Anyone who’s ever run a website can relate to the challenge of populating that site with an adequate supply of quality content that will keep an audience coming back and support the business’ revenue goals.
That challenge is especially applicable to businesses such as apparel, home decor, and beauty products, where manufacturers and retailers alike must present an adequate amount of content in ways that will engage those visiting their sites.
For example, an article of clothing may catch a site visitor’s eye, but it’s possible to get them more interested if they can see that clothing with various combinations to find one that appeals to them. The process of building those combinations is quite challenging.
A startup named FindMine is looking to solve the problems in this scenario: the ability to create combinations in a scalable way and, in so doing, improve the “shoppability” of a website to make it more robust — from a customer experience point of view and a business point of view. And to do so in ways that accurately reflect the brand’s value proposition.
FindMine built an artificial intelligence (AI) engine that builds these combinations and presents them to visitors. The company started, in part, because CEO Michelle Bacharach was personally frustrated by the need to create combinations herself for a variety of products. And, through experience as a product manager, she understood the importance of removing friction from the buying process.
“Every company in retail sells one product at a time. Think about how you use stuff: You don’t wear a shirt with no pants and no shoes,” Bacharach says. “In my life as a consumer, I always wondered, why is this so annoyingly hard?”
FindMine launched its product in 2016. The New York-based company, part of the SAP.iO startup accelerator program, has secured venture capital funding of $10 million. FindMine has 30 employees and has built an impressive roster of global brands as customers.
