Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Catching Up With Jordan Glazier, Wildfire Systems
For today's interview, we sat down to catch up with Jordan Glazier, the CEO and founder of Solana Beach-based Wildfire Systems (www.wildfire-corp.com), whcih is backed by TTV Capital, QED Investors, B Capital, the George Kaiser Family Foundation, Daher Capital, Mucker Capital, Bonfire Ventures, Moonshots Capital, and BAM Ventures. The company develops loyalty management software, and recently raised $15M in funding.
It's been a few years since we last talked, tell us again about what your Wildfire Systems does and what is it providing?
Jordan Glazier: It has been a while and it's great to talk to you again. Wildfire makes a software platform for monetizing organic e-commerce. It enables our customers to embed cash back, rewards, and social commerce in their existing software, or build entirely new experiences for desktop or mobile. Our customers can tap into that platform directly to build really unique solutions, and we've also used our platform to build out a suite of white-label tools that new and current customers can brand and customize. You can think of it like a white-label Honey.
What are you planning to do with this new funding round?
Jordan Glazier: Well, the simple answer is: grow! There are always new features to build and improve the platform, of course- and like most software, it will never be "done." But on either side of that are two other critical components of our business that we are focused on for growth: our customers and our merchant network. We already have more than 30k merchants, but we are on track to have 50k by year's end, for example. In addition, while we drive incremental revenue for these retailers, we enable our enterprise customers (which include Acorns and Microsoft) to earn revenue from organic, everyday shopping and social sharing, while boosting customer retention and loyalty. Our new funding will allow us to focus on adding even more enterprise customers. The reason this is a big deal for us, and to add some perspective, when Rakuten acquired Ebates for $1B in 2014, they had just 2.5 million users. When PayPal acquired Honey in 2019, they had 17 million users. We are in the midst of building out our white-label solution for customers that have a combined reach of 880 million users.
How did the fundraising process go for you on this Series A funding?
Jordan Glazier: This is a great question because it was so different this time! We'd previously raised Seed capital, and while raising an A is always different from raising Seed money, this time, of course, there was a pandemic going on. Any entrepreneur that's raised venture capital before will tell you there's usually a lot of flying around, scheduling and coordinating a bunch of back to back meetings so you can get in and get out and get back to work- it's this whole painful thing. Well, let me tell you, this was so cool to do virtually. It's still a lot of work to raise money, but everyone being basically stuck at home made it significantly less painful. All the usual overhead just evaporated. It was a silver lining during a really difficult time. The other thing that's different is there seem to be a lot more funds looking for great companies, especially fintechs like ourselves, to invest in right now. So it’s good timing for companies looking to raise a round. Overall, it was a great experience and we are so excited to have TTV and QED co-lead.
How has the pandemic impacted or changed your business, positively or negatively?
Jordan Glazier: I decided early on to drop our physical office entirely and embrace being virtual. I've been really impressed at how the team adapted and it's been a positive change for our business. On a larger scale, I recognize that we are very lucky, as our business is all about monetizing organic e-commerce, and e-commerce is faring quite well through the pandemic. While the types of transactions flowing through our system changed due to the pandemic (it was crazy to watch travel and entertainment spending just evaporate overnight), consumer’ shopping habits changed as everyone shifted to buying online. Demand for the brands for whom we build loyalty is returning, partly due to these behavior shifts. We’re lucky to benefit from this trend, and have been able to support the merchants that use our platform, along with our customers, weather the pandemic by helping them continue to attract and retain customers.
What's the biggest lesson you have learned, as an entrepreneur, since we spoke last? (i.e. since your seed funding)
Jordan Glazier: The biggest lessons I’ve learned over the past couple years relate to the balancing acts we have to do as entrepreneurs. We balance between 'sticking to the plan' vs being opportunistic. We balance between giving the team flexibility while at the same time enforcing accountability. We balance being fiscally responsible and investing ahead of the curve to achieve growth. You can never know the right answer in the moment, that only comes in hindsight. In the end it comes down to a mix of instinct, data and some hard decisions.
Finally, what's next for you as a company?
Jordan Glazier: Our results for our financial services and technology companies show that we’re on the right track, and we’re well on the way to being a real game-changer for our partners, driving increased user retention and significant new revenue streams.
Frankly, we’re heads down, focused on execution. We have a fantastic team and we’re in the exciting (and sometimes painful) transition from being a startup to sculpting a company that’s built to last. That means driving success for our current partners and scaling our ability to handle a rapidly growing business, while making sure we keep Wildfire an amazing place to work. We’re focused on ensuring our company culture persists as we double and triple the size of our team.
Thanks, and good luck!