What would you do with the power to persuade?
At its core, marketing has one job: to persuade. But persuasion is bigger than marketing; it’s one of the most powerful tools humans have, capable of building iconic brands, sparking global movements, and supporting the election of decisive political campaigns.
Unfortunately, the way persuasion works is not fully understood. As a marketer, you can look at how many clicks your ad generated, or how many views your TV video received. But these are proxies for persuasion. How do you measure the emotional resonance of a funny ad? Or quantify the likelihood to vote from an inspiring speech?
The true test of whether something persuades is typically not known until it’s too late: Someone decides to buy your product. Or they don’t. They cast a ballot for your candidate. Or they don’t. Which means marketers and campaign managers are constantly releasing communications with a big leap of faith, hoping that their work will persuade, with little data on what will actually work.
PhDs James Slezak and Valerie Coffman co-founded Swayable to apply advanced statistical methods to the question: What changes minds? We use randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the type of tests used in clinical research, to isolate the impact of creative assets, and provide the most robust data available on messaging persuasion. We started in the world of politics, working with campaigns and their agencies to determine effective messaging and craft persuasive political campaigns. Now, we work with some of the most beloved consumer brands, helping marketers apply science to creativity.
As we’ve grown we’ve also focused. We’re selective about who we work with - and what kind of media we will test. Our mission is to accelerate social and economic progress by making scientific insights instantly accessible to communications decision-makers. We only work with brands that are aligned to this, and we have an independent board to advise on new clients.
Our history
2017
2018
2019
2020
2022
2023
Founded, launched MVP
Funded by Y-Combinator, first paying customers
First brand customers test messaging in Swayable
Supported first winning Presidential campaign messaging
Emotional resonance launch, Published Meta Study on voters, Supported 100% of contested elections in Congress, crossed 8-figures in ARR
Named best place to work, 30+ team members, Self-serve product launch
Our team
We’re a team of data scientists, creatives, and clients
James Slezak
CEO
New York Times / Purpose / McKinsey / Cornell Experimental Physics PhD
Valerie Coffman
CTO
Xometry / NIST / Cornell Computational Physics PhD
Kathy Gerlach
COO
Airbnb / McKinsey / Harvard Cognitive Neuroscience PhD
Shane Mullane
VP of Sales
Experian / Moat / Oracle Data Cloud / Trinity College (Dublin)
Anshuk Gandhi
VP of Product
LinkedIn / McKinsey / U. Michigan / IIT (Bombay)
Darien Lee
Finance and Growth
Verkada / Silver Lake / McKinsey / Yale
Michael Wallace
Sales
Dropbox / Facebook / Box / Miami University (Ohio)
Roberto Guerra
Sales
eMarketer / Moat / Fordham U MBA
Nigel Walker
Sales
Autify / MFS Investment Management / UConn
Tim Wackman
Sales
MikMak / Ibotta / News America Marketing / University of Minnesota
Bobby Charlton
Sales
Remesh / Coe College
Brandon Disch
Sales
Skai / COOP / SFSU
Michelle Wiles
Marketing
P&G / Ogilvy / McKinsey / London Business School
Olivia Myszkowski
Advanced Services
Lake Research / Morning Consult / U. Chicago
Ali Hoffer
Advanced Services
Better Place Forests / Stanford MS
Thomas Connelly
Advanced Services
Civic / Georgetown U
Jason Toups
Client Success
McKinsey / J.P. Morgan / Yale
Anish Bharadwaj
Product
On Deck / Sounding Board / Amazon
Alissa Sasayama
Client Success
TubeScience / UCSD Chemistry PhD / Stanford BS
Taylar Harrington
Client Success
Fix It People / Adler U MPPA / Wittenberg U
Iri Hoxha
Product Design
HEVO / CUNY CityTech
Josh Dean
Engineering
HP Inc. / Procore Technologies
Vanessa Suarez
Engineering
Candid / Columbia U
Audrey DeBruine
Engineering
SF Chronicle / Northwestern U
David Ash
Engineering
AT&T / FOX Entertainment
Gabrielle Simard-Moore
Engineering
Caktus Group / DjangoGirls Coach / BS Environmental Geochemistry
Kwaku Ofori-Atta
Engineering
Goldman Sachs / U. Chicago
Michael Baumer
Data Science
Unknot / Stanford PhD
Snigdha Kanuparthy
Data Science
SMART Technologies / Georgia Institute of Technology
Daniel Fan
Data Science
U. Auckland / SUNY Binghampton PhD (CS, ABD) / Advanced Learning Limited
Hang Su
Data Science
Chartbeat / New York Times / Columbia U