Alexis
Hi everyone. Welcome to Data Dave Dives Deeper, your favorite companion podcast to Talk Tech with Data Dave. I am Alexis, your host of this podcast along with Data Dave.
Today, we have a very special guest as we do on all of our Data Dave Dives Deeper. But before we get to that, I do want to tell everyone out there that you can join us for these episodes by reaching out to us at talktech@d3clarity.com, reaching out to Dave or I on LinkedIn, and by contacting us on the D3Clarity website. We can also take questions for Talk Tech with Data Dave at any of those locations as well. We love to answer listener questions on the podcast, so please reach out to us.
Dave, how are you today?
Data Dave
I am very well, Alexis. How are you?
Alexis
I am good. We had some technical difficulties. I am happy that we are back online now.
I am pumped for our guest today. Can you tell me a little bit about our Data Dave Dives Deeper guest?
Data Dave
Absolutely. So, we’re joined today by Sabir Semerkant, who is a lifelong computer scientist and e-commerce practitioner, let’s say that. And the founder of GrowthbySabir and author of the ‘8D Method” 8 dimension method.
So, we’re excited to hear about this. And Sabir, welcome. How are you, sir?
Sabir Semerkant
Thank you, Dave. Thank you, Alexis, for having me on your show.
Data Dave
Excellent. Thank you for joining us. Can we start by you just telling our audience who is Sabir and how did you get here? How did you get to – not necessarily be on our podcast but -how did you get here? How did you get to where you are today?
Sabir Semerkant
You know, life takes a very interesting path, and to me, where I am in my career right now and what I do is total accident, 100% accident. Before I became the person who I am right now who was a revenue growth advisor for the Sharks on Shark Tank and many VC companies and a lot of founders and I co-founded Vayner Commerce with Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary Vee, and hundreds of brands that have gone through this 8D method that we will dive into today. And the implementation program for it is called the Rapid2X. Hundreds of Rapid2Xers who have gone through this, and we have experienced in those on average of 118% growth in their revenue profitably.
But before I became this new person that you know now, for the past 25 years prior to this, since the age of six, and, David and I were sharing the story, our battle scars from the old days. From the age of six, I’ve been programming. So, I’ve written millions of lines of code. And from a schooling standpoint, I became a computer scientist because that was just my hobby and people wanted to pay me to do my hobby. So I said, “Why not?”
So, I became well versed in many computer programming languages. I was a founding team member of the street.com with Jim Cramer, CNBC, Tommy Hilfiger. And then my pivot point came because I got recommended. So just kind of tell a side story here.
Vitamin Shoppe went public, and unfortunately, if you don’t pay attention to the numbers, the company went bankrupt. The dot-com piece of it went bankrupt. And Jeff Horowitz who was the founder of Vitamin Shoppe, the brand, he went to the bankruptcy court and through a buyer’s sale from the bankruptcy court, purchased all the assets back and brought it into North Bergen, New Jersey. And then he looked around to see who would be right to actually bring on to take this stuff on. And I came recommended.
Somebody told him in his network, “He’s the guy to go to because he has done this many times over.” And I had. I was working with three to five startups to actually launch them every single quarter. But back then, I was launching a lot of companies back then. So, I get involved, I take the servers in, and if you remember Dave, they had Sun Servers. These are heavy servers, E450s. Timeline: no Shopify back then. So, it’s not like you take your credit card out and that’s the heaviest thing to pay for an e-commerce site, right?
You had to actually have a server; you had to put that together.
Data Dave
Had to build it all yourself. It was the days of Lego on the Internet.
Sabir Semerkant
I know every nook and cranny of how to build. Build with networking, like every aspect of it, Cisco equipment, all of that stuff.
So, I take that, I lug it from the warehouse, I even moving it, I cut my finger right here to move it because it slipped and my finger, and I had to hold it. I didn’t want to break a very expensive equipment. So, I put it in back of my truck, I take it to a data center. Back then, used to be called Exodus. It was a very really popular data center back then.
So I put it together, I start and I turn it on and I see a lot of issues. I fix all of those issues being my engineering side. And then I got everything up, traffic starts flowing, and then I go back to Jeff, I go like, “Jeff, could you connect me with your business marketing guy who is going to be my teammate on this? We can tag team on this.” He was like, “What are you talking about? My network told me you’re the guy.”
I said… now, now, this is… Dave. You’re going to get a kick out of this. This is going to be a dialogue between, like, Scotty and Kirk from Star Trek. Like, “No, no, no. Computer science guy, tech guy, engineer. I’m not a marketing guy.”
He goes like, “No, no, no. I’ve seen the stuff you have been able to do. You have already improved the business already by just doing the engineering things. So, I’m going to teach you the industry things. And do you know anything about marketing?”
I said, “Nope, I just took accounting 101, economics 101, which I think is business and marketing. And they made me take that in order for me to get my computer science degree. Otherwise they would not have given me my degree.” So I said, “I took that, but I don’t know, is that good enough?”
He goes like, “No, no. You need to learn marketing.”
So I said, “Okay, all right, I’m going to figure it out. As long as you teach me the vitamin industry stuff.” Because I had never taken a supplement in my life, so I had no idea what that is. “So if you teach me that stuff, the other stuff, I’m going to figure it out.”
Monday through Friday, I would be at Vitamin Shoppe. On the weekends, I would go to Garden City, Long Island in New York. There was a beautiful bookstore. Remember Timeline: No Amazon Kindle No Audible. Doesn’t exist. So, I go over there on the weekends because Amazon also was nascent at that time. I would go to this bookstore. I would go to their business and marketing section. I would pick out the books. They have a nice cafe there. I would sit down, and I would take notes. I would rigorously take notes. What was I reading? I was reading about direct marketing. I was reading about TV marketing, radio marketing. Those were the predecessors of e-commerce. That’s what I was reading about. Some fundamental marketing books. Also, I was reading that and any book that I found interesting, that I saw that there was a lot of technical stuff in it that I could not just take notes, I bought those. The rest of them I took notes, and I put it back on the shelf. So, I was taking these notes on Saturday, Sunday, like, 12 hours a day. That’s what I was doing on the weekends for four and a half years. I would go back to work. And when I would go to Vitamin Shoppe, whatever I took notes on, I was testing it during the week.
Data Dave
Okay?
Sabir Semerkant
Yep. And Jeff Horowitz gave me that freedom to do that. He gave me that freedom to do that. During that time, I learned everything in e-commerce, everything that tv, radio, and direct marketing was complaining about, infomercial marketing, and stuff like that had to do with data. I’m like, I don’t have that problem.
Data Dave
I don’t have that problem.
Sabir Semerkant
I have every type of data I need.
Data Dave
Yeah. What you’re probably finding as well is the pace of return on your experiments in the e-commerce side versus traditional marketing was speed. It was tremendously fast. Within a week, you’d make a change, and you’d know whether it was successful or not.
Sabir Semerkant
Oh, yeah, everything. To me, that’s one of the key lessons also from this experience. One, the data is telling you what’s happening. It’s either working or not working. If it’s not working, change the variables. Be a chemist, be an engineer, change the variables. Retest it, retest it. Retest on a different thesis. And if that works, great, move forward. If it doesn’t work, move on.
Don’t get it all emotional like, “Why didn’t it work? I’m a smart guy. My daughter’s photo is in this. My wife did the testimonial. Why didn’t it work?” No, it didn’t work. Move on. Because you’re writing a check, such an expensive check with that ego and opinion that your bank account is not going to be able to cash. So, stop that as quickly as possible. That’s a gigantic lesson for every listener here. The data tells you the truth. It tells you and it tells you unbiased. Worked or did not work. Work? Scale that and test. Can you scale it? If it didn’t work, move on.
I was studying this part of it too. I didn’t realize that I was studying psychology, which I don’t have any background in back then. Then I learned quite a lot about psychology. Later I’ve been learning a lot about these kind of different areas that I had no clue on. It’s like Neo from Matrix. Like, I had to download all this stuff and go like, “Oh, psychology, I need to learn that.” You know, I have no idea what that is, right? So I learned that. And that was the beginning part of it.
Back then, the attention span was between 12 to 15 seconds, 25 years ago. Can you guess, Alexis? Can you guess what it is in 2025?
Alexis
If it was 12 to 15, I’m gonna say like 2 to 5.
Sabir Semerkant
It’s 1.7 seconds.
1.7 seconds. It’s actually measured. So, it’s 1.7 seconds. And what happens above one second? This is all measured by the way. Every second above that 1.7 seconds.
And there’s a KPI on the nerd side of it. I’ll share with you what that KPI is that you need to pay attention to. That’s equivalent of consumer attention span. Every second above that 1.7 seconds, you’re losing 7% of conversions.
Alexis
Wow.
Sabir Semerkant
So, think about the revenue loss side of the equation, and also think about all the ad money that you spend on your business.
Data Dave
Right.
Sabir Semerkant
So that ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) not growing. It has to do with you not optimizing your business to consumer attention span.
So once I started understanding that. So, speed. Yes, speed is important. Consumer attention span is important because the first three things you give them on that first page before they scroll on the mouse back then and then nowadays. This is the device. It’s not a desktop. This is the device.
And by how much percentage? 72% of e-commerce sales and traffic come from this device. In the United State, that’s an iPhone device, first. Second device is Samsung Galaxy family of products. Right? This is what you need to optimize for. Desktop represents 20%. Where’s the other 8% going to? Tablets.
And on average, that’s what the numbers are. For some businesses, I’ve seen it go all the way upwards of for the 80% or more even. Right. Wow.
So for 2025, permission for all Data Dave listeners; ignore the desktop completely. Like literally don’t think about it not existing. If your developer or designer is on a Zoom meeting and shows a beautiful desktop site, go like, “Could you right-click on that and turn that into mobile iPhone 12 Pro emulation? I want to see how it appears on an iPhone.” Or better yet, if you can afford it, use a software like BrowserStack. Yep. Which actually shows you how the page renders on a mobile.
So that’s what it is. It’s like every second, 7%.
So, what is the tech nerd side of the KPI? Use GT Metrics. GT Metrics is a site performance tool. Gtmetric.com Go there, get the pro plan. It’s worth it. It costs less than cup of coffee per day. It’s like really cheap. But it gives you so much revenue uplift. It’s incredible.
They recently got acquired by someone because the tool is phenomenal. You put it in when it comes back with a ribbon that shows you your site performance and how page is loading. And every one of those seconds matters. The KPI is called “Time to Interactive.”
Time to interactive needs to be below 1.7 seconds.
Alexis
Yeah.
Sabir Semerkant
And for an average Shopify site out there in 2025. The average is 28 seconds.
Data Dave
Wow.
Sabir Semerkant
This is why Rapid2x grows these Ecom businesses by 118%.
This is like.. the work that you do is very intentional. I’m going to give you this week, 5 tasks I need you to complete. “How long does that take, Sabir?” 15 minutes to 90 minutes per day. “What do I do with the rest of my time?” Take your kids to a baseball game. I don’t know. You have plenty of time on your hands.
Don’t waste it on garbage. Stuff like things that you watched on a TikTok or somebody told you that’s a cool idea to change the creative on an ad test to get a ROAS up. No, the house is not in order. Let’s fix the house first.
Data Dave
Absolutely.
Sabir Semerkant
You go down the line and go and fix ads. Because Gary Vee says you need to do audience testing. He’s a brother of mine, good friend. I can tell you that’s much down the line. First, fix this. The foundation. Fix this part of it first.
Everything leads here. Everything leads here. Organic search, email marketing, Meta ads, Google Ads, your YouTube channel that links to the thing. All of that lands here. Fix this first.
So, the first dimension in the 8D method is Performance Optimization. You already invested in a stack marketing and tech stack. I already know what that is with a Shopify, Klaviyo, Google Ads, Meta ads, organic search, organic social. I know all these things that you have already invested, and most of you have fix that in this process. The first six weeks is the ridiculous growth that you get from this experience.
The metaphor I use is, “I pull an elephant out of an ant’s butt during these six weeks.” That’s the level of performance increase you’re going to get from this. And some folks that come into the program, they go like, “Well, I hired a guy that did CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) optimization. They got us up by 30% and stuff.”
Like, “Okay, wait till you go through these six weeks.” They go through, they get another 79% increase.
Like, “What did the guy do for me? I paid him $25,000 to do that stuff for me.”
Like, “I don’t know. You paid the guy. What did you buy?”
Data Dave
Right?
Sabir Semerkant
“If I’m able to squeeze out another 79%, what did you really get from that person?” So that’s the thing, like being very purpose-driven, being very intelligent about what you’re focused on. And what exactly are you working on? I call these Rapid2X prescriptions. Actually, you follow like a doctor would prescribe to you.
Data Dave
That’s a core target that you just made, which is “Time to Interactive has to be less than two seconds.” Nothing else counts. If you’re not interactive within two seconds, you may as well forget showing the page.
Sabir Semerkant
You already lost people. This is one of the reasons.
Data Dave
You’ve already lost people. So, you’re using the data, using the analysis, and you’re driving it to a very, very single specific target, which is, “I don’t care what I put in front of people. If somebody can’t interact with it, they’ve already gone before they’ve even decided whether they going to interact or not.”
Sabir Semerkant
And the next level is intermediate dimensions, which is 2, 3, 4, 5.
Dimension two is Pricing Optimization. Now, we got our pricing down because you have to do intelligent pricing strategy. Bundling. You have to understand why people buy, how people buy.
The third dimension is Customer UX (User Experience) Customers. People. Yeah, shocker. You know, people go through your site; they make purchases. How is their experience when somebody comes in? What is their intent for buying from you? Why did they click on your ad? Because we have to take this digital journey that they’re taking, and we have to turn it analog. How do we do that?
Once we go through Dimension 3 of Customer UX Optimization, then we move into Marketing and Storytelling. Because people don’t buy products nowadays, they buy stories.
Alexis
Yes.
Sabir Semerkant
Are you telling them relatable stories? Are you telling them how you fit into the problem that they’re facing? That’s what they’re buying.
Data Dave
You’re taking this back because… you’re peeling it back to what my mother would have always said and my father would have always said, which is, “At the end of the day, people sell to people.”
Sabir Semerkant
Yep. Right.
Data Dave
And so you’ve just turned a significant part of the industry on its head and taken us back to probably mid-1900s and so, where people sell to people first.
You’ve added a few things on the front of that, where you’ve said the engagement has changed, but at the end of the day, people sell to people first.
Sabir Semerkant
Yep. People buy from people. This is why I tend to not use the terms like D2C, B2C, B2B. It’s all P2P. It’s all P2P. It’s people to people. That’s what it is. Right. And the more you bring it closer and closer to that term, the transactional aspect of it goes away.
Data Dave
Right.
Sabir Semerkant
And after we have built on this foundation of marketing and storytelling, and storytelling is amazing now in 2025.
Alexis
It’s why you’re on this podcast, and it’s why we started this podcast. It’s so you can tell your story. It’s so we can tell Dave’s story. Like, that’s, that’s the point.
Sabir Semerkant
You know, that’s what it is, right? That’s what we are buying, right? We’re buying this relatable stories that we can all tell.
And the next level up from there is… you got your marketing story telling, right? The next dimension up is Product Positioning and Brand Building. Brand Building is another level up from marketing and storytelling. The product positioning is – your product is not for everybody. In fact, work really hard on ignoring people and everything you do down the line because of your product positioning now, marketing, storytelling, customer lifecycle, performance optimization, everything you have on that product page, FAQs, everything will be dedicated to that age of life, right?
That’s part of the product positioning that you need to do. This is your core foundation of your business. Then we go to 6, 7, and 8.
Six is Logistics.
The next dimension, Tech Stack Optimization and Implementation, is the next one. That’s dimension seven.
Number eight. This is why I keep this one to the very last, because a lot of leaders tend to blame people first when they’re thinking about optimization. And dimension eight is Team Optimization. That’s number eight.
How do you establish all these eight dimensions so that everyone on your team should know where this company is going, and they should also know what lane are they in so that they are optimizing their tasks and they’re getting those things done. And, as an owner, you’re the orchestrator. You’re standing there as a music conductor. You’re conducting all this beautiful music. You don’t want any kind of nasty noise in the room. You want this amazing, beautiful music, not this chaos. So, that’s why team optimization is really, really critical in that.
And that covers eight dimensions that you need to do. And e-commerce is a multidimensional game.
Alexis
Sabir, this has been super informative. I love hearing the passion behind your project here. Behind GrowthbySabir. It’s been awesome to hear, kind of, everything about those eight dimensions in the Rapid2x program. Before I completely cut us off, Dave do you have any other follow-up questions? Anything else? I feel like sometimes I end the podcast and you’re like, “No, Alexis, I had more.”
Data Dave
No, I think that’s a fabulous story. I think it’s a great story, and I love the eight dimensions. I love the focus on data, and the level of focus is actually tremendous in it. I’m using the word focus way too much. But, but the level of focus to keep coming back to that data and the lessons learned and the focus on this, then the next one, then the next one, and the cascade, and just following that data, following the knowledge that you’re gaining from the data. I love it. I love the eight dimensions.
You’ve given me some homework to go look at because I think that’s a really, really interesting approach and structure, and it’s going to be really interesting to see how this continues to grow out.
Alexis
Dave’s over there going , “D3Clarity.com…let’s look at that.”
Sabir Semerkant
I do want to give for people to learn more about it. We have actually set up a very special link for all of your listeners with a special offer.
GrowthbySabir.com/DataDave
Just like this podcast. So, we have set up that special URL with a special offer, and the site is very rich with a lot of great content. You can consume it while you learn about the 8D method and the Rapid2x program, and get access to a complimentary copy of my book. Can definitely get that. And then if you are a fit for the program, you do go through an interview process to see if you’re a fit, and then we accept you into the program, and then we’ll take you on that Rapid2x journey.
Alexis
That’s awesome. So, check out the comments, check out the description here, check it out on LinkedIn, YouTube ,wherever you are listening to this podcast, check out that link. And again, Sabir, thank you so much for being with us today. It’s been wonderful.
Data Dave
Yes, thank you very much.
Sabir Semerkant
It has been a blast. Thank you for having me.
Data Dave
You’re welcome. Thank you.
