Managing a Successful Pivot from B-to-C to B-to-B: Jifiti Co-Founder and CMO Shaul Weisband (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Once you figured out that there was demand, how did the business ramp?

Shaul Weisband: It started running on a B2B level, which is identifying who those partners are. That partner can be a retailer who we want to work with in order to sell their gifts, or it can be a platform that has a reason to put this gifting commerce on their platform. Then we had to build a strategy of tiering based on who this would make the most sense for, how we would get to that contact,  and how to position ourselves as thought leaders in that space. So we had to put all of those three components together.

Sramana Mitra: What was the first year when you actually started generating revenue off the B2B business?

Shaul Weisband: The first full year would probably be 2015.

Sramana Mitra: You did a 2012 launch of the B2C application which didn’t work. At what point did you validate that this pivot did indicate a product market fit? How long did it take you to get to that milestone?

Shaul Weisband: It was pretty much all of 2013. It was in the Holidays of 2012 when we launched B2C. In January 2013, we realized that it wasn’t working. Throughout 2013, we made that pivot to gift sending. By going out to that, we realized the need on the B2B level. Towards the end of 2013, we started putting everything together on a technical level.

In 2014, we were already in contact with major players that showed interest in it. Towards the end of 2014, we were able to launch with, for instance, IKEA and Evite. That’s when we realized that we were onto something.

Sramana Mitra: What was the funding progression through this? You started with $3 million from these strategic partners. Have you raised more money and at what point would that be?

Shaul Weisband: At the beginning of 2015, we raised another round. Our seed round was $3.8 million. We raised another $3.3 million from our existing investors as well as Liberty Media, the new lead investor. Liberty Media is a large private equity firm based out of Colorado. The connection there was they’re the owners of Evite.

When they saw the success with Evite and realized that this could also work for other brands they own, they saw it as a strategic play to raise our next round. We saw it as a growth round – being able to expand the team and offering and being able to pick up the speed.

Sramana Mitra: What else is interesting and strategic with your story that’s worth discussing? What other strategic moves did you make that resulted in major inflection points or major changes in your business?

Shaul Weisband: The number one is, especially in retail or any B2B space, there’s a very long sales cycle. The pros and cons of B2B as opposed to B2C is with B2C, you can work very quickly. With B2B, you can have a sales cycle that can go as long as a year. You obviously have to have that patience and funding to wait it out. There’s also a lot of strategic thought that goes into creating that relationship, maintaining it, and being able to push it forward.

One of the things that we’ve done very well is being able to identify a champion within a partner and make sure that that champion is not the obvious person. I can only imagine how many cold emails CMOs and VP Marketing get through email. The ability to identify someone who’s not the obvious person but, at the same time, shares the same goals as you do is important. See how you can connect with them and  tell your story and use them as a champion internally. This applies even when our initial reach out is just on a friendly level to grab coffee and see if we’re solving something that they’re looking for.

That’s a very big reason why we’re based in Columbus, Ohio. We always tell people that in the retail space, the Midwest is the Silicon Valley for retail. We want to have relationships with VP’s of big retailers. There are many retailers we are in touch with that we don’t have a partnership with, but we grab coffee with.

Sramana Mitra: You’re saying that a bunch of the retailers are headquartered in the Midwest and not in New York or Silicon Valley. That’s where you want to be because those are your customers.

Shaul Weisband: Yes. The Midwest is a major hub for all major retailers. We wanted to be part of that ecosystem.

Sramana Mitra: Great! Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Managing a Successful Pivot from B-to-C to B-to-B: Jifiti Co-Founder and CMO Shaul Weisband
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