A Conversation with Steffen Schebesta of SendInBlue

Steffen Schebesta heads up North American operations for marketing platform SendInBlue. He joined Future of Email Marketing host Matthew Dunn to talk about the capabilities company brings to their focus on SMB (Small to Medium Business) customers' digital marketing. As a successful entrepreneur, Steffen and his team built Newsletter2Go, scaling it to the point where SendInBlue saw the logic of joining forces. That deep appreciation for the challenges of SMBs shines through in this conversation! Steffen shared a broad-and-deep grasp of the value software companies bring to SMB customers — not just bits-and-bytes, but informed and accurate decisions about what's effective, practical and even legal. Shopify, email, SMS and messaging, mom-and-pop corner stores, and even the challenge of moving countries in the middle of a pandemic with a 4-year-old — it's all here!

BONUS: Listeners can get 50% off the first 3 months of SendInBlue.

Use promo code "FUTURE".

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00]

[00:00:09] Matthew Dunn: Good morning. This is Dr. Matthew Dunn host of the future of email marketing. My guest today. Steffen Schebesta talking from Toronto, correct?

[00:00:19] Steffen Schebesta: Yes,

[00:00:19] Matthew Dunn: exactly. Yeah. Since CEO, uh, north American CEO at SendInBlue, SendInBlue is based in France.

[00:00:30] Headquartered

[00:00:30] Steffen Schebesta: and friends. We have offices all around the world, two offices in north America, one in Seattle, one in Toronto and IMF. And then we have a couple of houses offices in Europe and two offices in India as well. Oh, wow.

[00:00:44] Matthew Dunn: Okay. So a true, a true global enterprise. And I, although email I know is core, it's not the only thing that SendInBlue provides for.

[00:00:55] Steffen Schebesta: Exactly. We started with email marketing back in the day. And like a lot of companies in our space, we have evolved to like a full, a full featured online marketing suite, I would say.

[00:01:08] Matthew Dunn: Yeah, very full-featured um, you yourself, uh, join sand and blue when your company was acquired. Is that right?

[00:01:17] Steffen Schebesta: That's right.

[00:01:18] So I, I had built my own company back in Germany. I'm a German citizen. I just moved to Toronto a year and a half ago. And my German company was also active in the same space in the email marketing space. It was called newsletter to go and was acquired by sending them blue. And at the end of 20.

[00:01:37] Matthew Dunn: At the end of 2018 and, and I know send him blue has been on, I won't call it an acquisition tear, but didn't, didn't send him blue ads, three companies last, last fall, we're talking in spring 2022.

[00:01:51] So, but relatively recently,

[00:01:53] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah, exactly. Last year we acquired three companies in the e-commerce space, um, that were focused on different channels. Um, in the, in the e-commerce space, one in the, in the chat and messenger space, one in the push notifications, uh, space, and the other one was an e-commerce analytics tool, almost like a CVP, which helps to get additional insights in your new products and your custom.

[00:02:22] And, and

[00:02:23] Matthew Dunn: w we had a chance to talk briefly last week. So I learned a bit more about the company and the focus, but is it fair to say target customers for sending blue are small to medium, small to medium business.

[00:02:39] Steffen Schebesta: Yes exactly. Um, I think this is also where maybe we differentiate ourselves a bit from, from other players that are more mid-market or up market.

[00:02:50] Some, some big even marketing tools out there. Of course, the target, the enterprise customers, and we are really focused on the SMS. Uh, on, on the SMB space and then the mom and pop shop around the corner and, uh, small retailers and so on. It's our bread and butter. And this is what, what our product is really

[00:03:12] Matthew Dunn: good for.

[00:03:12] So mom and pop mom and pop have to be. Online now, I mean, especially post pandemic, and hopefully that's a meaningful phrase, but you know, the notion that you could run your corner store, whatever the business today is, and, and, and not have any digital footprint, marketing, commerce, whatever is increasingly less viable.

[00:03:38] Steffen Schebesta: Exactly. I mean, especially during the pandemic, we've seen, you know, increased demand in tools like ours, that help businesses grow online. And during the lockdowns, a lot of these small shops, they have to close down at least for a bit, and they were really struggling to survive. Right. And. And our vision is really to help these small businesses to be on equal footing with the big players, like the Amazons and Walmarts out there that of course have more resources, more employees, more knowledge and access to, uh, to, you know, very advanced tools.

[00:04:20] So what we're trying to do is provide. Easy to use very accessible tools at an affordable price to small and medium businesses so that they can compete. Maybe they'll, they won't be a hundred percent there, but there'll be able to reach like 90, 95% of the same, um, the same successes with sending Lou as, as these big

[00:04:43] Matthew Dunn: players.

[00:04:43] Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and I mean, that's one of the, one of the conundrums of change. If you will, they're all. Early, there were all the always early pioneers and even early empires who sees the advantage of something new, but as everyone as has everything adjust in levels out, you know, the advantage that most.

[00:05:09] Filling the blanks. You know, my favorite bar in town has not that I have a favorite Barb. Like they're not Amazon. And if they play to the strengths of, you know, us, we know you were in the same town. Uh, we know what's going on. Like there's a, there's a place where Amazon can't compete despite their size and scale.

[00:05:31] Um, agreed.

[00:05:33] Steffen Schebesta: Exactly. And we actually did a survey on this topic during the pandemic, which was quite interesting to see that there was a shift in mindset for customers during the pandemic where, um, everybody really understood how hard it was for small and medium businesses that were like local businesses, regional businesses.

[00:05:56] And. Customers are more aware and are actively trying to support these businesses nowadays. Yeah. And I know for myself, I also do that, you know, I, I prefer going to the bakery and buying my bread instead of buying maybe from Walmart or, or supporting other shops, like small retailers to, to buy presents or so on.

[00:06:21] And I w and we seen that that was a big trend, um, especially last year and the year before. And I think it's here just to say, because the awareness is there and people really valued the neighborhood they're in their neighborhoods more because they're also working more from home. So it's important for them to,

[00:06:41] Matthew Dunn: um, at the same time, there's a, there's a different angle to the, um, to that adjustment that your target customers have to make, which is not just.

[00:06:51] The technical workings of, you know, email and other digital channels. It's also the, the, the surprisingly complex, um, legal policy and even transnational issues. I'm kind of leading us into talk a bit about, uh, zero party, first party, et cetera, and, and privacy, uh, privacy writ large, um, where, you know, talk to me about how you help your customers for.

[00:07:21] I understand that they've got to pay attention. Yeah, for sure.

[00:07:25] Steffen Schebesta: Uh, apart from that macro trend that we S that we've seen that the digitization of all kinds of offline businesses, we just talk about, um, one, one big trend in the industry is the whole data privacy angle. Right. And we we've seen that last year.

[00:07:45] With Google and apple, both, both players really introducing major changes in how they handle data privacy in their operating systems. We had, we had apple introducing, um, app privacy and email the privacy features. We had Google introducing Google flock first, and it's renamed Google topics now, which, um, also changing the, how the adversary.

[00:08:15] Um, landscape is working. Um, and overall I think it's a, it's a great trend when it comes to giving customers control and visibility on their data, which hasn't been the case in a lot of, um, a lot of times in the past in Europe, of course, where our company. It's headquartered. We have GDPR that that's a couple of years ago already, which had a big impact on data privacy as well.

[00:08:43] So we know really well how important data privacy is, but it really seems to me that there is a much bigger awareness and much bigger need to follow these regulations. Also in north America and particularly in north America, which has been handling data privacy a little looser than Europe back in the past, I would say.

[00:09:06] Yeah. Um, but we've we've we see that there's a shift in mindset now.

[00:09:11] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Agreed. And the EU for sure. Led the way with GDPR. I think you're being, uh, I think you're being too polite and too generous to the U S versus Canadian market because Canada, uh, was Canada's. Uh, more assertive about data privacy laws and the us is, is a patchwork right now.

[00:09:34] You know, California's recent legislation. Okay. There's, you know, there's a start big market, but it, it, the fact that it's a patchwork alone. It means it's a tough job for a small business to add to their marketing. Like, hi, I run a restaurant, we have a chief privacy officer. Choose me what doesn't make sense.

[00:09:56] Well, you kind of have to do.

[00:09:59] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah. To, to a certain degree. Um, I think you, at this point, yeah, you can rely on, on tools that that should help you. Um, you know, being compatible with, with the different legislations across the world. And this is, you know, where, where tools like ours, of course come into play and help you.

[00:10:20] Um, Maybe avoid having a data privacy officer at restaurants, but in general, in general, the S I mean, you, you, it's important to keep data private and have, um, have costumers have, or help customers have the authority in with their

[00:10:41] Matthew Dunn: data. Yeah. Yeah. W I mean, you, you said something in a quick phrase that has, uh, uh, has a whole iceberg worth of meat.

[00:10:51] Uh, under the waterline and I think it's worth pulling out a little bit. Um, it's easy to think of a software solution that you license as a, as a functional set of tools. You know, it does X, Y, and Z faster, better it's in the cloud or whatever true. But there are also a bunch of decisions, including legal compliance decisions, baked into the design.

[00:11:17] Of that tool set and, and in some senses you're actually buying this thing, does it the right way in addition to it does it does whatever the thing is. Does that make.

[00:11:30] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah, for sure. I mean, some, maybe some examples would be how, uh, like a sign up form works. Right. It's simple, as simple as that. And I think we can all agree that we don't like spam, but if I see sign up forms where I can just put in your email address, right.

[00:11:48] And then you you're signed up and you get emails from that provider, then that's of course not best practice. And to be, should be avoided. So these are like simple things, but overall there is higher awareness from the consumer side where data is stored and what data is used for. Uh, and a good example is the app privacy that apple introduced.

[00:12:15] And for, for those of you who use an iPhone, you probably seen that there's a little pop up asking if the app can track you or not. And data suggests that over 90%. Of consumers opt out of the tracking feature that shows if the consumer has the choice, then a vast majority opt out of these tracking algorithms because they don't know what happens to their data.

[00:12:48] And the better solution to that is to actively ask the customer. What data they want to share and to transparency show the data that is being collected. So I think that's, that's a good way because in the end, the, from a consumer experience standpoint, sometimes it's good to have data collected. To personalize offers.

[00:13:12] And like, I personally, I, you know, if I get more relatable and more relevant ads or emails and that's a good for me, right. I enjoy that. And I, I benefit from that. So in the end, I'm, you know, we're aligned, I'm aligned with maybe the provider to, to give data, um, and provide data. That can be beneficial for both of us.

[00:13:40] And that's basically one zero data, zero party data is about

[00:13:44] Matthew Dunn: you brought this up in our, in our shop, our conversation last week. Um, and, and. As I said about tools and what you have to be aware of, you know, if you're busy running a restaurant or a store, thinking about juror party, first party, second party, like may not be at the top of your list to stuff to engage in.

[00:14:03] Could you do a quick definition of those layers? Just a, like a snap definition?

[00:14:09] Steffen Schebesta: Sure. I think what's been talked about last year in lot was the third-party data. And so basically. Data that is collected by any kind of third party. And that can be used by somebody else. Okay. And that a customer or consumer is not even aware of.

[00:14:30] And that's a problem like cross tracking if you use some kind of app and all of a sudden Facebook knows everything about that app and your behavior in the.

[00:14:39] Matthew Dunn: Well, let's, let's let, let's put a, put a peg in a really simple example in the email space, and I'm sure you grapple with this with new customers.

[00:14:47] Oh, gee. I bought a list of, uh, you know, fishermen in the state of Washington and I'm going to email them. That list is third-party. Correct in, in, in this, in this formulation, you're doing

[00:15:01] Steffen Schebesta: third-party data and it could be more information you can add information on, on your own list. That could be also third.

[00:15:09] Matthew Dunn: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then second party, which doesn't come up that often is an in theory business, a where I'm their customer says we're going to share your data with our partners and that's okay. Right. It's not as common is that.

[00:15:26] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah. I, I don't hear about second party data all that often. No, it's yeah, like you said, it's a very edge case.

[00:15:33] That's usually not, um, not very common. Yeah. But first, first party data and no, uh, zero party data as well, which is a, I think a topic that a lot of people have been starting to talk about more are really the kind of data that your own company can connect. Okay. And, um, zero party data in particular is the data that a consumer shares voluntarily with you.

[00:16:04] So if you ask a customer, for example, you know, what, what are your interests? Are you more interested in, uh, I don't know, shoes or in pants or insurance and the customer shares that on, on their own. This is important data for you, but it also. Improves the user experience. So that's great. First party data is the data that you collect on top of that on your own.

[00:16:30] And it can be, can help together with the zero party data. But first party data is more, I think, on the first party data you want to, uh, you want to make sure that customer can see that data cause they might not be. Or zero party data. They are super alert because they provided themselves.

[00:16:49] Matthew Dunn: So let me put that into concrete and example, make sure I've got it right.

[00:16:53] Um, I bring I've, I've managed to bring this company up and not mention who they are, like one out of two episodes of this, uh, of this podcast. Uh, there's an outdoor region. Whom I've whom I've, uh, bought things from, for over a decade. I think we're going on 12 or 13 years at this point. Um, and I've stayed on their email list that whole time, but thousands of dollars worth of gear from them.

[00:17:21] And it's still, I still get the same general consumer email from the. After all that time after all of that input, like you don't stop sending me stuff related to water skiing. I don't have a boat. I don't want a boat. Right. But they've got first party data about my purchases. Yeah. You'd think now whether or not the email guys have access to that as an entirely separate machinery question, but they've got first party data saying this guy has bought DIT, DIT, DIT, DIT, DIT category stuff.

[00:17:55] Um, they haven't ever, they haven't ever exposed in a way that I can see and say, yes, that's right. No, that's wrong. Um, but it's first party data collected from those sort of implicit preferences of purchase accurate. Exactly zero party would be if they opened up the kimono and said, check off the stuff you're interested in.

[00:18:18] So we stop emailing you about crap that you don't care about. And I went, you know, this, this, this, that, that, that right. Yeah, exactly. It's hugely valuable. Yeah. Hugely valuable, which I would do in a heartbeat. And I know there's, you know, they'd have to build a mechanisms form and incredibly complex data tracking to, to manage that.

[00:18:39] Better than blasting me with water-ski stuff that I'm never going to buy. Maybe it's it's, it's a pickle.

[00:18:51] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah. And the combination of both zero and first party data can be super powerful. Um, because zero, zero party data can provide you with information that you would never be able to. To receive, right?

[00:19:07] So you might have a history of purchases at your outdoor company, and they might know what you're interested in by now. And they might even be able to, in a way even predict what you might be interested in the future. Sure. So while maybe it's non water-skiing, you might be interested in hiking in the future.

[00:19:26] Right. And, and if, if they have a good system and some AI running in the back. They might be able to really recommend the right things to you. However, who knows maybe in a couple of years you move and all of a sudden you do own a boat, right. And you are interested in a particular, uh, water sports equipment, right?

[00:19:48] Yeah. This is, nobody would know that unless you might change your preferences, so that can help and that can help you. Really, um, providing information, giving, giving the seller and the company access to data that they would never, never received otherwise.

[00:20:10] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. And it makes for that hypothetical means means a mutual efficiency.

[00:20:16] If you will. I, I, I'm getting communication related to my actual interests. My stated interest in that case. And they're they? No, not. Try to persuade me to, uh, you know, to get something completely different. Cause I've said, no, my categories of interest are this, um, most companies aren't anywhere near zero party data at this point, are they?

[00:20:40] Steffen Schebesta: Yes, probably. Probably not. At this point. Um, there is a movement in, into that direction and it can be very easy to set it up as well. Yeah. So one, one good example is if you let's say. You sell clothes online, right. Clothes online, and you have an e-commerce shop and you have a sign up form to your weekly newsletter.

[00:21:06] You send out, um, all, you know, discounted clothes every, every week. Um, and if you are a customer, you sign up to the, to the newsletter. You might get completely irrelevant. Uh, content. So one easy example is to have a sign up form where it says I'm interested in. You know, there is a button instead of sign up, it says, sign up for mail, fashion, or sign up for female fashion.

[00:21:35] And then you click and you're set up. And in that moment already, the consumer provides you with zero party data and tells you I'm, I'm more interested in maybe female fashion than, um, than anything else. And that has a big impact on, on your efficiency. If you think about it, like if you're a woman, you you're very unlikely to impact.

[00:21:57] Male fashion items in the future, right? So it can be, it can be as easy as that. Of course you can go much more refined and especially also give access to data and let the consumer change or remove data that doesn't only help with your efficiency, marketing efficiency, but it also. Helps, um, you know, giving a good image, I would say.

[00:22:22] And that's, for me, that's a third point dementia. Um, apart from. The authority of the data, um, and, and, and making it more relevant. The third part is that, you know, it's, it's a big topic. Um, it's more and more, it's becoming more and more mainstream data privacy. Um, and you want to be on the right side of history in a way.

[00:22:47] Height, any, anything from, from your customer and you want to be transparent and you want to give access. So I think it can help with the image with your brand. And we've seen that with some brands, like, I don't know, Patagonia for example, is nice to see they're very sustainable and all this images. You can, you can go a similar way when it comes to data privacy and how you manage data, uh, for your, for your customers.

[00:23:15] So it can help with the reputation of your brand. It can help with the image of your brand.

[00:23:20] Matthew Dunn: So, yeah, yeah. Yeah. The funny thing that jumped to mind is that, that the company that has that for me, whom I've had an account with a digital account with, for over 25, Happens to be Amazon. I was in, I lived in Seattle.

[00:23:42] Um, Amazon started in Seattle. I am, I'm a book nut. I hear about this company selling books online. I'm like, I'll sign up, right? I'm an early adopter I'll sign up. So I've had the same Amazon account for a quarter century at this point. Did they know about me home and do they know about me? Um, and I support local merchants as much as I can, but, but Amazon gets that brand halo that you're talking about that says they've got a pretty good grasp of what I'm interested in.

[00:24:13] And for sure, the pages I see in the Amazon app or website are completely. By that knowledge base in their case, first party data, mostly purchased data, not, not a whole lot of preference asking. Um, but it works. It's a very efficient machine

[00:24:29] Steffen Schebesta: and it's starting to also, I hope you also bought some Amazon shares 25 years ago

[00:24:36] Matthew Dunn: when they went public.

[00:24:38] Well, you know, it's funny, Amazon got beat up all through the nineties and even the, even the, the odds, the zeros zeros, um, Amazon got beat up. By wall street. Do you remember that? They like, like you guys are not making, you know, you're not generating enough cash. You keep saying you're going to grow bigger and take over the planet.

[00:24:58] Well, guess what that's actually kind of was the plan, right. It's been amazing to watch and yes, their stock has, has skyrocketed, but that's, that's what, in the last decade you had to be pretty. That'd be an Amazon investor before that. And, and, uh, you know, and then really reaped the long-term returns. It has, I think you said you've been to Seattle, correct?

[00:25:20] You guys have an

[00:25:21] Steffen Schebesta: office. So we have, we have an office in Seattle

[00:25:24] Matthew Dunn: trends. It's, it's transformed Amazon even more than Microsoft. And some of the other companies based there have, has. Just transformed that city. Not all, not all good. I'd hate to buy a house there now, but not all good, um, you know, interesting place, but, but I, but I digress, but I wander off with the point I wanted to ask you, this is, this is sort of professional, personal question one.

[00:25:51] What it feel like to go from running your own, building your own company, to being part of a larger Oregon organization. What have been some of the highlights of that for you?

[00:26:03] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah. I mean, that was a big transition, of course, for me. Selling my, my company, you know, that a, that a build from scratch. I was a CEO of the company.

[00:26:15] Um, and then going from one day to another, to be being part of a bigger organization as well. Um, and then we integrated our team and the software into, into the, that was a big, big change for me. Right. It wasn't all easy either. Uh, You know, it's a lot of hard work and, and a lot of learnings for sure. That was the first acquisition of sending booze my first time.

[00:26:46] Oh, you were the company. Wow. Okay. And, and, and sending blue was about, about 150 employees back in the day. And, uh, and the newsletter to go to the company I sold was about half the size. So actually it was almost like a merger of two teams. No, no, it was pretty challenging. Um, but I think, I mean, in Indiana, very successful, very complimentary, a very similar mindset and, and company culture DNA.

[00:27:15] So after awhile I transitioned out. Um, had the opportunity to open our north America sales and marketing office here in Toronto, which I did about a year and a half ago. And ever since I've been working in the north American market, the north American

[00:27:30] Matthew Dunn: market, well, that was the, you, you opened the door to the second question I want to ask you about which is, uh, coming from Germany to Canada and spending more time.

[00:27:40] I would assume in the states from there, um, what are some of the highlights.

[00:27:46] Steffen Schebesta: Well, first of all, we moved in the middle of lock down.

[00:27:52] Matthew Dunn: So

[00:27:53] Steffen Schebesta: there, there they're easier things in life than with a four year old. And my wife, um, in July, 2020, everything was unlocked down. Was, it was not great. So yeah, I had, now when we had planters, it was before Coquit hit, we had, we had planned this very differently.

[00:28:12] Yeah. So in the end, I didn't end up traveling that much. I didn't end up spending that much time in the us that I had expected. Yeah, but still was, it was good. I mean, I'm happy here. And obviously now things are opening up and I go to Seattle on them on a regular basis to visit our office there. And we also, you know, their trade shows and events that we participate in.

[00:28:35] Um, overall, yeah, big transition of course, coming from, from Germany to north America. I had lived in the us before for about a year when I was younger, but there's definitely. Some, some differences between the markets and the cultures and how, how business has done as well. Oh yeah.

[00:28:53] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Mount Mount mountains have differences.

[00:28:55] I worked in Toronto a lot. This is 20 years ago, so I know the city. I mean, it's, that's, that's a wonderful, wonderful metropolis. What is Toronto 6 million people or something like, like it it's, it's a measurable chunk of Canada is in the GTA, the greater Toronto area. And it's, it's, it's a metropolis. All its own.

[00:29:17] You guys must, must be enjoying it, opening up and starting to discover just like as people who live there, everything that Toronto is.

[00:29:26] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah, for sure. Finally, it's slowly opening up again. Yeah. Toronto is really a melting pot. It's very interesting, very diverse, lots of different cultures, but very good spirit.

[00:29:38] I really enjoy that. Everybody seems, you know, Humble. Um, a lot of immigrants, of course, and everybody that I've met, who immigrated has been very happy to be in Canada and they really appreciate, um, you know, the, the

[00:29:55] Matthew Dunn: system here Canada's got. Yeah. There's so much smarter about immigration and like maybe we'll get our crap back together in the U S but Canada, Canada has played that really smart.

[00:30:05] I've worked in Canada. I can literally see Canada out this office. Um, but I've worked in Canada a lot over the years and really, really treasure it. There's a lot to admire about the country. And as similar as they look, there are also huge differences between the us and Canada that take a while to fair it out.

[00:30:24] I'm sure. Bumping into that in your time there.

[00:30:29] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah, but overall, I really enjoy working on the north American market. Um, I feel like U S customers are in a pretty straightforward they're they're more advanced when it comes to. Requirements and what they've done in the past. Um, they, they have a higher high requirements in general, um, and higher expectations when it comes to customer service as well.

[00:30:55] Uh, so that's, that's good to see a very quick, quicker turnaround when it comes to sales and marketing. Man. And then in Europe, I would say where yes, European customers are, or at least the German customers are more, a little more hesitant. I would saying where, you know, in, do you ask people to sign up, put

[00:31:17] Matthew Dunn: there, I'm going to enter

[00:31:19] Steffen Schebesta: their credit card information and then they start starting to.

[00:31:23] Working on their own. Where in Germany? I feel like it's first they'll, they'll do a lot of research and then they take one final decision. And that's,

[00:31:31] Matthew Dunn: I'm going to tell, I'm going to tell the tale on you, man. Like I've invited, we've had over 50 guests on the show at this point, but your approach, when I, when I, when I asked, would you please be a guest?

[00:31:42] Was, yes, let's have a call first and talk about the topics and stuff, which is to me. Thorough planned like meticulous approach and it pays off. Cause we had, uh, you know, we had, we had, uh, an idea of what the topics were going to be. So it gets sort of shaped the conversation, but average American, you know, guest invite, they're like, sure, what time?

[00:32:06] Bam. Well, just swing

[00:32:12] Steffen Schebesta: my, my, my German

[00:32:13] Matthew Dunn: background. I it's, you know, I, we had a, we had a cleanses at different times. Uh, I had a client that I'd done, uh, uh, help them explain a really complex topic and, um, go damn not Databricks. I'm blanking on the company name. It might come to me. Uh, anyway, they came back like a year and a half later, wanted to, and wanted to revise, ended up with a video out of this.

[00:32:39] We wanted to revise it, which had happened before. But instead of coming back and say, we want to update it, they came back and they literally gone through second per second frame for frame and identified the changes that they wanted to make. And, uh, that was our first German customer for that company at the time.

[00:32:56] And I'm like, whoa, wow. Uh, yeah, these guys are thorough. Holy mackerel. It was really. And it was, it was a pleasure. And I also had to say, well, hang on a second. We can't just nip and tuck. If we've got to do something completely different, let's, let's rethink how we're going to do that thing. But yeah, it's, it's an interesting place for you to be at the, at the, at the vertex of those, uh, you know, those cultural differences and, and probably kind of fun in a way.

[00:33:27] Yeah.

[00:33:28] Steffen Schebesta: And, uh, what he said, I mean, it's, it's good in bed, right? There's there's pros and cons to either approach. Um, but yeah, I really enjoy working here and, um, lots of learnings and yeah, lots of, lots of joy.

[00:33:45] Matthew Dunn: That's good. Um, back to, back to SendInBlue for a minute, um, we talked about your focus on SMB. Um, Isn't Shopify also a Toronto.

[00:33:59] Steffen Schebesta: There an Ottawa company,

[00:34:02] Matthew Dunn: Canadia also Canadian company. Cause, cause I think you, you, you like, that's a growing piece of the market for you. Isn't it companies that are starting to move their operation online and Shopify plays a big role for so many companies.

[00:34:14] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah, definitely. I mean, Shopify is probably the most popular e-commerce system that'd be integrated with and very similar persona in a way, very similar, um, target group SMBs.

[00:34:28] Yeah. And, and yeah, I mean, very. Uh, high growth rates in the past for Shopify and yeah, we, we, we worked with them quite a bit. We have an integration with Shopify, a lot of customers who use Shopify and send them blue at the same time. Um, and especially also the three acquisitions from last year, they're really, uh, reputable on, on Shopify, on the Shopify ecosystem as well.

[00:34:52] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Shopify, is it, you know, if you're, if you're in the SAS space, you're probably well aware of. If you're just trying to run some other kind of business, you may or may not be aware, but Shopify is a big, that's a big story. It's a big deal. What, what they've done to make e-commerce to make online commerce, something that's achievable without growing the technical footprint of your organization.

[00:35:16] Massively, it gets quite turnkey. Yeah.

[00:35:20] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah. And they've, they've moved upmarket as well. Uh, Shopify plus that they have really big companies using their system.

[00:35:30] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. It's a very incredibly sophisticated platform. They have not, interestingly, they have not opted to make marketing functions. Part of what Shopify does for customers.

[00:35:44] Have they,

[00:35:45] Steffen Schebesta: um, that's not entirely true. They do have, uh, a small email marketing. Um, toolbox. Yeah. Uh, it's it's not very sophisticated. And I actually talked to someone from Shopify who's, uh, very close to the CEO, um, who happens to be a gentleman by the way. That's another story. That's funny. Um, Shopify is really good at what they do.

[00:36:14] And they've really tried to focus on that core. Yeah. And so I don't expect, I don't expect them to move into the marketing direction anytime soon. Plus they have, they have, I think they were probably the first company in the e-commerce space who really nailed the app store approach and they have. Um, very dynamic for vivid app store with a lot of really, really good apps.

[00:36:40] And in a way they would kind of Alize the, these app store developers. If they start providing these tools on their own, they don't want to do that. They want to continue focusing on

[00:36:51] Matthew Dunn: what they do best as a platform you've got to navigate. You know, functional richness versus partner ecosystem, uh, richness and reward.

[00:37:02] Yeah. I, I I'm, I'm not entirely surprised that they've got a small email function and it's consistent with their behavior and of good of well-run platforms, not to cannibalize. There's a, there's a website company called Squarespace. Um, yeah, even a Squarespace I've used Squarespace for a long time. They actually built an email function.

[00:37:22] Like you can do your email marketing on Squarespace and I've yet to meet anybody who actually does, because I'm just like, yeah, you can say you've got that, but there's a whole different, there's a whole different set of problems to solve, to do it. Well, if it's just an afterthought or a bolt-on, it's not necessarily going to do the same things that a platform like sender blues.

[00:37:42] Steffen Schebesta: Exactly. Yeah. Um, I mean also wakes.com GoDaddy. I think even the acquire an email marketing solution. Yes

[00:37:50] Matthew Dunn: they did.

[00:37:51] Steffen Schebesta: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So there's, it makes sense from their point of view, of course. But then you S you see how big these email marketing or online marketing solutions have grown. And he sent her loose over 550 employees now.

[00:38:07] Wow. Um, or, uh, may of term, but are all there even, even bigger or HubSpot or it's on there or Twilio, right. They're huge. Uh, Really hard for a Squarespace to do that in house. It's a whole, it's a whole other company and they can provide these tools to a certain degree. I've seen, for example, the wakes up call MIMO email marketing tools.

[00:38:31] It's pretty intuitive. It's pretty nice. Um, but of course it doesn't have the depth that a sending blue or a comparable solution can offer.

[00:38:42] Matthew Dunn: Right, right. Yeah. I, I, yeah. And, and knowing, knowing in advance, cause we're inventing a lot of this stuff still knowing in advance. What the natural affinities are, where adding function X to your company will end up being the right thing to do.

[00:38:59] It's not that predictable, right? You're really, you really don't know, like e-commerce used to be firmly bolted to payment and having worked in. 20 plus years. Nah, they're not the same thing. And really good e-comm platforms are like, you got your choice of handling payment. That's not necessarily our, you know, our bag by contrast great payment companies.

[00:39:22] Um, and, uh, Stripe comes to mind for sure. Like that's what they do. They do it very well. That's what they're going to keep doing. And it, it ends up being a sensible, uh, nucleus, but you don't know in advance. I would argue that. Are you familiar with Stripe? Yeah. Or sorry with a square square now block did you know, they rebranded and they had a great brand.

[00:39:48] What are you doing Jack? I'm like, they seem to be getting kind of little nebulous to me. Uh,

[00:39:56] Steffen Schebesta: it's square square. The brand still exists. It's more like the alphabet brand for Google. That was yeah. Plucked and top. And this is what block is for

[00:40:05] Matthew Dunn: Foursquare. Yeah. For square. Yeah. It's like, uh, like, like Facebook and Metro.

[00:40:10] Yeah, exactly.

[00:40:12] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah. It's funny that both of these companies had their rebranding within a couple of weeks and they've been working on it for probably over a year or so, because there's a lot of

[00:40:23] Matthew Dunn: work that goes into yeah. You don't realize how many places the name and the logo showed up until you go through a rebrand, right.

[00:40:33] It's not easy. Do you must, you must have taken your newsletter to go through some rebranding over the time that you got. Um,

[00:40:40] Steffen Schebesta: only on the logo. We, we, we kind of refine the logo over time and similar for sending blue. We changed our logo. Um, it used to be an envelope, a blue envelope, basically, uh, very focused on, on emails.

[00:40:55] And since we offer a much more than email nowadays, we, we changed. Maybe a year and a half ago or

[00:41:04] Matthew Dunn: so that's the, that's the pattern over your head. Exactly.

[00:41:08] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah. It's not easy to see here. It's more like a circle.

[00:41:13] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Yeah. What, in addition to email, like knock off the, what are the key key tools and key communication channels.

[00:41:23] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah. So we were one of the first to offer a whole marketing automation, workflow builder for SMEs. So that's super powerful. You can add a lot of different channels, a lot of different events, a lot of different conditions. When you, when you build out your marketing automation, we also offer other channels such as text messaging.

[00:41:45] We offer a chat feature that I had mentioned before chat and also. Uh, like Facebook messenger and other messenger services that plug into that. Interesting. So it's called sending blue conversations. Um, we also offer Facebook ads. We offer a landing page builder, and we have a whole sales CRM. So we're moving, even though we're in the online marketing space.

[00:42:11] But even though we're. Uh, features that that customer service teams and sales teams can use as well. And then we, we tried to combine all the information that we have all the first party data to make it really powerful, for example, to use in a marketing

[00:42:27] Matthew Dunn: automation. Wow. Okay. So you're going to end up we'll we'll, we'll make fun of MailChimp in a few minutes, but you're going to end up, uh, butting heads.

[00:42:39] With in the market, that is you're going into butting heads, hypothetically with constant contact plus SharpSpring or, or possibly HubSpot. Um, although they're, they're coming at it from a different angle. Fair, fair, fair

[00:42:53] Steffen Schebesta: characters. In the end. I think a lot of companies have a similar vision where they're going to it's all in one solution.

[00:43:02] And for us it's really, the vision is to build all kinds of tools, almost like a business. For all kinds of small and medium businesses that they can use to grow their business online. Um, so it's not even the marketing is still a huge part of it. Probably the biggest part of it. Um, because it's just worked so well.

[00:43:24] This is where our roots, our bread and butter is still marketing, but it's, it's so much more now and other competitors that you mentioned, like a HubSpot, for example, they take a similar. Uh, approach. And in the end there, they're moving into the same direction as. But they're coming from a different background, their background, their CRM sales background, and ours is more on the marketing side, but it's, it's similar in the overall vision.

[00:43:53] I would say that we're trying to do both. So it's going to be interesting to see how it all plays out in the end. I, I. HubSpot is definitely a good tool, more, much more expensive than ours, for example, a little different, um, different target groups as well. There's different features set, but in the end it's like you said, it's not that far away from us.

[00:44:13] Matthew Dunn: Yes. You know, I mean, my comment about that, and I'm not taking anything away from HubSpot with this. That is a. That requires quite a degree of technical and or data sophistication to really adopt successfully. It's not an easy lift HubSpot like it cause partially cause it's too, uh, cotton picking, broadened vast.

[00:44:38] Um, but it, I, I find that, and I'm highly technical, but I find a platform like, wow, you know, Cornerstore is not going to adopt this easily or they're going to be going, what the heck do I do? With all this, I don't speak API. Um, there's a, there's a contrasting strategy. I would argue that guided into its $12 billion expenditure to pick up MailChimp.

[00:45:04] I mean, there's into it coming at the company operating system or nervous system, if you will, from the really accounting. Roots right. Quick, quick, quick books in the army and the army of things, uh, bolted onto that. It was a bit of a surprise to see them pick up MailChimp, but I've worked with, into it.

[00:45:27] They've actually been a client for past companies and I have a lot of respect for them. I think, I think they'll make that one work. I really do.

[00:45:36] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah. I was also surprised by Milton being sold in the very first place. Uh, a company like MailChimp that has grown so rapidly and has been so successful, um, and has never raised any outside money.

[00:45:55] Yeah. They had so many opportunities to either fundraise or to, to exit. They could have gone public, they could have sold to private equity fund or to strategic. So it was interesting to see that they ended up. Selling too into it. And while I don't have any insider information, I, I think it was from what I've read and heard was that it was mostly because of the cultural fit, which I also thought it was interesting.

[00:46:29] Um, yeah, and for me, the outside view, seeing that the acquisition was, you know, it was at a, at a fair valuation. That's what I think, you know, to us highly profitable at this point, wasn't growing that dynamically anymore. Uh, but very similar, um, profile as Intuit. And Intuit has shown in the past that they can be super successful.

[00:46:56] I think they acquired QuickBooks if I'm not, not entirely wrong. And they've made that or TurboTax, one

[00:47:04] Matthew Dunn: of the two very successful. Yeah. From Berlin. If I recall, right. Wow, man, we're dating ourselves.

[00:47:14] Steffen Schebesta: But, but I, I agree with you. I think they can make it successful. There's a lot of overlap with existing customers.

[00:47:21] Um, and it's a different, it's a slightly different play. Now. I think it's more about profitability and about growth of these companies where maybe a company like send them blue or Clavio or active, active campaign that we compare to are more about the top line than the bottom.

[00:47:41] Matthew Dunn: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Good distinction.

[00:47:44] Good distinction. So, yeah. Um, I'm not surprised you brought a cloudy. I was going to ask about that just because of the space you play. And I would, I would think you, you, you end up competing with them at, at at least, at least. Junctures. And I know they're quite Shopify centric as well. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:48:03] Interesting.

[00:48:04] Steffen Schebesta: More e-commerce focused. Yeah.

[00:48:08] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Um, while we've got just a few minutes left here, I wanted to know your thoughts about, you mentioned, you mentioned male privacy. Um, when you mentioned app privacy, um, focusing on emails specifically, um, apple introduced male privacy protection is we're going on six months now.

[00:48:26] Um, and. Google has apparently started doing some prefetching. What impact has MPP had on San and blue on or on your cousin?

[00:48:40] Steffen Schebesta: Honestly, less than we had feared or anticipated. And the end of course has some impact on, for example, marketing automation, where some events are being tracked accurately, reliably. Uh, so we had to come up with some technical solutions to overcome this, but overall, um, you know, email marketing is still the number one online marketing channel when it comes to return on investment and other channels.

[00:49:14] I think hurt even more than email marketing. Yes. It's not great for marketers and tracking gets a little less accurate and marketing automation isn't working as well anymore for these users, but in other channels, it's like the whole ad industry, you know, Earning sense on if you look at that it's been increasingly difficult for them to, to, to track or, uh, execute well on these other channels.

[00:49:44] So email marketing is still, still going really well. It might've even profited a bit from all these other changes in the advertising space.

[00:49:56] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Well, and, and email. In, in an email relationship, like, let's go back to outdoor retailer. I mentioned like, it is a direct relationship. I did say yes, you can email me.

[00:50:11] And I haven't said no unsubscribed, so it's like, it's me and them. There isn't anybody, anybody in the middle in control or, or influencing the message like I get, I get it straight from the horse's mouth. Um, Facebook's large tactical mistake. Rear view mirror was never getting down to an, how do I put this?

[00:50:40] They were, they were, they were mediated. They were one step away from yes and no. They spread that ecosystem through their API APIs across mobile and mobile exploded. Um, I didn't say yes to all of those touch points in apps on my phone. So when apple came back and said, you should be able to say yes and no, it cut the pins right out from under Facebook.

[00:51:03] That's where they lost 250 billion in market value in one day, the ouch. And I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it. You didn't ask me guys, you just did it. Yeah. It's a, we're watching a bunch of reshuffling of big market structures as did. Um, it's not like we've stopped innovating, but there's some maturation going on in the digital space.

[00:51:27] I think, um, you know, we know who the big winners are, list them and name them and they're there. They show up on stock exchanges. We're, we're, we're figuring out the fit among all of those, uh, giants. The question is who

[00:51:40] Steffen Schebesta: controls the user, like the connection between your company and the consumer and the issue with these big platforms, Facebook or Instagram or whatever is that you're not in control and that's different for email.

[00:51:59] And this is why email is so, so powerful. Yeah.

[00:52:05] Matthew Dunn: You can say the same thing about, about messaging, particularly text SMS, MMS. And I know you send a blue has some functionality for, for text marketing, right? Yeah. That's exactly. What, what do you think about those two channels? Side-by-side texting email.

[00:52:23] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah.

[00:52:23] It's still a little different because you have to go through, um, some provider on. Uh, consumers side, right? You have to go through an at and T or whatever to T-Mobile or whatever. They charged for it. So that's in somebody else's hand. Well, in email, it's super easy to set up your own MTA and send and receive emails and it's practically for free.

[00:52:52] Right, right. Where text messages. It's a pretty expensive per message. And depending on where you send it as well, um, it's, it's, it can be that's perfect. I mean, you asked us, it's not that bad, but if, if you look at Europe, you pay like five, six, 7 cents sometimes. Wow. So it's really it's um, it's, it's a lot more expensive than emails.

[00:53:20] Uh, nevertheless. It has its reason for existence. And it makes sense to use text messaging in the right context. It's a lot more intrusive of course then than an email, but it also gets much higher response rates. And, um, it serves a different purpose. I mean, nowadays there's not only text messaging, but also other kind of messengers.

[00:53:46] Some of them. I mentioned like Facebook messenger, Instagram messenger, or WhatsApp or telegram and salt. And we started integrating with those as well. Um, but even, even the WhatsApp business. Pricing. I don't know if you know that, but the WhatsApp business pricing is basically pretty much the same as text messaging.

[00:54:08] So they differentiate by country and by, by region. So it's, if you want to send WhatsApps to, um, to Europe, you you're still. 5 4, 6, 4, 5, 6 cents per message. Yeah. Like the text

[00:54:25] Matthew Dunn: message. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And, and the fact that there are message platforms, plural, and there's not multiple email systems. Right?

[00:54:36] SMTP one. When we talk about email, we're talking about SMTP, you know, pop map, like we're talking to internet, email period. And if you've got a corporate email system that does different stuff inside the. It's connected to that. Other to that other system, that one messaging multiplicity Google's flogging not, well, I don't think Google school has been pushing RCS for awhile.

[00:55:01] Not going to happen. Apple's not going to give up, uh, there, they've got a defacto private messaging platform of their own that happens to also get your texts right. Line messages. So, yeah. And the interruption is big, right? If I get a text message, I will look at it. If I got as many text messages as emails, I would go nuts and they throw my phone out the window.

[00:55:25] Steffen Schebesta: Well, it's also new regulations about, uh, around text messaging in the U S that will make it, um, you know, more, more privacy, more

[00:55:36] Matthew Dunn: privacy focused. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'm assuming there's anti robo call, uh, legislation, um, in the EU, like, do you get annoying robocalls, uh, in, in Germany because we still get them here even though they're nominally.

[00:55:55] Steffen Schebesta: No, I'm actually in Germany. I almost never got any robocalls here. Yeah. Yes.

[00:56:00] Matthew Dunn: Oh, wow. It's like, and imagine, imagine if someone starts robo texting me, we're really like, we're really gonna have a problem cause it'd be like, no, stop it. I get occasional ones. Um, side story. I've gotten a couple of, out of the blue texts from realtor.

[00:56:20] One, like we'd like to buy your house. Yeah. I like world peace. Um, but how did you get this number? And you have the address, right? I was actually kind of. And that's third

[00:56:32] Steffen Schebesta: party data,

[00:56:33] Matthew Dunn: third party data for you. Like I was ticked, I've actually texted back. He like, yeah, this is illegal. So please text me again.

[00:56:40] So I've got an evidence chain crickets, right? Nothing after that. Well, step it it's been a real pleasure speaking with you. You, uh, you're on a roll man, things like that. Like what you're doing. Um, where do you see Shannon blue a year from now? Parting question. Yeah,

[00:57:01] Steffen Schebesta: well, I think we'll continue our trajectory or going to continue growing, um, especially in, in the U S, which is our fastest growing market has been for the last two years almost.

[00:57:14] And, uh, yeah, we've seen, we see a lot of good things happening at the company probably going to reach thousands and please the next year. Wow. Yeah. Lots to do. Lots of growth.

[00:57:27] Matthew Dunn: You said about 150, when you, when, when you, uh, when your company was, uh, you know, merge slash acquired, you took it to 200 plus a year at a company that's quintupled in five years.

[00:57:40] Give or take. Yeah, that's a lot. This is a lot to grapple. Just just organizationally culture, change people, connections, relationships, all that stuff. Wow.

[00:57:52] Steffen Schebesta: Yeah. And where, and through a pandemic as well, which has been challenging for a lot of workforce. I think luckily we've, we've had offices around the world, so we were kind of used to working.

[00:58:06] And a lot of, almost like a remote culture already with a lot of calls and recordings and, you know, cloud services for, for sharing information and data.

[00:58:19] Matthew Dunn: And you're in an office room, but you're in an office right now,

[00:58:22] Steffen Schebesta: not assigned in the office,

[00:58:24] Matthew Dunn: in the office. Yeah. And how often do you go to the.

[00:58:28] Steffen Schebesta: Uh, I go in and maybe two, three times per week, currently we've actually in Canada has been pretty strict when it comes to COVID measures.

[00:58:37] So we, we just came out of a lockdown as well last week. So I'm happy to be back at the office. I do like being with the. Yeah, at least from time to time, but I also appreciate the flexibility having, having a four year old at home

[00:58:56] Matthew Dunn: four year old. That's a great, that's a great age. I've got minor much older, but I remember it.

[00:59:00] Well, it's a great age. Well, cool. Thank you so much. My guest has been Stephan Shasta from SendInBlue. Thanks for making the time, sir.

[00:59:12] Steffen Schebesta: Thanks, Matthew was a pleasure.

[00:59:14]