This episode features a conversation with Rodney Manzo ‘04, Founder and CEO of Anvyl, a company that strives to bring intelligent and connected supply chains to customers around the world.
This episode features a conversation with Rodney Manzo, Founder and CEO of Anvyl, a company that strives to bring intelligent and connected supply chains to customers around the world.
Rodney has a demonstrated history of launching products around the world. His skill sets span operations management, international supply chains, cost negotiations, analytics, systems engineering and team building. Prior to starting at Anvyl, Rodney was a Senior Director of Supply Chain at Harry’s and a Global Supply Manager at Apple. He also served in the United States Army as a Combat Engineer during tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Rodney received his Bachelor's Degree in Management and Systems Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and his Masters in Business Administration focused in Finance and Operations from Columbia Business School.
In this episode of On Point, Rodney Manzo discusses his career as a combat engineer in the Army, the effect that maintaining a rigorous daily routine can have on consistency, how mentors are extremely important while in the military and throughout your career, and the trials, tribulations, and ultimate successes related to starting his own supply chain company.
---------------
"I think the biggest piece of feedback for anyone that's in the military, transitioning out of the military is get mentors, get good smart people, very experienced people around you. When I was at the military I had zero, when I was transitioning, zero. I was so clueless going into West Point about careers. I knew I liked banking? But what is banking? consulting? What would you do as a consultant? I was clueless. Where, if you talk to someone, they'll tell you very quickly and efficiently what that is and you're living through them. So from that mistake, I definitely course corrected later in my professional life. - Rodney Manzo
---------------
(01:48) Segment: AAR - After Action Review
(03:13) Rodney’s track and field experience
(03:58) His experience at West Point
(06:35) Life as a combat engineer in the Army
(13:12) Mentorship at West Point
(17:26) Segment: Sit Rep
(21:10) Joining early startups
(22:50) Challenges faced switching companies
(26:03) What is Anvyl?
(27:36) Starting Anvyl
(30:37) Advice for starting a business
(33:01) Segment: SOP - Standard Operating Procedure
(34:34) Structuring a CEO’s daily routine
(39:24) Strengths of veteran entrepreneurs
(40:36) Segment: Giving Back
---------------
West Point Association of Graduates
---------------
---------------
[00:00:00] Narrator: Hello and welcome to On Point.
This episode features a conversation with Rodney Manzo, Founder and CEO of Anvyl, a technology platform that brings intelligent and connected supply chains to customers worldwide.
Rodney has a demonstrated history of launching products around the world. Prior to starting Anvyl, Rodney was a Senior Director of Supply Chain at Harry’s and a Global Supply Manager at Apple. He also served in the United States Army as a Combat Engineer during tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Rodney received his Bachelor's Degree in Management and Systems Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and his Masters in Business Administration focused in Finance and Operations from Columbia Business School.
In this episode of On Point, Rodney Manzo discusses his career as a combat engineer in the Army, the effect that maintaining a rigorous daily routine can have on consistency, how mentors are extremely important while in the military and throughout your career, and the trials, tribulations, and ultimate successes related to starting his own supply chain company.
Now, please enjoy this interview between Rodney Manzo, and your hosts Tim Hsia and Lance Dietz.
[00:01:36] Tim Hsia: Welcome to OnPoint. I'm your host, Tim Hsia West Point class of 2004
[00:01:40] Lance Dietz: and I'm Lance Dietz class of 2008.
[00:01:43] Tim Hsia: And today we're joined by Rodney Manzo, a fellow class of 2004 for country and core. Rodney, how are you?
[00:01:49] Rodney Manzo: Well, thanks for having me, Lance and Tim excited to be here.
[00:01:53] Tim Hsia: Awesome. Thank you. Uh, let's get into our first segment AR or for our non-military listeners after action review in this segment, [00:02:00] we'd like to touch on specifically what other veterans can learn from you, your process, and your journey to start off with Rodney.
[00:02:06] Tim Hsia: Could you please talk about your decision to attend west point?
[00:02:10] Rodney Manzo: Yeah, I think a lot of people could resonate with this. I didn't have any family in the military. I was like the first one to go or to even think about it. And it was just happenstance. My junior year, I started running track. I thought I was going to go to school and play basketball my entire life.
[00:02:27] Rodney Manzo: What I realized I wasn't going to basketball, but I can jump really high. I happen to be at west point and, um, I was beating everybody out west point at the time, whatever they were doing. So immediately the coaches started recruiting me and it was. Stuck. And I was like, you know what? I want to go to west point.
[00:02:43] Rodney Manzo: The funny thing is when I started our day, the coaches weren't really sure if I was even going to be there. So they were like, just looking for me to make sure I actually attended, but it was just luck. There was like nothing outside of beautiful campus. Great program. Great history. It was just [00:03:00] blind luck.
[00:03:00] Rodney Manzo: And then I fell in love with west point and then the military. So I
[00:03:04] Tim Hsia: ran into you probably on our date. I will admit I was the worst cadet during beast spirits, um, the worst and you know that. And so there's no denying that. I remember you as an amazing cadet all throughout everything, beast, barracks, and beyond.
[00:03:17] Tim Hsia: What were your events in track and field?
[00:03:20] Rodney Manzo: I appreciate you saying that you are not bad cadet. I was a generalist, so I did a lot of multi mints. I did heptathlon, pentathlon and decathlon, but I really was focused on hurdles and the jumps, I was just in between everything. I was not really. I was not really like strong, but I was okay in a lot of different events, which naturally I went into those.
[00:03:41] Rodney Manzo: So I was very fortunate, great career. I was able to captain my senior year, which I think was a great privilege. And there were so many just unbelievable athletes. One of our classmates, Jeff Weaver, Adam Burke, just world, truly world-class athletes that came out of our.
[00:03:57] Tim Hsia: And what type of cadet where you, I know, but I think [00:04:00] it'd be helpful for our listeners to know.
[00:04:01] Tim Hsia: Okay. I
[00:04:01] Rodney Manzo: never walked an hour. If that's any indicator of anything, I'm sure listeners or west pointers are non, but you walk an hour when you do something bad. I was very, very regimented, very focused, very by the book when I was doing track, I was also like a company commander for Sergeant things like that.
[00:04:19] Rodney Manzo: So it was really ingrained into the cadet life. I really loved it. My friends make fun of me about that because whatever you call yourself, a slug or correspond or whatever, maybe. They were like, you're the biggest core squad slug. I know it was funny, but I was a really focused kid. I truly, I did love the academy and what it was, however I will say was one of the most difficult things I've ever done going there.
[00:04:40] Rodney Manzo: I don't think people realize how truly difficult what's pointing is and what a challenge it is. You can be the smartest person on the planet. Most athletic doesn't matter. You're going to be tested. And, um, it was tough, but I loved it. How do you
[00:04:51] Tim Hsia: think your experience at west point might be helping you in your current career or even in the army?
[00:04:57] Tim Hsia: I think
[00:04:58] Rodney Manzo: there's a few things. The [00:05:00] first is I like to get pushed and I'm not comfortable with just the status quo, whether that's, you know, running track, painful workouts going through like, um, you know, when I was a kid at aerosol school was, you know, a little difficult or ranger school, Sapper school, whatever it may be being deployed multiple times, the first is just pushing your.
[00:05:18] Rodney Manzo: And being comfortable with not being comfortable. The second is detailed oriented and very focused on the little things that's been helpful. Like throughout like west point my career throughout whatever company I've been at. And lastly, just like focusing on people, like people are the most important asset you can have.
[00:05:38] Rodney Manzo: And I mentioned like my track team, when you're in the army and deployed with all the engineers I was with and here as a company, you know, we have 50 plus people, a handbill people are the number one priority for you, but those are the three things I think about constantly. And what was your matrix? Yeah.
[00:05:54] Rodney Manzo: So what I tell people, I'm a weirdo because what I did academically and [00:06:00] professionally really is one single thread. I was a systems engineer with business. Really? It's an industrial engineer study of supply chain. How to make things more efficient. When I was an engineer officer, I'm going a little bit more broad into the major, really two roles.
[00:06:14] Rodney Manzo: Like I always say this like kinetic and non-kinetic like kinetic with jumping out of planes, blowing things up and non I was the master or load planner, logistician purchasing agent. Buying building and moving things globally and continue to do that post military life. But I was crazy to do the same thing in different modes and different means throughout my career.
[00:06:35] Rodney Manzo: But it's short answer as a system, industrial engineer and a business. And let's
[00:06:40] Tim Hsia: fast forward to the army and the army. You were a combat engineer with tours to Afghanistan, Iraq. What was that experience? Like,
[00:06:46] Rodney Manzo: try to talk about this in a few ways with non-military people, number one, it's intrinsically probably the best time I've ever had in my life.
[00:06:56] Rodney Manzo: And I know that that's really weird to say, but it's like a very [00:07:00] few times when everyone just truly cares about each other and you're doing the same thing and focus on the same exact mission. You don't have that in like the business world in the business world, people are focused on different things, right?
[00:07:12] Rodney Manzo: You can be focused on your family. You can be focused on pay your profession, a title there. It's not that all that stuff goes out the window and you're just focused on the same thing. The second thing that I tell people is like, I would see my impact on a daily basis, what I was doing this Rob Clarence.
[00:07:26] Rodney Manzo: So we'd go out and we'd be clearing routes over and over again, whether it was for the military, like the army partners or it was for even civilians. And what we could see is like for removing minds and stuff from people dying from, which was at the time for us, like in need of pea and other explosives were like the number one cause of death.
[00:07:45] Rodney Manzo: So every day you saw it impact. And lastly that brotherhood sisterhood, it was just a unbelievable time. But as you can imagine, being deployed is always difficult. My second deployment, 15 months, you get whatever, two weeks off you don't have a family. [00:08:00] Now I do actually cannot imagine what it would be like with the family, which all my soldiers, not all, but a lot.
[00:08:07] Rodney Manzo: Did, I don't know how they did it missing. First birthday is 10 birthdays. It's unbelievable, but. Overall very challenging, but unbelievable experience that I tap into constant. In terms
[00:08:18] Lance Dietz: of your army experience, how is it with the NCO? What was that relationship like for you and how did you manage that deployed and then so on?
[00:08:28] Rodney Manzo: Yeah. There's all these things like listen to your NCS and make sure you learn from them. And I think that there's a lot of truth to it. Um, Where I think there's a lot of give and take. I was very fortunate to have some of the best in the army. They're all like fast movers, like they've excelled throughout their careers.
[00:08:46] Rodney Manzo: So having NCO, uh, for me, it reminded me of a world where I was like, going back to sports, like basketball, where like you're a freshman and you have seniors on the team. They're teaching you truly how to play that. [00:09:00] Or whatever sport, like their coaching, mentoring, you're listening, you could be better in aspects of them.
[00:09:06] Rodney Manzo: You could be a better shooter or have other skillsets and you weave those in, but they were supporting me to become, I would say the man, the person, the officer that I was still keeping contact with my team. And, uh, it's been, um, the unbelievable experience with. Bond between officers and NCS. Was there anything
[00:09:24] Lance Dietz: in particular you think that gave them confidence in you?
[00:09:28] Lance Dietz: Was it like a school that you had attended? Was it how you showed up in terms of being willing to listen, but had to set up confidence? Like how did you establish that relationship with these fast movers? And again, guys that I had excelled well in their careers as well.
[00:09:44] Rodney Manzo: Yeah. A few things. And this is not just in Tia.
[00:09:47] Rodney Manzo: It's this as business and life. I was the first one in last one. So I'd be walking the walk, talking the talk. If they needed me, I was there and it didn't matter. I was there by means to actually show I cared. The second I [00:10:00] was a sponge. I listen and you know, you have two ears, one mouth. So I was listening more than I was talking and I was learning from them.
[00:10:07] Rodney Manzo: Their experiences, you know, west point is a great time. It's four years. They had been in the army for 15. It's very, very different. Those that are like, I think the biggies, I guess the other, I mean, I did go to ranger school. I did go to Sapper school as airborne aerosol. Like I had patches, like I could run like pretty fast, so it's not like they had to worry about me.
[00:10:29] Rodney Manzo: Like with other things I can care less about those things. Because if you're a truly bad person that doesn't listen doesn't care, you could have a million patches, but it just helps you. If you do the first
[00:10:40] Lance Dietz: two, one more question I have before I pass it back to Tim ranger and Sapper school, which one in your mind was harder.
[00:10:48] Lance Dietz: And to where you as sleepy or a hungry
[00:10:51] Rodney Manzo: ranger, zapper. Such a good question. Ranger school was, I was very fortunate. So I had enlisted, I'm drawing a blank of his name. So he was [00:11:00] enlisted SF medic. I also had another west pointer there. And then I had another ranger bat. We all went straight through, I shouldn't say his name, but his name's the Oracle, one of our classmates.
[00:11:11] Rodney Manzo: We caught up with him. He was there for like eight months. So I was thinking that versus us going through. So what we would do is instead of sleeping, we'd be trading meals and doing different things. And we truly be joking because we were just a really tight bond and a good croup. But I would definitely, I would say like I was never hungry.
[00:11:30] Rodney Manzo: I know that's weird to say. And I'm sorry for everyone went through ranger school and was hungry. I get it. And I understand it. It was more so sleepy, but we deferred sleep, the kind of stuff. Trade food. Great question. I love that one. Everyone has such different experiences. I kind of put Dwayne man. I'll actually, when I was going in, I'm thinking of these stories and Dwayne was telling me how painful it was before I started.
[00:11:51] Rodney Manzo: He was just graduating. I can't remember. I don't want to call them out, but he did recycle. Let's just say one time. And he was saying that and I'm like, I was like, what do I [00:12:00] have ahead of me? So I was fortunate in reverse those Sapper school. I think once you rip the bandaid off, it's like a kid. Now, once you rip that band, You know what it's like.
[00:12:09] Rodney Manzo: So in reverse, I went through ranger school, first Sapper school. Second, I was there with a bunch of my guys. I think there was about 15 of us going through Sapper school. And for me it was comical because it's half the time it's just as intense, but they had no clue what was in store. So it was funny seeing how they were reacting to that environment versus like, you know, you've been there, you've seen it, not this similar to your first kid where you realize you're never going to sleep for the first, like three months.
[00:12:35] Rodney Manzo: And then anyone who has a kid, it's true. If your kid sleeps, I give you a lot of respect, but mine woke up every hour to two hours. So you literally never know. Ronnie you
[00:12:45] Tim Hsia: called yourself a generalist, but looking and knowing your career, you've been very good at everything. Track captain, a leader, as a cadet and leader on the sports team.
[00:12:54] Tim Hsia: Good at kinetic. Good at non-kinetic all those schools graduates of. So not sure if you really needed [00:13:00] mentors, but did you have any mentors at west point or the army? I think this is
[00:13:03] Rodney Manzo: the biggest piece of feedback for anyone that's in the military, transitioning from the military out of the military. It's get mentors, get good smart people, very experienced people around you.
[00:13:15] Rodney Manzo: When I was at the military at zero, when I was transitioning zero, I was so clueless kind of like going into west point about like careers. I know now I'm like banking. What does banking consulting? What would you do as a consulting? Like clueless? Where if you talk to someone, they'll tell you very quickly and efficiently what that is and you're living through them.
[00:13:36] Rodney Manzo: So from that mistake, like I definitely course corrected later in my professional life. Now there's a few, I, my entire board. That's unbelievable. And on my board, I have people like Kevin Ryan, who's been investor for, I'll say his entire career. He's a godfather in New York city tech. He's like Mongo. DB is the most recent, like his first one is DoubleClick though [00:14:00] IPO and then was acquired by Google is runoff a DoubleClick.
[00:14:03] Rodney Manzo: And then there's been dozens in between and talking to Kevin it's like, how do you build a company from zero? And then I started bringing other mentors like Jim B Weber or James Lee, Genevieve is she just transitioned to actually investing, but she was the, um, CEO SVP of platform at Salesforce who knows how to build SAS.
[00:14:23] Rodney Manzo: And Salesforce is one of the premier SAS companies on the planet. James Lee, his role was COO of SAP Ariba. Now he's an MDX. Which he knows supply chain. He knows operations. He knows business. No, there's Jesse Hertzberg and Jesse was a CEO of Squarespace. He was the CEO of livestream. Now he's an investor as well, but I have these people around me for a few reasons.
[00:14:46] Rodney Manzo: Number one, it's to see around the corner. I only know so much because I'm only experienced so much. The second one has to be there when I need support. And I have questions that I've no idea. And lastly, I'm a solo founder today, which is a very, [00:15:00] very lonely place, which I never realized how lonely, just starting a company as I, if I do it again, I'll probably have a co-founder, but they helped me with like, you know, the founder, psyche, walking through things, making sure my morale is high.
[00:15:13] Rodney Manzo: Every everything. A
[00:15:15] Tim Hsia: quick follow-up to that. I'm totally tracking that. Just set of board members and advisors around you are incredible. Curious if there were any veterans that have helped you throughout your process, whether that was at west point, whether that was in the army, whether it's now, and it might just be that there aren't any, and some other guests have actually said it's been like an air force academy on Naval person, but I'm just curious if there's any been any veteran.
[00:15:40] Tim Hsia: The
[00:15:41] Rodney Manzo: one that I would call out by default was Doug Pardo. So they want to beast him. You may know Jeff and I met in the long line of showers waiting for like our first shower west point. And if anyone doesn't know what that's like, it's quite an experience. And especially one where. [00:16:00] Uh, it's a shocking experience.
[00:16:01] Rodney Manzo: So we were right next to each other and that's where we essentially met. And we became best friends since Doug graduated in 2000. So naturally, like I was really close to dog. He had multiple deployments, he was Apache pilot. So he was like the defacto mentor for me at west point when I was trying to figure out even like Meijer's career and other things that he was very helpful, even deployments.
[00:16:22] Rodney Manzo: So he was that I went to time and time again. But that was a natural connection through Jeff. I'm very fortunate that Jeff has such an amazing brother. Both of them are unbelievable, but he was the one. I just go back to what I was mentioning before I felt with those mentors and advisors, it's something that I know how important they are today.
[00:16:40] Rodney Manzo: I would advise anyone to get them, to put them around. People want to help you and you don't realize that and they're willing to help if you're willing to ask.
[00:16:48] Lance Dietz: Awesome. Rodney, we'd like to transition into the next segment, which is called the sitrep or the situation report, essentially diving into what you're doing now and your post-military career.
[00:16:58] Lance Dietz: So for the listeners, [00:17:00] would you give us a little bit of an overview of how you left the military grad school jobs you held until Advil, and now what you're building
[00:17:07] Rodney Manzo: in. Leaving the military I'll even start with. That was a very, very difficult decision. I loved it truly. I loved it for me. It had to do with a family life.
[00:17:17] Rodney Manzo: It just, wasn't going to work with that at the time. Uh, sadly, and I can go into that for days. I limited control what I could do to my, I guess, schedule what the military was going to do. So that was a forcing function. Not one I took lightly or really wanted to do. So leaving the military was extremely difficult.
[00:17:35] Rodney Manzo: I love to kind of blindly. I was going to a military kind of career conferences and fairs, which I'm sure a lot of people do again, if you have a mentor and other people, you can get into job much faster, more efficiently. So another reason for a mentor, but I did that, but what I knew is I want to go to business school.
[00:17:51] Rodney Manzo: I didn't have time because literally I was just redeploying, like not long when I was getting on the military side, I didn't have a lot of clearly 15 month deployment [00:18:00] on a lot of time to study for a GMs. And so I was like, I want to go to business school. I need to study for GMAT. So my first job actually from the military fair was Booz Allen.
[00:18:08] Rodney Manzo: What was amazing about that? Didn't know consulting, but quickly knew I hated consulting. I would never do that again. Definitely government consulting. It's like soul sucking. Anyone listening to, if you do government consulting, could you be allowed? Respect? Yeah. Just not for me. So I did that study for my GMAT.
[00:18:25] Rodney Manzo: I went to Columbia for my MBA and really there, like I was heavily focused on supply chain. I knew I liked it based on what I was studying. So at Columbia, I was like pushing to go to apple because Apple's, I'll say hands down the best supply chain company on the planet to create that many products, would that have quality?
[00:18:47] Rodney Manzo: With that few of defects and those tolerances, it's unbelievable. And I think the normal person on the street, you would not know the care and the dedication that goes to create something like that. [00:19:00] So I wanted to go there. I started using people. I knew reach out to networks. I actually built the path from Columbia MBA into apple, and I was like the first one to do that through other supply chains.
[00:19:12] Rodney Manzo: And then I went back to apple full-time supply chain. I was there two and a half, three years. Ish, a great time. I was traveling every month to Japan and China building products. What people don't realize is if anyone's in banking or thinking about banking, if you're at apple supply chain, that's exact same.
[00:19:30] Rodney Manzo: You're never sleeping. You're constantly traveling, constantly working, you know, in defacto I'm in California. And my suppliers are in Asia. Guess what? They're going to be up when I'm trying to go to bed and you have to get stuff done. So you're going to be speaking with them all night, but that was great.
[00:19:44] Rodney Manzo: What then I started seeing, going back to the military time, apple was amazing for learning, for developing kind of getting the skillset, but you lack the autonomy. You lack like the ability to build teams like that environment in the military, just, I was truly missing it. [00:20:00] So I jumped all the way down to a startup and I went to like as early stages I can find, which was Harry's grooming.
[00:20:07] Rodney Manzo: Which if you don't know Harris Grameen, uh, it was started by Jeff and Andy. Jeff started Warby Parker, two of the premier direct to consumer companies, probably the OGE of direct to consumer some of the fastest growing, ever unbelievable founders, unbelievable team. And I was like an early employee there.
[00:20:23] Rodney Manzo: And then I got to do exactly what I wanted to put in all the processes. Procedures build a team, uh, had tons of autonomy, worked with really smart, talented, exciting people. And then from that, I moved to Asheville and I started my.
[00:20:36] Lance Dietz: On the move from apple to Harry's, I'm really curious, like what drew you one to this startup or that specific startup, as you were thinking about trying to have more autonomy and the opportunity to build teams.
[00:20:49] Rodney Manzo: So I was trying to index on a few things. So I was, at the time I was seeing what was different. And I actually had a few offers. One was it's called, it's like an early [00:21:00] engagement team at Google where it's a small team where they were creating things like project loon, Google fiber, before anyone on the market would see it.
[00:21:06] Rodney Manzo: So it's like a little startup within Google, just a launch products, like kind of their moonshot ideas. I was looking at that, but what my mentality and thought process was I'm at this gas station, there's a gas station across the street. It's selling gas station. How am I moving to a gas station? So then I started looking at smaller companies and looking at like the ones that are like early stage, some kind of funding, great leadership, location, agnostic, really physical product agnostic.
[00:21:31] Rodney Manzo: But I want to be in like, I want to be an injection molding, some other verticals. I didn't know. So I could give back. I looked at a bunch, but Harry's just stood out. World-class investors. World-class founders. The people I met were unbelievable. The process took eight months after. Crazy enough. I told them I'm not going there, which is a funny story.
[00:21:50] Rodney Manzo: And then they came back a day later and they gave me an offer. It took that just to walk away, but my thought was to go with the best team, the best, I think company that was there. And [00:22:00] there's only a few I would have gone to. And that definitely was the top. During your
[00:22:03] Lance Dietz: time there, I'm curious, what were, I guess, the biggest surprises for you having.
[00:22:08] Lance Dietz: Build teams in the military having been on large teams in the military ended apple. What were the particular challenges that you end up facing, if any really, um, as you were
[00:22:19] Rodney Manzo: working at Harry's? I won't say challenges. I'll read direct this a little bit. What I will say, like when you're deployed, you don't know what's happening a lot of times, like you will have a plan, but your plan changes often.
[00:22:33] Rodney Manzo: That's exactly what a startup. So we're going out and, you know, you'll be creating some kind of product that you can't actually create and you have to either adapt the product depth, the supplier, whatever the situation is that happens over and over again. That's something about you're bringing your adaptability into the business world.
[00:22:52] Rodney Manzo: The second thing, if you're very regimented, you work really hard. You're going to be successful. A lot of the [00:23:00] failures in what I've seen, startups, you get lazy people that are not regimented, they don't care and I'm going to butcher this, but it was something in the military I heard early on by one of our NCO hosts, actually at west point, it's like right time, right place, right shoes, right haircut and something like basic like that.
[00:23:19] Rodney Manzo: That's all it takes to be successful. I think 90%. The other 10% it's nuanced, but those are the things I took with me, I guess. But there wasn't a lot of surprises, truthfully. It is hard. It's difficult. So that's life.
[00:23:31] Lance Dietz: Yeah. Ben fall actually had another similar set of phrasing. It's like always be on time.
[00:23:38] Lance Dietz: Always. Yeah. Prepared and always look cool. So definitely rings true. That's really interesting. Now I'm really excited to hear more about what you're doing now with anvil, lots of stuff, Tim and I have spent countless amounts of hours talking about startups and venture and investing. And you're kind of touching all of that.
[00:23:54] Lance Dietz: Now. We'd love to hear how you started the company and just a little bit of background [00:24:00] on, on what the journey has been like until now and where
[00:24:03] Rodney Manzo: you guys are. So what I tell people about starting a company, I don't care about titles. Like I don't care if I'm the founder CEO. I don't care about that. I don't care about being the boss could care less about that.
[00:24:15] Rodney Manzo: I care about problems. And what I started to see is that. When I was at apple at 300, $500 million to spend, and I couldn't fix a problem that I continued to see when I went down to Harry's, it was the same thing where it's like the problem, a controlled, you know, cap X spend direct, spend indirect, spend all this, and I couldn't buy a solution.
[00:24:39] Rodney Manzo: And the problem was two-fold that the world supply chain is extremely manual and it's very silent. So, if you look around the house, wherever you're at, walking on the street, somebody in my shoes is using an Excel spreadsheet, emails, and phone calls that figure out what's happening. That's supply chain.
[00:24:55] Rodney Manzo: That's how it's been for 20, 30 years in the past. That is how it is today and it's [00:25:00] confusing. So I came into anvil with, with trying to fix a problem that I hated. And I want to be in supply chain for the next 20, 30 years. And I couldn't imagine being in supply chain next 20 and 30 years, without trying to fix the problem and at least taking a risk if I couldn't find a solution.
[00:25:17] Rodney Manzo: So that's why,
[00:25:18] Lance Dietz: and for those that maybe aren't as familiar with Advil mean you've raised capital over the past few years. I think the series a was in 2019. Recently you raise the B in 20, 22, I think earlier this year, what where's anvil at now? What's the scope of the business. How big is the team and
[00:25:38] Rodney Manzo: what's that been like for you?
[00:25:39] Rodney Manzo: Yeah, so I guess even before an Advil is a procure to pay or management tool, So where we sit is a very first mile supply chain. So if you're ordering a good, you're producing a good, if you're going to ship it, you ship it. So end to end visibility. And there's three pillars, centralization, automation, and intelligence.
[00:25:57] Rodney Manzo: So instead of guessing where [00:26:00] good is hiring dozens of people to figure out where that is, and then praying that you're going to get it. We do that for you. So saving time, saving money. And total we've raised 31 million again, I think we're very fortunate for that entire span. I can talk about the fundraising aspect, how bad I was and probably still am, but 31 million, we have 50 people over 50% and about 60% it's tech, how the others like go to market sales, marketing, see us.
[00:26:28] Rodney Manzo: And, um, we work with a hundred plus brands that you would know, like the Harry's of the world. And we're in 60 countries as suppliers last year, we did about $1.4 billion of goods through the platform. Q1 we did about 500 million. So this year we're looking at about anywhere from three to 5 billion, probably through our platform.
[00:26:47] Rodney Manzo: So it's a big universe that encompasses the globe.
[00:26:51] Lance Dietz: That's awesome. How did it start? Like you said, you mentioned that solo founder, which is probably not as typical today, unless it's a repeat founder, but [00:27:00] curious. Just how it came to be. What sort of challenges? Even just a few you face with fundraising, as you alluded to, but really interested to hear a bit about that.
[00:27:10] Lance Dietz: If you don't mind sharing,
[00:27:11] Rodney Manzo: I'll share how it started with the caveat is no one, please do this. So hopefully you learn and live through me. So what happened is like over Christmas, this is back like 2016, early 2017. I started creating a business plan, thinking that you needed to do that. It was crazy how in depth I went into it.
[00:27:33] Rodney Manzo: And how much time and energy. And what I realized is you only needed a pitch deck with six slides. So I wasted a lot of time and energy thinking about this problem and really only needed that. And then what I did with that, like eventually. Bef before the pitch deck, I started talking to people. I knew you two people that like our alumni that are investing that are close to where I need to go, where you have the one degree of [00:28:00] separation to get a sense of what I needed to do to raise money.
[00:28:03] Rodney Manzo: What I needed to do with capital. I wasted a lot of time in that world where my regret was, I should have moved away quickly. The reason for that, I wasn't getting any traction. What I started seeing is not the point fingers or name names. They just, they didn't have a thesis around supply chain. They didn't know supply chain.
[00:28:20] Rodney Manzo: They were being good, helping me think about and talk, but the weren't being good in saying that they weren't going to give me any money. And that's really what I needed to start a company. So I started increasing the. And I started doing layer after layer, after layer talking to more and more people. I ended up talking about 200 people before I got my first check.
[00:28:40] Rodney Manzo: The first check, I stumbled upon a few individuals, so you can call it friends and family mainly. They weren't friends and family. I grew up super poor, so I didn't have friends and family. No, one's going to give me money to start a company, but I stumbled upon some seed angel investors and they loved the idea.
[00:28:57] Rodney Manzo: They loved the concept. Kevin Ryan actually is [00:29:00] one of those Shannon ma from Zola Nobu from Zola. Kevin grilled me for literally, this is a funny thing. This is a side story I'll share. So I meet Kevin at his office and there's all this stuff printed out on his stuff. There's like, I don't know, like my LinkedIn, there's some random west point picture of me jumping over a high bar that like, I'm like, how did you find that like crazy stuff?
[00:29:25] Rodney Manzo: And he's just grilling me, like looking for some bad press blood, publicity, something bad about me potentially. And he just grilled me about me for literally two hours. That same night we went to dinner and over like probably about four or five hours, we then started talking about the business. But that's a funny, that was like one of my first checks and that was my first really large stack.
[00:29:45] Rodney Manzo: But funny story, how blind and foolish I was start it. And that's why I'm saying don't do what I. Go to people, you know, quickly move on. If people aren't going to give you money, use your network really wisely, get warm introductions. I was doing cold [00:30:00] introductions to all these people. I had no clue who I was.
[00:30:03] Rodney Manzo: Of course they want to give you the time of the day. Don't do a business plan, do a very concise pitch deck or build out other things around that. So you have good fundamentals, like a model or everything else. You don't need a full blown business plan, but I started to handle foolishly and I would say that's lack of mentorship.
[00:30:19] Rodney Manzo: And again, I
[00:30:21] Lance Dietz: appreciate that. It's a fascinating story about Kevin too. Um, so you've been through raising with the pitch deck raised from top tier firms, like first round red point at da. And then most recently, I think Allie Corp. Now you have a set of mentors, as you mentioned around the table in these investors seats or board seats, curious kind of, you know, as you think about that, what's most impactful for a mentor in this case or a board member or.
[00:30:50] Lance Dietz: I'm an advisor for someone like you or for a founder. Like how does that relationship
[00:30:54] Rodney Manzo: with biggest thing that I think people need to realize about an advisor is they're there to support you and [00:31:00] you need to let them know where you need support. So a lot of people just go and just randomly talk what I do for any of my, whether board members, my advisors, I send them an agenda ahead of time.
[00:31:11] Rodney Manzo: So they can think through it. I'm very focused exactly what I want to focus on what I want to get out of it. So. Manage them to be the best for me. And they're super helpful. Um, I can just share like maybe Hayley Barna is a GP have fraternal capital. She was a first institutional check, amazing partner. I actually, this morning I had a call with her instead of a call to talk through like some investment strategies, some mentorship, things around my team, like giving them mentors and it's unbelievable.
[00:31:39] Rodney Manzo: So it's like very focused 30 minutes, but it's like, I'm a managing her to best suit. Like what I need, what I've seen in reverse. Like I mentor some people in supply chain. They just randomly jump on calls without an agenda. So I'm like, right. I'll talk about anything, but like, I feel like you're wasting your own time.
[00:31:56] Rodney Manzo: It doesn't make sense, but that's advice. I would give anyone be very regiment around [00:32:00] agendas. Speaking
[00:32:01] Lance Dietz: about being regimented about an agenda. We need to move on to the next segment. So I'm going to pass it back
[00:32:06] Tim Hsia: to. Ronnie. What you've mentioned is also reflection of being very intentional about meetings and just getting what you want out of meetings.
[00:32:14] Tim Hsia: Very interesting. Let's get into our next and third segment, the SOP or standard operating procedure in this segment. We're going to talk about the personal routines, habits and words. Swear by that have been instrumental to your success. What routines or habits did you have in the military west point that you still adhere to?
[00:32:29] Tim Hsia: I am
[00:32:30] Rodney Manzo: a crazy regimented human being probably. And I love routines in the military too today. Like I wake up super early. I work out, I eat breakfast, I go to work. And then at the end of the day, it's like the same routine over and over again. I've used that throughout my life and I do it two fold. Number one, it is.
[00:32:51] Rodney Manzo: I think it will retain is like great for my consistency. So I'm in the same mindset and they out, the second thing is unprepared, right? [00:33:00] If I dropped the workout, like for me, that's like the way to alleviate stress. So it's like, if I miss that, that's like a killer for me, but those routines are critical.
[00:33:09] Rodney Manzo: It's like daily routines. My day after that may change. There's a lot of things I don't control, but the things I do control. Are like critical for me, my future and my success what's changed though from the military is having a kid. What I realized is how selfish I was before. So now my routine is I make sure my last meeting is no later than six.
[00:33:33] Rodney Manzo: And then I'm with him, like at least a minimum hour before he goes to bed. So I'll play with him, Beth, eat dinner, whatever it may be, but I make sure nobody schedules a meeting if you call that dark time. And we do this with handbell and my company so that my dark time is early in the morning for working out.
[00:33:49] Rodney Manzo: And then that time with my son and I'll get on later, but I'm very, again, regimented with what I do and how. And then within
[00:33:58] Tim Hsia: those times that you're [00:34:00] working, how would you say you're structuring it between sales or product or investor relations or
[00:34:07] Rodney Manzo: HR? So one of my mentors, Jesse gave me this and I've taken this to heart.
[00:34:12] Rodney Manzo: So there's really a few things I have to do as a founder. Number one, hire great people. Number two, make sure I never run out of money. And number three, make sure I'm constantly building the business with. So there's other things to filter in there, but I guarantee any time of my day, I'm focused on one of those three things.
[00:34:29] Rodney Manzo: And it could be, you know, 90% I'm hiring one day, 10%. I'm worried about funding, but those are the three things consistently I do. And I focus on. And, um, my team knows that and I make that a habit, Rodney. I have one more
[00:34:42] Lance Dietz: question on that. Time-wise like, especially within a startup, things are moving fast or slow ups and downs for someone who's regimented.
[00:34:50] Lance Dietz: And I face this as well. Like how do you, for lack of a better phrase, Bob and weave with kind of things that are changing and so on for someone who is
[00:34:59] Rodney Manzo: already. [00:35:00] What you need to do is have a really pulse on what is happening with the business, whether there's the people side, the market side, any of your core fundamentals.
[00:35:10] Rodney Manzo: And when you start seeing things out of whack, you need to adjust quickly and you can't be regimented at that point. I'll give you an example. When we started anvil at 2017, where a marketplace. The thesis was, if you can't find a great supplier, you can make a physical product. So we wanted it to be the Airbnb of supply chain.
[00:35:28] Rodney Manzo: You can go on and find a supplier anywhere globally work with them and, you know, start product. What we started to see in about two, two and a half years later, that model was broken. What we quickly went is over a million in revenue, and it stayed in this little stagnant world that is not venture backable and not a type of company.
[00:35:46] Rodney Manzo: I want to be. And we could have continued to brute force that and be like, oh, you're see some light. Like you go from one to 1.5 to 2 million and you're like, great, but it's not doing the consistency and the repeatability you would want as a company. [00:36:00] And from seeing that business, not working the numbers, the unit economics we changed.
[00:36:05] Rodney Manzo: And we did a quick pivot. Sadly had to let people go that were focused on the marketplace. But the company was just going to fell and you're going to be a ghost of a company. It was going to fell eventually, but you see that, so you can't be a regimen and into like just willing something life doing the same thing.
[00:36:19] Rodney Manzo: Day in, day out, the numbers are telling you the business is telling you what to do, and you need to quickly adapt, especially in startup life. Everyone's dying so slow and so fast as. As soon as you get a dollar in the bank, you have 25 cents out the door tomorrow, you know, it's depends on your burn, how quickly you had a zero.
[00:36:38] Rodney Manzo: So you need to adapt as things are napping and you can't be like regimented. You have to be regimented and not being regimented when things are.
[00:36:46] Tim Hsia: Rodney since we graduated in 2004, time has flown by. And in fact, it's close to our 20 year mark. I'm curious, looking forward. What's your goal for yourself?
[00:36:54] Tim Hsia: Whether it be like five years or even 20 years from now, clearly family is a major component, [00:37:00] but what other aspects and goals do you have? And
[00:37:02] Rodney Manzo: you're taking away my family. That's the number one. That's the one that I lead with. I think the goals for me are simple. Number one is people I want to build an amazing organization where it's current employees, anvil or alumni go on and do amazing things.
[00:37:17] Rodney Manzo: And I want to make sure we're doing that constantly. So in five years from now, they're starting companies that are billion dollar companies or they're going on and being coming leaders at these startups or the Googles of the world. So number one, it's like people developing world-class people and talent, both at anvil and beyond the second is just creating a monster of a business.
[00:37:38] Rodney Manzo: We took venture capital. What does that mean? It means either we're going to get acquired or we're going to IPO. And in that timeframe, we better get acquired. Right? So that's a major focus and we have to do that. The alternative is death and, and a lot of companies die. So there's three things we're looking at, you're going to die.
[00:37:55] Rodney Manzo: You're going to IPO, are you going to be acquired? And so those are like the two things. I [00:38:00] think the most important thing though, truthfully is the people aspect. So even if we're acquired, even if we die, even if we IPO, it doesn't matter if we have bad people that we're pushing out of anvil. So people first and people always.
[00:38:13] Rodney Manzo: I'm
[00:38:13] Tim Hsia: dressing reminds me what you just said. Mission. First people always straight from west point in the military. Last question I have on this segment, and this is around multi veteran entrepreneurs, but you're the second 2004 guests. We had Socrates earlier, which is a fantastic podcast episode, which I hear listen to about one sip a quarter, just to remind myself of the knowledge and insights there.
[00:38:33] Tim Hsia: And now you, and there's a number of military veteran entrepreneurs that have come across in the scene. What advice do you have? Or separately, what do you think are the strengths or weaknesses that veteran entrepreneurs have? I think that
[00:38:47] Rodney Manzo: the strengths are beautiful in Socrates company. Everyone, if you don't know it, if you haven't listed there, you should check out his company.
[00:38:54] Rodney Manzo: It's amazing. And it shows you the diversity of what you can start and what you can do. Jane. Unbelievable. It's a [00:39:00] pretty cool, but number one, it's like, bring it out, you know, whether or not you deployed, you have to be very adaptable in the military. You're working with people across the spectrum. A lot of people in business, typically you're working with like people that went to college, went to some kind of MBA.
[00:39:13] Rodney Manzo: And the military, you don't have that. Like you have some people dead, others don't, but you're adaptable to the situations you're in as far as people location, anywhere else. So as a founder and or someone in a startup, you need to be extremely adaptable. The other is you just gotta be very approachable.
[00:39:30] Rodney Manzo: And I would say driven when I'm pitching investors. If they don't like me, they're not gonna get. When I'm pitching someone to join handful, if they don't like me, they're not going to come to the company. So you need to be approachable and show that you care about them. Those are the, I think the things I would like always gravitate towards military.
[00:39:49] Rodney Manzo: I think that's a good job on both
[00:39:50] Lance Dietz: Rodney and we're coming up against our time here a little bit. And the final segment or question that we like to end on relates to giving back. There's a lot of vets that are [00:40:00] leaving. Army or staying in the military, but are approaching different phases of their careers.
[00:40:05] Lance Dietz: As you look back on your time, as you were transitioning and making various decisions to stay in or get out or go to the next startup, what advice would you give yourself or another veteran at that stage in their career as they're starting to make transit?
[00:40:19] Rodney Manzo: If you can, don't be afraid of taking a risk. A lot of people go to the shiny object that they hear other people tell them about whether it's in finance consulting or whatever, maybe the common path someone would take.
[00:40:31] Rodney Manzo: Don't do that, actually go and attack what you want. If you have a dreams about being the best marketer on the planet or starting a company or whatever it may be, maybe do that. Take that risk. You can, you're young, you can make multiple mistakes, you can build things. It's crazy how. The people I talked to, or my classmates and peers, they hate their job, but they say in that, because they're afraid to take a risk.
[00:40:56] Rodney Manzo: Number two, I just like talk to other people constantly. [00:41:00] I'd expand your network as fast and as rapidly as possible. So, you know, what's happening. I mentioned out close. I was going into west point. I mentioned how clueless I was going in the business world. If I talked to two people, they would tell me how west point is and how the business world is.
[00:41:16] Rodney Manzo: I was a fool not to reach out to people. So that's an advice and I mean, twofold, like I'm always happy to give back, give anyone's thinking about starting. I'll go back and tell him all the mistakes I made. I'll try to help them with introductions. I'll do whatever it takes to make sure they're successful.
[00:41:32] Rodney Manzo: And instead of taking six months that I took, they can hopefully take a week amazing.
[00:41:38] Lance Dietz: And that's sadly all the time we have, I feel like we could have gone for a few more hours, but Rodney, thanks so much for making time for these insights. I know Tim and I have really enjoyed this and are looking forward to sharing it with listeners.
[00:41:51] Rodney Manzo: Thanks.
[00:41:53] Narrator: Um, point is a production of the WPA O G broadcast network. Please take a moment to rate and review [00:42:00] the show and join us each week for a new episode. Thank you for listening.