As I co-write my draft book on the Amazon aggregation industry, I periodically stop to contemplate and digest the experiences I had over 18-months, the public material available about the industry, and the stories I have heard from others. There is a wealth of stories and amusing characters in any
Just over a month ago I likened the e-commerce aggregation industry to little more than a pile of garbage. This week Bloomberg and CNBC posted new stories that illustrated how accurate that analogy is – along with evidence the hunt for "a greater fool" continues unabated: * Amazon aggregators Branded
In this post I am going to show you the power of math to uncover interesting stories and read between the lines – even when reading something that might seem as boring as public filings. 🚗 Buckle up! Previously and in a series of LinkedIn postings I hypothesized that Affinity Partners, the
I spent this week in San Antonio speaking with the Alamo Angels about what we are doing at symphonie.ai to help optimize contribution margin for e-commerce brands everywhere. I met some wonderful people there that I suspect will become friends as much as investors – I highly recommend anyone reach
In any industry there are trustworthy operators and then there are the "used car salesmen" hawking lemons. The aggregation industry is no different. If you do not spend significant time in the industry, it's hard to tell one from the other. I have seen the inside
Recently this comment by Jon Derkits on LinkedIn reminded me it is time to revisit my short series from December 2022 about Amazon FBA aggregators. TLDR summary In December 2022, I exited the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) role at unybrands soon after my symphonie.ai co-founder left the Chief Supply
When we launched symphonie.ai, my co-founder and I had zero experience raising capital for a start-up. We were 1) ex-Amazonians; 2) ex-c-suite senior leaders (previously Chief Supply Chain Officer and Chief Technology Officer at unybrands, which has sadly been in the news for the wrong reasons since we left)
I spent 5-years at Amazon and I enjoyed the experience tremendously. Amazon is known for a bruising, rough culture as summarized in Kristi Coulter's memoir "Exit Interview" so I sometimes wonder if the root cause of my positive perception of Amazon is at least partially my
The New York Times recently wrote an in-depth article about the Humane Ai Pin. If you have not heard of it, its an "AI" device you pin to your chest; you interact with it through voice commands and a laser that projects a 720p low-resolution display onto your
In my prior post, I discussed the importance of 'intelligent resilience' for co-founding a start-up. Today let's discuss the third most critical decision you make when you co-found a start-up: funding. We will discuss the first (i.e., the business idea) and second (i.e., co-founders)
In my prior post I discussed my motivation for co-founding a start-up. Today let’s discuss the importance of ‘intelligent resilience’. To give you an idea of what I mean by 'resilience', let’s look at one simple metric: 76/80 or 95%. When I co-founded symphonie, 95%
Let’s discuss what motivated me to be the co-founder of a start-up during arguably the worst time to launch a technology start-up in the five (5) years: 1. my experience in e-commerce and technology over 20 years, including building teams, processes and technology across multiple companies; 2. my network