Phil is the Co-Founder of Shipper, a tech-enabled logistics startup on a mission to simplify fulfillment and shipping in Indonesia.
Shipper is structuring the unstructured by partnering with all warehouse and delivery service providers. By leveraging technology, data, and its logistics partners, Shipper aims to provide a reliable, transparent, and affordable fulfillment and shipping experience for everyone.
Phil holds a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and a master’s degree from Columbia University, where he studied supply chain. He previously was a management consultant at Mckinsey and an investor at Floodgate. He is featured in Forbes Asia’s 30 under 30 in 2020.
Listen to the full discussion here:
- Listen on Stitcher
Connect with the Guest:
Phil Opamuratawongse: LinkedIn
Some of the highlights from the podcast:
- [02:49] How Shipper started and its goals as a logistics aggregator
- [13:04] The future of e-commerce in Indonesia – verticalize e-commerce business models
- [21:15] Cash in delivery vs online payment
- [24:07] Innovations to prepare for a possible crisis in the future
- [26:56] Shipper’s entrepreneurial culture – zero to one tests and bottom-up decision making
- [32:50] The importance of hiring younger talents
Show notes:
- [01:37] I understand that you started your career at McKenzie and then moved to Floodgate and then destiny brought you to Indonesia. I would be very curious to find out more about this journey if you can share it.
- [02:39] How did the shipper the idea come about? I imagine it was a few milestones before you brought in the final or the current product.
- [04:37] How is Shipper different from your perspective? What are the main things that add a lot of value to the final client?
- [06:06] When you’re a coupling software with a physical network, you know, you not only increase defensibility, but you also are able to provide your customers an experience and more value add.
- [06:30] What are some of the main challenges that the market in Indonesia has and it can be both in logistics or e-commerce?
- [10:45] Do you see the e-commerce market as being crowded or getting more crowded in Indonesia? Are there certain trends when it comes to local players or regional players coming in and do you expect some consolidation happening?
- [13:04] I think Indonesia has the opportunity to see verticalize e-commerce business models accelerate across the next 5 to 10 years.
- [13:37] When you’re thinking about the current situation with the crisis we are going through, have you seen different trends or different patterns in consumer behavior in Indonesia?
- [14:14] The number one that we’ve seen is that a lot of companies that were focusing on B2B aggressively pushed towards more B2C capabilities.
- [16:23] I was wondering if there is a story you can share of a brand that you are working with and they are doing a great job, or there are some interesting lessons there because they tried and they’re doing this direct to consumer strategy?
- [18:38] Can you tell me a bit more about the strategy in focusing on that network of partners?
- [19:01] What we spend a lot of time on is training agents on customer service, sales, and on the core operations so that they can help become our representative on the ground with customers that we can’t touch.
- [20:10] If you would rank the biggest problems for sellers and marketplaces one, two, three, and four, what would those be?
- [22:34] What are the important things that you are putting in place now to make sure that next time when anything similar happens like a crisis, things will run smoothly?
- [25:20] What should we expect from Shipper in the near and long-term future?
- [26:56] How would you describe Shipper’s culture?
- [28:53] What are the things that you are most attentive to, or what are you paying attention to when it comes to hiring? What are the attributes you’re looking for?
- [29:19] We look for people who think big, people who don’t just want to hit first base, but really want to hit home runs.
- [33:07] Companies that hire should not feel gun-shy and should sometimes be willing to take the risk on somebody younger.
- [34:07] What advice would you give to somebody who wants to start their own company?
- [35:41]Always have people who are better than you in the room, whether it’s investors, your team, or even your customers.
Quote from the Episode:
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