Executive Q&A: Mitchell Leiman, VP, Cimpress Strategy & Corporate Development

PN: Tell us a little about your company, the segment of the market you serve, and who you consider your core users.

Leiman: Cimpress makes customized print, signage, apparel, gifts, identity merchandise, packaging, and other products accessible and affordable to everyone. This is possible because of the mass customization capabilities we’ve developed over the last 20+ years. Mass customization is the ability to produce small, customized orders of physical products with the reliability, quality and affordability of traditional mass production.

As for our “core users" – that depends on which one of the over 20 Cimpress brands you’re talking about. We began as Vistaprint, which is aimed at small businesses, entrepreneurs, the self-employed, and individuals. But as we’ve grown, and as Cimpress has gone from one brand to a family of companies, we’ve diversified that client base.

Today, we have 13 businesses with over 20 brands, each with its own value proposition and unique set of customers. While mass customization is a commonality across all our businesses, our businesses range from an ‘upload & print’ model for graphic professionals, to template and assisted design for small businesses and consumers, to closed portals for mid-size and large enterprise businesses.

PN: How did you get involved with Cimpress? 

Leiman: I’ve long had a passion for small business and technology, which are two areas that really resonate here at Cimpress. My parents started and still operate a small business, which also happens to be a manufacturer of promotional products. So, in some ways, I’ve literally spent my whole life in this industry.

I was also attracted to Cimpress for the opportunity to work with a founder-led, entrepreneurial business that continues to be a disruptive force in our industry. Robert Keane, our founder and CEO, brings the energy and passion every day as if we were still in year one of a start-up, albeit 20+ years later. In many ways, we created a category and business model, and we continue to push to be innovative, entrepreneurial, and disruptive, even today. That’s a really exciting team to be on.

Before joining Cimpress, I was at Constant Contact, another terrific SMB-focused business. Before that I was a Partner at Bain & Company, where I focused on working with technology companies on strategy, M&A and operational topics.

PN: What do you consider Cimpress’ greatest achievement in this market to be?

Leiman: Some would say we created our segment of the market! At the very least, we are fueling growth of our entire sector by creating demand where none existed before, particularly among small businesses who could never afford customized products in the past. In doing this, we’re increasing the size of the pie for everyone.

Additionally, we have remained committed to the principle of coopetition, the idea of marrying together competition and cooperation. For decades, the technology industry has operated on a coopetition model to drive customer value. If we, in the print and mass customization sector, can do the same, we can collectively grow the industry, increasing the size of the pie for everyone’s benefit. This also allows more businesses to focus on their specialized offering, which increases innovation and the value we as an industry are able to deliver to customers.

PN: What do you consider the greatest challenge to be for the industry right now? Why?

Leiman: Customer needs and expectations are constantly becoming more demanding, requiring us to push ourselves harder to meet them. For example, more and more customers are saying how much they value overnight production and next day or even same day delivery.

To understand how best to serve customers, you have to admit that in large corporate environments you get a burdensome level of bureaucracy. And when you look at small companies that are great at serving customers, they're the opposite; they are nimble and quick. In aggregate, the many small, nimble businesses that serve customers better and more quickly is the greatest threat to the largest players in our industry today. That’s why we are so intent on “staying small as we grow big” and why we are so committed to preserving our start-up mentality.

PN: In your opinion, what have been the biggest changes to the way we communicate with one another in the past few years? How would you recommend this industry take advantage of that?

Leiman: The internet, and the technological connectedness of everything has changed so many ways we interact. Our sector – originally printing, but now has expanded to mass customized goods of all shapes and sizes – has had to adapt, too. Where we add value is in creating things that matter – they are thoughtful, personal, and can’t be deleted with a single click. The rise of electronic communication has not been at the expense of the value and meaning provided by tangible, physical products. Again, that’s why specialization is so important. We constantly discover new companies doing things that are very specific and far better than we could do on our own. Often, rather than simply acquiring them, we will partner with them instead – a win-win that allows us to offer new products or designs to our customers, while also giving SMEs access to a significantly bigger client base.

There are many potential ways we can take advantage of the changes in our industry. We can use physical products as a way to extend or complement our digital identities, or reach people in a way that can’t be done online through creating an experience or a lasting impression.

PN: What is the biggest piece of advice you would give to printers and others involved in this industry?

Leiman: Embracing coopetition has helped Cimpress better face the tens of thousands of tenacious and established traditional competitors, ever-increasing cross-border competition, incessant technology improvements (and thus obsolescence in production equipment), a constant stream of innovative startups, and determined large incumbents.

Customer-focused competition, specialization and partnerships can radically improve the convenience, relevance and affordability of designing and procuring products that digital alternatives simply can’t provide.

Cimpress believes that companies need to embrace coopetition. As we’ve learned from the technology industry, early adopters of coopetition stand to reap sizeable benefits and stake out market leadership positions – which is good for them and good for their partners.

PN: Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?

Leiman: We believe the future is about creating a network of specialists. Our suppliers embody specialization. For example, imagine you are a very small custom glassware supplier. If we – at Cimpress – send you sufficient enough business every year, you can set up your production press with increasingly digital equipment, but every morning the orders keep coming in. And if you print five or ten orders for us each day, then suddenly, as our customer, you’re generating pretty significant business. That is how we are – and want to continue - to work with our customers.

Whether it’s our brands, our customers or our suppliers – individually each of them is taking their slice of a pie, that Cimpress is intent on growing for everyone. Our approach is to ask: how can all the companies in this industry grow together and help build this market so that we can all do well and deliver breakthrough customer value?