How to Build a Marketplace and Digitize the Farmers Market with Dan Brunner

from the crossroads of America in the hooer state of Indiana this is get in the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary Innovations happening right now in the Heartland I'm Matt hunkler CEO at powdercake and I'll be one of your hosts for today's conversation I'm joined in Studio by co-host Nate spangle head of community at powderkeg and on the show today is Dan Bruner CEO at Market wagon that's not like shopping on Amazon which is completely optimized for let's read the reviews let's buy the one or two things that I'm looking for and I'll come back and buy some other stuff in a day or two if you're going to buy 20 things at a time it is tedious Dan Bruner is an expert in all thing Supply Chain management and Innovation his unique insights have not only propelled Market wagon to new heights but also reshaped how we think about e-commerce and Logistics in a rapidly evolving Digital World Dan's journey in the logistics and fulfillment world is nothing short of remarkable he was an early employee at Kaa systems a gamechanging Enterprise in the field of Robotics and automation for fulfillment centers which was acquired by Amazon in 2012 for a whopping $775 million he's making waves now at Market wagon an Innovative company operating local online farmers markets and delivering fresh local food directly to Consumers under his guidance Market wagon has grown quickly earning a spot at number 680 on the Inc 5000 list of America's fastest growing private companies in today's show we're going to cover a range of topics including the future of supply chain management the role of analytics in driving business decisions and Dan's approach to innovating and digital transformation we'll explore tips for growing a direct to Consumer e-commerce business understand the Dynamics of Market booms and Market Corrections and delve into Dan's Rich experiences and lessons learned from his tenure at K systems from its prefunding stages to its post-acquisition triumphs with Amazon and all the amazing things going on at Market wagon Dan welcome to get in thank you happy to be here we are so excited about this convers ation I'm eager to dive into all things Logistics and supply chain but before we do I I thought maybe we could back it up a little bit and you could tell us a little bit about your career journey and what took you from post College diving into entrepreneurship and just this crazy cool career path sure first I have to shout out for you make Logistics and supply chain sound like the most cool interesting topic ever and we'll make it that way today I think so thumbs up for that hey we wouldn't have anything if if it wer the logistics and supply I think it's pretty cool that's right my personal journey I I born and raised in in Indiana got an engineering degree went to California did that for a little while but ended up ended up getting a business degree and becoming embedded in a lot of software related businesses so I'm not a coder but have been close to software the whole time I can code a little bit if I need to but not probably don't want to that's same for me but that's put me in a unique position both at ke and at Market wagon when it comes to figuring out what the tech can and can't do so that's been help helpful some roles in marketing in the past as well I I uh got really interested in grocery during the long ago first.

com bubble that's now been a while yeah and a bunch of companies started up and a lot of them fell on their face which is scar tissue that especially Inc grocery we're still dealing with that scar tissue today a little bit yeah yeah what was that like going through that at the time I was operating an engineering Consulting business in Broad Ripple nice and I was asking people like Atlas supermarket and Good Earth Natural Foods hey let me take you online it's time it's time they weren't quite ready for different reasons sure but I moved on with my engineering Consulting business but one of the biggest startups during that era was web van started by Louis borders and they raised I think 750 million something like that and were gone in a year and a half they built a bunch of big automated distribution centers because that's what they thought you needed to do in order to do e-commerce fulfillment one of the individuals who worked for them really really smart and charismatic guy named Mick Mount MIT engineer Harvard MBA was tasked with trying to make it cheaper to deliver those orders from web vam when the company folded he got to thinking about how to do it better and that became Kaa systems so very cool Mick approached me in my Consulting business my little one room office in Broad ruple in 2002 he paid a visit and how did you two originally get connected he got connected cuz he needed to he's very Visual and he wanted to be able to demonstrate this idea that had for robots driving around in warehouses a lot of people have seen the videos of the Amazon warehouses with the robots driving around so that's what this is and cool but it didn't exist yet and so he needed to be able to communicate it visually and study it from an engineering standpoint see if it was going to work so he had reached out to a software company that I had worked for previously that did simulation software so he's calling me up saying Dan can you help me simulate and visualize this idea that's cool so my small company in Broad rle did that on a a Consulting basis for a couple years but then Kea got funded and they got funded again and they made me an offer I couldn't refuse so I spent the next seven years as a VP at Kea systems on an airplane every Monday morning to Boston we didn't move we stayed in Indianapolis wow that's awesome that was a a really amazing ride and Mick was an amazing mentor and and how much did he raise for um ke systems do you remember I think the total ever rais was 33 million okay so he raised 750 million thereabouts sold 775 after raising 33 was he wasn't the founder of the web van he wasn't the founder of web van no this isn't web van sorry sorry for the confusion there Mick was an employee at web van but he was the founder of gotta and he was able to raise $30 million post.

com bubbles for a warehouse automation company so he's obviously good at raising money at least telling story yeah I think so yeah what do you think he did particularly well that you observed in those early days of Kaa systems he was just really a great leader he was charismatic and and obviously really smart and he had a vision for how Kea needed to work and how it needed to be perceived in the marketplace and he really stuck to that Vision maybe over the objections of some other people there's a little bit of so Mick had been a product manager at Apple he's not Steve Jobs personality wise but I think that Hands-On approach I'm G to get this product exactly right yeah was in his DNA and and I guess I as I think about this like you knew that he worked at web van and that had not gone well and then he convinces you to Jo another automation startup where he raised more money and you're like oh yeah come join like we're going to get it right this time webam was an e-commerce grocery company that was before its time basically they arguably didn't they might wish they had spent their money a different way and the market wasn't really ready also the Shoppers weren't ready in 2000 for someone else to choose their peaches and their bananas that that didn't exist at that time right Amazon was four years old or whatever at that time yeah that's right so the market wasn't ready for dotom grocery most of the companies that started then failed a few of them survive or have been bought out a few times and still exist today but that Wast Grocery and Bick was trying to help the dotcom grosser and he ended up starting a business to help other.

com companies do what they do which is why Amazon eventually bought Ka very cool yeah I understand your grandfather was an entrepreneur he was how did that shape how did his experiences shape your own early career decisions and kind of overall career trajectory focusing on kind of more entrepreneurial roles for yourself yeah Louis Bruner was a very hardworking and also charismatic person in a different way but what was his business it was a chemical business for soap wax that kind of thing cool yeah very cool so he was trained that way and that was the business that he started in 1935 and just being able to visit that business on a regular basis when I was small and observing what he did and how how he interacted with the people there I just always wanted to be an entrepreneur myself so are there things that you saw him do in that business that looking back you think maybe influence how you've gone about business and some of the successes you've had I think there was a great care taken to have relation the relationship between the employer and the company I think he was really good at that yeah very cool very cool let's tell the employee in the company sorry I misstated but sure tell me a little bit about Market wagon and how that came to be so with my great interest in Doom and when I when Koo got sold at that time my title was VP of grocery Solutions design so we we're working there's this kind of common theme of grocery yeah and when when I met Nick Carter who's my co-founder at Market wagon when he was already doing a prototype of this with not mainstream groceries so you're not competing with Kroger in Walmart but it it's a defensible niche into more profitable Niche my eyes just got really big and I said this is the business to be in yeah so we got together and formed Market Wagon in the spring of 2017 that's cool and give me the original pitch from Nick yeah from you oh yeah we have a mission which is to help local food producers farmers and food Artisans thrive in their local and Regional markets that's still our mission today so that was that was the mission back in 2017 and it's still Mission today that's correct nice that's so fun because I feel like you're also in in the right timing where farmers markets are more prevalent than ever right like every Saturday in Broad Ripple and caramel and every throw throw a rock in in Indianapolis and you're going to find one every Saturday here at 16 Tech where we're recording there's a farmers market Farmers out in the amp space really I not know I know during the winter yeah okay yeah winter Farmers Market here and it's incredible but it's not the same one that's been going for years in on the near East Side I'm not sure about that I'm not sure you I feel like you might be the farmers market exper of them around here um those relationships with the Farmers Market vendors are kind of part of the lifeblood of Market wagon so we we need to know who those people are well you talk about you were back in two the early 2000s trying to get Good Earth grocery I this one I know in Broad rle right you're trying to get them online Y and when you kind of go about the traditional Farmers Market was that a hard challenge as well getting the traditional Farmers Market small business oh probably a side hustle for most of them hey come online en join this technology solution is going to help you get your goods out everywhere yeah so in the market wagon era get getting those people into Market wagon as vendors it's really a true Marketplace business where they sign up and they produce the content and they do the listings and they set the inventory and they set the prices and they're bringing the food to us typically on our fulfillment day we'll get into the logistics and supply chain part but it's very unique and it's the reason why the economics are better for marketwagon than a lot of other e-commerce Grocers cool but those relationships are are critical is a relationship business it's a relationship business at the level of talking to someone who just had has a few chickens and and raises sells eggs but all the way to someone who might have a really large produce Farm somewhere even though it's still local and local scale but they're a larger successful produce Farm it's the relationship that that person has with their customers that is I was surprised to learn that it's not arms length it's a relationship based yeah that makes sense to me yeah I obviously Market wagon is super successful right now 680 on the Inc 5000 fastest growing company list but I imagine that wasn't always the case can you talk about some of the bigger challenges that you face before we dive into the success and the how of the success I'd love to just learn a little bit more about maybe some of the bigger challenges you faced either with markets themselves Market shifts I would imagine the pandemic had some effect and then even things like business partners and who you decide to team up with I'm curious yeah so I think again it's you're trying to grow a customer base in a Marketplace but you're also trying to grow the supply base in a lot of ways the supplier is like our customer like we're selling access to these consumer to you the farmer or food maker and you have the consumers because you've done such a good job with digital marketing and attracting back when that was feasible yeah digital marking is a little different today than it was six years ago it sure is it's like a double on time drive it it really literally is the chicken or the egg and then the Chicken and the Egg of digital marketing customers consumers so we got to get the consumers to get the the suppliers and the suppliers to get the consumers and in the early days I want to give a shout out to Ryan Thomas who was early on at Market wagon he was hustling back in the day he's out there banging on doors and finding initial vendors finding other types of partners for us so big shout out to Ryan yeah that's awesome and uh that was the kind of the challenge at the time we were able to find customers we started down an expansion path what in hindsight might have been a little early for us but just by happen stance we decided to open a few somebody wanted us to take over a business in Evansville so we did that and then we opened a few more and they're early going so we had six in as of January 2020 then the pandemic hit and we made a decision to expand as fast as we could so we opened all kinds of locations all at once and we're now we're trying to form these difficult to form relationships with all these vendors in Far Away places not just Cleveland but also Kansas City and Atlanta and places like that so it was really challenging we got we don't have 37 locations anymore because there was too many right grew too fast yeah grew too fast but we learned a lot we learned how to expand and when we have our next big wave of expansion we'll know better so in hindsight how do you think about that are you like oh I wish we hadn't expanded too fast or oh we expanded too fast but it was worth it because we learned these things along the way and next time we're ready to really step on the gas yeah I think it was worth it because in in many of those cities we grew a pretty nice business and that that exists today and is growing so so you planted a lot of seeds yeah that's that is exactly right and you're nurturing the ones that are growing some of them came to fruition and some of them didn't but and in general it was the ones that we planted first like in 2020 sure out of that that 31 Hub 16-month expansion yeah the first half of that because they were around longer they had more resources it takes time to recrete the critical mass of consumers and suppliers and those are the ones pretty much that are still around the ones that we opened in 2021 many of those are we just didn't have the momentum of the win Tailwinds of the pandemic were receding by the time we opened those and is it hard as a leader as an executive to know when it's time to put up my closeup shop on something like that yeah I think it really is when the first decisions had to be made and it was over two years ago here's a few of them that aren't doing very well we maybe should just cut bait on those um Nick and I and our board were making those decisions and it was hard it's hard it's hard to throw the baby out you how quick could you tell it's like you you open this up in 2021 and it's is it like a three-month thing a six-month thing nine a year 18 months and you're like hey we got to start figuring what we're going to do here yeah less than a year in some of the cases yeah that makes sense yeah so you went from a handful of locations to more than 30 locations in 16 months talk to me about your top tips to entrepreneurs who are managing through a period of Rapid expansion what are the things that entrepreneurs need to keep top of Mind keep your powder dry I don't think we did we didn't have any trouble raising money in 2020 and 2021 sure and we believed earnestly and honestly that the sources of that Capital wanted us to spend it as rapidly as possible trying to go the business as business grow the business as rapid as we could but the digital marketing environment changed underneath us in 2021 and the pandemic tide began to roll out and so some of that spend wasn't very effective so my advice to someone else would be keep make real-time adjustments to your spend so that your Runway based on realistic or conservative projections stays where it needs to be because I don't think we did that we f it all what about tips in terms of just leading a team and managing uh culture and stress during that time period so not so much culture and stress during that time period but uh we also ended up with a staff to support 37 hubs so we don't have the same staff anymore sure and that that transition started essentially in the summer of 20122 and had to continue in several steps this year so we have a much leaner team than we used to have so culturally yeah if you ask me what's my biggest challenge and what's the most important Key to Our Success I think it is company culture I think that how you keep everyone excited and on the same page and engaged in the process I think the team is more engaged now than it's ever been that's something I'm very happy about and I'm grateful to that yeah what do you think are some of the steps that you and your leadership team have taken that have contributed to that greater amount of kind of buyin collaboration and everyone getting on the same page partly is just the selection process of who's left you keep the people that are going to be those people yeah but it's being transparent making sure everybody body knows exactly what's going on and what the company's goals are we set out two goals at the beginning of 2023 and we've hammered them home all year long consist was that like a conflicting as the leader right you're on you're 680 on the Inc 5000 list so from the outside looking in they're like oh they're crushing it they're doing really well but internally you're shrinking right you're letting people go and having to restructure it how do you manage that as a leader um I don't think there's a conflict that people on the inside know what's going on and we don't hang a banner on our website that says oh by the way we had to say goodbye to two other people this week that's not really a public piece of information that that wasn't really a challenge I don't think I'm just think like you personally you're the leader there and it's like when you're I know sometimes like I feel like Executives we have on talk about like the necessarily the impostor syndrome but just that experience of everyone's saying ad a boy good job like I'm pumped up goinging in there of the mark wagons growing like Indiana companies are represented really well on the Inc 5000 list right right but then like internally you're like our team knows it's like hey we have to get leaner we have to we might have not spend our money in the best places and you're like on the inside there the getting lean part is temporary right we're going to be we're going to be growing again we've already our Revenue curve has gone flat this year with zero spin on Performance Marketing which is a heck of an accomplishment a Real Testament to the work that the team has done with the consumers and the vendors without that budget behind them so not really a challenge in that regard and for me personally I'm persistent and I'm a Problem Solver by Nature so we're going to figure it out and they know that they know that hear from me about any topic let's dive into the superpower of Market wagon a little bit more and your obviously uh wheelhouse supply chain Logistics that I love that for those who maybe don't know supply chain and obviously I think we can go pretty deep because you're an expert and I'd like to get to those like top 1% questions that go really deep but let's start like way zoomed out for those who maybe don't know what supply chain is or understand what we're talking about when we say supply chain what is your definition of supply chain it means different things to different people but I would characterize it as the physical journey of whatever product it is and then of course there's an ordering process and there's a non-physical part of it too but it's the Journey of the items that are going to end up in the end user's hands all the way from source to the end user so it's how do those get through in some cases like in mainstream grocery they're going to go through consolidation channels upstream and into somebody else's distribution center and then maybe into the groceries distribution center and then out to a regional Hub and out to grocery stores there can be many steps in the supply chain when you're at scale MH and and these days right even to like last mile delivery of like into your postma's car or whatever right like which is a whole another I'm super excited to dive into that yeah yeah okay like people feel like we take it for granted I just press a button anywhere and it just shows how I door in a couple hours and it's there yeah and and it's really interesting for me too because I am I am a an order fulfillment automation expert like that's a thing that I am there's other things too but that's a thing that I am and and I'm running a business that has zero Automation and no intention of having any automation anytime soon so it puts me in an interesting spot but it's also the reason why there's a lot of these carcasses by the side of the road of past people whove tried to do hom delivered groceries because it can be really expensive on the logistics and supply chain side and for as long as we've been talking to institutional investors they ask what's your utilization of your drivers and what how big do your Ware houses have to be in all that and we're like we got all that licked great a unique spot to be in but our business lends itself uniquely well to that it's really difficult to build a large scale automation operation to assemble specifically gross reorders because the products have all these different form factors and temperature requirements and all of that it's really difficult so whether you're web van in 2020 or okado in 2010 or whoever you are trying to do that it's really hard yeah and our system gets around all of that and I can answer lots of questions about it but yeah it's fun to be in that s side of things where the supply chain is so simple right so because it's local to each area there's not nearly as much transport there aren't additional consolidation points so most typically if you're buying a dozen eggs on Market wagon the person whose chickens laid those eggs or maybe somebody that they hired physically drives them to our location in the morning MH right walks into our building with them follows instructions generated by our clever software that tells them exactly where each dozen or two dozen or case of eggs is going to go checks a box when the vendors have all done that the order finished it's correctly packed it is already qced we don't need to do anything more with it we just zip it up and go and our gig driver takes it to the consumer so you want to talk about a simple lean supply chain where we don't have any inbound costs we have almost no order fulfillment labor costs if you're Amazon and you want to build or anybody else who aspires to be an e-commerce player and you want to build an operation that consolidates different items into one shipping contain Amazon's a bad example because they've made the consolidation Point your front door now right so they just bring lots of individual things because their trucks are so dense but y somebody on a lesser scale trying to do this that needs to consolidate the items in their building they've got to figure out Automation and transport inside the building and they've got to figure out how are I going to sort that finished order out to the right destination and they have to spend a lot of money on either labor or automation to do that and we just pulled all that out at Market wagon so it's just such a cool model I don't get full credit for it like Nick was doing this when I met him yeah yeah but so yeah so to put that to like the normal consumer terms if Matt and I both ordered I ordered eggs and some meat and something and Matt just ordered the eggs your egg vendor comes to the market wagon facility drops eggs in my box or bag or whatever it is then puts it in Matt's box and then the meat vendor would come and just fill my box and then get out of there y so you don't even have to have an employee to pack all the stuff up wow that's really interent yeah yeah that's very cool what are some of your top tips so many businesses and startups of course don't have the benefit of sourcing everything locally and supply chain is complex in different ways what are some of the top tips that you have to other aspiring entrepreneurs who are working with physical just keep it as lean as you can don't invest in any more physical infrastructure than you have to if you do need some physical infrastructure obviously don't put your Capital there this even extends to there are Venture funded companies out there that are doing indoor growing and I hope I'm not throwing anybody under the bus who's watching this by saying so but why would that be a venture capital investment why wouldn't that be like like building that building seems like more of a Bank investment regular capital investment reg like this isn't yeah interesting so in terms of keeping overhead low don't build out all the logistics find someone who's already built that if you can yeah now when it comes to software I'm of a different mindset know we're not B using anyone else's software so one of the things that I learned at Kaa systems was the really successful Dooms the ones that were growing the ones that were getting bought up by certain other large players not to be named business processes and your business processes are going to be unique to the whatever it is that you're selling build it yourself so we brought that philos I brought that philosophy into Market wagon and Nick built a lot of what we use that's cool today so you don't even really have inventory management in the traditional sense is that right the there's there are tools that enable the marketplace vendors to manage their inventory on our platform okay what are some of the top tips that you give to those vendors in terms of managing their inventory and maybe that's something that your sof software is helping them with maybe that's something that they're all learning from one another yeah it's really cool because the inventory that is sold on Market wagon is actually in their field or in their cooler or freezer if they're if they're a meat vendor for example so they have to manage it for other channels that they use as well we have some tools that help them integrate with other tools for managing that but for the most part they're able to get into the market wagon portal and and specify specifically what they're making available for sale and we don't have to manage the Ava for sale at all how do you choose I would imagine what vendors you Source from is probably one of the most important decisions yes absolutely you can make how should other entrepreneurs choose where to Source their products from and how did you do that at Market wagon those might be two different questions because our business is so unique you know if you're talking about food there a whole set of food related constraints but in general you just you want people who are going to be reliable and and where you're not having to babysit their quality or anything like that that would be my advice so probably a more established business that's been doing this for a while they've worked out at the Kinks maybe some established businesses aren't good at it some startups are so I feel like it's like the farmers market thing where it's you my aunt she makes pies at the Plymouth farmers market in Northern Indiana and she is known across Plymouth as the pie lady I bet she's the blueberry pie lady ah you you I know all about the Marshall count Blueberry Festival Blueberry Festival it's a big deal it's like Hidden Gem in Indiana yes it is a Hidden Gem and if you haven't been to the Blueberry Festival you need to but it's like at a farmers market like people go and and have this brand loyalty to the the tent the booth the person that's there every Saturday morning like grinding on like making pies for everybody like doesn't have to be like the established business like XYZ Farms but it's like this person who has this like credibility right yep yep it is we have those Marshall County blueberries by the way in in a couple of our locations that aren't far from that County little plug for that out you going have those now you can stop buying those frozen berries for your I am a frozen berries kind of guy got to go fresh man absolutely talk to me a little bit about the sort of cost when you're sourcing these different vendors like I would imagine there's some vendors where feels like a it's a bargain but when you like dive into it it is an actual real efficiencies gain there when you pull up in the hood and see how things are working pricing in groceries is a really interesting topic I would imagine and why are all my groceries as expensive as they were a year ago in general right eggs eggs in particular certain thing Commodities have gone way up in price at the grocery store in the last few years to the point where in some cases they're less expensive on Market Wagon in general our products are going to be similarly or slightly higher priced because they're fresher and their consumers want to pay for knowing where their food come from that is an increasing Trend right so that's one of the reasons marketwagon feels like it's so well positioned for the future you got to get you got to make sure that they're all real yeah you really want your software algorithms that decide the software algorithms have a lot to say about the shopping experience in in our e-commerce store okay and they're good they're getting better one of the things that we don't do because it's not easy to do is preference for Value so the consumer is having to sort through the different blueberries of the different eggs and figure out I like the value here I like this vendor I've used them before they have good quality or they have good star ratings or whatever it is and make those decisions but we're not making a deliberate decision to put the $425 eggs behind the $3.

75 eggs right in our search results and that that's coming but in order to do that you have to do a lot more in the software than what we currently have that's really interesting that the algorithm so they're setting the price maybe that's the part I left out of the conversation like we're not setting that price yeah the person who's selling on our Marketplace is deciding what they're going to charge and so the algorithm is really just trying to figure out how do I serve more relevant items relevant doesn't necessarily mean lower cost or higher cost it could mean a lot of different does necessar mean yeah this person clearly buys mostly produce why am individualized to that person yeah well I'm becoming more and more that way we do show them things from the people they've bought from before and there's some other tweaks to the algorithms but More's coming winning that algorithm battle I'm I'm gonna get on a soap box here for just a second pleas when you shop online for 20 things in one session that's not like shopping on Amazon which is completely optimized for let's read the reviews let's buy the one or two things that I'm looking for and I'll come back and buy some other stuff in a day or two if you're going to buy 20 things at a time it is tedious it takes time to figure out what all you want to put in your cart and different large players as well as Market wagon have come up with some shortcuts to help you fill your cart faster but it's an area where we'll be investing heavily in the future we want to make sure that we're Best in Class at that so that when you get on to Market Wagon Market wagon's like you wanted I think you wanted these 20 things which ones don't you want and getting better and better at that is is a core competency that we're to work on what are some of the other things looking forward that you think are going to separate the e-commerce businesses that really take off from the ones that maybe stay stagnant or fade away the same everyone's in e-commerce business right now you're you're any kind of a retailer you're an e-commerce player but it's a weird landscape right now because of the dominance of a few players I think that the successful ones it is all about the logistics and the supply chain how do they manage that yeah the other parts are not as easy to screw up let's put it that way if someone is an entrepreneur and they're selling goods online and they're not an expert in supply chain yet where should they start should they start with finding a business partner who is a supply chain expert or is this something that you think an entrepreneur can learn on the job through trial and error if they have the right resources maybe those are books podcasts courses you need to have the relationships with your suppliers but in terms of the physical Logistics of order fulfillment a lot of people Outsource that to what's called a a third party Logistics provider or 3pl there's lots of lots of them here in Indianapolis where like Warehouse had some on the on the show um so a lot of people will do that as a way to not have to build that infrastructure themselves yeah so just skip that step y allow them to focus on maybe getting a competitive Advantage somewhere else yeah yeah that makes a lot of sense tell me more about what you're excited about with Market wagon that sets you apart just we know we're still sitting on the right Trend if you look at what happened to e-commerce sales overall and especially grocery sales during the pandemic there was a big spike in the spring of 2020 and then it fluttered like almost three years until the end of 2022 the demand on the e-commerce side was slowly declining right and so we experienced that which is one of the reasons for parts of earlier parts of this conversation sure but then you get to 2023 and you see what's happening and you look at the projections for the future online grocery is is supposed to double between 2023 and 2028 and we're on the end of it that's highly growing of consumers wanting to know where their food comes from yeah we're just super excited about what the future holds for Market wagon you're a premium product too like it's not a race to the bottom it's not like your Target customer is coming and being like all right how can I save some money here today I think might be an aspect but we've learned that everybody cares what they spend on groceries from the very wealthiest person to the very not and all of those people shop on Market wagons some of them spend more some of them spend less we're not targeting anyone specific demographic and everybody cares but yeah I think what's super interesting I'd love to hear like maybe a success story of someone that got on the market wagon platform and instead of being in a small little physical space on a Saturday mornings y there any stories of how you've helped grow people's small businesses into bigger businesses and sell pies or whatever lots and lots of stories there there are businesses that we helped survive the pandemic businesses that we help to grow and augment what they're doing one particular story that stands out would be a company called native bread that makes gluten-free baked goods gluten-free bread type products and if I can say her name Haley McGinley the founder of that company was on markco Wagon at the very beginning right and she's in there every week with her however many loaves of bread growing and growing and she eventually became a pretty big vendor on Market wagon and eventually opened a shop and just she grew her business by starting out on Market wagon as best I know so that's awesome and then I I'd love to dive in one more question you think about the gig driver right and these people have such if you're a vendor at a farmers maret you have such pride in presentation and delivery how are you able to manage or manage those drivers to make sure they give a full premium experience to the door yeah that's a really good question because they gig drivers using their own vehicles and they're unlabeled Vehicles we are it's basically a drop off like what Amazon drivers currently do they just ring the doorbell and they go away so it's that they're not really now some of the customers really do want to interact with them and they'll greet them and talk to them and all of that but long as they're there on time and the food is in good condition that's really what we're looking for we're not looking for relationship skills necessarily when we hire those people and they're great people they're they are dedicated and they are very reliable or they wouldn't be driving for us and they're making good money right now too so it's um but yeah it's not it when you say premium experience that premium EXP experiences when you go byy I hope it's okay if I say people's names you go buy crumble cookies and they come in this really fancy pink box they're trying to deliver a premium experience premium cookie with the premium amount of sugar in it and all that we don't see ourselves that way it's more of a meat and potatoes business pun intended I know yeah yeah maybe pun intended maybe can you talk about some of the technologies that are really driving innovation in supply chain right now yeah I can I have the same opinion about some of them as other people do we here we want your hot take one of the one of the big things is especially in e-commerce grocery is what they call Micro fulfillment okay let me give you a little bit of Automation in a small footprint in your remote building so that the goods are close to the consumer and the orders can still be assembled not sure that's the best solution for everybody because once you have automation then there's a technical component and it has to be maintained and people need to be ble to service it and I think automation Works a little bit better at some scale so that's just one one example of kind of a trendy thing they're also are Kea was a Pioneer not the only Pioneer and not the only technology especially compared with some other companies out of Europe but it was a Goods toop person fulfillment technology so it would bring the items to the person who was then going to use their hands to get them and put them in the customer order there are Innovations all the time in pick and place robotics to do that last part there are other types of goods to person technologies that have emerged and become very popular in the last few years what are some of the things that you learned at Ka systems just in general of of how to approach Innovation how how to move the business forward in a very measured sort of way one of my roles for a time at Kaa was interfacing between the sales team like I said earlier any business that delivering items to consumers or or picking and placing any items for any purpose they're going to have requirements and processes that they have to follow a medical device company is going to be very different from a sure a doorknob company and so forth they would always be coming into our sales team at Ka we're trying to sell these multi-million dollar automation systems when I worked for that company and they had their own set of business requirements so the salespeople would go to the tech side and the product side of the business and say if we just had these five features we'd get this sale and my role for a while was to broker that with a representative of the software team I was on behalf of the business side and he was on behalf of the soft software team and those were really great conversations okay we got these five features you say these two are hard I think these other two are required and let's broker that let's figure out work around so it's not as hard and it can use the tech we already have and these three things they don't really need or they can do this other thing so so that was for me I know that's a detailed story but that was a really fun part of that job I bet to some degree you're still doing that today at Market wagon absolutely yeah any tips for people on on how to manage that process of okay there's demand here but this is what we have over here how do we bridge that Gap yeah you just need you need conscientious and dedicated people and it's a it's a two-way conversation we we do I have those conversations all the time right now with with our head of software and he'll say I'll say we need this thing and he'll say this is hard and unfortunately for him I have just enough of a technical background to say tell me why it's hard yeah have that conversation maybe it really as hard sure and maybe it isn't and he does a great job as well I think that that from diving into this such a wealth of knowledge on supply chain but also building marketplaces and really like like as I processed more of the this conversation I'm like huh it's really about getting the right vendors and the right customers and would you have advice for anyone out there that's trying to build a market whether it's in whatever it could be any industry marketplaces are hot two sides to it what would you say your advice is to anyone out there trying to build a Marketplace I would say it's hard on both sides and we just hired someone who is just fantastic and came from a Marketplace business that he co-founded so his experience working with both sides of that is we can give Jo a shout out John Laughlin yeah John Laughlin what a guy John's doing a great job yes okay so excited about him so iess if we just double click real quick in that because I know we're coming close to time if you had advice like first piece of advice to go out and either find vendors or go out and find customers how do you get the first 10 of each of those I think you're going to have some suppliers first and you're going to have to get them to be betting on the fact that you're going to get some consumers cuz if there's nothing to buy you're not going to get the consumers hry up start with the supply side and we had that I think for Market wagon Indianapolis is our most successive successful Hub we've got some other very successful ones but Indianapolis is really big and it's because we were there you like the vendors could get to know the team when they were in our place and so one of the lessons for the future is don't try to do that without being able to have that physical relationship and I think in some of the other cities that we're in when we go back or when we start a new with expansion there'll be more of a presence in that city is that kind of like the Brian jesky story where you like went and actually photographed people's houses for Airbnb so that people would B that cuz it was like they were taking it with the like a 2000's flip phone and wants to that dark creepy room back there so go out there and take the pictures help these vendors and that's going to bring in more customers and I love that increasing that we helped them a little bit because they're not always good at those things today right not always good at pictures not always good at description so we we try to help them through that it it stands out to me that market wagon stands squarely in this what we call like the UN Valley Trend meaning it's the unbundling of Silicon Valley we can grab the things that we like that Silicon Valley adopted but also in a lot of ways there's so much untapped potential in these markets like Indianapolis Y where Innovation can happen and where a lot of the outsize opportunity is for entrepreneurs to create more value in whatever Marketplace they happen to to execute in I'm curious what other ways have you seen this like unv Val Trend really be um Tailwind for Market wagon when you say unv Val Trend are you just talking about funding sources or are you talking about approaches to the business both actually unal meaning you're able to grab the Technologies and Innovations you're using big data you're creating algorithms a lot of things that started out of Silicon Valley and you're implementing them but you're also you mentioned so many other there's a graveyard of other grocery delivery businesses that are headquartered in the valley and part of why Market wagon is growing is that you have your own approach right to things and you're serving these markets my guess is like New York City isn't your biggest Market correct currently so I'm just curious how you see those both of those Trends which I would almost categorize as this un Valley like unbundling of Silicon Valley things don't have to be headquartered in the three biggest cities of the country right uh for Tech but also you're able to grab the things from the valley and Innovation obviously those are great Tech hubs I think you see some of the DNA in the conversation we've had so far you've got the Kea guy Mick who was in the valley yeah and then moved his company to Boston because that's where the funding was and so you've got all that DNA coming through me into Market wagon so it's I try to bring the best of what I saw in those places but all over the Midwest and central part of the United States we have entrepreneurs who who don't even have those backgrounds who are doing killer things they're doing amazing things and my advice would be stick to your guns you've figured out what you need for your business to survive make it work don't follow the Lemmings don't follow the trends do what you need to do to make your business work why have you picked uh bus or cities similar to Indianapolis for your expansion and and not necessarily New York or San Francisco we've had some interesting learnings in that regard but during our expansion phase we wanted them to be in Arms Reach so that we could go there if we needed to what happens if the person running the Hub gets sick you know or if a vendor who sells in Cincinnati also wants to sell in Columbus you have that Synergy that's really the reason we expanded like ripples on a pond not because of what the cities were we did pick some smaller cities some of which we don't have anymore like inton is now delivered from Louisville for example but there are a lot of cities like Indianapolis that also are in that sort of convenient ripples on a pond geography your Pittsburghs your St Louis's your Milwaukee and all of that we have a fair amount of experience in Chicago too yeah and and Chicago is hard and it's hard for us more probably more on the supply side than the demand side because there's a certain amount of demand in Chicago for this kind of food and it's huge and ask yourself how much land is there within 40 miles of the loop you've got a lake you've got only so many farms that can be there so it's hard it's problem I don't know if you could pay me enough money to be a delivery driver in Chicago oh my gosh like that would oh man we do it and actually our volume in Chicago itself is growing right now but we don't have a location there anymore our location is just over the state line in Wisconsin which is within our Geographic proximity a lot of the food that's sold in Chicago is from Illinois and Wisconsin but there's drivers from Wisconsin who are happy to drive yeah there's some who aren't but there's drivers who are happy to drive into Chicago and do that that's cool you've got I would imagine just tons of interesting data talk to me a little bit about supply chain analytics some of the ones that you pay close attention to and just in general why that's an important part of your business we pay attention to a lot of the same metrics in other Marketplace organization what are those like top three to five what's the Frequency what's the persistence and stickiness of the customers what does it cost to get the customers those types of metrics everybody knows those metrics from a supply chain standpoint we track really carefully our fill rate which is over 98 and a half% of all the line items that are ever ordered on marketwagon get there they're the correct item they're the correct quality no problems and that's really good for the grocery space and yet here we are with the no Automation and the the vendor's hands are on the product that's you don't have control of that labor force but they care yeah they care a lot about making sure the right items get to the customer so seems like that's a really important part of the culture yeah it is proliferates beyond just the W2 employees right so that fill rate is super important our ontime delivery rate is super important our do we get all the orders delivered correctly so we pay a lot of so from a supply chain standpoint those are the types of metrics that we look at what are the things that you're most excited about for Market Wagon in the years ahead I think we all know that know it's going to grow we know this business is going to grow we have seen other startups try with different approaches and fail not just 20 years ago but two years ago and five years ago it's a hard space but we've got it figured out our our units make money right so it's just a question of when is the right time to do that expansion and uh then we'll be out there and this will be this will be it's funny because I don't like to Brand it as this Nationwide Juggernaut because to the person in boyy Idaho who's buying on Market wagon doesn't need to look that way they just need to see the boisey farmers but from an economic and business model standpoint we want to be all over the country and by 2028 so that's exciting That's so exciting Dan because of all of your entrepreneurial Endeavors I would be remiss if I didn't ask this question what advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs based on your own life experiences yeah I would say if you're going to need outside funding form those relationships as soon as you can because the the people and the entities that have funded us have been the people who've tracked us so you can go to events and you can do cold reach outs and you can meet whether you're looking for traditional VC or Angels or family offices whatever you're looking for it's going to be hard to get someone to write you a check if they just met you two weeks ago no matter how great your story is no matter how great your metrics are and I I say this every time I get asked this question it's cast a widenet early and keep them updated on a regular basis some great things we learned we participated in one of the generator accelerators the gbaa a bioscience program in 2019 and they preached that they preach that constant communication to your potential investors but in order for that to work you have to meet them early yep so that's my advice to someone who's going to need funding not not everybody needs funding but if you do that's a good one and whether you do now or not it's nice to have the option yeah you will somay so assume you will right and form those relationships now in the local community and then get introduced by those people or by whoever else you can to people in a more Regional or national community that are interested in your particular space and even if you just need advice yep ask for money you'll probably get it yeah ask for advice get money ask for money get advice exactly right pit coin that term yeah got to be this is your favorite part Nate Dan it is time for my favorite part and it's the lightning round bum I do have a couple I have two unique questions just to this one because I'm so inter 42 blue no yellow go how did you know Dan my first question is who is the most unique vendor on Market wagon oh wow um oh most unique oh wow I was not prepar for this question first one that comes to mind there are no wrong answers and we know you're going to forget a bunch of ones there's there are people who who forage a vacant lot near where they live and they bring us all kinds of weird roots and berries and fruits and things so that's a Oddball one there we that's cool and it's fun for people to probably just shop those items other unique things we've had some pretty unique proteins before odd animals and things which we love the more unique it can be the better look thinking across categories usual fruits and vegetables so it's to me it's about the product are you selling something that is and it's really for us to attract and retain that Shopper who's going to devote not all of their grocery budget but part of their grocery budget to ordering regularly from Market wagon we want them to have the experience Nate that you were fishing for there which is oh I shopped on Market wagon and there's e there's a thing I saw that was really cool and I had to try it and then there's these other things that I can only get on Market wagon and I'm going to keep ordering a market wagon I was like the like organic beeswax I don't know what like crazy that I'm like oh my gosh that's a thing yeah there are some crazy things there's people selling flowers yeah it's all over the map I love it seeds that they save in Heritage seeds that's another cool thing okay all right that's awesome one more one more Market wagon specific question for the lightning round I would love to know if you're filling your cart top three things from around in the Indianapolis area right you're here in Indie top three things that go into your cart every single week my cart I'm not vegan but the vegan burritos from sea salt and cinnamon are awesome okay around here and they end up in my cart a lot the milk from Crystal Springs crey and sometimes other Dairy providers ends up in my cart the English muffins from No Label at the table a caramel based Len but they're great English muffins we got some other new good English muffins too I love that that's a great I can't wait to go and check out those Instagrams for all those V and just like see what we're working with there all right now to our typical three questions for the lightning round Dan outside of the amazing entrepreneurs what is Indiana known for uh corn heck spoken like a true Farmers Market guy yes and soybeans yeah and soybeans got to get the soybeans in there Dan what is a Hidden Gem in Indiana hidden gym in Indiana we have I'm sorry my mind goes to food so I love that we have produce farms in Indiana there aren't very many it's hard to grow organic berries in Indiana for example we just don't really have the climate for it's like trying to find great grapes you know but we have them like no matter where you go there are is a community of small food Growers and producers if we when we launch in Phoenix you think Phoenix in the middle of desert you won't be able to find the same produce no it's all there you go to the farmers market in in Phoenix or one of the subbs it's all there so technology is awesome maybe Fairbanks would be a challenge but oh okay all right I love that that's good and I feel like that's we had Mitch Frasier on the show we talked about agtech and that kind of what's being built in Indiana and it's this dreads all the way up Market to the everyday the food grower right the helping put what is Mitch's line a is the only indust that touches every single person on the planet three times a day at least three times at least three times at least three times my case sometimes five or six yeah and our final question Dan who is someone we need to keep on our radar someone who is doing big things person that comes to mind I keep an eye on Nick my co-founder well he's doing some other things now and he's a super talented guy Nick keep an eye onck oh gosh Nick Nick Kramer is another entrepreneur who's picked on the powder kick stage in Circa the same era as Nick Carter first first pitch I love it this was spectacular Dan I loved hearing about what you're doing with Market wagon and the expansion and everything you guys have been doing and and how you think about logistics and supply chain it was honestly so much different than the conversation I expected to have truthfully I can't even was like it it's the opposite way which is it's a good thing I love it final reminder to all listeners out there if you send us three startup t-shirts large to 16 Tech addressed to Patrick egg we will rep your startup on the show we'll wear them we don't have any on today normal close but if you send three startup te's we're going to talk about your startup your organization whatever you want and Dan thank you so much for coming on the show you're welcome thanks for the opportunity this was awesome Dan thanks for all you do this has been get in a powder kick production in partnership with Elevate Ventures and we want to hear from you if you have suggestions for a guest or segment reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email to discover top tier tech companies outside of Silicon Valley in hubs like Indiana check out our newsletter at powder.

com newsletter and to apply for membership to the powderkeg executive Community Check out powder. com premium we'll catch you next time and next week as we continue to help the world get in since you just listened to this podcast you might be thinking about starting one for your company lucky for you our partners over at casted have you covered cassid is the first and only podcast in video marketing platform made specific speically for B2B Brands I love this about them the platform makes it possible to publish Syndicate amplify and measure the value of your podcast and video content in fact we use it for our podcast here at powderkeg and if you're a startup you should listen up because cassid for startups is definitely for you they are offering exclusive deep discounts of up to 82% off retail price for qualifying startups connect with casted at cd. us/ lash powder keg