Amaze’s Day Empowers Brands and Creators from Anywhere
I had the pleasure of interviewing Aaron Day, the Chief Executive Officer of Amaze, a mobile ecommerce design platform helping anyone easily market and sell products online. Previously, Aaron was the global partnership lead at Canva where he focused on integrating its core technology into the world’s leading ecommerce platforms, solidifying Canva as one of the fastest-growing software companies to date.
What motivated you to join Amaze?
There were three main motivations for me to join the Amaze team. The first was during my time at Canva, where I realized there was a huge need for a change in how “Content meets Commerce”. What this means to me is that there is a movement of passionate people trying to connect with brands and sell things where they congregate. The tech in this area still has a lot of bottle necks and is way too hard to use, so it must be simplified. The second reason is that the team at Amaze had spent the past five-plus years building out an amazing piece of technology, but it needed a strategy, so the team knew where to focus to bring it to market. We’ve come so far in building a foundation and are continuing to execute on this mission of “Content meets Commerce”. The last reason is that I knew the tech is very relevant and it addresses a massive market opportunity which would allow for brands and creators to build a lot of wealth. I knew I wanted to hire a world class team even before we built a large company. This was very important to me because I wanted to move fast, and I knew we would need to build an entire new team of leaders to take this technology to market and cultivate the company to support product growth.
What is it that excites you about what you’re building at Amaze?
We call it the “consideration economy.” It is a segment of the Creator economy that is focused on two different groups giving each other consideration, which allows for both parties to grow. For example, say a small brand or merchant wants more reach and lower cost exposure to potential clients; a Creator or Influencer wants access to brands and catalogs so they can offer their followers more value and monetize better. This section of “consideration” is going to be the fastest growing part of social e-commerce and our technology is going to be right at the forefront.
What has been your biggest challenge when growing Amaze?
The number one challenge by far has been focus. We have no roadblocks with the sales pipeline, as just everyone we meet wants to work with us, since they are also realizing that they need tech like ours. With every mishap we encounter, we huddle as a team and outline next steps to overcome whatever issue we come across and figure out how to best serve our customers. The team has been hyper focused on our core product value and scalability — so much so that we‘ve had to say no to a couple partnerships and integrations offered so that we can specialize in the few that provide the greatest return.
What are your future plans for Amaze?
Our short-term future plan is to launch the first phase of our growth strategy, which empowers our customers from the merchant segment to easily share their catalogs with our growing number of Creators. From there, we will continue to add tech that will make processes more agile, efficient, and easier to use as well as help connect brands and creators in a disruptive way. Our business trajectory maps to our core vision of, “Enabling anyone to sell anything, anywhere, with simple tools that connect”.
If you had to share, “words of wisdom,” with a Founder who’s about to start their own startup, what would they be?
I can’t emphasize the power of partnerships enough. Companies just starting out need to reach out if they lack the funding to spend a lot on marketing, user testing, and other key areas. Founders should really think about a partner who could help you expand reach as fast as possible to gain market insight, get feedback, and to perfect their product market fit. You might give up a little in the short term, but the data you receive is so important to shaping the strategy of your company. Every founder/entrepreneur likes to think they are solving a real problem, but real problem solving comes when you work together and collaborate at scale.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
To be very transparent, I am a bit obsessed with LinkedIn, so you will definitely find me there. I share a lot of content on LinkedIn and follow many people who are as passionate as I am about the “consideration economy”. You can keep in touch with us by following us on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram as well as #amazeanywhere.
