Creating a new way to interact, connect, and shop online, Vincent Yang, the Co-founder and CEO of Firework discovered a Virtual Store Solution that enables a more personalized, engaging, and immersive brand experience using the power of video. Firework can also be known as the SaaS version of TikTok.
Vincent is a demonstrated leader with a rich experience serving many executive roles and leading from the forefront. Before Firework, he was CEO and Co-founder of EverString – a predictive analytics SaaS. The company was acquired by ZoomInfo (Nasdaq: ZI) in 2020. Before EverString, he spent a few years with Summit Partner and JP. Morgan. He got his MBA from Stanford University and BS Mathematics in from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
About Firework
Firework is now the world’s largest video commerce SaaS platform. Raised $235M from Softbank Vision Fund, American Express and other top venture firms, Firework empowers brands to build deep connections with its consumers on its website. Firework’s product offerings include Digital Showroom, 1-to-1 Video Shopping, Shoppable Video and Gen AI digital human solutions.
The Motivating Force behind starting Firework
The new-age platforms like TikTok, IG, and Reel uplifted the content format from text to image to videos. However, if one looks at all the websites (whether they are a Shopify store or a WordPress blog), the experience hasn’t changed in the last 30 years, still mostly image and text. Identifying this gap, Firework was built to change that website experience on the open web and hence help millions of businesses to engage and convert better on their sites.
Fulfilling the Role of a CEO
“Your drive as CEO should not be external fame, money and ego. The true drive for me is the curiosity to learn more about this universe, the curiosity to discover more of my inner self.”
Vincent has served the role of CEO for the last 10 years. The thing that fascinates him the most is this role allows him to have a whole new perspective to see the world. How startup work is so different from textbooks in business school. How people’s mind operates is so uniquely different that taught him many lessons on how to manage a diverse team. But what’s most rewarding as a CEO is to discover more about oneself, particularly in difficult times. It’s an extremely humbling experience. When Vincent established his two companies, he went through multiple stages of transformation in the business cycle. Meanwhile, these two businesses have already transformed him and re-created who he is.
As the CEO, Vincent believes in 10x ruthless prioritization. Every Sunday night he would write down “What are the top 3 things I would do next week, that would make a 10x impact on the entire business?” That helps him to always focus on the most important things. To be a CEO, emotional energy and maturity matter too, on a day-to-day basis. Every morning, he does 30 minutes of meditation, this habit has been with him for 10 years. It helped him a lot to be rational, to see the bigger picture, and to maintain calmness. As a leader serving one of the most important roles in the company, he shoulders many responsibilities but is well aware of how to balance them and generate successful outcomes. He focuses on growing exponentially both on a professional and personal forefront.
Focus on the Customers, not the Competitors
Vincent is a customer-centric leader and does not look at their competitors too much. Instead, Vincent and Firework spend lots of time with customers, trying to understand deeper of their pains, and their challenges. He is constantly trying to improve their offerings by asking, “What more can we offer to help them?” This keeps them grounded and enhances their chance to make the right decisions.
Vincent’s Take on Success
As a leader, Vincent measures his success differently in every stage. While Firework is still in the 0 to 1 stage trying to find product market fit, he tries to focus on quick experimenting, lifting team morale (in that stage there are many failures). In the growth stage, the success metrics are more around OKRs. Of course hitting financial goals (ARRs, retentions, burn multiple) is particularly important for a SaaS business like theirs.
Dealing with Challenges regarding the Team and Company Culture
For Vincent, one of his major challenges is more around managing people with different personalities. He reckons people tend to work well with others who are exactly like them. However, he realized early on, that the highest-performing team need people with diverse backgrounds. Sometimes their way of handling things can be the exact opposite. How to be flexible to maximize each’s potential and growth while maintaining the core company culture (not to be changed) and principle? That’s something he is still learning to balance. Understanding the many intricacies of workplace culture, Vincent is focused on bringing a solution that works best for everyone, the people, the company, and the customers.
Mission and Vision of Firework
The mission of Firework is to empower the brand to create deep connections with its consumers online via Gen AI and interactive video SaaS.
The vision is to have Fireworks on 1 million websites and change 1 billion people’s website experience.
Adhering to the mission and vision, Vincent is big on post-mortem and reflection. For example, one of their key cultures in Firework is “Learn, Unlearn, Relearn”. Also every 2 weeks, its leadership team would meet together and talk about its mistakes in the last 2 weeks. Those helped them to do course correction in case it diverts from their mission and vision.
The Ultimate Goal
Firework aims to see a future where the website experience is no longer “textbook read-only style”. Consumers can interact with a website (eg. A Shopify store) like how they are interacting with Alexa. Interactive, conversational, and mostly video-based content format.
An Advice to Budding Entrepreneurs
“As a CEO, you are working tirelessly to meet other people’s expectations, from investors, customers, employees and partners. But don’t forget this is also a journey to discover more about yourself, your inner self. What you are truly here in this world for?”
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