Global Supply Chain Adventures: American Ships Brazilian Hair to Liberia

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

Long, long ago, I had a job, well, it wasn't really a job, it was more like a long-term volunteer commitment. But I lived overseas for about four years on a hospital ship that was deployed most frequently to the coast of West Africa. And while we were there, I was part of the support staff. There were doctors and surgeons doing all kinds of work that wouldn't normally be available in those countries. Amazing experience, totally changed my life, and I'll tell you more about that another time perhaps.

But as it relates to the world of side hustling, one of the challenges that we had while living on this ship, there were about 440 volunteer crew members from all over the world. One of the challenges was getting mail or getting packages. Because of course, if you live in the US or Canada or wherever else, you just order from Amazon or wherever and that package shows up two days later, or maybe it's a week or two later at the longest. And in the US in particular, we are now conditioned to expect free shipping to the point where a lot of us even hesitate. Like if we're excited about buying something, we've already made the emotional decision to purchase it.

But then it goes to that checkout page and it says, "Oh, you actually have to pay $10 shipping." We're like, "Wait a minute. Maybe I don't actually want this." You know, that's how much people expect free shipping these days. Anyway, for us on the hospital ship, the powers that be found a way to solve this problem in that you could order stuff from Amazon or wherever, your family, your friends could send stuff, and they would send it to a location in the US, and then that location would box everything together, packages and mail for all the crew members, and they would send those big boxes via DHL. DHL is a shipping provider like UPS or FedEx or whatever, and they had some kind of bulk rate deal. So it was still expensive.

We had to pay based on the weight of our packages. I believe it was at least several dollars a pound. So mail charges could get pricey, but that was much more affordable and easier than trying to have packages shipped to Liberia or Sierra Leone on our own. So why am I telling you this long story? Well, today's featured side hustler brings a similar solution to a similar problem.

This guy is a shipping executive, works around the world, and his foreign friends struggle to get their hands on the American goods that he takes for granted. And so when he creates a cheap way to deliver them, this business now delivers thousands of packages a month to countries like Liberia, where I used to live for about a year, and Hungary, where I've never lived, but I had a good time visiting Budapest once. It's all about global supply chain adventures. Stay tuned for all the details. Have you ever ordered an item online, and when it arrived, you felt there was far too much packaging for it.

You know, when you buy something tiny, like a USB stick or set of batteries, and it comes in a box big enough to contain a car tire. For most of us, that's just an annoyance. It's a clear sign of waste. For many people living outside of America, the land of free shipping, it can be a costly problem that stops them from getting the products they want. And that's where today's side hustler, Randy Robita, found his new project.

While working as an executive of a home delivery company, Randy spent a lot of time in different countries all around the world. Everywhere he went, he felt he stood out as "the American," and people often commented on what he was wearing. From his sneakers to his laptop case, the items he traveled with were often a hot topic of conversation. Randy didn't think he was wearing or carrying anything special. They were just his day-to-day items from back home, which he'd bought affordably.

But he quickly discovered they were in-demand items all over the world, especially in low-income or developing countries. One conversation he had in Budapest stuck with him. Waiting for a meeting to start, one of his clients asked Randy, "How long have you had your shirt for?" Randy found the question to be a little odd. He'd been asked where he got his shirt. He'd been asked how much it cost, but never had someone ask how long had he owned it.

Randy told him the shirt was about three years old. The client laughed and said, "Shirts in Hungary barely last us a year." This was one of many similar conversations, and Randy began to feel an idea percolating in the back of his mind. He could tell there was a high demand for American items, but what was the problem with supply? Many of the people he spoke with were middle-class or high-income individuals from relatively affluent backgrounds. What was stopping them from getting the products they wanted?

He began to ask everyone on his travels where they were getting stuck, and he found two significant problems. The first was that payments were often rejected. Although people had money, they were ruled out based on their location, and legitimate credit cards would be denied. In particular, people from places like Nigeria suffered from this, which you'll understand if you've ever received an email from a generous prince offering to send you $100 million if only you'll advance him a few thousand upfront. The second was the cost of shipping.

Products were affordable to buy in America, but sending them abroad could quickly turn a $40 pair of shorts into a $150 investment, sometimes more when you factor in import taxes. These two points of friction and the hundreds of people struggling with them gave Randy the confidence to start his new endeavor. If he could fix these two problems, he could help people in those countries and earn a profit for himself. So he founded the company USA2Everywhere. The main problem he focused on was the shipping costs.

There were lots of ways to make payments more accessible, but if people couldn't get their products overseas affordably, none of it mattered. So he began to dig deep into what was causing these extravagant costs and quickly found an answer. At least one of the answers. The size of the packages that companies were sending out stood out as a major issue. Those big boxes for small items can take up a lot of space in the cargo hold of a plane.

And the more area they take up, the more money it costs. Randy realized if he could get more items into less space, he could reduce the fees and make the whole process more affordable. But how? USA2Everywhere uses a simple system of consolidating packages. Customers submit their desired orders through their website.

They're then bought and delivered to Randy's garage. There the products are repackaged in more appropriate boxes and sent to a pickup location close to the customer. This offers incredible savings to those customers and allows most shipments to most places for around $25, much less than any of his global competitors can provide. The simplicity of this allowed Randy to start USA2Everywhere from his spare bedroom for the cost of a website. After sharing the business idea with his contacts all over the world, he saw a quick rise to $40,000 a month in revenue.

Randy makes his money, his profit, from the shipping process by adding a $2.50 per carton fee. There are extra charges based on how difficult the process is. If Randy needs to create custom payment systems, or if he needs to place the order himself, the price goes up. To market his business, Randy has relied mostly on Facebook ads. These aren't being shown to people in America.

They're being shown to people in places like Liberia. It's been a great way to reach people in rural towns and villages. He can select locations within a radius of his delivery drop-off point and target the people who live there. Also, advertising in these areas is usually cost efficient. Randy started this business as a side hustle six years ago.

It's now on track to generate several million dollars in revenue for 2018. Randy is still running the business from his house and employs his family members to help with shipping. However, he's also expanding to a warehouse space to deal with the volume of orders coming through, thousands of orders each month. He'd eventually like to expand beyond developing countries and look towards higher income places like Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom so that everyone can get those cheap laptop cases and shirts that last for more than one year. So after UPS and FedEx merge, what will the new company name be?

Fed up. You are welcome. All right, so talk about a huge need. From this story, there are so many markets and people all over the world in all sorts of countries who could use a service like this. Even just thinking about a really specific group like aid workers or expats living in places like Liberia or Sierra Leone or similar, that is a whole target market or population of its own in addition to the local population or let's say people in that local population who are relatively affluent and have money.

That's definitely not the majority of the population in countries like Liberia, but there is a significant minority. These people encounter the challenges that Randy's business solves, those challenges of payment processing and affordable shipping charges. So I'm sure there was a ton of work involved in getting this set up, I still don't quite understand some details about the logistics here. But it is quite a feat. And of course, it's a feat that's still in the making because he hopes to expand further to lots of other places.

Good work, Randy. Thank you for allowing us to bring your story to side hustle school listeners and listeners. You're awesome. Thank you for listening. Don't forget inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better.

Today's show notes are online now. They'll also be online later, but just they're available now whenever you want them. Or at sidehustleschool.com slash five seven eight. That is for episode 578 578. As we kick off a new month, I'll be back again tomorrow.

I hope you will join me. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.