Founding Story

I've been working in Digital Marketing since 2010. I started buying digital media for Campbell Soup portfolio brands at a WPP agency before moving to a programmatic ad company called Undertone as a Digital Strategist. My story truly begins in 2013 when I joined Wunderkind (then known as BounceX) as one of the first employees. Wunderkind is an enterprise SaaS platform that drives one-to-one communication for eCommerce brands through triggered email, SMS, and on-site behavioral campaigns.

Working within Customer Success at a MarTech company requires a unique skill set. You need to develop good relationships with customers, be highly technically proficient, and have strong marketing knowledge. Understanding how to use marketing technology is nearly as crucial as crafting the perfect message when working within the digital space. During my time at BounceX (sorry, Wunderkind), I had the opportunity to work with some of the sharpest minds and most innovative brands across all of eCommerce.

While at Wunderkind in 2017, I started working with Nike as the company transitioned to a D2C model through their 'Triple-Double' initiative. I spent the next few years building out the Nike+ user acquisition, adoption, and retention program across Nike's global properties. This experience set the foundation for the strategy we deploy today at Create Utility.

Most recently, I worked at a small SMS marketing provider called Recart, where we worked exclusively with Shopify merchants. During my time at Recart, it quickly struck me how many marketing apps a Shopify store has installed and how little time store owners have to spend on learning and maximizing each tool's impact. Many of my clients started to reach out asking if I could help them with other projects as it was clear I had a strong understanding of how to use these other tools. Create Utility was born.

What is Create Utility?

Create Utility is a plug-and-play marketing stack for subscription businesses built on Shopify. I’ve curated an eco-system of partners that all feed data into Klaviyo allowing stores to have a unified view of their customers through owned zero-party data. I’ve developed detailed playbooks that layout every flow from welcome to post-purchase to renewal to win back along with flows that connect your help desk, review platforms, and one-off purchases. I work directly with each partner so if you ever have any issues, I handle the problem for you. The outcome is a templatized automated marketing machine that enables Shopify stores to fill in with content at very specific moments throughout the user’s lifecycle.

Why Subscription Brands?

As mentioned, my experience is within enterprise Customer Success. Subscription brands focus on recurring revenue in the same way a MarTech SaaS company would. My strategy is based on driving product adoption and delivering value to a customer above and beyond just the product you sell. Increasing the delivered value of a subscription will drive higher lifetime value. Identifying how to position your product within your customer’s lifestyle will decrease churn. Measuring performance through Net Retention Rate will ensure profitability month over month.

The name ‘Create Utility’ is a nod to the economic term Utility or the usefulness, enjoyment, or total satisfaction a consumer receives from a service or good. Utility is also a term often associated with Web3 and NFTs. I strongly believe that subscription businesses will be the first eCommerce stores to transition to Web3 so it’s important to set the foundation today.

Learn More: Why is the Utility Marketing Model is so Important for Subscription Businesses