How an AdTech Exec Transformed the Flooring Industry

Hey y'all—Dan here. Today we have a guest post from friend of Every Sar Haribhakti. Sar's a startup veteran turned newsletter writer Scatter Brain where he writes deep, actionable interviews of off-the-beaten path founders and investors. He previously spent time at OnDeck, Slice, and Clearbanc—and he uses that experience to get beyond the basics and dig in with his subjects. This piece originally ran in Scatter Brain and I'm psyched that he's allowing us to syndicate it. I hope you like it as much as we did!

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Hi! I’m Sar, and I do deep dives with startup founders and executives to understand the world through their perspectives and work beyond the surface-level thinking you typically see on Twitter and in trend pieces. My goal is to have the types of conversations I enjoy, which tend to happen behind closed doors and make them public in writing. I play an opinionated investigator’s role, drawing from my time working at startups over the past couple of years, and try to get people to share thoughts they haven’t shared before. 

This week, I talked to Todd Saunders. You probably haven’t heard of him, but I think you can learn a lot from him. He did what many people dream of: brought tech sensibilities and skills to an unsexy industry—in his case, flooring—and built a massive business. Todd backed into building a vertical software company for the flooring industry based on insights learned from his venture-backed journey of building a successful ads optimization startup.

His company Broadlume has raised over $60 million post-pivot, grown to over 100 employees, and serves over 3,000 flooring retailers. The transition from an ads business to an all-in-one platform for flooring retailers is a gutsy rollercoaster story of layoffs, an acquisition spree of multiple companies, and revenue changes from $8 million to $3 million to $22 million, all within two years. It’s hard to tell Todd was an outsider when he decided to make the pivot and go all in on the flooring industry. His commitment to enabling indie retailers and bringing consumer-centricity to the flooring industry is palpable. 

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