Behind the Scenes with Josh Klebanoff

own . I'm your host , Nate Shoots . Let's build something together from the ground up . Hi everybody , and welcome back to the show . Big thanks again to Jim Bramlett for sharing his story with everybody last week .

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 . 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 .

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

. So we're going to cover a lot of territory today . But , Josh , first of all , thank you for being here and for opening up and be willing to let us all behind the curtain . Why don't you do a quick introduction of your background and a little bit more about Yolk ?

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 . One day said screw it , I don't know what I'm going to do next , but it's not going to be this . And I quit From there . Everyone around me said what are you doing ? What are you doing ? And I said I don't know , but this is not what I want to be doing .

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 . 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 .

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 . Get your hands dirty , figuratively and literally right .

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 .

So I was there for about five years and in that time I was maybe like employee 15 or 16 . And within that five-year time the company grew to around 100 or so employees . 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 .

Said to myself it was like kind of like this . So that's really how I kind of got my start both in the logistics world and in the events world . I was there for about five years and then we found out and I met my business partner there as well .

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 .

There was no one at all in the middle and there was no one that got and understood events .

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 . Nate , if you feel like you need to cut that out , no , totally good , keep going .

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 . Trucks , missing , trucks , missing , trucks , missing . 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 ? Where's the truck ?

I think it was double brokered or I don't know . Something happened . 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 . We're like all right , we got to hustle . Doors are at 6am , let's load in the t-shirts , get the tent ready .

Rory , my now partner , opens the doors and what's in the truck ? It's a truckload of olive oil . It's not our t-shirts . And we look at each other and we say , well , we're in deep . You know what for this event ? Like no merch sales . So C-level folks are not going to be happy . One and two , we have to do something to better this industry .

We have so many friends within this space . They need better service . So you know , have to prioritize . Obviously , the first thing first is like deal with what's going on on the ground , right ? So send the truckload of olive oil back , figure out the warehouse where it actually is . Neither of us have slept .

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 . 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 .

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 . 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 .

And I think both of those components in the logistics and the events world are imperative .

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 .

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 .

And it's also such a physical , in-person um , oftentimes manual thing experience and so that you , you get both parts of the . Your head is challenged and it's intellectually demanding , but it's also just so real world and tangible and hard work .

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 .

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 .

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 . So that's the adrenaline . That is exciting . But , to your point , that happens every single day . 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 .

Every single day you got to buy the mulch right . So there's always something that happens and it's fun to think outside the box and make all that stuff happen .

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 ? Like , what does it actually look like ?

Um , so , like you said , there's load offload , drive , show , load offload , drive , drive , rinse and repeat . Um , show , load offload , drive , drive , rinse and repeat . It's not . It sounds easy but it's not

right . So there's inventory that needs to be tracked . You need to make sure the mileage makes sense . There's so many different components that go into this .

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 .

Logistics is one of the highest cost centers for any company , but also oftentimes the very last thing that's ever thought about .

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 ? Because you're moving 30 truckloads instead of eight dedicated 747s , right ? 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 .

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 . So money does matter . 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 . How do you break ?

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 ?

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 . So we we started in a very different place than we're at now .

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 . Um , and we both have a passion for music . So that's where we knew we wanted to be and that's where we knew the larger jobs were .

So we started going to all of these different conferences where these people were and you just need one shot , right . So like you get it . You get on well with somebody .

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 .

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 . So we just kind of snowballed from there .

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 .

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 .

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 ? So it's like I know what it a carrier on the phone . It's like olive oil , right . It's like I know what it's like on the other side . 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 . This is logistics .

This is not perfection . Like we can do , we can cross our T's and dot our I's as much as we possibly can . Something's going to happen , yeah , and you communicate that right , like you can't communicate . Nobody's perfect , whether it's logistics , it's finance , it's technology .

It's a podcast , although Nate you're pretty perfect , but something's going to happen always , right . So as long as we communicate that on the front end it sucks while it's happening , but people will understand .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 . And it's not just us , it's not just people in the office . 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 ? So we are asset-based in brokerage .

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 .

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 . It's not exciting . We kind of pride ourselves on paying our carriers and our drivers really well and letting them know what they're doing . Like , hey man , you're delivering a part of the stage for Luke Combs .

And then it's like , oh my God , I love Luke Combs , that's cool , this is great . And they're excited . And if something happens and they got to sit on site for five hours , you're not dealing with , I need detention , blah , blah .

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 . A hundred percent and that and like . For us that brings joy .

Yeah , cause you're making a difference in in so many people's lives .

We just moved something for Beyonce or Dave Matthews Band or Phish or whatever it might be . Now you become a little jaded . 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 .

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 . So we've been doing this for a long time . At that point I think I played the same song on repeat on my desk for like eight hours because I was so excited .

So there's still things that that happen .

I mean , I've been fortunate to spend some time around professional athletes in my career . 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 .

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 . We shipped that fire truck down to Venezuela . I got to go down and spend a week at his house . I met his family , his kids , his extended family and they had a festival in town .

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 . And at first you're like , oh my goodness , they're heroes , they're flawless , they're perfect . 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 .

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 . 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 .

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 . And you got 20 or 30,000 people that have been saving money for a couple of months . Maybe it's their first concert and they're 15 years old .

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 . they're paying us a lot of money like I , if , if I wanted to get the ticket , like I'll get the ticket .

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 . Um , cause it just makes doing your job that much better .

Yeah , um , that's one side of the token . 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 . Um , and when I say free , they just say , hey , I want to go to the show , and like , if we have a relationship . we'll ask , and if we don't , then we buy it .

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 . We had an amazing time on site .

I saw Chance the Rapper and it was like the coolest thing ever because it was like I was involved with this . Then drove back home at the time , the company was based in New York city . We're not anymore .

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 . Um , can you guys do this ? It was like absolutely like I am .

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 .

There's a lot of moments like that , but I feel like that's one that I'll I'll probably always remember .

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 . Well , for entrepreneurs , it can reach that same point .

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 . No , you are married to this , and so that's why I'm leaning in a little bit more on your 10 years in .

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 . How do you not stay cynical or anything like that , as just as an entrepreneur , it's really it's a good question .

We owe $15,000 for whatever mistake . This customer hasn't paid their bill in 90 days .

There's a trillion things . It sounds goofy , but getting up and walking and getting exercise for me is so important and so helpful in keeping a fresh mind . My business partner and I have an incredible relationship .

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 . We're both really fortunate to have each other .

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 . It's very hard to remember . 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 .

So , listen , those are things about running a business that just are inevitable . They have to happen . 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 . And to force yourself to get away and to get on job sites every now and then and meet with clients also super helpful .

And it gives you that reminder of why you do what you do . 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 .

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 . It's like you just kind of take a step back and you think , like this is really cool . Like , what we're doing is really cool .

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 .

Um , it's my career . It's really cool . 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 .

You're not doing it alone , and then you're also connecting that back to something bigger than yourself . 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 .

10 years is a long time to do anything .

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 . 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 .

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 . 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 .

But as a founder you are , because the buck does stop with you .

Maybe that's why I get starstruck sometimes hearing people's stories , because I find it so compelling . 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 .

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 .

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 .

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 . So I mean again , like as an entrepreneur , as a founder , the buck does start with you , right .

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 .

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 ?

Like where do you feel like you are the most effective and enjoying it ?

things that are kind of out of your control . But you can get them to be like 75% the way they're , 80% , the way they're in . The rest is like well , we'll see what happens .

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 . 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 .

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 . 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 . That's my happy place .

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 . But what have you been doing in Vegas lately and what excites you about the future of Yolk ?

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 . So Rory and I my partner we're just like , okay , what , what's next ? Right ? Like how can we keep this going ?

Because our day to day needs are not as high as they used to be to run the transport side of things . So we invested in this building and the sole purpose is to . It's called show services and storage . The sole purpose is to provide services to shows

within the storage space , right ? So for so long , we found a void on the West coast for trailer parking and short-term storage .

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 . So there's a ton of opportunity there um to define what the future of entertainment logistics looks like .

We did the same thing in Nashville , on a much , much , much smaller scale , and found success in that , and our building is full . 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 . So that's what's going on in Vegas .

We'll also have plans to have a small like onsite mechanic shop . 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 . So we're working to outsource an onsite mobile mechanic so he can service everyone in the yard .

So it's a completely vertically integrated location .

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 . So that's what's going on in Vegas . As far as the future of Yoke Transport goes , for a long time we've been on a brokerage only model . In the last 18 months we've started investing into assets , both on tractors and in trailers .

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 . We're really successful in what we call the spot freight market . Uh , so we do a ton for heavy infrastructure , for events . That's kind of our sweet spot .

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 . So that's that's sort of where we're going next with with our growth plans on the transportation side .

We connect people , we connect shippers with carriers , we connect tours with warehouse space . So I mean , all we're doing all day is connecting people and we're hauling stuff . So we thought that the word yoke was a really good fit .

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 .

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 .

In my opinion , and you recognize , I mean logistics is a support function in any or . 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 .

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 . So thank you very much for sharing your story . This , this is helpful to many , and I just want to let you know that , like always , we're all rooting for you .

To learn more about the show and connect with the growing community of entrepreneurs , visit logisticsfounderscom . And , of course , thank you to all the founders who trust us to share their stories .