The Future of Retail Over The Next Five Years, with Ben Zifkin, founder and CEO of Hubba and Aaron Weiner

I had the pleasure of interviewing Ben Zifkin, founder and CEO of Hubba and author of The Rise of The Craft Brand: Why small is going to be huge. Hubba is the world’s largest marketplace connecting independent retailers with the world’s best emerging brands. Ben is a recognized leader in the field of the future of retail and shares some of his thoughts with us.

Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I had always planned on being a lawyer. My academic trajectory was going to take me to law school for graduate studies. However, I remember entering my second year of undergrad and buying my first computer. I had barely touched one until then aside from borrowing time on my friend’s desktops to write essays for school.

The first generation of the internet was just starting to come into its own and I was fascinated by this amazing universe that lived in this screen in front of me. Then one day, I saw the HTML source code for the pages I was looking at. I realized that if I made changes to that code, I could change that universe. This blew my mind. I taught myself how to code and build web pages. More importantly, I really studied and immersed myself in the way that technology can impact our lives and help people both personally and professionally.

After I finished undergrad, I remember my father, a lawyer himself, looked at some of the things I was working on and said “Why are you going to law school, why don’t you consider continuing in technology”. I had never really considered it a career. That changed everything.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

I have been fortunate that I have been able to experience so many different things in the last 18 years. I have lived and worked in world-class cities and in rural towns all over the world. I have worked for successful high-growth companies that IPO’d and others that have crashed and burned. I have worked on projects for companies in sexy industries and projects for old, forgotten about industries. The thing to me that is always the most interesting is the human element. People. What motivates people. How putting the right mix of people together makes magic. The decisions people make.

For me, one of the most interesting people stories that took me by surprise was a decision I made. After selling my last company, I moved overseas to London to start the international operations for the company that acquired us. I had now been using technology to help solve a certain problem for large enterprise for about 8 years. I had been pondering starting a new business for a little while but was waiting for the right trigger. One day, I was heading to a conference to give a talk to some executives. Now I always meticulously prepare for my talks but on this occasion, I did the presentation slides on the train ride to the conference. I always get nervous before a talk but I wasn’t for this one strangely. I went up on stage an improvised for an hour. And I did great. I remember that I walked out of that conference, called my wife and said “Time to do something new, something totally different”. I was amazed how easy and clear it was that I needed something new to learn and try to master. It shocked me but it is always fascinating to me how humans make decisions.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I have a huge repertoire to pull from to answer this question. I make tons of mistakes all the time but only my colleagues who have to deal with me would be able to answer if they are funny.

I remember implementing software at a paper mill in rural Alabama. When I say rural, I mean it was the place where my contact at the plant picked me up on my first day, drove me miles down a back road and then, when a deer ran in front of us, he pulled over, grabbed his gun and started to aim at it from the driver side window.

I did make it there on time for my plant tour and safety training though. I was a young consultant with huge impostor syndrome. To make myself more respectable and credible, I did what I thought grownups do, I dressed the part. So there I was in the middle of a paper mill in the depth of Alabama in a dark tailored suit, expensive tie, shiny shoes. And with a hard hat, ear plugs and eye protection. I didn’t exactly fit in. The gentleman giving me my tour was nice enough to show me the pulper. This is where the wood, gets mashed up to the consistency of wet kleenex. He had me stand there until it started spitting out little pieces of wet white material. Within a few seconds, I looked like a snowman. He looked up and said “It may be a good idea for you not to wear a suit around here moving forward”. I heard him loud and clear. It was a great reminder to be yourself but more importantly never forget who your customer is, where they are coming from and what they care about.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

We are in a unique position that most companies would envy. We have an absolutely enormous market with accelerating growth. We have macroeconomic trends moving in our favour. We are the market leaders. All of this allows us an opportunity to build an impactful, important, global institutional company. Not every company gets a shot at doing that. Even fewer get a chance to do this while helping change people’s lives.

The thing that makes our company stand out is people…both inside the company and part of our user community. I am fortunate to work with some of the most intelligent, curious, hard working and caring people that help us do unbelievable things for our community. We empower the independent retailer to not just stay alive but thrive in the tumultuous retail world of Walmart and Amazon. These stores are won and lost on their store experience and the best way to create a great experience is to have the products your customers want. We help them with that. On the other side of the equation, you can imagine what happens when we help a brand go from being carried in 5 stores to being carried in 100 stores. It changes their business. It changes their employees lives. It changes their lives. Now think about doing that for hundreds of thousands of brands on our platform, it has a major economic impact for the world.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

I am probably not the right person to be answering this. I am constantly working at getting better. People have to remember that starting a company is unnatural. By default, it does not exist. You have to will it into existence. Every minute that goes by, it wants to go back to its natural state of not existing so it takes a tremendous amount of constant energy to hold together.

I am fortunate that I have a wonderful wife and two amazing young children. Every single experienced CEO I know always regretted that they did not spend enough time with their family. I vowed, when I started Hubba, that I would not succumb to this. My family comes first and I make sure everyone in the company knows the importance I place on them because I want them to be comfortable doing the same.

My family is always first priority. My company and employees are a close second. The problem is that this does not leave any time for me. One of my super powers was that I can outwork most people. However, with my time focused all on my family and work, I was neglecting myself. Although I saw this sacrifice as a badge of honour, the reality was that over many years, I became extremely unhealthy both physically and mentally.

I decided this year to make some changes. I focused on becoming healthier in all aspects. It is working. I stopped looking at it like I was being selfish and prioritizing myself over my family and company and I started looking at it in the lens of being healthy is going to make me a better husband, father and CEO.

This has worked for me. So far. Everyone will have their own journey though.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

There are so many. I have always been supported by my siblings, parents and extended family. My mother definitely played a huge role growing up. More recently it has been my wife. She is a scientist and very accomplished. She had an amazing position and career trajectory when we lived in London. She believed in me enough that she gave that up to move back to Toronto which I thought was the best place to start Hubba. We wouldn’t be where we are today if she didn’t make that decision. It is strange, people always credit founders with being risk takers. I am not a risk taker. I saw a future that I believed in and that I wanted to build. My wife is the risk taker. She had to take the blind risk that I was right without being familiar with the domain. I will forever be grateful for that.

Are you working on any exciting projects now?

The retail industry is going through a massive shift right now and we’re fortunate that we get to be in the middle of the action. In many cases, we help drive this shift. So, yes, much of what we are doing is exciting. The power of our network is the amazing insights we are able to glean. We know trends many cycles before it even hits a store shelf. For example, with current nutritional crazes, you can be sure to see Mushroom Jerky popping up in health & wellness and gourmet food stores in the coming months. There is a lot of power in this data so we are fortunate that we get to do exciting things with it.

At the end of the day though, Hubba is a matchmaker between brands and retailers. At the core of what we do is simple, make it very easy for retailers to understand and find the products that will be best for them and when they order it, make it is as convenient as possible to get it to them. That’s it. The beauty lies in the creativity of the amazing people we have here at Hubba. They push the envelope on the mechanisms to do that through technology, business models and every conceivable tools they have at their disposal.

In addition to the exciting things we do for our users, we are actively working on projects to make our city stronger. I feel fortunate to live in a place like Toronto in a great country like Canada. We are lucky that we have had some success with Hubba and can use the company as a platform to make our community stronger.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I am fortunate that Hubba has given me a platform to start or support some really wonderful initiatives. There are far too many to list but two I am particularly proud of are Ladies Learning Code and The Upside Foundation.

Ladies Learning Code started off with a tweet from a really amazing woman who I respect greatly. We decided to be her first supporter about seven years ago. Since then, she, and now the executive team, have built an organization that has introduced more than 80,000 women to coding and digital technologies through classes. They have been so successful in increasing the digital literacy of the country that they have rebranded as Canada Learning Code and have been selected by the federal government to deliver experiences en masse to millions from coast to coast.

The second organization is The Upside Foundation. This was the first program of its kind in Canada that allowed startups to donate 1% of their equity to charity. I am proud to say that Hubba was the first company to pledge and now, more than 300 others have done the same.

Can you share 5 examples of how retail companies will be adjusting over the next five years to the new ways that consumers like to shop?

Some people have pronounced retail dead. Some people see a renaissance. Regardless of where you stand, we can all agree that this industry has never seen so much change, so fast.

This presents an unbelievable opportunity for those who take advantage of how things are shifting:

The changing consumer — Customers today, not only demand more, but demand better. They are looking for unique products that they identify with. These are products that solve a problem for them and, at the same time, make them feel a certain way. Customers often know more about products from their upfront research than store staff will know and care about what they are made of, how they are made, how they are transported and how they are cared for. Everything matters. The best retailers are focused on servicing these customers best.

The rise of craft brands — Gone are the days where big CPG companies rule the retail landscape. Today, brands can start, grow and scale in ways unimaginable before. This is due to new business models and new technologies. You can co-manufacture products without having to build your own facility. You can produce on-demand so you don’t have to carry inventory and have warehouses. Because of technologies like Hubba, you can get mass, global, distribution without walking up and down main street peddling your wares. The world is changing and retailers are noticing this shift. Historically about 10% of the consumer shelf was dedicated to craft products. Now, it is closer to 35%.

The shift back to independent retailers — We are seeing a massive shift back to independent retail. This is happening on both sides of the equation. End consumers still get commodity products in big box stores and on Amazon but they are heading to well curated local stores for more of their cherish products. The shift is even greater for the brands. The huge Walmart purchase order is no longer the holy grail. Brands would prefer to get larger distribution in boutique retailers that care about their brand and resonate with their core consumer base. Technologies can now enable this type of distribution. We are even noticing that Amazon is dwindling as a channel of choice. It is becoming expensive for emerging brands to get found. In addition, they are worried that Amazon will copy their products if they are successful. The future is in independent retail.

The best experience means the best products — Independent retailers will win because they have a better experience. We hear this all the time but what does it mean? There are lots of things that retailers can do to make the time in-store feel magical but, at the top of the list, is making sure you have the right product for your customers. Regardless of anything else you do, if you do do this right, nothing else matters. Nowadays, retailers have great tools at their disposal to understand what is selling around the world and what would work for their customers.

Collaboration over competition — Big retailers and big CPG companies are notorious for their fierce competition and secrecy. The world of independent commerce is the exact opposite. Most realize that supporting each other is the key to succeed in a Walmart and Amazon world.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I wish I had a great answer. I don’t know much but I do believe in business, I believe in people, and I believe in the intersection of the two. I am seeing an amazing shift in the thinking of new leaders to use their business as a platform to do good. You can build a successful business and be a positive influence on the world.

The movement has already started. It is exciting. I will continue to be heads down building a successful and ‘good’ company at Hubba but you can be sure I will continue to support and cheer on all the other great leaders making a positive change in the world.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

@Ben_Zifkin

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!