The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast
To create an ecosystem that connects leaders of all kinds – industry, community, student, educational, civic, investment and entrepreneurial – to help overcome Omnichannel Retail barriers through exclusive, insight-rich content.
The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast
Ep. 86 - Repurposing the Old: New Age Warehousing Insights with Brendan Howell
DBB's Andy Wilson sits down this week with Brendan Howell, the visionary behind a movement to reshape the warehousing industry with an innovative model that promises flexibility and efficiency.
Forget about long-term leases; Brendan discusses how Loloft enables businesses to secure warehouse space in just one day, catering to both small entrepreneurs and big names like HelloFresh.
He shares insights into creating last-mile logistics hubs that streamline operations and boost delivery efficiency, proving that the traditional warehousing model is ripe for transformation.
The logistics landscape is evolving: Brendan and Andy explore how Loloft is transforming spaces, including a former call center in Phoenix, into modern logistics hubs that emphasize practicality and aesthetics.
From advanced supply chain strategies to repurposing suburban offices with ample parking and HVAC systems, Brendan reveals how Loloft is anticipating the future needs of both the e-commerce sector and consumers.
Andy and Brendan also dive into the potential addition of amenities like cold storage to meet the demands of quick commerce.
Brendan also shares how a strong company culture, where team members embrace equity and community, fuels their success.
Well, hello everyone and welcome to Doing Business in Bentonville. My name is Andy Wilson and it's so great that you're joining us today. Thank you so much. I want to also say to all of our viewers and listeners thank you for our success. We're now viewed in over 90 countries and that is because of you. So thank you so much. Continue to share that. Reach out to us, don to share that. Reach out to us. Don't hesitate to reach out to me on linkedin. Have any questions or comments or suggestions. I will read those. Thank you for doing that. Oh, my guest today, brendan howe. Welcome back. Thank you, it is so good to have you back then.
Speaker 1:A year ago now let everyone listen this A year ago in January, we were sort of in our storage room with the black curtain behind us. Now we have a really nice studio. So we're really proud of that, and I say that with humility. But a year ago I met this guy and I got to go tour the facility that he was building and in the process and tour it and understand your vision about everything. And now you're back to share. So I want you to talk about your company. I want our viewers to really understand what you do how you do it, the great services that you offer. But you know, brendan, you are reimagining warehousing industry. That's phenomenal. Yeah, thank you. Tell us how you're doing that.
Speaker 2:Well. It's kind of interesting because we're taking a completely different approach to warehousing. Traditional warehousing people go and work with a realtortor, may take two or three months to find a spot and then negotiate a lease, sign a lease, and it's between three to five years usually, sometimes no longer. Um, so we really wanted to condense that down into one day okay, I like this already yeah, we're all about efficiency.
Speaker 2:Basically, a company can come tour our location, say, yeah, we want to move in, you can tour virtually. We've had that before. People just doing video tours and committing to moving into the spaces Sign an agreement and they can move in the same day.
Speaker 1:And they can find that information. Loloftcom, that's L-O-L-O-F-T, loloftcom, and I really encourage you to go on the website and look at what's going on. So what you're saying is that if you need warehouse space, you can get that done in one day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the other sort of interesting parts of it. Uh, you can just take as much as you need, so you don't need to commit to a whole warehouse. And what we found is companies that may think they have a requirement for 10 or 15 000 square feet because they need a loading dock. They can take 500 square feet with us and still access that loading dock. So, wow, yes, it's kind of like a whole new paradigm for warehousing really all.
Speaker 1:Right now, what we're going to do is that there's the big picture. Okay, lulav is gonna have they have your warehousing covered now. There's so much more than just product here, so what we're going to do for our viewers is we're just going to take that all apart and get deep into your services and get deep into how you support them and all of that. So let's start, though, with potential customer or consumer who needs your services.
Speaker 2:So initially we just thought it would be small companies like e-commerce sellers, people selling things online that were working from home. They may have tried to work from a storage unit, which is very difficult You're not actually supposed to Right and there's no loading docks or anything like that usually and then those people either go into a 3PL, a third-party logistics warehouse, or a traditional lease, and so we're really in between the sort of work from home and sign a long-term lease. As an example, one of our very first actually our very first customer came to us called Altangle. They've been with us since day one and they're still with us. Downtown Rogers, they make this really cool clamp that goes around the stem of your bike seat and you can clamp it onto almost anything.
Speaker 2:So, you can work on your bike. They were working from home and then they went to 3PL and they figured they were just too small for 3PL. They didn't have enough control over their inventory. Like they have some parts they need to do some final assembly on which they can't do. And then they came in with us so they took 330 square feet and they run their operation from there. So they have all their orders come in overnight.
Speaker 2:Someone comes in in the morning, spends two hours picking and packing, by 10 am they're done. But it's their own warehouse that they can operate and it's lockable, secure. They've got loading dock access. We have the UPS, usps, fedex come every day, the pickups, so all their packages go out. So that's an example of the initial target customer. But now we're finding we're getting larger customers as well, so the larger CPG brands.
Speaker 2:So, as an example, hellofresh is being distributed from our location in downtown Rogers, so that's 670 square feet they're operating from through their freight provider LSO. Normally they look for 10,000 to 15,000 square feet because that's around the minimum size that they can run an operation like that from. The smaller, like the shallow bay industrial buildings don't have any loading docks, so all of our facilities have full height loading docks. So basically, a truck comes in in the morning, fills a unit up, they separate the orders into the runs, all the gig drivers turn up. They're, like you know, uber Eats-style setup and by 10 am that's also empty, because that product's on the way to the consumer. Yes, it comes and then goes straight to the consumer, right? Yeah, so it's really like a last mile.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see I was going to suggest this. Just sounds like a last mile process for you. It really is.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like it's going down that path for us really being sort of a last mile micro hub, yeah. And then we've got Walmart vendors in the space. Correct, because we're in Bentonville, we've got the location in downtown Rogers, we're just next to Bentonville, so we have buyers come down and look at products, so people set them up in the warehouse there, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's great and I can't wait. We're going to get to the future, but we have to stay in the present for a moment, because it's so much exciting news here. Now, what if you're an international vendor supplier? How does that work if you're not in Rogers, arkansas?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you don't need to be there. We have sort of absentee members so you can do a video tour, commit to a space and then if you have product that's coming in say you have a few pallets coming in for samples or what have you we can receive those for you, put them away. That's all part of the service. And then you can get access, or you can allow access to certain people to come in, because generally someone's going to come at some point to show the product. Or if you need the product sent out again, we can help with that. So you actually never need to be there.
Speaker 1:Okay, now I know because I'm going to really encourage you to go to the website and take a tour, but sort of give us a tour okay, and because I've been on the tour, I was blown away, completely blown away the warehouse facility and you had coal storage right here at Rogers. You have coal storage where, if the product needs to be in the cooler, right, yes, and what other things do you have besides in the Rogers? You may have added some things since I was there. Yes, through storage.
Speaker 2:I'll give you the sort of imaginary tour, yeah do that. So we go in the front door. We have a shipping container door as our front door. Yes, just something I wanted to throw in on the design.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it yeah.
Speaker 2:It doesn't surprise me at all. It can be confusing for people. Eventually they make their way in and then we have a reception. So we have a community manager who runs the whole location at reception. Um, we have a conference room at the front as well, so that's an amenity that is included in your membership, so. So one of the key things is the one monthly price includes everything. So it includes your access to the space, wi-fi, hvac utilities there's no extra charges.
Speaker 2:So we go and see the conference room and then we have up the stairs a kitchen area. There's like a common space. We have fresh coffee brewed all day there. We grind the beans every day. Make sure there's plenty of caffeine in the place. Yeah, that's right, and that's a pretty cool hangout space as well. People love to kind of hang out and you get these sort of happy little collisions, you know, with different companies in there. We'll sit down and we've got little coffee groups that have popped up, people just hanging out in the mornings and having a cup of tea or a cup of coffee and chit-chatting. Then we've got a block of bathrooms, and one of the key things with us with bathrooms is they're all separate boxes so you can't see anyone's feet. I just I don't know what. I just don't like seeing other people's that's hilarious in the bathroom, um. And then we've got like a big sort of common workspace around the corner. So there's we call it like dedicated desk memberships, so people have their own desk in an open space but they have all their own stuff on there, so it's their little sort of place to work. We have eight private offices in that location, so they're completely private, sealed, so they hold sort of three to five people in each one.
Speaker 2:Then we have the micro warehouse, so sort of the main crux of it is the warehouse spaces. So they go from 125 square feet up to 1,500 square feet. They've all got glass doors in the front. So architecturally it's a beautiful space. We have solid timber all down the walls. We like to use some nice materials so you don't feel like you're in a grubby old warehouse. It's a very clean environment. We've cut a lot of holes in the walls to let light in. We try and get as much natural light in as possible. And then on the other side of that we have the loading dock. So we've got two full height docks so we can take 53 footers up to those docks and then there's a ramp or you can drive in or the carriers can drive in every day to pick up the packages. It can drive in or the carriers can drive in every day to pick up the packages. So we kind of find it's generally pallets and small packages out. Sometimes it's pallets and pallets out as well. Right, right.
Speaker 1:Well, your business is growing. Yes, right, it's doing well. Okay, now great job on the tour, thank you, but you've got to go and check it out when you go to the website and check out. So it's simple, it's clean, it's efficient and I like the idea. It's a membership fee and you're done. You don't have to worry about anything else. You've got all of these amenities, all of this service and the warehouse, storage and and and and the delivery trucks coming and going, uh, and you go in and do your work.
Speaker 2:Then you can get on and run your business exactly because we really wanted to take the bottlenecks out of, yeah, logistics and storage piece that companies experience and we experienced that when we first came to town. It was the genesis of this whole business. So for us, compressing those timelines from three months to one day was a real pleasure for us.
Speaker 1:That's incredible, but you know what that is. It's incredible, but you know what that is. It's efficiency. And if I had my product there, if I was a vendor and had my product there, and I know that I could create that much efficiency. That's more of that. Well, that's just profit, that's service, that's sales, that's revenue. That's all for you because of the speed of business, and it really is about the speed of business.
Speaker 2:And you're figuring that out really well. So it's like yeah, exactly. And the other thing is the flexibility like we offer. Uh, we say you get one get out of jail free card and you move in so you can downsize, uh once in your membership. Yeah, because, say, if you come in and you take a space that's too big, we can't afford this. Yeah, then we let you downsize. It's obviously subject to availability in the space.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you can upsize as many times as you like, because we want it to be mindful of the realities of business, because business isn't always up and to the right Right, and especially when people come into new markets Like someone comes into, you know, say, the into Bentonville, northwest Arkansas market you know they may want to test the market so they can come in for three months. So that's the other thing. You're not committed long-term. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, so you can take three months as the minimum. Then we offer three to six months, six to twelve or twelve plus, and we offer, like you know, tiered pricing, discounts based on the term right okay, wonderful, okay now, rogers arkansas, that's the bill, that's the facility we're talking about now.
Speaker 1:Um, let's move beyond, rogers arkansas. Okay, talk about your vision, and then I would love to talk about let's do that where you're going around, that, uh, but is your vision changed, or? Or, um, maybe have you looked at when you began what your vision was? Now what is your vision? And then, where are you going?
Speaker 2:and then I will back into some of that and talk about it yeah, I mean um, the vision, the vision that the overall vision hasn't changed, um, but probably the way to get there has changed a little. So we still plan on sending out 500 locations in the next five to seven years across the country, um, and that means we can basically hit 80% of the US population with 30-minute delivery times, which is a real win for us.
Speaker 1:Okay, five in your location. Eight to 10 years, five to seven. Oh, five to seven years. Okay, all right, excuse me. Yeah, I know what am I thinking. Eight years, okay, yeah, five in your locations. Five, five years, five, seven years. And how close. You said 30 minutes 30 minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's 80 percent of the population 30 minutes 80.
Speaker 2:You sound like walmart, yeah, well, it's for us, we're going. I mean, those guys are obviously very big, yeah, but we're going small. Yes, so we think the future for logistics is smaller and more distributed. So, you know, getting locations close to the consumer so that things can be delivered quickly. It's, you know, it's a trend and I've talked to some people who We've got access to some interesting people. Yeah, being in this part of the world, yeah, and we're seeing trends overseas, just seeing what's happening with quick commerce. People want stuff fast.
Speaker 1:See, that's the thing that you're doing, because you're right, Amazon. We'll just talk about Amazon for a moment. We were happy with two days for a while, but we're not even where we wanted one day now and they're doing it. In some cases there's some restrictions to that in locations, but I have found in being in different parts of the country that Amazon it may be two days in Arkansas, but I've been in different places where their fulfillment center is closer you get it one day. So what you're trying to, what your goal is, let's build small work. Let's get it to you within hours, you know, in minutes, and I think that's brilliant because that's where consumers are going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly so. And we've always had that vision of, you know, being that kind of being able to facilitate, you know, to facilitate the last mile and quick commerce piece. And I suppose the early change of the vision was how to get there. Initially we were targeting industrial properties, but we shied away from those because we found when we first got started there was high demand for the space. They were usually in parts of town where people don't really want to hang out. Ironically, there's limited parking and the spaces usually aren't conditioned. Some of the old ones didn't even have sprinklers, Right, yeah, so we're looking for smaller. That's one reason we're looking at suburban offices. Nobody wants them. Plenty of parking, They've got HVAC sprinklers.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're close to rooftops for delivery. Right yeah, so the overall vision hasn't changed, but the way to get there is kind of evolving over time.
Speaker 1:Right, okay To talk about your latest openings.
Speaker 2:So Phoenix is the latest location to open and that is a call center that we converted. So I used to have Aetna, the insurance company. They were in the space and it was about a 300 seat call center. So we just went in and basically stripped out the. It was like a bunch of chicken, chicken coops, like you know, the cubicles, cubicles, yeah, yeah, right, yeah, we stripped out the cubicles.
Speaker 1:That's a good name for them actually, but anyway, because I've been in those cubicles a lot in my lifetime, so yeah, it was kind of like a shame.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was kind of like a shame. I hated to throw that stuff away. It was all steel case furniture. Yeah, it was super expensive, like US made but nobody wanted it Right. Like we spent money getting it properly disassembled, hoping we could actually recycle it somehow and sell it, yeah, and it ended up going for scrap. Oh, that's bad, yeah, yeah, there was just no demand for it, so we stripped that out and then basically built our warehouse units in the space, put some loading docks in so we had to punch some holes in the walls because there was no docks, because it was an office put an 80-foot concrete pad out the back and now we can take the big trucks and do it.
Speaker 1:Well, one of your people sent me a photo and information of the location Cool, and I'm looking at it. It's beautiful. I'm just selling you it. Thank you, and you know I love it because it's a great space, not only to have your product, but a great space to work and to relax and bring people in, customers, potential clients, whatever, bring in and set and visit and talk about your future, your company or product. It's so. It looks so inviting and comfortable.
Speaker 2:Thank you, we wanted to make a like a nice space. Um, you know, my ultimate background was aircraft engineering. You know, I came up working in when I was young, working in mechanics workshops because I just loved getting my hands dirty, and then in aircraft hangers and always I was always surprised by how crappy the hangers were and how crappy the break rooms were, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:It was just yeah the bare minimum of everything. Yeah, so I wanted to create something, um, not extravagant, but something that's just warm and inviting, and if you do things right, you can do it with a reasonable budget and make a really nice product that people are proud of and want to spend time in and your location is 10 minutes from the airport.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very central. That's wonderful, yeah, yeah, I'm very familiar with this part of the Phoenix Because I had that area at Walmart at one point, arizona and all the west and it's a great city and I can see such a need for this Because it's located really close to, as you talked about, your consumer.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I mean it's a great building, it's very modern. When it's uh, it's a great, great building, it's um, you know it's very modern. Um, I think it's 10 years old. You know, everything is a great working order, so it made the conversion really easy. Um, it's basically, you know, we're looking for more of those types of buildings, right and with, with the way the office market's gone, it's it's a good time for us. It is not a good time for the office landlords. No, I saw it, but we can actually help them.
Speaker 1:All right, so you've given us an update present, mm-hmm. Okay, we talked a bit about the future. Well, phoenix, now tell our viewers about the future. Where are you going? I know what you said earlier. You know within five years I misquoted that because that's crazy, but that's exciting. But talk about the future of this and you've talked about why. But any additional information? Because I think what I know when I was talking with your people and I learned a lot because I asked a lot of questions. But this is new. Retail omnichannel is changing rapidly. That's why we started this podcast. It's because the movement in retail it's not brick and mortar anymore, it's all the e-commerce piece and way beyond. But delivery has to change too, and that's what you're doing. You're changing what I call the front end of it, if you will, the product side. You're changing this and you're updating it. So talk about the future, where you see all this.
Speaker 2:It's funny because I've kind of got this crazy vision for the future of consumer goods getting into houses. So the ultimate future is you want something, it gets teleported into your house so now you're an aircraft engineer in this company and so I've got a look at that.
Speaker 2:You get, okay, we're not quite there. What's a step back? Yeah, so I'll see. The next step back is uh, you want some product. Then you have some sort of device like a 3d printer and buy the ip online that gets made in your house. Yeah, so we're not quite there yet. Yeah. So one more step back is nothing's produced until it's actually sold. Yeah, so you want to buy a product, you buy it and then it's produced just in time. Yeah, just for you. And we we're kind of not quite there yet.
Speaker 2:So one step back is we need to get products, predict what people want and get them close to where they want them. So that's kind of where we are right now. That's kind of my crazy prediction for the future, as I see things moving. But there's a lot of products put in the supply chain now and people just hope that they'll sell and they don't, and then they discount them and there's just all this junk around the world. So we're trying to help reduce the amount of waste as well and the amount of stuff that's just shipped around that people don't want, right, and also, if we know people want them, get them close to where they want them, because people want stuff fast, usually before e-commerce came along. You want something, you go to the store. Now you want something, you may go to the store, but if you can order it on your phone it turns up in 30 minutes why go to the store? Right, you save yourself a lot of time. So I think we're really sort of building this to help with the future of commerce.
Speaker 1:Get stuff in people's hands faster. You're definitely the cutting edge. Is there? A lot of people in this space Are barely at this point?
Speaker 2:you're, you're developing this space it's kind of like a nascent space. So there are some operators offering like kind of low cost fractional warehousing, um, but they don't really seem to. You know, they're usually really really big locations, sort of 100, 150, 000 square foot. Yes, um, you know, we're more interested in sort of 100, 150,000 square foot. Yes, you know, we're more interested in sort of the 20 to 50,000. So for us we'd rather have two or three small ones, right, whereas someone else may have one big one. Yeah, because we can get the distribution piece nailed down Right.
Speaker 1:I like it, yeah, I like that, I think that's. But that also gives you the opportunity to accomplish your vision of being closer Exactly Closer to the consumer, or the customer, yeah, right, and I think that's critical for the future, because when I get in their house and teleport it, yeah, yeah, well, yeah, it's going to take a little while. Before long you'll be just walking stuff over. Okay All, when are your next targeted locations for sites?
Speaker 2:So we've got. I was looking last week in West Palm, so we're pretty keen on Florida. We've got a site secured in Miami downtown. We're looking at one in Boca Raton and West Palm and that kind of let's just cover the majority of that populated area. Right, we've got Tampa. It's under construction now. Yeah, oh okay, yeah, yeah, so that's um. We're just a demolition a couple of weeks ago, so we're starting to swing hammers in the next couple of weeks. Um, we've got a site in hillsborough, oregon, um, just by the intel factory. Yeah, um, so it's like a nice part of town there, um, and then we've got we've got a pipeline of like 30 other deals we're looking at right now. Great yeah.
Speaker 1:It's awesome. This is so exciting. I'm so proud for you and your team. Thank you, what you're doing and that's one of the things that's so awesome now about retail we mentioned earlier retail on the channel. I was just having a conversation before for you where you and I began our chat with someone and we talked about the speed of change that's taking place in retail and Omni Channel today. But what you're doing, you're servicing that speed and you're going to speed it up even with your process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're trying to be a facilitator and be platform, yeah, for companies to come in and actually enable them to okay.
Speaker 1:All right, a couple of things I want to. I want us to talk to our guests about and, uh, because this is so interesting, so yeah, but you also you talked about your growth strategy and some of the markets that you're looking at and it's pretty broad, uh and so, but you are backing this up with financially. Uh, with, you're working on this 10 million seed round. Yes, yeah, can you talk about that at all?
Speaker 2:yeah. So basically, um, you know, we raised a pre-seed round to kick us off, um, and, yeah, we raised that 1.4 million bucks to to sort of get some money in the kit and validate the concept. Now that we've validated the business and we have rubber on the road, it's really time to accelerate. So the $10 million he ran is really to accelerate our growth. We have very low we're very capital efficient as a business, right, um, like all of the, the cost of the build outs for the locations is put onto the landlord, um, and then, um, you know, that just basically gets added to our rent. So, you know, we end up sort of amortizing it over time but we don't have the cash out lay out front, um, so we can use that money for operations and marketing, so we're not using it to build out locations, right, yes, it's really to accelerate the growth and find new locations, build the team um, and we've got a really solid yeah, we've got a small team right now, but a very solid team.
Speaker 2:Um, and on the growth side, like richie, who you spoke to, um, he was um, he's kind of interesting to quickly touch on. He was at Google, then AOL and Salesforce, the senior recruiter, and then he joined my last startup, drop it, in San Francisco, and then when COVID killed that um, he went to Quartet Health as a senior senior talent role and then he was head of talent at maven clinic. So he grew the headcount from 200 to 802 years. Yeah, yeah, that's a venture-backed startup. Sequoia put like 178 million into them. Um, so he's he's running all of our talent and operations, you know. So we've got people like him on the team who can help us really accelerate so we can quickly put the capital to use to achieve scale. Yeah, yeah, we know what we need to do right, wonderful.
Speaker 1:I just shout out to richie it's been great, uh, working with us, working together, excellent, so great. Yeah, absence, thank you. Okay, um, you've got. You've got great people behind you financially too, based on what I've read. So congratulations on that, thank you. Yeah, so that's always good. Yeah, we got lucky there. Yeah, you are, so that's good. Okay, we talked about the present, a bit the future. You're well capitalized. You're ready to go grow. So let's just recap for a moment for everyone. And there is one thing I want to touch on Now AI. Let's touch on that. Then we'll summarize for our guests and our viewers on this, but talk about how is AI working in this.
Speaker 2:So Paola, my co-founder, she runs, like she's said, of marketing and I mean she's, and she's another one that's got a great background in in media and marketing from mexico city originally, family of big in marketing and you know she's done some pretty big projects in the us. Um, she's really kind of spearheading the push with ai. So a lot of people talk about ai in in the business, in their business, and they can be very vague on how it's being used or what they're doing with it. Right, and it's funny I've got to ask this question a couple of weeks ago I've got a friend who's a professional basketball player, like this guy, seven foot tall. He came down to phoenix. We were sitting there talking, you know I mentioned ai and he's like can you give me an example of how you actually use it? Yes, um, so all of our team have like the pro license for chat ggp. So, um, and pale is basically making everyone use that daily. So just as a tool to refine messaging, um, check your emails to make sure that message is getting across clearly, concisely. Uh, write copy for ads. Um, just some basic uses there.
Speaker 2:Even you know, like I received an information, an offer memorandum the other day. It's like 60 pages for a property. I uploaded it to JetGTP and it said summarize in one page, right. And then I said find me local pumps for this deal so I can see how it stacks up. And that would have taken an analyst a couple of hours maybe. Right, it took this thing like 40 seconds.
Speaker 2:So we're just scratching the surface of how we're using it. That's just one way, but for us, we're looking at the future, of how we're going to really integrate it into our business and it's looking at where the packages are going that are coming out of the space and then figuring out how routes can be optimized. Because if we've got multiple companies delivering, doing last mile delivery in the space, and say you've got two companies in our space and they're both delivering to pinnacle right in the country club, well, if we know that, maybe you can send one. Absolutely, you know so. So looking at just I mean it's all pattern recognition, right, when you boil AI down, it's just looking for patterns and different scenarios. So, yeah, we're really going to start to, as we get more volume through the business, look at how things are coming in, how things are going out, and start using it to analyze and optimize all the members and the spaces right.
Speaker 1:I think that's excellent because up use it to analyze and optimize the members and the spaces, right? I think that's excellent because all that does is create efficiency, productivity for not only your company, but also for your users, their customers, consumers. It's excellent and you've done that. Okay. Now let's summarize for a moment.
Speaker 1:At the beginning of our podcast, I said you're reimagining warehousing. You really are, and I'm excited for I'm. I'm excited for you, I'm excited for your team. Uh, I really am. That's why I wanted to have you back, because you're intrigued. Uh, a year ago I've been thinking about this and, uh, you know, and so it was very intriguing to me because of my passion retail and omni channel, yeah, and so you're really doing that. So let let's go okay. First of all, we talked about your services. You're one stop. You offer everything, right? I mean, like you said, you have your products there, you come, your office is there, you want to call it that your space, human and your workspace, your meeting space, and you have unique restrooms, but no, you know, but everything's there, yes, space and you have unique restrooms, but no, you know, everything's there.
Speaker 1:It's there. So, from your amenities and services, it's one stop. You have it all. You don't have to, okay. So I think that is so phenomenal for people that need a space, like you have to start rowing from their garage, if you will, okay. Secondly, procinct Sounds simple to me and I like that. You get out of the jail car. Get out of jail free car.
Speaker 1:Get out of the jail free car, yeah you know that's pretty cool, but I mean, you know, really you don't know what you don't know, so you get in there If you need to downsize it. You work with your customer, your consumer. I think that we talked about the space options, the flexibility you have there. Again, you go up and go down and is all your facilities going to have the cold storage Are?
Speaker 2:you doing that at all. We're just testing it a couple to see what the demand's like. Yeah, yeah, but in Phoenix we've got someone who wants it already. So you know, because it's quite an expense to build out, we just need to make sure there's demand in the market, but my feeling is there will be in every market because, especially with, like you know, quick commerce, there's a lot of cold goods. Yeah, yeah, yeah that people want to need to ship, so, um, and even, like you know, bringing veggies, if people are shipping grocery items, they need to be kept chilled, right so sounds like your target.
Speaker 1:You've got a good uh target market strategy. Sounds like it. Again, when we talk to space, we talk flexibility. We talk pricing. We talk service amenities, locations, like you said, you're getting smaller. You're creating smaller locations so you can get closer to your consumer. The customer Funding and growth Sounds like you're doing really well there, and growth sounds like you you're doing really well there. Um, how, how about your? You know, I'd love you to talk about your cult, your company culture, as we wrap up, because I mean, you didn't you didn't like to start this. You give I'm sure a person like you has given this a lot of thought. You know what you want, what you want it to be, how you want when people work there. All of that, and then anything else you'd like to add. Talk about that, because I sense something there with you. Yeah, we've got a.
Speaker 2:I mean everyone's bought into the vision of what we're trying to achieve and really the key thing thing is helping other companies and enabling small business, because I suppose everyone in the business is very empathetic of other people and other companies With the cultures. It's very like I said we're very capital, efficient, very scrappy. Everyone believes in what we're doing. Everyone's taken a pay cut from their previous roles for the equity piece in the business, so they really believe in the business and I see that as a great sign. I say come and join us if you want to be underpaid and overworked and then engage the reactions. And that's really what the people on the team are doing. They're investing their time, which is the only thing you can't get back into building this.
Speaker 2:There's a real strong sense of community in the company. Everyone gets on really well. I mean everyone works hard, but we like to have a real strong sense of community in the company. Everyone gets on really well. You know, I mean everyone works hard, but we like to have a laugh as well, because we think we're creating something pretty special. It's not just another, you know, like incremental change to something or another widget or something like that. So yes, and you know we've all I mean me and Richie have worked together before before. You know it's our second rodeo together in a startup. Yeah, yeah, great, yeah. So yeah, good, good team and you know, very small and very agile.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's critical, yeah yeah well, my guest brendan howe, ceo, a little off. Wow it's. It's always a great conversation with you. It's intriguing. I really enjoy being around people like you because it just creates so much energy and excitement.
Speaker 1:I only hope the best for you. I know you're going to do well. I'm going to have to just call you out and ask you to come back in another year, though. Yeah Well, maybe we don't wait a year now With as fast as you're going to do well, I'm going to have to just call you out and ask you to come back in another year though. Yeah Well, maybe we don't wait a year now. You know the fastest you're going to start moving. Maybe we come back, but we do want to keep up with you. We want to share your journey with our viewers. I think this is something that we're going to look back on, because you truly are creating change. Change is hard, but you're doing it and you're you're getting out there and you're swimming was it's what we were taught at walmart. You're swimming upstream, and it's hard and swimming against the current, but you're doing it and the way you're doing it I applaud you for. Thank you, thank you. Anything you'd like to add before we get out of here?
Speaker 2:um, I just want to thank you for having me back on the show. It's always a pleasure to sit down and have a conversation. Um, yeah, like a it's it's. It's a great experience and, um, it's really nice to see you know people like yourself. With the background you have, recognizing what we're doing, because often when you build something from scratch, you don't really know if somebody wants it or if it's going to work. Yeah, and now that we've actually got rubber on the road, we do see that it's actually filling a need for people. So that feels good as well. So it's good to be recognized and for us and the team to see we're on the right good as well. So it's good to be recognized and for us and the team to see we're on the right path as well.
Speaker 1:Right, congratulations. Congratulations to you, okay, to all our viewers. Thank you for joining in again. It's been such a great. I'm just so humbled that you're here. You come and listen to us and watch us, so it means so much to us here at Doing Business in Bentonville. Follow the story. Go to lowoffcom, check it out. You're going to be impressed. And, brendan, again all my best to you and your team. Thanks, andy. All right, thank you everyone. Goodbye.