Sean Simon is Co-Founder at Blurbs – a MarTech discovery platform, and Cogent Collective – a community of marketing and e-commerce leaders. Sean is also the host of the MarTech Matrix Podcast, a forum for the free exchange of marketing technology best practices.
We begin our talk by focusing on Sean’s motivations for starting Blurbs. As his Linkedin profile explains, “after 25+ years in this industry—from early-stage startups to scaled ad tech—I know how hard it’s gotten to earn attention, let alone trust. Not because vendors aren’t great. But because buyers are overwhelmed, skeptical, and doing their own research—long before they ever take a meeting.” Blurbs is designed to overcome this loss of trust through a number of innovative mechanisms and we discuss them in detail.
Sean and I discuss the increasing complexity of the ad tech and MarTech landscape, particularly with the advent of AI, the challenges of agentic technology in search, and the need for tailored, contextual solutions to meet evolving buyer needs.
Discussion points include:
- The distrust between MarTech buyers and vendors, exacerbated by the high volume of unsolicited communications.
- Why vendors should avoid spamming and instead focus on consultative sales approaches.
- The changing dynamics of the buying community, with younger buyers preferring self-directed research and less aggressive sales tactics.
- How Blurbs allows buyers to make anonymous inquiries and receive responses without being inundated by follow-up communications.
- The implications of AI on valuations for both publicly traded and private companies.
- The potential for AI to streamline the sales process and improve vendor-buyer interactions.
- The importance of verifying that vendors can deliver on their promises and not just roadmap features.
- The potential impact of agentic technology on buying decisions and its potential to improve the ecosystem.