Y Combinator Startup Podcast - #31 - Spotting Ecommerce Trends in Shipping Data – Laura Behrens Wu

Episode Date: September 1, 2017

Laura Behrens Wu is the CEO and cofounder of Shippo.Read the transcript here.

Hey, this is Craig Cannon, and you're listening to Y Combinators podcast. Today's episode is with Laura Barron's Wu. She is the CEO and co-founder of Shippo. Shippo is a multi-carrier shipping API, so that means Laura knows a ton about shipping, and we went over a bunch of that in this episode. One of the fun facts is that you can ship a 20-inch alligator in the mail, which I had no idea you could do. And if you want to read the transcript of this one, it is at blog.w.waicommodator.com. And the video is up there as well. All right, here we go. How about we just start with a quick intro?

Cool. Yeah, thanks for having me. My name is Laura. I run a company called Shipo. We power shipping for e-commerce. What that means is we connect our customers who are e-commerce stores, platforms, and marketplaces to a network of different shipping providers. And then we help them figure out which provider to use for which one of their packages. The reason why people care about shipping today is that shipping directly affects conversion rates.

So it's no longer just a means to an end to get your item from A to B. e-commerce stores they needed to be able to convert their customers because customers are expecting free and fast shipping. Amazon Prime has taught them that. And whenever they see shipping rates at checkout that are unexpected or too high, they drop off and they go to Amazon to try to find the same things. Okay. And so how does your customer interact with Shippo? Exactly. So it's an API, it's a restful API that they can integrate. Either they integrate the API or they use the dashboard that we've built on top of the API, both works. If you integrate the API, there's more flexibility. You can do more with that.

SMBs that are just getting started that don't have developers in house. They typically just use the out-of-the-box dashboard solution. Okay. And so what's a normal customer of yours like? What do they make? What do they sell? So a normal customer of ours, they're an e-commerce store that's, they sell products that are differentiated. They have their own brand. They don't want to sell their products on Amazon. They want to own their own brand experience, sell through their own e-commerce store

and ship typically either out of their own workshops or their own or a warehouse, a 3PL, that takes care of shipping for them. Okay. And so what's a 3PL for people who are in the game? A 3PL is a third-party logistics provider. Okay. And did you know anything about this stuff before 2013 when you guys started? I did not. And like I would never have imagined that I now know all of these things. It's been crazy. I started this as like a complete logistics noop and I got into e-commerce by Pure Chans when trying to build an e-commerce store on the site together with my co-founder Simon.

We built an e-commerce store using Shopify. It was a really easy solution and it was just a fun thing to do on the site. And then when we tried to integrate or connect with different shipping providers, we realized that the technology experience provided by shipping providers was just so different. compared to the technology experience provided by Shopify or Stripe. Like, we, the shipping providers aren't tech companies. So their API documentations aren't as great and intuitive. You have to be a logistics expert to be able to read the documentations. Sometimes you have to request API access or it's a soap API.

It's just strange to us that everything's been solved except for the shipping component. And it is a frustrating experience. So we were like, why is there nothing comparable to Twilio or Stripe in the shipping industry? Let's give that a try. And were there other, like, kind of critical understandings that you didn't quite get in the beginning that now are, like, obvious as integral to running a shipping company? Yes. We were learning on the job. I mean, we didn't know anything about shipping back then.

and we tried to solve shipping from the customer perspective. And I think that was a good perspective to have. So we weren't influenced by the restrictions coming from a shipping industry. We're able to look at it from the perspective of this is how an e-commerce store wants it to be. And this is what modern technology looks like. Let's build it like that. I would say, like, we back then, I'd say, underestimated, just how different the different shipping providers are.

There, like, there is no standard across different shipping providers, not in terms of pricing, not in terms of technology. They're all totally different. And building that layer of abstraction on top was harder than expected. But that's now also a great competitive advantage. Okay. Because who are your competitors right now? So there are a couple of incumbents out there, like Stamps and Disha Pitney Bowes. And then there's another company in this space called EasyPost.

like we would consider them our main competitors or the most comparable companies out there. Okay. Gotcha. So as I was listening to a bunch of the podcast interviews you had done before, I've heard you talk about many of the same things because, you know, like it's obvious that you want to talk about shipping and you're excited about it. I'm super excited about shipping. One of the questions I kind of wanted to start off with then is like, where are you passionate about that you don't get asked about a lot? Oh, that's a great question.

So I think what I would like to do more of is traveling, running, and reading. There is not that much to say about all these things to yourself. Like, okay, wait, when I go travel, I think leaving the valley, as soon as I leave the valley, I'm able to see or look at things from a different perspective. I'm not in the nitty-gritty details anymore. I don't really care about how it's being done operationally. I can think about the big picture and come back with great ideas. And then also just look at how people, like last year traveled to a wedding in the UK.

And there was no cell reception in like that little village where the wedding was. People were still living there. They didn't care. Like people were living in a village without cell reception. Helps me realize how things here in the valley are just not, like they're not normal. And they are maybe solving the problem for a small amount of the population, but that's not how everyone thinks out there. Yeah, and we for sure want to build solutions that are for more people than just people

living in the valley. Yeah, because you guys are, I mean, if you're selling to small businesses, right, that are like trying to differentiate themselves and not go on Amazon, how do you reach out to them if they're not necessarily even that technical? Yeah. So I'd say like small businesses is one area that we're selling into. We're also selling into platforms and marketplaces. And then anyone who wants to compete with Amazon,

It can also be a bigger business. One of our customers, for instance, is eBay that's on the marketplace side. But we've learned that it's really hard to sell someone a shipping solution if they're not looking. Like it's not something that other people are passionate about, right? So we typically, it's more an inside sales process. When people are looking, when something is wrong, something's broken, too expensive, shipping is vital enough that they do pretty thorough research, and then they will find us at some point. And when they find us, we want to capture them at their intent and make sure that they're finding what they want to find.

So, like, having the right keywords, having the right landing pages, and just handing them exactly what they're looking for. But we, like, it's really difficult to get someone excited about shipping when it's not a need. Okay, so before we started, you were talking about people, you know, like basically connecting all these things together now. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, you said it wasn't a fully formed idea. Yeah. But like, yeah, what do you think? No, what I was thinking is like it's easier than ever today to build your e-commerce store online.

You don't have to be a developer. There is less upfront cost because you don't need to invest into a physical retail location. Everything's online. You get Shopify, you get Stripe, you get like Shippo maybe or another shipping provider, like Facebook ads. Everything is out there. You just connect it together. And then, like, you don't have to build your own infrastructure anymore. All you have to do is find or make a product that.

is differentiated enough so that it's not like out there on Amazon or somewhere else where people can undercut you in terms of price. And then you need to build an emotional connection with your customer. I think e-commerce today is a lot about storytelling. It's about like making sure that customers connect with you and like develop some sort of feeling or attachment for you. And then you use the channels like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, if you're like a millennial or Gen Z, whatever those generations are called.

Like, use the right channels to reach your audience and you tell a personal story to them. And then people are proud, like, to wear, I don't know, all birds or to travel with their, it's called always. Is it whatever that like luggage thing is called? Okay. Yeah. And it seems like, oh, and then there is the unboxing experience. Like every part from when you ship the item to when the customer receives it, like every step is carefully coordinated. You get the box, you unbox it.

people film themselves unboxing it. And it's a huge hit on YouTube. Or you packaging is being designed to look pretty on Instagram so that people can take pictures and share it with their followers. So that was just my thought, how infrastructure is, how people don't need to invest in building their own infrastructure anymore. It's available out of the box. And how today e-commerce is all about like getting your customers to feel.

feel something for you to feel attached to your product. Yeah. And I think we're seeing a lot of companies both, you know, YC, like venture backed and not venture back companies that are really crushing it. Is there anyone out there that you think is doing it particularly well? You mentioned Allbirds and this luggage thing. Maybe someone who's less well known that maybe even your customer that's doing it really well that you can like,

you can point to a reason why they're successful. Yeah. So I think Glossier is pretty well known as well. Should I talk about glossier or something less well-known? I think they're good. Not everyone knows about them. Yeah. The main glossier is just a makeup company.

And I think I know her story, Emily's story, just from reading about it, I think she started as a blogger just creating a great following with unique content online. And then when she had that following and people were like looking at her as an authority in the beauty blogging space, she was able to launch her own beauty line. And that, like on Instagram, the pictures are beautiful. It's all, it's, I think it's the product, the packaging looks like it's designed for Instagram. When I get the box, you open it. There are stickers in there.

There's a little pouch in there. So stuff that I didn't order that she's giving me for free. And I'm excited about it. And I see people posting about it. And on Instagram, people are engaging with the post in the comments. and she gives out referral codes so people keep talking about and refer their customers, their friends, I mean. And then they also, oh, they re-block or re-gram.

Yeah, I'm not up to date with all these, like, fancy terms, but they regram. If I post a picture of gloss here, they will, and it gets a lot of likes, they might regram it on their professional side. So I am incentivized to, like, post some. things so that I can get more followers if they regram it. It's, yeah, it's, I think they're doing a phenomenal job, just making sure that their followers are being engaged on the right channels, the channels that they're active on, and that it's not that corporate.

Like, it does not, when I look at their, their site, I don't get a corporate feeling. I get the feeling that it's a girlfriend telling me about makeup. So it's working? Like, you're in the demographic and it's working on you? Oh, and the other thing is, like, you're, like, you're. can't find it on Amazon. You can't find it anywhere else except for on their side. And that's the great part. Like if you sell a product that is too generic, someone else can sell it on Amazon and it's easily replaceable or interchangeable. And then Amazon has some, like, you have Amazon Prime,

so you save on shipping. It's convenient and you just get everything on there. Is anyone, I'm trying to think of a good example of someone doing well on Amazon and outside of it. Like, I don't see a lot of that. I think, I think, what I'm seeing or what I hear from friends who run e-commerce stores is they have tried Amazon as a channel, but it's basically just cannibalizing themselves. And it's not, they prefer to keep their own brands or to be able to manage their own brands on their own websites to have, to create that experience, to create the feeling and the loyalty. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably a good. point because they don't give you a lot of analytics around discovery.

I actually, I wrote a book about shipping containers with my friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We did a Kickstarter a couple years ago. And Amazon's been, I mean, we were immediately like on there afterward because we spent the like the extra Kickstarter money buying more books. Yes. And so it's been super easy to sell.

And I don't really know like if we would have captured fewer sales because we weren't on Amazon because discovery wise. I think it has less than 10 reviews. So I don't feel like we're getting sales that way. Interesting. Yeah, I see what you're saying. So if it's like if you're selling something on Amazon, the customer will also see other products that are comparable,

which means that customers might get directed to your competitors' products. And if it's not something that's like heavily reviewed, there is no incentive for the customer to buy your product versus another product that's been on Amazon for longer, that has more reviews. That's interesting. Yeah. I think Amazon is great for generic purchases, but it's really, like, you don't see Amazon making funny jokes on Twitter as a corporate account.

Like, you don't see anyone tagging Amazon in their Instagram posts. It's just that people in their free time don't enjoy it. Like, it's not a brand that people think about or talk about. It's this generic, convenient, and pragmatic thing, but it's not this emotional thing. At least I'm not attached to. Do you think then that like Amazon will like completely like take over all these pre-packaged meal kits now? Like is that a thing that's actually brand differentiated or not? So yesterday I saw one of my friends post on Twitter that normally he would never like make this peach based sauce for dinner.

But because Blue Apron sent him a kid with Peachter. is in there and a recipe for like whatever peach dish he was making it and he was loving it. That's why he loves blue apron because it gets him out of like just cooking the same thing every day and cooking something special in the same amount of time. I don't know if Amazon, if like Blue Apron is differentiated enough, but it seems like people get a homey feel from using Blue Apron products. I don't know. I mean, look at all the copycats, right?

Yes. Like, they're in every vertical. Yes. So, I mean, maybe they're just two different markets. So, like, yeah. Like, personally, I am way too pragmatic. I just get my groceries. I cook what my mom taught me to cook.

Okay. So you might be there. Yeah, so I might be the wrong target audience here. Well, then what about all those? Oh, but wait, funny story. Like, Blue Apron, when they, when they sent you stuff and it's like one egg in a packaging, and the egg is labeled egg, and I'm like, I know this is an egg. Well, it's interesting.

Not stupid. It does make you feel a little gross when you're like, I think Trader Joe's, for me, at least, is like the worst of them. You know, like everything's in a little plastic bag. And so I moved into an apartment a couple years ago, and I had bought so much from Amazon that I was taking out the recycling that day. And I actually felt nauseous, like, as I was breaking down all these Amazon. boxes. But talking about recycling, the other trend that I'm seeing in e-commerce is peer-to-peer selling. That seems to be on the rise again. People selling out of their own closets. If we look at,

I don't know, Poshmark, Vintet, Macari, eBay, whatever those are called, or even Facebook marketplace, like, where stuff, especially it seems like young women and mothers selling, like, used items and getting a lot of fun out of that, plus having the personal connection with a seller. selling out of their own closets, telling the story about when they bought this item, modeling this item themselves. Yeah, it's funny. And then they put a handwritten card in there. It's an interesting.

So that is becoming more popular. Yes, we have a lot of those on our platform, like using Shepo to ship for their secondhand marketplaces, and that's a fast-growing segment. I think it's still a very small segment in overall e-commerce, of course. Yeah. But it's a growing one. What about all those, like, box of the month clothes? Are those still a thing?

Yeah. I mean, there's a box for everything. Yeah, yeah. You can get, well, you name it. Yeah, yeah. I was surprised at just loot crate, for instance, is a big one that we're just looking at. And it's a gamer-specific box. And then they're, like, sex toy boxes, like, really everything.

Anyway, I think it's the convenience. And as soon as you subscribe to something, it is hard to unsubscribe. That's the other component there. And then people like to be surprised. Like if you're already paying for it, it's like you gave them your credit card number once. And then you forget that it's a recurring payment. And then you're just getting the box every month, making you so happy, all of that adrenaline and happiness and Dwarfine rush.

Oh, and then get one for your dog and your cat as well. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. I think a lot of those people are like infamously known for, you know, You can sign up online and then you have to call in to cancel. It's like that kind of stuff. Are those on the rise though?

And then they're giving you the first box for free, but you have to give them your credit card number and then they charge you automatically afterwards. Yeah, classic. Yeah. I don't know if they're on the rise still. It feels like something that was on the rise two or three years ago and now it's like dabbling, but it's not, I don't see it going away.

But I'm also seeing that some of these box companies, They're also, in addition to the monthly box thing, they're selling, having an e-commerce store where you can buy these items one-off. Okay. Then are you noticing any other trends? Because now I'm just realizing that like by being at the hub of all of this, you kind of like see what businesses are like taking off. Yes. So we saw all of these segways being shipped late last year. Wait, segways or hoverboards?

No, hoverboards. Yeah. Sorry. Segways. Same thing for me. Yes, the hoverboards. We saw them being shipped. And the USPS or the shipping providers actually had an extra regulation for hoverboards not allowing them to be shipped anymore because they were dangerous and exploding.

Because they were exploding. Yeah. We also saw like a huge rise in vape companies signing up that seemed to be a thing. Then there was this couple months where people loved sending each other just like joke items. There was this when you when you open the package, it's like. like glitter coming out. Oh, that was you guys. You were related? Okay. We weren't selling them. We were just shipping them. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then, yeah, so that was big or like, we even had poop in a box. I know if it was real poop. We just see the name signing up and then get a kick of.

Yeah, we don't really care. Yeah, we don't really care. And then, oh, that was, that was a very smart idea just financially, like having a message on a potato. It was like, I think, $10 to get a potato shipped and the potato would have your message written on top of it. We had multiple of these stores. So it's not in a box. It's not in a box. It just has like a label stuck on it and you guys do that just like random size, whatever. Whatever. I mean, so we're just providing the, technology to print those shipping labels. They tell us size and weighed and to and from address and you get a label. Whatever you want to ship, as long as it's like within the legal realm, we give you the label, you ship it, it's fine. Have you guys gotten a bunch of money in the

fidget spinner game? Are you involved? I think the fidget spinners are too small to, uh, make this money. Because you can put them in a letter. We want to ship something that is 3D. Oh, bummer. What about, um, uh, medical marijuana? Has that been a trend at all? I think that is more like the on-demand delivery. So we have a couple of stores on our site that ship like accessories for that. I think one of them is actually YC affiliated called Billoughby. They're pretty big like the nasty gal for vaping. And other than like we ship the accessories, but I don't think Mariana is allowed to be shipped even in California. I think there's on demand for that. Okay.

On-amand delivery. I was just wondering if that trend was going, like, if folks are lobbying now to, like, get it, like, within-state shipping. Oh, here's my favorite shipping fact. Out of some, some, like, past days, it's still legal to ship an alligator with the USPS as long as it's smaller than 20 inches. Okay. Alive. Alive. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes, a baby alligator. Really? Yes. How do you package? an alligator. I have no idea. It's not our problem. We give you the shipping label for the alligator. It's like it doesn't matter. Do you guys then like are you liable for anything? Like if what is your problem? Yeah. So it's it's in our in our terms of services, what you're allowed to ship and what you're not allowed to ship. And as long as you stick to the terms and services, uh, we're,

we're fine. You're fine. But our agreements with the shipping providers also, um, are clear that we're not liable for the things that our customers ship. So every customer is recognized as a separate customer with the shipping providers. But it's our job to make sure that our customers know what the terms and services are provided by the shipping providers. And so the alligator is on there? The alligator is, like on your website. Maybe in the fine prints. Okay.

No, it's part of the USPS terms and services, the official ones, that the alligator can be shipped as long as it does not exceed 20 inches. Oh, okay. That's good. I'm wondering, like, what if it's growing while it's being shipped? It depends where it's being shipped. Yeah, it's like 19 and a half inches and it takes like five days. I don't know how fast alligator is grow. Probably not that fast.

Maybe if it gets lost, though. That's really funny. What about all these other companies like, I once shipped my bike from Colorado to California. Are these companies, like, doing it on their own? Are they just setting up, like, basically? just this front page and then they just ship with you. Like, are you seeing all these like basically SEO targeted shipping? You know, it's like, ship your bike, ship your camera.com or whatever.

There are two aspects to that question. Like, if you ship something, let's say, from Colorado to California, I bet they're shipping providers that are focused on shipping from Colorado. So for instance, here in San Francisco, in California, regional shipping providers called OnTrack. On the other coast site, a regional shipping provider is called Laser. ship, then there is another one called GSO that's here. So for each region, there's shipping providers that are specialized on that particular region. And then there are also shipping providers

focused on certain segments. In wine country, we have a lot of shipping providers that are just focused on shipping wine. And by having them on our platform, we're like also allowing our customers to discover shipping providers that they wouldn't discover otherwise because it's such a niche product and it's not only about the discovery, it's also, yes, we're shipping a couple, like, we're having wine as one of our segments, but would that e-commerce store really want to go through the trouble of integrating a specialized wine shipping provider? And if we already have it, then they just need to enable it and, like, are able to save money there. Your question about whether, like, there are shipping providers that are specific for bikes, I think everything that's

less than, I think it was 71 pounds, the normal shipping providers can ship. And then there are other shipping providers that are focused on less than truckload and stuff. But it's likely that these items, these SEO pages are just giving the traffic to normal shipping providers. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, man, I got burned with that, too, shipping car tires. I'm a total sucker for this.

Well, next time, you can just ask me. Yeah, yeah. Like, more car tires that you need to ship. Oh, really? Okay. Do you guys, do you deal with insurance too? Yeah, we do. We have insurance on top of Shippo. Oh, and the other thing that is quite interesting about shipping is the tracking component.

So because shipping affects conversion rates, it decreases card abandonment if you have the right shipping options or the right shipping costs. But then after you ship your item out, it doesn't stop there. Like, customers are wondering what is happening to their item along the way. so they want to be engaged with tracking numbers. You want to be proactive about that versus having customers write in. Because if someone writes in, you need a live person to respond to that. If you just sent them push notifications with our webhooks or with, yeah, with the webhooks about package has been shipped,

package arrived at this facility, package will get to your house today. Like customers are going to think about your product whenever they get a notification like that. And then if you send them like suggestions, about what else they could buy in your store in the same email, it can get them back to your website. Do you advise people on like best policies for handling returns? Because I often find that like all of these companies feel like it's their duty to like innovate on new ways to like have you send things back to them. And it's like it's the worst. Yeah. So, um, that's another thing that consumers like take into account before they make a purchasing decision. They want to know if

returns are possible and if return shipping is free. So I guess there are two perspectives to this. From the end customer perspective, it would be best practice to put a shipping label right into the box. And that shipping label most likely, we provide scan-based return labels. That means unless it's being scanned, the merchant is not going to get charged for it. So you can print a shipping label free of charge, and when it scans, we will charge you for it.

But from the merchant perspective, you want to. make the returns more difficult so that people are less likely to return their item, because once you return it, you need to figure out what to do with that returned inventory. Yeah, so there are these two different perspectives that are clashing. I would say to make it right, like, what I do admire about Amazon is whenever something is not right, they will give you a free item, they will give you free returns. and that's made me very happy in the past. And I would just recommend e-commerce stores to do the same unless they're seeing abuse of that on their website.

Okay. Yeah, I think, yeah, the most famous one is REI, I guess. Like people were buying things off eBay from like 15 years ago and returning it to RIA. Oh, yes, yes, exactly. I mean, if you're giving people an opportunity to, like, cheat the system, they likely will cheat the system. Okay. So you just make it like a little bit difficult. A little, but it also, like, you can also see if you're acquiring or converting the type of customers that are going to abuse the system, you're likely converting the wrong type of customers, right?

You maybe are going after the wrong target audience. Hmm. Hmm. Meaning like just too broad or just off? Just too broad, off. Or maybe you're having the wrong messaging on your website that is attractive to customers who are more likely to cheat the system. Okay. Got you.

So you guys are now like, what, four years old? Three and a half. Three and a half years old. And you're like, 60, what are you? 65ish people. 65 people. How are you feeling? Insane.

It's really unbelievable. I can't believe it. I think we got super lucky that we found a space that is fast growing. Shipping is like tied to e-commerce growth. It's still very inefficient. The technologies aren't. great there. There is not that much competition. So it's easy to innovate in that space and to write on the e-commerce growth wave. And then just in terms of people, I'm just walking to the

office and there are so many people there. I need to pinch myself. But it's great. Working with, I think working with my having the right partner has been super helpful. Like someone who's a partner in crime who can, or like, we don't commit any crimes. Who's like, who's been working with me through this for the last three and a half years. And then, of course, having the right supporters on the investor side as well. Yeah. Who can help me figure things out.

We were also able to hire a more senior leadership team last year. So to put the operational experience in place. Yeah. So then what are, what are you working on? personally, like improving. So I am always trying to improve to be, like, working on how to be a better manager. Me, my co-founder, we got an executive coach a year and a half ago and are now working with the coach that's been phenomenal, like understanding how to manage people, how to motivate

people, how to give feedback in a constructive way. It's all about communication. That's the main learning from growing the team. Like communicating how, right? Because everyone will say that, right? And you're just like, be empathetic and be nice and listen to people and all that stuff. No, I would say like the umbrella term for that is you need to be effective in your communication. And it really like, depending on what that person's like, like, I don't like, I like straightforward communication.

I don't like a shit sandwich. Some people, and that's effective with me. But then with other people, you might need to be. I don't know, like less, like, more empathetic in your communication. And understanding, like, understanding how to communicate to whom and then remaining authentic and being able to be comfortable with that, that's, that's, like, that's something I'm trying to learn and improve on all the time. The authenticity is the other important part. Like, I want to know or I've been trying to figure out what my personal leadership. style is how I'm most comfortable communicating and who I want to be and then be like absolutely

unapologetic that like this is who I am and I will walk the extra mile to this extent but I like can't work with just everyone like you need to yeah it needs to work on both ends right and so then when you're when you're hiring you know executives managers do you kind of like divide teams based on how they take input from each other or you just just like, hey, you know, you're not very good at dealing with people who like can't handle this direct communication. So I've been, okay, so I think what worked for me very well is to be very proactive about telling people this is how I communicate and setting the expectation right that this is just how I communicate. It's not you. It's me. And I like, yeah, making sure

that they know that I communicate like that to everyone. And one of my flaws, for instance that I call out that I don't celebrate wins that much. I'm always like looking at the next milestone. And I'm quick to criticize, but I'm not quick to praise. And that is, that can be demotivating if people think it's them. So what I'm trying to tell people is like, this is my flaw and I recognize it. And if you're not getting enough praise, please do let me know because it's not, it's not your fault. It's my fault.

And then I don't want to put that weight entirely on me. I'm hoping that the senior leaders in my company can meet me halfway and help me with achieving my goal of praising people more as well. So when I'm not doing it, let me know and I will change. But please, like, speak up and let me know. And so then, like, this comes out by having conversations with a coach? Or do you, like, journalists when you're like, oh, here's what I'm struggling with? What do you do?

It comes out, like the, the coach. coach observes how I talk with my co-founder. We go together as well. Oh, they like hang out. No, like Simon and I, we go together to the coach. Okay.

So we sit on that couch together. It's like couples therapy, but we're co-founders. And then I think, like, I am fairly self-aware about like my shortcomings as well. And then I get that feedback from the leaders. We have 360 reviews,

and then we bring in those reviews. to the coach to discuss. Okay. And having, yeah. The most important part is that people shouldn't be afraid about speaking up or, like, bringing in, like, what they think could be improved. And then making sure that they understand it's being heard. And either that I say, like, either that I acknowledge that this is a shortcoming and

that I want to act on it, or that I acknowledge that this is happening, but I can't act on it because it would be inauthentic for me to do. Hmm. Inauthentic and like that's not something, that's not how you would address that problem. Like, I'm not sure what you mean. Oh, like if it's just, if it doesn't work with my personality and I need to change just fundamentally who I am to be able to like act on that feedback, I guess it would be, I just don't want to pretend to be someone else at work every single day. Does that make sense? It makes sense.

I just wonder like what, what is something that you would be like, I'm trying to think of a good example that doesn't. sound hyperbolic. It's like, oh, I can't be nice to that person because I hate them. And this is inauthentic to me. No, no, no. It's, um, let me think about it. It's like on a, to stick with that, that example about praise. So I've been trying to hire people who are complimentary to me, who are like more, you know, who, to whom it comes more natural to praise people who have a more celebratory nature. And then with that, they're able to balance me out. And we have people like that in the company. and then instead of me having to like always pop the champagne bottle, which would feel so awkward to me, I have someone else do it.

But I stand there, I clap, and I'm approving this. Okay. You just like nod nicely. Exactly. Do you read books or any of that stuff has that been like inspiring for you? The favorite book that I just read a couple months ago was Shudak by the Nike founder. Okay. That was, I mean, it wasn't written by him.

It was a biography about the founder. Oh, cool. Okay. So good. Such a great book. I have to say that. Yes. It's the best part about it was, or like what inspired me the most was like, back then when he founded the company, communication was.

There was no cloud, no internet. Like communication was asynchronous. He had to write a letter to his manufacturer in Japan. It would take like three weeks to get there. And he was sitting like back in, I think it was in Oregon or somewhere where he was based and just wait for a response for like an entire month. And it was mission critical and it took them a month to get a response. Yeah, it's a very interesting, like looking at it from a perspective of building a startup in a pre-internet time. Who are the other people that have inspired you?

I am, so I'm German originally. I'm quite inspired by Merkel as well. She's a tough leader. Is that why? Like, yeah. I'd say, like, she has her principles that she sticks to. And then she's able, like, to, yeah, she just does not compromise on her own principles. And then the other thing that I admire about her is, like, she does not conform to the stereotypes of how a female leader should be like.

She works. She does not need to. she doesn't feel like she needs to smile a lot or like put on a lot of makeup or look anything like what the stereotype should be and she's very comfortable and authentic with that. Yeah. I mean, do you enjoy talking about the female founder stuff? Yes and no. So like I think I would like it more to be just a conversation about like being the best founder or being a very good founder versus being a very good female founder because in the end the market really doesn't care if you're a female founder or not. The market cares about your product. Like, we could offer the best female founded shipping company. If there is a better, like, male founded shipping company, we're not going to make it. It doesn't matter.

Yeah. Yes. So that's the one side. And then I think I would love the conversation to be more about, like, to be a little bit more about female accomplishments as well versus just being about the downsides of women in tech. Because there are a lot of great female accomplishments to point out. And they sometimes get under in these, like, stories that are that are mostly harassment-related. These stories need to be told. Don't get me wrong.

They should be told. People should be, like, held accountable for that. People should know what's happening out there. But then I would love to balance the conversation out as well with, like, and by encouraging, to encourage other women to join the industry. Like, there are good stories that are happening as well. Yeah. I think it kind of, like, scares certain people from even joining conversation. Exactly.

Exactly. conversation. They're like, oh, it's always negative. Like, I'm never going to comment. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Cool. All right.

So we've been here for like 45 minutes now. Oh, wow. So what, uh, do you have advice for people? Like, you're just getting started? Like, maybe even, yeah, like, B2B, like, less, like, sexy startup stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I love the, like, less sexy space.

Yeah. Because you're solving a real pain point. You're, like, more in the background. It's, it's not sexy. at parties, people aren't excited about my shipping stories. They're like, shut up, Laura. But still, it's mission critical to every business. And I just love building something that, you know,

is solving a real pain point that is a must have, not a nice to have. And then you can actually charge for that as well. Every customer that we have on Shippo is a paying customer. There is no free trial because it's shipping. There is no free trial to shipping. And the lock-in effect there is very strong as well. So I would say, like, for founders just getting started, like, look at solving problems that are real problems that people can't live without, where there is an inefficiency that's either causing people to spend too much time or too much money right now. And then any type of infrastructure business, I'm like a big fan of that.

on the more general side, I would say for us, like at the very beginning, like now logistics and the shipping space is becoming more interesting to investors at the very beginning, people weren't interested in the logistics space. And it's just a lot of like staying, remaining persistent and then not giving up, like always tweaking the pitch, making sure that, you know, that after every no, you figure out another way to pitch it and find the next investor. pitch it too. I think we wouldn't be here if we if we if we weren't that persistent. It's about remaining persistent but about the right things. Like sometimes you need to know when to give up,

but you need to be flexible about like how you pitch things and who you pitch it to. Did you have any like kind of mental models you were using to figure out what was important? Because I think you, I mean, it's the more important thing is building the company. Like the raising money is kind of like tangential to a certain extent. Oh yeah. If you can build a company without raising money. That's phenomenal too. It's a business. Everything doesn't have to be a startup.

But how did you figure out what was the important stuff to focus on? At the very beginning, it was mostly customer feedback. Like we were able to develop a bigger vision a little later in the process when we had the money to be able to sit down, take a step back and develop a bigger vision. At the beginning, it was like, this is the main pain point that our customers are facing and we want to solve this pain point for our customers. And we need to build X to solve it. And for that, we need to raise X amount of money. And then we placed it in a bigger context, like why is shipping important in the e-commerce context?

So we were able to tell that story about the size of the market, the growth of the market, the growth of e-commerce to investors to give them like the big picture as well of it's a fast-growing space. There is a problem. Customers are liking what we've built. And by the way, this is what we've filled. And this is what we, um, what, we see the opportunity to be like in the big picture and this is how fast we're growing.

Okay, cool. Well, then I think my last question is a favorite place to go running in San Francisco. Oh, okay. So I normally run in Golden Gate Park from, I live in Lower Hates or from Lower Hade into Golden Gate Park. And then if possible, I do like running at Chrissy Fields as well, but it's more of a drive. Yeah, more of it. Okay.

Are you training for anything? No. I, that's the one thing I do for fun and for fun only. If I, like, yeah, if I sign up for a marathon and something like that, I would get into this competitive thing. Okay, cool. All right, perfect. Cool. All right.

Thanks for coming in. Thank you. Okay. Thanks for listening. So as always, please rate and subscribe to the show. And if you'd like to read the transcript or watch the video, those are at blog. Dot Ycombinator.com. Okay.

See you next week.