Liftoff with Jeanniey Walden
Bill Testa of Frintz on Free Photo Prints, Advertiser-Funded Media, and Bringing Meaning Back to the Mailbox
Who’s on this episode
Hosted by Jeanniey Walden, founder and host of Liftoff with Jeanniey Walden.
What you’ll learn
- How Frintz gives consumers free, high-quality photo prints at home.
- Why Bill says Frintz disrupts the photo, advertising, and data industries at once.
- How Frintz matches a brand to the content of your photo, for the right consumer.
- Why he calls it the relevant “last mile,” pulled instead of pushed.
- How the economics compare to direct mail: 30 cents for 100% versus a dollar for 1%.
- How Frintz is “bringing meaning back to the mailbox” for small businesses and charities.
Episode highlights
- 00:00Meet Bill Testa of Frintz
- 00:40What Frintz does: the relevant last mile
- 01:00Disrupting three verticals at once
- 01:20Patents and knowing where media was going
- 02:00Who’s helping the small business?
- 02:20Free, high-quality prints for everyone
- 03:20Trillions of photos a year
- 03:55A picture is worth 10,000 attributes
- 04:50Winning a national USPS award
- 05:00Changing the psychology of the mailbox
- 05:40Replacing Valpak, white-labeling, and AAA
- 06:35Bringing meaning back to the mailbox
- 07:00Where the idea came from
- 08:10A printing career from age 15
- 09:40The McDonald’s lesson and a global standard
- 11:30The economics: 30 cents for a 100% open rate
Episode summary
At the POSSIBLE conference, Jeanniey sits down with Bill Testa, Founder, President, and CEO of Frintz, for a high-energy conversation about a company he says is disrupting three industries at once. Bill’s pitch is simple to state and hard to copy: Frintz takes care of the branding all the way to the consumer, with what he describes as 100% visibility and a 100% open rate, delivering brands that match their ideal customer to the last mile. Where most advertising is pushed and non-relevant, he says, Frintz is pulled and relevant. It disrupts the photo industry, the advertising industry, and the data industry in one platform, protected by patents developed with scientists who spent decades at the patent office. He and his team set out six years ago to read the trends, and they saw the digital marketplace getting cluttered, brands outbidding one another to be seen, and no one helping the small business. That, he says, is the gap Frintz fills.
The first vertical is photography. With hundreds of millions of cell phones in America, each holding thousands of pictures, Bill decided to give everyone free, high-quality prints, no credit card, no charge, delivered to the home. The market is enormous: he cites roughly 3.7 trillion photos taken per year, on the way to an estimated 10 trillion by 2030, with tens of billions printed today at a cost. The second vertical is advertising, and this is where the patent matters. A picture, Bill says, is worth 10,000 attributes. Frintz reads what is in your photo and places a relevant brand beside it, a coffee brand next to your coffee, a sporting-goods brand next to your round of golf, so the advertiser reaches its ideal customer profile because the match comes from your own pictures. The third vertical is data: it is your address and your first-party data, delivered as your memories rather than bills and junk mail. Frintz won a national USPS award, which Bill says made it the only private company to do so, and he frames the whole idea as changing the psychology of the mailbox and replacing tired direct-mail formats like Valpak, Money Mailer, and Welcome Wagon with guaranteed open rates and real attribution. When Jeanniey offers the line “bringing meaning back to the mailbox,” Bill loves it, and they agree to credit Liftoff for the slogan.
The back half is Bill’s story. He fell in love with printing at 15 in Westchester County, bought the first Mac in 1984, moved into desktop publishing, and opened a storefront in the late 1980s, working, by his account, 20 hours a day. Building Frintz was far harder than he makes it sound, because photos are heavy on memory, like sending a boulder through a garden hose, so he partnered with the world’s top printing fulfillment networks and, inspired by a History Channel story about how McDonald’s standardized its fries across the country, wrote a service-level agreement and vendor-inspection process so a print on the West Coast matches a print on the East Coast. With a global patent, he plans to expand internationally, noting interest from markets like Germany and a natural fit with Canada Post’s community-hub model. On the money, he lays out the pitch cleanly: a local mailer can cost 70 cents to over a dollar for a 1% open rate, while Frintz is less than 30 cents for a 100% open rate, with the loop closed back to the advertiser and the ability to swap creative by season through a self-serve portal. Every print, he says, is a 15-second billboard of a brand’s message placed directly in a consumer’s hands. Jeanniey wraps by inviting him back to tell his full journey, and Bill happily accepts.
Key takeaways
- 00:40 Frintz delivers branding to the consumer at the last mile with what Bill calls 100% visibility and a 100% open rate, pulled and relevant rather than pushed.
- 01:00 The platform disrupts three verticals at once: the photo industry, the advertising industry, and the data industry.
- 02:20 Consumers get free, high-quality prints delivered home, with no credit card and no charge, so they keep ordering once they see the quality.
- 03:20 The market is vast: roughly 3.7 trillion photos a year today, on the way to an estimated 10 trillion by 2030.
- 03:55 A picture is worth 10,000 attributes; Frintz matches a relevant brand to the content of each photo, hitting the advertiser’s ideal customer profile.
- 04:50 Frintz won a national USPS award, which Bill says made it the only private company to do so.
- 05:00 He frames it as changing the psychology of the mailbox: you get your moments, not bills and junk mail.
- 05:40 It aims to replace formats like Valpak, Money Mailer, and Welcome Wagon, and works through white-label partnerships, including one with AAA.
- 09:40 Inspired by how McDonald’s standardized its fries, Bill built a service-level agreement so prints are consistent coast to coast, and holds a global patent.
- 11:30 The economics: a local mailer runs 70 cents to over a dollar for a 1% open rate, while Frintz is under 30 cents for a 100% open rate, with full attribution.
Questions people ask
Who is Bill Testa?
Bill Testa is the Founder, President, and CEO of Frintz. He has spent more than 40 years in printing, marketing, and technology, starting in printing at age 15 in Westchester County and building businesses through the desktop-publishing era.
What is Frintz?
Frintz is a patented platform that gives consumers free, high-quality photo prints delivered to their homes, funded by advertisers. Bill Testa describes it as a new kind of media that is pulled and relevant rather than pushed, delivering a brand to the right consumer alongside their own photos.
How is Frintz free for consumers?
Consumers pay nothing and are not asked for a credit card. Frintz is funded by advertisers whose messages appear alongside the prints, matched to the content of each photo, so brands reach the right customer and consumers get free prints of their memories.
What three industries does Frintz disrupt?
Bill Testa says Frintz disrupts three verticals at once: the photo industry, the advertising industry, and the data industry, combining free printing, relevant local advertising, and first-party data in a single platform.
How does Frintz match ads to my photos?
Bill Testa says a picture is worth 10,000 attributes. Frintz reads what is in your photo and places a relevant brand next to it, for example a coffee brand next to a coffee photo, or a sporting-goods brand next to a golf photo, so the advertiser reaches its ideal customer profile.
How does Frintz compare to traditional direct mail?
Bill Testa says a local direct-mail piece can cost 70 cents to over a dollar for a 1% open rate, while Frintz costs less than 30 cents for a 100% open rate, and closes the loop by reporting who received each print and when.
Full transcript
Jeanniey Walden: And we’re back, and I have Bill Testa. He is the CEO and the founder of Frintz. We’re going to find out all about this amazing resurgence of what his company does, why it’s relevant exactly today, and what’s happening in the media space in general. Bill, welcome to Liftoff.
Bill Testa: Thank you for having me. We met about five minutes ago, trying to get in touch back and forth, but we’re here.
Jeanniey Walden: Yes, we’re here and we’re having a great conversation. I know a little bit about what your company does, but for all of our viewers and listeners, tell us what you do.
Bill Testa: I take care of the branding to the consumer, 100% visibility, 100% open rate. My platform is able to deliver brands that match their ideal customer profile 100%. I’m that last mile. I’m pulled and relevant, where everybody else is pushed to non-relevant. I’m disrupting three verticals.
Jeanniey Walden: Which three?
Bill Testa: The photo industry, the advertising industry, and the data industry, all in one.
Jeanniey Walden: If people go to your website, they can see what you do. But for everyone listening and watching right now who isn’t on the website yet, tell everybody the story of your company, because you founded it a while ago.
Bill Testa: I came up with the idea a while ago, but it sat on a piece of paper, and you have to build this platform. Everybody says it’s going to take you ten, fifteen years and $30 million. I love pressure. So we started building it in a Six Sigma process, backwards to forwards. One of the first things: we have many patents on what I’m about to tell you. If you go to my website, you’ll see our scientists were on thousands and thousands of patents and headed up the patent office for over 40 years. So we know the future, and where it was going six years ago. That was our job, to figure out the trends. We knew everybody was going into this thing called the digital marketplace. We knew it would get cluttered. We knew you had to outbid each other to get seen, and they control your messaging. But at the end of the day, who’s helping the small business? I was a small business when I first started. I want to help them get in front of their consumers and get a high ROI. That’s where Frintz comes in.
Jeanniey Walden: So let’s start with the photo industry.
Bill Testa: We have 363 million Americans, and what do we all have in common? A cell phone. There are over 400 million cell phones in America. And what’s on everybody’s cell phone? Thousands of pictures. So, being in the printing industry, I just said, let’s give everybody free pictures, all around the world. 100% free, no charge. I don’t ask you for anything. It’s the best quality you can get anywhere, and it’s free. Once people start ordering, they see the quality, I don’t ask for a credit card or anything, and they just continue to order. That’s the first phase I disrupt.
Jeanniey Walden: So hold on a minute. My husband, who takes pictures all day and all night and loves them, can go to your website, download the app, and order all day long?
Bill Testa: Free. And the quality, he’ll be amazed.
Jeanniey Walden: So you’re disrupting this whole service, which I can imagine is so helpful to everybody, from businesses to new moms, new families, graduations, high schools, any special moment.
Bill Testa: When you get into the total and serviceable addressable market, when I first started it was 1.5 trillion photos per year. Now it’s 3.7 trillion.
Jeanniey Walden: And that’s low. I thought you were going to say it’s 10 trillion.
Bill Testa: 10 trillion by 2030. That’s the pattern. But of that market, 80 billion print, and they pay. They go to places in the community and spend the money, and it’s not as good a quality as our prints, and they’re paying. So that’s the first area.
Jeanniey Walden: Okay, that’s the first area you’re disrupting.
Bill Testa: Now, you’ve heard the slogan, a picture is worth a thousand words. I thought a picture’s worth 10,000 attributes. So as the pictures come in, if you’re drinking coffee, Starbucks, Dunkin, or the local coffee house in your zip code goes next to your picture. Playing golf, Under Armour or Dick’s Sporting Goods. I’m able to deliver the brand to their consumer, their ideal customer profile, 100%, because it’s your pictures that match what’s in the photo.
Jeanniey Walden: That’s brilliant.
Bill Testa: And there’s no one in the world doing it, and they can’t, because we have our patents on it.
Jeanniey Walden: This is amazing. So you’re disrupting local media, local marketing, neighborhood targeting. You are great for the small business.
Bill Testa: Exactly. Then I get this call about a year and a half ago, during our beta testing. It was the USPS, and we won the national award for the whole United States, the only private company to win it. And they said, you have an unbelievable platform. I said, well, my whole goal is to have this platform in every zip code in America, to be the marketing mail for the small business to get to their consumers, from the schools to the sporting events to the dance recital. Why not support each other? Now I’m changing the psychology of the mailbox. You’re going there, and you’re not getting bills and junk mail to throw out, you’re getting your moments.
Jeanniey Walden: It’s your address. It’s first-party data. It’s 100% you.
Bill Testa: It’s 100%. And I’m delivering that business in the local area to their consumers, who are in their town, all day long.
Jeanniey Walden: So you’re replacing Valpak, Money Mailer, Welcome Wagon, with guaranteed open rates, guaranteed ideal customer profile, and attribution, with excitement, because everybody wants their moments.
Bill Testa: I’m excited. I just changed your psychology. It’s your memories, it’s your moments, and then, oh my gosh, I get to go get my pizza or dinner at my local restaurant. Now I’ve changed everybody’s personality in the town. Everybody’s helping each other. It’s all about winning. The brands want to win, the consumers want to win, and the consumers win because it’s free. And then they can refer, they can send pictures to relatives coming back from a trip. Everybody’s engaging and working together. So I built it, and now we’re telling the world. I was asked to come down to POSSIBLE, and all these brands should be calling me, because they should want to partner and white label it. We just partnered with AAA. AAA has to deliver, so it’s all about white-labeling it and letting these brands have it.
Jeanniey Walden: Can I say it’s safe to say that you’re bringing meaning back to the mailbox?
Bill Testa: There you go. That’s exactly right. You came up with that slogan right here. I love it.
Jeanniey Walden: Are you going to patent that?
Bill Testa: Probably trademark it. We’ve got to give attribution to Liftoff on that one.
Jeanniey Walden: Yeah, Liftoff gets that one. So this is so great and so innovative. Where did you come up with this idea?
Bill Testa: When I first started, I love pressure, and I really wanted to help the small businesses. I watched, in every town, businesses spend money on radio and TV, five, six, seven thousand a month, and then I saw nobody getting a return. Maybe they get a couple orders, but it’s not return on investment, it’s cost per acquisition, and it’s very expensive. So I said, we’ve got to help. I was the president of the Rotary, president of the Chamber, president of many soccer clubs, and I saw the stress they’re going through, because they don’t have a lot of money to spend. Everybody’s selling their products, which is great, but I’m here for the small business and the brands to get in front, because I want them to win. If they win, our local economy wins, and then everybody can donate to charities. I really want charities to get involved, because you can only go to the well so many times. So charities should say, Frintz, can we have it, and offer tiers, and then those advertisers or sponsors for the charity get something besides just donating money, they get the eyeballs to come visit their product, compliments of the charity. It’s a win-win all the way around, and that’s how I built it.
Jeanniey Walden: So tell me a little bit about your career. Have you always been in the business of printing?
Bill Testa: Yes. I started back when I was 15 years old down in Westchester County and fell in love with printing in high school. I went to college for that. I’m 61, and my oldest brother’s 85, so everybody thought my oldest brother was my father. Going through high school and loving printing, I went to school for it, and then the first Mac computer came out in ’84. I got it, started doing desktop publishing, started building products off of that, opened up a little storefront in the mid-80s, around ’88, started selling. That’s a whole other great conversation, how I got to where I am, because I just built it. I work 20 hours a day, I work hard, and I kept building my infrastructure, and then I got bored, because I love pressure. I won many titles for coaching soccer, and I said, let’s do something like this. I make it sound easy, but it was extremely hard, because I’m trying to figure out the tech industry. Pictures are a lot of memory, so it’s like sending a big boulder through a garden hose. How can you make it streamlined? So I went and partnered with all the big printing agencies, utilizing their top 1% fulfillment chain around the world. And thanks to McDonald’s, because I was listening to the History Channel, and I love history. I was building my back end out and listening to why McDonald’s wasn’t working across the country, and they couldn’t figure it out. They had everybody get Idaho potatoes, but the fries came out curly in the Midwest. So then I put together a service-level agreement and an operations team, so that when you become a vendor of Frintz, we have to inspect you, and you have to follow our service-level agreement, because we want the pictures on the West Coast equal to the pictures on the East Coast. And now we’re a global patent, so we’re going to go outside the United States after we kick off here. We can do that anywhere in the world. All coming from a little old guy in Westchester.
Jeanniey Walden: That’s amazing. Have you looked into the Canadian post office?
Bill Testa: I just had three people say we need to talk to the Canadian post office. And I just got interviewed yesterday on another show, and she’s from Germany, and she said, Germany is five to seven years behind the United States, they would eat this up.
Jeanniey Walden: I think internationally, but Canada has invested in, I don’t want to say monetizing the post office, but for years they’ve looked at making their postal services more of a community hub. So this would be perfect for them.
Bill Testa: Absolutely. And they still have brick-and-mortar post offices, so you can take the businesses that are in the Frintz packet marketing and market them in the post office, so they can see themselves, because there’s always lines at the post office. So we can help them.
Jeanniey Walden: There’s a whole other way of doing this. We could talk for hours about this, it’s amazing. So are you charging on a CPM basis, cost per thousand, for the local ads?
Bill Testa: Right. What’s nice about the advertising side is you can log into the Frintz portal and tell a story to your consumers. You can just swap out the ad. During Valentine’s Day, you swap it out; get ready for spring, get ready for summer. You don’t have to go print. You can create a story, like a BMW 3 Series, and you want to upgrade to a 5 Series to a 7 Series. Frintz can give that story to help you grow your business and change your product line as the seasons change.
Jeanniey Walden: So what does the engagement look like on these local ads compared to traditional mailers?
Bill Testa: Right now, if a local business wanted to do a mailer, they’d spend anywhere from 70 cents to over a dollar for a 1% open rate. For Frintz, it’s less than 30 cents for a 100% open rate, and we close the loop back to you, tell you how many people received it and when they got it. So now you’re anticipating, and maybe that marketing didn’t work for you, so we’ll change it out. I’m actually giving a 15-second billboard of your brand message into every consumer’s hands, because the picture comes in, it pops off, and now you have your message. I’m in your hands. I give you the blank canvas, do whatever you want with it. That’s my theory behind it.
Jeanniey Walden: This is great, this is fabulous. We’ll have to have you back on the podcast to talk about your journey to where you are.
Bill Testa: I would love that. This was great, thank you so much for having me.
Jeanniey Walden: Thank you. All right, stay tuned, we’ll be back with our next great expert.
This conversation was recorded for Liftoff with Jeanniey Walden and lightly edited for readability.
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