"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the problem is I don't know which half."
It's a famous quote by marketing pioneer John Wanamaker, and even more than 100 years later, it still rings true because marketing feedback can be difficult to accurately measure, especially in an age of mass marketing. Recast, a data-driven marketing analytics and forecasting platform, is on a mission to change that. Using artificial intelligence, companies can replicate hundreds of hours of manual data science work to provide marketing teams with the tools to perform marketing mix modeling (MMM), forecasting, marketing planning and optimization in real time. House Party With the economy expected to contract, Recast enables brands to build confidence that their marketing dollars are increasing their bottom line as macroeconomic issues shift focus from a “spray and pray” approach to effectively understanding data drivers. comes Focused and comprehensive perspective. The platform is already used by growing consumer brands such as Away, Harris, Masterclass, Rocket Money and Calibrate.
AlleyWatch covers the business, the company's strategic plan, the latest round of funding that raised a total of $4.5 million, and more. to learn more about Recast caught up with CEO and co-founder Michael Kaminsky .
Who are your investors and how much did you make?
Recast has raised $3.4 million in a seed funding round led by Ler's Hippo. Participants include Good Friends (led by founders Warby Parker, Allbirds and Harris), as well as Data Tech Fund, Vibe Capital and industry experts Jonah Goodhart (co-founder of brand advertising platform Mott) and Adam Grenier (ex-Uber, ex-masterclass) .
Tell us about Recast products or services.
Recast puts the tools of modern marketing science into the hands of practitioners. For effective marketing, marketing mix models (MMM), forecasting, planning and optimization tools can be used directly by marketing teams without waiting for external data scientists or consulting firms. Recast uses the latest AI and Bayesian statistics to automate processes in data science that would take hundreds of hours to do manually.
What inspired you to start Recast?
When I was managing the data science team at Harris, I was evaluating many options for modeling the marketing mix, and I wasn't satisfied with the products on the market. Tom's (co-founder) experience running the market research firm Gradient Metrix points to a similar gap in the market. When Harris left, we decided to work together and solve this very difficult statistical problem.
How does retransmission differ?
Recast is the first marketing mix modeling platform built for modern brands, offering products that overcome the shortcomings of other measurement methods. Recast is an adaptive and "learning" method to correct and improve patterns over time Recast is able to evaluate the overall effectiveness of a marketing program: it works equally well with online and offline channels, as well as all trackable and non-trackable channels. (online and in-store) distribution channels.
What markets does Recast target and how big are they?
Recast TAM estimates $100 billion in potential savings among companies spending more than $500 billion on remarketing, tasked with eliminating huge (and growing!) marketing costs.
What is your business model?
Recast is a SaaS platform with a subscription-based model.
How do you prepare for a potential economic downturn?
We believe that one of the best ways for companies to recover from an economic downturn is to analyze and optimize their marketing spend. You could throw VC dollars at Superbowl ads when capital was cheap, but those days are long gone. The Recast platform can show the CMO where to cut and help the finance team plan how changes in the marketing budget will affect both top- and bottom-line performance.
We believe that one of the best ways for companies to recover from an economic downturn is to analyze and optimize their marketing spend. You could throw VC dollars at Superbowl ads when capital was cheap, but those days are long gone. The Recast platform can show the CMO where to cut and help the finance team plan how changes in the marketing budget will affect both top- and bottom-line performance.
What is the funding process like?
Despite a very difficult financial environment, we are very fortunate to have many investors who are interested in working with us. We think this is because as a company we always focus on capital efficiency and show investors that there is strong demand and willingness to pay for our products. We have real paying customers, so we're not trying to raise money for ghost events and booths. We are fortunate to have a great partner in Lerer Hippeau, a top New York-based foundation.
What was the biggest challenge you faced while raising capital?
The biggest challenge for us came when we tried to choose between competing terms from so many different boxes. It's a very emotionally draining process, and you have to make decisions that affect the long-term future of the company based on what you know about people within hours of the total interaction time. We feel good about the decisions we made, but it's been a very stressful few days!
What aspects of your job make you want to write checks to investors?
Our investors recognize the innovation and persistence of Recast's founders. "Both Tom and Michael have impressive technical skills, along with a deep understanding of marketing and the challenges modern marketers face when benchmarking," says Caitlin Strandberg, Lara Partner at Hippo. Our investors are also listening to what our customers are saying, and they see Recast as an essential tool to manage their marketing programs and deliver value quickly and effectively. Our investors understand that Recast has successfully built a team of high-level professionals with expertise in data science, econometrics and statistics.
What goal do you want to achieve in the next six months?
Plans to scale software engineering and data science teams to expand the platform and increase our reach as the best scientific marketing automation platform in the world.
What advice would you give to a New York company with no new capital in the bank?
Capital will always be available for struggling companies. Sometimes this capital may cost you more, but a solid business that generates profit per unit will always find willing investors. Focusing on core product and business fundamentals is something every leader should do, regardless of how much capital they have in the bank (or how difficult or easy the venture funding environment is).
Capital will always be available for struggling companies. Sometimes this capital may cost you more, but a solid business that generates profit per unit will always find willing investors. Focusing on core product and business fundamentals is something every leader should do, regardless of how much capital they have in the bank (or how difficult or easy the venture funding environment is).
Where is the company headed now in the short term?
Nothing has changed for us - we have the same roadmap as before, we now have more resources to deliver new product features to our customers faster.
What is your favorite restaurant in town?
Birds of a Feather is located in Williamsburg. We can't get enough sweat.
