1 00:00:33,262 --> 00:00:35,267 Nate Shutes: Hello and welcome to the Bootstrapper's Guide to 2 00:00:35,307 --> 00:00:37,932 Logistics, the podcast highlighting founders doing it 3 00:00:37,951 --> 00:00:39,634 the way that doesn't get a lot of attention. 4 00:00:39,634 --> 00:00:42,567 We're here to change that by sharing their stories and 5 00:00:42,606 --> 00:00:44,070 inspiring others to take the leap. 6 00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:47,167 Hisham Khaki: It's a roller coaster ride that you might 7 00:00:47,287 --> 00:00:48,010 ultimately fail. 8 00:00:48,600 --> 00:00:50,567 Nate Shutes: That's when I kind of knew I was on to something. 9 00:00:51,281 --> 00:00:52,146 Hisham Khaki: It was very hard. 10 00:00:52,620 --> 00:00:54,567 Nate Shutes: It truly is building a legacy. 11 00:00:55,240 --> 00:00:57,789 Hisham Khaki: The more life you live, the more wisdom you have. 12 00:00:58,340 --> 00:01:00,507 Nate Shutes: Because we are where we're supposed to be kind 13 00:01:00,546 --> 00:01:01,751 of answering the call. 14 00:01:02,280 --> 00:01:04,709 Don't shoulder entrepreneurship on your own. 15 00:01:04,709 --> 00:01:06,655 I'm your host, nate Shoots. 16 00:01:06,655 --> 00:01:09,701 Let's build something together from the ground up. 17 00:01:09,701 --> 00:01:15,069 Hello everybody, and welcome back to the show. 18 00:01:15,069 --> 00:01:18,615 We are getting started with Season 3 of the Bootstrapper's 19 00:01:18,674 --> 00:01:19,596 Guide to Logistics. 20 00:01:19,596 --> 00:01:23,203 Somebody asked me what's going to be different about Season 3? 21 00:01:23,203 --> 00:01:25,305 And I said absolutely nothing. 22 00:01:25,305 --> 00:01:28,707 We're doing the same thing we've always done, and trying to 23 00:01:28,707 --> 00:01:30,348 shine a light on people building good businesses, and 24 00:01:30,389 --> 00:01:41,725 doing it in a way that is ancient, almost as a simplistic 25 00:01:41,766 --> 00:01:44,873 way of saying it, but bootstrapping is not a new 26 00:01:44,933 --> 00:01:45,474 phenomenon. 27 00:01:45,474 --> 00:01:48,793 It's the way everything used to be started before fundraising 28 00:01:48,834 --> 00:01:50,421 and venture capital and private equity. 29 00:01:50,421 --> 00:01:51,947 Before any of those things were things. 30 00:01:51,947 --> 00:01:56,022 Bootstrapping was a thing, and so I am always excited to get to 31 00:01:56,022 --> 00:01:59,024 share another story, and this week we have my friend, hisham 32 00:01:59,063 --> 00:02:03,474 Khaki, who is the founder and CEO of ShiftSwap in Atlanta. 33 00:02:03,474 --> 00:02:05,384 Hisham, good morning, how are you today? 34 00:02:06,066 --> 00:02:07,730 Hisham Khaki: Good morning, nate , I am doing great. 35 00:02:07,730 --> 00:02:09,465 Thank you so much for having me on the show. 36 00:02:09,465 --> 00:02:12,677 I've loved following your podcast and I know our 37 00:02:12,697 --> 00:02:15,506 relationship goes even before you started the podcast, so I 38 00:02:15,526 --> 00:02:17,992 just feel honored to be on this today. 39 00:02:18,840 --> 00:02:20,686 Nate Shutes: Well, I am grateful to get the chance to unpack 40 00:02:20,725 --> 00:02:24,384 your journey a little bit and maybe we jump right in with. 41 00:02:24,384 --> 00:02:30,715 One of my first questions is you began Happy Gig before Shift 42 00:02:30,715 --> 00:02:34,525 Swap, so this is your second iteration, so why don't we start 43 00:02:34,525 --> 00:02:37,901 with the beginnings of your entrepreneurial journey, when 44 00:02:38,421 --> 00:02:41,829 Happy Gig was the first thing that you were building? 45 00:02:41,829 --> 00:02:45,201 What was it and what was the impetus for starting it in the 46 00:02:45,241 --> 00:02:45,663 first place? 47 00:02:46,985 --> 00:02:47,567 Hisham Khaki: Good question. 48 00:02:47,567 --> 00:02:54,562 So Happy Gig was the first company I think going before 49 00:02:54,643 --> 00:02:59,368 that, just kind of talking about my purpose of helping improve 50 00:02:59,389 --> 00:03:04,175 the lives of warehouse workers, which kind of leads into Happy 51 00:03:04,216 --> 00:03:04,496 Gig. 52 00:03:04,496 --> 00:03:07,259 I think that story is good. 53 00:03:07,259 --> 00:03:13,752 So I began my career working for a large 3PL and actually 54 00:03:13,793 --> 00:03:19,622 started in engineering 3PL and I actually started in engineering 55 00:03:19,622 --> 00:03:20,925 and one of the big things we were doing was rolling out lean 56 00:03:20,945 --> 00:03:22,090 within our distribution centers. 57 00:03:22,090 --> 00:03:25,161 I don't know, did you ever have experience with lean in 58 00:03:25,181 --> 00:03:25,663 warehousing? 59 00:03:26,084 --> 00:03:26,384 Nate Shutes: I do. 60 00:03:26,384 --> 00:03:27,889 I have a black belt myself. 61 00:03:27,889 --> 00:03:31,781 Oh okay, and I'm a process engineer at heart and did some 62 00:03:31,820 --> 00:03:34,709 industrial engineering too, so I think we're cut from the same 63 00:03:34,750 --> 00:03:35,009 cloth. 64 00:03:35,009 --> 00:03:36,875 Did some industrial engineering too. 65 00:03:36,955 --> 00:03:38,479 Hisham Khaki: So I think we're cut from the same cloth. 66 00:03:38,479 --> 00:03:42,460 Exactly so. 67 00:03:42,460 --> 00:03:44,525 We were rolling out lean and, as you all know that understand 68 00:03:44,544 --> 00:03:44,625 lean. 69 00:03:44,625 --> 00:03:45,848 The big piece of lean is employee engagement. 70 00:03:45,848 --> 00:03:47,671 And one of the big things we were doing was rolling out 71 00:03:47,752 --> 00:03:48,552 Kaizen events. 72 00:03:48,552 --> 00:03:53,986 And Kaizen events just to summarize real quick you get 73 00:03:54,729 --> 00:03:58,615 employees that are actually working on the direct processes, 74 00:03:58,615 --> 00:04:00,082 so floor associates. 75 00:04:00,082 --> 00:04:04,897 You take them away from the operation anywhere from one full 76 00:04:04,897 --> 00:04:07,810 day all the way to a week, and they're actually working on 77 00:04:07,849 --> 00:04:08,895 continuous improvement. 78 00:04:08,895 --> 00:04:11,343 So they're not doing any of their day-to-day jobs. 79 00:04:11,343 --> 00:04:14,431 They're literally in a conference room out on the floor 80 00:04:14,431 --> 00:04:17,187 crunching numbers with other engineers and other continuous 81 00:04:17,247 --> 00:04:21,105 improvement people and they're the ones figuring out how to 82 00:04:21,145 --> 00:04:24,072 make their processes better, which obviously makes sense. 83 00:04:26,382 --> 00:04:29,528 And when we'd finish up a Kaizen event, we'd have this kind of 84 00:04:29,567 --> 00:04:34,697 ceremony where we would give the associates that participated 85 00:04:35,259 --> 00:04:36,019 these certificates. 86 00:04:36,019 --> 00:04:37,164 And they were so nice. 87 00:04:37,164 --> 00:04:38,800 There are these framed certificates. 88 00:04:38,800 --> 00:04:43,409 They were signed by executive leadership and we'd hand them 89 00:04:44,050 --> 00:04:44,973 out one by one. 90 00:04:44,973 --> 00:04:50,430 And I'll never forget I was doing a Kaizen event in 91 00:04:50,490 --> 00:04:55,168 McDonough, georgia, actually and I'll never forget the 92 00:04:55,187 --> 00:04:55,709 employee's name. 93 00:04:55,709 --> 00:05:00,862 His name was Dennis Gilpin, and when we handed him his 94 00:05:00,922 --> 00:05:06,273 certificate, I looked over after he grabbed it and he literally 95 00:05:06,432 --> 00:05:10,548 had a tear, like I'm not, it wasn't not being like figurative 96 00:05:10,548 --> 00:05:12,151 , he literally had a tear dropping down. 97 00:05:12,151 --> 00:05:14,783 And I went up to him and I was like Dennis, are you all right? 98 00:05:14,783 --> 00:05:19,531 And he just looked at me and he was a bit choked up and he said 99 00:05:19,531 --> 00:05:26,247 , man, I've been working in warehousing for 25 years and my 100 00:05:26,307 --> 00:05:28,831 wife is going to be so proud of me when I go home with this 101 00:05:29,452 --> 00:05:30,053 certificate. 102 00:05:30,053 --> 00:05:34,548 And man, like, at that moment it just clicked, like it did 103 00:05:34,629 --> 00:05:38,848 something to me where it was like okay, this is my purpose. 104 00:05:38,848 --> 00:05:43,531 My purpose is to find ways to help improve the lives of the 105 00:05:43,630 --> 00:05:44,552 hourly workforce. 106 00:05:45,920 --> 00:05:50,370 And you know, with the 3PL, I eventually went into operations, 107 00:05:50,370 --> 00:05:53,887 because operations you can impact more people's lives. 108 00:05:53,887 --> 00:05:57,232 And then eventually, at some point, I found I could impact 109 00:05:57,252 --> 00:05:57,735 even more people's lives. 110 00:05:57,735 --> 00:05:59,161 And then eventually, at some point, I found I could impact 111 00:05:59,201 --> 00:06:03,329 even more people's lives by starting up Happy Gig, which, in 112 00:06:03,329 --> 00:06:07,665 essence, that company was one of the pioneers of gig labor 113 00:06:08,024 --> 00:06:09,507 within the warehousing industry. 114 00:06:09,507 --> 00:06:13,942 So the premise is you've got great warehouse workers that are 115 00:06:13,942 --> 00:06:17,028 already working, that may be looking for extra hours, and 116 00:06:17,048 --> 00:06:21,074 you've got employers who need flex labor to help deal with 117 00:06:21,113 --> 00:06:23,845 variability, and there was really nothing out there back at 118 00:06:23,845 --> 00:06:28,747 that time that made that connection so founded Happy Gig. 119 00:06:28,747 --> 00:06:31,288 It had a tremendous amount of success with that. 120 00:06:31,288 --> 00:06:32,822 We began in. 121 00:06:32,822 --> 00:06:37,800 2018 is when we began recognizing revenue and then, of 122 00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:41,630 course, through COVID and all that, we saw a lot of success 123 00:06:42,821 --> 00:06:45,947 and then eventually that kind of morphed into ShiftSwap, which I 124 00:06:45,947 --> 00:06:49,946 know we'll get into a little bit more, but that's kind of the 125 00:06:49,946 --> 00:06:51,690 story of Happy Gig and how that started. 126 00:06:52,259 --> 00:06:54,507 Nate Shutes: Well, right off the bat, we're just leaning into 127 00:06:54,526 --> 00:06:58,521 the people side of things, and I love that because I have a deep 128 00:06:58,521 --> 00:06:59,862 fondness for warehousing. 129 00:06:59,862 --> 00:07:03,966 I've been in it for, I'd say, the last eight years. 130 00:07:03,966 --> 00:07:08,309 I've been responsible for at least one site usually many and 131 00:07:08,589 --> 00:07:11,271 it is not a place where cameras typically go. 132 00:07:11,271 --> 00:07:14,793 There's not a lot of podcasts being done inside of a warehouse 133 00:07:14,793 --> 00:07:19,076 and that workforce is generally not getting a lot of 134 00:07:19,117 --> 00:07:19,677 recognition. 135 00:07:19,677 --> 00:07:24,627 And yet they are the ones that do the work and without them, 136 00:07:24,906 --> 00:07:28,112 anything that's on the store shelf at Target or that shows up 137 00:07:28,112 --> 00:07:30,574 to your front doorstep would not be there. 138 00:07:30,574 --> 00:07:40,334 And I think there is a lack of awareness, maybe more than a 139 00:07:40,394 --> 00:07:41,315 lack of appreciation. 140 00:07:41,399 --> 00:07:44,827 I think if folks had a chance to spend time in more warehouses 141 00:07:44,887 --> 00:07:48,622 and see what it actually takes to do that kind of work I work 142 00:07:48,642 --> 00:07:53,468 in furniture, so you know I get to see folks lifting sofas 20 143 00:07:53,509 --> 00:07:57,165 feet up in the air on a cherry picker, and it's a different 144 00:07:58,569 --> 00:07:58,910 stress. 145 00:08:00,019 --> 00:08:02,471 You know there's a physical component to it that most people 146 00:08:02,471 --> 00:08:04,338 assume is all automated. 147 00:08:04,338 --> 00:08:07,286 Nowadays they get an idea of a conveyor type system in an 148 00:08:07,387 --> 00:08:09,661 Amazon facility and they think that that's what warehousing is. 149 00:08:09,661 --> 00:08:10,483 It's not. 150 00:08:10,483 --> 00:08:14,283 That's some of it, of course, but for the most part it is 151 00:08:14,403 --> 00:08:18,031 hardworking men and women getting up at really early hours 152 00:08:18,031 --> 00:08:23,891 4 am, you know, 3.30 am to get to a shift in the dark and 153 00:08:24,091 --> 00:08:27,603 working a very demanding job for long hours on their feet all 154 00:08:27,644 --> 00:08:28,064 day long. 155 00:08:28,064 --> 00:08:31,151 And so when I come across someone like you that has that 156 00:08:31,232 --> 00:08:34,846 same not just awareness but a deep appreciation for the people 157 00:08:34,846 --> 00:08:39,004 that do the work man, like right off the bat, it reminds me 158 00:08:39,004 --> 00:08:40,648 of why we hit it off when we first met. 159 00:08:40,648 --> 00:08:44,604 So I love the heart that you bring to it, and that is the 160 00:08:44,624 --> 00:08:45,245 heart of Lean. 161 00:08:45,245 --> 00:08:49,519 Also is it's about the people, and those folks generally. 162 00:08:49,519 --> 00:08:54,549 Again, don't get asked, hey, what can we do to make your work 163 00:08:54,549 --> 00:08:56,494 easier, more efficient or safer ? 164 00:09:18,960 --> 00:09:22,559 Hisham Khaki: no-transcript. 165 00:09:22,559 --> 00:09:26,707 My first job was actually in cement manufacturing and I was a 166 00:09:26,707 --> 00:09:33,428 process engineer at a large uh cement uh factory and it was a 167 00:09:33,568 --> 00:09:33,889 union. 168 00:09:33,889 --> 00:09:37,118 You know union operation's all I really knew. 169 00:09:37,118 --> 00:09:40,566 I did that for a little less than two years before I went to 170 00:09:40,886 --> 00:09:45,940 the 3pl world and during my interview, um, I was walking 171 00:09:46,381 --> 00:09:49,051 through the warehouse and it's really the first real warehouse 172 00:09:49,192 --> 00:09:52,601 I've been in and I'm interviewing for a logistics 173 00:09:52,663 --> 00:09:57,533 engineer job where my job, my, my role was to make things more 174 00:09:57,552 --> 00:09:57,953 efficient. 175 00:09:59,341 --> 00:10:03,811 And the VP of ops, one of my mentors, he's walking around 176 00:10:03,831 --> 00:10:06,804 with me, interviewing me, and my eyes are huge because I'm 177 00:10:06,966 --> 00:10:11,198 seeing all these people on these clamp trucks and they're 178 00:10:11,219 --> 00:10:16,169 driving backwards and they're moving, like you know, at a very 179 00:10:16,169 --> 00:10:19,024 high speed, they're honking, I mean it's, it's crazy in the 180 00:10:19,044 --> 00:10:19,407 warehouse. 181 00:10:19,407 --> 00:10:25,432 And he looks at me, the VP of ops, uh, and he, his name was 182 00:10:25,491 --> 00:10:28,825 Ralph Price and he goes yeah, sham, and he had a really raspy 183 00:10:28,845 --> 00:10:29,582 voice, shammy. 184 00:10:29,582 --> 00:10:32,341 Tons of opportunity over here, right, you can probably see it 185 00:10:32,522 --> 00:10:33,003 everywhere. 186 00:10:33,003 --> 00:10:36,129 And in the back of my mind I'm like, oh my God, like where's 187 00:10:36,149 --> 00:10:36,850 the opportunity? 188 00:10:36,850 --> 00:10:38,313 These people are all working. 189 00:10:38,313 --> 00:10:46,567 I came from an environment where, unless the factory was in 190 00:10:46,567 --> 00:10:48,394 shutdown, meltdown mode, you know, operators would have their 191 00:10:48,394 --> 00:10:49,899 feet kicked up, just waiting for something wrong to happen. 192 00:10:50,159 --> 00:10:51,322 Nate Shutes: Totally the opposite environment. 193 00:10:52,066 --> 00:10:54,821 Hisham Khaki: Completely, and you're right, like people don't. 194 00:10:54,821 --> 00:10:58,803 Most people have never really been inside of a warehouse other 195 00:10:58,803 --> 00:11:02,888 than a Costco, but a true warehouse. 196 00:11:02,888 --> 00:11:06,451 They've never seen how efficient it really is and how 197 00:11:06,530 --> 00:11:10,333 hard people are working in there and how much weight they're 198 00:11:10,374 --> 00:11:12,235 lifting and the motions they're going through. 199 00:11:12,235 --> 00:11:20,140 It's a lot going through. 200 00:11:20,160 --> 00:11:20,400 Nate Shutes: It's a lot. 201 00:11:20,400 --> 00:11:21,845 It's a wonderful ecosystem is sort of the way I picture the 202 00:11:21,865 --> 00:11:22,447 four walls of a warehouse. 203 00:11:22,447 --> 00:11:23,067 Every warehouse is different. 204 00:11:23,067 --> 00:11:26,264 It could be the identical product, racking, equipment and 205 00:11:26,423 --> 00:11:29,631 everything, but you just add different people and it becomes 206 00:11:29,672 --> 00:11:34,607 a different organism altogether and it evolves and changes over 207 00:11:34,668 --> 00:11:37,913 time and that you can't understand it unless you 208 00:11:37,952 --> 00:11:38,735 experience it. 209 00:11:39,240 --> 00:11:42,770 And observing will get you some insight. 210 00:11:43,500 --> 00:11:44,885 Participating will get you more. 211 00:11:45,120 --> 00:11:48,303 Doing the work will get you the most, and that means being there 212 00:11:48,303 --> 00:11:52,426 for the 6 am stand-up meeting, not just flying in in the 213 00:11:52,506 --> 00:11:54,580 afternoon, and after all, the work is mostly done and 214 00:11:54,600 --> 00:11:55,701 everybody's on their way out. 215 00:11:56,081 --> 00:12:01,871 And again, not a lot of folks have that level of appreciation 216 00:12:01,951 --> 00:12:05,224 for it, and so maybe part of this episode really is going to 217 00:12:05,344 --> 00:12:08,600 just be about highlighting the people, because I know that's a 218 00:12:08,659 --> 00:12:13,833 big reason why you do what you do now is it's obviously you're 219 00:12:13,933 --> 00:12:18,447 in a company to make a profit, but you're also adding elements 220 00:12:18,567 --> 00:12:21,044 to that of I want to do it in a way that's going to have an 221 00:12:21,085 --> 00:12:22,629 impact and be good for others. 222 00:12:22,629 --> 00:12:27,067 So you, beforehand, I asked you a handful of questions and you 223 00:12:27,107 --> 00:12:30,961 shared with me some of your values that you run your 224 00:12:30,981 --> 00:12:34,889 business by and we'll at some point we'll get into what Shift 225 00:12:34,908 --> 00:12:38,075 Swap does too, but this is such fertile ground. 226 00:12:38,075 --> 00:12:41,086 The two that really stood out to me right off the bat were 227 00:12:41,187 --> 00:12:47,807 simplicity and effectiveness, and I'm curious how you landed 228 00:12:47,907 --> 00:12:53,215 on those as two of the values that guide your decision making 229 00:13:01,322 --> 00:13:02,465 that guide your decision making. 230 00:13:02,485 --> 00:13:03,527 Hisham Khaki: Yeah, so simplicity is something I've 231 00:13:03,607 --> 00:13:06,173 always been extremely fond of, because I I've always felt to 232 00:13:06,293 --> 00:13:10,581 actually create something simple is extremely complicated and 233 00:13:11,481 --> 00:13:17,345 you know, no matter what you're looking at in life, whether it's 234 00:13:17,345 --> 00:13:23,788 a person training to be an athlete or someone in the 235 00:13:23,849 --> 00:13:30,852 warehouse trying to pick orders and get it onto a truck, for 236 00:13:30,893 --> 00:13:37,476 whatever reason, lots of people overcomplicate processes and I 237 00:13:37,496 --> 00:13:44,760 still don't understand why a lot of the times, and I just see it 238 00:13:44,760 --> 00:13:44,760 . 239 00:13:44,780 --> 00:13:46,105 Once you start seeing it, you can't stop seeing it in so many 240 00:13:46,125 --> 00:13:46,265 things. 241 00:13:46,265 --> 00:13:47,630 So I've always been kind of obsessed with what's the 242 00:13:47,650 --> 00:13:51,562 simplest way to accomplish the goal at hand, and whether that 243 00:13:51,623 --> 00:13:56,813 goal is creating a software that's actually effective or 244 00:13:57,033 --> 00:13:59,820 creating a process that is efficient. 245 00:13:59,820 --> 00:14:05,831 If you have kind of that goal of simplicity, a lot of, and it 246 00:14:05,890 --> 00:14:06,592 takes a lot of work. 247 00:14:06,592 --> 00:14:10,243 By the way, like that, when you say, create something simple, 248 00:14:10,383 --> 00:14:15,590 it takes a lot of work to get there, but once you do, the 249 00:14:15,710 --> 00:14:22,942 impact usually is very clear and it's tangible, so that I don't 250 00:14:22,961 --> 00:14:23,062 know. 251 00:14:23,062 --> 00:14:25,269 That's always just been something that's been near and 252 00:14:25,288 --> 00:14:25,890 dear to my heart. 253 00:14:27,580 --> 00:14:30,943 Nate Shutes: You seem to have design instincts at your core, 254 00:14:30,984 --> 00:14:32,947 then is what that is telling me? 255 00:14:32,947 --> 00:15:09,495 From engineering processes to visualizing flow, you are a 256 00:15:09,555 --> 00:15:14,173 process designer seeking the shortest path between a and b, 257 00:15:14,233 --> 00:15:16,140 or the most efficient or the most effective. 258 00:15:16,140 --> 00:15:20,550 Is that something that you discovered about yourself as an 259 00:15:20,630 --> 00:15:21,873 adult, or were you? 260 00:15:21,873 --> 00:15:24,265 When you were younger, you shared? 261 00:15:24,265 --> 00:15:25,708 You know that you're a bit of a troublemaker. 262 00:15:25,708 --> 00:15:29,677 Were you always looking for a creative solution to a problem 263 00:15:29,717 --> 00:15:35,130 that maybe didn't fit within the academic world, or has that 264 00:15:35,150 --> 00:15:36,133 always been a part of your DNA? 265 00:15:38,440 --> 00:15:39,662 Hisham Khaki: Yeah, that's an interesting question. 266 00:15:39,662 --> 00:15:47,554 I almost think it started more when I was younger, just 267 00:15:47,715 --> 00:15:51,781 sometimes feeling dumb, to be honest, right when you hear 268 00:15:52,362 --> 00:15:56,369 complex things being thrown at you and you're not grasping it, 269 00:15:57,611 --> 00:16:04,291 you feel a bit dumb, but I always want to figure it out or 270 00:16:04,331 --> 00:16:04,993 find the truth. 271 00:16:04,993 --> 00:16:08,942 So my mind would always go to okay, this is what I'm being 272 00:16:09,022 --> 00:16:09,564 told. 273 00:16:09,564 --> 00:16:13,520 How can I simplify this to where I understand it and then I 274 00:16:13,520 --> 00:16:17,911 can communicate it to other people and my mind will just 275 00:16:18,032 --> 00:16:22,542 break down complexity and figure it out the simplest way 276 00:16:23,203 --> 00:16:23,724 possible. 277 00:16:23,724 --> 00:16:26,931 And maybe I didn't really understand that. 278 00:16:26,931 --> 00:16:31,025 That's how I operated until my professional career, but looking 279 00:16:31,025 --> 00:16:33,530 back as a child, I think that's what it was. 280 00:16:33,530 --> 00:16:40,572 I almost had a fear of looking dumb, so it made me really peel 281 00:16:40,592 --> 00:16:44,743 the layers back in whatever I was trying to understand or look 282 00:16:44,743 --> 00:16:47,811 at and then be able to explain it in a very simple way. 283 00:16:49,161 --> 00:16:51,490 Nate Shutes: Yeah, I hear curiosity in that then as well, 284 00:16:52,201 --> 00:16:56,550 Not accepting something at face value, but wanting to peel it 285 00:16:56,610 --> 00:16:58,414 back and understand it more. 286 00:16:58,414 --> 00:17:03,629 Once you tap into that, you had a bunch of success in your 287 00:17:03,669 --> 00:17:04,069 career. 288 00:17:04,069 --> 00:17:06,195 You had a bunch of success in your career. 289 00:17:06,195 --> 00:17:08,994 You rise to the executive level of a very large and successful 290 00:17:09,096 --> 00:17:12,986 organization and gained a lot of experience, I'm sure on the 291 00:17:13,047 --> 00:17:19,393 people side as well leadership, strategy, management. 292 00:17:19,393 --> 00:17:23,924 And then one day you decide, okay, I'm going to go out on my 293 00:17:24,105 --> 00:17:29,421 own and give up the golden handcuffs, the seeming security 294 00:17:29,441 --> 00:17:33,048 and structure of a large organization, and try to build 295 00:17:33,108 --> 00:17:34,030 something from scratch. 296 00:17:34,111 --> 00:17:38,867 So you must have had aside from wanting to have an impact, you 297 00:17:38,907 --> 00:17:43,041 must have had a very high level of conviction that there was a 298 00:17:43,121 --> 00:17:45,543 need and that you were the right person to solve it. 299 00:17:45,543 --> 00:17:47,825 There was a need and that you were the right person to solve 300 00:17:47,845 --> 00:17:47,885 it. 301 00:17:47,885 --> 00:17:53,390 Then, as happy, gig started to morph into shift swap, you know 302 00:17:54,090 --> 00:17:58,780 and some learning happened in between there that caused you to 303 00:17:58,780 --> 00:18:00,844 choose a slightly different direction. 304 00:18:00,844 --> 00:18:05,135 Can you help me understand what that learning process was of? 305 00:18:05,135 --> 00:18:08,259 Okay, we're going to go this direction slightly different now 306 00:18:08,259 --> 00:18:11,383 and I see a new opportunity that I have equal conviction in, 307 00:18:11,383 --> 00:18:15,537 yeah, and maybe you can explain what shift swap is too. 308 00:18:15,537 --> 00:18:18,939 We're 20 minutes in and I haven't even asked you that. 309 00:18:18,939 --> 00:18:19,421 My bad. 310 00:18:20,789 --> 00:18:23,432 Hisham Khaki: So and I'll get into it a little bit more. 311 00:18:23,432 --> 00:18:26,255 But happy gig is external labor . 312 00:18:26,255 --> 00:18:29,998 So imagine you've got a warehouse, you need some flex 313 00:18:30,038 --> 00:18:35,001 labor and you're basically going to the outside to bring labor 314 00:18:35,143 --> 00:18:35,263 in. 315 00:18:35,263 --> 00:18:39,807 Shift swap creates almost that gig economy or flexibility 316 00:18:39,866 --> 00:18:41,391 within your own operation. 317 00:18:41,391 --> 00:18:45,900 So and we'll we'll get more into exactly what that means. 318 00:18:45,900 --> 00:18:51,493 But you know how it morphed from HappyGig Flex and HappyGig 319 00:18:51,513 --> 00:18:55,356 Flex is still around, by the way but how that really morphed 320 00:18:55,397 --> 00:18:57,818 more into ShiftSwap is. 321 00:19:00,142 --> 00:19:04,286 Iteration is the key to any startup, any business. 322 00:19:04,286 --> 00:19:06,757 I believe the key is always iteration. 323 00:19:06,757 --> 00:19:10,476 Things change so quickly, needs change very quickly. 324 00:19:10,476 --> 00:19:13,753 You've got to be able to iterate in a very smooth, 325 00:19:13,773 --> 00:19:14,314 controlled way. 326 00:19:14,314 --> 00:19:17,217 Um, in a very smooth, controlled way. 327 00:19:17,217 --> 00:19:22,702 So what we started finding was that a lot of like after COVID. 328 00:19:23,124 --> 00:19:25,526 After COVID, after things started stabilizing a little bit 329 00:19:25,526 --> 00:19:32,232 , a lot of our customers started saying this is great, we love 330 00:19:32,253 --> 00:19:33,537 being able to tap into your workforce, but honestly, we need 331 00:19:33,537 --> 00:19:34,881 something for our own workforce . 332 00:19:34,881 --> 00:19:38,213 We're struggling with retaining our workforce and we're 333 00:19:38,235 --> 00:19:41,280 starting to believe that the key really is to figure out how to 334 00:19:41,322 --> 00:19:47,220 retain them, and we're hearing from them that they need a 335 00:19:47,240 --> 00:19:48,624 little bit more flexibility. 336 00:19:48,624 --> 00:19:51,918 So I started listening to that and hearing more and more 337 00:19:51,978 --> 00:19:53,000 customers say that. 338 00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:58,195 And then what happened was one of my largest customers came to 339 00:19:58,256 --> 00:20:04,965 me and said hey, we love Happy Gig, but we have a corporate 340 00:20:04,985 --> 00:20:05,466 initiative. 341 00:20:05,466 --> 00:20:06,674 This is a billion-dollar company. 342 00:20:06,674 --> 00:20:10,513 We have a corporate initiative to create flexibility within our 343 00:20:10,513 --> 00:20:15,317 workforce and we want to explore the opportunity of you 344 00:20:15,458 --> 00:20:19,061 actually building it, your team building it for us, because 345 00:20:19,201 --> 00:20:22,182 everyone loves the user experience of of happy gig. 346 00:20:22,182 --> 00:20:26,667 So we said yes to that and we built it. 347 00:20:27,731 --> 00:20:31,980 And, uh, we built like an MVP rather quickly within a couple 348 00:20:32,019 --> 00:20:35,372 of months, started rolling it out to pilot sites, started 349 00:20:35,392 --> 00:20:39,038 taking feedback and then we just started seeing it work. 350 00:20:39,038 --> 00:20:40,701 Site after site was loving it. 351 00:20:40,701 --> 00:20:43,345 They were immediately seeing improvements in their metrics 352 00:20:44,471 --> 00:20:45,975 and then it just started taking off from there. 353 00:20:45,975 --> 00:20:50,734 And my North Star has always been how can I impact the most 354 00:20:50,795 --> 00:20:51,196 lives? 355 00:20:51,196 --> 00:20:54,451 So whenever I'm thinking about where to pivot to next whether 356 00:20:54,471 --> 00:20:57,880 it was engineering into operations, operations to Happy 357 00:20:57,920 --> 00:21:05,413 Gig, happy Gig to ChefSwap it's always how can I impact more 358 00:21:05,432 --> 00:21:05,712 people's lives? 359 00:21:05,712 --> 00:21:07,196 And I quickly realized ChefSwap can, has the potential to 360 00:21:07,216 --> 00:21:11,591 impact the lives of many more people than Happy Gig Flex, and 361 00:21:11,611 --> 00:21:14,240 that's why it's become our number one focus right now. 362 00:21:14,809 --> 00:21:17,680 Nate Shutes: And can you explain what the primary use of it is? 363 00:21:20,309 --> 00:21:21,813 Hisham Khaki: focus right now and can you explain what the 364 00:21:21,853 --> 00:21:22,314 primary use of it is? 365 00:21:22,314 --> 00:21:22,615 Absolutely so. 366 00:21:22,615 --> 00:21:24,499 It actually it'll work for any hourly workforce and there are 367 00:21:24,519 --> 00:21:26,643 really three, three big values to it. 368 00:21:26,643 --> 00:21:32,923 The first one is um, let's say I'm an associate somewhere and 369 00:21:34,307 --> 00:21:37,798 let's say I don't have childcare this coming Monday morning. 370 00:21:37,798 --> 00:21:42,673 Typically what would happen is I'd wait until Monday morning 371 00:21:43,215 --> 00:21:45,120 and I'd call out sick, like that's. 372 00:21:45,120 --> 00:21:48,778 That's the way it works, especially in warehousing, and 373 00:21:48,899 --> 00:21:52,130 I'll take you know the hits I'll take from an HR perspective. 374 00:21:52,130 --> 00:21:56,678 I'll get you know another point and I get one step closer to 375 00:21:56,718 --> 00:21:57,420 being terminated. 376 00:21:57,420 --> 00:22:01,413 But it's the way I get a little bit of flexibility for myself 377 00:22:02,897 --> 00:22:05,222 and what ends up happening is I'll eventually get terminated. 378 00:22:05,222 --> 00:22:06,753 That's what happens in warehousing. 379 00:22:06,753 --> 00:22:11,804 With shift swap, I would actually be able to post that 380 00:22:11,870 --> 00:22:15,536 portion of my shift and then someone else from another shift 381 00:22:16,076 --> 00:22:19,501 if I have a multi-shift operation can grab that shift 382 00:22:20,103 --> 00:22:24,056 and cover it for me and that feature you've seen a tremendous 383 00:22:24,056 --> 00:22:25,882 amount of reduction in turnover . 384 00:22:27,052 --> 00:22:30,221 The second big value is all of your dynamic shifts. 385 00:22:30,221 --> 00:22:38,950 So any kind of overtime, any kind of voluntary time off, time 386 00:22:38,950 --> 00:22:39,611 off If you have part-time workers. 387 00:22:39,611 --> 00:22:41,796 Traditionally the way we do in warehousing is an ops manager or 388 00:22:41,796 --> 00:22:45,743 a supervisor walks the floor, collects volunteers, or they'll 389 00:22:45,764 --> 00:22:48,796 put a break room sign up sheet or they'll just call mandatory 390 00:22:48,917 --> 00:22:53,573 overtime or mandatory cut to hours, and none of that is good. 391 00:22:53,573 --> 00:22:58,422 That creates problems, lots of problems With ShiftSwap. 392 00:22:58,422 --> 00:22:59,663 All that becomes automated. 393 00:22:59,663 --> 00:23:02,996 I'm an operations manager, I need six people to stay a couple 394 00:23:02,996 --> 00:23:07,376 hours longer, I post that I need six people and it all 395 00:23:07,417 --> 00:23:10,224 happens in a seamless way where everyone gets the notification, 396 00:23:10,670 --> 00:23:11,756 they can grab the shift. 397 00:23:11,756 --> 00:23:13,676 It goes back to leadership for approval. 398 00:23:13,676 --> 00:23:14,900 Good to go. 399 00:23:14,900 --> 00:23:18,000 And the third big value is just messaging. 400 00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:20,611 Messaging so a way to keep in communication with your 401 00:23:20,652 --> 00:23:23,601 workforce, whether it's departments, skill sets, 402 00:23:23,741 --> 00:23:27,695 individuals, the entire team, you know, just a simple way to 403 00:23:27,735 --> 00:23:31,629 communicate with your workforce what's interesting is the 404 00:23:31,689 --> 00:23:35,057 difference between white collar work and blue collar work in the 405 00:23:35,057 --> 00:23:36,662 white collar world generally speaking. 406 00:23:36,721 --> 00:23:39,592 Nate Shutes: Hey, I've got a, my kid has an event at their 407 00:23:39,632 --> 00:23:39,873 school. 408 00:23:39,873 --> 00:23:42,222 I'm going to be a couple of hours late and it's sort of uh, 409 00:23:43,368 --> 00:23:45,113 as long as you get the work done , totally cool. 410 00:23:45,113 --> 00:23:46,115 You have the flexibility. 411 00:23:46,115 --> 00:23:48,380 You know we're not clock watchers, yeah. 412 00:23:48,380 --> 00:23:51,952 And yet the blue collar workforce that's paid hourly 413 00:23:52,573 --> 00:23:56,057 doesn't receive that same flexibility. 414 00:23:56,057 --> 00:24:00,563 And you hit the nail on the head as soon as an hourly 415 00:24:00,943 --> 00:24:05,317 associate gets on the point radar hey, you were 20 minutes 416 00:24:05,397 --> 00:24:08,184 late or something happened. 417 00:24:08,184 --> 00:24:11,913 The relationship changes to one . 418 00:24:11,913 --> 00:24:13,216 It almost feels punitive. 419 00:24:13,216 --> 00:24:16,643 Where they just had something in life happen, it wasn't. 420 00:24:18,154 --> 00:24:18,977 I live in Minnesota. 421 00:24:18,977 --> 00:24:20,652 We have blizzards, you know. 422 00:24:20,652 --> 00:24:23,080 Some people can have a snowblower, some people don't. 423 00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:26,611 That might mean you're shoveling for an extra hour and 424 00:24:26,691 --> 00:24:30,581 of course you'll make acts of God type exceptions for 425 00:24:30,621 --> 00:24:31,343 attendance issues. 426 00:24:31,343 --> 00:24:35,881 But that kind of impact is felt much more severely by hourly 427 00:24:35,901 --> 00:24:39,188 workers and they generally unless it's a unionized 428 00:24:39,228 --> 00:24:41,854 workforce they don't have as much of a voice typically to 429 00:24:43,898 --> 00:24:48,353 stay off of that radar or build processes and policies that are 430 00:24:48,413 --> 00:24:49,135 more accommodating. 431 00:24:49,135 --> 00:24:53,710 So if your goal is so, this is me riffing and just learning as 432 00:24:53,730 --> 00:24:55,955 we're talking here, because this is helpful for me. 433 00:24:55,955 --> 00:25:01,672 I still run a facility today and this is good reminders for 434 00:25:01,711 --> 00:25:01,813 me. 435 00:25:01,813 --> 00:25:05,259 If your goal, oh, go ahead. 436 00:25:05,881 --> 00:25:07,364 Hisham Khaki: No, I mean it, just it. 437 00:25:07,364 --> 00:25:12,996 The white collar workforce had the flexibility even before 438 00:25:13,036 --> 00:25:14,318 COVID to a certain degree. 439 00:25:14,318 --> 00:25:18,565 But after COVID, I mean white collar workforce went through 440 00:25:18,585 --> 00:25:21,736 revolution where the amount of flexibility now is unbelievable. 441 00:25:21,736 --> 00:25:27,094 Right, like most, you know, most companies allow a lot of 442 00:25:27,134 --> 00:25:32,524 flexibility for the white collar workforce and still zero for 443 00:25:32,544 --> 00:25:33,532 the hourly workforce. 444 00:25:33,532 --> 00:25:37,900 I remember being in operations where there were train tracks, 445 00:25:38,221 --> 00:25:42,212 you know, right next to the facility, and if you got caught 446 00:25:42,253 --> 00:25:45,460 behind a train and you were 10 minutes late, you still got. 447 00:25:45,460 --> 00:25:46,743 The points Didn't matter. 448 00:25:46,743 --> 00:25:52,837 So imagine like you're going into your job, nate, and you 449 00:25:52,898 --> 00:25:56,143 have to worry about not getting stuck behind a train to 450 00:25:56,163 --> 00:25:57,384 potentially lose your job. 451 00:25:57,384 --> 00:26:01,215 Like how are you able to focus on anything else other than that 452 00:26:01,215 --> 00:26:01,215 ? 453 00:26:01,978 --> 00:26:03,631 Nate Shutes: And then how do you not feel that that's somehow 454 00:26:03,770 --> 00:26:05,474 unfair and again punitive? 455 00:26:05,514 --> 00:26:10,264 I recall in the beginnings of COVID the very, very early days 456 00:26:10,330 --> 00:26:14,259 where all of a sudden everything started shutting down and we 457 00:26:14,278 --> 00:26:17,371 have hindsight now to know kind of the severity of what COVID 458 00:26:17,411 --> 00:26:18,091 turned out to be. 459 00:26:18,612 --> 00:26:23,695 But in the moment nobody knew, everybody was afraid and a bunch 460 00:26:23,695 --> 00:26:26,817 of folks generally were like I'm not going into the office, 461 00:26:27,218 --> 00:26:29,139 I'm staying home, I don't have a choice, you can't do 462 00:26:29,159 --> 00:26:41,712 warehousing remotely, and so there was a big disparity in how 463 00:26:41,712 --> 00:26:45,923 risk was absorbed in the population. 464 00:26:47,307 --> 00:26:49,333 And again, I'm going specifically to that period 465 00:26:49,353 --> 00:26:50,778 where none of us knew what was happening. 466 00:26:50,778 --> 00:26:54,793 And I recall being in a facility at the end of the day 467 00:26:54,933 --> 00:26:57,960 and we had bleach and all of these cleaning supplies and we 468 00:26:57,980 --> 00:27:01,909 had not full gear on but we were like disinfecting the soda pop 469 00:27:01,949 --> 00:27:05,939 machine and wiping down sinks and all the pack stations and 470 00:27:05,959 --> 00:27:11,380 the mouses at the ship station and we didn't know if we were 471 00:27:11,420 --> 00:27:14,369 gonna, you know, get really, really sick and have to go to 472 00:27:14,389 --> 00:27:14,850 the hospital. 473 00:27:14,850 --> 00:27:17,974 Meanwhile a whole other group of people was just tucked away 474 00:27:18,014 --> 00:27:18,775 safely at home. 475 00:27:18,775 --> 00:27:26,865 And it really does highlight the differences of why one rule 476 00:27:26,924 --> 00:27:29,455 can't apply effectively to everybody, and then how you do 477 00:27:29,495 --> 00:27:33,452 need to adapt to, in this case, who your customers are and who 478 00:27:33,472 --> 00:27:35,941 the people are that you're trying to impact their lives. 479 00:27:35,941 --> 00:27:40,190 How do you measure how much impact you're having? 480 00:27:42,413 --> 00:27:43,355 Hisham Khaki: Yeah, great question. 481 00:27:43,355 --> 00:27:51,465 So the beauty of ShiftSwap is that it's literally improving 482 00:27:51,746 --> 00:27:55,816 the lives of the workers that are registered with ShiftSwap 483 00:27:55,855 --> 00:28:00,023 and are using it and at the same time, it's helping the 484 00:28:00,083 --> 00:28:01,265 employer's bottom line. 485 00:28:01,265 --> 00:28:02,975 It's like it's a win-win. 486 00:28:02,975 --> 00:28:07,786 So, you know, if you pitch something to a traditional 487 00:28:07,826 --> 00:28:11,155 warehousing company and it's just pitched as hey, this is 488 00:28:11,196 --> 00:28:15,333 going to make your employees' lives better, their first 489 00:28:15,373 --> 00:28:16,457 question is going to be well, what's? 490 00:28:16,457 --> 00:28:18,353 You know, is this going to cost me more? 491 00:28:18,353 --> 00:28:21,299 You know, is it going to inflate the cost per unit? 492 00:28:21,299 --> 00:28:22,041 What's going to happen? 493 00:28:22,041 --> 00:28:26,298 So when you find something that really helps employees and, at 494 00:28:26,337 --> 00:28:29,151 the same time, helps the company's bottom line, that's 495 00:28:29,250 --> 00:28:30,632 when you've really got something . 496 00:28:31,253 --> 00:28:38,201 And the way, the way we measure our impact for employers is 497 00:28:38,621 --> 00:28:42,326 simple it's reduction in turnover, reduction in 498 00:28:42,466 --> 00:28:45,437 absenteeism and reduction in cost per unit. 499 00:28:45,437 --> 00:28:48,730 So those three things are used from the employer's perspective 500 00:28:49,030 --> 00:28:49,853 to justify it. 501 00:28:49,853 --> 00:28:53,059 And then the associate's perspective. 502 00:28:53,059 --> 00:28:56,373 I mean, of course, for me it's number of users. 503 00:28:56,373 --> 00:29:01,481 Our goal in the next few years is to literally impact the lives 504 00:29:01,481 --> 00:29:03,605 of a million hourly associates. 505 00:29:03,605 --> 00:29:04,875 That's where we want to get to. 506 00:29:04,875 --> 00:29:09,461 So that's, that's our high level number metric of how many 507 00:29:09,500 --> 00:29:10,423 lives we're impacting. 508 00:29:10,423 --> 00:29:14,217 But then from there, you just see how many, how many hours 509 00:29:14,297 --> 00:29:17,971 people are able to take off without getting pointed, how 510 00:29:18,010 --> 00:29:21,099 many times people are able to give up a portion of their shift 511 00:29:21,099 --> 00:29:22,582 to take care of something at home. 512 00:29:22,582 --> 00:29:26,979 How many times am I able to grab overtime or a little bit of 513 00:29:26,979 --> 00:29:28,843 extra money to support my family? 514 00:29:28,843 --> 00:29:31,438 So there's many, many different things. 515 00:29:32,551 --> 00:29:34,015 Nate Shutes: When you think of a million people. 516 00:29:34,015 --> 00:29:40,309 It's too big of a number to actually comprehend A million 517 00:29:40,331 --> 00:29:41,153 people in one place at one time. 518 00:29:41,153 --> 00:29:42,275 There are a handful of concerts . 519 00:29:42,275 --> 00:29:44,961 I think Garth Brooks in New York in the 90s. 520 00:29:44,961 --> 00:29:47,017 They said that he had a million people at his concert, or 521 00:29:47,057 --> 00:29:47,699 something like that. 522 00:29:47,699 --> 00:29:52,180 And so we like those really big numbers, but even smaller 523 00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:52,561 numbers. 524 00:29:52,561 --> 00:29:57,597 If you make a post on LinkedIn, for example, and it gets 500 525 00:29:57,817 --> 00:30:00,303 impressions, somebody would be like, oh, it's only 500. 526 00:30:00,303 --> 00:30:01,205 It's not that big of a deal. 527 00:30:01,205 --> 00:30:03,817 You know how many people 500 people is. 528 00:30:03,817 --> 00:30:08,260 It would fill up your local high school gym that you go to a 529 00:30:08,260 --> 00:30:08,882 basketball game. 530 00:30:08,882 --> 00:30:12,057 Every single seat would be completely full, packed to the 531 00:30:12,157 --> 00:30:12,597 gills. 532 00:30:12,597 --> 00:30:15,003 And that's 500 people. 533 00:30:15,003 --> 00:30:19,552 And it's hard to imagine large numbers. 534 00:30:19,552 --> 00:30:23,374 So when you say something like hey, if you've got 1000 users, 535 00:30:23,453 --> 00:30:27,596 or you've got five or 10,000 users and you putivities or 536 00:30:27,616 --> 00:30:30,859 something, and every single one of them was a user of yours, do 537 00:30:31,379 --> 00:30:32,460 you ever just imagine? 538 00:30:32,460 --> 00:30:50,937 Because it's just a number on a screen sometimes, but it's not, 539 00:30:50,937 --> 00:30:51,999 that's an actual person. 540 00:30:53,543 --> 00:30:56,650 Hisham Khaki: Yeah, I always think that way actually, and 541 00:30:56,670 --> 00:30:59,014 it's funny you refer to that, because I was reading something 542 00:30:59,455 --> 00:31:02,720 last night and I can't remember where I was reading or what it 543 00:31:02,779 --> 00:31:05,745 was, but it and I don't even know if it's true, so it may not 544 00:31:05,745 --> 00:31:21,976 be true to ever play since 18, whatever, they won't even fill 545 00:31:21,996 --> 00:31:22,277 up one stadium. 546 00:31:22,277 --> 00:31:23,422 And I again, I don't know if that's true, but uh, it was. 547 00:31:23,422 --> 00:31:24,346 You know, it was giving all the numbers. 548 00:31:24,346 --> 00:31:28,155 It said something like if you took every player since 1887 or 549 00:31:28,176 --> 00:31:31,363 whenever major league baseball started, it would account. 550 00:31:31,363 --> 00:31:35,879 It would be like, you know, 40,000 people that wouldn't even 551 00:31:35,879 --> 00:31:37,221 fit in one stadium. 552 00:31:37,221 --> 00:31:39,166 That's generally packed. 553 00:31:39,166 --> 00:31:43,775 So, yeah, whenever I think about any numbers and you know 554 00:31:44,276 --> 00:31:48,744 impressions or users, you always start thinking of, like, you 555 00:31:48,809 --> 00:31:52,317 know, I'm, I'm in this room right now and it feels packed 556 00:31:52,378 --> 00:31:54,261 and there's only 300 people in here. 557 00:31:54,261 --> 00:31:57,653 So imagine what 3 000 people in here feel like. 558 00:31:58,976 --> 00:32:01,139 Nate Shutes: So if you work your way towards a million I mean, 559 00:32:01,179 --> 00:32:12,850 that is such a theoretical number how do you, as an 560 00:32:12,870 --> 00:32:14,033 entrepreneur, stay focused on what you can do today to make 561 00:32:14,053 --> 00:32:15,737 the number bigger, while having this really ambitious goal way 562 00:32:15,817 --> 00:32:16,519 off in the future? 563 00:32:16,519 --> 00:32:22,010 That's going to take a thousand , while having this really 564 00:32:22,030 --> 00:32:23,274 ambitious goal way off in the future, that's going to take a 565 00:32:23,294 --> 00:32:24,237 thousand small decisions over and over and over. 566 00:32:24,237 --> 00:32:26,041 How do you stay motivated in the long-term nature of what it 567 00:32:26,101 --> 00:32:26,783 is that you're building? 568 00:32:30,691 --> 00:32:34,578 Hisham Khaki: Yeah, I think what always keeps me motivated is 569 00:32:35,420 --> 00:32:37,203 the crazy big goal. 570 00:32:37,203 --> 00:32:43,834 To be motivated is the crazy big goal, and then you have to 571 00:32:43,854 --> 00:32:45,558 have that, just so you know what you're working towards and that 572 00:32:45,558 --> 00:32:46,842 you really can make a gigantic impact. 573 00:32:46,842 --> 00:32:51,094 But then if you don't, if you're a founder or you're 574 00:32:51,114 --> 00:32:54,222 leading a big business and you're not able to break that 575 00:32:54,323 --> 00:32:59,428 down into realistic short-term goals, then you're you're never. 576 00:32:59,428 --> 00:33:01,856 I mean you're just going to burn yourself out and feel like 577 00:33:01,876 --> 00:33:02,820 you're never doing enough. 578 00:33:02,820 --> 00:33:07,000 So you've got to set realistic goals, whether they're, you know 579 00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:08,163 , monthly or quarterly. 580 00:33:08,163 --> 00:33:10,615 You know you at least need quarterly. 581 00:33:10,615 --> 00:33:11,758 I think that's the minimum. 582 00:33:12,559 --> 00:33:15,173 Um, you've got to have quarterly goals that are that you can 583 00:33:15,295 --> 00:33:19,472 truly believe in right, that you can actually see it and you can 584 00:33:19,472 --> 00:33:20,738 create a plan to get there. 585 00:33:20,738 --> 00:33:23,971 You know, if I said, hey, we're going to get to a million users 586 00:33:23,971 --> 00:33:25,394 by the end of this year, that's there's. 587 00:33:25,394 --> 00:33:27,259 No, I don't believe that. 588 00:33:27,259 --> 00:33:32,374 I don't believe it yet, but I do believe we can get to our 589 00:33:32,413 --> 00:33:37,101 current goal that we're aimed at at, and just that belief will 590 00:33:37,141 --> 00:33:42,174 get me there and then that'll unlock more belief and I think 591 00:33:42,235 --> 00:33:44,360 that's that's kind of like the process. 592 00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:46,443 You've got to truly believe it. 593 00:33:46,443 --> 00:33:49,115 You get there and you have to understand that once you get 594 00:33:49,197 --> 00:33:51,643 somewhere, it'll unlock further beliefs. 595 00:33:53,070 --> 00:33:53,511 Nate Shutes: I dig that. 596 00:33:53,511 --> 00:33:55,258 What are you most excited about right now? 597 00:33:55,258 --> 00:33:56,672 What are you most? 598 00:33:59,495 --> 00:34:00,355 Hisham Khaki: excited about right now. 599 00:34:00,355 --> 00:34:07,104 Um, I just I love, I love the simplicity of shift swap. 600 00:34:07,104 --> 00:34:10,587 I love, I'm super excited that we were able to kind of pivot 601 00:34:10,607 --> 00:34:11,128 towards it. 602 00:34:11,128 --> 00:34:16,799 We've literally had zero attrition from customers 603 00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:19,695 starting it to leaving it Like it just doesn't happen. 604 00:34:19,695 --> 00:34:23,480 So the impact is there, people love it. 605 00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:24,674 The experience is great. 606 00:34:24,674 --> 00:34:30,300 So it's just really exciting to see something that works and is 607 00:34:30,300 --> 00:34:31,422 truly having an impact. 608 00:34:32,150 --> 00:34:37,376 With Happy Gig Flex, that was tough, that was trying to 609 00:34:37,456 --> 00:34:44,164 implement a different thought process for a lot of employers 610 00:34:44,266 --> 00:34:48,715 out there and what we'd see a lot is that we were losing 611 00:34:48,776 --> 00:34:53,072 almost as many clients as we were gaining every year, and 612 00:34:53,132 --> 00:34:53,896 it's demoralizing. 613 00:34:53,896 --> 00:34:58,380 It wasn't for lack of performance on our end, it was 614 00:34:58,441 --> 00:35:02,784 just companies were using us as a band-aid because they had a 615 00:35:02,824 --> 00:35:06,815 shortage of labor and once they were able to get staffed up, you 616 00:35:06,815 --> 00:35:08,357 know they would stop using us. 617 00:35:08,357 --> 00:35:11,570 So whenever year you're looking back, you're like oh, you know, 618 00:35:11,570 --> 00:35:16,599 we got 25 new customers this past year but we lost 20 619 00:35:17,099 --> 00:35:18,382 demoralizing, right. 620 00:35:18,382 --> 00:35:21,673 But having a platform that really is sticky and is 621 00:35:21,793 --> 00:35:25,583 constantly improving value, learning curve, change curve is 622 00:35:25,663 --> 00:35:25,822 low. 623 00:35:25,822 --> 00:35:27,534 I think that's what I'm most excited about. 624 00:35:28,699 --> 00:35:35,316 Nate Shutes: I'm also imagining the warehouse manager that has 625 00:35:35,597 --> 00:35:36,739 the experience of. 626 00:35:36,798 --> 00:35:39,362 They have to go around and ask for volunteers for a Saturday 627 00:35:39,403 --> 00:35:43,358 shift and they've got to do the attendance write-up and all of 628 00:35:43,418 --> 00:35:45,610 that and that's just kind of part of their normal. 629 00:35:46,552 --> 00:35:50,961 And then you have somebody who's on your platform and that low 630 00:35:51,021 --> 00:35:55,340 level friction is all gone and they're spending their time on 631 00:35:55,380 --> 00:35:59,612 more strategy or more kaizen events or people development, 632 00:35:59,692 --> 00:36:00,173 etc. 633 00:36:00,173 --> 00:36:03,947 So I I don't I'm not surprised at all to hear you say you have 634 00:36:04,007 --> 00:36:08,034 zero percent attrition, because the, the people that are stuck 635 00:36:08,316 --> 00:36:13,345 in the old way can't imagine that there's a solution for the 636 00:36:13,450 --> 00:36:13,771 new way. 637 00:36:13,771 --> 00:36:16,217 And then, once they get there that they are probably saying to 638 00:36:16,217 --> 00:36:18,041 themselves man, why didn't we do this years ago? 639 00:36:18,041 --> 00:36:20,539 I didn't know that there could be a solution to this. 640 00:36:20,539 --> 00:36:28,633 And, going back to this idea of simplicity and lean, you have 641 00:36:28,914 --> 00:36:33,579 redesigned an entire process and removed all the waste from it. 642 00:36:33,579 --> 00:36:38,907 That waste used to be walking and talking and documentation on 643 00:36:38,907 --> 00:36:42,974 attendance, and now it is streamlined, it's efficient. 644 00:36:42,974 --> 00:36:51,936 Do you find joy in that Of knowing you've applied all of 645 00:36:51,976 --> 00:36:54,880 your engineering thinking and your care for people into 646 00:36:54,921 --> 00:37:04,831 something that, if it's going, really really well, nobody even 647 00:37:04,851 --> 00:37:05,052 notices. 648 00:37:05,072 --> 00:37:05,612 Hisham Khaki: It makes me so happy. 649 00:37:05,612 --> 00:37:06,134 It makes me so happy. 650 00:37:06,134 --> 00:37:07,697 I had a customer tell me, um, this is probably about a year 651 00:37:07,737 --> 00:37:12,952 ago, and this was a three PL customer, and they were telling 652 00:37:12,992 --> 00:37:17,478 me that they were on a phone call with their customer, which 653 00:37:17,538 --> 00:37:22,505 their customer huge, you know, fortune, probably 100 company 654 00:37:23,572 --> 00:37:27,878 and this Fortune 100 company is on a call with all of their 655 00:37:27,958 --> 00:37:31,585 three PLs managing all their distribution centers across the 656 00:37:31,625 --> 00:37:35,559 country and they were having some sort of an emergency. 657 00:37:35,559 --> 00:37:41,173 And they were having some sort of an emergency and they're 658 00:37:41,193 --> 00:37:43,077 telling all their three pls hey, you know, you've, you have got 659 00:37:43,097 --> 00:37:45,802 to get so-and-so product out the door, you know, by tomorrow 660 00:37:45,883 --> 00:37:46,891 evening or whatever it was. 661 00:37:46,891 --> 00:37:52,501 And we strongly recommend you get an extra 20 people to work 662 00:37:52,521 --> 00:37:53,083 overtime. 663 00:37:53,083 --> 00:37:55,072 I'm making up numbers, but it's something like that. 664 00:37:55,072 --> 00:37:57,076 You know, you get an extra number of people, um, to work 665 00:37:57,096 --> 00:37:57,296 overtime. 666 00:37:57,296 --> 00:37:58,980 I'm making up numbers, but it was something like that. 667 00:37:58,980 --> 00:38:00,162 You know, you get an extra number of people to work in 668 00:38:00,182 --> 00:38:00,862 order to make this happen. 669 00:38:00,883 --> 00:38:04,793 And our customer, of course, the general manager, right away he 670 00:38:04,813 --> 00:38:09,202 gets on shift swap and he posts the shifts and within minutes, 671 00:38:10,612 --> 00:38:13,177 if they're all filled, and he speaks up. 672 00:38:13,177 --> 00:38:16,833 Right, I can't remember what happened, but on this call with 673 00:38:16,994 --> 00:38:21,101 this huge company, it gets out that, hey, we've already filled 674 00:38:21,142 --> 00:38:21,764 all the shifts. 675 00:38:21,764 --> 00:38:24,409 And they were like, what, how did you do that? 676 00:38:24,409 --> 00:38:28,099 Did you already send your supervisors to walk the floor? 677 00:38:28,099 --> 00:38:30,858 You already put a break room sign up sheet? 678 00:38:30,858 --> 00:38:31,378 What did you do? 679 00:38:31,378 --> 00:38:34,467 And he's like, oh, we've got the system that does it 680 00:38:34,487 --> 00:38:34,909 automatically. 681 00:38:34,909 --> 00:38:36,431 And he's like, oh, we've got the system that does it 682 00:38:36,490 --> 00:38:36,751 automatically. 683 00:38:36,751 --> 00:38:40,032 And it was like, when I heard that story, it's just like the 684 00:38:40,092 --> 00:38:41,873 values of mine you were talking about earlier. 685 00:38:41,873 --> 00:38:43,934 That makes me so happy. 686 00:38:45,335 --> 00:38:48,695 Nate Shutes: Just being effective and efficient at 687 00:38:50,956 --> 00:38:51,697 physical work. 688 00:38:52,878 --> 00:38:58,820 Yeah, it is simple stuff, but you hit the nail on the head so 689 00:38:58,921 --> 00:39:00,541 well that we overcomplicate it. 690 00:39:00,541 --> 00:39:05,103 That is our nature is to overcomplicate it, and so this 691 00:39:05,182 --> 00:39:10,425 struggle towards a simpler solution that is both cost 692 00:39:10,465 --> 00:39:14,387 effective and good for the bottom line and good for the 693 00:39:14,427 --> 00:39:16,668 people, no wonder you're having fun. 694 00:39:16,668 --> 00:39:24,791 No wonder you're having fun, no wonder you're having success. 695 00:39:24,791 --> 00:39:26,117 Um, I can keep talking to you about this for hours. 696 00:39:26,117 --> 00:39:26,940 Now I just want to do my own. 697 00:39:26,940 --> 00:39:27,099 Let's. 698 00:39:27,099 --> 00:39:28,686 Let's blueprint out some workflows, and I need to get 699 00:39:28,706 --> 00:39:32,195 back in and redo some racking in a facility now, because that's 700 00:39:32,517 --> 00:39:38,532 I love that part of fulfillment myself, and so it's always good 701 00:39:38,572 --> 00:39:42,438 to be able to talk shop with somebody who is clearly a pro at 702 00:39:42,438 --> 00:39:46,505 it and has that same level of love for the subject matter. 703 00:39:49,775 --> 00:39:53,835 Hisham Khaki: Yeah, I love it, but what makes it really work is 704 00:39:53,835 --> 00:39:56,521 our developers, our development team. 705 00:39:56,521 --> 00:39:59,700 I have no clue how to code anything. 706 00:39:59,700 --> 00:40:02,378 I don't know anything about computer science. 707 00:40:02,378 --> 00:40:05,610 I struggled in college with the couple classes I took and that 708 00:40:05,630 --> 00:40:08,697 was actually one of my biggest fears starting up a technology 709 00:40:08,737 --> 00:40:08,978 company. 710 00:40:08,978 --> 00:40:09,920 It was like what? 711 00:40:10,882 --> 00:40:11,423 Nate Shutes: Understandable. 712 00:40:12,451 --> 00:40:13,936 Hisham Khaki: I don't know how I'm going to do this, but I've 713 00:40:13,956 --> 00:40:14,539 got the idea. 714 00:40:14,539 --> 00:40:18,331 But our development team, they're incredible and you just 715 00:40:18,411 --> 00:40:24,039 give them the vision and they create the most streamlined 716 00:40:24,380 --> 00:40:28,990 experience ever since the Happy Gig Flex days and they've just 717 00:40:29,010 --> 00:40:31,693 gotten better and better and stronger in making that vision a 718 00:40:31,693 --> 00:40:32,193 reality. 719 00:40:32,193 --> 00:40:38,099 So I love it and I love how I get to watch these incredible 720 00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:43,845 computer science engineers develop this stuff and be 721 00:40:43,905 --> 00:40:45,266 experts in their subject matter. 722 00:40:45,266 --> 00:40:50,217 Yeah, yeah, they love seeing how many people they're 723 00:40:50,278 --> 00:40:50,818 impacting. 724 00:40:50,818 --> 00:40:52,943 It's fun all around. 725 00:40:58,210 --> 00:40:58,471 Nate Shutes: Well, I dig it. 726 00:40:58,471 --> 00:40:59,112 I shared this with you before. 727 00:40:59,112 --> 00:41:00,396 But I never know where we're going to go in a conversation, 728 00:41:00,416 --> 00:41:03,443 because I am fascinated by everyone's journeys and the 729 00:41:04,246 --> 00:41:07,193 turns that they take and the things that motivate them and 730 00:41:07,233 --> 00:41:10,382 the deep why behind what they're building. 731 00:41:10,382 --> 00:41:14,780 And it's been seven and a half-ish years for you on this 732 00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:15,081 run. 733 00:41:15,081 --> 00:41:17,557 I can't wait to see what the next stretch of the road looks 734 00:41:17,597 --> 00:41:18,200 like for you. 735 00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:20,635 I have no doubt you're going to continue to grow and be 736 00:41:20,695 --> 00:41:21,298 successful. 737 00:41:21,298 --> 00:41:22,340 We have to stay in touch. 738 00:41:22,340 --> 00:41:26,019 I want to hear an update from you in a year on the latest 739 00:41:26,059 --> 00:41:28,972 goings on with ShiftSwap and in the meantime, just know that 740 00:41:28,992 --> 00:41:31,280 we're all rooting for you, thank you, Nate. 741 00:41:31,851 --> 00:41:35,201 Hisham Khaki: Yeah, you've been a huge supporter ever since we 742 00:41:35,260 --> 00:41:35,481 met. 743 00:41:35,481 --> 00:41:39,612 You've been a huge supporter ever since we met. 744 00:41:39,632 --> 00:41:39,793 When was? 745 00:41:39,793 --> 00:41:40,755 I think we met three, four years ago, probably. 746 00:41:40,755 --> 00:41:42,938 Yeah, I love, I've loved watching your journey as well. 747 00:41:42,938 --> 00:41:47,215 Just, I mean, you do so much from you know, even last time we 748 00:41:47,215 --> 00:41:50,903 were talking, you noticed that the furniture in my office came 749 00:41:50,970 --> 00:41:53,094 from your facility, right. 750 00:41:53,094 --> 00:41:57,983 So you make all that happen and you do this really, really cool 751 00:41:57,983 --> 00:42:01,858 thing where you're getting the stories of founders out there 752 00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:04,387 for other people to hear, because it's daunting, like 753 00:42:04,407 --> 00:42:07,797 being a founder, especially bootstrap, I mean, everything is 754 00:42:07,797 --> 00:42:09,990 challenging, right, even if you raise a bunch of money, that 755 00:42:10,030 --> 00:42:14,362 has its own problems, but you focused on bootstrappers. 756 00:42:14,362 --> 00:42:17,554 Uh, it's really cool that you're getting people's story 757 00:42:17,635 --> 00:42:19,293 out there and I applaud you for doing it. 758 00:42:19,934 --> 00:42:22,000 Nate Shutes: Thank you, I appreciate that and I receive it 759 00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:23,311 in the spirit in which you shared it. 760 00:42:23,311 --> 00:42:27,000 So thank you again for sharing your story today and we will 761 00:42:27,019 --> 00:42:27,922 catch up soon, my friend. 762 00:42:28,931 --> 00:42:29,333 Hisham Khaki: All right, buddy. 763 00:42:29,333 --> 00:42:30,237 Thank you so much Nate. 764 00:42:33,030 --> 00:42:34,956 Nate Shutes: Thanks for listening to another episode of 765 00:42:34,976 --> 00:42:37,892 the Bootstrappers Guide to Logistics, and a special thank 766 00:42:37,932 --> 00:42:40,700 you to our sponsors and the team behind the scenes who make it 767 00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:41,302 all possible. 768 00:42:41,302 --> 00:42:44,818 Be sure to like, follow or subscribe to the podcast to get 769 00:42:44,838 --> 00:42:45,621 the latest updates. 770 00:42:45,621 --> 00:42:48,677 To learn more about the show and connect with the growing 771 00:42:48,717 --> 00:42:51,775 community of entrepreneurs, visit logisticsfounderscom. 772 00:42:51,775 --> 00:42:55,920 And, of course, thank you to all the founders who trust us to 773 00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:56,662 share their stories.