Founder Series: Greg Segall
Written by: Grayson Welo
This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication purposes
As a founder and CEO with a series of start-ups within the digital agency and e-commerce realm, Greg Segall was becoming recognized as a successful serial entrepreneur. He realized he wanted to create something unique that was readily needed in the market, while ensuring it would make a long-term difference and impact within the world.
In December of 2015, Segall launched Alyce with the goal of fundamentally changing the way people invest in business relationships using corporate gifting. The difference was the approach — focusing on creating Personal Experience (PX) moments that connected with people. Using human-enhanced artificial intelligence, the Alyce platform gives companies the ability to deliver personal moments to prospects, customers, and partners through one-to-one gifting.
In 2019, three years after Segall envisioned the SaaS platform for Alyce, the company closed its Series A funding, securing $11.5 million dollars in backing from a handful of venture capital companies, including Victress Capital.
Out of the 21 companies in Victress’s portfolio, Alyce is the only one currently founded by a man; however, Segall’s demonstrated commitment to building diverse teams, which included women leaders within its founding team, was a key factor in Victress’s decision to invest.
Last week, I spoke with Segall about the story behind Alyce, its culture, mission, and future.
Q: Can you explain Alyce’s 9-to-5 and #5to9 branding and the message behind it?
When you are building a business relationship, there are three key factors: Relevancy, Relatability and Respect.
Relevancy is all about understanding what the customer needs are . . . their title, immediate business challenges, their background in terms of problem-solving, and their intent to buy something — that is the 9-to-5.
But our 9-to-5s have never fully defined us. What we do from 5:00pm to 9:00am has far more weight on how we self-identify as a person than the personas we’ve been segmented into for marketing purposes. Relatability starts with creating a bond over the #5to9. This bond acts as a conduit for building rapport and eventually gives way to earning trust. The best sales and service representatives are the ones that also connect with the people they are selling to, including their lives outside the office. The #5to9 moments matter.
Lastly, there is respect. How you connect and interact with your audience has a deep and lasting impact, and trust can be quickly established or broken by the intention you convey in the delivery of a moment. Audiences have a keen eye for the intention behind your outreach: authenticity in your interactions is the key to delivering respect.
Q: What are the core themes that define Alyce’s culture?
We strive to build a supportive environment where our team members are recognized and valued for who they are, their #5to9 lives as diverse individuals, as well as their contributions to the organization. It’s also reflected and embedded in our core philosophy that drives the entire business — to give first and give consistently. When you look at everybody that joined Alyce, they are here because Alyce is a double bottom line company. We are a for-profit organization, aimed to help our customers grow and be successful through our personal experience platform, but with every single interaction that happens at Alyce, the focus is on giving back to others. That being said, Alyce is built on three pillars of giving: creating experiences that authentically bring people closer together, giving back to the planet, and giving to those in need.
Q: How can Alyce’s culture develop and improve?
Culture is everything, and one of the core places that we have heavily focused on the past few years, as the team has grown from 10 people to over 160 globally, is how do we continue to add more diverse perspectives into the business. How do we add more experience into the business to grow and scale the company that’s also representative of the more diverse world around us?
We are continuing to drive for more diversity, equity, and inclusion inside the business but also with the partners we work with.
One of my passions is trying to figure out how I can make sure my daughter has every chance and possibility and opportunity that I do, plus more. Right now there is a very big bias against that. If you look across organizations, there are more women in leadership positions across the whole organization, but at the executive top, we can do a better job.
Q: How has Covid-19 impacted Alyce the past few months?
We recognize how much distribution COVID has had across business and its impact to people’s lives and their families. These are indeed unprecedented times.
At Alyce, we’ve found our focus on helping companies create personal bonds with prospects, and customers has made a real impact, particularly with our enterprise customers seeing results. COVID has been an accelerant for us. As events have been canceled and the number of ways that you can actually create a bond with folks — by having dinners or going golfing or doing events — have been wiped out. How else are you going to get to know somebody as a human being when you can’t have in-person conversations? The whole beauty around Alyce is that it’s the ultimate way to understand and learn more about who a person is based on what they like and what their interests are — that #5to9.
Q: Has sustainability always been a focus in your work and in your personal life?
Yes, it is a core focus of ours, and has been since the beginning.
When I was working in e-commerce, we used to do testing for packaging to help figure out how to reduce waste, so I’ve always had a passion for reducing waste. My wife would laugh at me because subconsciously I would not light any of my candles as I didn’t want to waste them. I used to get so many gifts and wasted crap back when I was running my agency 15 years ago. Around 90% of swag and non-personal gifts end up in back offices, trash or landfills.
It’s such a waste. I remember thinking ‘we have done so much for these vendors and partners, yet they are sending me this stuff that I’ll never use.’ I remember having negative perceptions of that, but it never really sunk in why.
When I was looking at starting Alyce, I wanted to create a business that had massive sustainability in terms of longevity of the business and how we are giving back, but also how are we actually building a business model rooted in the values of the business. Every personal experience is a one-to-one driven moment. We never send anything that people haven’t expressed an interest in receiving. We also provide the power of choice with our Alyce marketplace for people to select an alternative gift experience, or the recipient can donate the value of the gift towards a charity of their choosing. It’s making a major difference.
Q: What drew you to working with Victress?
I was looking for new perspectives and new investors that could come to the board to help us grow, but more importantly, were reflective of our values and mission. As soon as I met Suzanne (Norris) and Lori (Cashman), it hit me that they were bringing a key element to the business that we had not really thought of. A majority of Victress’s portfolio companies are B2C (business to consumer), and while Alyce is a B2B company, it is a B2C type of experience. It is really nice to have a team and somebody to force me to think about how to be focused, to not overcomplicate decisions, and to make sure what we are building as a business is fundamentally sound, focused on the future, and sustainable. You have to be able to work well with your investors and have folks who are not only willing to challenge you, but who are also just good people and reflective of your purpose. All of our investors have the same values as our employees. The culture rings true and the transparency rings true from our board and investors all the way to who we are.
Q: What does success look like for Alyce?
This business was started as a mission-based business. Not only to transform the sales, marketing, and gifting industry, but truly focus the entire business on ways to help and support people. The interesting part of this is that the larger Alyce becomes and the more momentum Alyce builds, the greater positioned we are to give back to the world. It’s not just us saying we personally are giving back to the world; we are fundamentally changing business behavior through our personal experience platform. Currently, during the age of COVID, we have upwards of 10% of people that are actually donating to charities right now. This is also a venture capital backed business, so success is a very generous return back to shareholders. Of course we want to build a successful and ever-growing business that adds value to the market and helps our customers grow, but what really moves me is the greater opportunity to make a difference in the world, give back, and create a legacy beyond creating a successful tech company. As Alyce grows, there’s the opportunity for a much bigger return and value to give back and support those in need. It’s incredibly fulfilling and exciting!
