Julian Alvarez is the CEO & Co-Founder of Logixboard, which is enabling freight forwarders to deliver a modern, digital customer experience to their customers with the Logixboard platform. He joins us today to talk about how to understand customer pain points in a specific vertical and gives a detailed overview of the freight forwarding and supply chain industry. Julian covers how to build a vertical SaaS software company, how scaling in vertical SaaS is different from other industries, and what sort of integrations and technology aspects vertical SaaS software companies need to take into account. For any founders, investors, or generally people curious about Vertical SaaS and the supply chain industry, this is the episode for you.
Where to Find Julian:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julian-alvarez-751943126/
Logixboard Website: https://logixboard.com/
Where to Find Shomik:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/
Software Snack Bites Newsletter: https://www.shomik.substack.com
Software Snack Bites Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google.
In this episode, we cover:
(00:36) - Julian’s Background & Building in Different Industries
(05:05) - How Julian Learned about the Freight Forwarding Industry
(10:13) - Finding Product Market Fit and Rearchitecting the Product Early
(13:26) - Overview of Supply Chain Industry
(16:32) - Segmentation of the Freight Forwarding Industry
(18:29) - Key Technology in the Freight Forwarding Space & The Visibility Challenge
(20:53) - Enabling Digital Transformation in a Longstanding Industry
(30:00) - Indirect Network Effects in a B2B2C Platform
(34:32) - Customer Density in GTM for Vertical SaaS
(36:39) - Hiring for Vertical SaaS and How to Do Knowledge Enablement
(38:24) - Pros & Cons of Hiring Directly from Industry Expertise
(40:29) - Biggest Challenge of Building a Vertical SaaS Company
(43:51) - What Will a Single Pain of Glass Customer Experience Platform Across the Entire Supply Chain Look Like
(45:33) - Favorite Technology/App
(46:34) - Favorite Snack
Additional Show Notes:
How to Subscribe:
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google.
#11 - Julian Alvarez (CEO of Logixboard) - Building and Scaling a Vertical SaaS Company, Explaining Freight Forwarding & the Supply Chain Industry