James Bathgate

[alex beller @ringmybeller]

It's Black Friday in the Fizzzy office. Does this feel familiar? Triggering?

The SEASON FINALE of Skeptics is out now!

Thanks for watching with us over the last month. Have enjoyed all the feedback along the way.

[alex beller @ringmybeller]

Our Studios Team decided to make Skeptics to have some fun with themes and skepticism we run into all the time.

And today we're back with episode 3! This time with a very special guest... cc @ecommcowboy

Season finale next week!

[James Bathgate @jamesbathgate]

@kellyhongsn @HammadTime throwing out a prayer I can get access to the Context-1 beta. It seems like the perfect fit for a tool I’m working on.

[Postscript @PostscriptIO]

AI Julian has entered the building. Catch up with the Fizzzy team now. Episode 2 of Skeptics is out!

[James Bathgate @jamesbathgate]

@crucker @madrid_mike They aren’t going.

[alex beller @ringmybeller]

I have major news to share. But I wanted to let this play out in court before I spoke about it here.

Over 2.5 years ago @attentiveHQ sued @PostscriptIO for patent infringement over their “two tap” technology. And in the years since, they’ve spent millions of dollars on lawfare, preferring to push a weak infringement case vs competing in the market with innovation.

Well a few weeks ago, a US District Court in Delaware ruled against Attentive, concluding that “[a]ll of Attentive’s claims of patent infringement (of any type) have now been resolved in Postscript’s favor” and threw out all of Attentive’s claims.

Pretty good 🙂

But that's not the end of the story…

In an effort to defend ourselves against their lawfare, we countersued. And last week, a jury in Delaware found Attentive liable for infringement on our Campaign Flows patent, and awarded us over $1.5M in damages.

Yep–you read that right. They sued us, and ended up being the liable party + paying us damages.

Now that’s justice. Maybe the biggest Uno Reverse Card I can remember.

But, I still have a sour taste in my mouth.

Why? Well, Attentive wasn’t exactly silent about their allegations over the last few years. They’ve left the market with the impression that Postscript infringed on their IP, which a court found to be false.

But is anyone really surprised they went this route? Unfortunately, it’s extremely on brand.

Ever since we exposed their bullying antics with phone number list holding, or pushed back on some of their other aggressive tactics over the years, we haven’t exactly been Attentive’s favorite. So we figured something like this might happen.

The funny thing is, we aren’t against the idea of protecting your IP, especially when it’s actually innovative and the facts are strong. Postscript has a bunch of patents. But, in our opinion, their litigation was never about protecting intellectual property.

And so they sued us. Without merit, as the Court has now found. In fact, Onsite Opt In replaced Two Touch popups over a year ago and has shown superior results consistently for merchants. But Attentive wanted to keep the suit going, clearly prioritizing lawfare and bullying over building better products for customers.

Did they learn their lesson from the list holding controversy? Nope. Because this was always about a larger company that’s raised enormous sums of money with a historical pattern of bully tactics trying to push around a smaller, more innovative competitor. One that's become a thorn in their side, that they're afraid to compete with in the market.

It’s a bummer they behave this way, because (contrary to what you might believe) we do welcome healthy competition.

We want brands to win, we want the market to win, and it’s been frustrating to have to correct the record that we did not infringe on Attentive’s IP. At the same time, they’ve been banging the drum for years that they had a unique, disruptive technology that was exclusive to Attentive that could only be used by Attentive customers. That’s why we felt it was so important to defend ourselves and our customers and prove that Attentive didn’t really own what they said they did.

And of course along the way, we did what we are known for, we innovated and launched something WAY more performant for list growth - Onsite Opt In. We left the outdated technology behind while Attentive continued litigating, burning resources on the past rather than innovating for the future.

I truly wonder what their calculus has been–they’ve spent millions on this meritless lawsuit, all to have a court and jury declare that (1) Postscript’s two touch popups did not infringe and (2) in fact Attentive has been the one infringing on Postscript’s IP. Has this been a good use of time and money? What is the strategy over there? Why do they behave like this?

Whatever the reason, we are proud to be vindicated by the court in this way. We will continue to do what we always do - innovate on behalf of our customers to make their SMS program as performant as possible. In fact, we’ve been so successful at innovation, Attentive has had to use our patented technology to keep up. We’ll continue setting the pace on behalf of Postscript customers everywhere.

More to come, I’m sure. We will keep fighting the good fight. Thanks for your continued support!

[James Bathgate @jamesbathgate]

@BilGriffith Kids and I still enjoyed the show.

[James Bathgate @jamesbathgate]

@H0LTBAE @dscannerchatter At the show it looked like he had a near bird strike might have even hit it.

[James Bathgate @jamesbathgate]

@KaptainArr Enjoy 2 more days

[James Bathgate @jamesbathgate]

@pdrodays @NotionStatus Same

[James Bathgate @jamesbathgate]

@austriker27 @_kylepeters If Sendlane has a SDK or API to push subscribers (I assume they do) it would be pretty easy to push email of subscribers from Postscript's popups over to SendLane. The integration wouldn't be a seamless as the Klaviyo integration, but would work great.

[James Bathgate @jamesbathgate]

@kailsaladd They need to start drink service and handing out pizzas in the boarding area

[James Bathgate @jamesbathgate]

@EcomBeckett @im_unvarified @seanfrank @ridgewallet You get it when you sign up for email/text list

[Moiz Ali @moizali]

Unpopular Opinion: SMS for eCommerce is more important than Email.

Act accordingly.

[alex beller @ringmybeller]

After the recent Limited Supply episode with @mrsharma and @moizali I got questions from folks in the space surprised to hear about all our growth. Would it shock you to know that the last 18 months we’ve been on an absolute tear?

Brands like Caraway, Ruggable, True Classic, Hexclad, Tula, Ridge, Portland Leather, New Era, Cuts, Dolls Kill, MaryRuth’s, and many more have migrated to Postscript.

We were over 100% of our Q1 new business goal before March even started, and ended the quarter over 200% to goal! We’re seeing subscriber lists grow at 3x the rates of last year (thank you Onsite Opt In!). The early results of our AI experiments are 🤯

It’s a bit uncomfortable for me to even make this sort of post. We tend to walk softly and carry a big stick. It’s about the customers, about the work, not about us. But I didn’t realize how far the sentiment about Postscript is from reality, so wanted to clarify some things so DTC twitter doesn't get it twisted.

So, what’s the backstory on the growth?

We’ve always been the different player in the space. At this point both Attentive and Klaviyo are pursuing all-in-one strategies, offering both email & sms.

We’ve always had a different view of the market. The all-in-one thing can be a great fit for brands looking to get started on SMS, and brands can use it to deliver the commoditized version of SMS marketing.

But when a brand’s program matures to the level they want to maximize both top and bottom line results, we believe a product + team that’s deeply specialized (SMS only + ecom only) can deliver more…

More Innovation…. Things like Onsite Opt-In are helping brands grow their email & SMS lists faster on Postscript than on any other sms vendor. SMS Sales and Fondue (our new products) are helping brands drive incremental revenue and contribution dollars in very unique ways. And don’t get me started on our AI experiments…

More Expertise…With our entire org focused on doing this one thing (SMS for ecom), everyone here is an expert, and it shows. Working with PS you aren’t going to implement a cookie cutter approach. What other vendor could work with you on a bespoke, data science led incrementality study to determine your true incremental ROAS on SMS?

More Value…. We of course get aggressive on price, but we also bill fairly and transparently. No confusing credits, no secretly charging for undelivered messages, no weirdness on MMS pricing.

So now four months into 2024, the pace is accelerating. We remain wholly focused on our mission (make SMS the #1 revenue channel for ecommerce) and on pushing the boundaries of what’s possible w/ the channel. Energy is high, it feels like early days. Let’s go!

Any Q’s? Will do my best to answer.

[James Bathgate @jamesbathgate]

@jasonkendziera @Samoabob @HaFoSaFo LA isn't just a city. LA is a state of mind.

[James Bathgate @jamesbathgate]

@loshustle Just need to find a way to get TikTok shop customers into Postscript lists. Would be great if TikTok shop allowed apps like Postscript to do phone collection.

[James Bathgate @jamesbathgate]

@salmaiorana Tell me you're a Bills fan without telling me you're a Bills fan...

[James Bathgate @jamesbathgate]

@Sloyth @reachthefinals Same

[James Bathgate @jamesbathgate]

@cmuratori @ICANN 8.5 years later and still no .gate. Your tweet was the first thing that came up when I googled it. I just want bath.gate.