Cambeo · Retail SaaS
The company had one year to prove itself. I built the launch.
When early lead generation missed senior buyers, the mandate came to me: find the right moment, create the story, and turn an unknown retail-tech platform into a credible conversation with national brands.
Case 04A company-defining launch built to reach the buyers who could decide its future.
This was not another event. It was the proof-of-concept moment.
Cambeo began with $3 million in funding and a one-year window to prove the business. In the first four months, I helped establish the brand's web and social presence and launch paid campaigns. The campaigns produced leads—but not enough of the right ones. The real buyers were VPs and Directors of Operations: senior leaders who were difficult to target and even harder to pull into a conversation with an unknown platform.
The company's future needed a credible launch, a concentrated audience of retail decision-makers, and enough qualified momentum to give sales a real path forward. The responsibility landed with me to find that moment and build everything around it.
Find the event, clarify the story, create the experience, and put the technology in front of executives who could move the business forward.
I chose ShopTalk—and built the launch from the floor up.
ShopTalk brought the right concentration of retail leaders into one place. But buying booth space was not the strategy. I owned the launch as an integrated go-to-market program: sourcing and creating a booth that could demonstrate the technology, shaping the launch narrative, overseeing swag and logistics, coordinating PR, and building pre-event and post-event campaigns with sales.
Choose an event where senior retail operators and national brands were already gathering.
Source the booth, organize live demos, manage swag and logistics, and give the technology a credible stage.
Connect content, email, social, PR, VIP outreach, sales follow-up, and post-show nurture.
The booth became a working demonstration—and the show amplified it.
The physical experience was designed to let prospects see and use Cambeo rather than hear another abstract SaaS pitch. That helped the team conduct more than 100 demonstrations during the event and made the booth a natural destination for prospects already moving through the sales cycle.
Cambeo was also selected for ShopTalk's Tech Tour, giving us a four-minute platform pitch to executives from companies including Walmart and Target. That third-party selection added credibility the young brand could not have manufactured on its own.
Use a familiar story to open the door for an unfamiliar company.
Conference schedules—especially in Las Vegas—make senior prospects difficult to pin down. I built a targeted VIP-access campaign around Rudy Ruettiger, using his underdog story to create an invitation that felt personal and hard to ignore. I also helped produce a ShopTalk video with Rudy to give the campaign a human face before attendees ever reached the show floor.
A three-day static-versus-video test identified the winning creative before the main campaign ran. The video delivered 10 of the 12 VIP RSVPs, with total media spend under $100. Four attendees were already deeper in the sales cycle, so the experience supported both awareness and active opportunities.
A launch that earned access—and gave the company a future-facing pipeline.
The program produced more than 100 product demonstrations, 12 VIP attendees, and more than 200 qualified leads across ShopTalk and the follow-on restaurant event. It also opened a presentation opportunity with Express and The Limited that could have placed the technology in more than 600 stores.
The deeper result was proof that an unknown startup could convene the right buyers, tell a credible story, and compete for attention beside established retail-technology brands. I did not simply market an event; I built the moment where Cambeo became real to the market.