Seeking Co-founder for a Supply Chain SaaS
Hello,
Long time lurker, first time posting.
I build supply chains for small companies as a side business of about 17 years. I needed to upgrade from Spreadsheets to better manage my business. Turns out there isn’t any dedicated software for my craft, everyone uses spreadsheets. So, since I couldn’t buy it, I built it.
I have been using my custom built software in my business for over a year now. That has given me a vantage point that basically no one else has ever had about both my direct niche and the supply chain industry as a whole.
What I have realized is that the vast majority of my industry can actually be automated and do a significantly better job than people ever could manually. Including applying First Principles Thinking to supply chain building for any size company. Which if you know anything about FPT, you know how it’s a literal game changer and the definition of industry disruption.
Basically what I want to do is leverage businesses in my niche industry to use the software. Them using it collects specific valuable data about the supply chain that generates specific actionable data that any company of any size with a supply chain can use to dramatically reduce their cost of goods. Eliminating ALL of the work it would have taken to learn that themselves, better than they ever could have anyway.
I’m a subject matter expert in supply chain and am very good at making complex things happen even outside my industry.
I need a subject matter expert in SaaS who will take the lead on getting my functioning MVP into customers hands (Remember, I built this for me. Making it a SaaS was an afterthought. I understand the customer discovery process and validation, I just need help doing it). Then we can decide the path forward from there. And believe me, there are multiple significant possible profit centers that may not be evident from the outside.
I am alternatively interested in hearing what business ideas you have where someone with my skill set can add value. Regardless, I fully want to transition out of actual sourcing and into something scalable like SaaS. I’m expecting to be all-in on whatever I can find a co-founder to work with on.
This is exactly the kind of idea that can disrupt an entire industry.
You didn’t just build a SaaS you solved a real problem first, which most founders get wrong.
If your MVP is already replacing spreadsheets and generating actionable data, this has serious scale potential.
Hi, I am currently building a SAAS application to automate the supplier and order management process for buyers. My co-founder and I are leveraging AI tools to automate and scale capabilities. I'd love to learn more about what you are doing and explore partnership/integration opportunities. What is your preferred communication method?
Cool!
That would be Procure-to-pay. My system is technically Source-to-pay, or more accurately an early part of it. So there likely wouldn't be any competition. But a lot of the data could overlap to benefit both of us.
I would love to hear how you are leveraging AI for it. There is a ton of opportunity in my area to leverage AI and machine learning. I just don't know how. Or really where to start to just understand it. Seeing first hand AI used in Supply chain would really help me understand what is possible.
info (at) Navanty dot com
Congrats on taking the plunge! If you ever need a SaaS UX/UI expert, hit me up. I'm the founder of jimdesigns.co
Hi,
I would love to learn more about you and the project. I'm a former software engineer with some recent experience in Scala, node, and react. Always willing to learn. Currently I'm a product manager at a cyber security company but I'm looking for side projects to work on. You can find my profile here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-freund-02b6562/
Thanks,
Adam
I want to learn more about your situation @MrKelly if you are open to a conversation. It sounds like you want someone to execute the sales motion from what you have built and slowly turn it into a SaaS offering. Do I understand correctly?
Hello @MrKelly, if you are still on the lookout for a co-founder would love to hear from you. I have 20+ years of experience building software. You can reach me at [email protected].
I would love to connect and discuss more. When you say spreadsheets, did you build any no-code solutions using Airtable or Zapier, or other no-code tools? I'm a PM with a founder's experience.
Pretty much everyone in this niche uses just stand alone spreadsheets like Excel or Google Sheets. To replace my Google Sheet system, I had a developer build my software from scratch using PHP/Mysql with is completely separate from my Google Sheet. I didn't use any no-code tools.
I've worked on bringing lending to a supply chain product in a B2B space. would love to connect and discuss this, where can I reach you? or connect with me at [email protected]
Interesting. I separately have a very interesting supply chain finance concept tested and built out as an MVP as well. Which I was expecting to intergrate with this sourcing software later to add additional value. info {at} PartDistribution{dot}com
Have you checked the Kabila community?
Hi MrKelly, I run a Master Data Management SaaS platform for enterprise - so very data orientated and comfortable working with businesses from small to large scale enterprise. Please email on [email protected], I'm happy to chat!
Hi! If you're looking for a co-founder you could try at founders cafe. Some members are looking for a work partner
Thanks, can't justify $2K for a group with only 160 members, many of which are on the other side of the planet.
Hi MrKelly. I've got some time and expertise. 20 years building SaaS. My contact form is in my profile here.
feel free to shoot an email to hey[at]pdocf.com
So it would be a freight-forwarding company that leverages technology to manage customers shipments more efficiently? Sounds similar to Flexport and a few other companies. Or would you write software that you sell for Freight Forwarding companies operators to use?
It is a huge space so there is always room for more players with different angles or leaner operations, interested to hear more about what your angle is.
Flexport is on the freight side. I'm on the actual factory (Supplier) selection side.
I plan to integrate with Flexport or Freightos or someone once I get to the freight side of things for the complete package of total landed cost.
The basic idea is a Sourcing Agent's job is to find the right supplier(s) for your product. They will take your specifications and CAD drawings to then manually find suppliers to then get quotes from. They might get 5 or so quotes to choose from. My system streamlines that process and adds automation. So it takes basically the same time to get 30 quotes or more.
With a higher number of quotes, you have a much higher chance of finding a much lower cost supplier in the second if not third standard deviation. Which alone can reduce cost by 30% or more. The Sourcing Agent can then focus on vetting those suppliers from the lowest cost up to find the one with the lowest cost that still has the quality level and customer service the business needs. Because of course it's a bad plan to just go with the lowest cost supplier. But this vetting can also be automated at least mostly. You get what you pay for isn't actually always true in this business. Paying more doesn't mean higher quality, it often means they are just inefficient at that mfg process. This software identifies those who just happen to be the most efficient at their process.
The software also makes it easy to break the product down by individual component to do the same level of detailed sourcing on each individual component. Which is the First Principles part that can reduce cost by another 30% or more. Sort of how Elon reduced the cost in rockets and the electric car. If a supplier is good at injection molding for example, they are not likely good at say metal forming, or hardware. They likely just farm it out to whoever, or struggle with it internally. This process makes sure you are using the best suppliers for each individual manufacturing process in your product. And that is what I am trying to automate.
Why that is so important on a larger scale is because how each of those 30 suppliers quotes compared to each other is very valuable information. Something no other software or service looks at. All I care about is the delta on pricing between them. Since the software knows the manufacturing process and material, and that all 30 quoted the exact same widget. We can use that data to identify which suppliers typically quote the lowest by manufacturing process and material. Allowing us to automatically add those suppliers to the Supplier list of anyone else that later happens to want the same manufacturing process/ material quoted for their customer's widget. And continue to do that in perpetuity to keep verifying the system is right. And because it can be automated, simple have their quote show up in their system for consideration without ever having to ask for the quote.
Ultimately as the more people use it (Agents or the businesses themselves) to get and manage competitive quotes. The system would slowly be able to identify the best possible suppliers in the world for every component in any user's product. Basically the software is designed to build this list and keep it up to date. This list can then be in API form that gets integrated with existing procurement, ERP, MRP software to simply continually suggest the optimal supply chain for them. So any company in the world can benefit from this without having to use my software. All the API has to know is the manufacturing process and material of their widget. Then the location of their other suppliers for geographical optimization. That can then integrate with Flexport to also optimize freight.