Founder's Story - Using AI to Drive Consumer Engagement through Klickly, A Founder's Story with Cooper Harris | S2: E19

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Cooper Harris, a serial entrepreneur and successful actress who is also the founder of Klickly, a data-driven AI platform that powers distributed commerce. Klickly implements a B2B business model, working closely with brands to help them reach their targeted consumers. According to Harris, Klickly's founders aimed to use AI to help brands complete consumer deals. They envisioned utilizing AI and data to match consumers with products they would be excited about and purchase in real-time. Harris describes Klickly's mission as helping innovative brands make smarter, data-driven decisions in getting their products to market. To accomplish this, Klickly has commerce modules on 25 million online shopping and brand destinations and a machine-learning program that uses sophisticated algorithms to understand the consumer and promote and power transactions. "Klickly is not doing traditional advertising,” Harris said, it uses AI and consumer signals to power sales to genuinely excite consumers to discover what the brands offer. Subscribe to our newsletter so you don't miss out on exclusive interviews and special content: https://foundersstory.beehiiv.com/subscribe For more info on guests and future episodes visit pix11.com/impact and https://fox5sandiego.com/fox-5-partners/impactful/Our Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Founders Story, the podcast where trailblazing entrepreneurs share their extraordinary journeys. Uncover the passion, grit, and vision that drive the world of business and innovation. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Founders Story. Customer acquisition is one of the most important things you can do. If you are not acquiring customers, it's bad news. And that is especially for e-commerce and commerce. So today we have Cooper Harris, who has been a friend of mine. I've known her for many years and she is a three-time entrepreneur. And she's the founder and CEO of Clickly, which I personally used.

Was it four or five years ago, six years ago? I'm not even sure at this time, but it's an incredible data-driven AI platform that distributes commerce for 2,000 of the fastest growing brands in the US. But Cooper, welcome to the show. I am so excited to be here. This is great fun. Thanks for having me. Of course. Yeah. Like I was saying earlier, you and I have known each other for many years and I've seen different companies and things that you've been doing and when you told me about clickly many years ago i thought to myself like wow this is really powerful because from an e-commerce background customer acquisition is getting harder and harder

but before we dive into the specifics what was the spark that made you want to say, I want to be an entrepreneur? Oh, wow. Back in the day. Okay. So as you may or may not know, I had a fairly successful acting career in film and TV. And I got, I wouldn't say bored. I just got really excited about tech. You know, it was like, I don't know, 2012, 13. And I was like, this wave of new capabilities is coming and my dad's an entrepreneur so I guess you know the bug had bit me early so I started my first company I was

still acting um second company I put on ice because I got VC funding for quickly about four and a half five years ago and um yeah I just haven't looked back. So it is something I'm very passionate about. And it's amazing because AI is the craze right now. So tell me, Clickly has been changing the game, you said for about four and a half, five years. How does it do so? Yeah. So our whole thesis, our whole reason for being is to help innovative trailblazing brands sell more, better online. So we are championing a little bit championing the underdogs. We have, of course, a bunch of well-known brands that you would recognize, but we are basically allowing them to have like a plug in the play data science and AI

capability that is purely performance based. So we're saying, hey, use our platform. You can use this plug-and-play technology, and it'll allow you to compete with big enterprises. And I think that's really exciting for brands these days. As you said, customer acquisition, acquiring a customer, gaining a new purchaser online, it's really hard, and it's getting more and more expensive. So I'm excited to be able to offer this type of capability for brands who are blazing trails.

So we've had some recent conversations with some really large retailers, and they've been saying how they're almost getting out of e-commerce with the focus and going back into brick and mortar because the acquisition is just so high. So I can imagine if you're not this billion dollar retailer it's really difficult so can you get into what were you gonna say yeah i think you're absolutely right so you're definitely onto something there and i'm not surprised that folks are hearing that a little bit what i can say definitively is e-commerce is not going away you know the pandemic made that uh i guess i would say catapulted that to the front

of everyone's mind and while we're not at pandemic online buying levels because fortunately we can go into stores now but that trend is not going away so it really behooves brands of all sizes and retailers to try to figure it out to get the cutting edge tools, to figure out how to do online, because again, like isn't going anywhere. Yeah. It sounds like Clickly is needed now more than ever because of that. And so, you know, Clickly is the hottest app right now because it's been leveraging AI for over four years. So tell me about how this has been playing out with, you know, since the rise of chat gbt being the most downloaded thing the most downloading app on the planet ever and you've been in ai i'm sure people have been coming to you like maybe they want to invest maybe they want to purchase maybe

they want to you know expand or do something with you how has it been yeah it's it's been awesome it's been rewarding and also maybe a little funny because as you know, we've been incorporating AI for four years, not just since chat made it like cool, hip and very en vogue to be in the AI space. We've been doing it for a while, but that doesn't mean that the newer AI capabilities and companies aren't great.

They are, and it's improved a lot. But I think what's good for us is we have that stake in the ground early. So certainly we kind of made a name for ourselves there. So we have brands, we have investors, we have potential strategic partners all coming in saying, hey, what are you doing? You know, we want to learn more and we want to leverage this technology. So we're suddenly, Dan, we're suddenly the cool kids on the block. Whereas before we were just really. I felt that I wasn't really cool growing up, but I feel like now I'm way cooler than what I was then. So I can relate. So I know I know you've gotten a lot of buzz.

You've gotten some awards like the Marcom Award for Innovation last year. So how have these awards and this recognition and all the things that have been coming out now, I know, you know, four and a half, five years, people, people always think it's a overnight success, but you've been, you've been really hustling. You've been doing it for a while now, but how did these awards, how is it making you feel that the organization and how has it impacted you? I think that's a really interesting point. And I think it's good for any entrepreneurs or business owners out there like everyone assumes oh these massive companies they blow up overnight and they don't there are years of blood sweat and tears behind the scenes that

you don't see and then when they start to get the awards as we've done over the past two years especially end of last year like it's really validating i'm not gonna lie it makes me feel really good but it's also on the back of a huge amount of kind of thankless, tiring work, you know, sleepless nights, all that good stuff. So it's nice to feel like we put in the work. Now we're helping about 2000 of the fastest growing brands in the US. That's validating itself. And then to be recognized that for that is it's really cool.

It's icing on the cake. It's incredible. I remember when you told me about this idea from day one and i was blown away we started using it in fact we still use it by the way um to this day so it's always incredible every day i get an email that says you know uh people are clicking on on your links on clickly and i'm like oh my gosh that's like people are purchasing and i don't have to do anything so it's's incredible. But, you know, I know there's ups and downs, challenges and things that you learn along the way. The last 10 years, 10 plus years you've been in business and

entrepreneurship. Can you share maybe something that you always tell people or wish you could tell people about being an entrepreneur? Yes. I think it kind of what we just talked about is a good segue to kind of what I would communicate, which is, you know, um, it's really hard. So you better like it a lot, but also not to be, um, not to be timid or scared if this is a decision or something you want to try my belief and what's worked for me, maybe not for everyone is just to jump in like wholeheartedly. Or I'm from the South, so we would say jump in a whole hog, right? Like just throw yourself into it.

I personally did not have a backup plan. I wasn't doing a part-time job. I did some Airbnb on the side just to pay myself a salary, but I had no backup plan. In some cases, that's a very bad idea. But for whatever reason, it worked for me because I had no backup plan in some cases that's a very bad idea but for whatever reason it worked for me because because I had to have a singular focus so I think whatever gives you that drive and singular focus is um is how you want to set up your journey into business I'm glad you bring that up around the singular focus many times I think people you know we we're chasing a lot of rabbits and we don't catch any and shiny object syndrome and we're not focused because we want it tomorrow.

And you also you also said something that really hit home. And that's you're not going to just make a lot of money all of a sudden, even if you're doing a considerable amount of revenue. That doesn't mean you're going to take home as a founder all of this and you had to do some airbnb so tell me about that how is that when so if somebody you know wants to know okay when do i start making money for myself and you know how is the how is it during business when it comes to you know as a founder or as a ceo how you're paying yourself oh that's such an interesting question and i think it's one that I somewhat got wrong. So I'm happy to share what I did and what not to do. Early on though in business, I think the tendency,

and this is correct, is to conserve. It's to be lean, it's to be disciplined and not spend a huge amount paying yourself. If you are starting a business to pay yourself a large salary, you're in the wrong game. Like go get a big job somewhere else. Um, so I didn't pay myself because quickly was my baby. Right. And I don't want to take resources. So in that first year, I literally rented, I don't know how legal this was, but I rented two apartments in my apartment complex and Airbnb them out. So before there

were a lot of restrictions around that. I don't think you can do anymore, but I was renting the, I was like cleaning, you know, bathroom or making a bed. And then I jump on a call with like a massive fortune 100 company that was a potential client. And it was a really funny juxtaposition because that's how I paid my salary was by this Airbnb side hustle. Of course we shut that down because we got vc funding um you know and move forward so that is what i would recommend in the beginning be lean make sure that you aren't just in it for taking a large check i don't think anyone is but you know the second piece is once your company does become viable um and we're nicely profitable now so that's an even greater step of viability but you do want to pay yourself

a comfortable salary, nothing crazy. Your board, your VCs will let you know if it's too high, but you do want to pay yourself more than I was because I was stressed out of my mind because I basically had a stipend, not a salary. And that's actually very typical of women founders and female VCs or excuse me, CEOs is that they will grossly underpay themselves. So it's something we need to learn not to do that. When you're stressed, cortisol levels are high, triggers fire flight. You don't make the best, most grounded decisions. Yeah. It reminds me of Profit First and that book around making sure that you pay yourself first. I always found that to be quite interesting. And my last question, and I would like to dive into this, women who

are getting funding from VCs is only a very, very small few percentages. I don't know the exact number, but I've heard it's quite small in the US and I think almost everywhere around the world. How is that for you? And if there's a woman out there who was in your position and thinking, you know, I could grow and expand if I get funding I get funding, VC, but I don't even know what to do. And and I don't know anyone that's even done it. You know, anything there that you can share? Yes. So there's two responses to that very sad fact that I think it's barely grown in the last five years and it's still like two to three percent. So it's low in terms of how much funding women get. So there's one side of the coin where you could be annoyed and frustrated

and that's totally valid. The other side of the coin is it makes you better. It makes you better than your male counterparts because you have to work that much harder. So it hones your skills and it makes you really disciplined. I think that's a good thing. It's helped me, right? I've had to be really disciplined, I think that's a good thing. It's helped me, right? I've had to be really

disciplined and focused. That being said, it is really hard to your point. And what I would say is, you know, if you don't have expertise and you don't have a network of VCs, I had neither at the time I started my company, ask folks if they will go to coffee with you and share wisdom. I did two to three coffee meetings for six to 12 months before I even started pitching my company just so I could understand what folks were looking for when they're looking at investing. And so I could understand how I could grow my game and my pitch to then make an appropriate ask.

But don't go out necessarily pitching and swinging because you don't know what you don't know i think the feedback is really valuable and then people see your track record they're like oh she said she was going to do this six months ago she's checking in six months later she's done it and then six months later basically i raised around that's amazing i mean it makes total sense whether you're trying to sell something close the deal get money i I mean, those are really great points. So if people want to, if they want to see if they can qualify for Clickly or if they want to get in touch with you, it sounds like, you know, you're very inspirational.

And I think a lot of people can learn from you as well. How can they do so? Sure. So if you're a brand and you sell things online and you are in the e-commerce space, go to www.clickly.com and apply. You can mention this show and we'll take an extra look at your application, but that's Clickly with a K, not a C. And then if you want to hit me up, do so. I'm on LinkedIn, Cooper Harris. Well, Cooper, this has been awesome. Thank you so much. I mean, you got to come back in like a year, six months to a year from now, and then see that you're helping four or 5,000 of the fastest growing brands and helping them become the fastest growing brand.

But Cooper, always great seeing you. And thanks so much for being here on Founders Story. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you for tuning in to Founders Story. Keep exploring, keep dreaming, and join us next time for more inspiring entrepreneurial journeys.