About Robert

Always One of the Tech Experts in the Group

By the 3rd grade, Robert was being pulled out of class to help in his school’s computer lab on a daily basis. In high school, while many students were enjoying their summer break, Robert was working on internet-controlled robotics projects at a major university in order to compete in the Siemens Westinghouse Competition. He’s always had a love for technology.

Early Start at Mixing Technology with Business

Robert grew up around a family business that manufactured, wholesaled, and retailed handbags, purses, and other accessories. His grandparents started the business, and his parents inherited it. In early elementary school, Robert was helping stamp shipping labels with the company’s account information and joining his father on trips to suppliers in New York’s garment district. Robert’s first business experiences were hands-on, and foundational. In his childhood, business was part of family life.

As the years went on, Robert brought computers and other equipment into the business - setting up accounting software, label printers and other tech that was still very early for its time. Later on, the purse business would be one of Robert’s first experiences in ecommerce.

Passionate About Critical Thinking and Consensus Building

Beyond his interest in technology, Robert was frequently active with Student Government, Debate, Mock Trial, and other activities that required methodical approaches and communication styles. He’s always found balance between activities that require IQ and EQ.

Technical and Practical Focus on Education

During his undergraduate studies at Polytechnic University (now the NYU Tandon School of Engineering), Robert traveled throughout Southeast Asia for a semester abroad, and worked multiple on-campus jobs. From cold-calling alumni and giving campus tours, to being a teaching assistant and a research assistant, to assisting with operations at Engineering Conferences International - an on-campus organization, Robert gained practical real-world experiences that served him well as he began his career.

Rolling Up His Sleeves

After college, Robert worked for an international travel organization, taking on a role as their Assistant Director for North American Operations. In that role, Robert helped with everything from organizing conferences and conventions, to cold-calling colleges and schools to win new accounts for student travel programs, to bringing technological improvements into the organization. It was a diverse job for someone who thrives in roles with lots of moving parts.

Then, in 2007, Robert joined his brother, Seth Rand, who had just begun a digital marketing agency - Icon Website Design, in partnership with a local printing company. First, Robert brought his operational experience into the business, bringing organization to the chaos that came with the fast takeoff of the business. Then, he hired a sales team, set up auto-dialing software, and managed business development and sales.

As the agency business found its footing, Robert re-focused on operations. The firm had started with graphic design, web design, SEO, and printing. Robert brought his tech background into the mix, expanding into web hosting, email marketing, social media marketing, and other technical services.

Rand Marketing

With the expansion of the business, the Rand brothers stepped out and built up Rand Marketing as a standalone business, becoming an industry leader in ecommerce, Google Ads, SEO, and a variety of other services. In order to meet customer demand, the team expanded to support needs like payment processing - which was crucial for launching ecommerce sites.

In 2017, when the business was acquired and the Rands exited, the team had spent multiple years on the Inc. 5000 list. Clients included organizations such as The Florida Panthers, Swiss Gear, Invicta Watches, Brownie Brittle, Kaplan University, Florida State Parks, and hundreds of other organizations. From beer distributors, to electronics manufacturers, to hospital systems, they had a track record of success across verticals and industries for both regional Florida orgs and national/international brands.

Robert functioned as the CTO/COO, scaling and coaching the teams. He led all complex ecommerce sales. He spoke on stage at a variety of ecommerce and other events. He addressed technical challenges that could impact client success - from conducting deep dives into analytics, auditing struggling SEO and PPC campaigns, and coming up with ecommerce conversion rate optimization for orgs that weren’t getting the desired ROI.

Seth and Robert could fill in for each other in most areas while keeping a healthy balance. Seth took on the role of CEO and all-around sales and marketing guru, bringing his entrepreneurial spirit to the forefront. Robert kept the ship sailing smoothly as the operations and tech leader.

As with many family businesses, everyone wore a lot of hats, and pitched in for bigger efforts - like Ecommerce Expo South Florida, the annual event that the company hosted. Robert would organize speakers, sponsors, and other logistics to keep people wanting to come back for more… and showcasing Rand Marketing as industry leaders.

Robert was known to represent the company at tradeshows and events across the USA, and to constantly be pitching prospects, creating blog and other content as an industry expert, and onboarding and managing partnerships. He helped the 40-person agency beat out much larger teams for projects, earn referrals and other resources from partner organizations, and bring new tech and opportunities to Rand Marketing’s client base.

While Robert loved many facets of the business - especially helping so many businesses and organizations grow and thrive - partnerships and alliances were his passion. Robert had managed a Google Premier Partnership, become an early Shopify Plus partner, managed relationships with Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, PayPal, Cloudflare, Rackspace, Avalara, Magento, BigCommerce, and dozens of other organizations. It was transformative for the agency, and for Robert.

From Service to Product

Rand Marketing helped a variety of tech companies with their go-to-market needs - from OroCRM to SalesWarp and SimpleHelix, but nChannel was Robert’s first experience working within a tech company. Having managed an informal alliance with nChannel for years, stepping in as their VP of Alliances seemed like a natural fit. Robert was able to build a partnership program, onboard new tech partners, reinvigorate old ones, and build up a range of new agency and VAR partners.

Next, Robert headed to ADF, where he brought their new JetRails brand to market as their head of partnerships and marketing. From forging deep relationships with tech organizations such as AWS, to building partnerships with over 100 web development, ecommerce, and system integration teams, Robert scaled the brand and the partnership programs for over 4 years. Robert also hosted 100 episodes of The JetRails Podcast, helping to keep the org top-of-mind in key ecosystems, and helping the JetRails partner network gain more market presence.

Most recently, Robert served as the Chief Partnership Officer at iPaaS.com for over 3 years. When he joined, the SaaS product was live, but there was no commercial engine behind the business. Robert built out sales, marketing, and partnership systems and roles, and led commercial operations, taking the company from being a brand-new entrant in the market to being a go-to partner and vendor in key ERP, ecommerce, PIM, POS, nonprofit software, payment processing, and other communities.

From agreements and SLAs, to Tech and SI partnerships, to building a marketplace of integrations, onboarding referral and resale partners, building partner training programs, aligning product roadmaps with demand, building automation into the business, and leading amazing team members, Robert set up a scalable framework for both growth and retention operations.