Episode Summary
“I have to start with eCommerce and just say, thank you eCommerce, because eCommerce has created intense pressure and set a high bar on supply chain. I can also say, and this is a polarizing comment because everyone, everyone hates Amazon, but thank you, Amazon, because Amazon has put an intense amount of pressure on retailers and supply chain networks. And every constituent that if it was up to Amazon, they would, they would say “Everyone go find another industry. We got this. We’ll sell it. We’ll fulfill it. We’ll pick it, just like everything.”
-Jack Freeman, Principal, PeakSpan Capital
ListenUP! to part 2 of our interview with Jack Freeman from PeakSpan Capital. Jack and Greg talk about the investment environment is for supply chain tech, and what Jack has seen learned, and can share so tech leaders understand the supply chain tech landscape.
Jack shares more perspective from an investor that’s been there and done it. He sees the industry while managing growth, mergers and acquisitions. We look at what makes people, process & technology focus more than a cliché in today’s supply chain tech world. Jack and Greg also discuss what the industry disruptors will look like, and how long we can expect this supply chain tech boom & transformation to last.
Episode Transcript
Greg White (00:04):
I hope you enjoyed part 1 of my interview with Jack Freeman from PeakSpan Capital. Here comes part 2, and you’re going to learn a lot more about what you can expect to see from supply chain in the coming years.
Greg White (00:23):
Now, I know you weren’t a founder but you were early on in the company. And I’m fascinated by the perspectives that people in the company have. It’s one thing to get the founder’s perspective, but sometimes that’s a little bit separated from the rest of the team. So, I’m fascinated to hear, tell us, first of all, about the company, what you did, and what you learned from that.
Jack Freeman (00:49):
Yeah. Happy to. So, when I was a junior in college, intern for this startup, and I loved the experience so much that I worked for them throughout the year. They also paid for my beer money, senior year, which was helpful.
Greg White (01:07):
Oh, very cool.
Jack Freeman (01:09):
Yeah. And I’ll hit the punchline and then I’ll come back to the story. The punchline, the end of the story is, I got a call from the founder about a week before I was graduating. And I thought it was, you know, “Go back to New York and start full time.” “Hey, Jack. I’m so sorry. We decided we’re going to have to, like, kind of wind down, stock prop the name of the company, and we’re going to start a new project. But the company that you are a part of is no longer -” so, it’s super disappointing to flash back what they did. They were a SAS IT cost management platform for internet infrastructure. And they also had a marketplace for buyers and sellers of internet infrastructure.
Jack Freeman (01:56):
What is internet infrastructure? Before AWS, you had to go call Equinex or some data center and say, “Hey, I want two physical server racks in your data center in New York to host my data. And I want to pay for IP transit connectivity in these different kind of lanes. And I want to create my own internet infrastructure with Seattle, and Texas, and New York, and London. And I need to manage all these contracts with all these data centers and all these racks.” There’s a whole industry built upon it. So, if you are an IT cost manager, whatever your title is, you had to have ten concurrent contracts, know when they were coming up to, know how much they cost, be able to negotiate them, maybe, or understand the alternatives, hence the marketplace.
Jack Freeman (02:59):
So, the value prop was pretty interesting to me. I did not know anything about internet infrastructure, but I love the team. It was amazing to see a SAS platform get built from the ground up and a marketplace to get built from the ground up. And some of the things that maybe stuck out, like, anyone who’s built a marketplace – and I can’t say I really built one, but I witnessed the beginning – generating the supply and demand at the same side, especially in the first year or two, is kind of insane. It’s the CEO’s buddies. You know, you’re starting to do some biz dev. It was me and then a full-time biz dev manager, you know, we created lead lists. I indexed Salesforce. We did demos and called people and tried to get them to buy through our platform and then manage their contracts on the platform.
Jack Freeman (03:51):
So, fast forward to today, I do spend quite a bit of time in procurement and category procurement. It’s funny, I didn’t make the connection until, like, last year – shame on me – that that was a procurement platform. You procured co-location through the marketplace and then managed the costs online. The moral of the story – and I’ll turn it over to you, Greg – is, I wasn’t maybe aware of it at the time. But looking back, you look at the rise of Amazon along the trajectory that we were on and it wasn’t even close. We had this great idea, and if you look at some of the software spend management or infrastructure spend management companies today that are getting funded and growing, that is a different world now. We had the idea in 2013, but the way we approached it in terms of having a marketplace to buy infrastructure completely disrupted by Amazon. Where, if you want a server, you go click the plus button. I want more hosting Amazon. And that’s how easy it is, so no need for stock prop. But it was a good experience.
Greg White (05:10):
That’s a great lesson that, you know, you have to future-proof your company. We talk about future-proofing all the time, right? But how could you have seen that coming? And, by the way, there’s not a dissimilar challenge – there is a similar challenge, I’ll say it easier. There’s a similar challenge in supply chain with Amazon building all of these fulfillment and distribution and automated facilities. And, of course, their own ground and air fleet now. Because that industry was very disruptable in 2014. Around the time they were disrupting you, they were disrupted themselves at least their ability to fulfill was disrupted by the traditional carriers, USPS, UPS, and AWS. And they said, “This, we’re going to go build it ourselves and make sure that even if we fail, at the very least, we have our destiny in our own hands.” And, now, they’ve built it into FBA.
Greg White (06:17):
So, they have taken the AWS model – AWS essentially grew out of the excess capacity they had for their own server needs to run their e-commerce operations and they monetized it – and they’re doing the same thing with FBA and they will likely do the same with their larger network. Though, I mean, they were building excess capacity as they’re building these facilities. Although with the growth of e-commerce, I’m not sure how much excess capacity they have now. But they continue to do it. So, an interesting model. It’s the warning that, I think, we often give as investors or advisors to these small companies is to think about it. If you think you don’t have competition, think about what somebody could do with a hundred million or, in Amazon’s case, $86 billion in cash – which is probably well more than that now. That’s a great lesson for founders to think about who could disrupt you, even though you are presumably the disruptor, right?
Jack Freeman (07:36):
It’s so challenging. I actually have a non-supply chain example. But when I think about competition, the most tactical sense, you start a company, you have a category. Maybe it’s an established category, maybe it’s not. But you can go online and find your competitors. Other software companies are doing the same thing. We’re partners with a company called Luma Health, and I have a buddy, he’s been in healthcare for over ten years. He’s an actuary, you know, way smarter than both of us. And he is deep in the space in what we’re going through at Luma. He’s perspectives on, in terms of the shift to value based care, what insurance organizations are doing, what hospital groups are doing.
Jack Freeman (08:27):
And he was trying to tell me who our competition was. And I was like, “I sit in the board room, I know the competition. You don’t know the competition. There’s no way you know the competition.” He’s like, “I’m not going to tell you the software players that you maybe think you compete against. But I’ll tell you who your real competition is. Like, what are the threats up market that are going to change the way healthcare is delivered and how that might affect your businesses.” I was like, “Oh, interesting. Like, competition doesn’t have to be the startup next door that you think – ”
Greg White (09:01):
Feature for feature, right?
Jack Freeman (09:03):
Yeah. Because Amazon at the time was, like, you have the presence of mind to think about –
Greg White (09:10):
Who could have seen that coming?
Jack Freeman (09:11):
– Amazon and them being a threat. Like, to think about those things, that’s an important lesson, I think, for scale-ups everywhere, is, to think about the non-traditional competitive forces and how, to your point, you future-proof that.
Greg White (09:25):
Yeah. You know, one of the things that I often say is, the competition is anyone who’s after the same dollars you are. It doesn’t even have to be a competitive such solution. It’s a solution that could conceivably take the dollars that you’re after. Or, as you’ve said, it could be someone who is changing the marketplace that could disrupt or even obsolete you. So, you have to keep your eyes wide open. Another lesson for founders, you always have competition. That’s frustrating to me to hear someone say, “We have no competition.” You know a lot about a founder – I’ll just leave it at that – when you hear that statement, and it’s everything you need to know as well.
Jack Freeman (10:13):
That’s funny. That’s really funny.
Greg White (10:16):
So, I’m interested in kind of your thoughts on supply chain. So, I would argue – not now, but maybe a year ago or so – you had a pretty solid outsider’s perspective. And I would say, because you’re not engrossed in it every single day, you’re investing in it every day. But you’re not engrossed in it every day, I think I’d love to get your perspective on kind of what you’ve seen as you have become aware of supply chain, the path of supply chain, where it’s come from, where it is, where it’s going kind of thing. But I mean, the path, the current limelight, and what you feel about that. And then, maybe what do you see as the future of supply chain and a little bit of crystal ball work there.
Jack Freeman (11:05):
That’s a tough one, the crystal ball one.
Greg White (11:08):
Well, none of us are going to be right. And like sports commentators, Jack, no one’s going to remember that we were wrong. Right?
Jack Freeman (11:15):
Exactly. Yeah. That’s exactly right. So, some of my observations on what I’ve learned and where it’s going, obviously, I can give slightly different answers when thinking about different segments, you know, e-commerce, logistics, procurement enterprise. There’s lots of different areas. But I have to start with e-commerce and just say, thank you, e-commerce. Because e-commerce has created an intense pressure and a very high bar on supply chain. I can also say – and this is like a polarizing comment because –
Greg White (11:59):
I know where you’re going with this.
Jack Freeman (12:00):
– everyone hates Amazon, but thank you, Amazon. Because Amazon has put an intense amount of pressure on retailers, and supply chain networks, and every constituent. If it was up to Amazon, they would say, “Everyone, go find another industry. We got this. We’ll sell it. We’ll fulfill it. We’ll pick it. Everything.” So, there’s a whole world out there that’s like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. We’re not going to just go quietly into the night. We’re going to innovate. We’re going to use technology. We’re going to get better. We’re going to provide a competitive alternative to selling your soul to Amazon and giving them all your inventory and your whole supply chain.”
Jack Freeman (12:42):
So, I thank the internet, and e-commerce, and consumer starting to order more and more online. I also thank Amazon for being really freaking good at what they do. And that has created, like, the most powerful pressure I’ve ever seen as an investor in terms of raising the bar and what role technology has to play to help retailers and other constituents exist and serve us consumers in a way that we will accept. And it doesn’t have to be, like, a perfect competition for, “I order my water bottle on Amazon in two days. And I order it direct from the website of the retailer is three days.” People actually like connecting with brands if you do it the right way. And people are starting to not like to go on Amazon. It’s not the majority. But I think there’s absolutely a place for direct to consumer, owning your supply chain, competing on high delivery standards. But it’s not the only thing that matters.
Jack Freeman (13:55):
So, I think you first have to look at e-commerce. The other things, I would say, in the same vein. This one I’m digging in a lot on recently, which is, the shift from mass production and consumerism to mass customization and personalization. A great example, if you walk the aisles of whole foods and look at all the different craft fluids. And if you like craft beer, look at all the different craft beers. And we can go into sustainability a little bit. If you like to shop sustainably, if you like to know that the products you’re buying matter, they’re from diverse businesses, they’re from local businesses.
Greg White (14:39):
They’re trade, human rights, all of those things can be known now, right?
Jack Freeman (14:43):
Yeah. They are known. And the society is starting to really, you know, care a bit more. Because, at first, it was like we had nothing and the [inaudible] options. So, it was like, if you want a product, go to the one drivable retail place and go walk the aisle and look at price. And it was a different ball game. With the internet, with e-commerce, I can show you – let’s say, I found the other day, I think it’s called fair, where you shop by the mission, if you want something that’s vegan, you want something that’s from a diverse supplier. But that’s not only that. It’s customization. It’s, I can go get whatever product I want right now. I can get it in any color, any size. I can have it completely custom. I can have it from whatever country. I could have whatever customization I want, someone out there will give it to me. And that’s created more opportunities as well for technology and just commerce in general.
Jack Freeman (15:53):
Another good example from kind of niche businesses. Let’s say, I love Avengers puzzles. Actually, for example, my brother –
Greg White (16:08):
Please tell me that you actually do. You do love Avengers puzzles, don’t you, Jack?
Jack Freeman (16:14):
It’s funny. I love Avengers, but I suck at puzzles. I can’t do them. I can’t do them.
Greg White (16:20):
If they were all square, it would be really easy for you, wouldn’t it? Right? You don’t want to waste time turning the piece around to try and see how it fits.
Jack Freeman (16:28):
Exactly. Puzzles, they stress me out. Anyway, let’s just say I love them. That’s a niche market that, like, 15 people in the world probably want that. But the person who creates them can find those 15 people and build a business around that niche. And then, other things, globalization, similar concept. You can have that niche business in Germany and reach your 10,000 consumers that want to buy your product in the U.S. And the economics, it probably still stuck. Like, you’re probably spending a good amount on the supply chain and logistics, but they don’t suck enough where you can’t do it. They’re just ways to deliver that product. I’ll stop there. That’s enough ranting.
Greg White (17:13):
No. I’m loving that. I guess, what was refreshing about you immediately when we met was that you know, and have analyzed, and cared about the space. One thing you must know is that there is a ton of opportunistic entry in this marketplace for investors. They just hear the word supply chain and they want to invest. But you understand it. I think it not only gives the appropriate opportunity to companies, but it allows you to add value to those companies when you have invested there. Because you know something about the space and you care about it. And, man, does it fit your personality. No doubt. It does. I really do think you would find a number of kindred spirits in this industry.
Greg White (18:04):
So, you’ve invested in a lot of other industries. So, I’m curious, when you think about the varying challenges – and I’ve made some assertions around supply chain versus sales management tools or whatever else – but I’m curious what your take is on supply chain and how it stacks up to other industries with all this complexity that you’ve described and the mission critical nature of the business. I mean, look, let’s face it. If Salesforce went down tomorrow, salespeople could still make calls. They could still make their sales. But if your supply chain solution goes down, you’re dead in the water, drifting toward the shore, possibly blocking the — so, tell us a little bit about how you view supply chain stacking up against some of these other industries that you’ve participated or invested in.
Jack Freeman (19:02):
Great question. And I will poopoo on sales tech, absolutely. Really quick, because I didn’t hit it fully before. Quick PeakSpan commercial midway through the podcast.
Greg White (19:15):
You have 30 seconds.
Jack Freeman (19:16):
We talked about our stage focus, 3 to 5 million in annual recurring revenue. Greg, will you just hit on that’s central to our model, which is that, I do know supply chain, e-commerce, logistics, procurement. I’m never going to know better than the founder. We’re investors. We’re really good at things that have to do with scaling SAS businesses, because we’ve scaled 65 SAS businesses together as a group of PeakSpan. We add a ton of value there. The extra kind of arrow in our quiver is that, we know the space as well and have actual theses that allows us to move quicker. That allows board meetings to be more enjoyable, where you’re not explaining, like, what supply chain is to your investor that only shows up, you know, twice a year. And it’s like, “Oh, what do we do again?” So, that’s why in our model at PeakSpan, each partner or principal only focuses on three to four themes.
Jack Freeman (20:16):
And this now dovetails into your question. So, I have colleagues that focus on sales, marketing, technology, hospitality, human capital management, customer experience management, security, FinTech. We actually cover pretty much the whole universe, about 12 themes in total at PeakSpan. And I shared mine, supply chain and procurement, e-commerce, back in the house e-commerce especially, then a little digital health as well. Has it stack up? I think what excites me is that back in the house technology has always lagged front of the house. It’s easier to sell software when the pitch is, “We’ll make you a dollar of revenue.” It’s harder to sell software when the pitch is, “I’ll save you a dollar of costs.” I think it’s the same thing. I think a dollar of cost sometimes is even better. And there’s pros and cons to each.
Jack Freeman (21:12):
But flashback through the last ten years, front of the house has absolutely rained. It shows the fact that the average sales team, I think, we’re on 70 tools in the sales tech stack. It’s too many. And for those 70 tools, I’ll show you a market map that has like 10,000 logos on it. There’s a lot of technology out there and a lot of it is good. There’s not room for that many. To you and I, I think it’s super clear that the opportunity for technology to optimize and disrupt supply chain is immense. And maybe just adding to your point, the complexity in supply chain versus the complexity in sales, I think, is laughable. And it’s not totally poopoo sales tech. Like there’s great tech that can like –
Greg White (22:12):
Yeah. It’s really helpful, right?
Jack Freeman (22:14):
Really helpful.
Greg White (22:14):
But it’s solving a completely different problem.
Jack Freeman (22:18):
And you almost need more tech to solve even less, if that makes sense. Like, I think we’re scratching the surface on use of technology in the supply chain. And it goes back to that people comment, I don’t expect it to happen overnight. I don’t expect a big global retailer or supply chain to wake up one morning and say, “Oh yeah. Jack told me about ten supply chain software solutions. I can revolutionize our business. Let’s just implement them tomorrow.” It’s a lot more difficult than that. It’s going to take a lot of time. It’s going to take executives putting their neck on the line. It’s going to take just continued wins, and case studies, and scale ups building towards that big ambitious goal.
Jack Freeman (23:06):
I don’t want to say it started later than front of the house, but the traction that we’re seeing has maybe lagged. And, especially, if you look at COVID and the pressures that e-commerce put on the ecosystem and then the resulting uptake, and investment, and interest in supply chain and e-commerce, it’s very clear that folks are waking up and connecting the dots and saying, “Wow. E-commerce demand increased by two X in four months.” I think we’re going to need to look at our supply chain infrastructure in question if we can handle all that. So, I think it’s a very exciting time. I think it’s certainly lagged other categories but it has the same, if not a greater, opportunity to persist.
Greg White (23:56):
Has lagged other categories is a great observation. Because, I mean, I can tell you I’ve been in supply chain a long time. I will never confess to more than two decades. But it has been frustrating, frankly, at times to have been out there with a really, really impactful technology and have people accept spreadsheets or lesser technology or even manual processes, because they just don’t see the benefit. And I think the thing that really drove it home was not the dollar of savings equal a dollar of sales. It’s that, if you want that damn dollar of sales to get delivered, you better have some supply chain tech. Because if you have a physical product, the sale is not made until the product is delivered. I know that sounds intuitive now to all of us. But I don’t think people realized that. They thought, “Sold. It’s automatic. It gets to the customer. Done deal.” They didn’t understand, even within companies, all of the machinations that went on behind the scenes to make that product appear in the customer’s hands. And, now, they do. Believe me, they do it and with a plum.
Jack Freeman (25:24):
Crazy. It’s so complex.
Greg White (25:26):
And I think you’re right, that awakening is going to be world-changing. I don’t say game-changing anymore, Jack. It’s going to be world-changing for supply chain. Because while this has been a lag in a very slowly adaptive industry, I’ve seen the frustration. I’ve worked with the analysts in the industry, Tom Enright and Laura Cecere and Mike Griswold and others from Gartner, and other analyst groups, and they definitely have the frustration. But, man, do they see rays of hope right now. They see people completing and acting on the way that they’re speaking. In the past, you would hear them speak of things that need to be done and then do virtually nothing. So, it has been a significant transition.
Greg White (26:17):
All right. So, we have to wrap this up at some point because you and I have jobs to do. I hate to, because this is fascinating. First of all, I think you have been so personally open that I’ve learned a lot about you. A lot that I really appreciate, and, really frankly, a lot that makes me happy that you are the one who is engaged in supply chain. You get us. You have to get us because you are one of us. You’re just one of us in a blue shirt.
Jack Freeman (26:49):
It was like [inaudible]. Great.
Greg White (26:51):
I love giving the audience some takeaways. So, give me two or three takeaways from what we’ve discussed today or what you see as important in the marketplace. What do you think everyone, if they take nothing else away from what we’ve discussed, what should they remember about this discussion?
Jack Freeman (27:12):
Great question. I think the first takeaway would be, in this space in particular, but I can also say the same as for a lot of business software –
Greg White (27:27):
You can say life in general. I mean, if you want to say that people should organize their nightstand, that’s okay.
Jack Freeman (27:34):
I’ll cap off with the funny one. But this one, it’s about people plus process plus technology. And everyone’s heard that term, but we’ve hit it in this spiel a lot. And I think in supply chain, it’s pretty evident outside of categories that I don’t look at, like tracers or trace cargo. So, there’s lots of technologies, of course, robotics that can operate on their own. But the world that I come from, supply chain will continue to advance the ball with solutions that tie together people and process and technology. I think they all go hand in hand. Those are the best solutions from my perspective. We haven’t talked about data at all on this call and we won’t because it will take another hour.
Greg White (28:29):
That’s a whole another episode, isn’t it? Yeah. You’re right.
Jack Freeman (28:33):
People plus process plus tech. The second one I’d say is that, what I look forward to – and I don’t know if you asked me this – but in terms of, like, big bold bets I thought of brainstorming for the call, I don’t have big bold bets. And I actually would bet more on lots of continuous improvements over very long time horizon. I think you alluded to this earlier, the analysts that kind of had their heads down and were bearish, like, “Ah. It’s not changing.” Now, we’re like, “It’s looking good.” E-commerce just, like, came and stopped us in the face and we now have to respond. I think that’s just the beginning. I think the technology is that, this is what I look forward to.
Jack Freeman (29:27):
The scale-ups that we partner with in the next two years in e-commerce supply chain procurement, I think, there’ll be companies in five years that are founded today that disrupt those companies. You have some genuine players, right? We have public companies that are — supply chain companies, and they were great. They were successful. But you and I talk to companies every day that are trying to disrupt those companies. And I think that will happen. They would start in a different time. They’re using data. They have a finer appreciation for the problems. And a great example is supply chain businesses that were founded before e-commerce was a thing. And, now, there’s companies that are in warehouse management and logistics, and online ordering fulfillment, inventory management. If you’re not building with e-commerce in mind, you don’t have a shot against those.
Jack Freeman (30:21):
So, I think we have a wave of innovation today. But per, maybe, the example on supply chain optimization, there never being fully optimized solution. I think we’re looking at multiple ways of innovation over the next 30 years. I can’t wait to re-watch videos like this in 10 and 20 years and think about what was going on in the world today. How we’re talking about the future and how far we’ve come in each and every decade. I think we’re in for a ton of innovation and advancement in this space.
Greg White (30:57):
I think you’re dead on. Sorry, I’m writing this down because this is good stuff. No, I think you’re dead on. You know, one of the things you did touch on is data. And part of the hindrance for – let’s call it, legacy technology, not to be diminutive or whatever – legacy technology is, they were built around the presumption that there’s only this level, you know, only limited data available. And that inherently limits their ability to solve problems. And as you said before when you were talking about it, we’ll continue to do more and more with data. And that will continue to allow us to optimize the problem against the problem more and more over time. But these new technologies are built with the presumption of robust rather than limited data. And they’re built to process it. And I mean, process it fast and process it intricately and process it from multiple viewpoints.
Greg White (32:03):
And that’s something that is important about data. To me, that’s the simplest thing about data. It’s much more robust than it ever has been in the past. And it’s critical to solving this problem as you talked about. So, those are all good things. Write that down. Gang, look, supply chain tech has to – has to – solve at the confluence of people and process and technology. Instead of big bold bets, this one I love – instead of big bold bets, think about lots of continuous evolution, 10, 20, 30 years of evolution. And you’re right. And I’m going to close with a thought about that. And then, this wave of innovators, companies founded five years ago will disrupt the leaders in the industry and probably disrupt some of the disruptors of today.
Greg White (32:59):
So, I think those are all really important things to think about, particularly as you are founding or investing in companies. Because, as you said, your competition can come from anywhere, Jack. It could come from someone adjacent to you with more features. It could come from someone who’s solving a totally different problem, but vying for the same dollars. Or as you said, someone who is completely changing the marketplace that you don’t even know is out there. So, keep your eyes wide open.
Greg White (33:32):
All right. First of all, Jack, thank you. It was great to have you on the show. It’s great working with you every day. It’s fun. I get you now.
Jack Freeman (33:43):
Thank you.
Greg White (33:42):
And I love it, too, by the way. So, you and I probably have more – and like I said, with supply chain professionals, you have more things in common with them than you think. So, even though your fiance thinks you’re a freak, probably you’re not. You can tell her there are hundreds and thousands, there are at least 44 million people in the United States just like you, probably, because they are supply chain professionals. So, how can our community connect with you? What’s the best way to connect with you?
Jack Freeman (34:16):
I wasn’t ready for that one. LinkedIn. I say LinkedIn.
Greg White (34:20):
I should have warned you, shouldn’t I?
Jack Freeman (34:22):
Yeah. No, I feel like I should have some prepped response that’s like, “I’m on MySpace and Facebook.” I probably just look like an idiot –
Greg White (34:31):
You look lost.
Jack Freeman (34:32):
– talking about MySpace. I’m on TikTok and whatever that new one is.
Greg White (34:38):
Clubhouse.
Jack Freeman (34:38):
I think, my email address. Actually, the first thing I learned in business is how to mine an email address. It’s usually the person’s first name at their domain, so jack@peakspancapital.com. You can reach me over email or LinkedIn, pretty easy to find over LinkedIn. Our website is peakspancapital.com, and all that information is on there. And then, TikTok, obviously I have a lot of videos of me brushing my teeth, [inaudible].
Greg White (35:09):
Eating the same peanut butter and fruit every morning. And, also, Jack, he’s a great analyst and a great content provider as well so do follow him on LinkedIn. You post all of your stuff on LinkedIn or on the blog at PeakSpan, right?
Jack Freeman (35:25):
Yeah. We do, yeah.
Greg White (35:27):
So, very thoughtful investor, very – well, just thoughtful observer of supply chain. So, there’s a lot you can learn there. Thank you, Jack, for joining me.
Jack Freeman (35:40):
Thank you, Greg.
Greg White (35:42):
I really appreciate you being here. And I want to encourage our audience to go through and listen to this. So, Jack, this is part of a series that I’m doing. So, I opened with the Seven Things You Need To Do A Three-Minute Pitch, I’d love to get your thoughts on that, by the way. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m wrong, but don’t tell me. And then, also I’ve interviewed a pre-seed and seed investor, and talked about some of the early stage things. And then, of course, working with you here, I think this will be great for our community to learn more about where investors fall and what really makes investor valuable.
Greg White (36:21):
And this is what I want to tell everyone who’s listening, and that is, every single investor that you ever engaged with – and I hit Jack square in the jaw with this when we first met – every single investor will say, “But we’re so different because we’re more than just money.” And for the most part, that’s total bullshit. But in this case and in rare cases, and you can make them prove it, there are investors that do offer real value to you, something other than money. And that’s not to say that you don’t want people’s money that want to give it to you. But, really, as a founder, you need to vet your investors and not think that Jack – right here on this show – and see that he could clearly offer value to your organization more than just money. And that’s really, really important to founders. So, with that said, let me leave you with what I always say and that is, acknowledge reality, but never be bound by it. We’re out.
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You Don't Know Jack! Part 2 with Supply Chain Tech Investor Jack Freeman of PeakSpan Capital
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Jack Freeman has worked with growth-stage technology businesses his whole career and most recently is a partner to twelve portfolio companies at PeakSpan. Prior to joining PeakSpan, Jack worked for Stackpop, an early-stage startup where he was the team’s second business development hire and helped build out a SaaS-based cost management platform to help CTOs and IT teams buy and manage their internet infrastructure. After his startup was disrupted by AWS, Jack joined Macquarie Capital where he spent three years executing software M&A and capital markets transactions. Jack holds a B.A. in Economics from Middlebury College; and prior to Middlebury, he played division I soccer for Seton Hall University. Jack lives in Brooklyn Heights with his Fiancé and recently rescued puppy, Willow – the sweetest Great Pyrenees you’ll ever meet. Once a year, Jack champions a team of thirty in a charity bike ride to the Hamptons to support his brother’s autism program, Quest, where he’s raised over $100K. Jack still tries to hold his own out on the pitch (soccer), but has become a more avid marathon runner and is halfway to completing the “big six” world marathon majors.
At PeakSpan, Jack leads investment theses surrounding Supply Chain, Procurement, E-Commerce Logistics, and Payments. Connect with Jack on LinkedIn.
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