From National BMX Champion to Fulfillment Software Founder

0:000 secondsWhy can’t it be simple? Why do I need to be clicking so many buttons and having warehouse workers make so many
0:088 secondsdecisions? What if you could get a thousand orders pickp pack shipped in all those labels with three clicks?
0:1818 secondsWelcome to the Know Your Ship podcast presented by EHUB. I’m your host, Frank Dolce.
0:2626 secondsI think we’ve been trying to do this for a long time. It’s been a while. Yeah.
0:3030 secondsI’m really happy to be on here. I’m really glad that we uh we got it together. Yeah.
0:3535 secondsFinally. Yeah. Ron Bester Legivio, but you this is your most recent venture. Yes.
0:4242 secondsYou have a you have a long and interesting history. And so I’d like to talk about how you got into this, how
0:4949 secondsyou started. I’d obviously we’d like to talk about what you guys do, what Legivio does and where it fits in the shipping and logistics and
0:5858 secondstransportation marketplace and all of those things, but um but uh you do I think you have an interesting story that we’d like to to
1:061 minute, 6 secondsuh maybe talk about first. How does that sound? That sounds awesome.
1:091 minute, 9 secondsAre you Did you grow up in in uh California?
1:131 minute, 13 secondsI did not. I grew up in Spokane, Washington.
1:161 minute, 16 secondsOh, yeah. How uh how did you well tell me about Spokane family lived there and
1:231 minute, 23 secondsYeah. My my whole family was there and so my grandma and grandpa they came from Minnesota.
1:311 minute, 31 secondsMhm.
1:321 minute, 32 secondsAnd they moved out uh sometime in I think the late 30s to Spokane. Mhm.
1:381 minute, 38 secondsIt was kind of a I think there was a a lot of uh people that took that path from for some for whatever reason from like St. Paul Minneapolis region.
1:481 minute, 48 secondsMhm.
1:481 minute, 48 secondsAnd uh and moved to Spokane and that’s where uh they had five children and my
1:551 minute, 55 secondsdad was the second youngest of them. And uh he met my mom in high school there
2:042 minutes, 4 secondsand uh so then they started the family and I grew up racing bikes there which was really fun.
2:102 minutes, 10 secondsRacing uh what kind of bikes? What kind BMX? Uh so you know motocross was a big thing back then. Yeah.
Chapter 2: From BMX Racing to Business School
2:172 minutes, 17 secondsAnd uh there was a new sport that came out uh back when I was a kid and people were turning uh Schwin Stingrays
2:262 minutes, 26 secondsand and bikes like that into motocrossers and and pedal racing, right?
2:312 minutes, 31 secondsAnd it became really big back then and big in the 80s. And uh so that was one of my one of my more uh favorite activities that I did when I was growing
2:392 minutes, 39 secondsup there. So, did you do that then in uh like in competition or did I did Yeah. I started racing when I was
2:482 minutes, 48 secondsprobably about eight years old and uh it was on this big huge downhill ultra dangerous track where there was always
2:562 minutes, 56 secondsan ambulance park there to haul people away. Wow.
3:013 minutes, 1 secondYeah, that was really fun. And um I actually at one point uh was a national champion uh yeah when I was 14.
3:113 minutes, 11 secondsYou’re kidding. Yeah, that’s right.
3:143 minutes, 14 secondsYeah. So that was fun. And ultimately I actually uh raced pro. I never like made a big living at it.
3:213 minutes, 21 secondsUhhuh. But uh it was fun just to you know I was about 16 17 just always had money because I was always just making a little bit of money doing that and
3:293 minutes, 29 secondslike getting sponsored and or winning events and Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had national sponsors and and uh was was racing
3:393 minutes, 39 secondsprofessionally. never really fullon, you know, factory sponsored traveling all around the country, but at least the the
3:453 minutes, 45 secondsregional races in Seattle, California, and it was just a really fun thing to do growing up.
3:523 minutes, 52 secondsYou’re talking about that so nonchalantly, but that feels like kind of a big deal.
3:583 minutes, 58 secondsLike that there aren’t many people in the world that are like, “Yeah, I I was a professional bike racer.” You had the competitive spirit. What did your
4:074 minutes, 7 secondsparents do when you were growing up? One of the the big industries there was aluminum, Kaiser aluminum up there.
4:154 minutes, 15 secondsAnd so my dad was a I was a brickmason and because to do the smelting of the
4:214 minutes, 21 secondsaluminum, they had to continually build the furnaces that would melt and uh melt the aluminum so they could uh smelt it.
4:304 minutes, 30 secondsI think that’s what it was called.
4:324 minutes, 32 secondsSounds right to me. But uh but they would run them as long as they could and then they would break down and then they would build a new then they would uh rip it out and they
4:414 minutes, 41 secondsbuild it. So there was just they just continue to rotate and just do the the bricks for the for the furnaces. So he
4:494 minutes, 49 secondsdid that uh for pretty much most of the 70s. Uh and then he started driving a
4:564 minutes, 56 secondstruck for a a grocery wholesaler called URM.
5:025 minutes, 2 secondsUhhuh. And that’s uh that’s kind of was my my first uh exposure to transportation because my dad my dad liked it. He
5:105 minutes, 10 secondsthought it was really cool and yeah, he liked to take us out on the truck and bring us to the warehouse and and take a look at things and
5:195 minutes, 19 secondsuh I was I was always pretty intrigued by that and the way that things worked and I like the equipment in there and so I don’t know if that eventually
5:285 minutes, 28 secondshad anything to do with where I ended up with wholesale distribution and and shipping but uh yeah I always thought it was really cool.
5:355 minutes, 35 secondsBut you had some exposure to it early Yeah.
5:385 minutes, 38 secondsearly on. So, at that point, were you getting kind of uh getting ready to go to college or finishing high school?
5:465 minutes, 46 secondsWhere were you at that?
5:475 minutes, 47 secondsYeah, finishing high school. I was I was always really good at school. So, I I was I was pretty prepared for college.
5:535 minutes, 53 secondsSpokane has uh just at that time they had community college that I that I went to right out of school. Mhm.
6:016 minutes, 1 secondAnd so, it only took me, I think, three years to get my two-year associates degree.
6:096 minutes, 9 secondsyou were just you were very diligent because again I I think I was probably still racing a little bit then and just goofing around and just just having fun
6:166 minutes, 16 secondsand probably working to to make some money. So ultimately once I did that u there was a thing within Washington
6:246 minutes, 24 secondswhere if you had your AA degree and a anything over a 3.5 GPA then they would accept you at the University of
6:316 minutes, 31 secondsWashington. So, uh, that’s when I moved over to, uh, over to Seattle around 1989 to go to UDub.
6:396 minutes, 39 secondsSo, at this point, are you do you have an idea about what you want to do for a career?
6:456 minutes, 45 secondsWell, when I was I started off, uh, and in a lot of my earlier courses, uh, even in high school were computer programming, computer science.
6:556 minutes, 55 secondsUhhuh.
6:566 minutes, 56 secondsAnd I my mind I’ve got a pretty pretty strong engineering and mathematical mind. So uh and I was really intrigued
7:047 minutes, 4 secondsby computers and what they could do even though back then they just weren’t really doing as much. No.
7:117 minutes, 11 secondsBut some of the the programs and just having some automations, just some minor automations, uh even if it was just
7:187 minutes, 18 secondsmaking a figure on a screen do something, uh that was pretty intriguing to me. So I I really liked it. And even
7:257 minutes, 25 secondsthen when I uh started at the University of Washington, I actually started off in the computer science program. Did that
7:327 minutes, 32 secondsfor maybe a couple quarters and then just for whatever reason, I just decided I didn’t like it anymore.
7:417 minutes, 41 secondsAnd I I switched over to uh to business because that to me seemed like maybe there would be
7:497 minutes, 49 secondsYeah, there’s no future in computer science. Yeah, that was a good bet.
7:577 minutes, 57 secondsOh, yeah, sure. But at least I had that base which which has helped me later on.
8:018 minutes, 1 secondBut uh yeah, but yeah, having having a having a business degree, you know, you can’t really go wrong with that either.
8:078 minutes, 7 secondsAnd yeah, and I did uh I was pretty heavy in finance and that. So Mhm. Um, actually when I ended up uh
8:148 minutes, 14 secondsgraduating from the University of Washington, the business school there, um, I actually really got my my good grades there. So I I graduated Kungla from Yeah.
8:268 minutes, 26 secondsfrom the University of Washington. Wow.
8:288 minutes, 28 secondsAnd I went to go work for a company called IDS Financial Services and that was it’s now Marrize. uh they were owned
8:378 minutes, 37 secondsby American Express even back then and uh and that I mean that was a fun
8:448 minutes, 44 secondsrole. I almost consider like another year of like graduate school almost in finance but uh ultimately I didn’t
8:538 minutes, 53 secondsreally like that either. Just I just didn’t just envision didn’t envision just building the client base and living living and just doing that. Uh-huh.
9:039 minutes, 3 secondsI just felt like there should be something more.
9:079 minutes, 7 secondsSo, what was it? What was the something more?
9:099 minutes, 9 secondsI just went looking and there was an opportunity that I came across with a
9:179 minutes, 17 secondscatalog company and uh that was called the Mac Zone and they were a Mac accessories catalog.
Chapter 3: Selling Mac Accessories in the Early Days of E-Commerce
9:299 minutes, 29 secondsOh. Uhhuh. And that was back when hard and this was in the early 90s. That
9:359 minutes, 35 secondswas back when retail stores didn’t really have any shelf space to give to Apple products. But there was so many
9:449 minutes, 44 secondsmore accessories that you couldn’t get in the store. So the the Mac catalog
9:529 minutes, 52 secondsbusiness uh really took off. So um I went uh and I started uh working there as a merchandiser
10:0110 minutes, 1 secondand that was selling catalog space and then and that cuz no internet.
10:0810 minutes, 8 secondsYeah, imagine that. And so they would so we would sell the catalog space and then fund the postage and the printing to
10:1610 minutes, 16 secondssend out millions of cataloges and get the phones ringing. So that was the whole thing. So to me after selling life
10:2510 minutes, 25 secondsinsurance for a year to be to go to someone and say I’m going to all you got to do is buy this ad and I’m going to buy a bunch of product from
10:3310 minutes, 33 secondsyou to ship out to support that ad. And that was a pretty easy proposition
10:4210 minutes, 42 secondsafter after trying to sell uh you know financial services and commission front-loaded yeah mutual funds. So
10:5010 minutes, 50 secondsyeah, I was in that industry for a minute too.
10:5210 minutes, 52 secondsOh yeah. So I know that pain.
10:5510 minutes, 55 secondsI flourished. It was uh it was really really fun and really easy and it was just a a really fun time to be in that industry.
11:0311 minutes, 3 secondsOkay. So you’re doing pretty well selling Mac accessories. And what was the next step? What what uh led you to the next adventure? the VP of my group.
11:1511 minutes, 15 secondsHe was a very technologydriven guy and he was working with Apple and
11:2411 minutes, 24 secondsworking with them on getting our catalog basically in what was called Apple EWorld. Mhm.
11:3011 minutes, 30 secondsI don’t know if you remember that. It was more like a It was like a America Online because there really wasn’t the www that we know now.
11:3911 minutes, 39 secondsMhm. where you can do HTML and and publish. So, but it was a it was a way to sell products online.
11:4711 minutes, 47 secondsAnd whereas we never really moved the catalog to that, maybe about a
11:5511 minutes, 55 secondsyear later, we were one of the first e-commerce sites that uh you know, we’re selling products on the internet.
12:0412 minutes, 4 secondsAnd it made a lot of sense because we had the the DTOC fulfillment centers.
12:0812 minutes, 8 secondsMhm. And we got up to, you know, when I started there, we were doing probably about 88 million. By the time we added
12:1512 minutes, 15 secondsthe on the e-commerce store, I don’t know, may may have been up to like 200 million.
12:2212 minutes, 22 secondsAnd by the time I left, maybe about six years into it, we were probably up to like 500 million and we went public. And
12:3212 minutes, 32 secondsso that was pretty cool. But the the whole getting into e-commerce first and and doing that uh that really
12:4012 minutes, 40 secondsappealed to me because now that was the the whole computer programming and everything you had to do to to make a
12:4712 minutes, 47 secondscatalog online. It also made sense from a from a buyer perspective because they
12:5412 minutes, 54 secondscan buy that on technical specifications.
12:5812 minutes, 58 secondsthey’ve went to the store and they saw, okay, there’s this product. I can get it for a little bit cheaper online.
13:0413 minutes, 4 secondsSo, uh, that’s why, you know, your computer and your tech products were really some of the first to sell online, right?
13:1113 minutes, 11 secondsYeah. So, when you’re talking about being online, selling online, what did that process look like for the consumer?
13:2113 minutes, 21 secondsWe just made it basically an electronic catalog. So, it was pretty similar. we
13:2813 minutes, 28 secondsstarted advertising the the website on on the catalog so they could go there anytime instead of
13:3513 minutes, 35 secondshaving to wait for the next episode of uh or episode next version of the catalog to come out to see what the latest was. And we kind of had a
13:4313 minutes, 43 secondsreputation of having the latest greatest products at zones and because we just needed to continually
13:5213 minutes, 52 secondsjust bring fresh products and that was that was kind of our thing and that was that was our appeal and that’s uh that’s why that you know we we had our place in the market for sure.
14:0114 minutes, 1 secondBut you didn’t stay there. You didn’t stay.
14:0414 minutes, 4 secondsNo, I did. Yeah, that was that was that was six years. But six years, but it it was it was four pretty cool
14:1114 minutes, 11 secondsopportunities. So, um there’s a lot of companies that very quickly started selling online because there was a lot
14:1914 minutes, 19 secondsof companies getting very large valuations and even going public uh with the online selling model and I
14:2814 minutes, 28 secondswas in Seattle and that’s where Amazon started. So, uh they obviously experienced a bit of success.
14:3514 minutes, 35 secondsNot bad. Just a book seller. Yeah, even even with the books though, they did really well with the books, but uh
14:4114 minutes, 41 secondsto what’s really amazing is just Bas Basos is no, that’s not good enough. I
14:4914 minutes, 49 secondscould be making money on this, but I’m just going to keep on plowing money in and just growing the market, growing the distribution and doing it. It was really
14:5714 minutes, 57 secondsI I’m not telling anyone that anything they don’t know that, you know, the the biggest visionary, you know, one of the
15:0415 minutes, 4 secondsbiggest visionaries possible. So, uh, that really showed people what could be done. And so, there was there was a lot
15:1115 minutes, 11 secondsof people doing that, including, uh, a drop ship model, which was some, we did a lot of that. We had our own
15:1915 minutes, 19 secondswarehouse, but, um, we were actually also one of, uh, Angram Micro’s first drop ship program where we were actually sending
15:2815 minutes, 28 secondsthem the order to drop ship to to their customers, right? That way we could expand our catalog without having to have all the inventory and
15:3515 minutes, 35 secondsall the associated overhead. And um and a lot of other companies started doing that. There’s shopping.com, shop.com and
15:4415 minutes, 44 secondsand they were 100% virtual and here here was the funny thing about that. They would sell, but then when people didn’t want the product, where would they return it to?
15:5515 minutes, 55 secondsSo, a a gentleman uh Sean Repco, who
16:0216 minutes, 2 secondseventually became my partner in in that uh business, uh we originally called it Return View. He had a relationship with
Chapter 4: Building a Returns Management Startup Before Its Time
16:1016 minutes, 10 secondsuh with someone at Shop.com, I think it was. And we went into their office and it was packed to the rafters
16:1816 minutes, 18 secondswith returns. So, we said, “Well, let’s do something about that.” So, so we started a an online auction
16:2616 minutes, 26 secondsand so started uh and we did a program with them to just take the returns directly from them and have them not
16:3516 minutes, 35 secondseven go to their office but just to wherever we uh Yeah. Yeah.
16:3916 minutes, 39 secondsAnd that was actually uh so that was actually a pretty good model. uh we focused on the software and that’s what actually got me down from
16:4916 minutes, 49 secondsuh from Seattle to move down to Irvine and that was in around 2000 or so and that was right before I think everyone’s
16:5716 minutes, 57 secondsequating the AI to the internet bubble that burst in the 20 in 2000s. So, Mhm.
17:0517 minutes, 5 secondsIt was really quite interesting cuz we raised uh almost $3 million off of a business plan to do this and to start developing the software.
17:1517 minutes, 15 secondsAnd the difference back then too was we we actually were building a SAS software, but you couldn’t do it on
17:2417 minutes, 24 secondssomeone else’s platform or rent the software. You actually had to go and buy the servers. You had to buy the software. And that was an expensive proposition back then.
17:3517 minutes, 35 secondsSo we went through that money pretty quickly and getting some beta customers and everything was going great. And then all
17:4217 minutes, 42 secondsof a sudden the internet bubble burst right right about when we were needed that needed that next round.
17:5017 minutes, 50 secondsSo, uh, unfortunately, uh, we sold to a a beta customer who was a was a distributor that really wanted
17:5817 minutes, 58 secondsour software and certainly wasn’t any type of exit that we were expecting, but, you know, it was it was enough to
18:0618 minutes, 6 secondsto hold me over till I found the next thing.
18:0918 minutes, 9 secondsSo, tell me about the software that you were you were building. Is this okay? Is the software based on you walking in and
18:1618 minutes, 16 secondsseeing rafters full of returns and then determining we could do something with that?
18:2218 minutes, 22 secondsIt was it was really at the time really ingenious, but it was a bit ahead of its time for connectivity.
18:3218 minutes, 32 secondsSo the idea was we actually built a a a returns management portal.
18:3818 minutes, 38 secondsMhm. that the e-commerce companies could host on their website
18:4518 minutes, 45 secondsand it would basically create a filter of questions that would understand why it’s being returned.
18:5318 minutes, 53 secondsUh we had a a pretty uh smart way, I’ll just use that term, smart way of routing through
19:0119 minutes, 1 secondsome sales preservation questions that historically a phone rep would do, right? Because the the whole model with
19:1019 minutes, 10 secondsthese companies at the time was to keep the phones from ringing, which was a little bit different than we did
19:1719 minutes, 17 secondsanything to get the phones ringing in the catalog business. Right. Right.
19:2119 minutes, 21 secondsUh but the the whole idea was that the promise of the internet and technology was that uh you could do it with way less people. Mhm.
19:2919 minutes, 29 secondsAnd you know that’s still still the dream and it’s probably closer to to reality now than it was back then. But
19:3719 minutes, 37 secondsso we had uh a so that that’s what the code was doing and what the program did was uh create that returns management
19:4619 minutes, 46 secondsportal. Uh we had what we called the sales preservation track. Uh but ultimately when
19:5419 minutes, 54 secondsthat did not do then we had to provide them with a place to return the product to and that’s what we worked with uh
20:0220 minutes, 2 secondsthose companies to route it to a a warehouse and then auction it off. And then we
20:1020 minutes, 10 secondsthought, well, what if we sold the same software to
20:1820 minutes, 18 secondsthe suppliers? Then if if in fact they were still within return window. So then we had to have basically all the same questions but
20:2720 minutes, 27 secondsgeared specifically towards that customer.
20:3020 minutes, 30 secondsWhat if it went to them and then check their return policy? So we had these policies pro programmed in there and sales preservation and everything and
20:4020 minutes, 40 secondsthen they could give you the disposition and then basically route it through the software and get it to the customer and
20:4720 minutes, 47 secondstell them where to send it. We just kept on seeing if we could back that further and further up to, you know, ultimately where probably, you know, whoever
20:5620 minutes, 56 secondswhoever did the final assembly of the product would would be the where it would stop and just see what they they said. And then we even had another path
21:0521 minutes, 5 secondsthat would even sell it on auction and then uh you know put a really quick auction on it and even have the customer send it straight to another customer.
21:1321 minutes, 13 secondsBut uh Oh, that that was a little bit ambitious, but we did get uh we did get a couple betas where we did have at least two layers.
21:2221 minutes, 22 secondsUhhuh.
21:2221 minutes, 22 secondsThat worked and that was fun. So that was that was a a real challenge. The the issue there was the systems and the APIs weren’t as advanced and the security.
21:3421 minutes, 34 secondsMhm.
21:3421 minutes, 34 secondsSo, it was really um that was really one of the biggest barriers to us really pulling that off. Aside from running out
21:4221 minutes, 42 secondsof money, I think if we with enough money, we probably could have done it.
21:4621 minutes, 46 secondsBut uh that really prevented people from being able to uh you know expose their they couldn’t kind of distinguish
21:5521 minutes, 55 secondsbetween certain pieces of data and get even access to their whole system which maybe back then the way they were designed it would have been a hole into
22:0322 minutes, 3 secondstheir system. So, uh, I’m not saying it it wasn’t a valid concern and and that was the decision. But,
22:1022 minutes, 10 secondsbut even at one layer and just having it come back to the to the store and then route to their returns management warehouse or ours so we could resell it.
22:1822 minutes, 18 secondsMhm.
22:1922 minutes, 19 secondsUh, there’s real value there. So your uh your revenue streams associated with that business are
22:2822 minutes, 28 secondsuh you’re you’re auctioning off the returns and you’re now potentially selling your software to Gotcha.
22:3622 minutes, 36 secondsMhm. Gotcha.
22:3822 minutes, 38 secondsExactly what it was. And really the the inventory coming back to uh to your office is almost valueless. So you know
22:4422 minutes, 44 secondswe were getting computers for 10 cents on the dollar and Oh. And then yeah, so there’s there’s some really good margin on that. Yeah.
22:5422 minutes, 54 secondsThose back sending those back out. Okay. So at this point in your career, you have some exposure to automations in
23:0323 minutes, 3 secondsengineering and you have exposure to you have a financial background in school.
23:1423 minutes, 14 secondsyou’ve been engaged in a couple different sales roles and opportunities
23:2123 minutes, 21 secondsand now you’ve uh developed a software and took that to market.
23:3023 minutes, 30 secondsMhm.
23:3023 minutes, 30 secondsSo you you have like these four pillars to go and build your next thing. I’m really interested to know what the next
23:3923 minutes, 39 secondspart of the story is. Okay. Okay. So now the the software business is sold, right? That’s gone. Okay.
23:4523 minutes, 45 secondsNow what the viability of getting additional investment anytime in the near future after that cuz there’s a pretty big
23:5323 minutes, 53 secondsrecovery for tech investments at the time.
23:5823 minutes, 58 secondsAnd one of the uh the gentlemen who I worked with at zones
24:0624 minutes, 6 secondsuh started working with a company called uh by.com acquired by racketin uh eventually. So
24:1324 minutes, 13 secondsum pretty much any any of the the work that uh that I did there is kind of in uh inside of Racketin right now. Right.
24:2324 minutes, 23 secondsSo he brought me on and that was right when they were going through their turnaround.
24:2724 minutes, 27 secondsMhm. because B.com had a IPO I think it was in the in the late 90s
24:3524 minutes, 35 secondslike maybe 98 or 99 and their whole business model was to sell ads and to
24:4324 minutes, 43 secondsjust have really the lowest price on earth I think was their was their tagline and you know just try to make it up on
24:5124 minutes, 51 secondsadvertising and uh they did grow very fast and they I think they made it to like a billion dollars in sales really really quickly.
25:0225 minutes, 2 secondsBut uh the the model it just didn’t uh didn’t pan pan out all the way. Uh they
25:0925 minutes, 9 secondswent public and uh ultimately the original founder bought it back for
25:1625 minutes, 16 secondsquite a bit of a discount. I’m not sure exactly how much, but and that’s when uh we were brought on to
25:2425 minutes, 24 secondsbasically turn it around because at at zones we had a very profitable business. Mhm.
25:3025 minutes, 30 secondsBy selling ads and making margin, you know, not necessarily the lowest price, but just having a good selection and and
25:3725 minutes, 37 secondshave a a reasonable margin so you could you could still sell. So, we did a really good job on that one, too. It was a similar revenue story to to even the
25:4725 minutes, 47 secondscatalog from from a numbers perspective and that’s where I headed up to purchasing. Mhm.
25:5325 minutes, 53 secondsAnd uh so I was the VP of purchasing and there because we were mainly virtual it was managing all of the supplier relationships. Mhm.
26:0326 minutes, 3 secondsSo there was a lot of integrations that we had to do to get those products onto
26:1026 minutes, 10 secondsour website and to have them available for sale.
26:1326 minutes, 13 secondsMhm. And at the same time, you know, we were we were selling the product. Uh we were also selling advertising, which is
26:2126 minutes, 21 secondswhich I I think was the appeal to the the owner of buy because uh Scott and I both did that at
26:2826 minutes, 28 secondsuh Maxon and ultimately it was Maxon and PCON. But we did that very effectively there and we replicated that success at at BY as well.
26:3826 minutes, 38 secondsAnd uh so I did that uh for probably about four years or so. Mhm.
26:4626 minutes, 46 secondsUntil I had an opportunity to move to a company called Newegg. Mhm.
26:5126 minutes, 51 secondsYeah. As their VP of product management uh which in which encompassed uh e-commerce
27:0027 minutesuh merchandising and also inventory management and fulfillment.
27:0627 minutes, 6 secondsWow. Are you working with the same do you have a partner at this time? Do you are you working with the same people in these ventures or is it
27:1327 minutes, 13 secondsNo, they they weren’t even necessarily I mean Newegg by the time I joined them they were doing maybe they were already at like 600 million something like that.
27:2327 minutes, 23 secondsYeah.
27:2427 minutes, 24 secondsU with potential aspirations to go public. I don’t know if they they ever even did but so it was it was just more of a of an
27:3227 minutes, 32 secondsexecutive role. I I’d kind of assigned myself to to the corporate after being entrepreneurial. Um I was even
27:4127 minutes, 41 secondsentrepreneurial as a kid, but uh you know doing the software thing and uh having partners that weren’t necessarily
27:4927 minutes, 49 secondsthe best partners and then ultimately you know having the the the funding run out. to it it took away my immediate
27:5927 minutes, 59 secondsdesire to to go through that again and just to take a bit of an easier path frankly and by going in by going corporate.
28:0828 minutes, 8 secondsYeah, exactly.
28:0928 minutes, 9 secondsSo what tell tell me about that before we get into this next portion. Tell me about some of those things. Um because I think they’ll be meaningful as we
28:1728 minutes, 17 secondscontinue your story. But what are some of the lessons that you learned in all of those processes? You just mention
28:2428 minutes, 24 secondsmentioned funding uh partnerships, working with people like how how did that help shape the way you continued your career?
28:3628 minutes, 36 secondsIt made me more conservative uh for sure. And the first manifestation of that was working for corporations.
28:4628 minutes, 46 secondsAnd frankly, I was pretty comfortable, right? I wasn’t uh wasn’t necessarily as stressed out or sure
28:5428 minutes, 54 secondsor just so worried about uh what’s what’s next? Uh and where’s the where’s
29:0329 minutes, 3 secondsthe next round going to come from? And is there ever going to be a next round?
29:0929 minutes, 9 secondsparticularly if there’s things I felt things were pretty well in my control and going well but you know sometimes there’s external factors
29:1729 minutes, 17 secondsthat affect that um and it also and and you’d mentioned a few things there and one of them was was partners and I think
29:2529 minutes, 25 secondsit made me very discerning as far as the people that I would would partner with or if I would just wait for the right
29:3329 minutes, 33 secondsmoment and just do something on my own with and you know bring on people on my team that would be trusted and be
29:4329 minutes, 43 secondspartners in that way but not really lose that control that I that I felt that uh kind of prevented some some actions that
29:5229 minutes, 52 secondswould have helped out more and maybe even got us past uh even the internet bubble. Mhm. Yeah.
29:5929 minutes, 59 secondsSo, how long did you stay in the corporate world? Well, I was at Newegg for actually just over a year
30:0830 minutes, 8 secondsand uh that’s when the the next recession hit. 2008 200 Yeah.
30:1230 minutes, 12 secondsYeah. Exactly. And that was a real similar role to what I had. Uh, one of the values that I brought to that organization
30:2130 minutes, 21 secondsu was inventory management and and also e-commerce and and merchandising and
30:2730 minutes, 27 secondsjust being able to effectively and sell a lot of product online. Mhm.
30:3330 minutes, 33 secondsI mean, by that time, you’ve got a lot of vendor relationships, and that’s going to be really important to get the right products to be able to sell.
30:4330 minutes, 43 secondsBack then, people were the vendors were kind of getting over the thought that selling
30:5230 minutes, 52 secondsonline was just a a cheap outlet, which, you know, that’s what cataloges were. you know, people
31:0031 minuteswhen I first started doing it, they were viewing cataloges as lowcost outlets that are uh, you know, that they didn’t want necessarily wanted to be associated
31:0931 minutes, 9 secondswith. And and so I I was an evangelist ever since I was at the doing all the way from
31:1731 minutes, 17 secondscatalog through internet even all the way through uh through Newegg. But that was one of uh one of my values that I
31:2531 minutes, 25 secondsbrought to that, the inventory management, uh e-commerce, uh but also the relationships that I had
31:3231 minutes, 32 secondswith the suppliers that would do drop ship because I could expand the selection there and
31:3931 minutes, 39 secondsand uh and their sales potential without even adding more inventory.
31:4431 minutes, 44 secondsYeah. But ultimately we still housed enough inventory to sell or to support over $2 billion worth of sales by the
31:5231 minutes, 52 secondstime I was done there. Wow. Um and then a smaller portion of that was drop ship but uh but I increased that
32:0032 minutesquite a bit too and in the market that I was working in. So yeah. So you also have this competitive spirit. Mhm.
32:0732 minutes, 7 secondsWe know this from your BMX days and you want to win. So, wow. Is that fair to say you didn’t stay in the corporate world?
32:1532 minutes, 15 secondsYes. Yeah. And that’s when I I decided I just wanted to do do my own thing. And so all those same values that I brought
32:2432 minutes, 24 secondsto those two organizations, I thought, why not just do that myself? And I started uh doing independent consulting.
32:3532 minutes, 35 secondsThat was right around 2008.
32:3832 minutes, 38 secondsUhhuh. And I was doing uh channel sales and marketing and helping people establish their channel.
32:4632 minutes, 46 secondsAh, and a lot of the companies and the the manufacturers that I worked with that I helped at these other companies
32:5432 minutes, 54 secondsuh said, “Hey, Ron, I need help to to get in to New Egg because, you know, I want them to start buying
33:0233 minutes, 2 secondsfrom me.” Yeah.
33:0433 minutes, 4 secondsuh or how do I sell more on New Egg’s marketplace because um I was early on in in helping them establish their
33:1233 minutes, 12 secondsmarketplace where third party sellers could sell.
33:1533 minutes, 15 secondsHow do I do that? How do I actually make money doing that? And I Ron, I know that you had merchant programs with Amazon.
33:2333 minutes, 23 secondsHow do I sell more at Amazon? And I also had a lot of um colleagues that I worked with at zones up in Seattle that were
33:3033 minutes, 30 secondsnow at Amazon were doing rep services into there. So um I was kind of like a a matchmaker if
Chapter 5: The Gap in the Market That Led to His Software
33:3833 minutes, 38 secondsyou will. Yeah. Help people sell more online. The real transition came when one of my clients needed a order management system.
33:4933 minutes, 49 secondsUhhuh.
33:5133 minutes, 51 secondsAnd you know, I was used to working on these homegrown systems from three very large companies that I worked worked
33:5933 minutes, 59 secondswith that between the on-prem hardware and the software that they needed to run on that to and all the development that it took
34:0834 minutes, 8 secondsto to make all that work because there’s no out of the box e-commerce platforms at the time. Uh certainly no Shopifies
34:1734 minutes, 17 secondsor or no there was Amazon marketplace by that time so people could sell on marketplace but they were feeling that uh yeah if I
34:2534 minutes, 25 secondsjust do really well Amazon’s going to do a Amazon brand and just knock me out of the out of the market anyway if they wanted to scale you know I was looking
34:3234 minutes, 32 secondsat some expensive equipment I mean even Oracle servers and just some large you know web sphere from
34:4034 minutes, 40 secondsIBM software even you know Oracle software that people then develop a platform on and I’m coming back with
34:4834 minutes, 48 secondsthese two three million dollar and these guys are like no there’s got to be something else. I just kept looking and
34:5534 minutes, 55 secondslooking and I ran across a a cloud software that you didn’t have to pay upfront. It
35:0335 minutes, 3 secondswas more of a rental model for it and it was hosted like oh that’s interesting.
35:0935 minutes, 9 secondsUh Oracle Netswuite actually it wasn’t Oracle at the time excuse me it was Netswuite. Mhm.
35:1535 minutes, 15 secondsAnd I looked at it and I said, “Okay, they they’ve got the order management.” Oh, they even got the financials there. Mhm.
35:2135 minutes, 21 secondsUm they have uh CRM built right in. So that’s kind of all the components that I
35:2935 minutes, 29 secondswas going to going to look to uh you know have someone develop.
35:3435 minutes, 34 secondsSo I started looking into it and sure enough uh we we went with that.
35:4235 minutes, 42 secondsAnd so now we had the software.
35:4535 minutes, 45 secondsMhm. The or you had the Oracle software that seemed to Well, Netswuite at the time, excuse me, Netswuite software, correct?
35:5235 minutes, 52 secondsYeah. They weren’t acquired for a few years later, but and that kind of checked the boxes for you. Yeah. Okay.
35:5835 minutes, 58 secondsIn fact, I was like, wait, you can get all this and it’s I think the annual subscription for the the version we were
36:0536 minutes, 5 secondslooking at must have been maybe at most like 20 $25,000. Uhhuh.
36:1136 minutes, 11 secondsRight. because it was a small company and the model’s like a base license plus user count. So, uh I was pretty amazed.
36:2036 minutes, 20 secondsSo, yeah, okay, let’s get this. And then, uh then the guy looks at me and he goes, “Who’s going to implement this
36:2836 minutes, 28 secondsthing?” I said, “I don’t know. Let me let me see what I can find.” And I’m like, “Uh, just that small piece.”
36:3636 minutes, 36 secondsYeah. I’m like, “Well, I can’t really find anyone.” And he goes, “Well, can you do it?” I’m like, “I could try.”
36:4436 minutes, 44 secondsSo, so, uh, I started reading the manual, the online manual, the Netswuite implementation manual.
36:5236 minutes, 52 secondsYeah, that sounds like that sounds like fascinating reading page turner.
36:5836 minutes, 58 secondsOh, yeah. It was really exciting. But, uh, but but also I was just figuring it out cuz it it was software. I felt I
37:0537 minutes, 5 secondscould figure it out. I was pretty good at that kind of stuff. And but the the a really big challenge of it was they
37:1337 minutes, 13 secondswanted to integrate in a supplier that had 40,000 products and you know there was no out of the box connectors for
37:2137 minutes, 21 secondsanything back then. So I’m like hm now I got to figure out how to get these products into into the inventory management system.
37:3037 minutes, 30 secondsMhm. So, uh, I did find someone that did, uh, database management and there was and
37:3837 minutes, 38 secondsthey did, uh, but there was I can’t remember if there was even APIs or if we actually were doing uploads and downloads. I think there might have been
37:4537 minutes, 45 secondsan API so we could do electronic uh, updates on the inventory.
37:5137 minutes, 51 secondsBut it was also drop shipped too. So that when we uh, got an order on the the Netswuite e-commerce site
37:5937 minutes, 59 secondsMh. which was very rudimentary uh back at back in back in the day. I mean that was like I say by that time it might have been 2009.
38:0938 minutes, 9 secondsMhm.
38:0938 minutes, 9 secondsAnd so uh I even had to hire someone. I did actually find a web developer that could do it and uh they were called sweet
38:1938 minutes, 19 secondscentric but it was so basic that uh I had to work with them on just the most
38:2638 minutes, 26 secondsbasic things that we think of now like a search um narrowing and filtering. So you could
38:3338 minutes, 33 secondslike go to a category and then go to a subcategory or even have features that uh of you know if you’re looking
38:4238 minutes, 42 secondsfor a a display was that going to be under 27 in over 27 in so all that had to actually be custom developed because
38:5038 minutes, 50 secondsit just wasn’t anything templated and so that was one of the implementation steps
38:5838 minutes, 58 secondsuh getting that integration going and but uh But ultimately, yeah, we got that uh launched in nine months,
39:0739 minutes, 7 secondswhich I thought was pretty good for from scratch. But no kidding.
39:1239 minutes, 12 secondsDuring that time, I learned really a lot about Netswuite. I’ll bet and so I kind of uh developed an
39:2039 minutes, 20 secondsexpertise there and actually just started working off of referrals for for additional uh Suite implementations. And
39:2839 minutes, 28 secondsthat’s uh that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. Netswuite implementations.
39:3239 minutes, 32 secondsOkay. So, one of the things that we were talking about is on this implementation side is like like you kept searching for
39:4039 minutes, 40 secondsways to do it or other other companies that could help make it more efficient or whatever and
39:4839 minutes, 48 secondsjust kept finding or running into roadblocks. Couldn’t couldn’t find the right fit with another opportunity. You
39:5739 minutes, 57 secondsknow, that’s always a challenge, I think, with uh with any software solution, especially when you’re looking
40:0440 minutes, 4 secondsat a solution that’s going to replace a majority of people’s software stack, right?
40:1240 minutes, 12 secondsMhm.
40:1240 minutes, 12 secondsCuz but even today, you still have people going to one
40:1940 minutes, 19 secondssolution for inventory management, one for financials. I know. One for WMS. Absolutely.
40:2840 minutes, 28 secondsOne for shipping, one for CRM.
40:3040 minutes, 30 secondsYeah. One for billing, one for I mean there’s so many different Yep.
40:3540 minutes, 35 secondsAnd there’s even within those functions, even if one software does do all that, doesn’t mean you should use all that
40:4240 minutes, 42 secondseither, right? because it doesn’t if you’re going for world class um even on something as robust as Netswuite there’s
40:5140 minutes, 51 secondsstill going to be areas that frankly aren’t considered world class and so it does make sense to look to
41:0041 minutesother solutions especially if there’s a an elegant way to do that and to have them communicate together and some third
41:0941 minutes, 9 secondsparty outside of the system solutions make more sense than others. Mhm.
41:1441 minutes, 14 secondsUh because they’re maybe less reliant on timely information cuz there’s always going to be some sort of lag uh with any
41:2241 minutes, 22 secondstype of connector in between systems or just the the need to have access to a system of truth. Where does that lie?
41:3241 minutes, 32 secondsRight?
41:3441 minutes, 34 secondsSo yeah, I’ve been even even from the very beginning the website you know I had to
41:4241 minutes, 42 secondsgo to a sweet centric I invested a lot of my time on working with them on
41:4841 minutes, 48 secondsdevelopment on the functionality and everything and you know ultimately they developed a fairly solid product
41:5641 minutes, 56 secondsthat Netswuite bought and a lot of that was uh uh was a lot of the functionality that they develed developed for the
42:0442 minutes, 4 secondsfirst time for me. I’m not saying it was fully baked by the time they got done with me and they just sold that product.
42:0942 minutes, 9 secondsThat’s not that’s not even my point, but a lot of a lot of work that I did did go into that to make it work for my client,
42:1742 minutes, 17 secondswhich I’m which I’m happy with. And I’ve done that quite a bit in in using
42:2542 minutes, 25 secondsNetswuite solutions because Netswuite’s also a a a pretty solid development platform. Mhm.
42:3342 minutes, 33 secondswhere you can develop functionality on top of it. Yeah.
42:3742 minutes, 37 secondsAnd even ultimately develop an application that uh would uh would run that people
42:4542 minutes, 45 secondscan buy that you can install on various Netswuite instances, right? Yeah.
42:5042 minutes, 50 secondsIn fact, they have a marketplace and uh they call it their SDN marketplace. And
42:5842 minutes, 58 secondsuh so obviously there’s a lot of people that felt the same way that I did and have developed solutions to uh to do
43:0543 minutes, 5 secondsthat. But even on top of that, you’ve got connectors to Salesforce or worldclass CRM solution.
43:1443 minutes, 14 secondsUm you’ve got uh worldclass AR solutions that uh that can connect to and and some even run within Netswuite.
43:2343 minutes, 23 secondsAnd specifically in my use case because the companies that I worked with
43:3043 minutes, 30 secondsof course were the ones that were related to my operational business because that’s what I know. Mhm.
43:3643 minutes, 36 secondsRight. I know fulfillment, I know uh WMS, I know inventory, and I know
43:4243 minutes, 42 secondse-commerce. So, um those would be the the companies that uh that we work with and that I’m looking for solutions for.
43:5343 minutes, 53 secondsAnd uh one of the the gaps that that I found time and time again was shipping.
44:0344 minutes, 3 secondsOkay. And there were, you know, there’s some third party shipping solutions and a lot of them want to be working with a
44:1144 minutes, 11 secondsnumber of different platforms and so those are going to reside outside of Netswuite. And so, you know, you’re
44:1944 minutes, 19 secondsgoing to need connectors to get to those or even trying to to make even an internal fulfillment process with some of Netswuite’s native shipping functionalities.
44:2844 minutes, 28 secondsMhm. And I devoted for years a lot of time developing to those and uh you having
44:3744 minutes, 37 secondsour our development team just spend a lot of time. I I felt I architected some really really good solutions for
44:4544 minutes, 45 secondsit. But in the end, there was just you just didn’t have that full control and
44:5244 minutes, 52 secondsif someone changed something or they didn’t develop fast enough and there’s no road map and you know I’m I’m putting my clients in
45:0145 minutes, 1 secondkind of a I’m not going to go as far as to say a dead end, but just not a path that uh that I felt was adequate.
45:0845 minutes, 8 secondsMhm. without naming any names of any platforms. uh really the the straw that broke the camel’s back
45:1745 minutes, 17 secondswas uh you know I was doing a implementation with one of those third party solutions and it’s it’s considered one of the
45:2645 minutes, 26 secondswhat it’s one of the original one of the older ones that that worked with Netswuite that has uh LTL and parcel
45:3445 minutes, 34 secondsfunctionality in it and it was and and it’s never been an easy experience with these guys they
45:4145 minutes, 41 secondswere kind of my go-to. Um, there were some other ones that I go to if the client was a little bit different and had a little bit different need. Mhm.
45:4845 minutes, 48 secondsBut it was the client was so frustrated.
45:5345 minutes, 53 secondsAnd I’ve actually gained a pretty good tolerance from working with with people in groups. U cuz, you know, you’re not always working with the the most
46:0246 minutes, 2 secondsseasoned people at some of these other companies. And um, so I’m usually pretty understanding about it. But when when my
46:1046 minutes, 10 secondscustomers started getting upset and it started even reflecting poorly on me, then that was it. I said, I got to do
46:1846 minutes, 18 secondssomething about this. And that’s when I started developing Legivio. And this was probably probably a little over almost 3 years ago.
46:2846 minutes, 28 secondsAnd you know we we’ve done a lot of customizations for customers working within Netswuite that had you know some
46:3746 minutes, 37 secondsversion of the of what I viewed as being a very good solution and for it to really work well in my opinion and
46:4646 minutes, 46 secondsneeded to have a lot of functionality and of course you always have a road map and that’s that’s what I want. I want to
46:5446 minutes, 54 secondshave a strong road map. I want to know that my clients have a great solution now, but I’m not putting them on a
47:0147 minutes, 1 seconddead-end product and I’m always going to be looking for the best way for them to do everything. Uh because in the end
47:0947 minutes, 9 secondswhen I got my clients on not just a shipping solution, but any solution, um my feeling was it just shouldn’t be that
47:1847 minutes, 18 secondshard. The technology should be helping them.
47:2347 minutes, 23 secondsIt can be a very complicated process which you know shipping is a very complicated process. Absolutely.
47:3047 minutes, 30 secondsuh even the whole fulfillment execution layer u not just the final label generation it’s everything from make the
47:4047 minutes, 40 secondsthe picking process which we for the most part and I can talk a little bit more about where our solution picks up and everything but I’m just
47:4847 minutes, 48 secondstalking conceptually now uh you know gets it to where it’s going to be packed and shipped uh and then
47:5647 minutes, 56 secondswhere that fulfillment execution and the shipping optimization layer lies. Uh there’s a lot to that that can be
48:0548 minutes, 5 secondscomplicated and all the solutions that I found were complicated and what I wanted was and for years I
48:1448 minutes, 14 secondshad clients ask me I want a paperless process. I’m like well that doesn’t exist in that suite.
48:2348 minutes, 23 secondsAnd they’re like well why not? And I’m like well you know paperwork’s pretty good. So,
48:3148 minutes, 31 secondsnot not that that was a good answer at all or uh you know it it it’s just that that’s what I’ve seen people do and
48:3848 minutes, 38 secondsthey’ve they’ve kind of worked out a process for that with pick tickets and then sure uh and then being able to you know
48:4648 minutes, 46 secondsgenerate packing slips which was you know Netswuite’s native functionality but so I’ve I was like yeah why can’t it be
Chapter 6: Why Shipping Shouldn’t Be This Complicated
48:5348 minutes, 53 secondspaperless and why can’t it be simple why do I need to be click clicking, you know, so many buttons and making and
49:0249 minutes, 2 secondshaving warehouse workers make so many decisions when all they really want to do is just know what product to put in this box.
49:1149 minutes, 11 secondsYeah.
49:1249 minutes, 12 secondsWhat label to put out? I don’t right I don’t want to have to look at this and and say, “Does this need to go two day? How do I know? Mhm.
49:2149 minutes, 21 secondsDid that did is there a two-day promise from Amazon that I need to get that there or did someone say no, I no rush,
49:3049 minutes, 30 secondsjust uh I want the cheapest method possible. Mhm.
49:3349 minutes, 33 secondsAnd yet you’ve got someone trying to make those decisions and you know whether it was LTL or whether it was uh was parcel. So like well why can’t that
49:4249 minutes, 42 secondsbe automated and why can’t it just be a scan?
49:4749 minutes, 47 secondsMhm. Or if I’ve got a operation where I’ve got a high velocity
49:5649 minutes, 56 secondsshipping operation where I need to get out 20,000 items, why can’t there just be this easy bulk
50:0450 minutes, 4 secondspickpack ship process that I just okay do a few uh few search criteria and even
50:1350 minutes, 13 secondshave that just even be automated uh presets and even scheduled Mhm.
50:1850 minutes, 18 secondsAnd crank out 500, a thousand labels and just, okay, here’s my packing slip. I
50:2550 minutes, 25 secondscan double that as a pick ticket or even just have the items on the the shipping label and the reference. So, however you want to communicate that to them and
50:3350 minutes, 33 secondsjust pick the product uh put it in the box and send it down the line.
50:3750 minutes, 37 secondsYeah. And so now what you know what if you could get a thousand orders pickp
50:4450 minutes, 44 secondspack shipped and all those labels with three clicks. Mhm.
50:4850 minutes, 48 secondsInstead of having someone figure everything out and and those three clicks have it be I already know the products cuz it’s in my
50:5650 minutes, 56 secondsdatabase. I know the sizes. I can put my cartons in. I can pack optimize that.
51:0551 minutes, 5 secondsAnd in doing so too, you have your dim weights, you know, your dimensions. So that when you get that rated, but you
51:1351 minutes, 13 secondsknow, why not rate against multiple carriers and then figure out how long for all those services that you get back, how
51:2251 minutes, 22 secondslong it’s going to take and then say, well, how long should it take?
51:2651 minutes, 26 secondsSo let’s bounce that off of some rules that are set up for this client that can be at any granular level for an order.
51:3451 minutes, 34 secondsyou know, what customers is going to what what shipping service did they select?
51:4051 minutes, 40 secondsUm, does Walmart do my Walmart orders not want an Amazon truck rolling up to to deliver those, you know? So, uh, all
51:4951 minutes, 49 secondsthose factors can go in and then once you get the best rate and you figure out when it needs to get shipped by what shipper and then just get the label and
51:5751 minutes, 57 secondshave it print out of Netswuite, which that’s always been a problem. And that that was an obsession of mine to get
52:0552 minutes, 5 secondsthat dialed in. Yeah.
52:0852 minutes, 8 secondsAnd so we developed that system and it’s 100% inside of Netswuite including the
52:1552 minutes, 15 secondsprint server. So, and when you’re printing out of a cloud solution, it’s uh you know, not as easy as just
52:2252 minutes, 22 secondsplugging the cable into to the computer that you’re printing from, right? Yeah.
52:2652 minutes, 26 secondsBecause it’s actually coming from the cloud, not from anything that’s on your computer itself. So, uh we developed all
52:3352 minutes, 33 secondsthat because I just felt it just shouldn’t be that hard.
52:3652 minutes, 36 secondsWell, you’ve done a nice job of walking through all of the complexity in in a warehouse in a in a shipping
52:4452 minutes, 44 secondsscenario. I don’t think people realize that that all of that goes into it. And so if someone comes up to you and says,
52:5252 minutes, 52 seconds”What is legivio?” You’re not going to say you’re not going to go through that explanation.
52:5852 minutes, 58 secondsIt takes me that long. Yeah. You’re You ask me that question, you’re in for an hourong conversation. Get a cigar. Yeah. Let’s go.
53:0553 minutes, 5 secondsLet’s go talk.
53:0753 minutes, 7 secondsI say that it’s a enterprisegrade shipping solution uh with a fulfillment
53:1453 minutes, 14 secondsexecution layer that works with and extends the functionality of your WMS system
53:2253 minutes, 22 secondswhere your WMS system is going to manage the warehouse operations,
53:3053 minutes, 30 secondsreceiving uh bin management, inventory moves, throughout the warehouse and even throughout locations for multiple locations.
53:4253 minutes, 42 secondsAnd when that product’s ready to ship, that’s where we’ll take over and we’ll manage that whole fulfillment execution
53:5053 minutes, 50 secondslayer and make sure that uh that’s as automated as possible. And the decisions
53:5753 minutes, 57 secondsare made at the highest level really and then carried out very simply by the
54:0554 minutes, 5 secondswarehouse people that just they just want to know the best way to do things and they want it to be simple. Mhm.
54:1254 minutes, 12 secondsAnd to do a good job, what does a Legivio client or customer look like?
Chapter 7: What Makes a High-Volume Fulfillment Client
54:1754 minutes, 17 secondsThey’re shipping at least uh well, I mean, not at least, it can be 100
54:2454 minutes, 24 secondspackages or more a day from from any from across locations, but usually by the time they’re doing that, they’re they may be doing multiple multiple
54:3354 minutes, 33 secondslocations. But, uh that’s what we’re looking for. And I think that that’s uh really where you get the benefits uh of
54:4054 minutes, 40 secondsan automated platform and and and the the ROI which you know with our solution
54:4954 minutes, 49 secondsthe labor savings the multicarrier uh rating that happens
54:5554 minutes, 55 secondsuh being able to participate on uh e-hubs pulled shipping rates uh you know
55:0255 minutes, 2 secondsat certain volumes uh there’s a lot opportunity for savings there and for you know re delayed hires
55:1255 minutes, 12 secondsas well. That’s that can be actually one of the biggest be one of the biggest gains of all that. Mhm.
55:1855 minutes, 18 secondsRight. So uh 100 packages or more. Um we also have some uh 3PL specific
55:2855 minutes, 28 secondsuh shipping workflows to support unique uh scenarios for that uh you know
55:3655 minutes, 36 secondsthird party billing accounts multiple per uh per customer uh white label the shipping labels and
55:4455 minutes, 44 secondsdocuments so that a 3PL can ship out for their client uh and their client’s branding will all on that label. So it’s
55:5355 minutes, 53 secondsjust basically 3PL is invisible to their customer and you know your typical 3PL will be at that uh order order volume.
56:0256 minutes, 2 secondsYeah.
56:0256 minutes, 2 secondsAnd so that’s uh you know certainly products companies u and brands selling direct to consumer are are really
56:1156 minutes, 11 secondshitting that spot. And uh we started off really heavy uh helping our customers with parcel and we’ve always had LTL
56:2056 minutes, 20 secondsfunctionality but uh now uh we’ve completely homogenized the workflow. Mhm.
56:2656 minutes, 26 secondsSo that it’s a it’s a similar process uh between the parcel and the LTL where the
56:3456 minutes, 34 secondsit’ll flow through the same. Of course, there’s going to be factors that determine whether it’s going to go through the LTL lane or through the
56:4356 minutes, 43 secondsparcel lane and uh and even what’s going to be the better way to do it from a financial perspective. But there’s
56:5156 minutes, 51 secondsthere’s other factors there too on you know, do you really want to send a big customer 10 parcels versus one pallet even if it is a little bit more
56:5956 minutes, 59 secondsto do the pallet. Well, uh, all of that, uh, is some of the complexity that that you described. Yeah.
57:0757 minutes, 7 secondsUh, that goes into that, uh, into that software. But again, in the end, it’s simple from an operational perspective.
57:1457 minutes, 14 secondsOne of the things that we run into is, and I bet a lot of people run into this, especially on the shipping side. I think
57:2157 minutes, 21 secondsa lot of companies consider it just, you know, it’s kind of a it’s a necessary evil. You have to be able to do it. And if you’re doing something that’s
57:3057 minutes, 30 secondsfunctioning, there may be some push back on changing systems or enhancing systems to gain efficiency and to gain functionality.
57:4257 minutes, 42 secondsPeople get a little worried about that and disrupting a process that that like I said is kind of working. How do you
57:5157 minutes, 51 secondshow does your solution overcome that obstacle?
57:5457 minutes, 54 secondsI don’t know if it’s the solution that overcomes it. It’s really a conversation that we have to have uh with the clients
58:0158 minutes, 1 secondand I I just invite the conversation for an ROI. Um have some time tell me about your tech stack and I know good enough’s
58:1058 minutes, 10 secondsgood enough but what’s maybe not good enough. Mhm.
58:1458 minutes, 14 secondsAnd what are you using for your your shipping and would you be open for a shipping savings analysis?
58:2358 minutes, 23 secondsMhm. uh you know, if we could just take a look at a shipping report for the last 30 to 60 days, uh take a look at maybe
58:3158 minutes, 31 secondssome of the inefficiencies that you have. Maybe take a look at some delayed hire benefits.
58:3758 minutes, 37 secondsUh you know, you you delay a warehouse worker hiring for 6 months, there’s 20 $25,000 just in that 6 months. Uh maybe we can save you 20 25% on your shipping.
58:4858 minutes, 48 secondsMhm. Uh it makes a pretty compelling ROI story that so now you can go from good enough to great.
58:5858 minutes, 58 secondsYeah.
58:5858 minutes, 58 secondsAnd save money while doing it. So just to just have a conversation like that um I find if uh if if we can get to to
59:0759 minutes, 7 secondssomeone saying good we’re good enough that uh we could be pretty close to having a well let’s see what maybe great would look like.
59:1659 minutes, 16 secondsYeah. We got to sit down and visit with you earlier and and there’s certainly a lot of data demonstrating
59:2459 minutes, 24 secondsuh how meaningful a switch can be for a a company in all of those things in gain
59:3259 minutes, 32 secondsefficiencies and cost savings and labor management and and all the things. If you look back across your last few years
59:4059 minutes, 40 secondswith Legivio and what you’ve been doing with your customer base, is there anything that sticks out? Is there any one feature that customers say, “I can’t
59:4959 minutes, 49 secondslive without this?” Yes. Um, some of my higher volume customers say they just could not
59:5759 minutes, 57 secondsfunction with the staff they have. They probably have to have Oh.
1:00:011 hour, 1 secondbased on their old system at least half again as many people to do it just based on the the speeds
1:00:081 hour, 8 secondsand the throughput. And then my favorite saying from the same client when I
1:00:141 hour, 14 secondscalled him for for a use case story was you guys saved us millions last year. So that’s that’s a pretty uh indispensable feature too.
1:00:251 hour, 25 secondsYeah, that’s a good one. Okay, I have a few I have a few more questions and then I want to I want to wrap up with some of
1:00:311 hour, 31 secondsyour thoughts on kind of business foundational business thoughts. But because you have this such this vast and
1:00:391 hour, 39 secondsinteresting history work history but uh is there anything else you wanted to tell us about Legivio before we move on?
1:00:481 hour, 48 secondsYeah, I mean I I did touch upon the the 3PL functionality and more related to the shipping workflows, but
1:00:571 hour, 57 secondsuh one of the things we’re most excited about is u our uh 3PL client portal
Chapter 8: Inside the 3PL Client Portal and Pre-Funded Wallet
1:01:041 hour, 1 minute, 4 secondsbecause we’re I’m I really appreciate driving value for my clients and I’m
1:01:121 hour, 1 minute, 12 secondsfinancially minded. that came all the way back from, you know, my financial education and my time at uh at IDS financial services
1:01:211 hour, 1 minute, 21 secondsand and just always just appreciating the the financial impact that my decisions have made from an inventory management
1:01:291 hour, 1 minute, 29 secondsfrom uh advertising sales uh co-op and just making sure that um the operation was profitable and uh that it was a
1:01:391 hour, 1 minute, 39 secondsresponsible uh profit and loss, you know, within my purview. So, uh, one of
1:01:471 hour, 1 minute, 47 secondsthe some of the feedback that we got was just, uh, on capturing the expenses as it relates to a 3PL.
1:01:571 hour, 1 minute, 57 secondsUh, and that really came from some clients coming to us with some really complex rate cards on on the fees that
1:02:051 hour, 2 minutes, 5 secondsthey charge, right? Receiving fees can be by order, by item, even different different prices by item. Mhm.
1:02:131 hour, 2 minutes, 13 secondsI can charge a uh improper packaging fee on coming in on the dock.
1:02:191 hour, 2 minutes, 19 secondsUh storage fees. How do I accurately do that? I’ve I don’t want to run a a report every day and figure out the
1:02:271 hour, 2 minutes, 27 secondsprata uh rate for that day and then calculate all that. I’m going to run a report at the end of the month and try to work an
1:02:341 hour, 2 minutes, 34 secondsaverage and then hit the client with that fee and are they going to accept that? you know, so uh there’s that uh
1:02:431 hour, 2 minutes, 43 secondsand then of course the outbound fees and then even 3PL’s that perform contract manufacturing of capturing the the per item or even
1:02:521 hour, 2 minutes, 52 secondsyou know per work order type of fees. So um the fees in a 3PL can kind of be in this like it’s
1:03:001 hour, 3 minutesyeah so what we did is we developed our own charge engine and again much like our our shipping
1:03:081 hour, 3 minutes, 8 secondssolution runs fully within Netswuite and it’s based on the actual and and
1:03:141 hour, 3 minutes, 14 secondsthere’s no additional work for the 3PL to do to track these and this is all at
1:03:211 hour, 3 minutes, 21 secondsa client basis. So you Netswuite gives you the capability to set up
1:03:281 hour, 3 minutes, 28 secondsvirtual inventory locations within uh within the system. Mhm.
1:03:331 hour, 3 minutes, 33 secondsAnd that that way you can just segregate virtually uh each client’s inventory. So that gives you the ability to measure
1:03:411 hour, 3 minutes, 41 secondsthat and you can actually measure the inventory on a daily basis run a per a prata daily storage charge and then
1:03:511 hour, 3 minutes, 51 secondsstore that and eventually you know that’s going to get invoiced but super accurate receiving
1:03:591 hour, 3 minutes, 59 secondsthe rules are all there it’s all in the same system those charges actually get generated when I receive fulfillment
1:04:061 hour, 4 minutes, 6 secondswhen I fulfill timebased charges. I’m, you know, $100 an hour
1:04:131 hour, 4 minutes, 13 secondsaware uh forklift fee. Uh we have a a timekeeping engine and time approval engine in there that ultimately generate
1:04:211 hour, 4 minutes, 21 secondscharges as well. And all of that is tracked at the client level. But here’s
1:04:281 hour, 4 minutes, 28 secondsthe best part about it is that since that’s all real time, we have a 3PL
1:04:351 hour, 4 minutes, 35 secondsclient portal where a 3PL’s clients can log in to a secure secure portal
1:04:441 hour, 4 minutes, 44 secondsand have a window real time into their inventory, what’s coming in, what’s on its way out, what’s committed.
1:04:531 hour, 4 minutes, 53 secondsUh they can see all their inbound orders that are coming in. all their outbound orders that the 3PL has shipped. They
1:05:011 hour, 5 minutes, 1 secondcan see all the charges real time. So, there’s never going to be any surprises.
1:05:061 hour, 5 minutes, 6 secondsYou don’t send out that bill at the end of the month. And right, someone’s like, “Yeah, what is this?” And then there’s, “Okay, I’ll give you a 15% discount just people just don’t
1:05:151 hour, 5 minutes, 15 secondsbelieve me.” But if they’re seeing it all happen real time, Yeah. then or even if they don’t look at
1:05:231 hour, 5 minutes, 23 secondslook at it till the end of the month but they see very detailed all the information is Y yeah and then the the best part about it
1:05:311 hour, 5 minutes, 31 secondsum I feel and it’s our very latest functionality is the uh the preunded wallet
1:05:401 hour, 5 minutes, 40 secondsa 3PL can generate a lot of fees and actually incur a lot of hard costs from
1:05:471 hour, 5 minutes, 47 secondsif a if a client is shipping on their shipping Absolutely.
1:05:521 hour, 5 minutes, 52 secondsSo, uh we have a a prefunded wallet functionality where uh it can be either automated or
1:05:591 hour, 5 minutes, 59 secondsit can be added by the client uh through the client portal.
1:06:031 hour, 6 minutes, 3 secondsSo, you mean automated in terms of putting pulling from a financial institution and adding to the prefunded account.
1:06:091 hour, 6 minutes, 9 secondsYeah. And that can be credit card uh whatever. But there’s a a running ledger on the portal that they can see that gives you a balance on that.
1:06:191 hour, 6 minutes, 19 secondsMhm. on that ledger and it’s absolutely real time. You can just look at it like a checking account register. Yeah.
1:06:271 hour, 6 minutes, 27 secondsAnd even if something’s reversed, it still has the initial charge and then the reverse up here or avoid or whatever.
1:06:331 hour, 6 minutes, 33 secondsAnd uh then when it gets refunded, then it just replenishes. So, you know, you’ve got a re refresh point target and
1:06:401 hour, 6 minutes, 40 secondsthen that can be completely automated or the notifications could be based on that. And uh you know that’s something
1:06:481 hour, 6 minutes, 48 secondsthat uh the clients really appreciate, but so does the 3PL because now they’re not getting emails.
1:06:571 hour, 6 minutes, 57 secondsWhat’s what’s my current balance? Yeah. And what’s my inventory here? Yeah.
1:07:011 hour, 7 minutes, 1 secondAnd now they just have a window into into that business into that data.
1:07:061 hour, 7 minutes, 6 secondsData means everything. Well, it’s like a postage meter. I mean, it’s almost like a post meter. Yep. Load up your postage meter, decrement with each and load it back up.
1:07:141 hour, 7 minutes, 14 secondsBut if you can do the preunding, then you never get to the situation where the three pills saying, “I got to stop ship anything because Yeah.
1:07:211 hour, 7 minutes, 21 secondstoo far in the hole.” Yeah.
1:07:221 hour, 7 minutes, 22 secondsThey still get that monthly invoice, but then, you know, it’s already been preunded, so there’s just nothing to do. Oh, that’s great.
1:07:281 hour, 7 minutes, 28 secondsYeah. So, you have the you have all all the records that you need for for your books.
1:07:331 hour, 7 minutes, 33 secondsIt seems so simple, but it’s like a game-changing solution.
1:07:361 hour, 7 minutes, 36 secondsAnother very complicated one, but uh but yeah, it is it is simple for the users, which is great. Yes. And that’s that’s my that’s my goal. That’s my objective.
1:07:461 hour, 7 minutes, 46 secondsYeah. You’re the guy. Maybe that’s what works out. You’re the you’re the I’m the guy. You’re the guy. You take the complex simplifying complexity.
1:07:561 hour, 7 minutes, 56 secondsThat’s what you do. That’s what I love doing.
1:07:581 hour, 7 minutes, 58 secondsOkay. Let me try and wrap this up. It’s been a It’s a great story. It’s a great company that you’ve built and you have such an interesting pathway to to where
1:08:071 hour, 8 minutes, 7 secondsyou are today with all of this different experience and I think people might uh learn a little something from your path.
1:08:141 hour, 8 minutes, 14 secondsUh so as we as we finish up like what are some of the lessons what you you talked about a couple values that you
1:08:231 hour, 8 minutes, 23 secondsbrought with you along the way and what are some of the lessons that you’ve learned about being engaged in what
1:08:321 hour, 8 minutes, 32 secondsyou’re doing looking for things that are missing in the marketplace partnerships
1:08:401 hour, 8 minutes, 40 secondsrunning a business I mean all of these foundational business things that you have have seemed to navigate really well.
Chapter 9: Lessons on Partnerships, Growth, and Staying Open
1:08:471 hour, 8 minutes, 47 secondsI don’t know if I’ve if I’ve have many lessons to give. I I find that as I’ve
1:08:541 hour, 8 minutes, 54 secondsgotten older that I’ve maybe become less independent and more
1:09:041 hour, 9 minutes, 4 secondsopen and more reliant on relationships and feedback
1:09:111 hour, 9 minutes, 11 secondsand just being a little more well-rounded in in that respect. And I think that that that’s helped me grow as an individual.
1:09:221 hour, 9 minutes, 22 secondsAnd so that might be my lesson. In fact, that might be what I would tell myself, you know, like 20 years ago, 25 years
1:09:301 hour, 9 minutes, 30 secondsago is is embrace that more and be more open and, you know, get
1:09:391 hour, 9 minutes, 39 secondsget fulfillment from from relationships and just uh continue continuous growth.
1:09:451 hour, 9 minutes, 45 secondsAnd I think I’ve uh that’s been maybe a path that I’ve been on maybe for the last, you know, intentionally been on maybe
1:09:531 hour, 9 minutes, 53 secondsfor the past, you know, four or five years. Really? Yeah.
1:09:571 hour, 9 minutes, 57 secondsIt’s really good insight. Is there is there something that you when you talk about being on the path, is there something that you do or practice or
1:10:051 hour, 10 minutes, 5 secondsread or listen to that that helps in that journey?
1:10:111 hour, 10 minutes, 11 secondsI joined a group called Entrepreneurs Organization. Mhm.
1:10:151 hour, 10 minutes, 15 secondsmaybe about almost four years ago now and it is uh
1:10:221 hour, 10 minutes, 22 secondsit’s an amazing group of people and I that’s I think that’s really helped me
1:10:291 hour, 10 minutes, 29 secondsout a lot and really created a camaraderie and
1:10:361 hour, 10 minutes, 36 secondsjust an openness to to being more open really.
1:10:421 hour, 10 minutes, 42 secondsMhm. and sharing of myself and and
1:10:491 hour, 10 minutes, 49 secondsmore accepting of feedback and I think it’s really changed my approach with people and I I I’ve just really enjoyed
1:10:581 hour, 10 minutes, 58 secondsenjoyed it and I think that’s really changed changed me and and my approach and hopefully just made me a a nicer person.
1:11:071 hour, 11 minutes, 7 secondsyou know, I don’t know if I want to say I’m a better person, but uh nicer and I think just uh it’s just been a fun journey. Yeah.
1:11:161 hour, 11 minutes, 16 secondsYeah. That’s really that’s really interesting. Mhm.
1:11:191 hour, 11 minutes, 19 secondsBesides the Know Your Ship podcast, which I know is your favorite is Oh, yeah. Of course.
1:11:271 hour, 11 minutes, 27 secondsDo you listen to other podcasts or do you read something regularly? I
1:11:341 hour, 11 minutes, 34 secondsdon’t listen to I I I read a lot of business articles.
1:11:401 hour, 11 minutes, 40 secondsMhm. And it’s really challenging to stay up on technology
1:11:481 hour, 11 minutes, 48 secondsand you know my my recent obsession of course is AI because we have as a software developer you know it’s
1:11:571 hour, 11 minutes, 57 secondsjust so helpful uh throughout the whole process whether it’s architecture requirements and even
1:12:051 hour, 12 minutes, 5 secondsincorporating AI into your solution and for me it’s not just for the sake of having AI in there, but for me, it’s really got to do something.
1:12:161 hour, 12 minutes, 16 secondsYeah.
1:12:161 hour, 12 minutes, 16 secondsIt’s got to be part of the simplification. Yeah.
1:12:191 hour, 12 minutes, 19 secondsAnd it’s got to be doing something that algorithms can’t do or, you know, I I I
1:12:271 hour, 12 minutes, 27 secondsdon’t introduce it just for the sake of it, but we do have some some some really cool features now. And uh we’ve got a
1:12:351 hour, 12 minutes, 35 secondsreally solid road map that takes some of the even more complex uh components of not just the the
1:12:441 hour, 12 minutes, 44 secondscurrent legivio solution, but also what we’re working towards that are going to do things that I probably wouldn’t even
1:12:521 hour, 12 minutes, 52 secondsdreamed about being able to do a couple years ago. So that’s the kind of reading that I do and to me that’s entertaining as much as anything else.
1:13:021 hour, 13 minutes, 2 secondsYeah. Well, you did read the Netswuite manuals. Yeah. You know, word for word.
1:13:081 hour, 13 minutes, 8 secondsYes. Well, Ron, this has been uh it’s been great. I really appreciate you being here, taking the time. We love our
1:13:161 hour, 13 minutes, 16 secondsrelationship with Legivio. You guys have done an amazing job and have built and continue to build an an incredible solution. So, uh we we look forward to
1:13:251 hour, 13 minutes, 25 secondsworking with you for a long time. Best of luck and I hope you come back and and see us again. and I’ll say I really appreciate our relationship with EHUB. I
1:13:341 hour, 13 minutes, 34 secondslove working with you guys and and the team here. It’s always great. So, yeah, I really appreciate you.
1:13:391 hour, 13 minutes, 39 secondsThank you. All right. Where where can people find you?
1:13:421 hour, 13 minutes, 42 secondsThey can find us at lujivio.com. Uh look look me up on uh LinkedIn. Uh you’ll just find me under Ron Bester. So, All right.
1:13:511 hour, 13 minutes, 51 secondsYeah.
1:13:521 hour, 13 minutes, 52 secondsVery good. Well, thank you. We’ll see you soon. Thank you.
1:13:551 hour, 13 minutes, 55 secondsAppreciate it. Thank you for listening to the Know Your Ship podcast presented by ehub. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review.