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DrakeMallard: what do you think of Flexport?
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Date: October 22nd, 2019 10:14 PM Author: razzle-dazzle office striped hyena How will that end? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4368581&forum_id=2#39014530) |
Date: October 22nd, 2019 10:20 PM Author: Maniacal slimy nursing home reading party Don't know it at all but I randomly have 2 acquaintances that work there
There's a bunch of public players like Expediters and Kuene and Nagel. I don't see what special sauce you might have in freight forwarding. You ship shit on boats and planes from China. If we have a trade war its no bueno |
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Date: October 22nd, 2019 10:21 PM Author: fishy gay wizard what softbank investment ISN'T bullshit fraudlies? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4368581&forum_id=2#39014568) |
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Date: October 22nd, 2019 10:23 PM Author: Maniacal slimy nursing home reading party Softbank did Flexport? No way
Holy shit Masa is out of his mind
The ARM buyout was inspired. That was the first deal IIRC
Probably a double from the buyout price
After that its been a cavalcade of laughter |
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Date: October 22nd, 2019 10:28 PM Author: razzle-dazzle office striped hyena I feel the same way. I work in the industry. I thought of them when I saw the WeWork thread because they're bankrolled by SoftBank. They aren't any different than your traditional forwarder, just with fewer salespeople, less warehouse space and without the relationships with customs. I think Maersk and other carriers will do the concept correctly and Flexport will fade into obscurity. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4368581&forum_id=2#39014621) |
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Date: October 22nd, 2019 10:31 PM Author: Maniacal slimy nursing home reading party I mean EXPD is a great biz and has been a fantastic stock. There's always been this disruption short thesis on it but it hasn't manifested.
From what I understand Flexport has like your typical SAAS / Web 2.0 software / UI bullshit which makes things look nice and fancy.
But at the end of the day you ship shit on metal that flies or floats. You can't get around that with fancy software. It may be a completely fine company that's a thorn in the side of Expediters etc. But it's not going to radically change things
Since the halcyon semiconductor days, VC has generally been terrible at asset heavy businesses |
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Date: October 22nd, 2019 10:38 PM Author: razzle-dazzle office striped hyena That business model supposedly lets them target smaller shippers without the relationships with the likes of EI or K&N. But CN state supported NVOs like Sinotrans who don't need to make a profit will always have that portion of the market cornered.
I'll need to read up on that. |
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Date: October 22nd, 2019 10:39 PM Author: Maniacal slimy nursing home reading party I don't see how targeting the smaller guys will get you any type of scale to be disruptive and/or profitable
Maybe they can do the smaller guys cheaper? Ok? You're still a little fish in the pond and that advantage gets competed away over time
If they have some crazy algorithm that routes express containers on the right small ship or plane just in time then maybe they can carve out a niche until they get bought. Like some type of express service better than others. But I just don't see it.
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Date: October 22nd, 2019 10:48 PM Author: razzle-dazzle office striped hyena Yeah, by building the software from scratch, you can supposedly think about the complex manual processes from a fresh perspective and create software that automates them. My company has 5k Chinese people in Shenzhen processing customs documents. This is the sort of thing they want to automate. Sales staff is another thing that this business model wants to automate, as is variable. The smaller customers are the ones who would benefit from this automation the most because it will affect their bottom lines moreso than a high volume shipper. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4368581&forum_id=2#39014688) |
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Date: October 22nd, 2019 10:53 PM Author: Maniacal slimy nursing home reading party Yeah I get that. But what's stopping Expediters from implementing Servicenow or something to automate shit for their customers too?
Yes, it will be painful, it will take a year, but they're a gorilla and they'll do it
In the meantime, that tech lead Flexport has disappears. And you're left with... a subscale player in logistics where scale is everything
I trivialize how hard it is to change processes but the point sorta stands. That's not a sustainable competitive advantage that would make me want to invest a bunch of money for 5 years. But maybe people are playing for a buyout and to apply the Flexport tech to an acquirer's internal systems? I can't tell you. All this is from my admittedly ignorant knowledge of the space |
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Date: October 22nd, 2019 10:58 PM Author: razzle-dazzle office striped hyena The weird thing is EI is retarded. They have a great brand and a pretty good product, but their IT is crazy fucked up. I can't imagine a world where they're able to execute that. I have friends who work or worked there.
Google Twill. It is Maersks new model forwarder. Maersk has the best model: large ocean carrier, traditional forwarder in Damco and new model forwarder in Twill. |
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Date: October 22nd, 2019 11:01 PM Author: Maniacal slimy nursing home reading party I don't doubt you on IT. You'd be shocked at what some companies run in terms of software infrastructure let alone on the application side.
It's interesting there is so much digital forwarding disruption shit going on in this space. It must either be really fucking archaic or seem simple on the outside but is complicated when you get to the nuts and bolts. Or both. |
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Date: October 22nd, 2019 11:10 PM Author: razzle-dazzle office striped hyena I think it is the complexity. Traditional forwarders are very inflexible because their processes and IT were painstakingly developed to handle the complexity. That leaves room for the likes of Flexport in theory. But from what I've seen, they've been moving more toward the traditional forwarding model. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4368581&forum_id=2#39014756) |
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Date: October 22nd, 2019 11:11 PM Author: Maniacal slimy nursing home reading party You're probably smarter than me on this. My opinion is what a skeptical finance asshole would say about some vc investment in flexport. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4368581&forum_id=2#39014757) |
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Date: October 22nd, 2019 11:15 PM Author: razzle-dazzle office striped hyena If you ever need an expert opinion, hit me up. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4368581&forum_id=2#39014779) |
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Date: October 22nd, 2019 11:16 PM Author: Maniacal slimy nursing home reading party Ty, period and comma bro (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4368581&forum_id=2#39014781) |