Eitan Koter is the founder and CEO of Vimmi (a video commerce SaaS platform that helps brands and retailers create shoppable video experiences across social media, marketplaces and websites) with over two decades experience in media & entertainment, eCommerce and telecom industries in startups and public companies, including NASDAQ IPO. Expertise includes B2B SaaS and hardware companies, go-to-market strategies, global marketing & sales, product market fit, strategy development, and general management.
What you will learn
- The evolution of video from analog to digital and its growing importance in driving conversions for brands.
- How video commerce, especially through short-form videos and live shopping, is reshaping e-commerce by enabling direct purchases from videos.
- Why social commerce is thriving in China and how Western countries are catching up with platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
- The increasing role of AI in video marketing, including AI-generated content, video avatars, and enhancing conversion rates through analytics.
- How businesses can leverage shoppable videos, even for high-ticket items, and integrate them with social platforms to improve sales without heavy ad spend.
Transcript
Jeff Bullas
00:00:06 – 00:00:54
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Jeff Bullas Show. Today, I have with me Eitan Koter. Now, Eitan is the founder and CEO of Vimmi (a video commerce SaaS platform that helps brands and retailers create shoppable video experiences across social media, marketplaces and websites) with over two decades experience in media & entertainment, eCommerce and telecom industries in startups and public companies, including NASDAQ IPO.
Jeff Bullas
00:00:54 – 00:01:12
His expertise includes B2B SaaS and hardware companies, go-to-market strategies, global marketing & sales, product market fit, strategy development, and general management.
Eitan Koter
00:01:13 – 00:01:17
Great to be here, Jeff. Thank you so much for this opportunity. How are you?
Jeff Bullas
00:01:17 – 00:01:21
I’m great, and I’m in Sydney and you’re in Tel Aviv.
Eitan Koter
00:01:21 – 00:01:22
Yeah.
Jeff Bullas
00:01:22 – 00:01:33
So where you are in the world is a little bit hotter in terms of politics and war and stuff compared to Sydney, Australia. We just go swimming every day, really, that’s what we do.
Eitan Koter
00:01:35 – 00:01:45
Hey, I lived there for about a year. It was like 20 years ago. Yeah, actually I lived in Sydney in Hyde Park. It was a really amazing experience, probably the best place in the world, right?
Jeff Bullas
00:01:45 – 00:02:42
Well, you’ve got no argument from me. I, uh, I, well, I, I really think I live in paradise, we live, uh, A long way away from most of the world, so we’re a big island, sometimes called a continent. No one’s quite sure what it really is, except we, um, yeah, it takes us 5 hours to fly across from one side of our big island or continent to the other side. Um, and we’re about 2/3 of 2/3 the size of the USA, so. But we only have 25 million people, so yeah. So we’re not crowded. So, um, let’s go to, what was the inspiration for you to start Vimy, um. But if you go back a little bit further, so what is your background in, you said that you’ve done 20 years or 2 decades of video.
Jeff Bullas
00:02:42 – 00:02:57
And tech in that space. So tell us a bit about that experience and And the second question is, what was the inspiration to cross the threshold into creating Vimy and uh that business?
Eitan Koter
00:02:58 – 00:03:39
Yes, I mean, the video industry as a whole is very, very interesting, dynamic and evolving. I mean, video is everywhere, right? It’s in medical industries, it’s in, you know, security and surveillance, media entertainment, right? Platforms like Netflix, uh, Disney. But in the last few, let’s say 5 years, it has also become very, very important for any business, any brand or retailer or just want to use video for, you know, increasing awareness but also creating conversions. Video is evolving. When I started with video, it was like probably in the dotcom year 2000, my CEO back then said, hey, this is uh,
Eitan Koter
00:03:39 – 00:03:48
Take another couple of days to think about it because if you start with the video in the video industry, there’s no way for you to go out. I mean it’s going to be, it’s going to stick with you for the rest of your career.
Jeff Bullas
00:03:48 – 00:03:53
So, you said to me actually at the beginning, it’s a bit like Hotel California.
Eitan Koter
00:03:54 – 00:04:22
A bit like Hello California, if you remember the line, uh, you can check out every time you like, but you can never leave, right? So it’s really the same. Video back then was analog video. These were the early days of just transitioning from analog to digital video, cable TV, you know, satellite companies during the transition to digital video. Over the years, video has evolved and we started to use the internet for streaming video. I mean it was a big technology challenge back then. We were quite innovating, but back then in
Eitan Koter
00:04:23 – 00:05:17
Trying to stream video and, and just do other things than just move video over cable networks or satellite. Obviously, you know, the iPhone was launched and today video is everywhere. We’re using public unmanaged internet networks over, over content delivery networks just to stream videos, and we are expecting 4K video, expecting high quality video everywhere on our mobile, on our, you know, big screen connected devices. And it was amazing to see that, that evolution of how video has evolved. Um, it used to be called broadcast TV back then. Uh, it was, today, it’s, everyone calls it just streaming or Video, but the idea is to use video in a very engaging way. Video is, is a much powerful type of media, you know, as opposed to text space or
Eitan Koter
00:05:18 – 00:05:40
Uh, or, you know, audio-based video is more, uh, engaging, you can create some kind of a connection. You can feel the authenticity of people, and authenticity is a big word these days, right? I mean, that’s the way to probably differentiate yourself as a brand, just putting yourself out there. Um, what happened in, uh, I mean, to the second part of your question.
Eitan Koter
00:05:40 – 00:06:19
I mean, we launched Vimy 11 years ago. OK, so Vy is a tech company. Yeah, it’s a bootstrap company. You never raised funds. I mean, in the previous company that I worked for, we raised a lot of funds from VCs. I also did a public IPO in 2005, uh, and managed a publicly traded company on NASDAQ, so I had the experience of, you know, running these large enterprises, but also launched two startups. So Vimy is already 11 years in operation. And uh we started when video was uh growing in the, over the internet, right? And when Netflix started to grow and a lot of companies out there, they were just uh
Eitan Koter
00:06:20 – 00:07:13
wanted to launch their own direct to consumer video services, primarily mobile operators, major content providers. So think about any country today, you have a, a new video service that has been Serviced by the local operator, internet company, or telecom or variety variety of other ventures, and we were, uh, back then, back then, um, developing technologies and providing licenses and, and services to companies that wanted to launch and Netflix like, let’s say white label type of service. So we have a variety of customers all around the world, uh, some of them are very large enterprises and telcos that are streaming content to their users and monetizing content, and again, this is the media and entertainment type of content. These are like the major Hollywood, you know, productions and you know that linear channels, packages of hundreds of TV channels and
Eitan Koter
00:07:14 – 00:07:59
In parallel, about 5 years ago, we saw something new that is evolving in China, specifically around live shopping. So, think about the scenario where a seller is just showcasing products and just streaming that video across a website or, or, or dedicated applications or specific social media networks. But that experience is very unique from a traditional live streaming event. It’s actually an interactive event that includes a chat system for the users uh to have the, the, the option for the user to ask questions and someone to moderate those questions. But also, and probably the most interesting thing is the ability to add a call to action in this video player.
Eitan Koter
00:07:59 – 00:08:50
And making this video player, uh, a really truly interactive experience and giving the ability for users to click a button or to click a link on that video player, which redirects them to, to check out and, and make a purchase of that specific product. So we saw how video is evolving into retail, into e-commerce, mostly brands and companies that wanted to sell their products, services. Across multiple channels, uh, but enabling conversion, enabling the ability to click the purchase from that video experience. So videos were no longer being used for just awareness or exposing your brand and create interactions, but also video was uh actually started to, uh, to be used for real conversion and really enabling real checkout opportunities and
Eitan Koter
00:08:50 – 00:09:15
The conversion rates were very, very high, but because you’re very, very engaged in this process, you can see the product in action, uh, uh, you can feel, you know, the authenticity of the host or the seller, and it, it, it was really a great success and still are, still is a, a great success in China and the volume of the Business is generated around like shopping in China is really huge, much more than many, many other countries in the world.
Jeff Bullas
00:09:16 – 00:10:01
So let’s just stop right there in terms of, it’s very interesting to watch what’s happening in China versus America in terms and in terms of social media platforms. So China banned a lot of the social media platforms in China. We’ve had the great, you know, um. I suppose the bamboo curtain, but so of China, but on the other hand, America, a lot of social media platforms actually have not been very good at converting their reach into e-commerce, have they, compared to how it happens in China. I’d be really interested in what your thoughts are on how China’s social media platforms have become almost holistic. Whereas America’s is much more about just information and entertainment. I’d be interested in your thoughts on that.
Eitan Koter
00:10:01 – 00:10:45
Yes, great question. Absolutely, you’re absolutely right. I mean, in China, most of the apps are like super apps. You do everything on that app, right? It’s not just entertainment, uh, it’s also e-commerce, it’s your digital wallet, you pay your bills over there. It makes you just manage your entire life in that one single app. And there is no something that is uh similar in the, in the US or in, in the Western world, for example, Western world is more fragmented, so there are a lot of communities. You have the TikTok community, you have the Instagram community, you have the YouTube community, Amazon obviously, and it’s like very silo, right? There is no one that is, is, is really um can be considered as a super app. So this is one major, major difference between China and, and the rest of the world.
Eitan Koter
00:10:46 – 00:11:06
In China also, um, most of the retail business is online. Maybe more than 80% of the entire retail gross merchandise value is happening online. And in the US it’s somewhere around 20%, meaning that 80% of their Retail business is still offline in traditional brick and mortar. In other words,
Jeff Bullas
00:11:06 – 00:11:09
they turn up to Walmart, they turn up to, you know,
Eitan Koter
00:11:10 – 00:11:48
brick and mortar, and it’s not going to change in the following reports that I read, it’s going to keep to, to, to just be the same. I mean, those 80% are there for many, many years to come. So it just gives you an idea. The entire cake is growing offline and online. And there is a lot of focus in the Western world around omnichannel, right? How do you manage these online and offline experiences? For example, you can purchase online and collect in stores. These are people like that, that type of experience, but In China, most of the retail businesses are online, but like, and in the US it’s like that. The complete opposite of that experience.
Jeff Bullas
00:11:49 – 00:12:15
Yeah. Yeah, so America’s much more about the retail experience, the more you go there and you shop. Whereas China, is it because America’s had this embedded retail experience because of the middle class and the wealth and size of America, whereas China’s middle class has only exploded in the last decade. So they may be exposed to online shopping as their first experience of shopping.
Eitan Koter
00:12:16 – 00:12:57
Yes, exactly, and it’s a culture issue as well. I mean, the Chinese, those sellers in China that are doing those live hosts, this is their day job, this is what they do like 24/7, right? I mean, it’s uh and in, in the US it’s different. I mean, in the US it’s more of a Uh, uh, uh, a strategy that you do, which is part of your overall marketing activities as a brand. And in Chinese they are like companies or just, that’s the only marketing channels just going live and selling their goods online. It’s Chinese, I think, in the matter of demographics and geography, they like just to be connected to this type of events for a longer period, right? When TikTok, for example, launched live shopping in the US.
Eitan Koter
00:12:57 – 00:13:32
They said, and it was not probably like 18 months ago, they, they issued a uh a few guidelines and they recommended that if you want the algorithms to work for you, uh, you need a minimum of 2 hours of live shopping just to, to start, you know, enjoy the benefits of the algorithms. So 2 hours is a lot, you know, think about someone in the Western world, just, you know, watching for 2 hours in a day. Uh, specific, uh, uh, live event, it’s not that common. Like in China, it’s very natural, it’s fine. I mean, it’s, it can happen. So this is why I mean.
Eitan Koter
00:13:32 – 00:14:14
What’s, what’s working in the, in the Western world in the US specifically is those uh non-live, vertical short form type of videos, which is another exploding type of, of experience which is more relevant or more, you know, fits uh Western world and that uh lower attention span, it is getting lower and lower and lower. And, and just getting these snippets of short form content and when I say short, short form. It’s usually less than 30 seconds, right? And you can create an entire experience, you know, using the right hook at the beginning just to stop people from scrolling, telling a personal story, uh or a lesson.
Eitan Koter
00:14:14 – 00:14:40
And just showcase and provide value and, and even showcase a product and enable these uh um you know, check out experiences. So short form videos are very, very important and what’s important in short term video is authenticity and consistency because no one cares about the background and the video editing quality and those Bros. People care about who you are, uh, or how you are differentiated from, from the rest.
Eitan Koter
00:14:41 – 00:15:25
And you know, telling your personal story. So, you know, we talked before about AI and how AI is growing and technology is evolving. Yes, but in parallel, we are social creatures and we are looking for this human connection. And, and, as you know, you do business with someone you trust, with someone you know. So short form videos are a great way to create this initial uh relationship building. And if you do that in a set in, in a, in a, in a, in a proper way as we teach and, and, and. Uh, recommend to our customers in terms of content planning and. What type of ideas to create videos on, so then you are able to. Or even organically, just breakthrough to the noise and, and.
Eitan Koter
00:15:26 – 00:15:33
And probably it’s going to be probably your best marketing channel or activities out there from any of the things that you do, you know, OK,
Jeff Bullas
00:15:34 – 00:15:58
alright, so let’s cut to the chase. So, uh, we’ve got 5 billion people on mobile phones, on social media platforms. And you’ve got a lot of competition for attention. Yeah. And the other challenge that most social media platforms are doing, they’re trying to create addiction to the platform. So with your Sho video experience platform.
Jeff Bullas
00:16:01 – 00:16:43
Take me through the process of how you would help an online store, an online business, create a video that will make the money cost effectively without blowing their budget on Facebook ads, because as we know, Facebook just keeps putting the price up. Every platform keeps putting the price up until, and they just send you the videos they want you to view, not the people that you want to see. So they’re showing you the videos that they want to do that maximize their revenue. So how do you break through all that noise and technology and algorithms with your videos, take us from, Start to the finish of that process.
Eitan Koter
00:16:44 – 00:17:28
Yes, I, I think it’s a really great question just to set the foundation, as you said, it’s very expensive. It takes more time and it’s very competitive to bring users to your own amazing brand.com website, right? So work like it used to work probably 34 years ago. Um, in Pa we’re spending more time on social media and social commerce is going to be like a real opportunity, um. Uh, social commerce is, you know, according to any report, is expected to reach something like $8.5 trillion in 2030. OK, so it was like 11 years ago, $1 trillion. So it’s, it’s going to explode, right, probably 10 times in, in, in like 5666 years and so companies are saying, OK, why not deploying.
Eitan Koter
00:17:29 – 00:18:10
Our content and selling products where consumers are spending most of their time, spending their time on social media, right? So, you know, the vehicle for that, the fuel to enable all these activities is video, OK? And all forms of video. Usually companies start in short form videos, which is probably the most uh easy and straightforward way to start. Remember, there is also long form video, those horizontal videos 16 banana videos that traditionally goes to YouTube that requires more editing and more post-production. This is growing as well, by the way, and we talked about the live events as well. So with our platform is the first thing that it does, it’s just, it’s a self-service platform, very easy to use. It’s.
Eitan Koter
00:18:11 – 00:19:04
You sync, you upload content and content can be created through working with influencers or professional content creators. We highly, highly recommend short form videos to be created by the founders, the executives, the leaders of the company because that foundered content or EGC or employee generated content is very, very powerful compared to user generated content, so. Employee generated content, I mean, it’s very, very authentic. It just shows the ins and outs of the company, and definitely fondle that content which shows the, tell the story and why they launched the company, what’s the unique story and the key differentiators around that. And we usually recommend to uh associate or, or connect content planning to the stage of the uh of the company and the where you are in the marketing funnel. If you’re just starting out and you are in the awareness stage.
Eitan Koter
00:19:04 – 00:19:27
You can’t push your products or services, just provide educational content, provide value, market information, checklist, how-tos, right? And when your users are considering purchasing and maybe evaluating comp uh competitions, don’t be afraid to talk about your competitors. It will provide links to your competitors uh for information because your users, your potential buyers, they will do that anyhow. So it gives you respect, OK. So,
Eitan Koter
00:19:27 – 00:20:06
Provide information around who you are, you know, how to do things, some variety of case studies, and a lot of unique sharing about your unique selling point with mentioning your, your competition. Don’t be afraid to do that. And when your users are in the decision mode, that’s the best place probably to, uh, to showcase your products, provide some prices, some unique packages, uh, provide testimonials. So create a content plan which is around the marketing funnel and where you are in that stage. People don’t want to buy and they will not buy from someone they just, you know, been introduced to. You need to create some foundation of value-based content.
Eitan Koter
00:20:07 – 00:20:52
Which is very, very informative and provides value. That really creates a community and people trust you, and then they will be more open to accept an offer from you. So, do you usually recommend like 2 to 3 months of consistent short phone videos. Posting, uh, don’t be discouraged by lack of engagement or, you know, too much analyzing your analytics at the first stages of, of, of that first stage, because the way it works, it’s not like a linear growth. It works like a hockey stick, right? You might have like 2 or 3 weeks of, you know, like probably 1020, 100 views of your videos and suddenly one of those videos will hit 50,000, 100,000 views.
Eitan Koter
00:20:52 – 00:21:21
And then you will be very, very surprised and you will try to analyze what works. And I can tell you that the only thing that works and makes a difference is the value of your content. Not the, you know, the video editing or those amazing bros that you put in the transitions. These are not important for short form videos because you have like 30 seconds uh to make a difference. So focus on the content, do a lot of research primarily around what people are looking for. Uh, you can search on a variety of platforms.
Eitan Koter
00:21:22 – 00:21:48
Uh, what is, what, what are the hot topics, and we usually recommend creating content around pain points. I mean, if you, you, you can sit with yourself as a company leader or as a, as a marketing leader and just think what are the 2030 biggest marketing point, uh sorry, uh points that my customers are now experiencing, and you need to know how to do that list and if you don’t know how to do that, probably you’re in the wrong industry. So try to create that list and then
Eitan Koter
00:21:48 – 00:22:23
Create a lot of content around market information, value, checklist, and then you have like 50, 60 content ideas that will be very, very helpful for the next 2 to 3 months. And this is a foundation. This is a foundation. After that, we usually recommend start with live shopping, uh, try that again with the employees and with the people that are Working for you, and we usually recommend in the 1st 34 months don’t work with external content creators or influencers, just do it by yourself, short form and live, and when this is working for you and
Eitan Koter
00:22:23 – 00:23:06
I know that it is working for a few reasons. One, those platforms, social platforms, their algorithms are set to give higher priority to video content, right? Because it just keeps using more time on their platform, right? Video is a, a type of a, a longer form type of experience and it’s very, very powerful in terms of algorithms. It’s much more powerful than any type of media that you put out there, whether it’s a text or a picture. Um, so this is a very, very important to mention, and I know that if you’re consistent and you’ve been authentic and you do the right research in terms of pain points and market information that you provide, you will break through through the noise organically, OK, without even spending $1 on advertising.
Jeff Bullas
00:23:07 – 00:23:37
What it is, yeah, so let me ask a question here. Uh, are you talking about low value retail stores selling, you know, widget. Um, or are we talking, is it just B to C you’re talking about? In other words, selling, uh, let’s say, you know, uh, I won’t say, well, I will say crap. In other words, in other words, something that’s like an impulse buy. Or are we talking about something a little bit, or are we moving up into B2B so that we actually can get people committed and engaged there as well.
Eitan Koter
00:23:38 – 00:24:06
Yeah, so today, today, you know, it’s February 2025, we talk about everything. We are also sending high tech, high ticket, you know, items. The industry that shows from videos, the industry started with this. Smaller items, right, that you can showcase on on a on a on a mobile screens, yeah, usually you can see like and you can show real transformation right in like 30 seconds like before and afters,
Jeff Bullas
00:24:07 – 00:24:11
yeah, so what about a product, you know, training,
Eitan Koter
00:24:11 – 00:24:31
but this has changed completely today. Everything is relevant for short forms. People are selling cars in short form videos, OK, furniture. It has changed dramatically and you need to be there. It’s a must. It’s like a foundational type of marketing. That is true for any type of industry.
Jeff Bullas
00:24:31 – 00:24:33
So is it physical as well as information? In other words,
Eitan Koter
00:24:34 – 00:24:54
physical, digital products, services, right? Everything. This is where it truly defines you and the way the, the more traditional industry that you never thought of it will be relevant is going to dramatically differentiate you because this is probably something that other companies are not planning to do and this is the way to do it. I mean, we work with car dealers. Think about that, right?
Eitan Koter
00:24:55 – 00:25:32
They’re just going, uh, with cell phone videos, creating these conversions, uh, you know, scheduling meetings, even create, you know, checkout experiments that just redirect or checkout page. People are buying also, uh, um, you know, high-value items in an impulse impulse purchase. Yes, they make a research, they might want to contact you, but they remember you and you can attribute the same, that short phone videos that you upload to Instagram Reads or YouTube shorts or TikTok, right? So, it’s a very, very powerful way and really the, the most effective way to make any difference uh in marketing these days.
Jeff Bullas
00:25:33 – 00:26:09
Right. Yeah, that’s sort of, it’s very interesting because I would not buy anything off a social media platform. 0. I don’t trust them. OK, um. But obviously the new generation trusts them, they actually get their news off it, they get their products off it, they get everything off it. And you’re going, uh, so why don’t you just go straight to the New York Times and get the news. Oh no, I’ll get it on my, you know, or go to the CNN or I’ll go to, and I’m going, Wow. So this is why everyone’s open to being scammed, aren’t they? Really? Because it’s like,
Eitan Koter
00:26:09 – 00:26:28
I mean, yeah, I mean, so the new generation, let’s call them Gen X, and they are becoming much more, uh, important in the overall purchasing uh cake. Um, they are very, very, you know, into social commerce, very much into influencers, so they trust influencers a lot.
Jeff Bullas
00:26:29 – 00:26:43
That’s really scary about influence, right? I’ve watched so many influences and I’m going, you guys, you, you’re buying off an influencer that says it’s great because it’s got an agenda, right?
Eitan Koter
00:26:43 – 00:27:04
Yeah. Remember, social commerce is not just the ability to purchase on social media, it’s also the way you purchase. Watching and experiencing what your friends are purchasing a lot as well, right? So it’s a social commerce in the way you purchase as well. So if your friends purchase and that influencer purchased and recommended, then you make a purchase as well.
Jeff Bullas
00:27:05 – 00:27:13
So are we just watching lemmings develop around the world that just go over the cliff with the rest of their friends?
Eitan Koter
00:27:13 – 00:27:43
No, it’s very smart, they do their research on TikTok, right? I mean, in terms of products, and they can check what’s going on and, and they, if they’re confident they will make a purchase on TikTok, right? So because TikTok today, OK, TikTok in the US probably is, is, is a, is a is a, is there is a big question mark about, you know, what’s going to happen, but the rest of the world. We see companies. You know, traditionally, if you want to launch an online business, you will probably create a Shopify store, right, and start marketing.
Eitan Koter
00:27:44 – 00:28:11
But today, uh, we see a lot of new ventures that are just launching on TikTok. Why? Because TikTok brings them customers. There’s an ecosystem there of affiliate marketplaces and influencers that are, that you can just see the product and give them with the products. They can create videos and promote that video on their own channels, right, and to their own followers. And if you do it right, TikTok brings your business. It’s like they’re bringing you eyeballs and it’s
Jeff Bullas
00:28:11 – 00:28:42
it’s reaching the world and uh obviously that uh. It can be scams and spam everywhere, right, so it really doesn’t matter whether it’s on a website impersonating another site lists go on and on. So, so take us through, so if you onboard a client, so. Where do you start with your platform? Take us through the process, do you pay a subscription fee to do it, uh, what’s the story, what’s the process to use your platform?
Eitan Koter
00:28:43 – 00:29:16
Yeah, so the platform uh it needs to be synced to your existing e-commerce platform just to pull product pages information, prices, and that link that you need to associate to redirect from the video. So, we work with almost all the e-commerce technologies and platforms out there. So in one click, you just sync the product and you associate. Product pages, link URLs to videos and then you make videos shoppable. OK. When you go live, for example, through our live studio, you can again add those products to the, to the video and
Eitan Koter
00:29:17 – 00:29:59
You know, it will be showcasing a thumbnail on the video player of the, of the users, and you can publish or stream those uh videos across all your social media channels and on your own website as well because we provide you a simple JavaScript, you just copy paste on your back end of the e-commerce, and then you have a, a very interactive. A type of video player, we call it the video mode where you can showcase all these interactive videos on the main page of your website, for example. And because you associate products with videos, uh, uh, automatically we can just, uh, futureproof and then reach your existing product pages with those interactive videos. It happens automatically. Um, and yeah, we have a variety of packages.
Eitan Koter
00:30:00 – 00:30:27
You can start up with a free package that is there for life, which gives you the, uh, the ability to manage and post those shoppable videos and go live. And, you know, additional packages if you need more capacities, more live events, more videos, more storage, and it’s very easy to use, kind of a friendly onboarding, you, you just sync products, connect your social networks, and you can start rolling and enjoy the benefits of social commerce and shop of videos and obviously live shopping.
Jeff Bullas
00:30:27 – 00:30:39
OK, so do you help customers that wanna sell via video? You know, do you help them create the video, do you help them promote the video, or do you just provide a platform for the video?
Eitan Koter
00:30:40 – 00:31:06
Great question. So that’s our latest edition. A lot of the customers that we talked to, they said, OK, yes, we know video is very powerful. We want to do that, but we don’t know how. We don’t know where to start, how to work, and lack the experience of making that transformation to a video-based marketing, video-based business. And we launched the managed services today, we call it video commerce as a service, and that part of the business helps brands and companies.
Eitan Koter
00:31:06 – 00:31:58
With this video transformation, we help them manage their influencers, uh, relationship, we help them with content creation, we help them with AI video content creation. A lot of expertise around AI video, AI influencers, and AI video is going to change a lot of things for a lot of brands. We help them create the AI avatars of themselves and just streamline and make it easy for them to create videos through those text to video types of. Uh, uh, technologies that we provide and more and more services, um, around helping brands, uh, and companies to make the transition to video-based marketing, um, and if you’re already, um, you know, educated about video and excited about doing this transition, we will be like hand hold for you like your trusted advisor and
Eitan Koter
00:31:58 – 00:32:40
Create this done for you type of experience that guides you through the process and we are becoming like an extension of your sales team. Our uh our main target and KPI here is just to Help brands sell more on multiple other channels that they are not active and um creating this content for them and use the AI and the analytics side of things primarily to evaluate and check what’s working and what’s not, creating all these type of recommendation, uh, implementing recommendation, um, let’s say topics and ideas that the AI is recommending in order to come up with better scripting, with better videos, with better timing.
Eitan Koter
00:32:40 – 00:33:00
Um, to, to improve those conversion rates and you know it’s very easy. We, you test it by numbers, right? Conversion rates, dollar values sold, and um having the ability to, uh, to create more content just give you the ability to create more sales opportunities, of course, as long as that inventory is there.
Jeff Bullas
00:33:01 – 00:33:08
OK, so I love it. VCAAS video content as a service.
Eitan Koter
00:33:08 – 00:33:11
Yes, video commerce as a service.
Jeff Bullas
00:33:12 – 00:33:23
OK, very cool. So do you help actually, do you have APIs to link it straight up once you create it? You can launch it to all the different social media platforms.
Eitan Koter
00:33:23 – 00:33:47
Exactly. We work very, very hard and it’s a lot of work just maintaining APIs and the continuous updates on each one of those platforms. Uh, we have dedicated teams that work with Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Amazon, Walmart, I mean, and the list is very long in terms of channels. Uh, they are very specific, like in the various niches, they are like specific publishers and marketplaces.
Eitan Koter
00:33:48 – 00:34:40
Those companies want to work with us and we are very, very fast in those API implementations. It’s one of our strengths, having this, you know, um, the ability to quickly, uh, evaluate APIs, implement them, and it’s also inherent in the way we’ve built the platform which is very agile, open, flexible type of engineering, which is, you know, probably the way we work, also on marketing and sales on R&D, you know, to keep this lean, uh, flexible, agile. Processes and mentality and using um tools to just streamline and make things fast. So, yeah, I mean, that’s the way it works and these APIs are changing every day. We see a lot of developments in all the platforms around enabling commerce and enabling shopping on their platform, definitely on YouTube and uh of course, we talked about TikTok and
Eitan Koter
00:34:41 – 00:35:26
Um, Snapchat, now introducing a lot of new functionalities. Pinterest obviously was there all the time. Uh, on Facebook with Facebook, uh, Marketplace and Instagram with tagging products, we have the ability, for example, to create. Uh, uh, uh, check out through a DM in, on Instagram, right? So think about the scenario where, of course, we cannot integrate overlays on the Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, you know, video players, uh, but we can, on Instagram, for, for example, we can automatically, there is a bot that can send um your, uh, uh, uh, a link through DM just to make a purchase for the specific person that probably typed a certain word. Um, YouTube also introduced, uh, like digital shelf functionalities that
Eitan Koter
00:35:27 – 00:36:13
From a certain type of uh account with an amount of followers, you can, uh, you can integrate, click the purchase overlays on the video player and add a digital shelf, like all thumbnails of uh URL below the video player. So they are also introducing a lot of functionalities, and we know that they’ve announced a partnership with Shopify as well, just to compete with TikTok. So a lot of developments around those. Uh, channels and yeah, it’s, it’s already fully integrated up from the get-go into the platform. We just connect your accounts with your credential credentials, and we make sure that you enjoy the highest, uh, the latest uh APIs and the latest innovation that those platforms are providing in terms of making video shoppable and making video work for you on these channels. OK.
Jeff Bullas
00:36:13 – 00:36:20
So you can take external videos and add all that to those, or you actually can create it on your platform as well.
Eitan Koter
00:36:21 – 00:36:22
Correct. Yes.
Jeff Bullas
00:36:22 – 00:36:33
Awesome. So, let’s, so let’s just look at, so you obviously mentioned free as one part, so you go from free to a full done for you service. Is that correct?
Eitan Koter
00:36:35 – 00:37:16
Yes, start from free, just check it out, I think, uh. It’s a great way to start and it doesn’t cost anything and no credit card is required. And, once you’re comfortable with the platform, and if you haven’t a team that can manage these processes, you can just go to these higher tiers of the platform that just give you more uh functionalities and more uh uh capacity to do things. And if you want that done, done it for you type of service, then you contact us and we just try to uh make a discovery call with you and try to understand what exactly is required and we can hand hold this entire process for you and uh just let you enjoy, you know, what’s working today in marketing, which is this organic videos that are making very, very uh
Eitan Koter
00:37:16 – 00:37:35
Um, you know, effective type of, of experiences, and by the way, those organic videos, if some of those videos are performing very, very well, uh, through the data, we usually recommend to push this video with advertising budget because we know the return on that spent is going to be very, very high because that video is we know is already performing very, very, very, very good, right? So that’s
Jeff Bullas
00:37:37 – 00:37:45
OK. So that means you double down on what’s working and then you can actually know if I spend $2 I can make $8 for example, because data tells you what’s working, what doesn’t.
Eitan Koter
00:37:46 – 00:37:58
Yes, usually, you know, today it takes so much time to figure out what’s working for you with paid ads, right? And you just do it organically, it doesn’t cost you anything and what’s working, then push it. That’s uh just flipping, you know, the way you do advertising.
Jeff Bullas
00:37:59 – 00:38:15
To recall. So, um, You got the done for your service, which sounds fantastic. Um, you got the free service to check it out, um, and you’re saying that you can do this for any type of product, digital or physical.
Eitan Koter
00:38:15 – 00:38:45
Yes. And any type of company size, right? We work with large enterprises, with small SMBs and even solos and content creators, right, that they just have probably a digital course they want to market through live shopping. So we work with all types of, uh, customer types out there. We know how to manage professional, you know, engagements with enterprises, you know, statement of works, project management, you know, staging environment, production environment, so this is part of our DNA just to make these processes uh in a very professional way.
Jeff Bullas
00:38:46 – 00:38:51
Wow. Sounds very, very cool, and you’ve obviously woven AI into this?
Eitan Koter
00:38:52 – 00:39:21
Yes, we talked a lot about AI. Definitely the platform has a lot of AI functionalities, starting from the data collection and just analyzing what’s working and what’s not. We’re gathering analytics from all the channels, right? From Meta, from Instagram, from YouTube, uh, Facebook, TikTok, I mean, Amazon, and we try to provide a holistic view of what’s working and what’s not, and we use AI just to work and, and provide recommendation around products, around targeting around videos, variety of business and video related KPIs.
Eitan Koter
00:39:22 – 00:40:13
Uh, and obviously AI in terms of the way we help, you know, scripting content and bringing up, you know, content ideas and definitely AI for the content creation side of things. You know, text to videos, platforms that are very, very strong and influence of platforms that are just a text space. AI is also very powerful for so many other aspects of video that are we’re considering, by the way, things like Um, uh, sales assistant, right, and customer support assistant, so think about, uh, you know, the bot are, which is, you know, performing very, very well on the website or doing the transition to, uh, a video-based bot. So think about a scenario where um you have a video avatar that is just communicating with you online and just helping you to create this, uh,
Eitan Koter
00:40:14 – 00:40:32
You know, journey on the website and sales assistant, I think is the next thing in uh in AI video and these are the things that we research currently and we check, you know, how it’s, uh, how it can be helpful, but definitely we see great uh potential in this type of uh ideas as well.
Jeff Bullas
00:40:33 – 00:40:36
It’s a very interesting world at the moment, isn’t it, in terms of it’s
Eitan Koter
00:40:36 – 00:40:37
changing very fast.
Jeff Bullas
00:40:38 – 00:40:55
We’ve had the mobile phone which met the perfect storm of social media, and now we have AI to actually optimize all that. And quite often, everyone feels quite overwhelmed by, there is so much happening. It’s almost like you don’t know where to start.
Eitan Koter
00:40:55 – 00:41:42
Yes, yes, it’s an overflow, it’s like, as you said, an overwhelming type of, you know, things that are happening, but. You know, new tools and new technologies are being launched, like not every day, every, not every hour, every minute, right? There are a few AI uh platforms that just monitor what’s new, and you can see like every second there’s a new tool that is doing something like tick, tick tick, you know, it’s like. The company that was like real hype today, next week, it’s gone. I mean, there’s a new thing that’s, and this is the world that we’re going to live in. It’s uh you know, that continuous uh um uh evolution and speedy way of just, uh, innovation, innovating things, and yeah, we need to learn about this new, uh, new world.
Jeff Bullas
00:41:43 – 00:42:06
Yeah. Ethan, thank you very much for your insight. It’s been a fascinating conversation and uh I think we could actually use what you’re doing as well, so um. I might get one of my team or I might uh send some information through to find out more how we could work with you because we, we have a digital product and we need maybe need to work on that, so um,
Eitan Koter
00:42:09 – 00:42:13
yeah, sure, yeah. Yes, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much, great questions.
Jeff Bullas
00:42:13 – 00:42:30
So just one last question, um. What brings you deep joy and happiness? Uh, if you got paid all the money in the world, what would you do every day? Would you go cycling around the Arctic? Would you climb Mount Kilimanjaro? What would you do, Ethan? What brings you?
Eitan Koter
00:42:30 – 00:43:12
It’s not about what I would do. It’s things that I do, right? So after, you know, those, all these years in the industry, like 56 years ago. You know, I was really burned out and tried to think, OK, what, what’s next and how can I create more balance in my life. So I just started to think about priorities in work, right? What’s important for me to do and what’s important. And so I, I thought a lot and still think every day how to make work more effective and just. You know, make it more uh reasonable so I can do some other things just to maintain, you know, mental health and, you know, good, just to keep myself in a good physical uh. condition
Eitan Koter
00:43:13 – 00:44:02
So I’ve been through this journey and yeah, so I have time. I like to do mountain biking 3 times a week, right? And it’s like a really intense, you know, workout. I am also into Chinese medicine and Tai Chi and Qigong practices, so I spend a lot of time on this. So I, I try to just keep my hobbies and keep more time for family, you know, I have 5 kids that need so it’s, it’s like having this balance, I think it today, the last few years, I mean, I’m in a much better position and the business is working even better, right? So all this, just think about the way you work. Um, think about the priorities of your tasks and how do you keep spare more time for just this, uh, putting your brain in this.
Eitan Koter
00:44:03 – 00:44:41
default mode of some call it maybe daydreaming, right? Just, just, just, you know, zoom out, don’t think about anything, just clear the clutter, right? Stop with, you know, rumination and just uh That creativity, um, you know, get into your system and try to take a smaller decision about the way you work, and so all these processes are really a lot of uh knowledge and Um, you know, type of behaviors and processes that they implemented in my life for probably the last 56 years that are making just everything better in, in every aspect of life.
Jeff Bullas
00:44:42 – 00:44:44
So you’re very much into holistic living.
Eitan Koter
00:44:45 – 00:44:46
I understand, yes,
Jeff Bullas
00:44:46 – 00:44:53
of course. Yeah, I’m, I’m a keen road cyclist, so I go cycling 3 to 4 times a week.
Eitan Koter
00:44:53 – 00:44:55
Wow, great.
Jeff Bullas
00:44:56 – 00:45:12
Yeah, so I’ve ridden in the Argus in South Africa around the Cape of Cape Town. I’ve ridden the K2 in, uh, New Zealand, which is a 200 kilometer ride, and we’re heading to the Dolomites in September this year with with some friends, so
Eitan Koter
00:45:13 – 00:45:15
road road biking, right?
Jeff Bullas
00:45:15 – 00:45:52
Yeah, so, yeah, I’m getting a little bit older, so, um, maybe not doing quite as much as I used to, but on the other hand, nurturing relationships with people that are near and dear to you, friends and family. Yeah. Like, for me that’s really, really important, so trying to find experiences that you actually can share with people that matter and um, Because at the end of the day, it’s after a certain amount of money, um, there’s no increased happiness, in fact, there’s just more anxiety, so I think we’d ask ourselves the question every day, how much is enough?
Eitan Koter
00:45:53 – 00:46:37
Yes, yes, I think the new generation knows much better than us, right? They have their limitations and they know where to stop, right? We, I mean, we never, our generation, we never knew when to stop. I mean, if there is a task, we just do that, do the task until it’s finished, right? It doesn’t matter the hour, the day of the week, and, uh, probably the new generation that comes out, they are more, uh, uh, balanced, right? They know where to stop, and they care less about, you know, company vision and Uh, and overall goals, right? They are the way of working which is probably more intense work for a limited time, and I think it’s the right way to go. It’s just making things more uh balanced.
Eitan Koter
00:46:37 – 00:46:48
Keeping time for my personal life and just enjoying life in general. And by the way, AI is going to help a lot with that because it is going to to to give us a lot of free time,
Jeff Bullas
00:46:48 – 00:47:04
right? Well, I think it can amplify our humanity and our time. Um, on the other hand, we’re just going to make sure that the children don’t think that mum and dad can keep rescuing them because they want to live the life they want. Yes. Yeah. So how, how old are your kids?
Eitan Koter
00:47:06 – 00:47:33
How old is it? I mean, I have from 9 to 23, right? I have 5 kids, so it’s all over. Yeah, it’s really interesting. Um, look, I mean, AI is promising because AI is going to just do things in in a much cheaper way, so probably cost of living, which is growing all over the world, is going to stop, right, more free time, um, and it’s, uh, everything is going to be cheaper again, again, this is theory, right, but let’s see, um, so, well,
Jeff Bullas
00:47:33 – 00:47:35
look, we’re about to find out.
Eitan Koter
00:47:35 – 00:48:21
Yeah, we’re about to find out, so let’s see what kind of a world, and it’s going to be, you know, maybe 5 years, maybe 10 years, maybe 15 years, right? That, that’s about it. It’s not like a generation away, it’s a few years away in terms of implementation because if you do, if you can do things for any business, if you can do things like it’s $1 cheaper, you will do that, right? And anything that can be done on a Zoom call or on a, on a, on a, on a laptop will be, you will be able to do that. With AI it’s like, uh, you know, it’s a dramatically lower cost. Dramatically, it’s not 30% or 50%. It’s like, um, you know, 99%. That, so that’s going to change a lot of things very, very fast.
Jeff Bullas
00:48:21 – 00:49:03
I think we I think we’re gonna keep and I went to a business lunch last Friday and bumped into an old friend of mine and she said, Uh, I just need to get out of my office because I’m on my own all the time. I need to actually chat to real people. Wow. So in the middle of all this lovely technology, we’re gonna make sure we still look after our humanity and our relationships. And this is the tension we are in, in the middle of this, this challenge of how do we make technology work for us as humans rather than technology use us. And, you know, social media is used. A lot of us now.
Jeff Bullas
00:49:03 – 00:49:20
Except for those who are going, I actually am not gonna use it much because it’s actually not good for me. So the challenge is that technology is not a nirvana, it’s a tool for us, so we don’t want to become a tool for it. So that’s the challenge for all of us.
Eitan Koter
00:49:21 – 00:49:40
Yes, I mean, you cannot ignore it, you cannot stop it, but you need to maintain, you know, a certain time that you say, OK, I need to stop now, right? That’s the difficulty, so just limit time to certain things that are more appropriate for you, so. Yeah, that’s going to be definitely, definitely a challenge. Yeah.
Jeff Bullas
00:49:40 – 00:49:46
So maybe we need to think about how much doom scrolling we want to do and how much shopping scrolling we want to do.
Eitan Koter
00:49:46 – 00:49:50
Yes, yes, I agree, I agree.
Jeff Bullas
00:49:51 – 00:50:07
Alright. Eaton, it’s been a fantastic chat. Thank you very much for your time and your insights and your wisdom and your experience because it’s evident, you know, a lot about a technology platform sounds fascinating, so thank you very much, it’s been an absolute blast, mate.
Eitan Koter
00:50:08 – 00:50:09
Amazing, Jeff, thank you.
Jeff Bullas
00:50:10 – 00:50:10
Thank you. Thank you.