The Retail X Series Podcast
Are you an early stage founder revolutionizing the future of retail? Then you’re in the right place. My name is Sapna Shah and I’m an angel investor investing at the preseed stage in retail tech, ecommerce, marketplaces and consumer. I’m also the founder of Retail X Series, an ecosystem to help early-stage founders in the retail sector. Retail X Series includes events, a YouTube channel, a Slack community, resources for founders, and this podcast. In this podcast, I interview founders, investors and experts in the retail space, and we dig deep into the tactics around key topics that early-stage founders want to hear about. Welcome to the Retail X podcast.
The Retail X Series Podcast
Lessons Learned in Building a Marketplace Featuring Jaclyn Grauman of The Verticale
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Sapna Shah
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Episode 34
Marketplaces are notoriously hard to build. This episode features Jaclyn Grauman, CEO of The Verticale, a social shopping platform that enables customers to discover brands that align with their values. Jaclyn discusses her journey building a DTC marketplace that is focused on brand discovery, the challenges of connecting customers to brands, and the pivots along the way.
- Using community and word of mouth as a tool to build customer acquisition
- Partnering with brands in a different way versus typical B2C marketplaces
- Utilizing customer and creator feedback as a tool to iterate the platform
- Why dropshipping didn’t fit with their model
- Gaining customer engagement and sharing brand stories through video
- Building a marketplace that is optimized for the consumer
- Fundraising for a marketplace (spoiler: it’s not easy!)
- Focusing on one consumer segment and why that’s critical
Music by Eino Toivanen, kongano.com
Edited by Deven Shah
Learn more at Retail X Series and follow @retailxseries on Twitter and Instagram.
To submit a pitch or to find out more about Sapna Shah, check out Red Giraffe Advisors.