A Chat With Paal Gisholt, President/CEO, SmartPak Equine

CS: What about the catalog business appeals to you?
PG: Having grown up in both consulting and venture capital, one of the mantras of both of those businesses is “make good, fact-based decisions.” And if you have a much better batting average in terms of making good, fact-based decisions as opposed to trying to be intuitive, generally you’ll win. And that’s very easy to say, but if you’re talking about a business that’s heavily reliant on advertising or other things, there’s a lot of work between having good data to make decisions on and actually being able to make them. It’s sometimes easier said than done. Whereas in the direct business, you’re swimming in a sea of great data, and if you have the discipline to control experiments and vary one thing at a time, and you have the rigor to close the loop and take action based on what you’re finding — it’s nirvana. That’s what appeals to me most about the direct business.