Founder Spotlight: Jimmy Cassells of Spiralytics

Founder Spotlight: Jimmy Cassells of Spiralytics

Mastering The Art and Science of Digital Marketing

By Michaela Villaroman

Marketing serves as a powerful tool for any business to succeed, and with the digital age comes its evolution as both a science and an art. It has become imperative to ground strategies in data and analytics while also utilizing creativity in its execution.

With the need to understand and evolve with the ever-changing practice, Spiralytics took the opportunity to hone the many disciplines involved in effective marketing to deliver a full-service to clients. “I call it marketing engineering. Another way to describe it might be ‘Mad Men meet Math Men,’” explains Jimmy Cassells, the Co-Founder and CEO of Spiralytics.

Engineer to Entrepreneur

Before Spiralytics or any of his entrepreneurial endeavors, Jimmy started out with a physics degree from Rutgers University. However, he quickly realized that the field wasn’t for him. He shares, “When I spent the summer in a lab with no windows and a professor that I couldn’t talk to, I realized I didn’t want to pursue physics anymore, so I started applying to engineering schools to see if they’d let me in.”

He then enrolled in Stanford University under MS Manufacturing Systems Engineer to test out his newfound interest for engineering. At the time, he was only focused on learning the craft; he didn’t have any ideas of starting his own venture. Jimmy explains, “It was a very entrepreneurial school, but I was still trying to transfer from physics to engineering and then figure out what I wanted to do.”

His first job was as a Solution Architect. At the time, it was a fast-growing startup for supply chain software. “I was employee number 300, and by the time I left them, there were around 6,000 employees. I saw that. I had a lot of inspiration watching them grow, watching how they were doing hiring, and how the organization structure and work processes changed to adapt. It was very fascinating,” he shares.

Jimmy then transferred to Cypress Semiconductor, another Silicon Valley company, which eventually led him to the Philippines in 2005. He was sent out to help improve operations and implement software to optimize the throughput and on-time delivery of their factories in the Philippines. The supposed two-year project turned four-year assignment ultimately lead him to a new opportunity. “Right around 2009, someone approached me to help build a business plan and pitch it to an investor. That turned out to be the Raining Pesos financial comparison platform.” Jimmy joined the team and they were able to raise funding, successfully turning their concept into reality. “That was my first trial in entrepreneurship,” he says.

As a first-time entrepreneur, Jimmy highlighted the need to learn and adapt as fast as possible. Aside from learning how to build and run a company, he also took the time to deeply understand online marketing. He would often experiment at least two to three hours a day learning the ins and outs of how to effectively advertise online.

Raining Pesos operated for three more years before the team decided to stop. “We were growing but very slow. It was barely enough to pay for the employees,” he says. The decision to end the startup made him consider returning to California to work again. At the time, he was interviewing at Google and Facebook.

By random chance, Jimmy bumped into Paulo Campos, the founder of Zalora, at a lunch with his friends. “Paulo was in pre-launch mode, pitching to designer friends of mine to put their products on Zalora,” he recalled, “I kind of asked him who’s handling digital for Zalora. He said, ‘Part of the team is there, but we really need some help. I’m back in town Tuesday let’s talk.’

We had lunch Tuesday, and I formally started on Thursday for Zalora as their head of digital marketing.”

A year later, Zalora took their marketing department to Singapore, but Jimmy stayed in the Philippines and decided to start his next venture, Spiralytics.

Spiraling To Success

Spiralytics offers marketing solutions backed by analytics to ensure that the best strategies for building businesses are executed. As a digital performance marketing company, their services include content marketing, online advertising, search engine optimization, social media, marketing automation, analytics, lead generation, and e-commerce optimization. Jimmy explains, “In the Philippine market, we’re definitely one of the first companies to bring expertise in all disciplines.”

Taking the skills he gained from his prior experiences, Jimmy was able to apply the many disciplines of marketing to Spiralytics’ core competencies. “Raining Pesos taught me lead generation, analytics, and all the tools to achieve success. Zalora taught me advanced online advertising, plus the ecommerce side. So if you look at Spiralytics, that’s what we offer now.”

Jimmy shares that he can’t help but heavily involve himself in ensuring that Spiralytics meets its promises for their clients. “If for some reason, we’re not growing their business, I really take that personally. It’s kind of like my ideas didn’t work.” He says that their team follows a core process to ensure that they would always deliver. “If we don’t grow a company, then it’s either we weren’t following the process, or I need to improve the process and innovate it so that we can grow a company like that in the future. It’s continuous learning, that’s what we do.” We are also automating many areas of the business to ensure quality delivery and results.

Whether an enterprise or a small business, Spiralytics offers services that are available for all kinds of clients. According to Jimmy, they “want to be there for the journey.”

With their expertise and proven track record, Spiralytics has expanded their services worldwide. They currently have offices in the Philippines, North America, and the United Kingdom to service their numerous clients from all over the world. “But the best is yet to come,” Jimmy happily shares.

For anyone interested in learning more about their services, you may visit their website here.