MarTalks- The #1 Ecommerce and MarTech application podcast

She Cracked the Code on Why You Buy That Military Jacket. Online Retail Has No Idea Why Either.

Welcome back to MarTalks. This week Darrell sits down with Anabel Maldonado — CEO of PSYKHE AI, ShopTalk startup competition winner, former luxury product copywriter, and the person who has been screaming into the void that e-commerce has been solving the wrong problem for a decade. Here's the stat that should make every retailer put down their coffee: online conversion rates are still hovering around 1.5%. Billions of dollars. Endless A/B tests. Recommendation engines with Stanford pedigrees. And still — the vast majority of products a shopper would actually love never appear in front of them. Not once. Why? Because nobody put product intelligence in the stack. Nobody asked why you bought that military jacket. Not because it has Bellows pockets. Because it makes you feel gritty. It offsets the softness of the rest of your outfit. It aligns with your contrarian streak. You weren't conscious of it. And no algorithm ever tried to figure it out either. Anabel built Psyche to fix exactly that using 700+ psychographic dimensions to match products to people at a level that goes way beyond "you bought blue things, here are more blue things." The results? A 22% lift in conversion for mono brands. A $16 million revenue unlock without a single new SKU, dollar of ad spend, or new customer. Just showing people the right stuff. In this episode: why "personalization" is actually just optimization in a fancy hat, why grocery is the most underrated category for psychographic commerce, why agentic shopping is a discovery problem the entire industry forgot to prepare for, and what a $100M retailer should do in the next 90 days before they become invisible to the agents doing everyone's shopping. Also: the Jay Peterman reference lands perfectly. Obviously. Rosenstein Group: martech & ecommerce executive search Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies. Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO. Visit RosensteinGroup.com [https://bit.ly/3QNVgg8] to find out more.

He Dropped Out at 15, Made $15K Flipping Pokémon Cards at 13, and Is Now Teaching AI Agents to Stalk the Entire Internet. Legally.

This week on MarTalks, Darrell sits down with Michael FanouS the co-founder of Nyne.ai, VC scout, part-time sleep deprivation case study, and quite possibly the only person whose career trajectory starts at a coin convention at age six, detours through Jake Paul's car channel, and lands squarely in the middle of Silicon Valley's AI arms race. Michael is 20-something, running on two hours of sleep, building a startup that deploys AI agents across hundreds of millions of websites to collect data points on... well, you, basically. Your posts, your forums, your niche subreddits where you complain about being a nurse in Texas. Nine knows. Nine always knows. In this episode: why LinkedIn is wildly overrated as a data source, why ChatGPT is the new MySpace, why Google's secret weapon is a chip you've never heard of, and why the best startup advice Michael ever gave was to a high schooler about a helicopter with five propellers. He also somehow finds time to scout for VC firms. The man does not sleep. We have receipts. Rosenstein Group: martech & ecommerce executive search Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies. Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO. Visit RosensteinGroup.com [https://bit.ly/3QNVgg8] to find out more.

Dot-Com Crashes, Gold Coins & the Art of Not Panicking: Rich Lyons Has Seen It All

What do you get when you mix two dot-com survivors, a generator that still runs, and enough saltines to outlast the apocalypse? This episode of MarTalks. Rich Lyons rode the dinosaurs in digital commerce since before the word "e-commerce" even existed.  He's also been front row for every glorious crash that followed. Whitman Hart? Bankrupt. March First? Bankrupt. Divine? You guessed it. And yet somehow, Rich took "roll your Aeron chair out to the parking lot" as career advice and turned it into a 20+ year agency run. In this episode, Darrell and Rich riff on the predictable insanity of tech hype cycles, why mid-market is always the jilted prom date when enterprise walks in the room, how Y2K gold coins are holding their value just fine thank you, and why the antidote to AI noise might just be... being a decent human being who looks someone in the eye. Fair warning: these two go way back, and it shows. Press play before they schedule a Part 2 you'll also be unable to skip. Rosenstein Group: martech & ecommerce executive search Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies. Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO. Visit RosensteinGroup.com [https://bit.ly/3QNVgg8] to find out more.

The Outcome-First CEO: Travis Hess on Transforming BigCommerce and Leading Through Disruption

Travis Hess - CEO of BigCommerce and veteran of the digital agency landscape (Accenture, LiveArea, PFS) - joins MarTalks to discuss leading a $350M+ public software company through a major strategic pivot.  * Fixing a broken Go-To-Market: Why "trying to be everything to everyone" is a public market trap and how to narrow focus to ideal customer profiles (ICPs) for real growth.  * The "Services" Advantage in Software: Why a background in business outcomes and holistic systems beats a traditional "pedigreed" MBA in today’s disrupted landscape.  * Surviving Economic Cycles: Critical advice for the "generation of plenty" on navigating downturns and the "insourcing vs. outsourcing" swings that define tech cycles.  * Leading with Radical Authenticity: The mindset shift from "scripted" leadership to improv-ready, collaborative management where the best idea always wins.  * Software Transformation as a "Full Contact Sport": How to manage the "warts" of integration and the board-level reality of moving from defense to offense in a competitive market.  * Bonus: The CEO Playbook for Disruption - Learn why Travis believes most leaders rise not from steady growth, but from pushing through professional dysfunction and adversity.  Perfect for Founders, CEOs, CROs and investors seeking a masterclass in authentic leadership and large-scale platform transformation. Steal the strategy Travis is using to take on industry giants and navigate the "agentic" AI era.  #ExecutiveLeadership #SaasTransformation #BigCommerce #MarTech #CEOInsights #BusinessOutcome #MarTalks Rosenstein Group: martech & ecommerce executive search Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies. Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO. Visit RosensteinGroup.com [https://bit.ly/3QNVgg8] to find out more.

Mega Deal Secrets: Jamal Reimer (ex-Oracle) on Closing $50M+ Deals in a No-Budget World

Jamal Reimer – author of Mega Deal Secrets, ex-Oracle Key Account Director, and closer of multiple $50M+ deals – joins MarTalks for a masterclass on landing uncommonly large enterprise deals. * Why pipeline building is brutally hard in 2025 (and the simple fixes most reps miss) * The #1 mistake sellers make with executives – and how to speak their language with financial value stories * How to turn any financial reality (margin pressure, working capital lockup) into a compelling point-of-view that wins sponsors * Why executives ghost you, how to earn trust fast, and the exact questions that create “aha” moments * Selling to executives vs. users: the mindset shift that 10x’d Jamal’s deal size * Bonus: Free Point-of-View Trigger Document (link in show notes) – your cheat sheet to instantly craft executive-level POVs from any financial trigger Perfect for CROs, enterprise reps, founders, and anyone tired of small deals and endless demos. Steal the playbook Jamal used at Oracle to dominate the largest accounts – and start closing mega deals today. Get Jamal’s book Mega Deal Secrets and the free POV Trigger Document in the show notes. #EnterpriseSales #MegaDeals #SalesTips #ExecutiveSelling #ValueSelling #MarTech #MarTalks Rosenstein Group: martech & ecommerce executive search Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies. Our experience with recruiting e-commerce technology leaders for companies like SAP Hybris and Demandware has established us as an authoritative and trusted liaison for startups seeking their first sales leader, and scale-ups on their way to IPO. Visit RosensteinGroup.com [https://bit.ly/3QNVgg8] to find out more.