Last week at SF TechWeek by a16z, our Founder & CEO Anabel Maldonado joined a candid panel on circularity and sustainability in commerce, hosted by Annija Eizenarma with Jalaj Hora (Founder of Synthegrate; former Global Vice President of Product Innovation and Consumer Creation at Nike) and Nyleve Henry (Founder of Looks For Lease). The vibe: fewer sermons, more solutions. We focused on what’s investable and realistic, not moralizing consumer behavior.
Why this conversation mattered
At PSYKHE AI, we don’t reduce people to “shoulds.” We align tech and merchandising with how humans actually behave, then design systems that make better matches between people and products. This panel cut through dogma and zeroed in on operational truths retailers can act on now.
Key takeaways
- Business case or bust. If the unit economics don’t work, nothing scales.
- Humans crave novelty. Telling customers to wear the same outfit 45 times fights the brain. The answer isn’t shaming; it’s channeling novelty more intelligently (think smarter curation, rotation, and discovery).
- Anticipation is part of the magic. The “see now, buy now” hype didn’t stick for a reason. People like to project who they’ll be next season. Designing for that anticipation builds demand more naturally.
- Psychographic demand forecasting is coming. With psychographic signals, we can predict what kind of newness each segment actually wants - raising forecast precision while reducing waste.
What this looks like in practice
- Merchandising that respects brains, not slogans. Serve variety that scratches the novelty itch without devolving into chaos.
- Better drops, better timing. Use intent and trait clusters to decide when and what to introduce, and for whom.
- Lower waste via smarter matching. When you align assortment and sequencing with psychographic profiles, you sell more of the right things—and produce less of the wrong ones.
A big thanks to Annija Eizenarma for the invite, and to fellow panelists Jalaj and Nyleve for a sharp discussion. And thanks to everyone who showed up with real questions and zero fluff - the good kind of crowd pressure.
