WEBVTT 00:00:01.762 --> 00:00:08.134 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. 00:00:08.134 --> 00:00:12.570 We're here to change that by sharing their stories and inspiring others to take the leap. 00:00:13.699 --> 00:00:16.510 It's a roller coaster ride that you might ultimately fail. 00:00:17.100 --> 00:00:19.068 That's when I kind of knew I was on to something. 00:00:19.782 --> 00:00:20.646 It was very hard. 00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:23.047 It truly is building a legacy. 00:00:23.047 --> 00:00:30.251 The more life you live, the more wisdom you have, because, we are where we're supposed to be kind of answering the call. 00:00:30.780 --> 00:00:33.189 Don't shoulder entrepreneurship on your own. 00:00:33.189 --> 00:00:35.143 I'm your host, nate Schutz. 00:00:35.143 --> 00:00:38.171 Let's build something together from the ground up. 00:00:38.171 --> 00:00:45.250 Good morning, everybody, or good afternoon, depending on when you're listening to this. 00:00:45.250 --> 00:00:47.845 Welcome back to the Bootstrapper's Guide to Logistics. 00:00:48.427 --> 00:00:51.023 We are doing exactly what we've been doing for years. 00:00:51.023 --> 00:00:54.612 There's really no change to the structure or format of Season 3. 00:00:54.612 --> 00:01:11.923 We're just doing the same thing we've always done unpacking the journeys of founders that are building supply chain and logistics companies the old-fashioned way, with their own resources, supply chain and logistics companies the old fashioned way, with their own resources being scrappy, not getting a ton of attention. 00:01:11.923 --> 00:01:29.846 And I love bringing attention to that myself, because I feel like it's too easy to get lost in the venture capital world or the PR, the social media machine that makes it look like everybody's a unicorn, when the reality is the 99% of businesses out there are small businesses and they've got small business challenges. 00:01:29.846 --> 00:01:32.052 But it doesn't mean they've got small thinking. 00:01:32.052 --> 00:01:46.980 It actually means that they've got really strategic thinking because they are committed to their own vision, mostly free of outside influence, and that's maybe one of the most American dream kind of storylines that's out there. 00:01:46.980 --> 00:01:50.487 So I love getting to do this with everybody each week. 00:01:50.868 --> 00:01:54.121 Thank you for all of those that have followed us. 00:01:54.121 --> 00:02:00.683 We're at the 100 episode mark right around now and if you've been here from the beginning, I just want to say thank you. 00:02:00.683 --> 00:02:04.031 I couldn't do it without you and without our sponsors. 00:02:04.031 --> 00:02:05.331 So this week we're going to do the same sponsors. 00:02:05.331 --> 00:02:16.610 So this week we're going to do the same thing, but this time we're going to go deep, with Casey Winans, who's the founder and CEO of Full Stride, a WMS and tech consulting firm based in the US. 00:02:16.610 --> 00:02:18.093 Casey, good morning. 00:02:18.093 --> 00:02:24.010 First, it's great to finally get a chance to go deep on a subject that I love warehousing. 00:02:24.010 --> 00:02:29.448 I know you're an expert, but it's also our first chance getting to really meet and talk in person. 00:02:29.448 --> 00:02:33.062 So, good morning, how are you, and thanks for being here. 00:02:33.522 --> 00:02:41.131 Yeah, great to be here, and yes, I know we've interacted on LinkedIn for probably a couple years now, so it's nice to put a face to a name as well. 00:02:42.640 --> 00:02:43.723 So why don't you start, casey? 00:02:43.723 --> 00:02:48.414 Just give us a little bit of overview so our listeners know who you are, what you've done. 00:02:48.414 --> 00:02:53.388 You know kind of career-wise, leading up to what your life has been like as an entrepreneur. 00:02:53.748 --> 00:02:55.561 Sure, yeah, I mean, I came out of the gate. 00:02:55.561 --> 00:03:01.051 I went to school for management information systems at Penn State. 00:03:01.051 --> 00:03:07.663 That morphed into getting an internship at GE up in Erie, pennsylvania, where they made locomotives. 00:03:07.663 --> 00:03:23.864 They may still They've been sold there's a new name on the outside but effectively that's where I got to really cut my teeth and I would say, based on that and the next couple of roles I did, I was more in the software engineering realm of things. 00:03:23.864 --> 00:03:26.310 I built some products after I moved on from GE. 00:03:26.310 --> 00:03:31.443 Reverse auctions for procurement that was something that was done in Pennsylvania. 00:03:31.443 --> 00:03:38.403 There is like a Commonwealth nonprofit that turned in and spun out as a startup. 00:03:38.585 --> 00:03:56.326 After that I worked for probably about an $80 million company that was a middleman and bought print cartridges and old cell phones, refurb them to an extent and then sold them for other purposes down the line and we built all our systems in-house. 00:03:56.326 --> 00:04:01.024 So that was my first taste of warehouse management systems, parcel manifesting systems. 00:04:01.024 --> 00:04:20.903 In fact, my first gig what were my first, I guess, project when I started was this 200 page printout of the ups spec and like build a system that we can so we can create our own labels and do these uh ars labels, authorized, authorized return service, uh, and I didn't know that was unusual. 00:04:20.903 --> 00:04:22.569 So I did that, built those out. 00:04:22.569 --> 00:04:23.471 It worked really well. 00:04:23.471 --> 00:04:34.552 But after working there for a couple of years they were realizing that in-house software was kind of rough to maintain right, you were always making tweaks versus being strategic. 00:04:34.552 --> 00:04:49.336 So they started looking at vendors and, totally coincidental, they were looking at a company called Red Prairie and I was looking to move to North Carolina with my family just for other opportunities and I took a job working for Red Prairie. 00:04:49.336 --> 00:04:58.932 I didn't know that at the time, I didn't connect the dots, but I mean this whole time this is probably the first few years of my career I had no idea I was in supply chain. 00:04:58.932 --> 00:05:02.262 I didn't understand the concept of warehouse management system. 00:05:02.262 --> 00:05:03.886 It was just these systems we built. 00:05:03.886 --> 00:05:05.488 They were business systems in my mind. 00:05:06.411 --> 00:05:32.742 I was a software engineer that's what I do but taking the job at RepRary turned me into a consultant on the technical side anyways, the first couple of years and I was working with big companies rolling out very complex software, lots of customizations, integrations, and that morphed into an opportunity to lead the Parcel Consulting Group inside of the professional services, because I raised my hand, called out some things that were happening in the product side. 00:05:32.742 --> 00:05:37.862 I had a background in it that I didn't appreciate for it and that gave me the opportunity to move into management. 00:05:37.862 --> 00:05:39.608 So I instantly went in. 00:05:39.608 --> 00:05:57.583 I had 15 people reporting to me and I was tasked with fixing projects across the whole spectrum of different verticals, because Parcel was seen as getting a tracking number and all the things that happened behind the scenes in terms of like the rules out there, interfacing with carriers, specifications changing. 00:05:57.583 --> 00:06:00.872 No one really understood it until they went live and things didn't work. 00:06:00.872 --> 00:06:07.990 So I spent that time teaching my team and getting that all taken care of and I did that for about a year and a half. 00:06:07.990 --> 00:06:11.821 And then I followed a mentor to a 3PL in Canada. 00:06:11.821 --> 00:06:14.567 Like there you go, they're going to expand into the US. 00:06:14.567 --> 00:06:19.807 I'm going to learn the outside part of the vendor equation Still lots of clients coming and going. 00:06:19.807 --> 00:06:22.380 So there's a good mix and I did that. 00:06:22.380 --> 00:06:23.023 I learned a ton. 00:06:23.725 --> 00:06:35.747 But right, right about that time about a year and a half into that so this is probably mid-2013 jda and repair emerged and the messaging was awful that basically jda came in. 00:06:35.747 --> 00:06:39.440 They were used to all these turnkey systems on their side, more planning up front. 00:06:39.440 --> 00:06:44.583 Where you have a problem, turn the lights off at five, come back in at nine o'clock next morning and deal with it. 00:06:44.583 --> 00:06:50.504 Well, on the warehouse, the warehouse management space, it's 24, seven, you're not shipping, you're not making money and I'll help. 00:06:50.504 --> 00:06:51.887 Everything's going to fall apart. 00:06:52.550 --> 00:07:00.458 So it was an awesome opportunity for myself and two other guys that I knew to hang our shingle and start a consulting business. 00:07:00.458 --> 00:07:05.651 So my first business and we had no grand plans, it was just opportunistic. 00:07:05.651 --> 00:07:14.987 You know, mercenaries out there for hire until until this new JDA figured out how to plug the hole and then you know, basically, you know, eat our lunch. 00:07:14.987 --> 00:07:17.391 But I fast forward five years. 00:07:17.391 --> 00:07:20.185 We had about 60 people working for us. 00:07:20.185 --> 00:07:22.970 We were doing, we were on pace to do about 12 million the year. 00:07:22.970 --> 00:07:30.271 That that I pulled away and I it just kept growing, you know so you you for help me understand this then. 00:07:30.290 --> 00:07:48.266 So you spend about 10 or 12 years kind of building the technical knowledge you know both both from a programming perspective and then you're going out into these various domains and learning how to apply your technical skills to different business problems and you fall in love with this one. 00:07:48.266 --> 00:08:05.247 But there had to have been a moment where you're leaving the relative or perceived safety of a corporate job or a W-2 maybe, and you're like, hey, let's go do this thing on our own. 00:08:05.247 --> 00:08:06.331 And it was scary. 00:08:06.331 --> 00:08:08.264 Did you guys just like sit around it? 00:08:08.264 --> 00:08:14.603 Were you at a bar I'm just picturing you with a cocktail napkin and you're sketching out a strategy, or was it lunchtime or how did what? 00:08:14.603 --> 00:08:21.305 Was that day like when you and your partner or partners said, okay, we're going to do this? 00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:23.524 It played out like that. 00:08:23.524 --> 00:08:26.930 So I guess the backup. 00:08:26.930 --> 00:08:33.744 I was looking to move on from the 3PL because there were some issues where I just wasn't getting the growth I thought I was promised early on. 00:08:33.744 --> 00:08:43.660 And that's why I went and I talked to one of the guys that became my partner, one of my partners, and he's like let's not do that, let's build something here. 00:08:43.660 --> 00:08:48.167 I got this little bit of traction here with one client, let's figure out what we do. 00:08:48.740 --> 00:08:54.789 And I went back to my wife and I'm like I've always wanted to do this, honey, because I used to read business magazines like crazy. 00:08:54.789 --> 00:08:56.988 It's just one of those like when do I do it? 00:08:56.988 --> 00:08:58.003 And I had actually. 00:08:58.003 --> 00:09:07.182 So I guess I had a business before this, one client, a little bit of work. 00:09:07.182 --> 00:09:08.485 I made like 10 great 10 grand and it was awesome. 00:09:08.485 --> 00:09:09.105 I'm like it felt so liberating. 00:09:09.105 --> 00:09:15.427 But then the 3pl I worked for got wind of it and told me either go full, full time on that one or hang it up. 00:09:15.427 --> 00:09:17.732 And I had one client, a little bit of work. 00:09:17.732 --> 00:09:20.104 I'm like I can't feed my family, so I put it away. 00:09:20.604 --> 00:09:30.370 But that was the catalyst for you know just that, that building it up Like I wanted to do it and I was feeling kind of trapped after that in a W2 role. 00:09:30.370 --> 00:09:41.826 So, having that lunch, and then from there we went, to excuse me, a place called McGregor's Draft House in Cary, north Carolina, and we had lunch there. 00:09:41.826 --> 00:09:48.450 Multiple times we were drinking beer literally in the back of a napkin, like what are we doing here, how do we, how do we get this going? 00:09:48.450 --> 00:09:53.285 And then we spent probably a couple weeks just trying to figure out what we call ourselves. 00:09:53.285 --> 00:10:00.312 That would comprise the three of us, you know, and uh, and more or less we kind of came back and said, well, what about mcgregor partners? 00:10:00.312 --> 00:10:02.605 There's a story that's the. 00:10:02.605 --> 00:10:08.408 You know it's the, it's the cliched, you know, uh, bar back of a napkin story, and we're partners. 00:10:08.587 --> 00:10:12.140 So there you go, let's not, it was a brew house yeah, yeah exactly yeah. 00:10:12.701 --> 00:10:14.807 So lots of guinness and you know whatever else was. 00:10:14.807 --> 00:10:20.083 You know the local stuff as well, but I yeah, that's how it came to be that's a fantastic that. 00:10:20.225 --> 00:10:29.216 So there's a storytelling framework that explains most movies and books that we've all read. 00:10:29.216 --> 00:10:34.506 One of my favorite is the Hero's Journey, and that is the story of the Matrix. 00:10:34.506 --> 00:10:37.063 Is Hero's Journey Lord of the Rings? 00:10:37.063 --> 00:10:38.629 Is that as well? 00:10:38.629 --> 00:10:44.423 And there is a storytelling element inside of those called the watering hole. 00:10:44.423 --> 00:10:57.615 And there's a storytelling element inside of those called the watering hole and at a certain point in the journey, before it goes from being an adventure where things are safe and fun into being a quest where things are kind of life or death, there's this they call it. 00:10:57.615 --> 00:10:58.796 It's a scene in all these movies. 00:10:58.796 --> 00:11:08.442 It's called the watering hole and it's that moment where all the friends band together and decide to go off on this quest. 00:11:08.461 --> 00:11:33.472 And it's fascinating to me how many entrepreneurs have that same experience of, okay, we're going to leave the relative safety of the Shire or RW2 and we're going to go off and try to slay dragons, and we're in this together and we've come up with the name for our band of misfits and we raise a couple of glasses and make a toast and that's maybe the last moment that things were innocent and fun. 00:11:33.472 --> 00:11:37.912 And then it gets real and the danger starts. 00:11:37.912 --> 00:11:44.953 So the first month that you and your partners are the safety is now behind you. 00:11:44.953 --> 00:11:50.485 Did you like hit the ground running and things were happening how you thought they would? 00:11:50.485 --> 00:11:53.863 Or was it crickets and you couldn't get a customer to say yes? 00:11:53.863 --> 00:11:56.591 Like what was the really really early stage? 00:11:56.591 --> 00:12:00.120 Like when you were fully committed? 00:12:00.640 --> 00:12:01.000 Gotcha. 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:03.945 Well, before I dive into that, I want to back up just for a second. 00:12:03.945 --> 00:12:13.716 Sure, there was this conversation I had with my wife about doing this and leaving the safety of a W-2, or you know, quote unquote, safety of a W-2. 00:12:13.716 --> 00:12:18.299 And her brother was an entrepreneur, basically like right out of high school. 00:12:18.299 --> 00:12:21.149 So I talked to him and he couldn't envision anything else. 00:12:21.149 --> 00:12:26.282 So he's like, yeah, bet on yourself, you know the sky's the limit, envision anything else. 00:12:26.282 --> 00:12:27.866 So he's like, yeah, like, bet on yourself, you know the sky's the limit. 00:12:27.866 --> 00:12:35.607 And my wife said the perfect thing to me at that moment in time was honey, it's just a house, which really implied that if we lost everything, we still have each other. 00:12:35.607 --> 00:12:38.541 We don't care, you know, and that was like freeing, you know. 00:12:38.541 --> 00:12:42.927 I teared up, I'm like, okay, I get to get to know, chase my dream here. 00:12:43.489 --> 00:12:56.791 But one of my other partners, literally that month, I actually you know what, yeah, I had, I had the one partner had a daughter that was just a couple years old, so, you know, still on, probably in diapers at that point, if I get the ages right. 00:12:56.791 --> 00:13:03.547 And the other one had his second, his youngest, the daughter, literally that month, or maybe, maybe July, just before August. 00:13:03.547 --> 00:13:10.393 So like we're all like, like we're in it, but at the same time, like stakes are high, we're nervous, uh. 00:13:10.393 --> 00:13:12.460 But first month it went, it went awesome. 00:13:12.460 --> 00:13:19.801 I mean, it was one of those things where, uh, the one partner had already broke into a 3pl and they were insatiable. 00:13:19.801 --> 00:13:24.311 You know, just more projects, more projects, tons of work. 00:13:24.311 --> 00:13:25.994 Our rates weren't great but they were. 00:13:25.994 --> 00:13:29.591 They were feeding us and we were doing all the work and we had one contractor at that point. 00:13:30.260 --> 00:13:43.145 But then the beauty of where we came out of because we all came out of Red Prairie, jda, now it's Blue Yonder is we'd worked with clients for years, so it was reaching out to our personal networks and we'd get some work here and there. 00:13:43.145 --> 00:13:49.054 It didn't have to be big in those days, it was just something to kind of move the needle, but the it was just. 00:13:49.054 --> 00:13:50.927 It was crazy. 00:13:50.927 --> 00:13:52.265 We were working 80 hour weeks. 00:13:52.265 --> 00:13:53.544 We were killing ourselves. 00:13:53.544 --> 00:13:54.467 It was. 00:13:54.467 --> 00:13:57.369 It was not fun, but fun at the same time. 00:13:57.369 --> 00:13:58.845 I mean, the money was awesome. 00:13:58.945 --> 00:14:01.086 Seeing that come in like it just opened my world. 00:14:01.086 --> 00:14:01.726 We just opened my world. 00:14:01.726 --> 00:14:02.548 We were all making low six figures. 00:14:02.548 --> 00:14:05.129 Before you know we had moved up to director roles. 00:14:05.129 --> 00:14:12.955 So it was like we're quickly surpassing that, wow, okay, uh, we're gonna need to hire at some point. 00:14:12.955 --> 00:14:15.116 So I mean we can kind of get into that piece there too. 00:14:15.116 --> 00:14:19.147 But it was just gangbusters and we started getting other clients coming in and they wanted something. 00:14:19.147 --> 00:14:24.166 But by and large we had dhl where it was excel logistics. 00:14:24.225 --> 00:14:25.908 At that point DHL turned into. 00:14:25.908 --> 00:14:30.765 I mean, you know, they're massive, so we would work for one director. 00:14:30.765 --> 00:14:34.148 Another director will pull us in more projects, clients coming and going. 00:14:34.148 --> 00:15:01.105 So there was just a whole lot of complexity there and we were there to pick up the pieces and definitely augment their teams because we had the depth where a lot of their teams internally they were closer to operation, they didn't know the systems as well and we could get in and do just about anything in it, even the nasty, complex, hairy stuff behind the scenes so you're doing a combination, then, of kind of consulting, implementation plus software development, kind of simultaneously. 00:15:01.125 --> 00:15:02.927 Very much, yeah, very much yeah. 00:15:02.927 --> 00:15:22.149 As a business model, consulting is very conducive to, and that kind of work is very conducive to bootstrapping, because you don't have to hire, you're not going to get paid yourself for a while usually, but you're not having to buy equipment, you're not having to sign a lease or hire a massive staff. 00:15:22.149 --> 00:15:31.312 And so how did you and your partners think about cash flow and keeping the lights on as the business started to grow? 00:15:31.312 --> 00:15:34.089 And okay, now we've got to make a couple of different decisions. 00:15:34.089 --> 00:15:36.989 You're getting paid a little bit, but now we've got to take a risk. 00:15:36.989 --> 00:15:45.700 We've got to hire some outsiders, we've got to maybe get an office and the expense structure changes, which, for bootstrappers, can be really, really uncomfortable. 00:15:46.581 --> 00:15:49.947 Yeah, well the beauty of what we were doing. 00:15:50.307 --> 00:15:58.700 We traveled all the time so, and all of us lived in the raleigh area at that point, but we didn't need an office because there was no no one there to do it. 00:15:58.759 --> 00:16:11.203 So we would work from each other's homes, if we had to, to meet up to figure out something, you know logistically around the business itself, and just daydream and figure out where we're going, what's working, what's not working, how do we go forward. 00:16:11.203 --> 00:16:32.330 But some of the things I learned from the 3PL I worked with since I was one of just a small handful of US employees at that point is they use something called a PEO, a professional employer organization, and they take care of a lot of the HR pieces where we effectively, our employees of our business, are at least to them or at least back to. 00:16:32.330 --> 00:16:39.331 Somehow, I don't know, you can work up PEO, but it was a great way for us to get benefits very quickly, manage payroll, all these things. 00:16:39.331 --> 00:16:43.311 So we had this stuff set up so we could put the contractors in there as well. 00:16:43.311 --> 00:16:47.101 And suddenly you know we could. 00:16:47.101 --> 00:16:53.226 We could out compete with some of the other consulting firms that were popping up at the same time in our same space because they didn't know those things. 00:16:53.508 --> 00:16:59.533 So yeah, it's going to be something I was exposed to and you know, wearing my business hat, I'm like that's really smart. 00:16:59.533 --> 00:17:02.461 So instantly we got that going, uh. 00:17:02.461 --> 00:17:04.642 So that was, that was one piece that helped. 00:17:04.642 --> 00:17:07.484 But, yeah, we avoided most of the overhead. 00:17:07.484 --> 00:17:17.632 Really, we agreed at some point for taking smaller salaries, something smaller than what we had had before, and then we worked on the concept of distributions. 00:17:18.133 --> 00:17:21.816 Now, one other thing that we did have in our back pocket was one of the partners. 00:17:22.336 --> 00:17:27.183 His dad had had a business for years and he knew some accountants down in our area. 00:17:27.183 --> 00:17:33.926 So myself and one of the partners went down and we just sat with him and he gave us some advice in terms of how to structure some of this. 00:17:33.926 --> 00:17:36.942 So that was helpful for the distribution thing. 00:17:36.942 --> 00:18:02.411 And then I also had my father-in-law very much pressing to get a really good operating agreement in place with buy sell language in there which we can get to, because that's the other story, uh, to really make sure that when everything is going well, you guys can agree on terms, potentially, how things dissolve all the things that can get hairy later on if there are disputes or anything like that. 00:18:02.411 --> 00:18:04.644 So we have these things in our favor. 00:18:04.644 --> 00:18:09.594 I didn't really appreciate them at that moment, but it worked out great. 00:18:09.594 --> 00:18:20.888 And then I think there's probably a lot of companies out there that don't understand that and to get into it without it and hope everything just works out and when it doesn't, that's not the time to be trying to hash this stuff out. 00:18:21.720 --> 00:18:34.342 It is an unfortunate and sometimes ironic reality that the people that you trust the most, that you want to go into business with you, haven't been tested together in battle. 00:18:34.342 --> 00:18:37.047 You have great ideas together. 00:18:37.047 --> 00:18:55.112 You maybe have been co-workers at a company before, and those operating agreements and partnership agreements matter the most when things go really really well and there's lots of money to be split, or when they go really really bad and things get dicey. 00:18:55.112 --> 00:19:08.393 And for most first-time founders I guess I shouldn't say most for many first-time founders those are uncomfortable conversations to have early because everything's going well. 00:19:08.393 --> 00:19:33.960 Why would I introduce stuff that might be sensitive or might cause us to not be as close with one another and uncomfortable at well said, and the reality is, over a long enough period of time and enough interactions with human beings, one of the core driving forces is self-interest, and that means something different to everybody. 00:19:34.982 --> 00:19:37.471 You mentioned your co-founders having young children. 00:19:37.471 --> 00:20:07.781 They would have totally different personal circumstances and needs than somebody who's already independently wealthy and doesn't have any responsibilities, and so those kinds of agreements can prevent lots of future conflict and in some cases they can even decide hey, you know what, after we've gone through this exercise, maybe this structure isn't the right thing before we even get started, and those are some of the things that happen when you're a second time founder. 00:20:07.781 --> 00:20:12.806 Now you have all of that knowledge and maybe we can unpack some of that in the next part here. 00:20:12.806 --> 00:20:29.211 But if you are considering starting a business and you've got a buddy or some coworkers or something that you think, hey, we'd be a great fit to go out and go do this thing, Get an agreement written up on paper, Talk through. 00:20:29.413 --> 00:20:32.141 What percentage of equity is everybody going to own? 00:20:32.141 --> 00:20:35.921 What are your responsibilities going to be versus the other person? 00:20:35.921 --> 00:20:38.698 Who's going to be responsible for being the tiebreaker? 00:20:38.698 --> 00:20:51.161 When you don't agree and you add those things up, put them on paper, and your likelihood of avoiding significant issues down the road just multiplies a hundredfold. 00:20:51.161 --> 00:20:56.446 It sounds like, based on what you shared, that you may have found some challenges down the road. 00:20:56.446 --> 00:20:57.570 So what actually happened? 00:20:58.372 --> 00:21:00.977 So we never envisioned it to get as big as it did. 00:21:00.977 --> 00:21:04.364 In fact we were talking about the equity piece you just mentioned. 00:21:04.364 --> 00:21:07.078 So we had accelerators in there. 00:21:07.078 --> 00:21:11.582 So the first month getting started we were all making low six figures. 00:21:11.582 --> 00:21:13.894 A lot of us had some kind of savings. 00:21:13.894 --> 00:21:22.894 But one of them one of the partners had been doing this for a little longer had some cash and he was able to give us short-term loans for the first month. 00:21:22.894 --> 00:21:28.596 So that was a cash flow piece to get us through before we started paying ourselves, and the typical net 30. 00:21:28.596 --> 00:21:36.480 You work, then you bill and then you wait because they've come up with excuses of why the invoice isn't ready yet and all those fun things. 00:21:36.480 --> 00:21:38.096 So that got us through it. 00:21:38.096 --> 00:21:47.292 But part of that agreement was there were going to be accelerators in terms of equity based on that and they seem like big numbers to us. 00:21:47.292 --> 00:21:49.159 You know, a couple million here, a couple million there. 00:21:49.159 --> 00:21:54.900 We hit those and then ratchet up and then we're pretty close to all evenly splitting the pot. 00:21:54.900 --> 00:21:56.864 So that happened. 00:21:56.864 --> 00:21:58.152 That happened pretty quickly. 00:21:58.152 --> 00:22:02.720 So then we revisited the operating agreement to kind of play with what looks like longer term. 00:22:02.720 --> 00:22:04.824 But so we did this for five years. 00:22:04.824 --> 00:22:06.795 Tons of clients. 00:22:06.795 --> 00:22:09.718 We eventually grew to 60 people. 00:22:09.718 --> 00:22:17.916 That first hire was really scary that first year because you know, suddenly we're on the hook for somebody else's livelihood. 00:22:17.916 --> 00:22:25.498 But that worked out well and then we started hiring, you know, slowly at first, and then we started doing multiple ones, but so it ended up being about 60 people. 00:22:25.498 --> 00:22:29.760 We were on track to do somewhere close to 12 million the year 2018. 00:22:29.780 --> 00:22:44.440 Wow, but probably that fourth year we really started looking at what do we want to do and two of the partners wanted to go in and build software and I liked the idea to an extent being naive, coming into it. 00:22:44.440 --> 00:22:49.939 But at the same time, I was also starting to chase something called managed services. 00:22:49.939 --> 00:22:57.717 So we have SLAs and they're paying us for peace of mind effectively to jump in when things go sideways. 00:22:57.717 --> 00:22:59.474 In a warehouse world. 00:22:59.474 --> 00:23:00.759 That's really important. 00:23:00.759 --> 00:23:06.778 Vendors can't do it or if they do, it's just to fix defects and maybe some data, not to understand your operation. 00:23:06.778 --> 00:23:09.123 So I got into that. 00:23:09.303 --> 00:23:16.057 My first client at that point was Advanced Auto and we learned a ton in terms of how to structure these deals and they were massively profitable. 00:23:16.057 --> 00:23:19.406 So I'm like that's probably our future. 00:23:19.406 --> 00:23:20.169 I like that. 00:23:20.169 --> 00:23:27.019 It really kind of plays with the implementation side plus supporting it long-term, but there's always gaps when you're doing something. 00:23:27.019 --> 00:23:28.162 So that's the software realm. 00:23:28.162 --> 00:23:29.571 So we started doing that. 00:23:29.571 --> 00:23:33.411 We didn't know how to sell, so we were burning cash on employees and all that. 00:23:33.411 --> 00:23:37.922 And we got great insights for early customers who didn't turn into early customers. 00:23:37.922 --> 00:23:43.374 And it was just this dividing piece here where it's like, okay, five years in, what do we want to do? 00:23:43.374 --> 00:23:48.819 I like the idea of stepping back to an extent, maybe trying something different and, you know, being a sign of partner. 00:23:48.819 --> 00:23:55.566 One of my partners liked that for a while, but ultimately, two of them decided they were going to go double down on software and I'm nodding, you know. 00:24:00.170 --> 00:24:02.999 So middle of 2018, they decided that they were going to buy me out, and you know it was. 00:24:02.999 --> 00:24:03.842 It was bittersweet, you know. 00:24:03.842 --> 00:24:12.391 It was one of those things where I knew I wasn't happy, but at the same time, this is my baby and you know these were my friends and like this is this is tough, but we had to buy a sale agreement. 00:24:12.391 --> 00:24:14.955 So you know I couldn't stop. 00:24:14.955 --> 00:24:31.201 I couldn't stop the sale, but I could negotiate, and one of the things we had in there that was really good was this concept of we can each go get our own valuation. 00:24:31.201 --> 00:24:32.497 You know, in my mind theirs came back very low, which great you know, it's. 00:24:32.497 --> 00:24:32.906 Just it's the bottom part of it. 00:24:32.906 --> 00:24:37.470 They were hoping to get me out quickly, maybe because I'm I'm pretty past and passive that way, in terms of if it's good for the business, I would do it typically. 00:24:37.470 --> 00:24:48.858 But then I went out and I found a great lawyer on my side who got me in connection with a great appraiser and this guy that's all he does. 00:24:48.858 --> 00:24:54.803 So he came back with all this other information and it was like double the valuation. 00:24:54.803 --> 00:25:00.342 So it took probably this was the middle of 2018. 00:25:00.342 --> 00:25:05.583 We probably didn't finalize the negotiation until sometime in November, december. 00:25:06.691 --> 00:25:08.416 So it was frustrating, right? 00:25:08.416 --> 00:25:11.798 Sure, I bet you know, am I getting paid? 00:25:11.798 --> 00:25:12.539 What's going on? 00:25:12.539 --> 00:25:16.862 I can't talk to people inside the company for valid reasons. 00:25:16.862 --> 00:25:18.856 I mean, I'm not throwing anybody under the bus, I get it. 00:25:18.856 --> 00:25:21.734 But it really sucked because I couldn't tell my story and I just kind of disappeared. 00:25:21.755 --> 00:25:23.690 But it really sucked because I couldn't tell my story and I just kind of disappeared. 00:25:23.690 --> 00:25:28.862 And then actually the same day, I was told that they're like hey, we want to buy you out. 00:25:28.862 --> 00:25:33.481 My mother-in-law had a stroke and then she ended up dying two weeks later. 00:25:33.481 --> 00:25:41.035 So it was just awful, right, like we were like Alice falling down the hole, no power thing, our world just getting ripped apart. 00:25:41.035 --> 00:25:42.799 And so we got through that. 00:25:42.799 --> 00:25:47.400 We got through the year and this is something that no one knows, my partners included. 00:25:47.400 --> 00:25:55.364 We ended up getting life insurance that kept us afloat, so I couldn't negotiate for it and have to take a smaller deal. 00:25:55.364 --> 00:25:58.075 So it was a blessing, huge blessing. 00:25:58.075 --> 00:26:15.784 But at the end of it I had to sign a non-compete for two years and I got a chunk paid up front and then I got a chunk paid every year for several years and that kind of got me through well, pretty much going into COVID, because COVID kind of really rocked a year later. 00:26:15.784 --> 00:26:17.816 But what do you want me to? 00:26:17.855 --> 00:26:18.397 unpack there. 00:26:18.397 --> 00:26:25.044 Well, I mean, first, what I'm picking up on is just how human all of that is. 00:26:25.044 --> 00:26:33.682 That has nothing to do specifically with logistics, it has nothing to do specifically with finance. 00:26:33.682 --> 00:26:48.651 It is just a very intense lived experience of somebody who and I'm sure if we asked your partners that were there, they would have a slightly different version of the story and they would say some of the same things of like yeah, it was really hard for us too. 00:26:49.232 --> 00:27:02.079 But I think we glamorize entrepreneurship I know I do, I'm guilty of it at times and the realities are it's very hard, it's very emotional, emotional. 00:27:02.079 --> 00:27:15.785 It is a different kind of sleepless night when you're dealing with equity and distributions and maybe a an ending, a partnership that's ending that. 00:27:15.785 --> 00:27:20.842 There's not a lot of people that can understand that kind of pressure and stress. 00:27:20.842 --> 00:27:38.058 I'm sure your wife vividly remembers every week of that and if she probably flashed back to when you were all starry-eyed and like, hey, let's go do this thing, and she said it's just a house, you know, to get to that full circle moment on the other end of it. 00:27:38.058 --> 00:27:39.951 That is. 00:27:39.951 --> 00:27:42.161 I mean I'm not going to spend too much time on the storytelling part of our narrative and how that all works. 00:27:42.161 --> 00:27:42.383 Uh, that is. 00:27:42.383 --> 00:27:46.680 I mean, I'm not going to spend too much time on the storytelling part of of our narrative and how that all works. 00:27:46.680 --> 00:27:57.114 But yeah, these are quote life and death and from a financial standpoint, uh, stakes they're not um fun, they are terrifying. 00:27:57.556 --> 00:28:02.752 Oh yeah, yeah, it's, and it's the typical thing when you've had a business for a few years lifestyle creep. 00:28:02.752 --> 00:28:05.015 Yeah, I bought a new, bigger home. 00:28:05.015 --> 00:28:06.517 I had a daughter in college. 00:28:06.517 --> 00:28:10.519 I had, at that point, I think, I had my two younger kids. 00:28:10.519 --> 00:28:29.646 They had been homeschooled for a while for other reasons medical for one of them, but I think they were in private school at that point, right, so I was doing all these things that were valuable to my kids, really pouring into them, that required a sizable income, and then suddenly the rugs pulled out and what do you do and what's going on? 00:28:29.646 --> 00:28:31.653 And I had a lot of guilt actually too. 00:28:31.653 --> 00:28:33.537 I mean, here's the other human person. 00:28:33.637 --> 00:28:37.934 Part of it is for those five years and then years before it I traveled like crazy. 00:28:37.934 --> 00:28:45.141 So it was constantly like I'm seeing my kids grow up through, you know, facetime, talking to my wife, you know, and odds and ends. 00:28:45.141 --> 00:28:54.080 And there was one project I did where I felt like I lived in Memphis for two and a half years, I mean every week, four days, four days a week there, constantly. 00:28:54.080 --> 00:28:55.912 So there was that coming out of it. 00:28:55.912 --> 00:28:58.035 So it was relief on one end, you know. 00:28:58.035 --> 00:29:05.044 But you know friendships are kind of getting pulled and pulled apart, ending, you know, uncertainty about what's coming next to me. 00:29:05.044 --> 00:29:05.944 So there's, there's all those. 00:29:05.944 --> 00:29:13.124 It's all that human drama that was in there at the end of it 2019, you know, like the very beginning of the year. 00:29:13.470 --> 00:29:16.297 So I think it was, I think it was December 31st. 00:29:16.297 --> 00:29:29.442 We signed the papers and I was no longer an owner, got a chunk of money, got the promissory note for X number of payments and you know, I that was kind of cut out from everything I'd done for for years. 00:29:29.442 --> 00:29:30.490 So what do you do next? 00:29:30.490 --> 00:29:32.013 And you have to reinvent yourself. 00:29:32.013 --> 00:29:37.311 Or, uh, and and honestly, I did sensationalize entrepreneurship. 00:29:37.311 --> 00:29:43.815 There was a lot of relearning, unlearning at that point, cause I thought my stuff didn't stink. 00:29:43.815 --> 00:30:00.673 I realized that there was a whole bunch of things around business that I didn't know, that it was just the perfect storm of being in a space where there was a lot of demand and I just happened to be able to build and capitalize on a network when I didn't have it anymore. 00:30:00.673 --> 00:30:03.381 You're starting from scratch so much harder. 00:30:05.309 --> 00:30:07.153 There's also a loss of status. 00:30:07.153 --> 00:30:08.056 That happens. 00:30:08.056 --> 00:30:14.377 You're used to being in a room and having influence or authority and the network. 00:30:14.377 --> 00:30:25.328 You get customers, you've got suppliers, you've got clout of a kind, and then one day you realize it was all situational yeah, I mean true, there's. 00:30:25.348 --> 00:30:36.750 There's folks I haven't talked to since I left mcgregor, just because you know we there was that six month period where separation and even before then, like moving into different roles, where I didn't talk to as much. 00:30:36.750 --> 00:30:46.424 So if they listen to this, this is probably their first, uh guess, perspective of, or at least my perspective of, what happened and why it happened. 00:30:46.424 --> 00:30:48.994 And so I'm I'm pretty private that way. 00:30:48.994 --> 00:30:54.078 I overshare sometimes in other spaces, but I've been quiet in this in terms of detail, but I think. 00:30:54.098 --> 00:30:59.961 Thank you for for trusting me and our audience with a very vulnerable insights. 00:31:00.002 --> 00:31:05.343 I mean, this is part of why I do what I do is I? 00:31:05.343 --> 00:31:18.549 Lots of folks out there are owners themselves, or are about to be, or have been dreaming about it for years, and I want to help prepare them, in some cases just tactically. 00:31:18.549 --> 00:31:20.816 Hey, you're going to need to get really good at accounting. 00:31:20.816 --> 00:31:32.048 You're going to have to understand what a GL code is and how a balance sheet and the income statement work together or don't at times and statements of cash Well, you're going to learn all that kind of stuff. 00:31:32.048 --> 00:31:51.413 Plus, you got to be a part-time lawyer, part-time HR generalist and you're going to miss a lot of your kids' sporting events and and and and so to help prepare them for those kind of rough seas that might come, stories like yours, I believe, add significant value. 00:31:52.178 --> 00:31:55.589 Now you can tell somebody else hey, don't make the same mistakes I did. 00:31:55.589 --> 00:32:01.578 And oftentimes people are like no, I think I want to burn my hand on the stove myself before I listen to what you say. 00:32:01.578 --> 00:32:10.798 But now you've gone through it yourself and then you had to sit out for a couple of years and now you're doing full stride. 00:32:10.798 --> 00:32:12.201 So let's shift then. 00:32:12.201 --> 00:32:18.232 Second time founder, new organization well, for new name? 00:32:18.232 --> 00:32:19.676 Where did full stride come from? 00:32:19.676 --> 00:32:27.800 What does it do and what are you doing differently now in your next venture, gotcha? 00:32:28.061 --> 00:32:36.069 so in between starting full stride and exiting McGregor Partners, I had a two-year COVID the ugly part. 00:32:36.069 --> 00:32:37.874 I actually took a job. 00:32:37.874 --> 00:32:44.236 I was recruited by somebody a peer that used to be a competitor and I worked there for about a year and a half heading up advisory. 00:32:44.236 --> 00:32:52.113 So I got to learn a lot of the stuff that happens before they select a vendor and get an implementation, which meant are we building business cases? 00:32:52.113 --> 00:32:53.035 Does it make sense? 00:32:53.035 --> 00:32:58.656 Here's different vendors, where are they better, worse for you, based on what you're trying to achieve. 00:32:58.656 --> 00:33:04.005 And then just structuring all that and I did a lot of that with fixed fee arrangements. 00:33:04.005 --> 00:33:10.288 So no longer per hour, you know where this, this, this messy part of we want more, they want less. 00:33:10.288 --> 00:33:14.675 You know, and then we're fighting over inputs and outputs versus like, what are we achieving? 00:33:14.675 --> 00:33:16.557 So I did that for a year and a half. 00:33:16.557 --> 00:33:17.219 He retired. 00:33:17.219 --> 00:33:22.724 I didn't really mesh well with the rest of the executive team, so part of the ways. 00:33:22.724 --> 00:33:28.577 But taking all the things that I learned there, I wanted to put into full stride. 00:33:28.577 --> 00:33:33.317 And full stride really is like you start slower and you ramp up and then you're running right. 00:33:33.317 --> 00:33:34.832 So that image in your head. 00:33:35.708 --> 00:33:48.773 I wanted to work with the mid-sized businesses that weren't well served by Blue Yonder, the ones that I had seen buy them, always choked and they struggled long-term if they didn't just abandon ship at some point. 00:33:48.773 --> 00:33:52.171 So I'm like there needs to be somebody there advocating for them. 00:33:52.171 --> 00:34:09.630 And one of the things that didn't go well with my first business and the one I was working with afterwards is when your time and materials and your project-based the ones that get you going early on to feed you eventually are the ones that you get the scraps or don't even get any attention because you're chasing ever bigger paydays. 00:34:09.630 --> 00:34:18.155 So with McGregor we were going high, six-figure, low, seven-figure implementations versus the five and six-figure we did at the beginning. 00:34:18.155 --> 00:34:20.132 Same thing with the other company I worked with. 00:34:20.132 --> 00:34:25.086 So these other ones, these clients, were getting the scraps, the ones coming. 00:34:25.086 --> 00:34:36.335 They were coming and looking for, say, blue Yonder and you can potentially pay the subscription fee, maybe pay for a small implementation, but you're always going to struggle with this. 00:34:36.335 --> 00:34:43.653 They're going to eat you alive because there's all these assumptions behind the scenes in terms of how it's structured for large business, not midsize. 00:34:43.653 --> 00:34:46.362 So we started looking at that company. 00:34:46.382 --> 00:34:50.831 In between, I started looking at other vendors that were maybe a tier lower, didn't have the partner. 00:34:50.831 --> 00:34:56.159 Ecosystems really wanted to grow, wanted some outside influence partnerships to go. 00:34:56.159 --> 00:34:59.391 So I took those agreements and I literally one of them. 00:34:59.391 --> 00:35:00.193 I wrote an email. 00:35:00.193 --> 00:35:01.766 My wife was like how did that work? 00:35:01.766 --> 00:35:04.853 It was maybe six, seven lines. 00:35:04.853 --> 00:35:10.552 After I talked to the CEO of one of those vendors and I said, hey, I made the case, you want partnerships. 00:35:10.552 --> 00:35:12.456 You felt like you missed the boat on that one. 00:35:12.456 --> 00:35:16.510 What if I build a business that didn't outgrow you and we can talk? 00:35:16.510 --> 00:35:18.650 And he's like, let's do it so instantly. 00:35:18.650 --> 00:35:19.072 There you go. 00:35:19.072 --> 00:35:20.195 I had my first partnership. 00:35:20.195 --> 00:35:23.153 Then I went out and I started the LLC and all that. 00:35:23.153 --> 00:35:25.427 But she was kind of dumbfounded Like, how did that work? 00:35:25.427 --> 00:35:27.349 I spoke his language. 00:35:28.030 --> 00:35:30.012 You know if I can deliver great. 00:35:30.012 --> 00:35:31.494 So you closed the deal in one email. 00:35:31.494 --> 00:35:32.114 Is what you're saying. 00:35:32.295 --> 00:35:34.197 Yeah, more or less that's really what it looked like. 00:35:34.197 --> 00:35:45.990 You know, there was a conversation before that and some back channel things with some some some folks that I knew in the industry, but that was how my first partnership started with a vendor and I went in and I started working. 00:35:45.990 --> 00:35:51.027 As you know, I went back to being the guy who was turning the wrenches and configuration and talking to clients. 00:35:51.027 --> 00:35:54.768 So that was that was that was me, my, my deal. 00:35:54.768 --> 00:36:01.472 I was going to be an implementation partner for midsize businesses, midsize vendors, right Connecting the dots there doing? 00:36:01.492 --> 00:36:02.373 what does midsize mean? 00:36:02.373 --> 00:36:03.652 By the way, can you define that? 00:36:03.652 --> 00:36:06.315 Yeah, so going back. 00:36:06.335 --> 00:36:07.994 I mean anyone that's probably doing. 00:36:07.994 --> 00:36:14.157 I guess it's more, so much that I'm trying to get back to that original thesis because it was a little fuzzy. 00:36:14.157 --> 00:36:23.922 But anybody who's looking for WMS at that point, so maybe outgrowing an ERP or even in the sense of a 3PL, that's the first system. 00:36:23.922 --> 00:36:34.751 You need A big thing to run your operation but they're not big enough for the big names in the new half, the vendors out there that want to grow in. 00:36:34.751 --> 00:36:36.635 A mid-sized business is great for them. 00:36:36.635 --> 00:36:38.318 It's a quicker implementation. 00:36:38.318 --> 00:36:39.306 It's the first one. 00:36:39.306 --> 00:36:40.769 Land and expand as they grow. 00:36:40.769 --> 00:36:43.315 If you do well, it's virtuous. 00:36:43.315 --> 00:36:49.085 And then I'm in the middle of figuring okay, well, how do I do this profitably where I build a team and I don't outgrow anybody? 00:36:49.085 --> 00:36:54.101 They outgrow me and I celebrate it Like that's not something you see in a typical consulting firm. 00:36:54.101 --> 00:36:54.463 That's just. 00:36:54.463 --> 00:36:57.090 That's just the business model that doesn't exist. 00:36:57.650 --> 00:37:05.137 You know, like my first one, we just kept growing and then people fell off the bus as we got bigger and bigger, unfortunately inadvertently. 00:37:05.137 --> 00:37:07.826 So I started doing that. 00:37:07.826 --> 00:37:32.746 I did that for several months and then I hired my first employee, paul Hinman, and we were working together and we were a great middle where you could see, it was sold to somebody who wasn't ready. 00:37:32.746 --> 00:37:39.090 They were typically first-time buyers and we were the ones that were level setting after the fact. 00:37:39.090 --> 00:37:41.438 The vendors kind of liked it, but they didn't like it. 00:37:41.438 --> 00:37:46.936 The clients appreciated it, but didn't like it because we were delivering bad news. 00:37:46.936 --> 00:37:59.277 And then we were always the ones getting the black eye and, regardless of us being there or not, we could see the ones getting the black eye and, regardless of us being there or not, we could see the other projects going on with some of these vendors and they never, really ever, transitioned to fully supported live. 00:37:59.277 --> 00:38:06.806 They were tethered and there was no real leadership on that side of things. 00:38:06.826 --> 00:38:18.039 So it was coming in and you're asking the customer what they want versus leading them with some type of process, and so at the at the very end of 2023, I pulled back. 00:38:18.039 --> 00:38:21.309 I'm like this is this is enough, it's, it's, it's a lot of money, it's great money. 00:38:21.309 --> 00:38:30.432 I can probably keep hiring this way, but I hate my life again, like I don't want to build another body shop and that's the effectively what you know where I'd worked outside of vendors. 00:38:30.432 --> 00:38:31.945 I'm like I don't want to do that. 00:38:31.945 --> 00:38:33.030 I want this to be meaningful. 00:38:33.030 --> 00:38:38.969 I love helping people and I want to help American businesses effectively. 00:38:38.969 --> 00:38:45.434 The mid-sized mama pops getting bigger, maybe getting into private equity, but I want to have a meaningful impact there. 00:38:45.434 --> 00:38:52.115