Startup Spotlight #204: Yofi
Yofi is a platform that enables you to better understand your customers, their intentions, and the best way to interact with them.
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I got the chance to speak with Alex and Jordan Shamir, co-founders of Yofi, about what they’re working on at their startup and any advice they have for emerging entrepreneurs.
In 2021, 35.7% of Online Black Friday Shoppers were bots and fake accounts. Many of these bad actors (bots, arbitrageurs, fraudsters, etc.) are undetected and have rapidly expanded from tickets and limited-release items into anything that can be flipped for profit. Individuals have multiple identities; whether unintentional or malicious, it skews critical data for operating the business - forecasting inventory, determining the success of marketing campaigns, increasing customer lifetime value, and more. Digital identity is essential for a successful brand.
Yofi is a platform that enables you to better understand your customers, their intentions, and the best way to interact with them. We solve this for brands by providing granular customer and product-level recommendations based on your genuine customers’ intentions and desires. Stop guessing and start knowing with Yofi!
Startup Spotlight: Yofi
Problem: Everything being consumed digitally is being skewed because everyone has multiple identities online -either intentionally or unintentionally. This causes businesses to overestimate customers, incorrectly forecast inventory and sales, and make expensive, large cascading decisions based on misleading data.
Market: We believe that the Digital Identity market will be $5.12B by 2030 because the ability to identify customers and optimize their interaction is essential for the success of brands. It impacts the entire business from marketing campaigns, reverse logistics, and customer retention in both eCommerce and subscription services.
Solution: We empower brands to better understand their customers, their intentions, and the best way to interact with them.
Team: We are a global team of problem-solvers from Argentina, China, Uzbekistan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Regardless of the cultural and geographic differences, we are united in our mission of demystifying who is on the internet.
Recent Success:
Alex and Jordan: We had hypotheses about digital identity, and it is continuing to be proven true, as it is a bigger issue than we ever anticipated. We have been able to rapidly iterate, as there is so much to learn, and we believe we have been successful at incorporating the right feedback quickly. This has allowed us to build the right product and build credibility with our customers, employees, and investors. We have been surprised by the enormous impact of digital identity and have been successful at quickly adjusting to the right solution and getting smarter as we mature.
Recent Struggle:
Alex and Jordan: We believe that Yofi has the ability to impact and improve an entire business from Marketing to Operations. We know Yofi can impact an entire organization, and we are excited to help do that with the right brands and retailers, but we recognize we need to start focusing on a specific pain point and then expand. This has been a struggle, as we get so excited about the impact of knowing your customers, but know we are more successful creating objectives around a specific problem.
Founder Advice:
Alex and Jordan: Build publically! People want to help you! Initially, we were bashful and afraid to ask people for help, feedback, or introductions. We were shocked by the number of people that took our cold calls and friends who supported us and made incredible introductions. Building publicly has rekindled old friendships, found some of our best evangelists and customers, and allowed us to get to the position we are in today.
Three Cool Founders You Should Know About:
Alex and Jordan: Here are three founders you should check out next!
Stephanie Horbaczewski, Founder of Vody: Vody is an ML optimization and maturation suite to accelerate model development and supercharge performance built for teams that build their own models.
Geraldo Ramos, Founder of Moises Systems: Moises System is a Music-tech platform offering musicians and producers a suite of AI tools such as audio separation, pitch/beats/chord detection, metronome, tempo changer, and mastering.
Arsalan Bashir, Founder of LiveDocs: LiveDocs allows you to create documents that update themselves.
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