James and I talked to Matt Ericson, founder of Trekka Logistics. Matt holds court with great wisdom and energy for his industry and business. He talks about growth, complexity, transparency, and evolving systems to keep things smooth. This is absolutely one of those episodes where — if we didn’t try to keep things down to a sane length — we could have talked for hours. I had a blast, so please give it a listen! 

Matt gave me a bit to chew on here. He responded to one of my questions in a different way than other guests have — what excites him about the future? WE’RE LIVING IT. 

I tend to think about “the future” in sci-fi terms. But I’m realizing that can put me into a perpetual state of “the really cool things are going to happen in the next 10 years” future fever-dreaming. I want to pursue more strongly the mentality that it’s my job to create the future.

Highlights

• help people transition from a small platform to one that scales with them
• it’s not so automated that common sense is removed
• logistics is an “orchestra” to Matt
• About Trekka: 
  – Their strategy is to let the business evolve, install systems that can scale roughly to $200M 3PL
  – 2021: 100% quarter-over-quarter growth
  – No sales team. Growth is through referrals
• COVID has absolutely impacted — a generational shift, sped up the e-commerce industry by 10–15 years
• What don’t people understand about logistics? The complexity behind the orchestra.
• What has you excited about the future? WE’RE LIVING IT! COVID is the great accelerator. More buildings, more geography for Trekka — but the industry is in such wild speed of change that the future is happening NOW.

Money Quotes

Matt

“We’re built on transparency and process”

“When we expand to a new building, we don’t have to rebuild anything [software-wise]”

James

“Projects that wouldn’t have seen the light of day before, they’re coming to the forefront” [COVID as accelerator of e-comm and tech]

Paul

“There’s a kinship between software engineering and physical logistics”