Nate Shutes: Hello and welcome to the Bootstrapper's Guide to Logistics, the podcast highlighting founders doing it the way that doesn't get a lot of attention.
Nate Shutes: We're here to change that by sharing their stories and inspiring others to take the leap.
Josh Klebanoff: It's a roller coaster ride that you might ultimately fail.
Nate Shutes: That's when I kind of knew I was on to something.
Nate Shutes: It was very hard.
Nate Shutes: It truly is building a legacy.
Josh Klebanoff: The more life you live, the more wisdom you have, because we are where we're supposed to be, kind of answering the call.
Nate Shutes: Don't shoulder entrepreneurship on your own.
Nate Shutes: I'm your host, Nate Shoots.
Nate Shutes: Let's build something together from the ground up.
Nate Shutes: Hi everybody, and welcome back to the show.
Nate Shutes: Big thanks again to Jim Bramlett for sharing his story with everybody last week.
Nate Shutes: He has a wealth of knowledge behind him in his career in supply chain and as an entrepreneur, and I hope you all found some value from that and maybe got a little bit more curious about Final Mile, an area that I'm deeply passionate about and could talk about for hours, but that's a different podcast that I'll have to start, maybe one day, dedicated just to that.
Nate Shutes: But today we're going to go a completely different direction and spend some time with Josh Klebanoff, who's the co-founder and COO of Yolk Transport.
Nate Shutes: Josh does event logistics and transportation everything from concerts to races to drone shows and everything that you can imagine in between and this is going to be a neat one for me because and I think, for a lot of our listeners because we get to experience these events as consumers, but we oftentimes don't know what it takes to actually make all of that happen.
Nate Shutes: So we're going to cover a lot of territory today.
Nate Shutes: But, Josh, first of all, thank you for being here and for opening up and be willing to let us all behind the curtain.
Nate Shutes: Why don't you do a quick introduction of your background and a little bit more about Yolk?
Josh Klebanoff: a quick introduction of your background and a little bit more about Yolk.
Josh Klebanoff: Yeah for sure.
Josh Klebanoff: Thanks, nate, and appreciate you welcoming me on the show.
Josh Klebanoff: So my name is Josh Klebanoff.
Josh Klebanoff: I'm the founder and COO of Yolk Transport.
Josh Klebanoff: We started back in 2016, but I actually landed in the logistics space, like most, in a very strange fashion, graduated from college in 2011 and also, like most, had no idea what to do next, so followed some family footsteps and tried to get into the real estate, banking, finance world, where I was completely miserable for about 18 months.
Josh Klebanoff: One day said screw it, I don't know what I'm going to do next, but it's not going to be this.
Josh Klebanoff: And I quit From there.
Josh Klebanoff: Everyone around me said what are you doing?
Josh Klebanoff: What are you doing?
Josh Klebanoff: And I said I don't know, but this is not what I want to be doing.
Josh Klebanoff: So I started actually temping at a company called Tough Mudder at the time and if the listeners aren't familiar with that, it's an extreme mud run obstacle race.
Josh Klebanoff: So it was like a 12 mile, 13 mile run that we would put on and they would do somewhere between like 30 and 60 events throughout the year.
Josh Klebanoff: So I started temping there, truly just as an assistant in the operations department had no idea about anything and it was super nitty gritty.
Josh Klebanoff: Get your hands dirty, figuratively and literally right.
Josh Klebanoff: So I was in the office till 9pm just ordering supplies for the events for the first couple of months and then after that started hitting the road like a traveling gypsy to offload trucks and set up barricade and hang signs and open folding tables and all of those things.
Josh Klebanoff: So I was there for about five years and in that time I was maybe like employee 15 or 16.
Josh Klebanoff: And within that five-year time the company grew to around 100 or so employees.
Josh Klebanoff: I went from temp to head of supply chain and really got my feet wet in the whole industry of both events and logistics and said to myself I was like I kind of like this.
Josh Klebanoff: Said to myself it was like kind of like this.
Josh Klebanoff: So that's really how I kind of got my start both in the logistics world and in the events world.
Josh Klebanoff: I was there for about five years and then we found out and I met my business partner there as well.
Josh Klebanoff: He actually worked for me at the time and we were just like there's got to be a better way to deal with trucking in the event world, because every single person that works in events and orders or needs trucking, they've got the creme de la creme or they've got bottom of the barrel.
Josh Klebanoff: There was no one at all in the middle and there was no one that got and understood events.
Josh Klebanoff: And for us, the tipping point on how we decided to jump ship from there and start this was I think it was with I'm going to say CH Robinson or TQL or something like that, and Nate, if you feel like you need to cut that out, no, totally good, Keep going that, and.
Josh Klebanoff: Nate, if you feel like you need to cut that out, no, totally good, keep going.
Josh Klebanoff: But we were in Fairburn, georgia, like three hours outside of Atlanta, and the gates opened at 6am on Saturday and there was a merch load that had to be delivered Friday morning so we can offload all the t-shirts, get it in the merch tent and set up sales.
Josh Klebanoff: Trucks, missing, trucks, missing, trucks, missing.
Josh Klebanoff: My now business partner and I are standing in the field with our phones plugged into a golf cart so that they're not dying, and calling the 800 number for CH and saying where's the truck?
Josh Klebanoff: Where's the truck?
Josh Klebanoff: I think it was double brokered or I don't know.
Josh Klebanoff: Something happened.
Josh Klebanoff: The load finally shows up at three o'clock in the morning on Saturday and we slept on site in a mobile mini and the truck shows up and we opened the doors.
Josh Klebanoff: We're like all right, we got to hustle.
Josh Klebanoff: Doors are at 6am, let's load in the t-shirts, get the tent ready.
Josh Klebanoff: Rory, my now partner, opens the doors and what's in the truck?
Josh Klebanoff: It's a truckload of olive oil.
Josh Klebanoff: It's not our t-shirts.
Josh Klebanoff: And we look at each other and we say, well, we're in deep.
Josh Klebanoff: You know what for this event?
Josh Klebanoff: Like no merch sales.
Josh Klebanoff: So C-level folks are not going to be happy.
Josh Klebanoff: One and two, we have to do something to better this industry.
Josh Klebanoff: We have so many friends within this space.
Josh Klebanoff: They need better service.
Josh Klebanoff: So you know, have to prioritize.
Josh Klebanoff: Obviously, the first thing first is like deal with what's going on on the ground, right?
Josh Klebanoff: So send the truckload of olive oil back, figure out the warehouse where it actually is.
Josh Klebanoff: Neither of us have slept.
Josh Klebanoff: We drove two hours or three hours to Atlanta and just started doing runs back and forth in a suburban once we found the boxes of t-shirts to get to site.
Josh Klebanoff: So we ended up selling some stuff not nearly as much as we should have, and then, once that event ended, we were like we need to leave this company and start something.
Josh Klebanoff: So that's how I got my start and I would say the first five years, really the first two, three years I had no idea what I was doing working at Tough Mudder, absolutely no clue.
Josh Klebanoff: But it was very much like the fake, until you make it kind of thing and I learned on the fly and made things happen Right.
Josh Klebanoff: And I think both of those components in the logistics and the events world are imperative.
Josh Klebanoff: You have to be able to learn from your mistakes and you have to be able to grow and pick things up quickly, um, and you have to make it happen right Cause logistics is not that job where you can just send a bunch of PowerPoints around and be a consultant type thing.
Nate Shutes: You, you, at the end of the day, you have to make it happen, and that's where I learned how to do that and everything was super slow paced and there wasn't a whole lot of creativity happening and there was maybe not a lot of adrenaline, except for maybe, when a big deal would close or something like that.
Nate Shutes: But logistics is this unique intersection of yeah, you got to do all the math, you have to have a good tech stack to be able to do it well, but you also have to go out and unload the truck and you got to be up at 3 o'clock in the morning and doing the suburban runs.
Nate Shutes: And it's also such a physical, in-person um, oftentimes manual thing experience and so that you, you get both parts of the.
Nate Shutes: Your head is challenged and it's intellectually demanding, but it's also just so real world and tangible and hard work.
Josh Klebanoff: Yeah, absolutely A million percent, and I think that's what helps me kind of get up every morning and get into this.
Josh Klebanoff: Not only, like you said, it is hard work, right and, like now, running this company for almost 10 years.
Josh Klebanoff: Unfortunately, I'm sitting at a keyboard and a desk all day, pounding like a little monkey, but there's so much that happens on the ground and I think also like that for us, proves success and helps our clients buy in a little bit too, because we're not just desk monkeys.
Josh Klebanoff: Every single person that works at our company has been on the ground offloading trucks and knows what it's like to get a forklift stuck in the mud and how much it sucks.
Nate Shutes: Oh cause you're doing a lot of stuff outdoors.
Josh Klebanoff: Everything is outside.
Nate Shutes: Yeah.
Josh Klebanoff: I mean, tell this all the time.
Josh Klebanoff: You're not just bumping docks and you're not moving widgets from A to B.
Josh Klebanoff: Everything's outside, Um, and the show must go on Right.
Josh Klebanoff: So like if the forklift stuck in the mud, you still have to load or offload the truck because it's got to get to the next place or it's got to get offloaded and get set up.
Josh Klebanoff: So get in your phone and figure out who nearby is going to sell you four tons of mulch to put on the ground and make it happen.
Josh Klebanoff: So that's the adrenaline.
Josh Klebanoff: That is exciting.
Josh Klebanoff: But, to your point, that happens every single day.
Josh Klebanoff: And that's not just closing one deal in real estate where you got to wait six weeks and sell a house or whatever it might be.
Josh Klebanoff: Every single day you got to buy the mulch right.
Josh Klebanoff: So there's always something that happens and it's fun to think outside the box and make all that stuff happen.
Nate Shutes: Well, let's go deeper on this, then.
Nate Shutes: Let's go deeper on this then.
Nate Shutes: I love the idea of, following a concert tour, for example, that the circus has to start at seven o'clock and you've got 30 000 people waiting for the main act to come on stage and the show must go on.
Nate Shutes: So how do you like think through that sequence of tear down, pack up, drive, unpack, set up, perform, repeat, and it's all happening Like, help the novice who doesn't know anything about that?
Nate Shutes: Like, what does it actually look like?
Josh Klebanoff: Very little sleep to start.
Josh Klebanoff: No, so I mean, it's all in the planning elements.
Josh Klebanoff: The execution is obviously incredibly important, but the planning components are, I would say, more important, because if you don't go through the planning pieces of making this all happen, your execution is going to fall to complete crap.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, so, like you said, there's load offload, drive, show, load offload, drive, drive, rinse and repeat.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, show, load offload, drive, drive, rinse and repeat.
Josh Klebanoff: It's not.
Josh Klebanoff: It sounds easy but it's not right.
Josh Klebanoff: So there's inventory that needs to be tracked.
Josh Klebanoff: You need to make sure the mileage makes sense.
Josh Klebanoff: There's so many different components that go into this.
Josh Klebanoff: And then you're acting not only as a transportation provider but also as a consultant to your clients or the tour or the band, whatever it might be, because they don't know or they don't think about it, like I'm sure you see this all the time.
Josh Klebanoff: Logistics is one of the highest cost centers for any company, but also oftentimes the very last thing that's ever thought about.
Josh Klebanoff: So if you have Shakira that comes in as a client and says I want to perform in Miami, and then a client and says I want to perform in Miami and then three days later I want to perform in LA, you're going to tell her either a that's not possible, or you're going to spend six million dollars moving your show from Miami to LA, or, if you want a nine day gap, that six million dollars is going to drop down to I don don't know 600,000, right?
Josh Klebanoff: Because you're moving 30 truckloads instead of eight dedicated 747s, right?
Josh Klebanoff: So there's so many different things in the planning component that have to be looked at and thought through to make sure everything works.
Josh Klebanoff: Sometimes money doesn't matter, and people will tell you that until they're blue in the face, but when they get the invoice, that narrative changes a lot.
Josh Klebanoff: So money does matter.
Josh Klebanoff: So we always want to be forward thinking, both in terms of efficiencies, cost and how to make it as easy as possible for everyone.
Josh Klebanoff: How do you break?
Nate Shutes: into the let's just stick on the music theme, because I think most people would find a lot of interest in that.
Nate Shutes: So you mentioned Shakira.
Nate Shutes: How do you break into the let's just stick on the music theme, cause I think most people would be.
Nate Shutes: We'll find a lot of interest in that.
Nate Shutes: So you mentioned Shakira.
Nate Shutes: How do you even get into the professional touring logistics space to to get a job or to get not a job to get a customer?
Josh Klebanoff: I told you that I'd have to kill you Cause I'm creating my own.
Josh Klebanoff: It's a tough break.
Josh Klebanoff: It's.
Josh Klebanoff: It's pretty hard, hard so, for we've been doing this for about 10 years over the time.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, when we first got our start, the company that rory and I worked at, they became our first client, um, and then all of the vendors that serviced that race, that event also became clients.
Josh Klebanoff: So we we started in a very different place than we're at now.
Josh Klebanoff: We started more so like with tenting and things that happen at small town races, and over time we really learned the production world and we knew the production world because we came from it.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, and we both have a passion for music.
Josh Klebanoff: So that's where we knew we wanted to be and that's where we knew the larger jobs were.
Josh Klebanoff: So we started going to all of these different conferences where these people were and you just need one shot, right.
Josh Klebanoff: So like you get it.
Josh Klebanoff: You get on well with somebody.
Josh Klebanoff: They give you one shot and then they give you two shots and then they give you three shots and then you kind of scale from there and then, once you're in with that person, that person knows somebody who's like oh hey, I was working with these guys Like they did a good job.
Josh Klebanoff: They they did what they said that they were going to do, which is unfortunately really uncommon, um, and when they gave us a bill, the bill was what they said it was going to be again, which is unfortunately really uncommon.
Josh Klebanoff: So we just kind of snowballed from there.
Josh Klebanoff: We got a couple, we got a handful of one shots and they really grew and our business also grew alongside with a lot of our clients.
Josh Klebanoff: So we scaled as they scaled, but persistence, like anything, persistence is key, likeability is key and I think for us, a huge selling point is that we've we've been there and we get it and we know, um, we're not calling on companies like your regular freight shop who just wants to move a load.
Josh Klebanoff: For me to be like we can assimilate with these people because we've been there, like like the story with the olive oil, everyone maybe not olive oil, but like everyone's been in that crappy situation, um, and we can speak to it from being on the other side on the in the client shoes, versus some guy in an office in Chicago who's screaming at a carrier on the phone and it's like why is it olive oil Right?
Josh Klebanoff: So it's like I know what it a carrier on the phone.
Josh Klebanoff: It's like olive oil, right.
Josh Klebanoff: It's like I know what it's like on the other side.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, and I can lead with empathy in that, and I'm not, I'm going to sit here and be a straight shooter Like things are going to happen.
Josh Klebanoff: This is logistics.
Josh Klebanoff: This is not perfection.
Josh Klebanoff: Like we can do, we can cross our T's and dot our I's as much as we possibly can.
Josh Klebanoff: Something's going to happen, yeah, and you communicate that right, like you can't communicate.
Josh Klebanoff: Nobody's perfect, whether it's logistics, it's finance, it's technology.
Josh Klebanoff: It's a podcast, although Nate you're pretty perfect, but something's going to happen always, right.
Josh Klebanoff: So as long as we communicate that on the front end it sucks while it's happening, but people will understand.
Josh Klebanoff: And then when you do the recap at the end of the year and you're saying, you know, hey, our failure rate was one and a half percent or whatever it is, um, they're like cool, that's pretty good, but it sure as hell sucked in the moment.
Nate Shutes: Yeah, I'm sure when people hear what you do for a living, they immediately go, oh, that's so cool and they get stars in their eyes about.
Nate Shutes: You must brush shoulders with famous people occasionally and get to be backstage and see all sorts of cool things, but I like how you shared.
Nate Shutes: 99% of what you do is the 3 am incident or, you know, a forklift in the mud, and yet I've got to be honest, I'm still super curious about the cool parts.
Josh Klebanoff: So you said, yeah, the cool parts are great, right, like, it's definitely.
Josh Klebanoff: It's sexy.
Josh Klebanoff: Right Like if you work for or work at a different logistics company and I don't know say the Gap is your biggest client you're picking up a container of sweaters at the port and you're rushing to get them delivered to a DC so they don't give you a charge back.
Josh Klebanoff: Our people are so excited and motivated by what they do every day because we are delivering happiness and joy to hundreds of thousands of people every single day, directly or indirectly, right, and that's what is sexy and cool and exciting and keeps us going.
Josh Klebanoff: And that's why we want to go find four tons of mulch to put under the forklift so that we can deliver the joy to those people.
Josh Klebanoff: And it's not just us, it's not just people in the office.
Josh Klebanoff: We have people on the road that are traveling and making sure stuff's going okay with our drivers, and it's also the drivers, right?
Josh Klebanoff: So we are asset-based in brokerage.
Josh Klebanoff: Our asset-based guys know and get it, and then on the broker side, these guys know and get it, and then on the broker side, um, we really drive in the buy-in from drivers and carriers, whether we're using them once or they're a common carrier for us.
Josh Klebanoff: Right, like these poor guys are so used to just bumping docks and delivering, you know, a truckload of pasta or whatever it might be.
Josh Klebanoff: It's not exciting.
Josh Klebanoff: We kind of pride ourselves on paying our carriers and our drivers really well and letting them know what they're doing.
Josh Klebanoff: Like, hey man, you're delivering a part of the stage for Luke Combs.
Josh Klebanoff: And then it's like, oh my God, I love Luke Combs, that's cool, this is great.
Josh Klebanoff: And they're excited.
Josh Klebanoff: And if something happens and they got to sit on site for five hours, you're not dealing with, I need detention, blah, blah.
Josh Klebanoff: It's like they're excited because they're delivering for luke combs and and that's their guy, they love that song they're gonna go down the road 1100 miles and they're gonna blare luke combs the whole way and then they're gonna tell their kids about it.
Josh Klebanoff: A hundred percent and that and like.
Josh Klebanoff: For us that brings joy.
Josh Klebanoff: Yeah, cause you're making a difference in in so many people's lives.
Nate Shutes: Have you been starstruck?
Josh Klebanoff: Yeah, any times like yes, I mean I, I don't go to every single show, yeah, or even tons right, because the, the phones and the computer need to be working yeah yeah, but I will say like, when stuff comes through and and we win quotes or we or we work on tour quotes, or whatever it is, in the beginning it's like, oh my God, this is insane.
Josh Klebanoff: We just moved something for Beyonce or Dave Matthews Band or Phish or whatever it might be.
Josh Klebanoff: Now you become a little jaded.
Josh Klebanoff: Sure, sure but there is times where you'll set back and be like I just sent a massive quote to Post Malone, Like this is incredible.
Josh Klebanoff: Um or a couple of years ago, Swedish house mafia was headlining at Coachella and we did a ton of trucking for them, and when we won the job, this is I don two years ago, three years ago.
Josh Klebanoff: So we've been doing this for a long time.
Josh Klebanoff: At that point I think I played the same song on repeat on my desk for like eight hours because I was so excited.
Josh Klebanoff: So there's still things that that happen.
Nate Shutes: There's absolutely well, and there's also, you said, jaded.
Nate Shutes: The entertainment industry by itself is complicated.
Nate Shutes: It's a business and there are also creators and artists and folks that are bringing wonderful things into existence and sharing it with the world, and that all has to interact economically in order for it to work.
Nate Shutes: And then you also get.
Nate Shutes: I mean, I've been fortunate to spend some time around professional athletes in my career.
Nate Shutes: I was able to ship a fire truck to South America for Johan Santana, who at the time was the number one pitcher in all of Major League Baseball.
Nate Shutes: He'd won two Cy Youngs two years in a row and he had a charity in Venezuela and I was working at CH Robinson at the time.
Nate Shutes: We shipped that fire truck down to Venezuela.
Nate Shutes: I got to go down and spend a week at his house.
Nate Shutes: I met his family, his kids, his extended family and they had a festival in town.
Nate Shutes: And then the year later I went back and we did it again with supplies for a hospital, and so I got to spend a bunch of time around famous people.
Nate Shutes: And at first you're like, oh my goodness, they're heroes, they're flawless, they're perfect.
Nate Shutes: And then you realize over time, no, they're human beings and at a certain point they get tired of the spotlight and they just want to be left alone and enjoy their time with their families and live semi-normal lives.
Nate Shutes: And shifting from being a fan of a person to being I wouldn't go as far as to say friends, but friendly and to develop a short-term relationship anyways, was eye-opening for me because I thought it was something different.
Nate Shutes: And then you get up close and that was just a couple of experiences that I had and then you realize even Beyonce, she's working.
Nate Shutes: When she's doing a concert, she's at her job and so sure, her job is cool, but it's also a ton of work.
Nate Shutes: And you got 20 or 30,000 people that have been saving money for a couple of months.
Nate Shutes: Maybe it's their first concert and they're 15 years old.
Josh Klebanoff: Usually 70,000, but yeah 70,000.
Nate Shutes: Okay, I'm in Minneapolis, our biggest stadium, maybe, I think it's 55.
Josh Klebanoff: Bank's pretty big.
Josh Klebanoff: How big is US Bank?
Nate Shutes: Yeah, you're right, us Bank is probably, probably.
Josh Klebanoff: I mean, I should know the answer is probably 70 000.
Josh Klebanoff: Yeah, like excel, we actually have a whole job loading into us bank on saturday um so free tickets.
Nate Shutes: Do I get a hookup?
Nate Shutes: How does that work?
Josh Klebanoff: I would love to say I'm just kidding, but you know doing this for so long.
Josh Klebanoff: That is the number one question that we get asked oh really every day.
Josh Klebanoff: Hey, can we get tickets?
Josh Klebanoff: Can we get tickets?
Josh Klebanoff: And it's like first off.
Josh Klebanoff: No, like we're.
Josh Klebanoff: We're too far removed to get the free tickets ourselves all the time and we never want to ask that question to yeah, they're your customer they're a customer.
Josh Klebanoff: they're paying us a lot of money like I, if, if I wanted to get the ticket, like I'll get the ticket.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, we, part of our company, and our culture too, is like, we make sure everyone goes on site at least minimum once a year during a build or during a loadout, so that they can, like, get their hands dirty and be on and and learn and see what happens.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, cause it just makes doing your job that much better.
Josh Klebanoff: Yeah, um, that's one side of the token.
Josh Klebanoff: The other side is, um, as, like a work perk, we give everybody to free, free tickets to whatever show they want to go to throughout the year.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, and when I say free, they just say, hey, I want to go to the show, and like, if we have a relationship.
Josh Klebanoff: we'll ask, and if we don't, then we buy it.
Nate Shutes: But I do.
Nate Shutes: I do have to ask, though what's your favorite memory from maybe the early days when it when you were maybe a bit more idealistic or you got to listen to a band that meant a lot to you or something?
Nate Shutes: Is there a moment that sticks out where it felt maybe pure or simpler?
Josh Klebanoff: Yeah, so one of our original biggest clients used to do a music festival in Dover, delaware, and within the first year we were on had, like these, all access VIP tickets Myself and my partner at the time.
Josh Klebanoff: It was a little, the company was literally just the two of us and it was very much like, like I said before, fake it till you make it, and we sounded a lot bigger than we were, but it was truly just the two of us.
Josh Klebanoff: We had an amazing time on site.
Josh Klebanoff: I saw Chance the Rapper and it was like the coolest thing ever because it was like I was involved with this.
Josh Klebanoff: Then drove back home at the time, the company was based in New York city.
Josh Klebanoff: We're not anymore.
Josh Klebanoff: We drove back home to New York and then two days later, during load out, get this email and it was like hey, chance needs to move his motorcycle from chicago to la.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, can you guys do this?
Josh Klebanoff: It was like absolutely like I am.
Josh Klebanoff: I'm so high right now, um on life like this is the coolest thing ever, um, and things like that happen all the time, but like this was in the early days, I feel like it was one of the first like really cool things that we did and it was coming off of like being at this festival that we really helped put on Um and that like all.
Josh Klebanoff: There's a lot of moments like that, but I feel like that's one that I'll I'll probably always remember.
Nate Shutes: So how do you hold on to?
Nate Shutes: Now you're 10 years into your entrepreneurial journey.
Nate Shutes: You have You've learned a lot of operational lessons.
Nate Shutes: You've learned, I'm sure, accounting and finance differently than you did in the beginning.
Nate Shutes: You've learned people, management and at times it can, for some, start to feel like a different kind of hamster wheel, almost Like some people complain about their job and their career and stuff.
Nate Shutes: Well, for entrepreneurs, it can reach that same point.
Nate Shutes: They just can't talk about it because that's their, and you can't just like, hey, I'm going to change jobs and go do something different.
Nate Shutes: No, you are married to this, and so that's why I'm leaning in a little bit more on your 10 years in.
Nate Shutes: How do you stay disciplined, how do you stay connected to your purpose of finding the impact that you have on people, going to a concert and being able to say, hey, I played a small part in that.
Nate Shutes: How do you not stay cynical or anything like that, as just as an entrepreneur, it's really it's a good question.
Josh Klebanoff: It's really really hard because you can get jaded really easily.
Josh Klebanoff: It's really tough.
Josh Klebanoff: So, and there's so many days I'll wake up and sit down at my desk and be like well, another day of going to battle.
Josh Klebanoff: Right, got 300 emails to deal with.
Josh Klebanoff: I've got this P&L explosion.
Josh Klebanoff: My accountant's screaming at me for this.
Josh Klebanoff: This load got lost.
Josh Klebanoff: We owe $15,000 for whatever mistake.
Josh Klebanoff: This customer hasn't paid their bill in 90 days.
Josh Klebanoff: There's a trillion things.
Josh Klebanoff: It sounds goofy, but getting up and walking and getting exercise for me is so important and so helpful in keeping a fresh mind.
Josh Klebanoff: My business partner and I have an incredible relationship.
Josh Klebanoff: We talk all day, every day, and hardly ever disagree on things or fight, which is super refreshing, and we are truly each other's therapists to kind of get through the day, the week, the month, which is incredible.
Josh Klebanoff: We're both really fortunate to have each other.
Josh Klebanoff: I don't think that I can do this completely on my own, and the other thing is go to site every now and then we're loading in for F1 right now in Miami, and on Tuesday of this week I went up, shook a couple hands, said hi, got a little tour of what we brought in and what they're building and you leave and you're excited and you remember why you did it.
Josh Klebanoff: It's very hard to remember.
Josh Klebanoff: While you're head down in a spreadsheet or on the phone all day or leading a team meeting or, like you said, an accounting problem, an HR problem, you know this person on your team doesn't get along with this person on your team and you got to deal with that.
Josh Klebanoff: So, listen, those are things about running a business that just are inevitable.
Josh Klebanoff: They have to happen.
Josh Klebanoff: But to have the ability to both have a business partner who you can trust and respect and talk to all the time candidly incredibly helpful.
Josh Klebanoff: And to force yourself to get away and to get on job sites every now and then and meet with clients also super helpful.
Josh Klebanoff: And it gives you that reminder of why you do what you do.
Josh Klebanoff: We also now have two warehouses, so to get into our shops and to see everything that's there, it's like it makes you feel so much more involved.
Josh Klebanoff: Like for the last year we had a massive Lollapalooza sign in our warehouse in Nashville and every time I'd get up and pace in between meetings throughout the warehouse.
Josh Klebanoff: It's like you just kind of take a step back and you think, like this is really cool.
Josh Klebanoff: Like, what we're doing is really cool.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, like there's there's massive Lollapalooza sign on a rack and then, right next to that, I've got 25 road cases with red hot chili pepper stickers on them, because for the red hot chili peppers, um, and it allows you to take a breath, and you're like I just I can't believe, like I have the chills, like I I can't believe that this is what's happened.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, it's my career.
Josh Klebanoff: It's really cool.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, but to your point, like taking a step back and getting away from, like the accounting and the HR and the whatever mumbo jumbo administrative thing is going on, and to remember the, that kind of stuff, um is, is is cool and exciting, and that's that's what keeps me going.
Nate Shutes: I think that's what keeps me going to it in sharing stories is you're talking about exercise and walking and, physically, how you take care of yourself.
Nate Shutes: You've got a co-founder and somebody that you can talk with to deal with some of the emotional and psychological challenges of entrepreneurship.
Nate Shutes: You're not doing it alone, and then you're also connecting that back to something bigger than yourself.
Nate Shutes: You've got a version of purpose that works for you, that can be your kind of reserve fuel tank when the primary one drains 100%, and so that is a combination, for I don't want to say like success, but it's a combination for longevity.
Nate Shutes: 10 years is a long time to do anything.
Josh Klebanoff: Longevity is important.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, and burnout is 100% a real thing and the two of us, um, my partner and I have totally gotten to like those points of physical and mental exhaustion more times that I can count.
Josh Klebanoff: But we also hold ourselves accountable and check each other and when those things happen, force each other to take a trip, go on vacation, take days off, whatever it is.
Josh Klebanoff: But that said, we're both such insane workaholics that we never really put down the phone or put down your email or whatever it might be like.
Josh Klebanoff: So we really do try to force ourselves, now that we're fortunate enough to have a big enough team, that that the shop can run, not fully without us, but without us a little bit.
Josh Klebanoff: Um is is immensely helpful so we can try to like reconnect in our personal relationships, in our personal lives, and not be fucked in 24-7, 365.
Josh Klebanoff: But as a founder you are, because the buck does stop with you.
Nate Shutes: I think it's helpful for others to hear that too.
Nate Shutes: We're talking a little bit about celebrity and the appeal of being close to that.
Nate Shutes: Entrepreneurs get some of that too, and I'm admittedly guilty at times of putting entrepreneurs on a pedestal, but they're just people too.
Nate Shutes: I'm inspired and motivated by entrepreneurs myself.
Nate Shutes: Maybe that's why I get starstruck sometimes hearing people's stories, because I find it so compelling.
Nate Shutes: But for others to of just the realities, of what it takes and the sacrifices that it requires in order for you to get to this point.
Nate Shutes: I often talk about inspiring other people to take that leap, and yet that's an unfair representation sometimes of what it's really going to be, because the stars are in their eyes early on.
Nate Shutes: But the truth is it's going to be four times harder, it's going to take five times longer and it's not going to go the way you planned it to never ever, ever go the way that you planned it.
Josh Klebanoff: I can say that with complete and utter confidence.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, both for the good and the bad yeah um, I had never thought that we'd have almost 20 people working with us, a warehouse in Vegas, a warehouse in Nashville and all of these things in a million years.
Josh Klebanoff: I wouldn't have thought that Our revenues where they are.
Josh Klebanoff: None of these things I would have expected.
Josh Klebanoff: On the flip side of the token, I wouldn't have expected a global pandemic to come through in 2020 and overnight slash our revenue 70% and somehow still managed to hold on.
Josh Klebanoff: So I mean again, like as an entrepreneur, as a founder, the buck does start with you, right.
Josh Klebanoff: So it's like to maintain through something like COVID and then also be able to successfully scale, because so many companies, as they're growing, just can't manage the growth and explode.
Nate Shutes: So we've, over the last 10 years, experienced complete both sides of the card and it adds a lot of gray hairs to your head you do have quite a few gray hairs for someone your age, I'm not gonna lie, I did notice, um, but I also don't have any hair, and I work in logistics too, so I think we're a good pair.
Nate Shutes: Um last kind of personal question about all of this given where you started 10 years ago and where you are now, when do you feel like you're at your best nowadays?
Josh Klebanoff: Yeah, like personally, professionally or Yep, all of it.
Nate Shutes: Like where, where?
Nate Shutes: Where are you at your best?
Nate Shutes: Maybe like what, what?
Nate Shutes: What does a day look like when you are optimizing yourself and you feel like you're in the pocket and you're dialed in and you're having fun while doing something at a really high skill level?
Nate Shutes: What is that?
Nate Shutes: Maybe it's mastery.
Nate Shutes: Like where do you feel like you are the most effective and enjoying it?
Josh Klebanoff: Yeah, I think for me, so much of logistics is kind of being a puppet master right, like you're controlling so many different things in so many different parts of either the world or the continent, whatever it is, um, and ultimately like that a puppet master is, is my job right, like I have to control all of these elements, and a lot of those elements are things that are kind of out of your control.
Josh Klebanoff: But you can get them to be like 75% the way they're, 80%, the way they're in.
Josh Klebanoff: The rest is like well, we'll see what happens.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, for me, success is driven by being able to be that puppet master, um, and have my entire team, every driver, every warehouse, every load in, every load out, every client, run without me.
Josh Klebanoff: So build systems and processes and have everyone understand what their role is, what they need to do to continue to deliver the way the company wants to operate, without having to call me every six minutes.
Josh Klebanoff: If I can get everyone to that level and I'm not the type of person who would just go, hang out and go away but if I can manage everyone from afar and make sure everyone knows their purpose, knows what they're doing and knows how to execute, that, for me is how I can create success and have the place run in a way that it should be running, it's efficient, it's communicative, it's profitable all of those key pillars.
Josh Klebanoff: If I can lead that and make sure all of the pieces of the puzzle are attaching together the right way, that's I guess you could call it like.
Josh Klebanoff: That's my happy place.
Nate Shutes: And that's logistics.
Nate Shutes: You just nailed it.
Nate Shutes: I mean getting all of those pieces in place and functioning properly and working together in concert, no pun intended, is that's part of what makes this so interesting.
Nate Shutes: I also know you've got some big news You've just opened a new facility in Vegas.
Nate Shutes: So you've got kind of the two entertainment capitals two of the three maybe, or I guess I don't know how many there are if you throw in Nashville, new York and Vegas.
Nate Shutes: But what have you been doing in Vegas lately and what excites you about the future of Yolk?
Josh Klebanoff: Yeah.
Josh Klebanoff: So I think I'll start with Vegas and then go to the future.
Josh Klebanoff: So in Vegas, we just closed on a building.
Josh Klebanoff: It's 15 minutes south of the strip, so we're in an awesome location.
Josh Klebanoff: It's 10 acres, we have 150 trailer parking spots, all paved, gated, secured, and almost 40,000 square feet of warehouse.
Josh Klebanoff: So, as we talked about right before this, like the puppet master skills, got to a place where, like people were, people knew what they were doing within our four walls.
Josh Klebanoff: So Rory and I my partner we're just like, okay, what, what's next?
Josh Klebanoff: Right?
Josh Klebanoff: Like how can we keep this going?
Josh Klebanoff: Because our day to day needs are not as high as they used to be to run the transport side of things.
Josh Klebanoff: So we invested in this building and the sole purpose is to.
Josh Klebanoff: It's called show services and storage.
Josh Klebanoff: The sole purpose is to provide services to shows within the storage space, right?
Josh Klebanoff: So for so long, we found a void on the West coast for trailer parking and short-term storage.
Josh Klebanoff: And and if a band is in the in between a tour and they ignore to stash their gear, they would send it all the way back to the East coast, to where they know, and then all the way back to the West coast and spending all this money on trucking.
Josh Klebanoff: So there's a ton of opportunity there um to define what the future of entertainment logistics looks like.
Josh Klebanoff: We did the same thing in Nashville, on a much, much, much smaller scale, and found success in that, and our building is full.
Josh Klebanoff: Not only does it help artists and customers with a direct need in terms of storage, but it builds a much stickier relationship between us and them in terms of long-term transport.
Josh Klebanoff: So that's what's going on in Vegas.
Josh Klebanoff: We'll also have plans to have a small like onsite mechanic shop.
Josh Klebanoff: Any tour or any really anyone that operates in logistics knows that equipment goes bad and equipment needs help, whether it's the tractor, it's the trailer, it's a pallet that fell apart, whatever it is.
Josh Klebanoff: So we're working to outsource an onsite mobile mechanic so he can service everyone in the yard.
Josh Klebanoff: So it's a completely vertically integrated location.
Josh Klebanoff: So when there's a trailer in the yard and a driver comes to hook it up, to bring it to a stadium in LA and says, oh no, there's a tire that's blown on this trailer because the last driver just didn't want to deal with it and dropped it and didn't tell anybody, we can get it fixed on site instead of having to call around, wait five hours for somebody to show up and then all of a sudden that trailer's late.
Josh Klebanoff: So that's what's going on in Vegas.
Josh Klebanoff: As far as the future of Yoke Transport goes, for a long time we've been on a brokerage only model.
Josh Klebanoff: In the last 18 months we've started investing into assets, both on tractors and in trailers.
Josh Klebanoff: We have more trailers right now than we have tractors, but the idea around that is to build our brand and to do more tours.
Josh Klebanoff: We're really successful in what we call the spot freight market.
Josh Klebanoff: Uh, so we do a ton for heavy infrastructure, for events.
Josh Klebanoff: That's kind of our sweet spot.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, we've done a lot of touring, but with our own assets and with our own trailers will really help us break more and more and more into the touring market, um, to win more of those bids.
Josh Klebanoff: So that's that's sort of where we're going next with with our growth plans on the transportation side.
Nate Shutes: That is all very exciting stuff.
Nate Shutes: I mean, you, you're on your own rise to fame in this, in this industry and in this journey, is it's just you know?
Josh Klebanoff: I don't know about that, but we're certainly trying to make a name for ourselves, um, and, and we've done that, we've totally done that.
Nate Shutes: What does yoke mean?
Nate Shutes: By the way?
Josh Klebanoff: So yoke is um.
Josh Klebanoff: It's like a wooden plank between two ox that's carrying.
Nate Shutes: Yeah.
Josh Klebanoff: So we in our office in Nashville we have we have a giant yoke above the door and when we started the company in 16, we're like spitballing a million names and a million logos, and this is where we landed and we liked it because the two ox are connected and they're carrying something right.
Josh Klebanoff: So, like yoke, what do we do?
Josh Klebanoff: We connect people, we connect shippers with carriers, we connect tours with warehouse space.
Josh Klebanoff: So I mean, all we're doing all day is connecting people and we're hauling stuff.
Josh Klebanoff: So we thought that the word yoke was a really good fit.
Nate Shutes: And brings it all together Exactly.
Nate Shutes: It's also a pretty heavy burden that you have to carry too.
Josh Klebanoff: Thanks for that you're welcome.
Nate Shutes: Um, I'd love the chance to meet your co-founder at some point.
Nate Shutes: Uh, the the other half of the, the two horsepower yeah, a lot of people call us burton, ernie.
Josh Klebanoff: Um, okay, tbd, which one's burton, which one's ernie, but um, we get, we get that a lot.
Josh Klebanoff: So rory is kind of like we're both very personal outgoing bubbly people but rory's the one who like very much, holds a lot of like the strong customer relationships and really focuses on revenue driving stuff um, and I'm the one that kind of keeps the shop together and moving in the right direction.
Nate Shutes: So hiring numbers forecasts administration, all the fun, all the non fun stuff for most people.
Josh Klebanoff: Yeah, all the boring stuff, but in a weird way I like it.
Josh Klebanoff: Maybe that's like the original push to like try to force myself into a finance box, but now I got a little bit of the best of both worlds.
Josh Klebanoff: Finance box, but now I got a little bit of the best of both worlds.
Josh Klebanoff: So I definitely wear a lot of different hats but as we continue to scale and grow and passing the wand of those hats to others which is really hard to do, but I'm getting better.
Nate Shutes: Well, this has been.
Nate Shutes: I knew it was going to be interesting just based on the subject matter of what you do.
Nate Shutes: Going to be interesting just based on the subject matter of what you do.
Nate Shutes: But you are also very interesting, josh.
Nate Shutes: You have a neat way of articulating um kind of how you see the world.
Nate Shutes: In my opinion, and you recognize, I mean logistics is a support function in any or.
Nate Shutes: It's not the main thing, unless it's a freight brokerage or a trucking company than it is, but other than that, it is there to to be the plate upon which the entree is served.
Nate Shutes: And so, on behalf of the concert attending public, I'd like to say thank you, and on behalf of our listeners and the other founders that I know um aspiring and active and former um.
Nate Shutes: So thank you very much for sharing your story.
Nate Shutes: This, this is helpful to many, and I just want to let you know that, like always, we're all rooting for you.
Josh Klebanoff: Cool.
Josh Klebanoff: Well, I appreciate it, Nate.
Josh Klebanoff: Thank you so much for having me on the show.
Josh Klebanoff: This is cool.
Josh Klebanoff: This is a great experience.
Josh Klebanoff: I appreciate it and looking forward to connecting more.
Nate Shutes: Right on.
Nate Shutes: Thank you, josh, take care.
Josh Klebanoff: You got it, talk to you.
Nate Shutes: Thanks for listening to another episode of the Bootstrapper's Guide to Logistics, and a special thank you to our sponsors and the team behind the scenes who make it all possible.
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Nate Shutes: And, of course, thank you to all the founders who trust us to share their stories.