How to sell your product to enterprise customers with Michelle Bacharach - Product Hunt Radio Recap

Podcast: Product Hunt Radio

Published: 2020-03-18

Duration: 29 min

Summary

Michelle Bacharach shares her journey of founding FindMine, a retail technology company that leverages machine learning to enhance product curation for brands. She offers valuable insights into the challenges of enterprise sales and how to effectively connect with B2B clients.

What Happened

In this episode of Product Hunt Radio, host Abidesi welcomes Michelle Bacharach, the CEO and founder of FindMine, a company that uses machine learning to automate and scale the manual product curation process for retailers. FindMine has gained traction with notable clients like Adidas and Perry Ellis, reflecting its effectiveness in enhancing the customer shopping experience. Michelle explains how her technology assists brands in providing better guidance to consumers, ultimately bridging the information gap between them and the products they purchase.

Michelle dives deeper into her early experiences as a consumer, which led her to identify the challenges in product curation. She recalls numerous frustrating moments trying to figure out how to effectively use the products she purchased, expressing her desire for better guidance from the brands. This insight drove her to create a solution that not only helps consumers make informed choices but also relieves marketers and merchandisers from the time-consuming task of manual curation. By automating this process, FindMine not only enhances customer satisfaction but also boosts brand revenue and customer lifetime value.

Key Insights

• The importance of automating manual processes in retail to enhance customer experiences.
• Understanding consumer needs can lead to innovative solutions that address significant market gaps.
• Effective enterprise sales rely on building strong relationships and understanding customer pain points.
• Machine learning can significantly improve how brands curate and present products to consumers.

Key Questions Answered

What challenges do retailers face in product curation?

Michelle explains that retailers struggle with manually creating content that guides consumers in using their products effectively. Often, this process is handled by merchandisers and marketers, who are overwhelmed with their responsibilities, making it difficult for them to keep up with the evolving inventory and trends. This bottleneck leads to a gap in the information provided to consumers, which can ultimately affect their purchasing decisions.

How does FindMine enhance the shopping experience?

FindMine utilizes machine learning to automate the curation of product recommendations for consumers. For instance, if a shopper selects a shirt, FindMine's technology predicts complementary items like pants, shoes, and accessories, creating a complete outfit for the consumer. This not only helps customers visualize how to use a product but also reduces the likelihood of returns, resulting in higher customer satisfaction.

What are the benefits of using machine learning in retail?

Michelle highlights that machine learning allows brands to scale their operations by predicting what merchandisers and marketers would typically do when curating products. This results in a more efficient process that saves time and resources, enabling brands to provide better information to their customers and ultimately enhance their shopping experience.

What inspired Michelle to start FindMine?

Michelle's inspiration stemmed from her personal experiences as a consumer. She often found herself frustrated after purchasing products without proper guidance on how to use them effectively. Realizing that many consumers face similar challenges, she sought to bridge the information gap between brands and customers, leading her to create FindMine, which addresses these issues through technology.

How can startups effectively sell to enterprise customers?

In the interview, Michelle emphasizes the importance of understanding customer pain points and building relationships. Startups should focus on demonstrating how their product solves specific problems that enterprise customers face. By providing tangible results and a clear value proposition, they can build trust and encourage adoption among larger clients.