Supply Chain
Technology Podcast

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Supply chain, Flipstick, Shark Tank, Akeem Shannon, sustainable delivery, Blockchain, AI business idea, inventory management, ShipHero, packaging sustainability, logistics issues, customer needs, storytelling, data analytics, predictive modeling.

SPEAKERS

Scott Mears, Akeen Shannon

Scott Mears  00:00

Would your customers pay more for a sustainable delivery option?

Akeen Shannon  00:04

Yes, thumbs up, only if I make them do it.

Scott Mears  00:08

Are you using blockchain to enhance supply chain transparency?

Akeen Shannon  00:12

Oh, no, we’re not doing that today.

Scott Mears  00:14

Can AI create a business idea and pitch that secures full investment from the Shark Tank investors?

Akeen Shannon  00:20

Absolutely not, no. So I do think AI is a powerful tool, but I think it’s a baby. It has to be coddled.

Scott Mears  00:38

Welcome to the supply chain tech podcast with Roambee. Scott Mears here, Senior Marketing Manager at Roambee and your host. We thank you for joining us today. In this episode, we speak with the founder and CEO at Flipstick, Akeem Shannon. We learn how Akeem went from a budding entrepreneur to becoming a shark tank sensation, and how he built a robust supply chain on a shoestring budget. We enjoy his funny stories on this journey, but also learn how SMEs are shaping the supply chain landscape and what tech they are leveraging to grow their supply chain operations. This is not an episode you want to miss. Welcome everyone. This is an interesting interview, because we typically interview Supply Chain Leaders from large enterprises on this podcast. However, today, we’re shaking things up and to interview a really inspiring CEO from an SME called Flip stick and why we’re doing this. It’s really to explore how SMEs are shaping the supply chain landscape and what tech they’re leveraging to grow their supply chain operations. And we really feel this is crucial for us to understand how supply chain operate practices are evolving across different scales, to stay informed about emerging trends and innovations. So with that, I’m glad to welcome on Akeem Shannon, thanks for having me wonderful. And I’m excited to get into this episode, because you come with a very interesting, I must say, a very inspiring background. You know, I do recommend people after this episode to just go check out Akeem on his LinkedIn, go check out his website, because he does a lot of inspiring talks and and we’re going to quickly learn right now that you did, actually, you were a shark tank contestant. And I’ve watched Yeah, video a couple times. It was a very energetic and fantastic pitch. So I must do a little bit of an icebreaker question on that. Is, what, what was your experience on Shark Tank like?

Speaker 1  02:36

Man, you know, it was really, honestly, the experience of a lifetime. And on top of it, it was COVID. And so here I was locked in the the Venetian hotel for two weeks, couldn’t open the door, couldn’t open a window, like, I was literally, like, full or blown paranoid, like, and and then they’re like, Okay, it’s time to go on national television. So it was interesting, to say the least. And on top of all of that, my intro into the tank, which you’ve seen, is me in a space jumpsuit that breaks away like a sports jumpsuit, and then I go into a full blown rap pitching my product. So it was, it was something that I never would have imagined would have in my life. And so to back up a little bit, though, and I think, you know, for the audience, especially those who are founders, will identify with this. It was a long journey to get to that point. You know, a year prior, I applied, I applied to get on the Shark Tank. I didn’t make it onto the show. I got past 40,000 people down to the final 250 and then when they were cutting from 250 to 120 which is all that make it onto the show, they cut me. And so I was honestly devastated. I had to go back to the drawing board and figure it out. Okay, how am I gonna build this business? And so I said, okay, if I can’t get a celebrity investor, then I’ll find somebody else from Shark Tank. I’ll find another celebrity investor. And it just so happened that this billionaire rapper was having an event in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was going to give away money to a business in a pitch competition, and they’re going to have this whole big music conference. And so I said, okay, I’m going to go. I’m going to pitch, and I’m going to get an investment from him. Well, after I bought all my tickets, turns out pitch competition was closed, so instead, I enter the music competition to win a record deal. Okay? And I said, You know what? I’m just going to write a rap, and the rap will be about my business, so I can rap pitch the business. And even though this sounds absolutely insane, I go, I rap, I get to the top five in this competition to get on stage. And I’m talking, the judges were like, DJ Khaled, Timberland. These are like, top tier, like entertainment judges, and then they disqualify me from the competition. And. And instead of just giving up, which I really want to give up, at this point, I’m like, what is happening? Nothing is working for me. Instead, they had a comedy show right before the final music competition, and I just stood up, held my product in the air. And eventually the comedian is he starts cracking jokes on me. What are you trying to do? Why are you messing my show up. What are you selling? And he eventually lets me on the stage I perform the rap during his comedy set, and the same people that disqualify me end up taking me backstage, introducing me to everyone. Eventually, they fly me out to LA where I meet Snoop Dogg. Snoop Dogg ends up falling in love with the Flipstick, and between Snoop and this other billionaire rapper, they end up calling Shark Tank and get me on the show. And the keen listeners may notice I say billionaire rapper and I don’t use their name, and that’s because the rappers, none other than Sean Diddy Combs, who now is in all kinds of trouble, ruining my great story, Shark Tank. But either way, was this crazy journey of just ups and downs and, you know, really just having to figure out how to make it all work. And I was able to then take that into the business. And as you can imagine, going from a small business to being a shark tank and having to build a supply chain from nothing was a huge endeavor. But, man, it was. It was a lot of fun along the way, and also a lot of heartbreak.

Scott Mears  06:22

Well, I must say, I was not expecting the role that goes from a story there that was incredible, wow, that that’s, yeah, that was quite and your, your tenacity of just continuously trying to find creative ways to just push through and get an opportunity. And it’s just, you know, that is the entrepreneurial spirit, and it’s just that is a really incredible story, and I think I would say the best one we’ve heard on this podcast. So that was really, really great introduction to Akeem here. And before we do dive into the more supply chain focus of today with the episode, I do want the listeners to understand Flipstick. So you know what? You know when we say the word Flipstick, but what are we talking about? So can you just give a little minute, just on what Flipstick is all about?

Speaker 1  07:09

Yeah. So you know, when I came up with the concept, I just quit my job. I was working for a Fintech startup, pretty big one, and I had a phone call with my uncle, who’s Engineer at NASA, and he was telling me about this adhesive that was based off the feet of geckos that NASA had invented in the 80s. And since I just mounted my TV on the wall, I was like, Man, if I had this magic NASA adhesive, I could have just stuck the TV on the wall instead of trying to figure out how to mount it. And while I never mounted the TV, I did figure out how to mount something much smaller, which was a phone, and that’s where that idea and the concept for Flipstick was born, a little device that can go on the back of your phone that allows you to stick or mount it to virtually any flat surface. And while initially I was thinking, hey, I’ll be able to watch YouTube hands free, I could be on a plane, stick it to the back of the seat. In the kitchen, I could stick it to the back of the tile watch recipes. What ended up happening is, as we launched the product, Tiktok became the number one app in the App Store, and all of a sudden, people weren’t using the product to watch content. They were using the product to create content by sticking on a wall and be able to record themselves hands free. And so that’s where you know, our whole concept about, you know, really creating products for the creator in you who was born. And you know now, we have a number of different types of flip sticks for different scenarios, and all really designed around the casual content creator being able to use their fellow hands free.

Scott Mears  08:35

That’s fantastic. And I must admit, I’ve gone ahead and purchased one myself. I’m I travel a lot, and trying to hang my phone with the standard, you know, little clips at the back, and trying to hang it and balance it on your on a plane, just it always drops it, you know, it never works. This has been a game changer. Like, yeah, this has been really helpful. So if you’re a traveler, I must say, personally, it’s been very helpful. So now I want to get into the supply chain side of Flipstick and really understand, because, you know, you have now one, I saw you had three products on there now, and that must be a lot of accessories and quite a lot of volume that you’re having to manage. So before we do get into the inventory, inventory side. Can you just outline a little bit for us, really, how did you manage to scale your supply chain operations from the shoestring budget? Because I know when we had a conversation, you really, you didn’t have too much of a budget, and to make that robust system, you must have faced some serious hurdles. So how did you really grow that supply chain? Can you just give us? Yeah,

Akeen Shannon  09:43

we had no system. So you’re giving me to it. We had zero system at all. And here we were, like, three weeks before airing on Shark Tank. And, you know, I was very nervous because I didn’t want to screw it up. You know, a lot you hear a lot of people, they get a big opportunity, and then the supply. Changes, crumbles, right? And they can’t get the product out the door, and it doesn’t work. And so, you know, prior to that, it was pretty much just, you know, we’re using Shopify, right? Whatever Shopify has is what we got. But, you know, not only did we have our products, but we had over 70 designs, you know, in each product, you know, then we were at a merchant, and there it just ended up being a lot of SKUs and and especially when we were having customers, Mitt mix and match things together, it was a lot to manage. And so, you know, when we were only getting, you know, onesie, twosies, you know, no more than 10 orders a day, that’s easy, but when it’s going to instantly ramp up to 1000s of orders, it’s like, okay, well, how are we going to do this? And so, you know, I didn’t have a lot of money to institute an expensive system, you know, with Shark Tank coming up. And I came across a platform shop, ship, excuse me, ship hero. And as I looked at ship hero and their robust warehouse management system, you know, to me, it, it really resembled the way I knew Amazon warehouses work that would allow us to lay out a warehouse, you know, put in the the the layout of all of our aisles, you know, be able to, you know, do all the, just the basic, you know, supply chains, portions of picking and packing, while also implementing all of our, you know, return slips, being able to put input, the purchase orders directly from the factory, you know, be able to see when they’re coming in. Be able to see estimate of of when we will be out of stock. You know, what our current run rate was, and so getting that ship hero system up in three weeks. I mean, that’s gotta be one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done in my entire life. I mean, we built out an entire warehouse in three weeks from an empty room, you know, empty, completely empty room, no software. Built it all up, but all the scanners, all the stations, all the computers, and then integrated it with our supplier in China within three weeks. I mean, it was, it was ordeal.

Scott Mears  12:01

Wow, that’s, yeah, three weeks. That’s unheard of. That’s really quite impressive. I mean, I just know from, you know, speaking to customers, and there’d have been a full plan, there would have been multiple meetings to even just plan out, when are we going to even initiate this? How are we going to, know, let’s now plan this and actually initiate it over six months, you know, that’s really impressive. And I was gonna say,

Akeen Shannon  12:26

the only reason we probably were able to do is we didn’t have to switch from anything, you know. So it was kind of setting up from scratch. And we had great support from ship hero. And I told them up front. I said, guys, we’re gonna be in Shark Tank in three weeks. So we just, I need to call. We need to be on the call every day, like getting this thing rolling. And that’s just, you know, when you got to get something done, you just got to get it done.

Scott Mears  12:47

Yeah, which is a great lesson for everyone to hear that. And I want to dive into the inventory management piece. Really, what inventory management software do you currently use? And for you, what features and really what data is most valuable to you, and tracking your the accessories to minimize, you know, stock out. So

Akeen Shannon  13:08

we, so we’re still using Shapiro. We don’t. A couple years ago, we really out, kind of grew our warehouse, and so we, we, we outsourced it through a two or three PL, but still they were using Shapiro, so it’s a very easy transition for us to make. And, you know, I think today, you know, why don’t manage operations directly? You know, for us, it’s really understanding the forecasting. I mean, with with shipping rates being as high as they are, you know, for a container, really being able to forecast out, okay, how, when can we get this, you know, how much run rate do we have? You know, what inventory selling at what rate, is important. So I would say the forecasting tools for us are the most important. You know, luckily, we have a very small product, non perishable, pretty durable and in shipping. So we don’t need a lot of you know, we don’t need necessarily robust tracking on the water or through air freight when it comes to us, but we do need to know what we need to order. We need to order it because otherwise it’s sharp. And then we and then we get slammed, and we have to, you know, spin lavishly on the shipping portion. And because our product is such a low at a low price point, any any variation in that shipping cost, you know, to import it, it kills us. It can cause us to lose money on a deal, especially if we’re dealing with, you know, a wholesale order to a big box retailer, you know, it could kill the entire opportunity.

Scott Mears  14:41

And that’s, you know, that’s good insight to have. And you mentioned about predictive I know. How are you currently doing that? Have you gone as far as taking the data analytics and now doing some predictive modeling to forecast the demand for the different phone accessories? To be more efficient supply chain? Yeah, absolutely.

Akeen Shannon  15:03

So, I mean, it’s pretty simple, right? So we look at, we look at the historical data from a year prior, right? So we’ll look at three months a year prior, and then we’ll multiply that by our current rate from the past three months for the current year, right? So if we’re up 500% over last year, we’ll look at the next three months, multiply it by five, and then that’s how we determine, Okay, here’s about what we think we should need in terms of our supply and then we usually probably add a little bit of an extra cushion on top of that as well, too,

Scott Mears  15:38

understood. So that’s interesting to hear, because a lot of systems we see out there as well, you know, including a big part of our system is it’s off historical data, but a lot of people are now wanting to have more of that real time information so they can even have more up to date and more accurate predictions. So is that you found that’s not needed as much having that historical year that’s been it would probably

Akeen Shannon  16:05

no it probably would help. You know, we do a lot of this stuff manually right now, you know, so we’re doing a lot of this predictive modeling manually, because the the software that we have will only show historical, right? It won’t take into account historical versus, you know, our growth, or what it’ll do is it’ll just take the last 3060, 90 days and then make a prediction. But neither one of those are actually right, right, especially when you’re dealing with a product like ours, you know, when back to school comes around, there’s going to be a spike. So it’s not going to be the same as the summer. When Christmas comes around, is definitely not going to be the same as what the fall was. So, you know, it, because it doesn’t do that automatically. We do it manually. So, you know, I at least with our system, it doesn’t do that today, so we just kind of gotta do it on our own.

Scott Mears  16:54

Understood, no, it’s, it’s interesting tier, and it’s, of course, working for you guys. And that’s, and you mentioned about the

Akeen Shannon  17:01

works most of the time.

Scott Mears  17:05

Yeah, that’s where you’ve got to get a bit creative and work extra hours, I’m sure, to fix those moments. And the tracking piece you said, you know, you said, it’s not perishable, so you’re not going to need that condition metrics. That’s not as of as value, and are you using more carrier milestone tracking versus real time tracking for when sending it out to your customers?

Akeen Shannon  17:30

Yep, mouse, sorry, no, it’s real time tracking when we send it out to our customers, we use that milestone when it’s coming to us, except we did just for our international customers. What we were doing before, which made no sense, was we imported everything into the US, and they were shipping it out to other countries, which obviously meant that people were paying like, 40, $50 shipping on a, you know, a $10 item, which was crazy. Now, part of what we did to solve for that was we worked with distributors, you know, in Europe and and Israel and in Kuwait and in Australia, you know. And then they kind of took their territory, but it wasn’t full coverage. And so now we also ship straight out of China to all of our areas that aren’t covered by our distributors, which is, you know, generally going to be somewhere between five and 12 days shipping, but it is more milestone, so it’s not nearly as accurate as what we’re providing for customers in the US, which is usually the last which is usually handled by ups on the last mile. Administer

Scott Mears  18:31

milestone outside of the UPS, whereas in the in the US, in the US, what technology Did you say you’re using in the US to do the real time.

Akeen Shannon  18:44

So we we just ship using ups, Sure Post, or whatever they call it, which we get through our three PL,

Scott Mears  18:53

understood, interesting, yeah. And I know, you know, the listeners won’t know us, but when we went back and forth on emails, you did mention about having some major logistic issues you face getting products from your factory to three PL to the customer. I’d be intrigued, and for the listeners to really know that, and please do share details and you know how you overcame that challenge is so people can learn from this as well.

Akeen Shannon  19:24

Yeah, so, you know, as we scaled, you know, it kind of happened relatively quickly. And what you know, I think the systems we had in place were great for direct to consumer. You know, all of our direct to consumer business, however, where we ran into a lot of issues was as we’re coming up with new products and seeing, you know, really large bulk orders for major retail partners, that’s where we ran into trouble. And we ran into an issue where it was Chinese New Year attorney. These years coming around, we needed to get new product on shelf across several 1000 retail stores, and we made a severe miscalculation about the timing and the weight of our product coming out of China. We had switched to new packaging. It was a new product. The timing was off, and our our cost for our freight, which we were planning to to do via via air freight, but it ended up being too big and too heavy, so we had to use a different air freight carrier. Ended up at like, six times the cost that we had anticipated, and and even with that six times cost, we’re going to be late. So not only was it over cost, but it was also going to be late. We’re going to have to pay fees to to the retail partner. And man, when I tell you, I have never had more anxiety in my entire life, this is the biggest order we had ever had in the history of the company, and it was late, and it was over budget. And what ended up happening is we made no money on this entire order. Somehow we were able to squeak out probably, we probably lost money. We were close to break even on it, but it was just a catastrophic supply chain failure. And at the time, you know, my head of my supply chain within our organization. He was, you know, maybe a year into the job. He was accountant turned, you know, you know, head of operations. You know, we were still very scrappy, and it was a mistake, you know, and but, you know, I made a lot of mistakes, so I try to roll with it. But, man, it was horrible. It was horrible to deal with, but it wasn’t something that necessarily would have been solved by any type of prediction. It was really just miscommunication and human error, and assuming that what we had done before, the shipping times that we were used to, the pricing that we were used to, that we will be able to get again, and we weren’t, and yet it cost us dearly.

Scott Mears  22:07

So you say, really core reasons that was the miscommunication that you feel caused that

Akeen Shannon  22:12

and assumptions, we made assumptions that weren’t accurate.

Scott Mears  22:18

That’s, that’s, I mean, that’s a core learning, I think just in life assumptions, isn’t it? Assuming can Yeah, in the UK, we have a bit of a saying. I don’t that if you, if you assume you make an ass out of me and an ass out of you. It’s just we have

Akeen Shannon  22:35

that same say here, yeah,

Scott Mears  22:37

it’s same say, yeah, it’s good. So yeah, it’s same thing. I want to jump into sustainability, you know, I know we’ve definitely found, you know, customers have got a lot of goals to become net zero, and they’re trying to do everything to do to get there, you know, from and being in the tracking space. I mean, we just recently launched a label, which means that it’s a lot easier, and it also actually the sustainability benefits massively outweighs the big physical sensors we were supplying in a moment ago. So we’re definitely moving towards becoming more sustainable to support those goals of our customers. What is it that you feel you’re improving or looking to improve for your company. And, you know, the answer can be both supply chain or just generally, the company. I think it’s interesting to understand what you’re doing to become more sustainable for your customers and business. I think

Speaker 1  23:34

for us, you know, a big draw is packaging. So, you know, we have, we have a retail business, but we also have a promotional business where companies purchase Flipstick, put their logos on them and give them away as little tchotchkes at conferences and stuff. And so while we have something like this, right, which was like this full color, like, very glossy, you know, looks nice packaging, you know, it came from a retail packaging that had a lot of, like, one time use plastic that you threw away. So we moved to zero plastic packaging. But then we had people especially for these, because they’re giving these away really large quantities, you know, we even moved to even more sustainable packaging that was compostable, so that, you know, we really kind of reduced the footprint on, you know, essentially, I don’t want to call the product a throwaway item, because, you know, it’s my baby, but a throwaway item, you know, we definitely don’t want the packaging to have, you know, detrimental effects, effects and so for our corporate clients, you know, that was a really big transition for us to make, and something that, you know, people found a lot of value in on the supply chain side, you know, particularly when it comes to our customers, when it comes to shipping and the option to ship slower and to ship more sustainable, we haven’t tried it. Today, we have done a couple of surveys from our customers. Right? And what we’ve heard, you know, we have a pretty low cost item, is that prices came and they wanted as cheaply as possible and as fast as possible. And anything that is outside of that has not been as desirable, but for us, is generally the packaging they always want. People always want sustainable packaging. I think it’s one of those things where what you see is what you want to improve, right? And they don’t see the the CO two that’s going in the air to get them that package in two days. You know, they really don’t see it. And we probably haven’t done a great job of letting them know, you know, when they’re ordering, like, Hey, here’s your footprint from choosing this shipping option versus this one, but on the packaging side, they get it, they have to put it in their own trash can or their own recycling bin. And so I think that’s where, at least, what we’ve seen from our customers, which are generally, you know, Gen Z, younger customers, that’s where, you know, that’s what we’ve kind of the feedback we’ve got,

Scott Mears  26:00

yeah, that’s really good to hear that you’ve gone to that more sustainable packaging and and also, it’s really amazing to that you’ve actually put out those surveys. A lot of companies, I find when I speak to them, they haven’t put those surveys out there. You know, they’re trying to become more sustainable. So it’s interesting to get that feedback, because so many people are driving for to become more sustainable and wanting to find those ways, but the consumer of a lot of these goods are not willing to compromise. So it’s a real it’s quite a tough, you know, area we’re in right now because there’s lots of pressure from the government. There’s lots of, you know, society, society pressure, but the consumers sometimes they

Akeen Shannon  26:43

want the best of both worlds, you know, yeah, so it’s,

Scott Mears  26:47

it’s a hard balance, and it’s so funny, because some of the people creating the products are the consumers. So, you

Akeen Shannon  26:55

know, for me, you know, I saw Amazon making a big push. And obviously, you know, being a consumer product brand. We do a lot of business with Amazon. And you know, they they now offer, you know, a sustainable option on pretty much every shipment. You know, they’re always trying to encourage customers to go slower, to choose the slower options, to choose their Amazon Prime delivery day. And when, you know, from our partner, when we do the fulfilled, our self Fulfilled Prime, no one chooses it. Do you know? Like, they just don’t because they’re not. They don’t get a discount so they don’t save any money. And I think that I don’t know. I think that what will probably, I’m not sure how I would love to know, like, what you all are seeing in terms of companies that are doing it well, where their customers are choosing that option, if it’s a choice, or if they’re just not really doing the choice, and they’re just making a shift. But from everything we’ve seen, the customer’s like, hey, if it cost me nothing in time and money, I’m for it. But if it cost me something in time and money, I’m not for it.

Scott Mears  28:01

Yeah, we also see this, but we’re starting to see large enterprises. I mean, we operate in quite a few industries, from pharma to automotive to chemical and all of these guys. They’re now just forcibly doing it. So even though their customers may not be willing, but then again, you can argue that a lot of them are starting to change so, but either way, from the top, it is starting to change. And you know that’s always the front of discussion when, when they jump on is what data can you provide me that will make me, make it very clear to me, my customers and my suppliers, how much carbon they’re emitting and how much, how sustainable my shipments and assets, you know, around the world. So, yeah, it’s definitely a big push. And it’s always a decision factor in, you know, when they get involved with Rome, be or get involved, I’ve seen with other solutions as well and other technology. So it’s, it’s definitely a big decision factor. Now, awesome. So it’s interesting to dive into that. And I think you’ve already answered it. I was going to say, what takes priority, you know, customer needs, cost or delivery. And it does seem that it’s, you know, you’ve even done the surveys, and it seems like it, you know, it’s customer needs. Would you say that?

Akeen Shannon  29:18

Yeah, for sure, for us, yes. I think if we, you know, of course, we could make the choice and just say, hey, here’s the new normal, like, this is how we’re going to do things going forward. We haven’t done that as of yet, but I do, to be completely honest, I think the only way that that transition happens is it just got to be an executive decision, right? You got to make the choice for the choice for the customer say, Hey, this is the option. Because given the option, when they have the choice of one or the other, that we know what they’re going to do, but if we just say, Hey, this is, this is part of our mission, I think it would kind of change things. And if there was no like, you choose, putting it on the customer to choose, you know, rather than making the choice ourselves.

Scott Mears  33:57

To eliminate all data integration issues,

Akeen Shannon  35:05

not all, but most.

Scott Mears  35:09

Have you faced data security or privacy challenges in your supply chain management systems?

Akeen Shannon  35:17

We have not not in our supply chain, in other areas, but not in the supply chain, good to

Scott Mears  35:21

hear. Do data analytics tools only benefit companies with a large volume of data? Definitely

Akeen Shannon  35:29

not. No. It benefits everyone.

Scott Mears  35:33

And finally, can AI create a business idea and pitch that secures full investment from the Shark Tank investors?

Speaker 1  35:40

If Absolutely not. No. You need some you need some personality. You need a great story. And I love Chad, GTP, I’m telling you, but is it not going to do it on its own? It can help you, but it won’t do it on its own. You got to cut your teeth, make some mistakes, get dirty, in order to get something that people want to put on TV, because it’s like reality TV, right? You know, it’s not just about the business. You can maybe sell some people with just AI, but to really have that compelling storyline, it needs a little bit more. But funny enough, you asked that, and I know this is just thumbs up, thumbs down. So it’s supposed to be fast, but funny that you asked that, but I’m writing a book right now, and I wanted to really understand how AI could help enhance storytelling. And so let’s say someone wanted to do exactly what you’re talking about. What I was able to do was to go in and create my own custom GPT through chat GTP, and I actually fed it data of every speech, every talk, every social media post, all transcribed and and help it to understand who I was, or the things that I talk about, the stories I tell. And through that process, I was actually able to get it to be able to provide great support information when I am either pitching a podcast or pitching a business or, you know, filling out an application for a conference, so that it really intimately understood my story, the story of Flipstick, the story of how we scaled and grew our Business and the story of our customers. And so now not just can I use that, but when I have my assistant, or I have my sales rep, and they need to pull that information out the same way that I would say it, it can help them in a system in doing that. So I do think AI is a powerful tool, but I think it’s a baby. It has to be coddled,

Scott Mears  37:44

yes, and I agree with you where it is right now. It’s exciting. It’s very impactful. And that’s a really cool example that you’ve done that. So you just have a cat, bit spooky, but we have you in a box right now that people can tap into, basically you, and you can have multiple use within the company, so you can, you know, move even faster. That’s really exciting to hear. And I know a little off topic, but sort of following on from that is, I know you’re doing a lot of storytelling at the moment, and I think that’s really important. I can definitely say within the supply chain industry, you know, there’s a lot of interesting solutions and technology out there. I mean, we are one of very few out there that are doing what we do and telling that story can get very much lost in data, and it can get lost in very complex use cases, and it can, you can just get really lost of it. And you know, you only have that couple minutes at an event, couple minutes, you know, on a call, and to be able to just say that story, clearly, it can be challenging. So what would be, you know, a bit of advice there. And please do let listeners know a bit more about, you know, what that’s all about, of your storytelling?

Speaker 1  38:55

Yeah, you know, I think we’ve gotten, particularly in the technology space, we’ve got into this moat where all we want to do is talk about features and benefits, right? We want to talk about what the product does and how it works and how it can work for you, and listen that information is valuable when people need to understand that. However, as human beings, we don’t make decisions that way, like when we are in front of another human being. We have 20,000 years of evolution in this oral tradition where information is shared through stories. One of the reasons why, when you look at every religious text out there, they’re all told in parables, they’re all storytelling, and it’s survived the test of time, because it is the way the humans communicate. And have an emotional, attachment to the communication that’s happening. And so when you think about, you know, within your supply chain business, whether you have the technology or you’re providing, you know, third party logistics, whatever it may be, there’s a lot of people in the space, but there’s something that you were doing, there’s there’s something that the way that you were formed in the. Mission that you have as a supply chain organization, and most importantly, what you’ve done for your customers that really sets you apart and your ultimate goal. And what I teach people about you know, how you leverage what I call story selling to grow and scale your business is when you tell those stories, you get the person on the other end of that conversation and give you that just extra bit of time to understand what it is you can do for them. And if they can see themselves in your current customers, all of a sudden now they’re thinking, man, what if I could be like customer a that they just told me about Customer B? Sounds a lot like the problem that we just had in our business, maybe they can help us too. And so I’m a big believer, you know, we were able to scale and grow Flipstick through stories. You know, whether it was a story I told Snoop or the story that I wrapped or the story of our customers that we told to target investment all these retailers, it was all about those stories that just got that extra time with us and got people to consider what it was that we had an offering, versus listing out a bullet point of features and benefits that exist and then putting all of that on on the decision maker within another organization to say, is this right for us? And so I think that the more that we can do this. It just it opens up a huge opportunity for growth, and especially when you’re dealing with a very technical and in some cases commoditized business like supply chain, those stories are so important. And as we move into AI and it becomes very impersonal, you know, if you are a small, medium sized, you know, business, and you know you only have a couple 100 customers that you’re dealing with, maybe, maybe a couple 1000 customers. You know that is your true superpower is, is to make it personal. Make something that is really cut and dry, very personal. And there are brands that are great at this, you know that just really lean in on it, and they’re never talking about the cert like Apple doesn’t. Apple doesn’t talk about features. No one knows how many megapixels in an iPhone, wholly irrelevant. What they know is, is, is the ad of the grandma FaceTiming her grandchild, because that’s a real use case that exists. And so when you if, if someone was to come to me and to say, hey, you know, for ship hero, which I’m sure they’re not using this story, but if someone’s come to me and say, Hey, we had a customer that was that needed three weeks to get ready for shark tank and ship more items in three days than he shipped in the past two years of his business, and he had three weeks to do it, and we spent hours on the phone every day with him, getting his system set up, on FaceTime, reviewing the warehouse, training his employees so that they could get ready for this once in a lifetime, moment that if they didn’t make it, the whole company’s broken. It was all for nothing. If they went out and told that story, could you imagine how many customers are like I need to sign up for their for their business. That’s incredible. And I know for you guys at Rome B, you’ve helped so you know tons of companies, you have hundreds of stories like that. And I’m sure all of your customers that provide those supply chain services for other businesses, they have those stories, and when you elevate those stories to the top man, the sky’s the limit.

Scott Mears  43:29

It’s really powerful what you say, and I think it’s really missed in a lot of our in the supply chain industry. And for people to learn a bit more and get in contact with you. Where would be best for them to go to, yeah,

Speaker 1  43:45

so they can reach out to me on all platforms, Akeem Shannon on all social media platforms. If they want to learn more about flipstick, they can find us at get flipstick on all platforms, as well as get flipstick.com. And then people can also, I have a cool text number where I send out messages about storytelling and all kinds of stuff, and people can text me at 314789, 9005, if they have any questions or anything like that, or visit Akeem Shannon com,

Scott Mears  44:13

wonderful. Thank you so much. Akim, we’ll just go ahead and give a little wave to the listeners and say thank you very much.

Akeen Shannon  44:19

Thanks, awesome. Thanks everyone. See you later.

Scott Mears  44:22

Hi. My name is Scott Mears, and I’m one of the hosts of the supply chain tech podcast with Roambee. On this podcast we talk to supply chain heroes from around the world about everything, ranging from the disruptions related to supply chains, their personal experiences with tracking technologies, strategies to build resilience, and much, much more. We already have some recommended videos for you to the side of me, and if any of this sounds interesting to you, do subscribe to our Youtube channel and hit the bell icon so you don’t miss another Roambee video. I’ll see you next time you.