I hate that when founders are like, if only this investor would give me money, then I would make it my full time job. It's one of the biggest downsides of the VC industry as exists right now. We're just trying to make money for 10 years before I raised my first venture capital dollar. And so I know why my advice is controversial to people. But at the same time, it's like also investors want to invest in things where they're like, this guy's going to do it with or without me totally. Like go find a way to make money in this world and not don't wait for investors to give you permission to start a business.
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