Today we’d like to introduce you to Jake Brenner, Cary Subel and Alan Silberstein.
Jake, Cary, and Alan, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Oh man, THE STORY, haha.
ShipLab is not my first business, nor is it my only business, but it is a business that I formed with two other people because we just couldn’t find another business like it, and needed it so badly. Like any entrepreneur, when you can’t find something you’re happy with, you just say “You know what… I’ll just do this myself!”… and here we are. We “officially” started ShipLab less than a year ago and have already doubled in size, with plans for another expansion before we hit our year anniversary.
So.. what is ShipLab?
ShipLab is a warehouse and fulfillment company (the industry standard name is a 3PL, but we hate that title since we aren’t a traditional 3PL). Simply put, we support San Diego companies who are growing out of their garages and help them make the jump from a home business, to a “real business”, and allow entrepreneurs to live their life, instead of shipping orders all day. We were those entrepreneurs who were stuck in their garage all day shipping orders, when we needed help or wanted to take a vacation we would have to rely on our parents (yes, even in our late 20’s our PARENTS were helping ship orders).
The reason we started ShipLab is because we couldn’t find a provider who cared about our brands like we did. Are there other companies out there that will ship your product out for you? Absolutely. However, anytime we talked with them or went to see their warehouses we just felt like the brands that we worked so hard to build would be another no-name number in a huge warehouse. That’s not what we wanted.
Beyond this, we wanted to create a positive working environment for our warehouse team members where they were excited to come to work, even though warehouse work isn’t the most glamorous. From smaller apparel companies, all the way to viral sensations (i.e. San Diego based viral sensation Sunny Co.(http://instagram.com/sunnycoclothing/).
Some of our other San Diego partners include:
-The Baked Bear
– Rush Cycle
– SafeSleeve
– Phalanx Athletics
– SimplyWorkout
That’s the tip of the iceberg obviously, but hopefully, it helps give you a general picture of where we came from, and where we’re currently at.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Haha, of course, it hasn’t been smooth. If it was then it wouldn’t be fun.
Some of the struggles for us have been:
1. We are 100% self-funded, so no deep pocket investors backing us AND we have our other businesses that require money and support on a daily basis as well. This has proved to be a huge challenge in times where we’re shipping tons of orders out and require capital for postage costs, additional labor, equipment, etc.
2. We went into ShipLab having some of the systems in place since we were already doing our own fulfillment for our own brands. However, as things scale up it tends to put stress on those processes, and require modifications to them. Always important to teach the old dog new tricks!
3. The risk associated with the growth that we’re having tends to be a struggle. For example, we outgrew our first warehouse in a matter of months but signed a 2-year lease. We needed a new space, so we had to get a second warehouse and sign another 2-year lease. Kind of a bummer, but it’s just part of growing.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I mentioned some of this in the previous question, but I would say that the thing we’re most proud of and known for is our customer service and attention to someone’s brand.
I typically tell this story during our sales process, as it perfectly demonstrates what I’m talking about. After people hear this story they usually sign up with us, haha.
We are in the business of customer service and working with brands on a much more personal level. Our entire team cares about the brands that we work with, and they know that if the brands don’t have a positive experience and succeed, then we’re all doomed. As such, they bring items to our attention all the time that are far beyond the scope of any standard 3PL.
For example, we had a very large order for Sunny Co. Clothing which is primarily being shipped USPS First Class. Our warehouse team alerted us that they saw a few orders which had USPS Priority labels which didn’t look right given the package contents/weight. The cost difference on this is MASSIVE when you’re talking about thousands of order. ($2.66 for First Class, $7+ for Priority). Upon looking into it more, we discovered that one of Sunny Co.’s team members had accidentally changed the product weight on their Shopify store to 3.5 LBS instead of 3.5 OZ.
We caught this on label 10 or so of the batch. The team then alerted the customer and set up the product for them properly in Shopify for no additional charge. If this was any other 3PL the warehouse team would have just printed the label, not said a word, and shipped out thousands of orders at the priority rate, which would have cost the brand thousands and thousands of dollars, and it would have been 100% their fault. Here is the email response I got from both of their founders after the incident:
“Let your boys know they are legends 🙌🏻. Great save guys! Appreciate everything you do.”
If a brand is looking for a huge 3PL where they’re just a number and the people in the 100,000 sq ft warehouse don’t know the first thing about the product, then we’re not the right fit. If a brand wants a team that feels like their own, cares about their brand, and is on the same growth path as them, then there is no better partner. I don’t mean this to come across arrogant at all, but being that we have our own brands in here and have been fulfilling orders for 4+ years, we know what else is out there.
What were you like growing up?
I’ve always been pretty entrepreneurial, and my family really pushed that from an early age. I always felt like my mom was more proud of me when I took risks and tried something on my own, instead of going the traditional job route.
As a native San Diegan I spent most of my childhood at the beach but still managed to turn that into a job by taking my tips from working at Del Mar Pizza, and investing in a camera and waterproof housing during high school so I could take surf photos for people.
My goal was always to justify purchasing something I wanted by seeing how I could make money with it to pay for itself. That didn’t ALWAYS work, haha, but it did most of the time.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.shiplabsd.com
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