How did your role as CRO at Divvy prepare you for your current role at Redo?
Divvy was everything in preparing for this. I got to learn, I got to make mistakes, I got to figure out what my philosophies are and test them. I took them to Redo and will hopefully make fewer mistakes.
How did your journey from Divvy to Pelion ultimately lead to the founding of Redo?
[Pelion] led the Series A at Divvy. … After my time at Divvy, … [Pelion] asked if I wanted to be a venture partner. [They said], if it takes you the investing route, great. If it takes you to another company, great. While doing that, I met the guy who became my co-founder. … He understood the reverse logistics space and monetization and started spending a lot of time there. Together, we came up with the idea of what the [Redo] platform looks like.
What is it about Redo that investors and brands are latching onto?
[They latch onto] the team, because the team is the one that ships, stays close to the brands and decides how brand-centric we’re going to be in our approach. I’m proud of the products, for sure, but underneath it all is a really incredible team.
What are the biggest pain points brands are facing post-purchase?
The biggest pain point for independent brands is that they do not control the relationship with the shopper. … Instagram and TikTok and Meta own the shopper and the channels by which they land on a brand site. I am renting that relationship from Instagram. That is really hard to scale when advertising costs go up. Every other problem is an appendage to it. Our job is to … enable brand and shopper connections that don’t rely on the places where [brands] have to rent.
Redo’s services make post-purchase easier for brands. There’s a lot to cover there. How do you know where your product should begin and end?
I don’t believe it should end. When I started an AI tech company, did I think we were going to have a warehouse in Norway? No, but we have to do international localized returns and refulfillment. I think the best companies keep putting the right foot in front of [the] left. Who could have thought that an online bookstore was going to be the biggest cloud storage company? … We will keep building and building and there is no end.
Part of this funding round went toward acquiring ReturnBear, a company that helps manage international online returns. Why was that the right move for Redo?
International sales is incredibly tricky for brands to navigate, and it’s also very time-intensive to build. ReturnBear just made a lot of sense because we could immediately help the 4,000+ brands that we serve and have a ready-to-go infrastructure. It solved a very unique problem, and ReturnBear was really the only one solving it.
Brag on Redo for a second. What is the ROI for companies using your software right now?
We have this metric called Return on Redo. For every dollar Redo makes, how much do you make? We talk about it every month. It’s one of our core metrics. Today it’s 9.7x. You give us a dollar, Redo makes you $9.70. That’s our North Star. If we can keep cranking that up, we’ll continue to do well.
How do AI companies stand out now? What is working for Redo?
I think unique distribution is still tricky. It’s also one of my reasons to be bullish on Utah. I think we are good at unique distribution, and I don’t think we shy away from it. You better be ready to innovate things to get people to see your stuff because we are so flooded with the newest, shiniest tool you can use, so you better be good at distribution.
What do you think AI and software startups are getting wrong right now as they try to build?
I think a lot of companies are chasing something. … They try to mimic instead of originate. It’s tough because in a world where you can build so much so quickly, a lot of things start to look very similar. When people lose authenticity, … I’ve just never seen it go well.
What else should Utah know about this moment in time for Redo?
One really cool thing is the talent density that is assembling. … In our Series A, we got every Utah fund that I like into one company, so there’s a company that all the firms could root for … and try to do something on a big scale without fear of failure. … We have a bunch of brands in Utah that are behind this thing and have helped shape it and create it.
