My co-founder Mariah Chase and I have both worked in retail for decades. We’ve experienced every side of the industry, from major enterprise companies to up-and-comers to (in Mariah’s case) our own ventures.
Through it all, there was one common thread that kept bothering both of us, even on our separate paths. It wasn’t just us, either; most leaders would agree that this challenge affected every retail business, and no one seemed to have a good solution.
That universal retail challenge is why we’re building Ekyam. Let’s back up to how we got here, and where we’re going next.
The most expensive hidden problem in retail
During my time as the CTO for an enterprise e-commerce gift retailer, the company was growing through the acquisition of different brands. Every single one came in with its own customer base, inventory, and tech stack (e.g. ERP, WMS), meaning we had to find ways to integrate with their ecosystem and merge into a single platform.
Data migration and duplicated inventory was a nightmare. Building integrations between where the order was placed and where the order was fulfilled was a difficult and tedious task.
These inventory and data issues showed up during my time as Global Head of Technology for an enterprise apparel brand, too. Because there was a gap in communication between our ERP systems and warehouse systems, we would oversell inventory. Pre-orders for popular styles wouldn’t show up in the ecommerce platform, so the ecommerce team’s marketing campaigns would trigger on the launch date without realizing that maybe 60% had already sold.
The worst part was when we had inventory sitting in stores that could have been rerouted to fill those orders.
All of these examples illustrate the most expensive hidden problem in retail: Being forced to make huge write-offs because systems (e.g. ERP, WMS, OMS, POS) don’t talk to each other and real-time inventory information doesn’t exist. You’re either overselling or underselling, and in the end, every retailer has to write off inventory. Moreover, the data isn’t standardized.
This problem has always existed in retail. Every retail CTO/CIO would agree that integration is a mess and integration with legacy systems is an even bigger mess.
If it’s such a universal problem, why does it get ignored? Because it isn’t as visible of an issue as something like security. This is a hidden problem that lives within the technology, but the business teams are the ones who feel it.
While kicking this issue down the road may have been fine in the past, the rise of AI turns it into an obvious problem that retailers solve now.
(It’s not just retail, either; enterprises in industries like banking, healthcare, finance and more all have to solve these integration issues or they will not and cannot capitalize on AI.)
Building Ekyam to solve this retail challenge
Ekyam is our answer to this expensive problem for retailers. All of the examples from our own experience above could have been solved if Ekyam existed.
I always wanted this problem to be solved, whether by my own hand or someone else’s. When I left Tory Burch in 2024, it felt like the time was right. AI was maturing, which meant we could build efficiently. While retailers were focusing on AI use cases like ChatGPT and using image generators like Dall-E for UI, product images, and design, I knew this problem needed to be solved at a foundational level. And I believed the solution would be of interest to retailers of all sizes.
Since I know the pain points of retail CTOs so well, we’re keeping their universal challenges front of mind as we build Ekyam:
- Data standardization across platforms
- Inventory visibility
- Integrating systems
- Legacy systems
- Scaling and securing APIs
- Building workflows on the fly
- Supporting the creation of new microservices/ business logic
All of these are existing problems for everyone in retail. We know older retailers with legacy systems are likely feeling them most strongly; it’s difficult (if not impossible) to match the speed to market of newer competitors when you’re working with legacy systems.
And even though many retailers moved to modern front-end systems during the ecommerce boom of the late 2010s, backend systems were never upgraded. That’s what’s holding them back.
Using AI, Ekyam can translate a legacy system’s data without rewriting the code. Adding this proxy can give even the longest-running retailers the same speed as modern competitors. Ekyam Universal Connector supports plug-and-play integration with low-code, no-API configuration across 100+ retail systems.
Our co-founding team
Mariah Chase and I first met in 2011. I was working at Rent the Runway, and she co-founded a company called Send the Trend. I worked with her and her team to build the tech stack, and eventually the company was acquired by QVC.
Fast forward to 2024: I had decided to solve this giant retail problem and build Ekyam, and Mariah was one of my first calls. I asked her to join our advisory board because I wanted her as a sounding board; our skills lied in different areas, and I knew I could trust her explicitly.
I was thrilled when Mariah agreed to join as my co-founder earlier this year. Our skills and working styles balance each other nicely, and I know what we build together will be superior to what we could do separately.
What’s next?
Ekyam is a fully managed platform designed to solve the key commerce challenges discussed above. Our future includes building Ekyam into an intelligent operating system.
We’re already building the future of retail data with brands like Payless, Rowan, and Kathy Kuo. Are you next? Reach out to us.
