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Shopping While Watching with Eitan Koter · We Built This Brand

0:00
Every platform has its own ways of doing things.
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Social commerce is increasing.
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I mean, according to any data, it's, the latest
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report I saw is gonna be like $8.2 trillion in 2030.
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That's massive.
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Probably around close to 20% of the overall e-commerce business, right?
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So it's really substantial, and what drives this is the difficulties
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to acquire new customers to your own amazing brand dot com website.
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The rise of, you know, cost of advertising on Meta and on Amazon,
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it's very competitive, and so, okay, so let's just deploy videos
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and have, you know, give customers the ability to checkout
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where they're spending most of their time on social media.
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So that's what's driving, you know, this whole thing, you know, together.
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Welcome to We Built This Brand, the podcast where we talk to the
0:53
creators and collaborators behind brands and provide you with
0:57
practical insights that you can use in growing your own business.
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Today, we're talking to Eitan Koter, co-founder of Vimmi, a company
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specializing in video technologies and video commerce solutions.
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This was a really neat interview.
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We dive into his journey from working in video compression and broadcasting
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to launching Vimmi, a company which helps brands monetize video content.
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This episode dovetails nicely with Ian Baer's interview, which if you've
1:21
not watched it, I recommend you jump back and check that out as well.
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So let's not delay it any further.
1:26
Here's my interview with Eitan Koter of Vimmi.
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Eitan, welcome to We Built This Brand.
1:35
It's good to have you on today.
1:36
Wow.
1:37
We're really excited about this one, Chris.
1:39
It's a pleasure to be here.
1:41
Yeah.
1:41
Yeah.
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You've had quite the journey in your career.
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I was doing some research on your background and where you came
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from and how you got to where you are today working with Vimmi.
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And I would just love to dive in a little bit more on that.
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And if you could tell me a little bit about where
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you got your start and what led you to where you are.
2:00
Yeah.
2:00
So I started in the video business like more than two
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decades ago, and my CEO just hired me back then said,
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"Are you sure you want to go into the video business?
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Because there's no way to get out.
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You're going to stay here for your entire career." I said,
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"Why?" Is that because video is just changing always.
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It's revolutionizing, like, every few years, and you'll stop and you'll see.
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So, yeah, I started, in a tech company.
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It was really a startup.
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We raised a lot of funds from VCs.
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We even floated this company in NASDAQ.
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It was a video compression company.
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Here's all the days where the video was called probably
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"broadcast" or, you know, we work with TV stations and helping
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them in the transition from analog video to digital video.
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And yeah, I mean, it was an amazing journey with the
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companies composing of networks, and the president and,
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you know, manage this company, also as a public company.
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And, we saw that video is migrating from satellite and cable networks to IP.
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I think we were quite
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innovating back then with delivery or video over IP.
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Today, of course, we have Netflix and Disney and all these video platforms.
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It's quite obvious that video works very well.
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Even 4K, right?
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In terms of resolution over public networks, which are
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unmanaged networks, but back then it wasn't like that.
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And then in 2014, I founded with a partner, a co-founder of
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mine, Vimmi, where we develop video technologies and video
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monetization tools to help content providers and mobile
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operators, to launch their own Netflix like services, right?
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So direct-to-consumer video services.
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And it's still, like, encompasses, like, a substantial
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part of our revenues, and the last four years were totally
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focused on this new and emerging video commerce space.
4:00
We took our existing technology and adapted it and productize it
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towards the e-commerce space and today we work with brands and
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helping them sell their products with video.
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So in terms of the running company, so I, you know, as I
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said, I managed, like, public companies and also raised a
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lot of funds from VCs, but Vimmi, you're already 11 years in.
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Already celebrating 11 years, and this is a bootstrap company.
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So there are no external investors, and it's a different kind of a journey
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from the management, the day-to-day activities, but the company is doing well.
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Growing profitable company, and the idea is to serve more and just
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focus on what we do best, which is video commerce today, and helping
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our customers just sell more through through the power of video.
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That's fascinating, and I'm a big fan of bootstrapping.
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So, we're definitely going to spend some time
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talking about that here in a little bit, but
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what was the initial inspiration for Vimmi?
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I mean you had all this video background.
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I could understand wanting to start a video company, but you
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said initially it was like Netflix for an individual broadcaster.
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Tell me a little bit more about what that is and how that worked.
5:17
Yeah.
5:18
So the idea was that, you know, we saw the evolution of video and how video
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is just taking more and more active role in variety of, let's, it's called
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the media and entertainment use cases, but also marketing use cases, right?
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So, I mean, Netflix and probably Disney, like Amazon Prime, and
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those services are probably considered under media and entertainment.
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And they are, today you see the transition from satellite and
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cable networks towards those type of platforms, which are carried
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over, the video is carried over it over the internet, and we have
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customers that are serving millions of users on a daily basis.
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So Vimmi is a B2B2C company.
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Our customers are brands, or content providers, or mobile operators,
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but the users are consumers who watch video, whether for entertainment
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through these subscription to various packages, or to make a purchase.
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Just to make a video and experience that is very, very interesting
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and create a lot of, I would say impact and impulse purchase.
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So the idea is to work and marketing, as you said, is moving to
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1-on-1, of course, so we have customers in Asia that is serving
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close to, like, 20 million users, okay, every day, right?
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Just serving video on the limit platform, but on the other hand, like, brands
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who are using video across multi channel, not only on their own website, but
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also on their own social media accounts and marketplaces, just pushing these
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videos, whether it's a live or non-live video, and maybe we can discuss about
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the difference between those type of videos and just making this connection
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and building the foundation for growth together with video, while using
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video, as video is a very powerful tool to create this emotional connection.
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There's a brand loyalty and moving into 1-on-1 kind of marketing
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where you can interact in real time with users, respond to the
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question over chat, like from within the video, and it's a really
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specialized type of service that can gaining a lot of momentum.
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Definitely in North America.
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Do you think?
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Yeah, it certainly is gaining a lot of momentum here.
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I mean, as many of my listeners will probably know, I
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mean, TikTok has really shifted to a marketplace platform.
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At times it can feel like you're just on an infomercial website with how much
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you have to scroll through, which I hope they get better balance about, but
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it's definitely something that, you know, the overall is becoming a trend.
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And you're seeing a lot of people even move to, "How can I sell?
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How can I make money for myself?" in these kind of environments.
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So, yeah, there's a lot out there.
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So you mentioned your bootstrapped.
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So talking about the inception of Vimmi, how, when I think
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bootstrapped, obviously that means no investors, maybe
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some credit card debt, but you did it all from scratch.
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So did you start this?
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Are you the developer here?
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Did you have someone else who was helping with development?
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Cause typically when I hear bootstrap, that means you got some
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cash or you just know what you're doing and you know how to
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get that base minimum viable product off the ground yourself.
8:34
Yes, there are a few ways to do that.
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I'm the marketing customer facing.
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My co-founder, I'm not sure if he's just managing R&D and operation.
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So there was a very good demarcation.
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This is very, very important.
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First and foremost, like a co-founder, just what do you do every day?
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There is no, you know, confusion, right?
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So this demarcation is very, very important.
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It is going very, very well over the year.
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And obviously what we did initially is, to do some
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consulting and some integration projects around video.
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So we partnered with Cisco and Ericsson and some variety of companies
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like that and build video networks for customers, which are more
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just, you know, a work of design, importation, installation,
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support, and this helps us a lot with the cash flow in the
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initial days, just to put all the extra profits into development.
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And we knew that we need to focus on large accounts just to help us scale
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the company, and we were focusing primarily on these enterprise customers.
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Again, so, we had a lot of enterprise experience people us in the industry, and
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we just went there just to travel to a lot of exhibitions around the world and
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used our networks to facilitate better connections with potential customers.
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And we were lucky to win some substantial agreements that are still
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carried on until these days, you know, even after 10 years of operation.
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So these companies, it's usually like a year-long type of engagements
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that are with a substantial income just to help us first serve the
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customers in a very professional way but also continue investing
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in development and R&D because you always need to continue
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developing and invest in your future roadmaps and figure said.
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So yeah, it's a combination of kind of a
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mentality of being agile in your mindset.
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We also use what they call like a narrow innovation type of, strategy.
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We can call it also, like, "land and expand." So instead of just
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developing a very broad solution that is maybe serving, you know, your
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total addressable market, which is mainly billions of dollars, right?
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This is nice to show investors the potential probably, but when you
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are bootstrapping, you need to look for your $20 million market, right?
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And just be very, very focused on what you do.
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So like be very narrow in the functionality that you provide like
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a laser focus and what you provide, minimal set of features serving
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a very, very focused group of initial early adopters and users.
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And once they feel that they are getting the response from us in a very,
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like, on a daily basis just iterate and get their feedback and quickly develop
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just for that specific customers, customer segment, then where the word of
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mouth start to kick in and marketing costs are very, very low, and they're
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introducing friends in their communities and helping us bring more customers.
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And then from there, we'll just expand, and then expand
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expanding your customer base and expanding your functionality.
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So usually founders think they need to tell a big story.
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It's good maybe for the vision side of things, but when you
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execute and you want thinking about cash flow 24/7, you need to
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make sure that you utilize your resources in a very effective way.
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Just serve a very minimal set of customers
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with a very minimal sets of functionalities.
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Get feedbacks, iterate very fast on a daily basis and
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grow from there and expand your solution and customer.
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That's great.
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I mean, when you're bootstrapping, and you're only reliant on the
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money you bring in to grow the business, that's a smart way to operate.
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And I mean, for myself, my business is also bootstrapped, so I feel you.
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We're not developing technology.
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We don't have developers, but we have editors and we have products
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and services we can only offer once we have the bandwidth to do
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it, and I think that's some good advice on how to do that too.
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So that's great.
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So as you were developing, as you were growing, I'd like to say
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that every business has this moment of what I call validation.
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It's like, I've got this great idea, and we might be getting
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paid for it already, but like, this is my moment where I know
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I'm on to something that's going to be really successful.
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So what was that moment of validation for Vimmi?
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Yes, I mean, this product market fit, it's like the main thing for any company.
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I see, by the way, a lot of industries, like brands and service
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companies, they're also implementing this type of lean startup
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mentality and methodologies just to get there as fast as you can.
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Talk to as many customers you can just to iterate and validate and
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make sure product market fit just kicks in right in a right way.
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And for us, I mean, there are two ways to do that, and depending
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on the solution that you have in our side of the business, we have
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these type of enterprise customers where say cycles are longer.
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And it's a great statement of works, assigned project manager.
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It's a very dedicated type of work, obviously, using our license
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with a lot of adaptations and customization on top of it.
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And on the other hand, you have these longer tail customers.
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These are like, SaaS, you know, usually SaaS-based that are just signing up
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for a solution and it can start with a free package, and maybe it's $149 or
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something like that, and these are, like, it's a different type of marketing.
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So first, you decide, you know, which type
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of kinds of companies you want to approach.
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The whole company culture, processes, job description
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to accommodate this type of two different strategies.
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So we knew that we are very good, again, from our background and
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just working with those enterprise customers as to where we focus,
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and on the one side, it's a lot of effort and you lose business
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even after you work on an opportunity for six months, even.
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But if you win one of the businesses, it's something
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that's just going on and on for years if you're performing,
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and the idea is to win more of these type of project.
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From there, once you have the resources to allocate some marketing budgets
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to more midsize or some longer type of customers, so this is where we always
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start with the enterprise with a big customers and just went down from there.
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It might work from for other companies and other entrepreneurs
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where they have different background and different experience,
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just probably working with his longer term customers.
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But, as you know, customer acquisition is very,
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very complicated these days, very difficult.
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This is why, by the way, a lot of companies
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and brands are going to social commerce.
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This is why video is so powerful.
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But the idea is to try to work closely and with
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a customer that can spend a lot of time with you.
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On the pre-sale side and understand your value, rather than just
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going to these low touch customers where it just product led growth.
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So you need to innovate the product, made a product like really, really shine.
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Fine tune the product.
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There is no sales, right?
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So you do marketing, people are landing on your, on your pricing page.
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And they set up and they can do it.
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There is a conversion or not, right?
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So there's nothing you can't talk to anyone.
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You don't know who they are almost, and you need just
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to make sure that the onboarding process makes sense.
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And it's a different type of expertise than just.
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Building this machine of going to a larger customer versus smaller customers.
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So this is, this was the way that we been
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successfully doing this for the last year.
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There's a lot of experimentation where you're trying to figure out what
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gets people in the door, what gets people to fill out the forms and make the
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purchase and not leave it hanging in the order form and all that fun stuff.
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So yeah, that's a lot to do and definitely a challenge moving to that model.
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So within that, who is, you mentioned like starting with
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larger companies and larger corporations and working your way
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down, but who would you consider to be your primary target?
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Like your primary target audience, primary target customer?
16:46
Yeah.
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Today's a majority of retailers and brands.
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Okay, larger on the larger side that they have internal executive
16:53
team and kind of a committee procurements type of approach.
16:57
So they're evaluating solutions.
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The implementation takes longer, and these are companies that have substantial
17:05
amount of videos that are, they need a professional platform to manage all
17:10
these videos in a professional kind of a media assets management, and having
17:14
the ability to market and to publish those videos across many, many social
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channels, publishers, marketplaces, their own digital assets in order to
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make sales a frictionless or smooth experience for shoppers by implementing
17:30
all these interactive capabilities or interactive shopping capabilities
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just are available like from within the video.
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So each platform, whether it's YouTube or Instagram or
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Facebook or Tiktok or Twitch or Pinterest, they're providing
17:46
different types of, I would say, shopability, right?
17:50
Or checkout capabilities.
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It also depends a lot on Our customer, whether it's it has like certain
17:57
amount of followers or partnership arrangement with YouTube or others
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that enable them to gain access to more functionalities in terms of just
18:07
implementing this conversion in a more intuitive and straightforward way.
18:12
But it's a platform that we provide, and it's just sync to
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your customers, existing e-commerce platform and just help them
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associate products to videos and just deploys these couple of
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videos across all these destinations in a very easy way, right?
18:29
So usually they will hire teams just to manage those different
18:35
destinations because their API are changing like every week.
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And so this is something that we do.
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We manage those APIs, we'll make sure we fully updated and just, in one
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click, you can deploy these videos and sales opportunities across all these
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channels from from a single dashboard, let's say from a single console.
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I think the breakthrough here, and it works both for live video and
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online video, usually those short forms, short form video, vertical
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videos, but also YouTube videos, which can be longer form videos.
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More production capabilities, more editing capabilities
19:15
embedded, where short form is mostly authenticity, right?
19:19
And consistency.
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So there is a different strategy that we teach for each one of
19:23
those video types and encourage customers just to make sure they
19:28
use the variety of those video types that are available out there.
19:33
And we know that those platforms are highly encouraging the
19:36
use of video because it just keeps users more on their platform
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and the algorithm favors video, which is very, very important.
19:45
Yeah.
19:46
And in that distribution, I mean, I know from just production
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work, like getting content online is its own hurdle.
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It's its own challenge, and editing, producing that,
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getting that done, it's its own, first challenge.
20:01
And then to, Get it to YouTube to get it to all those stations takes time.
20:05
So having a, from what it sounds like from what I've seen on your website,
20:08
what you've shared here, like getting it uploaded through your platform
20:12
allows people to do that better, but also it sounds like to be able to
20:14
track that data and that information as well for purchases and the ROI,
20:20
which is really important if you're going to spend, you know, X thousand,
20:24
you know, 15, 20, $50,000, on a video campaign, you want to see the
20:28
return on that, you know, go back to the products you're trying to sell.
20:32
So I can definitely see the value there.
20:34
Yes.
20:34
And analytics is a very important part.
20:36
I mean, we aggregate data from all the platforms that we distribute to, and we
20:41
just provide this as a dashboard and there is an AI that analyzes everything
20:45
and just recommend improvement of campaigns, whether it's, on the content itself
20:52
or just the length of it or time of the day and which platform works better.
20:56
And it's very, very powerful in terms of the way it operates.
21:01
So it's not just the ability to just post and publish those
21:05
videos, but all the redirects capabilities, for example, you want
21:09
to post on YouTube and maybe redirect it to your Amazon page.
21:13
So you manage all the "redirect to checkout,"
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in a very easy way from our platform.
21:19
Like, for example, in Tiktok, you can checkout only on Tiktok.
21:21
They also provide Amazon Prime Checkout from within the
21:25
Tiktok app, for example, so you cannot redirect externally.
21:28
Tiktok will not allow you, but, on YouTube or Instagram, it's fine.
21:34
You can do that.
21:35
Okay, so every platform has its own ways of doing things.
21:41
Social commerce is increasing.
21:42
I mean, according to any data, it's, so the latest
21:45
report I saw is going to be like $8.2 trillion in 2030.
21:49
So that's massive, probably around close to 20
21:53
percent of the overall e-commerce business, right?
21:56
So it's really substantial.
21:57
And what drives this is the difficulties to acquire
22:02
new customers to your own amazing brand.com website.
22:07
The rise of, you know, cost of advertising on Meta and on Amazon.
22:13
It's very competitive, and so, okay, so let's just deploy
22:19
videos and have, you know, give customers the ability to
22:22
checkout where they spend most of their time on social media.
22:25
So that's what's driving, you know, this whole thing, you know, together.
22:31
I'm a big fan of that because my philosophy on social media since
22:34
the early days of social media marketing that I was in is that
22:39
people are lazy, and you need to make it as easy as possible
22:42
for them to click and purchase or click and fill out the form.
22:46
Whatever it is you want 'em to do.
22:48
Make if it can be done in one step, make it done in one step.
22:52
Yes.
22:52
And, of course, and all these platforms, I mean, TikTok
22:57
started as an entertainment platform, then it moves to
23:00
be a search platform, and now it's a shopping platform.
23:03
Okay, and YouTube is announcing always more and more capabilities and
23:07
functionalities, on their platform just to manage links and dynamic, you know,
23:13
clicks to checkout, and Meta are going to announce a lot of things around that.
23:19
And even today you have a Facebook shop and you can tag products
23:21
on Instagram and just make sure you checkout on Instagram.
23:25
So, that's big, and it's going to be bigger quite, quite substantially.
23:29
It doesn't matter if TikTok will be banned or not.
23:33
The trends to social commerce is just, is not going to stop and just started.
23:41
So
23:41
yes, you've got those challenges, and of course, you know, I would think another
23:45
big challenge for you all is the fact that every platform is like a different
23:48
language right now when, in terms of what they'll allow, what they won't allow.
23:52
So how does your platform solve that problem?
23:57
Yes.
23:57
I mean, what we found that this platform are very, very
24:00
professional and like, you know, they go into the details
24:03
and they test by themselves every aspect of our platform.
24:07
Like they really go, going live from the platform.
24:11
They make trouble videos.
24:13
They click to checkout.
24:14
They do a lot of things, and it's a very professional
24:17
process just to certify our platform over there.
24:21
But once you do that, there's an ongoing work just maintaining the
24:25
existing versions of APIs, but these API that keep updating all the time.
24:29
So we have, we are like, okay, technology partners, we have those
24:33
developer accounts for all these platforms, and we have internal teams
24:36
just managing this on a full-time basis just make sure, making sure that
24:41
we're fully up to date on those APIs and we're able to work with those
24:44
companies to provide more and more functionalities to our customers.
24:47
So that's like a dedicated team, we're just doing all that, and
24:50
the amount of channels is increasing like, you know, by the week.
24:56
There are a lot of specialized niches like in pets, for example.
25:00
So we got a list of different marketplaces and different platforms
25:04
that are very important for our customers to work with, and
25:08
we, this is one of our strengths, we move very, very fast.
25:11
We just connected these companies making sure we share our APIs and their show
25:15
theirs, and quickly doing the integration just to make sure that our customers
25:19
have the ability to deploy their products and videos across their targeted
25:27
list of marketplaces, social networks and publishers and affiliate partners.
25:34
So we're providing, for example, an embed code that you can
25:37
copy, take a simple JavaScript, copy and paste it on your
25:40
e-commerce platform, and you have that interactive video player.
25:45
It can be on the hero banner of the website or on the product
25:47
pages where companies can checkout from within the video.
25:50
That video, that simple JavaScript can be shared by a
25:55
customer with his own affiliates and online partners.
25:57
So they can also promote that videos and have
26:01
their commission from promoting this video.
26:03
So it's very easy just to embed the shoppable video and a lot of
26:08
shopping events on various platforms in the way that we've built the
26:14
platform, but of course, the major social networks and marketplaces,
26:17
it's API based and it's very, I mean, it's a dedicated team for us.
26:22
It's working, but for our customers, it's a seamless kind of experience.
26:25
Just the first thing you do when you start working on
26:27
the onboarding, you just connect, give us a credential.
26:30
You connect the social networks and that's it.
26:32
And every part of every video can be shoppable on these platforms.
26:35
And of course, you can go on live with
26:37
multi-channel on all these platforms together.
26:39
Nice.
26:41
Very nice.. Yeah, live stream.
26:44
I have PTSD flashbacks,
26:48
especially during the pandemic, we got called in to do live
26:51
stream work and it was like, okay, all right, we'll do it.
26:54
But I know how hard of a production that can be and how
26:57
hard that is to guarantee uptime and all that stuff.
27:00
So blessings on you all for doing that.
27:04
Yeah.
27:04
Look, there is expectation that live is, like, very complicated requires a lot
27:09
of production, time, and budget, but it doesn't have to be that way, right?
27:14
I think the new generation of shoppers, they don't care about, you know,
27:19
what type of background do you have or that they care about you as a person,
27:23
how authentic you are and how much time you show up and being consistent.
27:29
Yeah, founder-led content is the best marketing vehicle
27:33
out there these days, and it's full and it's free.
27:36
It's organic, okay?
27:38
So just open, you open your iPhone or
27:40
smartphone, just stop showing yourself out there.
27:45
Just create a list of customer pains and make sure you provide the right
27:50
content in the right stage of the marketing funnel where you are, right?
27:54
I mean, don't pitch your products always, and if no one
27:57
knows you and your brand, just provide value, right?
28:00
And if you're in an awareness stage, just provide
28:05
educational content, marketing information, right?
28:07
Your checklist, don't push your product.
28:10
And if you are in, your customers are considering various options, like in
28:14
the consideration phase, don't be afraid to provide competitive information.
28:19
Share information about yourr
28:22
competitors, because this will be very, very respected by your
28:26
potential customers, because you said a lot of time for them.
28:29
They know who your competitors are anyhow.
28:32
So just provide that information, but don't be afraid to do that.
28:35
Like how to in case studies during this consideration phase,
28:39
and when you are in this decision, your customers are in
28:41
the decision phase, yeah, just provide product information.
28:44
Like, case studies and testimonials.
28:48
Try to highlight your unique selling point and provide those prices.
28:51
And this is where an example video and those immediate conversion are
28:55
very, very powerful because we know e-commerce works on impulse purchase.
28:59
Like, video just provides more layers of emotional triggers and
29:03
psychological level that is like the next generation of impulse purchase.
29:08
So if you just scroll over the social media, whether it's TikTok,
29:12
Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and then all of a sudden you
29:15
see a video that's probably, you know, make some kind of an
29:19
impact and we make the decision in less than 2 seconds, right?
29:22
I think the response time is like 1.27 seconds that will
29:27
make a decision whether to continue scrolling or stop.
29:30
It's happened like automatic.
29:32
It's the automatic part of the reptilian part of our brain.
29:37
So, if you are just showing yourself there, being consistent,
29:42
this is a very, very powerful way, probably heard the term UGC,
29:46
which is user generated content, content creators by creators.
29:50
This is being created by creators for brands, so,
29:53
that's great, but also what's working today very, very
29:57
strongly is is EGC, which is employee generated content.
30:01
So use your team, use the founders, use the executive team to create content.
30:06
I think it's a must.
30:07
It's it should be like in the job description
30:09
of every everyone out there creating content.
30:12
Think about it.
30:13
You see content.
30:14
It comes up from various part of the company from various stakeholders.
30:18
The impact is very, very powerful.
30:20
It's like a snowball, right?
30:21
And the conversion rates will increase and that
30:24
cost of marketing will go down and sales will go up.
30:27
We see that like every day.
30:28
And that, and that makes a lot of sense for me.
30:30
I mean, I'm laughing because we've done some stuff for
30:33
HumblePod that is very silly, but with the intent of like
30:36
getting my employee involved in the content, you know?
30:40
Getting the team involved in the creation and the process so that it's not
30:45
just me standing up there, and so that people at least know another face
30:49
in the company, but also, you know, that helps reach their network too,
30:53
and broadcast what we're doing too an even larger network by doing that.
30:57
So yeah, it makes total sense to me.
30:59
Yeah, you touched on a lot there.
31:01
So I'm just, I'm reeling here trying to think of
31:04
where to go from that, but it was really good.
31:07
The impulse purchasing too, I'll throw this out here.
31:09
I talked to another guy recently,
31:13
andd he was talking about there has been a massive
31:15
increase in impulse purchases over the past year.
31:18
People are making less informed impulse decisions than we've made
31:21
in the past for things, and I think a lot of that comes from this,
31:25
you know, "Hey, we're presenting you with this information," and
31:28
like, I've noticed, like, if I click on a certain, you know, product
31:31
within, TikTok just to look at it because I'm curious, like, "Oh,
31:36
there's this dumb t-shirt with a raccoon on it, but I find it funny.
31:39
I'm going to click on it." All of a sudden that raccoon, like 15 other people
31:43
show up trying to advertise the same raccoon t-shirt to me and try to push
31:48
that on me. And eventually you're just like, "All right, well, that's it.
31:50
I'm going to do it." And you make that purchase decision.
31:53
There is a psychological explanation for this.
31:57
I mean, Daniel Kahneman, which is a Nobel prize winner,
32:00
just, you know, shared with us here that 95 percent
32:04
of our daily decision is we do it from our instinct.
32:07
We don't think about it.
32:08
It's, you know, it's the system one of our brain, which is not the, you know,
32:13
frontal part of our brain, which you just make decision in an automatic way.
32:16
So we do that impulse purchase, and after we did it,
32:20
we justify to ourself why it was a small decision.
32:23
And then we use, right, the system two, which is our thinking brain.
32:28
So with every, we do everything on it based on instincts,
32:31
and then we justify it to ourselves, you know, after that.
32:35
So that's route proven and yes, video makes
32:39
it this extra push much more powerful.
32:43
Yeah, for sure.
32:44
Cause then you can see it, you can feel it in any more like retail,
32:47
like especially for me, I'm being in media production, right?
32:51
This microphone, the camera that I'm talking to you on, I researched
32:55
the heck out of it on YouTube, made sure I was getting the right
32:58
thing, make sure I was getting something I was going to be pleased
33:00
with, you know, and everything pretty much starts with a YouTube
33:04
search because I can't just walk into a store and buy this.
33:08
I have to learn from someone online.
33:10
Hey, this is what works.
33:11
This is what doesn't.
33:12
Or get really lucky and know someone in town who already has one
33:15
and can tell me about it and vouch for it So when you've got an
33:19
influencer online that can vouch for that product and you've already
33:21
bought something out of their recommendation you can trust them.
33:25
You're going to continue that process.
33:27
So yeah video is very powerful very, very powerful.
33:31
Yeah.
33:32
So what, what are some things that are top of mind for
33:35
you right now, as, as we look at the future of video
33:38
over the next couple of years, where do you see it going?
33:43
So, the big thing here is the convergence of media and commerce.
33:49
Okay.
33:50
So this is something, you know, being in the industry for more
33:54
than two decades is something that we were waiting for, right?
33:58
I mean, just see what happens during the last year.
34:00
So Walmart acquires video, right?
34:02
So what's for a retailer and a TV manufacturer, TV, you
34:07
know, kind of a medium entertainment type of a provider.
34:10
JP Morgan launching, you know, Chase Media Solution.
34:14
Instacart shoppers with YouTube on shoppable ads.
34:16
You know, Costco launched a retail media network.
34:18
Best Buy and CNET, I mean, you see retailers, big retailers,
34:22
just making a transition to become a content and media houses.
34:27
And also the traditional media companies, they are transitioning with
34:31
merchandising and everything to be kind of a retailer or an e-commerce platform.
34:35
So It's all comes comes together video is just making, just to keep
34:41
drivers for all of it because we like to be entertained, and it
34:46
needs to have the right mix of entertainment/knowledge and commerce.
34:51
So these are the mega opportunities we know that there is a big
34:55
topic around retail media where the retailers are trying to utilize
34:59
their offline and digital assets just to sell more ad space, right?
35:05
When you can see the crazy result from Amazon and Walmart
35:07
and others on the amount of revenues that generated
35:10
just from digital advertising platform, which is huge.
35:13
So, these are major, major theme.
35:16
Again, marketing, as we spoke previously, just spoken to this 1-on-1
35:20
type of effort, and today with AI, which is, I think has a lot of great,
35:27
implementation today, you know, in marketing, and obviously where it's going
35:32
with avatars, and it will work for many, many use cases in terms of marketing.
35:38
And then just create, I just, I'm just testing a few
35:42
tools that just creating a digital clone of myself.
35:46
And it's amazing, right?
35:48
It's not there, right?
35:49
It's obvious that it's not human.
35:51
It's a machine, but it's for some, for example, training or customer support?
35:56
It's fine, right?
35:57
But maybe for those sales event, it's not
36:00
there yet, but definitely it will be there.
36:03
So, like today, you can work with AI avatars
36:08
to create some variety of gamification.
36:10
For example, when you're waiting for this live event, okay,
36:13
and they're like a few minutes left and people are joining.
36:16
And you need to work with his avatar just to create some
36:21
entertainment kind of like games during before the event starts.
36:24
And we are implementing this type of thing
36:27
because we see that it's really working.
36:30
So definitely using AI in a much meaningful way just to make sure
36:35
we provide more innovation and streamline processes and costs.
36:39
AI is such a fascinating tool, and I do think it's a tool.
36:43
I don't think it's necessarily a weapon or
36:45
something that's going to kill everyone's job.
36:47
Although, there are moments there's going to be fits and spurts
36:49
of that, but yeah, AI and video to me is really fascinating.
36:55
Like you said, making a clone of yourself.
36:57
I've definitely seen some of that, but I think, I wonder with sales,
37:00
how that's going to go down because sales is very trust oriented,
37:03
especially when you have a one to one connection with someone,
37:06
and, you know, unless you're used to that avatar being the thing
37:10
that you interface with, you know, would you come back to that?
37:14
Would you trust that kind of a recommendation?
37:17
I guess if it was undetectably an avatar, that'd be one
37:21
thing, but if it's not, you know, where does that leave us?
37:24
Yes, I think in some of, there are a lot of, like, use cases where the product
37:29
price is not probably high, maybe up to $100 or something, you don't, you
37:34
are anyhow doing the research on your own as you share previously, right?
37:37
You're doing like 90 percent of the process on your own, and
37:39
probably you select something, and then probably you need
37:42
to talk to someone just to give you the best price, right?
37:45
So we don't want to build a relationship with anyone.
37:47
I just want to buy the product.
37:48
So, for this lot cover the smaller, you know ticket items.
37:54
You can get a response from my avatar, they can provide you
37:56
the answer, and you just click to checkout, but for those
37:59
longer sale cycles, we need to build a relationship and make
38:03
sure there's a building like relationship and trust building
38:08
and having the ability to communicate and trust someone on
38:12
a longer term, then look, we are a social creature, right?
38:16
We like this oxytocin urethane smell, just, you know,
38:19
we need to provide the human touch is so, so important.
38:24
Definitely have to cover it when we go to exhibition or
38:26
try to be, to meet as much, as many people as we can.
38:29
So, this is this will always be, and we see
38:32
like in the retail space, I think e-commerce is
38:38
20 to 23 percent of the overall retail business in the US, right?
38:42
So, like, 75 percent is still happening offline, and there is no, it's not going
38:47
to change according to any report, but that digital experience is just maybe a
38:53
quarter of the overall retail experience, and it's going to be there like that.
38:58
Like, in China, by the way, it's like more than 90 percent of retail is online.
39:03
I think the U.S. is just the other way around because
39:09
all
39:12
those, new technologies around the
39:38
digital experience
39:47
and
39:54
also on the offline experience, so this is like an amazing
39:57
use case for me that I really, you know, very, I'm very
40:00
much interested in follow, but I need doing a major job.
40:03
Yeah that's great, and yeah, I've noticed Walmart, I was actually surprised.
40:09
I went on their website just this past week and was looking around, and
40:12
the ways that they have innovated and changed surprised me, frankly,
40:17
because I'm used to being more of a static site, and you might be able to
40:21
see what's in stock online versus in the store near you, and that's it.
40:25
But yeah, they're definitely making some big changes.
40:29
So that's really neat.
40:30
And that'll be interesting to watch over the coming year.
40:32
So the AI product recommendation is really amazing.
40:36
Just, you know, do you have the shopping cart?
40:39
I mean, if it's a grocery, so that shopping cart is ready for
40:41
you to know everything, you know what you need to purchase.
40:44
And it's very, very smart.
40:46
So just it's such such a fictionless type
40:49
of experience, which is very, very unique.
40:52
Yeah.
40:52
And if you need to buy and not think that's a real big
40:55
help because shopping is a huge weight, as you can imagine,
41:02
having to get out to the shops and get the
41:03
food and come home, especially with kids.
41:05
Oh my gosh.
41:07
Well, that's great.
41:08
Well, Eitan thank you for your time today.
41:09
I've really enjoyed this conversation.
41:11
There's aa lot that Vimmi is doing and, I
41:15
can't wait to continue to see its growth.
41:17
But where can people find you and where can they connect with Vimmi?
41:22
Yeah, so we are at vimmi.net.
41:23
It's v-i-m-m-i-dot-net, where you can start
41:26
just, you have like a free for life package.
41:28
You can start trouble video, live shopping, social commerce, and if you
41:32
need more capabilities, just grow with the different packages out there.
41:36
And personally, I post on LinkedIn a lot of, about,
41:39
video marketing, video commerce, social commerce.
41:42
That's on my personal LinkedIn account, Eitan Koter, E-I-T-A-N.
41:47
K-O-T-E-R.
41:49
Alrighty.
41:50
Well, sir, thank you for your time today.
41:52
Thank you, Chris.
41:53
It was really a pleasure.
41:54
Thank you so much.
41:55
Absolutely.
41:57
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42:00
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42:03
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42:08
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