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From natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes to pandemics, cyberattacks, and labor strikes, companies have to navigate so many complexities to get goods where they need to go.
What's their secret weapon to operating within the unknown?
It’s the people.
Welcome to Supply Chain Champions, the show that showcases the stories of those who keep supply chains running smoothly. We're here to highlight their untold stories and share lessons they’ve learned along the way.
Join us as we peel back the curtain on the people who make supply chains work and enhance your own career in the process.
Tune in. Get smart. Move forward.
Nate Shutes [00:00:00]:
I've been saying for a while that I think the industry has over indexed on speed as being the biggest attribute. And specifically I'm thinking around like e-commerce, delivery to consumers, the Amazon effect. I disagree. I think it is moving towards a state of certainty.
Eric Fullerton [00:00:22]:
Welcome to Supply Chain Champions, the show brought to you by project44, where we're talking to the people who make supply chains work. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Supply Chain Champions. I am your host, Eric Fullerton, and I have the pleasure of being joined today by Nate Shutes. Nate is the VP of Global Fulfillment & Logistics at Blu Dot. But that is not all. He is also the host of a fellow podcast, The Bootstrapper's Guide to Logistics and the Creator of Ballast, which is a, a private network and community really for, for supply chain entrepreneurs. So we'll get in and dig into all that stuff, but Nate, first, thanks for being here.
Nate Shutes [00:01:09]:
Thanks for having me, Eric. It's nice to be on the other side of the microphone for once.
Eric Fullerton [00:01:13]:
I'm sure it feels good. You know, we have a couple things to break down today. I want to talk logistics and we have, you know, your podcast, which you started, kind of what you focus on. What was the impetus for kicking that off? I also want to touch on Ballast, the entrepreneurship component. There's a lot to cover, but I think we should start with kind of what started it all, which is the supply chain logistics industry, your role at Blue Dot. So let's start there. Sound good?
Nate Shutes [00:01:43]:
Sure. I'll give you a quick one minute. Bio. I was in my undergrad class. I was going for economics or finance. I was undecided between the two of them. And a professor came into one of our classes and started talking about this new logistics program that they were starting up. And I had spent all of my recent time really thinking through economics and macro and how people make decisions on how they behave.
Nate Shutes [00:02:07]:
And then when he started describing supply chain, I thought, oh, that's actually applied macroeconomics. That's what people actually do. And then goods and services have to flow all around the world. And something about it just leapt out at me. It was so compelling. And I. I visualized it as a puzzle that was moving in three dimensions, like a Rubik's cube or something. And I immediately after class walked up two floors in the business department and changed my major that day and finished my undergraduate degree with a transportation and logistics degree and then went to work right away at C.H.
Nate Shutes [00:02:43]:
robinson and got to spend 12 great years working for one of the largest and most successful three PLs in the world and learned how to be an adult and a professional and understand how business works, not just transportation. Then eventually left, joined another 3 PL, then got a Lean Six Sigma black belt. Somewhere along the way got an MBA and then switched over to the shipper side and spent a little over four years at sleep number and the last nearly five years at Blue Dot getting to operate fulfillment and logistics for a furniture designer and retailer. So I feel like I've gotten to sit in many seats. I've gotten some good educational background and then I've also gotten the real world. Yeah, that theory doesn't always hold up in, in, in real life and to be an operator too. So I feel very fortunate 25 years into my career to have that behind me and still feel like I'm learning every day.
Eric Fullerton [00:03:38]:
Yeah, absolutely. I have to tip my cap to the way you just kind of split in the black belt. That's.
Nate Shutes [00:03:43]:
That was pretty. I am unabashedly a nerd and I love Lean and I love all of the principles that go along with Six Sigma. And my kids give me a very hard time for it because if I grill like steaks or something and they, they don't come out perfect, my kids will look at me and say, ah, it was only Four Sigma, dad.
Eric Fullerton [00:04:04]:
Yeah.
Nate Shutes [00:04:04]:
Right.
Eric Fullerton [00:04:06]:
So for those who, who aren't familiar, Blue Dot is. It's a modern furniture designer and retailer and they're really focused on these contemporary minimalist styles. Said simply, they make really cool stuff. And when you think about the logistical component of that, right? There's when you think about big and bulky and especially big and bulky in the last mile to the consumer, there's a whole slew of different requirements and complexity. And then when you're talking about high value goods, which is just what you sell and what you do, there's an additional layer of customer expectation and service level. Can you talk me through that in terms of the process and the approach that you take?
Nate Shutes [00:04:50]:
Sure. Well, first, with the type of products that we design and sell, everything is a design opportunity. From the time that someone sketches a prototype to creating a mock up out of cardboard or foam, choosing what materials to use and refining the silhouette of the object itself. There's a lot that goes into bringing an idea to life in the physical world to make a product that's beautiful, well designed, and it's going to last a long time that people fall in love with. Designing the customer experience. We can simply translate those same principles. And oftentimes that is reverse engineering. It not around trucks and boxes, but around consumers.
Nate Shutes [00:05:34]:
And consumers are not just people that give you money. They're people that have a home and they are living in that home, trying to elevate it or bring new life to it if they're doing refurbishment or a renovation project and furniture is just a piece of that. And so we get this unique opportunity to be a part of their story and how we choose to curate the experience when they receive that product and how it gets installed or assembled or brought into their bedroom, that's a sacred place. You have to have a lot of respect when you're going into someone's home. And so beyond just the blocking and tackling of delivery, there's this whole other element of it's a very intimate exchange that people are welcoming you into their homes. And to honor that and respect that and treat it as a design opportunity is and has been one of the great joys of my own career.
Eric Fullerton [00:06:31]:
It's all about this consistent commitment to excellence, right? So if you have that in the products that you design and develop and you have that maybe in the more tangible retail store experience, that has to follow through to that delivery experience. And that's where like when you look at Blue Dot and I was doing a little bit of research and you know, I saw there's some really like strong, steady, consistent growth over the past like 10, 12 years especially one of the founders had a great quote, said, you know, we're, we're a mule, not a unicorn. Which that slow and steady growth, but 30% is not small. It's very, very significant. But that is really possible with many founding principles, but also effective and strategic supply chain management and operations, right?
Eric Fullerton [00:07:19]:
So can you talk a little bit about your journey there and how it started and how it evolved over that time and that consistent growth?
Nate Shutes [00:07:26]:
Sure. That phrase that you just mentioned literally was the deciding factor for me to join the company. I was doing my own research after having been recruited, I was interviewing, I was going through the process, I was meeting the team and I came across that quote on the Internet and it really spoke to me. It is such a humble approach. It's not flashy, it is quiet and it just delivers. And that's what a mule does. You know, a unicorn wants attention. And in the venture backed world that we see a lot of in the supply chain and logistics industry, there's nothing wrong with that.
Nate Shutes [00:08:01]:
You have to capture people's attention and spend a lot of money on marketing and make big promises that you hope one day to be able to deliver on. And yet the way that most business has been done for centuries is far humbler and showing up and doing the work when no one's looking and making good choices to not cut corners. And that small sentence, yeah, we're a mule, not a unicorn. That was the moment I knew that this is the place for me.
Eric Fullerton [00:08:30]:
So I want to switch gears a little bit and I want to talk about entrepreneurship and supply chain technology. So there's a couple angles we can come at this. But, you know, I think we're, we're at this interesting and complicated time. You know, on one hand, there's a component to the supply chain tech world that feels a little bit dire, right? For some companies, sure. And then at the same time, there are these new logistics tech companies in the age, as we enter this age of AI, it kind of feel like we're coming out of the woodwork and exploding. And you go to any industry event and there's proof of that. So we'll talk a little bit about ballast and the need for the community in a moment. But can I just get your expert view on where is the market today?
Nate Shutes [00:09:18]:
Where do you think it's headed from a tech perspective? I think several things are true simultaneously. There is a lot of hype and most of that hype is going to fall away. Just putting AI at the end of your name may be enough to raise a seed round, but it's not going to win you customers and get you to an IPO anymore. It's not like the dot com era, although it feels like that in some ways. There are actual use cases of AI being put into place today that are not just tech, it's tech plus people. And when they're finding this hybrid, and sometimes it's partnerships or strategic alliances with multiple service providers that are banding together and building solutions for the carrier or the Shipper or the 3PL community that are far more robust than just an AI tool that solves a minor problem. And for those people, the entrepreneurs in that space to me are very exciting because they're seeing that there is a lot of risk in the market right now. The economy's doing what it's doing and there's a ton of uncertainty.
Nate Shutes [00:10:25]:
And yet entrepreneurs are great at identifying opportunities and how to capitalize on them. And so I would say a large portion of the businesses that are tech businesses that are out there touting AI right now won't be here in two years. And yet there's a handful that are doing amazing work. I'm seeing it myself with my own eyes, not hype. Literally going to change entire sections of the industry.
Eric Fullerton [00:10:48]:
Both of these things can be true, I think is the right notion for what's happening. I think that's well said. The growth of a lot of these companies, the almost like exploding entrepreneurship mentality and market, it's clear that supply chain technology, this is a right market for entrepreneurship. That's really exciting. At the same time, though, there are these. In most instances, they're first time founders and entrepreneurs. There's probably historically been a bit of a gap in terms of the community there and the network there and the idea sharing. Now this is something that you saw and in some ways kind of fell into your lap and resulted in ballast.
Eric Fullerton [00:11:28]:
So can you tell me a little bit about that story and how things evolved?
Nate Shutes [00:11:33]:
Sure. So I feel very fortunate. I'm a rare breed myself, where I work for a shipper and then I'm also an entrepreneur myself and I have this community for other entrepreneurs. And I'm also a media guy with my own podcast and I get to build a network of people in the industry to learn from. And so all of those forces converged with ballast, where because of the network of entrepreneurs that I built, I began to hear more and more from a lot of them. The things that don't get talked about. It's really fun to talk about the technology and the growth and the opportunities. It's not a lot of fun to talk about losing your life savings.
Nate Shutes [00:12:11]:
You know, it's not a ton of fun to talk about not seeing your kids play soccer because you can't peel yourself away from the computer, because you've got to do endless demos all afternoon trying to find your first customer. And so there's a very human toll that entrepreneurship can take. It's not that way for everybody, but for a large number of entrepreneurs, they are isolated, they're under a ton of pressure, and most of the time they don't have anybody to talk to. And one of my superpowers is I'm an encourager. I love to support and encourage other people. And I stumbled into a group of people that I related to that were solving interesting problems and were also going through some challenges or wild successes. And they just wanted to share it with somebody. So I brought together a handful of folks three years ago, just on a zoom call.
Nate Shutes [00:13:00]:
Just like you were telling me you were having a hard time with this problem. This other person was telling me they just solved that problem. So I wanted to connect the two of you and see if you could help each other out and that turned out to be really sticky. And the first time we got together on a zoom call, it was three and a half hours long. And they said, hey, can we do this again next month? And I said yes, that was a lot of fun. I learned something today and we did it again the next month. And then somebody said, hey, can I bring somebody else with and over time, we now have dozens and dozens of entrepreneurs that get together every month and give each other practical business help on I don't know how insurance works, but I got to change my insurance or I need to hire a cfo. I've never done that before and I don't know what to do or I'm having conflict with my co founder.
Nate Shutes [00:13:50]:
What do I do about that? I'm anybody to talk to. And so we get this range of people having a very human experience and they just want other people to connect with that they can trust and have real authentic conversation in private the things that they can't say anywhere else. And so ballast has become a place for people who are interested in collaborating and building deep relationships with other entrepreneurs in the supply chain. And I get to benefit from it. I have a front row seat to learning the latest and greatest that's happening in our industry with people that I care about and look up to. And I feel like I've hacked the system somehow because yeah, I don't know how that all came to be. I feel very, very fortunate.
Eric Fullerton [00:14:32]:
I know these are private conversations, but any topic or anything that came up that you didn't really think about before and learned a bunch in any of those conversations somewhat recently.
Nate Shutes [00:14:45]:
I think the one that stands out the most to me that would be helpful for other people to know is that entrepreneurs don't have this work life balance or separation that employees strive for. For entrepreneurs, their identity as a human being is wrapped up in large part in their business. So when the business is doing really well, they feel great. They feel great about themselves and they're like, I'm a successful entrepreneur. That means I'm valuable. And then when their business is not doing well, oftentimes they think I'm not as good or now my own self worth is lower. And so we spend a fair amount of time talking about that and untangling the difference between who you are as a business person or a professional from your identity as a dad or a mom or a sibling. That distinction gets so murky for entrepreneurs at times and it's easy to lose perspective.
Nate Shutes [00:15:44]:
They can't leave work at work if they have A bad day at the company, they can't just quit, they can't leave. They're stuck. You know, so there's a different kind of experience that they're having that most people don't understand. And if we can shed just a little bit of light on that. And they're job creators also, at the end of the day, if you work for somebody that started your company, you owe them a debt of gratitude, even if you don't like them.
Eric Fullerton [00:16:10]:
Entrepreneurship is something that people acknowledge, I think is exciting and it's engrossing. But what I don't think folks often realize is how lonely it can be.
Nate Shutes [00:16:24]:
Yes, and I was guilty of romanticizing entrepreneurship a lot myself, especially on the Bootstrapper's Guide to Logistics. We launched that three years ago. I was so enthralled with these stories that I inadvertently created this idea in my head of these people as heroes. And they're not. They're just regular people having their own experiences doing something that I think is very cool, but they're also just people and demystifying or de. Romanticizing the entrepreneurial journey. I've gotten to see the underbelly of it. Now I know what it takes.
Nate Shutes [00:17:00]:
I know how hard it is and how demanding it is. And now I want to help with that side of it too.
Eric Fullerton [00:17:05]:
Yeah, makes sense. So you mentioned the Bootstrapper's Guide to Logistics. You know, this isn't a podcast that you started. It's been running for about three and a half years, which is, which is a great accomplishment. And I think for supply chain tech, I mean, you're pretty, pretty early to the podcast game. I think a lot of podcasts, including ours, have come more recently in the past year or two. So I have two questions for you about the podcast. Why start and why keep going?
Nate Shutes [00:17:36]:
The podcast started because of a random post on Twitter. At midnight one night, Craig Fuller, the founder of FreightWaves and Sonar, made a post about how much attention goes to the venture backed businesses that are out there and their founders and said, hey, we don't give enough attention to the underdog or the little guy who's just building a business in private with not a lot of fanfare, and we ought to do something about that. I couldn't get that thought out of my head. And so the next day I woke up and I sent him a note and said, I don't know what it is, but I'm in. And he said, okay, let's do a podcast. And so for the first year of the show, I created it, FreightWaves published it and built a nice audience from it and a personal brand. I'm now kind of the logistics founder guy. If you're in supply chain and you're an entrepreneur, chances are we know each other somehow.
Nate Shutes [00:18:30]:
And then after a year, I took the podcast independent and got my own sponsors. And that was my own chance at building something from scratch on my own bootstrapping it too. And then what keeps me going? You can't do a podcast for that long if it's not something you really love. Yeah. When people say, oh, should I start a podcast? I've got a great idea. And I say, can you talk about that topic for two hours in front of a room full of strangers and not run out of things to say? If the answer is yes, and you really love that thing, then you probably can. If you're just doing it because you want a following, you're going to burn out. It takes commitment to the thing itself to keep it going.
Nate Shutes [00:19:13]:
Because there are. It's a grind sometimes. You got to edit, you've got to promote, you have to do all these things. That is not just what you hear or see on the show itself. And why I keep going is because I keep finding interesting stories of people taking these risks and overcoming obstacles and conquering their fears and building something that they utterly believe in against all odds. And so I keep doing it because I'm still inspired. And the day I stop being inspired is the day I stop.
Eric Fullerton [00:19:44]:
It's funny you mentioned kind of that thing was in your head. And for this podcast we had had a couple different ideas. And the one thing that I kept saying as we were doing kind of the planning ideation was like, I feel like we only hear about supply chain when things go wrong. And that's part of it. And then outside of that, there's a lot of tech, right? This company doing X and raising Y. And those things are exciting, right? It's headlines. But for all the tech, for all the ships and trains and planes, at its core, it's a people business. So how can you shine a light on some of those.
Eric Fullerton [00:20:25]:
Those stories and those people? And that was kind of the premise for that. So it just, you just got me thinking.
Nate Shutes [00:20:30]:
It's amazing that anything gets accomplished in a global supply chain world. That a bottle of shampoo is on the shelf at the store when you go to buy it is a modern day miracle. The number of hands that it passed through to get to where it is is mindboggling. My mind is blown by that. And I don't Take it for granted.
Eric Fullerton [00:20:53]:
Once you actually start to think about it, it is actually remarkable that anything gets anywhere. It's insane, actually.
Nate Shutes [00:20:59]:
It really, really is.
Eric Fullerton [00:21:00]:
Yes, there's tech and yes, there's carriers. Yes, there's, there's workers who are doing some amazing things. But there's also these, these people who are responsible for operating and managing these global supply chains like you. And it's, it's not an easy job by any means. I think we should close with a couple rapid fire questions. I always like to okay to answer or to ask a list and we're kind of like get some quick takes from you. So let's close on that. So what is one thing that you wish everyone who worked in supply chain knew if they did that the industry would be better for it?
Nate Shutes [00:21:38]:
I wish the industry had a greater appreciation for the people who actually do the work. I don't actually do the work. I plan the work, I strategize the work. I build teams that do the work, but I don't actually do it. I could disappear for a year in that shampoo bottle. It might be a little bit later getting to the shelf, but it would still get there. But the person who helped manufacture it, the person who loaded it onto a container, the person who works at the port in a crane and got that container off of a ship. I wish we found better ways.
Nate Shutes [00:22:11]:
Not just once a year. We have Truck Driver Appreciation Day. I wish we found ways to honor the front lines more.
Eric Fullerton [00:22:18]:
Yeah, it's a great call. What is one trait that all of the best supply chain professionals seem to have?
Nate Shutes [00:22:26]:
Curiosity. They never stop peeling the onion or peeling the layers back. They want to know why something happened, not just that it happened, right?
Eric Fullerton [00:22:36]:
So I'm going to give you, going to give you a chance to retire one overused buzzword in supply chain or supply chain tech. What would you put in the closet?
Nate Shutes [00:22:45]:
Well, I'm a shipper, so I'm going to say that is gri. I don't ever want to hear it again. No more general rate increases. That's an overused acronym that we can put away.
Eric Fullerton [00:22:55]:
Awesome. So I want to talk about some supply chain and supply chain tech trends. I'd like your take on one that you think is overrated and one that is underrated.
Nate Shutes [00:23:10]:
Underrated. I will say integration. Anybody who's in the integration space, obviously P44 is. But that space has more tools expand. That means more tools need to be connected. And that's an underrated skill. Whether it's EDI or API or webhooks, you name it. That whole ecosystem of how tools connect to one another, without that layer, none of it works.
Nate Shutes [00:23:37]:
So I think that's an underappreciated area. What do I think is overrated? I think bland TMS applications that don't have a clear differentiator are going to drop like flies over the coming decade. Transportation itself is mostly a commodity at this point. And a lot of the tech is also starting to become a commodity too. I mean, you could say the same thing on the WMS side. You could say it on the OMS layer. There are lots of tools out there that are undifferentiated, that serve a small number of customers. And if you're not innovating and adding capabilities, eventually somebody is going to take your customer.
Eric Fullerton [00:24:22]:
Right. The idea on TMS and some wms, it's interesting because they're so entrenched in day to day operations that I think the demand for innovation wanes a little bit in that tech space. And it's really hard to make a call to like ribbon replace tms.
Nate Shutes [00:24:43]:
Oh good lord. It's insanely difficult.
Eric Fullerton [00:24:46]:
Exactly. However, that only works for so long, right? Eventually there comes an inflection point in some of these commoditized tech. Now it's not just commoditized, but there are like, there's a new, faster, lightweight, simpler way to do some of these things and maybe you just start by experimenting with it and then it can start to replace some of those operations.
Nate Shutes [00:25:05]:
I think we're going to see a move towards modularity of features from a system, are going to start to be added to features of a different system, integrated and then add in some low code, no code, and AI whiz bang on top of it. And now you can like a LEGO set, pull a piece out, put a new piece in. I think that kind of architecture is possible. I don't think it's happening at any level of scale right now, but I do think that is a future that excites me.
Eric Fullerton [00:25:40]:
Yeah, it's similar to what's happened in other industries around things like microservices and the way that content is now created and distributed across web platforms and things like that. Something in a different life, a different career I had some experience in. But it also speaks to what you were talking about around the importance of integration, like the connectivity between all of those services, even just the core ones. But then if you start to expand into a feature set from several different vendors, having that data integration ecosystem becomes more important and then plus AI, it's only going to be as effective as the ecosystem and the data and the integration backbone that is there.
Nate Shutes [00:26:22]:
It's going to be very hard to do, but for those that are able to do it, they're going to have the flexibility to adapt to whatever the conditions are.
Eric Fullerton [00:26:32]:
So I'm going to tip my cap twice too because usually I just rip those questions, but I can tell you're an interviewer and it's clear you have your own podcast because you got me talking.
Nate Shutes [00:26:41]:
So then I've done my job.
Eric Fullerton [00:26:43]:
Well done, well done. One last question before we close it out. I want to get your hot take.
Nate Shutes [00:26:48]:
Man.
Eric Fullerton [00:26:48]:
We're in a really interesting time in terms of the industry itself. What's happening in day to day transportation. There's global economic stuff which we don't do or don't have to take, but there's also just so much happening in the freight tech, logistics tech, supply chain, tech space. I want a hot take. What's your hot take on the industry today and what's going to happen?
Nate Shutes [00:27:14]:
I've been saying for a while that I think the industry has over indexed on speed as being the biggest attribute. And specifically I'm thinking around like e-commerce delivery to consumers. The Amazon effect. I disagree. I think it is moving towards a state of certainty. Consumers and just business customers in general value you honoring what you said you were going to do even if it takes longer. I would rather have my Amazon delivery and five days or my white glove delivery in a week if I know you're going to be there when you said there you were going to be there. And so a lot of those solutions are not as scalable because it's the wild west.
Nate Shutes [00:28:00]:
As soon as you start encountering the consumer in their homes, traffic, people stealing stuff off of porches, it's an uncontrolled environment. And what we're supposed to do as supply chain professionals is bring order from that chaos. And so I would advocate what people are going to value more and more in the coming years is certainty.
Eric Fullerton [00:28:23]:
It's a great point, great way to close. And I think what's interesting is that there's this paradox, right, that happens when you focus so much on efficiency and speed. What you're actually creating is a level of rigidity that becomes much more easily broken when you talk, whether it's end consumer or or geopolitical trends or a storm that happens in the Pacific, you create a much more rigid ecosystem. You lose that certainty, we lose certainty, you lose trust.
Nate Shutes [00:28:53]:
As you nailed it, it's happened. Organically people got very used to the 48-hour Prime delivery. That's not happening anymore. It doesn't actually show up in 48 hours. The fine print has changed and now it's being consolidated and it's taken longer. And Amazon did a wonderful job of weaponizing speed and getting other people to spend tons of money to try to keep pace. And then even they have backed off.
Eric Fullerton [00:29:20]:
Right.
Nate Shutes [00:29:20]:
Awesome.
Eric Fullerton [00:29:21]:
Well, Nate, thank you very much for being here, for taking some time to chat with us, to share your background, your expertise, and most of all, thank you for being a Supply Chain Champion.
Nate Shutes [00:29:30]:
Right on. Thank you, Eric. Have a great day.
Eric Fullerton [00:29:35]:
Thank you for listening to Supply Chain Champions. To get connected and learn more, visit project44.com and click the link in the comments to subscribe to project44's newsletter. Tune in, get smart, and move forward.