Quoc Nguyen: Co-founder at Preezie

^{Joe Fox (00:01)}
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of retain grow thrive. I'm very excited about this one. I have a fellow Australian on board who has recently moved to the US as well. I've been very well versed in this company's journey so far and I'm very, very lucky to call this man a friend as well as a colleague. So without further ado, I would like to introduce Kwok Nguyen from Prezi and we're going to be covering off a few things that are happening.

in his world, what's happening in the market at the moment in the world of Shopify and AI. Kwok is very well positioned to give us a lot of information on that. So thanks Kwok for coming on board.

_{Quoc Nguyen (00:43)}
Hey Joe, thanks for having me. It's pleasure.

^{Joe Fox (00:46)}
Absolutely, mate. So tell me a little bit about, you know, kind of your journey, where you guys are at, how you got here. You know, I think it's such an incredible story ⁓ that you and Michael have with Prezi and everything that's kind of gotten you to here. I know you have a very successful kind of product in the business and now you're pivoting and launching a new sort of AI product in the business. So can you give me a little bit of a background on that, mate?

_{Quoc Nguyen (01:14)}
Yeah, no, so I'm quite co-founder, CFA by title. My background, just quickly, Joe, is I was in investment banking for 20 odd year career doing that and then sort of met my co-founder, Michael, about six, seven years ago, he gave me this hair-brained idea of how technology can help.

shoppers and consumers online in the way that we sort of, you know, expect and get in store. So, you know, that was a while ago. So where I am today means we're six, seven years into the business. have, we had a product we called Journeys. Think of it as product quizzes to really just help guide customers through that sort of online purchase discovery process. And that's been really great. But, you know, with

that with AI sort of coming on board, Joe, we looked internally into the business and going, you know, what can we do to really utilize this technology? ⁓ And probably about, I'd say about 15 months ago, you know, we went into sort of full on, how can we improve our products? What can we do? And we basically, ⁓ the whole Henry Ford, when electricity came, you know, we weren't just adding a little bit of electricity here to that.

we rebuilt our whole product and platform to be able to utilize AI to its full extent. So we partnered up with Microsoft. So this is about 15 months ago, partnered up with Microsoft. We collaborated with them and we built what we call an AI shopping assistant, which I'll tell you more about, but we essentially Joe have pivoted our business. We still have our existing product and it works and works really well. But it's

_{Quoc Nguyen (03:03)}
confined in terms of a predefined part to purchase. Whereas this new technology allows people just to ask free questions about either the product or general knowledge and it helps them. that's the business pivot in terms of my personal story, Joe, like you mentioned. I moved to the States probably about two and a half years ago. I'm based in Denver, Colorado, and it's just really about expanding the business here to North America, taking our product to what is the largest e-com retail market in the world.

^{Joe Fox (03:34)}

Yeah, absolutely. And I, you know, I think there's a couple of really interesting points there, Kwok, that we can sort of touch on because, you know, I think it's very fortuitous of you and Michael to have recognized that kind of opportunity and sort of seen where AI is heading and how it can make the product better. And I think, you know, it's, very cool that you both as founders really took that leap to rebuild the product from scratch to

really make it better and more impactful. I, first of all, huge good odds for that because I think what we're seeing in the market at the moment is a lot of sass, ⁓ kind of as opposed to embedding AI into their DNA, they're now kind of looking at existing products and feature sets and just trying to inject AI into it. And I think the way that you've done it is, is a lot, you know, kind of, ⁓

more beneficial for the merchant in the long run in my opinion. To that point, how is the new product impacting merchants today? You I know that you go to the pre-Z site, you guys have got some amazing, you know, customers. But tell us a little bit more about like, how is this AI shopping assistant? What's that look like to the customer if I'm visiting a site?

where this tool is being utilized by that merchant. What does that look like?

_{Quoc Nguyen (05:10)}
Yeah, think of, so it comes in two real main formats, Joe. So think of a little sort of chatbot style that sits on the bottom right-hand corner ⁓ and you can engage with it like a chatbot, right? We call it chat. But the UX is, when you use it UX, it's not an AI chatbot in the sense of it's just prescriptive text and it just answers questions.

There's images you can browse, there's recommendations. If you click on a product, it'll open up a little mini PDP and you can really ask questions. it comes into main, and the other part ways to put it on PDP, but in a sense, what is it? The AI shopping assistant is think of chat GPT and everyone's you chat GPT, right? They've gone to ask the questions.

_{Quoc Nguyen (06:00)}
You know, if you're buying, I was buying an electric bike and I didn't know the difference between torque and cadence and a whole raft of things. And you're in that full discovery and research mode. Right. So it functions like a chat. It knows all the general knowledge, but with the brand itself, the merchant, knows it's it knows its brand tone of voice.

And it's configurable. can say my audience is typically 25 to 35 females talking this way. So it knows the brand and tenant voice. It also knows all its policies, its shipping policies, returns policies, but it knows its products. So it knows if you've got 10,000 SKUs, it knows all those 10,000 products. It knows what matches and it's using AI. So what we do is we, you know, you're able to do really complicated search.

_{Quoc Nguyen (06:52)}
Joe and you know, we've been doing, you know, an example is a fashion business we work with called Blue Bungalow, large fashion business in Australia. And I can type in there, show me blue summer dresses under $200 in size 14. That's a five layer search on their normal search bar itself, that will say no products match can't help you. But when you when you use our tool, it'll actually nail it and it will show you blue summer dresses.

^{Joe Fox (07:10)}
Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

_{Quoc Nguyen (07:23)}
under $200 in size 14 and it'll show a carousel of images of dresses that suit your needs. And then you can browse and you can shop and whatnot and further probe, know, what material is this dress? What is it good for? Can I hike in it, et cetera, et cetera.

^{Joe Fox (07:40)}
Nice. love that. And I think the idea of matching, you know, product, ⁓ ICP tone of voice. mean, that's so powerful. And, know, I guess, Kwok, you kind of mentioned this earlier. It's like, it is like having that, ⁓ in-store assistant experience, right. And that it's, it's really personalizing that journey, albeit it is, ⁓ it is AI and machine learning, which is fascinating. ⁓

And it's cool. mean, I have a wide range of guests, you know, on the podcast, and I really like hearing, you know, and having these conversations with founders, especially ones such as yourself who are making these, you know, big kind of changes and leaps in this space. And I think, you know, we probably have ⁓ a wide varied audience here where it's, you know, a combination of merchants, partners.

potential customers, et cetera, et cetera, as well as other founders. So what I'd love to just kind of dive into, you know, a little bit more is, you know, who is your ICP when we talk about this? I mean, it sounds to me that there's such a blue ocean here and so many opportunities for you and for the merchants who utilize the tech, but you know, is it

Do you feel like the fashion vertical is going to get the most out of the tool or what are your thoughts there?

_{Quoc Nguyen (09:13)}
Yeah, so we only just launched the product. We actually launched it at Shop Talk in March of this year. So it's brand new. In terms of where we're talking to a lot of partners, so the Grow Waves of the World, other technology partners, as well as agency brands that have a lot of customers in their portfolio that might need this technology. to your audience that are looking for this sort of AI shopping assistant technology,

from a partnership perspective, I'd love to chat with them to explore those avenues. From a merchant and retailer perspective, it's merchants are doing probably $15 million plus online a year. you know, it's, and we've got a direct integration with Shopify, which is, you know, just makes it so easy and so seamless. But in terms of verticals, we are agnostic, Joe.

So what I mean by agnostic is it's to the point where you're saying we're trying to replicate or give that personalized in-store shopping experience when you you walk into a jean store and somebody helps you with styling and sizing and all those sorts of things and wrapping that from an online experience. So it can be laptops, can be furniture, it can be clothing, it can be shoes. But what we're finding initially in terms of some of of success stories that we're seeing is fashion and apparel.

And fashion and apparel in the sense of know styling advice, but also sizing sizing as you know Joe would you work with a lot of it? It's a very hard You know people people quite often buy two of us the same style product in two different sizes And you get a lot of returns issues So if if people can be helped with styling, I'm you know, I'm five foot seven I've got these dimensions what sides you recommend on the size and whatever so so

^{Joe Fox (10:46)}
⁓

Yeah.

_{Quoc Nguyen (11:09)}
The other is appliances. So we're working with a large major appliance in Australia. Can't quite name them, but they are huge. know, TVs, so complicated type products where what is an OLED, what is, I'm confused with OLED, QLED and all of these TV technologies. ⁓ So appliances and the other vertical that were strong on his furniture. So, you know, in terms of what is the dining set, I need wood.

^{Joe Fox (11:22)}
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah.

_{Quoc Nguyen (11:38)}
you know, these types of materials, you know, I'm looking for a Bohemian look or whatever modern look and it goes through the product category and it tells you these, you know, these chairs or these tables are more to you. So they're three main verticals, but if you think about it, it's agnostic to across the book.

^{Joe Fox (11:59)}
Yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, in, in regard to that, it kind of sounds to me like, you know, when you think of those more traditional, you know, retailer experiences, you know, things like footwear, you know, sizing, any of those sort of things instantly spring to mind, but you're a hundred percent right. Like, I mean, I could even see, you know, as an extension to the furniture piece.

and I only say this because I recently went through this experience and it was a partial nightmare. It's like getting a new mattress, right? Like being able to really get descriptive in terms of what I is the customer one. ⁓ also take into consideration what my wife wants out of a mattress, being able to combine that and then get recommendations is, is massive because it saves so much time in terms of having to filter through Reddit.

and all of these blogs and forums and social posts and everything like that. And I imagine, you know, when we look at this from a grow a partnership perspective, this would also pull reviews data. Is that correct? Well, like you can see what is best reviews. You can take the AI can take that feedback, feed that back to the person that's been left in a review. Is that correct?

_{Quoc Nguyen (13:18)}
Yeah, so you can put into, you can put into all the data, all the reviews, but as part of our roadmap is to actually have a direct integration with a Grow Wave to be able to either get full, you know, 100 reviews or last 10 reviews or, so, you know, businesses will be able to access those reviews. And that's a huge, you know, as you know, Joe, when people shop, they just want confidence. They want to see the reviews. want to understand.

^{Joe Fox (13:30)}
Yeah. Yeah.

Yes.

_{Quoc Nguyen (13:48)}
You know, not what the business is telling us, what other customers who have bought the product are saying about it. So yeah, no, that's huge. And it's it's certainly, you know, part of it is it's doable in terms of current form, but we're going to be looking at direct integration so that it's even more powerful.

^{Joe Fox (13:54)}
Yeah.

Yeah, no, I think that's, you know, incredible. It's almost like the, the amount of time saved, you know, for me, it's like one of those things where if it's a big ticket item or it's to do with something that I, you know, really enjoy or hobbies or whatever, I'm a buy once cry once person. Like I want quality, I'm going to spend on it and everything like that. So for, for little purchases, I'm more of a, you know, how

_{Quoc Nguyen (14:26)}
Yeah

^{Joe Fox (14:36)}
quick can I make this purchase? And with more expensive buy once cry once items, I kind of refer to them as I'm going to take my time with it. But if I have something that allows me to, you know, really save that time, I'm going to be internally grateful for that. So I think that sounds like the solution that you guys have built. that's incredibly exciting. And I imagine the more a customer uses it being that it's machine learning and AI.

_{Quoc Nguyen (14:47)}

Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (15:06)}
I'm assuming the more customers that use the ⁓ actually helping shape the experience for the next customer, which would be better as well. Is it? Yeah. Yeah.

_{Quoc Nguyen (15:20)}
100%. Yeah, it

is. that's the part where, you know, as you could, you can optimize and we call it fine tuning the AI. Because it is AI at the end of the day, right? It spits out a liberal response based on general knowledge, language models, as well as product range, et cetera. But with the world of Gen. AI, it's all about prompting fine tuning, giving instructions, guiding it towards

Yeah, I'll give you an example, Joe, when, you know, this large appliance retailer, you're looking at a TV, $1,000 TV, you know, show me similar to, right? Initially, when we launched it, was showing $3,000 TVs. I got a budget of a thousand bucks. I know Sima 2 might be technology and brand, but so we can fine tune the AI to go show me products, Sima 2 products.

^{Joe Fox (16:01)}
Mm. Mm. Mm.

_{Quoc Nguyen (16:13)}
of technology and you know, all that specs wise, but between 25 % lower and upper and straight away it's showing, you know, $750 TVs to 1250 type TVs when it's similar. So that's an example. As you, as you mentioned, Joe, it's about fine tuning, improving the AI. Just one point I wanted, uh, when we were talking about before Joe, which I see a huge trend. I don't know what you're seeing on your side is consumers these days are using chat GPT and

^{Joe Fox (16:20)}
Yeah.

yeah.

_{Quoc Nguyen (16:42)}
through research

and use. I don't know how you shop, but you you shop for a mattress. I shopped for an e-bike. I'm looking at new golf clubs now, but I'm using ChatGPT to really just dial in on some research around the types of different e-bikes, the brands, all of the stuff. So, you know, I'm on a retail brand and then I go off on ChatGPT asking it. So what we say, what I talk when I talk to merchants, retailers, consumers is like that.

^{Joe Fox (17:05)}
Hmm

_{Quoc Nguyen (17:11)}
You know the number one golden rule in retail and e-commerce is keep them on your side You know you've got the products keep them on your site keep them hooked don't get them to Another source call it Google call it chat GPT where they might see how to competitive brand etc so If you think about it all the chat GPT functionality all right what is materials are good for summer or you know tell me about the difference between talk and cadence sensors

^{Joe Fox (17:17)}
Yeah.

_{Quoc Nguyen (17:41)}
It's all on the website. You're on that brand and you're powering through. You could ask 10 questions. You can ask 20 questions. You get your confidence. You press add to cart. You haven't less your website. So, you know, that's a trend that we're telling people that and shoppers, mean, they used to go to Google and they Google search. Now they're going to ChatGPT. And as you know, Joe, ChatGPT are recommending. Do you want me to recommend some brands, some products?

^{Joe Fox (17:48)}
Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah.

_{Quoc Nguyen (18:10)}
And

all of sudden you have them on your site and you've lost them at some other discovery piece.

^{Joe Fox (18:19)}
Absolutely. And I mean, you know, from a, from this podcast perspective, quok, you know, you know, Russ McCumber recently came on, we were talking about it from an SEO perspective about, you know, how chat GPT SEO is so important now versus the traditional just focusing on Google. ⁓ which means, you know, on the other side of that is focusing on Bing, because that's part of the Microsoft chat GPT kind of

ecosphere. you know, it's really interesting, but to your point, you know, perfect example of that was one of the startups I was at earlier in my career being fast, where it was like about removing that biofriction and having, you know, everything there. And it was being able to check out from the PDP with one click. So it's like that golden rule of like eliminating friction doesn't change.

keeping everyone on the website and keeping people on the PDP. So I think, you know, that's a very, very good use case and a very good example of how you've, you know, outlined that to the merchants in the fact that, you know, keep people on the page. You don't want them going elsewhere and having the opportunity to go completely down a different rabbit hole and exposed to a whole bunch of their competitors. So I think it's a very advantageous tech for

merchants to utilize, which is super exciting. So very keen to, you know, see the progression and continue to see the wins that you and Michael and the team are having. I also want to kind of dive into this because we spoke about this as, know, there is that opportunity for ⁓ merchants here, you know, watching this to get engaged and to check out this technology and everything like that.

First of all, Quoc, I'd like to just say like, what is the best place for people who want to trial this, who want to check this out, who want to talk to you further about this incredible technology and how they can essentially have a dedicated, you know, almost like storekeeper attached to their store. What's the best way for them to do that and to reach you?

_{Quoc Nguyen (20:34)}
Yeah, so in terms of, and I sort of up the hug, I just, the two main value drivers, Joe, that we do is it's making more money by increasing conversions and customer experience when people engage. And the other part, and I touched on it, was helping around service inquiries. know, people are spending costs on live chat as well as...

phone inquiries, many inquiries, what size, what should I do, what's my shipping order, blah, blah, blah. So we're doing it all in one. that is the real tangible value that we're doing. And how people can get in touch. Obviously, they can go through you, if they know you, details. Otherwise, ⁓ they can just reach out directly to me. ⁓

on my LinkedIn is Quoc Nguyen at Preezie co-founder or they can get me on my email and quoc.nguyen@preezie.com and you know they can just reach out by email as well directly to me.

^{Joe Fox (21:42)}
Awesome. And just letting you know, I'll make sure that those links are included in the show notes. Yeah, no, of course not a problem. think it's a very advantageous technology for merchants to take advantage of and to, you know, utilize. mean, I think the way that everything is headed is that it's exciting when technology is matching consumer behavior and giving, you know, solving a problem that isn't the

_{Quoc Nguyen (21:49)}
Appreciate it.

^{Joe Fox (22:12)}
that essentially is about to be a problem, if that makes sense. So I think, you know, you're in a very, very good position and it makes sense. You and Michael are, you know, great people and very smart people and the team are fantastic to work with. ⁓ And I'm excited about, you know, this future integration as well. ⁓ The other thing I was going to say is, you know, we, we both touched on the fact that we're, you know, Australians who now live in the U S we, you know,

just recently saw each other in Vegas for shop talk. We all obviously travel a lot. So a question I really like to ask, you know, the guests of the podcast is what is something you can't say a person that you cannot live without whether you're at home or traveling?

_{Quoc Nguyen (23:00)}
Maybe not traveling, but I'm a big avid golfer, Joe. So my golf clubs and actually I didn't take it to Vegas with me to shop talk, but if I can get around in when I'm in Chicago or somewhere else, I just, I just love playing golf. So, you know, you could see me out in golf courses, probably most weekends and stuff. So it's my kind of release it. I'm going out and spend four and a half hours in fresh air and

whacking a small ball that can be frustrating as hell, but when you nail a shot, it's very rewarding and satisfying.

^{Joe Fox (23:37)}
No, absolutely quac. uh, I'm going to say it at hands down. I'm definitely not going to be as skilled as you at golf, but it is something I do enjoy. Um, one of my favorite experiences when I first moved to the US is, um, I actually went to Torrey pines with some of the Klavyio team. Um, when we played around there and it was a beautiful course. And my stepdad is a massive, massive golf fan. Like he's, he's, he's turned to 80.

^{Joe Fox (24:06)}
⁓ soon actually, and he's just, but he, loves it. Like that's his thing. And he's still very, he's very good. ⁓ you know, he enters a lot of amateur competitions and comes home with trophies and stuff. But when I told him that I was playing there, he was furious because it's, it's, it's on his bucket. It's his bucket, on his bucket list of courses to play. ⁓ hopefully in the, in the future, I get to play there with him at some point or.

_{Quoc Nguyen (24:22)}
It's like hell. Yes.

^{Joe Fox (24:33)}
Or I'll watch him play and I'll hit the ball into the ocean by mistake. no, love to hear that. I mean, you know, hopefully we can play around it. Eat our West next year. Obviously there's a lot of good courses there. maybe we can order organize a partner event actually now that I think of it. So that could be that could be cool. That could be cool.

_{Quoc Nguyen (24:37)}
Hahaha!

Yeah. Yeah.

That would be good, that would be good. I'd

enjoy that. mean, you get the best of the pleasure for me, that golf, and you actually can do it. I quite like going, you know, doing business on the golf course. When I say do business, taking a partner, and it's all shits and giggles, right? And it's a lot of fun.

^{Joe Fox (25:05)}
⁓ absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think also too, there's a big value in being able to, you know, teach someone something in a, in an environment. And obviously you've got the skillset where you can teach a little bit. So I think, you know, teaching, ⁓ people is such a valuable thing, especially if it's something you're passionate about. So I completely relate to that. So yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Let's, let's continue that as a conversation, but,

You and I could riff all day, particularly being Australians, particularly being in this space, but we do like to try and keep these at 30 minutes just to keep the Yeah.

_{Quoc Nguyen (25:50)}
Can I just, before you wrap up Joe, one special promotional for your audience and your customers. we're launching the product ⁓ and for your listeners, ⁓ Growave listeners and these audience, if anybody wants to utilize the tool, we back our software, we're like, try it, there is no locking contracts.

^{Joe Fox (25:55)}
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

_{Quoc Nguyen (26:14)}
You can try it for a month, try it for two months. is no, but for your audience here, Joe, you know, if we go through and you mentioned that you did saw this podcast, the first month is free. So there is, there is no, if somebody was like, how, wow, this is really cool. I want to chat with Quoc. And they do use it. There is actually zero cost associated because the first month is free. And then you can hand back the keys after a month if you want, doesn't cost you anything.

^{Joe Fox (26:28)}
Amazing.

_{Quoc Nguyen (26:44)}
⁓ But we back our software and hope that customers knew that for months and years to come.

^{Joe Fox (26:50)}
Absolutely. No, that's very compelling. So I'll make sure that there's a link so that the audience can reach out and do that. I encourage everyone who's watching it to try it. think, I mean, to think that this is something that is now a possibility is incredible. And the fact that you can try this for 30 days free is massive. So thank you for that kind offer, Quoc. But yeah, mate, looking forward to this integration, looking forward to our continued partnership and friendship.

Thank you so much for coming on and I'll talk to you very shortly. Just going to close out with the audience and we'll chat very shortly, my friend. Thank you so much.

_{Quoc Nguyen (27:29)}
Thanks Joe, thanks for having me and look forward to having a beer with you mate.

^{Joe Fox (27:34)}
Cheers, mate. Chat to you soon. Thank you so much, everyone, for tuning into another episode of Retain Grow Thrive. If you'd like to take up Quoc's kind offer and test out this amazing AI shopping assistant tool from the Prezi team, you'll find the links below to reach out to Quoc. I encourage you to do it. If you're a customer of Growaves, please stay tuned for the announcements soon in regards to that integration. Thank you all so much for joining us for another episode, and I'll see you again soon.

_{Quoc Nguyen (27:36)}
Thanks.

^{Joe Fox (28:06)}
Cool! Awesome, mate! That was perfect!

_{Quoc Nguyen (28:10)}
Thanks, man.