Burning Ships, Embracing Change, and the Power of ‘Who, Not How’
By adopting a “burn the ships” mentality, balancing empathy with accountability, and building the right team, Josh Dunham, CEO of Reveel, navigates constant industry changes and fosters a culture of innovation.
Josh Dunham is co-founder and CEO of Reveel, which provides shipping intelligence technology and has more than $8 billion in parcel spend under management. In this role, he focuses on corporate strategy and growth, as well as client and employee retention. “My role requires addressing questions such as ‘How do we win? Do we have the right offer? How do we create competitive advantage?’” Dunham says.
Examining these questions led to a significant change in the company’s business model about five years ago. Dunham and Chad Beville launched Reveel in 2006 as a professional services firm, with a goal of addressing the lack of transparency in the parcel shipping space. At the time, many shippers had no idea how they could use their data to save money. “I saw it as a big opportunity for us to create something meaningful that can help our customers,” Dunham adds.
The company grew steadily. Then, extensive interviews with parcel shippers and a market survey project revealed clients were looking for a technology solution that would provide visibility to help them actively manage their parcel shipping expense. In 2019, Reveel acquired a software development company and incorporated its intellectual property within a solution that unlocks insight from shipping data and provides actionable steps shippers can take to control and forecast costs.
“The data sets from the carriers are massive,” Dunham says. “This helps unlock the insights from within them.”
Reveel launched the solution at the end of 2021 and made several adjustments over the next few years. Here, Dunham reveals the insight he’s gained on leadership, building a thriving company, and continually innovating.
IL: What lesson from early in Reveel’s life remains relevant?
A relevant lesson is having a ‘burn the ships’ mentality. When you start a business, it’s easy to think that it will be nice if it works out, but you’ll keep other options open just in case. That’s a different mindset than ‘There’s no Plan B; you have to go forward and figure things out.’ Essentially, you burn the ships.
I had some advantages—I had emotional and some financial support from my family. I didn’t have the responsibilities of my own family. But I did quit my job and took on some debt. The mentality was, ‘We’ve got to make this work.’
IL: What is a current challenge you’re focused on?
Constant carrier changes. In the past, carrier changes occurred maybe once a year. Now they occur every few months, making it hard for our customers to control costs and to forecast. As a result, we need to remain agile from a development standpoint. We don’t know what’s coming, so we have to remain agile just to manage through the changes.
IL: How does an organization remain agile?
We adhere to the agile development philosophy. It allows us to make sure that we work on priorities important for the current environment, as opposed to not touching something for months because our product roadmap is baked.
We develop our solutions to a sprint cadence that starts every two weeks. Before the sprint commences, we hold a team meeting to wrap up the last sprint and to kick off and manage the requirements-gathering for the new sprint. We also hold daily standups that focus on our objectives and obstacles we might run into.
IL: Several values drive Reveel: transparency, partnership, empathy, and perseverance. How do you balance empathy with accountability?
You might think that with a core value of empathy, you can’t hold someone accountable because your job is to empathize with them. But that’s where transparency comes from. It’s having real conversations.
Everyone here is accountable. We have goals and are measured on how well we hit them. We run a monthly meeting with the executive team, focused on KPIs that help executives drive the business. Each team also has this meeting each month. As you go down the organization, the metrics get more granular.
IL: What characteristics are critical for effective leaders?
Integrity and the ability to embrace change. Change is often difficult, but it is also inevitable. You’ve also got to be empathetic. In my experience, effective leaders have optimism.
IL: How can leaders help others embrace change?
It boils down to being transparent around why you’re making a change. It helps if you can align the ‘why’ with the ‘how’ and explain the reasoning to employees. Keeping people motivated also requires helping employees understand and believe in what the company is doing.
IL: What book has helped you grow and run your business?
In the book Who, Not How, authors Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy argue that who you have on your team is more important than what you do. I’ve seen this firsthand. Nothing changes your business more than having the right people in the right seats. As a CEO, I’ve got one million things to think of every day. But, with the right people in different areas of the business, I don’t need to dig into the details.
IL: How has your participation in the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, including as a board member, helped you?
You’re around other entrepreneurs who’ve gone through the same struggles and problems you’ve gone through. So often, entrepreneurship is associated only with the business you run. This group helps me stay well-rounded and focus on other areas of my life, as well.
IL: Who would you trade places with for a day?
The president of the United States. It’s the ultimate CEO job. It would be incredible to be exposed to the amount of information that goes through the president, and to be able to make critical decisions from it.
IL: If you could host a dinner party with three leaders, from any time period and realm, who would top your list?
First is George Washington, because he helped to start a nation. Second is Nelson Mandela, because he created a blueprint to get through a politically charged environment. Finally, Elon Musk, who is the most creative and innovative thinker of our generation.
How to Encourage Innovation
“As a technology business, it’s crucial that we stay on the cutting edge of innovation,” says Josh Dunham, co-founder and CEO of Reveel. “It starts with ensuring our team feels empowered to contribute. Our team is where our best ideas come from, and they have to be given the grace to fail. If you come down on everyone who makes a mistake, no one will try anything new.
“We also encourage learning,” he adds. “Innovation is fueled by curiosity and experimentation. You’ve got to be able to fail fast, learn from it, and course correct.
“Finally, we take a customer-centric approach,” Dunham says. “We have a customer advisory board and we constantly seek feedback. We’re determined to continue to understand our customers’ problems so we can come up with creative solutions for them.”