
An Interview with Fanplayr’s CEO and Co-Founder, Simon Yencken
with Shane Barker
Simon Yencken, CEO and Co-Founder of Fanplayr, shares his remarkable journey from Melbourne to Silicon Valley while unveiling the secrets behind AI-powered behavioral segmentation. Discover how Fanplayr’s innovative technology transforms website traffic into actionable insights, driving higher conversions and personalized user experiences. This candid interview offers entrepreneurial wisdom and practical strategies for brands eager to optimize digital engagement and accelerate growth.


Simon Yencken is the Founder and CEO of Fanplayr, a leading provider of behavioral data solutions for eCommerce. With over 20 years in the technology sector, he has built Fanplayr into a patented segmentation engine that helps online businesses track, analyze, and intelligently target visitors—boosting engagement, conversions, and customer loyalty.
Before founding Fanplayr in 2013, Simon held senior leadership roles at Reuters, Tibco, NextSet, and Aconex, gaining deep expertise in data analytics, financial services, and cloud computing. His background in law and mathematics from Monash University has shaped his approach to building scalable, data-driven solutions.
A passionate innovator, Simon continues to develop cutting-edge technology that empowers businesses to optimize growth and performance in an increasingly digital world. Through Fanplayr’s AI-driven insights, he is redefining how companies leverage behavioral data to create personalized, high-converting customer experiences.
Episode Show Notes
Welcome to The Marketing Growth Podcast with your host, Shane Barker. In today’s episode, Shane sits down with Simon Yencken, CEO and Co-Founder of Fanplayr, to explore his entrepreneurial journey and the innovative technology powering his company. Simon shares how Fanplayr leverages AI-driven behavioral segmentation to analyze website traffic and deliver real-time insights that help businesses personalize user experiences and boost conversions. He recounts his international path—from growing up in Melbourne, Australia, to living in London and ultimately moving to Silicon Valley—and how his diverse background in law and technology paved the way for success in the competitive digital landscape.
Simon explains that by turning the vast data trails left by website visitors into actionable intelligence, Fanplayr empowers brands to engage users more effectively and reduce bounce rates. He also touches on his experiences at Reuters and his early career in legal practice, which helped shape his unique perspective on business growth and innovation. This engaging conversation provides valuable insights into how data-driven strategies can enhance website performance and build lasting customer relationships. Whether you’re a startup founder or a seasoned marketer, Simon’s story and Fanplayr’s breakthrough technology offer actionable lessons to drive your business forward.
Books mentioned
- Content Chemistry by Andy Crestodina
Brands mentioned
- Fanplayr
- Reuters
- Thomson Reuters
- eBay
- Amazon
- Herbert Smith Freehills
- Tibco

Welcome to the Marketing Growth Podcast. I’m Shane Barker, and I’m excited to have Simon Yencken, the CEO and co‑founder of Fanplayr, with us today.
Fanplayr uses behavioral segmentation technology powered by AI to analyze website traffic and give users real‑time insights on how to improve and personalize their interactions with visitors. On today’s episode, we’re going to talk about Simon’s entrepreneurial journey, the technology behind Fanplayr, and increasing website conversions.
Before we begin, I wanted to take a minute to talk to my listeners. If you’re struggling to make the most of your website traffic, check out Fanplayr’s behavioral segmentation patented technology. You can also reach out to me and my team for website redesign and development, conversion rate optimization (CRO), search engine optimization (SEO), and lead generation services. To learn more about our services, visit Shane Barker—S H A N E B A R K E R dot com now.

We’re excited today to have Simon Yencken from Fanplayr. We’ve got a phenomenal guest, and I don’t want to give away all the good stuff up front, but I feel like there are only two companies you haven’t invested in—I’ve done my research—and you’re a seasoned investor. I’m excited to let everyone know what you’ve got going on at Fanplayr.
But before we jump into the hot and heavy fun stuff, I like to get to know our guests a bit. You and I talked off‑podcast about where you’re from, but I want the audience to get a sense of who Simon is as an individual and what he’s done. So, Simon, where did you grow up, man?

Simon Yencken
I grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and had an interesting career living in Melbourne and Sydney. I moved to London, and then to Silicon Valley. So it’s been a journey.

That’s awesome. We were talking about that. When you said you’re from Australia, my brother actually went to UTS in Sydney, and we’ve been to Melbourne too.
It’s funny—he started off in London, then went to Australia, and now he’s in San Francisco. You guys have hit a few of the same countries.

Simon Yencken
Yeah, true. I still remember when I first moved from Australia to London, well before Uber. You get into a black cab, and immediately the driver listens to your accent and figures out where you’re from. When I first arrived, they immediately identified me as Australian and started going on about “we just beat you at cricket,” or “you guys are terrible at rugby,” that sort of thing. It spurred me to make a conscious effort to sound more English. Then I went through a period where I’d get into a black cab and, when asked “Where are you from?” I’d say “South Africa.” That didn’t work either. It’s funny—accents and where people live.

Trying to throw people off. It’s funny—when I travel, I don’t think I have an accent. I go somewhere and they ask, “Where are you from?” I say, “Why?” And they say, “You have an accent.” You don’t realize it; this is how you talk, and people hear you.
So now, when I get into cabs or Ubers, I try to throw people off by faking an accent and see if I can fool them.

Simon Yencken
I know exactly. I think it’s been really great—the connection in the tech world between Australia and the US West Coast. A lot of Australian tech companies come to this market to really take off, and I’ve been involved in quite a few of those.
People often say, “Hey, what’s Australia like?” Honestly, it’s so similar to living on the West Coast. I feel that people coming from the US West Coast to the East Coast of Australia fit right in. I’m sure you found that same with your track.

We went up the coast to the Gold Coast. My dad, my brother and I got a van and drove up. The culture, the food, the people—nothing but a great time. One night we ended up at a phone party with my dad and brother. I don’t know how it happened; we were hanging out, there were some girls, and then suddenly we were at a phone party. I looked at my dad and thought, “I’m at a phone party with my dad,” and we had the best time. Between the scuba diving and the people, it was incredible. That was many moons ago, but now that things are opening up, I can’t wait to get back.
So in Australia, how big was your family growing up?

Simon Yencken
I grew up in a family of four kids and had a large extended family of cousins, aunts, and uncles. We spent a lot of time with our grandparents.
On my mother’s side, my grandfather was CEO of the Windsor Hotel in Melbourne, which is still there. On my father’s side, there was a family business, Inc and Glass, which went back generations.
We used to share a holiday house with our cousins at the beach, so it was a really big family and plenty of reasons to want to go back to Melbourne. But we can’t at the moment with the pandemic.

That stopped us. I’ve always been a little envious of families who get together for reunions—20, 30, even 50 people at a beach house. My family was close, but never that big. That’s awesome. What interesting facts from your childhood—anything most people don’t know or that was out of the ordinary?

Simon Yencken
One thing that I think is interesting that a lot of people here probably don’t know about Melbourne is that the gold rush in Melbourne happened around the same time, or a little bit after, the gold rush in San Francisco in the 1850s and was equally big.
On my father’s mother’s side of the family, her grandfather and two of his brothers came to California, to San Francisco from Sunset in England, and the three brothers worked in the gold rush. Jordan stayed, and they founded a shipping line in San Francisco called the Pacific Shipping Line. His name was Captain Charles Goodall. He had a huge house overlooking the bay, and they built Monterey Wharf. You can go to Oakland Cemetery on Millionaires’ Row and see his incredible mausoleum.
His brother John Goodall, my grandmother’s grandfather, left during the gold rush, went to Melbourne for the Melbourne gold rush, and found his niche as a stockbroker, buying and selling shares in gold mining companies and sitting on quite a few gold mining company boards. In 1908 he built the family beach house that we still own today, south of Melbourne. It’s awesome—it kept the family together and created this San Francisco–Melbourne gold rush connection.

Man, I love that. And so that’s, man, that’s, and I didn’t know there was a gold rush in Australia. I mean, that’s obviously in California, you know, 40 Niners and all the other fun stuff. We were taught that. But I didn’t know in Australia, that’s interesting. I never, I never knew that as a fact.

Simon Yencken
Yeah, Melbourne was actually, at the time, I think, one of the richest and biggest economies anywhere in the world because of the Gold Rush was quite incredible. And it means that you actually go there, not just even in Melbourne, but some of the Gold Rush towns, just incredible architecture, all created by the money for gold. It’s quite amazing.

Wow. That’s incredible. And then you, and you’re currently, and we say the Bay Area, but you’re currently what in Palo Alto?

Simon Yencken
I remember when I moved here from England—it was to work at a company that Reuters had bought. I was on the executive committee at Reuters, and we ended up IPOing the company, and I was talking to one of the Reuters executive directors about where to live. He’d just moved from London to California. He said, “Whatever you do, don’t live in San Francisco.” I said, “Really, David? Why?” And he said, “Haven’t you heard of Mark Wayne?” I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “The coldest winter I ever experienced was summer in San Francisco.” Then my colleague said, “Look, Simon, don’t live in San Francisco. You’ve got to live in Palo Alto.” That’s why I’m here.

That is too funny, and you’re like, Alright, sounds good, David, I trust you not a problem. So you moved to Palo Alto, what? Um, what was your What was your first job out of college? Or where did you go to college?

Simon Yencken
I went to Monash University, which is one of the biggest universities in Australia. I think it’s one of the leading universities in the world. I studied science with mathematics and law, and as an undergraduate I figured law was the easiest, most ready-made profession to go into. I didn’t really see myself wearing a white lab coat and spending my day stuck inside a lab. So I knew I’d be a lawyer, and that’s how I started.

There we go. I love it, boy. I mean, that’s, that’s something you so you’ve got a science and then also a law background. So that’s, so what was your first job out of college?

Simon Yencken
I went to a law firm, now called Hermit Smith Free Hills, one of the biggest law firms in the world, which was then called Mill Hamilton and Durham in Melbourne. It’s interesting—I started there, and five years later they made me a partner. I was the youngest partner ever. They said, “Simon, now you’re a partner. We’ve never signed a partnership deed. Here’s the file I gave you—this huge file of unsigned documents. It’s your job to make that into a signed partnership team,” which I did. Then I saw I was the equal youngest partner ever. I spent ten years as a partner at Hermit Smith Free Hills. I loved it. It’s a fantastic firm.
Then there was an opportunity with a client to work as general counsel for Reuters in London, and that’s really how I started my career in technology.

So how does that—this is why I asked these questions. I want to know where people went to school, where they grew up. You started off in law, and then how did you guys come up with the idea to start Fanplayr, and how did that all play out?
Obviously, that was your foot into Silicon Valley, and from there opportunities came about.

Simon Yencken
That’s very true. At Fanplayr, the three founders all come from financial services and tech backgrounds.
What many people don’t realize about Reuters is that, although it’s known for news and became Thomson Reuters and then Refinitiv, it’s really a tech company. From the news side came the first speaker services, stock picking, and stock quotes, so it became primarily an information and tech business.
I moved into Reuters’ technology arm and got involved in acquisitions and on the executive committee. I started hiring people in my department who I thought could go on to run the company. One of my hires, Tom Glosso, ended up as CEO of Thomson Reuters, and another, Devin Wenig—an executive director at Reuters—became CEO of eBay.
As I saw people I’d hired move into the business, I kept telling the CEO, Peter, “I’d like to go and work in the business.” He said, “No, we need you here doing the legal work.” Finally, he agreed, and I moved to Pipco in Silicon Valley, which began as a company providing digital micro‑data systems for bank dealing rooms. On a dealing‑room floor, you could manipulate data feeds and display information optimally.
Essentially, Tibco was originally FinTech, and the three of us founders—myself, Rhys, and Caro Derek Edelman, whom I’d worked with at different companies—are all from FinTech backgrounds. We saw the power of data in banking and financial services and how analytics, intelligence, and trading fueled growth over decades.
As e‑commerce emerged, we saw how Amazon and many other data‑driven companies succeeded. If you can understand the data and analytics intelligence behind user behavior, then we at Fanplayr can empower businesses to be more data‑centric and perform better. That insight led to our start.


Simon Yencken
Yes, that’s a great question. What our technology is all about is summed up in the company’s mission statement, “making behavioral data actionable.” We realized early on that every visitor to an e‑commerce site—or any site—leaves a trail of data, and that data tells you a lot about them.
That data journey, created by millions—or billions—of visitors worldwide, shows businesses why people are there, what they’re looking for, and what their interests are. If you can turn that data to your advantage—if you can understand your visitors’ intentions—you can provide a much better experience.
Our technology works by capturing and analyzing the data generated by each visitor, then empowering our clients to personalize the journey for every individual. That way, each person sees the most relevant, engaging content.
If you look at any site, across industries and regions, you’ll find that around half of visitors land with a purpose, yet roughly 99% leave within two or three pages and in under two minutes. There’s a huge drop‑off between arrival and departure.
Think about your own experience: if you go to a retail or e‑commerce site and can’t find what you want, it’s easy to get distracted and click away.
As a business, if you respond to visitors’ reasons for coming—by offering a personalized, relevant experience—you boost engagement. The more engaged people are, the longer they stay, and the more likely they are to complete a purchase or become a qualified lead. There’s a strong link between personalization, visitor engagement, and better business results.

Thanks, listeners, I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Simon yankin and that it helped you learn how behavioral data segmentation can help you provide better experiences to your website visitors and drive more conversions on my next episode. We’ll cover topics like AI and how it can help you with user segmentation and behavioral targeting. If you like what you hear, be sure to tune into the Marketing Growth Podcast.