As I discussed back in May, AI and general AI hype seems inescapable right now. And whilst I'm broadly bullish on it, I'm still a little weary of the bullshit knocks off of art and music and LinkedIn grifters trying to sell me a ChatGPT powered get rich quick scheme. Fortunately, the team at Planes are no such bullshit merchants or grifters. They rule. And I've been incredibly impressed with their approach to AI - both from an internal agency and agency services perspective. So it was rad to sit down with Henry Kirkness, co-founder at Planes, to discuss how they're approaching the application of machine learning models 😎..................... Describe what you doHead of Technology at Planes. I spend my days coaching through one-one pair programming, tinkering...
~ with Brennan Sexton. Describe what you do I run four Australian ecommerce brands that I’ve been building over the past 12 years. The biggest brand specialises in technology products for seniors. The hero product for this brand is a seniors mobile phone we have developed, which we believe is the best in the market. I used to manage The Oodie, one of the biggest online retailers in Australia. Now I work as an advisor to the CEOs of a few ecommerce companies and create content to help educate others in the industry on LinkedIn. How would you surmise the Australian DTC market right now? Australian DTC brands are struggling to adjust to the post lockdown world, where capital has dried...
~ With Brenden Rawson. Describe what you doI'm the CEO and Founder of Andzen, a Customer Journey agency based in Australia with a global team supporting clients around the world. We execute high level marketing automation and ecommerce martech integrations for ambitious merchants looking to do complex digital marketing. Specifically at Andzen, I spend my time developing new markets and productising the latest tech from an agency service model perspective.How would you surmise the Australian DTC market right now?Right now, we're coming off an incredible boost to eCommerce DTC channels on the back of COVID. The market has been expanded and there is a tonne of new brands and old brands alike competing for views, clicks and purchases.What are the key...
When your grandma asks you what ChatGPT is, you know that it has officially entered the zeitgeist. But ChatGPT (which as of yesterday is powering Bing) may have some company. Google announced its Chat competitor, Bard, citing that it “seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of our large language models”. The AI chat wars are officially heating up 🔥I’ve been sitting on the sidelines of the ChatGPT discussion. Mainly because when I see the LinkedIn grifting set selling me the ‘top 10 business ideas using *insert new technology like ChatGPT* that you should start right now’ I tend to recoil.However, its potential power and influence are impossible to ignore.From a commercial...
I’ve been thinking a lot about Shopify moving into the enterprise space. To me, they are becoming a serious beast. And this growth poses a bunch of interesting questions. To be honest, I could tackle each of these in their own post (which I might at some point). But for the moment, let’s break it down… First off, why? I’m not privy to Shopify boardroom discussions and to be honest, I’m not a SaaS platform strategy specialist. However, it seems pretty obvious to me. They dominate the start-up and SMB platform sector, and sure they’ve made some horizontal M&A moves into supply chain but they need a new carcass to feed off. And according to TechNavio the enterprise eCommerce market...
We get the scoop from Tom (founder at WIRO agency) on everything that went down at Shopify Unite London 2022…What were your top takeaways from Shopify Unite? Shopify’s approach to their recent London Unite was very much developer orientated. The feedback from Team WIRO was that it was great to discuss challenges and understand the ‘why’ behind the features that Shopify are releasing. The main highlights for me were… Updates from ‘Editions' and the opportunity brought to Partners, as well as insights around 'how to build better Shopify apps'. An incredible evening of shenanigans, hosted by Rachel Jacobs of Ecommerce Partnerships sponsored by Klaviyo, Okendo, and Loyalty Lion. It was great to meet so many Shopify partners, agencies and tech partners from within...
