Bonus Episode: Leveraging AI While Leading with Vision with Nathan Snell

Nathan Snell is a founder, executive, and three-time entrepreneur best known for co-founding nCino, the global leader in cloud banking, and now Raleon, an AI retention platform for DTC brands. With 15+ years in fintech, marketing technology, and AI, Nathan has built products that don’t just scale companies, they transform entire markets, including a 10-figure exit.

With Raleon, Nathan is reimagining retention for Ecommerce. Instead of bloated teams or endless manual work, Raleon acts like a teammate, helping DTC brands and agencies handle retention 50% faster while driving more revenue. From campaign planning to segmentation, it automates the tactical grind so marketers can focus on strategy and growth.

Nathan’s story blends technical expertise with market-shaping vision. From scaling nCino into a public company, to investing as an active angel, to now tackling one of Ecommerce’s biggest pain points, retention, he’s seen how AI can accelerate results but still requires human pilots to go beyond “average” output.

Whether you’re building a lean DTC team, rethinking retention marketing, or trying to cut through the hype of AI, Nathan offers a grounded look at how to combine automation, brand taste, and strategy to drive the next era of Ecommerce growth.

In This Conversation We Discuss: 

• [00:22] Intro
• [00:46] Building expertise in workflow automation
• [01:46] Experimenting with LLMs in workflows
• [03:18] Comparing AI models for DTC marketing
• [04:01] Starting email AI with copywriting
• [05:08] Fine-tuning prompts for better outputs
• [06:40] Elevating outputs with better context setting
• [08:08] Analyzing past campaigns to guide outputs
• [09:50] Stay updated with new episodes
• [10:02] Automating segmentation and copy at once
• [11:57] Recognizing AI delivers average by default
• [13:38] Editing outputs instead of chasing perfect prompts
• [15:20] Connecting Klaviyo and Shopify for campaigns
• [17:41] Automating learning cycles across campaigns
• [19:14] Guiding systems instead of replacing teams

Resources:

• Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube
• Automate DTC retention marketing with AI raleon.io/
• Follow Nathan Snell linkedin.com/in/nathansnell

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