#awinewith Sam Safer Valentine
MEET Sam Safer Valentine, Founder of Norby AI
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:00):
You are listening to Spark tv, where we bring you daily interviews with real women in business at all stages. I'm your host, Danielle Lewis, and I am so grateful to have you here. So good. Sam, welcome to Spark tv.
Sam Safer Valentine (00:15):
Thanks so much. I'm so delighted to be here.
Danielle Lewis (00:18):
I'm just delighted that you are coming to me live from the fashion closet,
Sam Safer Valentine (00:26):
Aka the podcast studio. Yes, it's the fashion closet.
Danielle Lewis (00:30):
It's so cool. It looks interesting. So if anyone's not watching this on YouTube, the fabulous Sam is inside a closet right now, but I'm kind of jealous because it actually looks so fun, but also very practical and a good sign of the things that we do as business owners to keep the balls rolling,
Sam Safer Valentine (00:50):
All those things. Yes, try to keep it organized, try to switch it up for the seasons or if I have a conference or a talk or what have you, I like to keep things organized in here, but yeah,
Danielle Lewis (01:05):
So good. I love it. Well, welcome. Let's kick things off by telling everyone who you are and what you do. Hi,
Sam Safer Valentine (01:13):
I'm Sam, safer Valentine, and I am one of the co-founders and COO of Norby ai.
Danielle Lewis (01:22):
Amazing. Now tell us what the heck does Norby AI do?
Sam Safer Valentine (01:27):
Yeah, Norby AI is reporting and insights for shop Shopify brands. We basically help DTC and kind of omnichannel brands be able to see their business and their data. Clearly. You can kind of think of it as a AI data analyst, so you connect your sales and revenue and marketing platforms and you can put Norby to work answering your questions, building reports for you, offering recommendations and insights. You can email with it, it learns from your email, you can chat with it on the web and in Slack you can get really cool real time answers about your marketing and product and sales and stuff. And then you can also get AI powered weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports with, I mean details from everything from your web traffic to customer insights to your performance marketing, all those results emailed to you, your team, all kind of customize. And we have some cool other features being able to automagically update your KPI tracker. That is, I know lots of teams do a lot of manual work on that, and we have some cool beta features around deep research and dashboards too.
Danielle Lewis (02:58):
This is wild because, so I ran an e-commerce store very briefly built on Shopify in 2020 and went on to exit that business. And one of the most interesting things I found was I had no idea what metrics to look at. You look at your Shopify dashboard and I was kind of like, okay, sales, those kind of things. But it sounds to me like you have built a tool that is having an experienced e-commerce data analyst on your team like that.
Sam Safer Valentine (03:34):
Yes. That cool. My two co-founders and and our team, we have very, very deep expertise in the e-commerce space and we have also worked with a couple different growth marketers and directors at e-Comm to really build out and kind of train the AI around this very specific data and all the different kind of KPIs that an e-comm business would need to track.
Danielle Lewis (04:01):
That is so cool. So you said you have deep expertise in the e-comm space. What is your background? How did you even get into this?
Sam Safer Valentine (04:11):
Oh my God. I have had a very episodic kind of career literally from being an assistant fashion curator to working in marketing, brand sales, retail, kind of e-comm on the commercial side of two major international museums, owning my own sales and marketing agency agency. What kind of inspired me to pursue a career in tech really though was I had a consulting project kind of client. It was for a retail technology company back in 20 19, 20 20, and I absolutely kind of loved the fast pace and collaborative, I would say multidisciplinary aspect of the work in tech and of the startup culture. And it really, I would say, aligned with my skillset. So that kind of got me started on this path and I have been throughout the years been able to see e-com really, really take off in businesses small and large and how they might dovetail with brick and mortar retail as well, really expanding omnichannel, how wholesale might play into some of that as well too as another sales channel. So really have been exposed to that throughout the years with whether it was in museums, I would say it's probably a bit more of gift, kind of like self-purchase, but across many, many different product categories to then going deeper, working with smaller kind of fashion accessory brands, jewelry brands, and just seeing them and helping them kind of scale on the digital side.
Danielle Lewis (06:06):
Yeah, because really interesting. You're right, it is super multidisciplinary. You have to be a tech person, an AI person, an e-com person, a fashion person. That's such an interesting mix of skill sets that you are bringing together. What do you think has been the biggest challenge for you along the way? There's not enough time in the world to cover all of the challenge.
Sam Safer Valentine (06:31):
Yeah, I mean I guess there's that. I think what's been, and I don't know if this is necessarily the right way to answer this question so I could potentially answer a different way, but I'm an operator generally and I have a generalist skillset I would say in some ways, ways. And I've had so many different experiences and I've been able to leverage that. So I think it's a lot of different skills and a lot of different tools that I've picked up throughout the years. So I think that's one way I could answer that question. Well, no,
Danielle Lewis (07:15):
I actually think it's really interesting because I think that sometimes people think the path is linear, that you just have an idea and you go and you pursue it and then you're a giant success and happy days, but it is exactly what you said it is. I did a bit of this, I did a bit of that. I found out this, I really liked that and and all of a sudden I'm here. And so I actually, I have a generalist skillset because it's actually such a great quality to be able to be interested in different things and apply that back to solving problems in your business.
Sam Safer Valentine (07:48):
And I would say even within that generalist skillset, it's like I major in or I focus on marketing, sales, biz dev partnerships, customer experience, customer success. I think they all kind of go hand in hand, but it is, I think a superpower is just really, excuse my French, getting shit done and holding a lot of the balls in the air, but it's having done a bunch of different roles and experienced different pieces and seen a lot to then be able to put that all together. And I think whether you business is small or scaling or it's going through a pivot or what have you, you're going to need to leverage different skills and tools in that kit to get you through or get you to the next level or help you make decisions or create strategy or what have you. So
Danielle Lewis (08:49):
Yeah, I love that. And interesting. So you mentioned multiple roles wearing many hats. You also mentioned your family. At what point in the business journey did having a family happen and how has that impacted your ability to hold balls in the air?
Sam Safer Valentine (09:09):
Yeah, I have a two and a half year old,
(09:12):
So I'm a venture backed founder, and so that is stressful in itself and running a team. I do think it's really changed over the last two and a half years I would say. I think in some ways being a startup founder and being a parent is very, there's a lot of similarities and you need, it's like no day is kind of the same and you kind of never know sometimes what you're going to get you. I was talking to somebody a couple of weeks ago, we were like, you could show up at the end of the day at pickup and you have snacks and the truck and the ball and the whatever, and you feel like you're prepared, but it's just not the right thing. So I think it's made me a bit more flexible. I think it's really helped, and I would always hear this from different friends or mentors or just other, listening to other women on podcasts.
(10:25):
It does kind of make you sharper and focus and I never believed that that was going to be me, so that has also kind of helped too. It kind of cuts out some of the noise. I think when you really are time crunched in some ways. I guess it also means I feel like I'm kind of in some ways working 24 7. I really also trying, I'm a big workaholic and I really love working, but I've been trying not to work on the weekends and really just give that time to family time or trying to even get a little bit of time to myself, which is important.
(11:04):
Well, it's funny because showing up is Showing up is just a human and being a good partner and being a good business partner and being a good mom and a friend and a daughter and all the things. Also, I've always been a night owl, I would say in the last kind of four to five months as my little guys become more of a toddler and have more feelings and assert independence, it's taken a lot more energy out of me. I'm really tired. I'm much more tired early, and so I feel a little bit robbed of my late night quiet kind of thinking strategy time, just like, oh, all right, I got to get in bed.
Danielle Lewis (11:55):
Well, and that was going to be a question, thinking about all of those ways in which you have to show up and hold energy, hold space for family, friends, team, husband, child, all of the people, and you mentioned that you do actually have to carve out time for yourself. Is that something intentional that you do? Do you have a self-care practice or is it a little bit more ad hoc?
Sam Safer Valentine (12:23):
I would say the only practice is coffee. Coffee in the morning, lots of coffee. No, I don't. You're speaking my language. Yes, exactly. I do try to daily if I can, and I plan it in, I need to move my body and get a little sweaty for 20 to 30 minutes, and I can only probably really fit in 30 minutes max a day, but it does help with just stress or thinking through things or shifting some energy or a vibe that I might need to shift, but I feel like that's probably the most major self-care thing. I don't know. This might be controversial, but sometimes I also just need to, I say it's sitting, I'm terrible at sitting still for 10 minutes. I am not very good at meditating out of silence, but sometimes just kind of closing my eyes and setting an alarm for 10 minutes and dozing off a little bit just to give me a little recharge before going back into meetings or screen time or what have you,
Danielle Lewis (13:35):
Could be helpful too. I actually could not agree with that more. I get this funny if I've had a super stressful day and it's like three o'clock in the afternoon and I get this almost headache behind my eyes and it's like my eyes are fluttering. That practice of just closing your eyes, setting a timer and just breathing, and yes, sometimes you doze off a little bit, sometimes you don't. Just literally closing your eyes for 10 minutes or five minutes or any kind of minutes is life changing in those moments.
Sam Safer Valentine (14:05):
Yeah, it really, yeah, I don't know, quiet, nap, breathing, meditation, all the things. It works.
Danielle Lewis (14:15):
I know. I love it and I love it too because I think, so I'm also a workaholic and I love that it's not like I have to do my 5:00 AM routine and I have to do this, and it's like we fit it in.
Sam Safer Valentine (14:27):
I'm not a morning person. Oh my God. I mean, I think I was just sharing with you, my kiddo was up at five 30 this morning and really hard. I feel a little bit it. It's hard. Yeah, yeah. I'm never going to be one of those, and I get up at five and then I do X, Y, and z. I listen to those people and I'm like, that is aspiration that I will never, it's aspiration. I know I'm never going to get there, but I'm like, that could be amazing. It's just not for me.
Danielle Lewis (15:00):
That's okay. I was once a morning person and I don't know what happened, but no more. No more. So I'm with you. I'm with you. Oh, I love it. You mentioned being a venture backed startup, so talk to me about raising capital. What was that like? How much have you raised from, what was the experience like of going out and raising money?
Sam Safer Valentine (15:24):
Yeah, so I have two co-founders. It's the three of us, and I've been non technical. They're both technical and to date, we've raised about $8 million and from what you would typically call institutional VCs, and we did that over, we raised a pre-seed and a seed back few years ago. So been, we have a fiduciary duty with that capital to use it as efficiently as we can, and so that's a lot of responsibility. It's been an incredible responsibility and challenge. Raising has really been one of my co-founders. It's like we've deploying our assets across the three of us, so he has been the one to really dig in with kind of investors and investor relations. We kind of shape the strategy together, the three of us, and we will do calls and kind of catchups and stuff, but fundraising is stressful. Being in a process is also stressful. You could be talking to literally 50, 60, 70, 80, sometimes a hundred different firms
(17:08):
At different times kind of within a process. So it can be very draining and you get used to hearing, yes, maybe it's not even a yes at first, right? It's like, oh, maybe a lot of nos or just silence and ghosting, or we want to track you and will revisit. So I think you just get very used to the kind of pitching yourself, your business, your vision, which is important for any business, whether you're a venture backed or not, whether you're selling a service or a physical product. And also thinking about the different audiences, the different kind of type of funds, the different type of people you might be talking to. And there's also some gaming and strategy within it as well too. That can be fun for some and really, really stressful for others. I think lucky that I have been able to raise, there are a lot of women who haven't, I think it's now less than 2% of women founded companies that are able to raise venture capital, and that has been in decline over the last few years. I think at one point it was 2% or just over 2%. So super
Danielle Lewis (18:47):
Lucky. I mean, you have an amazing business. Do you attribute your success in raising venture capital to something? Has there been a secret to your success? Do you think it's your team just have an amazing business or a bit of a combination of everything?
Sam Safer Valentine (19:09):
I think it's when you are raising a pre-seed, it is really the vision and the team and the vision of the product that you're going to build almost kind of what the world might look like and be like once you've kind of solved that or the mission in that, and they're really taking a bet on the founding team and being able to execute. So I have two really incredible technical. The three of us are really able, we have really complimentary skillset sets and we're able to create and execute and bring to life and all the areas that we need to be able to sell and scale. It's a combination of things. I think it's also timing. It's timing in the market, what we are building, who we're building it for. There's probably some luck in there as well. LI am a female founder, but I also have two male and sorry, I feel like I'm being sloppy with this zoom. I want to edit it, but there's also something, there's real life. This is real life. Yeah. Yeah. It's real life. There's also in that too. It wasn't just me, myself going out to raise as a woman.
Danielle Lewis (20:55):
Yeah,
Sam Safer Valentine (20:56):
There's that.
Danielle Lewis (20:57):
I know, but it is just interesting hearing other people's stories to figure out what somebody might be missing, who's listening in. Yeah, it's really interesting. Have you found, so from a stakeholder management point of view, obviously raising 8 million in capital brings with it shareholders potentially a board, lots of overhead that's not actually running the business. Are you involved much in that kind of management?
Sam Safer Valentine (21:29):
Yes. In so far as we have a quarterly board meeting, we'll work on a board deck together, we'll discuss strategy and what our talking points are. There's definitely, definitely preparation for it. And I think sometimes it can be a really wonderful, beautiful forcing function too to whether it's landing that last bit of strategy on something or getting your, we've been back and forth on how we might solve X, Y, Z for a particular feature or getting that campaign out or what have you. There's something nice in having a deadline, and it also can work against you too, or it feels like we're not quite ready yet. We wish it was in two weeks or three weeks or what have you. So yes, there's overhead. Yes, there's investor updates, there's calls, and I think we've been really incredibly lucky with the investors that we have. They're really great partners. I know not everyone can say that, and I think they trust us, but we've also shown that we can be trusted and we've had to make, and we can make hard decisions if we need to, whether that's around kind of resourcing team, pivoting the product, decision making strategy, et cetera.
Danielle Lewis (23:01):
Yeah, I love that. I think it's such an important point that to have people, shareholders, board members, team managers, anyone to trust you, you do have to actually be trustworthy. You do have to deliver on what you say you're going to deliver on or make hard decisions in those times. So I just think that that is such an awesome point to make. And now I know it's getting late for you, so we'll wrap soon, I promise. But I want to ask you, what do you attribute your growth to? So over the years, obviously the business has grown, have there been any key particular strategies that have worked really well for the business to grow?
Sam Safer Valentine (23:52):
Think there's something around, I would say, being kind of fearless and focused on the problem you're solving or the product you're building or the surface that you're providing and trying to be incrementally better week after week. And in the beginning, it is very much about testing and almost doing little mini, I would say sprints. I would call them marketing or growth sprints to see what's going to work. So you can quickly get some data to understand, okay, this marketing or sales strategy is going to work, or this piece of content is or it's not. Or something just actually kind of like, okay, whatever. You try to do this beta program and that just totally failed. And then it's like, okay, why? And then we can retool it for the next time.
(24:50):
So I think it's, everyone says it's learn to kind of fail quickly, but there is something in that we've definitely waited too long to make some decisions or what have you, but it is really, there's only so much time. There's only so much resource. So thinking, I think about that, being comfortable with being uncomfortable and taking risks, whatever that could be, that could be having this amazing idea about hosting X, Y, Z event, whether that's virtual or in person, that can drive a lot of buzz and potential leads or what have you. And even though it kind of feels scary or uncomfortable, it's like going to do it or putting yourself out there on social, however that might be, you're kind of showing up or pitching yourself for that big potential kind of client or Yeah, it's just swinging big, I would say, I think is some of the secrets. And also listening. You need to kind of listen, you need to hear and you need to not hear what you want to hear.
Danielle Lewis (26:18):
Yes.
Sam Safer Valentine (26:21):
Which can really, really, which can be difficult. And I also think there's something in relationship building I think is also kind of a secret weapon or just being open to have any type of conversation with whoever and wherever go to that networking event. You never know. Literally. Actually, my co-founder, Nick and I, were at a dinner three weeks ago and we met a bunch of, it was kind of like an industry, kind of like an influencer dinner with this media company that we had done some work with. And I met this really amazing marketer, and then we were literally just at Shoptalk in Las Vegas, which is a big kind of DTC E-com retail conference, and we were literally waiting in a line and three people in front of us was this woman we had just met at the dinner. She was like, oh, I was just thinking about you guys and talking about you guys to my two colleagues. Oh, here they are, and we booked a meeting and what have you. So you just never know. Go to the things, go to the happy hours, go to the networking event, say yes to things, put yourself out there. I think that's some of the secrets. Yes, there could be. There's much more tactical things that one could say, but I feel like those are some of the bigger themes.
Danielle Lewis (28:03):
Yeah, I think it was spot on. I mean, as a general rule, say yes and put yourself out there. I know sometimes things feel like, oh, that was such a waste of my time. I didn't meet anyone. But it's like you just never know. So it's always worth it, and you just never know who the right person might not be there, but then someone you just were chatting to talks to their friend or talks to their colleague or talks to whatever. Now you are just in more people's heads, more opportunities will flow. I love it. You are so amazing, Sam. Thank you. Thank you so much. Now I always love to wrap up these podcasts with one last question. So reflecting on your time in business, what would be one piece of advice that you would give to another woman on her business journey?
Sam Safer Valentine (28:55):
Oh, I'm going to use my one sports ball reference that I have, which is Kobe Bryant said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So take a shot. Take a step. I know so many people have probably said that before, but it's true. And you'd probably take a shot or take a step that most women don't take.
Danielle Lewis (29:25):
You are amazing. Sam, thank you so much for your time. Thank today in sharing your story and your wisdom with the Spark community. That was incredible. Thank you so much. That wraps another episode of Spark tv. Shout out to Spark TV sponsor IP Australia for their amazing support of the Spark Podcast and women in business. And if no one tells you today you've got this, I.
✨ Thank you to IP Australia for supporting the SPARK podcast and women in business ✨
