CEO & Co-Founder, Yotpo
Еп429 | Томер Тагрин: Yotpo - от стартъп до компания за 1.4 млрд долара
🎙 Томер Тагрин е съосновател и CEO на Yotpo - технологична компания, оценена на над 1.4 милиарда долара, която помага на брандове да създават изключителни клиентски изживявания. Под негово ръководство компанията се разраства от малък стартъп до технологичен гигант, който обслужва над 30,000 бранда по целия свят, сред които GoPro, Patagonia и IKEA.
През 2020 година Томер ръководи стратегическото придобиване на българския стартъп SMS Bump. Благодарение на тази сделка, днес Yotpo има офис с над 120 души в София, който непрекъснато се увеличава със способни професионалисти.
Томер е забележителе...
About Tomer Tagrin
Tomer Tagrin, CEO and co-founder of Yotpo, has described a company "reset" driven by the realization that Yotpo was unable to execute on multiple products, including email and SMS, which affected its core reviews and loyalty business. He stated that the company decided to sell those products to partners to refocus on areas where it is "truly best in class." Tagrin has attributed this shift to several forces, including the belief that AI is fundamentally changing how reviews are written and consumed, and that loyalty is becoming more important for merchants, particularly amid tariff introductions. He has characterized the current period as a "reset of the playground" for commerce, noting that a significant percentage of consumers are already using large language models for product discovery. Tagrin has also discussed a broader cultural and strategic transformation at Yotpo, which he refers to as "Yotpo 2.0." He has stated that the company needed to change "from the inside out" by improving how it builds products, does marketing, and goes to market. He has emphasized a focus on long-term excellence over short-term growth, saying the company stopped tolerating "mediocre product" and "mediocre marketing." Tagrin has also highlighted the importance of authenticity in an AI-first world, arguing that customer reviews are becoming more critical as a source of trust. He has announced the upcoming launch of a tool called Atlas, which he said will help merchants leverage AI to understand customer sentiment and provide actionable guidance.
Transcript (44 segments)
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Unknown0:28
For superhosting.
How to be spiritual without being...
Off.
Thank you for coming. Thank you for having me. All F here. Hi, I do. Yeah, we've been working together to make an impact here in Bulgaria for the last three years now.
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Interviewer4:36
I know. Thank you for that. It's something that started out of absolutely nothing, just an iPad, and now it's here, 400 episodes later. Amazing. I always love the founding stories of something. I'm a big believer in...
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Tomer Tagrin5:11
Many things to share. Thank you. Yeah, I don't like to give interviews, right. So I feel privileged. Thank you for inviting me to your impact event. It's an amazing day. I've been here since just before lunch and hearing everything that you mentioned in one way or another, one thing that struck me immediately was the infinite mindset. There are topics like playing the long game in everything that you do on the podcast too. You've been doing Yotpo for the last 13 years. When did this idea come to mind that things should be done in a way that persists over time?
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Interviewer5:53
First, thank you for coming. Actually, we are big fans. Love Simon Sinek. He has a book about the infinite mindset. If I try to conclude, maybe I'll simplify it. There are two games. There's a game like football, soccer, tennis, doesn't matter. There's a start and an end. I compete against you and there's a clear winner and a clear loser. But there are different games in life. Give a few examples. No one wins in marriage. You can't win raising kids. Or let's say we play PlayStation and start playing GTA, then you tell me you want to move to whatever, FIFA. I'm fine. I just want to keep on playing.
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Tomer Tagrin7:10
Public companies, the market judges them by how much you're doing the next quarter, the next year. But when you look at Zull, he did some very interesting research that the best companies, the vast majority of success, relies on the infinite companies and the infinite players. There's another advantage of doing something for a long time. You understand that short-term doesn't mean anything. You can have a great year. Let me give you a great example. Let's take Google, one of the most impressive companies in the history of mankind, massive success. For those of you who have seen Sergey giving a lecture inside Google about why their AI sucks, be very outcome driven. I think it's very tough to disconnect from our Western reality, but definitely the best people and the best companies in the world are the infinite players. It's a concept that probably two years ago I started to get more into and I'm a huge believer that this is the most important thing.
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Interviewer8:34
You said two years ago this idea came to you. Let's take you back 13 years back. In the beginning of Yotpo, while developing the company, you were also writing an article each week. How did this help you get better in what you do? Because usually startup founders are focused on the most important thing.
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Tomer Tagrin9:11
It can give us a lot of exposure to talent, to customers. What I did was actually create like TechCrunch, The Next Web, a few other places, and I wrote my article. I sent it to the editors. It's already on the website. I built a mini site. I sent them. Eventually The Next Web bit and said okay, let's start writing for us. I wrote about the entrepreneurial journey and it was helpful in the beginning. I think it taught me a lot about creativity and achieving goals in a creative way. But definitely it was a great journey. What happened is after two years the value of it became so-so. So I pretty much stopped.
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Interviewer10:10
I've never had a founder of a flamingo company on my podcast. Thank you for being here. I was about to say the word that's a nonexistent animal, but I really love this part where you were mentioning what you guys do around your offices around the world and here in Sofia, it's a real animal. So the flamingo mentality, I loved it. Thank you. How did you grow to this idea of grasping things out of written content, from books or writing articles? Were you a passable reader beforehand or you, like most founders, start with The Lean Startup?
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Tomer Tagrin11:12
I'm trying to write something for my kids. That doesn't go so well, but writing is definitely something I really like doing. What I think I learned is that eventually what people remember is how you made them feel, not any kind of data you show them. So maybe the Steve Jobs sentence that the storytellers are the most influential people in the world, because if you're able to convey a story and pass that idea through. Think about Mandela, the King, Obama wrote the story of Obama. Maybe it's bigger than Obama itself. I think stories for me have been a huge part. I think for me it comes very naturally.
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Interviewer12:11
Peterson event here in Sofia. He mentioned that people don't perceive through facts. They perceive through stories. So just to build upon your argument, there's going through the books. There is one thing that I always ask founders, entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs that are visiting the podcast: the most influential books. How would you say that The Infinite Game is one of them, and if yes, what would be the other two or three that you would refer to?
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Tomer Tagrin12:40
Now I'm very much in what I call a spiritual journey. I got sick and tired of all the business books. I stopped reading all those hard things about hard things or Zero to One. I read those, but they weren't that influential for me. For me, it's an amazing book. And maybe the third one that I recently read that was for me very deep, it's called Being Spiritual Without Being Religious. That for me had a lot of similarities on leadership as well, although it's a very different type of book.
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Interviewer13:31
Earlier you were mentioning some values. I won't go deep into that, but values are very important. What you were describing in your way would be values. How are they being developed? And you said you're tired of all the how-to books and going into observation, reflection, taking care of yourself was one thing that you mentioned.
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Tomer Tagrin14:10
To give a good example to my kid, for example, this would be a story that I share. I had a very big health condition myself. I had cancer two times. I think the second time, what a lot of people don't know, was right before a very big event at Yotpo that we were preparing for for a year. I think you eventually understand, reverse engineering from the best leaders at Yotpo, my biggest worry for them or the best people at Yotpo is burnout. That's the number one problem. When you truly run a marathon, not just everyone says they run a marathon and after three years they run out of air.
If you are not focused enough on their happiness, I think retrospectively, what my cancer or my condition made me do is be much more authentic and much more focused on my happiness and what makes me happy. I think that's the meaning of life. The goal of life, if there is such a thing, is to be happy. So I'm much more focused on my happiness. For different people it means different things. Some people being all day long in work is happiness. Others need a different balance or harmony. But just bringing that to the level that you're actually able to think about it and have the mental capacity to deal with happiness, it's something very important.
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Interviewer16:10
That you really need to take care of yourself. And for me, taking care of myself means making sure that your happiness is in the right place. Again, different interpretation for different people, but it has to start from the core of being happier. Recently I was doing research for a talk that I was giving on stage and I dug deeper into Roger Bannister's story. This is the man that ran the first one mile in under four minutes. I didn't know that what made him do it was the innovation to use pacers. Using pacers as an analogy to what you were saying, there were people allowing him not to run too quickly too early or too slow so he could be on track to get the record. Everyone was making sure that he runs one lap in one minute.
So how do you start off with the smarter of the two? I've heard you saying a couple of times with Omri, the two founders, and now growing to hundreds and hundreds of people around the world. How do you do it? How do you pick the right people, the right pacers, to work with and be happy and make an impact like you are doing at the moment?
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Tomer Tagrin17:31
I think it starts with understanding that it's a team sport. It's not an individual sport. Building things, you have to do it together. At Yotpo, there are people that are much more talented than me in most of the areas. You really need to be authentic enough to truly allow them to shine.
Maybe I'll tell a story about it. I'm a huge tennis fan. I used to play tennis. It's my sport. I'm a huge Roger Federer fan. There's a video on YouTube where they interview him for senior management. In one of the questions, they said, "If you want to be a great tennis player, work on your weaknesses. If you want to be the best in the world, work on your strengths." That's what's going to lift you up. I really try to focus on the things I'm doing really well, improving them. The things that I'm not doing well, I delegate to people. A lot of people don't know their weaknesses. You need to be very honest about your weaknesses because you can't be everything for everyone.
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Interviewer19:11
I just need to make sure that your mic is properly set. I'll get this thing, put it under here, hide the flash. Sorry about that. I just want to make sure that since Yotpo wants to be more present on social media, we're going to make sure the quality of the content is good as well. I love this about the strengths. I've heard it from GV. Maximize your important things for yourself, the things that you're good at. I'm good at interviewing and meeting people and talking to them.
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Tomer Tagrin20:10
The ship, he can do things but not everything. He cannot be the navigator, cannot be the cook of the ship. One thing that comes to mind, Bulgaria has one unicorn and Israel has 90 plus unicorns, three decacorns, which is huge. What's the difference, knowing a bit of the cultures of the organization? Israel has two big advantages. One is the army. Historically, Israel is quite cyber, still today the largest place where Israel thrives. Even when you look at the big companies, a lot of them like Check Point or SolarEdge came from an army unit or army technology. The army, the fact that people learn to work under pressure and have a culture of survival, taking risks, doing whatever it takes, is really important for starting something. Another thing is that Israel used to be called Startup Nation. This process takes time because only after you have a few successful startups do you get experienced executives and capable investors. To build an ecosystem, it really takes time. What we're doing here is a great example. I hope that many more startups will come out of Bulgaria.
Time brings money. Time brings. Israel now has all the major VCs with entities in Israel, which is massive. When we started, it wasn't the case. They have experienced executives and entrepreneurs. It's an ecosystem that's being built, but it starts with one or two. When you zoom out in retrospect, I really think the future of tech is bright. I'm not that familiar with the education system, which is another big component. The ability to produce talent every year is really important for scaling up.
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Interviewer23:11
You got into army and military training. You've been through training yourself. What can entrepreneurs benefit from it? Here in Bulgaria, we have a professional army and it's not mandatory. You can choose to go or not. The feedback from past times wasn't that good for developing yourself as a person. So what did you learn for yourself that's helping you now?
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Tomer Tagrin23:41
First, I would say me and Omri, the other smarter half, are not a good representation. A lot of founders came from the intelligence units, so a lot of them are taking themselves to the private world. What I learned, and it's very different from a professional army, is first how to deal with difficulties. I used to do eight-hour shifts in the places and learned to deal with difficulties. The second thing is just put a target somewhere, like navigating in the field, and just get there whatever it takes. The "whatever it takes" mentality is something I got from the army. Being focused on the mission.
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Interviewer24:53
Yeah, just keep going. You were mentioning stoicism. You're going to tell us about it?
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Tomer Tagrin25:11
First, stoicism is a portion of Roman philosophy that gives you practical tools. For me, I found it very practical on how to deal with difficulties and ensure happiness. There's a lot of techniques that I use. The introduction to stoicism was very profound to me. Let me give you one example. They tell you once a week, once a month, when you're alone in the shower or in the car, just think about the worst possible things that could happen to you and really try to feel that it's happening. When you finish after 7-10 minutes, you say, "Oh, I'm so thankful I have so much in my life." It increases the level of gratitude and happiness. Stoicism was a great framework to deal with some of the most difficult times I knew, and I still practice it daily. I highly recommend it to anyone going through difficulty or who wants more tools to deal with it.
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Interviewer26:54
This keeps me on my toes when I'm feeling happy. You might make a mistake, but sooner or later it will happen. There's a good sentence my therapist says: "Trauma is a gift in disguise. You just need to understand that." How long have you been seeing a therapist? In Bulgaria, there's a stigma, especially for men. I myself have been doing it for the last four years because I think it's like emotional fitness. It keeps me in check and helps me be happy. How did you decide to go? Is it a cultural thing? Do more people do it in your world?
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Tomer Tagrin27:51
I'm not sure when exactly I started. I've had quite a lot of different therapists for myself, with my wife, with my kids. Recently I started going to a coach that one of our VCs introduced me to. In the first session, I asked him what coaching is. It seemed close to therapy. He told me, "Tom, it's not coaching. It's not what coaching is, it's what is growing. Growing is understanding your ego so you can limit it." In the Western world, we are not used to talking about our feelings and what drives us. Understanding that is the most fascinating journey I've ever done. There's a saying in Buddhism: "The longest journey in life is the 15 centimeters between your brain and your heart." I'm super happy you're doing that. It makes us better human beings.
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Interviewer29:43
The thing that comes to mind: what's the difference? Being wise is knowing others. Being enlightened is knowing yourself. So it's a friend from university. You said the smarter one, but what advice would you give to people starting companies here in Bulgaria or anywhere in the world on finding the person to start a company with?
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Tomer Tagrin30:28
I think in general, before companies, the most important decision in your life is who you choose for your journey. Applied to companies, it's the single most important decision you make is who you start the company with. First, you need to get to know the person really, really well. What's important is that you need someone who can complement your skills. I can advise on that. It's a very tough thing to do. I was very fortunate in that case. Spend a lot of time, make sure you get to know them, and don't rush yourself to start something. I know so many founders with horror stories where companies got shut down because of that. Just take the time and make sure you really get to know the other person as much as possible.
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Interviewer31:37
Piggybacking on the infinite game you mentioned earlier, Naval Ravikant says, "Not only don't do things that are finite, but also don't create relationships that are finite. Don't spend a second with a person you won't spend your life with." There's a question that nobody asks successful entrepreneurs: are you happy? Are you in a good place? I know so many people that succeeded at unbelievable levels and they're miserable. There's a good TED talk by J.K. Rowling about how after she wrote Harry Potter, she went into massive depression because she understood that the biggest thing in her life was behind her. A lot of the time, people talk about success and ego but don't talk about the self. Understanding the self is much more important.
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Tomer Tagrin33:22
Yet here, the power of questions. You can see how one question can lead to so many others. Seven years ago, I went to Germany, leaving my fiancée here in Bulgaria, and I realized the importance of trade-offs and what you are willing to give up to get what you're heading towards.
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Interviewer34:11
What's the biggest business lesson from these 13 years at Yotpo?
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Tomer Tagrin34:26
I think again, it's a cliché, but the most important thing in business is the team you work with and the customer you're serving. Really understanding your customer and their point of view is so important for decisions like how to build product, what type of brand to build. That's a very big lesson. Another lesson is not to be too spiritual, but understanding how to motivate people for the long run is crucial. It takes a village. I know founders who love the crazy founder image, shouting and yelling like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. But most founders are not Steve Jobs. There are also those who, after $10 million, become Yoda on LinkedIn giving tips. I hate those. They're not authentic. There's a saying: "I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am." It means they're playing a part based on what they think a great entrepreneur should look like. But you need to be you.
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Interviewer36:52
Absolutely. Having a three-hour long podcast, that would be the shortest episode in the history. His name is Ivo Ivanov, and he has this saying that everyone has a superhuman story inside that's waiting to be told. When people are authentic, the stories come out. Did you learn these lessons through mistakes you made? Starting a company is like growing a baby. You're not equipped, and someone is relying on you. Making mistakes means taking risks. Did the risks bring you these rewards?
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Tomer Tagrin38:11
I don't think I'm a very risk-seeking person. Most of the things I do, I don't see as risky. So it's a tricky thing. But we made tons of endless mistakes. That's the only way to learn. You don't learn by being successful. If you are successful without understanding the why, it's usually pure luck. So you have to take risks, make mistakes. Those are very growing experiences. People who have worked with me for a long time know I love the Warren Buffett saying: "50% of my investments in life were a mistake. I'm just not sure who is who." It's all about trying. You can't know which mistakes got us here and which held us back. Reverse engineering is very hard.
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Interviewer39:30
Going towards the end of the conversation, I met Michel earlier today and he said, "Please tell him to share the funny story about hiking." Would you mind sharing it?
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Tomer Tagrin39:44
I have no idea what he's talking about. I love hiking in nature. When the weather is good, we go to an easy one. In the middle of the hike, Omri always sat on a rock and told me, "That's it, I'm done." He just sat there. I was like, "Let's keep going, the lake is 20 minutes away." I needed 30-40 minutes to convince him to keep going. Eventually he finished it, and he came to the hike in Crocs. Not a great move. But it was a great time and very funny. Two hilarious human beings.
Talking about Omri and me, Yotpo is growing. It will be great to have more capable engineers and people in every department to support the mission. Anyone who hears this podcast, please join us. Talent is the most important thing.
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Interviewer41:28
Absolutely. I really love this local talent mentality that you're bringing here. Sofia is the research center for the SMS product, which is amazing. It's like getting better every week when I come to your guys' office. So finishing the conversation with the advice for happiness and success.
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Tomer Tagrin42:12
I think to be happy, I'll say the two journeys in life. Your first journey is looking outward. You travel, you experience the world. The second journey is understanding what's inside. That's the more important journey. The more you can understand yourself, the happier you'll be. On the success side, very similar to Israel. The only way to be successful when you sell your technology or product outside of your core market is to get closer to the market and understand it. Market connectivity and really understanding why you're developing what you're developing.
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Unknown43:10
[Applause]