¶ Founder Stories in Supply Chain World
Hello and welcome to the Bootstrapers Guide to Logistics , the podcast highlighting founders doing it the way that doesn't get a lot of attention . We're here to change that by sharing their stories and inspiring others to take the leap .
It's a roller coaster ride that you might ultimately fail .
That's when I kind of knew I was onto something . It was very hard . It truly is building a legacy .
The more life you live , the more wisdom you have .
As we are where we're supposed to be kind of answering the call . Don't shoulder entrepreneurship on your own . I'm your host , nate Shoots . Let's build something together from the ground up . Hello everybody , and welcome back to the show . We're so glad that you're here listening to Founder Stories in the supply chain world .
This week , I am excited to bring in Kevin Miles . He's the CEO and co-founder of Eureka , which is a BI platform that helps transportation companies and brokerages participate in RFPs .
If you've ever been one of those folks who had to pull together 10,000 lanes and rates at some point in your career , you probably had 62 Excel files going and a bunch of guessing about your pricing . I know that's how I used to do it back in the day . So excited to hear from Kevin on how he's tackling that specific problem in the industry .
Good morning , kevin . How are we finding you today ?
Good morning , nate . I'm finding me in Connecticut and doing well .
Eureka is a neat name that comes from this historical moment when I can't remember the guy's name , but he figured out how to evaluate size and weight of the King's Crown . I believe is what it was . He's sitting in a bathtub and he used the displacement of water theory to unlock this puzzle that had stumped people for many , many years .
He was so excited he jumped out and said Eureka . And the story goes that he ran through the streets naked because he was so excited to go tell the King what he had learned . So that moment of discovery and excitement is a part of your story .
So I'm curious when did you have that moment that you had an idea that you just had to go running through the streets to tell people about ?
Yeah , I think his name was Archimedes , so I could be wrong . Thank you , and funny . When I had my Eureka moment I was actually thinking about the gold miners out in California who , when they found the gold , yelled Eureka .
But my personal story was when there was so much data being I don't want to say discovered , but I remember seeing a headline like data is the new oil and there was more and more data coming into the supply chain space . It was more accessible .
I was looking at bids and getting results back and doing work on an Excel spreadsheet and just had this Eureka moment where it all made sense to me and it was based on all this data that I was looking at and I was like Eureka , that's it .
It's when I found that little piece of information or little data that I was looking for that solved this problem I had .
What specifically was the problem and how did you build conviction that you knew this could be a viable business ?
Yeah . So it was comparing rates from different companies and seeing the differences in some of these rates and then looking at trying to forecast the rate on my own so that I could understand where they should be coming in at .
So looking at some historical data , looking at some present data , looking at the information I was getting back from brokers , and saying there's probably a way to do this better than they're doing and give back to a truer rate to what the market's going to be or where the market's going to be , and so that's kind of where it all came from .
It's literally just looking at Excel spreadsheets and saying there's a lot of data out there . If people had the time to actually analyze it and look at it , they can probably do a good job of figuring out where rates are going to be .
Have you always had a curiosity with math and numbers or science in general ?
I did , yeah , so always lean towards the science and math . My background is in engineer and spent a lot of time in the labs , whether it be math or science , just looking at numbers and figuring things out and was decent at it , so kind of stuck with it .
Schooling has been a big part of your life . As a result of that , too , it looks like .
It has and that kind of goes back . I think about my upbringing , and both my parents were immigrated to this country from Jamaica . The one thing they always instilled in us was schooling , education , something that gets the degree regardless of what you want to do , something that they can't take away .
And I think about that now and I'm not sure if it still stays true . But when you're just getting to the country and you know that you got to work hard and you got to have a degree to move up in the world , you got to get the degree . So I always , it was always instilled in me to just really focus on education .
Tell me more about your parents . I know you're a first generation and it sounds like first in your family to go to college and then you went off and got a master's degree on top of it .
Yeah , so I wasn't the first . I'm the first . You know I have five sisters all older and they have some degrees , but I was I think I was the first one to get a master's . But yeah , we all were really focused on education and doing that . So my mom was a administrator . She was a secretary at a hospital for over 30 years and my dad was a machinist .
He worked with saws . He built saws or helped make saws for a company and was there for 30 years . So this is , you know , people worked at the same company for a long time was really important them for job security and providing for their family , and so one thing that they always again instilled in us was you know , make sure you're focused on education .
And I just happened to lean toward the math and science field , got a degree in manufacturing engineering , but then when I graduated , ups was hiring and so I ended up going to UPS and being an industrial engineer there and spent some time focused on predictions .
I worked in various roles as an industrial engineer , but really focused on like helping forecast volumes for them and understand the operations and provide operating plans , looking at measurements and all the different procedures that they had , and it was an amazing experience in terms of getting a right into the workforce , working for a company that had great methods and
procedures , great processes , really focused on understanding what you're trying to do and why you're trying to do it and how it can apply to a really large organization .
I followed a similar path in the beginning of my career of 12 years at CH Robinson , another , you know , very large , well put together organization that maybe one of their biggest strengths is just simply training young , ambitious folks on how to be professionals and learn a discipline . Ups reminds me of that too .
The first million square foot plus warehouse I was ever in was a UPS building . I remember just walking through it and being amazed that there were hundreds of people working that seemed to know exactly what to do next , and there didn't appear to be a conductor leading the symphony .
They were , all you know , using RF guns , and it was telling them what to do , but to my young mind , I'd never seen that kind of coordination between people in such an amazing space doing , you know , complicated things , and big companies that have the systems and the tools to offer that to people can be a launchpad for a career .
My question for you after all that , though , is how does that experience translate to okay ? Now you're a founder , it's day one . There are no systems , there's no HR department , there's no anything , and you have to reinvent yourself to start something from scratch . How difficult was that transition for you ?
Yeah , no , that was really challenging and I didn't go from UPS to this . There was a couple of places in between . That gave me a little more confidence in starting and getting more logistics experience . The things that I took from it were really about the systems and thinking about the systems as I'm just going through wearing multiple hats , right ?
So ideally , companies , businesses , startups typically fail because they don't have the system . That's not because they can't find business or they can't necessarily grow . It's because they start to grow and then they don't have the systems in place to keep up .
So for me , it's important and I try to take some of those things I learned at UPS about methods and procedures , documentation , really keeping track , so that I'm not repeating the same mistakes over and over again because I didn't keep track of it initially . They had a term there we say primacy . It's like do it right the first time .
I try to take that into account when I'm excited about something with the business but know that it can be repetitive or it could be something that's going to come up again , and stopping and making note of it versus just getting into the transactional .
On the relationship side , which is often very , very different than the operations or the math , etc . It can be really hard to find team members or early supporters or evena co-founder that has a complementary skill set to yours and that you have chemistry with . What was your co-founder journey like in the beginning and how would you describe that now ?
Well , now it's great . Initially it wasn't my initial co-founder . I was the business guy and I brought somebody in who was a technical software engineer . So the idea was that I would kind of have business and he would build the software based on my ideas and where I thought things should be going .
And I was out working on talking to brokers and getting these early adopters and these folks that would believe in my vision and help build it out . And I had some folks who were like , yeah , absolutely , I'm ready , I'll send you some data , I'll get you started . And in the meantime I was going to build this out with my partner .
I remember to the day what I thought was happening wasn't happening , and that was , you know , he was coding and really taking the ideas that I had and building out the software . After three , maybe four months of working with him and having customers waiting for this beta product and being able to test things out , I realized that he hadn't done anything at all .
We were sitting next to each other for a lot of that time and his laptop was up and he kept telling me he was working on some code and he was going to do it in a different language . He really wanted to be cutting edge and unfortunately he never created a line of code .
No , After four months ? What was the conversation like when you realized that ?
Not good , not good Things I want to say on this podcast . I was a family member and so it caused a major issue in the family and I didn't talk to this person for years . We since got past that and I didn't talk to him for years .
Does that inform future decisions about ? Working with family is risky and there are times where it is the secret to success .
Just a few weeks ago , we were talking with Ravi and Shaman Nahoja at Optum a father and son team and they would attribute a large part of their success to how well they work together and they can talk about business over the dinner table . It's a superpower that are an unfair advantage , almost , and that they're always working because they're always family .
They're always talking about it . There is this other side , and you do hear some of the horror stories . Based on your experience , would your advice be to other people looking for co-founders to not do that ? How would you guide the next generation of entrepreneurs ?
Yeah , that's a tricky question . I think this one has just been really unique , and I don't want to say it would be the same for every situation , but for me it didn't work .
How did you recover from that with your customers ?
I literally got online and went to these co-founderscom and different types of websites looking for a technical co-founder who could help . I had a couple of people give me some advice on places to go to almost build some things myself . I'm not a technical and I'm not an software engineer in that sense , but I was able to do a little bit with the data .
In that same period of time .
¶ Entrepreneurship, Growth, and Customer Acquisition
My current co-founder I met in high school . We were friends for a long time . He just happened to be in between jobs and I told him what I was trying to do and he said absolutely I can do it . In two weeks he had a prototype up where we could actually load data in and get results and start to see things . It was totally amazing .
You start taking that data product out and getting adopters for it . Do you remember your first customer that said not only am I interested in what you have now and the vision that you're looking to build , but I'm ready to start paying you . Do you remember that day ? I do .
It was probably a couple . I remember when there were two people that I'd worked with prior who said yes , absolutely I'll help you out and I'll share data with you and I'll give you some live , real information to play with and see what you can come up with , and I think it was that point .
Then there was a point , when you write , when I got my first paying customer , which was amazing as well . So those two times definitely stick in my head . One of them is still on board today , so that's created a really long-term relationship with them .
That's great . What are you working on now , or what are you really excited about ? So ?
now I'm really excited about just the direction of logistics in general and the amount of opportunity from a technology standpoint to capture again the data that's available and the challenges that are in the space .
Bringing those things together somehow using technology to help make their jobs easier , reduce some of the headaches and stress that people have in their job that's what really excites me now .
And as your team grows and the business itself changes , how do you stay true to not only the vision that you have , but your own values and the way that you want to do business ?
So that's a good question . For me it's kind of going back to the integrity and what has gotten us customers and kept customers , and that goes just customer service . And we're not perfect . I'm not perfect , but ideally it's the thing I used to have . It's just like bad news early is better than bad news later .
So if we know something's not right , I try to be in front of it and just be true to who I am and the integrity of the product and what we're trying to do .
And so I think if I continue with that and instill that in people that come to work with us , bringing that service side of what we provide now and kind of a product form that allows people to really integrate and take advantage of all this great information and data that's out there , so , when you're being an entrepreneur and you get stuck on an issue or a
barrier , do you have mentors that you go reach out to ?
Do you talk with folks outside the industry ? How do you grow and develop yourself as a leader ? I ?
do have advisors and mentors that I've met along the way and I've been fortunate to work with really good leaders in previous roles . I had great managers and leaders there who I always felt just had really insightful things to say , and I reach out to them even to this day , just share where I'm at and what I'm going through .
And then I've met other entrepreneurs who know the challenges of being an entrepreneur that I reach out to and talk to every now and then and bounce ideas off of and share things on . I found that that's a great place to get some insight and advice on what they've done to get past it so I don't have to go ahead and make that mistake going forward .
Absolutely . What are your favorite parts of having your own business ?
Oh , definitely the freedom . My wife has been a supporter from day one with the business , which has been helpful . You talk about family and business . She's not a part of it . She's definitely been supportive and helped me with challenges I've had and given me advice from the outside looking in on ways to improve what we're doing .
My favorite parts is the freedom to spend time with my kids and go to their soccer games , working on something that has a big challenge in the industry and seeing the value that we're creating and hearing the testimonials and feedback of how we've helped companies and also just building really cool stuff .
Who are your ideal customers right now and how can they find you ?
Our ideal customer is anybody who's doing RFPs or bids from shippers and looking to save some time and win and compete , and you can catch me at wwweurekabicom and my email is Kevin at eurekabicom .
Well , kevin , thank you very much for sharing your story . I wish I had known of your solution many , many years ago , when I was the guy compiling hundreds of thousands of rates , one at a time , and doing all of that . So I know for sure you have product market fit .
Knowing some of your story , I hope others can find you and reach out , and we all want to work with people .
¶ Supporting Bootstrap Companies in Business
We want to do business with people , and one of our goals here is to help get more awareness of the Bootstrap companies that are out there , that can afford to buy all the PR and sponsor all the events and get the attention , and so that's what we're here to do is to support the businesses that are doing it the hard way , and so we are glad to support you
on your journey , kevin , and we're all rooting for you . Thanks , latinate , appreciate you . Thanks for listening to another episode of the Bootstrapers Guide to Logistics , and a special thank you to our sponsors and the team behind the scenes who make it all possible . Be sure to like , follow or subscribe to the podcast to get the latest updates .
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 .