Building the Future of Commerce Operations

Samantha Rose: Sit down with your three PL and say, listen, I know you're a tight margin business. I'm not trying to screw you, but here's my problem over here. I'm not going to get, you know, to the next level by just arguing ticky tacky over invoices with you, but like, what can we do to together so that I as a brand can be a better business partner for you as a three PL and vice versa.

Andrew Verboncouer: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to this site up where we dig deep into the minds of founders, builders, and operators reshaping the future of commerce and logistics. Today I am joined by Sam Rose. A multi-time founder and operator who's built and scale brands from the kitchen drawer to the warehouse floor. Her story is nothing short of wild, from creating a better spatula to running a vertically integrated supply chain, and now building really an omni-channel ERP system. Today, we'll talk about the origin story from that spatula and how that sparked her entrepreneurial career. Talk about building through the supply chain, going deep into what it means to scale operations through a three pl, and we'll talk about the future of ops and AI as well. So Sam breaks down where operations software is heading, how AI unlocks those roles, specific workflows, and why the future's built by operators who actually like operating. So whether you're a brand founder, supply chain leader, or someone thinking about building in this space, this one's packed with insight. And I can't wait for you to watch it.

Samantha Rose: I knew that I wanted to do something with product design or brands and technology, and I really didn't know what that thing was, but I found my way into finance and tech, sort of like looking for those things. And this was to date myself, like, I don't know, 2007 I entered the workforce. So Facebook was like just starting to be a thing. And um, you know, all of the like really cool SaaS companies that. Uh, probably a lot of people who are building or listening to this, like alongside us, like kind of grew up around, I mean, they were, they were just starting. So I went to a hedge fund. Like I was like, maybe there's something cool here. And, uh, I love to cook and I love to tinker, and I'm a total dork. So I spent my weekends like playing with goopy silicone in my kitchen and eventually I had this like. Problem that I really, really wanted to solve. And so, uh, you know, none of the businesses that I have started have started from a thesis perspective. AKA, like here's a good business in air quotes that I could make a money, money doing in air quotes. Yeah, none of those things are true. They're like, there've been some mediocre businesses that did not make money. Um, but. What I realized is if you are stubborn enough and stick around for long enough and are enough of a cockroach, like time heals all wounds and most things can survive. So gear started as a project and a project that snowballed into a business and a business that kind of, you know, snowballed and broke apart into a few other businesses. And as I was going, I liked to build in a way that I kinda like to have my fingers in everything. And I don't mean in like a, you know. Founder Modi over micromanaged way. I just like to know how things work and I'm a better manager when I know how they work. Uh, so I found myself just learning all of these up, all of these different curves. The supply chain management curve, the material science curve, the like great design curve, the content creation curve, the, I don't know, photo production and videography curve, like all of these random curves. Some of 'em really, you know, smaller and shorter. And then some of them like. Uh, catastrophically huge. Yeah. I don't mean that literally, like how to run a three pl uh, hard one. And, um, you know, so I've ended up at the end of that road with a lot of, like a big toolkit to pull from and that helps me be creative in deciding what other businesses to, um, you know, that are kind of like fun and interesting to me. So I'll, I'll take a breath there. But it just started as a project.

Andrew Verboncouer: Yeah. So you started with a spatula, is that correct? Yeah, product in the kitchen. You mentioned silicone, like forming that. What was the impetus for that? Like why a spatula of all things in the kitchen?

Samantha Rose: All the things, you know, there's different versions of this story that are all true and you know, I think big decisions are, are like made up of lots of little micro decisions. So the micro decisions are, I love to cook. I used to buy kitchen gadgets for my parents as Christmas and like holiday gifts all the time. That was like our love language was. Tools that we can use together, whether that's like in the garage or in the backyard or in the kitchen. And this one happened me in the kitchen. And so I was cooking one day and it broke. And I was like, why don't they dot, dot dot and who's the they in? This is always like super mysterious. I, but I believe that there is all, and like, yeah, the kitchen illuminati, they, they. See, uh, just decided that spatulas were two pieces for whatever reasons they decided that. And I didn't know enough to know better. And so I said, why don't they make it out of one piece? And that led to this little science experiment of, well, could I do that? And, and why not? Why isn't this out there? And, you know, you pull on enough strings and there's nothing at the other end of it. It's like, okay, well maybe I'll just go do this. Um, so I was ad advantaged. At that point in time too, buy crowdfunding because it was like a real thing. It was like a, you know, the zeitgeist of the moment was that crowdfunding was like a new channel and a new way of buying that was participatory, and that allowed small businesses or projects to get off the ground. And I just started a project and, and it all, you know, when a thousand people that I'd never met bought this thing, I thought, well maybe there's a business there. And originally. I thought, well, the name of the business is Get it right. So we'll do like a spatula, but then we'll do the next thing that get gets it right. And that might be like, not at all kitchenwares, it might be a piece of bicycle gear, which is part of the reason we named the company Gear. Just gear that gets it. Right. But that could be category agnostic. And in my head, that was more interesting too because I, although I became a, a, um. A pretty well known expert in silicone manufacturing methodologies because of my just willingness to like, figure it out and, and learn. Yeah. Um, and, and innovate in the category. My real interest was not in that thing specifically, it was just in cool products that solve problems. Right. And so in my head I was like, you know what, what if I make a bicycle helmet? That was like a legitimate product idea that I had. It's still, it's still in here somewhere. And someday, um. And what I realized was that commercially that's really difficult to do because there's, if you're moving beyond direct to consumer or into wholesale, or even if you're talking to the same direct to consumer audience, the audience that's interested in my $12 silicone spatulas is not necessarily the person that's an interested in a $400 highfalutin biking helmet. Yeah. You know, so. So, uh. Maybe the, maybe the MBA would've helped with that a little better. I had to learn that one the hard way. And so I realized that if I wanted to get any traction going, I needed to build more in a category.

Andrew Verboncouer: Yep. And,

Samantha Rose: and I loved cooking, so I just went for it. And, and you know, it's

Andrew Verboncouer: successful still out there today. You exited a few years back, right? Like Yeah. Your first company that you know and exited, like that's rare, you know,

Samantha Rose: could have been one and done, but yeah, I was bad at tiring. I went back for more. Yeah. Uh,

Andrew Verboncouer: to the hustle.

Samantha Rose: It, you know, and I, uh, there was, there is, there is some hustle in it. I just really think it's fun to build things and. I get a sort of infinite amount of energy from that. Yeah. I was coding for 14 hours yesterday, which I think is the thing that coders do.

Andrew Verboncouer: Yeah. Is that what you guys do? Right. You just get into it and you're like,

Samantha Rose: yeah, I

Andrew Verboncouer: can't stop. I, I can see how it all connects and you keep running.

Samantha Rose: And then, you know, every time the dog had to go out, I was like, but why? Yeah.

Andrew Verboncouer: Hold it.

Samantha Rose: Feed yourself. Um, so yeah, I just like to build things and that has been, for me, a pretty renewable source of, of focus for all the different ways that I've been able to apply each kind of like, you know, lesson or level up.

Andrew Verboncouer: Yeah. I think the thing you said there, um, as you kind of described, I didn't have a thesis, right? Like, there's so many things that. I think are thesis driven that are, you know, innovation theater or, you know, uh, solution in search of a, you know, problem, those sorts of things. Like when you really solve a problem that's frustrating enough that you care enough to solve and you're like, I'm gonna get it. Right. Right. Which is you're behind your name and everything. Um, I think that's just where you can enter that state, where you just forego the ego or like the shortcuts or the things that. Yeah, you're not really gonna pay attention to, unless you're focusing on the problem and really going deep on that versus, eh, this spatula is good enough. It's like, well, it doesn't solve the real problems that I had, or, you know. Yeah. Any of the other things that you know, that you've endeavored on since then are really like problems you've encountered? At least from what I can see in the business. Right. And kind of going from, from what I understand, going from get it right and warehousing and that sort of thing to like. Bridging the gap to a three pl. Like how did that happen? You know what I mean? Like what was the problem?

Samantha Rose: Oh man. Well, it's exactly that. It's just like problems that need to be solved and that, you know, I, I think I've learned better as I've gone, as I've gone on to, um. Be a little bit more commercial about the problems that I'm solving. Yeah. But it is very true that they start from like a deep personal need and then sort of an insight that there is a better way. And I think if you can combine those two things, like a need and an insight, then there's a lot you can do with that recipe for innovation. But not all of the outcomes of that recipe are delicious. I'm just gonna do the recipe thing. Yeah. We're giving them out there. So, so for, with the example of three PL and warehouse management, I really needed my hard earned dollars that were converted into spatulas to be on a shelf that I could see and touch and take care of because it was like all of my eggs in that basket. And it was a wild risk that Brian and I were taking. Um. To make it happen, and I felt like I was. Putting us in a position of too much risk to have it at arm's length. So, okay, yeah, we'll bring it in house and, oh man, well the rent is too damn high, like this big empty building that's now a quarter full of our stuff. Like how can we fill it? And that turned into a three pl. And, and so solving our own problem allowed us to solve some other people's problems, which is like, here's a person who cares about brands and cares about, uh, the. The genuine investment that founders make into their inventory and we're taking it, I don't wanna say more seriously then, although I, I, that's a favorable to me characterization, but like we're taking it seriously and certainly we're taking it to heart that like this isn't just stuff on a shelf that can be lost or damaged without consequence. Um, and. So the great part of that is that I solved my problem and I solved other people's problems at the same time. The hard thing is that Subscale three pls are a really hard business to be in. And we, so we were always like stretching for more shelf space and getting a building that was a little too big. But then, oh my gosh, okay, now we gotta go sell some three PL contracts and we'll fill it. And oh my gosh, things are going great. It's full. We gotta get another lease. And I've got four subleases and just like one thing's leading to another. Oh no, the bottom's dropping out. Macroeconomic factors at play. It's kind of slow today. How do we keep all these people, you know, kind of busy and happy? All of those things are swirling together, and it's like a really low margin business. You know, like pennies if that pennies on the dollar. And so, you know, some of the harder lumps that I've had to take in building this kind of like multifaceted, vertically integrated series of businesses are like, well, not all of these businesses are built equally. And my hour of effort. Into any one of them yields really different results. And I have to start kind of like taking that into account as I make forward facing decisions. And that's been the hard, that's been the really, really hard part of Yeah.

Andrew Verboncouer: How do you think about, yeah, prioritizing, right? As a multi founder across multiple things. Like have you thought about, you know, first of all, going from. Product designer and founder to now operational leader, right? Yeah. Obviously, Brian, uh, is, is a part of that as well, but like, yeah. How do you think about going from, you know, all these opportunities that you like to be involved in because you're solving problems and you're scratching that itch and, and going deep. But how do you focus, right? How do you choose what to focus on and, and what makes it to the top of the list?

Samantha Rose: I have such an unfair answer to that question, like I wish I had a better like framework for focus for people, like a much better advisor. Uh, I don't find that hard at all because all of the things that I'm involved in that excite me. And that bring me joy are like totally connected to each other. And so I don't have that feeling of, I'm looking at this so I can't look at that, or I'm concentrating on this, which means I have to leave this other thing, you know, on the side for a while. Yeah. It's all aggregating knowledge and ag and, and like connecting resources to each other. It's such an unfair answer to give and because it's not a framework that anyone else can use necessarily, unless you're building like a multifaceted. Vertically integrated series of businesses over time, which isn't to say that I concentrate on everything everywhere, all at once.

Andrew Verboncouer: Right. Uh,

Samantha Rose: so here are some frameworks that, that I use with the assumption that everything that I'm choosing to be involved in is inherently connected in some way. So I don't have to, I'm, I, I've already taken away the assumption of, is it relevant to me? Because that's, I can, I think that's probably a piece of it that's just like a quiet algorithm running in the back of. Is, is this relevant? One of my relevance of ex vectors is can I be helpful? Like, so that's very powerful because I can be helpful in lots of ways that are not necessarily by my product or use my service or listen to my advice or anything like that. It can, it can take a lot of forms. Um, but the other framework that I use the most is like. Is this so unfair? Is, is it bringing me joy? And I don't, I don't use that in a trite way. I don't like go to the joy checklist or anything like that. There's not a joy checklist. I just, I just follow, I just follow it. And that has brought me to the interconnectedness of these things. Yeah. In a very organic way. In a way that is, again, a sub-routine that's running in the background. But if it's joyful, and I feel, and one of the things that's joyful for me is drawing these connections in a way that maybe seems wild to some, but to me it was just sort of like, I mean, yeah, warehouse management is inherently. Connected to product design and supply chain management and brand building. And like all of these things, they're not, they're not terribly difficult webs to draw. Um, and that's super fun. That's like game, that's like gamified business.

Andrew Verboncouer: Yeah. Well, yeah. When you, when you think about, you know how connected those are, right? You have gear, then from there you sort of manifest. Right, which you wanna just share a little bit more about what Manifest does. I mean, really end-to-end, like co-founder in the trenches almost, um, along that journey. Yeah. But maybe you can talk about that. Yeah.

Samantha Rose: Wow. You're joining the marketing team. That's a rad way to put it. Um, yeah. I mean, after I sold gear, I had like a lot of knowledge that I felt, you know, here's the real authentic answer to this. It was hard to let go of. It was really hard to let go of that ability to make things. Mm-hmm. And I think that, I think that played an, played a factor for sure in the building of manifest. It certainly was without, goes without saying, hard to let go of the people. For me, I mean for some maybe that wouldn't be true, but for me very true.

Andrew Verboncouer: Yeah.

Samantha Rose: It's like I felt like it was hard to let go of this ability that I'd spent so much time like. Honing to just create things out of sin, air, and like turn ideas into realities. And I, I get so much joy from that, uh, like, see, having an idea, having an idea, and then later holding it in my hand. And so. Manifest, let me just, let me just label it for what it is. Gear was a brand in the home and houseware space manifest is what's left of a brand operations team when you take the brand away.

Andrew Verboncouer: Mm-hmm.

Samantha Rose: Which, if you're vertically integrated, is there's sort of three things that we did or do they do, um, best, uh, and I say did or do, because I've. I exited the management of that business. Um, and I'm just a, a stakeholder in it and an advisor to it, um, which is a, which is wild. Um, yeah, to kind of be behind the second exit, uh, at this point. So, uh, product design and development, some engineering. That's kind of one chunk of it. There's. Parts of the product life cycle that are a little earlier than that sometimes or a little later, they surround it. It's the environment of design, which is uh, which also includes stuff like branding and content creation and marketing strategy or brand strategy and product strategy.

Andrew Verboncouer: Yeah.

Samantha Rose: Um, but at the core of it, that competency is like to design a thing. And then the second core competency is to get that thing made. And that includes being really good at supply chain management, talking to. Different suppliers re resourcing, triple resourcing things sometimes, especially in this environment. Yeah, not a word. Um, and, uh, staying up late to spend the time to have those conversations. Um, and, and then ultimately like getting, getting stuff either across the country or into the country as the case may be. Uh, and the last piece of it is the three PL piece, which is sort of. Touch customer. Yeah. So those three things were, were what was vertically integrated into manifest that I felt like really had a reason for being in the world. And to your point is like having a co-founder in the trenches for someone who's like the technical co-founder of a brand. So doing all of the operational things, the infrastructural things, and yes, the tech things, the, the true technology that's sort of like the, um. Operating stack of, of most brands. Yeah. Uh, so that's, yeah, that was, that was sort of business number two.

Andrew Verboncouer: And that's, it's always so difficult, right? Like, how do you, and we struggle with this being, you know, a service based company. You know, like how do you put a price on mistakes you don't make? Right. Like, wow, it's very, you can't, right, you can, you can talk about 'em, you can say, oh, you know, you're avoiding. But as a first time founder, you know, at Gear, I'm sure there was plenty of things that, even with mentorship from other founders or other people groups that you tried to mindshare from, like mistakes you made that stacked up that are now informing like what your process is or what you know, things to avoid or like your don't go there map, you know what I mean? Like. That, I don't know, that just kind of saying, yeah, like that's, that's really tough to, you know, to put a value on. Um, especially if, if somebody's a first time, you know, founder bringing their product to market, you kinda, you miss some of that. And I almost think at some point, like, if you don't go through those struggles, almost like the butterfly, right? Like if it doesn't, if go through the struggles of coming outta the cocoon, like the wings aren't gonna be, you know, flushed, they're not gonna be, yeah. So there are some struggles that like you don't want to take away, but at the same time. You try to help avoid, you know?

Samantha Rose: Yeah. I mean, I think that's the, the classic challenge of service-based businesses is just like putting a value on, on the time both being spent in that moment, but also that's gone into the ability to engage. Uh, and I'll be honest, I never figured out the right way to charge for it. I, but I tried a lot of different ways. It was an ongoing experiment. I, I can tell you all the different things we tried. We tried hours for dollars, just like time and materials. We tried a blend of that and like some elements of, of a lifecycle project being sort of like just project based. Um, because we did contract manufacturing, we tried charging nothing for design and just putting all of our eggs in the basket of, uh, let, we're gonna get the design contract with you. That was. Catastrophic. Yeah. Um, and, uh, and we tried, uh, accelerator mode, like we're going to give you, uh, time and advice and exchange for upside of some sort. And that upside has taken the form of phantom equity, of safes, of actual equity of. There's probably a few things that I'm forgetting and even more things that are possible. 'cause you run a service business too that like just ways to do it. Uh, and I, I never felt like I landed on the perfect one that was like, oh

Andrew Verboncouer: yeah,

Samantha Rose: people like buying from me in this way and I like selling in this way and I can scale this. It always felt like I was struggling for the com, the comfortable outfit to wear and um, that was hard.

Andrew Verboncouer: Yeah, like you said, you have so many considerations when we think about operations of p and ls margin levels for different services, for different capabilities, for three PL for right? Like you kind of have this roll up HoldCo that's like end to end doing many different things that you're then competing on, you know, differently because people aren't searching for the end-to-end solution, but when they come across it, they can't believe they've never found it. You know what I mean? Like those sorts of things where it's, uh. It's a complex stack that, you know, the monetary, uh, I guess the numbers and the economics don't, aren't the same across it, you know,

Samantha Rose: which is, yeah. And the outcome of that, there's a couple of really interesting outcomes of that. One is it makes it a hard business to manage. Okay? So you learn how to manage it, but you know, in some ways how hard can it be, but actually hard, uh, yeah. It's impossible to sell, at least today. I think that there was a moment in 2021 and maybe 2022. And a few years before that where it was possible to sell the dream, we saw a lot of four pls jump up in that. Yeah. Crop up in that era of like product high services or technology enabled, um, logistics, uh, where that kind of like derivative model was viewed as. Um, venture scale.

Andrew Verboncouer: Mm-hmm.

Samantha Rose: And, uh, for, for better or for worse, when I went out to fundraise for Manifest, I was not at that moment in time. So. Coulda, shoulda would I. Um, but the business models are really different and so it stands to reason that the type of investor that would want to put that, whose thesis aligned with that is it for my business? Those three things. Who would invest in a service agency? Who would invest in a contract manufacturer and who would invest in a technology supported or enabled, uh, or first three pl? Those are three really different investors. And I think two, two out of three of those businesses are probably almost never venture scale, but they could be really interesting in cash flowing. Mm-hmm. If you've grown big enough over time. And technology enabled, three PL services was viewed as venture scaled for a moment, but the moment passed, um, at least that, that's, that's my read on it.

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Andrew Verboncouer: Let's talk about the next thing, right? Which is, or the current thing, which is endless and how all of this history really stacks up to like what you're trying to do. You know, today.

Samantha Rose: Okay, so there are so many acronyms collected along the road to, uh, consumer success. And as I collected these acronyms, you know, they all kind of like connected to each other in some ways. And IMS inventory management system was maybe the same thing as an OMS, an order management system, but like, maybe not, but like sometimes both of those things are a WMS like. Which asks you to like, you know, put ASNs into the system. So like collecting all these acronyms over time. And as I'm, as I was building gear, the idea behind Endless was really percolating. And as I was building manifest, it was like. Uh, let's use the butterfly metaphor. It was like in its chrysalis and like, eh, uncomfortably trying to break out and now it's like, it's out and, and may maybe we've, we've got our wings. Um, endless is basically an ERP, but it's an ERP without accounting. My point of view as an operator was that the stack that I was trying to put together was like breaking all of the time, but what was not broken was like. Our general ledger, like accounting is fine and every better solution that I wanted for operations was like. Intermediated by, oh, well, and you'll use our general ledger. I'm like, no, no, no, no. I want this big thing and I actually want it tomorrow. Can like, can I implement you by myself next week? Like I have literally said that, that sentence to more than one ERP, you know, salesperson. And they're like. No, six,

Andrew Verboncouer: nine months, 12 months maybe.

Samantha Rose: Yeah. Like, I need this help. I need it right now. And no, I don't need to. In our case, it was QuickBooks, like, I don't need to like brick that just to get this other help, just gimme the other help that I need. And like, there's gotta be something outta the box. So. So my building journey for endless commerce was very much born of like. Spreadsheets at gear and kind of like ticky, tacking together things that I thought were a better way of operating internally. And then really honing that at manifest with so many more customers, uh, interacting with the systems and the processes that we were building. And I, I say this 'cause it makes me sound cool in the era of ai, which is that it really expanded my context window for like, what it meant to, uh, support. Different businesses now. I understood so much more and was able to kind of build for so much more with that, uh, adjacency. And this is the system that I wish someone had just been like, yes, sure, sign on the dotted line. It's, I don't even care how much money a month like I would, my willingness to pay for this product was through the roof at the time because what I really wanted wasn't. A system that would make my operations a little bit less messy or make me have to hire one fewer person. I love people. I'm like, I wanna hire more people. I am I trying to get rid of headcount. I'm like trying to grow. You wanted a system that was built to help me grow. And what growth for my businesses looked like was opening new sales channels and maybe being a little bit inquisitive, as in like buying other brands or building other brands to plop into my kind of like operating portfolio. Mm-hmm. And that growth focus system didn't exist for operations. It existed though, and so much money went into building these as well. Like, like venture capital went in, uh. Correctly, I think to building and capitalizing a lot of the businesses that were focused on direct to consumer channel growth. Find, find your customer. Optimize their acquisition costs. Yeah. Optimize your conversion rates. You know, optimize, optimize, optimize, which is with all due respect, really easy on a relative basis.

Andrew Verboncouer: Mm-hmm.

Samantha Rose: Because it's just bits. It's just software.

Andrew Verboncouer: Yeah. And

Samantha Rose: when you get into atoms and you've got a box that's a got the wrong thing in it, but it's on the UPS trailer and someone's gotta go crawl into it to get it out, to take out the wrong thing, put in the new thing. 'cause the customer changed their mind, but, and we have the last ones left in stock and. You know, or we're, we're building a pallet that's got $50,000 worth of goods on it. Like that's a really expensive package. Like that's when it gets really hard, that transition from bits to atoms. And so that is where I kind of really found my stride in, in building better tools. And one of the, the, um. Oh, I'm trying to figure out the right word for this. Like present is way too strong, but, uh, it confused me. I was always confused by how many solutions there were to enable the system of getting one widget into a poly mailer. Mm-hmm. And doing over and over and over again for more and more people relative to how many beautiful systems had been built for like that bigger thing, which is how stuff that's going to. You name the big box retailer or international trading partner. Endless Commerce is a platform that I built to enable consumer brand growth by making operations actually fun for all of the different operators in a business I. That's all I wanted to do was have fun, operate, like it doesn't have to be a crappy job. It can be really fun, but the way to make it fun is to make it purpose built for each of the operators. And that I think is one of the failure modes of traditional ERPs, is that in order to build something that's big enough for everything and everyone, you have to build a lot of things that are irrelevant to an individual in that operating context because everyone together is using it. But you know the 15 fields in this that I never need to see, I. Like, why are they in front of me right now? Mm-hmm. And so it becomes like, you know, kind of less, you know, more context, irrelevant, and, and that makes it really difficult and less fun to interact with. And so AI is powering how we do so are able to do so much of this because the, the interfaces that we present to the marketing operator who needs to be in the system, who wants a shared source of truth about the product are different. Then the interfaces that we're presenting to the inventory management team and planning and buying team. Mm-hmm. But they touch the same core chunks. Data warehouses basically. And, and that allows us to create a much more, um, fitting and bespoke experience within the software than legacy systems. Were kind of, you know, reasonably able to deliver.

Andrew Verboncouer: Yeah. I mean, and they were so, so focused at doing one thing, but like you said. The data's the same, right? Yeah. You think about like, you know, digital twins are big, right? Like, you can't do that if, um, you can't create a representation of the real world if the systems don't talk to each other. So then you have integrations and you have, all right? And so if you get a system that's using, you know, one package that has a skew inside of it, and it's moving from one place to another, and you can track that along the journey and it can go to multiple places. You can have, you know, a more, like you said, like personalized experience, which is exactly what you're doing. Like role specific, goal based interfaces that touch and modify and change that same data. Um, which I think is like, it's the dream that a lot of people have and I think it's starting to become reality because of AI and some of the integrations and data pipelines and services that are out there to be able to connect that. Without having to build it all, you know what I mean? Like specifically by yourself, the cost of engineering. 'cause usually what you face at an, I think we've actually talked about this before, like as a SaaS company is like, what's the selling point? Right? Like what's the trigger? Like, and, and how do you get people to go all in, in an all in one? Yeah. Like what's that? What's the big problem moment? Is it only new brands? Is it new? Only brands going from one to two channels and that sort of thing. Like it, it becomes a, um. You know, uh, what's the trigger to, for someone to change and, you know, where's the pain really felt that they're like, yeah, we're doing it. We have this, this purview. You're also doing hologram crap, uh, capital. Are you,

Samantha Rose: I love that. That almost came out the wrong way. And in fact, if we do it wrong, it will be capital. Capital and,

Andrew Verboncouer: alright. Lemme start that over. No, I think we should keep it. Okay, let's keep it. Um, so hologram capital, are you only investing in, like, are you doing SaaS? Are you only doing CPG? Are you doing D two C? Like where, where are you making a bet on, you know, growth coming from, as you think about, you know, that fund and, and the stuff you're doing there?

Samantha Rose: Yeah. Well, so same, same, see, previous conversation. All of these things are deeply connected. At least in my galaxy brain. Yeah.

Samantha Rose: And I hope that I'm doing a good job out there in the world of articulating how they're connected, like in a way that's ingestible. Um, hologram capital exists to help distressed or special situations. Consumer brands find a new life That's kind of its primary thesis. It's not always the way that we do it, but in for the most part, that's who we believe we can help the most is businesses that need debt restructuring recapitalization and have maybe like excellent brands, bad balance sheets, good communities, but uh, are about to be at their end of life without some sort of external intervention. And just the externality of us being like another party allows us to. Come in, in a situation like that and, and help to revitalize sometimes like the an, it's not that we have the answer, the answer might be obvious to everybody, but it's a literal third party needs to be the one to come in and execute. And of course, endless commerce is like a huge part of this because the way that we make it efficient and fun to operate a brand through endless. Yes. So, um, but it felt like at the time when I, at the time, um. In 2023, I was having a hard time at manifest, like selling stuff. It was a stressful time. Macroeconomically for consumer businesses. Capital had pulled back, I think like investing dropped by. I wanna say at least half and, and maybe my numbers are wrong, but probably more than half into consumer brands, um, and into CPG. And so a lot of really great businesses that had sort of benefited from revenue pull forward and COVID ID and you know, the sort of shift to online buying. They were suffering and, and so I was selling into a headwind. This is just like a practical. Practicality of being a service of an agency owner. It's just like, yeah, who are you selling to and is it the right time for them to buy? As it turns out, it was the right time for exactly nobody to buy, so, so I'm like on a hill struggling. I'm like, you know what if, and, and again, just like very motivated by seeing things work, like sometimes I, I label that as being helpful, but another way for me to label it is maybe like, I like to see things work. And it, and it hurts when they don't work. And so if I can help something to work that is like some, it, it, it hits some genetic trigger in me that's like, you know, like that's a variable, intermittent return kind of a thing. Like good, it's working. Um, and so I felt like the way that I could make things work or be the most helpful was to buy businesses instead of just trying to sell into them. Because I know that one of the things that can help to turn a business around. Is some capital that goes into either inventory or product development, new storytelling, and those are the things that manifest is really great at. But if there's no outside capital for that, because the business overall is suffering, well, what if we just buy the business and do the same exact thing that we would've done, but as owners instead of uh, instead of as, um. You know, partners or, um, or consultants. So that was kind of how that thesis you, you know, came to be. Um, and the way that it is being in the real world right now is that we're always looking for opportunities, uh, for businesses. Either consumer hard goods is like a, a very well known to me category. So I can sort of speak shorthand there, but also CPG. Vitamins, mineral supplements, beauty in healthcare, and yes, SaaS. And if we can, uh, use our operating leverage to help turn those businesses around and we can use endless as a platform to help turn it around, or in the case of SaaS, we can acquire that capability into the platform and like share the love. Yeah, that's, that's really kind of what that vehicle exists for.

Andrew Verboncouer: Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I, I think there's a lot of, I mean, especially now, right? In like the tariff environment, some companies didn't make it through that, even though it feels like, it's like, you know, an episode of the office, like snip snap, snip snap where like tariffs are on, they're off, they're low, they're high, who knows what's going on. So and so's not talking to who, you know what I mean? Like, yeah. Yeah. In that environment, like as an operations lead, as a founder, you're like, what do I do? I can't see next week or three weeks from now. Like, do we have to make a call now because we feel like this is the end, and then like, oh, just kidding. Like, you know, the, the number of options that are out there are only based on. Your known consideration set, right? Like, what are the constraints or the things that we know about? And if that changes, you're like gonna make a different decision, but if it changes again, you're likely to decide something else. So it feels like we're now more than ever in like a huge volatile climate for goods. When you're manufacturing overseas or local, you know, you're, you're looking at, I think that's where like something like endless and someone with your expertise is like. When you've done it end to end and built successful brands and sold them and also helped them along the way. It's like you can see things, others don't in that process, right? Where like, uh, a founder might be in there, um, working on a specific problem, but they don't know how it all connects upstream and like. Sure we, maybe we can't get, you know, 10 points on, um, you know, on our margin in this area, but there might be 10 across the journey that we just don't know about. 'cause we don't know enough, right? We don't know about the three pls, or we don't know about, um, obviously they know about three pls, but like, they don't know the ins and outs of some of these, um, operations of, uh, you know, some of these windows, like you said, like the context window can give you that ability to see like, we can't make the turn here, but we can make it across this company. You know, end to end, which I think is really, you know, really unique.

Samantha Rose: Yeah, I, and you know, I think that, that, although I have, and, and I'm proud of it, like I've spent a lot of time acquiring the knowledge and the context window, um, to, to kind of help myself operate in this way. Uh, and our business is advantaged by it. It's out there for anyone. Yeah, there's just little learning curves and if you can frame it for yourself in a way that it's, it's, you know, it's fun enough to like just get like a, an edge of knowledge in each of these things. The, the interconnectedness of them does really readily become apparent. And you're right, like if you can't, if you need efficiency and you can't gain it just here like. Can you take a little, across a few things and like, what do you need to know about those few things in order to get like a 1% gain? Right? It might not be that much incremental knowledge. It, it might be like, sit down with your three PL and say, listen, I know you're a tight margin business. I'm not trying to screw you, but here's my problem over here and like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to get, you know, to the next level by just arguing ticky tacky over invoices with you, but like, what can we do together so that I as a brand can be a better business partner for you as a three PL and vice versa? Mm-hmm. Almost like, Hey, how can I help you help me? And having those. Clarifying conversations with your trading partners. I'm using three pls as an example. 'cause it's such low hanging fruit. Yeah. But like this could be true across ev, any agency that you work for and your employees and your contractors, like just having these clarifying conversations of like, look, here's my problem and I don't have to solve it all in one place, but I need your help. Figuring out where, where I can solve it. And if what we're working on together individually can be a part of that solution. Businesses are in the business of helping other business. Like everybody, you know, everybody wants to play in the same sandbox. And so I feel like, I feel like what I'm tugging at is like. Simple one-on-one conversations like this are so helpful in unlocking the next best way to collaborate with whoever you're working with.

Andrew Verboncouer: Yeah. And,

Samantha Rose: and in that conversation you'll understand their model a little bit better. That, I mean, this is how I did it. I just talked to people. Mm-hmm.

Samantha Rose: Yes. To every meeting. I just wanted to know how everything worked. And at the end of that. Was enough of a kind of constellation of knowledge that I could build cool products on top of it. But it definitely helped me when I was just in the spatula of business, like doing that thing. 'cause I was a better partner to our three PL while we had them. And I was a better partner to our manufacturers. I mean, I understood like how the production line works, so when I was asking for something. I knew better what to ask for and I also knew how, how not to waste their time. I mean, that's the other really, really important element can that can come out of just like understanding how the business that you're working with works.

Andrew Verboncouer: Mm-hmm. Is

Samantha Rose: you don't, you can ask fewer questions that are time wasters for them and that put them closer to you. 'cause they're thick, they're thankful that they don't have to like go break down something that ought to be obvious to everybody. Or that you could have just. Gone and understood that, uh, and you get to a deeper conversation faster in that way, and I think that that is like ultimately much, much more productive.

Andrew Verboncouer: I. Yeah. And I think you have to be motivated by solving that problem, right? Like you see in any business, people trying to get rich quick, right? Oh, they hear, oh, that, you know, I can make money doing D two C. Like, maybe like not everybody, right? But like, if you care about the things you're creating, then you're gonna ask those questions. You're gonna have those hard conversations. You're gonna push in, you're gonna, um, you know, really try to flex every and be resourceful, flex every single thing you can, you know, to, to make it happen. Otherwise. You're gonna come in and come out, you know what I mean? Like, you're, you're not gonna hang around, you're not gonna be resilient. You're not gonna have, so I think just like. I don't know. I just think about people that I know. Um, I've heard about coming into an industry with a bang and leaving, you know, with their tail between their legs. 'cause they thought it was a big opportunity today. And I think you have to, you know, it's almost like the, I'm a big fan of Dune. It's like the, the Jesuit, like we, you know, we plan in centuries, you know what I mean? Like, you, you have to play the long game and you have to, you have to care about what you're doing, uh, in order to. To have those conversations or you're just going to think it's not worth it. Right. It's gonna be too much, too much to overcome. Um, yeah. That's awesome. So I guess to, to kind of wrap us up here, we talked, you, you mentioned we didn't get a whole lot into ai, although we could talk about it for days. You're talk, you're using AI at endless, you know, for various things. Yeah. Um, the industry's huge buzz about ai, right? There's things like, um, you know, happy Robot, which I saw at, at a show last year, which is like booking brokerage for transportation, you know, AI enabled whisper. There's, um, connectivity plays with ai. Where do you think, you know, having your purview into kind of the end to end of supply chain, you know, minus, I don't, you haven't driven semi as far as I know. Um.

Samantha Rose: That.

Andrew Verboncouer: Have you, do you have a CDL?

Samantha Rose: No, I do not have a CDL.

Andrew Verboncouer: Um, like

Samantha Rose: do you all count or No, that's doesn't count. I

Andrew Verboncouer: would count it. I mean, there, there's,

Samantha Rose: and I apologize.

Andrew Verboncouer: Well, there's people renting a, you know, doing final mile. You know, renting riders, renting U-Haul. I've had plenty of people drop, you know, article stuff off at my house. It, you know, just renting a van or whatever, you know, doing the final mile, uh, stuff, picking it up at, at, uh, the airport or whatnot. Um, but what do you think the future looks like, not even 10 years from now, two years from now, given. Advancements, like what are you seeing that that maybe is moving the quickest in that direction, you know, to automation, to ai, that sort of thing, just from a, you know, supply chain perspective.

Samantha Rose: Well, I think, and this is just, you know, limited to the surface area that I've been able to interact with so far, my hope is that everybody uses these tools to create for themselves. That's the learning curve that I have advantaged myself with, you know, for years. I just like learned how to do it. So my, that's my wish is that everybody's using these tools because they're changing so, so quickly and. If I could add sort of like a micro wish onto that, just go build a widget. Just see how it works, see what it feels like to build a widget using any no code tool, low code tool, AI assisted IDE. Chat with one, you know, chat with an LLM and, but ask it to make something for you. Make something with you and, and have an opinion about it.

Andrew Verboncouer: Mm-hmm.

Samantha Rose: Right. Like have an opinion, um, because I think that. What's around the corner is not software that defines how we work. It's us defining the software. On a almost continuous basis, which as a SaaS founder is terrifying. And probably for you too, as like, as an agency, could be really terrifying. Like the, the world has these tools now and, and we can build such cooler things together with them. Um, and so my wishes for everyone to just try, um, and, and, and run up that little learning curve because I think really cool products will come out of it from the minds of people who never felt like they deserved. To participate in it or that we're like, uh, intimidated or overwhelmed by the idea of, oh, I've got a great idea, or I've got great idea. I've got a, I've got a idea that's burning a hole in my pants. Like my pockets are like, like burning a hole in my pockets. And I, and I have to get it out and, but I can't because I'm not a developer or I can't, I'm not a, I'm not a designer, right? That

Samantha Rose: I'm not a. Goodbye. Like I, I genuinely think that's around the corner. I'm not a blank being a definer of whether or not someone has the right to participate in the creation of things.

Andrew Verboncouer: Mm-hmm.

Samantha Rose: I'm very happy that that's coming to an end, even though there's existential threats for you and for me in all of that, but I think it raises the bar. Yeah, and what I love about it is that, is that, and well, what I selfishly love about it is that I believe I have enough and you have enough real time operating insights in these specializations that we've chosen that like there is an endless list of, see what I did there, great ideas that can come out of it. And guess what? They'll see the light of day faster and that'll help people and that is really rad. That's one big. I think the other big chunk is that like the backend gets really important and I think that, um, underestimating the complexity of a, uh, you know, or the simplicity slash complexity, the, um. The polish of a really good backend and of connecting these data concepts to each other in a way that's scalable. Mm-hmm. Like that's gonna be the next bottleneck because building a really nice interface is, is easy now on a relative basis, but. Making it work, making that, making a distributed system work in a way that doesn't, uh, seem like it's fine for a minute and then cause like total chaos on the other side of it. I think that's really hard. I think that's yet a problem to be solved, and it could just be because I'm a little more front endy than Backendy as a person. So I'm, I am a little bit more like, well, that's a bigger learning curve for me.

Andrew Verboncouer: Yeah. And

Samantha Rose: distributed systems is a really big learning curve. Like, um, but I see that as one of the challenges of making software that's sticky and in, in this day and age. 'cause it's easy to make software now that's like, okay, use that for a day. But oh, I built another tool for myself just like it the next day. Right. Um, so I think middleware is about to get rad.

Andrew Verboncouer: Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a lot of opportunity when it comes to people who. One, we talked a lot about problems. Care about the problem. Yep. Have a desire to apply their learnings and specializations to software. Right? Like if every ev, everybody goes into AI claw, copilot, cursor, whatever you describe the same problem. If you put one sentence in with no context or no other instructions, or no other de like, everyone's gonna create the same app, right? So you kind of have this, everyone racist to an average platform. Hey, come use my like. Imagine when there's 10 times more, so a hundred times more software than there is now. What's gonna win? Not that it just does some of the same features. Oh, well it helps us take this data and, you know, tracks it from our WMS. Great. It's like, is it solve the full problem? And I, I think the people with the experience and the knowledge can drive that if they have the appetite to go learn how to use those tools. Like you mentioned, like use it for one thing, be able to drive it from there. Um, but it does come a, you know, when you think about iterating some of these AI solutions like systems design, you know, decentralized data, like yeah. All of those things that allow you to do those faster, but only if you have, you know, that sort of foundation set up and then build upon. I. From there, but anything else you wanna part with today, Sam? Um, any other wisdom that you wanna share about the industry or

Samantha Rose: boxes on the loading dock? I think our trailer's full. Yeah. No, I mean, but I have 101 questions to ask you, uh, which we will have to do in a follow up. And I would love to have you on, on our podcast. Uh, I think that, um. I think it's a really interesting time to be building, and I think that the volatility and the vol, there's volatility all around. It's one of the most volatile landscapes I've, I've ever. I, I don't know. I've got, I'm 40 years in, so there's more I'm sure to out. Um, but even in, uh, just as an appreciator of history, like this feels like a volatile time when fundamentally, generally new technologies. Are being delivered, you know, to us, by us at the same time that there's like a lot of geopolitical instability. It's like two vectors of volatility converging at the same time. And that's a little scary. Yeah. But I think also it is greatly, um. Well, it's a little scary and I think that it is a great opportunity to be built. Is, I think it's a, the reason I'm struggling is I'm, I'm searching for a word that's big enough. It is a privilege to be building in this time.

Andrew Verboncouer: Yeah.

Samantha Rose: With such new tools. And I, for one hope that I am like keeping up.

Andrew Verboncouer: Same well with that. Where can people contact you if they're interested in either becoming a customer or you know, checking out what you're working on? Where do they go?

Samantha Rose: Yeah, for sure. So, uh, find me on LinkedIn. Uh, pretty active there. Uh, if you have something to say and you wanna say it, uh, first ask Andrew if you can be on his podcast, but then come ask me if you can be on mine. Um, and endless commerce.com. Uh, we're, we're building cool tools for operators that wanna have fun. And, uh, I think if there's a single thing that I care most about right now, it's, uh, it's building fast for the operators that need it.

Andrew Verboncouer: Thanks for joining us on this side up. We hope you enjoyed today's episode and gained some valuable insights into the industry. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review our podcast to help others find us. If you have any questions or topics you'd like us to cover, feel free to reach out and if you want to be a guest, let's connect. Until next time, keep your shipments safe, your logistics smooth, and your curiosity on the move.