Speaker: Kainoa Tayabas-Kim, Director of Growth & Strategy
How has IPSecure's strategy evolved to meet the challenges sellers face in today’s marketplace?
Kainoa Tayabas-Kim: I think what's interesting is the initial core values and principles of IPSecure when that was first established, when the company first started, still remain true today. And those are protecting the consumer experience and protecting wallet share. Are we maximizing every sales opportunity on Amazon when a consumer goes to Amazon and searches for your brand? What, what does that experience look like? What's the content that they're seeing? Which sellers are they buying product from? And I think, you know, we've made a lot of enhancements, a lot of upgrades, updates to our platform. but, but those principles still remain true and, and, and we always, you know, any decision we made led us back to, well, why? Right. Why are we doing it? How is that going to help clients and users especially around data? And I think that's certainly an evolving piece to our, to our platform. And to our strategy is just around how folks leverage the data both externally and internally. Are we providing the level of analytics that to where folks can, can view the data but then also be able to interpret it, right? we're not just throwing numbers at them, but we're sharing meaningful content that will then hopefully drive action, whether that's again reaching to another business unit internally, extending a hand to another team or potentially maybe enforcement action. Something on the horizon that I'm really excited about is our expansion into Walmart. It's just, you know, there's no secret that Walmart has become a big focus for a lot of brands. It's where more and more consumers are going. I have the pleasure the Walmart Seller Summit here in San Francisco a couple of months ago and you could just feel the energy. Walmart made a point to really emphasize, you know, how much of how important the marketplace is for them going forward and then you look around and you saw brands, sellers agencies, you know, with the same kind of focus and, and, and same energy. And so, we're really excited to now fold Walmart into the platform in early 25. And, but I think keeping those same values in mind with, with that marketplace as well, right? Protecting the consumer experience and maximizing every sales opportunity.
Can you share a surprising lesson you've learned while working at IPSecure?
Kainoa Tayabas-Kim: Having spent almost seven years in the brand protection space prior to joining IP Secure, I thought I had a firm understanding and grasp around brand protection. And what I quickly learned was Amazon is a completely different beast. So I had to really, you know, get up to speed with the lingo used, right? And really educate myself on what the different acronyms mean. What how are they used? What are the different processes within Amazon that I need to know, right, the different teams and business units that support different areas in the marketplace. And I'm still learning today by no means do I call myself an expert? But that's what makes this space so exciting, you know, it is ever evolving. But what I have found really interesting and I really appreciate in this particular space is, is the level of collaboration that exists uh whether you're a seller yourself, a brand, a vendor. There's a really strong community online and offline, whether that's on linkedin, there are plenty of people who are very active you know, sharing best practices or inquiring, you know, what works for others and then of course offline via the events and conferences that, that take place throughout the year. I've had the opportunity of going to the Prosper Show in Las Vegas over the past couple of years and you really get a good sense of that level of collaboration. And, and what I love the most too is just folks, you know, seeing partners, seeing clients, you know, folks want to connect on a personal level as well, right? we all have our day jobs but, you know, I, I think that level of collaboration on a personal level as well as you know, for work purposes really makes kind of the best best partnership for me.
When you're not focused on work, how do you like to unwind?
Kainoa Tayabas-Kim: this is my favorite time of year simply because all of the major sports are happening. I'm a huge sports fan, more specifically Bay Area sports teams. So on weekends and weekdays, you can find me rooting for the San Francisco 49ers, San Francisco Giants and then my favorite team above anything else, the Golden State Warriors. I'm a really big basketball fan so much so that I'm actually entering my 10th season as a head coach for a basketball team here in the Bay area. I'll be coaching a group of 5th and 6th graders. So I know the question is, you know, how do I like to unwind? I don't know if I'll be unwinding much coaching 5th and 6th graders, but we'll see how much white hair they gave me this season. But it's actually for a team in a league that I used to participate in growing up. And this year means a lot in particular because I'll be coaching with previous teammates of mine as well as a couple of high school volunteers who I used to coach about five or six years ago. So, you know, really strong sense of community and that's exactly why I started coaching in the first place.
