#1298 Juan Meisel | Entrepreneur Built $100M+ Business In 1 Year

Juan Meisel is the Founder & CEO of Grip Shipping. In this conversation, we talk about how he took his business from 0 to 8 figures in revenue, attacking an incumbent industry using innovation & technology, hiring, processes, and how the world is changing. ======================= Cal.com is leading the charge of scheduling platforms in the open-source sphere, offering you the chance to harness the efficiency previously reserved for elite corporations and tech gurus. That's right, Cal.com is transforming sophisticated calendar management into an accessible tool for all via a user-friendly interface. Discover how countless users are optimizing their time in unprecedented ways. Use code “POMP” for $500 off when you set your team up with Cal.com. ======================= BetOnline.ag is a proud sponsor of the the Pomp Podcast. Use crypto to bet on sports, play poker and enjoy casino games at BetOnline. Visit https://promotions.betonline.ag/pomp and use promo code POMP100 to receive a 100% matching bonus on any crypto deposit. BetOnline boasts no crypto transaction fees, and processing is anonymous, instantaneous and secure. ======================= Pomp writes a daily letter to over 250,000+ investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://pomp.substack.com/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Many of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, which is my effort to find the most interesting people in the world and sit with them for hours while I ask questions in an effort to learn. So it would mean the world to me if you would subscribe to the show on your favorite audio platform, watch episodes on YouTube, and tell your friends and family about the podcast. My goal is to help millions learn from the world's most interesting people. So let's get into today's episode. Today's conversation is with Juan Mizell. He is the founder and CEO of Grip Shipping. In this conversation, we talk about how he took his business from zero to eight figures in revenue, how he has gone on to attack an incumbent industry using innovation and technology,

• 0:46Anthony Pompliano?

  how he built the company in terms of hiring people, what processes they've put in place, and what exactly is going to be this trend of pressing a button on your phone and having cold refrigerated or frozen food show up rather than just hot food. This is a peek into the future, and it's one of the fastest growing companies in my personal portfolio. I'm super excited for you all to hear about Juan, what he's building, and how the world is about to change. Here is my conversation with Juan Mizell.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 1:37Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:20Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:48Anthony Pompliano?

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• 3:34Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got Juan here with me. I thought a great place to start is you've taken a business from $0 in revenue to eight figures in a little over a year, which is not normal whatsoever. What are some of the lessons learned when you are hyper growing like this?

• 3:50Speaker 02

  I mean, I think the first place to start is how do you build a team to do this? You know, at the end of the day, like it all falls down on your team. No matter what you're doing, in terms of a business, like, yeah, you know, you can start a business and run it small, it's a few million dollars in revenue. But like, if you actually want to go to hyper growth and only have this as a beginning of your business, you need to build a team to be able to support that and then the company culture as well. So, you know, as an example, company values, company values is huge for us. Like we live and breathe our company values. So as an example, we have, you know, being customer obsessed as an example, like. You don't know how much we care for our customers.

• 4:30Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the craziest thing you guys have done on that front?

• 4:33Speaker 02

  I mean, like, this is not necessarily a crazy thing, but like, this is a funny story is sometimes people internally refer to us as a company instead of a SaaS as a CAS, which means company as a service, because we literally will do like anything for our customers. Like, we go so beyond for our customers, like, you know, we need them to be profitable. We need them to be successful. We need them to be having like the experience of their lives working with us. We need like their customers to be extremely happy as well, given how much, you know, impact we have in their actual operation. So, um, you know, we make fun of it internally. Say, hey, you know, we're not a SaaS. We're not a 3PO. We're just a CAS, a company as a service.

• 5:12Anthony Pompliano?

  So what you guys do, uh, for those that don't know, is, um,

• 5:18Anthony Pompliano?

  logistics for perishables. So food, flowers, uh, could be medicine, et cetera. Some people would refer to this as kind of cold chain, uh, part of the supply chain. And what I didn't know before I met you and eventually invested in business is there's tons of people who are focused on logistics. Obviously, Amazon's a massive business. They don't want to touch perishables, right? Because it spoils, because there's all these issues. And so walk me through your time at ButcherBox. Like, how did you actually learn about the problem? And then figure out what these potential solutions are?

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, perishables is as hard as it gets. It's very expensive and it's very time sensitive. And there's a lot of risk throughout the whole equation. Because if you don't deliver things to your customer how you need to, then they're just not going to buy from you again. You're just not going to provide a good service. If you're buying a T-shirt in the mail as an example, you know, not perishable, of course. You know, you might want it for a party. Sure, you might get it a day late and you're not happy because you wanted it for this party, but you still have the T-shirt. You can wear it like it's fine. But in the case of perishables, it's usually something you're eating, something you're feeding your family with, like a party you're hosting that, you know, you need the products for pharmaceuticals, which could be, you know, life-saving or very important for someone's health, or it could be flowers. And, you know, you don't want to mess up a flower delivery, right?

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Because you're going to get someone pretty mad. So, you know, ButcherBox. So for those that don't know the story, bootstrap companies scale from zero to 600 million revenue, you know, pretty fast in about six years. So arguably one of like, you know, the most successful direct to consumer companies in the space, you know, in the last like decade or so. And the interesting part about it is that 10 years ago or eight years ago, when we were getting started with that, perishables in the mail was not a thing. It was like, you know, we had to get over the hump of, hey, you buy a box of frozen meat and it shows up to your doorstep, frozen. Like, you know, what the heck? How does this even happen? So early days of ButcherBox, it was like, hey, how do we get people to buy a box of frozen meat in the mail?

• 7:16Speaker 02

  And now through the years, consumer behavior has changed because they now know this. Like consumers know, hey, I can get online, you know, as an example, butcherbox.com, I buy a box of meat and in one or two days it shows frozen to my doorstep. So with that changing consumer behavior, of course, there's a lot more demand in this industry and there's a lot more brands and products that have come alive, you know, in the last decade or so. And with that comes a problem. Hey, you know, how do I solve for this? Like, there's so many factors that go into it, like, you know, weather events, carrier performance, what liners am I using, what type of box, when am I shipping it? Where am I shipping it from? What type of product is it? Like so many variables that go into it that you really need a sophisticated solution to be able to like go from point A to point B and make your customer happy.

• 8:00Anthony Pompliano?

  The way I think about it is like, people didn't know 10, 15 years ago, you could press a button on your phone and a non-perishable could get to your doorstep, right? So a book from Amazon or whatever. Now, I mean, a lot of people do it a lot. Like, you know, in New York City, if you go and you look in the lobbies around Christmas time, they look like Amazon warehouses. There's just tons and tons of boxes where people ordering things. Then the next iteration was I can press a button on my phone and hot food will show up. And once I started to understand, it's like, oh yeah, the guy down the street made it and somebody just brought it to me. But what you guys really are identifying is like, there's now a third wave to this trend, which is I'm gonna press a button on my phone and cold food will show up, whether refrigerated

• 8:42Anthony Pompliano?

  or frozen. And so what are the things that people are doing with that? Like, obviously, butcher boxes, meat, are people shipping cakes? Are they like, what are the other products that really are getting shipped here?

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you touch on a good point. This gives accessibility to the market, and market being the consumer who wants a product at their house. Because you can only, like, you can only keep food warm for so long, right? Like, you know, maybe 30 minutes while it gets in the, you know, Uber Eats or whatever other platform to your doorstep. But the cold and the frozen, what this creates is you can now have inventory in specific locations across the country, and you can get your product nationwide. Like, you can make a product here in New York City, and you can have it nationwide. Like, the impact that that has, you know, for so many different products that you can make. So of course, you know, you have meat, you have frozen, ready to eat meals, you have, you know, desserts and cake products, you have pharma, you know, you have things, of course, like, you know, like flowers, which is, which is a,

• 9:39Speaker 02

  you know, semi-different category. But you have a wide range of specialty products, even, you know, human-grade pet food, which is, you know, a pretty fast-growing space and wildly adopted across the country. But like, that's what has changed. You can now basically press a button and you get a box of something perishable, so frozen or refrigerated, in your doorstep. And, you know, with a few distribution centers across the country, then you can get to anywhere in the country in one in two days with the right technology, of course, and the right processes for making that happen. But, you know, think about someone that used to deliver a warm food to New York City, and that was their market, and they could only market, you know, to this market, and they could only sell in this market. And now, all of a sudden,

• 10:24Speaker 02

  you know, they get this thing cold, and they can keep it cold for a few weeks, or, you know, a few months, and you can just get it nationwide. It's just like, the whole movement is insane.

• 10:32Anthony Pompliano?

  What's so interesting to me about this is,

• 10:36Anthony Pompliano?

  If you go back in history, right? And I like to fancy myself having read about history.

• 10:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Food was never preserved, right? Until the invention of either freezing or refrigerating the food, there was no ability to actually preserve food through time. And so by being able to now freeze or refrigerate, all of a sudden, you could have food throughout different seasons. You could, you know, ship it places. There's all these things that got unlocked by just bringing refrigeration and kind of freezing technology to the market. In some weird way, it's like history is repeating itself again, right? And now you're saying, wait a second, we are going to take that same exact lesson from history and now apply it to this whole new world where frankly, there's a gazillion restaurants in any one geography. But if they've been previously just kept, you know, local, you now can make

• 11:26Anthony Pompliano?

  them, in this case, national, maybe eventually globally as well.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally. And, you know, there's this concept of like flash freezing, for example, and you flash freeze at the peak of freshness.

• 11:38Anthony Pompliano?

  What is that?

• 11:39Speaker 02

  That means that, you know, like you literally like at the moment where the food is at the freshest point, then you basically run it through an extremely fast, very cold freezing process, and you conserve the freshness. You know, something's changing the food, but you conserve the freshness. So when something is not frozen, it basically keeps deteriorating over time, always. So if you have fruit, for example, and you don't freeze it, then, you know, two weeks, three weeks, it's not edible anymore. But if you like flash freeze at peak of freshness, and then you basically, you know, thaw it, and then you eat it in the next day, it's like as fresh, you know, as it gets, of course, you know, when you're speaking about something that has been, you know, frozen before. So even when you speak

• 12:21Speaker 02

  about that, like conserving food at that point, and making sure that like through the entire value chain, when, you know, storing process, packing process, logistics process, getting to someone's doorstep process, like if it's kept, if the temperature is kept to that point, then, you know, goes back to what you're saying, which is like, hey, you know, conserving food and getting it nationwide, it's like a whole other level right now across the nation.

• 12:45Anthony Pompliano?

  So what is the business that you guys are in? Explain in terms of you guys have warehouses. I believe you have a billion dollars worth of goods that have kind of gone through the network. Like, I'm a customer of Grip. Who am I? And like, what am I interfacing with? Or what am I getting from you?

• 13:00Speaker 02

  So yeah, so let me give you some history on this. So When, if, if you were a perishable direct to consumer company, you know, five years ago, basically you had to figure out internally the back half of your business, which is, hey, I create an amazing product, I sell it through a point of sale system. Now, how do I get it to the final customer? Which, you know, all these companies that have amazing products are not necessarily logistics companies, like it's a, you know, different worlds. So what we do, which is a lot of-

• 13:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Just real quick, and on that, what you're basically saying is like, if you were selling, I don't know, book stands, you could focus on the product, somebody orders it, you just hand the book stand to FedEx and they're, and they're, you're good to go. But now, once it's perishable, FedEx and others may not want to take it. You may have to change the, the process or like, like there's complexity with the perishable that changes what maybe normal business goes through.

• 13:56Speaker 02

  Totally. I mean, they, they, they take it, but you focus on what you can control, which is, okay, who am I giving it to when it comes to the carriers? And then how much refrigerant am I adding into the box? And then what, you know, how much insulation am I sending this with? And where am I sending it from? So like, you, you focus on the variables that you can control and then you give it to the carrier or shipping service that data says that performs the best to that specific circle with that specific product. And then you get it to the final consumer. So, you know, what, what I was saying in terms of the history is five, 10 years ago, you had to try to either build all this complexity internally, which means spending, you know, $10 million internally, trying to build and maintain these systems.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Or you would basically just give it to a shipping carrier and hope for the best without necessarily focusing on, on what you can control. So what we've done now is we basically have like connected all these different data points to say, hey, focus on your product, like focus on your sales, focus on your branding, on your marketing and what you can actually do best. And then let us do the rest. It's similar to like when you work with a company like Stripe, for example, where if you're running a direct to consumer company right now and you're trying to recreate or rebuild Stripe, like- Good luck. You know, why are you spending your resources doing that? So with us, it's basically like, hey, listen, focus on what you can control on your end and focus on what matters for your business.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  And then you basically send the product to us. So send the inventory to us. Once you sell something flows into our systems, we run it through what we call a shipping engine, which figure out what the absolute best way to get it to the final customers. And then we get it to your final customer. So it's like basically the full backend of it.

• 15:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, when we first met, you had done this at ButcherBox, figured all this out and you realized everyone else was going to need to do this as well. And one of the things that you use as an example is weather alerts and how weather could delay a shipment. And that would change the decision making of what you put in the box. Describe maybe an example in terms of like, how does the software tell people like, oh shit, weather's, you know, bad weather could potentially disrupt this. And like, what are the changes people are making as they're actually creating the box with the goods to send to the customer?

• 16:12Speaker 02

  Major weather events and perishable products. If you combine those two, it's a good way to get gray hair. Very good. You want to, you want to fast track your way towards gray hair, like combine those two. And that's because like there's, let's say there's a wildfire in California. And you know, you're shipping 10,000 boxes to California this week. And if you just like basically don't have someone checking, you know, weatherpage.com and trying to make those decisions and trying to figure out like what's going on with the major weather events and the wildfires on your boxes, then you can very easily just have like a hundred thousand dollars on the road. Just, you know, like, good luck. So that's like one of the biggest changes and things that we went for, just because for me was so stressful when I was managing this.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  Where we were trying to basically match, we had a guy internally at ButcherBox, we used to call the weatherman, which I was like, hey, you know, your job is to go to weather.com and figure this out. You know, those resources could be better spent, of course, doing more value added activities, but it goes back to like, hey, you're shipping a hundred, you know, boxes or a thousand boxes or 10,000 or whatever the number is. Like, how do you proactively know that the route of that? Box is going to be impacted by a major weather event. And then you proactively reach out to the customer and say, hey, we're about to ship your box. We noticed it's impacted by a major weather event. Do you want us to hold it, you know, cancel the shipment, send it in two days or three days after the major weather event is gone?

• 17:40Speaker 02

  You basically just like took a bad experience, flip it on the head and make it a very good one for your customer. Because if, you know, I'm shopping on a brand and with a brand and they send me an email or text saying that. I'm like, okay, these people have their shit together.

• 17:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, um, what if they say, no, send it?

• 17:57Speaker 02

  I mean, some, some companies are, are, you know, risk averse, some, some are not, some are basically, hey, you know, we know, we send it and now we're gonna also send communication to the customer, basically saying, hey, if something's wrong, let us know, we'll make it right for you. But at the same time, like having that information to make it right for the customer, it's where basically the data matters.

• 18:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, as you uh kind of see this play out, maybe what is the most surprising things, right? I mean, again, super fast growing business, uh, one that you already understood kind of what to build, but now you gotta go build it for other people, not just a, a company that you're working at, um, would have been the biggest surprises?

• 18:34Speaker 02

  I wouldn't say, I mean, not necessarily like a, a big surprise, but it's a reminder, and, and this is what we started talking about of like how much your team matters. Because like at the end of the day, you only have your team to build a company. So everyone needs to be committed to building what we're building here, which is a once in a generation company, and going like all in on that. And that means, you know, like long hours, that means a lot of effort, that means like thinking outside the box, that means going the extra mile, that means like always delivering a plus work. And like, as I'm saying, not necessarily a surprise, because you know, kind of knew that going into this and, and from my time at ButcherBox as well, but eh, you know, I'm always like,

• 19:17Speaker 02

  you know, reminded about that, like every time I see the, the team working so hard.

• 19:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, where are you finding these employees? Like, uh, is there a certain archetype that you're looking for? Are there certain backgrounds that you're, you're going for? Are you usually looking for, you know, smart, hardworking people? How, how are you putting this team together?

• 19:33Speaker 02

  Eh, smart, hardworking people, for sure. That's, we need that. Um, but through.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  One of the goals for this year, or one of the things that we're focusing on this year, is defending our company's culture. And I say defending because we've built a pretty good company culture and now we have to defend it as we 2X, 3X, and 5X the team. So one of the things that we do for finding these people is through the interview process, every single person that's going to interview a candidate, they get one company value. And their job through this interview process is to screening this person for this one company value. So that's something that basically if one person in the team raises a hand and says, hey, I don't think that they pass the relentless improvement company value. We're like, okay, we're not hiring this person.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  So that doesn't necessarily answer the question of what's the source of these people, but the framing that we use for hiring people is, hey, how well can they come in here? And how well can they play within our company values and culture?

• 20:38Anthony Pompliano?

  So relentless improvement is one of the company values. How do you screen for that?

• 20:42Speaker 02

  I mean, there's like multiple questions that you can ask someone, but when it comes to relentless improvement, as an example, we work internally with what we call fast innovation cycles, which means that nothing has to be perfect for launching, but you work very close with the customer and then you go from idea to product to feedback very fast. So we ask, for example, for situations of, hey, when have you been involved in launching a product and guide us through the full, like guide us through the full cycle of launching that product. Something that we don't do internally is lock ourselves in a room for six months, work on something, thinking that we're building what's right, and then go and try to launch it. Like, we bring the customer in, day one, and we get feedback from them, day one, and

• 21:27Speaker 02

  we launch with them, day one, basically. So we try to screen for those things, asking for situations where they've been involved in building product like that.

• 21:36Anthony Pompliano?

  And when you're going through this process, how much of it is you're interviewing them versus you're trying to sell candidates on joining? Like, it's a little bit of a dance, right, between you're trying to screen, but you also, if you get them to the end, you don't want them to be like, "Man, these people are assholes and I don't want to work here," right? So how do you balance that?

• 21:51Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm very blunt through the hiring process, and I basically shoot straight with, "Hey, this is how it's like to work here." So it's tricky, because at the same time, you don't want to scare people away too much. But if you actually do, then that means that that was probably not, you know, the right person to work in the company. But as you say, you know, it's a dancing act of like, hey, getting someone excited to build an industry, to innovate within an industry, but then getting them to understand, like, how hard it actually is, and how many sacrifices you have to do, you know, on a personal level, on a, you know, like, the work balance level.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  So, yeah, I mean, you're right, it's definitely, you know, a balancing act between those two.

• 22:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, you all have physical locations as well, you have these warehouses. Talk a little bit about maybe the benefits and the downsides to, you know, many software companies are just like, "Hey, we write software, we have office," right? You guys have warehouses, you're moving physical products, like, there's a lot of complexity here, and I think a lot of software entrepreneurs would look at this and be like, "That's not a business I want to be involved in." Does that actually a competitive advantage, because it's hard, or are there other downsides that maybe they are right on?

• 23:09Speaker 02

  That's what I want to be involved in. Like, if someone says, "Hey, I don't want to be involved in that," like, that's where we come in, and that's where we add value. Because, like, software can be very pretty, and software can, you know, look beautiful, and it can do some things, but it's really mostly valuable when you get that to connect with the physical world. And when you get the software to basically like have the hand inside how the goods move through the through the physical world, that's where you basically like, you know, one plus one does not equal two. That's where you now basically like exponentially increase the the like the value of an industry and and the benefits of like, you know, working with a provider like

• 23:52Speaker 02

  you. And and a lot of people scare away from it. And and maybe they're just like not not built for that. And and maybe, you know, maybe it's not the type of company that they're trying to build. But the way that we are approaching this solution, we need to have our hands, you know, inside the process, because there can't be any data holes. Like, if you basically ship the orders or the software says, hey, ship the orders this way. But then you basically don't know where your orders are, you know, within the next five hours or 10 hours, then that's a hole that you need to get visibility into because that impacts your end customer experience. So that's why, like, that's where we want to be involved, because that's where the hole happened.

• 24:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, what is like the North Star, right? Like, how big can this get? What does it look like, you know, five, 10 years from now? When you kind of wake up, you know, like, this is where we're going? What is that? What is that path?

• 24:42Speaker 02

  So, I mean, to this point, we're definitely the most innovative company in the space. We are taking these, you know, very seriously from a innovation, improvement, and like A plus customer experience standpoint. So, you know, in five years from now, we're definitely going to be like, the company known in the space for this whole thing. And this means that, you know, as I was saying before, if you're a company that ships direct to consumer products perishable, which means refrigerator or frozen, then you focus on that. And we are the company that you trust for the back half of that.

• 25:15Anthony Pompliano?

  So basically, you're just providing the infrastructure for all these D to C companies. Now, there's a bunch of D to C companies I could rattle off right now off the top of my head that ship things that are perishable. How much of the future business is going to people who have perishables but don't ship? And saying to them, hey, you should be shipping, right? Kind of, hey, right now, you're sending this stuff in New York City, but actually, you could do it nationally. Let us help you do it.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a combination. And we see, you know, a big value out on both, because we work with very big retailers that they don't do it, because they haven't been able to do it. Like, they don't have the technology, they don't have the resources to be able to do this. So, it's an interesting mix of customers, because

• 25:53Speaker 02

  The retailer, the big retailer has already figured out the product itself and they have the resources for the marketing and people know their brands pretty well. But as I was saying before, that's very different from becoming a logistics company. So they haven't taken a stab at becoming a logistics company. And that's where there's a very big opportunity where they basically just, you know, have these as another massive, you know, sales channel for them. On the other hand, you have, you know, the companies that are already, you know, multimillion dollar companies like a ButcherBox would be where, you know, this is just a massive value add versus what they're doing internally because one, they can use resources for something else. And then two, you know, I was giving this Stripe example, like, you know, if you try to build Stripe, you're never going to be as good as them for payment processing or

• 26:36Speaker 02

  some other company that does this because like that's the whole, the only thing that they do. That's what they focus on.

• 26:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, when you start looking at the other competitors in the space, you said that you're the most innovative. Many people may think, oh, there's another technology company doing this. But actually, most of these are 50, 100 year old companies have been doing this for a really long time. What are some of the main differences between working with like an incumbent that is a big company, but slow moving bureaucratic and kind of like outdated from technology versus with you from the customer's perspective? Like, are there very obvious, you know, things where maybe in another industry, it's like, hey, this guy's got a fax machine, this guy's got email, right? But like, what is it in this specific vertical?

• 27:18Speaker 02

  So how the industry evolved is, you know, frozen storage companies usually do pallet in, pallet out, which means you bring a truck with a pallet of product, four click downloads the pallet, gets counted or, you know, verify that it's the right product, gets put in the freezer. And then sometimes they pick a case of that specific product and ship it out. Or most of the times they take that same pallet and they get it somewhere else. So basically pallet in, pallet out. The industry over the last years have innovated and has been forced to move into the eches, what we call it, which means, hey, you now take the pallet, you open it up and you actually grab the product and put it into the box that is going to go to the final customer.

• 27:57Anthony Pompliano?

  So it's not the pallet being moved and it's not even the crate that's being moved. It's actually the individual SKU. Is getting picked up.

• 28:03Speaker 02

  Correct. So, and, and the industry has been evolving into that because of the, you know, direct to consumer offering that has been also coming up, coming up online over the last few years. But, you know, it's a very different offering when it comes to pallet in, pallet out to the eaches and then getting that to the final consumer because of how much more complex it is from a variable standpoint of how many more things you have to do and then how much more data you need to actually do it right. So, you know, there's great companies from like a warehousing and storage space that have been forced to move into this, but that's just a one small piece of the puzzle. Like when you take that and you add technology

• 28:45Speaker 02

  and much more scanning and data to that and you interconnected then with, hey, what happens before that? And then what happens after that? Which means before that you say, how do I decide how to send this box? And then after that, how do I monitor and how do I control how that box is getting delivered to my final customer? That's the biggest difference in the space.

• 29:04Anthony Pompliano?

  What are some of the numbers you can share in terms of like how big these markets are? Right? So you said that you've overseen a billion dollars worth of goods already, which is to me like, that's a massive number. You scaled the business in a little over a year from zero to eight figures of revenue. How big is the market? Like do these businesses do tens of billions of dollars in revenue or what?

• 29:24Speaker 02

  I mean, multi-billion dollar market, for sure. You have, when you split it up, you have basically the, the, like the direct to consumer meal kit companies, which is a multi-billion dollar market. Then you have the specialty products, which is multi-billion dollar market. And within this, you have like, you know, things interesting as like frozen pizza from Chicago. Like there's thousands of people across the country that, you know, buy frozen pizza from Chicago on a daily basis. And that's a multi-billion dollar market by itself. Then, you know, flowers, like five plus billion dollar market. And then you have the whole pharma industry, which is, you know, insulin in the mail. It's basically shipping that in the mail. It's very similar to shipping, you know, a piece of refrigerated or, you know, frozen something on the product in the mail. So that within, within itself is

• 30:08Speaker 02

  also a billion dollar market. So when you combine all these things, you know, you're talking about multi-billion, multi-billion dollar market.

• 30:14Anthony Pompliano?

  And like, let's say, the pizza from Chicago, the people who are selling that, how many of them are like, I have a pizzeria in Chicago, it's good pizza, and I figured out how to sell online versus somebody in Chicago is like, man, none of the people who have pizza parlors here in Chicago know how to sell online, so I'm going to create like a brand and it's like frozen only, right? Versus, no, this is just an extension of an existing brand.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  It's a combination. I mean, if you have a brand that people already recognize and you open the market to them nationwide, that's just, you know, just like so many more sales that you can get through the same market, like to the same people and nationwide. But then you also have the people that basically say, hey, you know, pizza from Chicago has a massive like, you know, ring to it and people know it, you know, deep dish pizza, a lot of people love it. So I'm just going to build that and focus on that because I know that they want I can get nationwide coverage. So you see both for sure, because if you have a very recognized brand, like why not get it nationwide?

• 31:14Anthony Pompliano?

  And how much of this is like consumer changes, right? It's like ButcherBox is a good example where obviously people want to get meat, like they're going to go to the grocery store, they go to Costco, whatever. But there was like, it gets delivered in the mail, there's a subscription element to it, and also it was like healthier food. And so is that more so like the offering is so compelling? Or is it, no, the consumer's just going to go on their phone and order stuff? And like, you gotta be there, and if you're not there, they're going to order from somebody else?

• 31:44Speaker 02

  I think it's accessibility comes down to that. Because that way you get access to like what you really want, not just what you have available around you. And that's the biggest difference of it. Because if you say, hey, I want to buy this product and it's made in New York, but I live in Miami, then you just have it accessible. You go online, you buy it and it shows up to your doorstep. Before that, it was like, okay, I want to buy this product, but this is made in New York. I'm not really going to go to New York right now, so like, what's similar to this around me in Miami? So that whole like accessibility question, I think is what marks the biggest difference on what this used to be, you know, 10 years ago versus what is it now?

• 32:28Anthony Pompliano?

  And when you think about lessons learned at ButcherBox that you are replicating with Grip, what's like maybe the biggest one or two outside of the team? Like just, hey, I gotta have a high quality team, but what are some of the other lessons that you're, you know, I have to make sure I implement this?

• 32:43Speaker 02

  I think having a mentality of getting things done now.

• 32:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Urgency.

• 32:52Speaker 02

  Urgency. Correct. Correct. Urgency because

• 32:56Speaker 02

  like oftentimes companies fall into this trap that they talk about initiatives and they talk about projects and innovations for months and months and months or weeks without necessarily acting acting on it. So, you know, one of our company values is actually, you know, biased towards action. And that means that we go into a meeting and if we chat about something or we discuss something, we do not leave that meeting until the next step is figured out. And it happens right there. Even if the next step is like, hey, we're not going to go forward with this, we decided and we do it. But we don't leave things in the air. We don't leave things in a state where you basically don't know what the next step is, even if there's no next step.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  So that like, when you think about that, that makes you move so much faster, which is hey, we're going to decide this now and work on this now versus hey, this is something that, you know, we might do and we're going to work on this like in two weeks, which means that it ends up being pushed two weeks because when you meet again in two weeks, it's like, wait, what did we chat about, you know, two weeks ago, like, which is what we're going to do? So that's, I think, one of the biggest lessons from ButcherBox and how we got to move very, very fast initially. And that's something that we definitely, you know, taken over to grip and implemented here as well.

• 34:17Anthony Pompliano?

  What do you think the biggest mistake so far has been? Like, everything is this amazing success story, fast growth, but like, what are, what's something you look back and you're like, yeah, you know, we messed up and we learned from that?

• 34:28Speaker 02

  It's a good question. I think for me personally, it's probably like doing too much initially because

• 34:44Speaker 02

  Like I get so obsessed with quality work and with A plus work that I sometimes hold too long to that work and do it myself. But something that I've learned over time is that you need to trust the people that you work with to do A plus work. And if you don't do that, they're just never gonna grow and never gonna get to do A plus work if they were not doing it before. And I think initially for me, that's, that's one of the biggest mistakes where I think if you do that, you just end up building, you know, a longer term, stronger team. It probably takes more investment initially, you know, personally by, you know, like letting go of something or teaching something to someone.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  But, you know, after you get to do that, like that's when you get to exponential growth.

• 35:35Anthony Pompliano?

  When you look at the pharmacy space, I know that you guys aren't doing a ton there yet, but, but I think that there's a belief that there will be a big market there. What will that look like? What are the similarities and differences to, you know, D to C kind of food or beverage stuff?

• 35:52Speaker 02

  We have all the, the weight loss industry is massive now, you know, Senpic, it's, has been blowing up, everyone is, you know, supposedly trying that and, and consuming that. And the, the similarity is that you get a product of refrigerated something to a doorstep. Like it's a, it's a very, very similar process. I think regulatory wise, it's different on the pharmacy side, of course, because, you know, everything needs to be checked out by a pharmacist. So you need to have the infrastructure for that. And then sometimes you can't get some products from one state to the other as well. So like from that standpoint, it's similar. But when you look at the logistics behind it, the decision-making behind it, the customer experience behind it, a lot of it is extremely similar.

• 36:38Anthony Pompliano?

  And is your thought process that right now, people obviously are ordering a lot of non-perishables? I would actually argue in some cities like in New York, uh, I mean, you see the delivery drivers carrying hot food around everywhere, right? And so maybe there's not as much hot food being delivered as non-perishables, but like definitely it's rising very quickly. Eventually will cold be the same?

• 37:00Speaker 02

  I think it's a it's it's for different uses and different needs. People usually go to cold food when they want to eat healthier. Because they know that they can get this product to their to their doorstep and they can then control what they eat inside their house by either. Like they get the ingredients and they cook it themselves, or they have a very strict routine of how they eat. With basically like the meals, you know, prepared for them or almost prepared for them. So I was like. One segment of it, the other segment is as we were talking, like the specialty products. I mean, we've talked about these. My mom's favorite cake.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  Lady M.

• 37:37Anthony Pompliano?

  If anyone from Lady M is listening to this, please get in touch with me. We've been trying to get to the CEO for a while, but he's ghosting me.

• 37:46Speaker 02

  Backstory on this is my mom loves this cake. This cake is made in New York and every time that we used to come to New York with my mom, we buy this cake for her. And now, you know, she moved to Miami. I moved to Miami, actually not. She didn't move to Miami. And every time that she visits me in Miami, I order this cake and it's in the freezer when she goes there. So that's like the whole of the market. It's like, you know, specialty products. Like, oh damn, this is thing is made in New York. When she comes to Miami, I just ordered a couple of days before that and it's just in the freezer waiting for her.

• 38:15Anthony Pompliano?

  She's probably happy.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  She's happy.

• 38:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Is there other customers out there that you're like, man, we really want to work with these people? I know there's a whole bunch of like, you know, customers on a list, but like, what are like the two or three dream customers? And Lady M.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  Lady M, Lady M and Lady M. No.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  I'm kidding. That would make my my mom happy. But um.

• 38:39Speaker 02

  I mean, like, we really like innovative products and innovative companies. One of the feedbacks that we've gotten from our customers is that. They like that we move as fast as they move.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  Which it's definitely different and new in this industry. So. My the companies that I like the most is companies that, you know, we complete their onboarding process for like a week. It's like so fast. Everything just happens. They get integrated into. Our API or Shopify app and everything just happens so fast. So, um, you know, I'm passionate about these companies because I think that those are the companies that are going to succeed. And given that according to the people internally, we're a company as a service, um, instead of a software as a service. We like, we get to basically get very like interconnected with their teams and their systems. And that's what excites me, uh, when it comes to, to new customers.

• 39:36Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Before I let you go, uh, give me the like one minute pitch to a customer. Why should they use Grip?

• 39:43Speaker 02

  So if you are a direct to consumer refrigerated or frozen company, and you want to improve your bottom line and service your customer better, you need to be working with us. Because there's not a single company that we've worked with where we can't make their operation better. I've been very proud about this because every time that we get to chat with someone, look into the data, there's always a massive value out in terms of how they're doing things now and how they, uh, would do them with us. And that's two things. One, you're starting a new direct to consumer and you're a retailer.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  Or two, you already have a bunch of frozen or refrigerated products in the mail that you want to basically get to your customers in a better way.

• 40:30Anthony Pompliano?

  What is the one minute on why people should come work at Grip?

• 40:34Speaker 02

  Uh, if you want to grow, uh, professionally, personally, and you want to help us build a once in a generation company, uh, this is, this is a place for you.

• 40:44Anthony Pompliano?

  And then, uh, what is your message to all the people who think that you can't be successful?

• 40:50Speaker 02

  I've had some of those. Um, I'll keep trying. You know, I'll keep trying. Uh, there's, uh, I, I love to work. I mean, you, you've, you've seen me work. This is something that, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm passionate about and, um, you know, I, it's something that I saw at my, um, you know, growing up, uh, looking at my dad, basically working hours and hours a day.

• 41:11Anthony Pompliano?

  He's a beast.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's a beast. Um. The worst things that he liked. So like, that's basically what I know how to do. So, uh, you know,

• 41:18Anthony Pompliano?

  The only thing I'll say about Juan's dad is you warned me. Uh, he, he came into Miami and you told me beforehand, uh, he's, you know, like, look, he just, he works a lot. And I was like, yeah, okay, whatever. And, uh, then I saw it in person and I was like, wow, I work a lot. Juan works a lot. Juan's dad might work longer than both of us. That's crazy.

• 41:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's funny. I, um, you know, like, if, if you grow up in a household where you see your dad work

• 41:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  24/7, there's one or two outcomes. One is you say, I don't want to be like this guy and I don't want to work. So you're gonna like hate work.

• 41:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Or two, you're gonna go and you're gonna say, hey, you know, this, like, I want to become this guy and I look up to this guy. So I'm gonna work harder than him. I don't think that I work harder than him, by the way, but you know, at least I, like, I got that.

• 42:10Anthony Pompliano?

  You get the positive impact.

• 42:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I got the positive impact of that.

• 42:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  And, and not to say that, you know, you don't need to take, take care of like other things, right? You know, you still have a, you know, beautiful family and you need to take care of that. And you need to build relationships and have experiences and, and, you know, have friends. But if you're working towards something that you're really passionate about and that passion, it's not necessarily like the product, but having an impact in the people that you work with and the customers and employees and changing their lives for the better. Then like work becomes life and life becomes work. Like this thing of work, like balance at that point is irrelevant because it's just, you know, the same thing that makes you happy, basically.

• 42:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, the part that too, that I think, um, as a parent now, uh, there's times where I'm like, if I work a lot, this is a good example to a kid. And I, and I actually think that like, it's this, it's the other end of it where, um, I wonder if you did a study of a bunch of parents, like, do they end up actually working harder knowing that their kids are watching? I don't, I don't know. But like, it, I catch myself sometimes being like, it is good that I am working because my kids will realize that, you know, you have to work hard to get things in life.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  Totally. I mean, I, I've seen your kids at, at the office while you're You know, in meetings, they're just like around you. So, you know, growing up, what are they gonna remember? They're gonna like, oh, you know, I, I, I have this is like, there's this fun office culture where, you know, I can be at and have fun and work and like enjoy the people around me. So, you know, that experience is unbeatable.

• 43:39Anthony Pompliano?

  In our office in Miami, the kids only wanted to come because Juan was there and he would play soccer with them.

• 43:46Anthony Pompliano?

  He never let them win, though. He would always make sure he won. Awesome. All right. Where do we say people find you on the internet and find out more about Grip Shipping?

• 43:53Speaker 02

  You know, GripShipping.com, easiest way. And the company's on LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter as well, Juan C. Maso or Juan Maso. You can find me on Twitter and LinkedIn as well.

• 44:04Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, but GripShipping.com.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 44:07Anthony Pompliano?

  I appreciate it very much, my friend. You're building a fast-growing company. Hopefully, we do this again in the future. You're doing a billion dollars in revenue.

• 44:12Speaker 02

  There you go. Good to see you.