Email and Business In Ukraine: A Conversation With Dmitry Kudrenko of Stripo.email

How do you focus on running a business with 10 air raids a day? Dmitry Kudrenko, CEO of Ukrainian companies Stripo and eSputnik, joined me to talk about that, and the future of email, and more.

Dmitry is based in Dnipro — still a relatively peaceful city in Ukraine. His customers and colleagues are global, which as he noted has been fortunate. Dmitry is a genuine visionary for email. He's wonderfully articulate at sharing that vision, turning Elon Musk, re-usable rockets and self-driving cars into handy metaphors on the fly.

The key message of this conversation is that Stripo has a terrific vision and value proposition for marketers and martech platforms! Learn more at Stripo.email. Doing business with companies there is a great way to support the people of Ukraine.

Company Links: StripoClaspoRetenoeSputnik

TRANSCRIPT

A Conversation With

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[00:00:00]

Matthew Dunn: Good morning. This is Dr. Matthew Dunn with a very special episode of The Future of Email. My guest today, speaking with me from Dnipro, Ukraine is Dmitry Kudrenko, CEO of multiple companies in the email space. Dmitry, it's really a delight to, to connect and talk with you again.

Dmitry Kudrenko: Hi, thank you for having me.

Thank to you, met you and to all your audience we

Matthew Dunn: spoke very memorable to me. We spoke five months ago or so. And you were, you were apologizing for the quality of the light because you were dealing with a live air raid. And here we are five months later and it's, it's still, it's still wartime situ.

In Ukraine and you're still keeping your companies [00:01:00] going and your customers serviced while you, while you wait. As you told me, you literally wait to be able to, to flee with your family if necessary, right. . Yeah. Yeah,

Dmitry Kudrenko: but we do a lot. We do a lot to save, to recognize our company. Yeah. To work that some, some families who can move to other countries it's about 25%.

Wow. Some move to save place somewhere in Ukraine, locally. Some of our employees have a service in army in the military for the military service. Mm-hmm so we have to support all the families of people who our employees. Yeah. All Ukraine and especially we very, very, very dedicated to keep safe all our customers.

Yes. And.

Matthew Dunn: Wow. It's, it's, it's really difficult. It's really difficult to imagine the, the, the stress, the emotional strain that you're you and [00:02:00] your, your team are grappling with every day. You were, you were filling me in on the, on what it's like for your kids with, with school. Like, how do you learn when you're constantly in the air rate basement?

Dmitry Kudrenko: Yeah. I don't think that it's possible to have any educational processs in the basement. So yeah, first we we like when you have about 10 Aero attacks every day, so you don't take them in account. So hardly as it was in the very first days, so maybe it's bad, but it's how our brain works. So it just normal.

Like regular events. Okay. Airex we can sleep it's bad. I know. But till in our place where we are in the Niro is pretty safe. There is more like a bombard of civil object sometimes. Very rare. So it's for us, we just staying broken back, trying to do it in a safe place, some place in a house where [00:03:00] we have two walls right.

Or something. So there are a lot of rules we know we never have to know, but at the moment, in this time, in this century in Europe, you knows the rule of two walls that it's just finds the. Place where there is no window when you can be safe as, and in just on the street. Wow. Wow. Just continue to operate.

Continue to

Matthew Dunn: grow. Yeah. And, and, and, you know Stripe your other companies, Ukraine as a whole, like astonishingly, still running business and, and, and participating in the, you know, economy of the world, most of your customers. Outside Ukraine, correct.

Dmitry Kudrenko: yes, most of, and it's very big luck for us. Yeah, because there is very the business in Ukraine is not very active at the moment and we feel also our responsibility to keep going for supporting our customers [00:04:00] and to give a rogue and cash flow.

Mm-hmm . Bely important to use here in Ukraine and to support families here and to support Amy and to support just support life. Yeah.

Matthew Dunn: Yeah. And, and the, the city where you live ni pro quite a few, quite a few people have fled there from other parts of Ukraine. I believe I saw you post. Yes. . Yeah,

Dmitry Kudrenko: yeah, yeah.

Matthew Dunn: Since it's relatively safe I don't wanna spend all the time I'm I, I would be fascinated to do it, but I want, I want to talk about your businesses and, and help people understand what the various businesses do in the email and marketing space. But you know, nobody has forgotten. What's happening to you there and what that asshole Putin has unleashed on your country.

There there's, there's gonna be, there's gonna be an end to it.

Dmitry Kudrenko: Thank you very much. Very appreciate it and feel it. And it's very [00:05:00] important for us to understand and feel it from the very first day of the war. So I receiving and continue to receive, which is important. Not only first day, I just continue to feel and receive a lot of warm.

Support, any kind of support. It's not necessarily just war. Sometimes it's money. Sometimes it's just what we can do for you. Or maybe you have a family we can host in our country. Yeah. And I have also permission to leave Ukraine, you know, in Ukraine. The only. Men who has three children or some as a special condition can leave Ukraine.

So sometimes I live for sunny events. It was months ago in . Yes. So where I met a lot of people from different countries, they did so many, so many things to support us and I just feel. And supports us when I return back. I just sharing all the messages I have is important. So yes. Thank you for mentioning.

[00:06:00] Thank you for remembering thank you for doing, because of

Matthew Dunn: it's all you had, you had built you and your, your team had built quite a remarkable set of businesses before this all broke out. And as we, as I mentioned earlier, most of your customers well, customers spread out all over the world. I mean, you, you call it luck.

I call. Foresight and vision and things like that, but has it been, what have, what, what have been the challenges in continuing to do business globally as you've got explosions in the backyard? .

Dmitry Kudrenko: Yeah, it's a, it's easier to do a business global. It's a biggest pain. If you had a company who did a local business, mm-hmm oh, its very hard to scale local business to the global and networking.

There is no trust. Nobody knows you. A lot of legal things. You have to change. Yeah. Mindset, everything. You just doesn't understand the market. So it is the biggest problem. If. A global company from the [00:07:00] first day is much easy because of you. We have a differentiation, you have a customers from all the countries and file it.

Even in COVID time. When one company has a lockdown, has a company works a company, sorry. I mean countries mm-hmm so they continue to upgrade and then they. As countries recovers. So we didn't feel very big changes when there was any global crisis. Okay. And especially here, when the world started, we had a lot of customers from Russia mm-hmm and Russia.

We just stopped. We closed all contracts and stuff, ability to pay. Yeah, but it doesn't change. So it's pretty big shares, but we also change it. The like a business model changes the pricing and we even had more customers, more cash. We, we continue to grow from months to months. Wow. That's wonderful.

Yeah. Even in this case. [00:08:00] Yeah. And we continue, we, we extended the team significant. Yeah, we invested into system much more than earlier. First for several reasons. First, we had our resources for this from other projects, for example, mm-hmm, we spent and we feel that there is only the hard time always make companies and people strong.

If they continue to fight mm-hmm and it's what we feel. We just have to act more actively. We have to understand that every day we spend we do the best we can. Mm-hmm earlier we, okay. We can do this. We can maybe deadline. We can post on this deadline. Maybe we can, I don't know. Do it later. Now there is nothing for this.

So we have to do only most important thing now every day. Yeah. Without the rest. And there is no option. We, we don't have a vacations. We don't have a work holiday it's because of you have [00:09:00] nothing for this. You just walking hard and that's all. Yeah.

Matthew Dunn: I apologize. I've gotta put a better, better blind on this window.

I've got sun smacking me in the in the face and it's totally flaring the picture out. You at, at, at heart, your, your at heart, your, your company builds systems in software. The, the concentration to do that has to be a real challenge with the events that can, you know, keep unfolding around your team.

Yeah.

Dmitry Kudrenko: It's you know, first we already had an experience working with the COVID time. Yeah. When things change it, when people, if before they, before COVID we all was in the office, we don't, we didn't really like, and I still don't like work remotely. I like to see how people works, how they communicate.

They can hear what happened, even if you. Just, it's not message to you. At least you hear this and you are in context. Yeah. [00:10:00] You are in surrounding of people who walk with the same area who think, who love it and you feel it and you the supper. And now when somebody, I don't know, working from home and.

Every time he has a condition for this. He has a children, he has a wife. He have a lot of people who living with them. Maybe they travel into some other place. Yeah. It's hard. It's definitely hard. Yeah. But COVID did us, a lot of, we already was prepared. Like we, we had a new processes. We had we already have some teammate.

We. Saw because of, we hired them remotely, as they continue to work remotely, is that changes the processes we have already had an employees from other countries. So we became international company without can work remotely. And now in wartime it helped us a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So we just continue to work and that's all, we still keep our offices [00:11:00] ready to be.

Oh yeah. Yeah. When I'm in pro I visit the offices just to speak with people who want to just surreal people. Yeah. How,

Matthew Dunn: yeah. That human contact, right? Yes.

Dmitry Kudrenko: Yeah. So everything the life is going on.

Matthew Dunn: So life, well, life is going on. Would, would you. Would you describe let's let's focus on strip O for a bit, cuz I'm particularly intrigued by by what's happening with that company.

Tell people what strip O is and does.

Dmitry Kudrenko: oh, yeah, it's very easy because striper is email design platform. Okay. So you can create a good global professional design easily, and that expert in one click to any system you use for sending. Okay. Okay. And so walking with a Stripe, we just remove all routine things. We just. Standardize or [00:12:00] work.

And we want marketer to be concentrated on marketing staff, not on coding staff, not on communication staff, not on integration with a lot of different tools of saving expert in doing things not to looking for any source for inspir. Or learning things how to do some, I don't know how to use amp or how to use annotation for Google or how to use or in some special hidden

So you don't need to read, we're trying to create the platform where marketer. Can focus on marketing without very advanced programming skills. Okay. From my understanding without programming skills also, because all, all at all,

Matthew Dunn: and, and strip O is both a standalone SA product and embedded in other.

Other email systems, correct?

Dmitry Kudrenko: It's it's a SaaS product. Yeah. It's not standalone application. It's just service. You can [00:13:00] visiting your browser here and create an and expert. And also it's another part of our business model. Because we already had an experience working with a huge human infrastructure and editor is very like a tiny part of it.

Mm-hmm but we understood that it's always think to do there it's. There is no standard on a, on the market out works completely different from Jamal or apple. Yeah. And everybody have to understand that. And there is no team dedicated for email design inside the ISP platform because of, they have to think about deliverability analytics, segmentation, gathering data omnichannel, a lot of things.

Yeah. And we decided to have a team who focused full time only on ML design mm-hmm and E P wants to have the, like a standard, [00:14:00] some good solution which always updated and actual so they can use some third party mm-hmm and how we decided not just to provide the series, but also. Very easily can be embedded as a plugin as an extent, right, right.

Or wide label into other solutions.

Matthew Dunn: Gotcha. Gotcha. And you've got, I believe I saw the figure seven, like 70, 70 ESP. Oh, even more, more. Excellent. Excellent.

Dmitry Kudrenko: And so you see we have 70 integration with different fees. So for users who log in into stripers, they create email and then can export into, I don't know, campaign mail, quota doesn't matter, or even into Gmail orally.

On even to, so, which is integration, but also there are a lot of like startup CRM system, ISPs who want to have professional editor and they just use us as a white player. Yeah. Yeah. Some of them [00:15:00] very big players. I am just, and the NDA just don't want to Mentions the big names obviously, but there are some of them it's number one systems in the world who use our editor embedded.

That's awesome. Which is honor for

Matthew Dunn: us. Yeah. That's awesome. That, and that's part of the growth that continued growth that you mentioned earlier is is securing, securing those relationships and figuring out where you fit into. Ecosystem. Yeah, it's

Dmitry Kudrenko: our way. So one of our goal, like internal goal to be a standard of a market, what means by standardizing, it's just how people organize their rogue.

So what they expect when they create an email, or maybe when you ask in appro just to order and hemo. Yeah. How you think you would receive the result? Yes. Just HTML or HTML with some brand guideline or just email in your system? Like, I don't know, like MailChimp. [00:16:00] Yeah. Or so we do a framework where like you expect to have.

All set of modules different examples, how to use template, PDF, HTML profiling a striper when you can export into any other system and a lot of supportive information, you can get very easily and certainly it have to work. And you can have a report how it looks in outlook in Gmail, in apple mail or other platform.

Very. Wow. A lot of things is important or what is master template? Stop me if I speak too much. Cause of like,

Matthew Dunn: not at all. It's it's, it's fascinating. And I love the, I love the passion right in the middle of everything else you're doing. You're like lasered in on, on, on how ridiculously difficult it is to, to, to design an email.

People not in this space probably don't think about, [00:17:00] but those in this space, think about all the time. Like why is this so hard?

Dmitry Kudrenko: Yeah. Yeah. Let me just two words about like evolution, evolution. We speak about the future of email. And if now we would focus only the future of design. Yeah earlier to create a professional email, you have to HTML, you have to write HTML.

You have to write a yeah. The first evolution was when editor supported some snippets, some some verification, some like if you saw customer Iowa last month or three. Had a deal is Z a parcel parcel. Yeah. Yeah. So the next layer was a drag and drop drag and drop said, okay, you don't need to know the code.

You can just use drag and drug button text block, or I don't know, image block configure. You don't need to understand what HTMO is. You will have what you need, but you see a lot of people create inconsistent. So they just looks not very [00:18:00] professional mm-hmm or you create the design, but your new employee created something that is not consistent with your design, not correspond your requirements.

Mm-hmm that he broke something. So I think the next step, if it was called then drag and drop We don't need to operate with more blocks. We don't need to drag and drop buttons, text and images because of, it's not how your email looks like you usually works with some like modules, the informational block, like a product card or block post information or some announcement, or I dunno, which has already a com.

Of these blogs. So it's like a module mm-hmm and module should have like a parameters, which mm-hmm from my understanding have to be very easily. You, you have to change the design, but leave the content, change the content, but leave the [00:19:00] design and should have an ability to automate all this processes in programming language, they call it like UHC pattern.

If you know this it's model view control. Yeah, the yeah. Model is your data view is how groups your HTML and controller is a logic that gets data from your site automatically on put to, to your. Design mm-hmm . So I think the next step of email building, so people would not operate with the blocks. They will operate with the modules, but throughout they have to prepare the modules or use in some library or extend them easily.

And when you have a modules, you can much easier update all emails you have, right. I dunno, 40 triggers. And for back to school like now yeah, you would like to add your heater and add in together with your logo. Some, I dunno, pin on pen or I don't know something. Yeah. You have to update for 40 emails.[00:20:00]

Yeah. Yeah. What if you would update only the hitter and say, okay, let all hitters there that use the same module and it can be done in, I don't know, in two minutes. Yeah.

Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Why? Yeah. I I, I, I see the applicability that, so you're, you're sort of, you're ex you're expanding the level of modularity and I'm I'm sizing on your word modules level of modularity in the email design system.

The marketer can think in terms of higher level abstraction and chunks of content, if you will, rather than this email template.

Dmitry Kudrenko: Exactly. Exactly. It's what marketer have to do because of marketers. Just thinking about the audience, about the message not about, about the high level design. Yeah. But not about how creates a around corner in a button in outlook.

Matthew Dunn: yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's been, I, I don't design [00:21:00] emails for a living, but it's been my observation that it's such a fragile task. With a lot of the current editors that people have gotta be pulling their hair out O over such trivial things, but it's just an, it was what's was the level of the technology for a good 20 years.

Yeah. And

Dmitry Kudrenko: also, I would like to say that it's never worked, it never worked to add any innovation to email because of there is no standard. Yeah. And there are both many stakeholders around email. Yeah. Let's look it's E P or CDP that doesn't matter. The standard it's marketer who have to understand how to do it's email client and Google always do something.

Yeah. Microsoft always do something new. Yeah. There's new. The same thing, but do it differently. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you have always play with it. So this is for outlook. It is for apple. This is for Gmail. Yeah. Yeah. And a year [00:22:00] go Google said, oh yeah, we go three years of oil, years ago, they started to do.

Yeah. So it's amp accelerate mobile pages they did for pages and they, okay. Now this technology, we would apply for email, but it's not pages, so we will call it not amp, but M mm-hmm . So the M technology, but it was a Google who trust Google. Nobody should has Google because they have a lot of new projects.

Yes. They keep a lot of projects. They kill a lot of project. and so many money have to be invested to implement this into your system. So yes, nobody use it. Hmm. Okay. It's not problems. They did a as a, a open source product. Mm-hmm and they create like a first time I ever heard alien between the Yahoo and Google.

And I don't want to speak about them now. My old daughter are you? Yeah. Yeah. Like a working group and. Thought. Okay. We already did a [00:23:00] lot. Only apple have to join us and they have a standard. And if you have your email client, you can use the code for free it's safe, but it has new opportunity to create interactive emails.

Yeah. To create rich emails. To do real time personalization to do a lot of new things, like much wider borders.

Matthew Dunn: So I was, I was hoping we'd stumble into this so that, so that you and I can ignore the world and focus on geek stuff for a minute. You guys have made a, a pretty big bet in terms of company and resources in, in building that environment where someone can design amp for email.

It functions and, and add them into their into the modular email. So you've made a, you've made a, a company bet in some sense on amp for email fair assessment.

Dmitry Kudrenko: Okay. Let's continue. Yes. So

Matthew Dunn: I'm gonna give you a thesis. My [00:24:00] thesis is apple will never turn on amp for.

Dmitry Kudrenko: So it, it makes me cry. Yes. Yes.

Never, never,

Matthew Dunn: unfortunately, never. Yeah, because, because, because I mean, apple V Google security, like you can think of a thousand different reasons, but net, net, it's just not gonna happen. And I, I, I gotta, I gotta say if I were in your shoes, I would be significantly concerned about Google's long term support for amp, for.

Because the numbers aren't there yet in terms of actual market.

Dmitry Kudrenko: So it was my kind of my mission. It was when I saw, okay. It's, it's a really big step. It's a huge step. And I would never say that Microsoft and Google would be on the same place with amp, but Microsoft solve that. They, no, they're not now, not now, but they told that they supporting it.

They were,

Matthew Dunn: and then they [00:25:00] rejected it about a, almost a year.

Dmitry Kudrenko: Yes. Yes. But how they rejected, they thought, okay, we don't see a big interest. Yep. Or we just freeze it and we, maybe one day we return it back. Maybe when we have requests from customers, but how to have requests from customers. Yeah. Even at some events, for example, If would popular system, like, I don't know, MailChimp mm-hmm would add support of amp, much more people would use it.

Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. Yeah. And maybe they would have more request. Yeah. Yeah. So we should be, have some critical critical number or who use it to spread it globally. So my mission. When I only found information that am released, do whatever I can do to create this number of user, this critical number.

Yeah, yeah. [00:26:00] For supporting formal system. And I think I did a lot because of a lot of sister who embed. Yeah, support amp because of, I have thousands cases, how amp is use it. Yep. Even create new directions there, like a gamification. Yeah. That can be done only with amp email mm-hmm and I use in all our triggers amp just continue to use.

Yeah.

Matthew Dunn: Is there, this is gonna sound like a side question. It really isn't. Is there any sort. even informal industry association or, or set of colleagues who are all on board and would like to see this evolution towards interactive email with amp. .

Dmitry Kudrenko: Yes. Yes. It was a working group, first of all. Okay. We tried to do this.

Okay. It was, you know, the rebel was the first company that was acquired by a Salesforce. Yeah. Yes. And Salesforce implemented a bonded cards and the bonded views triggers with amp and it still [00:27:00] works. It improves the version. It's not very important that not, not all the client support, but some support.

Yeah. And it still improves convers. Yeah. Then I see for my customers. Yeah. Especially if you walk in, in this, in Europe. Yeah. Earlier for Russia, it was only admire IU. Yeah. But I used them not very good thing. So in Europe, in Ukraines, there are a lot of people use G. Some audiences where you have white customer base who support more than apple.

Yes. Yes. But even if you have only 15% of Jamal, you still improve conversion.

Matthew Dunn: Right? Right.

Dmitry Kudrenko: Right. The, the, the question is how much you pay for this. Right. You have to do extra work for support, like compatible. you have to prepare in twice more miles. Yeah. Separate body part. So my responsibility would to minimize this code.

[00:28:00] So it should be the same price. It should be the same as create one email. You create amp and the TML. Yeah. It's what we need for strip striper. You create one. That automatically can grows to amp. Okay. But you can also put, you know, how you can do for mobile and the stop version. You can hide mobile and show the stop version or hide the store mobile the same do for amp.

I see. Usually you have the same email with one blow that would be displayed only for amp. Yeah. So it's and when you have a module, you can reuse. Yeah. Okay. From my understanding. Yeah, it was the same like Elon Musk did with his rockets. he told, okay. , it's very expensive thing to launch every Euro, every rocket, every time.

New rocket. Yeah. Yeah. We would never be in a, like reuse them in a, for [00:29:00] wide goals. So we have to reuse rocket parts. Yes. And our idea to reuse the rocket. How plans are reused. Yeah. Yeah. The same for us when you create some very clever interactivity, when you create some. Log just use them and maybe you don't need to create it.

Just use what we created for you. Yeah. Yeah. You could just drag and drop. It costs you nothing but improves conversion. Right. If doesn't support it. Yeah. You can still. Improves your conversion. Yes. Yes. Maybe one day would say maybe one day the world is changing. You know, there are so new Alliance.

There are so many things changing the last half an year. The people start to collaborate. They don't understand that there, there are some compromises in some parts, maybe one day the companies would accept one strategy to move industry [00:30:00] forward.

Matthew Dunn: Yeah, yeah, that, that, that is the question. My, my, my colleague and friend Nicholas Einstein at net core, who fortunately lives close to me.

So I got to play golf with him, net net core, like. Is has, has really seen the potential of gamification and inter interactivity in email. And, and like as, as, as you are, they're, they're willing to back their bet from what I can see and, and kind of push the boundary and say, let's go ahead and do this.

Let's make it possible. Make email interactive it much more of a, a functional thing, not just a message thing. And maybe more people will come on.

Dmitry Kudrenko: it's what we see. Yeah. Because of, we see request. Okay. I like this email. How can do the same? Yeah. Yeah. So just, they just have to see such kind of email in say inbox.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause of, you know, the cure for one, there is like early [00:31:00] adopters and followers and blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I have to go forward in the curve. Yes. Yes. We don't need to be only in. It have to be, I want to be like they

Matthew Dunn: do. Yeah. So what you're saying, what you're saying is to Jeffrey Moore's term, cross the chasm for, for interactive email to cross the chasm, perhaps a, a super mainstream platform let's use MailChimp as an might, might push that.

If you get enough people saying, why is my iPhone email less interesting and in useful than, than my friends. Gmail on his Android. Exactly,

Dmitry Kudrenko: exactly. And what usually entrepreneurs and businesses do they, they wait, wait till they see the science that it's a good time to invest. Yeah. But I, I feel that as I like it, I don't know.

I, I kind of like email geek who, who feel responsibilities that email. [00:32:00] Should not just should survive. It's it's the best place to communicate. Yeah. But if we don't change it, the world is changing. People don't want to wait for response. I don't know. For more than sometime 10 minutes. Yeah. They want to have immediate interactivity.

Yeah. Yeah. And people have to adopt what Joe does, or I, I really like the ideas of some general in. Yeah, like promotional tap you know promotional tap in mobile fields. They decided, okay, what is a promotional promotion? We have a lot of promotions. Some of them actual, some, not some is good for you.

Some not let's do the best authors. On the top but how we have to understand that is not expired. They thought, okay. Let's people to add some annotation to email mm-hmm yeah. Some date or pro code or value of your discount or some, or image or [00:33:00] gallery of image. If we have this, we can show them in better way and more.

Because of now it's ordered by delivery date, but it's not what our customer expect for promotion, right? Hmm. Yeah. For promotion. It's not very important for me. It was sent in minute earlier or after. Yeah. Yeah. But for this, we have to change the way, how we provide information in email. So its promotions for one week or for one day or for this deal or for other deal.

And Google can, an AI can predict what is fits me better. Yeah. And maybe change, change the order every time trying to show one or other offer when I'm in promotion. And they did this function. Nobody uses big. Because of, they have to provide additional HTML yeah. With summer cup with some yeah.

But they don't see how even how to measure result. [00:34:00] Yeah.

Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Yeah. Brian my, my, my another friend and colleague Brian Syk has done a ton of work trying to, trying to make Google annotate, the annotations function more easily, more accessible. And I, I suspect he's a bit frustrated cuz there just doesn't seem to be a lot of traction.

Dmitry Kudrenko: Yeah, but, but yeah, because if people have to see that it's easy, they should not learn, have to provide some parameters and it improves conversion, maybe only perm, but maybe a book can use this information. Yeah. If, if it has, yeah. Maybe they don't need to render, but they can use this information. Yeah. But it's a different way how to operate is promotional.

And I like it. And I like it idea that it have to be not only a mobile version, but in the stock version as well. Why not because of the standard very quickly, the standard automatically filter emails by social annotation, promot promotional and primary and blah, blah, blah, is became a standard.

Yeah, [00:35:00] everybody do this, the standard filter.

Matthew Dunn: So both of us are in the business of being entrepreneurs, trying to. Some innovation and change to add, to email. I find it frustrating. I'm finding the email space frustratingly slow to take up innovation. Reaction to that because of

Dmitry Kudrenko: yes, exactly. Because of it's very complicated infrastructure, a lot of stakeholders and players who doesn't work like a, the one big team it's so it's one team of gigs like marketers.

They, they are very, very strong solid and they know what. But they don't change the market. They not have ability to change Gmail or something. Yeah. From other side it's Sanders, Sanders, always waiting. Okay. To should be invest money because they have to invest money in a lot of [00:36:00] things.

Yeah. Why should I invest money into a, because it's, I don't know how many we spent more than million on it. So why should I spend my million for something Google would kill? Yeah, because of it changed, it changed the world and one, our internal mission to do things. They change the world for better, even if it's so small thing, like email, email is not I, I really like your Musk.

It's just not new way to work with energy. It's like not your not new vehicles. It's nothing, but it makes work better. It just push us forward. Mm-hmm so I think we have to. Because of entrepreneur means somebody who applies something for changing. Yeah. Not just making the money. Yeah. And if you do it say successfully, we will have a lot of money as well.

Matthew Dunn: well, like [00:37:00] it, what, what's Steve jobs phrase. You make a dent in the universe. Yeah. At least you make a dent. You make a dent in the universe. It, it is. I mean, it's vastly complex. There's 300 and 320 billion emails sent around the planet every day. So to be fair, it is a big deal to try and bring it is a big deal, right.

To try and bring change into the space like that. Yeah. We're, we're trying to make our own reusable rockets, right. as you said, The same,

Dmitry Kudrenko: even for modules, you know, modules that is so obvious thing. Yeah. For industry that creates female moves in 20 years. Yeah. Female emails more than 20 years. Yeah. Why?

It happens only. So we started to do it five years ago. Yeah. There were no more. No module, no, its kind of trend interesting. It's kind of trend, but it's still very, very simple. It looks like people doesn't understand model is like just snippet. No model is not a snippet [00:38:00] model is new concept of thinking.

Yeah. Yeah. And we have a lot of spaces to improve

Matthew Dunn: and there's always a, in the evolution of a commercial space, there's always. a dog and cat fight along the way, because you'll, you'll get companies who think controlling, you know, controlling a standard is the way to win. And you'll get companies that say rising tide, lifts all the boats.

If we all use this standard and we can all do more stuff. And the the, the muscle and the budget of those parties, not always the same. Exactly. Yeah.

Dmitry Kudrenko: But it's life. So I, everybody wants to do better. Everybody. I'm sure that they don't block it only because of they. No, I dunno. Don't want to make email life.

Yes. Yeah,

Matthew Dunn: yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm sensitive to sensitive to, to your time, especially since it's probably later, what time is [00:39:00] it there by.

Dmitry Kudrenko: No, it's fine. It's almost okay.

Matthew Dunn: Not, not, not too bad. We're O opposite ends of the, of the Workday. You mentioned C D PS P and, and sort of used both of those. Can you talk a bit about your, your perspective on that evolution?

Cuz Chris Mar and I just had a long conversation about that a couple weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah. I see.

Dmitry Kudrenko: So first I don't know even where to start because of, I think that it, it would be, I already did have some story about the El Musk. Yeah. Yeah. Let me let me continue this for P CDP evolution.

Okay. So an anonymous driving so. everybody would like to create a system when marketer defines the goal. Yeah. So say I would like to have more money and system became to work and do everything and just bring your money. Mm-hmm in retention, in engagement in, in all [00:40:00] this area in conversion. Or something, but everybody would say that it's, it's not possible.

It's not possible because of the same. They said that it's not possible. When you in map, say, I want my car to drive, to walk to this place. It cannot happen because of there are so many unpredictable things can happen on the road. You cannot control all them because of, they are just UN predict. And I see.

Okay. Can we do the same evolution as mask did with a car at anonymous driving in email system, what have to be changed? And I try to answer for question. Okay. Where is the map? It's we have like a map Google map. Yeah. Where we can say, we want to reach this place. Mm-hmm do we have the same map for marketers?

Kenzie defines the goal. The system can understand. Hmm. And once they understand they can just. Go forward. And in anonymous driver, it was not in one day. First, [00:41:00] it just cruise controls and adoptive cruise controls and some limitation just on a, a highway than mm-hmm . So it's a lot of steps, but.

This is a goal and we understand how to change the system. There is only one trend in EESP is personalization. This trend 20 years ago, this trend, now this strength will be in next 20 years. Personalization. We just think differently what personalization is. All it will just use your name in communication.

Now we use much more data and why CDP happen because of DS for steps? Yeah, data gasification, segmentation, and activation using different channels. Data gathering became very important part. We have a lot of data from all the data sources, the next part, just to understand this data for the same person and we can trust this data.

And then we have to use this data [00:42:00] for personalization for achieving our objectives to achieve our goals. And I think like as the next step in evolution is P to CDP and then it's, it will be from in, in my understanding, it's like goal driven marketing. What I see from a lot of customers we have in around the world, it's like a campaign driven marketing, they optimizing campaign, welcome campaign.

They optimizing think like I don't know, a bonded card. Complain. We have a lot of complaints and sometimes even in conflict because of sending a lot of messages, because if we have a lot of complaints that started at the same time, and once they started, when we have a trigger and when we have a trigger, when you should do something.

So when do he has a lot of notifications, they're not prioritize it. It's very hard to manage all of them and understand what he would receive is if something happened. So I think this way, like a [00:43:00] campaign driven have to be changed at the gold driven. But for this goal have to be defined. It's different kind.

And there is evolution as well. First when we define a goal and the system can suggest something, suggest, okay, we have several things we plan to central, this customer. I think this message have to be delivered maybe delivered by email, maybe as a part of promotional email as a email digest. Some message.

So we don't need to deliver the email. We have to deliver a message. And if email sent but not read, it means that message is not delivered. We don't need to think about the, I don't know, level of hardware that email is on your side. Email have to be in. So my have to be in your head. I'm not very accurate in all my prior, but how I, because if I trying to be very quick[00:44:00] but the idea that.

I have my framework, how to define goal. And I see the steps. The first step is just benchmarking and suggestions. So, okay. Maybe you have to do this. Maybe you have an opportunity. You have this audience that never contacted because of something, but they have a potential because of they visit your side because of they buy some because of.

Read SMS, but you communicate with them. I dunno, they have a mobile, but you don't send for the mobile pushes. So it should not be only email. So it never can be E E P or E P have to be reamed. You know, it was in, in email sign. They Rena ITP into, into every channel service provider. So not email. Yeah, cause of it's the channel is not people, so we have to contact our customers.

We have to contact people any channel, right. And when somebody [00:45:00] say me, okay, email you via. Okay. No problem. Email, some other channel would to use the same techniques, the same practices, the same data, the same messages, maybe different format. So, and at the moment I see that email performs because of it's the richest format we can communicate.

Maybe email client have to be changed. Yeah. Infras, it definitely will be because of work is. But the way how we can do is email the cheapest, the easiest, easy to measure, easy to do everything. Maybe it's another topic how easy to measure because of this.

Matthew Dunn: We, we could pick on, we could pick on apple again in that conversation.

Well, that is that is a heck of a vision. Well, Well, correct. Yeah. Yeah.

Dmitry Kudrenko: So you, one of the thing what's, that is new, excuse me, is one of the thing is that like in new dashboard, we have to provide new map, very easy [00:46:00] to see where is the traffic jam? Where is your go? Where something happens on the road where I don't know.

How to build new way.

Matthew Dunn: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're yeah. You're you're right. That's a, that's a good that's a good metaphor to encapsulate it in tricky job. It's gonna take all of us working together. Isn't. it is,

Dmitry Kudrenko: but it's an interesting job. It's an interesting,

Matthew Dunn: not a more adult

Dmitry Kudrenko: the most I don't know.

There's something that inspire me. You don't need to provide the final result in the, for the deadlines, a lot of steps, maybe this final destination would not be achieved from, I don't know, in my life. Right. But I know the steps, how to be closer. Yeah. And I think I'm, I. I'm very sure that it's possible to be on this place because of marketers should not think again about technical staff.

Yeah. How to send message. He should think about the message, you know, always everybody [00:47:00] say the rule of. Eight R seven R for R so right. Message to the right person in the right moment of time using the right channel in the right context. The, with the right frequency, a lot, a lot of right. A lot of RS, we can, we can measure them.

We can optimize them. Yeah. And we can because of more more words, more knowledge. Yeah. And more think you have to keep under control. You have to delegate this. Yep. And caring about important thing and

Matthew Dunn: notation. Well, that is a good note to end on. That's it Uhhuh? That's really awesome. I'm so glad we had this conversation.

What's what's the next month look like there. I, I, we talked about it before we started recording here that that concern about possible nuclear incident is not, is pretty close to you.

Dmitry Kudrenko: It is 100

Matthew Dunn: kilometers, a hundred kilometers away. So, you know, literally ready to hop in the car and get out [00:48:00] a Dodge if necessary.

Dmitry Kudrenko: Yeah, I think really you should never run you just need to stay in the close area that with the close windows with the water, just wait first till It run and then move because if it's possible to leave there, I hope it will never happen. Yeah. And I don't see the real the like rational reasons why it should happen.

Yeah. But you know when you have a monkey with a weapon

Matthew Dunn: yeah. Monkey with a coconut here. Right? Big, big nuclear coconut. Yeah. It looks hope. Well, I, you know, Dmitry, I hope we can. this opportunity to talk in about six months and hopefully we're post-war and, and watching Ukraine reinvent itself you guys have done a remarkable things thus far.

Thank you

Dmitry Kudrenko: and whole world supports us. We feel it. [00:49:00] We appreciate it. And it'll be our common like victory. And I believe only in victory, there is no other way. So

Matthew Dunn: we'll close. We'll close on that. My guest has been Dmitry Kudrenko, CEO of Stripo -- Stripo.email.

Dmitry Kudrenko: IPO do email

Matthew Dunn: strip o.email. I should have known that Dmitry, I'm gonna hit pause on the record, but thank you for the time.

Dmitry Kudrenko: Thank you. It was pleasure.

Matthew DunnCampaign Genius