Dave Fink thinks the best-kept secret in marketing is hiding where you least expect it — your mailbox. Over a 20-year career he’s generated hundreds of millions of dollars in ad revenue, powered viral sensations like Dollar Shave Club, and helped launch celebrity startups for Jessica Simpson, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and Kate Bosworth.
Now as founder and CEO of Postie, he’s out to reinvent direct mail marketing for a digital world.
Dave’s first encounter with the awesome potential of digital marketing came during the dotcom boom of the late 90’s. He was working for a web 1.0 marketing company, watching his clients at legacy giants like Procter & Gamble and Clorox toiling away at the same cramped desks year after year. Meanwhile, his contacts at digitally-savvy tech startups were busy trading in their Hyundais for Ferraris. Something big was happening, and he was determined to be a part of it.
Fast forward to the 2010’s, and Dave had transformed that determination into an incredible career as a multiple-time founder, early stage tech investor, and digital marketing guru. He learned to apply emerging AI and machine learning analysis to various digital marketing channels, fueling the launch of over 20 successful consumer internet startups in the process. But despite the success of his strategy, one advertising channel remained stubbornly resistant to his attempts at modernization — direct mail.
After years of research, Dave cracked the problem. In early 2017 he unveiled Postie, finally empowering old-fashioned mail to perform as dynamically as the best modern digital channels. With a suite of powerful tools like real-time attribution and audience modeling, they’ve quickly become the preferred direct mail solution for top digitally native brands like Lyft, Postmates, Casper, Warby Parker, Stitch Fix, and more.