Josh Sanders: Luminous Inventory Management

Transcript:

JOSH SANDERS: First and foremost, I'm an entrepreneur at heart. So I love working with other entrepreneurs, other brand owners. For e commerce specifically and ops, I love solving problems. I like to gather all the associated parties, get feedback. 

JARED WARD: What excites you most about what you're doing in your job? 

JOSH SANDERS: I love learning about e com ops and I like sharpening my tools, I do enjoy helping people get processes dialed down. But, I think the number one thing is

JARED WARD: Everybody, this is our this is Luminous's head of accounts, Josh. Yeah, happy to be here. So Josh has although he is young, he has a deep background in e commerce. And he's got tons of passion for it. Josh, can you just intro yourself and why you're interested in e commerce hops? Yeah. Background there.

JOSH SANDERS: Yeah, for sure. So my background in e commerce ops really stems from a lot of family members at Thread. My cousin Kenzie Bauer and her husband Colby founded the company and my brother Mitch is the COO. My cousin Ryan's the CFO. So I actually got intro'd. My introduction to e commerce came from Colby.

He had a friend that was another founder of a D2C brand. They did a variety of different sales channels as well, but made the intro. These guys, they basically said, Hey, we need Josh to do what Mitch is doing at Thread. I came in, awesome company called Madsen of America, we sold sunglasses. I came in, helped in with Ops, dealing with the world of 3PLs and Wholesale, Shopify, just dove in and started learning tons and tons.

One of the biggest things was I was in charge of their Amazon channel, so launched that and got to know the complexities of e commerce Ops. Fell in love with it right away, and so now I'm here. 

JARED WARD: Yeah, so why do you love eCommerce Ops? What do you think is Implementation at a software company like Luminous is a It's a difficult job.

For those of you who don't know, it's a tough job. Especially when you care about your clients. Yeah, you have to have deep breadth of knowledge across multiple systems, multiple processes. So why do you, why does it appeal to you? Why do you like it? 

JOSH SANDERS: Yeah, I'd say first and foremost, I'm an entrepreneur at heart.

So I love Working with other entrepreneurs, other brand owners, people in the space, and for e commerce specifically, and ops, I love solving problems. That's one of the funnest things about implementation is you come across problems all the time. In the warehouse, along the fulfillment flow. Selling across multiple channels, wholesale, just all the complexities.

I love helping people streamline those processes and get things automated. That's what I love. 

JARED WARD: Yeah. And that's also another reason why Josh is here. So for, I used to handle all the implementations and for me what drove me and I think what is common, what is a common thread between Josh and I is I always loved the before and after picture of a company.

Before Luminous, after Luminous, before an inventory system, after an inventory system, I was always driven by that it's so cool coming into a warehouse, or to a client that has no visibility, or it's just, everything's just all over the place, and then at the end, Like the end of implementation, the satisfying look at this beautiful report.

Like it's actually accurate or like you can actually track the performance of your warehouse workers. Or it's always cool 

JOSH SANDERS: to see that before and after. Yeah. I love that. Love that part of it. Cause you can just see the transition and the progress made from people for example, having no idea where their inventory is at.

And then by the end of it, it's things are dialed. There's a lot less stress involved after implementation. So it's fun to see the before and after. 

JARED WARD: Yeah. So now you have. You now have a lot more experience with other systems in the e commerce space. When I say systems, inventory management systems, order management systems, ERPs, your brother implemented NetSuite.

What do you think, first off, why did you choose to work at Luminous? What were we doing differently that you saw I want to be a part of that? What is the difference between us, for example, and us, and how we approach implementation and like SkewVault or SkewBana, 3PL Central, the names that you know and have experience with now?

JOSH SANDERS: I'd say the biggest thing, from the get go, I realized the culture here was very Customer centric being meaning that implementation is very hands on. We want to make sure that the system is working for our clients versus some of these other systems. You hear horror stories all the time where it's like, Oh, the account manager hopped on a two hour call and then gave us some support.

And then we were left to our own devices. I love luminous, especially because you primarily before I showed up, You would go in there totally hands on, you would say this is the best way to do this, I'm going to help you get to this point. And so that's one of the biggest things I've realized, Luminous versus Skubana, SkuVault, 3PL Central, which is now extensive, is just how much we care.

And that's not even talking about all the cool things we're doing on the tech side, but just the culture and our care for clients. Is amazing. That's one of the driving factors that I just love. 

JARED WARD: So if you had to summarize like what, when you start an implementation with Luminous, say a customer signs on. And they're wanting so many deliverables with their warehouse, their WMS, their inventory management system. What is, how do you collaborate with people? What are, I guess you could say what are the, as our head of accounts and head of implementation, what are some of the pillars of that team that drive you? How do you approach implementations? 

JOSH SANDERS: There's a lot to that question. A lot of it is about discovery, and I know that's a very broad term, but really we can divide up implementation in a couple different phases, if you will such as purchasing, fulfillment, warehouse, I like to gather all the associated parties. Get feedback. I love to dive into the warehouse, understand just the nitty gritty details of why they're doing. 

JARED WARD: I think this is an important part about the why of Luminous and how it translates to implementation. Like your brother at ThreadWaltz, he's implemented NetSuite before. Yep. Did they have a meeting of the minds where they're just like or was it more like. Our system does it this way, you need to do it this way, like basically change your processes to our system. 

JOSH SANDERS: I think, yeah, that's, and that's the other thing, your question earlier with other systems, I think a lot of the times there's not a meeting of the minds, like you say, where it's hey, this is the system, deal with it, you're just going to do it this way kind of thing, whereas the way I approach implementation from the get go, I have ideas on what is going to work best for a client or just depending on who they are, how much they're selling different complexities that they're dealing with. But like you said, with the meaning of the minds, I love that everyone comes to the table, they say why they're doing things, how they're doing it, and what they'd like to see going forward. So yeah, ties in great with what we've been talking about already, but I think that's one of the biggest whys of Luminous, really. 

JARED WARD: Yeah, and, look, sometimes some clients will need a nudge in the right direction of processes. For sure. It will never be as stark as like my way or of the highway. My system, exactly. My way of the highway. My system is rigid. You just do it this way. That's it. We're constantly building to make sure we can at least have some flexibility and processes. Yeah, because sometimes there's, sometimes companies lose a lot of efficiency actually by having to change processes and they don't necessarily gain it.

JOSH SANDERS: Yeah. When they do it the NetSuite way or the. Yeah, it goes just along. We talk a lot about the added friction when implementing an inventory system or any supply chain management tool, and we try to minimize that friction according to the client's needs. And we have that discussion frequently with our clients is. Hey, you want this level of visibility, then there's going to be X amount of added friction. But if they're okay with the current visibility, then we have that discussion about added friction and what the processes need to look like. 

JARED WARD: Okay, so give us a, give me one example of how you've, within implementation of a client, how instead of just Forcing them to do something a certain way, there was some sort of meeting of a mind and we were actually able to deliver or expand our product functionality to be a little bit more flexible. Do you have any examples? 

JOSH SANDERS: Yeah, I think the first one that comes to mind client of ours, we had preliminary discussions with them about implementing a pick and pack system. This client sells across multiple sales channels, have variety of different SKUs. And for them, the visibility that comes along with pick and pack. So picking efficiencies different scores ranging with that. They came to us and said, you know what guys, I think this is just adding a little bit too much complexity in our warehouse and we don't really need to do pick and pack. We don't really need to implement tracking inventory by location or by bin. And so we readjusted where we were looking at for implementation and said, okay, that's totally fine. We're going to keep the processes. Pretty much as is in the warehouse and supplemented with things that we were planning on doing so so totally there's numerous examples, though, of people coming to me and saying, Hey, I'd like it this way, or I'd like to steer towards a different course, and we pivot as needed.

JARED WARD: So yeah, what we do is we typically like we'll take feedback, for example like the fulfillment flow, what that led to on the tech side, which I can speak to is We actually came up with a quick fulfillment flow. It's, we just, we're a very flexible system where it's okay, you want the visibility of pick and pack, which, would that mean translation in layman's terms? You want to see, you want the accuracy of what bins this inventory is pulling from when it's getting deducted. But you don't want to add the friction of somebody forcing them to do a pick list. We actually did a quick fulfillment flow where There's there's layers of flexibility or complexity within our fulfillment process. Like you can do it like full on where you have to, every single line item and every single bin, you have to confirm it. You have to QC verify it. Like it can be that complex, or it could be as simple as select the orders, print out the shipping labels, print out the picking slips, the packing slips.

JOSH SANDERS: Done. And if you don't, and then auto deducts from the bid. And if you don't want all of that, that comes back to what we were talking about earlier. A big ERP or a different system might come to all their clients and say, you are doing this whether you like it or not. And it becomes a headache more than anything for these brands. 'cause it, they say, you know what, that's too much added friction by doing this. It's not gonna help us as much as it would if we could do X, Y, and Z or reduce that friction. Just another good point there. Another reason why I love Luminous is the feedback that we gain from implementation. Is actually implemented into the tech, like your example there is we hear the clients and we understand their needs.

JARED WARD: Nice. Okay. What excites you most about what you're doing in your job? Branching off what you just said. And what excites you most about the future of Luminous as a product? Luminous has a product. Basically, why are you here? Why do you continue to be here when it's such a, it is a difficult job.

JOSH SANDERS: Yeah, it's. You spend a lot of time in plants. Spend a lot of time in the warehouse getting things dialed in. Selfishly, I love learning. I love learning about Ecom Ops, and I like sharpening my tools, that'd be selfishly speaking, but I do enjoy helping people get processes dialed down. There's a certain satisfaction that comes from the job.

Like you said earlier, when you finish an implementation, and you've helped a client, and you go back to them, and you say, Wow things are dialed. That's a really rewarding thing when you can go back to a client and it's wow, yeah, it's wow you have some great reporting, like you're not going out of stock every week.

And so that makes me feel good, like just helping other people for luminous as a product. Now I could take all day and talk about what I'm excited for with luminous, but I think the number one thing. is the introduction of AI to the supply chain for e commerce ops. And there's tons of routes you could go down specifically in that topic, but I'm just excited to be able to automate further using AI, using tech, and We've got some good things coming.

JARED WARD: Yeah. And I think Josh is a really important pillar of luminous because at luminous, for example, like what's the difference between luminous and like an Odoo, for example. Oh. And for those who don't know, Odoo is like a, they're like a buffet style ERP where it's like, Oh, you pick this.

And so the. What I think most people miss in a system is there will always be an intersection between software and implementation. In other words, support, like on the ground support to get a system working. That's just a belief that I have and I'll take that to the bank. And. Josh is a big pillar about like finding out how we can scale that.

So, yeah, it's it's not really a question. I'm just really bringing that up like that. You're such a massive pillar of that because we're not a system. We're not going to ever scale past the level of attention that we give right now. We won't. We will figure out how to keep that level of attention and like a hundred percent success rate and implementation, like very high success rate because I really do believe.

If you actually want a system to work, you need to have hands on implementation. 

JOSH SANDERS: Yeah. Oh yeah. I see it day in, day out. There's clients, there's brands that, when they're a little bit smaller say, two or three million, a lot of times they don't have operational procedures in place.

Like at the warehouse, it, oftentimes, it could be a free for all. In some ways, Luminous is Almost like a consultant. It's a bonus point for implementing luminous is you get such an hands on experience with implementation that we help them figure out their processes. Yeah. And 

JARED WARD: Things also escalate to, if you ever run into an issue I also have a deep background in e commerce and supply chain ops.

JOSH SANDERS: Yeah, you didn't know that?

JARED WARD: No, so like we have a really good working relationship between our pillars. So mainly our CTO, Brendan, who's, he's the tech guy. And then I'm our CEO. I have a deep operational background. We're really good at if Josh ever runs into something that he might not fully understand I haven't come across this.

Like we'll always make sure, like we routinely hop on calls. All three of us with the operator of a company to just gather all of the minds together. What is the best way to approach this? 

JOSH SANDERS: Perfect example this morning. I the other day I went to a client and was doing some discovery for most of the day and I took great notes, like always, but I felt it would be beneficial.

Let's hop on with Brendan, our CTO, with this client. Let's hear it straight from them, why they're doing these things and how, so that he can better understand the tech side of things. 

JARED WARD: Yeah, because you hold such an important part in the business, because it's, you're not just implementing.

You're taking client feedback that, like you said, goes directly into the building of the product. Now, don't get this twisted, we don't build exactly what, we don't build custom software. We don't take what a client says and we're like, yeah, we're gonna build exactly that. No, we, it's, it goes through the filter of Josh, it goes through my operational filter, and it goes through Brendan's tech filter how can this be scalable?

How can we make the system overall more flexible to meet this need? And also, thousands of clients more needs. So yeah, I think that's enough about implementation. Let's Get to know you a little bit more so what exciting stuff. What what do you like to do was you have a background you used to be a d1 athlete?

Yeah, d1 basketball player. I give us just some like personal background on you. What do you like to do? 

JOSH SANDERS: Yeah, so Yeah, touching on basketball, played basketball all when I was little, went to Davis High, he can, he used to be able to windmill dunk. Yep, used to be able to windmill dunk, he'd lose it fast though.

Wait, did you jump off of two feet or one feet? Usually one. But yeah, in game dunking is more too, though. But if you see me and ask me to dunk, then probably won't happen so easily. It'll warm up a little bit, at this point, I've lost a little bit, but yeah, anyway, went to high school. After high school, served a mission.

Then went and played ball at Weber State. Where'd you serve? I was in the Philippines. Okay, so you served an LDS mission. LDS mission in the Philippines, which is another fun thing about Luminous. We have some team members from the Philippines, so it's fun to speak with them in Tagalog. So that's a good time too.

Got home from my mission, went to Weber State. I always joke around with everyone. Damien Lillard, he's the second best player to ever go to Weber State. You're looking at number one. No, I'm just kidding. Great experience playing. Since I've been done, Been heavily involved in Ecom Ops and whatnot.

Currently married. My wife, Haley, she's the best. She always lets me go and do all my different side projects and spend a ton of time with Luminous and clients. So she's great too. Yeah. She's the real MVP here. 

JARED WARD: Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest things that obviously you have an operational background and like you have a massive hunger to help build luminous.

But one of the things that really attracted me about you as an employee and now such a pivotal part of our business is I feel like D1 athletes have a level of discipline. It's just like in their nature, they, and this is why it's for me, I actually think it's important for clients to know this about you you get shit done you.

There's not an excuse to not get something done, and I think that comes from your discipline from being a D1 athlete and playing high level sports. 

JOSH SANDERS: Yeah, all through high school had lots of coaches that were I don't know if intense is the right word, but they expected a lot. So from 15, 16 years old, like just about every school day, waking up at 5 a.m. to go work out before school and then work out after school. And then went directly on a mission, which I mean, you know as well as. difficult. And then going to college basketball, that's, it ramps up another level with the intensity and everything involved with that. How that transitions to what I'm doing now, I feel like I'm pretty comfortable walking to clients and being bold with ideas I have with their operations and saying, We're gonna get this done, like today, like we're gonna get this all dialed. Yeah, totally resonates well and has translated well to what I'm doing now. 

JARED WARD: Yeah, and something I can also say is Josh is also very pleasant to work with as well. I hope so. So he's he's got that hardcore attitude. But he's also I'll joke around. He's good to work with. I'm not scary. I'm not scary. He's easy on the eyes, right? Yeah. Pretty good looking. 

JOSH SANDERS: Pretty good looking too. I wore a hat today, 

JARED WARD: we still need to you know what we should do? We should film. You destroying me one on one in basketball, just to show some character at the company. Yeah, we should 

JOSH SANDERS: get some highlight tapes.

Get the company mix tape out. That's right. Basketball. I'll hit one. I'll get like 

JARED WARD: one lucky step back or something. Hey yeah, and we'll just play that on repeat. Here's a good story. I 

JOSH SANDERS: think I was maybe a month or two in working for luminous and I told Jared, I was like, yeah, I'm actually playing with some guys next Saturday.

And I, Jared drove an hour, I think he drove like an hour to the gym. And then after that, like I talked to him and he was like, Dude, like that was a little over the top for me. It was like a little intense. 

JARED WARD: It was like a bunch of D1 athletes playing basketball on a Saturday. They're like all swearing at you for like not calling out the screen.

JOSH SANDERS: I'm just like, geez. So we haven't played pickup together since, but the time's coming. Yeah, we need to. 

JARED WARD: All right. That's basically it, man. That's me. Anything you want to let could be prospective clients or clients who are watching this? What do you want them to know? 

JOSH SANDERS: Current clients, I love you.

Prospective clients, I will love you. No, but in all seriousness Luminous is great. We care so much about the people we work with, the brands that we interact with every day. So give it a try. If you're on our website right now, scrolling through or whatever it may be, however you see this, give us a call.

Like we'd even just love to chat about what you're doing for your ops right now. We'd like, we like getting feedback about the market and how things are going. Yeah, don't hesitate. Just pick our brains on things. We're not perfect, but we like to be a good voice in the community as well.

When it comes to e commerce and operations. Said. 

JARED WARD: There we go.