A Long-Term Bet on B2B eCommerce with the Founders of OroCommerce

In this special episode, the original founders of OroCommerce — Yoav Kutner, Dima Soroka, and Jary Carter — join the B2B Uncut podcast for a behind-the-scenes conversation about what it took to build a B2B eCommerce platform before the market was ready.

They share how their early experience at Magento shaped their thinking, why OroCommerce was never just a pivot from CRM, and what it means to build for long-term customer success in a landscape obsessed with trends. If you want a front-row seat to what B2B vision looks like and the patience it demands, this is the episode to hear.

Key Takeaways
(01:32) How the OroCommerce founders originally met at Magento
(04:18) How CRM led to commerce — and why not everyone agreed at first
(06:40) Why a CRM foundation made OroCommerce stronger
(09:38) The dangers of chasing trends instead of solving problems
(12:55) The long-term vision: faster time-to-market and real ROI
(15:20) How the product roadmap evolved from CRM roots to full B2B commerce
(17:55) Where OroCommerce sees B2B eCommerce heading over the next five years
(25:20) The difference between true B2B architecture and B2B add-ons
(27:55) What’s changed (and hasn’t) in the eCommerce platform landscape
(31:30) How AI is starting to reshape B2B buying and operations
(34:36) Practical early AI use cases in manufacturing and distribution
(37:53) How OroCommerce balances AI experimentation without technical debt
(40:30) The story behind Jary Carter’s return to OroCommerce — and what’s next

Transcript

Aaron: Welcome back to the B2B Uncut podcast, sponsored by OroCommerce. We have another very special episode today. This is the first three-guest episode we’ve ever had on this podcast — and the three guests are very special. They’re the original co-founders of OroCommerce.

It took a bit of coordination to get everyone in the same place at the same time, but we’re thrilled to have you all here. Can each of you briefly say who you are and what your role is at OroCommerce? Then we’ll dig into some big, maybe even existential questions about the history of the company, the product’s purpose, and the future of B2B eCommerce. Yoav, let’s start with you. What do you do here?

Yoav: I’m the Co-founder and CEO. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last few years.

Aaron: Fantastic. Dima?

Dima: I’m CTO at Oro. I lead our research and development team.

Aaron: And last but not least, Jary Carter.

Jary: I’m Jary. I’m the CRO here, leading sales, marketing, and our go-to-market initiatives.

Aaron: Perfect. And because I report to you, Jary, I should also say that you’re not only a handsome man but a powerful one as well.
Alright, first question has to go to you, Yoav, since you’re the CEO. How did the three of you originally meet to found this company?

Yoav: We actually met at Magento. I co-founded that company back in the day — a very different era of eCommerce. Dima and I met in 2006 in Ukraine when I flew over to meet the team working on the Magento project. It was love at first sight — for me, at least. We’ve been working together ever since. We collaborated on Magento through the early years up to the eBay acquisition. Dima started as one of the developers and became the lead architect. Jary joined a little later — I think in 2008?

Jary: Yeah, around 2009.

Yoav: He led our global sales. So we all came from Magento. When I left eBay in 2012, the rest of the team started leaving as well. And honestly, our first motivation wasn’t even about what to build — we just wanted to keep working together. That was the starting point. We had a good rhythm, we knew how to challenge each other in the right ways, and we wanted to keep that going.

Jary: One of my earliest memories of working with Yoav was at a big company party after the eBay acquisition. I had interviewed with him but didn’t really know him. He was the founder and CTO, kind of had this cool, rockstar vibe, doing all the product and tech stuff. We were on different sides of the business. But at this party, we ended up doing karaoke together. We sang “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” by the Beastie Boys. I’ll never forget it. I just remember thinking, “This is the coolest moment ever — Yoav and I are screaming Beastie Boys lyrics at a corporate event.” With Dima, our relationship was a lot more mellow. We started spending time together around the office. And then, when we decided we wanted to do something, we all just started meeting and hanging out. The rest is history, as they say.

Aaron: That’s a fantastic meet-cute. I like that. That’s a good story. I guess the Pretty Woman quote was actually applicable.
So Jary, I’ll cue the next question to you then. You’ve all talked about how you started Oro because you wanted to keep working together — which is a good and laudable reason. But why OroCommerce? Why B2B eCommerce? What led you to the idea that B2B was this underserved use case and that there was a gap in the market?

Jary: It’s interesting, because when we first started the business — I’m probably the worst person to answer this question. Dima and Yoav actually dragged me, kicking and screaming, into building a B2B eCommerce product. When we first came together, we all had the idea that there was an opportunity for a CRM, generally, in the eCommerce space. There was this idea that you could build a multi-channel eCommerce CRM. And other CRM products were more B2B-focused but didn’t serve the growing eCommerce market. So we started building the CRM product, and Yoav and Dima had this really strong intuition that we needed to build a B2B eCommerce platform — that it would take all the CRM features we’d built and enhance them by allowing us to facilitate this buyer-seller interaction.

But I was the one saying, “I don’t know if we should do this.” I thought maybe we should just stick with the CRM. We were seeing initial traction and some success. There was a market for it. And building a commerce product is a long haul — it’s a big, big vision.
As Yoav likes to say, we didn’t lose a single line of code in transitioning from a standalone CRM to a commerce platform. And it turned out to be the right bet. Now, looking in the rearview, it’s so obvious that there was this huge gaping hole. Companies were doing B2B eCommerce, but no one was doing it really well. That’s what we found — that there was this opportunity. And what we’ve done is build B2B eCommerce really well, from the ground up. It’s been awesome. But I take no credit for it. They had to drag me into this.

Aaron: Good answer. Dima, then the follow-up is to you. Can you go into a little more depth on what Jary was talking about? Why would CRM be a springboard into B2B commerce? Jary said you didn’t lose a line of code — how did that work practically? And how did you see the audiences for those two categories of software actually come together?

Dima: Very good question, Aaron. First of all, let’s address why we started with CRM. At Magento, we saw a lot of integrations with different CRMs like Salesforce, SugarCRM, and others — and all of those integrations were a little bit clunky. There were a lot of challenges you had to overcome to do a proper integration. On the flip side, we also saw Magento being used as a CRM in many cases. It had a pretty robust back office, and there were multiple implementations where it was acting like a CRM. But the Magento back office wasn’t designed for that. If you looked at it from a permissions perspective, or from a data structure perspective — the framework just wasn’t meant for it.

That’s where we saw a big opportunity — to bring a CRM that plays well with Magento. And as Jary mentioned, our vision was a multi-channel CRM. Magento was the first channel we integrated with, and that became our go-to-market strategy.
Once you’re working with a CRM, one of the main use cases is to support the sales team. A big set of CRM functions are designed specifically for that. And the sales team plays an essential role in B2B commerce — because when you sell to another company, you can’t eliminate the sales team. You need to empower them with the right tools and the right functions.

That makes the B2B sales process even stronger. That’s why the transition from CRM to B2B commerce was very logical. And we continue to provide all the CRM functionality to the sales teams that are using OroCommerce.

Aaron: That’s a great answer. It feels like the world is finally catching up with the idea that CRM and eCommerce for B2B shouldn’t be completely separate. To be adopted successfully, you need them together. I think that’s finally being recognized by more and more companies — and analysts too. Yoav, next question’s for you. This one’s broad and open-ended, so take it wherever you want. Just keep in mind we’re recording. How has your vision evolved over the years? There’s been a lot of change in technology — we’ve seen fads, or let’s call them trends. And we’re seeing more acknowledgment now that B2B commerce is its own thing. So how has your vision changed — or has it?

Yoav: I’ll start by saying I have a feeling you’ll ask me about AI later, so I’ll leave that out of this vision part for now. Just talking about tech and commerce and where we are — I think a lot of the time, technology is leading the customer, and not always in a good way. Before I talk about my vision, I want to acknowledge the landscape we’ve been in for a while now. The role of tech companies should be to solve real problems customers have and provide solutions that help them get where they need to go. But as technologists, we sometimes get too deep in the weeds. We get excited about technology and trends and forget what customers actually need. We end up pushing things on them they didn’t ask for and don’t benefit from.

Sometimes we take them on these wild goose chases, and they end up losing because of it. So for me, the part of my vision that hasn’t changed is our role — to solve problems for customers. That’s something I’ve believed in for over 30 years in tech. That hasn’t changed.
What has changed is that we need to keep looking at what new problems customers are facing, and what new technologies we can use to solve those problems better, faster, cheaper, and more reliably. That’s where the focus should be in tech — and it’s where our focus is at OroCommerce. We always start with: what are the problems, and how can we build a product that solves them in the most efficient way?

To name some of the trends you mentioned — composable, headless. I think they’re great solutions if they’re used appropriately. But what we’ve seen is overuse — or worse, people treating them like religion. “This is the only way to develop,” without even asking what problem it’s supposed to solve. That’s why those trends stay trends. They don’t take over the market because they’re not always solving the right problems. And frankly, we’ve seen a lot of implementations go badly because of that. When it comes to my vision, I think we still need to push — and again, leaving AI aside — we need to focus on delivering projects faster for customers.

The conversation about cloud vs. no cloud? That’s over. Ninety-nine percent of our customers use our cloud. We’ve solved that. They don’t have to worry about hosting, server maintenance, uptime, security, penetration testing — all of that. It’s off their plate. That’s where we’ve evolved as an industry, and that’s where we’ve evolved as a platform.

Another part of the vision is time to market. With the right platform and solutions, we can get customers up and running much faster today. Even at the enterprise level, we can deliver results in months, not years. If you look back 5 or 10 years, enterprise implementations took two to three years. Now we can launch in a fraction of that time. That’s huge.

We need to help our customers get something live — test it, learn, improve. It’s the same as product development: get it into the market, then iterate. That’s what we need to deliver for our customers too. They shouldn’t have to wait years before they see a return. Fast ROI is critical, and that’s part of our vision.

We’re also pretty skeptical — some would say suspicious — of trends. That’s part of our nature. We evaluate new tech deeply, but we don’t jump on every bandwagon. We adopt what’s useful, and we skip what’s not. That will always be part of how we build products.And I’ll just say this, because it’s the most important part: our biggest vision is that if our customers are successful, we’ll be successful. Everything we do comes from the customer’s perspective — how they’ll use the product, how they’ll succeed with it. That’s always at the core of our thinking.

Aaron: I love that answer, because what you’re basically saying is that technology has to serve the business. And if it doesn’t, it’s not useful. I like the contrast you made with cloud — how it started as a trend and now it’s the standard. Everything is assumed to be cloud unless you explicitly opt out. Whereas headless and composable… not so much. Maybe because they’re not really focused on solving business problems — they’re more about technical purity.

Dima, this is a good moment to pivot to you. I’m curious — if we started with CRM and now have a full eCommerce platform with a much broader range of features, how does product focus look different now compared to when you started? Are there features or priorities today that weren’t originally on the roadmap? And how do you see your role as CTO differently than you did twelve or thirteen years ago?

Dima: We started with a vision for what the first version of our product should be — what features it would include, how it would help customers solve their business problems. It was quite a journey to get there, just getting that first version out.

At this point, we’re operating with live customers. And as Yoav mentioned, customer success is our key priority. We listen to them. We understand their pain points. We hear about the additional problems they want to solve by using our platform. That has a huge impact on our roadmap.

So first of all, we’re focused on building features that help our customers be more successful. But at the same time, we’re a product company — and that means we also have to be pioneers in some areas. We need to lead innovation. We need to help drive our customers forward and bring new capabilities to them. That’s the other side of our focus.

We’re working on many features right now — and I will use the buzzword — with AI. We’ve developed a number of features that use AI technologies to automate and optimize processes, both for the buyer and the seller on the back office side.
So I would say our two main focus areas are customer needs and innovation. That’s where we continue to invest, and it’s where our product team keeps pushing forward.

Aaron: Got it. Okay, Jary — where do you see the company in the next five years? I’m asking because, given the history here, it seems like Oro started as a drop of water that rippled outward. There are clearly some priorities and values that haven’t changed, but the range of features and use cases the platform supports today is way bigger than it was at the start. So five years from now, what does that look like? Can Oro heat up a microwave meal? Can it vacuum your floors? Is there anything Oro won’t be able to do?

Jary: All of the above. But seriously, I think Dima and Yoav already touched on the most important thing: we look at Oro through the lens of customer success. That’s what matters most. If we have happy, successful customers growing on our platform in five years, that’s success to me. Yoav talked about our focus on making customers’ lives easier — especially around implementation, upgrades, product enhancements, adopting new features. That’s all about reducing complexity and helping them move faster.

And then there’s another piece I think about. Over the past several years, we’ve spent a lot of time building this massive product. It’s robust, fully featured, and has great capabilities. And I’ll tell you — we were on a call earlier today, and I said I’m so proud of the product we’ve built. When we demo it, people are impressed. There’s just nothing like it on the market.

So over the next three to five years, our job is to get that message out — to new customers, to existing ones — and show them how we can make their lives easier and add value to their business.

There’s a lot of digital transformation happening right now in B2B — and I know that’s a loaded term, but however you define it, it’s real. I think we’re going to see huge tectonic shifts. Legacy players are going to be massively disrupted by newer, more innovative companies that are thinking digital-first.

It’s an exciting time to be in the market. And my hope is that Oro is the one enabling those disruptors — just like we did with Magento. Back then, we democratized and simplified how people could enter their market and change their industry. I think we’re doing the same thing now with OroCommerce. And it’s really exciting.

Aaron: That’s a good answer. We could turn this into a drinking game — every time someone says “digital transformation,” take a shot.

Jary: I know, right? All I’ve got is water here.

Aaron: I’ll send you something. Well, that’s a nice setup to the next question — and you kind of started answering it already. You used the word “robust,” which I’ll accept for now, but what I’m actually getting at is competitive advantage. What sets OroCommerce apart from our competitors in the B2B commerce space? And you can’t just say “we’re robust” again — you already used that one. Time to get creative.
Jary: Got it. That’s me. I wasn’t sure where you were going with the “robust” thing. You lost me for a second there — but okay, I’m back.
We talk about this all the time. The reality is, every other eCommerce platform I know of was built first with B2C in mind. So you’ve got platforms where the assumption is: Jary wants to buy a pair of shoes. He logs in, finds his size, buys them, ships them to his house, and that’s it. The account is tied to me as an individual.

But in B2B, the world is way more complex. An account might be a massive organization with hundreds of buyers. Each buyer might need a different experience. You may want to personalize the products they can see, what they’re allowed to buy, even what budgets they can spend from.

Then there’s checkout — it’s not just a simple one-step process or credit card payment. A B2B buyer might need payment terms, ACH, corporate credit. Shipping might be pallet-based, not UPS or USPS. There’s a whole different set of options to manage.
And pricing — that’s a whole topic by itself. You might have customer-specific pricing, contract pricing, volume tiers. We’ve built features to support all of that.

When we talk to B2B companies, these are the things they’re struggling with. Not to mention the complexity of integrating with their ERP system or other mission-critical platforms. They want to surface that data to their customers — and we support that.

Most of our competitors either haven’t thought about this — or, at best, they’ve tried to adapt by bolting on B2B capabilities to what started as a B2C platform. But it’s like trying to make a Toyota Camry drive like a race car. You can upgrade it all you want, but at a certain point, it just wasn’t built for that.

Aaron: How fast can you get your Camry up to, Jary? Just curious.

Jary: I won’t say. The police might be listening. But at least 85 miles per hour.

Aaron: Alright, that’ll do fine on the 5. You’ll be flying past everyone. Now Toyota can sponsor the podcast, right? Toyota Racing. That’s what we need. Alright, Dima — pivoting from that and going back to something Yoav mentioned earlier about technology. When you all founded Oro, the CRM came first and then commerce followed. At that time, organizations like the MACH Alliance didn’t exist. Even cloud-based SaaS was still relatively new — this was 2012. Cloud hadn’t yet taken over the world the way it has now. So why is OroCommerce architected the way it is? Has it evolved in your mind? And do you expect it to evolve further in the future? If you had to make a prediction — what’s next?

Dima: This is a good question. In the technology world, I think we all take it as a given that tech always evolves. It never stays in the same place — there’s something new almost every day.

Looking back at the technology we had when we started OroCommerce and comparing it to now — it’s similar, but it’s also a different world. As you mentioned, Aaron, cloud started as a trend back then. Over time, cloud and the architectural principles that go with it have evolved and become industry standards.

So you can’t really ignore something that’s becoming standard. We saw that shift and understood we had to go in that direction. We had to be open to it.

It’s the same with things like MACH — where you combine multiple architectural principles into one broader marketing message. There’s definitely something valid behind it. Microservices? Yes, we have microservices in our technology stack. API-first? Of course. You can’t imagine a serious application today that doesn’t have APIs. You need that to integrate with the rest of your IT systems. Cloud-first? Obviously. Headless? You need to have it. So on our end, we’re constantly following these technologies and paying attention to the trends that are gaining real adoption. And when they make sense, we enable them. That’s a key principle for us as a tech company — we should never fall behind the curve.

Aaron: Good answer, good answer. So Yoav, you haven’t talked in a while, so I’ve got to ask you a question now — and this one’s more about business changes over time. Dima just talked about how technology has evolved, which you also alluded to earlier. But thinking back — when you started OroCommerce, Magento was still an eBay company. Hybris hadn’t yet been bought by SAP. Demandware hadn’t yet been bought by Salesforce. Interspire had just changed its name to BigCommerce. It was still Mitch and Eddie running it over there. It’s a very different world now. How would you characterize the last decade of business transition and evolution in the eCommerce platform space? Leave technology aside — I mean strictly from a business perspective. What have you seen?

Yoav: So I think, like, following what happened right after — we saw a lot of the big tech giants acquire eCommerce solutions. They picked the one they thought was best, the one they thought they could win with, or whatever. But basically, every big company either refreshed or bought a new solution.

I think we’re ready for another wave now — the next generation of companies coming out. When big companies buy a solution, it’s usually for some kind of strategic vision they have for that product. Sometimes it works — more often, it doesn’t, as we were kind of a part of. But just the fact that they already acquired them, tried to use them, or were unsuccessful in using them — it creates an opening. Now it’s time for new disruptors to come in. The biggest trend I see — and I’ll be nice here — is that B2C has plateaued. It’s not growing anymore. Again, I’m being nice — not trying to poke anyone. But I think the B2C world is now ready for a new way of doing B2C. How to sell to consumers. Because it’s not going to keep being just another website with the same cart and checkout.

We played around, we built all kinds of new and exciting features, and now it’s kind of… flat. There’s one major player that gives you everything, and everyone else looks the same, does the same. That’s when disruption happens. We’re going to see new companies come up with completely different ways of shopping online — or through other devices, or channels, or whatnot. And that’s what’s coming for B2C.
But when we talk about B2B — we’re five to ten years behind. Again, being nice here. Could even be more. But I think we’re still in that early process — baby steps — for a lot of these companies going digital. And I’m not even going to say going online, because who knows what “online” means in five years. I mean truly going digital in how they interact with their customers.

And right now, we’re doing those baby steps with them. I call them baby steps because they’re not leaps. Unlike B2C, where it was tech-first — then figure out how to sell stuff — with B2B, we’re working with companies that have been around for decades. Some over 100 years. This kind of change is a massive internal shift for them — it’s change management at every level. It’s a complete transformation in how they operate and transact with their customers.

What we’re bringing them is the future — a way to stay relevant, to stay in business. That’s what we’re working on, and that’s the trend I’m most excited about. Because there’s still so much to do here.

Aaron: Yeah, exactly. I’ve heard it said that there are two ways to make money in business: bundling and unbundling. And it sounds like what you’re saying is — we’re ready for a new bundling.

We’ve been unbundling for years, and now it’s time to re-bundle and maybe create some new pathways to buying. And that kind of puts me in mind of AI a little bit, and how it’s reshaping consumer behavior — how people interact with technology, where they go to get information, and how they use the systems they already have. So, it’s that time. Time to talk about AI — everyone’s favorite podcast subject for the past 24 months. Yoav, I’ll stick with you. I know you’ve got thoughts. What was the aha moment for you — when you realized that generative AI was going to completely change the global economy?

Yoav: I think the date was November 2022, when ChatGPT was released. That was the moment it really started showing capabilities for the first time. The projects before that — the results were questionable, kind of all over the place. And just to remind everyone — AI before that involved a lot of data and a lot of data analysts. If you didn’t have good data, you couldn’t build anything useful. You couldn’t train a model properly. That’s what generative AI changed. You don’t need a team of data scientists and massive custom models to actually use AI anymore. And I think that’s the biggest shift — and the biggest aha moment — not just for me but for the world. This isn’t just another tech layer. It’s going to change tech — and the world in general.

We’ll see where it goes, but so far, it’s continued to improve, and it’s being applied in different industries already. We’re seeing it with our customers. They’re asking us to implement AI to solve real business problems. And again, it goes back to our vision: solving customer problems. I’m not saying, “Fire everyone and let AI answer your phones.” I don’t think we’re there yet. Some CEOs are doing it — there are a few of them — but I’m not convinced. What we should be doing is evaluating how AI can help the business. What can we do with it today? And how can our tech help customers make use of it? We’ve already got some great examples. One is our purchase order-to-order flow — we call it PO to order. We now have an AI agent that can scan every PO — handwritten, faxed, emailed, called in — and convert it into an order. That takes a lot of load off the sales team. So again, it’s a real-world problem. AI can solve it. But like with any technology, we take small steps, we learn what it can do, and we figure out how it fits into the business.

Unlike some other tech where I say, “Don’t be an early adopter,” this is one where I think you do have to jump in. Start learning how it can help. Start figuring out how the products you already use can help you get value from AI. Because this isn’t just a tech trend — this is going to be a global event once it really hits every business and every part of our lives.

Aaron: That’s good. You actually anticipated some of what I was going to ask Jary next, which is about practical use cases.
Because — thinking back to what we said earlier — B2B businesses are ten to fifteen years behind. And honestly, I think that’s generous, in terms of digital transformation. Everybody take a shot.

Jary: Dima’s already there.

Aaron: So what are we seeing from the world of manufacturing, distribution, supply, wholesale — Jary, are there ways in which you’re seeing our customers and potential customers use AI? What are they excited about when they talk to us?

Jary: I think AI, on the whole, has actually been very good for wholesalers, manufacturers, and distributors. And here’s why.
It’s gotten people who have historically been on the fence about making digital changes more engaged — more open to technology adoption. AI is this big trend, and no one wants to miss out on it. So it’s pushing companies to really look inward at the technology shifts they need to make to stay productive. In practical terms, what I’m seeing today is that generative AI works best in specific pockets — where it can automate simple, redundant tasks. That’s where it’s creating real time and productivity savings for organizations.

Take what Yoav mentioned — Smart Orders. We had a customer who started using that capability. They had been spending 30 minutes per order manually entering order data. After implementing Smart Orders, that dropped to two minutes. They just scan the order, review it for any issues, and submit. It eliminates a ton of reentry and manual work. So right now, I think we’re still at the starting point with AI. But the two most immediate use cases I see are: first, automating repetitive tasks; and second, lowering the development barrier to adopting new technologies.

The hope is that as AI matures, building and deploying software will become a lot more accessible — because you won’t need as much hands-on coding and customization. You’ll be able to move faster. And that’s just the beginning. Over time, as AI gets better, we’re going to see it take on more high-value tasks — not just in B2B tech, but across our personal and professional lives. But I always try to stay grounded: what’s practical, what saves time, what saves money, what makes life easier?

Aaron: Fantastic. Yoav, you mentioned November 2022 — the first version of ChatGPT comes out. And now it feels like there’s a new large language model every six weeks. Every major vendor has their own now — Salesforce has one, SAP has one, Oracle has one.
So Dima, this one’s for you because it’s a technology question: How does a product like OroCommerce strike a balance between integrating closely enough with a model to actually deliver the business value Jary was just talking about — automating routine processes — without locking ourselves into technical debt? How do you stay flexible?

Dima: So at this point, we’re not in the LLM business — yet. We’re not training our own Oro model. But we are experimenting a lot. We’re experimenting on all fronts, and the product is definitely a big area for that.

We’ve already enabled multiple AI-powered features using different models. Right now, our strategy is to integrate with the model that does the job best. We’ve tried a few — we tested Gemini from Google, Claude, OpenAI. And for certain tasks, some models perform better than others. So what we’ve done is keep that layer configurable. That way, even our customers can choose a different model if it works better for their industry or use case. They can plug in the model they prefer and still benefit from the features and experiences we’ve built to automate their processes. That’s probably the magic here — we don’t lock ourselves into one model. We keep it flexible and continue experimenting to find the best fit for every scenario.

Aaron: Fantastic. I think that’s probably the right approach, just given how fast new models are coming out. It’s hard to predict who’s going to be the winner in 12 months — for a specific task, or even just based on who has the lowest token cost. Because I can absolutely see a world where the Smart Order feature is done faster and cheaper by a model — and that’s not even “generative,” right? It’s not a real-time chat. It’s just parsing text from a file. So that totally makes sense.

So the big news at Oro this year is: Jary, you’re here. You were one of the co-founders, but you just came back. You were gone for six years.
I think what people really want to know is: what did Yoav say to drive you away, and what did he say to get you back?

Jary: Well… yeah. It was Yoav’s fault. It’s Yoav’s fault that I’m back. No, I mean — look. We started the business in 2012. And in reality, we spent the first six or seven years building. That was a long time — a lot of work on the tech side. For me, it was a mix of personal circumstances and also just the needs of the business at that time. Early on, we were still building, still getting traction. We didn’t really need a revenue leader to scale go-to-market yet — not like we do now. So I stepped away. I spent six years as CRO at WordPress VIP, part of Automattic. But then toward the end of last year, Yoav and I had this really interesting conversation. We talked about whether the timing was right for me to come back into the business.

And I’d never really left, emotionally. I helped hire sales leadership, helped with team hires. I ran the podcast for a while — before you, Aaron. I was a poor man’s Aaron. I was still involved. I’ve always loved this company. But when Yoav and I talked again, I realized the company was at a really special inflection point. We had all the product ingredients in place — the product is fully built, it’s recognized by analysts as the best B2B eCommerce platform. We had everything we needed to be really successful — except we needed to bring together a cohesive go-to-market team. That’s what I do. So I started back at the beginning of the year. From our first conversation to my start date, it was like nine days. It happened that fast — because it was just right.

And I’ll say this: 2025 has been the best year of my career so far. I’m having so much fun in this role. More than I ever have. It’s amazing to be back, surrounded by familiar faces and also a lot of new energy and talent. It’s just really fun.

Aaron: That’s a good answer. Dima, is it easier or harder to re-onboard someone who already had a Google Workspace account with us?

Dima: That was the smoothest onboarding ever.

Aaron: That’s why it only took nine days — because “[email protected]” was still in the system?

Jary: I still have all my old emails too. I can go back and pull messages from 2018. It’s perfect.

Aaron: Business continuity. You love to see it. Alright, we’re almost out of time. I want to give the final word to Yoav and Dima.
Is there anything either of you would add to what Jary said about coming back? Any thoughts you’d want to share with the audience about Jary Carter? Now’s your chance. The cameras of the world are pointed at you.

Dima: I’m really excited to have Jary back. I’m not joking — it was the smoothest onboarding curve on all sides, not just from a Google Workspace perspective. He just fit right into the team — even with all the new faces. It was like he stepped back into place on day one.
And I can already see how he’s changing the company. I’m really looking forward to a strong 2025 and the years ahead.

Yoav: It honestly feels like he never left. Because in reality, he didn’t. He was always part of the company — just not involved in the day-to-day. He got updates, we talked all the time. So yeah, this was the smoothest re-onboarding we’ve ever had. And definitely the right one.
He’s part of the company. He’s back home — part of the family. The new people feel it too — that the culture is there. It wasn’t like someone came in from another company and tried to bring a whole different culture. On every level, this was the right move, at the right time. And we’re all happy about it.

Aaron: It’s good timing. Everything’s clicking this year.

Jary: It’s amazing. I’ll just say — and I know we’re a minute over — I think it’s important to note, because we talk about this a lot when we speak with people outside the company. This partnership between the three of us works because we decided first that we wanted to work together. Only then did we decide what we were going to do. That came after. It didn’t matter to me whether it was a B2B eCommerce platform. I mean, I wasn’t excited about that idea at first — and I was so wrong about it. I’ll forever eat my words.

Yoav: Edit that part out, Jary.

Jary: Yeah, but it mattered more to me who I was building with. That’s what made it work. The three of us work because, first and foremost, we’re friends. Second, there’s so much trust. And third — we’ve been doing this so long that we can finish each other’s… sandwiches.

Yoav: I’ll add this: the fact that Jary was against the strategy shift — the move to commerce — that’s exactly what you want from a co-founder. You want someone to challenge you. We were always arguing. We’d tell employees, “We’re not fighting. We’re just arguing. Go back to your desks.” But that was important. If all three of us had been on the same page all the time, we might’ve missed something. Jary gave us pushback — and we needed that. The key thing is: we can disagree. But once we make a decision, we go with it. We’ve been doing that for years, and it works.

Aaron: That’s a fantastic model — and one more companies should follow. You’d have fewer problems if you facilitated robust discussions like that internally. Thank you all for joining us. I really appreciate it. And I know our audience does too. This is the first time we’ve done a true founders’ episode, right?

Yoav: Yeah.

Dima: We never did one before.

Jary: Thanks for inviting me. This is the first time in twelve years I’ve been on a podcast with you guys.

Yoav: That’s not true — you were invited multiple times. You turned us down.

Aaron: We’ll have to do this again in another twelve years.

Yoav: Yup. See you in 2037. We’ll be sure to invite Dima.

Aaron: Thanks again. And thanks to everyone for listening.

All: Bye!