Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / From Dream Job at Amazon to Bootstrapped Founder: Thomas David Ye on Surviving the Wilderness

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From Dream Job at Amazon to Bootstrapped Founder: Thomas David Ye on Surviving the Wilderness · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

0:00
I was just like, my god, like what have I done?
0:04
Like this doesn't even the math doesn't math.
0:07
Why am I like working so so so so much for so so so so so little?
0:11
as you go through life and business,
0:13
you're gonna get good luck and bad luck.
0:15
So it's all about like just staying alive long enough that like the good luck finds
0:19
you and like so far it's been working out.
0:28
All right, Tomas David Ye welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
0:33
Hey, how's it going, Dave? Pleasure to be here.
0:35
Yes, fantastic. We appreciate you taking the time.
0:38
~ so Tomas, you've got quite an interesting road to how you became an entrepreneur.
0:44
you actually
0:44
Yes, sir.
0:44
have a ~ a degree from ~ university in Prague in theoretical mathematics,
0:50
but now you're here in the US running a supply chain tech consulting company.
0:56
so so just to set the stage for our listeners and on how that all happened,
1:00
can you talk about ~ how you became an entrepreneur?
1:04
Yes. I'll give you like a long story short and then we can dive deeper into into
1:08
any of those sub stories. But yeah,
1:11
so I I'm from Europe, from Czech Republic.
1:14
tiny country next to Germany and ~ yeah,
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that's where I grew up and I studied theoretics because you know I was I
1:23
was good at math.
1:24
I played chess when I was a kid.
1:26
So I was like, I'm gonna study math at university.
1:28
And at some point I was like, maybe I'm just gonna get like a PhD
1:31
in mathematics and like study,
1:33
you know, solve like some of like the big unsolved problems in mathematics.
1:37
~ that didn't quite work out. I didn't I didn't get to the schools I wanted
1:41
to do the PhD in, blah, blah, blah.
1:42
And so then as a plan B, I was like,
1:45
all right, I might as well go get a job in tech.
1:47
And so I
1:48
applied all over all over Europe.
1:50
Amazon said hello and they were like,
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hey, you want to like start working for us in like supply chain?
1:56
they had a whole like software dev team based in Luxembourg in Europe.
2:01
Which is like the European Seattle for Amazon.
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They have like thousands of employees there.
2:06
And I was like, sure, I don't really know where Luxembourg is,
2:10
but like yeah, I'll I'll work for Amazon.
2:12
And then I yeah, they gave me the offer.
2:13
I moved to moved to move to Luxembourg.
2:16
worked two years in Luxembourg,
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then they moved me to Seattle.
2:19
I worked two and a half years for Amazon in Seattle.
2:22
a bunch of software for Amazon's warehouses,
2:25
right? it was more like the the the Amazon's middle mile,
2:28
like how do you move, the Amazon
2:30
sort of fulfillment strategy, right?
2:32
It the very much like hub and spoke kind of deal where you have these massive
2:37
fulfillment super centers and then like sort of volume moves from those massive
2:42
fulfillment centers to more localized sort centers and and delivery stations.
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there's a bunch of like sub-problems to how you like minimize the cost
2:51
as you're like fulfilling, you know,
2:52
this like incredible demand.
2:54
once I hit like my fourth year at Amazon,
2:56
that's when I started to think about,
2:58
how can I branch out?
3:00
Outside of Amazon. can I do something on my own?
3:02
the fundamental insight, was, you know,
3:05
Amazon is already super sophisticated,
3:08
and it's probably the most sophisticated supply chain operation in the world.
3:11
And
3:12
Yet as an insider, I saw so much room for improvement,
3:17
right? it's the best supply chain operation in the world,
3:19
and yet there's still so much room for improvement.
3:22
So my hypothesis was: if I go outside of Amazon and I start helping people
3:28
who are doing you know fulfillment work that are not Amazon,
3:32
there's gonna be even more, even more opportunity.
3:34
And so
3:36
So that's how I left and luckily,
3:37
knock on wood early on, I was able to score some some good customers that needed
3:42
some like random software work in like early twenty twenty four and
3:45
and then you know never looked back.
3:47
my motto that I took from Amazon was always,
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Whatever customers want or prospects want,
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you know, I always say yes to and then we've kinda figure out how to
3:56
how to make that happen, you know,
3:58
on the back end. And yeah, so far it's been it's been going pretty well,
4:01
I have to say. Very feeling very blessed.
4:04
Okay. All right. So appreciate that that whole ~ intro there and a lot to unpack.
4:09
So first of all, when you're growing up in Czech Republic,
4:12
right, and you're going to university to study mathematics and and kind
4:15
of figuring out your path, did you ever envision yourself coming to the US?
4:20
~ yeah, definitely. So I'm half American,
4:24
right? So my dad is from Wisconsin,
4:26
believe it not. ~ but but I was born and raised in Czech Republic,
4:30
right? So like, you know, my my dad left the US,
4:34
you know, went on like a Euro trip,
4:36
you know, when he was like early 30s,
4:38
and then met my mom and never left,
4:40
right? And and stayed in the Czech Republic and had three kids and so then he stays.
4:44
He's super happy in Prague. But ~
4:47
Well growing up, I had a super like Czech growing up,
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apart from most summers I spent in the US,
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in like the Minneapol Minneapolis suburb area.
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That's where my dad's from, you know,
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like the Wisconsin side of Minneapolis,
5:01
and that's where we spent me and my sister and my dad most of the most
5:06
of our summers. And so I definitely knew America existed.
5:11
And you know, my dad was pretty good about like,
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making us remember that we're Americans too,
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not just Czechs, he would take us to like New York City,
5:19
to Chicago, to Miami to kinda like show us more of the US.
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So like I grew up knowing of America and how like life in America could look like.
5:28
So I mean, just like knowing that,
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it's hard not to wanna come to the US.
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but of course my growing up was like sort of like very optimized for like
5:37
competitive gymnastics, then f I was in this semi-private,
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you know, h high school that like fed in very nicely into like the elite like STEM
5:47
universities. So also my education was free.
5:51
So growing up in Czech Republic was like very optimized in a certain way.
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And so like
5:56
I came to the US l relatively late,
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but I always knew at some point I'm gonna end up there somehow,
6:02
And so I at that time, late teens,
6:05
early twenties, I'm not thinking,
6:08
I'm gonna go there and I'm gonna like be an entrepreneur,
6:11
I'm gonna be the next Mark Zuckerberg or whatever.
6:13
It's more like I just wanna get to the US and do something,
6:16
I'm eternally grateful to Jeff Bezos and,
6:18
you know, the entire Amazon crew for extending that offer and like,
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allowing themselves to be the bridge for me to go from Europe to the US.
6:26
And then yeah, that was it.
6:30
Okay. All right. So you you start working on Amazon ~ in in Luxembourg,
6:35
eventually you get transferred to Seattle.
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And like you said, right, I don't think anyone would argue they're
6:41
the most sophisticated logistics operation in the world,
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but yet like you said, there's so much room for improvement,
6:47
~ just in terms of even like the you know,
6:50
the half empty boxes and and different things you
6:52
Right.
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saw you saw on the inside. So
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You know, and you're now in the US full time and you're kind of feeling that
7:00
~ that urge of like wow, what do
7:02
The energy
7:03
the energy, yeah, yeah, of what's possible,
7:06
right? Being being in the
7:06
Yeah, no ceiling man, no limits.
7:10
Yeah. So then what made you finally make the leap to go and and and leave Amazon
7:15
to start your own company?
7:17
Right, so I'm working at Amazon,
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right? there's a bunch of content about working at Amazon,
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right? A lot of it is not positive.
7:25
~ my experience was generally not like that.
7:28
I was I was fortunate again, ~ I had pretty good teams and I've won.
7:33
But like while at Amazon, I'm like I'm constantly thinking,
7:36
right? And like I'm meeting people.
7:38
And then one thing that I did,
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~ I attended Promat in two thousand and twenty three,
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~ in Chicago. And there I meet Andrew Hainer.
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you know, from Medusa distribution.
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it's a logistics company in in New Jersey,
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at that time I didn't really even know where New Jersey was.
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But like I just met Andrew and he was super cool guy.
8:01
And so we we hit it off. He's kind of talking to me about his company.
8:04
I'm kind of talking to him about my experience at Amazon.
8:07
I'm kinda telling him about some of like the ideas that I'm thinking about
8:10
of potentially starting some kind of a company.
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And he's like, we're not a tech company,
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but we have all these like random tech problems with our WMS.
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And and you know, he starts talking about some like packing boxes
8:20
and building pallets and stuff and et cetera,
8:23
et cetera. And so we just hit it off and and and and it seems like there could
8:28
be some kind of a potential, but
8:30
Like, you know, we leave, we keep in touch,
8:33
kind of the conversation slowly evolves into,
8:35
is there something here? And then,
8:38
and then eventually Andrew's like,
8:40
hey man.
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I actually have a problem and I think you'd be like the perfect person to solve it.
8:47
Like, if you want to like leave Amazon and start a company to solve this problem,
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we'd happily be your first customer.
8:54
This was not like the first time I'm trying to like branch out outside of Amazon,
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but this was the first time when I had like a reasonably sized company with like
9:03
a reasonable
9:03
Budget, say if you're ready, we're ready to like invest right now,
9:08
right? And so, and even though I had a very comfortable and happy life in Seattle,
9:14
I just had this sense that this opportunity might not come again.
9:20
I might not meet another Andrew Hayner,
9:22
you know, or at least it might take a long time.
9:25
So, you know, I was just like
9:28
Alright, let's give it a shot.
9:30
I sent in my two weeks to notice to Amazon,
9:32
~ drafted some contracts with with Andrew,
9:35
we we signed the paperwork and ~ and project started and that was it.
10:17
Okay. All right. So you obviously you're you're looking at things to do.
10:21
You have ideas. You're going out meeting people.
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Like you said, you hit it off with Andrew.
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He has a problem he needs solved.
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The budget's right. Everything lines up.
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And he he basically says, Look,
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if you're ready, we're ready to invest in you.
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And at that point, sounds like you didn't hesitate at all.
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You knew like this this was looked like the right opportunity.
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And if you passed up on it, it might not come again for a while.
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So you
10:45
That's
10:45
exactly right.
10:47
So you made the move, and then what happens next?
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Well, it was it was kind of funny because like it was one of those situations where
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like it's super obvious to you.
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It's super non-obvious to everyone in your family.
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Like
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Ha ha ha ~
11:05
my mom, my dad, my then girlfriend,
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they were all like
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Dude, like, I was living in this like nice apartment like by the lake
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in like downtown Seattle. I had a really good job,
11:16
like
11:17
Like in certain way I've like achieved some kind of status,
11:22
right? and now I was like, yeah,
11:24
I'm leaving that and I'm just gonna like live in this tiny town in New Jersey,
11:28
try to like, you know, put together some kind of a,
11:31
you know, warehouse hardware plus software solution for this like random company,
11:36
right? And people were like, huh?
11:38
Why why why would anyone do that?
11:40
Right? And then but it was funny because to me it was like the most obvious thing
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to do.
11:44
Do.
11:45
Like I've been I've been waiting for an opportunity to like prove I
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can execute a tech solution end to end myself on my own account,
11:55
right? but yeah, like I said, my parents are not entrepreneurs like
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my close friends who all work in tech,
12:00
they couldn't quite understand.
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And so
12:03
So yeah, so I had to at some point I kind of stopped convincing people.
12:07
But yeah, I send in my notice.
12:08
I have a very uncomfortable conversation with my then girlfriend and I
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buy a one-way ticket to from Seattle to you know Newark Liberty Airport
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and and that was kind of it.
12:20
Wow.
12:21
Okay. All right. So you basically like you said,
12:24
it was obvious to you, like I'm doing this.
12:26
This is my opportunity. All your friends,
12:29
family, everyone's like, huh? Like what what do you think it
12:32
Yeah yeah, no one understood
12:33
it. No one understood it. Now now that it's kind of working out,
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people are like, ~ that's why you d makes sense now,
12:40
right? But back then it was not obvious at all.
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And
12:46
how how'd you handle that too,
12:48
in terms of 'cause they they don't understand,
12:50
right? And obviously you like you love your family and you want
12:53
Yeah.
12:53
their support, but they don't get it at all.
12:55
And you're just like, Well, this is what I'm doing and that's it,
12:58
and then you just let them
12:59
Well it's
12:59
at that time I lived like 10,000 miles away from all my family.
13:03
So their sort of hesitations had ~ very little impact on my decision making,
13:08
long story short. you know, I had a few conversations when I'm like,
13:11
~ Tomas, are you sure this is the right thing to do?
13:14
And then after a while, I'm just like,
13:16
guys, I'm doing it. Like, and then and then it was cool because you know,
13:22
no one ever visited.
13:22
Visited me in Seattle. it's so far from Europe.
13:25
Now I'm in like the suburb of New York City.
13:28
Dude, everyone wants to visit me all the time because they want to hang
13:31
out in New York City, right? So a few months after I moved,
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like my mom visited me, and then she kind of like saw what I'm working on.
13:38
She saw like the customer that I'm like selling to,
13:40
like, they're super serious about it too.
13:42
They're super excited about it too.
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So like then, and then my dad flew too,
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and so like now suddenly I'm
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I'm I'm generating some buy-in with like my family too.
13:52
But I guess the hard truth is that eventually they they all came on board,
13:57
but even if they didn't, you know,
13:59
that I that would really not stop me.
14:03
Okay. All right. So you have your first your first client that basically enables
14:08
you to move cross country and start this this consulting company.
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And then how did you scale out from there?
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That was the most painful thing I've done,
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I think, ever. in a lot of I think business books or podcasts about startups,
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it's all about going zero to one,
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right? It's like you need to get to zero to one.
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That's like the hardest. Then one to two is a little bit easier,
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two to three, dah da, and that's how you scale,
14:31
right?
14:32
My experience was a little different than that.
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~
14:35
Because in my opinion, I kind of like scored a home run pretty early on.
14:40
Like, you know, I met this guy,
14:42
Andrew Hayner. He had everything aligned.
14:44
The company was big enough that like the budget was there and the scale
14:49
of the problem was big enough.
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But it wasn't so big that like a single guy couldn't make a decision on the spot.
14:56
You know what I mean? there were so many things that just aligned so well.
14:58
~ so I scored a pretty big home run early on.
15:02
And so then, you know, I got a little caught.
15:04
Right, and I thought, alright,
15:05
cool. So I already solved like zero to one.
15:08
Now let's go find you know more Andrew Hainers and more Medusas.
15:12
and in my head I'm thinking, okay,
15:13
like I have this, you know, this was the deal size,
15:16
this was the solution. If I can find just maybe 10 more of these,
15:19
then like it's a great business,
15:20
and blah blah blah. And what I'm starting to understand.
15:25
Despite Medusa being like the best deal ever,
15:27
it's not really an ICP. It's very,
15:30
it's quite a unique company. It's not a typical 3PL,
15:34
it's not a typical self-fulfilling brand.
15:37
It's kind of a mix of both, but like,
15:39
there's not that many Medusas in America,
15:42
right? And that took me a while to understand because on a surface level,
15:47
Medusa looks like a 3PL, right?
15:50
But it's not. And so I'd be pitching a lot of these 3PLs and treating them like they
15:54
are a Medusa. But they're not,
15:56
right?
15:57
Yeah, it took me like a good year and a half.
15:59
it feels like thousands of like one on one like sales pitches with like
16:03
all kinds of people to like realize no actually
16:05
the pitch needs to change. the deal site goes a little down,
16:09
but sort of the scope of the solution goes a little down,
16:11
and then it's sort of like more digestible to them.
16:14
And also it it
16:15
Responds more closely to like the core needs of 3PLs.
16:19
I realize the core need of Medusa and the core need of 3PLs,
16:23
even though they look very similar,
16:24
you go to the warehouse and they use the same WMS and what the core need
16:28
and the core motivation of the two companies is very different,
16:31
right? And so, some point I decided I'm done chasing Medusas.
16:34
Like I was lucky with the first one,
16:36
and now I have to go close 3PLs,
16:38
and then like I kind of reinvented the company around that,
16:41
and then once I did that.
16:43
that like success followed pretty quickly after that because I already
16:46
had like a network and
16:47
also the advent of AI, like I suddenly realized I can like serve way more
16:52
may way more people with way way more sophisticated solutions and charge
16:56
way less money and still make good money because of AI,
17:00
right? That was also like sort of like helped helped with that.
17:04
But it was sort of like a solid solid ICP pivot that
17:08
Took a while to to execute.
17:11
Okay.
17:11
All right. So you're go like you said,
17:13
you landed this kind of almost unicorn account for you in terms of
17:17
That's exactly right.
17:19
Okay. And you were cocky in the beginning thinking,
17:22
Okay, I'll just find ten more of these and I'm set and then you
17:24
Yeah, I'm I was like I felt like Elon
17:26
Musk bro. I was like, wow. It was fun.
17:32
Okay. All right. And then you quickly realize well,
17:35
maybe not so quickly too, you realize,
17:37
this this is not working, right?
17:39
through a lot of pain and a lot of struggle.
17:41
So eventually you had to reinvent,
17:43
you had to pivot and kind of reinvent your service offering.
17:46
And so I mean, talk about two,
17:48
because again, right, you're a mathematician by trade,
17:51
you're working at Amazon. you you have this desire to do something,
17:56
you feel the USA energy, you got that entrepreneurial bug.
18:00
You go out on in a limb, you make you make the risk,
18:03
you do it, and then but now you realize you have to you have to pivot
18:08
and you have to find more business in a different way.
18:11
Like and obviously sales for a like a a ~ a startup and it's just
18:16
you in the beginning and sales is such a critical piece of that and
18:20
it doesn't sound like you have a sales background at all.
18:23
Like how did you kind of
18:25
maneuver through that and just find your way and ultimately start closing
18:29
all all these ~ additional accounts.
18:32
I don't have a sales background,
18:33
that's true. But I've always been like reasonably okay at communicating.
18:39
Even when I was at Amazon, I was like reasonably good at I wasn't like
18:43
the super super geeky software engineer.
18:45
I like a software engineer that was able to like speak the product manager language
18:50
and I wasn't at a complete disadvantage.
18:52
I think a lot of let's say my friends in tech,
18:55
they all want to start venture-backed startups,
18:59
right? They want to raise money from investors and then go build tech and sell
19:05
it to like big ticket customers.
19:06
So that's kind of like the Silicon Valley playbook.
19:08
And like obviously I wanted to do that too,
19:11
but I realized
19:14
I'm not really good at talking to investors,
19:15
right? the pitch to the investors it's a very particular skill,
19:19
right? So if I was pitching them Perseus,
19:21
I'd have to be like, hey, I'm gonna like,
19:23
you know, close, you know, 10,000 free PLs and I'm gonna charge XM,
19:27
you you what I mean? They're gonna be like,
19:28
what is the TAM? What is the total addressable market?
19:31
Like, how is this gonna be a $10 billion company?
19:34
And you know, the reality is like most most people.
19:38
People
19:38
don't really have a good answer to that because no one really knows,
19:40
right? When you're starting something with just an idea,
19:42
you don't really know what the TAM is.
19:44
But like the job of like, let's say the venture-backed founder is to like sound like
19:51
you have it all figured out, even when you don't.
19:52
And like I I don't really have that.
19:54
I don't really have that. So like when when investors,
19:57
when potential investors would be like,
19:58
hey Tomas, so like how big is the addressable market,
20:01
right? I'd be like, well, actually,
20:04
to be fully transparent, I don't really know.
20:06
I think it's I think it's big,
20:08
but like I have no idea, right?
20:09
And so
20:10
So investors don't like that. But this sort of like humble transparency.
20:14
It's not the way to raise money.
20:16
But what I did realize is that you know who likes this like weird humble
20:20
transparency? Potential customers,
20:23
right? when people are like, Can you do that?
20:25
Can you do that? Can you do that?
20:26
I can do this and I can do this,
20:28
but I probably
20:29
Can't do this and like I can maybe do do this,
20:32
but it's gonna be like hard and expensive.
20:34
Like I found this sort of like upfront transparency,
20:37
and like you willingly like almost throwing objections in front
20:43
of yourself as you're like making the pitch.
20:45
A certain set of customers like really appreciates that and like really sort
20:51
of like a breath of fresh air for them because they're used to like sales guys being
20:55
like, Yes, we can do it, we can do it,
20:56
we can do it, we can do it. Right.
20:58
~ so
20:59
That's something I've discovered ~ pretty early on that this is kind
21:04
of this this sort of like natural trait of mine,
21:06
weird transparency about my weaknesses,
21:08
appeals to certain set of customers.
21:09
but then my main struggle was even though I was like decent at sales,
21:15
my big realization was like
21:17
you can't sell if you don't have anyone to sell to,
21:19
right? It kind of starts at the top of the funnel,
21:21
right? before you can do your pitch,
21:23
you need to get people on the call and you need to get them in a certain mindset,
21:27
right? That like you're actually someone worth listening to.
21:30
And this whole like, you know,
21:33
how do you build the audience?
21:34
How do you build some kind of a brand?
21:36
You know, the the word brand,
21:38
I knew what the word brand meant,
21:40
theoretically, but I actually like didn't really know how it like drove decisions,
21:46
like buying decisions. And then for the first time,
21:48
I'm like, okay, why is it that like when I say something,
21:52
no one cares? And when like, you know,
21:55
this like YouTube influencer says the exact same thing,
21:58
everyone's like, my god, he's a genius,
22:00
da-da-da. And the and then suddenly I'm like,
22:02
that guy has a personal brand.
22:04
I need to be like
22:05
that guy and then suddenly people are gonna listen and they're potentially gonna
22:09
buy and and yeah that was very new and this this was all very new to me
22:13
and this was all very much like I learned that on the job and then yeah eventually
22:18
I realized if I just write stuff on LinkedIn
22:20
People will find me and reach out to me and and like view me with like authority
22:25
and and yeah. that's kind of like the main sales strategy of Perseus
22:29
to this day that was discovered pretty pretty accidentally.
23:13
Okay. All right. So through this process too,
23:16
like you're saying, like before you can sell,
23:19
you have to have people to sell to.
23:20
So understanding how do you market and how do you get inbound leads
23:27
and how do you build out like a an audience of people to pitch to.
23:31
So you you discovered the necessity of personal branding and you started doing that
23:35
on LinkedIn.
23:36
and then as you said too, you're not you don't have a sales background,
23:39
but you understood kind of what
23:42
the differences between what investors are looking to hear and that's
23:45
not your style, but then this weird,
23:48
humble transparency as you call it,
23:50
where you're just being open and honest,
23:51
like I can do this, I can't do that.
23:53
This is probably not a good idea,
23:55
but we could do this and that.
23:57
You just found that that that's refreshing to small business owners where they just
24:01
want someone that's going to be straight with them and appreciate
24:05
~ appreciate that upfront honesty.
24:07
So that combination of
24:09
doing the LinkedIn marketing and in your humble transparency,
24:12
that allowed you to basically scale and get more and more 3PL clients
24:16
for your your consulting work.
24:18
That's exactly right. And that was
24:20
Okay.
24:21
very learned on the job in those sort of like one and a half,
24:25
you know, wilderness years.
24:26
All right. And on that journey,
24:28
right? like you said, w a wilderness is a great exam analogy
24:32
to being an entrepreneur in terms of wandering in the
24:34
my god.
24:34
in the wilderness. Like through that whole journey and through this pain
24:38
of having to figure all this stuff out,
24:40
was there ever a point in time where you thought about giving up?
24:47
Okay. All right. And so, right,
24:49
because you left a very, you know,
24:51
cushy job. Every everyone thought you were you like,
24:54
what are you doing? Right. And then as you're on this journey,
24:57
you're out in the wilderness, so to speak,
24:59
and having to figure this out painfully to try to how to make this all work.
25:03
~ what what kept you going?
25:05
part of me is like I'm just stubborn.
25:07
part of me is like
25:09
I don't like easily give up. I like to think my athletic background
25:13
had something to do with it. like I did I did gymnastics pretty seriously when
25:19
I was a teenager and like
25:21
I I personally think it's it's like the best thing children can do,
25:25
but like I think sports in general are just great,
25:27
just because like sports teach you this like amazing lesson of like
25:33
you try something, it doesn't work,
25:35
and you try it again and it still doesn't work,
25:38
and then you try it 150 times and then it improves a little bit,
25:42
right? And then and then you try again and again and again.
25:45
And especially gymnastics has this like is like so well known for it.
25:49
It's like because these tricks they take years.
25:52
Of repetition, of falling, so it like creates this like weird like resilience where
25:58
like you just try again. It's like it didn't work out again,
26:01
let's try again. So I like to think this helps,
26:05
and I think that definitely did,
26:06
but also I was just a little lucky.
26:10
I think I've had like two
26:13
too serious sort of crises and they were mainly
26:18
less like business crises and more like mental crises where it was just like almost
26:22
exactly a year ago. Like I think I'm doing pretty well.
26:25
I have I have Medusa and I have like a few other contracts now,
26:29
smaller contracts and I'm slowly trying to figure out how
26:34
to build this company and I've hired some team and then a couple of things happened.
26:38
Like some of my team members don't really work out.
26:42
So I need to like I need to make my already small team even smaller.
26:47
Because like two of the people that I had were just like not not really working out.
26:51
So that was one painful thing.
26:52
And then in parallel, there's this like company that's like,
26:57
hey Tomas, we're gonna buy you,
26:59
right? and then I get like super low ball,
27:01
right? And so then that completely like gets into my head where I'm just like
27:05
I'm just going through this wilderness,
27:07
just like hustling, just trying to build something.
27:10
And I think I'm building like value.
27:12
And then and then when someone like actually tries to like
27:16
Price that value. It's like it's like so little.
27:20
It's like even so little just compared to like the opportunity cost that
27:24
I had in Amazon. And I was just like,
27:26
my god, like what have I done?
27:30
Like this doesn't even the math doesn't math.
27:32
Why am I like working so so so so much for so so so so so little?
27:37
so I that was when I was like the closest to like just like calling
27:42
my boss at Amazon back saying like hey can I get my job back?
27:45
Yeah.
27:45
But ~ luckily,
27:47
luckily, and it and this happens pretty much every time I've been in such
27:51
a weird crisis.
27:52
Because it was like Q4-ish. So I was like,
27:55
let me get back to Q one and make that decision in Q one.
27:58
Let me survive to Q one and then like I'll I'll make a new decision at Q one.
28:02
And somehow I make to Q one and like people are calling me,
28:07
hey Tomas, can we re-revisit? You know,
28:09
the old leads are calling me, hey Tomas,
28:11
can we revisit the project? You know,
28:14
a bunch of new referrals start coming in,
28:17
and I'm like
28:19
maybe it's not that bad. Maybe I'm you know,
28:21
maybe I was overthinking it
28:23
I think it's a combination of like a little bit of grit and just like just like keep
28:27
going. Because like, yeah, my favorite sort of like business author,
28:31
he he keeps saying like as you go through life and business,
28:34
you're just gonna get you're gonna get good luck and bad luck.
28:37
So it's all about like just staying alive long enough that like the good luck finds
28:42
you and like so far it's been it's been it's been working out.
28:46
~ yeah, ju just don't die, right?
28:49
Just don't die
28:50
exactly, Jim Collins.
28:53
Yes. All right. So so you make it through that Q four,
28:57
Q one, all this stuff starts happening and you say you realize that it's just
29:01
n you know, it's not that bad.
29:02
Maybe you're overreacting and you you press on.
29:05
So what's Perseus look like today?
29:08
So Perseus looks it's kind of a hybrid between ~ a software consulting company
29:14
and like a product company. we specialize in very niche tech for
29:21
warehouses, right? And whether you're a 3PL or a self-fulfilling brand or you know,
29:25
if you have if you have warehouses and you move stuff around with like,
29:28
you know, parcels, palettes, you pick and pack stuff onto parcels
29:32
or pallets or whatever, like we have some solutions for you,
29:36
right? Especially if it's like direct to consumer e-commerce,
29:40
right? We definitely have solutions for you.
29:41
So we have some we have a portfolio of ~ out of box solutions like
29:47
you know this cartonization algorithm,
29:50
right? Like if you
29:51
you know if you have a if you're a 3PL and you have a WMS and like
29:54
you constant you know your WMS is like predicting a box to use to put items
29:58
in and the WMS keeps like messing it up because the items are like oddly shaped
30:03
and the a WMS can't compute it correctly or whatever.
30:06
Or you have some weird like rules that like this item needs to be squished this
30:10
way and whatever we have an algorithm for that specifically for that that's like
30:15
very fast and very optimized for for these kind of problems.
30:19
So that's where we started that's what
30:20
Medusa originally wanted they had a very complicated sort of way they pick
30:26
and pack items, and and so we've we built an algorithm for that,
30:29
and then we realized in a certain sort of packaged form and cheaper form
30:34
we can distribute it to other 3PLs.
30:35
So that's the cartonization API.
30:38
Then we also have this tool called dates and rates,
30:41
which is specifically for 3PLs that serve direct-to-consumer Shopify brands.
30:47
You you can think of
30:48
bit like you know amazon prime but for you know but for Shopify you take in your
30:54
~ 3 pl data your operational SL like opening hours your cutoffs your your
30:59
WMS inventory levels and your carrier contracts and you install it
31:04
on your brand's Shopify and then
31:06
Whenever a customer of the brand is on the checkout,
31:09
that checkout request isn't served by Shopify anymore.
31:13
Instead, that request gets sent to us and we rate it against
31:18
the 3PL configuration and the 3PL,
31:21
you know, easy post and UPS and USPS,
31:23
whatever the 3PL has negotiated,
31:26
and whatever the whatever pickups and whatever the 3PL has with that carrier.
31:31
And we give like a super accurate delivery estimate to the checkout,
31:35
right? So the customer can be.
31:36
be
31:36
like okay free shipping five business days but like if you want like FedEx
31:41
two day you can have it in two business days for like extra 15 bucks right
31:45
and then our job is to make sure that whatever they choose that label
31:49
It's printed, on the back end.
31:50
And so that's our second sort of out of out-of-box solution.
31:54
Then third out-of-box solution is like for whatever reason,
31:57
you need like an alternative carrier,
31:59
and like your WMS doesn't have it,
32:02
like we can print our labels, you know.
32:04
this sort of like ship outside system functionality for alternative carriers
32:08
or just like carriers that are not supported in your WMS,
32:10
we can print your labels for that,
32:12
And then finally we sell consulting We always
32:15
Come up with some kind of a you know very low cost like software solution that's
32:20
sort of like amortized to a reasonable monthly fee.
32:23
But it's like, what's your random problem that you have with your WMS
32:26
or TMS or Shopify or whatever?
32:28
Okay, can we build some API connections,
32:31
maybe some AI that like responds to some very specific thing that you need
32:36
and no one else needs? And we just build it.
32:39
And you know, generally we say yes to customers,
32:41
especially today with AI, it's very easy to say yes to all.
32:44
kinds of weird requests and yeah we've we we've accumulated a portfolio
32:50
of like I don't know 20 3PLs that work with us in some capacity across
32:53
the US we have a few in Europe too and it's been it's been a solid journey
32:59
so far feeling feeling feeling pretty blessed.
33:02
Okay.
33:02
All right. And Tomas, when you look back at your whole journey from starting
33:05
in Czech Republic, the math degree,
33:08
the Amazon experience, making the leap,
33:11
starting your own company, wandering through the wilderness,
33:14
so to speak, and and going through that pain and then seeing where you're
33:18
at right here, and and scaling the way you have,
33:22
like what what's been the the best part of this whole journey for you?
33:25
My journey, I think, has been pretty pleasant,
33:28
I would say. I mean, there's been a lot of pain,
33:30
but overall, like it's been it's been generally enjoyable.
33:33
I really like now that I'm a business owner and especially that
33:40
I'm like a bootstrap business owner,
33:42
right? Like I I have no investors,
33:44
I have no outside capital, outside parties like asking me how I'm doing,
33:48
right?
33:48
There's a lot of freedom and it's a lot of like
33:51
I get to choose who I work with.
33:53
~ and especially early on,
33:56
I would work with anyone, but but today I think.
33:59
it's such a privilege like being able to like you know,
34:03
because a lot of the three PLs that I work with are just like friends that I've
34:06
known from before, right? And now I get to like have like
34:10
a business relationship with them and it's super fun.
34:14
You know, it's just like dudes that are like,
34:16
you know, similar ages me, similar stories,
34:18
cool stories, right? And now we're all just like running our
34:21
own businesses and working together and it's all very sort of
34:24
consensual and everyone's just like,
34:26
you know, everyone's just happy to be here and like do cool stuff
34:28
for the customer. ~ yeah, that's super fun.
34:32
I really really enjoyed that. That was like sort of like the one thing
34:34
I missed at Amazon. I enjoyed working at Amazon,
34:37
but the not really having the say on like the roadmap and like where things
34:42
are going. even though we were working on like super cool stuff and we had
34:45
a lot of impact, you know, I'd I'd make a algorithm change that like suddenly like
34:50
impacted hundreds of millions of users,
34:52
right? That was super cool.
34:53
cool but like I didn't really decide what that change would was right
34:57
I didn't really decide the roadmap whereas now you know my impact is at this point
35:04
a little bit lower but like I get to make all the decisions
35:08
and that's super liberating. I really enjoyed that
35:11
Okay.
35:12
All right. And Tomas, if people want to find out more about your services,
35:15
~ and potentially ~ get in touch about business,
35:19
how how can people find you online?
35:21
Best is LinkedIn, so LinkedIn slash I-N slash T-O-M-A-S-Y-E.
35:28
And you can also visit our website www.getp
35:34
e r-se-us.com
35:38
Okay. All right. And we will link all that in the show notes for everyone.
35:41
All right. Thom
35:42
Awesome. Thank thank you so much.
35:44
Yeah, Tomas, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and sharing
35:47
all this incredible wisdom from your journey with our listeners.
35:50
We greatly appreciate it.
35:52
Appreciate you, Dave. Thanks for having me.
35:54
All right.