Executive Summary

Button is an AI-powered commerce optimization platform that leading global retailers, publishers, and creators rely on to increase revenue and improve customer shopping experiences of their affiliate and creator traffic. Button CEO Michael Jaconi credits Norwest with helping the company succeed by guiding its financial discipline, strengthening its workplace environment, helping it survive the COVID-19 pandemic, and delivering impactful management advice.

While many digital marketers complain about the inefficiencies in their space, only a few set out to fix the problem. Michael Jaconi, co-founder and CEO of Button, is on the short list of successful problem-solvers in the digital marketing realm.

In the early 2010s, Jaconi was working for the Japanese technology giant Rakuten, observing how digital marketplaces in Asia operated differently from those in the U.S.

“I looked at how broken the traditional advertising models were in the U.S., particularly in mobile, which resulted in high costs for retailers and poor user experience for consumers,” he recalls. “My goal in co-founding Button was to create a win-win-win solution for everyone: retailers acquiring more customers at lower costs; publishers generating greater mobile revenues; and consumers enjoying seamless shopping experiences.”

If his company could deliver on those goals, Jaconi was confident he and his co-founders could build an enduring business.

New Model for Boosting Mobile Commerce

“I believed the internet was going to evolve from an ad-dominated medium to one fueled by commerce, but no company seemed poised to become the platform of the future,” said Jaconi.

He observed that the companies investing in mobile commerce couldn’t reliably connect their best-performing channel – their mobile app – to their marketing infrastructure. User experiences varied and attribution was unreliable.

Jaconi saw an opportunity. “We built a solution that enabled the app economy to support commerce-focused marketing models, believing these were the most efficient and likely a bigger part of the future internet.”

The primary channels that Button’s software benefit are affiliate marketing, creator marketing, and partnership integrations.

In 2014, Jaconi founded Button in New York City. With some seed money and Series A funding, the company developed the Button platform, which employs deep-linking technology that connects consumers directly to an app instead of a website or store.

Uber, the first partnership Button launched publicly, enabled Ubers to be booked from various maps and apps. The Uber partnership nailed Jaconi’s vision – delivering users rides when their intent was highest, providing a healthy flow of new riders to Uber, and rewarding the apps linking to Uber with a revenue stream for that engagement. All these years later, Uber remains a happy customer seeing high conversion rates, more sales, and greater revenues for their partners utilizing Button’s technology.

“The fundamental difference with Button is that marketers pay for actions, not clicks,” Jaconi says. As the founding team predicted — and as a result of the changing privacy landscape — the “commerce first” models Button’s platform supports are proving more valuable than ever before.

Button customers see dramatic returns. In-app journeys produce an average revenue increase of 300 percent compared to mobile web visits. And the lifetime value of customers who first purchase through apps is, on average, 350 percent higher.

Partnering with Norwest for Pivotal Stage of Button’s Growth

Button came to the attention of Norwest Senior Managing Partner Jeff Crowe in 2015 through a mutual business contact, and Crowe stayed in touch with Jaconi over the next two years. After Jaconi expressed interest in another round of funding, Norwest looked closely at the company and eventually decided to lead a $20 million Series B round.

Crowe says two factors were key to the decision: Button’s technology and its CEO.

“The deep-linking technology is a very compelling solution for a world where there are stricter privacy controls that make it increasingly hard to track users across the internet using cookies,” Crowe says. He saw how Button’s technology provides a better way to learn about consumers in a privacy friendly way while providing them with an experience where they’re more likely to transact.

“With deep linking and Button’s AI that enables conversion optimization, you identify precisely what the consumer is looking for and which path to purchase will yield the maximum revenue per journey [Button’s fancy way of saying click],” says Crowe.

He explained that marketers are often stuck using one link and Button uses the power of infinite optionality and dynamism to ensure that every link clicked does what’s best for that user, that platform, that app, and that shopping journey.

When evaluating a CEO, Crowe looks for a number of qualities:

• a deep understanding of the customer
• sound business judgment
• the ability to sell customers, employees, and investors
• the ability to inspire people
• a leader who can attract strong people and get them to work together
• someone humble enough to listen but decisive enough to act

He believes Jaconi checks all those boxes and is impressed by what he and the Button team have accomplished. “Button has done a remarkable job of building a successful, sustainable business as opposed to one that continually needs to raise more money just to exist. I’m very proud of what they’re doing.”

Jaconi is equally enthusiastic about the relationship between Button and Norwest, Crowe in particular.

“When I knew Jeff would be the partner I would have access to and coaching from, Norwest became our number-one choice for Series B. Jeff is an entrepreneur-first investor, and he has a reputation for providing unwavering support in good times and bad. Every entrepreneurial journey is littered with landmines, big twists, and many unpublicized heartbreaks. Having an investor like Jeff matters more than anyone can imagine.”

Jaconi acknowledges that he has drawn on Crowe’s broad business expertise across capital strategy, business development, partnerships, and leadership. He also appreciates that Crowe brings CEO experience to their partnership: “Jeff’s an investor who has truly been in your shoes. As a result, there is an empathy and a wisdom that comes with his investment and partnership. Leaning on Jeff and learning from him are some of the most valued parts of my time at Button.”

Norwest Provides More Than Capital

“Norwest has provided much more than just the capital to fuel Button’s growth,” Jaconi notes, pointing to the COVID pandemic as a prime example.

When COVID hit, Button’s revenue declined overnight by 60 percent, according to Jaconi. To make things worse, the company had just raised expenses by about 3x with 100 new hires and a recently signed lease for 35,000 square feet of office space in lower Manhattan.

“My first call was to Jeff,” Jaconi recalls. “We talked through how we were going to save the business, and although there were moments of tears, incredible fear, and infinite unknowns, Jeff was an unwavering support to me through the process, helping us make hard decisions about cutting expenses and exercising capital efficiency.”

Those decisions included:

● rigorously assessing where they needed to spend and where they needed to save
● slashing expenses by 60 percent
● applying “kill criteria” to determine when to stop projects
● helping navigate challenging partnership/strategy decisions they had to make at the time

Jaconi adds: “The support Jeff and the Norwest team have provided has been foundational to our building the business into its current position.”

A key resource Jaconi has drawn upon is Norwest’s Portfolio Services team, particularly the People & Talent team.

“We have relied on Kris Snodgrass and the Talent team to help shape our compensation philosophy, and several of the investments we’ve made in Button’s culture have been in response to coaching and mentorship from Kris and her team.”

This guidance has enabled Button to win a number of awards for building an exemplary workplace, including Best Place to Work in New York (Crain’s New York) and Top 5 Remote Company to Work for in the U.S. (Built In).

Jaconi also says that he and his team have found great value in the networking opportunities Norwest has provided, building relationships with founders of other portfolio companies.

Jaconi summarizes: “Button is successful by many standards – profitability, growth, and a stream of new products – and we wouldn’t have been able to reach this point if it weren’t for the Norwest team’s unwavering support. Investors and entrepreneurs are truly tested in the hard times, and it was in those times when I saw Norwest shine brightest and demonstrate why they’re one of the most respected firms in the U.S.”