Ecommerce legend Roy Rubin, co-founder and angel investor at R-Squared Ventures, is the guest of honor on our inaugural Commerce Famous episode. Roy, co-founder and former CEO of Magento, and host Ben Marks discuss the origins of the open source model, Roy’s long career in ecommerce, the major shifting points in the industry, the rapidly expanding development of AI in ecommerce, and whether or not Roy is already investing in AI projects. Roy also explains his somewhat heterodox point of view on the headless ecommerce model. Commerce Famous is proudly presented by Shopware, the leading open commerce platform for all your B2C and B2B needs. Find out more at: www.shopware.com/en/
Ecommerce legend Roy Rubin, co-founder and angel investor at R-Squared Ventures, is the guest of honor on our inaugural Commerce Famous episode. Roy, co-founder and former CEO of Magento, and host Ben Marks discuss the origins of the open source model, Roy’s long career in ecommerce, the major shifting points in the industry, the rapidly expanding development of AI in ecommerce, and whether or not Roy is already investing in AI projects. Roy also explains his somewhat heterodox point of view on the headless ecommerce model.
Suggest a Guest for the Commerce Famous Podcast
Commerce Famous is proudly presented by Shopware, the leading open commerce platform for all your B2C and B2B needs.
0:01 Welcome to the Commerce Famous podcast where we present you with the defining stories behind modern commerce.
0:06 I'm your host, Ben Marks.
0:10 This is episode number one.
0:11 So you shouldn't be surprised that the best I could do was invite a college dropout to the show with me today is Roy Rubin, a founding partner of R Squared Ventures and angel fund of founders investing in and supporting founders.
0:24 Roy has done many things prior to co founding R Squared, but he's probably most well known for being the co-founder of Magento, the open source e-commerce platform that grew worldwide, eventually becoming Adobe Commerce?
0:38 Roy, why does being the co-founder of Magento make you Commerce famous?
0:44 You know, we had identified an opportunity kind of in the early years of commerce and really took advantage of it really, you know, began to build what was an exciting new platform in an era that I thought was really ripe for innovation.
1:03 It was a great journey and I was very much glad to be part of it and and have been doing this now.
1:09 Commerce that is for the past 20 years.
1:11 So it's been a blast.
1:14 Well, so I mean, what, what were the conditions behind, what, you know, what, what led to you building, what you built?
1:20 Can you talk about what the market was like back then?
1:22 Because I mean, we're talking about, you know, 2006, I mean, I know you spent time, you, you, you, you kind of started, you figured out how to make some money at, well, you were at U C L A and then if I, if I remember the story correctly, you know, 10 weeks, you know, 10 weeks before you would have, you would have finished, you had to go all in on the agency and then eventually your agency got so got so big, you needed a solution that didn't exist.
1:46 You know, can you talk about that, what was going on in the market back then?
1:50 Yeah, I mean, look, I think ultimately what was going on was I think, you know, open source from an e-commerce perspective, you know, open source was sort of the model in which you acquire software for, you know, relatively low cost free, right?
2:03 You know, ultimately.
2:04 So, you know, at the time there was open source and they were, you know, there were commercial systems like Microsoft and, you know, Oracle had one and, you know, and others and there was really not a whole lot in the middle open source was really taken off across the board from infrastructure to, to applications that were built on top of it.
2:24 And commerce, which we were, you know, using open source commerce tools back then.
2:30 Just didn't have anything exciting, anything fresh, anything new, anything innovative, it's been stuck.
2:36 And as our agency business grew, we got to a point in time where we said, look, we just can't continue building a business on top of old aging open source software.
2:47 So there's sort of a pivot that we need to do, you know, one is to go and now become a Microsoft House or an or house.
2:56 Which I wasn't that excited about because that just wasn't my background.
3:00 You know, or do we think now that we have the team to really think about that next generation platform and deliver that platform in an open source model?
3:10 And, and I think that there was always this aspiration that I had to build products, you know, 37 signals at the time was huge.
3:16 I was looking at that these guys are incredible.
3:18 Remember those days?
3:19 Oh man.
3:20 Yeah.
3:20 Then they, they had something new and impactful coming out like they just didn't miss right?
3:25 Web two point oh Right.
3:26 I mean that, that was a big movement where we saw these lightweight products using Jason.
3:31 You probably remember that then, right?
3:33 That was like, you know, so cool and hip and, and you know, I was a programmer back in the day, turned to P H P and just started to see a lot of innovation happening, especially at the front end of things.
3:42 And I said, you know what, nobody's really doing this for commerce.
3:45 And these old open source systems just didn't have the vision and, and the leadership, you know, the people sort of focused on it.
3:54 That gave me a sense that there's a future there.
3:58 So instead of waiting for somebody to pick up the ball, I just said, we're gonna go do this and that's our calling.
4:03 Yeah.
4:04 Well, I mean, I guess, you know, that is, that is how you that is how you change an industry or at least make your market in an industry is, is taking that kind of chance.
4:11 Now you called out a couple of things that, that I, I, I think are, are really relevant to the idea of being commerce famous.
4:17 And you know, you talk about, you know, sort of the free acquisition co or the sort of the free acquisition of software, you know, through the efforts of, of others.
4:26 I mean, that is, that is kind of the crux of open source.
4:27 But I mean, really that's a, you know, that that is sort of the the most top level top level of assessment because you really, you have to have a community in order to basically you have to have the practitioners show up.
4:38 So you have to create the vessel and you have to be responsive and you know, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what that was like because it was really the ecosystem building that I, that I think underpinned that approach of bringing the efforts of so many together.
4:56 And then the other thing you mentioned was innovation.
4:58 I mean, again, you have got to have a, a well informed, a well enabled and engaged ecosystem in order to in order to actually realize innovation in an open source project.
5:10 What was, what was it like trying to attract attention at first to, to this this fledgling project?
5:17 Great question, you know, look, ultimately, what I identified in the very beginning is that the open source product that we'll be releasing will be built in house, meaning, you know, the alternative was to go out and source developers and say, hey guys, here's what we're building, here's sort of our thesis, our manifesto that that was big in the day and we need help.
5:40And let's get a group of folks from the, you know, from, from the world, from out there to go and help us build Magento.
5:47But I knew that as a business running the agency, I needed very clear timelines.
5:52I needed dependability.
5:53I needed, you know, a quality level given that we're dealing with payments and customers that I just could not rely on now by going out and sourcing third party talent to go help me go build this right So I made a decision early on that, we will write, you know, 100% of the initial code, right?
6:15We'll put it out there and we'll see and, you know, and we'll see what happens.
6:18We've opened it up, you know, in future years, you're a big part of that, Ben.
6:22But we, we opened it up and we said, you know, what we need help.
6:25And I think it makes sense now to start to bring in with leadership by us the ability to take an external code.
6:33But at first, it wasn't like that for actually, for many years, it wasn't like that, we never took an external code.
6:38And again, it's because we wanted that level of assurance and, you know, you know, consistent timelines and quality and it made it very difficult for us to manage, you know, code base that would come from many third parts.
6:51This is before all these great systems that exist today to make it possible, right?
6:55So, like, you know, our tool of choice was like Skype, that was it.
6:58That's how we collaborated back in the day.
7:01We pass code and Skype, I mean, it was crazy.
7:04But you know, but I also knew that you're right, you know, we do need a community to ultimately take the product and, and, and, you know, push it into the market, you know, sell it and deploy it and, you know, customize it all of that, you know, the story there is, I knew that we needed it.
7:24I didn't know how to do it.
7:25I didn't really know how to get that audience, you know, at first, but I started to just, I think, observe what was happening at, you know, the market at large, you know, and how companies tell their story and how they, you know, how companies go to market and what I did, you know, the time like blogging was just starting out and my engineering team was working on building the core Magento code and I was sitting in my desk, honestly, just bored, I didn't have anything to do because I didn't have anything to sell or anything to take to market or any story to tell you.
7:58So, out of my boredom, I started to just write blog posts and launch what was in the Varian blog.
8:04This is Pri Magento and start to get some following for this blog.
8:10And I brought in an intern from U C L A and he was helping me out and we U C L A or us c actually, I can't remember but, you know, he, he, you know, he was helping me out and his mandate was to, you know, crank out 3 to 4 posts every single day to get consistency, right?
8:25So that people know what to expect from us.
8:27That was very important to me, you know, we're building credibility, you know, at a point in time with, with, with the market that at least in the, in the, in the commerce, open source world did not exist, there were no timelines like code would be released whenever and I said, you know what, I have to build trust and viability and credibility with the audience with the community and to do that, there's very clear specifics around what we what we do and we stand by everything that we publish out as far as timelines and, you know, commitment.
8:57So like three or four block, you know, block lists every single day.
9:00And then, ultimately, we started to get out of my boredom.
9:05I started to go to our engineers and say, hey, tell me what you're working on and I point this, you know, canon point and click camera at them, pocket camera.
9:15And this is pretty, I think even like camera phone maybe.
9:19And, and they'll tell me what they're working on and I posted it.
9:23This is for youtube, I think even, well, I, I don't know, maybe youtube was just, I don't even know where I put this online.
9:27I actually have no idea where this was online.
9:30And this is, this probably exists somewhere.
9:32So if somebody finds it, let me know, I'd love to see it.
9:35But I start to interview these people.
9:37I say, hey, what are you working on?
9:38What's exciting.
9:38Why is this interesting?
9:40And I went to our design U I design team and I said to them, like, share the wire frames.
9:46Let's start to post the wireframe.
9:48Let, let, let, let's build in public before building public was even a thing.
9:52And that started to really, and we'd get hundreds of comments from people out across the world.
10:00Every single post would have all these comments about.
10:03Hey, here's how we do taxes in Switzerland and here's how we do things in Germany and in Australia, you know, whatever.
10:08And we just start to get a lot of feedback, product insights from the community that were really instrumental in us building the product in, you know, in the early days, but give us a lot of feedback that's on one end, on the other end, it started to build a buzz and expectation that there's something new and fresh in the open source world which the market is yet to see.
10:35And that was fantastic.
10:38Wow, that's, I mean that it's, it's interesting, I'm sure from the, from the inside you, you weren't appreciating like, hey, we're doing these things that really have not been done before.
10:47I mean, the, yeah, I guess the, the model before was os commerce, but that was really just a consortium of people without a, you know, a, a sort of a, a corporate entity and a, a product organization that, you know, they just kind of they, they were more of the the the the old free software notion of, of open source.
11:08But then, you know, innovations around.
11:11How do we collaborate, how do we do all this stuff which now today I think is just the default expectation because, you know, back then, I mean, at best you had subversion or Mercurial, right?
11:22For, for version control.
11:23And that's not and there, there weren't any kind of collaborative spaces like we have with git and github.
11:28that, that's pretty, that's pretty fantastic.
11:31You, you probably are a little bit proud when you look back and see the, the, the innovations that you did, not, not just at a code level but at a business level and, and really in this, this, this e-commerce world.
11:42No, for sure, for sure.
11:43I, I, I, you know, I definitely look back and, and, you know, and reflect and, and, you know, very proud of the team and everything that we've accomplished.
11:51you know, a lot of it sort of the go to market was again due to the boredom and I, every time I talk to an entrepreneur these days, you know, I tell them, I think space and time actually create opportunity for creativity.
12:03And if I was just too busy, if I was actually doing coding, you know, first of all the code would suck, suck.
12:10But second of all, I would never have time to do what I did to actually get the product out right from a storytelling perspective, right?
12:17And, and sort of build that you know, build that marketing momentum that we had even before the code was released.
12:23So thankfully, I didn't code, I think for the benefit of all I didn't code.
12:26But it also gave opportunity and I think there's a lot of lessons in just creating that time and space to be creative that can be applied to, you know, to any entrepreneurial journey, right?
12:35OK.
12:36So, so then I look at, you know, and I look at in terms of building ecosystem and it's not just about building interests.
12:42I mean, you, I think things were done in such a way and, and maybe was it the case that the market was in such a state that all of these people had all of these ideas that they brought to the table and not just ideas that would be part of Magenta's core but, but but ideas that would be part of, you know, that could be their own business, right?
13:00And these would be this would be functionality that they could sell.
13:03And you, you all also enabled, enabled people to build solutions, market those solutions, whether they were purely, you know, front end and thematic or they were deep and functional or they were integration with, with payment methods.
13:17I mean, you all as a product company aren't gonna go out of your way to integrate with the, you know, payment methods in, you know, in the, in the Middle East to start with or, you know, or in, you know, in, you know, in Switzerland to start with, you're going to say, hey, here's, you know, here's, here's the opportunity and anyone that wants to build those interfaces, well, you can do that and you can do that to grow a customer base, you can do that as a, as a direct stream of revenue.
13:43Do you see those kinds of opportunities existing anywhere today still?
13:49I mean, look, I think, I think they do exist, right?
13:51And we there's, there's platforms in the commerce space Shopify being one, you know, many others out there as well that I think have identified that there's an opportunity to monetize, you know, through, you know, third party integrations and extensions, apps, you know, built on top of the platform, right?
14:06That, that's the wish of every platform that, that, that, that others built on top of it, right?
14:10Ultimately, you know, Magento Connect was that app store that, that we had, I actually never thought we could monetize.
14:16I didn't think people could, people pay me money, you know, to have those apps on top of our ecosystem.
14:23And we never really did a good job with that.
14:25It was so, so early, you know, in those days, but it was, you know, this, this was conceived right from the very beginning, we knew accessibility was going to be key just from our pain, right?
14:36In, in the agency world, like, you know, every time a customer would come and would want some features or capabilities, we would love to reuse code, right?
14:44We didn't think that, you know, we didn't think we need to reinvent the wheel every single time.
14:47So you're right, payment, tripping, et cetera, et cetera.
14:50There's just so many opportunities to extend the product and in the wish to build a platform, you definitely wanna, you know, wanna create opportunities for third parties to do that.
15:01Yeah.
15:01Well, that's the you know, that's the sort of, I I knew what I was asking when I asked that question because of course, there are, there are, there are plenty of people building on top of other ecosystems in, in other solutions.
15:13And what I wonder about today is the sort of the this take rate that exists, right?
15:18This is I think one of the things that has, that has changed between, you know, how things are for the past few years compared to how they were 15 odd years ago, the rise of, of SASS based integrations into these into solutions has, has really, you know, on the one hand, it gives, it gives the innova the innovators the direct control that, you know, the the the direct touch with the customer to a degree.
15:46But platforms, it's always a dance at least from what I see, the platforms will, you know, will over time tend to tend to, they tend to see exactly how they can, you know, take part in that stream.
16:00But I think it's on, it's incumbent on the platforms to figure out what's, you know, what the right sort of what the right take rate is versus how can we make sure that there is enough, there's enough capital flowing directly between, you know, mostly directly between, the innovators and the merchants that are relying on them in order to keep the, you know, to keep the, the top of the iceberg above the water.
16:26And that's, I think actually, I, I my, my hats off to to Harvey and Toby over at, at, at Shopify because a couple of years ago they said, hey, you know what if you're, if you are, if you have an app in our ecosystem, we're, we're gonna let that, you know that that first huge chunk of revenue, we're not gonna have any take rate on that.
16:44We're gonna, we're gonna let you keep that.
16:45I mean, they still, you know, they, you know, the more people that they have on their platform, there's, there's still there, you know, there's still some benefit from them.
16:52But I thought that was, that was kind of a, that, that, that, that signaled an industry shift and it really put some power back in the hands of, back in the hands of the innovators.
17:01But I do wonder if we're going to see this over time as, as, as different as every successful platform starts to take more and more scope on.
17:12You know, you look at, you, look at some of the the platforms out there like miracle, you know, I think is, is a great example of a company that that that started, you know, so, you know, around this set of this features and functionality, but then has, has continually expanded itself and become a platform into itself.
17:28What do you, what do you see, what do you see as, as trends down the road?
17:31I mean, do you think there's still gonna be space for you know, space for this kind of interplay between platform and, and and innovative businesses integrating in it.
17:42I think as businesses mature, they have to continue to find diversified revenue streams and especially platforms will extract more of the pie that they create.
17:59It's just inevitable.
18:00I I think there's just no other way to think about about that.
18:06Yeah, well, we see this in the App Store like, you know, Apple App Store, we see this in Google.
18:10We, I mean, this is, you know, you see this everywhere, right?
18:12Typically start of S M B and then you move upstream, right?
18:16Shopify is one example shop I was working with the smallest of merchants 10 years ago now, Shopify plus and beyond Right.
18:23is certainly as well.
18:24Right.
18:25become, you know, become, I mean, there's just endless examples.
18:29I don't know too much about shop wear, but, you know, I'm assuming that, you know, is where the aspiration is.
18:33Actually, I did hear a podcast, by the founder for Forget, but by the founder.
18:38and, but, you know, mid market.
18:40Right.
18:41So it just, it just happens.
18:42It's the way that it is.
18:43It's, it's natural.
18:45And I think you can expect that as companies mature, they'll take a, they'll, they'll try to take a bigger piece of the pie.
18:51Yeah, I, you know, I think this, this, you know, I, you, I don't think I've ever, I've shared my, my, my pie metaphor with you.
18:57So I think there are, you're right.
18:59As, as platforms, the the tendency is for platforms to just take a bigger piece of the pie.
19:03There's another approach to growth.
19:06And that is to just grow the whole damn pie.
19:09And if you could leave all things the same, then, then everyone is still has the same, the same sort of ratio relative to each other.
19:15But everyone but the holy grail be the holy grail is if they could do both.
19:20I, I, yes, I believe so.
19:23And, and, and we have, we have interesting things that, that, that we're working on to that end.
19:27But this is, this is not about us, this is about you and, and actually I wanted to kind of bring it back, bring it up to the, you know, just, just think, just looking at the opportunities out there today.
19:36So, I mean, you're, you're at Our Squared.
19:40and, and you are, you know, see you're at R Squared and I, I'm sure.
19:46So I've seen some of the, some of the logos on of the companies, you know, which in which you all have invested and, and advised.
19:53And I, I, you know, so some of them have been just tremendously successful and they, they are well established, you know, top of their category, they are expanding their functionality and their reach, both you know, in terms of the size of vertical and, and geography.
20:13you know, but that doesn't mean that this is the end of opportunity.
20:16I mean, you know, when we look at the challenges being faced today and tomorrow, what opportunities do you see out there for, you know, for the, for, you know, today's founders or the founders of tomorrow?
20:27Well, it, it's a really hard question for me to answer because, you know, I have been now in the commerce space for over 20 years and there were a few paradigm shifts, right, starting with open source sort of the beginning of my career on premise, open source, then led by mobile, then by the cloud.
20:49And, you know, potentially there's a another paradigm shift today with a I, and the advances that we're seeing there,, I can't see that I have a crystal ball and I can really see what those opportunities are per se.
21:06You know, I, I haven't taken just a ton of pitches this last, you know, three or four months, you know, in this space, but I just, I, and by the way, I have not yet made an investment, you know, in this front.
21:16, By the way, I didn't say headless and I didn't say it for a reason, but we can park that for now.
21:23Oh, yeah, I'd love to go back to that.
21:25But I, I, I think that this is a new paradigm shift with a I and I, you know, my, my, my gut says that, look, I there's going to be a new, new models, new opportunities, new ventures that could unfold and, and, you know, I'd love to back a team or two, you know, that are thinking about this in this piece, but I haven't done that and I, I, you know, it's not immediately clear to me what that is.
21:51So if you're working on something, give me a call, I'd love to learn more.
21:55I, and I can, I can say that, I mean, certainly your, your advice and, and counsel, just for me over the years has been invaluable.
22:03So, take him up on the offer.
22:05he, he's, he, he, he lives to be pitched to these days.
22:09So take, take heed, you know, is there anything is there anything you, you, you want to talk about when you wanna call, call out that you're currently, you know, that, that you're building or you're advising or investing in?
22:23So, let's see.
22:24So, we invested this year in a company called Rebuy Rebuy Engine, which you may, you, which you may know it's, it's a Shopify ecosystem product today, but we'll be expanding on to other platforms in the future.
22:40And they are in the car up sales and recommendation space.
22:43There's additional products that are coming out.
22:45We love the product.
22:48We love, ultimately, we absolutely love the team.
22:54James and John are absolute rock stars.
22:56They come, they came from the agency world, they understood the problems intimately.
23:00They, they've had, you know, a great network and they're executing extremely well.
23:09That's, that's so there you go.
23:12I mean, well, when you look at, when you look at A I and I, I think not that I'm not that I'm in your position, at least not anytime soon to be, to be an angel investor.
23:21But when you when you look at A I and, and all of the, the, the, the rapid movement and everything else that's going on there probably probably a little bit of a slower role is, is called for, I, I think that, I think some, I think just a little bit of, of, you know, a slight conservative conser, just a slight conservatism.
23:45I'm just gonna have to say that again and again, just a slight bit of conservatism there is, is, is warranted.
23:54But I do think that, that especially like intelligent, especially in intelligence search recommendations informed really well informed personalization.
24:07These things are, I, I think these, these companies have been working in the machine learning space and so they have had, they have had an adjacency to like cross market big data sets that probably set them up.
24:25Well, and maybe give them a little bit of a head start when it comes to getting really making something legitimate, something tangible, I should say of A I.
24:37Is that, is that, how does that sound to you?
24:39I, I, I completely, you know, agree.
24:41I, I think that, you know, I've, I've been preaching data driven commerce for, for 10 years now.
24:47Right?
24:47Because I felt like a lot of the decisions that we were making around U I around, you know, on page, widgets of some kind and there's, there's, you know, product, you know, P P page, you know, stuff and there's, there's cart stuff, there's chicken stuff and, you know, all of that, was, you know, it was largely sort of done by A B testing, right?
25:11You try something doesn't work, you try something else measure, you know, you know, but ultimately, we need it to be data driven and there's, there's a lot of data and, you know, and insights that are collected that can be shared across the network, across the, across the virtual network.
25:26And I think there's a few companies now that are, that are, you know, coming out to revise one that, you know, are starting to use data that they have to create much more informed and data driven decisions on behalf of your merchants.
25:40You know, one of my pet is, you know, when you go to the Shopify App Store or really any app store, you know, in the commerce world, there's just like endless amounts of options.
25:48If I were a merchant just starting out, I would be like, where do I begin?
25:52This is too complex, you know, I don't want to be in the business of trying out 20 different things.
25:58It just, it feels like it should be simplified, right?
26:03And almost like a bundle or collection.
26:05Here's what you need, it's backed by data, it's backed by insights.
26:10And here's a collection of services that you need to be able to optimize for the consumer base for the customer, you know, for the customer base that you're really seeking to attract.
26:20things need to be simplified.
26:22They've become extremely complex over the years.
26:25Right.
26:26Yeah, I don't know.
26:27It feels like it feels like that's an opportunity.
26:29Well, it's almost like we need, we need, we need personalization for personalization, right?
26:34We we, we need recommendations for a what it's called is curation.
26:37I mean, one of the, one of my favorite, just modern sort of business folk is a woman out of out of Honduras named Andrea Hernandez and she started this thing called Snapshot, right?
26:48And this is just about curating all of these like direct consumer or just really novel and cool and, and not big box snacks, right?
26:59But she's hit on this thing, she hit on this trend a while ago and it's just sort of with the volume of, of, of individual options and, and, and multiple options coming at us.
27:08curation in general is just be gonna become more and more important.
27:12It sounds like it sounds a bit like what that's what you're, that's what you're talking about here.
27:16Now, I don't want to let this, this episode get by without going back to the headless.
27:22And you mentioned U I briefly but I want to talk about headless because yeah, it seems like headless has, has had its moment.
27:29I I I I I wouldn't even care to see where it is on the Gartner hype cycle or the hype cycle in general.
27:37But let's, let's, let's look at, let's let's look at your your thoughts on headless because I think there are a lot of people out there, that would, that would really appreciate your perspective.
27:52Here's my perspective and it may be a bit contrarian, I think to where the market is, at least from a perception perspective, right?
28:00And for sure, from a capital raising perspective, I'll tell you that because many, many investors have funded, you know, a lot of these companies where I, you know, so I, I took, you know, I took a lot of pitches and I saw most of the companies, you know, most of the have those companies in the market.
28:13And I, I, I, I, I mean, I passed, I didn't, I didn't invest in any of them and it's because I had a really hard time, I still do in understanding why the advance in technology will position the merchants of today and the merchants of the future to now own a technology stack, hire engineers, higher talent go back to the days where I started was, which were for ma you know, Magenta back in the day, you needed a team, a team of engineers, a team of developers and a skill set.
28:52And to me, it kind of made no sense to go back and asked these merchants who have now largely divested from that talent of people, they outsource technology.
29:07Now we're asking them to recruit talent in house to be able to support that.
29:14And it didn't feel to me like these merchants really wanted to do it.
29:18So I said you know what?
29:20I don't know that, that this is gonna work long term.
29:25It's not their core skill.
29:26I mean, that's what I mean, they're, they're in the business of being in, in their particular business and trying to be a, you know, a, a AAA product or, you know, or adopt agile methodology doesn't, you know, it's, it's, it's rare that there is a business that could take on that scope and do it well, I mean, this and this kind of this ties in it actually in nicely with the whole idea of curation.
29:46I mean, that's what agencies have, you know, agencies solution integrators, that's what they have been doing for a long time.
29:52I mean, in addition to, you know, plenty of other things, but they have provided a ton of a ton of, you know, curation in this space like, hey, you have these solutions or maybe let us help you refine your, your requirements, you have these solutions out there that, that that satisfy these requirements, but these are the, these are the best of the best we've already done this work for you.
30:15This is our expertise and then, you know, we'll handle, we'll handle getting that implemented, right?
30:20So I think I still, I mean, I should ask, do you still see agencies as being a technical, especially technical agencies as being necessary?
30:29I mean, I look at even in the promise of the ass world, you, you when you when you want to do anything beyond what, what comes out of granted an AAA an expanding box of functionality and extensibility when you need to tie multiple integrations together, when you, when your, when your differentiation depends on depends on a specific, you know, order and, and the priority of, of, of tooling.
30:58Well, yeah, I mean, you, you've got to have someone who really knows that stuff to be able to do it.
31:03So my contention would be that that agencies are, are gonna be around for, for a very long time.
31:08I, I guess I should ask if you see the same.
31:10I see the same.
31:11Absolutely.
31:12I think they add a ton of value and I think that in a world where technology is outsourced, largely, they fill in the gap where organizations need specific capabilities and functionalities that are outside the box and those will continue to exist.
31:26Right?
31:26I think there's, you know, back in the day we said no, two businesses are alike.
31:29I think they're closer to be alike than they were in the past, but there's still quite a bit of differences in terms of evocation, in terms of operations, in terms of systems.
31:38And that's where the agencies come in and fill the gaps.
31:41So I don't, I, I don't see them disappearing.
31:43They'll have to continue to evolve.
31:45I mean, think about this.
31:46Right, right.
31:46Back in the day when you needed to launch an e-commerce website, you need an agency to not only download the proper open source tool and integrate it, you needed the agency to actually spin up your servers.
31:59Yep, and maintain them.
32:01Right.
32:03Well, that is no longer there.
32:05So the agency's model has changed in terms of their skill sets and their need and, you know, and their, and their, their ability to deliver perhaps a differentiated product over time, they'll evolve, they'll evolve to where they add value and that's changed over the past 20 years that I can, that I can see and, and now they're all gonna have to probably acquire some A I skills.
32:31If, if your if your prediction is I, I is gonna come to pass and I can see, I can really see that there is, there, there aren't gonna be many corners of this industry, this industry as we know it today that, that aren't going to be supercharged, disrupted or maybe in some cases, even just completely obviated by A I, is that a fair assessment?
32:55100% 100%?
32:56Again, I, I can't put my finger on it quite yet, right?
33:00But I'm, I'm listening and I'm, and I'm attentive to, I think the opportunity and the change that this will bring and there's gonna be a few smart folks out there that will figure it out.
33:11And, you know, and, and you know, and really change a paradigm if we're a student of history, I think we can attest that, you know, with different dynamics come opportunity and, and, and this is one of them.
33:23Well, I mean, that's a, that's an interesting question.
33:25Now, it just occurred to me, e-commerce was tectonic shift in the commerce world.
33:35And now we see, I think we may be on the next, you know, we may be in the next period of change, kind of a pre Cambrian explosion of, of, of new technologies and approaches.
33:48But, but all of it, a A I powered so that we really, I, I might even say we'd go up a level from here and, and, and operate even at a, you know, just sort of at a higher level with everything just functioning underneath.
34:01Is that, is that too out there?
34:03Can you get behind that yet?
34:06Look, I, I, I believe it.
34:08I, you know, I guess you're hearing my hesitation, Ben, because I, I can't wake up in the morning and tell you what that is, right?
34:17But I know that I'm gonna wake up one morning and I'll be like, God damn it.
34:20It was right in front of me, right?
34:24And I worry about it, I worry about it because I, you know, as an investor, right?
34:28I kind of want to be able to, to pinpoint and say, you know, here's the thesis and here's like where we double down on.
34:35But, you know, I just don't quite see it right now, but I'm still studying.
34:41Right.
34:41And I'm still learning and I'm, I'm, I'm having some wonderful conversations.
34:44I'm, I'm being challenged and I challenge and it's, it's just part of a healthy process of understanding what the impact of the landscape is going to be in this new world and environment.
34:55Oh, man, I, I, I kind of can't wait for it but I can also, there's also a little bit of trepidation.
35:01I mean, mostly for the many people that I know in this space who you know, who, who will probably have to evolve their businesses or take a whole, a whole different tack.
35:11Now, is there, are there any are there any resources out there any, any publications or places where you go to get the kind of information today that you think will help you make the right decisions that you'll be really excited about tomorrow.
35:30Look, you know, Twitter obviously is one.
35:34But it's been a shit show like I, it's hard for me to follow what's going on anymore.
35:39I, I don't know, I don't know if you feel the same, you feel the same, by the way, it's, it, it, it, it is definitely a much different space than it was, you know, a little while ago.
35:50I, I know 111 of the, the newsletters I, I pay attention to is L D r out there it's just, it's a, it's a good, it's a good digest and it is just that it's a digest.
36:00So you can, you get, you get an email and you can pick your topics and, and then the A I space there's, there's just just great summary of like, hey, this is gonna take you two minutes to read, three minutes to read.
36:09It's a great, it's, it's coffee, it's the other kind of coffee for your brain in the morning.
36:13So I, I, yeah, so I subscribed to that in a couple more.
36:18And yeah, and just, you know, the great thing is that, you know, I get an opportunity to sit down with maybe three or four new entrepreneurs a day and hear their ideas and, and learn from them and this is why I love what I do, right?
36:35I love what I do because I just learn every single day.
36:37I mean, I share a ton, right?
36:39And I, I try to be as helpful as I absolutely can.
36:42But ultimately, my mind is blown because these people are calling and they're great and they've got these crazy ideas and, and I'm at a point where I'm just taking the, these great conversations and, you know, and, and really expanding, you know, the landscape of my thinking and I, and I love it.
36:59So the, so the Innovation Train, I mean, and you were, you were kind of at the station in e-commerce when the Innovation train took off.
37:07But it's in, it's in no danger of running off the tracks.
37:10In fact, it might even be picking up steam, right.
37:13100%.
37:14I mean, look that there's a lot of, there's a lot of opportunity and I mean, it's interesting, you know, a lot of times when, when founders in the e-commerce Space pitch me, you know, the first thing I say is guys, look, I may be the worst e-commerce investor ever because I've just had 20 years of history in this.
37:29So, like my level of skepticism is probably higher than most.
37:35So with that, you know, let's talk about the idea and see and see and see how we think about it.
37:41But no, there's, there's look, you know, we're, we're creative, we're, we're creative species, right?
37:48And there's just no end to it and, and some things were just blown away by and, you know, other things we, you know, we, we, we may not get as excited but, but, you know, but ultimately, you know, we do the best we can to kind of assess what the opportunities are.
38:06And at times we get, you know, we get the opportunity and, and, and we're fortunate enough to let our, you know, entrepreneurs bring us into these rounds and, you know, participate.
38:17But it, you know, it's, it's a process and it's you know, it's a lot of fun sitting through these calls and, and, and just learning, I had one this morning that was just so inspiring.
38:26I mean, this, this entrepreneur is just such a hustler and I, I just fell in love with him and I said, wow, you know, I, this idea I might not work but like, I, I just wanna wanna support you.
38:35So you tell me how so, but, but it's, it's, it's such a blast.
38:39You'd be good at it.
38:39Ben, I gotta say you're, you're very curious and that's, that's, that's a big part of, of this role.
38:45Well, that's, I mean, that's very kind of you.
38:46I would also like to be in a position to do that.
38:50But I, I mean, I'm more than happy if, if, if you or anyone, well, and you've reached out to me over the years just to, to kind of get a, get a take on things.
38:57I do.
38:57I do.
38:58I, I'm, I'm always inspired by others creativity and drive.
39:01That is, that is something that is very restorative to me.
39:03And I'm sure, you know, everyone who gets a chance to get time with you is more than appreciative.
39:12after the fact.
39:13So, Roy Ruben, our Square Adventures, I have to say, you know, from the bottom of my heart, you know, thank you for, thank you for being our very first guest here.
39:24On commerce famous.
39:25Thank you for being our, our very first guest on commerce famous podcast and I look forward to seeing everything that you all are doing.
39:34Always a blast to spend time with you.
39:36Ben.
39:36Congrats on this new podcast, I really look forward to subscribing of for us and listening to all the great future content.
39:43You'll be, you'll be producing so well done, Ben.
39:46All right.
39:46Take care, Roy, talk to you soon.
39:49All right.
39:49Take care.