Brilliant Commerce
Brilliant Commerce
Podcast Description
Unfiltered conversations with operators behind iconic commerce brands, hosted by Chord Commerce CEO Bryan Mahoney, about what actually makes their tech, teams, and customer relationships work.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast explores various themes around direct-to-consumer marketing, brand building, and technology integration, with episode examples like the evolution of D2C marketing discussed with former Glossier CMO Ali Weiss and the tech stack enhancements at brands like Sonos and Ruggable. Specific focus areas include balancing performance marketing with brand vision, the role of data in marketing, and the importance of customer experience measurement.
Unfiltered conversations with operators behind iconic commerce brands, hosted by Chord Commerce CEO Bryan Mahoney, about what actually makes their tech, teams, and customer relationships work.
Ricky Joshi bootstrapped Saatva to nearly $200M in revenue with a 14-person ecommerce team while venture-funded competitors burned capital on customer acquisition. His approach: retail locations as integrated conversion engines that drive 80% higher online conversion rates in their markets. By embedding customer service operations directly into stores, Saatva eliminated traditional call center overhead while improving agent performance through hands-on product exposure.
Bryan Mahoney sits down with Ricky in Saatva’s Austin viewing room to unpack the execution behind this omnichannel model. Ricky reveals how being bootstrapped until 2018 forced cash flow discipline that became competitive advantage. He explains the retail expansion playbook: opening the first New York City store in 2019, then capitalizing on COVID’s retail disruption to lock premium corridor locations at suppressed rents. The conversation covers why viewing rooms function as customer service centers, how organic reviews positioned Saatva for AI commerce, and why Glacier serves as their experimental sandbox for new tech stacks.
Topics discussed:
- Bootstrapping from 2011 to 2018 to force unit economics discipline before taking private equity
- Opening first 3,300 square foot New York City store in 2019, four months before COVID hit
- Achieving 80% higher conversion rates in markets with retail presence versus digital-only
- Operating viewing rooms as dual-purpose customer service centers to eliminate call center costs
- Signing premium retail corridor leases during COVID when rents dropped and landlords negotiated deals
- Generating $10M annual revenue at top-performing store with high dollars per square foot
- Scaling to nearly $200M revenue with 14-person ecommerce team through operational leverage
- Launching Glacier brand as isolated experiment for different tech stack and marketing approach
- Building AI search visibility through decade of authentic reviews without intentional SEO tactics
- Using AI for CX response suggestions and code generation while waiting on backend system API maturity
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