AS 69: Who’s the best freight forwarder? Shipping, Logistics, and Strategy with Max

Today I’ve got Max Lock on the show. Max started importing products from Asia when he was 16 years old, where he went on to realize how painful international shipping is. He is now the founder of Fleet a logistics marketplace simplifying international shipping for fellow importers.

In this show you'll learn:

* How to save money with freight forwarders

* Which freight forwarder is the best?

* Best freight saving tips

* Ways to optimize your shipping logistics

* Max Lock's story and how he created his company Fleet

* How much money did Fleet raise?

* What is Fleet?

* Air freight vs Ocean freight and when to use them, why use them.

* Ocean freight differences

* Customs, X-rays during ocean freight

* Where should I store my ocean freight goods

* Where should I store excess inventory

* How to operate more efficiently

And lots more!

Contact Max Lock

tryfleet.com

David Aladdin: Great to have you on the show Max.

Max Lock: Yeah thank you so much for having me.

David Aladdin:  So can you tell us a little bit about yourself, where your story began?

Max Lock: Sure. So my story began really, a little over five ago. I was in high school at the time and I really loved technology. So I started applying for jobs and I got this job as an IT administrator at a chain of restaurants up and down the East Coast. So you know I was feeding my passion for technology and programming and from there I was in one of their stores one day, they were opening up a new concept, an organic concept store and I was trying this ice cream they were planning on serving.

I tasted it. I thought it tasted absolutely horrible so my other passion outside of work is cooking. So I went home and for the next six weeks try to figure out what is the best way to manufacture ice cream. I brought it back to them; they liked it so, much they started selling it. I figured I have nothing to lose, took it to Whole Foods, took it to other supermarket chains, they started selling it and from there my volume quickly grew.

So it no longer made sense for me to purchase the packaging here in the United States. So I started to look over seas and figure out how I could manufacture it for cheaper and to get them costume printed.

At the time frozen yogurt stores were becoming super popular as well and a friend of mine was actually opening up a frozen yogurt store. So I decided to start, he asked me if I could manufacture cups for him while I was manufacturing cups for my own ice cream brand. So I started importing some cups and soon other frozen yogurt stores started reaching out.

So about three years ago, my cups way out sold my ice cream and I, over the two to three year time period that I did, I manufactured over 35 million paper cups, spoons, lids other things of that nature in China and distributed them to stores all across united states. And what I realized was as a small business owner I, about 80% of my time was just worrying about the logistics like, ok manufacturing it takes some energy to get that set up. But then you find a factory that you are comfortable and you work with, but the logistics changes for every single transaction.

So I started thinking you know, its super easy to book a hotel online or a flight online why is it so complicated to move my good from China to the States and that led me to start Fleet back in 2014 and got us to where we are today.

David Aladdin:  Awesome. I got so many questions just from your intro. Alright so you started off with ice cream, that was 2012-2013?

Max Lock: Correct, so yeah back 2012-2013 time period.