Recast | Brian Lange | The intersection of commerce and culture

Welcome to Commerce Famous, the biweekly podcast all about ecommerce and retail. In each episode, your host, Ben Marks, cuts through the clutter and takes you straight to the stories and experiences of those who shaped digital commerce as we know it today. While their names and faces might not be recognized on the street, each of Ben's guests are famous for commerce or commerce famous. Without further ado, your host, Ben Marks. Welcome to the eCommerce Famous podcast.

This is your host, Ben Marks. I normally kick this off with a bit of an intro here, but I have a feeling anyone listening to my podcast has probably heard my guest today, Brian Lang from Future Commerce, on either a previous podcast or their own podcast or you've seen him on stage or oh, Brian. This has been a long time coming. Welcome to the Commerce Famous podcast. How are you?

Good, man. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. It's been, you know, it's been you and I have we've danced around. We've been to many a conference together.

Many. And, you know, just in the old days and the new days. So we've, you know, we've got a lot of context, and it's probably gonna be a challenge us to just make sure that we're not, you know, we're not we're not invoking too much of that context without without bringing the, the listeners along with us. But We'll try. I I gotta say, it was interesting.

I've never I've never actually you know, I I knew you from, from the agency days, but I I didn't really know much about your history coming up into into the space. But but but before I dig back to history, of course, you are part of this this media this burgeoning media empire in the commerce space, Future Commerce. And, folks, really, if you found your way to the Commerce Famous podcast, you and you're not already paying attention to everything that the folks at Future Commerce are doing, you really should. They are No. You know, the disclosure, you know, we've we've done we've worked together in paid engagements and everything.

But but even aside from that, the the amount of value that that future commerce is bringing into, you know, into the space just really the the analysis, the, the the the forecasting, the even just the celebration of what's happening in commerce. It's it's really it's it's it's always informative and often inspiring. So I have to just I just have to to give you just an an a straight up honest plug from that standpoint. Be kind. So We're we're we're we're out there if anything.

And so, folks, again, like, if you haven't if you haven't, if that's not enough of of a of a call to action, just just send me an email. I'll give you a tailored invite to go sign up for for future for future commerce. But, you know, but, Brian, so, you know, you've you've had a lot of roles in this space just like so many of the guests that I've had on, on so far. You know, you started it seems like I think you if I if what I read was correct, you you kinda started twenty tens, in in this space. Did it did it go back at all earlier?

Yeah. Yeah. 2009, sort of. I was in, like, a payments payments business. It was like a payments and data startup out in Seattle.

It's kind of my first touch with commerce, and, I had, like, a there was, like, a bill pay tool, and there was, like, a a data like, it was a data storage and stock like, organization tool for, like, historic documents in a business and, you know, data that they needed to keep track of that they needed to, you know, digitize or, like, combine digital and physical, because it was back in the day, that was a big problem. But still a lot of, emphasis on on physical and a lot of people just still using physical documents. Even for payments, checks were still a big deal back when I graduated from college, which is crazy. I guess I'm getting really old now. I felt like I when I when I graduated, I was like, who uses checks?

But, like, a lot of people still use checks. Yeah. Yeah. We're seeing I mean, I've got a there's a a a payments guru who, shares kind of an office space in this in this building. And, yeah, it's interesting just even listening to him talking about some of the the modernization of of of payments.

It just you know, this is the kind of stuff that we're seeing. Now we're seeing we're seeing, especially, you know, where what's the most the most laggard sector b two b. Right? So b two b for the longest time in in in you know, because you you know, after so after this time, I mean, you you again, you went through many roles. You ended up in the agency.

I did. Yeah. And and and you ended up there at a time when when, you know, the the oft used phrase digital transformation was really, was really starting to hit, and and really really hit for for b two b. Now the operating theory, I think, and you I've had other other guests comment on this, and maybe you can chime in on as well, is that, like, basically, kids who have grown up with with the Internet as always being a thing, and then more and more these days, like, with with always having mobile, you know, access to to the mobile web, they started bringing their their buying expectations or shopping expectations from their normal That's right. Their b to c experiences into the b to b journey.

Is that does that kinda match with what you all have seen? Yeah. Totally. So this is, again, like, fifteen years ago. We're here.

We're talking. When I first came into it, that's exactly what was happening. In fact, the the mobile web, you know, was just getting it started, and there was always a big debate, like, do you design a mobile website or really should we all be looking towards this new responsive idea. Right? And this is this is back, you know, ten plus years ago.

And actually, I think you were at Magento when I was at an agency that ended up working really closely with Magento to build the first native responsive theme that they had. And, like, I was a huge part of that project. That that theme that, the Magenta, like, their native theme, and it becoming the, I believe, the most adopted mobile or or responsive commerce theme in the world, for a brief period. Wild times back then. And now now it's like every like, it moved to mobile first, and now we're, like, moving beyond that to, like, AI pin first.

No. Just kidding. Oh, no. Don't you dare. I'm having the editors cut that out.

My gosh. Commerce famous is proudly presented by Shopware, the leading open source ecommerce platform for mid market and lower enterprise merchants. More than 50,000 clients already processed over $25,000,000,000 in annual GMV through Shopware. Find out more about Shopware and the best value in ecommerce at shopware.com. I wish I could I wish I could collect money for something like that and then deliver I did what I saw it described as a, is like sort of a a GPT interface with, like, a Timoo a Timoo projector.

I talk about I mean, I didn't I'm I'm glad I'm glad there's still some money out there for people to to to swing for the fences, I guess. I I know it's interesting. It's early, but actually, I I I believe in the idea of of gadgets coming up. We're gonna see more disparate devices, and I'm getting into future projections on from future commerce. Like, I've I've said this a little bit on the show before on the on the future commerce podcast, but, like, gadgets and and more specific devices, we don't think of them that way.

Like, the idea of a gadget's, like, feels like from the nineteen fifties, but, like, the your your AirPods are a gadget. We Oh, yeah. We are we're seeing, like, compute happen in distinct devices that are going to merge into ecosystems. And so I think we we're gonna see more of this. It's it's gonna see exactly look at this guy.

Look at this guy. If you're looking at the video feed, he just pulled up all three pairs of his AirPods. Well, I don't I didn't I didn't have my my latest gen AirPods with me either. So long story short, like, I I I think it having some sort of AI first interactive, device, it's it's probably in our future in some way. I don't know if it's gonna be an always on device because that's gonna take some adaption, for a while.

That's that's gonna take a minute. Well, so I I like I like that you call out. So, you know, again and, folks, you know, we talk about the the the topic of com of Commerce Famous. Like, so the idea is that we bring people in who, you know, who've been around the space for a little while, and and it's really my you know, whether it's a whether you call it a straw man or something else, but the the the goal is to sit there and explain to someone who's, like, brand new to commerce that's coming into, especially, like, the e part of commerce, you know, today without the historical context, like, why are things the way they are? And, you know, how did they get here?

And then and ideally, if we look at this stuff, how do we how how can we use that to understand where we're going? Now AirPods are a perfect example of this. Right? So you think about the major disruptions that have happened, like, true disruptions. Yep.

Yep. Someone someone holds up, was Steve Jobs holding up an iPhone Right. Like, for the first time? Okay. That that an entire an entire class, an entire economy, you know, billions, trillions, whatever.

These these gadgets that then become just, you know, I I you and I, Brian, we walk through airports regularly. Not it's not just AirPods that people have in their ears, but but what what AirPods sort of carved out, created, those things. Like, that is that that is now part of our our day to day. And and, you know, what was interesting because you got it or Google Buzz. It was interesting.

And when we were at this we were at the retail summit comp conference, a great series of conferences, by the way. If if one if one comes to your town, you absolutely should do it, in in Austin, just a couple weeks ago. And, actually, I was I don't know if you saw me in the audience. I was, like, I was actually scribbling. I was trying to hold up a sign for you because they were talking about someone on on the panel that you were participating in was talking about, you know, oh, you know, maybe, well, we don't assume we're gonna have, like, biometrics and all this other stuff.

And I'm like, it's already here. Yeah. It's already here. It's already here. Because I already think about it.

Yep. Exactly. So someone walked you know, this was in the context of payments. And I'm just like, well, I think it was the context, but someone walks up. You know, it it happens today, and it's it's now finally getting more and more popular in The US.

But, like, I can go I can go into the gas station or something. I can I can hold up my phone? I can authenticate biometrically, and I can pay. Yep. And and it but what was interesting to me was that was a that was a group of very successful, very intelligent business operators on that panel with you.

And and and it seemed like that point was actually kind of lost among them, but and it just that just goes to show how how the really great transformative tech, it just it slides It just slides right into your DMs. It just comes right in. Yep. It slides into your normal life. And that's also one of the things that I think you all at at at Future Commerce are really good at pulling out is is sort of recognizing these these major, you know, epochs.

Right? These these moments in time and and the and the the things that are happening around them. It's hard to notice these things as they're happening as you're living inside them. But from your perspective, like, so again, you've been through this transition from getting started out, but then quickly getting into this kind of position to sort of get a broad lay of the land, you know, in in from the agency perspective, and then you've had you've, you know, you've dabbled in some other some other More payments. More payments.

More payments. Minor other, you know, small employers out there. You know, what are what are the other transformative things that that you think that that that stick out for you in in the last in the last couple years? And I'm asking you that question mostly to help frame the follow-up, which is where does this all happen? Right.

Well, I think what what happened was, you know, we you and I both came up through the world of, you know, open source commerce. Right? That that was the de facto. That was really the only, like, logical way to build commerce when when it first started. And and then we saw this rise of, you know, something called, SaaS.

And this is the past, you know, five years that we've been on. SaaS has sort of dominated the landscape because it was easier for, simple brands to jump on board and and sell. And it was and it was also the rise of Amazon, so marketplaces. Marketplaces and SaaS software provided venues for all kinds of new entrepreneurs or products to be sold or ways to engage in commerce that just weren't accessible before. And I think this has been good for the commerce ecosystem.

It's provided a lot more talent and excitement and, like, an energy. What what is this done for, you know, you know, for for commerce and the enterprise? And also, what does this mean for commerce in the future? There's a lot to talk about where this is headed next. But I I I do think it's interesting.

You know, you and I both came out of of that world. We've seen that world kind of move up market, maybe abandon the down market because of SaaS software. But there's there's a whole set of brands out there that are still kind of caught in the middle world. And I think there's a a huge opportunity for for transformation as as, as SaaS software maybe hasn't met every need. You brought up b to b.

Like, it's been a challenge. B to b companies haven't been able to adopt Shopify very well. It's been a, almost impossible. So that's an that's an interesting point because, you know, one of the you know, we obviously, I've I've been working for, you know, either with or for open source commerce platforms for for a long time now. And, you know, as I think I've said more than once on this on this podcast and and certainly said more than once in person, I'm more than happy to recommend a SaaS solution.

In fact, if I would argue anytime that, someone's requirements more or less, allow them, you know, either to to to work straight ahead with a SaaS platform or if they can just, you know, give up some requirements or adjust some things, adjust workflow, and and and that themselves to a SaaS to a SaaS platform. It's really hard to argue against the sort of the the robustness now. Now but that comes with serious limitations, right, because you have to understand where you're headed. You have to understand how you're gonna have to differentiate. And what we know, you know, what we know both know from experience, what this what I think this whole commerce solution marketplace knows is that, you know, at at, you know, anywhere along any scale, but but generally, as you start as a as a merchant or brand starts to get bigger and bigger, their requirements just, you know, the they just have arbitrary needs.

Now SaaS does what it does because it creates the box Yep. And and you really try and fit in that box. But everyone you know, whereas I think everyone should try and be on a SaaS platform, and, SaaS platforms want to be the platform that everyone's on, There's a reason that Shopify, you know, still doesn't you know, only has a a a small minority of total business. That's an overestimation then. And and and and then and then, you know, you talk about b to b?

Holy crap. That is that is it is it is so artistically nuanced. The b to requirements. It's amazing to me. And that's what we that's what that's, you know, I think that that that that kinda gets to the heart of it.

It does. Yeah. And I and I I like I'm itching to tell you what what this what the implications for the future are here. It's okay. Good.

Good. Good. Good. This is the time where I can talk about that. Well, before I do that, just as a refresher, future commerce and what we do is really look into the look look to, commerce and culture and see where they intersect.

And that helps us understand what the future of commerce is gonna be. And technology, isn't it isn't either of those categories, but what technology allows for is change in both those categories. It gives opportunity for those things to shift. But it's really commerce and culture, the why behind where we purchase and what we purchase. It's not it's not the where and the what, it's the why behind.

And so we're our whole focus is understanding how people operate, how they think Yeah. Why they're doing what they're doing, and that helps us understand what's coming next. And so, we do that through a number of different channels, podcasts you've mentioned, but also through through written. We send out three newsletters a week. We do reports like the one we do with you on the state of AI and commerce, which I will get to in a minute.

It was incredible report. Okay. We do, you know, events and we bring people together, through our salons and and our larger events. And yeah. You guys are like art you have, like, this thing at Art Basel down in Miami.

Yes. Yes. Absolutely, Kam. It's called Muses. It's a three day event at Art Basel, December six through eighth in Miami.

It is the it's really a look at humanity plus commerce and and and from an artistic perspective. And Now who who's the who is the who's the right person for for who, like, who's the right audience member? So, people that come to Art Basel, typically are looking toward art, to help them determine how people are operating and have get inspiration for how to, you know, engage with our customers, and and understand what their customers, like, are finding compelling. And so that's why our event this year is called Muses, because what we're talking about, and what we're what what we're building an event around is this idea that, there's the the nine classical muses from, you know, mythology. Right?

And and Or like Selma Hayek in dogma. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And so there's these there's these ideas that people used to be, you know, inspiration didn't come just from within, but like you you look to this this goddess as a way to like go find what your what would actually inspires you to go do things and to create and to purchase and to live and and and experience life.

Well, brands in many ways have stepped into the the role of a modern muse inspiring us to travel and to create and to build and to, you know, and and or at minimum, they're champions of these modern muses of of wanderlust, you know, and and things like that. And not to not to I mean and maybe not maybe I'm taking it a little bit too deep here, but isn't the isn't the real trick though that, you know, the inspiration was inside of you all along. Right? So that's it's this it's this it's this, you could say, circuitous or virtuous Yes. You know, sort of externalization of the self, like Right.

But in this in this relationship and and maybe the remarkable thing is that is that the brand and and the the the brand, the connection, the buying experience have all gotten to the place where we actually feel like we can relate to, you know, to to I mean, I'm coming day No. You're you're nailing this. You're nailing this. Are our God. But okay.

Well, in in in many ways well, you know, we've talked about this a lot. The the sacraments of commerce is a is one of the visions themes. Actually, Shopware was a part of last year, that we that we explored. But, you you're dead on about identity, and who we are playing into this. We actually so last year when we had Art Basel, we released this book at our at a big event at Art Basel Architects Architects.

And it is all about identity and and self and and connection and the headspace that brands take up in our story. But often we wanna get caught up in something bigger than ourselves and entrust our identity to something bigger than ourselves. And so Muses is all about that thing that we then can entrust ourselves to. This leads very nicely into where I see all of this movement in ecommerce leading to. And Philip, Jackson, my cofounder and I, we we have, invested in this idea called the multiplayer brand.

The problem with the SaaS ecosystem is that Yeah. It has created this world of sameness. It's every and and it's it's every everything, every e commerce experience. If you take the header and logo off of a commerce experience, your your web your, you know, home page or your browsing experience Yep. Or your PDP.

Yeah. You can't even tell what company it is. Everything feels the same. And even when you flip the this the blinders off and you look at that that header and you look at that logo, we're seeing a world in which brands have gone to market with a single idea of who they are and what they represent and how they that would like their their story. And we've built up these brand Bibles and brand police around what that story is.

But the thing the problem with that is, Ben, your version of Nike is not my version of Nike, and it's it's, you know, and it's not, you know, Phillips version of my Nike. Like, it's we all have these different viewpoints because we experience the brand in our daily lives and our context in different ways. And so The the way we just do it is different. It's the way we do it's different. That's right.

And so we talked about personalization, but there there's actually a bigger story going on. It's this idea of the participatory economy. This idea of hyperstition, actually, that it's it's not superstition. It's hyperstition. Hyperstition is the idea that You're gonna have to define that for us.

You can that people now have a, such a strong voice in the world that they can actually create the future through belief and through discussion. So an example of this in brand would or or in the world recently, is is, kind of what happened with the Superman movie that got released a a while back a few years back, and we wrote an article about this. So Zack Snyder made the Superman movie, but then when the studio took over, they just kind of, like, the edit they kind of, like, push Snyder out. They did this terrible edit that made the movie feel soulless and unartistic, and people were like, this is not Zack Snyder. This is not this is not what we were looking for out of this movie.

Bring back the Snyder cut because they heard that all of his edits had, you know, been scrapped and had been basically re recut. And and so the studio eventually actually rereleased the movie as the Snyder cut, as like a full theatrical release and, like, sort of bent their their the way that they did business to the crowd, the fans. The fans had a bigger voice in the future of the Superman franchise than even, DC did, in many ways. And so there's examples of this all over. I there was the cereal straw that was resurrected due to, you know, fans coming back and demanding it.

There was the, the the grimace shake, but which actually came out after we sort of pioneered this idea that that that, you know, McDonald said that sort of happy birthday meal for Grimace, but people took that and they ran with it. The Grimace shake in particular that came with that meal had a whole, like, aesthetic and storyline that was fan driven, that was well beyond the happy birthday campaign that McDonald's made. And that wasn't even the only one because they brought back Szechuan sauce. I'm I'm certain because of No. No.

No. No. You're right. It was clearly. Yeah.

There was a 100%. Yeah. So you the the what we're seeing is that, like, fans and creators and the people that are in like, get connected to these brands, these cultural brands are actually having a bigger impact on the scope of the brand. So what we can get more into what this means from a very, like, very, like, practical standpoint here in a sec, but you were gonna say something. Sorry.

I cut you off. Well, well, so I mean, you know, this could be a fifteen hour podcast. I'm sure just based on the time that we spent together. However, I don't have any bourbon at my point. So, but, when you're describing so this this this this seems like a a sort of a a step a step into the future.

It is. Right? Because you have you have you have, you have people saying, hey. This is what we want now. The cool thing is that studios are aware at all, but but but people are emboldened because because, you know, we we the the idea of of of me as the main character, this this is pervasive now.

I'm stating that objectively. This may be a good or a bad thing depending on your experience with with influencers and the like. But this this is, like, almost, a stepping point into what I think we're gonna see with, you know, with with advances in technology, in display technology, in in speed of, speed of response adaptation. Exactly. With AI.

That's right. Right? So so the bending, you know, way like, I mean, and you can almost imagine, like, going if people are still going to theaters in twenty years to see something other than Taylor Swift concerts. Or or you you could even take the Taylor Swift. You know, the the the real time adaptation of media or, you know, production, whatever in in and it somehow is connecting directly with the consumer.

It is. Right? And so, you might have 10 people in a room looking at the same thing, but somehow this thing is transformed, as it's being delivered to the person. That to me is just, I almost can't believe it, but given the advances we've seen just even in the last twelve months, I can totally Exactly. And so what does this mean practically for for brands and retailers?

Well, it means providing experiences to help facilitate that connection directly with customer. You've heard of dark mode. Right? Like switching your phone to dark mode. But at Future Commerce, we talk about this idea of dork mode.

And imagine, imagine what the Home Depot website would look like if it was set to dork mode. The we gave it the brutalist Gen z aesthetic, or or or, you know, whatever the aesthetic is. What if brands had more exactly. Gotta go read this article. This is good.

The the mister b's cars of Home Depot. I you were just on stage with the guy from Home Depot. Right. Right. No.

For real. So, I think the opportunity to to speak more specifically to the archetypes of people that that are amalgamations of of voices. Right? And addressing those amalgamations in more specific ways is necessary for the next round of engagement online. What this means is that you need more flexible commerce technology.

And so we may be full circle here. It's it's time to step out of, like, the sea of sameness that that SAS has given us and find ways and have technology that's flexible enough to go after more iterations or more quickly across and and serve more complex needs and purchasing flows because we all buy differently. Yes. Exactly. I mean, I've talked about the chaos at the edge.

In fact, I just gave a, I actually spoke at a at a at another platforms conference in Poland, and and my whole, like, my whole concept, though, was was this the theme was was actually fractals. Right? Because I see every platform, every solution, depending on your terminology. You know, it it build builds for builds for the the, you know, the the the widest audience that it can responsibly without going against type or getting too complex. But at the end of the day, the only way that that that those experiences become at all authentic or actually really fit the the requirements at hand are with the sort of the chaotic engagement and and something you could never predict or control, you know, from our perspective as an OEM.

But but you just you basically put the tools out there, and the people come, and then they they make it all they make it all sort of slot in and work together. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing, I think. Speaking of tools, this is where AI is essential in this in this, because one of the things that's been really challenging in the past for addressing the speed at which the market changes and the and the narrative that's, like, constantly shifting or the the multiple narratives that are necessary is that it's been very expensive and almost cost prohibitive to do this. The tools like it was it was challenge to to be able to go address multiple markets in multiple ways and do it in a cohesive way that wasn't going to just destroy your your costs. And AI is now affording us opportunities to go be more responsive and create copy and create campaigns and create front ends that are, set up to address these multiple groups.

And and to get into the AI study we released a little bit, this is this is coming. It's three out of four companies plan to more spend, I think it was, like, triple their AI budgets next year. It's the the the investment that's coming for AI is massive. You need if you're listening to this and you have a brand or you're an agency or you're a tech company, you need to have a strategy around AI in some way. This is not flash in the pan stuff.

There probably is a little bit of a hype train in some in some respects, but but it's it's not the same kind of hype train that we saw with, like, like, NFTs or PWAs. Some yeah. Exactly. Some of the other things that like, this is actually transformative technology that's showing, like, real results immediately. Yeah.

It's function functionally, iterative. Right? So, I mean, this is and we we've seen this. Right? And and and, you know, and and it's it's interesting that because it took, you know, AI AI is just such a gross and I mean gross and kinda almost a literal like, the the the the literal sense of it's sort of indelicately large, right, as a catchall phrase.

But, AI, I'll use it bluntly here. You know, this is you've you've got companies that have been doing machine learning. I was just talking with Jim Lofgren about this on a previous episode. But, you know, you had you had businesses that were doing machine learning for a long time. So, like, your your your search, you know, intelligence search, personalization, these companies have been in the space for now almost a decade, really taking large datasets and trying to build, you know, build better and better responses, interactions, whatever.

Then it but it takes something like GPT Yes. To come out, GPT four. So chat GPT comes out, and then all of a sudden, you have the you have the thing that really kicks us over into the next That's right. The natural language interface into all of this stuff. And what we know is that, like, again, you know, shopware space has been interesting and it's because we because of our approach and because of how we're built, how we operate, we were able to build, AI Copilot and release it in May.

So, like, not even I was there for the release. That's the the you're you're there. You were there in in in Pittsburgh. And and it was and it was even I was shocked at what we had built, but it wasn't shocked because of, like, oh, great. Now we get to hype ourselves way.

But no, it was because like, hey, this is actually the meaningful transformation, that that that I would expect AI to have in our space. Like, it's gonna help operations. It's gonna take people their day to day jobs. Yes. It's gonna help them do what they do even better.

And then that becomes their new working expectation. That's correct. Like, we keep iterating on consumers, they change their expectations. So it's not just that. I mean, I'm glad that we were first to market and still, I think, basically, the only meaningful platform in the market with this.

Yeah. But our you know, the other the other solutions, they're gonna have this. This is gonna That's right. Normal. And that's not just an ecommerce.

It's gonna be all throughout the whole your whole commerce operating environment, you know, warehouse management, PIM, all this other stuff. And then in you know, and then everything else in our lives, how we get our media, all of this stuff going to be colored by this. So it's really important that we pay attention. And we did a survey together about That's right. Yeah.

And I think you can still can people still get that survey? Oh, yeah. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Gena, futurecommerce.com/genai report, or //genai.

It should get you there. Yep. And, you you mentioned people, like, seeing results. They're already seeing results. So nine out of 10 people surveyed were already using it, and, three out of five reported three out of five in total.

So it's actually almost like it's it's a higher percentage of the ones that are using it. Saw already saw already measurable increase in productivity as a result of using generative generative AI solutions. That is wild. There's we just saw the the release and and, you know, the growth of this in the in the past year, like less than a year. I mean, when we did the survey, it was like the summer, early summer.

We're talking like June when we ran the survey. And this is this is the impact that we're seeing already, and this is just like an early use cases as well. Like, 73% were already were using it in content creation for commerce. 60%, it was omnichannel marketing. 52% in oh, sorry.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. That was the relevant use cases. Current use cases was 61% were using it in content creation, and 36% were using it in customer feedback slash collaboration.

So the the the, this the the use cases are just scratching the surface. We've got a lot more things that this is gonna be applied towards. And I and like you said, the implementations you guys did and released, as a first mover were off the charts. Like, it's was so impressive to get a demo and play around with it in your platform. I was blown away.

Yeah. We're and we're, yeah, we we've we've got a lot of our attention focused on that. It's not our sole focus. And, again, I'm not I'm not even pretending that the shop are the only people doing this. Everyone's doing this.

And I hope I hope everyone does it well because at the end of the day, the operations folks, the the end consumers are all gonna win by, you know, more efficient more efficient delivery of service, better quality of service, and a a more enjoyable, meaningful, buying experience. Now I've I've I've gotta start to wrap this up here. Sheesh. So I so I I I wanna ask you, though. So we I think we've covered we've we've I've probably promoted you all better than I've promoted anyone else on on this on this podcast so far, and it's it's all it's all organic, folks.

2024. So I've been having a lot of discussions about, with with folks who are now maybe breathing a sigh of relief, maybe still have a little tightness in the chest, looking back at twenty twenty three, especially on the heels of twenty one and twenty two. 2024, what do the folks at, what do you or folks at Future Commerce see? What do you think 2024 is gonna look like? From an economic perspective?

We could we could say that or just, you know, you I mean, it's it's all economics. It's it is all economics the other day. That's true. It's actually going. But yeah.

But but So interesting. It could be just mentality or One of the things that I was talking to, one of our recurring guests, future commerce, Chris Gasser, who's from a company called Shipium, about, about this very thing. And he was talking about in the context of shipping software. But actually beyond that, we kind of went a little bit further. And one of the things that we saw recently was there were a lot of up and coming, brands and direct to consumer companies, but also, like, large large traditional retail and and brands that thought that they understand they understood how to run direct to consumer, and build ecom channels, right, and run ecom.

But what that really meant was the person in charge of technology had a whole bunch of money because it was the zero interest rate phenomenon era, Zirp era, and they could invest pretty much, you know, pretty freely, and and VC could dump money in and, you know, budgets were flowing around technology in retail and commerce. And as a result, some of these legacy retailers, and some of these new companies thought that they were technology companies, and they decided to go invest heavily in, like, engineering teams and have all of these, like, features that they were gonna custom build and custom build the differentiator. And and their instincts were not wrong around having things to be differentiators. The problem was they had no idea how to get there. And often what ended up happening was Yeah.

Technology teams were just built for the sake of technology teams or really for the career of whoever was leading them. And we were so I'm I'm just I'm this is so funny because I was literally just on a call with my buddy, Isaiah Bollinger over at Trellis, and and Jason and Jason, our our our US, our president and general manager. Exact same point came up. Exact same point. And so what you're seeing in some of these companies is massive inefficiency that could be replaced by software that can be customized.

It like, you could achieve the same results you were looking for, but using software as a starting point. Right? Let let us, you know, let us let us be let us be your it's kind of your boots bootstrap product team. I realize it's not bootstrap if you buy it, but bootstrap product team. But as long as as long as your solution is flexible enough, then you can innovate in the directions that you need to, and you don't have to you don't have to bring in this kind of institutional knowledge that you have no business internalizing anyway.

Right. And so I'll I'll bring up an example within the the guilty guilty would be kept innocent here, but, like, there was a really big, like, classic, automaker that had a direct to consumer department. And Yeah. This, like, direct to consumer department direct to consumer on, you know, ecom like, ecom had, like, over 200 people in it. And I assume I I knew someone who went in that understood how to do ecomm and was like Yep.

This is crazy. He cut 60 plus percent of the staff because Yep. The the tools are out there to provide the foundations that they were trying to build on legacy technology that they thought they had to use. Yeah. The opportunity right now, I think, is to for for a lot of these brands and retailers is to, in 2024, is to get to get lean before you customize and build that multiplayer future.

Because if you try to do it on technology that's gonna hamper you, you need to know what the right stack is to go build that future. Yeah. And if you're doing it all in house, all on legacy stuff, you're not gonna be able to get there. And for some of you, you're doing it on SaaS software that doesn't give you the flexibility to get there either. So if you've hit a certain maturity point in your business or you didn't innovate in the right way, there's gonna be opportunity to innovate in a smart way in 2024.

That's gonna be the most cost effective way to do it. So there's you're saying that there is a, you know, there's I won't I won't say necessarily a SAS ceiling because, again, I don't wanna paint with too broad a brush stroke. But, basically No. There can be a technical ceiling. And if you wanna get lean in 2024, you you you or if you wanna get green in 2024, you gotta get lean.

You gotta get lean in the right way. I think that's the key here is, like, if you're feeling the the the growing pains and you are hitting that limit of of your SaaS platform or the limit of your legacy technology, there are better ways forward to go, you know, build a build a brand that's future proofed. Yeah. We we like to say, oh, that's that's that's a that's a that's an excellent take. And we like to say, you know, one if you you you can't you can't rest on your laurels and remain future proof.

So we like to say, you know, if you're gonna the the best way to be future proof is to effectively just be inventing the future, and that is, I think, a good place to leave it with my friend Brian Lang from Future Commerce. I love that. You know, give give give old Phil Winkle Jackson a a hug next time you see him for me. And, I will. I'm Miami.

Forward. You coming to Miami? I, I am not oh, wait. No. I I could come to Miami.

You should come to Miami. Think about that. I'll have to think about that off the podcast. If fans come to Miami. We'll see we'll see what Tracy has to say about that.

Tracy's coming to Miami too. Again, she may she may want the break. Yeah. Folks, it's been, again, it's been a pleasure to have my friend Brian Lang from Future Commerce on the podcast. And I also have to say that I think we're we'll be working on some some some really cool stuff together Let's go.

For the next year. But, regardless, take the time. Go over to futurecommerce.com. Mash any subscribe button. Enter Unpaid paid.

Future commerce learning. We just launched future commerce learning. It's it's amazing. Yeah. No.

Congratulations. We should probably have a whole podcast about that. Have that. Alright, folks. Well, this has been another this has been another great, just a great conversation here on Commerce Statements podcast.

Always feel free to send me suggestions if you'd like to hear from someone, and we'll see you in a couple of weeks. Thanks, man.