February 23, 2025 • 22 mins
In this episode of The D2Z Podcast, Brandon Amoroso interviews Austin Harrison, CEO of NorthBeam, discussing the intersection of Gen Z entrepreneurship and data-driven marketing. Austin shares his journey from working in internet analytics to founding NorthBeam, a B2B SaaS company focused on first-party data for marketing profitability. The conversation delves into the challenges of building a SaaS company, the importance of data in marketing, and the complexities of attribution in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. Austin emphasizes the need for businesses to differentiate themselves in crowded markets and the significance of understanding customer needs to drive growth.
Here's What You'll Learn:
❗The mental game of entrepreneurship is crucial.
❗Building a SaaS company requires trust in your team.
❗Data quality and integrity are paramount for customer success.
❗Attribution is a complex but essential aspect of marketing.
❗AI and machine learning are exciting but often overhyped.
❗Navigating the crowded market requires differentiation.
❗Understanding customer pain points is key to product development.
❗The future of media buying includes diversification of channels.
❗Small businesses should focus on learning before investing in complex solutions.
❗Continuous improvement is essential for product usability.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to the Gen Z Mindset in Business
01:26 Austin Harrison's Journey and Insights
03:27 Challenges of Building a B2B SaaS Company
06:15 The Role of Data in Marketing
10:30 Navigating the Complexities of Attribution
12:47 From Idea to Market: The Northbeam Journey
16:08 Future of Media Buying and Attribution
20:02 Identifying the Right Fit for Northbeam
Austin Harrison:
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/maustinharrison/
Northbeam - https://www.northbeam.io/
Brandon Amoroso:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonamoroso/
Web - https://brandonamoroso.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bamoroso11/
X - https://twitter.com/AmorosoBrandon
Scalis.ai - https://scalis.ai/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to D2Z, a podcast
about using the Gen Z mindset togrow your business.
I'm Gen Z entrepreneur BrandonAmoroso, the former founder of
Electric and now the co-founderof Scalist, and today I'm
talking with Austin Harrison,who's the CEO at Northmeath,
which is a first party data forfuture proofed marketing
profitability.
Thanks for coming on the show.
My pleasure.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
So before we dive into things here, can you give
everybody a quick background onyour journey?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, as you know, I also went to USC.
Like you, I was really excitedabout the internet early on
which, shockingly, not everyonewas that excited early on and
then ended up being lucky enoughto work with um dave toth and
tim meadows, who co-founded netratings, which was the first
rating system for the internet.
Uh, think about it like just anaudience panel analysis um,
using random sampling, so Ihelped uh help them get started
and build the first audiencepanel.
That company went public andthen was acquired by nielsen in
(01:10):
2007, I believe.
The rest of the stock um, soalways was interested in
analytics, um slight detour inanimation and then, um, I was
really excited about ai, in thesame way that I was excited
about the internet early on.
This is about seven years ago Iwas excited about AI machine
learning, so just startedrolling classes at Stanford and
(01:32):
got, yeah, just really excitedabout it Met Dan Wang and here
we go Now we're buildingNordbeam.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
What have been some of the most exciting but also
challenging parts of building ab2b sass company oh wow.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Well, we help companies measure marketing,
right, that's what we do atnorth beam, and so that's a
complicated problem.
So I guess everyone says thatin their vertical right.
Um, the hardest part is justfocusing on making progress
every day and not gettingfrustrated, as you probably know
(02:12):
, right, because you've got anew startup right, something
you're building, and you justgot to be patient but impatient
at the same time.
And I think the biggestchallenge is that mental game.
You know the mental game youplay with yourself every day.
Why?
How would you answer that?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I think it depends on the type of business.
The agency I found far easierbecause I had much greater
control.
It was services based, so, yeah, for pretty much the entirety
of the business I could doeverything that we were
servicing.
So if I had to work, you know,an 18 hour day, I could fill in
(02:51):
the gaps where needed.
With the software business, youknow that's not the case at all
.
You know there's so manyspecialized, like niche roles
within our team that I couldn'teven begin to fully comprehend
how to execute against that, andso it's putting a lot more
trust, uh, in in in the team andlike I'm not able to move, you
(03:12):
know, the product forward asquickly as an independent
contributor as I was at theagency, where everything was
like you know SOPs and processesand stuff like that.
That is, you know, the biggestdifference I've found between
the two, for me and for somebodywho wants to move at a thousand
miles a minute.
It can be frustrating sometimes.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, I hear you.
I mean, I was in the officeyesterday getting dirty hands on
keyboard.
So yeah, I hear you.
I try to get in on as granularbasis as I can still even now
Are you a technical founder.
Nowhere near our CTO co-founder,but I did learn to do some
(03:56):
basic engineering and in themachine learning space a little
bit, just so I was, you know,understood the details.
I'm kind of big on that, like Ialways want to at least get my
hands dirty just a little.
I won't have the proficiency oflike our engineering team, but
I I still like to understand thenuanced details.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So, um, yeah, that's kind of how I fly yeah, like
what's you know, having a highlevel concept of what's
happening versus being able toactually you know code and
produce it.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, but I try to like yeah.
I just like to know what'sgoing on, you know?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
that's fair when it comes to building a team.
Are you fully remote?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
No, we're not Actually.
Actually, we've got a team inSan Francisco, a team in Los
Angeles, a team in New York, andso I was in the office
yesterday in San Francisco,right?
So we?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
like to get in there once in a while and mix it up.
I find that to be a lot betterthan remote personally, but it
still feels like so many peopleare clinging on to remote for
for dear life.
Well, what are you doing withyour team?
Well, just because we have to,right now, it is remote.
You, know, so you're fullyremote right now yeah, from a
from a cost perspective at ourstage it doesn't well, it's not
(05:18):
even financially feasible for meto have 16 developers, or
whatever we have at this point,based in the US.
So we have three here in theStates and then about 13 in
Brazil and in Europe.
So that has been an interestingthing to tackle is the time
(05:40):
zone difference.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
It's pretty tremendous from our VP of
product?
Who's out in San Diego and thenour engineering lead?
Who's in Romania?
Who used to work at a deal.
Oh yeah, I think it's like ninehours or something.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, it's tough.
Yeah, I like getting in the.
I mean I was in the office till8 pm last night with our
engineering team hashing outstuff, right.
And all together?
Yeah, so, like you said, it'sharder when you're dispersed to
do it.
What?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
do you think are like the?
You know the biggest areas ofopportunity within your platform
and you know the e-commerceindustry as a whole.
With all this AI stuff that'scoming out every single day, it
seems like.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, I mean it's funny because our CTO did his
honors thesis in AI in 2012,which is a lifetime ago in the
ad, you know right and he'salways hesitant to overpromise
what AI can do people trying toprofit and market themselves in
(06:56):
the AI world without deepexpertise so I think there's a
tremendous amount ofover-promising and over-hyping,
as there always is withsomething new, right?
That's like if you look interms of cycles, that's a
typical thing.
So, yeah, my answer is I thinkit's exciting.
There is a lot of.
There will be a lot ofinnovation, but there's also a
(07:18):
lot of smoke, a lot of maybethat's the wrong term a lot of
charlatans out there is what Iwould say.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
I use my brother as my, as my BS detector.
He's working with you, knowthese, these tools every single
day and he's like they're just,they're really great, but
they're not that great.
And you'll see if you go onLinkedIn and you see some of
these comments like B2B SaaS isdead, like that stupid tombstone
or whatever that I saw and Ithink it was like a viral one.
(07:49):
Like, okay, it feels like somepeople just don't want to be the
ones that didn't say that thisthing was coming, if it does
come.
But it feels like some peoplejust don't want to be the ones
that didn't say that this thingwas coming if it does come.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
But when it doesn't happen, then they won't be the
ones that missed out on havingthat foresight.
Like I said, that's kind oftypical if you've been through
enough cycles, obviously I'vegot a few years on you.
So when you've been throughcycles you kind of see the same
thing starting to happen againwhere you have this like a bunch
of like schlock companies andpeople out there over promising
and they don't have deepexpertise.
They think they have a moat.
(08:21):
They don't have a moat.
They're just selling somethingthat's like built on top of
publicly available data.
People are doing a lot ofthings that aren't really that
interesting that are stillgetting a lot of attention.
I'm not going to like throwpeople under the bus, but I
think investors or the peopleout there in the world don't
really understand how much fakevalue is being perceived as real
(08:49):
value.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Right, you mentioned publicly available data.
How do you think of data atNorth Theme as a moat, and are
there any network effects thatcome with the amount of
merchants that you have usingyour system now?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
For sure.
Yeah, I mean, for us, the focuson data is our number one focus
.
That's how we started, that'swhere we invest, that's
everything we started, that'swhere we invest, that's
everything to us, and so wedefinitely think it's important
in terms of our value for ourcustomers and, obviously, our
moat.
But and we do learn stuff fromthe data, and that is our number
(09:32):
one goal is our customers right?
Our number one goal is how dowe help our customers?
And so, with a laser focus onthat, data quality and integrity
that allows our customers to dobetter or at least, you know,
gives them the visibility of howto do better when they're not
doing as well, right?
(09:52):
So that's extremely importantto us and we take it.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
You know that's that's a paramount concern to us
is is the data?
Do you ever see yourself, youknow, going into other areas
besides?
Uh, you know, attribution?
I've seen a lot of Shopify appsstart to go into other areas
for, for better or worse, yeah,what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Attribution is really hard.
Um, I think we've got.
I think we've got our work cutout for us, Right?
So that's kind of my answer fornow.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
The competitive dynamics within attributionution
.
How do you stand out from thethe noise, especially given the
fact that it's not onlycomplicated but it is confusing
too?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
yeah, yeah, and so no , it's a great question.
If I'm being totally blunt, Ithink north beam historically
has been a little hard to use.
Uh, you know, for, uh, I thinkwe could have we started.
You know, it's a technicalproduct, it's something that we
we've appealed to what we'llcall sophisticated media buyers
(11:08):
and execs, right, uh, which isfine.
But you know, we really we needto make it easier to use, and
that's when people make thatcomplaint, like, yeah, it's true
, we're getting better.
I think we're much better nowthan we were in the beginning.
And we're getting better all thetime.
With regards to that, our firstcustomer was the Ridge, if
(11:32):
you're familiar with them,ridgecom, and so, yeah, I, I
mean they're a very skid teamand you know uh so for them you
know they may use our product inways we weren't even thinking
sometimes, which is cool.
It's great to have smartcustomers, right, uh, but we
need we also need to appeal topeople where, like you said,
like not where it's not make itso complicated yeah, we put a
(11:56):
couple of uh smbs on oursolution to start.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Even though that's not really our icp, that was the
one that we could service atthat at that particular moment
with the evolution of theproduct, and one of them like
just absolutely ripped it apartand it was off.
It was, it was awesome, it wassuper valuable and beneficial
for us.
Um, you know, because I had tosit there for the last year and
a half and listen to our productyeah, tell me how easy it was
(12:24):
to use the solution.
And I'm like, yeah, I get it,maybe for like mid-market and
above.
But you're putting this smbentrepreneur type on, you know,
into your product, who is also as founder themselves, like
she's part, and it was.
It was great to see.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, that's it.
You just got to keep going.
Like I said, try to get betterevery day, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
How do you get that?
First, you know, take me fromthe inception of the idea to
like we have the product inmarket and we finally have that
paying customer.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to bore everyone with too
many details here, but longstory short.
I felt confident that machinelearning well, ai was the future
machine learning and I feltlike we could find a way to
provide cleaner, faster, bettersignal for people in marketing
(13:20):
and attribution.
That our CTO, dan Wang, feltlike the advancements in
processing speed and machinelearning and AI would enable us
to provide a better data sourcefor customers.
That was our thesis, right?
And so, yeah, we I forget whichCEO there was a CEO said find a
(13:45):
crowded market where, like, noone really likes a solution and
build something that is like 10Xbetter or way you know way
better.
And so, yeah, that was ourapproach is like 10x better or
way better.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
And so yeah, that was our approach.
That's essentially what we'redoing on our end here as well.
I like hearing that, becausesometimes you hear from people
oh, you know, the space is toocrowded and in my head.
I'm thinking, yeah, it'scrowded because nobody has any
idea what the hell they're doing.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, I mean it's like I met this guy recently
named Danny Meyer.
Do you know who he is?
Speaker 1 (14:24):
He's the founder of Shake Shack.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Shake Shack, right, and like.
He owns some great restaurantsin New York too.
I'm actually going to one ofhis other ones in a few weeks in
New York and you know if youhad pitched to a lot of people
oh, I'm making another burgerplace.
There's a lot of burger places,right.
(14:46):
Like, why are you makinganother burger place?
Right, just turns out, if youmake a great burger I mean, I
don't eat a ton of burgers, tobe clear, but you know, if you
make a lot of, if you make agreat burger, people are going
to go.
So the rest is history, right.
So I buy that.
Crowded markets are tough.
You just have to be highlydifferentiated and really great.
(15:09):
You have to be orders ofmagnitude better than what's out
there.
Maybe you can't just beslightly better?
You've got to be like a lot, lotbetter.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, especially software.
You have the switching costs,all that other stuff that goes
into it.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah, if you're marginally better, who cares?
If it's just a little better.
Who cares?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
You've got to be like .
Speaker 2 (15:30):
That's the challenge of a founder for you, me,
everyone else is.
You have to deliver on that.
Your customers depend on it.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
I find the sales process to be much easier,
though, because you already havesomething to sort of use as a,
as a, as a goalpost.
You know the people that you'reselling into.
They already know what it isthat you're selling within
reason.
It's not like you're bringingsomething to the market.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
That's oh, that's a good point, yeah like you don't
have to teach people what aburger, is right?
Yeah, I think they know what aburger is.
That's your point.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
I don't think I'm going to come up with any new
food concepts anytime soon thereyou go so if you weren't doing
this, what would you be doing?
Speaker 2 (16:13):
you're gonna laugh at this answer ballet dancer.
I love ballet.
It's a weird answer, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (16:20):
right, I guess it's weird do you dance ballet or do
you I?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
love.
I love ballet.
Yeah, don't ask me what Ialways love.
I grew up loving dance.
I think dance is cool.
Um, I grew up going to theballet with my family.
Uh, did a little bit, uh, soyeah I just I think ballet is
awesome you're right, I was not.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
I was not expecting that, yeah, um, well, in terms
of like actual, you know,hands-on insights within the
media buying space in 2025, I'veseen yeah, you know people
talking about apple oven.
I've seen a push towards somedirect mail.
I've seen more and more brandstry and think about media
(17:02):
diversification.
Right, is that overblown, youknow?
Is Meta still the tried andtrue platform and it's going to
continue to be that way?
Or is there some real likejuice behind some of these other
acquisition channels?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I think it's both.
I think Meta is still tried andtrue, great platform, great for
reaching audiences.
They have a great large andeffective audience.
They've got really smart peoplethat work there that are
finding ways to connect withthose folks.
So they're not going away andthey'll be.
In my personal opinion, they'llincrease in value over time.
(17:39):
They'll just do better, I thinkMeta time, uh, they'll just do
better, I think meta.
But also you do have a lot ofnew platforms popping up, uh
like an app, love and and uh,like you said, I think direct
mail works for some customers,right?
Um?
yeah, I think there's a andthere's an emergence of new ways
to reach customers, which isgreat for brands and or not just
(17:59):
brands anyone doing doingmarketing right, Trying to
connect out there.
I think it's exciting thatthere are more ways to do it.
Obviously, that was part of ourthesis with Northbeam.
You were asking early on likewhy Part of it was.
We anticipated theproliferation of channels and
complexity of how customersengage, so that was part of our
(18:24):
initial thesis too.
So anyway, hopefully I answeredyour question.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah.
Is it making it more or lesscomplicated when it comes to
actually measuring attribution?
Oh, more complicated way morecomplicated.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
That's the thing.
It's a hard problem, right Likethat's when you ask the
question like, uh, about data?
like, yeah, it's hard, this isnot some like I mean, what, if
it wasn't hard, then anyonecould do it?
Right, and it's easy.
So that's always the conundrum,right.
Like a lot of people early onwould make fun of us like, oh,
(18:59):
that's too hard and it's, butpeople tried it and do it.
You know, like, a lot of thenaysaying stuff right, and in
some ways they were right, butthe reality is that's where the
opportunity is.
If you can solve really hardproblems that are, like,
extremely challenging, thatrequire incredible expertise,
domain knowledge and technicalacumen, that's gives you an
(19:22):
advantage, right.
And also, like the CEO ofNVIDIA says, how much pain can
you endure?
He talks about pain tolerance.
He's right, it's a lot of paintoo.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
I've never had any pain.
It's the easiest you will.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Or, as he says, he wishes it upon you, right?
Yeah, he's funny, good stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
So, for those that are listening, what's like the
time where NorthBeam makes sensefor an e-com brand.
What are the pain points?
What do they look like in termsof size, revenue?
Yeah good question.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
What it really boils down to is are you a company
that is looking to aggressivelyscale and you have the resources
right?
So, yeah, generally not thebest fit for, like, really small
companies where you're stillkind of figuring out you know,
you're just testing meta andGoogle maybe, and you're not.
Your setup is simple.
We would advise you just tofigure out.
You know you're just testingmeta and Google maybe, and
you're not.
(20:24):
Your setup is simple.
We would advise you just tofigure out.
Learn your creative, learn whatworks and maybe don't pay for
an Orpheum quite yet, right?
But once you're at a place whereyou've got, you know, tens of
thousands and hundreds ofthousands to spend on media and
you're going to diversify yourmix and you're you're going to
press on the gas and you havethe capital to do it, then
(20:45):
that's where it starts to makemore sense.
So you could be a smallbusiness that's well capitalized
, that understands what you know, knows where you're going and
you're getting ready to push.
You'd be a good fit.
Conversely, you could be like abigger company that like
doesn't really want to invest inmarketing.
That much is just kind ofcruising along.
I still think we could help inthat regard because we can
(21:08):
provide insights on what couldwork.
But you know, if the, if thedesire is not there, maybe not
as good of a fit.
Yeah, got it.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
That makes sense, Well, thank you.
Thank you so much for coming onand sharing your insights with
me, and I'm sure you'll havesome folks who are fed up with
trying to measure all this.
You know all these differentchannels that they have going on
and hopefully we'll see howthat goes.
But thank you for coming onBefore we hop, do you want
people to know where they couldfind you and connect with you
(21:39):
online?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yeah, on LinkedIn it's M Austin Harrison.
So just a letter m in front ofmy name, um, same on twitter or
x.
I should say same on x, um.
And then northbeamio is ourwebsite.
My email is austin atnorthbeamio.
Uh, yeah, I, that's it.
(22:02):
I probably shouldn't put out myphone number.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
When are you going to change it to northbeamai?
Speaker 2 (22:09):
We had that domain very, very early on and, yeah,
we purposely didn't.
Like I said, our CTO is verylike I don't know how to say it,
but just wants to say that AIis a portion of what we do, but
there's a lot more and thatwould insinuate that's all we do
, right?
So we opted, not very early on,not to use it.
(22:32):
For that reason, Makes sense.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
It feels like every website I see now is aiai and
we're guilty of it as well.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, that's cool.
Well, we bought it, but we'llstick with what we got.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
We're good, Seems like it's working so far Well.
Again, thank you for coming on.
For everybody who's listening,as always, this is Brandon
Amoroso.
You can find me atbrandonamorosocom and scalistai.
Thanks for listening and we'llsee you next time.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
See ya.
Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to D2Z, a podcast
about using the Gen Z mindset togrow your business.
I'm Gen Z entrepreneur BrandonAmoroso, the former founder of
Electric and now the co-founderof Scalist, and today I'm
talking with Austin Harrison,who's the CEO at Northmeath,
which is a first party data forfuture proofed marketing
profitability.
Thanks for coming on the show.
My pleasure.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
So before we dive into things here, can you give
everybody a quick background onyour journey?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, as you know, I also went to USC.
Like you, I was really excitedabout the internet early on
which, shockingly, not everyonewas that excited early on and
then ended up being lucky enoughto work with um dave toth and
tim meadows, who co-founded netratings, which was the first
rating system for the internet.
Uh, think about it like just anaudience panel analysis um,
using random sampling, so Ihelped uh help them get started
and build the first audiencepanel.
That company went public andthen was acquired by nielsen in
(01:10):
2007, I believe.
The rest of the stock um, soalways was interested in
analytics, um slight detour inanimation and then, um, I was
really excited about ai, in thesame way that I was excited
about the internet early on.
This is about seven years ago Iwas excited about AI machine
learning, so just startedrolling classes at Stanford and
(01:32):
got, yeah, just really excitedabout it Met Dan Wang and here
we go Now we're buildingNordbeam.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
What have been some of the most exciting but also
challenging parts of building ab2b sass company oh wow.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Well, we help companies measure marketing,
right, that's what we do atnorth beam, and so that's a
complicated problem.
So I guess everyone says thatin their vertical right.
Um, the hardest part is justfocusing on making progress
every day and not gettingfrustrated, as you probably know
(02:12):
, right, because you've got anew startup right, something
you're building, and you justgot to be patient but impatient
at the same time.
And I think the biggestchallenge is that mental game.
You know the mental game youplay with yourself every day.
Why?
How would you answer that?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I think it depends on the type of business.
The agency I found far easierbecause I had much greater
control.
It was services based, so, yeah, for pretty much the entirety
of the business I could doeverything that we were
servicing.
So if I had to work, you know,an 18 hour day, I could fill in
(02:51):
the gaps where needed.
With the software business, youknow that's not the case at all
.
You know there's so manyspecialized, like niche roles
within our team that I couldn'teven begin to fully comprehend
how to execute against that, andso it's putting a lot more
trust, uh, in in in the team andlike I'm not able to move, you
(03:12):
know, the product forward asquickly as an independent
contributor as I was at theagency, where everything was
like you know SOPs and processesand stuff like that.
That is, you know, the biggestdifference I've found between
the two, for me and for somebodywho wants to move at a thousand
miles a minute.
It can be frustrating sometimes.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, I hear you.
I mean, I was in the officeyesterday getting dirty hands on
keyboard.
So yeah, I hear you.
I try to get in on as granularbasis as I can still even now
Are you a technical founder.
Nowhere near our CTO co-founder,but I did learn to do some
(03:56):
basic engineering and in themachine learning space a little
bit, just so I was, you know,understood the details.
I'm kind of big on that, like Ialways want to at least get my
hands dirty just a little.
I won't have the proficiency oflike our engineering team, but
I I still like to understand thenuanced details.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So, um, yeah, that's kind of how I fly yeah, like
what's you know, having a highlevel concept of what's
happening versus being able toactually you know code and
produce it.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, but I try to like yeah.
I just like to know what'sgoing on, you know?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
that's fair when it comes to building a team.
Are you fully remote?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
No, we're not Actually.
Actually, we've got a team inSan Francisco, a team in Los
Angeles, a team in New York, andso I was in the office
yesterday in San Francisco,right?
So we?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
like to get in there once in a while and mix it up.
I find that to be a lot betterthan remote personally, but it
still feels like so many peopleare clinging on to remote for
for dear life.
Well, what are you doing withyour team?
Well, just because we have to,right now, it is remote.
You, know, so you're fullyremote right now yeah, from a
from a cost perspective at ourstage it doesn't well, it's not
(05:18):
even financially feasible for meto have 16 developers, or
whatever we have at this point,based in the US.
So we have three here in theStates and then about 13 in
Brazil and in Europe.
So that has been an interestingthing to tackle is the time
(05:40):
zone difference.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
It's pretty tremendous from our VP of
product?
Who's out in San Diego and thenour engineering lead?
Who's in Romania?
Who used to work at a deal.
Oh yeah, I think it's like ninehours or something.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, it's tough.
Yeah, I like getting in the.
I mean I was in the office till8 pm last night with our
engineering team hashing outstuff, right.
And all together?
Yeah, so, like you said, it'sharder when you're dispersed to
do it.
What?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
do you think are like the?
You know the biggest areas ofopportunity within your platform
and you know the e-commerceindustry as a whole.
With all this AI stuff that'scoming out every single day, it
seems like.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, I mean it's funny because our CTO did his
honors thesis in AI in 2012,which is a lifetime ago in the
ad, you know right and he'salways hesitant to overpromise
what AI can do people trying toprofit and market themselves in
(06:56):
the AI world without deepexpertise so I think there's a
tremendous amount ofover-promising and over-hyping,
as there always is withsomething new, right?
That's like if you look interms of cycles, that's a
typical thing.
So, yeah, my answer is I thinkit's exciting.
There is a lot of.
There will be a lot ofinnovation, but there's also a
(07:18):
lot of smoke, a lot of maybethat's the wrong term a lot of
charlatans out there is what Iwould say.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
I use my brother as my, as my BS detector.
He's working with you, knowthese, these tools every single
day and he's like they're just,they're really great, but
they're not that great.
And you'll see if you go onLinkedIn and you see some of
these comments like B2B SaaS isdead, like that stupid tombstone
or whatever that I saw and Ithink it was like a viral one.
(07:49):
Like, okay, it feels like somepeople just don't want to be the
ones that didn't say that thisthing was coming, if it does
come.
But it feels like some peoplejust don't want to be the ones
that didn't say that this thingwas coming if it does come.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
But when it doesn't happen, then they won't be the
ones that missed out on havingthat foresight.
Like I said, that's kind oftypical if you've been through
enough cycles, obviously I'vegot a few years on you.
So when you've been throughcycles you kind of see the same
thing starting to happen againwhere you have this like a bunch
of like schlock companies andpeople out there over promising
and they don't have deepexpertise.
They think they have a moat.
(08:21):
They don't have a moat.
They're just selling somethingthat's like built on top of
publicly available data.
People are doing a lot ofthings that aren't really that
interesting that are stillgetting a lot of attention.
I'm not going to like throwpeople under the bus, but I
think investors or the peopleout there in the world don't
really understand how much fakevalue is being perceived as real
(08:49):
value.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Right, you mentioned publicly available data.
How do you think of data atNorth Theme as a moat, and are
there any network effects thatcome with the amount of
merchants that you have usingyour system now?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
For sure.
Yeah, I mean, for us, the focuson data is our number one focus
.
That's how we started, that'swhere we invest, that's
everything we started, that'swhere we invest, that's
everything to us, and so wedefinitely think it's important
in terms of our value for ourcustomers and, obviously, our
moat.
But and we do learn stuff fromthe data, and that is our number
(09:32):
one goal is our customers right?
Our number one goal is how dowe help our customers?
And so, with a laser focus onthat, data quality and integrity
that allows our customers to dobetter or at least, you know,
gives them the visibility of howto do better when they're not
doing as well, right?
(09:52):
So that's extremely importantto us and we take it.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
You know that's that's a paramount concern to us
is is the data?
Do you ever see yourself, youknow, going into other areas
besides?
Uh, you know, attribution?
I've seen a lot of Shopify appsstart to go into other areas
for, for better or worse, yeah,what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Attribution is really hard.
Um, I think we've got.
I think we've got our work cutout for us, Right?
So that's kind of my answer fornow.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
The competitive dynamics within attributionution
.
How do you stand out from thethe noise, especially given the
fact that it's not onlycomplicated but it is confusing
too?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
yeah, yeah, and so no , it's a great question.
If I'm being totally blunt, Ithink north beam historically
has been a little hard to use.
Uh, you know, for, uh, I thinkwe could have we started.
You know, it's a technicalproduct, it's something that we
we've appealed to what we'llcall sophisticated media buyers
(11:08):
and execs, right, uh, which isfine.
But you know, we really we needto make it easier to use, and
that's when people make thatcomplaint, like, yeah, it's true
, we're getting better.
I think we're much better nowthan we were in the beginning.
And we're getting better all thetime.
With regards to that, our firstcustomer was the Ridge, if
(11:32):
you're familiar with them,ridgecom, and so, yeah, I, I
mean they're a very skid teamand you know uh so for them you
know they may use our product inways we weren't even thinking
sometimes, which is cool.
It's great to have smartcustomers, right, uh, but we
need we also need to appeal topeople where, like you said,
like not where it's not make itso complicated yeah, we put a
(11:56):
couple of uh smbs on oursolution to start.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Even though that's not really our icp, that was the
one that we could service atthat at that particular moment
with the evolution of theproduct, and one of them like
just absolutely ripped it apartand it was off.
It was, it was awesome, it wassuper valuable and beneficial
for us.
Um, you know, because I had tosit there for the last year and
a half and listen to our productyeah, tell me how easy it was
(12:24):
to use the solution.
And I'm like, yeah, I get it,maybe for like mid-market and
above.
But you're putting this smbentrepreneur type on, you know,
into your product, who is also as founder themselves, like
she's part, and it was.
It was great to see.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, that's it.
You just got to keep going.
Like I said, try to get betterevery day, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
How do you get that?
First, you know, take me fromthe inception of the idea to
like we have the product inmarket and we finally have that
paying customer.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to bore everyone with too
many details here, but longstory short.
I felt confident that machinelearning well, ai was the future
machine learning and I feltlike we could find a way to
provide cleaner, faster, bettersignal for people in marketing
(13:20):
and attribution.
That our CTO, dan Wang, feltlike the advancements in
processing speed and machinelearning and AI would enable us
to provide a better data sourcefor customers.
That was our thesis, right?
And so, yeah, we I forget whichCEO there was a CEO said find a
(13:45):
crowded market where, like, noone really likes a solution and
build something that is like 10Xbetter or way you know way
better.
And so, yeah, that was ourapproach is like 10x better or
way better.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
And so yeah, that was our approach.
That's essentially what we'redoing on our end here as well.
I like hearing that, becausesometimes you hear from people
oh, you know, the space is toocrowded and in my head.
I'm thinking, yeah, it'scrowded because nobody has any
idea what the hell they're doing.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, I mean it's like I met this guy recently
named Danny Meyer.
Do you know who he is?
Speaker 1 (14:24):
He's the founder of Shake Shack.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Shake Shack, right, and like.
He owns some great restaurantsin New York too.
I'm actually going to one ofhis other ones in a few weeks in
New York and you know if youhad pitched to a lot of people
oh, I'm making another burgerplace.
There's a lot of burger places,right.
(14:46):
Like, why are you makinganother burger place?
Right, just turns out, if youmake a great burger I mean, I
don't eat a ton of burgers, tobe clear, but you know, if you
make a lot of, if you make agreat burger, people are going
to go.
So the rest is history, right.
So I buy that.
Crowded markets are tough.
You just have to be highlydifferentiated and really great.
(15:09):
You have to be orders ofmagnitude better than what's out
there.
Maybe you can't just beslightly better?
You've got to be like a lot, lotbetter.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, especially software.
You have the switching costs,all that other stuff that goes
into it.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah, if you're marginally better, who cares?
If it's just a little better.
Who cares?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
You've got to be like .
Speaker 2 (15:30):
That's the challenge of a founder for you, me,
everyone else is.
You have to deliver on that.
Your customers depend on it.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
I find the sales process to be much easier,
though, because you already havesomething to sort of use as a,
as a, as a goalpost.
You know the people that you'reselling into.
They already know what it isthat you're selling within
reason.
It's not like you're bringingsomething to the market.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
That's oh, that's a good point, yeah like you don't
have to teach people what aburger, is right?
Yeah, I think they know what aburger is.
That's your point.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
I don't think I'm going to come up with any new
food concepts anytime soon thereyou go so if you weren't doing
this, what would you be doing?
Speaker 2 (16:13):
you're gonna laugh at this answer ballet dancer.
I love ballet.
It's a weird answer, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (16:20):
right, I guess it's weird do you dance ballet or do
you I?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
love.
I love ballet.
Yeah, don't ask me what Ialways love.
I grew up loving dance.
I think dance is cool.
Um, I grew up going to theballet with my family.
Uh, did a little bit, uh, soyeah I just I think ballet is
awesome you're right, I was not.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
I was not expecting that, yeah, um, well, in terms
of like actual, you know,hands-on insights within the
media buying space in 2025, I'veseen yeah, you know people
talking about apple oven.
I've seen a push towards somedirect mail.
I've seen more and more brandstry and think about media
(17:02):
diversification.
Right, is that overblown, youknow?
Is Meta still the tried andtrue platform and it's going to
continue to be that way?
Or is there some real likejuice behind some of these other
acquisition channels?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I think it's both.
I think Meta is still tried andtrue, great platform, great for
reaching audiences.
They have a great large andeffective audience.
They've got really smart peoplethat work there that are
finding ways to connect withthose folks.
So they're not going away andthey'll be.
In my personal opinion, they'llincrease in value over time.
(17:39):
They'll just do better, I thinkMeta time, uh, they'll just do
better, I think meta.
But also you do have a lot ofnew platforms popping up, uh
like an app, love and and uh,like you said, I think direct
mail works for some customers,right?
Um?
yeah, I think there's a andthere's an emergence of new ways
to reach customers, which isgreat for brands and or not just
(17:59):
brands anyone doing doingmarketing right, Trying to
connect out there.
I think it's exciting thatthere are more ways to do it.
Obviously, that was part of ourthesis with Northbeam.
You were asking early on likewhy Part of it was.
We anticipated theproliferation of channels and
complexity of how customersengage, so that was part of our
(18:24):
initial thesis too.
So anyway, hopefully I answeredyour question.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah.
Is it making it more or lesscomplicated when it comes to
actually measuring attribution?
Oh, more complicated way morecomplicated.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
That's the thing.
It's a hard problem, right Likethat's when you ask the
question like, uh, about data?
like, yeah, it's hard, this isnot some like I mean, what, if
it wasn't hard, then anyonecould do it?
Right, and it's easy.
So that's always the conundrum,right.
Like a lot of people early onwould make fun of us like, oh,
(18:59):
that's too hard and it's, butpeople tried it and do it.
You know, like, a lot of thenaysaying stuff right, and in
some ways they were right, butthe reality is that's where the
opportunity is.
If you can solve really hardproblems that are, like,
extremely challenging, thatrequire incredible expertise,
domain knowledge and technicalacumen, that's gives you an
(19:22):
advantage, right.
And also, like the CEO ofNVIDIA says, how much pain can
you endure?
He talks about pain tolerance.
He's right, it's a lot of paintoo.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
I've never had any pain.
It's the easiest you will.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Or, as he says, he wishes it upon you, right?
Yeah, he's funny, good stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
So, for those that are listening, what's like the
time where NorthBeam makes sensefor an e-com brand.
What are the pain points?
What do they look like in termsof size, revenue?
Yeah good question.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
What it really boils down to is are you a company
that is looking to aggressivelyscale and you have the resources
right?
So, yeah, generally not thebest fit for, like, really small
companies where you're stillkind of figuring out you know,
you're just testing meta andGoogle maybe, and you're not.
Your setup is simple.
We would advise you just tofigure out.
You know you're just testingmeta and Google maybe, and
you're not.
(20:24):
Your setup is simple.
We would advise you just tofigure out.
Learn your creative, learn whatworks and maybe don't pay for
an Orpheum quite yet, right?
But once you're at a place whereyou've got, you know, tens of
thousands and hundreds ofthousands to spend on media and
you're going to diversify yourmix and you're you're going to
press on the gas and you havethe capital to do it, then
(20:45):
that's where it starts to makemore sense.
So you could be a smallbusiness that's well capitalized
, that understands what you know, knows where you're going and
you're getting ready to push.
You'd be a good fit.
Conversely, you could be like abigger company that like
doesn't really want to invest inmarketing.
That much is just kind ofcruising along.
I still think we could help inthat regard because we can
(21:08):
provide insights on what couldwork.
But you know, if the, if thedesire is not there, maybe not
as good of a fit.
Yeah, got it.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
That makes sense, Well, thank you.
Thank you so much for coming onand sharing your insights with
me, and I'm sure you'll havesome folks who are fed up with
trying to measure all this.
You know all these differentchannels that they have going on
and hopefully we'll see howthat goes.
But thank you for coming onBefore we hop, do you want
people to know where they couldfind you and connect with you
(21:39):
online?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yeah, on LinkedIn it's M Austin Harrison.
So just a letter m in front ofmy name, um, same on twitter or
x.
I should say same on x, um.
And then northbeamio is ourwebsite.
My email is austin atnorthbeamio.
Uh, yeah, I, that's it.
(22:02):
I probably shouldn't put out myphone number.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
When are you going to change it to northbeamai?
Speaker 2 (22:09):
We had that domain very, very early on and, yeah,
we purposely didn't.
Like I said, our CTO is verylike I don't know how to say it,
but just wants to say that AIis a portion of what we do, but
there's a lot more and thatwould insinuate that's all we do
, right?
So we opted, not very early on,not to use it.
(22:32):
For that reason, Makes sense.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
It feels like every website I see now is aiai and
we're guilty of it as well.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, that's cool.
Well, we bought it, but we'llstick with what we got.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
We're good, Seems like it's working so far Well.
Again, thank you for coming on.
For everybody who's listening,as always, this is Brandon
Amoroso.
You can find me atbrandonamorosocom and scalistai.
Thanks for listening and we'llsee you next time.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
See ya.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.