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NWA Founders is a voice for Founders, Owners, and Builders driving growth in Northwest Arkansas, and is hosted by Cameron Clark and Nick Beyer.
'NWA Founders' is a voice for Founders, Owners, and Builders driving growth in Northwest Arkansas, hosted by Cameron Clark and Nick Beyer.
To recommend a guest or ask questions, reach out at nwafounders@gmail.com and follow us on YouTube and LinkedIn for video content.
Eric Howerton: [00:00:00] So the big problem, uh, that we're solving with Ad Fury is what we call the content supply chain.
Nick Beyer: When you say customer, you mean when Nick Byer looks at his Walmart page and I'm looking for cookies, that banner now is gonna be targeted to Nick Byer
Eric Howerton: to be targeted to you, but then also the creative.
Cameron Clark: What would you say to any small business owner other than like, Hey, you should be using ai.
What would you tell 'em on the how factor?
Eric Howerton: I think that we're very threatened. How do we make sure that Walmart is the best? What would happen if Walmart doesn't win and always makes people go? Okay,
Nick Beyer: So Eric Howerton, co-founder of White Spider, co-founder of Ad Fury, which we'll talk a lot about today. Um, using AI to build brands here.
Eric Howerton: Yep.
Nick Beyer: In in northwest Arkansas and, and across other, you know, across the nation. And then, um, podcast videos. Mm-hmm. And doing business in Bentonville.
So you've had your hands in a lot of different entrepreneurial journey here in northwest Arkansas. And, uh, welcome. We're excited to have you.
Eric Howerton: Thank you. Yeah, it's great to be on the show. Uh, appreciate it. Yeah, super pro. Love it. You guys are professional.
Nick Beyer: Well, hey, we wanted to
Eric Howerton: much more professional than me, I promise you that.
It's
Nick Beyer: amazing. We wanted to start, uh, you've been in the entrepreneurial space in northwest Arkansas for a long time. You've seen a lot of different things. What is the difference between a business owner and [00:02:00] entrepreneur? Oh man. And a founder.
Eric Howerton: Oh man. You wanna start right at the gut. Wanna start? Don't you wanna,
Nick Beyer: wanna hear some passion?
Eric Howerton: Yeah, that's right. Well, you guys know, you guys know that I, that I have some things to say, but I have opinions, right?
Nick Beyer: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: Um, you know, I would say that an entrepreneur, like, let's define that first, right? It took me a long time, so I'll rewind a little bit. When I started becoming an entrepreneur, I didn't know I was becoming an entrepreneur.
I just had, I could see a market fit, something, a need in the market, and I wanted to go after it. And I couldn't help but want to solve that problem. Wasn't thinking about money, I wasn't thinking about exit, I wasn't thinking about pitch decks and the valuations and all that kind of stuff. It was literally, hey, this needs to be solved.
I can't help but see that and try to solve that.
Cameron Clark: Mm.
Eric Howerton: And that was my driving force. Um, and then over, you know, then over the years I started realizing like I was pretty different. You know, I was kind of unemployable. Um, and, uh, but then I started realizing what's this entrepreneur thing? And when I actually discovered that [00:03:00] there is what is an entrepreneur, it did make me feel a little bit more normal, I would say, in the ecosystem.
Um, and so I, I do think that the proper definition of entrepreneurism is important for anybody that's, that's looking for that, right? And you have a small business owner that I believe that you can start a business and run a business. Um, you have an intent to maybe have a better balance of life or, you know, you don't really wanna grow the business.
It's about supporting you and your family and your income, uh, but you're really not trying to. Necessarily solder market need. Yeah. But you're just trying to provide a lifestyle or a living. It's like having a, it's like having a job and being your own boss. Yeah. You know, that's kind of the goal. And then the founder thing, I mean, anybody in the planet can become a founder overnight.
I mean, I could say I'm founding a company and I'm gonna update my LinkedIn profile, and now I'm a founder or my co-founder, you know, 'cause I got a buddy and I, we have an idea. And you start getting into the pitch decks. [00:04:00] You start trying to race capital. You're running around and you become really professional salesperson, but you're still a founder.
But that doesn't mean that you are even a business owner or that you're especially not an entrepreneur potentially. So there's different levels of those. And you know, I think that as somebody that I would consider myself an entrepreneur. You know, it's kind of like if you're a a di, you know, A-A-C-I-O and you say a programmer's a programmer, you know, everybody's a programmer.
No, not necessarily. There's analysts, there's backend developers, there's front end developers, you know, there's it folks, there's this whole structure and differences of what they do. It's the same kind of concept to have when people are interchanging. Founder with business. Owner with entrepreneur, the entrepreneur.
I know quite a few of entrepreneurs and I read a lot about 'em. I study them in past, in present, and future. Um, and there's a clear difference. Like they, they leave and breathe what they're trying to accomplish, and it's not about the outcome. Well, I, I [00:05:00] would say the outcome is about solving a problem, right?
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: Um, it's not about, hey, I wanna, you know, uh, retire in two years, so that way I'm chilling on a beach. Usually can't find an entrepreneur that's gonna ever chill, right? I mean, if you look at a lot of the entrepreneurs that. In the past and current today, they're not chilling. They can't help it. It's because they're driving to make change.
They're trying to improve things. Um, they have an energy to 'em and a desire and passion that supersedes money, supersedes opinions, supersedes valuations, and investors and all that. I mean, I think one of my big things that I, that resonate with me is, is, and then this has happened to me recently when I have somebody that says no, or I don't believe that, you know, it doesn't, sure, it knocks me down a little bit.
It makes me think, or second guess, but then I end up becoming really pissed off and energized by that. And so I wanna prove it wrong because they don't really, I know that they are wrong. It's not that I'm [00:06:00] wrong, they can't see it, you know, they're too shortsighted and they can't see the, you know, see the solve.
And so you have to have that. That bubble of energy that's driving you at all times or else you will be defeated. And so that's why so many small businesses fail, you know? Yeah. You know, if you get into small business and you're just trying to say, Hey, I, I would love just to take, now, I've heard this so many times, I'd love just to take vacations whenever I want.
You know, I want to go on a two week vacation and I wanna do it three times. Well, I, I love traveling. You know, that's a small business mindset because you think that you have created a freedom, and that's fine, but that doesn't mean you're an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs usually don't take vacations. I hate vacations.
Vacations stress me out unbelievably much because I gotta, you know, work more than I usually do to get ready,
Cameron Clark: which is already a lot of work anyways. Yeah.
Eric Howerton: Yeah. It's already uncountable hours. I mean, I don't count my hours. I'm looking for my paycheck. Right. But, but I know, but it's a destruct, it's disruptive of my plan.
It's [00:07:00] just, it's distracting. I'm not available for a client to meet. I'm not available for the team to get ahold of and fix things and answer questions. And then when you get back, everything's in disarray. Things have happened for the week or the two days that you've been out, and now you gotta fix a bunch of problems.
And it's just constantly stacks. And so a small, you know, an entrepreneur does not get into business so that they can take more vacation just doesn't happen. So there's a very long, I mean, are we done with the podcast number? It's like a freaking 30 minute. We can hang the
Nick Beyer: mic. Uh, that's good. That's good.
Is there magic where a founder is an entrepreneur?
Eric Howerton: Yeah. I mean, I think that they would be, I think that they would honestly just be an entrepreneur if they are one. And they just so happen to be, be a founder of a company, you know?
Cameron Clark: Yeah. Just the cool, the cool wor the cool word happens to be founder now there's,
Eric Howerton: yeah.
Cameron Clark: Yeah. It's like it's moved from entrepreneur to founder and maybe bounce and maybe it goes to something else now it's like a [00:08:00] whatever every couple years or whatever that life cycle is. Five, five years. I don't know, but
Eric Howerton: mm-hmm.
Cameron Clark: Um,
Eric Howerton: well, a lot of that's driven by the, the investment, you know, bulge.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: You know, I mean, like, and I get pretty, I get pretty, um, opinionated about that.
You know, raising capital to start a business is one way to do it. Right. Um, but, but raising capital before you even start a business is actually kind of a new phenomenon in some ways. Right. And the intensity. And the intensity that it's at, like, it's become a thing. Like you have groups of investors, VCs, you know, private equity.
All this stuff is not like something that was back in the early 19 hundreds or 18 hundreds when people were starting businesses.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: You know, people were entrepreneurs. I mean, what I like to talk about is most of all Americans were entrepreneurs or the small business owners from day one. Like you did it to survive.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's how you made your living. Then big industry came [00:09:00] in and people now have jobs and careers. That's been the change since like the early, you know, 19 hundreds and then you have a recycle of this entrepreneur or this small, of this business venture thing that's happened in the last 20 years where it's become this process of where you have an investor group with capital that wanna pour money into founders or entrepreneurs, um, really they're looking for entrepreneurs.
They don't even know it. But a lot of times that capital is either held by institution, you know, family, you know, kind of legacy money. Uh, some of it, I mean, obviously there's people that, that have made their own and are investing now too. Uh, but it's a collection of people's money looking for return on their investment.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: Not to solve necessarily a market problem.
Cameron Clark: Talk, talk about the evolution of the tech, uh, the tech scene here in northwest Arkansas. The from where, when you started, what that was like, and people [00:10:00] raising money in tech, in in tech here then, and then, like what's it, what's it like now? Obviously you're a driver of the AI uhhuh, like piece of it.
Eric Howerton: Yeah. Um, so we've always been a little bit limited, I'd say from a, that's our first step is like tech companies just rolling out to be tech companies. You know, we haven't really necessarily had that much, um, in northwest Arkansas. Um, I think that a lot of the tech companies have been birthed or brought out of service-based businesses.
I mean, speaking for myself, but even the other ones that I've seen that are, that you could call tech or success. Give an example. Uh, well, I'll just use myself like white spider, right? Mm-hmm. We started out as service-based, helping people with their content and their catalog at Walmart. And then from that we built a software solution.
Internally that helped us expedite our work to make it more efficient. And then, and then we pull it out into a front facing pure self-service SaaS and sell that to our clients as well. Sure.
Cameron Clark: [00:11:00] And that, yeah, that, that was secondary of like, hey, we saw, we identified this problem Yeah. That was happening with our current clients.
Mm-hmm. And, and hey, we need a solution for it.
Eric Howerton: That's right.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: And I've seen that being mostly the case out of a lot of, at least my peers and experience, uh, that I've seen that have been successful. Mm-hmm. I'll say that to you. Right. I have seen a lot of, you know, startups that are coming out as pure tech, but the reality is, is they're not much of a, of a investment community to help to fund a SaaS.
You know, software in itself is just extremely expensive. There's such a massive cash burn runway to get to any time. I mean, hell to even get to a product fit.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: And we don't necessarily understand that in northwest Arkansas from an investment community. You know, that's been my frustration in the past.
Cameron Clark: Are we headed that way? Uh,
Eric Howerton: I think we're trying to, you know, there's a definitely a lot of effort of investors. Uh, you know, like, uh, there's an event coming up, OER FX that they're bringing in a bunch of investors this month in [00:12:00] hopes to find those tech companies that are pure SaaS that are going out, which I think, you know, I applaud that effort.
Um, you know, and I think that we're going to be inching our way there. But, you know, I do have concerns about that because you, this community is very retail knowledge. You know, we have a lot of expertise here and knowledge and, and, and ability to actually genuinely solve problems, which we've been doing for, you know, 50, 60 years now.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: And if we get hyped up about all this tech investment, then we're gonna miss the really core of our value of our entrepreneurial core. I mean, the Northwest Arkansas is an entrepreneurial community, period. We're not Silicon Valley. Yeah. And so, you know, when we try to be things that we're not necess, we not necessarily are, you know, it's not that we cannot do that and become a Silicon Valley, uh, but you lose the luster of the true entrepreneurism.
Right. Because I would venture to say that if you could go find any of [00:13:00] these service based companies, whether they're brokers or even brands or you know, third party agencies, shopper marketing companies, best shopper marketing agencies, small agencies in the world are sitting right here in our area and there's a lot of them.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: Um, and you go in and you do not invest in those companies to roll out tech. You are missing the absolute crown drool of what Northwest Arkansas has to offer. But we're skipping that step. Like there is no investment community or gathering for businesses like Ad Fury or like podcast or podcast video or anything in this area.
They don't come into invest in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. They're skipping the step and trying to find raw founders
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: That are starting tech out of a, an idea. Um, and that's dangerous to me, you know, because you know what my experience in tech and software is, you could build something all day long, but you're off.[00:14:00]
If you're off a little bit,
Cameron Clark: you're off completely.
Eric Howerton: You're you're off completely. Yeah. You know, it's just a, it's a devastating thing. And then, and then if you get money to build a tech from an idea that has no proof or, or revenue or any kind of true customer need that's being able to be purchased, you know, you're gonna come across a lot of mishaps and then everybody's gonna get demoralized and then the investment leaves.
Cameron Clark: Talk about the evolution of white spider. Did y'all raise money to like build the tech? No. That was all.
Eric Howerton: No, that was it. You know, I love that story because it's just true entrepreneurship. It's true. Hard work. We
Cameron Clark: 10 year period,
Eric Howerton: it, it was about 10 to 11 years. Yeah. Uh, where when we founded, we started with $850 in the bank and we never borrowed any investment capital all the way through exit.
When I remember we sold the company, myself and Js Bull, my, uh, my partner, we were the only two equity stakeholders in the entire company. [00:15:00] Um, plus our, our team, you know, that we, that we did share with. Um, and what we did was, is we would provide services, sell the services, execute on 'em, reinvest, and start building that tech.
And then over time, I mean, our tech took probably about a year, year and a half to get to a self-service model that was basically you could buy just the tech and not really buy the service. Um,
Cameron Clark: explain what the technology was.
Eric Howerton: Yeah. So you could, a person could subscribe and they could go in and manage their catalog.
They could upload their item list, a retailer for re, for Walmart specifically. So if you're a brand servicing Walmart in northwest Arkansas, you would not have a hundred items that you sell@walmartandon.com. And you could go in there and you could see kind of how your performance is doing on shelf. Uh, you could create rich media and syndicate that to Walmart.
We had a rich media module that was really powerful, probably the best in the country.
Nick Beyer: What does rich media mean
Eric Howerton: for rich media? [00:16:00] Meaning like the below the fold content where you could add video feature sets, product tours, et cetera. Mm. So that way when a customer's on the product detail page, they scroll down, they could learn more about the product.
Cameron Clark: Yep.
Eric Howerton: Um, and, and a whole bunch of other things you could do in, in skewed Ninja, that was the name of the software was Skew Ninja. Okay. Owned by White Spider.
Cameron Clark: Mm.
Eric Howerton: Um, you know, but, but the reality is, is like, um, people also need to understand the retail market and how brands operate and behave. Right? I mean.
When you're in northwest Arkansas, it's a, um, you know, it's not like you're working with all the corporate a, you know, corporate brands.
Cameron Clark: Mm.
Eric Howerton: So they're, you know, who really has time to dive into yet one more piece of software to manage your business. Um, and so a lot of our businesses managed services on top of our software, and that's something that, you know, a lot of folks don't recognize.
Like, if I'm a founder and I'm gonna create a tech, like, if you don't have managed services attached to that [00:17:00] tech, like, man, you're gonna have, you're gonna have some pain points because not everybody's all excited to go sign up for a software. Um, you know, and we try to com we try to make things like, you know, Uber and Facebook and Instagram, as if people are just so excited in my workday to go sign up for another software, learn that system, everything works perfectly, and it provides me some value immediately.
This business is just too complicated. And, and, you know, the, the end results, like retail itself is not sophisticated. Like we want to think, even if OpenAI, you know, and their partnerships with retailers and, you know, and everybody else, none of that stuff's perfect. Like there's so many broken pieces all around it, you know?
And if you think a software is gonna solve that problem, it's just simply not gonna do a hundred percent of it.
Cameron Clark: How do you keep it simple and a service? Like how do you not overcomplicate it and not make it, like, you know, make it a viable like [00:18:00] product?
Eric Howerton: You talking about the software?
Cameron Clark: Yeah, just like, or, or, or the business.
The business. Like,
Eric Howerton: oh yeah. Well, you
Cameron Clark: know,
Eric Howerton: you know, I think that, I mean, in all honesty, I don't know that there is one that's really that simple internally, right? Like, I mean, I always liked what Sam Walton would say. Like, you walk into a Walmart store, it looks great and well put together, but you go behind the wall, like there's a lot going on that the customer doesn't see.
That's just the reality of business. Yeah. You know, I think there's, everybody's got a lot of mess going on, you know, just trying to always figure out, there's always something, you know, some challenge that's coming up. And so I've actually, in my older years, have kind of started realizing, you know, that's, that's the reality.
And so I shouldn't feel bad about necessarily what happens behind, but keeping it simple for the customer so that they don't have to deal with all that.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: And they have a great front line, and it's simple for them. There's a great value proposition for 'em. Um, and they can easily transact and engage and they can feel confident about what we're doing.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: You know, it's, [00:19:00] and it's simplest form. It's like, you know, do you wanna clean your own house or do you wanna hire somebody to clean it? Well, if you clean, you hire somebody to clean it. You want them to come in, not mess stuff up, but get stuff clean and clean it better than you, and then walk away and not have any problems with somebody stealing your stuff.
Or they showed up on time. All these fundamentals is really what business is all about. I mean, people, even if you buy a SaaS, you're actually buying a service. It's just happens to be automated and, and yeah, really user friendly and intuitive, you know? Um, and so I think that, you know, this, this concept that that, that there's a SaaS out there that's gonna solve all these big problems, and it's gonna be super easy just because we know re retail, I think is a little bit of a, of deception from ourselves.
You know,
Cameron Clark: get, let's get back into the, the white, white, white spider story where you're gr you're in the middle of the grind. Mm-hmm. Day to day in, in innovating building. What was like, when you reflect back on like, [00:20:00] what was really challenging or hey, a moment that like we, that was really hard, but we rose to the occasion that was like, I don't know, that you almost celebrate in the rear, rear view mirror.
And that was a challenging time, um, building the business.
Eric Howerton: Yeah. It was. I think my most, the, I, I would say the, it is the most frustrating for me, right? Is what I see the most challenge. I mean, my perspective's a lot different than a lot of the teams, but I was always frustrated and challenged by the market, not understanding what they reap may need to be doing, what they need to invest in.
So when we came out, it's funny, I mean, as archaic and as old as it sounds, you know, when we were going out to market to the brands, we were there beating the drum and on the megaphone, like, you've got to get digital content ready. You know, like you cannot, we know that your business with Walmart's in store, and that's what your co, your, your office is set up here for, but Walmart's an omnichannel company.
It needs your digital catalog. It's gotta be the best in the world. I go to your [00:21:00] product page on Walmart and it's terrible. You got two pictures in one line and two bullet points. You go to your page on amazon.com and it's blown out to the gills and, and like, there's a huge difference there. Oh, and by the way, cut.
Walmart's your number one customer. They could not connect the dots from brick and mortar to this omnichannel retail Yeah. That Walmart was clearly driving towards.
Nick Beyer: And what year? What year was that?
Eric Howerton: Oh, this was, you know, 2014, 15, 16, 17, 18. I mean, it went all the way till COVID, it still happening till
Nick Beyer: COVID or,
Eric Howerton: yeah, all COVID was a great macro moment of I'm not, oh my God.
Everybody realized the internet was finally real.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: And that pickup really works, you know, and so we, we were at the right plot place at the right time, doing the right thing when COVID happened. I mean, that definitely accelerated our notoriety and value to the market. And at that point I didn't have to really communicate the demand for it.
But those that we worked with before COVID were definitely more set up and ready. Um, and [00:22:00] then it just kind of accelerated from there. But that's kind of my, when I think about our achievements, it's, it's being able to be, you know, not that we're innovative, but being able to be so relentless and persistent about communicating.
What they need as our clients desperately need to have. 'cause a lot of times, I mean, and I, I always feel for it because the brands have a lot to worry about when working with Walmart. I mean, it's not, it's not, you know, small cake, right? Yeah. I mean, and then incomes a company. It's like, you've gotta get digital ready.
Like, man, that's like, I've got like a hundred things on my desk right now to do. You know? Um, and then there's a lot of partners, uh, that they already had in existence that were really, you know, nobody wants to lose business.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: So when you have relationships that you already have and they don't have those capabilities, a lot of stronghold, a lot of, you know, promise making mm-hmm.
That you can't really execute on just to kind of survive the contract. And then a [00:23:00] lot of, uh, a lot of competitive nature. Other agencies that were not really willing to partner with our little company based out of Northwest Arkansas. So we were always fighting for that. Yeah. Like it was, and I mean, we're ba basically back in that scenario now with ai, with Ad Fury.
Cameron Clark: Feel like an underdog fight, like an under underdog.
Eric Howerton: A hundred percent.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: A hundred percent. And I mean, you know, if you're at fury.ai and we've been working for, since October 24, which I consider as a veteran in AI business now.
Cameron Clark: Sure, yeah.
Eric Howerton: Building specifically for retail tech, um, you know, and ad tech and retail, you know, we know the power of what we have.
Like it is so blatantly obvious to us, like how powerful, you know, AI is gonna be to optimize and scale out your media, scale out your product content. I mean, all these things that we're like, we're we're able to do things now in a week that we would take us six months to do. Wow. Before. We see the power and the granularity, the scale at which we can accommodate and be so relevant [00:24:00] to every individual customer and shopper that's out there.
And we're prepared as the market continues to shift in that way. And as Walmart shifts and retail and, um, in, in agent shopping and commerce shift, like we are already in line and we can actually help prepare, but nobody's really, you, you know, nobody really can see that on a brand side. Um, and we're facing the same thing with a lot of the other current relationships that they have because it, it's hard to be a small company and then you have major corporations, agencies,
Cameron Clark: mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: You know, or other co corporations that have these relationships and they, they can easily say in a meeting, oh, we got that. And it's easy for the customer to go. Okay. Thank you. But that whole delay could be 3, 6, 9, 12 months, two years. Wow. And I'm talking about what's happening today is the same thing that happened at White Spider.
Yeah. Two years. And now the customer's way behind.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: You know, [00:25:00] and, and the inevitable happens. It's just hard for major companies to make those types of technological advancements, you know, versus potentially partnering and accelerating those advancements. So,
Cameron Clark: and one last question on the transition, and I wanna talk a lot about a at Fury.
The, how did you know you were ready to sell and like, what would you tell someone in that, in that spot
Eric Howerton: At White Spider?
Cameron Clark: Yeah. White Spider.
Eric Howerton: Um, I think for us it was number one, it was about having a good buyer that had a good culture fit for us. Uh, you know, we were still, I mean, we knew what we had and we had a lot of growth to go and we were excited to part of a company that wanted to continue that growth.
Um, you know, being ready to like, you know, that you, if you've had more resources that you could continue to compound. Um, and it was the right time from that standpoint, you know, I mean, for us, I mean, we were, um, [00:26:00] you know, really just kind of looking to, to make that next move for the business and to, for the employees and the team as well.
And I think that, you know, that has come to fruition, right? I mean, the company did grow, like, especially in the first two years as we were working there. Js and I were there, um, and it's still growing today. The, the team, everybody that was on our team has accelerated their career, you know, and their pathway, which is, which is absolutely the whole point of it, right?
That's where. I think that when we talk about entrepreneurs, again, going back to that, like it's not just about the business, it's about the people you're working with. It's about seeing other people grow. It's about this experience of life to where we fought together, did things together. There's so much honor in that.
Seeing other people that maybe come in the company, they're new in their career, they don't know what they're doing, or even people that have been working somewhere else and they're wanting to change and they step into this very high velocity startup. And then the next thing you know, they're, they're just three months.
They [00:27:00] turn around three to six months and, and they, they know so much they didn't even know that's happening to 'em. But then you look fast forward two years and like they're cream of the crop. Like people, you know, people in the community want bring them over. They just make a better life.
Cameron Clark: That's Talk about vision for Ad Fury.
The, I mean, I assume it was like a problem solving standpoint based off your DNA kind. Identify yourself as like,
Eric Howerton: yeah,
Cameron Clark: what was the problem you saw, you saw, and like, what are, what are y'all doing right now to solve it?
Eric Howerton: So the big problem, uh, that we're solving with at Fury is what we call the content supply chain.
So, and that's a really, actually a big word in the industry. Uh, but when you look at it like how do you take, you know, the simplest thing to say is, if I take a picture of this cup and I'm marketing this cup, but I need to go to certain audience segments. I want to go to, you know, [00:28:00] the millennial audience, I wanna go to the Gen X, I wanna, you know, I have this in blue, I have it in white and red.
There's so many different varieties of audiences and product, makeup that it's has been traditionally impossible creatively to make that happen. For every little micro granular audience that's out there, ai, that this is the big news of the world, AI has completely. Busted that bottleneck open.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: And that's what we're using the power of ai and I mean, it's not about generating this cup out of nothing like CGI, right?
It's about optimizing and getting very detailed in the, in to get more personalized and relevant to the customer. Because if, if you're on on walmart.com and you're searching for a red, you know, uh, insulated coffee cup that has Ad Fury on it and the search brings you back to this, or there's an ad [00:29:00] display on there with me drinking this, but it's black and you wanted a red one, that's not very relative to you.
No. Like, well where's the freaking red one?
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: You might immediately go, which most people would do is say they don't have a red one, so I'm exiting
Cameron Clark: going somewhere else. Yeah.
Eric Howerton: Right. So I paid the brand paid for that click or that, that impression, but there's no conversion. However, if I was sitting there happy talking in a podcast and I had a red one.
Oh, that's it. That's what I was wanting. Click buy. Exactly. Done, done. Thinking about it. You know, and so that's what AI can do, is we can optimize that. We can make this red, we can keep the, the brand equity and all, all the branding guidelines, legal guidelines, all that stuff. We, because we know retail, which is a massive value for what we built, right?
It's not like we're outta Silicon Valley deciding, oh man, it'd be really cool if we could have red and yellow and, and blue cubs. It's, we know retail, we know what brands are needing legally. We know how important the brand guidelines [00:30:00] are.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: We respect the creatives, we respect the creative agencies.
We know how important this stuff is in the investment they made. All we're doing is optimizing and scaling out with their hero content already is, and that allows us to go very granular, have better targeting strategies on ads. Have better, IM have more relative images and videos and content for those ads
Nick Beyer: mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: And manage all those things at scale with our systems and processes.
Nick Beyer: So how do you convince a brand, a big brand?
Eric Howerton: Yeah.
Nick Beyer: That they need to do that? Because your barrier is the same that it was at White Spider in those years that you mentioned, 20 14, 20 16.
Eric Howerton: Mm-hmm.
Nick Beyer: E-commerce was 2%, 5% of their Walmart business.
Yep. Now it's 20% a a lot of these brands. Mm-hmm. But if I'm looking at my brand, 20% is e-commerce. A lot of that's pickup and delivery or whatever.
Eric Howerton: Mm-hmm.
Nick Beyer: How, how do you [00:31:00] get me to buy into a picture of a Red Cup? Yeah. Right. Is that, is that the barrier to the business or
Eric Howerton: mm-hmm. Yeah, it's, it's interesting.
There's, there's a, there's a few parts of this that I've learned. One, there's a macro understanding, there's an industry understanding, there's an industry confidence that I think with AI is even stronger than it was with e-comm or digital or, or omnichannel. You know, I, I've been talking about this, like back in the day, if I went to a brand that's like, Hey, you need to be updated for e-comm, or, or, you know, really if I'd stake it stay in the vein of e-commerce for Walmart, that would make more sense to 'em because they say, oh, well, it's only 1% of my business.
There's no need for me to invest. Mm-hmm. However, they have been, they personally are buying on e-comm.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: Right. And so they know that it exists. Problem with ai, at least for up to until now, is they're like, I don't need to do ai. I don't even use ai, so I don't even [00:32:00] know what AI means. I read about it and I hear about it.
Mm-hmm. But I'm not digging into it. Oh. And then, or the, you know, another level is, well, I've been using chat, GPT. I don't understand how any of that's gonna actually help that, that experience out. And it's like, well, we're not chat GPT, right? I mean, it's,
Cameron Clark: yeah,
Eric Howerton: there's a lot depth, you know, to ai, uh, that happens.
And so what we're doing is very unique specifically for the commerce shopper, you know, for the gentech commerce and for just geo and just for general human based shopping, which is still predominantly the number one way people are still shopping, you know, and, and so there's a, a, a broad level macro industry understanding and confidence and comfortability that I think brands are going through right now.
Cameron Clark: Is it fear? Is it fear of getting left behind?
Eric Howerton: No, I think that it's just, it's not understanding how all the wires are being put together, right? I mean, there's a lot of questions, like, and there's a lot of noise out there right now, you know, I mean, when you [00:33:00] have, you know, like a Walmart come out with a sparky, well, what does that mean?
You know? And there's not like, and there's a lot of proprietary stuff going on between. Walmart, target, Amazon, open ai, you know, Claude, all these things are just like these black boxes that nobody really understands. However, you're a brand in the middle of that. How do you, how do you go forward with confidence when everything's a black box?
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: Right? And so that's problem number one. Problem number two is, is that there's a lot of major business that occurs with major companies between major brands and major third parties.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: Be them consultants or whatever they might be that their industry's changing and so they're adapting to to the speaking points.
Yeah. And so what you're gonna have is a lot of initially corporate major brand, you know, agreements with their existing relationships that may have nothing or know nothing about ai. Or maybe they do at a [00:34:00] very high level, but they don't get down into the nasty details in the weeds of which, like something we do.
I mean, we're, we are highly niched. What we're doing at, at Fury, like we're not trying to come up with a, you know, an HR corporate cyber sec, you know, preventative security about the usage of AI within a company. Mm-hmm. You know, a lot of times that's maybe what brands are thinking about right now, but we've, we've skipped about a hundred steps and we're in the depths of agentic advertising, a geo agentic shopping, like we're down into these really minute weeds in a custom, fine tuned AI orchestrated flow that we've been building and testing for over a year and a half, specifically designed for this industry.
And so there's a lot of, there's a lot of veil right now, and, and, you know, but it's becoming more and more clear as every day goes on. And a lot of the ways that we attack that is just by having continuous conversations. Like we, you know, there's, it's kind of like, can you do a [00:35:00] speaking event? Right. And I talk for 60 minutes, or do I talk for 10 minutes and then open up for q and a?
The value's, the q and a, right? Yeah. People have so many small questions and they're trying to understand how this fits. How do we play with any partners that they already have? A lot of times brands have long-term contracts with some of the other comp, you know, partners that they're working with, which is great.
Um, you know, how do we fit into that, that puzzle piece is kind of, you know, it's like the, it's the same thing we went through back in the day and I know that it just takes effort, right? Can, you know, to me, you know, having those continuous conversations and really educating, inspiring and educating the audience is something that I love to do, you know, and I love to talk to clients and I love to think about their puzzle pieces and how we fit in there.
And that's what you have to do. And you just, you know, you have to, that's why I'm kind of go back. You have to have that, that desire at your core to get through the a hundred thousand communica, you know, [00:36:00] conversations you gotta have. To get the, the market to start moving over. And it's already happening.
I mean, like, it's, it never happens the way we want to, right? I mean, I think everybody on the sun would love to eat pizza and ice cream every day, never get fat. Have a six pack.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: And not work and make, and have billions of dollars sit and, and their, they have a legacy and all, and then trust fund and all these things.
Right? That would be the easy way. Same thing in business. When you start out, you have these ideas that, oh my gosh, it's gonna landslide.
Nick Beyer: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: You know, I did the same thing at White Spider, you know, I was like, when I found out I was like, walmart.com has the worst product detail pages in the world, but the biggest brands, and none of 'em are optimized.
None of 'em have good pictures, none of 'em, it's relevant. I'm like, dude, I just hit a gold mine. Why is nobody doing this? And I go out to the, oops. You go out to the market. I think that the conversions are gonna be super simple. I was so stoked out. I'm like, I am a genius
Cameron Clark: walking up to their door radio, like, sell.
Eric Howerton: Yeah, here's a [00:37:00] contract. Just sign there. We'll get to work for you. Uh, and probably it should have happened like that, but it just doesn't. And so, same kind of scenario, right? Ai, it's like, oh my gosh, this thing is busting up the supply chain of content. Like we
Cameron Clark: no brainer.
Eric Howerton: Yeah, no brainer. No one's ever been able to do this before we got it figured out.
We're retail experts, let's go. We know how all this stuff works. We've done it before. We've got credibility, we have trust. Let's go. And then, um, there's so many distractions. There's just so many distractions going on. And really what it takes, um, is when, when the brands, you gotta find the right customer within your audience, you know, sector that
Cameron Clark: mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: That are, are really ready and they're urgent. And they have some fundage to, to start going into an unknown territory for them.
Cameron Clark: And is your ideal client, the brand and the marketing agency now? Is that
Eric Howerton: Yeah. Yeah. We honestly like, you know, uh, it's a [00:38:00] multitude. You got partners, you got, you have, uh, you know, existing like syndicators or ma or ad management platforms, big agencies, boutique agencies, brokers or selling partners, consultants.
Mm-hmm. Um, and then definitely the brand themselves and even retailers, right? I mean, like we, we can do things for all of them.
Cameron Clark: So that's unique. You can, you can service everyone in the ecosystem.
Eric Howerton: You can't. We can.
Cameron Clark: Yeah,
Eric Howerton: for sure. And uh, it's just a matter of will they, do they want us to, right? Yeah. You know, I mean, uh,
Cameron Clark: you can provide value to each, each piece there
Eric Howerton: a hundred percent.
And I think that that's a good approach. 'cause you're kind of always ready now. It does make your value, you know, your product valuation strategy a little bit more complicated. Uh, it's. You know, that, that then therefore affects the internal team. You know, a lot of times I think it's just, as an entrepreneur, there's an intuitive understanding that I have.
You know, whether you're an agency or a retailer or a brand or whoever, I can quickly see the [00:39:00] value that I provide for that. Internally, though, that's a little bit, that's not as natural maybe as it is, you know, for me as an entrepreneur, that's a, that's a value of an entrepreneur, right? We, we can see how our solution fits in this grand spec, and we're able to navigate this in any conversation.
And if it doesn't work, it's not like we, I would never lie and say that we can do something that we really should not do. Mm. But I can absolutely see how we could help, you know, the biggest retailer to the smallest retailer right now, and I can have that conversation. It's, that's a big challenge for anybody that's just like in a.
Marketing or sales position or pro, it doesn't matter what part of the business they're in. Like, do they think that way? That's a hard one. You know? 'cause you hear a lot of times on sales side, like, you gotta believe in your product. Well, what is your product? Yeah. Well my product is this. Well, okay, what's your, what's your core audience?
Well, my core audience is this. Okay, that sounds good. Here's a perfect little layout of bullet point value propositions. Here's your sheet, here's your price sheet, here's your value [00:40:00] props, here's your presentation. Go sell. And if that's all I'm doing, great.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: But if I go, oh no, we can service 15 different markets and provide a value to all of 'em.
It's like, okay, whoa. You know, what the heck are you talking? What are
Cameron Clark: you doing? It's a little more challenging.
Eric Howerton: Yeah, it's challenging.
Nick Beyer: So where have you found success in the, in the sales cycle so far? I mean, are you having more success? Oh yeah. On the retailer side, are you having more success on the brokerages side?
Like who's where, where's the growth coming from right now?
Eric Howerton: Um, I'm seeing, um, I'm definitely seeing agencies, you know. Coming around, uh, brands, most definitely. I mean, I'd I'd say if you, if you really narrow it down, I mean, we're always servicing the brand.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: And we're always, you know, servicing the retailer as well, you know, indirectly or even directly.
Sure. But, you know, brands, there are brands, sectors or brands that are the innovative ones. The ones that are kind of more challenging, they might, you know, they have room to grow their market share, or they're trying to beat out some competition, you know, they're very much more aggressive. [00:41:00] You see more success in that, just like we did at White Spider, same thing.
And then some of your agencies that are, that have found their niche.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: Right. They might be purely shopper marketing agency and they're the best in, I mean, that's what I love about North Arkansas. The, the, the creative shopper agencies that we have are just like the best in the world, you know? And they understand that we're not interfering with that.
We're magnifying that, yeah. We are accelerating that value that they have. That's where I'm seeing, uh, seeing success in right now. But there's a lot of conversations happening on every one of the markets too. Like, we're, like, when we say growth, like I don't necessarily think of just, you know, dollar growth or contractual growth.
I'm thinking of conversational growth.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: I'm thinking of opportunity growth. Um, and so it's all starting to kind of hit in all those different sectors. Uh, and that's always exciting, you know, but I think that when you, when you talk about actual deals, like it's primarily brands in, in some of the agencies right now,
Cameron Clark: and just [00:42:00] curious more on the AI space in general, obviously, you know, so what would you say to any small business owner other than like, Hey, you should be using ai.
Eric Howerton: Yeah. How do you,
Cameron Clark: what would you tell 'em on the how factor? Like, Hey, you know, you have a service business or a, or pro, you're selling a product like. Maybe they, they feel they're in a spot where they just don't, they're so overwhelmed. They don't know like, what to do. Yeah. And so they're not, they're just not using it at all.
And they're like, ah, eventually it'll, it'll come and there'll be a a, someone will knock on my door and tell me how to do this.
Eric Howerton: Yeah.
Cameron Clark: What do, what do you tell that person?
Eric Howerton: Um, I tell 'em, first of all, I understand the challenge immediately with that. Right? I mean, it's very disruptive. I compare AI in a lot of ways to the internet, you know, like pre-internet times the resistance to get online and even have a website and start participating, using the internet in your business instead of using a phone book, right?
I mean, that transition [00:43:00] was really difficult for businesses and people in general. And it took time. I think we're in the same scenario with ai, right? Like how it's actually effectively used. Like, if you think about the beginning of the internet, like, yes, I could go in there and I could, you know, find a phone number to contact somebody, but it was just as easy or sometimes easier to just open the freaking phone book.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: Because I'm used to it. It's actually, it makes sense. It's conventional. Um, and I know it's gonna be factually in there. We're having that problem with ai. 'cause sometimes it's, it's more challenging to do something in AI than it is just to do it yourself. But, you know, just like the internet evolved and started taking over and you have no phone books anymore, that's the same scenario that's gonna happen with ai.
It's like we're there's gonna be duties and responsibilities and things that you do with AI that you no longer have to do the old way period anymore. Yeah. Um, and so it's just gonna take some time. I would encourage any business owner like you, you know, especially as, you know, the owner, the, the, you know, [00:44:00] the entrepreneur that you have to lean in, you know, and you have to start exploring.
First of all, it's like getting your team using, you know, the tools themselves just to make their own productivity faster. But then you start leveling out into, okay, how does this thing as a process work, which is really where, you know, my other companies are at, you know, we're very, what's the process? Ad fury is kind of a different thing.
Like, it's, it's a little wicked. Like, I don't even understand what the hell these people are doing. Like, it is deep black box, like crazy stuff, you know, that it's, it's wicked what they can do. Yeah. And they're like, they're like at a cutting edge level. So I don't have to say any of this to our team here.
Yeah.
Cameron Clark: I get it.
Eric Howerton: But at podcast videos, you know, what, what uh, system are we using? How is it structured? How do we organize it? You know, because, um, that's the most important part is how the team can actually leverage this and, and making sure you have the right [00:45:00] documentation in the right places. Mm-hmm. You know, like, I'll just be honest with you, like, we've kind of gone through some tools and I'm, I'm a big, you know, Gemini fan.
Yeah. I'm a big Google fan for the team. We use Google Workspace, you know, so we're using Gemini, you know, we're using Notebook lm, you know, and those things are all connected. And so it's like this, it's built for a business and I can also control the qualitative output within it as well. Yeah. Right. And so you don't wanna have every person on the team isolated in their own island, you know, working in their own system without being connected to the major company brain.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: It's like having a bunch of a, a bunch of people on the team that don't have any direction and they don't have anybody to talk to, you know, about asking questions.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: You know, to the leaders or whoever you, it's the same thing with ai. There has to be like a leading AI hierarchy.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: But then the ai, you know, process allows the each individual to [00:46:00] magnify their work.
Cameron Clark: Okay.
Eric Howerton: You know, so I mean it's, I know that's a pretty complicated statement. I would just say I'm a fan of Gemini and Google Workspace right now because of the,
Nick Beyer: it all works together.
Eric Howerton: Yeah. The workspace part.
Nick Beyer: Yeah. Could you walk us through, um, you don't have to give a client name, but if, if you could walk someone who's like, man, I still, I don't really know if I understand what Ad Fury does.
Eric Howerton: Mm-hmm.
Nick Beyer: Could you walk us through a client that y'all done something for? I know you gave the example of a cup, but maybe like a more, Hey, we did this, here's the outcome. Is there something like that that you, a story like that you could share?
Eric Howerton: Yeah, I'll, I'll stick within. So with Ad Fury number one, you got kind of a, uh, the advertising side.
Mm-hmm. And then you have the product content catalog side.
Cameron Clark: Yep.
Eric Howerton: And I'll stay in the advertising side 'cause I think it's a little bit easier, uh, to digest. So currently the way the market works is in retail media networks. Most brands and agencies [00:47:00] are using what we call sponsored search. It's basically keyword search like you do in Google, right?
Like text-based, and then it brings up your sponsored listing. You don't have to do anything other than add the certain keywords you want for all these items. Mm-hmm. It's very automated, right?
Nick Beyer: You're talking about on walmart.com?
Eric Howerton: Yes, on walmart.com.
So
Nick Beyer: when I go to walmart.com, I want cookies. I type in cookies.
Nestle cookies is sponsored up at the top. That's okay.
Eric Howerton: Yep. Okay. They'll have a sponsored listing. It looks like any other listing, except it's just sponsored.
Nick Beyer: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: Very low touch from the standpoint of there wasn't low touch from the, not from a management side, but low touch from a creative side. Yeah.
Within Walmart Connect as well, there is display advertising, so those are the ones with the images that have a graphical banner at the top. Mm-hmm. Banner advertising. Is the best way to explain it, right? Mm-hmm. Banner at the top leaderboard or you have a, you know, uh, another, another ad by the checkout on the product detail pages.
Right? And so you have visual [00:48:00] interrupters that are advertising a brand or a product.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: That whole bucket right there is where we're really playing in at Ad Fury, it's the display, what we call display advertising. So we're not really messing with the sponsored search from that standpoint with our ag agentic flow necessarily.
What we've been set out to do is, is make sure that those banner ads and those display ads are now able to, you know, to be relevant to the customer.
Nick Beyer: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: Um,
Nick Beyer: on a singular level. When you say customer, you mean when Nick Byer looks at his Walmart page?
Eric Howerton: Yep.
Nick Beyer: And I'm looking for cookies. That banner now is gonna be targeted to Nick Byer.
It's
Eric Howerton: gonna be targeted to you, but then also the creative. Mm-hmm. This is, this is where the content supply chain comes in. Wow. The creative is relevant to you. That goes back to the Red Cup versus the Black Cup. So currently today, what brands and agencies have had to do is I'd have to, if I had that cup, I'd have to, I'd have to create the [00:49:00] graphical layout of that display ad.
And oh, by the way, not only do I have to create that one ad, there's 14 other ad sets that I have to create because that's what the retailer is needing on their mobile site, on their app. All these different locations, same ad, different format and sizes. At Fury, number one thing it's done is it's automated.
All the different sizes with instantaneously.
Cameron Clark: Gee,
Eric Howerton: that used to take that right there, if that could be communicated, is the ultimate value is, is like the, it's like the ROI value of the world because all those 14 different sizes and formats, there is not a creative person on the planet that I've ever met, and I'm used to be one, not literally as good as the people we work with.
No one wants to do that. That's called what we call production or knowledge based work, right? Yeah. It's, it's very, or it's no one, there's no creativity to it. Yeah. You're resizing, you know, and so therefore, number one, the real creative strategists and the ones that are doing the [00:50:00] hero content don't even wanna mess with it.
But what happens is, is that bottlenecks really excellent granular targeting strategies for display. Because if I can save you two hours, probably on the production side, developing all the 14, but then I can only run, run, run one creative campaign across 20 different items.
Cameron Clark: Mm.
Eric Howerton: And so I'll only have a black cup in the hero shot with a lifestyle, happy Eric drinking outta a black ad Fury cup.
Whereas, you know, Cameron over here is wanting a red one. I don't have the, I don't have the creative time to generate a red lifestyle image with you in it. And the brand doesn't have the, the budget to support paying for you to build that creative time. There's where Ad Fury steps out on the second fold is now we can genetically create.
Red cup, blue cup, white cup, whatever cup you want, according to the brand style guides of [00:51:00] that first ad, according to the legal parameters of the brand and the retailer, break out all 14 different ad sizes. So now I can run super, super granular, relevant ads in super granular targeting strategies for display with very low cost to it in high scale.
So if you think about it, sponsored search, everyone does it.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: It's like doing Google keyword search. Mm-hmm. Everybody's advertising for that.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: Not everybody is doing display.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: So you might have a hundred percent inventory filled up, a sponsored and only 20% filled up with display. And the reason why there's only 20% is because it takes time, it costs money.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: And no one really wants to do the work.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: At Fury comes in, we can make it, we've made display as easy as sponsored search. That's the big statement.
Nick Beyer: Okay.
Eric Howerton: It is now AgTech [00:52:00] that's never been able to be done before in the history of creative.
Nick Beyer: So if I'm a brand, I maybe used to submit five photos for display.
And is is your, is yours endless? Is it? Mm-hmm. Now it's 50 photos. Sure. And what
Eric Howerton: Sure. It's that and then we'll take it a step further. You don't have to submit anything. We can actually create and run display campaigns based off your product detail page. You don't even have to click. You can
Nick Beyer: literally pull the product detail page of the cup.
Eric Howerton: Yeah. And generate, I can generate ad campaigns BA based off different targeting strategies. So display advertising has more targeting strategies and campaigns available to you. Psychographic demographic, all these types of different things that you can create the campaigns against to show your creative to that particular audience.
Nick Beyer: Sponsored just who's gonna pay the most money to be at the top.
Eric Howerton: Pretty much it's, it's a keyword bidding strategy. So there, there's a little bit more, [00:53:00] uh, fine tuning to it, but definitely display has much broader and different ways to go. And so we can, based on that targeting strategy and your URL of your product page, which we actually do automatically as well.
Once we know who the client is, we go to the product page, grab the images, and grab the content from that product page, pull it in our system, and within 60 to 90 seconds we have the ad creative completely ready for you, including the 14 ready to go. And all you gotta do is click approve. And by the way, we're creating headlines and subheadings, so there's text in these ads.
Cameron Clark: Hmm.
Eric Howerton: That we're ally creating based off the targeting strategy based off best practices. It's all automated. Gosh. So now you can run these campaigns and if you're playing in the 20% bucket, that gives you 80% space that your competitors are not playing in.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: And we all know that if I, like when I see a product in use or in a lifestyle that I resonate [00:54:00] with that is relevant, is much more powerful than just seeing a product listing.
Yeah. You know, like even if I, you know, the problem is, is like there, there's available space all over Walmart in the app in order to put these display ads, but there's not many much relevance happening in those spaces because of what has to have happened. Now you can't go deep enough. Really Ad Fury is doing things that no one has ever done before.
Not replacing anything. We are not replacing anything other than the crappy production work of creating the freaking 14 different sizes.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: Like we were doing that, but no one wants to do that anyway. And we're doing a lot faster, a lot more accurately, you know, and all that stuff. But we are going places where you've never been able to go before, so there is no replacement there.
I mean, it's actually this, that's the power I think of AI in general that I don't think that brands are seeing. It's not about [00:55:00] doing what you have done, although there is a lot of that that can be replaced with ai, which that's what everybody's focused on. Yeah. It's about doing what you've never been able to be, do be done before because of ai.
That's where we're at and where we're going, and that's the communication. And so, you know, we spent however long this podcast trying to understand what the heck is going on. Right. It's the same conversation we're having to have with the brands too. It requires this dialogue and this conversation. For people to buy into or invest in this innovative area that we're in, you know?
And that's the challenge. As the entrepreneur, are you willing to commit to that? Right. Because I could go to attend meetings and, you know, my perspective is there's no such thing as a bad meeting or a bad marketing campaign ever. I hate those words when somebody says, oh, that didn't work, let's not do it.
I'm like, man, it always works a little, it may not work what you expected, but there is no such thing as me talking to a [00:56:00] brand or an agency or anybody under the sun about what our product can do. And, and the And to inspire and educate about what we're doing.
Cameron Clark: Yeah. Or may tell you what not to do. Or like how
Eric Howerton: Yeah,
Cameron Clark: yeah,
Eric Howerton: exactly.
Uh, always walk away with a value to that.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm. '
Eric Howerton: cause there's been another time period that I've expressed the vision and the value of what we're doing, and you never know that person. Sometimes it takes a while for people, especially people. You know, the big problem with this is these people that we're talking to have significant interest to make good decisions.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: And so they have their peers, their bosses, the market, the retailer, agencies and partners all trying to tell them what they need to be doing or making recommendations and opinions. And then you have a newcomer like us coming in.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: And yes, we're specialized, but you might have a great meeting with us, but then you walk back in and you say something and then somebody else's could be that you respect is like super negative about it.[00:57:00]
Oh, no, no, no. Don don't, don't do ai.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: We don't believe in ai or someone said this, you know, and, and we're using AI so that therefore must mean that you can't do this. You know? But, but then you have to come back and talk again. Um, so I mean that, that ability to have that dialogue over and over again is, is, is, is the requirement of an entrepreneur.
Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm. And then talk about how Ad Fury. Creates revenue? Is it a, is it a fee structure? Is it by picture? Is it just by number, the items that you have? Are y'all trying to figure that out or have you guys
Eric Howerton: Yeah, it's kind of all of the above, right? I mean, like, we're, uh, you know, pricing is definitely one of the, the biggest challenges in business, right on, on how your pricing structure works.
Um, a lot of that's due to the market maturity and how, what people are willing to buy. And it depends on the audience too. You know, there's, you know, our software partners don't want to hear anything about a retainer or managed service or whatever it might be. You know, it [00:58:00] could be token based, it could be credit based, it could be, you know, a flat fee structure.
And so we kind of come to the table with, with a. An initial offering. Mm-hmm. You know, which is mostly based upon usage download, uh, percentage of ad spend in some of those cases. But we're very much willing and, and open, which is the value of a startup to, to accommodate a better structure for that client to invest with us.
And, you know, in all honesty, like especially in the business that we're in, you know, we say a brand, well, a brand might have a thousand items.
Nick Beyer: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: Wow. Right? And if we're talking about how, and I've been talking about this time, we can now do display across every single item at the granular level.
Well, if we come with a pricing structure, hey, it's $10 for every item. Well, I got a thousand items. Okay, so you want me to spend $10,000 a month and that, that ain't gonna work. You know, and so you have to, there's a lot of nuances on how we have to do our processing structure, and it [00:59:00] really just depends on the volume of them, what they're actually trying to do.
Mm. How much we're gonna be lifting on their behalf.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: You know, uh, are they doing full self-service? Are they doing a hybrid? Are they doing full service, full, uh, managed service.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: Um, and so, you know, but I would say from a, just a foundational level, it's, you know, it is, it is, uh, currently more on a download base for the product imagery percentage base based on ad set creation.
That's part of their existing ad budget that they already have. Um, and then we have, you know, some other things that are kind of more like, based upon the quantity we give discounts. Yeah. And all that type of stuff.
Cameron Clark: And, uh, thinking about the future, like what do you, what's your hope for Ad Fury over the next five years?
Eric Howerton: Man, I, um, there's a lot of hope for it, right? Like, I, I really hope, look here, here's, here's my genuine perspective. Northwest Arkansas is incredible. I mean, we got some of the greatest leaders of all time that have been born [01:00:00] here, worked here, created businesses here. I mean, we all know who they are, you know, and some of my heroes, right?
We've created a community that is not just safe and growing and prosperous and fun and entertaining and beautiful, but a culture of people that are genuine for the most part. Humble, hardworking, you know, uh, great values. I, uh, I'm a big fan of Walmart and its value structure, which is all driven by its founder, Sam Walton, you know, and, and Bud Walton Walton family.
That, that I think is to me like a, um, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, you know, it's kind of a, a, a perfect scenario of. Of great entrepreneurism and economical building and, and value of millions and millions of dollars saved. Billions have saved [01:01:00] billions provided back. I mean, it's just amazing, you know, and I think that my objective is, is to be genuine, to take care of that and to add to it.
Right. Continue to add to that foundation by, you know, working relentlessly to protect this retail and, and to bolster our retail knowledge into the next phase with ai.
Cameron Clark: Hmm.
Eric Howerton: Um, I think that we're very threatened right now. Uh, you know, I always say it, I've been talking about it. I mean, even back at White Spider, I could see the threat if we didn't get digitally ready.
Nick Beyer: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: As a retailer or as a community, you know, which the brands are responsible for their content. The brands are responsible for advertising, they're the ones paying the checks. You know, how do we make sure that Walmart. Is the best. You know, and we often forget about our, everyone's contribution to making that happen.
Walmart [01:02:00] themselves is cutting edge and leading, and they do a great job, but there's, there's, there's a good percentage of that entire ecosystem that is dependent upon how the brands and how the partners with the brands are ensuring that that's successful.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: And if you look back, Amazon's threat, Walmart itself as a company, adapted to that and evolved.
You know, we finally kind of caught up with the Omni, like, it's so important to have the right image of your product when you're doing pickup and delivery. It's so important to have all the varieties have different pictures and every, all those things matter. Like the attributes does a, does a search engine work?
You know, all these things are so important. And brands and the partners have a major impact in that engine and that algorithm. And for that customer experience working. Now you're coming in with AI and again, coming out from the west, right? Major AI LLMs talking about agentic [01:03:00] shopping, agentic commerce, major things going on there.
Um, we have to get, we have to be ready. We have to not only be ready, we have to be a leader in retail ai. Yeah. Like, and, and my concern is that the window from e-comm, you know, it was closing on us, but we, we, we grabbed it with just enough and just enough time to be relevant when COVID happened, right? It pickup was real for everybody immediately.
In ai. I don't think that window is very high. I think the timeline, meaning it's really the timeline.
Cameron Clark: We gotta be quick,
Eric Howerton: we gotta be quick, we gotta do it now we gotta do it with urgency, we gotta invest, we gotta innovate, we gotta come together. We got, that's why I'm doing, doing business in Bentonville to get people in this community together, talk, discover, work together, like bring back a, or to emphasize a very strong culture of retail excellence [01:04:00] with technology, with purpose and intent and drive to be successful.
Because just because we have it doesn't mean we're always gonna have it. Like we can look at a million cases of where industries were at top peak, and then they just go down. Or communities, right? And I don't wanna see that happen. Like I just don't wanna see not, I mean for a million reasons why like, and so that's what I'm hoping with that fury.
And then on the second part, sorry, second part. It goes back to the team giving teams opportunities to be in the innovative part to grow their career. I just absolutely love seeing it. When we, the best two days of my life in all my business life, were the two days that we, that Js and I were able to give contr, you know, to reward our team that had been with us.
When we exited, we got to sit down for two days straight, 15 minute meetings and just write checks to individual people. And that's it, man. That's all that Everything's about [01:05:00] watching that being a contributor to the community, being a, you know, being somebody that, that genuinely cares. That's driving to something that's, that's, that's, that's better, you know, and we can't rest on our laurels, you know, and Walmart doesn't ever not change.
The community does not change at the pace that Walmart changes. We have got to flip that puppy. Yeah, it would, it would be so great if we as a community, were coming to Walmart with solutions versus Walmart coming to us with demands. That's where the magic can happen. And that's the difference between us and Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley is coming up with solutions versus waiting on other people to tell them what to do. And that's the difference. And it's not, and that might goes back to my point about the founder thing. It's not all about tech and SaaS. It's, it's like that might be 10, 15% of it.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: The tech and SaaS solve the problems that exist, [01:06:00] but we don't even talk about the problems that exist and try to figure out solutions.
You know? And we're trying to skip all these steps in what we already know to, to act like we're Silicon Valley with, you know, with investors and founders. I mean, that's, that's a miss. And we don't have enough time to make misses. That's the problem.
Nick Beyer: So what are some of the other problems that you see,
Eric Howerton: man, I, I mean there's a lot of problems in, in just robotics, drone delivery, packaging sizes, agen commerce.
Like what is it, you know, what's the interceptors there? How do we make sure that Sure. When a genix commerce is happening and whatever LLM it is
Cameron Clark: mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: The transactions hitting Walmart, whether or not you see it in, in a person or an agent even hits Walmart. How do do those things connect and make happen?
And Walmart's, I'm sure, I mean, I'm not speaking on their behalf by any means, but just an assumption is, is that they're thinking big picture and big systems, they have to,
Cameron Clark: yeah.
Eric Howerton: Right. But the value comes from third parties that are thinking about these [01:07:00] really micro things that are blocking bottlenecks from big systems happening and connecting well, and there's so much opportunity.
I mean, there's like a million things in that scenario that a company can. Can see and fix. And a lot of that comes from brands talking, Walmart talking, us talking together. And what are the problems, like, if you could give, my dream would be is that there's this, there's spreadsheet with bullet points of problems that Walmart's facing, Sam's club's facing, the brands are facing.
If you have those problems and then you have a community that's literally wanting to solve the problems, not building pitch decks to go get investors to, you know, to get a paycheck and to have an eventual exit and everybody makes millions, that's a terrible, terrible mentality. Yeah, that's the destructive mentality.
But you have a community that comes to and says, I wanna solve that. I wanna solve that. I can solve that. Let's go, let's start building and, [01:08:00] and let's start solving problems immediately. And then you have investment pour on top of those that are, that when you have actual true entrepreneurs that are trying to solve the problem.
Not trying to have the best pitch deck at a pitch deck competition.
Nick Beyer: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: That stuff is shark tank phony. Why do you think the ratios one out of 10? That's what VCs, that's what these people look for. One out of ten's a home run. Yeah. Which isn't a bad formula. It works. But our formula at, in northwest Arkansas should be like eight out of 10 home runs.
And that's a different mentality than what's going on in silicon. And if we at Northwest Arkansas are trying to act like we're silicon, we're not number one. Right? We're not silicon, but we have an eight out of 10 opportunity here, but it just doesn't look like silicon.
Cameron Clark: So what would you tell someone, why build a business here in northwest Arkansas compared to someone
Eric Howerton: else?
'cause I, I think, I mean the, the community, the culture, the network, the [01:09:00] availability, you know, the um, I mean all the other wonderful things, right? Like with. You know, the foundation's been doing the Northwest, Northwest Arkansas Council, the chambers, all the stuff that they've been doing to build the civilization and the infrastructure around it from mountain biking and trails to great hotels and eateries.
That's, that's all great in finding and dandy. But I think from an essential entrepreneur position, it's comes back to those problem statements. There are a million problems to fix.
Cameron Clark: Hmm.
Eric Howerton: A million problems to fix, you know, and my perspective has always been, I want to fix the Walmart problems because I care.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: That's what it comes down to. I remember talking to Walmart over a decade ago and some, you know, some folks on the catalog side, I was like, and there was so many people outside of our area trying to fix these problems. And I would tell Walmart, you know, the only way that this is gonna get solved is by people that are trying to fix the problems that actually care.[01:10:00]
We White Spider, we're the only ones in northwest Arkansas out of about 20 different providers. Everyone else is flying in, flying out. And you know what they cared about every time they cared about Amazon. Yeah. That's the problem that we don't, I don't think that we as retail and brands and partners, look there, there is a lot.
Yes. There's a lot of money in all this ecosystem. Big freaking deal. Yeah. Big deal. Who cares? But what about solving a problem that's gonna help this retailer win and dominate? 'cause that's what they've been doing. And they did it not just because of their great merchants and their, and you know, and, and Walmart leadership.
They did it because the brands participated because they were shopper marketing agencies here. Mm-hmm. That we're innovating shopper marketing, that we're innovating, you know, pickup and all these things. That's what we do here.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: And now here comes ai and we're like, we don't wanna talk about it.
Yeah. Like, that's, that's, that's not good. Or [01:11:00] in comes these events and we wanna try find founders that are. You know that are, have never done a business before in their life and try to raise capital and go on this spree. Like for Silicon Valley when all the while you have some of the most knowledgeable experts in retail in their spaces
Cameron Clark: already here.
Eric Howerton: Already here, already working, already have businesses, already have a product fit, already have pricing, already have connections, already have partnerships, and my gosh, what would you think you would get back if somebody would actually fund those people?
Cameron Clark: It'd be pretty
Eric Howerton: amazing. Without argument.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: And without pitch deck needs.
And one of my things is I get upset about pitch decking and investor stuff because I would rather spend 30 minutes talking to a client, then 30 minutes trying to perfect a pitch deck and answer a number of questions for an investor that's looking for an ROI.
Cameron Clark: Yeah,
Eric Howerton: I want the, I wanna solve the client's problem, not the investor's money, growth, wealth problem necessarily.
Like that's a, obviously an important part. [01:12:00] But that problem, that customer is what makes that business valuable.
Cameron Clark: Yeah. It's the root, it's the root of it.
Eric Howerton: Yeah.
Cameron Clark: Well, we're, we're running up on time here, but I do have one more question for you. The, um, you've seen lots of different seasons of business, you know, you're pouring out a lot in the community.
How do you define success?
Eric Howerton: Hmm,
man, that's a good one. I think I probably have have figured that out at some point in my pondering in nature. You know, um, winning, you know, I think accomplishment, like going after something and, and achieving that is, to me is like, is success to me is having honor in what you've done. You've done it right, ethically, legally.
You've, you've, you've helped people along the way. You've seen other people grow. You know, I mean, obviously the financial is, is, is one piece of the reward, but that doesn't really matter much to be honest with you. Like what really matters [01:13:00] is, is that you contributed contribution in a good way is a success.
Cameron Clark: Played the game well.
Eric Howerton: Yeah. Yeah. And you were, you were helpful, you know, I mean, like, you didn't tear things down, you didn't hurt others along the way. And man, that's what, that's what happens way too often in business and our community.
Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: There's a lot of tear downs going on.
Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Eric Howerton: Because there's, there's a lot of money.
There's a lot of not so good things that might happen because of that. We, we've got to be a, a sanctuary that protects that, like, because it's historically not been what our founders and entrepreneurs that built this community to be. That's why I go back to the values of, of Sam Walton and Walmart.
There's something at the core that he did and that they did. That was contributing value to society. Yeah. Right. And it wasn't, it wasn't just about making all this money. That was a byproduct. [01:14:00] And I've been listening to Sam's autobiography relentlessly for the last few weeks because like, it just keeps, you know, I was just listening to it last night.
But I mean, when you hear that story, it goes back to the customer and it goes back to the associates and the community are all byproducts of that. But if you stay in that core, and I just don't see companies that fly in providing that value.
Cameron Clark: Yeah, they can't. I'm the same way
Eric Howerton: and I don't see a lot of founders with pitch decks thinking of that value.
I do see entrepreneurs in our community today, and I'm not talking about just us. There's a lot of us, there's a lot of awesome entrepreneurs that have done it and are still doing it, and are doing it again. Do provide that value. Those are the people. That's the culture that we want to help because those people help the brands that help Walmart, that help us all win.
Nick Beyer: Hmm, that's good. Uh, well, one of the things we do at the end of every episode is we try to [01:15:00] highlight the big themes that we pull out this conversation. We feel like the listeners are gonna pull out the conversation. Um, and every founder that we've interviewed is different and has different gifts and strengths.
Um, and I think the first one that's been really clear through the whole conversation is really the word innovation. Yeah. And that is an overused, oversaturated word in our day and age. Yeah. Everything's innovative. But, you know, you walk through the white Spider Story and I was at, I was at, uh, a big company for mm-hmm.
A while, and there used to be one person who did e-commerce when I started, and now there's teams Yeah. Of people who do it. Right. And you were beating that drum mm-hmm. Way before maybe one person even was doing E-com. Yeah. Um, and so there just takes a bend a different, it just, it's a bend and you have it, uh, of innovation.
And a few of the, the founders that we have interviewed have that bend of just No, I can see, I can see clearly. I, I, you know, and then, then there's the hard [01:16:00] work of trying to get everyone to see it clearly. Mm-hmm. Um, what's coming and you, you, you know, I think that the, the story of white spider captured that really clearly.
Yeah. And then where you're trying to head now captures it even more clearly. Mm-hmm.
Eric Howerton: So,
Nick Beyer: um, I think we can all learn a lot from that. I think the second one, uh, would be just the ability to problem solve. Yeah. And I, I truly look at that as a gift. Mm-hmm. Like, I look at that as a gift because if you are solving a problem, you will, you like you will grow from it.
Yeah. You will grow the community grow. We'll, look at, I mean, you could look at all the founders that we've interviewed and all of them have solved the problem.
Eric Howerton: Yeah.
Nick Beyer: I don't know that we've interviewed one that's been focused on the outcome. They've all just said, man, there wasn't, this wasn't, this didn't exist or it existed and it just wasn't up to, wasn't good.
Yeah. It wasn't up to what I, I didn't want to take my wife there, so we're, we're gonna create it, you know?
Eric Howerton: Right.
Nick Beyer: Um, and so you have this [01:17:00] bend of being a problem solver. And if you're leading a business, if you're in a business, if you're trying to start a business, if you lead with trying to solve a problem mm-hmm.
You will be successful. Mm-hmm. And that success might not look like, it might not be a financial reward, it might not be X or X, but if you solve the problem, there will be value that's created along every time. I think you highlighted that really clearly. And then I think the last one, um, and, and this is part of why Cameron and I did this podcast, is we truly believe that the people here in northwest Arkansas who are running, who are starting, who are operating businesses, are some of the most unique.
And, uh, most value oriented people across the us. Mm-hmm. And so the word I would use to describe you as your centered
Eric Howerton: Hmm.
Nick Beyer: And you talked about Sam Walton, I think of John L. Hunt and some of the other, just the people who formed this area are all formed it with very, very, very strong conviction to their values.
Eric Howerton: Mm-hmm.
Nick Beyer: And their values might, [01:18:00] you know, you look at across that Mount Rushmore of people who their values might be different, but they had values and they stuck to them.
Eric Howerton: That's right.
Nick Beyer: And I think you captured it really clearly at the end of like, we're trying to build this, I'm very centered on, in one of your values is solving problems.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, and adding value to Walmart.
Eric Howerton: That's right.
Nick Beyer: Yeah. And at the end of the day, if someone's listening to this, we're like, man, I don't, I don't, you know, I'm, I'm in, I'm a financial advisor. I'm doing real. I don't know that Walmart really affects me. It does. It affects all of us. A hundred percent.
The success of Walmart affects all of us. And so I think. You having those values and being really clear and and anchored to them, I think we can all learn from that. And so, Eric, thanks for your time. Thanks for, I know we got, we didn't get to, to go through all the businesses Yeah. Um, that you're running and operating, but thanks for sharing your story.
Eric Howerton: So yeah, I'd like to you mention that. I, I always say what would happen if Walmart doesn't win? It always makes people go, okay, how does [01:19:00] Walmart win? It wins with us, right? We win together. Mm. Um, and. You know, it's, it's a, uh, to walk around like we're not threatened is, is, um, it's a self lie as we are, right?
Mm-hmm. Um, so I agree with all that. A hundred percent.
Nick Beyer: Thanks for your time. Yeah,
Eric Howerton: thanks
Nick Beyer: Eric. Yeah,
Eric Howerton: thank you.