How a headphone website operator constructed loyalty startup Lantern to resolve his personal issues

Andrew Lissimore has been operating the audio attire website Headphones.com for practically a decade now. Whereas audiophiles have a excessive affinity in the direction of their gear and wish to check out new devices, Lissimore wasn’t glad with constantly spending cash on platforms like Meta and Google to amass new prospects; he wished to discover a method to higher retain the shoppers he already had.

The founder began to search for options inside the Shopify ecosystem that will assist the enterprise with loyalty packages. However most of what he discovered supplied solely spend and tier-based options. So he determined to construct his personal system.

What began as a undertaking to resolve loyalty for Headphones.com is now a startup known as Lantern, which different firms can use to simply combine loyalty options into their very own companies.

Initially, the corporate wired collectively completely different apps to have quite a lot of loyalty factors based mostly on stamps, spend, factors, and referrals, nevertheless it was exhausting to handle. Plus, bringing collectively completely different apps launched challenges with person expertise flows and model identification.

“We thought it will be nice to have a Shopify native system for loyalty that’s straightforward to customise and combine,” Lissimore mentioned. “I managed to persuade Shopify designers Kyle Peatt and Dominic McPhee, who constructed their Polaris design system, to work on this.”

Later, each joined Lantern as co-founders. Peatt presently works because the chief design and product officer, and McPhee works because the chief know-how officer. In whole, the corporate presently has eight full-time workers.

Lantern can deal with buyer account creation and administration, loyalty, and referrals for any vendor engaged on Shopify. Web sites can reward returning or new prospects, and award them factors for actions like collaborating in boards, as properly. The corporate defined that the sellers can simply combine their resolution and don’t want so as to add any additional code to take action.

Lissimore mentioned that working Headphones.com supplied the proper testing floor for Lantern to grasp the ache factors of being a vendor and getting higher retention.

“I feel we had been within the good spot to give you one thing like Lantern as a result of we [headphones.com] had been so determined to extend the repurchase fee. Lots of companies like clothes manufacturers or make-up manufacturers have naturally in-built repurchase, however for us, it was existential,” he instructed TechCrunch.

After Headphones.com adopted Lantern, its buy fee for repeat guests elevated from 30% to 50%. The interval for getting a second pair of headphones has additionally decreased from 198 days to 98 days.

The corporate now has shoppers like skincare website Counter, which rakes in over $200 million a 12 months, and footwear model Vessi. It has additionally constructed instruments to measure retention successfully to point out Lantern’s worth to its shoppers.

To additional develop its enterprise, Lantern raised $3.1 million in seed funding led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from Sidekick Companions, Day One Ventures, and particular person buyers like Vessi’s Tony Yi. The corporate immediately competes with present startups equivalent to LoyaltyLion and Yotpo.

Rob Keith, a companion at Salesforce Ventures, mentioned that Lantern stood out to the agency as a result of the startup is approaching retention by means of implies that transcend point-based loyalty with a versatile strategy.

“Lantern brings collectively one thing distinctive—Andrew constructed and scaled Headphones.com and lived these retention challenges as a service provider, whereas Kyle and Dominic come from Shopify, the place they constructed the Polaris design system that hundreds of builders use at this time. That mixture means they perceive each what retailers really want and the best way to construct options that really feel native to the platform slightly than bolted on,” he mentioned.

Kieth added that Lantern’s options, like pockets performance, immediately showing in checkout with none pop-ups or redirects, assist each customers and types.

In its product roadmap, the corporate plans to leverage AI and supply prospects with insights and proposals round retention.