July 7, 2022

Winnipeg
19° C, Partly cloudy

Full Forecast

Contact Us Subscribe Manage Subscription Chat with us
Log in Create Free Account Help Chat with us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertising Contact
    • Submit a News Tip
    • Subscribe to Newsletters

    • Finding your
      information

    • My Account
    • Manage my Subscription
    • Change Password

    • Grid View
    • List View
    • Compact View
    • Text Size
    • Translate

    • Log Out
    • Log in
    • Create Free Account
    • Help

    • Grid View
    • List View
    • Compact View
    • Text Size
    • Translate
  • Coronavirus Coverage
  • Replica E-Edition
    • About the E-Edition
    • Winnipeg Free Press
    • Community Review East
    • Community Review West
  • Above the Fold
  • Front page
  • Arts & Life
    • All Arts & Life
    • The Arts
    • Autos
    • Books
    • Book Club
    • Cannabis
    • Celebrities
    • Diversions
    • Puzzles
    • Environment
    • Events
    • Faith
    • Food & Drink
    • Your Health
    • Life & Style
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Science & Technology
    • TV
    • Travel
  • Business
    • All Business
    • Agriculture
    • Personal Finance
    • Manitoba's Top Employers
  • Canada
  • Local
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Columnists
    • Editorials
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Send a Letter to the Editor
  • Sports
    • All Sports
    • Amateur
    • Auto Racing
    • Blue Bombers
    • Curling
    • Football
    • Goldeyes
    • Golf
    • High School
    • Hockey
    • Horse Racing
    • Winnipeg Jets
    • Manitoba Moose
    • WHL
    • MLB
    • NBA
    • Olympics
    • Soccer
  • World
  • Reader BridgeNEW
  • WFP EventsNEW
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Advertising
    • Contact Us
    • Carrier Positions & Retailer Requests
    • FP Newspapers Inc.
    • History
    • Internships
    • Job Opportunities
    • News Café
    • Privacy Policy
    • Retail Locations
    • Staff Biographies
    • Terms and Conditions
  • Archives
  • Free Press Community Review
    • All Free Press Community Review News
    • East Edition
    • West Edition
    • Sports
    • Events
    • Contact Us
    • E-Editions
  • Classifieds
  • Contests
  • Coupons
    • All Coupons
    • Staples Copy & Print Coupons
    • Ripley's Aquariums Coupons
    • The Bay Coupons
    • Staples Canada Coupons
    • Altitude Sports Coupons
    • Nike Coupons
    • Tuango Coupons
    • Ebay Canada Coupons
    • Sport Chek Coupons
    • Roots Coupons
  • LifestylesNEW
    • All Lifestyles
    • Business Hub
    • Community
    • Drink & Dine
    • Life
    • Wellness
    • Whiskers & Wings
    • Sponsored Articles
  • Homes
    • Property Listings
    • Featured News
    • Renovation and design
    • New homes
    • Resale homes
  • Newsletters
  • Obituaries
  • Puzzles
  • Photo and Book store
  • More

©2022 FP Newspaper Inc.

Close
  • Quick Links

    • Coronavirus Coverage
    • Federal Election
    • Above the Fold
    • Home
    • Local
    • Canada
    • World
    • Classifieds
    • Special Coverage
    • Newsletters
    • Obituaries
    • Photo and Book store
    • Archives
    • Contests
    • Publications
    • Sponsored Content
    • Privacy Policy

    Ways to support us

    • Pay it Forward program
    • Subscribe
    • Support Faith coverage
    • Support Arts coverage
  • Replica E-Edition

    • About the E-Edition
    • Winnipeg Free Press
    • Community Review East
    • Community Review West

    Business

    • All Business
    • Agriculture
    • Personal Finance
  • Arts & Life

    • All Arts & Life
    • The Arts
    • Autos
    • Books
    • Cannabis
    • Celebrities
    • Diversions
    • Puzzles
    • Environment
    • Events
    • Faith
    • Food & Drink
    • Your Health
    • Life & Style
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Science & Technology
    • TV
    • Travel
  • Sports

    • All Sports
    • Amateur
    • Auto Racing
    • Blue Bombers
    • Curling
    • Football
    • Goldeyes
    • Golf
    • High School
    • Hockey
    • Horse Racing
    • Winnipeg Jets
    • Manitoba Moose
    • WHL
    • MLB
    • NBA
    • Olympics
    • Soccer
  • Opinion

    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Columnists
    • Editorials
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Send a Letter to the Editor

    Media

    • All Media
    • Photo Galleries
    • Videos

    Homes

    • Property Listings
    • Featured News
    • Renovation and design
    • New homes
    • Resale homes
  • Canstar Community News

    • All Free Press Community Review News
    • East Edition
    • West Edition
    • Sports
    • Events
    • Contact Us
    • E-Editions
  • Coupons

    • All Coupons
    • Staples Copy & Print Coupons
    • Ripley's Aquariums Coupons
    • The Bay Coupons
    • Staples Canada Coupons
    • Altitude Sports Coupons
    • Nike Coupons
    • Tuango Coupons
    • Ebay Canada Coupons
    • Sport Chek Coupons
    • Roots Coupons
  • About Us

    • About Us
    • Advertising
    • Contact Us
    • Carrier Positions & Retailer Requests
    • FP Newspapers Inc.
    • History
    • Internships
    • Job Opportunities
    • News Café
    • Privacy Policy
    • Retail Locations
    • Staff Biographies
    • Terms and Conditions
The Free Press
Articles Read
Your Balance +tax
Day Pass Till
Day Pass
    • Contact Us
    • Advertising Contact
    • Report an Error
    • Send a Letter to the Editor
    • Staff Biographies
    • Submit a News Tip
    • Subscribe to Newsletters

    • Finding your
      information

    • Log in
    • Create Account
    • Help
    • Chat with us

    • Grid View
    • List View
    • Compact View
    • Text Size
    • Translate
    • My Account
    • Manage My Subscription
    • Change Password
    • Chat with us

    • Grid View
    • List View
    • Compact View
    • Text Size
    • Translate

    • Log Out
Log in Create Account Contact Us
Contact Us Manage Subscription
  • Sections
  • Local
  • Arts & Life
    • All Arts & Life
    • The Arts
    • Autos
    • Books
    • Diversions
    • Environment
    • Faith
    • Food & Drink
    • Health
    • Movies
    • Music
    • TV
    • Travel
  • Business
    • All Business
    • Agriculture
    • Personal Finance
    • Manitoba's Top Employers
  • Sports
    • All Sports
    • Amateur
    • Blue Bombers
    • Curling
    • Football
    • Goldeyes
    • High School
    • Hockey
    • Winnipeg Jets
    • Manitoba Moose
    • WHL
    • MLB
    • NBA
    • Soccer
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Columnists
    • Editorials
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Send a Letter to the Editor
  • E-Edition
  • Homes
  • Classifieds
    • All Classifieds
    • Announcements
    • Automotive
    • Careers
    • Garage Sales
    • Merchandise
    • Pets
    • Real Estate
    • Rentals
    • Services
  • Lifestyles
    • Business Hub
    • Community
    • Drink & Dine
    • Life
    • Manitoba’s Top Employers
    • Wellness
    • Whiskers & Wings
    • Sponsored Articles
  • Coupons
    • All Coupons
    • Staples Copy & Print
    • Ripley's Aquariums
    • The Bay
    • Staples Canada
    • Altitude Sports
    • Nike
    • Tuango
    • Ebay Canada
    • Sport Chek
    • Roots
  • Obituaries
  • Subscribe$1.50 for 5 months
Home Business

Advertisement

Advertise With Us

Boldly growing its business and its brand

Martin Cash By: Martin Cash
Posted: 4:00 AM CDT Friday, Mar. 19, 2021
Last Modified: 11:02 AM CDT Friday, Mar. 19, 2021 | Updates

  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Print
  • Email
  • Save to Read Later
Bold Commerce has hired former senior executive at Rackspace, Odus Wittenburg, as the new chief operating officer. Wittenburg is based in Austin, Texas, where the Winnipeg company has established its U.S. beachhead.</p>

Bold Commerce has hired former senior executive at Rackspace, Odus Wittenburg, as the new chief operating officer. Wittenburg is based in Austin, Texas, where the Winnipeg company has established its U.S. beachhead.

With another $35 million in its war chest from a second round of venture capital funding in January — it raised $22 million in Jan. 2019 — Bold Commerce is on another growth spurt looking to hire more than 100 people in the next three months.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/3/2021 (475 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With another $35 million in its war chest from a second round of venture capital funding in January — it raised $22 million in Jan. 2019 — Bold Commerce is on another growth spurt looking to hire more than 100 people in the next three months.

They won’t all be in Winnipeg though.

The company just hired a new chief operating officer, Odus Wittenburg, who is based in Austin, Texas, where the Winnipeg company has established its U.S. beachhead.

Wittenburg is a former senior executive at US$2 billion per year cloud computing operation Rackspace, where Bold was a client and is on the front lines of the development of sophisticated ecommerce applications over the past few years that have now become mission critical.

Bold’s four founders were able to bootstrap the company for its first several years of rapid growth in parallel with the rise of Ottawa-based Shopify, where Bold continues to be the largest app developer.

Shopify and Bold continue to be strong partners, but Bold’s apps are now available on other ecommerce platforms as well. Wittenburg said that among other things he will be working on enhancing Bold as an important brand in its own right.

"In essence Bold and Shopify grew up together," Wittenburg said. "Shopify is a huge platform and they are doing great work. The (Bold) founders won’t do it but I’m trying to get them to take a little credit in helping Shopify build its business. Bold still has the leading set of apps in the Shopify app store."

As well as now being platform agnostic, Bold is using the infusion of capital, timed as it was in the midst of a pandemic that has accelerated the mass adoption of ecommerce, to build out its technology to start addressing the larger enterprise customers as well as the 90,000-odd smaller retailers who now use Bold apps in about 170 countries.

It is targeting that effort by focusing on development of its customers’ deployment of Bold’s technologies at the point of checkout.

Yvan Boisjoli, Bold’s CEO said, "The one interaction that is consistent, that always has to be optimized… is the checkout. It lives between the retailer and the customer at all points. We think of checkout as the handshake between the brand and consumer. We want to build powerful checkouts that don’t just take payment but actually builds great relationships with consumers wherever they are."

It fits into the new trend that’s called headless commerce, where online shopping does not have to just take place within the confines of an online store but in every place a brand interacts with consumers — in its marketing on social media, blogs, and augmented reality.

"That is how we are positioning Bold," Boisjoli said. "We want to help enterprise get to that level of sophistication and build experiences with their customers."

With 300-plus employees, and another 125 on the way, the development of Bold’s brand will help.

It was one of only four Canadian companies to recently appear on CB Insights’ first annual Retail Tech 100 companies. These are the most promising business-to-business retail companies in the world selected from 15,000 applicants and nominees.

"This is one of the listings we’re most proud about, because it is about innovation," Boisjoli said.

It’s that kind of recognition that starts to turn heads and attract talent like Wittenberg to the company.

Clients like Staples and Harry Rosen are deploying Bold’s technology in ways that allow those retailers to expand their market reach to make it easy for individual consumers and their business customers to increase engagement with those brands.

Wittenburg said Bold’s four founders — Boisjoli, his brother Eric, Jay Myers and Stefan Maynard — established a strong corporate culture that will stand in good stead as it starts to expand into other geographies.

The Free Press | Newsletter

Want to get a head start on your day?

Get the day’s breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning.

Sign up for Head Start
Sign Up

It’s already paying dividends.

Several years ago, Bold had a seminal moment on a fateful Black Friday when their servers crashed and within hours they migrated their operation to Rackspace’s cloud servers.

A couple of years later Myers and Eric Boisjoli made a presentation about their experiences at an internal Rackspace event in front of about 1,500 of the Texas company’s employees

It so happens, they were introduced, at the time by Wittenburg.

It’s a micro example of how enduring that first "handshake" experience can be.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca

Martin Cash

Martin Cash
Reporter

Martin Cash has been writing a column and business news at the Free Press since 1989. Over those years he’s written through a number of business cycles and the rise and fall (and rise) in fortunes of many local businesses.

   Read full biography

Advertisement

Advertise With Us

History

Updated on Friday, March 19, 2021 at 11:02 AM CDT: Corrects that Bold was a client of Rackspace

  • Report Error
  • Submit a Tip
  • Refund
  • The Free Press is certified by

The Winnipeg Free Press invites you to share your opinion on this story in a letter to the editor. A selection of letters to the editor are published daily.

To submit a letter:
• fill out the form on this page, or
• email letters@freepress.mb.ca, or
• mail Letters to the Editor, 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R2X 3B6.

Letters must include the writer’s full name, address, and a daytime phone number. Letters are edited for length and clarity.

Advertisement

Advertise With Us

Top