Brave Commerce

Hosted ByRachel Tipograph & Sarah Hofstetter

MikMak Founder & CEO Rachel Tipograph and Profitero’s President Sarah Hofstetter tackle what’s relevant in eCommerce today for the world’s biggest brands. Each episode they’ll share tips worth millions in sales, while interviewing the bravest marketers on how to navigate eCommerce’s latest consumer and retailer dynamics.

BRAVE COMMERCE | Episode Special Episode: Inside an Acquisition—The MikMak x SPINS Story + Lessons from BRAVE COMMERCE Leaders

Brave Commerce
Brave Commerce
BRAVE COMMERCE | Episode Special Episode: Inside an Acquisition—The MikMak x SPINS Story + Lessons from BRAVE COMMERCE Leaders
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In this special episode of BRAVE COMMERCE, hosts Rachel Tipograph and Sarah Hofstetter unpack M&A from the inside, drawing upon their experience navigating acquisitions firsthand.

Rachel announces MikMak’s acquisition by SPINS, sharing how it came together, why it was the right partner at the right moment, and her priorities for the first 90 – 180 days, from change management and customer communication to accelerating product innovation. She also reflects on the human side of the acquisition and what it means to support teams through uncertainty and transition.

They also share standout clips from the BRAVE COMMERCE community—featuring Stuart Heflin (Quest Nutrition), Dan O’Leary (Hostess), and Esi Seng (Tate’s Bake Shop)—highlighting what makes acquisitions successful from a brand operator’s perspective—protecting what works, honoring culture, and maintaining a challenger mindset during change.

Key Takeaways

  • Why integration and change management, not the deal itself, define acquisition success
  • How to evaluate the right partner for customers, employees, and investors
  • What founders and leaders can do now if M&A is a long-term goal
  • How to preserve culture and momentum while continuing to deliver for customers

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Speaker 1: I believe that in moments of great change, often you

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Speaker 1: can be stronger together than being an independent player. And

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Speaker 1: I think you’re seeing that across the ecosystem. I went

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Speaker 1: in there thinking that we were going to talk about

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Speaker 1: a data partnership. Very quickly, I realized, oh, this is

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Speaker 1: going to be a very different day than I thought

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Speaker 1: it was going to be.

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Speaker 2: Well, ultimately, you did end up with a partnership, right?

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Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely. Just different than what I imagined it was

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Speaker 1: going to look like.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to today’s episode of Free of Commerce. I’m Sarah Hofstadter.

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Speaker 1: And I’m Rachel Tippegraff. And this is a show that

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Speaker 1: talks about what’s relevant in commerce for the world’s biggest brands.

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Speaker 2: And you know, normally we bring on brands and so

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Speaker 2: many of them have been through mergers and acquisitions and

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Speaker 2: divestitures and all that other stuff. But gosh, Charity begins

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Speaker 2: at home. And today we are really excited to unpack

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Speaker 2: what the M & A world looks like on our

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Speaker 2: side of the table. In fact, if you’ve been living

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Speaker 2: under a rock, Micmac has recently been acquired by Spence.

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Speaker 2: And so this represents a big day or big month

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Speaker 2: or whatever big year for my co-host sister from another

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Speaker 2: mess serve, Rachel Typograph. And today we’re going to unpack

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Speaker 2: a little bit about what goes into these kinds of things.

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Speaker 2: Many of you have been involved, maybe from the sidelines,

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Speaker 2: and many of you maybe have been involved very directly,

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Speaker 2: but selling a company, integrating, that stuff is complicated and

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Speaker 2: not usually part of your day-to-day job as a CEO.

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Speaker 2: So Rachel, why don’t we start, just take us through

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Speaker 2: the process. You built this company, you were employee number one,

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Speaker 2: at what point did you say, hmm, now is the

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Speaker 2: time for a liquidity event? And let me think about

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Speaker 2: where I would want that to happen.

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Speaker 1: First of all, thank you, Sarah. Just following your footsteps

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Speaker 1: in the journey of being acquired. Yeah, we’re super excited

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Speaker 1: to be a part of SPINS. I imagine many of

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Speaker 1: our listeners are aware of SPINS, but if you’re not,

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Speaker 1: they essentially have proprietary access to the majority of grocery

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Speaker 1: retail data in the US. And as a result, if

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Speaker 1: your brand and you’re listed in places like Whole Foods

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Speaker 1: or Sprouts or even big box like Walmart or Kroger,

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Speaker 1: you have to leverage their software and data for you

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Speaker 1: to understand your market share within those environments. So we’re

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Speaker 1: really excited to be a part of Spins. And the

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Speaker 1: really cool thing is that Micmac has been very focused

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Speaker 1: on the enterprise market, meaning we work with really big brands.

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Speaker 1: And Spins bread and butter is actually the opposite end

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Speaker 1: of the market, which is SMB and mid-market. And many

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Speaker 1: of those brands end up getting acquired by our customers.

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Speaker 1: So we now are in a position to see everything

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Speaker 1: that’s truly happening in the global consumer economy from big

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Speaker 1: to small. But to get to your question, Sarah, of

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Speaker 1: the journey, honestly, I’m still processing it. We closed on

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Speaker 1: January 5th of 2026. So really just three weeks ago

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Speaker 1: from when we’re recording this right now. And I’ve been

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Speaker 1: building Micmac for 11 and a half years of my life.

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Speaker 1: So in many ways, the majority of my adult career.

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Speaker 1: And it was a whirlwind. I met Jay Margulies, who’s

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Speaker 1: the CEO of Spins, for breakfast on October 6th. It’s

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Speaker 1: honestly been a whirlwind. And when you are a founder

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Speaker 1: or even an operator and you think about the next

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Speaker 1: stage of your company, you have to think about a

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Speaker 1: lot of things. You have to think about, one, how

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Speaker 1: long have investors been on your cap table? That’s one

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Speaker 1: thing to consider. The second is market dynamics. So whether

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Speaker 1: that’s what’s happening in the global economy, so the cost

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Speaker 1: of capital, what’s happening in technology, are there major shifts

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Speaker 1: happening that could cause you to rethink the strategy of

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Speaker 1: your business, what’s happening in your customer environment, and then

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Speaker 1: of course, what is important for your employees. And so

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Speaker 1: for me, 11 and a half years in, It still

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Speaker 1: feels like day zero. I think everyone who’s been following

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Speaker 1: Micmac is constantly reinventing itself to make sure that it’s

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Speaker 1: ahead of the market. And that’s not going to change

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Speaker 1: because we sit at the intersection of media and commerce

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Speaker 1: and you have to move at that speed. But I’ve

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Speaker 1: had investors who were with us for 11 and a

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Speaker 1: half years, and we are sitting at a major period

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Speaker 1: of consumer behavior and technology shift. And none of us

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Speaker 1: have a crystal ball I believe that in moments of

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Speaker 1: great change, often you can be stronger together than being

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Speaker 1: an independent player. And I think you’re seeing that across

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Speaker 1: the ecosystem. Obviously, Publicis acquired Profiterra a few years ago,

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Speaker 1: and that was at a moment of when commerce media

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Speaker 1: was changing. And so honestly, all the stars aligned when

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Speaker 1: I met Jay for breakfast. I went in there thinking

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Speaker 1: that we were going to talk about a data partnership.

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Speaker 1: And he looked me in the eyes during breakfast and

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Speaker 1: told me that he wanted to acquire Micmac. And very

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Speaker 1: quickly I realized, oh, this is going to be a

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Speaker 1: very different day than I thought it was going to be.

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Speaker 2: Well, ultimately you did end up with a partnership, right?

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Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely. Just different than what I imagined it was

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Speaker 1: going to look like.

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Speaker 2: When he brought this concept to you, I mean, obviously

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Speaker 2: it wasn’t the first time you thought about what’s the

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Speaker 2: long-term goal for where Micmac would go. When you thought

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Speaker 2: about what would make for an ideal partnership, partner? What

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Speaker 2: were the qualities, hard, soft, that were really important to

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Speaker 2: you to make sure that Micmac would be able to

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Speaker 2: continue to serve the market and its employees? Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So our number one company value is to be brand obsessed.

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Speaker 1: So the first thing for me is, is the partnership

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Speaker 1: going to better our output in terms of product and

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Speaker 1: serve our customers? So really answering the question, is this

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Speaker 1: good for the customer? With Spins, it absolutely is because

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Speaker 1: one of the most valuable things that we do is

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Speaker 1: aggregate retail data and then obviously marry that to media data.

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Speaker 1: And Spins has a competitive moat around their retail data.

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Speaker 1: So that was clear as day that this was going

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Speaker 1: to be good for the customer. And then the second

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Speaker 1: is good for my investors. So I did raise money.

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Speaker 1: You have to think about what’s the financial outcome going

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Speaker 1: to be for your investors and And then the third

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Speaker 1: is my employees. Are they going to be able to

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Speaker 1: continue to grow their careers at Micmac or at a

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Speaker 1: greater company? Or does the parent company have a different

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Speaker 1: vision for what they want to do? And the beautiful

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Speaker 1: thing about Spins is that Spins business is currently concentrated

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Speaker 1: in the U.S. and very much on SMB and mid-market.

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Speaker 1: So Micmac is complementary and we’re global and Spins wants

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Speaker 1: that focus to maintain. And so… It really checked all

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Speaker 1: three boxes in terms of being good for the customers,

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Speaker 1: good for my investors and good for my employees.

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Speaker 2: So now that you’re on the acquired side, over the

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Speaker 2: past few years, you’ve made some acquisitions yourself. Yeah. Is

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Speaker 2: there anything you think you would have done differently with

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Speaker 2: your acquisitions? The process of it, not the actual acquisitions,

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Speaker 2: but like, what do you think you could have done

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Speaker 2: differently or better? What do you wish you knew then, you.

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Speaker 1: Know, now? It’s so funny, like M & A is

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Speaker 1: so freaking hard. You know, there’s so much glamour around it,

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Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, I think it’s

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Speaker 1: one of the hardest things that you can do as

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Speaker 1: a business operator. And really creating the deal isn’t the

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Speaker 1: hard part. It’s the integration after. We learned a lot

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Speaker 1: with our first acquisition. So our first acquisition was Suaven,

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Speaker 1: a company that was headquartered in Paris. And we applied

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Speaker 1: those learnings to then our channel advisor acquisition, where again,

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Speaker 1: we learned a shit ton. And I’m really grateful for

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Speaker 1: those experiences because it’s now setting us up for, I think,

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Speaker 1: greater success going into spins. But the biggest, biggest part

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Speaker 1: that I think we fumbled at with the first acquisition,

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Speaker 1: because we honestly just didn’t know better, was the change

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Speaker 1: management aspect. Even though Suaven was a competitor of ours,

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Speaker 1: meaning our products were doing very similar things, culturally, our

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Speaker 1: businesses were actually very different. There’s the geographical element, for sure.

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Speaker 1: There was also the size of the company. Like when

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Speaker 1: we picked them up, there were 22 people. For anyone

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Speaker 1: who’s ever worked at a 22-person company, you’re a family then, right?

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Speaker 1: Like you really have that nature. And they were only

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Speaker 1: selling into the European market. And so bringing them into

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Speaker 1: a U.S. company that had a lot of process and rigor,

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Speaker 1: that was a huge adjustment for those employees. And I

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Speaker 1: don’t think in the early days we did a great

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Speaker 1: job of level setting for them what that experience initial

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Speaker 1: experience was going to be like at Micmac. We tried

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Speaker 1: to do a much better job of that as channel advisor.

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Speaker 1: Now that acquisition also had its own uniqueness. We did

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Speaker 1: a carve out. So we didn’t acquire the entire channel

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Speaker 1: advisor business. It was just a particular product line that

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Speaker 1: we competed on called shoppable media. And I think one

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Speaker 1: of the things that we didn’t realize in the diligence

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Speaker 1: period was that those employees, once again, it always comes

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Speaker 1: down to people. They had gone through a lot of change.

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Speaker 1: They had entered Channel Advisor through their own acquisitions. Channel

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Speaker 1: Advisor then went from a public to a private company.

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Speaker 1: Then they got acquired by essentially a venture-backed company, Micmac.

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Speaker 1: And so they were going through their own personal experiences of,

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Speaker 1: do I want to stay on this journey or not?

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Speaker 1: And so the biggest thing that is so hard to

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Speaker 1: do in M & A diligence, because a lot of

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Speaker 1: it is always a secret, is the people diligence part.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: You’re talking about the people. I was thinking as you’re

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Speaker 2: talking about the next question, which for me turned out

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Speaker 2: about culture and culture is so much about people and

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Speaker 2: how people work with each other. And even if the

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Speaker 2: companies are serving a similar need and they are operating

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Speaker 2: with similar customers, even if they’re the same size, everybody’s

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Speaker 2: battle rhythm. is very different. And the Swaybin acquisition is interesting.

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Speaker 2: You look at the Swaybin acquisition, 22 people, family style,

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Speaker 2: if you will, and international roots, there’s always culture gaps

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Speaker 2: when it comes to that. It’s never about the language.

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Speaker 2: It’s always about the culture. People think it’s language and

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Speaker 2: it’s not, but there’s this emotional toll because it’s a

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Speaker 2: small company and it’s There are so many rituals that

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Speaker 2: exist within companies that you don’t even realize that they are.

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Speaker 2: It’s like when you walk into your parents’ house after

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Speaker 2: not being there for a long time and you smell,

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Speaker 2: you smell the house smell that nobody else knows.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Those are the kinds of things that, you know, those

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Speaker 2: would be intangibles in M & A. Yeah. That you

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Speaker 2: have to have a sensitivity to, like you have to

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Speaker 2: acknowledge it’s always going to be there. It’s always going

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Speaker 2: to be there. You know, I’ve been the acquired, I’ve

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Speaker 2: been an acquirer. My acquirer has been acquired. There’s a

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Speaker 2: whole bunch of, you know, nesting dolls and it brings

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Speaker 2: different personalities and it brings different emotion. I mean, I

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Speaker 2: know it’s very early days, you know, like you said,

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Speaker 2: it’s just a few weeks, but what are you thinking

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Speaker 2: about in terms of yourself? This was your baby and

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Speaker 2: now you have handed this baby for a check, but

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Speaker 2: you’ve handed this baby to somebody else. Like, how are

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Speaker 2: you emotionally feeling?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, what’s so unique is I’m still

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Speaker 1: the CEO of Micmac. I report into the CEO of

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Speaker 1: Spins and I’m now running a business unit within Spins.

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Speaker 1: So essentially Spins owned a competitive asset to us and

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Speaker 1: I’m now running both Micmac and this company that was

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Speaker 1: called Destiny, which will now be called Micmac. So it’s

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Speaker 1: almost like a babushka doll in the sense that Spins

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Speaker 1: is a big doll, then there’s Micmac, then there’s Destiny

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Speaker 1: and I’m controlling Micmac and Destiny. To be transparent, like

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Speaker 1: we’re going through that dance right now. What remains the

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Speaker 1: way of Micmac’s operating cadence and culture and what needs

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Speaker 1: to change to become a part of a larger parent company?

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Speaker 1: You know, I think the first 90 to 180 days

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Speaker 1: of an M & A integration is extremely telling. There’s

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Speaker 1: this infographic that some of you have probably seen, storming, forming, norming,

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Speaker 1: and you just kind of go through those motions and

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Speaker 1: there’s no way around it. And you’ll get to the

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Speaker 1: other side. You’ll come out stronger. The experience might be

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Speaker 1: what certain employees want and what others don’t. And, you know,

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Speaker 1: you work through all of that. The beautiful thing, and again,

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Speaker 1: this is why I’m grateful, is like we’ve done it

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Speaker 1: twice already at Micmac. So we know this is just

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Speaker 1: par for the course. It’s not fun, but it’s totally

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Speaker 1: worth it. And as long as you keep open communication

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Speaker 1: with the folks throughout the experience, that’s really all you

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Speaker 1: can ask for.

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Speaker 2: So heavy duty empathy, especially coming from having done it before,

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Speaker 2: which is just such a critical skill and one that

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Speaker 2: comes very naturally to you.

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Speaker 1: I try, but it’s an adjustment for all of us,

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Speaker 1: but it’s going to be worthwhile.

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Speaker 2: How are you? The communication to the clients probably also

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Speaker 2: is one of those things where I’m sure Spins is

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Speaker 2: super excited to tell their clients, you’re super excited to

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Speaker 2: tell your clients. there’s a lot that kind of goes

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Speaker 2: into that consideration side and it crystallizes a lot of things,

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Speaker 2: makes it really real, you know?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that was really special. So we did press a

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Speaker 1: few days after we closed. It was whatever, we closed

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Speaker 1: it on Monday and it was seven business days later

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Speaker 1: that we did press. Right before, the two days before press,

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Speaker 1: I personally contacted our most strategic customers, as well as

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Speaker 1: some people that took big bets on Micmac in the

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Speaker 1: early days as customers, whether they remain customers or not,

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Speaker 1: to express my personal gratitude and appreciation for what they

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Speaker 1: did for us. And so that was really, really special

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Speaker 1: to be able to connect with customers on an individual

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Speaker 1: level like that. And then press hit and communication went

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Speaker 1: out to both all of Micmac and Spin’s customers and

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Speaker 1: the best thing is everyone sees this opportunity. It’s clear

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Speaker 1: as day. Like this is just good for the market.

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Speaker 1: And so it’s just been a really positive experience hearing

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Speaker 1: from all of the customers.

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Speaker 2: Sounds great. Good market opportunity. We’re all excited. So happy

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Speaker 2: for you. And as I said to Jay, he really

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Speaker 2: hit jackpot with you. What’s next for Micmac? I mean,

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Speaker 2: you gotta, you gotta do the integration, all that other stuff,

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Speaker 2: but like business gotta get done. You still gotta, you know,

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Speaker 2: customers still need to be served.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Product needs evolution, like all this other stuff, how do

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Speaker 2: you make sure it’s not noise, but what happens to Micmac?

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Speaker 2: What should people be looking for?

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So, I mean, there’s three big priorities. So first

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Speaker 1: is we want to get this proprietary spins data into

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Speaker 1: Micmac because it’s a fricking home run that is already

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Speaker 1: in the works. The second is we are now going

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Speaker 1: to be available to the SMB and mid-market. So, I mean, brands,

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Speaker 1: and 25 million revenue, brands that are doing 25 million

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Speaker 1: to 200. And then of course, we’ve always had our

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Speaker 1: enterprise segment. So that’s the destiny business that we’ve taken

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Speaker 1: over and bringing them over to Micmac and offering them

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Speaker 1: way more capabilities than they’ve ever had. And then the

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Speaker 1: third is what you were getting at Sarah, continued product innovation.

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Speaker 1: So we are about to announce our new platform, Micmac 4.0,

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Speaker 1: which is a big step forward because we’re obviously living

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Speaker 1: in a moment of change and we’re not all just

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Speaker 1: caring about the digital shelf or the social shelf or

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Speaker 1: the physical shelf, but obviously we now have the agentic shelf.

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Speaker 1: And being able to understand that end-to-end customer journey is

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Speaker 1: becoming more complicated than ever before with traditional forms of

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Speaker 1: investment like media mix modeling. And there’s nothing out in

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Speaker 1: market that can help you understand how to invest your

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Speaker 1: dollars across all of those channels in real time, married

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Speaker 1: to actual in-market execution. So that is our brand new product,

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Speaker 1: Micmac Aura. that we’ll be launching next month that I

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Speaker 1: think is going to really disrupt a new segment of

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Speaker 1: the space. So that’s what we’re focused on. And we’re

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Speaker 1: excited to just be able to now bring this to

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Speaker 1: more brands.

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Speaker 2: There are people that listen to us that are founders, leaders.

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Speaker 2: There are also people that are considering moving to smaller

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Speaker 2: companies from bigger companies. But for the founders and leaders

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Speaker 2: and people who own their own business, what advice would

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Speaker 2: do you have on what it takes to both being

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Speaker 2: independent and the process of selling the company?

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Speaker 1: Well, first, if you’re still in your building journey, someone

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Speaker 1: said this to me when I was just starting the company,

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Speaker 1: you got to want to do it for at least

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Speaker 1: 10 years. It took me 11 and a half. Most

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Speaker 1: of this journey takes a lot of blood, sweat, and

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Speaker 1: tears and time. The second is you really got to

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Speaker 1: believe in what you’re doing. You got to be obsessed

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Speaker 1: with winning and not the actual idea because markets are

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Speaker 1: gonna change and you gotta be able to reinvent yourself.

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Speaker 1: And the third is make sure you surround yourself with investors,

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Speaker 1: board members, teams, partners that really believe in what you’re doing.

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Speaker 1: There’s no room for dissenting voices when you’re trying to

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Speaker 1: create a market opportunity. And then from M & A,

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Speaker 1: I mean, Sarah, you probably have way more wisdom than me,

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Speaker 1: but I think when it comes to M & A,

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Speaker 1: There’s strategic M & A and there’s financial sponsor M & A.

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Speaker 1: So let’s just say private equity coming to buy you.

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Speaker 1: But if you’re focused on strategic, keep in mind that

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Speaker 1: your competitors could become your next great buyer. And so

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Speaker 1: it’s actually important to build human relationships with your competitors.

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Speaker 1: And the second is building really strong relationships with the

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Speaker 1: sister ecosystem, the strategic partner ecosystem that you might be

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Speaker 1: playing in, because those are also potential likely buyers. And

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Speaker 1: so at the end of the day, this is just

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Speaker 1: all about human to human relationships.

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Speaker 2: That’s extremely well said. The support given post-acquisition from so

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Speaker 2: many of our ecosystem partners actually really helps. It helped

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Speaker 2: in a way that I didn’t expect it to. I mean,

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Speaker 2: not that we had any issues, like Mark was pretty

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Speaker 2: positive about our acquisition, but the reaction from that ecosystem

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Speaker 2: that we’re so proud to be a part of, certainly

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Speaker 2: helped post-acquisition. And then just pre-acquisition just helps you understand.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you and I have had so many conversations

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Speaker 2: over the past six years that we’ve known each other

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Speaker 2: on market dynamics, on who’s selling to whom and why,

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Speaker 2: and our own little private, not recorded assessments, evaluations, and

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Speaker 2: things like that. So it’s helpful to hear the advice. Well, Rachel,

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Speaker 2: thanks so much for sharing some of your thoughts. On this, obviously,

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Speaker 2: we’re going to be watching a lot about MCMAC 4.0.

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Speaker 2: There seems to be a lot going on. Next episode

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Speaker 2: after this, we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programs.

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Speaker 2: As a segue, we thought it would be a fun

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Speaker 2: little tip to give you some clips from prior episodes

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Speaker 2: of our clients who have been through acquisitions, which we

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Speaker 2: hope you’ll enjoy.

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Speaker 5: The main takeaway here is don’t get comfortable. And you

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Speaker 5: have to double down on the things that make you

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Speaker 5: who you were. And in this case, we really doubled

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Speaker 5: down on what made us Quest. And that can be

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Speaker 5: difficult to do because, you know, especially if you’re coming

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Speaker 5: from a world where the intent of the company is

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Speaker 5: to be acquired, you’re an acquisition target. You know, people

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Speaker 5: are trying to find an exit, maybe make a little

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Speaker 5: bit of money. The tendency becomes to sort of. slow down,

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Speaker 5: take a deep breath, relax. And we were lucky that

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Speaker 5: we kept a lot of the core folks, even to

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Speaker 5: this day, on the team at Quest. And we didn’t

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Speaker 5: do that at all. We doubled down. We doubled down

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Speaker 5: on everything that made Quest different. There’s a tendency to

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Speaker 5: want to go corporate. There’s a tendency to want to

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Speaker 5: sort of, as we like to say, be big company.

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Speaker 5: What we try to do is double down on being scrappy.

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Speaker 5: The mission stayed intact. We got more obsessive about our consumer.

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Speaker 5: And I think actually with Simply Good acquiring Quest, it

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Speaker 5: gave us access to more resources, more data, which actually

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Speaker 5: helped us drive the consumer harder. And to the credit

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Speaker 5: of Simply Good, when they acquired Quest, they didn’t try

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Speaker 5: to fix Quest completely. I mean, obviously, we had some

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Speaker 5: things we had to do, right? We had to integrate.

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Speaker 5: We had to take on new processes, new systems. But

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Speaker 5: they let us be Quest.

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Speaker 6: I am really proud of everything that we created at

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Speaker 6: Hostess Brands. If you think about the 10-year arc of Hostess,

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Speaker 6: of going from being liquidated, to your point, to selling

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Speaker 6: for a great price and a great multiple, it was

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Speaker 6: a huge ride. And when I think about everything that

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Speaker 6: we created at Hostess, we really built a strong innovation engine.

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Speaker 6: We had the ability to really redefine our go-to-market in

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Speaker 6: terms of our distribution model, our manufacturing capabilities. We built

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Speaker 6: sales and channels that a lot of companies weren’t focused on.

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Speaker 6: And so we accomplished a lot. When I think about

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Speaker 6: kind of pivoting to Smucker, the thing that’s great about

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Speaker 6: Smucker is now we’re basically taking this engine that was

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Speaker 6: built at Hostess and then applying a lot of the

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Speaker 6: skills and the scale of a larger organization to take

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Speaker 6: everything we did and really just turbocharge it.

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Speaker 4: That founder connection is amazing because I’ll tell you, I

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Speaker 4: actually spent a couple of days ago talking to Kathleen

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Speaker 4: and be in understanding that DNA is absolutely critical. So

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Speaker 4: leading that acquisition brand takes a different muscle altogether. If

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Speaker 4: you think about it, the very reason that a Colgate

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Speaker 4: acquires a Tom’s of Maine or a Mondelez acquires a

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Speaker 4: Tate’s is because these brands bring an incremental value to

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Speaker 4: the parent company. That parent company can’t make a Tom’s

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Speaker 4: of Maine. They can’t make a Tate’s because that’s not

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Speaker 4: in their DNA. So sure, there is this product portfolio

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Speaker 4: that hopefully is in the wheelhouse of the parent company,

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Speaker 4: but it’s also distinct enough to be incremental. And when

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Speaker 4: we think about an acquisition, we often think about that

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Speaker 4: product portfolio. But culture is where the true incrementality of

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Speaker 4: the value lies. So successfully leading an acquisition brand requires

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Speaker 4: that dogmatic focus on culture, on preservation, on rebuilding, if

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Speaker 4: you will, that culture into newcomers. The question that I

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Speaker 4: often ask myself, whether at Tom’s or at Tate’s, is

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Speaker 4: how do I continue to keep that DNA, that challenger

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Speaker 4: brand mentality to innovate, to experiment, to be obsessive about

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Speaker 4: the quality, to continue to deliver that super hyper growth, right?

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Speaker 3: Thank you. Hi, I’m Jackie Cooper, Global Chief Brand Officer

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Speaker 3: at Edelman and the host of Touch of Truth, a

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Speaker 3: new podcast launching on the Adweek Podcast Network. My dad

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Speaker 3: gave me this incredibly smart piece of advice. Meet everyone once.

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Speaker 3: As a result, I’ve met some of the most fascinating

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Speaker 3: and inspiring people on the planet. Now on Touch of Truth,

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Speaker 3: we’re coming centre stage and sharing the mic to experience

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Speaker 3: stories of truth, insights and visions for the future that

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Speaker 3: will challenge your way of thinking. Touch of Truth is

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Speaker 3: available wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes come out

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Speaker 3: every Tuesday. I do hope to see you there.