Product Customization and 3D Configurators: Angelo Coletta, Zakeke
Angelo Coletta is a Serial Entrepreneur and Former President of Innovup. Graduated cum laude in Economics and Commerce from the University of Bari, he completed his studies with a Master in Innovation Management at the "Iacocca Institute Lehigh University" in Pennsylvania (USA), entitled "Global Village for the Future Leaders". In the early years of his career, he worked in marketing consultancy and founded a consultancy firm, an advertising agency, and a system integrator, which he then sold to an Italian player, achieving his first exit. He later dedicated himself to the creation of product companies in the software field. In the last five years, he has realized two exits, the first being BookingShow S.p.A., one of the three main ticketing players in Italy, sold in 2017 to an international group, and the second with 18months Srl in 2020, a former startup now a leader in the Italian cinema ticketing market. He is the president and board member of various companies, especially in the IT field (Upsystems S.p.A., The Digital Box, Seares), as well as President from 2018 to 2021 of Innovup (formerly Italia Startup), an associative point of reference for startups, scaleups, incubators, accelerators, science parks, and large Italian corporations, and maintains various investments in Italian startups and scaleups. Today he is the founder and CEO of Zakeke, a cloud SaaS (software as a service) platform that enables the world's major e-commerce platforms to offer their consumers an innovative and enhanced shopping experience, thanks to the use of visual technologies such as 2D & 3D customization, 3D visualization, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Try-On. In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:00] Intro [00:56] What Zakeke solves for ecommerce brands [01:44] Shopify plug-and-play and MCP server [02:23] Seven years and 10,000 customers [03:14] Industries that see the most success [03:49] Apparel, furniture, and luxury brands [05:17] How Zakeke compares on product builders [06:06] Multi-layer customization at scale [08:29] Cutting internal implementation costs [08:56] Why off-the-shelf beats custom builds [10:06] Zero custom code, even for HP and Valentino [10:55] The real cost of ecommerce mistakes [13:14] API front end and monthly platform updates [13:54] Do you need a 3D model to start? [14:25] AI and the 3D artist network [15:13] The falling cost of 3D modeling [16:02] Using 3D files across AR and 360 views [16:41] AI try-on without 3D assets [18:52] What's next for Zakeke [19:13] Launching a conversational interface [21:54] AI agents as product setup coaches [22:30] AI is probabilistic, production is deterministic [24:49] Where to learn more about Zakeke [26:18] Final thoughts Resources: Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube 3D Product Configurator and Customizer for eCommerce zakeke.com Follow Angelo Coletta linkedin.com/in/angelo-coletta If you’re enjoying the show, we’d love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!