Founder Friday: Adii Pienaar, Founder of Cogsy 📊
Founder Friday is a content series from SuperAngel.Fund highlighting companies in our portfolio and the inspiring founders behind them.
In our 22nd edition, we are featuring Adii Pienaar, Founder of Cogsy, an eCommerce SaaS platform that empowers brands to reach operational excellence, starting with a smarter inventory planning and forecasting solution.
Sometimes we fall in love with a product and then learn about the special team behind it. Other times, we are delighted by a founding team and then educated as to why their company is special. This is one of those rare cases where we were immediately impressed by both. South African-based Adii Pienaar is not new to the world of eCommerce. His first company, WooThemes which turned into WooCommerce, was acquired for over $30M. And his next, an email marketing tool called Conversio, was also acquired. They say third time’s a charm, so we - like many others - are particularly excited about the potential for his latest venture, Cogsy.
Cogsy is an operations platform that helps DTC brands reach their revenue goals by becoming more agile amidst a disrupted supply chain, with features that include: inventory forecasting, growth planning, replenish alerts, automated purchasing to prevent stockouts, selling on backorder & more. Cogsy’s solution eliminates manual spreadsheets and guesswork to automatically order the right inventory at optimal levels, at the optimal time. This turns inventory operations into a competitive advantage by giving brands greater agility, alignment, and control. View their introductory video and schedule a demo here.
With a globally distributed team located in places like Cape Town, Zurich, Latvia, Sri Lanka, India, the United States, Hungary, Nicaragua, and Belgium, Cogsy is poised to take the world by storm behind their recent $5m seed round led by Accel, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Sugar Capital, RiverPark VC, and a slew of leading eCommerce operator/angels.
Describe your company in 5 words or less.
Adii: Inventory optimization for DTC brands.
What was your primary motivation for starting your business?
Adii: Cogsy is my third rodeo, after two previous exits and the biggest reason I started exploring new ideas was because I really missed having and building a team. It is something that I'm hugely passionate about in general and with Cogsy I've really tried to evolve the way I do that too.
What piece of advice would you give an entrepreneur starting a business today?
Adii: Be very clear about why it is that you starting a business. Many entrepreneurs start a business to pursue some version of freedom: the freedom to work on what they want, with whom they want, when they want etc. What they don't necessarily know is that they trade other freedoms as a result: the ability to disconnect, a guaranteed pay check etc. Make sure you measure the "why" with the trade-offs and that this still aligns with your ultimate goal(s).
What do you love to do in your free time?
Adii: I enjoy spending time with my family, consider myself a bit of a wine snob and definitely don't mind the odd game of FIFA on the PlayStation.
What is the most interesting place you’ve visited recently and why?
Adii: Iceland has definitely been one of the best trips I've ever taken and by far the most unique. The scenery is magical and road trips on icy roads was incredible.
What is your favorite app or tool in your work life and in your personal life?
Adii: I use Missive as my email client and I share my inbox with my assistant. The ability to collaborate on emails means I often get to inbox zero without having to spend hours in my inbox.
What do you believe is the most important skill or attribute of a successful founder?
Adii: A thirst for learning.
SuperAngel.Fund is an early stage fund that invests in Consumer, PropTech & Future of Work. You can learn more at SuperAngel.Fund.
