Framework
Take a fragmented, low-NPS market and ship the best integrated product
Shaan describes Flexport's playbook for freight forwarding: a market of small mom-and-pop providers with low NPS, beaten by building a single best-in-class, integrated, modern software product. It's the repeatable pattern behind many great companies.
“And, and what they did was there was all these small mom-and-pop freight forwarders. And they just sort of like did what many great companies do. They sort of take a fragmented market with low NPS and they build a best-in-class product that's, you know, integrated.”
Steal thisFind a fragmented market served by mom-and-pops with terrible customer satisfaction, then build one slick integrated product to consolidate it.
Idea
An ebook of founder one-liners that make VCs salivate
Riffing on Ryan Petersen's 'zero or $100 billion' line, Shaan pitches compiling a 'Talk Dirty to Me, VC edition' ebook of offhand founder phrases that get investors excited because they match VC power-law economics.
“We should compile an ebook of quotes like that. That's like Talk Dirty to Me, the VC edition. It's like, what are some offhand things you can say as a founder that just get every investor to like salivate? And they sometimes sound dumb. Like, why would I say my company's either going to be worth zero or $100 billion? It's like, well, that's exactly what a VC wants because that's how their economics work.”
Number
A single Asia round-trip cargo ship nets $50M in profit
Shaan relays Flexport founder Ryan Petersen's math during the 2021 supply-chain crunch: one round-trip voyage from Asia earns a shipping company about $50M in profit, so an idling ship loses roughly $1M a day. 5.5% of the world's container fleet was waiting outside ports.
$50M
Profit per round-trip cargo voyage from Asia · USD/trip
“He goes, one trip, round trip from Asia on one of these shipping boats is $50 million of profit. So every, every day that they're sitting out, you know, sitting out, sitting idle. And it's a 30-day trip. And so, you know, so that's about $1 million per day per ship that's idle.”
Number
A $25K Flexport check became over $2M (87x)
Sheel's $25,000 seed check into Flexport at a $10M cap is now worth 87x after dilution as the company hit a $3B valuation — turning into over $2 million.
$2M
Value of $25K Flexport seed investment · USD
“So actually where this one sits today, I think is 87 times. So that $25,000 ended up becoming over $2 million.”