About this episode

Dori Yona discusses his journey of pivoting from a price protection company to monetizing SKU-level purchase data.

There's an old idea in M&A called the Rembrandt in the attic. A company owns something valuable — a brand, a patent, a customer list, a data set — and nobody inside the business sees it for what it is. The right acquirer walks in, looks at the same asset through a different lens, and recognizes a masterpiece. Dori Yona spent six years and raised $14 million building what he thought was a price protection company for consumers. Earny tracked everything its users bought online and automatically clawed back refunds whenever the price dropped within the retailer's protection window. The model never quite worked. After two rounds of layoffs, a shutdown plan presented to the board, and a move out of the Santa Monica office, Dori pivoted to selling the one thing the company had in abundance: SKU-level purchase data on 3.5 million users. That pivot found the acquirer. To a consumer packaged goods (CPG) giant trying to understand what shoppers were actually putting in their carts during COVID, the data was the prize. The consumer app was almost incidental.

People in this episode

Host: John Warrillow

Guest: Dori Yona

Topics covered

• M&A
• entrepreneurship
• data monetization
• business pivot
• consumer behavior

Keywords

• M&A
• price protection
• SKU-level data
• consumer packaged goods
• business pivot

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Earny, CPG

Places: Santa Monica

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