Dan Brunner is an expert in supply chain, logistics, and fulfillment. 

Dan was an early employee at Kiva Systems before Amazon acquired them in 2012 for $775 million. 

For the last 6 years, he has been at Market Wagon, a company that operates local online farmers markets, delivering local food directly to consumers.

Market Wagon was recently ranked 680 on the Inc 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in the country. 

Dan Brunner, co-founder and CEO of Market Wagon, discusses the innovative approach of the Indianapolis-based online farmers market. Market Wagon leverages supply chain management and a unique, locally-focused logistics model to deliver fresh local food directly to consumers. 

In the episode, Dan shares insights on the complexities of e-commerce logistics, the value of forming early relationships with potential investors, and the importance of maintaining an agile, lean business model.

He talks about Market Wagon’s expansion strategy, the changing landscape of digital marketing, and his vision for the future of the company.

Be sure to check out these great clips from the show:

• 02:07 The Journey of Dan Bruner
• 08:21 The Birth of Market Wagon
• 11:32 Challenges and Growth of Market Wagon
• 18:48 Understanding Supply Chain and Logistics
• 19:52 The Unique Model of Market Wagon
• 25:31 Choosing Vendors and Sourcing Products
• 27:25 Understanding the Price Hike in Groceries
• 27:56 The Role of Software Algorithms in E-commerce
• 28:07 The Challenge of Value Preference in Online Shopping
• 28:49 The Future of E-commerce: Personalized Shopping Experience
• 29:14 The Battle of Algorithms in Online Shopping
• 30:05 The Future of E-commerce Businesses
• 30:21 The Importance of Supply Chain Management in E-commerce
• 30:58 The Role of Third-Party Logistics in E-commerce
• 31:27 The Future of Market Wagon
• 32:43 The Impact of Market Wagon on Small Businesses
• 33:33 The Role of Gig Drivers in Delivering Premium Experience
• 34:49 Innovations Driving Supply Chain
• 38:09 Building a Successful Marketplace
• 39:53 The Unvalley Trend in E-commerce
• 44:43 The Future Expansion of Market Wagon
• 45:39 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Get IN. is the show focused on the unfolding stories and most extraordinary innovations happening in the heartland today. Get IN. is brought to you by Powderkeg.

In our conversation with Dan, you will learn about:

• ➡️ From Engineering to E-Commerce: The Evolution of a CEO- Dan Brunner’s story is one of innovation and adaptability. With an engineering background, Dan transitioned into business and software roles, riding the wave of the early dot-com era. His tenure at Kiva Systems, a robotics company later acquired by Amazon, armed him with deep insights into warehouse automation and logistics.
• 🔮 The Future of Online Groceries and Market Wagon: Dan is optimistic about the future, citing the growing demand for online groceries and consumers’ desire to know the source of their food. Market Wagon’s commitment to quality over price competitiveness positions it well in the market.
• ⚠️Restructuring for Resilience:  In the summer of 2022, Market Wagon underwent a transition that resulted in a leaner, more focused team. Dan stressed the importance of maintaining a strong company culture and the role of transparency in communicating company goals. Despite the challenges of internal restructuring and the pressure of external recognition, such as being listed on the Inc 5000, Dan expressed confidence in his team’s resilience and adaptability.

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If you like this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also follow us on Spotify. We have an incredible lineup of interviews we’ll be releasing every Wednesday here on Get IN.

Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

Companies and organizations: 

• Market Wagon
• Kiva Systems (acquired by Amazon.com)

People:

• Daniel Brunner 
• Louis Borders
• Mick Mountz
• Nick Carter
• Ryan Thomas
• Hayley McGinley
• John Laughlin
• Matt Hunckler
• Nate Spangle

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Episode Transcript

Matt: From the crossroads of America in the Hoosier state of Indiana, this is Get IN, the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary innovations happening right now in the heartland.

I’m Matt Hunkler, CEO at Powderkeg, and I’ll be one of your hosts for today’s conversation. I’m joined in studio by co host Nate Spangle, head of community at Powderkeg, and on the show today is Dan Brunner, CEO at Market Wagon.

Dan Brunner: that’s not like shopping on Amazon, which is completely optimized for, let’s read the reviews, let’s buy the one or two things that I’m looking for. And I’ll come back and buy some other stuff in a day or two. If you’re going to buy 20 things at a time, it is tedious.

Matt: Dan Brunner is an expert in all things, supply chain management and innovation. His unique insights have not only propelled MarketWagon to new heights, but also reshaped how we think about e commerce and logistics in a rapidly evolving digital world.

Dan’s journey in the logistics and fulfillment world is nothing short of remarkable. was an early employee at Kiva Systems, a game changing enterprise in the field of robotics and automation for fulfillment centers. Which was acquired by Amazon in 2012 for a whopping 775 million. He’s making waves now at MarketWagon, an innovative company operating local online farmers markets and delivering fresh local food directly to consumers.

Under his guidance, market wagon has grown quickly, earning a spot at number 680 on the Inc 5, 000 list of America’s fastest growing private companies. In today’s show, we are going to cover a range of topics, including the future of supply chain management, the role of analytics in driving business decisions and Dan’s approach to innovating.

And digital transformation. We’ll explore tips for growing a direct to consumer e commerce business, understand the dynamics of market booms and market corrections, and delve into Dan’s rich experiences and lessons learned from his tenure at Kiva systems, from its pre funding stages to its post acquisition triumphs with Amazon and all the amazing things going on at market wagon.

Dan, welcome to Get IN.

Dan Brunner: Thank you. Happy to be here.

Matt: We are so excited about this conversation. I’m eager to dive into all things logistics and supply chain, but before we do, I thought maybe we could. Back it up a little bit and you could tell us a little bit about your career journey. And what took you from post college diving into entrepreneurship and just this crazy cool career path.

Dan Brunner: Sure. First I have to shout out for you make logistics and supply chain sound like the. Most cool, interesting topic ever, and we’ll make it that way today, but I think so. Thumbs up for that.

Matt: Hey, we wouldn’t have anything if if it weren’t logistics and supply chains. I think it’s pretty cool.

Dan Brunner: That’s right.

My journey. I’m born and raised in, in Indiana. Got an engineering degree, went California, did that a little while, but ended up ended up getting a business degree and becoming Embedded in a lot of software related businesses. So I’m not a coder, but have been close to software the whole time.

I can code a little bit if I need to, but not my current role. don’t want to. Same for me. But put me in a unique position, both at Kiva and at MarketWagon when it comes to figuring out what the tech can and can’t do. So that’s been helpful. Some roles in marketing in the past as well.

I got really interested in dot com grocery during the long ago first dot com bubble. So that’s now been a while. Yeah. And a bunch of companies started up and, a lot of them fell on their face, which is scar tissue. Especially in. com grocery. We’re still dealing with that scar tissue a little bit.

Yeah.

Matt: What was that like going through that?

Dan Brunner: At the time I was operating an engineering consulting business in Broad Ripple and was asking people like. Atlas supermarket in good earth, natural foods. Hey, let me take you online. It’s time. It’s time. They weren’t quite ready for different reasons, but I moved on with my engineering consulting business, but one of the biggest startups during that era was web van started by Louie borders.

And they raised I think 750 million, something like that. And we’re gone in a year and a half. They built a bunch of big automated distribution centers because that’s what they thought you needed to do in order to do e commerce fulfillment. One of the individuals who worked for them really really smart and charismatic guy named Mick Mounts,

MIT engineer, Harvard MBA, was tasked with trying to make it cheaper to deliver those orders from Webvan.

When the company folded, he got to thinking about how to do it better and that became Kiva Systems. So very cool. Mick approached me and my consulting business, my little, one room office in Broad Ripple. In 2002, he paid a visit and

How did you two originally get connected? He got connected because he needed to he’s very visual and he wanted to be able to demonstrate this idea that he had for robots driving around in warehouses.

A lot of people have seen the videos of the Amazon warehouses with the robots driving around, so that’s what this is. Very cool. And, but it didn’t exist yet. And so he needed to be able to communicate it visually and study it from an engineering standpoint, see if it was going to work. So he had reached out to a software company that I had worked for previously that did simulation software.

So he’s calling me up saying, Dan, can you help me simulate and visualize this idea? That’s cool. So my small company in broader people did that on a a consulting basis for a couple of years, but then. Kiva got funded and they got funded again and they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. So I spent the next seven years as a VP at Kiva Systems on an airplane every Monday morning to Boston.

We didn’t move. We stayed in Indianapolis. Wow. That’s awesome. That was a really amazing ride and Mick was an amazing mentor.

Matt: How much did he raise for Kiva Systems, do you remember?

Dan Brunner: think the total ever raised was 33 million. Okay.

So he raised 750 million there about it for 775 after raising 33. He wasn’t the founder of the Webvan.

Matt: He wasn’t the founder of web van. No, this isn’t web van. Sorry. Sorry for the confusion there.

Dan Brunner: Mick was an employee at Webvan, but he was the founder of Kiva Systems.

Matt: And he was able to raise 30 million post. com. For a warehouse automation company. So he’s obviously good at raising money. At least telling stories.

Dan Brunner: Yeah, think so. Yeah. What do you think he did particularly well that you observed in those early days of Kiva systems?

He was just a really a great leader. He was charismatic and obviously really smart and he had a vision for how. Kiva needed to work and how it needed to be perceived in the marketplace.

And he really stuck to that vision, maybe over the objections of some other people, there’s a little bit of, so Mick had been product manager at Apple. He’s not Steve Jobs personality wise, but I think that hands on approach, I’m going to get this product exactly right. Yeah. It was in his DNA.

Nate: And I guess I, as I think about this, like you knew that he worked at web van and that had not gone well. And then he convinces you to join another automation startup where he raised more money and you’re like, Oh yeah, come join, like we’re going to get it right this time.

Dan Brunner: Webvan was an e commerce grocery company that was before it’s time basically.

So they arguably didn’t. They might wish they had spent their money a different way and the market wasn’t really ready. Also, the shoppers weren’t ready in 2000 for someone else to choose their peaches and their bananas. That, that didn’t exist at that time, right? Amazon was four years old or whatever at that time.

Yeah, that’s right. So the market wasn’t ready for dot com grocery. Most of the companies that started then failed. A few of them survive or have been bought out a few times and still exist today, but that was dot com grocery. And Mick was trying to help the dot com grocer and he ended up starting a business to help other dot com companies do what they do, which is why Amazon eventually bought Kiva.

Matt: Very cool. Yeah.

I understand your grandfather was an entrepreneur. He was. How did that shape, how did his experiences shape your own early career decisions and kind of overall career trajectory focusing on kind of more entrepreneurial roles for yourself?

Dan Brunner: Yeah, Louis Brunner was a very hardworking. and also charismatic person in a different way.

But

Matt: what was his business?

Dan Brunner: It was a chemical business for soap, wax, that kind of thing. Cool. Yeah, very cool. So he was trained that way and that was the business that he started in 1935. And just being able to visit that business on a regular basis when I was small and observing what he did and how.

How he interacted with the people there. I just always wanted to be an entrepreneur myself.

Matt: So are there things that you saw him do in that business that

Dan Brunner: Looking back, you think maybe influence how you’ve gone about business and some of the successes you’ve had?

I think there was a great care taken to have relation, the relationship between the employer and the company.

I think he was really good at that.

Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. Let’s tell me employee in the company. Sorry, I misstated, but sure. Tell me a little bit about market wagon and how that came to be.

So with my great interest in. com and when I, when Kiva got sold at that time, my title was VP of grocery solutions design.

So we were working, there’s this kind of common theme of grocery. Yeah. And when when I met Nick Carter who’s my co founder at Market Wagon. And he was already doing a prototype of this with not mainstream grocery, so you’re not competing with Kroger and Walmart, but it’s a defensible niche and a more profitable niche.

My eyes just got really big and I said, this is the business to be in. So we. We got together and formed Market Wagon in the spring of 2017.

That’s cool. And give me the original pitch. From Nick? Yeah,

from you.

Oh yeah, we have a mission which is to help local food producers. Farmers and food artisans thrive in their local and regional markets. That’s still our mission today.

Nate: So that was sick. That was the mission back in 2017 and it’s still a mission today.

That’s correct. Nice. so fun because I feel like you’re also in the right timing where farmer’s markets are more prevalent than ever, right? Like every Saturday in Broad Ripple and Carmel and every throw a rock in Indianapolis and you’re going to find one. Every Saturday here 16 Tech where we’re recording, there’s a farmer’s market.

Farmer’s market. Out in the amp space. Really? I don’t know. I don’t know. During the winter. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Winter farmer’s market is here and it’s incredible.

But not the same one that’s been going for years in on the Near East side. I’m not sure about that. I’m not sure. I feel like you might be the farmer’s market expert.

Dan Brunner: Those relationships with the farmer’s market vendors are kind of part of the lifeblood of Market Wagon. So we need to know who those people are.

Nate: You talk about you were back in two. The early two thousands trying to get good earth grocery as this one I know in broad report, right? You’re trying to get them online.

And when you think about the traditional farmer’s market, was that a hard challenge as well? Getting the traditional farmer’s market, small business, probably a side hustle for most of them. Hey, come online and join this technology solution. It’s going to help you get your goods out everywhere.

Dan Brunner: Yeah. So in the market wagon era getting those people into market wagon as. Vendors. It’s really a true marketplace business where they sign up and they produce the content and they do the listings and they set the inventory and they set the prices and they’re bringing the food to us typically on our fulfillment day.

It’s, we’ll Get into the logistics and supply chain part, but it’s very unique and it’s the reason why the economics are better for market wagon than a lot of other e commerce grocers, but. But

Those relationships are critical. It is a relationship business. It’s a relationship business at the level of, talking to someone who just has a few chickens and raises and sells eggs, but all the way to someone who might have a really large produce farm somewhere even though it’s still local and local scale, but they’re a larger successful produce farm.

It’s the relationship that person has with their customers that is, I was surprised to learn that. It’s not arm’s length. It’s a relationship based.

Matt: That makes sense to me. I obviously market wagon is super successful right now. Six 80 on the Inc 5, 000 growing company list. But I imagine that wasn’t always the case.

Can you talk about some of the bigger challenges? That you face before we dive into the success and the how of the success. I’d love to just learn a little bit more about maybe some of the bigger challenges you faced either with markets themselves, market shifts. I would imagine the pandemic had some effect.

And then even things like business partners and who you decide to team up with, I’m curious.

Dan Brunner: Yeah. So I think again it’s you’re trying to grow customer base in a marketplace, but you’re also trying to grow the supply base in a lot of ways, the supplier is like our customer, like we’re selling access to these consumers to you.

The farmer or food maker

Matt: and you have the consumers because you’ve done such a good job with digital marketing and attracting back

Dan Brunner: when that was fireable. Yeah. Digital marketing is a little different today than it was six years ago. It sure is. It’s like a double entendre of it really literally is the chicken or the egg.

And then the chicken, the egg of digital marketing. That’s right.

So I to get the consumers to get the. The suppliers and suppliers to get the consumers and in the early days, I want to give a shout out to Ryan Thomas, who was, early on at market wagon, he was hustling back in the day.

He’s out there banging on doors and finding initial vendors, finding other types of partners for us. So big shout out to Ryan. That’s awesome. And, uh, that was the kind of the challenge at the time we were able to find customers. We started down an expansion path. What? In hindsight might’ve been a little early for us but just by happenstance, we decided to open a few.

Somebody wanted us to take over a business in Evansville. So we did that. And then we opened a few more and they’re really going. So we had six in as of January 2020, then the pandemic hit and we made a decision to expand as fast as we could. So we opened all kinds of locations all at once. And we’re now we’re trying to form these difficult to form relationships with all these vendors in faraway places.

Not just Cleveland, but also Kansas city and Atlanta and places like that. So it was really challenging. We got, we don’t have 37 locations anymore because there was too many, right? Grew too fast. Yeah. Grew too fast. But we learned a lot. We learned how to expand. And when we have our next big wave of expansion, we’ll know, we’ll be ready for it.

Matt: So in hindsight, how do you think about that? Are you like, Oh, I wish we hadn’t expanded too fast or. Oh, we expanded too fast, but it was worth it because we learned these things along the way. And next time we’re ready to really step on the gas.

Dan Brunner: Yeah. I think it was worth it because in, in many of those cities we grew a pretty nice business and that exists today and is growing.

Yeah.

So you planted a lot of seeds. That’s, that is exactly right. And you’re nurturing the ones that are growing.

Some of them came to fruition and some of them didn’t, but in general, it was the ones that we planted first, like in 2020 out of that. Yeah. 31 hub 16 month expansion.

Yeah. The first half of that, because they were around longer, they had more resources. It takes time to accrete the critical mass of consumers and suppliers. Yeah. So those are the ones pretty much, that are still around the ones that we opened in 2021. Many of those are we just didn’t have the momentum of the wind tailwinds of the pandemic were receding by the time we opened those.

Nate: And is it hard as a leader, as an executive to know when it’s time to.

Dan Brunner: Yeah.

I think it really is, when the first decisions had to be made and it was over two years ago, here’s a few of them that aren’t doing very well. We maybe should just cut bait on those. Um, Nick and I and our board were making those decisions and it was hard.

It’s hard. It’s hard to throw the baby out. Yeah.

Nate: How quick could you tell? It’s you, you open this up in 2021 and it’s is it like a three month thing, a six month thing, nine a year, 18 months, and you’re like, Hey, we gotta start figuring out what we’re gonna do here.

Dan Brunner: Yeah. Less than a year in some of the cases.

Matt: Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah.

Nate: So you went from a handful of locations to more than 30 Yep. Locations in 16 months. Yep. Talk to me about your top tips to entrepreneurs who are managing through a period of rapid expansion. What are the things that entrepreneurs need to keep top of mind?

Dan Brunner: Keep your powder dry.

I don’t think we did. We didn’t have any trouble raising money in 2020 and 2021. Sure. And we believed earnestly and honestly that the sources of that capital wanted us to spend it as rapidly as possible, trying to go the business, grow the business as rapidly as we could. But the digital marketing environment changed underneath this in 2021 and the pandemic tide began to roll out.

And so some of that spend wasn’t very effective. So my advice to someone else would be, Keep, make real time adjustments to your spend so that your runway, based on realistic or conservative projections,

where it needs to be. Because I don’t think we did that. We spent it all.

Matt: What about tips in terms of just leading a team and managing culture and stress during that time period?

Dan Brunner: So not so much culture and stress during that time period, But, uh, we also ended up with a staff to support 37 hubs. So we don’t have the same staff anymore and that, that transition

started essentially in the summer of 2022 and had to continue in several steps this year. So we have a much leaner team than we used to have.

So culturally, yeah. If you ask me what’s my biggest challenge and what’s the most important key to our success, I think it is company culture. I think that how you keep everyone

Excited and on the same page and engaged in the process. I think the team is more engaged now than it’s ever been.

And that’s something I’m. I’m very happy about and I’m grateful to them, yeah.

Matt: What do you think are some of the steps that you and your leadership team have taken that have contributed to that greater amount of kind of buy in, collaboration and everyone getting on the same page?

Dan Brunner: Partly it’s just the selection process of who’s left, sure. You keep the people that are going to be those people. Yeah. But. It’s being transparent, making sure everybody knows exactly what’s going on and what the company’s goals are. We set out two goals at the beginning of 2023 and we’ve hammered them home all year long. Consistency

Nate: was that like a conflicting as the leader, right?

You’re on your six 80 on the Inc 5, from the outside looking in, they’re like, Oh they’re crushing it. They’re doing really well. Yeah. But internally you’re shrinking, right? You’re letting people go and having to restructure. How do you manage that as a leader?

Dan Brunner: Um, I don’t think there’s a conflict.

The people on the inside know what’s going on and we don’t hang a banner on our website that says, Oh, by the way, we had to say goodbye to two other people this week. That’s not really a public piece of information. So that, that wasn’t really a challenge. I don’t think.

Nate: I was just thinking like you personally, like you’re the leader there and it’s like when you’re. I don’t know. Sometimes like I feel like executives we have on talk about like the, and this is imposter syndrome, but just that experience of everyone’s saying, attaboy, good job. I’m pumped up going in there of the marker wagons growing, Indiana companies are represented really well in the INC 5000 list, but then like internally you’re like, our team knows it’s like, Hey, we have to get leaner.

Dan Brunner: We have to, we might’ve not spent our money in the best places and you’re like on the inside there.

The getting lean part is temporary, right? We’re going to be, we’re going to be growing again. And we’ve already our revenue curve is. Gone flat this year with zero spend on performance marketing, which is a heck of an accomplishment

testament

to the work that the team has done with the consumers and the vendors without that budget behind them.

So not really a challenge in that regard. And for me personally, I’m

Persistent and I’m a problem solver by nature, so we’re going to figure it out and they know that. They know that when they hear from me about any topic.

Matt: Let’s dive into the superpower of market wagon a little bit more.

And you’re obviously a wheelhouse supply chain logistics. I love that. For those who maybe don’t know supply chain, and obviously I think we can go pretty deep cause you’re an expert and I’d like to get to those like 1 percent questions that go really deep. But let’s start like way zoomed out.

For those who maybe don’t know what supply chain is or understand what we’re talking about when we say supply chain, what is your definition of supply chain?

Dan Brunner: It means different things to different people, but I would characterize it as the physical journey of whatever product it is. And of course there’s an ordering process and there’s a nonphysical part of it too, but it’s the journey of the items that are going to end up in the end user’s hands all the way from source to.

The end user. So it’s how do those get through in some cases, like in mainstream grocery, they’re going to go through consolidation channels upstream and into somebody else’s distribution center and then maybe into the groceries distribution center and then out to a regional hub and out to grocery stores.

There can be many steps in the supply chain. When you’re at scale

Nate: And these days, right? Even to like last mile delivery of like into your postmates car whatever,

Yeah.

which is a whole nother, I’m super excited to dive into that. Yeah. Okay. Cause like people would be like, we take it for granted. It’s I just press a button anywhere and it’s it just shows up in a couple hours and it’s there.

Dan Brunner: Yeah. And it’s really interesting for me too, because I am I am a. An order fulfillment automation expert, like that’s a thing that I am. other things too, but that’s a thing that I am. And I’m running a business that has zero automation and no intention of having any automation anytime soon.

So it puts me in an interesting spot, but also the reason why there’s a lot of these carcasses by the side of the road of past people who’ve tried to do home delivered groceries, because it can be really expensive on the logistics and supply chain side. And for as long as we’ve been talking to institutional investors, they ask what’s your utilization of your drivers and what, how big do your warehouses have to be and all that.

And we’re like, we got all that licked. It’s a unique spot to be in, but our business just lends itself uniquely well to that. It’s really difficult to build a large scale. Automation operation to assemble specifically grocery orders, because the products have all these different form factors and temperature requirements and all of that.

It’s really difficult. So whether you’re a web van in 2020 or, Ocado in 2010 or whoever you are trying to do that, it’s really hard. And our system. Gets around all of that. And I can answer lots of questions about it, but yeah, it’s fun to be in that side of things where the supply chain is so simple, right?

So because it’s local to each area, there’s not nearly as much transport. There are additional consolidation points. So most typically, if you’re buying a dozen eggs, a market wagon, the person who’s chickens laid those eggs, or maybe somebody that they hired.

physically

drives them to our location in the morning, right?

Walks into our building with them, follows instructions generated by our clever software that tells them exactly where each dozen or two dozen or case of eggs is going to go. Checks a box. When the vendors have all done that. The order’s finished, it’s correctly packed, it is already QC’d, we don’t need to do anything more with it, we just zip it up and go, and our gig driver takes it to the consumer.

So you want to talk about a simple, lean supply chain, where we don’t have any inbound costs, we have almost no order fulfillment labor costs. If you’re Amazon and you want to build, or anybody else who aspires to be an e commerce player, and you want to build an operation that consolidates different items into one shipping container.

Amazon’s a bad example because they’ve made the consolidation point your front door now, right? They just bring lots of individual things because their trucks are so dense But yeah, somebody on a lesser scale trying to do this that needs to consolidate the items in their building they’ve got to Figure out, automation and transport inside the building and they’ve got to figure out how am I going to sort that finished order out to the right? Destination. They have to spend a lot of money on either labor or automation to do that. And we just pulled all that out at MarketWagon. So it’s just such a cool model. I don’t get

Full credit for it. Like Nick was doing this when I met him. Yeah. Yeah. But So yeah,

Nate: to like the normal consumers terms, it’s if Matt and I both ordered, I ordered eggs and some meat and something and Matt just ordered eggs.

Your egg vendor comes to the market wagon facility, drops eggs in my box or bag or whatever it is, then puts it in Matt’s and then the meat vendor would come and just fill my box and then get out of there. So you don’t even have to have an employee to pack all the stuff up. Wow. That’s really interesting.

Yeah. Yeah, it’s very cool

Matt: What are some of your top tips, so many Businesses and startups, of course don’t have the benefit of sourcing everything locally and supply chain is complex in different ways what are some of the top tips that you have to other aspiring entrepreneurs who are working with physical goods?

Dan Brunner: Just keep it as lean as you can, don’t invest in any more physical infrastructure than you have to, if you do need some physical infrastructure, obviously don’t put your capital there. This even extends to, there are venture funded companies out there that are doing indoor growing and I hope I’m not throwing anybody under the bus who’s watching this by saying so, but why would that be a venture capital investment?

Why wouldn’t that be like, like building that building seems like more of a bank investment, regular capital,

Matt: investment. Regular

Dan Brunner: like this isn’t.

this isn’t,

Matt: Yeah. Interesting. So in terms of keeping overhead low, don’t build out all the logistics, find someone who’s already built that.

If you can.

Dan Brunner: Yeah. Now when it comes to software, I’m of a different mindset.

Okay. We’re not using anyone else’s software. So one of the things that I learned at Kiva systems was the really successful dot coms, the ones that were growing, the ones that were getting bought up by certain other large players not to be named zappos.com, diapers. com, those kinds of companies that we worked with at Kiva.

They built all their own software and they made that a core competency. So if you’re going to get your software to do your business processes and your business processes are going to be unique to the, whatever it is that you’re selling, build it yourself. So we brought that philosophy. I brought that philosophy into market wagon and Nick built a lot of what we use.

Matt: That’s cool. Today. So you don’t even really have inventory management. In the traditional sense, is that right?

Dan Brunner: The, there’s, there are tools that enable the marketplace vendors to manage their inventory on our platform. Okay. Yeah.

Matt: What are some of the top tips that you give to those vendors in terms of managing their inventory?

And maybe that’s something that your soft, software is helping them with? Maybe that’s something that they’re all learning from one another.

Dan Brunner: Yeah. It’s really cool because the inventory that is sold on market wagon is actually in their field, or in their cooler or freezer, if they’re a, if they’re a meat vendor, for example.

So they to manage it for other channels that they use as well. We have some tools that help them integrate with other tools for managing that, but for the most part, they’re able to Get into the market wagon portal and. And specify specifically what they’re making available for sale. And manage it that way.

So we don’t have to manage the available for sale part at all. How do you choose, I would imagine what vendors you source from is probably one of the most important decisions you can make. How should other entrepreneurs choose where to source their products from and how do you do that at Market Wagon?

Those might be two different questions cause our business is so unique. If you’re talking about food, there’s a whole set of food related constraints, but in general. You just, you want people who are going to be reliable and where you’re not having to babysit their quality or anything like that.

That would be my advice.

Matt: So probably a more established business that’s been doing this for a while. They’ve worked out at the kinks. Maybe. Some established businesses aren’t good at it and some startups are. So

Nate: I feel like it’s like the farmer’s market thing where it’s you, my aunt, she makes pies at the Plymouth farmers market in Northern Indiana and she is known across.

Plymouth as the pie lady.

I’ll bet she’s the blueberry pie lady. I know all about the County Blueberry Festival.

It’s a big deal. a hidden gem in Indiana. Yes, it is a hidden gem. And if you haven’t been to the blueberry festival, you need to, but it’s like at a farmer’s market, like people go and have this brand loyalty to the tent, the booth, the person that’s there every Saturday morning, like grinding on, like making pies for everybody.

It doesn’t have to be the established business, like XYZ farms, but it’s like this person who has this like credibility, right? Yup.

Dan Brunner: Yup. It is. We have those Marshall County blueberries, by the way, in, in in a couple of our locations that aren’t far from that county.

Good little plug for the blueberries.

that out.

Matt: You can those now you can stop buying those frozen berries for your I do. I am a frozen berries kind of guy. You got to go fresh, man. Yeah, absolutely. Talk me a little bit about the sort of cost. When you’re sourcing these different vendors, like I would imagine there’s some vendors where it feels like a, it’s a bargain but when you like dive into it, it is an actual real efficiencies gain there.

When you pull open the hood and see how things are working.

Dan Brunner: Pricing and groceries is a really interesting topic. I would imagine. And why are all my groceries twice as expensive as they were a year ago? In general, right? Yeah. Eggs in particular, certain thing, commodities have gone way up in price at the grocery store in the last few years to the point where in some cases they’re, less expensive on market wagon.

In general, our products are going to be similarly or slightly higher price because they’re fresher and their consumers want to pay for knowing where their food come from. And that is an increasing trend, right? So that’s one of the reasons Market Wagon feels like it’s so well positioned for the future.

Got to get,

You’ve got to make sure that they’re all real. You really want your software algorithms that decide, the software algorithms have a lot to say about the shopping experience in our e commerce store. Okay. And they’re good. They’re getting better. One of the things that we don’t do because it’s not easy to do is preference for value.

So the consumer is having to sort through the different blueberries, the different eggs and figure out, I like the value here. I like this vendor. I’ve used them before. They have good quality or they have good star ratings or whatever it is. And make those decisions. But we’re not making a deliberate decision to Put the 4 and 25 cent eggs behind the 3 and 75 cent eggs in our search results, and that, that’s coming.

But in order to do that, you have to do a lot more in the software than what we currently have.

Matt: That’s really interesting that the algorithm.

Dan Brunner: So they’re setting the price. Maybe that’s the part I left out of the conversation. Like we’re not setting that price. The person who’s selling on our marketplace is deciding what they’re going to charge.

Matt: And so the algorithm is really just trying to figure out how do I serve more relevant? Items. Yeah. Relevant doesn’t necessarily mean lower cost or higher cost.

Dan Brunner: It could mean a lot of different things. It doesn’t necessarily mean, yeah. This person clearly buys mostly produce. Why am I showing? It’s very individualized to that person.

Yeah. Yeah. I’m becoming more and more that way. Sure. We do show them things from the people they’ve bought from before. Sure. And there’s some other, tweaks to the algorithms, but more is coming. That’s exciting. Winning that algorithm battle, I’m going to get on a soapbox here for just a second.

Please. When you shop online. For 20 things in one session, that’s not like shopping on Amazon, which is completely optimized for, let’s read the reviews, let’s buy the one or two things that I’m looking for. And I’ll come back and buy some other stuff in a day or two. If you’re going to buy 20 things at a time, it is tedious.

It takes time to figure out what all you want to put in your cart and different. Large players as well as MarketWagon have come up with some shortcuts to help you fill your cart faster. But it’s an area where we’ll be investing heavily in the future. We want to make sure that we’re best in class at that.

So that when you get onto MarketWagon, MarketWagon is like, you wanted, I think you wanted these 20 things. Which ones don’t you want? And getting better and better at that is, is a core competency that we’re continuing to work on.

Matt: What are some of the other things looking forward that you think are going to separate? e commerce businesses that really take off from the ones that maybe stay stagnant or fade away.

Dan Brunner: It’s the same. Everyone’s in e commerce business right now. You’re for any kind of a retailer, you’re an e commerce player, but it’s a weird landscape right now because of the dominance of a few players. I think that the successful ones, it is all about the logistics and the supply chain and how do they manage that?

Yeah. The other parts are Not as easy to screw up. Let’s put it that way.

Matt: If someone is an entrepreneur and they’re selling goods online and they’re not an expert in supply chain yet, where should they start? Should they start with finding a business partner who is a supply chain expert? Or is this something that you think an entrepreneur can learn on the job through trial and error if they have the right.

Resources. Maybe those are books, podcasts, courses.

Dan Brunner: You need to have the relationships with your suppliers, but in terms of the physical logistics of order fulfillment, a lot of people outsource that to what’s called a third party logistics provider or 3PL. There’s lots and lots of them here in Indianapolis.

We’re like, we’re,

we’ve had some on the show.

So a lot of people will do that as a way to not have to build that infrastructure themselves. Yeah. So just skip that step. Yeah. Allow them to focus on maybe getting a. Competitive advantage somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

Matt: Tell me more about what you’re excited about with market wagon, it sets you apart.

Dan Brunner: Just, we know we’re still sitting on the right trend. If you look at what happened to e commerce sales overall, and especially grocery sales during the pandemic, there was a big spike in the spring of 2020.

And then it fluttered for like almost three years until the end of 2022. The demand on the e commerce side was slowly declining, right? And so we experienced that, which is one of the reasons for parts of earlier parts of this conversation. But then you get to 2023 and you see what’s happening and you look at the projections for the future, online groceries is supposed to double between 2023 and we’re on the end of it.

That’s highly growing of. Consumers wanting to know where their food comes from. So we’re just super MarketWagon.

Matt: And your premium product too, like it’s not a race to the bottom. It’s not like your target customer is coming and being like, all right, how can I save some money here today?

I think it might be an aspect, but

Dan Brunner: We’ve learned everybody cares what they spend on groceries. Sure. From the very wealthiest person to the very not. And all of those people shop on MarketWagon. Some of them spend more, some of them spend less. So we’re not. targeting any one specific demographic and everybody cares, but yeah,

Nate: I think what’s super interesting, I’d love to hear like maybe a success story of someone that got on the market wagon platform instead of being in a small little physical space on a Saturday mornings, there any stories of how you’ve helped grow people’s small businesses and do bigger businesses and sell pies or whatever?

Dan Brunner: Lots and lots of stories. There, there are businesses that we helped survive the pandemic businesses that we helped to grow or augment what they’re doing.

One particular story that stands out would be a company called native bread that makes gluten free baked goods, gluten free bread type products. And if I can say her name, Haley McGinley, the founder of that company was on market wagon at the very beginning, right? And she’s in there every week with her, however many loaves of bread growing and growing.

And she eventually became a pretty big vendor on market wagon and eventually opened a shop. And. It’s just, she grew her business by starting out on market wagon as best I know. So

Nate: That’s awesome. And then I’d to dive in one more question. You think about the gig driver, right? And these people have such, if you’re a vendor at a farmer’s market, you have such pride in presentation and delivery.

How are you able to manage early or manage those drivers to make sure that they give a full premium experience to the door?

Dan Brunner: That’s a really good question because they’re gig drivers using their own vehicles and they’re unlabeled the vehicles. We are, it’s basically a drop off like what Amazon drivers currently do, they just ring the doorbell and they go away.

So it’s that they’re not really, now some of the customers really do want to interact with them and they’ll greet them and talk to them and all of that. But long as they’re there on time and the food is in good condition, that’s really what we’re looking for. We’re not looking for relationship skills necessarily when we hire those people.

And they’re great people. They’re, they are dedicated and they are very reliable or they wouldn’t be driving for us and they’re making good money right now too. So it’s, um, but yeah, it’s not, it’s when you say premium experience that, Premium experiences. When you go by, I hope it’s okay if I say people’s names, you go by crumble cookies and they come in this really fancy pink box and they’re trying to deliver a premium experience, a premium cookie with the premium amount of sugar in it.

And all of that, that. Yeah.

we don’t see ourselves that way. It’s more of a meat and potatoes business. No pun intended. I know.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe pun intended.

Maybe.

Matt: Can you talk about some of the technologies that are really driving innovation supply chain right now?

Dan Brunner: Yeah, I can. I have the same opinion about some of them as other people do.

Matt: We’re here. We’re here. We want your hot take.

Dan Brunner: One of the, one of the big things is especially in e commerce grocery is what they call micro fulfillment. Okay. Let me give you a little bit of automation in a small footprint in your remote building so that the goods are close to the consumer and the orders can still be assembled.

I’m not sure that’s the best solution for everybody, because once you have automation, then there’s a technical component and it has to be maintained. People need to be able to service it. And I think automation works a little bit better at some scale. So that’s just one, one example of kind of a trendy thing there also are.

So Kiva was a pioneer, not the only pioneer, not the only technology, especially compared with some other companies out of Europe, but it was a goods to person fulfillment technology. So it would bring the items to the person who is then going to use their hands to. Get them and put them in the customer order.

There are innovations all the time in pick and place robotics to do that last part. There are other types of goods to person technologies that have emerged and become very popular in the last few years.

Matt: What are some of the things that you learned at Kiva Systems just in general of how to approach innovation, how to move the business forward in a very measured sort of way?

Dan Brunner: Of my roles for a time at Kiva was interfacing between the sales team. Like I said earlier, any business that’s delivering items to consumers or picking and placing any items for any purpose, they’re gonna have Requirements and processes that they have to follow, a medical device company is going to be very different from a, a doorknob company and so forth.

They would always be coming into our sales team at Kiva, we’re trying to sell these multi million dollar automation systems when I worked for that company. And they had their own set of business requirements. So the sales people would go to the tech side and the product side of the business and say if we just had these five features, we’d get this sale.

And my role for a while was to broker that with a representative of the software team. I was on behalf of the business side and he was on behalf of the software team. And those were really great conversations. Okay. We got these five features. You say these two are hard. I think these other two are required and let’s broker that let’s figure out work around So it’s not as hard and it can use the tech we already have These three things they don’t really need or they can do this other thing So so that was for me, I know that’s a detailed story, but that was a really fun part of that job

Matt: I bet to some degree you’re still doing that today at market.

Dan Brunner: Absolutely Yeah,

Matt: Any tips for people on how to manage that process of okay, there’s demand here But this is what we have over here. How do we bridge that gap?

Dan Brunner: Yeah you just need, you need conscientious and dedicated people and it’s a two way conversation. We do, I have those conversations all the time right now with our head of software and he’ll say I’ll say we need this thing and he’ll say this is hard.

And unfortunately for him, I have just enough of a technical background to say, tell me why it’s hard. Yeah. I have that conversation and maybe it really is hard and maybe it isn’t. And he does a great job as well.

Nate: I think that from diving into this, yeah. Such a wealth of knowledge on supply chain, also building marketplaces.

Yeah. I’m really like, I guess I a process more than this conversation. I’m like, huh it’s really about getting the right vendors and the right customers. And would you have advice for anyone out there that’s trying to build a market, whether it’s in. Whatever it could be, any industry marketplaces are hot, two sides to it.

What would you say your advice is to anyone out there trying to build a marketplace?

Dan Brunner: I would say hard on both sides and we just hired someone. who is just fantastic and came from a marketplace business that he co founded. So his experience working with both sides of that is, we can give Josh shout out.

Nate: Yeah. John Laughlin. Yeah. John Laughlin. What a guy. John’s doing a great job. Yes. So excited about him. So if we just double click real quick in that, cause I know we’re coming close to time. If you had advice, like first piece of advice to go out and either find vendors or go out and find customers, how do you get the first 10 of each of those?

Dan Brunner: I think you’re going to have some suppliers first and you’re going to have to get them, to be betting on the fact that you’re going to get some consumers cause if there’s nothing to buy, you’re not going to get the consumers.

consumers the

Start with the supply side. And we had that, I think for market wagon, Indianapolis is our most successive successful hub.

We’ve got some other very successful ones, but Indianapolis is really big and it’s because we were there. You like this, the vendors could get to know the team when they were in our place. And so one of the lessons for the future is don’t try to do that without being able to have that physical relationship.

But I think in some of the other cities that we’re in When we go back or when we start anew with expansion. There’ll be more of a presence in that city.

Nate: Is that kind of the Brian Chesky story where you like went and actually photographed people’s houses for Airbnb so that people would look because it was like they were taking it with the, like a 2000s flip phone and he wants to stay in dark, creepy room back there.

Dan Brunner: It’s go out there and take the pictures, help these vendors and that’s going to bring in more customers. And I love that. Increasingly we help them a little bit cause they’re not always good at those things today. Not as good at pictures, not as good at description. So we try to help them through that.

Matt: It stands out to me that MarketWagon stands squarely in this, what we call like the un valley trend. Meaning it’s the unbundling of Silicon Valley. We can grab the things that we like that Silicon Valley adopted. But also in a lot of ways, there’s so much untapped potential in these markets like Indianapolis.

Yep. Where innovation can happen and where a lot of the outsized opportunity is for entrepreneurs. To create more value in whatever marketplace they happen to execute in. I’m curious, what other ways have you seen this like unvalley trend? Really be a tailwind for MarketWagon.

Dan Brunner: When you say Unvalley trend, are you just talking about funding sources or are you talking about approaches to the business?

Matt: Both actually. Unvalley meaning you’re able to grab the technologies and innovations. You’re using big data. You’re creating algorithms. A lot of things that started out of Silicon Valley and you’re implementing them. But you’re also, you mentioned so many other, there’s a graveyard of other grocery delivery businesses.

That are headquartered in the valley and part of why market wagon is growing is that you have your own approach right to things and you’re serving these markets. My guess is like New York City isn’t your biggest market currently. So I’m just curious how you see those both of those trends, which I would almost categorize as this unvalley like unbundling of Silicon Valley.

Things don’t have to be headquartered in the three biggest cities of the country for tech. But also you’re able to grab the things from the valley and innovation. Obviously those are great tech hubs.

Dan Brunner: I think you see some of the DNA in the conversation we’ve had so far. You’ve got.

Yeah. And then moved company to Boston because that’s where the funding was. And so you’ve got all that DNA coming through me into market wagon. So it’s, I tried to bring the best of what I saw in those places, but all over the Midwest and central part of the United States, we have entrepreneurs who don’t even have those backgrounds who are doing killer things.

They’re doing amazing things. And my advice would be stick to your guns. You’ve figured out what you need for your business to survive. Make it work. Don’t follow the lemmings. Don’t follow the trends. Do what you need to do to make your business work.

Matt: Why have you picked a business or cities similar to Indianapolis for your expansion and not necessarily new York or San Francisco.

Dan Brunner: We’ve had some interesting learnings in that regard. But during our expansion phase, we wanted them to be in arms reach, so that we could go there if we needed to, what happens if the person running the hub gets sick or if a vendor who sells in Cincinnati also wants to sell in Columbus, you have that synergy.

That’s really the reason we expanded like ripples on a pond not because of what the cities were. We did pick some smaller cities, some of which we don’t have anymore. Like a Lexington is now delivered from Louisville, for example. But are a lot of cities like Indianapolis that also are in that sort of convenient ripples on a pond geography, your Pittsburgh’s, your St.

Louis’s and Milwaukee’s and all of that. We have a fair amount of experience in Chicago too. And Chicago is hard and it’s hard for us. more, probably more on the supply side than the demand side because there’s a certain amount of demand in Chicago for this kind of food. And it’s huge. And ask yourself how much land is there within 40 miles of the loop?

You’ve got a lake, you’ve got. Only so many farms that can be there. So it’s hard. It’s a tricky problem.

Nate: I don’t know if you could pay me enough money to be a delivery driver in Chicago. Oh my gosh, like that would be oh man.

Dan Brunner: We do it and actually our volume in Chicago itself is growing right now but we don’t have a location there anymore.

Our location is just over the state line in Wisconsin, which is within our geographic area. proximity. A lot of the food that’s sold in Chicago is from Illinois and Wisconsin, but there’s drivers from Wisconsin who are happy to drive. Yeah. There’s some who aren’t, but there’s

there’s drivers who drivers who are happy to drive into Chicago and do that.

That’s cool. You’ve got I would imagine just tons of interesting data. Talk to me a little bit about supply chain analytics, some of the ones that you pay close attention to and just in general why that’s an important part of your business.

We pay attention to a lot of the same metrics, any other, Marketplace, organization.

what are those like top three to five,

what’s the frequency, what’s the persistence and stickiness of the customers.

What does it cost to get the customers? Those types of metrics. Everybody knows those metrics. From a supply chain standpoint we track really carefully our fill rate, which is over 98 and a half percent of all the line items that are ever ordered on MarketWagon get there. They’re the correct item.

They’re the correct quality. No problems. And that’s really good for the grocery space. And yet here we are with the no automation and the, the vendor’s hands are on the product. That’s. You don’t have control of that labor force, but they care.

Nate: Yeah.

Dan Brunner: They care a lot about making sure the right items get to the customer.

So

Matt: it seems like that’s a really important part of the culture. Yeah, it is proliferates beyond just the, W2 employees, right?

Dan Brunner: So that fill rate is super important. Our on time delivery rate is super important. Garb, did we get all the orders delivered correctly? So we pay a lot of from a supply chain standpoint Those are the types of metrics that we look at

Matt: What are the things that you’re most excited about for market wagon in the years ahead?

Dan Brunner: I think we all know that

Know it’s going to grow we know this business is going to grow we have seen other Startups try with different approaches and fail not just 20 years ago, but two years ago and five years ago. It’s a hard space, but we’ve got it figured out. Our units make money, right?

So it’s just a question of when is the right time to do that expansion. And then we’ll be out there and this will be this will be. It’s funny because I don’t like to brand it as this nationwide juggernaut because to the person in Boise, Idaho, who’s buying on market wagon, doesn’t need to look that way.

They just need to see the Boise farmers. Yeah. But from an economic and business model standpoint, we want to be all over the country in by 2028.

So that’s exciting. That’s so exciting.

Matt: Dan, because of all of your entrepreneurial endeavors, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask this question.

What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs based on your own life experiences?

Dan Brunner: Yeah, I would say if you’re going to need outside funding, form those relationships as soon as you can. The people in the entities that have funded us have been the people who’ve tracked us. So you can go to events and you can do cold reach outs and you can meet whether you’re looking for a traditional VC or angels or family offices, whatever you’re looking for.

It’s going to be hard to get someone to write you a check if they just met you two weeks ago, no matter how great your story is, no matter how great your metrics are. And I say this every time I get asked this question. It’s. cast a wide net early and keep them updated on a regular basis. Some great things we learned.

We participated in one of the generator accelerators, the G beta ag bioscience program in 2019 and they preached that, they preach that constant communication to your potential investors. But in order for that to work, you have to meet them early. Yep. So yeah, that’s my advice to someone who’s going to need funding.

Not everybody needs funding, but if you do that’s a good one.

Matt: And whether you do now or not, it’s nice to have the option. Yeah. You will someday. So assume you will and form those relationships now in the local community and then Get introduced by those people or by whoever else you can to people in a more regional or national community that are interested in your particular space.

And even if you just need advice, ask for money, you’ll probably get it. Yeah.

Ask ask advice, money, ask for money. Get advice. Yes, exactly right. I think Pitbull coined that term. Yeah, gotta be. This is your favorite part, Nate.

Nate: Dan, it’s time for my favorite part. And the lightning round.

Oh boom. do have a couple, I have two unique questions just to this one because I’m so

Dan Brunner: into 42! Blue! No, yellow! There we go!

Nate: How you know all?

Dan, my first question is, who is the most unique vendor on MarketWagon?

Dan Brunner: wow. Oh, most unique. Oh, wow. I was not prepared for this question.

First one that comes to mind. There are no wrong answers and we know you’re going to forget a bunch of ones.

There’s, there are people who’ve, who forage a vacant lot near where they live and they bring us all kinds of weird roots and berries and fruits and things. So that’s a odd ball one.

There we go.

That’s cool.

And it’s fun for people probably to shop those items.

Other unique things. We’ve had some pretty unique proteins before, odd animals and things, which we love, the more unique it can be, the better look, thinking across categories, unusual fruits and vegetables.

So to me, it’s about the product, are you selling something that is, and it’s really for us to attract and retain that shopper who’s going to devote not all of their grocery budget, but part of their grocery budget to ordering regularly from market wagon, we want them to have the experience, Nate, that you were.

Fishing for there, which is, Oh, I shopped on market wagon and there’s either there’s a thing I saw that was really cool and I had to try it. And then there’s these other things that I can only get on market wagon and I’m going to keep ordering on market wagon.

Nate: It was like the organic beeswax.

I don’t know what, like something just crazy that I’m like, Oh my gosh, that’s a thing. Yeah.

Dan Brunner: There are some crazy things. There’s people selling flowers. Yeah, it’s all over the map

Seeds that they save and heritage seeds. That’s another cool.

Okay. All right. That’s awesome.

Nate: One more, one more market wagon specific question for the lightning round.

I would love to know if you’re filling your cart, top three things from around in the Indianapolis area, right? You’re here in Indy, top three things that go into your cart every single week,

Dan Brunner: My cart, I’m not vegan, but the vegan burritos from sea salt and cinnamon are awesome around here. And they end up in my cart a lot.

The milk from Crystal Springs Creamery and sometimes other dairy providers ends up in my cart. the English muffins from no label at the table a caramel based gluten free. I’m gluten free, but they’re great English, but we’ve got some other new good English muffins too.

I love that.

Nate: That’s a great. I can’t wait to go and check out those Instagrams for all those and see what we’re working with there. All Now to our typical three questions for the lightning round, Dan, outside of the amazing entrepreneurs, what is Indiana known for

Dan Brunner: a corn?

Nate: Heck, spoken a true farmer’s market guy.

Yes.

And soybeans. Yeah.

And soybeans. Got to get the soybeans in there.

Dan, what is a hidden gem in Indiana?

Dan Brunner: A hidden gem in Indiana. We have, I’m sorry, my mind goes to food. So I love that we have produce farms in Indiana. There aren’t very many. It’s hard to grow organic berries in Indiana. For example we just don’t really have the climate for it. It’s like trying to find great grapes, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. we have them like no matter where you go, there are, is a community of small food growers and producers. If we, when we launch in Phoenix, you think Phoenix in the middle desert, you won’t be able to find the same produce. No, it’s all there. You go to the farmer’s market in Phoenix or one of the suburbs, it’s all there there so

on it. Maybe Fairbanks would be a challenge, but. Ooh.

Nate: Okay. All right. I love that. That’s good. And I feel like that’s we had Mitch Frazier on the show who talks about ag tech and kind of what’s being built in Indiana. And it’s this treads all the way up market to the everyday, the food grower, right?

The helping put, what is Mitch’s line? Ag is the only industry that touches every single person on the planet three times a day.

Least three times a day. At least three times a day. At least three times.

least three times a day. In my case, sometimes five or six. Yeah, same. Yeah,

and final question, Dan.

Who is someone we need to keep on our radar? Someone who is doing big things. First person that comes to mind.

Dan Brunner: I would keep an eye on Nick, my co founder. He’s doing some other things now and Yeah. He’s a super talented guy, nick Kramer. Keep an eye on Nick Carter. Oh gosh, Nick Carter. Keep an eye on Nick. Nick Kramer is another entrepreneur who’s pitched on the powder cake stage.

Nate: And it’s circa the same era as Nick Carter’s first first pitch. I love This was spectacular, Dan. I loved hearing about what you’re doing with MarketWagon and the expansion and everything you guys have been doing and how you think about logistics and supply chain. It was honestly so much different than the conversation I expected to have.

Truthfully. I was like, it’s the opposite way, which is, it’s a good thing. I love it. reminder to all listeners out there. If you send us three startup t shirts large to 16 tech address to powder keg, we will rep your startup on the show. We’ll wear them. We don’t have any on today, normal clothes, but if you send three startup teas, we’re going to talk about your startup, your organization, whatever you want.

And Dan, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Dan Brunner: You’re welcome. Thanks for the opportunity. It was awesome, man. Thanks for all you do.

Matt: you have suggestions for our guest or segment, reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email. To discover top tier tech companies outside of Silicon Valley in hubs like Indiana, Check out our newsletter at powderkeg. com slash newsletter. And to apply for membership to the powder keg executive community, check out powderkeg.com/premium.

We’ll catch you next time and next week as we continue to help the world. Get IN. Since you just listened to this podcast, you might be thinking about starting one for your company.

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