Evaluating MarTech: Insights from a DTC Operator

The Human Side of MarTech · Guest: Sean Agatep, Co-Founder & Operator, Vincero Watches

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Most MarTech vendor evaluation conversations start with the technology. Sean Agatep — co-founder and operator of Vincero Watches — starts with the P&L.

As the operational co-founder of Vincero Watches — a brand he launched in China with his college friends in 2014 — Sean has lived through every era of DTC marketing. The Kickstarter gold rush. The Facebook boom. The post-iOS14 hangover. And now AI. Through all of it, his approach to technology has stayed the same: everything earns its place or it doesn’t get a seat.

In this episode of The Human Side of MarTech, we go deep on DTC MarTech vendor evaluation — what it actually looks like when you own the P&L, why aspirational case studies are the fastest way to lose a deal, and why he thinks AI agents are a tease — for now.

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Episode Chapters

• 00:00 — The Origin Story of Vincero
• 04:03 — Kickstarter as a Marketing Platform
• 06:40 — Scaling the Business: Lessons Learned
• 09:37 — Evaluating Marketing Technologies
• 12:50 — Vendor Relationships and Evaluation
• 15:52 — The Role of AI in Business
• 18:37 — Staying Ahead in a Competitive Market
• 21:55 — Future Trends and Innovations

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Key Takeaways

1. Discern Technology from Noise

Effective DTC MarTech vendor evaluation starts with understanding your most pressing needs and evaluating tools through the lens of direct value addition — not trendiness. This prevents resource drain on solutions that won’t move the needle.

2. Master One Channel Before Expanding

Deep expertise in one marketing channel creates a competitive advantage that compounds over time. Vincero built their business on Facebook — not because it was the only option, but because they went deeper than everyone else.

3. Relevance Beats Prestige in Vendor Pitches

Vendors gain trust by demonstrating a clear understanding of your industry, size, and immediate needs — not by name-dropping logos you can’t relate to. Know the brand’s weight class before you pitch.

4. Lean Tech Stacks Move Faster

Over-investing in fixed solutions limits strategic pivots. A lean, intentional tech stack enables swift responses to external changes. Don’t lock yourself into something you’ll need to migrate out of in two years.

5. AI Adoption is a Habit Problem, Not a Tech Problem

Embedding AI into workflows is a cultural change first, a technology change second. The biggest challenge isn’t finding the right tool — it’s making usage a daily habit across the team.

6. Focus on Core Strengths — Resist Diversification Fatigue

Vincero tried leather goods, bags, and belts. They came back to watches. Concentrating on what truly drives growth prevents dilution of effort and preserves strategic clarity.

7. Build the Vendor Relationship Before You Have the Need

The best operators maintain a shortlist of vetted vendors so when a need rises to the top, they already know who to call. Get on the list before the deal is open. Blurbs was built for exactly this dynamic.

Episode Clips

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The Full Story

From China to Kickstarter: The Origin Story

Sean Agatep didn’t set out to be a MarTech buyer. He set out to sell watches. He and two college friends were living in China in 2014, 30 minutes from the watch factories, after failing at everything from a basketball academy to importing American wine. Then they found Kickstarter — and used it not as a fundraiser, but as a marketing testing platform.

“You learn how to communicate to your audience,” Sean explained. “Can I create messaging that sticks? Can I capture customers and fulfill my obligations without investing anything first?” Faster learning curve, less risk — and the DNA of how Vincero approaches everything since.

The Facebook Playbook — and When to Double Down

After Kickstarter, Vincero went deep on Facebook while competitors dabbled. When things got hard post-iOS14, most DTC brands diversified. Vincero doubled down, got better, and squeezed more out of what they had. Today they’re on pace for their best year ever — top line and profit — and Facebook is still the core.

“Everyone says now it was like you just had to put money in the money machine,” Sean said. “But there are different eras. You have to be better than your competitors within that era.”

How a DTC Operator Evaluates MarTech Tools

Sean’s approach to DTC MarTech vendor evaluation is simple: he’s the operations guy — and every dollar a vendor asks for comes directly out of a pie he can see. He’s the one person tasked with taking all vendor calls because if you spread that to someone who doesn’t own the P&L, they’ll say yes to things that sound cheap until they’re not.

His advice to vendors? Stop with the aspirational case studies. “We helped Groon scale to a $1.2 billion exit to Unilever? No, you didn’t. You were just on the tech stack while that happened.” What actually lands: know his industry, know his size, know what hole you’re filling — and at what cost.

The Shortlist Strategy: DTC MarTech Vendor Evaluation on Your Own Terms

Sean doesn’t close the door on vendors when the timing isn’t right. He maintains a shortlist — people he’s already evaluated and can call when a need becomes a priority. “You’re one of 20 holes in the boat. I can’t fix all of them right now. But when yours rises to the top, I want to know who to call.”

Most vendors don’t realize they’re being evaluated for the shortlist — not the immediate deal. Blurbs lets brands build exactly this kind of shortlist on their own timeline, without sales pressure.

On AI: A Habit Problem, Not a Tech Problem

Sean is skeptical of the noise but paying close attention to the signal. “Can we just call this computers?” he said about the AI label on everything. But he uses Claude Code for internal tools, is watching Meta’s shopping assistant, and thinks AI agents are months away from being genuinely powerful.

His biggest insight: “The biggest challenge is just turning it into a habit. Everyone uses it differently. What matters is that they’re using it.” That’s a culture shift before it’s a tech shift — and most companies are getting that backwards.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Full Transcript

Sean Simon (00:01.387)
Sean, welcome to the show. How you doing today?

Sean (00:04.329)
I’m doing good. Thanks for having me.

Sean Simon (00:05.777)
I’m excited to have you here for a few reasons. One is I love the watches, but I really like the idea of bringing an operator on the podcast and really talking about how you approach marketing, but also getting a better understanding of how it ties into the overall business. So before we jump into specific questions I have about the experience you’ve had, give us a little background on your origin story from back to when, what prompted you to start the company?

and take us through the first several years of the company.

Sean (00:39.31)
sure. So yeah, we have a little bit different of a background story. I started Vincher with my two best friends from college. We were actually living in China at the time. We had spent a few years out there right after we graduated and we basically just failed at starting businesses until something stuck. So we had done everything from sourcing product development. A couple of our buddies had tried to set up a basketball teaching academy we had done. We had looked into helping

Chinese citizens invest in US franchises to help them get their green cards. look that we and we imported the American wine into China, which was the first business that didn’t lose money, but I lost probably 10 years off my liver selling, selling cases of wine to Chinese people. And then we were still doing sourcing and product development and we saw a whole bunch of people launching products on Kickstarter and we saw the opportunity. So we jumped in.

We had the confidence that we knew how to make the products. We were 30 minutes down the road than where all the factories were for watches and a lot of that product category. So we had the unique advantage of having the product expertise to get something to market that we were confident and could stand behind. And Kickstarter was a great marketing testing platform.

Sean Simon (01:59.039)
marketing testing platform, that’s interesting. how did you, what did you learn from using Kickstarter as a marketing platform? Because I think most people think of it, I said it’s cool product, I’ll put it up there. I’ll get some sales and I’ll use that money to create the product. But you used it and you learned about your audience? Like what did you learn?

Sean (02:14.956)
You learn how to communicate to your audience, right? I there’s a lot of Kickstarter products and projects that are like, Hey, I think this is really cool. I want to show you guys this and you’re my damn and you’re my person anyway. So I’m, you’re going to get that. It’s cool too. that works within the Kickstarter ecosystem with a certain type of customer, but it’s more of an exercise of, okay, can I create messaging?

that sticks with the customer, I capture customers and can I fulfill on my obligations to that customer before and without having to invest anything? Right? Like that’s the cool part of all of this is that there’s a small investment, obviously the time investment and getting the silhouette stood up, getting the sample stood up and developing your own campaign. But you learn a lot of the nuances of starting a company just by going through that process.

So it’s a quicker learning curve with less of a risk.

Sean Simon (03:16.841)
So, and would you say that the audience that bought your watches through Kickstarter were different from your sort of customer today or customer that you’ve had since then, or is it a microcosm of it? Like, how would you describe them?

Sean (03:33.792)
Yeah, it’s more of a microcosm. think our customer that liked watches that core Dan, that person was on Kickstarter a lot at the time because they like gadgets. They like that sort of thing. So it’s a natural place for for a Kickstarter Indiegogo project is to have. And if you look back at that time, there’s a ton of watch products, right? There’s a ton of just iterations of that. At the time, fashion watches were extremely popular as well. So there’s just natural product market fit. There’s natural momentum.

it’d be the same thing as if we were to launch a creatine thing right now. There’s a lot of momentum within the category. So as we were scaling the company up, we started with watches. The idea was like, let’s make a whole accessories brand right away. Let’s get into leather goods. Let’s make bags. Let’s make belts. Going back to the Kickstarter well was a good experience. But we came back to the conclusion that our core customer is a watch guy.

And so we should just be making watches for watch guys. And there’s a lot of opportunity and white space to play within that at that point in time.

Sean Simon (04:38.047)
Max out, I got that. So where do you go after that, right? So you launch on Kickstarter, you make some sales, generate some revenue, you think you have something here, where do you go to scale that? Where did you go?

Sean (04:50.094)
Yeah, Facebook was hot at the time. So I give a lot of credit to my partners. They jumped in the lab and spent a lot of time just figuring out Facebook early on. So if you would put the time in and you could, everyone says now it’s like, well, you just had to put money in the money machine and figure it all out. It’s just that there’s different eras of all this stuff and there’s different, it’s the same way that like,

When you’re comparing basketball players in different eras, you can’t really make the argument that like, LeBron would beat Wilt Cheyru and hands down, it’s like compared to your competitors. If you put in the time and you put in the work and you figure out, you know, like how to rebound better than you’re just going to be inherently out of the advantage. Ultimately the field will catch up and everyone’s going to learn how to rebound better. So then you got to work on something else. So that’s kind of how we look at it is that we jumped in and we.

develop that skill and that muscle early on. So if you’re above average and better than that, you just have an advantage there.

Sean Simon (05:49.673)
I’ve heard a lot of direct to consumer brands say, you know, business was strong. It was like a rocket ship during those days. And then it got really hard. Some couldn’t survive. Talk to me about that. Did you have that up and to the right? Did you have like a dip? Did you have to sort of go back to the drawing board and figure things out? Talk to me about that journey.

Sean (06:12.814)
Yeah, I don’t think you’re a real company until you’ve been punched in the face at least once and you’ve had, you know, that sort of thing happen. We had a down year, we had a down cycle. But the learning through that is we made Facebook work early on. And then it was like, okay, well, let’s make YouTube work. Let’s make podcasts work. Let’s make all these other channels work. And we got almost too wide. And the

Expertise level required in each of those fields also takes time and that muscle takes time to develop and nurture and everything else like that. our understanding of where our business was at the time was like, maybe if we just really focus again on Facebook and get really better at that, because that’s the core marketing acquisition channel that we have, none of other stuff matters. We need to really focus on this and it’s getting harder. So we just need to get better at this right now.

We can always bolt on extra channels, but they’re still at our size, enough juice to squeeze out of Facebook. We just need to get better. And that’s what we pursue.

Sean Simon (07:15.179)
Is that true today? You’re still primarily Facebook and…

Sean (07:19.094)
Yes, primarily Facebook and fewer channels now. I think there’s still a lot of opportunity. We’re on pace, if not this year, the next year to probably have our best year ever, both top line and profit. And that’s still, and we’ve slimmed down the channels that we’re using just because there’s still a lot of juice to squeeze at our size.

Sean Simon (07:43.049)
Yeah, I mean, it total sense. So you said you’re the operations guy. You’re not really a marketing guy by trade, but you’ve developed some marketing chops over the years. Talk to us about MarTech, marketing technologies, primarily e-comm, things that live on the site, things that help you run your business. What does that process look like for you when, you know, is it, I need something so you go look for it? Are vendors coming to you and saying, hey, Sean, you need this?

Talk to me about that process and how you separate what you need from what the shiny object is.

Sean (08:19.586)
Yeah, so a lot of this is learned over time. think there is a definite case of FOMO with everything with how fast everything’s moving, right? Everything’s AI, everything’s, you know, multi-touch, everything can do this, everything can lead to incrementality. Our understanding is like, dude, we’ve been around for 11 years. We figured a lot of this stuff off with like Google Sheets and like three or four or five tools.

I don’t know if we necessarily need all of these shiny objects. We’ve tried a lot of shiny objects. You know, let’s keep, let’s keep, stay disciplined with our OpEx and keep our tech stack as lean and intentional as possible. And when, if there is a genuine need, we can explore it. And part of that process too, is we just have to assign one of us, the person who is willing to take all of the vendor calls and be the filter.

for all of this stuff and has full domain knowledge of the company and the P &L, as well as the perceived benefit or added value that these tools go after. I think when you task that to other people that don’t have a direct relation to the costs implied to it, if it’s gonna make your job easier, your natural inclination is like, yeah, it’s definitely worth it, right? Like that price isn’t that bad. could, yeah, we could, yeah.

10k for this tool, it’d be way worth it. They’re telling me that could 5x our money. It’s like, okay, no, that’s not how this works. It’s got to sit in line. Everything has to be comped according to everything and everything has to earn its place on the table if we’re paying it money.

Sean Simon (09:58.111)
Yeah, I mean, it’s an interesting way to approach it, right? Because I hear, especially with larger companies, you hear, I’ve got three tools that essentially do the same thing, but they were bought by three different departments, and their techs actually exploded, right? And so you need to have somebody come in, do an audit, figure out what they don’t need. But I think because you’re the operations guy, you’re tying everything to P &L, do you feel like you have a different process for evaluating tech than…

Sean (10:07.768)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Simon (10:26.571)
another DTC brand that might not have the operator or the COO managing Martech.

Sean (10:34.89)
Yeah, and I think it’s probably a bit more black and I look at a bit more black and white and just transactional than I think a lot of MarTech or a lot of vendors want to position themselves is that if I’m to be paying you money, that means you’re taking a piece of the pie that I have and I only have a fixed amount of that pie. So you’re either going to be an insane additive and show this much value and it’s worth it, or you’re going to have to replace what I already have a solution for.

I think the challenge that we have to a lot of vendors is we’ve made it this far without having this function that you’re or without this shiny tool that you have that you’re offering. So unless the cost is drastically lower, which in your it’s probably as a vendor is probably in your not in your best interest to price yourself like that, then you’re going to have to outweigh yourself in value. And that’s a tougher sell and a tougher pitch. So I don’t know. Does that make sense?

Sean Simon (11:29.247)
Yeah, yeah, totally. how do you, how do you, let me ask you this way. What advice would you give to vendors, right? There’s vendors out there, there are salespeople out there today that Vincero is on their target list. They have no idea about your business. They’re not inside the walls, but they’re just going to send you the same email they sent 20 other brands that are on their list. What advice would you give them in terms of how they gain your attention or create value

Sean (11:42.072)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Simon (11:59.213)
I’m not saying this so that you have 20 vendors emailing you tomorrow, but

Sean (12:03.63)
Yeah, we may want to cut this because I don’t want to be the same, but I’m the guy that evaluates vendors because then I’m just going to be the guy that’s just evaluating all the vendors.

Sean Simon (12:12.383)
You’re gonna get all the calls. No, but can you think about like, I mean, there has to be an appreciation too from your side. Like you want vendors, if they’re gonna reach out to you, you want them to do their homework, but what advice would you give them to help them do their job better? Because maybe they shouldn’t call you. Maybe they shouldn’t even waste their time. They should push it to the bottom. So how would you help them figure that out?

Sean (12:21.966)
Mm-hmm.

Sean (12:36.526)
What are you comping yourself that already exists? Right? Like what do you replace or what are you the same and what does that cost? That’s going to be the first indicator there. Teasing.

aspirational value creation, all this stuff. I think we’ve been at this long enough to where there’s only so much tinkering you can do. Product market fit just makes a huge difference. So it was like, yeah, well, we helped Groon scale to a $1.2 billion exit to Unilever. It’s like, no, you didn’t. You were just on the tech stack while that happened. And so you rode along the wave. That doesn’t really do anything for me. That aspirational number.

If you know my industry, you know my vertical and you know where you stand and you’re not trying to position yourself as a once in a lifetime opportunity and you’re just more relevant, I think, I don’t know. I feel like I’m saying this and sounding a little demeaning to it, but.

The solution you are providing, if I’m considering it, it is the biggest hole in the boat at this time. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not going to be a bigger hole or a smaller hole in the boat later, but right now it is my focus and my priority. So a lot of these conversations that we have, like, it’s not a yes or no right now. It’s like maybe at some point, right? Because we don’t know what’s going to happen. What I want to be able to do is I want to be able to have a Rolodex and a roster of people.

that I’ve already shortlisted. So when that hole becomes a priority, we have a quick solution to be able to fill that, to fix that. But also realize it’s like, the way I’m looking at this, you’re one of the holes in the boat. There’s like 20 holes in this boat. So it’s like, there’s a lot of other considerations that are completely out of your control. So I don’t know if that’s helpful at all.

Sean Simon (14:20.555)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Simon (14:35.616)
Yep.

Yeah, yeah, nobody’s I think it’s like, okay, you you can’t address everything. So where am I gonna get the biggest back from my book? I think that’s what you’re saying there

I think there’s two camps there, right? There’s the one of like, have a problem I need to fix. And then there’s the other one, which is like, hey, Sean, if you have this, you could grow your business, right? Above and beyond. We’re not a fix. We’re an add-on to make you better. And I think that’s probably a little bit harder to evaluate because there’s not a need. So it becomes a want almost.

Sean (15:02.007)
Right.

Sean (15:09.634)
And there’s a skepticism to that. Once you’ve gone through enough of these cycles and these ups and downs in these seasons to where it’s like, okay, yeah, like that sounds great, but are you going to be able to actually execute on that? And then you’re positioning yourself to now you have to find a way to justify that, right? Which is a tougher angle to win the business.

Sean Simon (15:30.387)
Yeah, but Sean, none of your tech has AI. How do you?

Sean (15:34.574)
Yeah, when we were talking about that, when you talked about walking the floor, it’s like, can we just call this computers? Right? Like everything has AI. Everything is AI. That’s the future. That’s now it’s sure it’s whatever. that’s I mean, that doesn’t do anything for me. Right. Like, no, it’s I was was a run on sentence. It just doesn’t that just doesn’t do anything for me.

Sean Simon (15:41.696)
Yeah.

Sean Simon (15:52.917)
How do you? Yeah, go ahead.

Sean Simon (15:59.755)
Well, guess I guess I’ll ask you this way How do you in your role given that you’re in such a diverse position? How do you stay on top of the tech that’s out there because you don’t know what you don’t know, right? So do you are you a trade show guy? Do you listen to podcast? Do you just read the trades? Like how do you how do you stay on top of the tech that’s out there?

Sean (16:22.732)
Yeah, trade shows are nice to go to every now and then just to kind get out of your bubble and see what’s out there. I think the most effective and efficient way to do that is to make sure you’re honest with yourself and who you’re comping your business against. Right. So if you’re comparing yourself with all of Ecom, that’s not a good answer. If you’re comparing yourself with all jewelry and accessories brands, that’s probably not even a good fit. Are you comparing yourself with this certain revenue size?

that’s probably more relevant than the industry itself, right? Because your decisions are constrained by the financials that you have. So I want to be aware of everything that’s going on within this space. And even if it’s not in jewelry and accessories, if it’s an apparel or if it’s in CPG, like I kind of want to be aware of what’s going on for people that are at my weight class. And it’s cool to hear about what other people are doing at bigger weight classes or lower weight classes.

But the most relevant stuff is making sure that I define my weight class, that I’m actually fighting and competing in.

Sean Simon (17:26.379)
Do you find it more valuable to go to a show like a shop talk, which is I would say general, versus a specific show that’s for watches?

Sean (17:40.31)
Okay, that’s a good question.

Sean Simon (17:43.103)
Finally got one!

Sean (17:46.11)
Shop talk, I give my, I tell my partners like in the, or one of my other partners is more of the CMO function. Yeah. It’s like, dude, I feel like I’m walking through your inbox right now. Right? Like I just feel like every single vendor and every single text, everything is, everything is there. I think those are very valuable just to connect with people at a human level, not to actually learn at what’s out there. Right? I think.

Ecom as it’s become more of an established business, it is more of a relationships-based business. Because there’s 10 or 15 different ways to solve this problem or 10 or 15 different providers, I want to work with people who I have just a good vibe with, that I trust and I can understand. Because being a vendor is

very, very tough and challenging game and you just don’t know how long they’re going to be around. also don’t know if your specific account manager is just going to go to the other vendor. You don’t know. It’s just a very competitive space to be in. So I don’t want to deal with the rest of that noise too. I don’t want to deal with someone getting funding or someone getting purchased and then dealing with a roll up or dealing with, we’re just transitioning to this new sales team. I just don’t want to deal with any of that.

I want to deal with the people that I have the strongest relationships with.

Sean Simon (19:10.475)
Yeah, I can totally relate to that. We’re evaluating CRMs and we were coming up with a of questions we wanted to ask the different companies. And mine was less technical because I can see all the tools they have. It was more about how well funded are you, how many people are in the company. I want to make sure that if I’m going to spend time migrating into another CRM, they’re going to be around in five years. I don’t want to switch CRMs.

Sean (19:29.686)
Right. And migrations are always are always awful. Right. And they’re always longer and more painful than they’re gone out to be. So the last thing you want to do, especially on the marketing stack, is like migrate and then have to migrate again.

Sean Simon (19:45.545)
Yeah, look, I think what I’m hearing from you is like, yeah, the tech is important, but there’s multiple companies that can satisfy my needs on the tech side. So once I narrow the list down to the companies that can technically serve me, it really becomes about the people and do I like them and do I want to work with them and are they going to be around?

Sean (20:08.034)
That and it’s like understanding again the weight class you’re punching around in. So if they’re touting that they’re like, we’re with Nike and PNG and Dove and Unilever and all these people, like, dude, then I am going to be the last priority on your list. Right. I am the like, I know where I stand within that within that pool. Or if you go on the other side and it’s like, OK, well, then my needs aren’t going to be satisfied enough because I need a higher level of service and you’re dealing with smaller.

smaller fish. That plays a factor in it. And then obviously that third piece is pricing and costing. Right. I think SaaS and tech is in a tough spot, especially with everything with AI where there is a cost compression. So ironically, it’s more fun on the brand side now because we finally have leverage in pricing. Whereas before it was like you were the only solution. were the only show in town. So I had to pay whatever ticket price that was out.

Sean Simon (21:04.777)
Right, right. So let’s move on from that. what’s the, know, if you think about technology has evolved tremendously since you started this business, right? And 20, you know, what year did you start the company?

Sean (21:19.534)
2014.

Sean Simon (21:20.267)
2014 so in 2014 there were probably let’s call it a thousand martech vendors maybe two thousand and now there’s 10x that right so There’s a lot that has changed a lot of a lot more options for you, right? What is the is there one thing that comes to mind that you wish you had then? That’s available now or one thing you wish you knew then that you know now

Sean (21:47.65)
Sean Simon (21:49.545)
Regarding Martech.

Sean (21:51.544)
To flexibility is a big thing here. I think even what you’re talking about, like how drastically the solutions, the providers have expanded. You need to be able to be flexible to the marketing conditions and how everything works. so over-investing on something that seems like a good bet at the time may or may not be there in a year, right? So like not having that flexibility to be able to shift to a different function or shift to a different priority,

is a big deal that’s kind of learned through experience. Unless you have a clear cut vision or you’re established, which I don’t think any of us in this space are truly that established to have that confidence or that positioning.

Sean Simon (22:35.347)
Okay, so I want to go back to the AI question in all seriousness. How are you thinking about AI internally in terms of where does it, we talked about how AI isn’t necessarily a thing, it’s part of everything now. Where do you see it adding value to the tools that maybe you have that maybe are better now?

Sean (22:52.718)
Mm-hmm.

Sean (23:01.56)
Yeah, I think the biggest challenge with AI is just turning it into a habit. It’s like a different way to process your work, process your decision making, process how you’re going to solve problems when you’ve got this extra variable that also is kind of being figured out that you should just be using it and everything should be going through that filter before you do anything. It’s like, okay, well,

this is so vast and expansive, how exactly do I use that filter to now solve this problem? And then all of a sudden I’m stuck tinkering on that, like the best way to use it than actually solving my problem. So the biggest thing is instilling that habit. The biggest thing is making sure everyone on the team is using it. And it’s like with anything else, I mean, even the way people format spreadsheets, everyone does it differently, right? So everyone uses AI in a slightly different way, in different capacity.

But the most important thing is that they’re using it so that they’re familiar with how to build it into their workflows. And then you can layer any piece of tech on top of that. You can layer any vendor on top of that. You can layer any solution on top of that. You know, I’m more of the process guy, the SOP guy historically. So I’ve been loving Claude code and just like the ability to be able to articulate tasks. And the irony is that I find myself

over explaining tasks to the robots because they’re already smarter than you, right? So they’re already able to just, they know what you’re saying as you’re trying to explain it, if anything you’re doing a disservice, but yeah, just using it, forcing yourself to use it is the biggest challenge for us.

Sean Simon (24:43.467)
Has any AI, have any AI tools found their way onto the website?

Sean (24:51.342)
We’re playing around with Meta’s shopping assistant right now. To be honest, the theme and the mantra within Vincero at this stage of the business, and a lot of that is just because my partners and I are at same stage of life where all our kids are small, is like, let’s just do less. Let’s make our lives way simpler. So because there’s so much noise and there’s so much going on, we’re not going to be the first mover at any new

tech, but I’m following around what’s going on in my weight class. I’m following around with the Bellwether brands that are bigger than me that they’re using. And then it’s like, okay, if they’re using that, then there’s probably some opportunity there and we’re going to explore.

Sean Simon (25:33.163)
probably the right way to go about it. Okay, last question. Is there anything that you’re paying attention to right now that you’re really tracking sort of in the same vein of what you just said, right? You’re looking at what you’re the larger players in your space are doing. Is there any one thing or category of things you’re tracking to see where it goes?

Sean (25:52.694)
I mean, like all these AI agents are super cool. They’re very, they’re very cool. I don’t think they’re quite there yet. I think it’s still kind of hazy on how exactly it works, probably with the MCP and the permissions and being able to use everything. So it’s kind of a tease. But I think in a few months, it’s going to be very, very cool and very, very powerful. And it’s, it’s empowering as an operator and an owner again, to like be in this spot. Cause it’s like, dude, this is fun to build, right? We’re not,

you go through these phases within the company where I think for a little bit there, you know, coming out of COVID and that 22 areas, like you’re not really building, you’re just fighting with vendors on why things aren’t working. And then it’s like, okay, well then we just got to figure out product market fit again, and then we just got to build again. Right. And so like that building phase is why all of us have gotten into this and the jump. And it’s like a new era, new wave of being able to build.

Sean Simon (26:47.787)
Yeah, I’m one of those skeptics as well and I rarely get excited and impressed by tools. But I’ll send you a note later on. I’ve come across some of the coolest agents, like you’re speaking about there with Meta, but some really bad ones as well that just don’t.

Sean (27:04.878)
Mm-hmm.

Sean (27:08.3)
Yeah, which is which is part of it, right? Like I think everyone’s trying to figure it out. It’s an arms race. It’s it’s challenging for me to not be looking at this and see like the big guys on top. It’s like, dude, it kind of doesn’t matter what all you guys are trying to go after, because if it’s good, these big guys are going to come in and they’re like, no, we’re doing that now. Right. Like, so it is a challenge. It is good to like figure out your niche and your specialty and how you’re specifically solving a problem. But

Sean Simon (27:36.265)
Yeah. Yeah. That’s all I got, Sean. I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today and share your perspective on marketing and martech from an operator perspective. And we’ll look forward to having you on the show sometime in the future. Appreciate it. Take care. Bye.

Sean (27:36.546)
Yeah, it’s cool to see.

Sean (27:51.766)
Absolutely, thanks for having me on. That’s it. Bye.

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The Human Side of MarTech is part of The MarTech Matrix podcast, hosted by Sean Simon. New episodes every Week on TheMarTechMatrix.com and YouTube.