Buying a new bottle of perfume or cologne can be somewhat of a commitment. Fragrances aren’t exactly inexpensive, and if you don’t love what you purchased, you’re stuck with a full bottle.
It no longer has to be that way.
Enter Scentbird, a monthly subscription service that has completely upended the way we discover fragrance and beauty. Forbes included Scentbird in its 2021 list of the 10 best Valentine's Day gifts for self-love, and Women’s Wear Daily named the company one of the six best perfume subscription boxes to try.
Sounds like a concept that makes a lot of scents sense.
Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Andrei Rebrov, would agree. Rebrov helped get Scentbird off the ground back in 2014 and is responsible for engineering, machine learning and the company’s overall digital strategy and execution.
Before launching Scentbird, Rebrov worked in engineering for UBS, a multinational investment bank and financial services company. At the time of his employment, UBS had over 70,000 global employees, so the leap from a big, global business to the small but mighty team at Scentbird was quite a change. But Rebrov was up for the challenge.
“We realized quickly just how much a small team can achieve, especially with the right technology in place,” he said. “I like fast-moving environments and having a keen understanding for how to talk to customers and give them what they want. At Scentbird, that’s become our obsession – giving customers exactly what they want.”
Building a back-end
Scentbird has been home grown since day one. The problem with that, as Rebrov put it, is that you have a short planning horizon for determining what you want to build. As so-called versions 1.0, 2.0 (and so on) of the company took shape, the IT architecture needed to evolve. But because some of that architecture was built on legacy, it blocked the business from achieving its next stage.
“Previous versions focused heavily on things like customer satisfaction but not back-office including product optimization, warehousing and so on,” said Rebrov. “We found ourselves stuck at times within our own roadmap.”
MACH technologies and principles took center stage as Rebrov and his team envisioned how to take control back into their own hands when it came to adding new features and functionality. The key was to ensure they could do so freely, on their own terms without compromising what was already in the tech stack.
“The benefits of embracing MACH for Scentbird have been plentiful,” he said. “Microservices technology has enabled us to cohesively stitch together several small, single-service tools specific to the functions we need such as those for subscription charges, tracking, financial information and shipments. Building a platform this way has allowed us to deliver faster, and when something needs to change, we update one simple service and move forward.”
“This has also allowed us to have teams focused on specific areas,” Rebrov added. “Teams can build an API consensus about how different services can communicate, for example. It’s helped improve our cross-team collaboration tremendously.”
An ecosystem of partners
Rebrov noted that the aim with Scentbird was always to be a company that relies a lot on partners – companies that can build best-in-class specialized solutions that the business could then integrate. This approach has enabled them to scale and keep their own platform updated.
“In my experience, companies who use MACH principles when they build their own products are easier to work with. They’re our first choice when we work with partners, and they solve problems faster than bigger platform solutions. It makes it easier to move forward and continuously evolve the business.”
When discussing the considerations for business leaders who are thinking about transitioning their enterprise architecture – in part or whole – to MACH, Rebrov noted the biggest challenge is fear of the unsuccessful implementation.
“If you shift from one big platform to another, you’re stuck in this painful ‘circle of integration.’ When you move to companies who use MACH principles, yes, there will still be some challenges associated with unbundling old legacy systems, but every future upgrade will be easier to implement. The long-term value is clear.”
Given the speed of change in e-commerce, this is especially beneficial. Rebrov noted there are new players to the market every year, at least. If your company can’t add new functionality and integrations to stay on-par or a step ahead of the competition, they’ll capture the market.
“MACH helps ensure the longevity of your business. It’s a long term investment that unlocks new possibilities.”
Build or buy
It used to be the case that building software products and e-commerce were living in a parallel world. E-commerce used to be considered something of a big platform, as Rebrov said, and building your own products was on the other extreme.
“You’d either build or buy. That’s how it was. With MACH, I can do both. Build what makes my business unique and then, for the rest, we can work with partners who offer specialized tools that are a best-fit match for our needs.”
“It’s the best of both worlds. A lot of companies are embracing this approach and making it part of their DNA. It’s proven to make good business sense across a range of industries, and I expect to see it adopted more beyond retail. Supply chain, security, food and beverage – they could all benefit from MACH.
MACH Alliance Ambassadorship
The MACH Alliance is very excited to welcome Andrei as an Ambassador. Our Ambassadors are a carefully selected group of business and technology experts with a wide range of experience across industries and backgrounds. Passionate about the benefits a modern architecture can bring to an enterprise, our Ambassadors have graciously committed their time to support the mission of the MACH Alliance by writing, speaking, and serving as subject matter experts to help empower companies to go MACH.
If you’re interested in learning more about a MACH approach and understanding if it’s right for your business, we welcome you to get in touch at info@machalliance.org to be matched with the MACH Alliance Ambassador most relevant to you.