Rethinking 3PL Marketing, Bidding, and Warehouse Selection With Ryan Kalisky
Updated: Sep 8
Ryan Kalisky is the Co-founder and CEO of WareMatch, a 3PL warehousing marketplace and bidding platform that helps brands find qualified providers and compare bids. He guides WareMatch’s growth as it develops tools that help logistics providers showcase facility capabilities and win better-fit business. With a background in medical supply distribution and experience sourcing warehouse partners, Ryan focuses on modernizing 3PL discovery, marketing, quoting, and procurement.
Here's a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
[2:34] Ryan Kalisky shares his path from medical supply distribution to co-founding WareMatch
[5:54] Why traditional 3PL marketing can make warehouse selection difficult
[9:43] Ryan’s approach to matching brands with the right 3PL partners
[12:48] How WareMatch is rethinking the RFP and bidding process
[16:19] The limitations of traditional lead generation
[22:58] New ways for 3PLs to improve marketing, visibility, and growth
[31:56] Ryan’s transition from finance and real estate into entrepreneurship
[35:55] Lessons from building WareMatch and evolving the business through customer feedback
[43:21] Ryan shares his vision for expanding WareMatch across the broader logistics industry
In this episode…
Finding the right 3PL partner can be difficult when every warehouse offers a different mix of capabilities, pricing, certifications, and technology. For logistics providers, clearly communicating those differences can be just as challenging. How can better data and technology make 3PL sourcing and warehouse marketing more efficient?
A more effective approach starts with better data, clearer project requirements, and a centralized way to compare options. Logistics technology entrepreneur Ryan Kalisky maintains that project-specific information can help brands identify suitable providers while giving warehouses a better way to showcase their capabilities. He also highlights the value of streamlining RFQs, organizing bids in one place, and using facility-level details rather than relying on broad company profiles. As AI-driven search changes how businesses discover logistics partners, keeping accurate service and capability information accessible online can also improve visibility. The result is a more transparent, efficient process that helps both shippers and 3PLs make better-fit decisions.
In this episode of The Tao of Pizza Podcast, Mark Hiddleson talks with Ryan Kalisky, Co-Founder and CEO of WareMatch, about modernizing 3PL sourcing and warehouse marketing. Ryan shares how better facility data can improve provider selection, why centralized RFPs simplify bidding, and how AI search is changing logistics visibility. He also touches on entrepreneurship and lessons from building a logistics technology company.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Specialized Storage Solutions, Inc. contact phone: 7077323892
Mark Hiddleson's email: markhiddleson@aol.com
WareMatch - use code “Mark H1” for 10% off a WareMatch subscription
Quotable Moments:
“Getting to the top of Google SEO, we believe, is a bit outdated.”
“If you want to grow, you need to be recommended.”
“I loved the concept of working for myself.”
“We want to help 3PLs market each facility.”
“Don’t worry, we’re not just robots; we’re humans too.”
Action Steps:
Market each warehouse by its actual capabilities: Highlighting certifications, technology, services, and facility-level strengths helps buyers identify the locations that truly fit their needs.
Centralize the RFP and quoting process: Keeping project scopes, bids, and comparisons in one place reduces repetitive discovery work and makes decisions easier for both shippers and 3PLs.
Use better project data to improve provider selection: Defining requirements clearly before outreach helps narrow the field to warehouses that can actually accommodate the work.
Prepare for AI-driven logistics discovery: Keeping accurate, detailed information about services and capabilities online improves the chances of being recommended through emerging answer engines.
Build around continuous customer feedback: Listening closely to users and adapting the product or process helps solve real industry problems instead of relying on assumptions.
Sponsor for this episode:
This episode is brought to you by Specialized Storage Solutions Inc.
Listen...
I have been in the logistics and storage industry for several decades. I know I don’t look that old, but it's true.
We provide industry-leading warehouse storage solutions nationwide.
So basically, if you have a warehouse that needs Rack, Shelving, Carts, Conveyors, or Mezzanines, we help with....design engineering, installations, inspections, and repairs to help clients optimize their logistics operations.
Sometimes people don’t even realize that we can actually help with permit acquisition services.
We take a holistic look at your entire business supply chain ecosystem to develop the resources for continually improving your operation.
To learn more, visit specialracks.com or give us a call at (707) 732-3892. One of the best ways to learn more about our products and services is to follow us on Instagram. And there’s a link on our website to do that.
I will even give you my personal email address for podcast listeners, so email me at markhiddleson@aol.com if you’re ready to take your warehouse storage and retrieval systems to the next level.
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Episode Transcript:
Intro 0:01
Welcome to The Tao of Pizza, where we feature top logistics leaders, entrepreneurs, and supply chain innovators, and share their inspiring stories with a holistic twist.
Mark Hiddleson 0:14
Mark Heddon here, host of The Tao of Pizza Podcast, where I talk with top industry innovators in the warehousing, logistics, and supply chain business, with a holistic twist. Before I introduce today's guest, this episode is brought to you by Specialized Storage Solutions Inc. And we've spent decades building warehouse systems that actually work. And after hundreds of conversations with clients and peers at industry conferences nationwide. One thing is clear: innovation only matters when it shows up on the warehouse floor. Especially storage solutions, we provide industry-leading warehouse storage solutions nationwide. So, if you have a facility that needs racking, shelving, carts, conveyors, or mezzanines, we help across the full life cycle: design, engineering, installations, inspections, and repairs-all focused on real throughput, real people, and real constraints. And here's something a lot of people don't realize: we also offer permanent acquisition services. So we handle the red tape, and you don't have to. We take a holistic view at your entire supply chain ecosystem, building physical infrastructure with modern thinking around automation, flow, and adaptability. We help our clients continuously improve, not just install and move on. So, if you want to learn more, visit specialracks.com. Call us at 707-732-3892. And just for podcast listeners, I'll give you my personal email. It's markhiddleson@aol. com. Yes, I still use AOL, and yes, I am very proud of it. So, if you're ready to take your warehouse systems for where the industry is going, not where it's been, drop us a line. So today we're joined by Ryan Kalisky, co-founder and CEO at WareMatch, a collaborative marketplace and bidding platform for third-party warehouses that allows them to dynamically market their service offerings. Ryan, welcome to The Tao of Pizza.
Ryan Kalisky 2:08
I'm very happy to be here. Excited for this one.
Mark Hiddleson 2:10
Yeah, I'm glad we met. This is uh, but this is one of the most exciting aspects of our industry that I think people are. I think people in our industry and three PLs are one of our best clients. They're eager to learn more about what you do. So, share a little bit about how you got into this business. I love to hear background stories.
Ryan Kalisky 2:34
Yeah, no, for sure. So, very high level. I had a distribution company years ago, and I was on the demand side of finding a three PL, and the process of finding one was very archaic compared to booking for eight. I used to try and use matchmakers and lead generators and brokers, but what I found was there was a lack of data that stopped me from finding the best fit provider. Lead generation in the space I found was a bit backwards, and I mean not that my opinion matters, but I spoke to a lot of credible companies in the space where they would market three PLs logos. I seem to realize that a lot of three PLs have these different buildings, different value adds, different certification. I was in the medical supply space, so often I had to find three PLs that had specific certifications or temperature controls or whatnot. And brokers would push me to what I thought, or I made jokes with their buddies. I called them a bit of a glorified Google, which was great. But I, the quoting process was what I always had trouble with. So there was an issue in the space. Hit up one of my best friends, Ben, who's now my co-founder, and we said, "How can we build a platform that solves the root issue of three PL quoting, which is marketing? And we got to the think tank. Long, much longer story after that, but I don't want to talk for an hour straight here. So
Mark Hiddleson 4:00
no, I love it. So, what type of distribution were you in? It was medical. Were you selling to end users or hospitals or was um yeah I was doing a bit,
Ryan Kalisky 4:13
yeah, a bit of both. I was doing some hospital contracts, but mainly I was finding the procurement companies who were selling to hospitals where it was during the pandemic, so a lot of people were bringing in from China, and there was a very urgent need for product, and I was the guy flying. I was on a flight. I will take 80 flights in 2022. It was actually my last year of university, just going warehouse to warehouse and finding the people who had on the ground goods, and buying and selling, and that's about it. That's we keep on a whole other podcast about that, but yeah, we'll talk
Mark Hiddleson 4:51
about dynamic because my next question is going to be about dynamic, dynamically marketing, and that talk about a dynamic time is. Well, that's when that's when everyone learned the word supply chain.
Ryan Kalisky 5:03
Yeah, literally. I mean, no one even knows what supply chain means. Still, that's a joke to everyone who thinks they do. But you know, yeah. Well, no, we
Mark Hiddleson 5:10
do. I just saw. So I've been 30 years in this, and I'll admit, I really don't know because I saw this one. It broke it up into two different things, and one of them was supply chain, and the other one was more like the warehousing ecosystem, which is more where I'm involved, but it's like no, this is two different things. This is more transportation and everything else in manufacturing, and then this is just the warehousing space. So, so share, and I'm not still saying I know it either, but I was kind of shocked. You know more than me. I never looked at it like that in years, and I try to try to learn, you know, all the time. So share about what you mean that that helps companies you know dynamically market and differentiate their services and value adds things like that certifications all that.
Ryan Kalisky 5:54
This is the way I'll break it down. When you think of a three PL, it kind of sounds like a general term, and most people don't even understand what three PL is. But I'm saying, if you understand what it is, you're going to go on a 3PL site, and if you say I'm a brand, and a lot of brands understand their product, they aren't experts in supply chain because it's not really their space. They're in the space of buying and selling their own product, and most 3PLs market their buildings almost as commodities, where they show Apple Map links and minor details. And when I kind of thought, why is the quotation process broken? The root cause is because three PLs don't market their buildings as dynamically. So when I'm trying to decide between two companies, I realize I don't really care. And I and if you're watching this and I've given you a demo. I probably told you. I say no one cares about your company name. You know, they care about your building, and there was no software that really helped three PLs dynamically market all their different buildings because we have companies who have 18 buildings. Some of them have food grade certifications. Some of them are refrigerated. Some of them have hazmat. There's so many parameters on the technology side, on the certification side that I believe if I actually understood which buildings offer me which services, technologies, etc. I then can narrow down my search and hopefully send them information and and and and close a deal. The next part about it is actually organizing the incoming RFQs because there are many load boards and ways to centralize quotes for the freight or transportation space, but if I'm a big company and we have billion dollar companies who use WireMatch, and they before if they're going to use a they use lead generators they have to go and do multiple discovery calls and fill out discovery sheets multiple times, they find it redundant. So what we've been seeing, by the way, everything I say here is what we've been seeing. I'm we we don't make anything up. It's all feedback. On one end, three PLs they claim that discovery process is could be annoying because they don't get all the information they need, and people fill out half of the questions and they have to get on the phone, but then on the other end, the shipper or the brand, they're annoyed that they have to do the same questionnaires five times, so they don't give it their all. So the next component after finding the right warehouse is getting quoted out. So we've created this whole central program that allows three brands, shippers, even other three PLs. It's not only brands. It's anyone looking for a three PL to not only find suitable options but create project scopes and send the information to whoever they like at the click of a button, rather than doing it multiple times.
Mark Hiddleson 8:33
That's great. So what you've done, you've kind of because there's tension, like you said. That's because that's what when I've done these kinds of interviews or found out about this, one of the questions of my clients who are mostly three PLs, I mean, we have some shippers, but the RFQ process is painful.
Ryan Kalisky 8:50
Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 8:51
what they'll say because they're not getting the information a lot of times, and I think I find that with us, the customers don't know the answers to the questions, like how many cases per week is this case pick or pal pick, or how many how is this program going to work? Because you're also kind of a crystal ball.
Ryan Kalisky 9:04
Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 9:04
you have to know what your volume is. A lot of people who don't like you said supply chain isn't their expertise, so they don't have their metrics. If they did, they might not need a 3p.
Ryan Kalisky 9:14
You'd be surprised. It's crazy. I yeah.
Mark Hiddleson 9:16
So how do you mitigate that? I mean, what I like is that you're making the information more accessible, where it's all in one place, we don't have to answer the same question multiple times.
Ryan Kalisky 9:27
Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 9:27
But what are some other ways that you can help? I don't know about vetting. I've heard that I like the word. We had a word, you know, people could differentiate their services. You didn't like the word match, even though it's in the name. Share a little bit about why. Why is that? Because that's great.
Ryan Kalisky 9:43
Yeah, no, it's funny. Yeah, yeah, it's yeah. I don't like the word match, even though it's in our name, which is great. I love the name where it matches, but what we offer is way beyond that. So I think the word match is a very straight line and. It's very kind of datey, and it's not a space. It's a very complex space.
Mark Hiddleson 10:05
Yeah,
Ryan Kalisky 10:06
what we're trying to do because there's many three PLs, and you know three PLs. A lot of them will say it's all about relationships. That's all it is. Of course, it is. Yeah, yeah. Very much about relationships, but they tend to not speak about economics as much sometimes when I'm on the phone with them, whereas on the demand side, economics is a factor. Not that it's always a huge factor, a race to the bottom, but within the guys who are suitable, the company cares about economics every time. And we've been seeing we have a lot of data now. We have a whole consulting team that any broker will tell you cost matters. So the whole matching part-you can't just match with someone. What we're trying to do is take a specific project, because the same company could have different projects in different states and with different parameters, and different three PLs may be more suitable for them at different times for different use cases. So, WareMatch is a very project-based platform. It's a bidding platform for brands, where they come on and they could create these unique project scopes. We have a software that will take their all the parameters, fulfillment, fulfillment, technology, certification, services, all the all the things they need to tell the three PLs they're looking for. It won't match them, but it will spit out the facilities. We have a tool called WareMatch Connect. It'll show them the facilities that could actually accommodate this specific project. And then the real bottleneck is the information sending, right? Because anyone could go find you three PLs, but you want to be able to send them information. What we'll do is we have another software. It's all one software, but allows them to just send those projects to the three PLs at the click of a button. So high level, it's not matching per se, but it's showing them the buildings that can accommodate them, and then allowing all those buildings the opportunity to receive the scope or the ones that they choose to send it to because they send it. And then we have a whole platform for the three PLs to quote them out, and the brands, shippers, consultants, anyone who's looking for a three PL, it's free to use. Has a whole free dashboard to compare incoming quotes, but we have AI tools to help them summarize the qualitative as well. So what I'm saying is, the software will take their project, show them the buildings that could accommodate them and and allow them to vet them on that end, but then also ties in the economics where they can make a full a full picture decision.
Mark Hiddleson 12:32
And so
Ryan Kalisky 12:32
yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 12:33
and so it makes the RFQ. It's just stronger. It's a more accurate RFQ process that gives you access to multiple solutions, and then allows you to bid it. Like that's what makes it a bidding platform.
Ryan Kalisky 12:48
Yeah. So you said it right there. I was going to try and build into it, but what we're doing is we're really streamlining the entire RFP process, and the RP process is tied to marketing. It's tied to information. So, yeah, basically, a brand creates a project, could send it to as many three POs as he wants. The three POs could view all the parameters, decide if they even want to quote it out in the lead gen space. A lot of three POs will, because they're only marking their logo, they'll get deals they can't even if they don't even want anyway, and then they have to pay for the leads. Here, you get the project scope, you could quote it out, you actually get visibility. This is the interesting part. If I'm a brand, if I'm a three PL, and a shipper sends me an RFP, they're probably going to send it to a couple other three PLs as well. A lot of three PLs will wonder what are they being quoted, where what's the what's the competition doing? Because pricing in this space is very scope dependent. Static rate cards we don't believe in. Some people like them, but we believe that three PL should be quoted out by the project. So three PLs receive information. They could quote it out on the platform at a discovery level, and then we show them anonymously what the brand is being quoted by competing three PLs. So now we're actually giving them all live data on what quotes are coming in from competitors, but they don't know who it is, so it's not it's not it's it's non-invasive and it's actually anonymous. And what this does is it allows them to negotiate because it's a very negotiable space. Deals close based on a lot of factors. It's not linear like leasing. It's based on their PNL, their cash flow situation, their labor usage, how they optimize their facility, whatever. I'm not going to get into all that.
Mark Hiddleson 14:30
Yeah.
Ryan Kalisky 14:30
Now the brand has a clean dashboard, and I say brand. It's just a term. It can. We have three PLs finding other three PLs, consultants, all this stuff.
Mark Hiddleson 14:37
Yeah.
Ryan Kalisky 14:37
There is a huge bottleneck, and we deal with literally billion-dollar companies that have a logistics team. They're stuck receiving different quotes and doing a whole RFP analysis, but it's not centralized. So all we're doing is centralizing it for them, where they could receive incoming quotes that could change if there's a negotiation, and they could overview the whole project, fulfill it. Labeling pallet storage because some guys are going to be more expensive by the palette, but they're much more economical by the label. If it's very high, you know, pick an intensive labeling order order. If it's a project that requires a lot of labeling, they may be more economical, but the brand usually doesn't realize that, or sometimes, because there's a lot of math involved. So we're centralizing it all for them. Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 15:24
yeah, and it's great. So there's I have three questions that like I was just jumping up a bit. I want to interrupt because it's a great point. So I guess the first one I'll ask is what can three PLs do to make it? Well, let me ask this one first because that's the other one's perfect question, but this one is a little tougher. I've had three PL say they get a request from a lead, so I'll call from a WareMatch or some other lead generation source, which you're like you're saying the system's kind of broken, but also makes it broken. Sometimes they'll directly reach out to the client, and so now they're bidding it through this. They see it pop up on this dashboard, on this one, and it's like, do you want to bid it on all three? And then you want to bid it directly to the client. It's like I'm also bidding it here. So, how do you handle that opportunity?
Ryan Kalisky 16:20
So this is what we do, and look, the lead gen space-it's great. There's always-it's a space where the supply they always have to a certain extent is available. It's not like it's not like Airbnb or like leasing where your building's full all the time. All these three PLs are always hungry to a certain extent. Not all, but don't mean to generalize.
Mark Hiddleson 16:41
Yeah,
Ryan Kalisky 16:42
Lead generation is great. What I like to say is, to a certain extent, it's a gamble because nothing's guaranteed, and a lot of times they'll they'll it's them bringing you deals. So how many three PLs can one company fill at once? Not all of them, which is fine, but it's just math, you know. We want to help three PLs with their own marketing, because all of these three PLs or most of them have sales teams that are trying to find their own clients. So what we do is we license out our software. It's all included in the plan where they have a listing on WareMatch, but they actually could embed that listing on their own websites with a built-in quote management system, so very basically, the RFP builder we use on the marketplace they use on their own website is completely white labeled. So it really replaces the whole discovery form they have, where in their back end or their account or their dashboard on WareMatch, they have a separate portal for their own quotes, it's their own data, where it's just a tool for companies with 10 buildings to tie digital marketing to quote intake. So all of their RFPs from their website and for each of their buildings flow to one spot, where they could then assign RFP managers because big companies could have 15 buildings. They could have different people managing RFPs for each facility or whatnot. So it's one central platform that allows them to market, but also receive RFQs and then organize it better. Now we have another because it's a collaborative platform, and thank you for mentioning that at the beginning. It's a message we're trying to get out there.
Mark Hiddleson 18:16
Yeah,
Ryan Kalisky 18:19
a lot of three PLs, for example, they'll lead SEO or AEO in their specific region, and they'll get a lot of leads because they're on the top of whatever engine people are searching on. But they may not be able to accommodate every scope they get. So there's a lot. There's a huge overflow capacity for PL. Four PL is, I mean, a big space where everyone has a network. You know, and I meet so many people. Yeah, I have networks, networks, of course, but only a software to look at all the data for a project and tell you which of your partners can handle it best. So we have a tool. It's called the 4PL network. That a 3PL could receive an incoming request from their own customer if they decide that they can't handle it or it's in a different state, whatever it is, they could click a button and send that project to other three PLs on WareMatch. So consider you have your own network, and that's why consultants love using us. Warehouse vendors, Jose invested in us because he started using WareMatch for his own deals. It's free, where he has a lot of warehouses he knows. WareMatch. All it does is it centralizes all them for him on a map, so he could take his own project. The software will just tell him which provider could or which providers could do it, and he'll send the scope out and also organize the incoming quotes and close the deals quicker, Right, so it's what we do for that is we allow them to market on the marketplace. There's a lot of demand out there, and then we let them use our tools to market dynamically on their own website. And I say dynamically because a lot of three PLs their marketing is so static because anytime you want to change your website, you have to go to your. Website guy and edit your landing pages. Our whole model of embedding allows them to change their website or their service offerings. Or if they just integrated with a new software, they could go and actually update that on their own website by just clicking buttons on their WareMatch dashboard. It's a space where marketing service offerings, everything you offer changes all the time, and the fact that website marketing is rather static has not fit the mold, and that's the gap we're also fitting into, which is why we have users in four continents already. Because we have customers in other, literally other continents, they know they're not going to get much traction because marketplace traction comes when there's a bunch of users. We're growing in those regions, but until there's as many clients in the UK as there are in North America, they're really paying us a very light subscription fee to modernize the way they market and receive RFPs for their own customers.
Mark Hiddleson 20:58
Before I ask my next question, which is how to optimize working with you? What can they do and stuff? How do people engage with three PLs? Is it a fee monthly? Yeah, based on the contracts or what's it what's it based on?
Ryan Kalisky 21:13
Our whole goal is that we think that every building should be marketed as its own company because if I'm a brand, I don't care. I mean, sometimes I do if I want East Coast, West Coast, but more, more of, more of the time they care about buildings. So we want to help three POs market each facility, so we charge by the building or by the property. But like, it's 70. It's basically 75 bucks a property, and then a 150 flat fee for the company that gets spread at like it's 150 plus 75 a building, meaning that one building is 225, two buildings is 303, buildings is 375. It's 75 bucks an additional building. Now what happens is a lot of companies may have 15 properties. I mean if all of them are vacant, then they shouldn't. They're probably screwed already. But we always, you know, let's say they have six they want to market.
Mark Hiddleson 22:07
Yeah,
Ryan Kalisky 22:08
We'll charge them for the six buildings to be on the marketplace. But we also want to help them with their own website. So some companies want to market all their facilities just to show their portfolio. We'll give them a rather massive discount on the buildings that are just going to be on their own website basically cover their hosting fees and a bit more, just so we can help them beyond the marketplace, because there's no marketplace that could fill every building, and we want to help them with their own marketing too. And then we also rebuild full websites for three PLs. There's a few really gorgeous ones we just did that are making their presentation better, and also allowing them to market better and receive information better.
Mark Hiddleson 22:45
Interesting. So that kind of segues into my next question: What else can three PLs do to you know to work with you to optimize the relationship? What are some other things?
Ryan Kalisky 22:58
So we already spoke about how they can market better, they could receive quotes better, and they could organize their entire network better. Okay, the next thing we're helping them with, I mean, we actually just released a partnership to help three PLs claim refunds on late parcel shipments from a few big companies, where we did a very cool partnership, which a press release will be released soon. So stay tuned for that. Where our three PLs or brands are just going to put in their account number for, let's say FedEx, and we're going to just be able to automatically file any return refund claims that they can get for late shipments that they didn't know about. There's a lot of data plays we're working on to help. Right now, we give you a blank rate card and say quote it out. But there's a lot of negotiation involved, and we're going to try and help three PLs look into their own costs to help them, or basically let them know this is your threshold of negotiation when you're going to quote someone out. We want to help them know where they should quote based on their own costs, there's a lot of cool partnerships we're working on with integration companies. But the coolest thing that I think is that we're helping them with their AEO, which is their answer engine optimization, which means that everyone knows about SEO. Every three PL I get on, they know about SEO. It's search engine optimization, getting to the top of Google. SEO, we believe, is a bit outdated, and I mean, I say this on every on every Zoom. I speak to people of every continent, everywhere. I say, hey, can you agree that the search process is evolving from Google to all the AI engines? I mean, Google is also Gemini now, so even SEO has changed on Google. Everyone said yes. Say yes. When you build a listing on WareMatch, you're actually giving the software a ton of keyword information on your building. All the technologies you put are things that brands are going to look up. All of the certifications you put are things that brands are going to look up. What we do is we partner up with a very. Sophisticated SEO company. They're really, really like Microsoft, ex Shopify. Very, very smart group. They usually only work with massive, huge companies, but they want to tap into the SME space. High level, we have AEO products where they will be issuing blog posts and LLM optimized back links, and I don't want to start naming these things because I'll mess up. I don't understand it either. Yeah, it's not my thing.
Mark Hiddleson 25:28
No, we had someone do a report on it. I have it, and I'm supposed to read it, and I haven't looked at it like we went through it together. But I've looked, and it was GEO. So is GEO the same as AEO, or what's?
Ryan Kalisky 25:39
It's it's it's it's a part of the same umbrella. I'll be honest, for the sake of not looking like a fool, I'm. It's not. I like to talk about what I'm good at. I always set everyone up on a call with them, and they have an. I call it an AI battle where they just talk about AI and absolutely all that stuff, and we just sit back and listen. You know you like me, but the partnership is that, and they'll tell you they don't know. There's so many dynamic features about the three PL that the discovery process for them is probably crazy. Imagine what all the certs that your 15 buildings have. So, WareMatch customers get a huge discount for their products because they use the listings as an information framework to understand everything about the issue, then the appropriate content. That makes sense.
Mark Hiddleson 26:26
It does. And just to clarify,
Ryan Kalisky 26:28
yeah.
Mark Hiddleson 26:28
Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry.
Ryan Kalisky 26:31
My last line is why I offer that is because it allows WareMatch customers to grow beyond the marketplace by using our software, which simply acts as an information framework for the AEO team.
Mark Hiddleson 26:47
Say that again, please, for the great country boy.
Ryan Kalisky 26:52
There's no, there's no marketplace lead gen, whatever you want to call it, in the world that could fill every three PL at once, and we very well understand that. When you're paying a subscript, when you're paying a subscription, you're not paying for leads on WareMatch. You're paying for a software that helps you grow, it helps you market, it helps you receive quotes, it gives you visibility. Right? What this AEO product does is it allows WareMatch to provide value to our customers beyond leads they get from the marketplace, right? So now we are helping them with their own growth. Like we're not helping a three PL grow on WareMatch. We're helping them grow on their own because they're embedding the listings on their own website. They're using WareMatch's software, which is the listing, which has all the information on them. Okay, to let the AEO team know everything about them, so they could issue the perfect or best blog posts or whatever you want to call it. So when anyone goes on GBT or Clone or Perplexity and says, because the thing is, like GBT knows everything about me, right? Right. Let's look at the. Let's talk about the difference between Google search and GBT. Google search knows my last 10 searches. GBT knows literally the last nine meals I ate and everything about WareMatch because I ask it everything. So does everyone, right? So all you have to do is ask GBT a simple question: What three PLs should I use for this project? If it doesn't, I mean, it'll ask. Usually, it knows everything about you, but GBT will. You can write a massive prompt. I need a warehouse that integrates with this WMS and that ERP and is this certification. It'll read the web, and you want it to recommend you as a three PL. And I always tell people, you're not depending on a lead gen. If you're depending on a lead gen or a marketplace, and you don't want to spend any more money to grow. You're spending all this money on operations, but if you think you could just spend nothing on growth and it's just going to come because of the network, you're going to fall behind in this AI future.
Mark Hiddleson 28:51
Absolutely.
Ryan Kalisky 28:51
So we're we're we're helping three PLs dive into this space in a very easy way, where all they have to do is make a very easy listing, and we're basically doing the rest of the work for them, and we're helping them grow beyond leads.
Mark Hiddleson 29:06
Yeah, because if you want to grow, you need to be
Ryan Kalisky 29:08
recommended. But it's the right
Mark Hiddleson 29:09
clients. Like you're not just filling your space, like you said, because yeah, logo or you had the best search engine optimization that was just based on whatever. But this is what you're talking about. You take your actual things that make unique certifications, special skill sets. If you've got shipping to the major players, that's great. This is a lot of fun. So I want to shift gears a little bit. Unless there's any, is there anything else that you wanted to say about that or the differentiator? Because I think that you really nailed it for me.
Ryan Kalisky 29:40
I can yeah, you know I could talk. Anyone knows me, I could talk for hours. But the last thing I'll say is the whole point is you're right. Lead gens, you'll pay them, and again they could work. I always recommend three PLs. Put your eggs in as many baskets as you can. You're trying to grow. Lead gens are not competing over three PLs because for three PLs they're helping you get demand. You know.
Mark Hiddleson 29:58
Yeah.
Ryan Kalisky 29:59
But. The whole point is like you, in my opinion, at least, you don't want to get a 1000 leads a day or a month. Not that anyone does anyway, or some people do, I guess, because there a lot of them are a waste of time for you. Now, one contract closing, or we have three PLs who have paid a few 100 bucks a month and they've they've made millions in revenue in their first few months,
Mark Hiddleson 30:21
yeah.
Ryan Kalisky 30:21
Now, not that you have to make millions of revenue to pay for your WareMatch subscription, for example. But if you want to look at it economically, one trade show costs 20 grand for I don't know what you spent when you went to Shop Talk. So you're spending 20 grand for two days to meet people with non guaranteed ROI. The whole goal is it's you're spending a few grand a year, which is less than your flight anywhere or meal or whatever, and one contract closes in your first five years, and you're in an economical green already. So, anyone, I mean, we've been growing really fast. The economics haven't been an issue, but anyone who's like, "Oh, it's expensive, if you don't want to spend 75 bucks a month to market, then I don't know what type of customers you're trying to get about output. Yeah, and if you want a free product, get a free product. Just expect less or don't. I don't know enough.
Mark Hiddleson 31:05
Yeah, and the value of the AI. I mean, the way I would call it, and it's probably not the right language, but it's like a bolt-on, or I would call it like your white labeling SEO for your company that's already been built for your industry by experts who are already partnered with the right people. Kind of makes it a no brainer, and I've heard that all those campaigns, no matter what you do, like we could have ours optimized for GEO today or AEO, and then in a month it won't be relevant because unless you're doing those blog posts and back links and everything else, like you're talking about, it's
Ryan Kalisky 31:36
yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 31:37
you're back to Google basically, right? Is that
Ryan Kalisky 31:39
yeah?
Mark Hiddleson 31:40
So I want to change gears a little bit. What inspired you to start a company? Because it's a different journey that not everybody chooses. I'm always curious. Have you always been an entrepreneur? What was your inspiration that you like? I'm gonna do this.
Ryan Kalisky 31:56
I had a formal GPA, McGill. I was a finance guy. I had no entrepreneurability. I did five internships. One of them was at Colliers in real estate, where I was on the data team and I was helping them analyze the data on leasing trends. And one thing that I kind of realized that summer was like a lot of industrial real estate, and it's crazy because in the industrial real estate space, they don't know much about three PLL, and it's one of the leading tenants in the space, right? But the danger client, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like the same way, and you know what I realized? You know what? The same way that a landlord just cares about receiving rent, the same way they don't know how many clothes their manufacturing or you know distribution client tenant has in stock, they don't know how many pallet availability or whatever that their three PL has because it's not their space. It's the same as a different industry. Anyway, I always wondered if this place is occupied. It's a tenant, but how much space do they have? I don't know why I always obsess over that. It's a weird thing to obsess over as a 20 something year old, but whatever. I'm a chill guy. Promise, it's one thing I always wanted. Anyways, then I ended up. I did investment banking after it wasn't for me. I hated the lifestyle. I was working till two in the morning doing BS work, in my opinion. Ended up. Long story short, getting into the medical supply space. Every time I talk about that, it ends up being 40 minutes. So I'll just say, I started this distribution company. Throughout that process, because I was financing goods with my own money, I literally flew to every three PL I dealt with. Because one time, a three PL messed up the shipment, and I lost money. So I said, you know what? I'm going to go make sure that they don't mess up. And then when I got there, I was in California. I said, "Hey, why did they mess up? And it was purely because of the communication issue. It was a communication issue. Anyways, I ended up taking 80 flights in 2022. I was 21 years old and still in my last year of university. I didn't really go to class, but I said, you know what? I was importing a bunch of products. I got a few cool government contracts. I felt like I was helping the world. I loved the concept of working for myself. I was doing whatever I wanted. I mean, you know, I literally had no place to be besides where I needed to be.
Mark Hiddleson 34:10
Yeah,
Ryan Kalisky 34:10
and I realized there was an actual problem in this space because I was a user. I had a tiny company, obviously, but then I was doing business, and some of them are actually investors in WareMatch today, partners in billion-dollar supply chain companies, and like here, if I said if I said to you, Mark, I need to get I need to catch a ride from point A to point B. Where would you tell me to do? Okay, I need to. And yeah, what would you tell me to do?
Mark Hiddleson 34:36
Google it. I would call Uber. Call Uber. Yeah,
Ryan Kalisky 34:39
whatever. Yeah, Uber. Exactly. Right.
Mark Hiddleson 34:41
Yeah.
Ryan Kalisky 34:42
Now, I would always ask people and incredible, incredible people. Hey, and I would, I actually would fly to cities and I would sit down with people because I was just curious. I'd say, hey, like, what do you, what do you use for three PL sourcing? Everyone had different answers, so that doesn't mean that someone hasn't tried to tackle it yet. Definitely, people.
Mark Hiddleson 35:00
Yeah.
Ryan Kalisky 35:01
The first thing I thought was okay. There's a huge room too. It's a low hanging fruit because there's no one player. Why is there no one player? In my opinion, maybe because not everyone's happy with one solution, and I really well realized that there's many different models and complexities to this whole process. So we just took feedback. I mean, our CTO Rahul, who me and Ben hired right off the gate. I mean, that's a whole other story. But still, I still live here in our office. He flew in from Edmonton, and we're just grinding hard. But we've just been taking feedback, and we built a model that works for almost everybody. And why do I like working for myself? Because that's pretty self-explanatory. We're about 15 people now. I'm 27. I'm the oldest guy here. While we have Liam, who's in his 50s, we have a great time. We're growing really fast, and obviously, it's just a good time. So that's what I could say.
Mark Hiddleson 35:55
Dynamite. I love that story because I started a company in the same way. I just saw an opportunity. I kept, you know, I was missing opportunities. wasn't able to serve our customers in the way I thought of with used equipment like mezzanines, platforms, and conveyors. There were some complexities that distributors didn't want to deal with. It's like, well, yeah, it's going to be more complicated if we do this. Like, but yeah, but that's where the industry is going. Like, it's so that that's a great story, and then you had the right partners, and then you talked to the right people. That you've had a lot of support too, is what I hear you saying.
Ryan Kalisky 36:28
Yeah, no, a ton of support. I mean, I have like I have like I'm gonna make a movie out of this startup one day. I like so much content, which is great. But like even before we launched, I had clients who had three PLs, and they gave me the time of day to come present to their whole office. So I have videos of me. We are now 15 people. It was me, Ben Rahul, on one desk and a pen, a pen, and we went and made the shittiest presentation ever to this 20. I have a video, 20 person company. I have this. I'm still watching the video. We liked the presentation, our software looked terrible. Nothing worked. Our business model made no sense. We were going to take payments for every single deal and then handle the payments. We, I can't believe that. And they actually were like, "Oh, this is cool, you know. But we, our original first of all, when we raised capital, we raised a few million bucks last year. Our product was terrible, in my opinion, and our business model was terrible. But I think everyone who was involved believed in just the team. They believed in what we were building towards, and they kind of lightly said these guys are going to figure it out because they will not stop until they do. And what we did is we just took a ton of feedback. We know everyone is trying to do this. No one's doing the whole white label self marketing. What we've seen is lead gen stops if there's no leads. Right. So if a lead generator doesn't bring you leads, then there's not much value, and that's because we're the first private equity, we're the first institutionally backed company doing three PL marketing basically globally. So when you say like why do we use you all like you know amongst the the product I think is very cool and anyone could go make their own opinion. But like we just have resources that most people don't and we're going to utilize them and we are we have been
Mark Hiddleson 38:19
awesome. So I have a couple. We talked about this before the interview, but I was telling you that I've been friends and have a relationship with Patrick McBride and affiliated, and was talking about what they do, and then you shared something about how your platform could help them. So would you mind sharing? Yeah, because it was a great point that you made, where I was just kind of, whoa, that was cool.
Ryan Kalisky 38:43
Yeah, yeah. So, like I said, a collaborative marketplace.
Mark Hiddleson 38:47
Right.
Ryan Kalisky 38:47
What we're doing is we're the tech company that helps three PLs market better. We want to get them visibility in front of everyone. We have an eight person sales team that goes and tackles deals too, similar to affiliates. But there's many different, you know, obviously many more supplies for companies like that. We're a free tool for them to use to organize their networks because they have networks that may be in their own database or in wherever they could find three PLs to send deals to, and they could organize their own networks. Where we're a software that allows them to have their projects bid on, as well as centralize all the incoming RFPs they get, so they could optimize whatever project they're doing for their customer for themselves. I'm not sure what their revenue model is if they're taking a rev share or if they're brokering it. Whatever it is, it's not that the tech is good. The tech, I mean, I love our tech, but it's really like talking about building things on Close. You could go build Facebook on Clode, the software of the marketplace, but it's the people. So what we do is we centralize all the information for them, and it's a free tool that allows them to organize deals. And for us, the value is it brings traction to all the three POs on. There, as well as the fact that they can offer WareMatch to their own customers to help them beyond leads they get. Because if I use affiliates, I'm sure there's other services, but they probably won't help them with their own websites and their own SEO and stuff like that. So we're trying to encompass the beyond leads value,
Mark Hiddleson 40:16
and it's free to them because you're looking at them as more of a shipper because they're not filling. Yeah, they're don
Ryan Kalisky 40:21
wets. com. It's free. Anyone on the demand side for now is free, which is great for anyone on the demand side. But yeah, it's completely free for them, and it's non-invasive because we're making a subscription from the three PL. Look, if our sales team brings a three PL lead, or or a four PL, it's between them to discuss their commission. Our sales team is our consultants who use WareMatch. Think of it like a real estate agency, where they represent their own brands, but WareMatch provides them with software that they could take projects, find buildings, and close deals faster. So the three POs actually have a dashboard that shows leads that come from the marketplace, which there's no revenue share. It's completely them, and then they have another dashboard for four PL leads, so they know there's a guy in the middle who may want to cut, and it's up to them to negotiate. There's no set term, so yeah, it's a very clear way for them to connect with three PLs and make their process perhaps more efficient because we're really a tech company, you know. The brokerage comes, but we're a tech company, so we've been partnering with a bunch of brokerages to help them optimize everything. That's what I could say best.
Mark Hiddleson 41:33
Dynamite, dynamite. So I want to ask. I like that
Ryan Kalisky 41:36
word. I'm going to start saying dynamite. It's a good word.
Mark Hiddleson 41:38
It is.
Ryan Kalisky 41:39
I like that. Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 41:40
It's good. I use it cautiously, but I get excited. Yeah, great. I get excited when I learn new opportunities, and like I don't think if you don't ask a question, people aren't thinking. Like I wasn't. I've known them for a long time. I wasn't thinking that's an opportunity. But what's the best way to engage? People want to reach out to you. I know I met Chloé Harkness. I know you can reach out to Chloé on LinkedIn. She's in your marketing. But what are the other ways to engage or learn more about you? And
Ryan Kalisky 42:11
yeah, wearmatch.com. You book a demo. ryan@wearmatch.com is my email. Email me unless you're spamming me with stuff I don't want to, I don't want to read. Then please don't. You know what? We call them the Were Girls, Chloé and Leah. They just started a whole whole series, and they're going to release another one today. They just did their first one yesterday. They went on the streets and they ask people, "Do you know what a three PL is? Today they asked people, "Do you ever go on my LinkedIn after you see it? I'm going to post another one after this. But today they went around and or it was the same video. Have you ever ordered something online? Yes. How does it get to you? Everyone's like, you know. So it's funny because I've given lectures at universities and like you walk. The first thing I ask is, has anyone ever ordered something off like Shopify, and they're like, "Yeah, well, how does it get to you? I don't know. What they don't realize is Shopify is a software that connects merchants to three PLs and to companies. So, for three PLs, it's a software that lets them know when the orders are coming, you know. But they don't realize that the three PL-its the backbone of society, in my opinion.
Mark Hiddleson 43:20
Yeah,
Ryan Kalisky 43:21
Everyone wants stuff. We're all consumers, and no one, even industrial landlords. We had a whole product for industrial landlords, by the way. I guess I'll just give the pitch now because I'm on a podcast. But three PLs often expand because they get contracts, and their customer wants to expand, so they go lease a building up. So we have a product for industrial landlords to market empty space for three PL, and we market it for three PLs because all of our users are three PLs. And the thing about WareMatch is because three PLs are using it for their own websites, they're actually on the marketplace. So, by the way, for your company, we have a whole marketplace for you to market the three PLs all year round to 150 a month. It's like a virtual trade show. The way we look at it is, companies go to trade shows. They spend 20 grand for two days. Sometimes they get leads. Sometimes they don't. So for 1600 bucks a year, it's like the Facebook where we're getting you to high buying your screens a little bit, and you're getting visibility to all the people you want to meet in-person But the difference between us and a lead gen is that, in my opinion, is that I like to say in my opinion to protect myself. Yeah, is that if I go on a lead generator, it's great. But if I'm gonna just sit back and wait for the leads, what people are three PLs use their WareMatch dashboard to receive RFQs from their own clients as well as to update their own website, so it's actually an active platform for companies like you, Mark, to market to because they're you're actually getting visibility on it, and there's a bunch of other stuff. But yeah, anyway, so industrial landlords market to three PLs, we have a product for them too.
Mark Hiddleson 44:55
Yeah, I can't wait to tell my friends in the real estate industry, because, you know we're part. Of the like, I call it the good old boy network. You called it something else like just the way people have networked without tech or just relationships. So you've explained some things that a lot of people haven't experienced in this space. Now I know why Chloé's so sharp because she got it from you and you just have it. You've seen the problem, and I can tell because I've been in this business for a long time. I know. Yeah, no, cry about all the problems, right?
Ryan Kalisky 45:25
So, you know what? It's honestly, it's a pretty simple problem, a complex, simple problem. But this is, I could have said this on. I guess the podcast is still on. You could cut it in. The people who understand this problem are too deep into their own business, where they're not going to fix it for an industry, they're dealing with it. So, throughout my old company, a lot of people were complaining about the RFP process, but they're not. I'm saying, well, you know, they're like, yeah, well, that's what it is. I'm too busy with my own operation. So I was 25 or 24 when I, I'm like, you know what? Let's just put all my savings aside, and everyone is telling me that they're having an issue, so let's just solve the issue. I'm sure we can make money if we solve an issue, and that's where we are. That's what I should have said before. But anyways,
Mark Hiddleson 46:11
I can't wait to share all this. I want to be the first. What's
Ryan Kalisky 46:13
Your company is called, Mark?
Mark Hiddleson 46:15
It's called Specialized Storage Solutions, and it's in California. There's some other specialized storage systems and other ones that sound the same, but we're Specialized Storage Solutions in Napa, California.
Ryan Kalisky 46:25
Give me a five letter abbreviation for your company.
Mark Hiddleson 46:29
Five letter abbreviation. Yeah,
Ryan Kalisky 46:31
yeah. Guess what I'm gonna do?
Mark Hiddleson 46:35
Yeah.
Ryan Kalisky 46:35
So yeah, give me try and give me a five letter
Mark Hiddleson 46:38
S S I.
Ryan Kalisky 46:42
Okay, so we're gonna do it. Sorry, I'm gonna give you to anyone who signs up with Mark H1. That's gonna be the code is gonna get 10% off of their subscription. So we're gonna do a referral deal, me and you, on the podcast.
Mark Hiddleson 46:58
Awesome.
Ryan Kalisky 46:58
That shows a partnership where you get referral income, and we and then we give 10% off. So I chose a partnership. So I do a bunch of referral deals because we're just trying to get traction out. So our costs are pretty low on everything, and we're working with a bunch of companies too, and they're referring to our business, and we actually have three PLs who, on the other end of it, we have three PLs who pay a few 100 bucks a month. They are really good at SEO, and they're in Texas. They sent us deals that they couldn't handle because they lead SEO, but they're not big enough, or they don't have the capabilities. They've actually got paid more off commissions from our sales team, and they've paid us on a membership. So, wow! Don't worry, we're not just robots; we're humans too. And there's a lot of business to do that. The data will help us all sit together. But Mark H1, I'll set that up after this, and you'll go and broadcast it out to your customers, and they'll get a discount on their membership.
Mark Hiddleson 47:57
Dynamite! And I think we'll pull.
Ryan Kalisky 47:59
We'll do that for three months. We'll do that for three months because I can't be giving that forever because
Mark Hiddleson 48:04
I love it. Put a time frame on it. So this probably won't come. I mean, it won't come out for a few weeks, but I'll let you know when it comes out. But it'll be a 90 day start. I'll
Ryan Kalisky 48:13
do nine. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 48:15
yeah. And then, I might have people signing up before this is released. That's why I'm giving.
Ryan Kalisky 48:20
I'm giving. I'm giving it to you now and then we'll figure it out. Whatever you get if you bring me a ton of people in those two weeks, we'll figure it out. But we're just trying to get traction. Our user economics are great, just because we have all in-house tech, so I could afford to give some discounts, even though the price is pretty cheap. But I'm trying to grow. We're trying to, you know, try to grow here. So
Mark Hiddleson 48:38
Yeah, I appreciate that. is really generous, and thank you again. This has been awesome.
Ryan Kalisky 48:42
Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 48:43
and we'll stay connected. I appreciate it.
Ryan Kalisky 48:45
Thanks, man. Very, very nice to get on here.
Outro 48:50
Thanks for listening to The Tao of Pizza Podcast. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.
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