Jetset - Most Brands Ignore Their Best Growth Lever

Ramon Vela (00:00)
Welcome back everyone. I have a wonderful show for you today. I have with me someone who I've admired. I've known for a while and, ⁓ and I really consider him one of the giants of the industry. Please welcome Forrest Bronson, who is CEO of Jetset Welcome to the show.

Forest Bronzan (00:30)
Ramon, thanks for having me back.

Ramon Vela (00:32)
Yeah, you're very welcome. And for everyone out there, we actually had Forrest on once, maybe twice. Has it only been once before? Feels like because we've talked so many times, but Forrest, for everyone out there, is for me one of the pioneers in the D2C world. And I'm going to let him talk a little bit about his background. But before we do,

Let's start off with my signature question, which is a question of gratitude. And for everyone out there, it's something I use because I have had some very difficult moments, both in business and personal life. And I have found that gratitude is a great way to relieve stress and anxiety. I have a gratitude meditation. As a matter of fact, I'm putting something together where I'm gonna share that. So many people have asked me about it. I'm gonna share it. I've actually been practicing mindfulness and meditation for over...

well, maybe close to 15 years now. And I find it extremely helpful. And the good news is that gratitude is free. If you're feeling anything like that, it's something very simply that you could use, journal, meditate, pray, whatever you do. It's just a wonderful tool at our disposal. The other reason why I like to talk about gratitude is that I think it's a great way to relieve, to relive the early days, to look upon your journey as an entrepreneur and kind of just...

think about all the people and the things that have helped you get to where you are today. And I think it's a great way to start a conversation about, you ⁓ know, the journey of a company. So with that said, for us, can you share a moment or a memory when someone did something for you that just made you feel grateful because it meant that they believed in you, your vision or your potential?

Forest Bronzan (02:11)
Yeah, I I feel we could spend an hour talking about that. I'm incredibly grateful for everyone in my life, family, my friends. You know, I think with Jetset a key one is my co-founder, Leah Lloyd, you know, my previous agency that I scaled, which we'll probably get into. did that solo.

albeit with a fantastic team, but no co-founder. it's a different beast. And it's so refreshing having someone to share those kind of midnight challenges with. I'm incredibly grateful for Leah, also my wife and family who have been supportive of my entrepreneurial journey from the start.

Ramon Vela (02:38)
Yeah.

Well, you know, ⁓ thank you for sharing that. one of the, you know, just for everyone else, I don't like to try to hide these things. I'm having an allergy attack this morning and I guess for the last week or so, but just for everyone out there, just know that if you hear me sniffling, I'm going to try to avoid some of those things. But anyhow, you might get some of that. So I apologize ahead of time if you're listening to this, no one wants to hear someone sniffle. But.

Let's dive right into it for us. Let's talk a little bit about what you do. And I want to talk a little bit about just the environment, where it's going, from where you started. I don't want to get too much, I know in our last conversation we talked a lot about your background and so forth, but I kind feel like it's great if we kind of just resummarize it. Because I think understanding where you were,

Forest Bronzan (03:16)
. you

Ramon Vela (03:33)
with email aptitude and at that time, and then of course where we are today feels like more than a lifetime. It feels like years and it feels like it's a whole, well,

I guess a whole century later, but I'm saying it just feels like a long time. Like it doesn't feel like that world exists anymore, but let's talk about that. So if you don't mind, quickly summarize a little bit about email aptitude and what it was like during that time period in terms of e-commerce and so forth. And then let's talk about where we are today.

Forest Bronzan (04:02)
Yeah, great point. The last agency I scaled, email aptitude, we were focused all on retention and loyalty. And I think at the time we were one of the only couple agencies

dedicated to email and retention. all we did. There was a one hand worth of other good agencies. We worked with just some phenomenal brands. We got really lucky early on with BarkBox and Casper and Bombasocks and Binobos and then eventually CrubHub and some big enterprise brands. It was great. We grew to about 100, 110 full time and then we were acquired by Tinuiti and that was a whole different learning curve and transition.

We had a lot of fun. you know, I think back then, so this would have been 2014 to 2019, give or take. Yeah, totally different landscape. email, mean, Klaviyo was just getting rolling and now they're, they're the king. So this is, this is back when Bronto was, you know, a key leader, Silverpop, exact target. I'm not dating myself here. But and you know, Klaviyo was was an up and comer, but it was still just that an up and comer.

Ramon Vela (04:53)
Yeah. ⁓

Forest Bronzan (05:04)
And the space was just different. Most brands, didn't do anything in-house with retention. Maybe a little bit, but not too much. And it was fairly straightforward. You have complex flows, thoughtful dynamic content, thoughtful cadence modeling. But that was sort of the playbook. And it's very different now. We could dive into that.

But it was grateful for that experience. had a really great run, worked with some phenomenal brands, and it took some time off after being acquired and now back in the game, full force to pick up where we left off.

Ramon Vela (05:40)
Well, well, you know, I don't even think you're doing it justice because and you're placing it. I don't think you're doing it justice. You're being humble and that's OK. But back then, I have to say it was it feels like a completely different world. Like we met while while I was working at Bronto and. You know, even Bronto and the type of company it was. Like a lot of what it

what it did doesn't even exist anymore, like in terms of like how it was done, like how it was sold and how it was priced and how it was, that's from the inside standpoint, but from a consumer standpoint, email was really, it's not that it didn't exist, because of course it's like email, I think was one of the first things that was created during when the internet was created, but the way that it was used hadn't really not been pioneered before the way that you guys

companies like you started doing it. mean, now we take it for granted and I even hear people say like email is no longer valid or it's it's not, you know, like it's, gone or, you know, AI is going to take over creating workflows and all sorts of other stuff. You know, we hear all that, all this, all that stuff. But at the time, this was all new. You guys were creating workflows and workflows that didn't even exist. don't even know if like a welcome workflow, you know, even existed or, know,

at that time, but you guys created those things. You were there. You were at the time where all this stuff was exploding and Facebook and all this, the golden age of Facebook and all sorts of other places. You were there. Your company was there during that time. And I think you guys played a pivotal role with a lot of brands in the DTC world that blew up because of companies like yours.

Forest Bronzan (07:31)
I appreciate that. And it's funny you mentioned email being dead. I remember, I think it was 2009 maybe that I sent my first email campaign, maybe 2008, 2009, somewhere around there. And I think at the time people were saying email was dead, then 2014 people were saying email was dead.

2017 people are sending email, it was dead. And I think for Pure Vita at the time, it was their highest revenue generating channel and they were a heavy young audience channel, but it crushed everything else. And today, I mean, it's different, but still a primary channel. But yeah, I appreciate the kind of words. I mean, we tried to innovate, first just on the professional services side, there was no one really doing.

Ramon Vela (07:48)
Mm-hmm.

Forest Bronzan (08:09)
professional services focused just on retention email. Yeah, you had big agencies that had a service line for retention, but not a single channel focus agency. And then we got in some really fun stuff. We had patent pending tech on weather-based triggers and automation, where we could trigger content and emails and SMS based on weather events and temperature drops, which was really fun. And then tried as best as we could to...

just kind of be on the bleeding edge of anything that we could break within the system. So on the early product advisory board at Bronto, and I probably frustrated them quite a bit with requests and ways to kind of continue to engineer the system. But we had a lot of fun. I think one thing that's really rewarding is a lot of our team now, some of them are still at Tinuiti, but they're also at other agencies running email, at Brandside running email.

Ramon Vela (08:44)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Forest Bronzan (08:59)
We kind of created this ecosystem of amazing talent. And now they're still doing their thing and adding value to the econ world. Well, yeah, I remember someone on our.

Ramon Vela (09:07)
Yeah, well, and speaking of ecosystem, you guys were there when a lot of the major companies out like a cloud view or clay view. They were just barely. Barely pups, you know, back at that time. I mean, I remember how small they were at one point.

Forest Bronzan (09:24)
team when Klaviyo was up and coming being skeptical that there was room for another ESP. The rest is history there. And you know, it's funny, like at one point we're like, who's left to get acquired? I think Silverpop got acquired. Bronto got acquired and then Sunset. You know, a few others were still left on the table. And then here you come with Klaviyo and you know, some of the other ones too, know, Braze has made a lot of progress. Cordial, you know, there's some other ones besides Klaviyo, but they've...

Ramon Vela (09:29)
He

Forest Bronzan (09:52)
They've probably had the lion's share of the press time. .

Ramon Vela (09:54)
Yeah. Well, mean, a lot has changed. And now

coming to what we are now, a lot has changed, not only just in the technology arena. You we talked about AI a second ago. You know, there's that component of it. And then, of course, the economy has changed. And, you know, it never gets any easier. But, you know, there's always challenges. But just the world is a lot different now.

in terms of social, in terms of lot more channels or areas of where you can acquire and meet, acquire and retain customers. I mean, it's just a lot, the world has changed. And so you took some time off after you sold email aptitude and you decided to create JetSet. And so why don't you talk a little bit about what JetSet is and how it has evolved now, and then why JetSet for like this.

this period, right? Like this is a different timeframe than what you did originally with email aptitude. And some might even say like, you're crazy. why, like, you know, there's so, you know, all those, all those comments are back out, you know, where things have changed, software is different, the customer is different, the channels are different, people buy differently. Why would you put yourself out there again?

Forest Bronzan (11:11)
Where to start? You know, it's funny, like with things changing, and something I just I've always loved about email retention, loyalty is it's it's kind of recession proof. I mean, in ⁓ seven ish eight brands move more retention to that was the tried and true. We're seeing a lot of brands now where cacks are just out of control on meta and tick tock. And so okay, now they're rethinking budget and strategy around retention and retention is not just email, we'll get into that.

Ramon Vela (11:12)
it.

Forest Bronzan (11:40)
But yeah, I think it's, it's going to evolve how we handle customers and how we think about retention as a channel. ⁓ But as a core engine, yeah, I'm bullish forever. In terms of your question of why I got back into the game,

I took some time off after the acquisition. I stayed on with Tinuiti for a couple of years, relocated my family to Oregon. I was helping my father out. He was ill and I took some time off and I advised some brands. I did some investing and

none of that was really rewarding. You know, at the core, love building stuff and I love building team and innovating. And I admire a lot of my peers that have been acquired and now they just, they live this life of consulting and that just wasn't for me. So I had a non-compete, a pretty hefty one, and that wrapped up and I wanted to get back into the game. know, I first kind of modeled out, you know, where, where can I add the most value? One of my

best at, right? And it kind of came back full circle to building agencies and professional services. I'm not the SaaS guy. I love being brand side, but I'm more passionate about the pro-serve and agency side. And what I started seeing is a couple things. on agencies in general, not to go on this rant here, but agencies in general, I feel they've gone downhill. There's still some really good ones. But

Ramon Vela (12:50)
Mm-hmm.

Forest Bronzan (13:01)
what you get with larger shops, and I won't mention names, but with really large shops, you're getting really green teams on accounts, there's just no way around it. Once you're at certain scale, it's nearly impossible to keep up that quality of talent at the level that you need to service brands in a way that they demand. It just the math doesn't work. And so you start putting green teams on accounts, a lot of big agencies are fully outsourcing out of the country, which I don't have a philosophical problem with that. But

Ramon Vela (13:26)
Mm-hmm.

Forest Bronzan (13:27)
when they're not transparent about that, that's where I get frustrated. There's no continuity between channels, you could be with some of these agencies for six or seven channels, and they're really not talking, they're sharing data end of the month for reporting, but there's no connective tissue in terms of strategy and kind of cohesive voice and approach. So that was one frustration I had. Second was with CRM and loyalty. Now, so back in the day, email aptitude, there were like four agencies and now there's

Ramon Vela (13:47)
Thank

Forest Bronzan (13:55)
a hundred or thousand Klaviyo agencies. And there's a couple of good ones, but most of them are doing the exact same thing. They're sending campaigns and some of them might have, you know, some fancy elements to them. They're setting up flows. Maybe they're doing some SMS, maybe they're doing, you know, some programmatic direct mail, but it's all fundamentally table stakes and the same. that's, that's not evolving with kind of customer demand. And so we wanted to, we wanted to change up. And so what Jetset is like, we focus on two

Fundamentally very specific things one CX RM so retention and we're doing a lot with enterprise CX integrated into the process We could talk about that and then two for a very select group of clients and this isn't built to scale We do bespoke growth and so we take on in 10 12 clients at a time where we're running pretty much all channels agency of record That works because we were selective and we only take on a group of clients. We're not looking to scale that to 300 clients at all

And brands are working directly with the most senior folks at our agency. So our head of paid social is actually running the strategy on your account, not someone junior that they're handing it off to. So it's this very, very high touch, high seniority working with managing partners model on the growth side. And then on CXRM, we're just we're doing some really cool stuff with, you know, how we think about customer experience and really evolving the retention channel.

Ramon Vela (15:00)
you

Forest Bronzan (15:18)
That one, we're blowing up and scaling in a really thoughtful way. .

Ramon Vela (15:22)
Well, and I want to dive into some of those, maybe get some examples or some ideas

just to give the listener an idea. one of the things that jumped out at me in terms of you were talking about agencies and so forth. One of the big topics. And again, we, we probably need to filter or shift sift through what's real, what's not real. But, you you hear a lot of people talk about head count and.

instead of adding headcount using more technology like AI and so forth. What are your thoughts on that in terms of building out an agency? know, in an era where headcount is actually not looked upon as a good thing, you know, like adding headcount. What are your thoughts on that?

Forest Bronzan (16:02)
Yes, when you

mentioned that back at my last agency that was a

a pride moment like we hit 50 employees with 100 employees, we must be successful. Yes, I mean, there's certainly ways that we're using AI operationally, in terms of client delivery, you know, it just depends. I think it's a mistake to think that, you know, you're going to sign with some agency, it's gonna be fully automated by AI, maybe at some point, but none of the brands we're working with, and we're working with some pretty phenomenal, very mature brands, and it's still very resource intensive. Can we add efficiency internally with ops 100 %?

Are we turning it to a fully automated system? No, no, no brand that I know is ready for that at scale, nor is it the optimal solution. So if that that answer helps, sure. Yeah, like we're we're thinking about AI and we're using it with admin and ops, where we might not need to scale HR or marketing or other administrative duties as much. you know, certainly we're more efficient on the client delivery side.

Ramon Vela (16:51)
Mm-hmm.

Forest Bronzan (17:05)
but we're not looking to build out this fully automated AI system. And I haven't really run across any brands that are actively seeking that. And if so, they're really not at a stage of growth where they kind of get the orders of magnitude change that could come with ⁓ high touch enterprise full serve.

Ramon Vela (17:21)
And so it sounds like from your perspective, AI, obviously there's AI in the tools that you use, because every software tool now is building AI into its platform. But for you, it sounds like it's really more about AI operationally and AI is there, but for the most part, it's still.

It really comes down to the client, right? Because you cannot serve as a client being completely AI driven and no head count because you need those resources. You need customer experience, you need that knowledge base, et cetera. It feels like you're using it the operational side, but you're not necessarily looking to replace people as a strategy.

Forest Bronzan (17:46)
⁓

we certainly use AI in our client.

delivery, I there's some AI tools that we're using for dynamic content and for cohort creation to better understand buying propensity and things like that for sure. Yeah, that theoretically saves some time on kind of manual segmentation of the eye. And, you know, we're getting some really good results. We just launched a case study on how we're using some AI dev tech to understand different cohort analysis that results in high revenue per delivered email. But in terms of an active strategy of

focusing how can I have the lowest head count with the most AI tech enabled? I mean, it's just not really an active whiteboard discussion. Yes, like if we're able to have some efficiencies and we can scale with the same quality with 30 people versus 60 people, for sure, it's great. We're able to then provide more value to our clients. But I think that the companies that are trying to fully reverse engineer it, they're missing kind of one of the key pieces of

How do I add the most value to our customers? How do we provide the best possible product, not how do we have the highest margins?

Ramon Vela (19:17)
Yeah, no, I a hundred

percent agree. And I do feel like people are looking at incorrectly, but you know, what every, with every new technology, people get really excited about it. And it's like human nature, right? Like we want to take it, we want to take it to as extreme as quickly as possible. But the reality that I don't think that extreme is, is ready, but I also don't think that's, that's always the best thing for the customer. And so eventually I think people scale back.

and the enthusiasm kind of died down a little bit. So let's talk a little bit about, you you're talking, I want to get into that, what you mentioned about the customer experience, but let's get into retention because I know that's like the bread and butter and that's, you know, from my perspective, I've always noticed that companies have never really been great at retention. I think a lot of it is driven because back when, like when we barely met each other,

It was all about growth. that was that way for a long time until I guess the pandemic or so where if you got funding, the funding was meant for you to drive growth. And the acquisition was like the main thing. And retention always took a backseat. But I always felt like that was like where the gold was, right? Like that's where your real money making was gonna be and that's where your long-term was gonna be.

But I've never, I don't know. mean, of course there were companies that were doing it well, but for the most part, I just felt like there was a lot of opportunity in retention for companies to look into. So when you said that retention is almost like recession proof, I agree with you. And I think that is a wonderful area for you to focus on. What are you doing in that area? And then what are you doing differently now?

around retention than you were like, let's say, 10 years ago or whatever that timeframe was.

Forest Bronzan (21:07)
Well, no, you bring up a great point and I feel brands kind of go in this ⁓ pendulum shift of being interested in retention when the economy is really bad and they're dialing back on acquisition, then okay, holy snap, we need to make sure we're taking care of our customers. We're seeing lot trends when cat goes up, paid acquisition gets more challenging, more competitive. Okay, shoot, like we should have been focusing more on retention.

Ramon Vela (21:30)
Mm-mm.

Forest Bronzan (21:31)
I'd say that the really successful brands, they focus on it rain or shine. Any day they're prioritizing that earned customer and that lifetime value. So what we're doing different, mean, yes, like we could talk all day about table stakes, flows and triggers and dynamic content and using AI personalization within Klaviyo or whatever platform we're on for sure. mean, that's a critical base of our

of our program for any client. What we're more excited about though is what we're doing with customer experience. And what's funny with CX is I've had 10 conversations just in the new year with CMOs of decent sized brands north of 40 million annual revenue. So not tiny mama pops. And every single conversation when I ask like, what are you doing with CX? What's your strategy around customer experience? They're all, you we use Gorgias for support.

Ramon Vela (22:13)
you

Forest Bronzan (22:22)
It just boggles my mind. Customer support is not customer experience. It's a component of customer experience. It's one and it's an important component, but it's certainly not the full picture. So for example, a lot of brands, they'll do an MPS score. It's a little bit dated, but it still has some relevancy. That's it though. They'll run MPS annually and they'll look at it be like, okay, we hope that we get better next year, but they don't do any action around it.

Ramon Vela (22:38)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Forest Bronzan (22:48)
On the email and retention side, there's a lot that we can do with that. And I'll go more into sentiment analysis, but let's just use MPS as an example, something that everyone's familiar with. If you have very, very severe detractors that are also very high value customers, and no one's really doing this analysis, you should be on the phone with them. You should be calling them. If you have, you know, top 25 % quartile of LTV and a detractor,

Ramon Vela (22:56)
Hmm.

Forest Bronzan (23:16)
and then you're just letting it sit and just letting them stay on the normal email program, that is a fundamental mistake. And that's something that we're fixing. So we identify high value, low sentiment, and let's get in front of them. Let's reach out to them. There's a lot of different mechanisms for that. If you have high value, high sentiment, then those are great opportunities to get in front of them for referrals or for other ambassador programs or for product reviews, and to really nurture those folks.

Ramon Vela (23:21)
Hmm.

Forest Bronzan (23:45)
Those are two rudimentary examples, but examples that most brands aren't really implementing right now. On that detractor side, again, like you have a pissed off customer, why are you still sending to them daily as part of your normal email campaign? It makes no sense. So things like that. So we've taken it a step further though, because like NPS is interesting, but it's not the full picture. So we've developed something we call sentiment IQ. I want to be clear, we're not a SaaS company. We're not licensing it out. It's only for our customers that we use, but

Ramon Vela (23:51)
you

Mm-hmm.

Forest Bronzan (24:12)
We've built this full kind of BI setup where we're listening to multiple signals. So yes, MPS, email engagement, product reviews, support tickets. And we have formulas that then have custom sentiment bands and allows us to get a much more accurate picture of sentiment towards a brand. And then from there, we're able to have holdout groups. We're able to get in front of folks that might need to be saved or then.

Cross-referencing that with lifetime value and our most successful customers to do some really cool stuff So that's one thing just on the sentiment and NCX side Sentiment IQ it just you won't see it on our site. It's our own internal system that we use for our clients But then there's a lot that you could do, know beyond the inbox so, you know most most folks think of You know having like programmatic

Ramon Vela (24:46)
And what was that called?

It's cool.

Forest Bronzan (25:03)
postcard or direct mail. Yeah, that's interesting. That's helpful in some cases. We're starting to do some really cool surprise and delight drops. know, rewarding those high value, high sentiment customers, and kind of breaking the rhythm with a surprise gift, a bonus product and add on, a thank you, a video message from the CEO. There's a lot of different kind of tools in the arsenal just to add and double down on that positive goodwill.

And then also with negative sentiment folks, if someone leaves a product review of a one or two star and you just let it sit like you're missing a huge opportunity, the founder or someone in CS should be reaching out right away. Look, it looks like we missed the mark. How can we fix this? In some cases, we're able to automate some of that. And if we just sent them an analysis on the actual review and if the review is something about a particular product attribute, boom, we send you a new product to replace it.

no questions asked with a note, hey, it looks like we missed the mark on here. We wanted to send you something else to try that you might enjoy. Again, a rudimentary example, but my point is, and our thesis as a company is that the brands that really take this seriously, customer experience and love their customers are gonna win long-term. The ones that just continue rudimentary.

email, SMS, retention practices, know, customers are demanding more and they want that connection and they're going to really struggle long term.

Ramon Vela (26:32)
And so I love this aspect that you're saying that, you know, CX is, know, where your brands are gonna win long-term. You know, what are the obstacles? What are people, why are more people applying these principles? Maybe not using the same tools that you're using, but at least, you know, trying and going this route. Or are they, and they're just not doing it correctly.

Forest Bronzan (26:56)
So some are.

trying in a rudimentary way. And so they might have great customer support teams that get in front of problems and complaints and reach out. Yeah, that's kind of a basic one. The reason that they're not, think, is a couple of fold. One, it's not direct ROI tomorrow. You if we send an extra campaign tomorrow, we're going to see how much money that brings in. If we put more spend behind Meta, we're going to see how much money that brings in this week. CX isn't a metric that this week is going to show return. And so that scares a lot of brands.

Second is it's technically there's more involved, you know, if you don't have a BI analyst on your team or you're using an agency like Jetset, like it's not out of the box, Klaviyo and some of these other tools. Yes, there's tools for customer support, but for how we're thinking about CX, there aren't really any platforms that do it at scale and integrate into CRM. And so that's the biggest bottleneck unless you have the technical

technical team in house or you're using another firm, you're not going to really have the resources to execute. But I think the bigger thing before that is the kind of the knowledge and desire again, like back to my 10 CMOs in January, all of them were a little dumbfounded of like, yeah, we're doing gorgeous CS and that's that's CX. So I think part of it, and this is a little discouraging is, you know, some brands that they've just they've lost touch with the long term goal of,

Ramon Vela (28:11)
Mm-hmm.

Forest Bronzan (28:24)
creating this brand that people love. And again, some get it and the ones that get it, they're crushing and they're going to win long term and our clients, you know, they get it obviously, because they're with us. And I just can't emphasize enough, this isn't a picture of jet set, but whatever you do, if you're a brand listening, like build out the team, find a room that can do it. You have to be focusing on customer way beyond customer support in order to earn trust and do some cool stuff.

Ramon Vela (28:35)
Mm-hmm.

Forest Bronzan (28:53)
There's also a lot of other stuff with CX. We're covering just the tip of the iceberg here. We're getting in with a couple clients. We're going to be launching Bespoke Experiences, where we invite top customers out to this curated event, make them feel special, have just viral content that you can't buy on any UGC platform. So there's a lot that it could expand to. You could do CX simply, or you could do it in a really robust way with immersive experiences.

surprise and delight drops and the whole nine. So there's a continuum, but start somewhere and that answer isn't just sending NPS and hoping that hope is not a good strategy for increasing customer sentiment.

Ramon Vela (29:30)
Thank

Yeah, and just for everyone out there, if you want to take a look at Forrest's company and what we're talking about, you can go to jetset.io, jetset.io. Jetset is the word jet, the word set, S-E-T, and then .io if you want to take a look at the website. It just feels to me that, and I've always thought about this, is if you are customer-centric and you...

And I'm not, don't want to, I don't want to say this in a negative way because it's going to sound negative. Cause I think everybody cares about their customers in one way or another, but I kind of feel like if you were very customer centric and you care about this product that you've created, or, know, if you're the founder and you've created this product and you really wanted to get out to the market and to the hands of these consumers and so forth, then it's an easy sell to

for someone like you to talk to them about customer experience, about retention and so forth. And it makes sense. But I think there's so many that are focused on short term and really, and they're more product centric. They're more like, let's just put, we wanna create products, we wanna get them out there. I don't know, it's sort of like a shift in mindset from.

you know, what is the best for the customer and what is the best for a product? And I'm not trying to be negative, but I just think that there's a mind shift there. And I think the large brands, the ones that are going to be long-term, they have that mindset. And those who don't, because of the pressures, because of their investors, because of whatever, they're more focused on getting the product out, not necessarily the customer first.

And again, it's a fine line, but I just think that what you're describing when you're talking about some of these companies that went long-term, it's a mindset. It's not just like, we sell them product? It's about what's the best for the customer. So anyhow, that's more of a comment, I guess, than a question.

Forest Bronzan (31:35)
no, just to double down on that, yeah, I don't disagree. I would say if you're that brand kind of deprioritizing it,

one of your competitors is going to prioritize it and there's there's no way you beat that out. The brand with the better experience, all things being equal product, price, everything else positioning, but the one with better customer experience going to win. The other point though is yes, like there's there's long term ROI on it, but we're not talking forever to kind of see return on good experience just with some of the examples I had if we get in front

this week of this cohort of low sentiment, high value customers and find a way to turn them around, that's ⁓ retained customers this week. So there's definitely short term wins that could be had. And I think more brands are starting to see the kind of direct ROI on it. And of course, the long term brand positioning play.

Ramon Vela (32:27)
Yeah, and then when you talked about events and so forth, bespoke events, you know, I think that's a great addition. And just to give my two cents, you had some event and I went to it and I felt like it was just really pleasurable event. It was different than most events that I've been to. And you guys had a lot of thought and a lot of...

A lot of thought went into the experience and I can appreciate it. And again, it was just really different for me. So I could just imagine what you guys are creating out there for your customers. In our industry, especially after the pandemic, we were, I think a lot of people wanted to rush out and be your own people again, or at least have that experience, what is it, IRL, right?

And I think customers felt that way too. So brands that are creating events and creating experiences in different ways. I think I kind of feel like that is a secret sauce right now for a lot of brands. I think because consumers want to feel that way too. They want to be out there. They want to talk to people. They want a great customer experience, whether online or offline. having those options and being able to do bespoke events, think

That's pretty cool. I don't really see a lot of agencies doing that in one agency, right? Like you have maybe multiple agencies do it together.

Forest Bronzan (33:47)
We want to be clear, we're not an event agency, but with a couple clients, we are experimenting with this. have a great head of experience and commercial film, who's kind of running point on experiences. And yeah, who knows, maybe we add that as a dedicated service line. yeah, no, you're right. I think customers are craving authenticity too. And so if you two examples of brands, pick two apparel brands that are in a similar

similar space that are going after the same customers. One has just great meta ads and great emails and great product. Awesome. They're doing everything right. The second brand has great meta ads, great emails. They also are reaching out and remedying issues with customers. They're rewarding and taking care of their high value customers. They're sending surprise and delight drops. They're

getting in front of them in authentic ways. They might even be hosting curated events for them. Which one do you think customers long term are going to gravitate towards? Obviously, the second one. It's this authentic, immersive experience. Even if it's not an in-person type of event, there's ways that you could replicate that online to create the similar karma.

Ramon Vela (34:51)
you

Well, mean, and I just like to,

for me, I like just the very fact that you're thinking about this. That, you know, that you're, you're, you know, for lack of a better term, you're thinking outside the box, right? You're thinking about these experiences in potential other ways to provide an experience. And I like that. So walk us through, you know, we talked about where you were. We talked a little bit about what you're doing now.

Where's the evolution of JetState going? Like are we going to see more customer experience type of services and strategies along with retention or do you have something else up your sleeve like the, I love that sentiment IQ.

Forest Bronzan (35:41)
Yeah, and I appreciate that. And to come back to your other point is, you know, I think one thing that's really different about how we're just approaching the world and with our clients, yes, there's some things that

You know, we do world class for all clients running campaigns, managing Klaviyo deliverability, you know, the core, the other stuff, the CX stuff, it's very customized, right? Like, yes, there's some overlap between brands, but it takes a lot of creativity to figure out, for this type of product and this type of customer, what would be a really awesome experience? So we go through, you really extensive journey mapping and understanding all touch points and pain points, and then identifying those cohorts to figure out how do we

How do we get fewer in the pain point category? How do we fix those leaks? How do we get more that are super excited? Once we identify certain thresholds that people are more likely to churn, how do we get in front of that to reduce those metrics? And that's a lot of kind of curated work that's very specific to the brand. It's not an exact playbook brand by brand. that's.

That's something that we have a lot of fun with, but I think also adds a lot of value. again, back to the start of why we launched this thing in the first place, I feel I haven't found any other agencies that are doing that level of CX work with CRM. There's some pretty good CRM agencies that'll manage Klaviyo, but that's kind of where it stops. that's not what brands really need long term. So in terms of like where Jetset's going, it's really fair question. Like when we launched, we thought we were going to be just the bespoke growth.

we were dabbling in CXRM and then we realized, we are really, really good at what our entire career has been, loyalty, retention, and the CX component is so, so valuable. We're tripling down on that and putting a lot of focus. So I'm a huge fan of focus. We're not gonna start launching 15 different sub products. We have bespoke growth for select group of clients, and then we have CXRM.

Within CRM and CX, yeah, there's a lot of cool stuff on the CX side. We're getting in, we're going to be launching those very curated printed newsletter for customers or for clients that they send to top customers, more experiential stuff, more kind of BI data layers to understand kind of deep, deep sentiment and really evolving on sentiment IQ. That's a really core part of what we're doing because at the end of the day, we need to understand customer sentiment towards a brand.

I'll come back on the show maybe in a few months or later this year that there might be a really cool layer that we're adding on. can't quite talk about yet, but ⁓ stay tuned. But yeah, for now, like we want to just add as much value as we can to our partners on CX and retention and do some damage.

Ramon Vela (38:11)
It's fine.

Well, I mean, like I said, I think the errors that you're focused on, I think are huge. And something as you were saying that I was just thinking, you know, what is your experience with brands out there who are not really mining? And maybe this is the opportunity who are not really mining their data, right? Because this is where sentiment IQ, I think stuff like that comes in in your analysis.

because they have this data that's in there, this CRM data. based on your examples earlier about detractors and so forth, I just don't think people are really mining this stuff. I think at the very core of it, companies are capturing this. It's going into their platform, Klaviyo or whatever, and it's sitting there.

and it's not being used. So really any company that's, know, whatever your revenue, you know, target revenue customer is, they're probably, there's lots of companies out there sitting with a bunch of data about their customers and they're not doing what they could be doing with it.

Forest Bronzan (39:35)
100%. No, most aren't doing anything with it. On the CX side, on the retention email side, yeah, they're certainly doing some things or understanding.

kind of by propensity and churn cohorts and segments based on lapse behavior. So yeah, for sure. We're layering that on with sentiment. And another kind of core part I haven't talked about on kind of CX and sentiment is I think brands need to be doing more listening. And so we're doing a lot of survey work with our clients for their customers. And again, everyone's a little bit different, but whether it's post purchase, whether it's new subscription health, whether it's

optimizing CSAT, whether it's rethinking NPS, whether it's buying annual brand pulse surveys. we're doing a lot of that so we could genuinely learn about our customer sentiments, ⁓ where we can improve across the organization for our clients, and then capturing that data to have some really powerful actions ⁓ based on those customer inputs.

Ramon Vela (40:32)
And how about, how are you layering or incorporating social media influencers? mean, there's obviously there's a ton of stuff I could just mention, rattle off right there, but you know, all these additional channels and areas that brands are using.

Forest Bronzan (40:48)
Yeah, so mean, on again, like on the bespoke growth side where we have, you know, dozen or so clients, you know that we're we have a whole team that focuses just on influencer paid for the CX and CRM side. Yeah, I mean, it's it's interesting, like

when we kind of get to UGC, whole whole different conversation there. I feel so much UGC has gone downhill in the last few years. It's inauthentic. think customers are starting to really recognize that something's clearly paid. With a lot of our sentiment, we're able to better identify actual customers that are very authentic because they're real customers that love us. Let's reach out to them for some UGC. Let's reach out to them to help promote the brand and become ambassadors or to

Ramon Vela (41:16)
Hmm.

Forest Bronzan (41:31)
provide additional feedback. I think what UGC started at is, let's reach out to customers and have them provide user-generated content. And now it's turned into this mass pay-for-play game, which it still performs on Meta and TikTok to some capacity. I feel it's depreciating a little bit. But when we really understand customer with CX and sentiment, then we're able to get in front of them to get some extremely authentic content.

Ramon Vela (41:55)
Yeah, I mean, think UCG like everything else, when something becomes very popular or it's trendy or there's some success, people kind of jump on board and then kind of ruin it for everybody else. Like they started doing all sorts of weird things and then the consumer, what was once pretty cool for a consumer standpoint and a way for them to discover new products and or learn more about products suddenly now feels very

like you said, pay to play, very unauthentic and more like a commercial versus someone authentically talking to you. I think that's human nature. It's like we see an area of success and then everyone bombards that one little area.

Forest Bronzan (42:39)
We look at SMS. mean, not that SMS isn't successful anymore. It's still wildly successful, but it's way more saturated than it was even two years ago and let alone four years ago. I think brands kind of fall into this trap of

over sending over using overzealous about you know the the winds of the channel and then it kind of ruins it

Ramon Vela (42:59)
Yeah. In terms of your journey with JetSat, I know you get a, and correct me if I'm wrong, you get a lot of energy, you get a lot of enthusiasm, you get a lot of passion for building. And so I can tell you're having fun. But with that said, is there anything that is vastly different than...

the first time around when you're building an agency, there are there challenges or is there any frustrations or anything you see that you just think like, wow, okay, you know, this is a lot different. This is like, didn't run into this before.

Forest Bronzan (43:32)
Everything, yeah. So first off to your first point, yeah, like I haven't been happier in a decade right now. after I sold the last agency, it was lonely, you know, going from, you know, being at 100 % energy and output and synapses firing to

not is not healthy for for an ambitious founder. So I just I love being back in the game building working with team. The I don't know where to start. ⁓ Huge thing is just kind of company dynamics and culture. So it's funny email aptitude. We were one of the first like remote companies we started remote we ended up being 60 70 % remote with a couple offices, but it was almost taboo at the time everyone's like, you're remote company. Are you legit? ⁓

Ramon Vela (44:14)
Okay.

Forest Bronzan (44:15)
So we kind of innovated on the remote side and now everything's remote. We don't have a physical office right now. And yeah, so from like a team perspective, it's not that it's challenging, it just takes different levers to make sure that we're building connection with the team that we're ⁓ recruiting the right folks. So we're hopping on more planes, getting people in front of other team members and clients more, ⁓ which is another part of our experience. We actually like going out and seeing clients when we can and spending time and having that face-to-face time, but.

in terms of building the agency now versus the last agency, that's a huge difference just in terms of talent and kind of proximity and everyone being fully remote. I'd say the second one is, know, with email aptitude, we were again, one of the only couple agencies that did this. our sales cycle was about four days. It was, you know, one pitch and the model made complete sense. you know, we

Ramon Vela (45:08)
We'll be right

Forest Bronzan (45:12)
I'm exaggerating a little bit, but it was very fast sale cycles. And now there's more education needed because there's a lot of agencies out there that are doing CRM and retention. So it just takes a few more steps to educate on the differentiators and why our model is far superior. So again, not a challenge, just something that's slightly different.

I'd say the third one I kind of got this, I alluded to this back on gratitude is that the power of a co-founder. my goodness. Amazingly, Lloyd's a beast. She's an awesome friend. She's a great business leader and I'm incredibly grateful to have her on board to shoot the shit on challenges that we have to flush things out. We also have very kind of complimentary skill sets, I think. And that's been something that's very different. The last one was really kind of my first.

Serious company that that grew and I did that solo which was very very lonely. So this time is a little bit more fun

Ramon Vela (46:07)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Well, ⁓ I'm wondering, have you had to change your leadership style? are managing people differently now? Like, you know, like they always talk about Gen Z and this and that and different generations and so forth. Is there any difference to that?

Forest Bronzan (46:22)
What's funny ask in probably in a different way than you're asking but back to the remote side, I feel like my leadership styles had to evolve and adapt I have to communicate in a different way now and over communicate whereas

before where at least 30, 40 % of us were in the office, it was easier to kind of quickly signal change and what was on my mind and to show that enthusiasm and to keep everyone informed. Now with everyone remote, you just have to kind of calibrate how you do that because the moment that folks feel out of the loop and don't feel part of the jet set train in this metaphor, then you start kind of losing that energy. ⁓

Ramon Vela (46:57)
Mm-hmm.

Forest Bronzan (47:02)
I would sum that up saying it was easier before to maintain that energy internally than it is fully remote. Maybe not easier, just different. So yeah, take some calibration on over-communicating, communication style, putting more effort into making sure that everyone's good, dealing with any challenges internally, doing a lot of listening, et cetera.

Ramon Vela (47:23)
Yeah, well, I would imagine, mean, obviously, you know, and also, you know, styles change and this and that. So, yeah, I agree. There is there is so many there's so many things we could talk about in terms of just overall challenges of the economy. But I mean, is that you know, not to focus on just any one, but is there.

anything from that perspective that has been challenging and or that you are preparing for and or, you know, that are you are watching for like, you know, obviously everyone's, you know, there's been talked for a long time about, you know, recessions and, you know, at, you know, stock market and interest rates and also, and then tariffs, of course, all that stuff. How is that impacting the clients?

Are you seeing any of that? And are you as an agency and as a thought leader, are you preparing your clients for anything?

Forest Bronzan (48:24)
Yeah, yes. And yes, I think that

the time that we saw it the most was back in April. So we launched jet set in was a February 2025. So we're about a year in and all this momentum in the first few months and then April hit with the big tariff announcements and it was kind of heartbreaking. We had like five or six really significant deals that got put on really long hold because they got cold feet about tariffs and the economy and what was going to happen and they had to deal with all their own inventory issues, etc. So

Ramon Vela (48:50)
Mm-hmm.

Forest Bronzan (48:54)
that that was a real impact for us at the time. And I think there was also unknowns, whenever that was April 7th of, you how long would this last? Fast forward now, and not really, it's not really a tangible issue, at least with the brands that we have on board. That hasn't been a point of conversation brands worried about tariffs or the economy so much. yeah, it's it's sort of in the kind of subtly in the talk track, but it's not this active. How do we

Ramon Vela (49:04)
Yeah.

Forest Bronzan (49:22)
calibrate change services, etc. How we're adapting to that. mean, like, I'm a big believer that no one knows what happens next. Right? You know, I think I think we hear talks of recession every month for years. And yeah, we could hit something dramatic tomorrow. It could be in seven years, who knows. And so we're focusing on everything we know right now, preparing as much as we can for the future with Pal and Sheet and making sure that we retain our clients and put the best experience forward. But

I think the biggest thing that we're doing is what we're doing in terms of our service. Our service, if a big recession hits, you need experience and you need retention and best of breed, email and loyalty. And that's what we're building. So that would be my answer to that is kind of really focusing on where can we add the most value to consumers through our brands. And that's where we're focusing the agency.

Ramon Vela (50:12)
Yeah, no, and you're absolutely right. The calls of the recession are sort of like, remind me of the California, the big California earthquake, right? We know something's probably gonna happen. We don't know when, but ever since, I mean, I've lived in California all my life. They've been saying, you know, for the last 50 years, the big one is coming, and we don't know, right? We don't know, but.

Forest Bronzan (50:36)
In terms of optimism from brands, felt like I was telling Leah this the other day, like in January, I haven't seen this optimism in a long time. And maybe that's a warning sign, who knows, but

Come when January hit like every prospect we were talking to client we were talking to just Fired up for the year ready to dominate. So it's a very optimistic Outlook at least with the brands that we're talking to right now

Ramon Vela (51:00)
I

think back in April, people were shocked because they just didn't know how to handle it and so forth. But I think like any good business person, most people have had time to adjust, to think about the environment, to get used to the environment, figure out ways around the tariffs and all this other stuff.

And so those obstacles don't feel like the obstacles that they were before. Like, of course, you know, we probably wouldn't want tariffs in the first place, but it feels like people have had time to digest it, understand it, know what to do, or at least have a plan, and now are ready to move forward. And I think that's, I feel that way too. I think a lot of people now have just, you know, they've just adjusted. And that's the same with a lot of folks. So.

So this has been a great conversation. I want to be respectful of your time. Before you leave, ⁓ let us know what kind of customers are you looking for? Like who is a good fit for JetSet?

Forest Bronzan (52:01)
Yeah, I appreciate the time today. I love the conversation as always. Can't wait to see you soon, IRL. Yeah, so we work predominantly with consumer brands, everything from, you know, fast growth to enterprise. So there's not a specific revenue number. I'd say right now, most of our brands are somewhere between 20 and 200 million annual, but we have a couple we just launched that are pre-revenue. Some that are smaller, some that are much bigger. So...

kind across the map. I'd say like any consumer brand that cares about retention and having world-class retention and also really is interested in how do we create the best customer experience. Those are probably the best fits ones with that mindset.

Ramon Vela (52:42)
In any particular arenas, know, like health and wellness or food and beverage or anything like this?

Forest Bronzan (52:49)
Not really. If it's direct to consumer, we're on it. If it's just a pure brick and mortar or some B2B shop, maybe. It's case by case. We have a couple B2B clients. have one partner that doesn't sell anything online. But those are kind of the exceptions. So anything kind of the direct to consumer space?

Ramon Vela (53:11)
Well, this has been fantastic. Everyone out there, want you to go take a look at what we've been talking about. We just touched on just a little bit on the agency JetSet. You can go to jetset.io to learn more information. They've got this great website. Once you go on there, the splash page has this wonderful video that plays Bespoke Growth and CRM for iconic brands. And it talks a little bit about some of the...

⁓ companies out there that you do business with Casper, Disney, laundry sauce, ⁓ ESPN and so forth. So lots of really great companies out there and lots of information about their services and you can learn more about the company. And then of course, Forrest has an amazing podcast. So before we leave, tell us a little bit about the name so people can look it up. And then after that,

⁓ Give us the website, social media, know, any way that you want people to contact you.

Forest Bronzan (54:04)
That's too kind coming from you. You motivated me to kind of get into podcasting on the hosting, which we didn't talk about today. That's a lot of work, but it's also very rewarding. Yeah, our podcast called High Stakes Growth. We talk primarily with founder CEOs and then NCMOs.

Ramon Vela (54:09)
the

Forest Bronzan (54:21)
And we kind of unpeel the onion and get into some some vulnerable conversations about those pivotal moments along their journey. And you can check it out at jet set.io slash podcast. You can look up high stakes growth anywhere podcast play, Spotify, etc. And yeah, we love your support.

Ramon Vela (54:38)
Yeah. And I'm planning on being a guest there where we're going to be talking about some lessons I've learned from ⁓ interviewing a thousand plus founders. So I can't wait for that. But everyone out there go listen to, ⁓ to his podcast, High Sticks Growth. It's a wonderful show. I love listening to it. And of course, Forrest is just a wealth of information and knowledge and wisdom. And he's so calm and, but also very passionate. And I just love that quality of

⁓ to you for us. So thank you for ⁓ joining me today and thank you for being a friend and for being a colleague and can't wait to see, you know, to have another conversation with you. So before you go, where can people get ahold of you?

Forest Bronzan (55:22)
Yeah, you can check me out. I'm not really on social except LinkedIn, but Forrest Bronson on LinkedIn. Track me down, shoot me a DM.

hang out and then forest at jet set.io forest with one R for ESD feel free to shoot me an email

Ramon Vela (55:36)
Great. And if you're a brand and you ever get an invite to ⁓ a Jetset event, I definitely would recommend that you go. And if you want more information, go visit jetset.io for more information and then check them out on LinkedIn. Beyond that, thank you so much for being on the show again. Truly appreciate your time. I'd love to catch up with you and kind of reintroduce you to our audience. Everyone out there, we have just had Forres Bronzen, who is CEO of Jetset.

And we're going to have his links on our podcast description, which you can find on Apple, Spotify, pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts, simply type in the story of a brand show and you should be able to find it. Beyond that, stay safe, stay sane, stay healthy. And one last thing, we've all been going through a lot of stuff. Let's just be kind to each other. I know we can make this human experience a better one and I hope we do. So thank you again from the bottom of my heart for listening to another episode of the story of a brand.