Optimize Your Ecommerce Strategy: Branding, Neurology, and Marketing

 You're listening to the radcast.
 If it's radical, we cover it.
 Here's your host, Ryan Alford.
 Hey guys, what's up?
 It's Ryan Alford your host and welcome to the latest edition of the radcast.
 I am the founder and CEO of Radical Company here in Greenville, South Carolina.
 If you didn't know and the host of the radcast and it's great to be joined.
 I'm just going to say I might start calling some ride a co-host here.
 He's become one of my favorite people in marketing and the one of the smartest guys I know
 in the business.
 So I'm just going to keep having them on until he says uncle, some rides are on head of
 client solutions at neuro insight.
 What's up, some rot?
 Good.
 How are you, Ryan?
 It's been a while.
 No, it has, but we're also joined by Salim Older, who is the CEO and co-founder of Fourth
 Avenue Market and good to have you as well, Salim.
 It's good to be here.
 Appreciate it.
 Looking forward to the co-host.
 For sure, for sure.
 We wanted to get these two guys together, you know, we're going to let you in on a little
 secret.
 They're old college buddies and we might get into a couple college stories, maybe one or
 two.
 We want to keep it interesting and we want to keep it PG 13 slash R rated.
 They're on the rat gas, but they went to school at the University of Rochester, the
 Simon School of Business, their MBA.
 They got together.
 And so old college buddies, but both doing timely marketing and business here in 2021 with
 Salim running an econ business geared towards very community driven marketing to the black
 market.
 And we're going to talk more about that.
 And then, of course, some rod, of course, always in my head talking about the brain.
 But yeah, we're looking forward to the discussion, guys.
 And before we get started, do we have, you know, like one or two good stories from back
 at the old University of Rochester?
 Yeah, go there, Ryan.
 So, Salim, myself and a couple of other folks, this is two days before our quarter
 finals, first quarter finals.
 And they'll then Salim and I, we'd sort of known each other.
 But one day we're in the library and I'm like, Hey, Salim, how are you doing on finance?
 And he's like, I just started studying, I don't know, nothing about this.
 Yeah.
 I'm like, you know what the difference we're going to bond in a stock is and he's like,
 well, I'm still trying to figure it out.
 Oh, my God.
 So then the plan was made for all our exams.
 So we had finance, accounting, economics and statistics that we were going to study together
 through and through till the finals are over.
 And then for the next four days, I kid you not on 16 red balls, and we basically went
 through those four days.
 And that's what we call our boot camp and that's how our friendship started and it has
 always been together.
 I saved my MBA.
 I was sitting there like, I don't think I'm about to pass this class.
 I think I'm about to get kicked out of school.
 So I was studying for my life and I was happy to have server helping me out with that.
 And Salim has been with me ever since all our marketing program we've been together,
 everything we've been together.
 And yeah, he's one of the best guys I know.
 Hey, I love it, man.
 And I love that y'all, you know, a lot of times you go to school people, you lose that
 connection, but it's awesome that you guys have kind of grown through the marketing space
 together.
 Obviously doing your different things, but kind of leveraging, you know, the knowledge
 of each other and helping each other along the way.
 And I can personally relate as I just finished my energy drink before walking in here to
 the, both the college and the now of the jitters of too many red balls and you know, he gives
 you wings.
 And for sure, exactly the only thing that's bad about that is when, and I know this never
 happened, right?
 Where you know, you get through what you have to get through and then you do it and then
 you need to go to sleep and you're like, God, damn it.
 I can't get to sleep.
 So after all finals were over, basically the entire class was meeting up at a bar and
 there were four people that were not at that bar.
 We were faster in the study rule.
 It's done.
 Oh, man.
 Well, I do want to start.
 Let's, um, some Ryan and I have gotten into it.
 Everybody's starting to know what some Rod does and we're going to leverage.
 You know, I know some right now, I want to just comment as a whole and e-commerce where
 Nuro plays in some of the trends and things are going on.
 So let's give everybody some background.
 So lean on your background, fourth avenue market, bringing us up, starting from the beginning
 to now and let's start there, just giving some background and let's have at it.
 Yeah.
 So fourth avenue market, it kind of started.
 My experience is in brand management markets.
 After I got my MBA, I worked for a little over a decade and companies like Kimberly Clark,
 British brands like Cotex, James and Irish Whiskey, grooming brands, denture brands and
 honestly, I was really, I was enjoying my experience and I was growing these businesses by millions
 of dollars and you know, I kind of got to a point where I was like, if I couldn't do
 it for that, I could probably do it for myself.
 And I think the other part that really tugged at me was just the fact that every, you know,
 as I'm working as much as I, you know, I like what I was doing.
 I couldn't see how what I was doing had a positive impact on the communities that I was
 a part of.
 So I stepped out on faith, January of 2018, I just said, you know, I'm going to step out
 on faith.
 I'm going to figure out what the next step is going to be in my life, but I knew it wasn't
 where I was at.
 And so as I did so, I stumbled into this opportunity where it was a sales broker who had known
 for years and she had started a company.
 She told me year before I left, she started this website, it was with ethnic hair care and
 multicultural beauty and personal care products.
 And so when I talked through a year later and I'm stepping out of the corporate world
 and I speak to her and she's telling me, it's like, go, honestly, Sally, I had approached
 you with this other product opportunity, she's like, yo, I don't think you should worry
 about that.
 I think this is really where you should be and she would focus on this.
 She just wants to retire.
 She's very successful.
 I had many businesses.
 So she was like, I don't really need this, but it's kind of like my baby and I want
 to give it to somebody who actually is going to take this and go and I really give it,
 but I bought it from her.
 So me and my partner, also, my co-founder, he has his experience in technology software
 engineering, 15 years, Silicon Valley, GitHub, et cetera.
 And so we got together, I said, with my marketing experience, your tech experience, we can
 actually put our heads together and we could take this platform and we can grow it.
 And the idea what actually happened when we bought it, we didn't realize as soon as we
 bought it, we became overnight the largest black-owned online hair and beauty retail platform
 in the US with over 7,000 products on the platform.
 And to be honest, we kind of started out as a focus on why we can actually create greater
 awareness and distribution of products that are targeting this community who is so often
 left out of the conversation or as you walk into traditional retail stores and you see
 that little four foot section of the self called the ethnic set.
 But the reality is this category is a $2 billion category and that's just the part that
 the black consumers are spending is $2 billion in growing.
 The fastest growing part of the entire hair care category is this textured hair care
 category.
 So I couldn't understand how you have these consumers that are going in the store struggling
 to find stuff for them, they can't find what they wanted.
 But as I talked to my partner about it, we actually realized that the opportunity and
 the challenge was even bigger than just thinking about the black community and black consumers.
 What we actually realized is that there was consumers that were out there 74% of consumers
 in fact that are saying, I want my dollars to be spent with companies that are aligned
 with my values.
 So naturally for black consumers, they're saying, well, I want to spend with companies who
 are investing in the black community who are buying from businesses across the supply chain
 that are also from the black community or black brands.
 But then you also have women who want to support women owned businesses or you have others
 that want to represent environmentally friendly businesses.
 So I understood this idea about transparency at the point of purchase and how we can do
 a better job of driving that transparency starting out with this consumer, which was
 one, it was personal to me too.
 It was top of mind for the entire country right now after everything that was happened
 in last year.
 And then just how fast this category was growing, it made it a right opportunity for us
 to step in and focus on this community and then the bigger part was seeing that dollar
 go back around and through the community.
 Because that was truly the impact of seeing, you know, not 85% of sales of ethnic hair
 care products are done by black consumers yet.
 We own 7% of the stores and the implication is as money is spent, that money is taken
 out of the community, not reinvested into the community.
 And so we said, well, we can create an approach that actually, and we can start with this
 community, but move to other communities where that dollar would actually, where people
 are spending money, they can actually extract value from the money that they're spending.
 And that's really what we're creating with fourth ad market is it's really this like
 community centric marketplace that puts transparency at the forefront and allows consumers
 to know where their dollars are being spent with companies.
 And so that's really where the essence of fourth ad market is and how we've kind of
 grown to where we are today.
 Love it.
 A lot of brilliance there, a lot of, you know, we have people on and they talk about
 certain things and they get down paths and I'm like, so you just, you just fell into this,
 you got really lucky, huh?
 And then there's people that come on and they really know what they're doing.
 And I love all my guests equally, but you know, but as a marketer, you know, the brilliance
 of everything you just digested right there for us, you know, makes my heart pound hard.
 And so anyway, let's break down a few things there.
 I do want to talk about, you know, you said you stepped into this in 2018.
 I mean, what's, I know the lot, what have been some of the mechanics of that?
 I mean, has it been, has it been as smooth a road as you just described or, I mean, because
 man, he was so eloquently delivered, I'm like, was there any trib, trials and tribulation
 here?
 Like maybe one or two, right?
 So, you know, the interesting part is when we bought this site and we, you know, we're
 like, all right, let's put it live, right?
 So, you know, see, the site hadn't been live for a little while.
 We put it live and of course it didn't work or is more going through.
 This wasn't happening.
 I know when we first put it for whatever reason, I can't remember what happened, but all
 the product names and descriptions disappeared on us.
 And so we had the figure out.
 So it took us another seven months after we bought the site to really revamp it.
 We got it up and running and it was actually February of 2019 that we actually launched
 the site and it didn't work and as it didn't work, you know, we scrapped it.
 And then we relaunched it again in November of 2019.
 So it was like, by February of June, it just wasn't working.
 Like, people were coming to the site, but they couldn't buy what they wanted to.
 So there was so much work we had to do with 7,000 products and we did it.
 We scrapped the site, started over and started in June.
 And then we relaunched what you see now is in November 2019.
 We relaunched that site, but it, I mean, that's just part of the struggles.
 You know, we can probably spend another two hours on the other struggles.
 Yeah.
 That sounds like, now that sounds more like the e-com journey that I know, yeah,
 especially with 7,000 products.
 You know, it's like, you know, we've got brands that we work with that are, you know,
 have five products and they think they're struggling.
 And then we have brands with thousands.
 And I'm like, you don't even know what a struggle is.
 So you have to write descriptions and images and, you know, all that.
 So what platform are you guys on?
 Just had a curiosity like e-com was.
 We started out, so this was a site start out.
 It was like WordPress Blue Commerce, which was not the best set up.
 And then we moved over to Shopify, which, you know, obviously made it a much easier
 for at least some of the things we want to do in a short term.
 I want to stop right there.
 If you're listening and you're moving into e-commerce,
 I don't care if your bigs are indifferent.
 If you don't start with Shopify, you're making your life harder than it needs to be.
 It is so much easier.
 Yes, you pay some fees.
 Yes, you do some stuff, but they have the integrations.
 They figured this out, people, and it used to be 1,000, excuse, can't be on shop wrong,
 not anymore.
 And you got to come to me with a really, we developed mainly in Magento and Shopify, depending
 on the brand.
 But unless you have it, unless it's just a real specific use case, we push everybody
 to Shopify out.
 So that sounds like a common journey.
 That's kind of taken from where it started, but good, you know, we had to move on.
 Yeah.
 One more question, if I want to bring some right in to have a little discussion about
 e-commerce and neuro in general, but universally, but talk about the way with which maybe
 some of the specifics that you've developed your community over the last couple of years.
 Obviously, I see heavy blog writing and different things on the site that I could see, but
 would love to understand how you guys have engaged the community more directly in building
 this brand.
 You know what we recognize?
 We recognize this insight that when it comes to communities, communities have a really
 interesting way of working, right?
 And every community has a different kind of ecosystem for how they get information.
 And this is like whatever community you're talking about, whether you're talking about
 like athletes or you're talking about the black community or you're talking about whatever.
 And what we recognize specifically in the black community is what we have is like what
 we call a points of trust.
 And these are like historical reasons why this has kind of evolved to be this way, but
 you have like the barbershop and the salon.
 You have the church or the mosque.
 You also have like HBCUs or black student unions and you have these community organizations
 like Kappa Alpha Sire, Alpha Kappa Alpha or Jack and Jill, these organizations.
 And the reality is in the black community, there's so much overlap with all these different
 organizations that reality is that you can connect with about 90% of the black community
 by authentically inserting yourselves and integrating yourselves within this community
 ecosystem.
 This is how products and services are found because if you think about it, there's
 not a lot of media that is absolutely talking specifically to the black community.
 In fact, I think it's less than 1% of all media dollars are actually spent in media that's
 specifically targeting the black community.
 And so as a result, over time, the communities had to find other ways to figure out information
 and products or services.
 So forget about Instagram and everything else for a minute, but just simply having conversations
 with the leaders of these organizations by having conversations with churches, by having
 conversations with barbershops and salons that number one, they're passionate about
 this mission of being able to put money back into their pocket that's being spent.
 But I think what's bigger than that is we're passionate about actually putting of actually
 seeing a providing a financial incentive for them to do what they're already doing.
 So we've actually created a program which we call the assembly which provides a financial
 incentive for barbers, stylists, for colleges, for HBCUs, for churches to be able to push
 forward our products and to be able to recommend people come to our site and use our user services,
 et cetera.
 So we found that that has been crazy compelling way, especially given the climate of today
 that consumers are really trying to figure out like how do we support our communities?
 And again, I should actually say this, this is not just a black community that I speak
 about, although I've talked about that, but there's a lot of people who also want to support
 the black community, want to buy black.
 And they realize that just because it's black owned doesn't mean that's black only, right?
 And so what we've done is connected with this community and find it and provide an incentive
 for them to operate the way that they're already operating.
 And that has worked really, really well for us so far.
 Yeah, a couple of things there.
 I really love that they're in not black only because I think there's been, you know, no
 matter how much media in general, like divide just sometimes, you know, the news more than
 anything, I think people want to be closer and more inclusive.
 And I think there's been a struggle, I think, for people to know how to support, you know,
 different communities.
 There hasn't been a clear and transparent way to know how to do that.
 Like, hey, I don't want to be part of the problem.
 I want to be part of the solution, but I have no fucking idea how to be part of the solution.
 You know, like, that's it.
 I mean, that's exactly what we recognize is like most people out there are really good
 harder people that would really want to support others in the community.
 They don't walk around saying, I don't want to support this community, et cetera.
 But they may not, to your point, know exactly how, right?
 It's like, all right.
 So is this brand a black owned brand?
 And if I spend money, how's it going?
 So that's what we said is that we are not an exclusive platform where we only have
 products or we only talk to the black community.
 What we're saying actually is that the alternative is that we're an exclusive, an inclusive platform
 that we actually have brands and products that anybody, we got head and shoulders, we
 got everything on there, like general products that are on there.
 But what we're doing is prioritizing these, this consumer that's been deep, prioritized
 elsewhere.
 And then by driving that transparency allows other people who are like, I like this
 product.
 And now there's black owned.
 Sure.
 Absolutely.
 I want to buy this product.
 You know, they should be able to have that transparency to know how to do it.
 So it's not about black owned or black specifically.
 It's about us kind of rising all tides together, realizing there's one that's been left behind,
 but all of us can actually come together and grow together.
 So that's really been the focus for us.
 Yeah.
 And one more thing.
 The thing that, you know, having worked with large brands as well, like in my career,
 it was always a little bit of pandering that went on.
 Like it was always like the attempt, you know, and some brands were trying.
 And again, it was back to like, they didn't know how to, maybe they didn't engage the
 right way, but it was always like insert black guy here, insert Asian there.
 Like, you know, and that, it was so token, you know, like, and some brands, it was like,
 they were being token, they knew they were being token, they were just trying to check
 the box.
 And some brands that I work with were literally didn't even know the best way to engage with
 the African American community.
 And so, you know, I saw both sides of it and, you know, it's a, it's not, yeah, the challenge
 with that is, and this is part of the challenge that I had when I was in the corporate world,
 is that they're so often that I was one of the only black people that were at the table.
 And it wasn't that nobody, it wasn't like, you know, any racist reasons why they weren't
 hiring that, you know, might have been the case or whatever.
 But as a result, if you can imagine, you know, take race out of it and we just talk about
 gender for a second.
 If it was just a room and it was a meeting and all guys were in there talking about things
 that were related to women, of course, there were certain things that you're just not
 going to know.
 There's certain things you're going to assume wrong and that you're not going to understand.
 Having some people in the room can help give you a better understanding and more holistic
 perspective.
 And I think a lot of these companies miss that by not having that talent that's there
 at the table, whether it's in their agencies or whether it's even going out and doing
 the research to understand a little bit more clearly.
 So as a result, they make assumptions and it's good intentions, but a lot of times those
 assumptions are wrong and they don't land as authentically as they could.
 Yeah.
 And I can tell you as owning an agency, it's difficult in Greenville, South Carolina to
 define African-American candidates.
 Like, you know, like I literally reached out to go friends like a year ago when some of
 this was happening.
 It was forefront and I continue to try and it's like, we don't, I think we've had one
 cap, you know, applicant ever, you know, like, and they're like, we have these listings
 and it's like, it's not from a lack of trying, but it's kind of like, it is, but it's like,
 it's kind of like these things, you know, increase each other.
 They compound each other because it's like historically, there hasn't been a huge African-American
 presence in the advertising world.
 And thus it compounds.
 So it's like, they aren't around people, so they don't grow up learning it.
 So they aren't, and so it's like, you know, like, I don't know how you, we start that
 engine, but it needs to happen.
 Yeah.
 But, uh, some right, let's get in here and talk a little bit about, you know, the impact
 of, you know, community driven brands, like what Salim's doing and, you know, how the
 brain responds to this in making decisions at the shopping cart and otherwise.
 So I like to start with a question.
 When you see an ad, you see an image of a brand in the store, anything that has a visual
 attached to it, if you were to just see that with the image of the brand itself, versus
 the image with the person, which one is more appealing to you?
 A question for you guys.
 Always person, why a person relatable, I guess, or, you know, relatable is actually a part
 of your subconscious that gets triggered when it sees something that's relevant.
 And people are relevant.
 We as a species like to see other people, we want to see other people because it gives
 us a sense that this may be something that's useful to me, if these other people like
 it, and it gets conditioned as well.
 So which is why I think marketing is such a huge impact in society.
 What you show to people over time as what is relevant actually changes your own perception
 of what's relevant.
 And what we have seen is over the years, there just hasn't been to Salim's point in
 enough representation from other communities.
 But now that it is happening, it's starting to change.
 In the beginning, how this all started off with was, to your point, token representation,
 let's just have one person from that community there.
 And you know what, people call bullshit very quickly, it disengages and to some people
 in me be like, all right, find there's inclusivity involved here, but for most people, it just
 doesn't work.
 But ads that actually go beyond race and show people for who they truly are.
 And that this is just our natural human values that are on display.
 Create the most amount of engagement and it doesn't matter what race you're from that's
 on the screen.
 In fact, we saw ads that we had tested, which were predominantly black actors, stories
 about family, stories about, you know, refreshments, multiple different kinds of stories that
 did equally well with audiences that were not African-American.
 And that has big implication.
 What that means is, stop stereotyping race, stop stereotyping gender, and just tell stories
 that are human.
 Because that's all we want is to be engaged with other people and see their life and
 feel like, you know, that could be my life too.
 When we start to go to extremes and we say, okay, this group can only look like this.
 They can only do things like this.
 They can only have professions like this.
 That's when everything goes down for society and then for creativity.
 And I think what I would assume is the proliferation of video content is allowing us to potentially
 open these doors more because, you know, the struggle 10 years ago when I'm doing newspaper
 ads or, or, or, or a magazine.
 It was kind of, I mean, you can have it in the words, but it was just kind of like it was
 the image, you know, it was, you know, here's the Asian guy, here's the black guy, here's
 the white girl, you know, and it was so static.
 But now with video being able to tell stories, it both is opportunity, but it also calls
 bullshit real quickly on those that are pandering versus those that are telling real stories
 or that have obviously dug into the cultural insight and, and, and letting the story kind
 of tell that, I would think.
 And I think if there's also been a moment of awakening within people that tried to be responsible
 citizens in corporate America, but just didn't have access to it through social media and by
 being able to see so many different people's stories, they have sort of come to the conclusion
 or come to the realization of one, what does that culture really mean?
 And beyond the stereotypes that have been created, because you look at any segmentation that
 comes to you and selling, you probably saw this a lot in your world.
 Yeah, it was always the same image.
 And it was always an index to population that said 13% of population 140 index for our product.
 This is why we target them.
 Yeah.
 You then go to, okay, what are their general preferences?
 They like music hip hop.
 And this sort of nonsense that was built, and you can still, like I see those old slides
 and I cringe, those are going away now.
 And it's starting to become more holistic, which is great.
 But which has now impacted, you know, all facets of life, including e-commerce, which is,
 which is, um, which started off as this world where you sort of went and bought products
 that you knew exactly what you wanted.
 So you're going to a store, you're a browse, you'll be like, all right, I like this product.
 Now, let me see if I can get a cheap running gone.
 100% right.
 And because that's what Amazon was, it started out is purely, you know, the store was the,
 where you, you know, discovered and then Amazon was just the, the storefront where you bought,
 you know, and it was purely based on the buying experience and not necessarily the shopping
 experience.
 And when you do that, what are you looking at?
 Does my page refresh as fast as it needs to?
 Instant refreshes.
 If I wanted to search, can the tech, can it handle, you know, a thousand search,
 items on one page, can it do multiple sorting?
 Is my buy option always on screen?
 And these are great things to have.
 But they're meant for only one specific action to take place.
 Now rewind back to the beginning of civilization when the first shopping mall was created,
 back in Greece.
 And people used to take stone tablets and write down what they needed to buy.
 From that moment to the hawkers who would go down the streets and learn the skills of sales
manship, to when department stores started and immersive buying started becoming a bigger part
 of the experience.
 To when grocery stores came in and every aspect of the shopping experience was studied,
 what does it feel like when you walk through those doors?
 Do my carts make noises that aerated people?
 How smooth should the wheels be when I'm pushing them across?
 How do I delve the noise inside the store so people can still think?
 How do I avoid the sound of the tillers from going across two aisles?
 How do I make it so it's not so cold?
 But it should be cold enough to keep people interested in the shopping experience
 versus being too warm and getting people out of there.
 What should the sounds in the store be like?
 That has been studied over decades.
 And now you have e-commerce that has come and sold for only one part of it.
 Right.
 So today, my challenge to you, both of you, do your grocery shopping online,
 pick up any retailer and try to do it for about 30, 40 items.
 And tell me how many angles you needed after that.
 Well, I'm going to tell a little singer we talked about this free episode.
 I don't even have to do it.
 My wife did it on Sunday.
 It's been two hours on Walmart.com or whatever the app was.
 And between that and a bungled delivery, it's time we'll never get back.
 And this is the thing.
 Every part of that journey has been optimized for the buy.
 And when you have ventures that like what Salim's got with for that.
 And when you're a small business or a medium-sized business,
 trying to create the e-commerce landscape for yourself.
 And you need an e-commerce landscape.
 You have to think beyond the bank and really think about the full shopper journey.
 And it has to start with how can I get a person to enjoy this experience,
 rather than feel like they are here to only buy shampoo.
 And that's where you start to make it a story.
 Yeah, everything now is so search driven.
 You know, like everything's driven by the search bar.
 And not the natural discovery.
 And I think whether it's Shopify or whether it's a reach or whoever figures that out,
 the discovery, the in-cap of online.
 I mean, think about when you go to grocery stores, the in-cap and perfectly curated
 for what you might need at that time.
 I've got the popcorn, the peanuts, and the, I don't know,
 M&Ms, you know, all perfect on the in-cap.
 You know, like, and Amazon's doing that a little bit.
 You know, with, hey, you want this, you're going to have these things.
 But unless you searched your way into that one thing,
 the discovery process is not where it needs to be.
 And even take it once that further, why do you assume that I am coming here for a mission-based shop?
 Like, why is the search bar the first thing I see?
 What if you've changed it completely?
 What if you started off with, I'm just looking.
 And yeah, and you go from there?
 Yeah, you know, it's interesting about that thought is, you know,
 we actually have been thinking about that a lot with fourth ab.
 And the fact that we have over 7,000 items.
 And the shopper that's coming is more often than not.
 Somebody who's trying to figure out what's the right product that I use for my hair or skin anyway.
 So before I, I'm not coming in and saying I want this particular product.
 Sure, maybe about 40% do, but still about 60% are trying to discover.
 And so we're trying to do a better job of how do you lead that discovery?
 How do you make that experience something that's exciting?
 Something they want to come back to, something that's enjoyable.
 Because that's what you get when you go into the store.
 Actually, that's the alternative.
 A lot of these consumers say they don't get in the store.
 Is a good quality shopping experience.
 So they go online, but they're just shopping online, but they don't know what's out there.
 So how do we help them to discover it in that way?
 So that's a really good point.
 One of the companies that I think, you know, I'm going to, I'm blanking on the brand.
 But the category you guys will know, I think they're getting at this a bit.
 Not that this is super exciting, but when you hit their site,
 you immediately get a four question quiz and it's engaging and it's fun and based
 in some mattress company.
 Now it's simple because it's mattresses, but they do sell like 40 different types of mattresses.
 And you ask, you answer like these four questions and then you get the discovery
 of the five or six things that match what that is.
 And I'm not saying that's exciting, but at least it's directive into, you know,
 self-selection after I've answered some questions and things like that.
 So I think that helps.
 We actually did that same thing in the form of a hair quiz.
 So if you come on the site, you go through your answer four or five questions kind of
 interactive. And at the end, it tells you specifically, here are the types of products that
 will work best from you out of all that we have on the site.
 We've mapped it based on science and ingredients that work with certain hair types.
 So to that same point, it's like, how do we start going down that path?
 It makes it enjoyable.
 So that's the first step for us.
 And here's the, what you just said, there's two points here.
 One is take the pressure off the shopper, off having to do the journey themselves.
 So what you both suggest with the quizzes or with, you know, just trying to limit the
 selection so people can process, that's one really strong way of doing it.
 The other way is if you go into the store, just do it yourself.
 I want to find something that I've never shopped in the category for.
 How do I do it?
 And when you start looking at that journey, and you say, all right, my first Q was,
 I was looking for the category as a whole.
 I was looking for Herker.
 The second thing was, hey, I really like products that have a certain look.
 They should look different.
 That's what I started getting attracted to.
 Once I get to that, then I start to look at colors and I started to identify brands.
 Once I get there, then I start to make a decision on ingredients.
 Then I start to make a decision on packaging.
 But what do we do?
 You type in any product.
 You say, okay, X brand shampoo.
 I'll get 17 different options for the 12th pack, the three pack, the two pack.
 Right, right, right.
 The last thing I do.
 Yeah, interesting.
 Yeah, so true.
 So these are things that you can change.
 Here's another one.
 If you're buying shirts, and right now, a barrel is coming back in a big way.
 If I've already bought one shirt, why are you suggesting seven more shirts to me?
 What's the first thing I do once you buy a shirt is, all right,
 what sort of trousers does this match with?
 Right.
 You are the right socks.
 Do I have the right accessories?
 Why aren't you saying him?
 Why don't you pair with this shirt?
 This is the way that you want to pair this.
 And now you're just sold, and a full outfit.
 And you have made the experience complete.
 These are small fits in what we are getting to is reducing cognitive load.
 So when you're on a website and you're trying to make decisions all the time,
 your brain is basically doing that same exam that Salim and I were doing when we had no idea
 hopefully not on 12 Red Bulls, but if they are, you know, you might sell a lot of stuff.
 And after, you know, a few minutes, you're like, I'm done, man.
 I just got to do it anymore.
 Yeah.
 And that is what E-Com needs to solve for.
 That's what all the, and if the small and medium businesses do this,
 you're going to give the large ones a run for their money.
 How, um, Salim, how have you guys, um, focused as far as your brand goes?
 Like, you know, I know you come with a deep branding background and things like that.
 You know, how have you, uh, guys try, you know, obviously very community driven,
 which we've talked about, but are there any like specific kind of,
 you know, brand narratives or things like that?
 I mean, is it all, I know, and I maybe we start with that background of,
 you know, where forth avenue come through, you know, from and Birmingham and all those kind of
 things. I love to just give a little perspective on that.
 Yeah, you know, then the, the idea of, you know, when we were talking about how do we see this
 dollar go back around the community? We thought about it and we said, you know, this isn't a new idea,
 it's a new concept, right? And, and what we, as we did research, and I say, we being me and my co-founder,
 we did a little research and we was kind of looking through like, we're throughout time. Do you see
 examples of the dollar going around a community and helping to, you know, improve an overall community?
 And we talked specifically about the black community. We thought about black Wall Street and Tulsa,
 Oklahoma, that some of people have heard of, but, you know, those who have heard of it know that
 that was like economic powerhouses like, you know, in that area, that community, the black people
 owned the churches to the schools to the barber shops to the malls, etc. But that wasn't the only
 place in the US where there was such a strong powerhouse of, you know, economic foundation that was
 black run or black owned. There was Birmingham, Alabama's fourth avenue district was a little
 Haiti in Durham, North Carolina. And so as we thought about Birmingham, we actually thought about
 that as, wow, fourth avenue district there, it was one transparency, knew who you were buying
 from, where that dollar was going. You knew that it was going towards that helping and improving
 the overall community. The second part that I thought was interesting about that is that that
 was actually the center or was really like ground zero of the civil rights movement. If you've
 seen the iconic footage where the kids are getting laid out with the fire hoses or tack with the
 dogs, that was in the center of fourth avenue district, or where those little girls were killed,
 they were bombed in the church, that church bombing 16th Street Baptist Church. That was also
 in the center of fourth avenue district. So there was so much heritage and history to the story
 and there's so many lines to that story from the transparency to the community aspects and elements
 of it to just the power of the black community of being able to see that dollar go around and
 be able to support and develop their own that we brought that in and said, you know what, we can
 take those same values and principles and make that apply to the 21st century today as a
 fourth avenue district. So that's really where the name came from because what I understood is
 that people will remember stories a lot more than they remember facts. And what this story is
 really about as much as it again is centered on, you know, this story around the black community,
 it's really much bigger story that is really about transparency and it's about us as Americans,
 as American community, helping each other and seeing the dollar go around and supporting each
 other's communities and being more conscious when you're consuming things about how that dollar
 you spend has a broader impact throughout other communities. So that's really the mission and as we
 work with people, you know, we, I'm a big proponent of just the idea that the idea that you don't
 have to, you know, purpose and profits can actually coexist. They don't have, they're not mutually
 exclusive ideas. So we brought this together and that's the brand that we're building one that's
 really about, we're going to make a lot of money. But at the same time, we also have a very valid
 purpose about building up communities in general. That's really a vision. I love it. And I mean,
 you guys are curating products side. I'd be interesting and I'll lay this out for both you and
 some rot. You know, the challenge in curated sites, you know, whether it's fourth avenue market
 or Amazon at the highest level or even in between is how specific brands that you carry stand out
 within those curated experiences. I would open that up for both of you for like, you know,
 what that balance is and how, how, you know, you guys go about it. Yeah, I mean, I could say a lot
 of what Sam Rott's been talking about or stuff that I think is, it's amazing stuff because we
 were actually having these conversations, you know, a couple of months ago, we were just talking
 about it. And I really think what his thoughts are are like absolutely cutting edge and will push
 brands and businesses forward. It's thinking about that experience and a discovery process and
 putting consumer at the center to discover what's best for them. My platform, what I'm doing today
 is kind of on one way, trying to do a better job, make sure consumers can navigate the site and
 find what they want and what meets their needs. But in other senses, being able to help people
 discover new brands and other brands and having spotlights on certain brands and giving opportunities
 for brands to even pay to get a higher placement on the site to, you know, like more, you know,
 like you do on Amazon. So there's that part is like the traditional retail play of working with
 brands and allowing them to find no pay to get extra space. But then I think the longer and more
 sustainable play is what Sam Rott's talking about of like creating this experience that's really
 compelling that enables discovery, you know, and then having the right brands will be there. And
 that keeps them accountable for saying, well, if you're not being discovered, maybe you need to
 change some things about your brand versus maybe you need to change where your brand is.
 And what Salim Singh is actually spot on because what happens right now is the beta play model.
 I'll pay you, give me the, you know, give me top shelf and that's how I'll get the most sales.
 But with search and with the eye getting stronger and stronger, brands need to pay an equal amount
 of our attention to their PDPs or their product display pages. The problem is that most of them
 just basically write whatever they feel like on terms of basic description, basic facts,
 and that's it. It's not enough. If you want to make this journey immersive, every part of the
 economic experience has to be right, not just the first page of what Salim's making. So it's
 important for brands themselves to start thinking about this. The other issue is people don't understand
 the difference between marketing and sales. Marketing is what you do on TV. It's what you do on
 radio. It's what you do on when you're trying to get people to get aware. At the point of purchase,
 the state of mind of a shopper is very different. That's the impression I was like, I'm here to make
 decisions. Don't waste my time with, you know, fuzzy, dirty stuff. And that part of the message
 also has to be optimized. So think about the things that are important to the people, like the
 quiz that you've created Salim. You know, what kind of hair do you have? And what are you trying to
 look for? And then giving them, then making sure that the PDPs were built to be able to solve for
 that. Right. So, you know, everything happening at the back end from an engine perspective.
 So these are small tactics that can be big dividends with the kind of imagery that you use on
 your website from a product perspective. Like you have to think about if I were to be picking up a
 product in store and looking at it, those are pretty much the same exact angles I would need
 when I'm on a website. It's not just front back, but you know, think about all the things that
 happen in that one moment when you hold a product. You're understanding not just the basic
 dimensions, but wait. Right. How big is it? Where will it? How will it fit? Does this actually fit in
 my, if it's shampoo? Will it fit in my bathroom? Is it going to be too big? All these things are
 questions that are getting answered very implicitly in the shopping journey. Now you have to think about
 how you're going to do that online. Right. It's so fascinating because, you know, the sales versus
 marketing aspect is so spot on. And what's happened is it was easy to separate sales and marketing
 when marketing teed it up. And then the store was the sale, you know, because we had that clear
 divide. And now with everything, you certainly have ads and things that run that are the marketing.
 But marketing is now expected with Ecom to be judge jury executioner. You know, like the use
 the analogy, like you've got to tee them up. You've got to serve them well on the site. And then
 you've got to close them. And I think there are almost needs to be you either had to be really
 well damn rounded as a marketer. You know, and they believe we've had this performance marketing
 on, you know, like this is essentially saying, oh, it sales and marketing almost think you need
 like this delineation of marketing still and sales optimization within the e-commerce. And
 certainly the bigger brands are doing that with the dollars they have. But there's there's a big
 difference between attention and driving people to the store. And then optimization to get them to
 buy and everything that we've been talking about. I mean, that was the biggest thing that we saw
 when we first launched. And I kind of was like, well, we're going to test for this and see. But we
 put that put a, you know, an ad out there. We got traffic. We got a lot of traffic. But nobody
 was buying. So we were like, all right, that was great to get people there. But then we had to go
 back and look through the journey. Like what's stopping them from buying this page is loading too
 slow or they can't find this. There's no search here. They can't. And that was to your point about
 closing the sale of optimizing for navigation. The marketing side got them there. They're like,
 oh, fourth ad is amazing. I love your mission. And they get to the site and it'll buy. So that's
 where we had to optimize that second part, which is so critical and lowering your cost of acquisition,
 making it so I can keep marketing and anyway, you know, so yeah, it's a great point.
 It is a science. So everything from do you create engagement as soon as people get on the website
 or do you create more? Does this feel like a place I want to be in or does this feel like an
 exam that I'm going to have to take? Right. Right. Right. And then from there, how do you keep those
 moments of connection going? It's and it's not to your point. It's not sales or marketing. There's
 this world of shopper marketing that you have to really study. And I think or econ that is the
 signs that needs to be studied. Yeah, no. Which is how do I talk to shoppers in the moment?
 Do be able to explain all their questions out to them and get ahead of those and be able to
 deliver on to what the product expectations are. Marketing is meant to give you an idea of a brand
 that this will be solved your problem. Sale is the experience of how you close. But that
 middle ground of shopper marketing, I think that's where Ryan and Zellie knew you guys have got it
 down is you need to focus in on those messages and really test and learn on what's working best.
 I love it. Well, you know, I know we could talk all day about these topics and I'm going to
 reserve the right if you guys are open to it for further discussion. But because it's, you know,
 it's right in the wheelhouse for me and I love just learning about the entrepreneurial journey
 and Saleem really appreciate you coming on. Saleem, why don't you tell our audience where they can
 keep up with you and all things fourth avenue market? Yeah, so you can find us on fourth
 avenue market. You can add fourth avenue market. You can find us on Instagram and find us on
 Facebook there. Find me on LinkedIn. We actually just kicked off a crowdfunding campaign through
 WeFundr to give the community an opportunity to have ownership. So you can check us out on WeFundr
 fourth avenue market. Yeah, appreciate the opportunity to be honest with the podcast you got
 here, man. Yeah, I appreciate that. I appreciate it. And some rot. We're going to, we're going to
 let you plug. We're air. Hey, man, you keep coming on. I'm going to let you plug anything you want.
 So what, uh, we're going to keep up with all things neuro insight and everything. Some
 neurodationsaid.com come onto our website or if you want to follow me on LinkedIn,
 it's a rat's urn, s-a-m-r-e-t-s-e-r-n. What I won't leave you guys with is remember this, um,
 creativity is what will get you success. But creativity is not about breaking boundaries for
 boundaries sake. Creativity is the art of human understanding married with the science of
 execution. You need to know. I love it. I love it. If I had an a man, how do you push the button?
 So anyway, really appreciate salim holder on today. You know where to find him. He just told you
 some rot will be a regular as long as he keeps coming on here from neuro insight. And you know
 where to find us at the dot rad dot cast on Instagram. I'm at Ryan offered on Instagram and
 everywhere across the web. And please find us the new and improved the radcast.com where you
 can search for any of the topics we cover and find all of the content, all the highlights, all
 of the bad assery that is salim and some rot today. You'll know where to find us and we'll see you
 next time on the radcast. Yo guys, what's up, Ryan offered here. Thanks so much for listening,
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