Behind the Box: Bulu’s Entrepreneurial Journey

Speaker 1: [Music] but we want to lean into those things that are unique about each brand that we work with and then because we've been there ourselves we love working with Brands who are in that growth phase I'm Melanie bar welcome back to the shilp podcast your go-to place to empower you to live the life and business that you crave I'm here to talk about everything from Having the courage to make life and career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation I'm here to celebrate your wins and navigate through your challenges I live in the city now but I grew up in a town of a thousand people I've navigated major life leaps a senior level corporate career worked in professional sports and now as a successful entrepreneur who loves business technology family and making meaningful connections with you and the Sheil di Community I also love a good workout and dose of selfcare magic happens when we f us on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so turn up the audio open your favorite Notes app grab your favorite drink and here we go welcome back to the Sheil to podcast thank you for joining us Stephanie share what this the story behind creating and scaling boou what inspired you to create a full service fulfillment Warehouse I wish I could say that from the onset I was going to build a Fulfillment company but that's not actually what we set out to do we started as a subscription box service so we started as boou box which involved a subscription box for vitamin supplements healthy snacks we always handled the Fulfillment as part of that subscription box eventually other companies wanted us to help them with their subscription boxes one of the big ones that was a catalyst into doing it for others was GNC but we started doing subscription boxes for Disney Crayola a lot of big companies we call it TurnKey subscription box Solutions but one of the things we always did in that Suite of services was fulfillment when the pandemic came in a lot of those Innovations departments that we were working with at these big companies disappeared so we leaned into the Fulfillment part of our business which was growing everyone's ordering things online so while fulfillment has always been part of the work that we do at boulu only in the past 5 years has it really been the sole the main thing that we do so when you're like how did you set out to do this I'm like I didn't really I ended up here somewhat accidentally but it's been such an enjoyable ride and what started for me as an interest in one thing has evolved and grown as the business has grown and as I have as an individual and as a professional and you're still in the box space and it seems like you were in the right place at the right time when the pandemic happened we were I'm proud of our leadership team that we were smart enough to Pivot and focus on something rather than digging our heels into the ground and saying no we're going to force this subscription box to keep going listening to what the market is telling us where the opportunity lies and what we know that we're good at your approach to fulfillment goes beyond just moving products tell us about your philosophy and how it sets boou apart in the industry yeah I think because my co-founder Paul and I have a background in marketing and we have launched our own products boou box being one of them in the past we understand probably more than your standard 3pl or your standard fulfillment center that every delivery on the customer's doorstep is an opportunity to strengthen your brand with them it's a touch point and if you want to do something interesting with the way that's delivered if you need branding or some people want just get it in a box because I have to hit a certain margin just get it in the box and get it out the door and we have a lot of customers who are like I want this to feel like a giftgiving occasion they open the box it's something special all all across the board so we've been asked to do all sorts of things to make that unique where a lot of 3pls would shy away we're ready to tackle those unique things and figure out a way to do them so that's certainly number one it's like we used to say specialty is our specialty but we want to lean into those things that are unique about each brand that we work with and then because we've been there ourselves we love working with Brands who are in that growth phase we have an awesome software and we're experienced with multi-channel fulfillment so if you're shipping dtoc we could help you with d Toc your wholesale fulfillment with Target is interested in your stuff or you want to sell on Amazon or Etsy or Fair all of those things our software can get connected to them if you're working with a large distributor chances are we have some experience with them we help make sure that those orders and that data can get passed to us that we meet the requirements to fulfill for those outlets and Retail channels and we want to do that to help you grow because we know being able to do that the rising tide raises All Ships it's great that you started out in the Box business because you've experienced what your customers are experiencing so that I'm sure helps so much and having a real person and Company to walk you through so much today is online and you have to figure everything out having a like boou to help walk you through I'm sure is so wonderful for all your customers and clients yeah and our account management team has a lot of experience from our subscription box days and we have a lot of subscription based clients and so they bring that level of expertise we still meet with our clients most of them on what we call a weekly L10 meeting and so having that Weekly touch point where maybe there is some advice sharing on what retail channel are they tackling next have they thought about the structure of their subscription and the Cadence and the frequency all that comes into play and Paul in particular is very giving with his knowledge because again he's one of those like Rising tide raises All Ships and that's how I think everyone in our company operates that's so true and I'm sure customers and clients think oh he's sharing so much I want to work with him that's the good karma you put it out there and it'll come back to you what were some of the biggest challenges you faced in the early days of boou and how did you overcome them when we started this I had a background in marketing advertising and design and I came in and I was handling our marketing and I liked it and I enjoyed it and it challenged me because I was doing things I hadn't done before at a level I hadn't done before but eventually that interest in marketing grew Beyond just marketing and IT snowballed into all things business and today I'm our president I used to work in Ad Agency and I just used to be so intimidated if we landed a large client like Lulu has worked with Disney who feels like a very large client and they are and I used to be so intimidated like if I had to get on a phone call with somebody at a company like Disney just I felt so small in the presence of these other individuals who now really just with experience I understand everyone no matter where you're working is just trying to do their best and for us they had never launched a subscription box they were looking at us we were the experts and now that I have some more experience under my belt I'm not as intimidated by things whether that's going into a room of Executives at Disney whether that's one of the things we did recently was when we got started we had investors and in October of 2023 we bought this business back that whole negotiation like if I were to go back to the Stephanie of 2012 starting this thing and saying hey someday you're going lead those negotiations I would have been like what are you talking about but just over time with the experience doing it failing at it that's the only way to learn is just to try and sometimes it was by necessity I did things I didn't want to have to do but you're an entrepreneur there's sometimes nobody else to do it that's how I got here too I know everyone listening is also probably saying yes also trusting your instincts is a muscle too when the more you do it the more you put yourself in those rooms or those uncomfortable situations like you said the easier it gets and it's fun to figure out what you're all good at too it seems like you kept expanding and thought Oh I can do this I am good at this also oh yeah and you'll surprise yourself right now again by necessity I'm working in our new business development so I'm meeting with a lot of entrepreneurs who need fulfillment services and I used to think I could never be in the sales team but when you've been doing this long and nobody knows what you do and what your strengths are better than you for me I believe to my core that our team provides a service unlike any other fulfillment center out there and that we bring a level of expertise and I know if I can find the right fit on the other side of the phone that we can be a real difference for their business it's so easy to have those conversations and if it doesn't work out it doesn't work out but that's been another happy surprise is oh not only am I capable of this but I'm actually finding joy in it too and I love that you said if it doesn't work out it doesn't work out and then you move on to the next thing because we can be stuck in that one thing as an entrepreneur and a president and leader you have to let things go at times and say okay that didn't work I'll give myself the wet day to dwell on it and then tomorrow I'm going to move on you've got to move on Fast and one thing we really focus on is momentum and so anytime you get a win even a small win ringing that Bell for the rest of your team so that they can feel the momentum and so that you start to understand this place we're going somewhere we've got good things happening versus dwelling on the we lost this opportunity it's all about momentum so that's a big word around here buzzword is momentum these days I love it when you're looking at building your teams what strategies do you use for building sustain able company cultures so we're interesting in that we've got a warehouse full of part-time or seasonal employees and then we've got seite Executives so we've covered the full spectrum one thing that's been really rewarding recently especially since I mentioned we've been focused on fulfillment almost solely fulfillment for the past 5 years we've had a lot of individuals who start out with boou on say are kidding an assembly line where they're packing things into subscription boxes something like that they get promoted to the next thing the next opportunity and then they're a shift leader or a line leader and eventually a manager for a division in our warehouse and then we've got some individuals who say I've been doing that now I want to work with clients can I work with clients and they start to shift and so then they become part of our back office team and our customer support team so that part has been really rewarding maybe similar even to what I was sharing that I started out not thinking I would be functioning as a president and leading negotiations seeing that sort of a path for a lot of our employees who start out as like an hourly or seasonal worker and they fit in with our culture they understand how to do a good job and with that as we grow there's more opportunities and being able to promote from within has been a really rewarding part of being a business owner that's an incredible thing you're doing for your company but also for the people we wouldn't be here without them there's such an critical part of what we do I wish I could take you on a tour when we encourage a lot of our new clients to come visit during onboarding and every time they're here they go this doesn't feel like your standard 3pl there's a Vibe here that feels positive and collaborative and we generally have music our operation manager is crazy in a good way he's no I pick out playlists that have a certain beats per music cuz I know that people will be productive and they're moving along and so I think when people come they feel that Vibe and everyone's so friendly and collaborative but that's part of our DNA and part of our culture I love that cuz music makes everyone happy and I was smiling when you were telling the story I have 10-year-old Twins and when I am late with getting their breakfast and their morning routine done I put on this playlist that I use for running that has a really fast beat and I joke with my daughter when I put this music on in the morning I get things done faster so it's so true a good mood and scientifically proven differently how has being located in the midwest influenced your business operation and growth culturally there's this Midwestern mentality I worked in New York for a little while worked in San Francisco for a while and even when I was working on the coast the individuals I found myself enjoying the collaboration with the most we're always Midwestern funny how we would find each other even on the coasts but there's a certain roll up your sleeves mentality like we're going to get it done there's a teamwork mentality that's part of the community and the fabric of being in Nebraska but then the other thing is that just being here in Nebraska as a fulfillment center land is more affordable so to store here storage generally at a 3pl is like the cost of your facility divided by the square footage we just demolish like rates on the east or west coast for our partners to actually store their inventory here so that's always a positive is that land is cheaper and then just the cost of living is more affordable we can pay our team well above above minimum wage as of entry level employee and still again be crushing a lot of the r rates elsewhere so those things more I guess tangibly how they affect the bottom line those are probably a couple other examples probably shipping too from the Midwest to East West yeah you've been doing your homework from Nebraska because we're Central to the US shipments have fewer miles to travel so shipping from here we cover like 95% of the US will get their orders within I think our average Transit report was 2.7 days so at standard shipping rates customers are still getting their deliveries relatively quickly for someone who doesn't sell products but would like to build a business selling others products what advice do you have for someone who either wants to start a business like this or is currently scaling one I'll share some of the things that we share with our partners if they are on boarding with boou one question we get asked a lot because a lot of our partners will use software like Shopify let's say and they're eagerly like thinking okay if I'm going to be on Amazon and then I need this thing do I need an Erp and a lot of times we're like no we use Shopify as a pseudo Erp order management Inventory management as long as you can until the wheels are falling off and then upgrade and that kind of philosophy can be applied in a lot of areas cuz we've made that mistake where we're like oh we got this the Cadillac and we just need a sensible Honda why did we go to the straight to the Cadillac those sorts of decisions of right sizing your operations so you don't get too far ahead of your skis this is me speaking from experience because we've gotten in front of our skis before whether that's the example I Ed was software that could be highes too taking on too much too soon so maintaining that not getting too far ahead of your skis magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one way that you we've talked a lot about work today make sure that you find and live your joy I've been questioning that a lot so I am not a person motivated by money and success of course I want to achieve and there's certain things I need and it's not that I don't like those things but it's not my driving factor I want to make sure I'm literally enjoying the people I work with I have a fun team that know how to make hard work fun those are my favorite people that even when you're like we have a mountain in front of us how are we going to do this but we've got a few members of our team who are just unicorns in the sense that like this overwhelming thing where a lot of the people might crumble they know how to make it fun even though we're going to be working late or whatever it might be they're here to make the whole process enjoy I love working with those individuals we're lucky that like nearly everyone at boou has that to some degree so finding the joy like literally in the work you do and for me I think the work that I do having it vary and sometimes hour by hour sometimes day by day but even year by year again I started like in a background in design and marketing and I spend most of my time in Excel now wherever the things evolve finding I hope I just continue to find the joy my I both my parents were teachers and so I think I also have in my upbringing a love for Learning and so as long as I'm learning something new like what's the next challenge how can I continue to evolve as an individual as a professional that's part of it as well it's so fun to learn all the new things and Tech platforms and it means so much when you wake up every day and love what you do yeah it sure for you thank you thank you for telling us all about Pulu and the box and shipping industry today can you please tell us how and where we can find you yeah I'm Stephanie Jarrett and I'm the president of boulu the best place to learn more about Buu is at buug group.com if you want to connect with me you can email me at stephanieb group.com or try and find me on LinkedIn thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our shetit website or at Sheed on social thank you to my editor Rich stalino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave