Culture is so hard to scale because it's done through conversation, not a formula. You want to be able to meet with each of your reports for an hour a week in a one on one. The more people you have, the more equations you have to keep track of. Scaling that culture is just like the key challenge of any business once you get product market fit.
Ryan Petersen is the founder and CEO of Flexport.
Flexport is a global freight forwarder powered by software and analytics. They are making international trade easier for over 10,000 companies in 70 countries. They were part of the YC Winter 2014 batch.
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Topics
0:23 - What is a freight forwarder?
3:08 - Selling electric scooters on eBay 15 years ago
5:53 - Ryan’s business school experience
10:23 - Amazon competing with their vendors
13:23 - Matt Susk asks - What were the most important takeaways from Columbia Business School? Would you encourage entrepreneurs to pursue a MBA?
17:03 - Tyler Hogge asks - How did you get your first three clients at Flexport?
20:03 - Being a solo founder
23:08 - Varun Khurana asks - What's your strategy for rapidly hiring the best talent in so many different global hubs?
25:53 - Challenges of scaling Flexport
27:38 - Some of Ryan’s favorite books
29:43 - Scaling culture
34:23 - Jassim Ali asks - How has the Trump policy on foreign trade affected your business so far?
39:23 - PowerDecal asks - How do you poach clients from legacy providers?
46:23 - Automation in freight forwarding
49:23 - Jason Yannos asks - If you weren't operating Flexport and had to source a new idea to work on, where would you start?
53:23 - Derisking product ideas
56:53 - Biggest lessons learned at Flexport