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Headless Upgrades and Category Dominance with Builder’s Steve Sewell

Headless Upgrades and Category Dominance with Builder’s Steve Sewell

Adrian Alfieri
Adrian Alfieri
CEO, Verbatim

Steve Sewell is the founder and CEO of Builder, a no-code platform enabling commerce brands to visually create, manage, and optimize high-speed site experiences. Builder’s customer base spans household names like Everlane, Chubbies, Harry’s, Afterpay, and Zapier, to name a few.

We sat down with Steve to dig deeper on constructing a visual layer for the modern tech stack and why your brand should be testing as much as possible. Here’s what we cover:

  1. Visualizing the Digital Shopping Experience
  2. The Future of Legacy Enablement
  3. Enhanced Testing for Upgrading Retention
  4. When It’s Time to Raise Your Next Round

“We’re used by influencers, mom-and-pop stores, small Shopify brands, and Fortune 500 companies. When it comes to headless, the beauty is that it can be used by everyone, no matter how small – the sky’s truly the limit.”

Visualizing the Digital Shopping Experience

Omnichannel brands like Everlane are generally able to cultivate beautiful and intricate experiences through their physical locations, while the digital world has been historically constrained in terms of teams’ abilities to customize for that equivalent online.

In response, Builder aims to enable brands to pour a similar degree of care, attention, and bespoke detail into the digital shopping experience.

Whatever limitations previously existed due to the friction between design and development can be alleviated by a simple drag and drop headless integration, bringing brands closer to executing their true, unrestricted vision.

Beyond simply addressing baseline problems and establishing minimally viable web pages, digital brands are leveraging the Builder suite to fully customize the end-to-end user experience.

Storytelling through Products

Rather than stacking a product’s description with critical, but oftentimes bland, information, brands like Atoms are crafting add-on elements to create a complete storytelling experience.

Someone browsing the Atoms site can scroll down on a product page for graphics and videos on the bespoke elements of the shoe, an efficient method for augmenting the user experience that can also be easily recycled and tailored for every product.

Personalizing the User Journey

Using headless tools, brands can easily run A/B testing and begin personalizing to shoppers.

For instance, if a shopper is redirected to a product page from an Instagram ad campaign about Atoms’ elastic laces, the site engine can double-tap on that knowledge of what piqued their interest, presenting more of that feature rather than randomizing displays.

Abandoning the Database Page

As Steve describes it, most eCom sites are thin, grid-like visual layers placed over a database.

But if you click on a Builder-powered site, such as Everlane’s denim collection, you might see a far more design-forward full-bleed, complete with the interactive experience of toggling various fits and model sizes.

Of course, this not only results in a more stimulating shopper experience but also improved communication of product options to customers.

“The digital world should really be easier to manipulate than the physical, but that hasn’t been the case. With Builder, we hope teams can now put that same love and attention into the online version of their experience.”

The Future of Legacy Enablement

At a glance, eCom tooling is only continuing to grow both more sophisticated and more accessible for brands.

In terms of what the future holds, Steve has a simple prediction: With the current pace of the ecosystem, legacy enablement companies will be struggling to catch up. Meanwhile, headless options and platforms like Shopify will continue their trajectory toward category dominance.

However, according to Steve, although these platforms will continue to scale and improve, they’ll never truly outstrip younger companies who can adopt newer tech at a more rapid pace.

Even more so, younger eCom players will be able to support users who are unsatisfied with the ceiling on speed, customization, etc. that exists on older platforms, due to the baggage of running legacy tech and having to support millions of merchants on their service.

Based on his domain expertise and unique vantage point in the ecosystem, Steve expects today’s leading platforms to simultaneously advance and fall behind, while overall connectivity and optionality increase.

Instead of teams needing to default to expert guidance or specialists, the norm could very well shift toward headless, one-click solutions that can meet a large fraction of your tech needs, straight out of the box.

“Of course, Shopify will keep growing and optimizing their platform. But, they won’t be able to keep up with the needs of this next wave of leaner, more nimble emerging brands, many of which don’t even exist yet.”

Enhanced Testing for Upgrading Retention

In a return to the fundamentals, Steve stressed the overlap between a clean, incisive web presence and repeat purchase rates, as well as subscriptions.

Regardless of whether your brand operates on a subscription model, a shopper should be able to land on your site and easily determine whether your products align with their needs. And if you’ve succeeded, that user is all the more likely to be hooked in — and willing to commit to more than just a one-time purchase.

Personalization also has a hand in the equation, hence Builder’s emphasis on the optimization layer of their core product. After all, running data-informed, targeted pages will, naturally, further hone the accessibility, accuracy, and reliability of your messaging.

In his words, the only way brands can achieve that degree of personalization, i.e. nailing a visitor’s needs and driving them to purchase, is by running as many tests as the tech allows.

There’s simply no way around it.

As Steve explains, roughly 90% of tests are essentially inconclusive, so the more testing you implement to gauge what variations are working or not, the greater your leg up on competitors who may be running cursory tests once a month.

Even if results only demonstrate that your latest feature may be a dud, simply running a test per day will still lead you toward the next solution — which may ultimately be the one that nails the needs of your optimal customer cohort.

“A huge part of Builder is our ability to deliver clean A/B testing, in line with our belief that testing as much as possible is the best way to drive growth. Only the data can reveal what’s really keeping your customers hooked.”

When It’s Time to Raise Your Next Round

In October, Builder raised a Series A round of $14 million led by Greylock Partners.

When asked how he knew it was time to do so, Steve admitted inbound sales had simply grown too quickly for the company to keep up. His team genuinely had an overflow of interest from new customers on a day-to-day basis, to the point where not every email could be returned.

Once they closed out their Series A, the team doubled in size in about three months, allowing Builder to refocus on what customers needed most.

Steve breaks that down into two components.

First, the team realized that brands were actively seeking elegant no-code page builders. And, while Builder fit the bill, brands were simply discovering the tool too late to make the switch.

As such, a key priority for Builder has been amplifying brand awareness and gaining a deeper understanding of the so-called hair-on-fire issues that drive potential clients to consider no-code solutions, in order to ultimately ensure users discover Builder at the exact time that they need to.

Second, Steve hopes to keep refining his vision for the potential of the Builder product. In an online industry where disparate team flows seem to be constrained by bottlenecks, he hopes this latest round of capital can bring the team closer to their vision for headless commerce.

“Even without software knowledge, anybody on a commerce team should be able to run a test, optimize a conversion, and track growth metrics — essentially all the components of what we call no-code superpowers.”

Adrian Alfieri
Adrian Alfieri
CEO, Verbatim
ObviBackboneHiyaImmiMilaKitsch
info
Problem

Brainstorming 100 unique, 40-second scripts is painful.

Manually matching 20 clips (from your 10,000-video library) to each shot in your 100 unique scripts is even more painful.

Creating 10 permutations of each of the 100 ads (for A/B testing) is maximum pain.

Now imagine voiceovers, captions, music, & manually uploading all 1,000 ads to Meta & TikTok on top of this.

Products for scriptwriting (ChatGPT), competitor research (Foreplay), creative storage (Recharm, Air), editing (CapCut), creative analytics (Motion), & video production (Billo) exist, but they're not built for admaking (or just built badly).

Problem
Solution

Icon solves this with the first AI Admaker.

AI Admaker helps with scriptwriting, ad research, video creation, script-to-shot matching, permutations, voiceovers, captions, music, analytics, ad auto-launching, & more.

Solution

What they're saying

Obvi
"We went from spending hours making each ad to building entire campaigns in minutes. Icon's AI helps us shape perfect creatives at incredible speed."
Ron Shah

Ron Shah

CEO, Obvi

Products

Admaker(replaces CapCut, Adobe Premiere)

Create winning ads in minutes.

Uses AI for scriptwriting (AdGPT), video creation (A-roll, B-roll, UGC), script-to-shot matching (existing & AI-generated videos), permutations, voiceovers, captions, music, & more.

Replaces CapCut ($7.99/month), Adobe Premiere ($54.99/month)

Admaker
Adspy
(replaces AdSpy, Foreplay)

Save time with AI-powered ad cloning.

Replaces Foreplay ($49-$99/month + $20/user), AdSpy ($149/month)

Adspy
Ads Manager
(replaces Meta & TikTok Ad Managers)

Save time with ad manager auto-upload.

Replaces Meta & TikTok Ad Managers (direct use)

Ads Manager
Creative Library
(replaces Recharm, Air)

Save time by storing, tagging, creating, & splitting videos with AI.

Videos are used as building blocks for AI-generated ads in Admaker.

Replaces Recharm ($500-3K/month), Air ($250-$2K/month)

Creative Library
Creative Analytics
(replaces Motion)

Save money with built-in creative analytics.

Replaces Motion ($1K-$10K/month)

Creative Analytics
UGC Creators
(replaces Billo)

Save time & money with AI-generated UGC.

Replaces Billo ($99/video)

UGC Creators

Story

Kennan Davison

Kennan Davison

CEO, Founder
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
CPO, Chairman, Founder at Skio (CEO 2021-2024, $10M+ ARR in 3 years, profitable).
Previously: Pinterest, Hulu, Wieden+Kennedy (ad agency), League of Legends Challenger (Top 200 North America, 100M+ players globally), Y Combinator S20 (solo founder), Columbia (transfer, dropout).
Hi, I'm Kennan!
Growing up, my dream was to be a pro gamer: this felt within reach in high school once I ranked top 200 North America in League of Legends (out of 100M+ players globally).
Despite this, I needed to support myself so I went to college and started learning to code. Coding came naturally (especially with 100 hour weeks) and I was soon skipping class to work at places like Hulu and Wieden+Kennedy (ad agency). Realizing that being paid to work full-time (vs. paying to go to school) sounded quite nice, I dropped out after 1 year to join Pinterest.
After Pinterest, I started a company called Skio which does subscription management software for brands on Shopify. In just 3 years, we've partnered with 1000+ brands (Liquid I.V., Milk Bar, Polaroid, Barstool, Unilever, KraveBeauty, Boba Tea Protein), reached $10M+ ARR (+profitable), and built an amazing team of 50.
With advancements in generative AI (video specifically), I saw an opportunity to help brands bring their stories to life exponentially faster and make marketing much better (hence Icon & building the first AI Admaker).
I love learning how we can help better. Feel free to reach out any time at kennan@icon.me.
Founders Fund

Founders Fund

Icon Investor
Founders Fund
Founders Fund
Founders Fund
Founders Fund
Founders Fund
Founders Fund
Founders Fund
Peter Thiel's Founders Fund is a venture capital firm. Its partners have founded and funded companies including PayPal, Palantir, SpaceX, Anduril, Flexport, Airbnb and Stripe.
Ron Shah

Ron Shah

Icon Investor
Ron Shah
Ron Shah
Ron Shah
CEO, Co-founder at Obvi, Co-host at Chew On This, Managing Partner at Gaas for SaaS.
Roman Khan

Roman Khan

Icon Investor
Roman Khan
Roman Khan
Roman Khan
Roman Khan
Roman Khan
President, Founder at Peak21, CMO at Raycon, CMO at Know Beauty, CMO, Co-founder at Linjer, CMO at Nutrition Kitchen.
Kennan Davison

Kennan Davison

CEO, Founder
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
Kennan Davison
CPO, Chairman, Founder at Skio (CEO 2021-2024, $10M+ ARR in 3 years, profitable).
Previously: Pinterest, Hulu, Wieden+Kennedy (ad agency), League of Legends Challenger (Top 200 North America, 100M+ players globally), Y Combinator S20 (solo founder), Columbia (transfer, dropout).
Yunyu Lin

Yunyu Lin

Founding Board Member
Yunyu Lin
Yunyu Lin
Yunyu Lin
Yunyu Lin
Yunyu Lin
Yunyu Lin
Head of AI at Ramp.
Previously: CEO, Co-founder at Cohere (AI CX / LLMs, acquired by Ramp), Nuro, Facebook, Y Combinator S20, Duke (dropout).
Kevin Jin

Kevin Jin

Engineering
Kevin Jin
Kevin Jin
Kevin Jin
Kevin Jin
Kevin Jin
Kevin Jin
Kevin Jin
Kevin Jin
Kevin Jin
Kevin Jin
Previously: CTO at Kalder, Compound Labs, Robinhood, Rippling, Impira, Flexport, Google, Tesla, TSM, Vanderbilt.

Why us

Track record of things that can't be faked

Icon is the best team helping brands create winning ads in minutes.

Our CEO/Founder (who is writing this, sorry for writing in 3rd person) brings experience from Skio, Pinterest, Hulu, Wieden+Kennedy (ad agency), League of Legends (Top 200 North America, 100M+ players globally), & Y Combinator S20 (solo founder).

At Skio (subscription management software for brands on Shopify), he was CEO/Founder of the company from 2021 to 2024 helping grow revenue from $0 to $10M+ ARR in 3 years (w/ 90% margins) and a team of 50 (on $8.4M raised). Skio is profitable and still growing >100% YoY.

Our tech investors include Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Eric Nam (K-Pop), Alex Botez (Chess), Reilly Opelka (Tennis), Max Altman (Saga), Kevin Hartz (A*, Eventbrite), & execs of OpenAI, Ramp, Flexport, Cognition, & Pika.

Our D2C investors include Ron Shah & Ash Melvani (Obvi), Roman Khan, Nick Shackelford, Jimmy Kim (Sendlane), Kevin Lee (Immi), Justin Mares (Kettle & Fire), Steph Liu (Levitate), Jason Wong, as well as founders of Eight Sleep, Yotpo, Siena AI, Replo, Novel, Parker, GR0, DCL Logistics, Aftersell, Platter, Openborder, Prescient AI, Daasity, & more.

Our team has also worked with 1000+ brands like Liquid I.V., Milk Bar, Polaroid, Barstool, Unilever, Bulletproof, 100 Thieves, Vega, KOS, KITSCH, True Botanicals, mindbodygreen, Transparent Labs, GHOST, Wild One, OpenStore, The Nue Co., Immi, DRMTLGY, Boba Tea Protein, KraveBeauty, Glamnetic, Doe Lashes, Magic Mind, Remedy Organics, & Siete Foods.

Focused on building the AI Admaker

Icon is focused on building the AI Admaker vs. also juggling the underlying AI tech.

We believe our approach is fundamentally better because we're free to choose the best technology partner for a specific job.

To illustrate this, maybe one AI-video partner specializes in face closeups while another partner specializes in body movements (where face doesn't matter as much).

If we built all underlying technology in-house, it would create a fundamental conflict of interest where we can't offer a competitor's tool (that might be better) without losing revenue.

Products
Icon

Others

Admaker
(replaces CapCut, Adobe Premiere)
Create winning ads in minutes.
Replaces CapCut ($7.99/month), Adobe Premiere ($54.99/month)
check
x
Adspy
(replaces Foreplay, AdSpy)
Save time with AI-powered ad cloning.
Replaces Foreplay ($49-$99/month + $20/user), AdSpy ($149/month)
check
x
Ads Manager
(replaces Meta & TikTok Ad Managers)
Save time with ad manager auto-upload.
Replaces Meta & TikTok Ad Managers (direct use)
check
x
Creative Library
(replaces Recharm, Air)
Save time by storing, tagging, creating, & splitting videos with AI.
Replaces Recharm ($500-3K/month), Air ($250-$2K/month)
check
x
Creative Analytics
(replaces Motion)
Save money with built-in creative analytics.
Replaces Motion ($1K-$10K/month)
check
x
UGC Creators
(replaces Billo)
Save time & money with AI-generated UGC.
Replaces Billo ($99/video)
check
x

Ready to create winning ads in minutes?