When was the last time you checked into the metaverse? It might be more recently than you think, and you’ve probably been doing it for longer than you realize. Personal commerce is one of the ways that the metaverse is being utilized right now, and Plazah is the platform that has been making it possible. Customers who shop online and are given personal recommendations from experts at a brand are engaging in real time in the metaverse, but they are also having a better overall shopping experience.
On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, I chatted with Roger Casals, the Co-Founder & CEO of Plazah, about how the company is not only bringing ecommerce to the next level, but helping brands improve LTV and build customer loyalty at the same time. Roger tells us about the future of personal commerce, why it’s different from social commerce, and what you should actually be thinking about when you are making personal commerce a part of your ecommerce strategy. Enjoy this episode!
Main Takeaways:
- Expert Vs. Employee: With personal commerce, it might seem obvious that the people who know the most about your products are your own internal employees, and therefore they would make the best experts for giving recommendations. This is the wrong way to think about it. An expert in the eyes of a consumer is someone who is unbiased, has actually used the product, and can tell you the pros and cons of it diplomatically. Those are the people you need to find to create a personal commerce experience.
- Clicks Vs. Products: Personalization offers a way for brands to sell products rather than just clicks. Influencers more often than not are only driving traffic, not necessarily sales. By having a personalized commerce tool, customers can be fed actual products that work best for them, which they are more likely to buy.
- Social Vs. Personal Commerce: Personal commerce is one-to-one and creates a long-lasting relationship between a brand and its customers. Social commerce occurs one-to-many, and is about bringing a community together and building buzz.
For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.
Key Quotes:
“This is not about selling today, one product. This is about creating long-lasting relationships and selling you a lot of products about that topic…. Kim Kardashian sells clicks, not shoes, clicks. These guys sells you a product that feeds you. Your fitness trainer is talking to you. Kim Kardashian will never do that. That’s the beauty of personalization. It’s a long-lasting.”
“Users that use personal commerce come back and buy twice as much as people that never interacted with an expert. So the personal interaction is about long term relationships so they come back more. So you better treat them well and give them the right product every time so they will come back for more… It’s absolutely it’s about personalization and knowing the customer and giving truthful and honest recommendations.”
“Companies are starting to see that this is a, a win, wing, win situation. Customers get an elevated shopping experience. So they come back for more lifetime value increases. The second one is okay, we sell more, but at the same time, we’re doing good because those funds that usually recommend our product for free now are being monetized.”
“The most important thing is getting personal commerce mainstream and Salesforce is helping us a lot because they embrace this idea. They call it peer-to-peer commerce and they basically think that the biggest disruption in the coming years in ecommerce is precisely peer-to-peer commerce.”
“Personal commerce is not social commerce. It’s a different beast… The difference is the aim and the network that they use.”
“What is the metaverse? The metaverse is basically different people interacting through a virtual world, but it’s people interacting with other people. So we are the metaverse store because we allow people to interact with other people via our platform, whether it’s chat, video chat, or in the future, something more fancy, it like using goggles and seeing the product and maybe feeling the product. That’s the way we are going at the end. What really matters is not how you do it is who is recommending you that product and helping you to decide that that’s the right product for you.”
Bio
Roger Casals is an entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience with both start-ups and large corporations. He is a multi-time founder and CEO of several companies and has had 5 successful exits, including the acquisition of PasswordBank by Symantec and PowerData by Informatica. Roger is a Board Member, Advisor or Investor at: Blueliv, Datumize and Parlam, among others and he currently serves as co-Founder and CEO of Plazah, leading Retail’s 3rd Wave of disruption: Personal Commerce, that is revolutionizing the way people sell and buy.
Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce
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Transcript:
Stephanie:
Roger, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Roger:
Thank you for having me. Pleasure.
Stephanie:
Yeah. So I’d love to start with hearing a bit about Plazah and what led you to creating this company?
Roger:
Well, I’m an entrepreneur. I had five exits, I created several companies, and I always wanted to create something big. And retail seemed to be a big enough space. And I hate to buy online, and a friend of mine and I decided that there was a big opportunity to get into the game of helping retail companies to create a new sales channel, because it’s in much need right now. And at the same time help experts to monetize and expertise that right now they are giving away almost for free.
Stephanie:
So what maybe had you interested in this even to begin with? Thinking about, “Okay, we need … There’s a lot of experts out there, but they’re not really getting paid for what they’re doing. There’s a lot of brands who want to tap into this.” Where do you think this interest came from to begin with?
Roger:
The truth is, I’m a terrible online buyer. I hate to buy online, because when I go to Amazon I always know what I want to buy, the exact part. But I’m a doubtful person, I always doubt what actually to buy.
Roger:
And I will always feel that I would love to have someone helping me while buying something to get advice. And Amazon doesn’t provide that, nobody does. And that’s why we decided to jump into this even for ourselves.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Okay. And for anyone who doesn’t know Plazah, can you explain high level what it is and who’s the buyer?
Roger:
Plazah is the first personal commerce platform. Okay? We provide a platform that helps big companies or even small companies like L’Oreal, to help experts, product funds, to monetize the expertise that they have on their own products while increasing the customer satisfaction, and creating long-lasting relationships because they get personalized recommendations. So our mission is to connect companies with consumers through empowering experts, to recommend products to their own circle of influence.
Stephanie:
Okay. I mean, before you built Plazah, you are a multi-time founder. You’ve had I think it’s five successful exits, right?
Roger:
Yep.
Stephanie:
Okay. I want to hear-
Roger:
Yeah. Very lucky.
Stephanie:
Yeah. That’s amazing. I mean, congratulations first of all, but I want to hear the backstory there first. Before we jump back into Plazah, I want to hear about your previous companies and just maybe, what did that look like and what did you learn from five exits? And also side note, to big companies like Semantic, like Informatica. So yeah, tell me a bit about that.
Roger:
Well, first of all, since I was a kid, I always wanted to be involved in software companies and create a company. I had no idea exactly what to do obviously, but my friend reminded me that when I was even 13 years old, I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I never know what that meant or entailed, but that’s what I always said. And I started the easiest way possible. Right?
Roger:
So I had the opportunity to create a consulting firm, me being the first employee and the only … The sole employee of that consulting firm. And then a second person, a third person, this is the cheapest way to create a company. You don’t need money, you only need time and some expertise on something or at least fake it. And then there you go, you start creating your own company.
Roger:
And we were very successful. I’ve been a lucky guy, because I started in this business in the ’95 ish or something like that. So that time even a monkey could create a company, because yes … In our space, in the tech space, because there was very little people, and there was a big demand. And this is how things started.
Roger:
And the way I built these different companies, not alone always with some partners, I love having partners, is creating … I’m not a serial entrepreneur, I’m a parallel entrepreneur, because every single company that I created was a spinoff from the previous one. So starting the-
Stephanie:
Okay, wait. Go back into that. So you’re not a serial entrepreneur, you are a parallel entrepreneur, you’re always building off the last company?
Roger:
Yes.
Stephanie:
Okay. So I wanted to make sure I heard that right. Okay.
Roger:
Yes. No, totally. And for me it’s the … Again, it’s the easiest way. Instead of starting from scratch, you start from an idea and then you leverage some of the customers that you have from the previous company that they basically shared some interest in that company, in that product, and then you start building up. You have the MVP, you share it with them, they are in love, and then you say, “Hey, there’s something here, let’s create a company, let’s bring some resources to that and then build up.”
Roger:
So I’m not the typical serial entrepreneur, I have some companies that are not related to the previous ones, but in most cases, yes, they are all spinoffs of the previous one. Because we learn something of the market that can be leveraged in a different way in a separate company.
Stephanie:
Okay. That’s a really cool way to think about building companies. I want to maybe start with the first company, what was it and then what was spun off from that? And then what was spun off from that? I want to think through the mapping now.
Roger:
It was one of the right time, because I grew the companies alongside the market. So I started working with the consulting for the ERP, when ERP was a cool staff when nobody had ERPs and everyone wanted ERPs, we were there helping them. And then we saw that the next big thing was about out to be the CRMs.
Roger:
Okay, now we have all the accountability and operations set up in the ERP, now we want to manage customers. So CRM is the next big thing. And then we created a company called Intelligent Business Solutions that created products and services around CRM. In that case and that time it was Vantiv. Okay? A company that doesn’t exist anymore.
Roger:
And then was acquired by PeopleSoft, I guess. And then the next one was another company called Spinoff from that one called Power Data. Okay. Power Data is a company that manages data, because now that you have operations set up, you have your customer relationship set up, you need business intelligence. Okay? You need to create reports.
Roger:
And then you need to create that data warehouses. Here is where it comes Power Data that basically distributed a product from Informatica. That company was ultimately acquired by Informatica because what we did they feel that it was cool. From that company, we created a separate entity called Lantares.
Roger:
And Lantares was basically doubling down into the business intelligence world with predictions and analytics some Artificial Intelligence. So in that realm. And then something interesting happened, while in a customer I was presenting that the products that we were using had single sign up, and a customer said … I was selling business intelligence, but the customer said, “Oh, that thing that you mentioned about single sign-on is very interesting.”
Roger:
And he misunderstood me because I was not selling single sign on, I was selling business intelligence. I just said that that was a feature. But I realized that there was a product, there was an opportunity. So here it comes, “Wow, there’s a need for this market, I’m going to create a company for a single sign-on.” We did an MVP, we presented it. He said, “That’s exactly what I need.”
Roger:
And he bought it. So overnight we had a company, we had a product, let’s grow it. And then we spoon off the company and PasswordBank was born. Okay? And then I focused on PasswordBank a hundred percent of the time. We grew it, we moved to the US, it’s been 14 years now.
Roger:
And then a few years later we had several bidders for the company, because we were doing something very cool for security, cyber security, the cool way to say it. And Symantec made an offer and we sold the company.
Stephanie:
Okay.
Roger:
Spent three years in Symantec, and then … And that’s when I left Symantec I … And this is Plazah, the new project, is the first company that it’s not a spinoff from the previous ones.
Stephanie:
Okay. You’re trying something new?
Roger:
Because we started from scratch. Yes.
Stephanie:
Okay. Before Plazah when you were spinning up these companies and … I mean, how did you go about finding good engineers to make what you wanted to build this MVP? It sounds like you worked pretty quickly. I mean, what did it look like to actually assemble a team, and get them behind a new idea that you didn’t have customers for yet?
Roger:
Well, this is about 25 years, so it has been changing. The landscape has been changing dramatically. So at the very beginning in the 90s and early 2000s, finding an engineer was cheap and easy. Okay? Because at least in Spain, there was not many project, cool projects to work with. Okay. So we have no problem hiding people, very talented people.
Roger:
We have very good universities, we had at that time very cheap engineers and they were awesome. But right now in Barcelona, we have a hat of … A technological hat. There are many, thousands of companies working on tech. So now there’s scarcity on engineers. Now it’s more difficult to find engineers, not even good ones, just engineers it’s really tough. Okay?
Roger:
So at that time it was easier than today. And in terms of finding resources for example, when I started finding resources, VCs, there was no VCs in Spain whatsoever. So we were the first investment from our VC, and we were the first exit from our VC at PasswordBank. So you can imagine it’s … There was no culture for VCs. Now there’s hundreds of VCs in Spain already. So the landscape has shifted and changed dramatically.
Stephanie:
Got it. Yeah. I was going to say, yeah, it definitely seems a lot trickier now. I mean, talking to any of my friends who are … When they’re starting startups back in the Bay Area, back when I first moved there and just … That was the number one thing is, unable to find people to actually build it who have really high salary requirements. And it’s harder to get an MVP built these days in general.
Roger:
And another important thing is, today you need to create your own network of experts, and talent, and investors, et cetera. So you can basically create a project from scratch rapidly. Otherwise, standing from scratch with no context it’s no way.
Stephanie:
Yeah. How do you go about today building your network and keeping … I mean, when thinking about Plazah, not a spinoff company, quite a bit different than previous companies?
Roger:
Well, the beauty is I had already a big network of friends and people I did work with, so it was easier at that time. So the way I see many companies created now it’s two ways. Where you have your friends from school, from the college et cetera, or you basically get those contacts from your own investor.
Roger:
You convince an investor that you have a good thing, and then they can bring … And it’s part of the job of VCs right now, is help you with the network of contacts, bringing you the right talent. Now talent is about … It’s everything.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Completely agree. Finding those good investors who aren’t just there for money, but can actually bring you maybe clients, bring you business partners. Yeah, a support system that’s to me way more important.
Roger:
And everybody promises that they are here to help and they don’t … They want to, but they do not … Not all of them they know how to do that.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Agree. So with Plazah, if I’m thinking … I put my brand hat on right now and I’m thinking I’m a company, I’m selling something and I’m like, “I really want to start having a more personalized approach. I love the idea of having experts recommend things.
Stephanie:
I mean, that’s where the world is heading anyways right now when it comes to sales, a lot of people do rely on the influencers. The people who’ve used it.” So if I’m a brand, how do I think about implementing this and what it could do for me?
Roger:
The first thing that you have to do is to understand the concept, because this is different. So it’s very easy to start, but you have to bear mind that it has to be strategic for you to get into personal commerce. So 20 years ago you had retail stores only, and you had doubts whether or not to have online stores.
Roger:
Today, 20 years later, everybody agrees that you have to be online period. Well, 20 years from now, maybe just 10 years or five years from today, nobody will doubt that you need retail stores online and personal commerce. Okay? And once you decide that this is strategic for you, you want to be there, then it’s … Everything is easy.
Roger:
Because you have to basically adopt a personal commerce platform like Plazah and anyone else, if you find one. Then you implement what we call the widgets, means in your website to let users to pull recommendations from experts. You have to invite experts. You can start with your own employees, you can start with your own fan base, and you train them and integrate the catalog with Plazah, and then just measure the results.
Roger:
It’s that easy. When I say that you have to … It has to be strategic, is because you have to think in a different way. You have to think, “Okay, I have to share part of my revenue with those experts that deserve a commission.” And that’s a totally different mindset. So you have to involve sales, marketing, human resources, legal, put them all together so they understand that we have to share commissions with experts.
Roger:
What’s the relationship that we will have with them? How we’re going to pay them? Because we pay them, we provide all that technology. But it’s pretty easy because we take … The big burden is on us, technology speaking.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Got it. When they’re inviting experts on, I mean, what do you see working best for companies right now? Because I’m thinking about it personally, if I went to a website and I saw maybe someone’s employees on there, I’m like, “Ah, I don’t know. I mean, you’re pretty biased, you’re an employee.”
Stephanie:
Versus someone who maybe just loves the product. I’m like, “I probably would trust that person more.” But what are you seeing?
Roger:
Our recommendation is not to use employees whatsoever. But here’s the thing, the … Let me switch the topic here. Because this is about trust. Yeah, you can think that that person is biased while you have not created a relationship with him or her. Okay? But this is a different thing. So you are asking for advice about the product, so you want someone that actually knows the product.
Roger:
If it’s someone that is not biased because it does not belong to the company, the better. This is why Plazah makes sense. We bring those experts for you. So we vet those experts, those experts know the product. They’re not biased towards the brand nor the commission, because they can recommend that product or anything else. They decide to recommend you about that specific product because you ask for it.
Roger:
But they can make money selling I know a BMW or a Toyota, it’s what really feeds you. Not everyone can buy a Bentley. Okay? Not everyone wants to buy a Honda. It depends, different markets, different … That’s the beauty of personalization. We call it hyper-personalization.
Stephanie:
How do you think about creating an incentive model so that all the experts don’t just recommend everything so they can make money? I mean, to me you would never say anything bad about any product then you would never be like, “Oh, this one actually is like … Made my skin dry.”
Stephanie:
Why would you tell anyone anything bad? Because there goes your commission, if that person chooses, “Okay, I’m just not going to buy it. I’m going to go to Target.” And like something else.
Roger:
And this is something that we have data about. This is not about selling today one product, this is about relationship … Long lasting relationships and selling you a lot of products about that topic. Let’s say, if you go to your pharmacist, why the pharmacist will recommend you something that doesn’t fit you?
Roger:
He’d rather have you, “No, don’t buy this product because it’s not for you. It’s not a bad product, but probably it’s not for you. You have a dry skin, this is not for you. You need that other one that is moisture or whatever.” That pharmacist wants you to come back again. The same for your fitness trainer, why he would recommend you a fitness product that doesn’t fit you?
Roger:
Let me give you an example, in our platform we have products that are more than $13,000 piece because those big trainer things, et cetera. And you may think, “Oh, those are the products that will be more recommended because they provide the biggest commission.” Well, guess what? Our data shows that those are the products that are less recommended, only when it fits because it’s a big budget.
Roger:
You would think, “Oh, the biggest commission is what they would recommend the best.” No, because it’s personal. If you have a personal trainer, they don’t live only about selling those products, they want just to monetize that expertise that recommended to your product, and it will be honest and truthful recommendation for you.
Stephanie:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Roger:
What I mean by that is, Kim Kardashian sells clicks, not shoes, clicks. These guys sells you product, a product that fits you. Your fitness trainer is talking to you, Kim Kardashian doesn’t will never do that. That’s the beauty of personalization, it’s a long-lasting.
Stephanie:
Yeah. What’s interesting is thinking about, a lot of the tools today are trying to mimic what happened back in the old days. When you would go into your old tool shop and you would know the owner, and they would find what you wanted.
Stephanie:
And so it begs the question of, how are you thinking about, I come on the platform and I find someone that’s a really good expert who’s like, “I know Stephanie likes this and this, I’m going to send her here. And maybe send her outside of this store to a different store. And then when she comes back, I’m still going to be here.”
Stephanie:
How do you think about actually creating that relationship so that I can go back and be like, “Hey, I love Stacy. I want to see if she’s on here to talk to today, because she already recommended three good products.”
Roger:
Well, that’s the essence of personal commerce, so you nailed it. Let me give you some stats. We’ve seen with a big brand like L’Oreal, in Mexico we are … We have several brands of L’Oreal using our product. And we’ve seen that we double the lifetime value and the record brands of the same users compared to users that never use personal commerce.
Roger:
So those users that use personal commerce come back and buy twice as much as people that never interacted with an expert. So the personal interaction is about long term relationships, so they come back more. So you better treat them well and give them the right product every time, so they will come back for more.
Roger:
So in the long run, you make much more money than today selling you the expensive product that doesn’t fit you. Absolutely, it’s about personalization and knowing the customer, and giving truthful and honest recommendations. Yes.
Stephanie:
Okay. What are maybe some surprises brands have when they’re trying to implement this? Is there anything that maybe you see brands sometimes get hung up on or yeah, anything around that experience?
Roger:
Many. The first surprise is, I don’t trust these numbers. It can … Too good to be true. That’s the first initial reaction all the time. The second thing is, confusing social commerce with personal commerce. Those are two different beasts. Okay? Personal commerce means you have a person talking to a person long lasting relationships. Example, every one in a big company has a support department. Okay?
Roger:
Customer support. Those are the first that they want to put into the personal commerce platform to provide support. When that happens, I did a good job because they didn’t understand the basics of personal commerce. This is not about giving support, this is about creating relationships. So example, they usually ask us, “Oh, do you have metrics on open tickets and close tickets?” We do not have that, because this is like WhatsApp or a Facebook Messenger.
Roger:
You send a message to your friend and you don’t expect to get the message saying, “Oh, this thread is closed.” No, you want to open relationships and long lasting, and you want to keep that channel open. That’s what we do. And that’s the first surprise. They ask you how to close a ticket. There’s no thing, no such thing.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Got it. Yeah, I always like it when I go back to certain websites and you see the chat, even if it was from like six months ago or something, you’re like, “Do you want to open this chat again with the same person?” Even if it’s a bot, I’m still like, “Yeah, that’d be way easier.”
Stephanie:
Even if it’s the same process behind the scenes of just starting a chat with someone, I like the idea of like, “Well, you remembered.” And I can actually at least look at what I asked for back in the day. And if it’s easier to reopen in my mind, I’d rather do that.
Roger:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Stephanie:
And to start something brand new that feels like a lot of work.
Roger:
And how many times we interact with support, and we have to explain the same thing to three different people. That’s disgusting, that’s what we tend to avoid.
Stephanie:
Yep. So what are you most excited about over the next one to three years when it comes to personalized shopping?
Roger:
I could say several things. Probably the most important thing from our perspective is, the realization that we’re doing something different. Because companies are starting to see that this is a win, win, win situation. Customers get an elevated shopping experience, so they come back for more, lifetime value increases.
Roger:
The second one is, okay, we sell more, but at the same time we’re doing good, because those funds that usually recommend our product for free now are being monetized. So I have a fan base that is loyal to us because we pay them accordingly to their value, which is recommending products. Okay? So to me the most important thing is getting personal commerce mind stream.
Roger:
And Salesforce is helping us a lot, because they embrace this idea, they call it peer to peer commerce, and they basically think that the biggest disbursement in the coming years in eCommerce is precisely peer to peer commerce. So I think that we’re getting there. That’s what excites me, get personal commerce the new sales channel.
Stephanie:
Yeah. How do you see brands thinking about the personal commerce side of things, having it on their website and then also tapping into influencers? And we’ve had a lot of brands come on here just really saying how well YouTube works, and using micro influencers on there. How do you see the brands … Do they do both now? Do they just try and hone in on what’s happening on their website?
Roger:
Both are complimentary. Okay? Both are complimentary. Again, personal commerce is not social commerce, it’s a different beast but it’s adjacent. So this is what we call the push thing. So the difference is, the aim and the network that they use. Let me explain, when you are a consumer and you want to go to a website and you pull for advice, we call it the pool personal commerce, it’s fine.
Roger:
You have an expert, you choose which one and you ask for advice. But then there’s the other way around the proactive one, which is closer to the influencer marketing which is, “Okay, now I’m an expert, I’m going to share that expertise to my … With my circle of influence.” You can confuse that with influencers. Okay?
Roger:
I have expertise, I recommend honestly that product to my micro network, that’s closer to social commerce for sure. But it’s a subset of personal commerce, which is bigger. And I think that they are becoming aware that there’s more to personal commerce than just social commerce. There’s an extension.
Stephanie:
Got it. All right. I also want to hear your take on maybe some new technologies that you’re most excited about, because it definitely seems like you’ve spotted trends over the many years and jumped on them.
Stephanie:
And there’s a lot of things that brands are thinking about right now, playing in the metaverse Web 3.0, NFTs, blockchain. And so all these things bubbling up and I want to hear, maybe it’s not with Plazah, but what things are you paying attention to right now?
Roger:
No, absolutely. Actually the beauty here, and now we have a name, that people tend to need labels and to put things in boxes with a label, now we have a label it’s called metaverse. Okay? What do we have to do with the metaverse? Okay, what is the metaverse? The metaverse is basically different people interacting through a virtual world, but it’s people interacting with other people. Right?
Roger:
That’s for sure. So we are the metaverse store because we allow people to interact with other people via our platform. Okay? Whether it’s chat, video chat, or in the future something more fancy like using goggles and seeing the product and maybe feeling the product. Okay? That’s the way we are going.
Roger:
At the end what really matters is not how you do it is, who is recommending you that product, and helping you to decide that that’s the right product for you? So long story short, yeah we are very keen on adopting these new technologies and helping consumers to use them. But with one thing in mind and one big tenant in mind which is, okay, the most important thing is not selling on price, but selling on value.
Roger:
And that value comes from the expertise that the expert provides you personally. Okay? Not just because Kim Kardashian thinks that those shoes will look cool on everyone, but because they know that that Fitbit be that that Garmin will serve you well. Okay?
Stephanie:
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s actually a good way to think about it, because when you hear these words, you think it’s a complete change of the way everything’s happening right now. Everything has to get turned upside down for it to work, and it’s actually very helpful being like, “We’re already there if you think about it, two people interacting virtually.”
Stephanie:
Maybe we’ve actually been doing this already a long time. This is just a new word and there’s advances to it, but a lot of brands can already play in this area to get ready.
Roger:
Exactly. We need labels and now we have one. So now we can start working on that, and understanding what fits into that label. And personal commerce is a good one.
Stephanie:
Yep. So while you’re building Plazah right now, are you starting to have any spinoff ideas where you’re getting the itch again?
Roger:
No.
Stephanie:
No, not yet?
Roger:
No, not yet. Well, we have a lot of ideas, but all of them are surrounding around the same core idea, because the beauty … And this is why we jumped into the retail, because remember we were in business intelligence, in cyber security and now retail.
Roger:
Retail is so big and so rich that probably I will never get out of this market, because it’s evolving and there’s many different aspects to get into consideration. So no, no time for that.
Stephanie:
All right. Well, let’s jump over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce commerce Cloud. This is where I ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready Roger?
Roger:
No pressure. Yes. Well, I know … I will let you know.
Stephanie:
All right. What do you believe is either the most overrated or underrated technology? You can choose either one.
Roger:
Blockchain, overrated.
Stephanie:
Overrated? Okay, why?
Roger:
Overrated. Right now, overrated. Because everyone says that it can solve the cancer and famine in the world and not yet. It will, but not today.
Stephanie:
When do you think it will start solving big problems?
Roger:
Same as internet, in 10 years. Today we see a lot of fluff projects and ideas. It’s necessary to get those crazy ideas to get there, but not yet. It’s not solving the famine in the world and cancer. Not yet.
Stephanie:
So if you believe it’ll come about in 10 years actually be solving things, what are you investing in today around blockchain that is still going to be here in 10 years?
Roger:
I’m not investing in blockchain yet, because I haven’t seen the right usage for blockchain. Let me give you an example. The other day they told me that I could invest in a blockchain company to track the freshness of a fish.
Stephanie:
Yeah.
Roger:
And I’m flabbergasted, because if you like when somebody puts the … Creates the virtual, the interaction right, between the physical world and the virtual world is where things get lost. So yeah, blockchain tracks me everything since somebody said through the fault that that fish was fresh.
Roger:
I cannot trust the whole chain. I trust the blockchain, but not the previous steps. So I cannot invest in a company that cannot assure me the freshness of a fish, so what’s the point? It’s an example.
Stephanie:
Yeah. I mean, I’d also say, go check out a company like Avery Dennison, who is already putting digital tags on everything and they can track.
Stephanie:
I mean, their examples were around things like that of tracking the warmth of what Manny’s got to, and where it actually originated from. And there’s already companies who are probably doing it very [crosstalk].
Roger:
But blockchain has wonderful use cases, but I haven’t seen many that are worth investing on.
Stephanie:
Yeah. What is a book that you come back to time and time again to read?
Roger:
48 Laws of Power. It’s an in book and teach me well on personal levels and business levels.
Stephanie:
That is a good one.
Roger:
And it’s fun to read. It’s a very good one.
Stephanie:
Yeah. What’s a piece of a business advice that you’ve received that you think about often?
Roger:
Many, because I’m a doubtful person. You have to be ready to lose in order to win.
Stephanie:
That’s a good one.
Roger:
And they taught me that 25 years ago. He was a sales rep, and before the meeting, he said, “Before we get in, we may lose this one and this is the only way to win.” And I was flabbergasted and we won. And he said crazy things there, but he was ready to lose. So I use that a lot.
Stephanie:
That’s good, I like that. Actually very important to think about, and it takes away a lot of the pressure that I think oftentimes-
Roger:
Absolutely.
Stephanie:
Ruins things when people get like, “Oh no, this is the last biggest meeting of the year.” No, there’ll be more. It’ll be okay.
Roger:
I used it yesterday. I told my team exactly that. I took off once I decided, we are going to lose this one, but this is what we have to do, then all the pressure is off. Before that we were under the weather.
Stephanie:
Yeah. That’s good. What’s the hardest problem you’re trying to work through right now? It could be a business problem, it can be, I mean, anything.
Roger:
Growth.
Stephanie:
Yeah.
Roger:
Growth. Right now if something is different today from 20 years ago, 25 years ago, when I started is the … How fast things are going and need to go in order to be successful. And that leads to mistakes and sometimes big mistakes.
Roger:
And balance the right decision, the right calm, and execution is what is taking my nights off, because we never grow fast enough. And sometimes I wonder why, but this is the most challenging thing.
Stephanie:
That is a very tough one. All right. And then the last one, if you were to have a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?
Roger:
How to live a meaningful life. Entrepreneurs sometimes lose sight of what really matters in this life. I think that I never did that, but so many hours, so many worries, because you always have ups and downs, this is a roller rollercoaster. Some days you eat the world, some days you are going to kill yourself, is not lose sight of what really matters.
Roger:
And that would be a good podcast for fellow entrepreneurs that they are measured … They measure themselves about the success that they have. And I saw so many shady successful entrepreneurs, and so wonderful and successful entrepreneurs. That would be the podcast that I would create, if any.
Stephanie:
Yeah. That’s a good one.
Roger:
I wouldn’t know how to do that, but if I would [crosstalk].
Stephanie:
We’re here Roger, we’ll help you. I like that.
Roger:
Yeah. Thank you.
Stephanie:
That’s a good one. Well Roger, thank you so much for joining me today. It was a pleasure hearing all about your background and Plazah. Where can people learn more about Plazah?
Roger:
Plazah.com, with an H. It’s P-L-A-Z-A-H.com. Don’t ask me why the H it’s a crazy stuff.
Stephanie:
All right. Love it. Thanks Roger.
Roger:
Thank you very much.
