for us and so many of our customers.
