Igniting a Fresh Sense of Purpose

This is the second installment of “The Comeback,” which chronicles one team’s journey to identify a compelling problem and the lessons learned along the way. The story picks up with Sanja Smrzlic, who found herself burnt out after years of grueling shifts as a psychiatric nurse. The toll of her demanding job, characterized by a relentless cycle of night and day shifts, left her longing for a return to her passions—sports, socializing, and a sense of balance. Recognizing the need for a change, Smrzlic decided to step back from nursing.

During her time off, a realization dawned on her: she needed a new direction for her career. It was serendipitous when she stumbled upon a job posting on Reddit from a startup called Shoelace, which was seeking a generalist. On a whim, Smrzlic applied, humorously acknowledging her lack of relevant skills but highlighting her nursing experience and her ability to manage challenging interactions with customers.

In 2016, she joined Shoelace as a customer success representative, where her primary responsibility was troubleshooting customer issues. However, her curiosity and desire to address problems at their roots propelled her towards the technical aspects of the company. By 2019, Smrzlic expressed her ambition to transition into a development role, receiving enthusiastic support from Shoelace’s CEO, Reza Khadjavi, and the rest of the team. They encouraged her to pursue night classes and learn while working, embodying the company culture that prioritized capability and a willingness to take risks over formal qualifications.

As Smrzlic embarked on her journey toward becoming a developer, Shoelace itself was grappling with a significant pivot. After two years of internal challenges, largely due to competition from giants like Facebook and Shopify who began addressing the issues Shoelace was built to solve, Khadjavi made the difficult decision to transform Shoelace from a product-focused company into a full-service agency catering to growth marketers. This shift brought immediate financial success, but Khadjavi felt a deep sense of loss over the original vision of Shoelace as a product business.

Reflecting on the transition, Khadjavi admitted that running a service-oriented business didn’t satisfy his entrepreneurial spirit. He was driven to create something impactful, and this meant understanding why his initial product had failed. He concluded that the key to success lay in solving high-priority problems, as addressing challenges that clients deemed essential would foster greater engagement and commitment.

As Shoelace adapted to the changing digital advertising landscape, it became clear that a significant shift was underway. Before 2020, advertisers primarily focused on audience targeting to maximize their ad spend and conversions. However, the release of Apple’s iOS 14, which introduced App Tracking Transparency, drastically altered the way advertisers approached their strategies. This update limited access to user data, forcing brands to reconsider how to effectively engage their audiences in a less data-driven environment.

Simultaneously, improvements in algorithms on platforms like Facebook intensified competition among brands, making it more crucial than ever to focus on ad creative—comprising visuals, messaging, and overall content. With Shoelace's established relationships in the industry, Khadjavi had the opportunity to connect with performance marketers and gain valuable insights into their evolving needs.

In early conversations with clients, it became evident that creative teams were under increasing pressure to produce content at a rapid pace. With short attention spans and crowded social media feeds, brands needed to generate hundreds of new visuals each month. However, creative teams often struggled to interpret the data necessary to inform their decisions, creating a disconnect between the creative and growth teams.

Khadjavi realized that what creative teams required was a tool that seamlessly integrated performance data into their visual storytelling processes. The goal was to enable these teams to assess which content resonated with their audiences without getting bogged down by complex spreadsheets and data analysis.

Identifying this gap in the market, Khadjavi was inspired to build a solution tailored for creative teams. Despite the abundance of analytics tools and business intelligence platforms, none had specifically catered to the unique needs of creatives. With a core team of trusted collaborators, including Smrzlic, they were ready to embark on a new journey to develop a product that would empower creatives by providing them with actionable insights and fostering a more collaborative environment between creative and growth teams. This new direction not only revitalized Khadjavi's passion for building but also aligned perfectly with Smrzlic’s growing aspirations as a developer. Together, they were poised to tackle a problem that had the potential to transform the advertising landscape.