#101: Aaron George (SupplyNow)

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:00:00]:

People think food service because it's so age old and people have been doing it for, what, centuries now, that it doesn't have room for innovation. And I think that's where I disagree heavily. I think, if anything, food should be One of the core things should always look to innovate, optimize and, you know, just change because it is just such a core Competent or aspect of our lives, I think, in how we just jet like, yeah. I I see food, like, just restaurants and food as just a core sort of structure in terms of, you know, how we live our lives and, like, what it means to, you know, I think human beings at the end of the day.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:44]:

Let's discover the Cleveland entrepreneurial ecosystem. We are telling the stories of its entrepreneurs and those supporting them. Welcome to the Lay of the Land podcast where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern. And today, I had the real pleasure of speaking with Aaron George. Growing up with a family of small business and food service owners, Aaron first came to the United States in 2015 with a deep sense of respect for entrepreneurship and the food service industry from a very young age. At that time, he came to study civil engineering and business management from Case Western Reserve University. And during his time at Case, he founded PastryNow, Which was a digital late night delivery platform that connected local bakeries and home bakers with college students.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:36]:

In early 2020, though, when college campuses shut down overnight, Aaron had to close down the business and go back to the drawing board. He had noticed restaurants were among the hardest hit during the pandemic and was determined to find ways he could help. After interviewing several restaurant tours and chefs, He found that there were inadequate solutions available to actually help restaurants control their purchasing costs, especially in the context of having to navigate frequent critical chain failures. So in 2021, Aaron founded SupplyNow, leveraging his experience from PastryNow To provide critical supply chain solutions that can save restaurants and local distributors time and money. The company's flagship service, Crisis management helps restaurants when their vendors have shorted them, potentially due to unexpected waste or demand or inventory miscalculations And are too short staffed to send for a restaurant's emergency supplies. At the same time, the company has built out supply side of their network to service distributors who find it Too expensive to offer same day and on demand deliveries to their customers due to CDL driver constraints and preset weekly routes that are hard to deviate out of. Through our conversation, we also cover Aaron's journey as an immigrant founder. The many additional challenges he's had to navigate as a consequence of this And the work of global entrepreneur in residence program he is spearheading.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:01]:

Please enjoy my conversation with Aaron George. So just a few episodes back, I was actually talking with Doug Katz about his whole journey through, you know, Zug and Amba and Jimmy. And and towards the end of our conversation, he actually had mentioned SupplyNow And and the work that that you were doing. And and honestly, I I got very excited to learn more about it and have been Looking forward to you to have you come on the show since. So, you know, thank you for for joining us today.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:03:36]:

Yeah. No. Thanks for having me, and great to hear Doug's, know, putting out the good word.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:41]:

Yes.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:03:42]:

So it's Freddie.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:43]:

Freddie the good cheer. I know. Honestly, I I think it it is really good, To have us supporting each other. And and, he he he painted a very cool picture. So I'm excited to, you know, kind of peel back the layers and understand how it all works. And, you know, really just your your inspirations for it. And, you know, I think we'll get there. But, you know, I'd love to start if, you know, you could just share a little bit about, you know, your own background Growing up in Dubai, coming to Cleveland, you know, your path and interest in entrepreneurship, just, you know, share a little bit about your yourself.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:04:15]:

Yeah. Absolutely. So I'm originally from Dubai. Came here back in 2015 to do my undergrad in Case Western. Definitely a little bit of a culture shift to say the least, you know, adapting from well, Dubai was fairly Americanized, so I was, you know, a little bit luckier than a lot of other people just because, you know, I've seen a lot of the same American companies. The way of life is also fairly similar and, you know, obviously, capitalism, to say the least. But, yeah, I it was a good Sort of growing experience to come to the United States and do my college here. I did civil engineering, so little different than food tech, which is kind of what I, segued into.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:05:01]:

But while I was still in college, I did a study abroad program in Madrid. And, that's sort of where, everything, you know, started, at least, personally. Before that, I had my family members, had multiple different types of businesses. Most notably, my mom. She owned a chain of small beauty salons in Dubai called Glitz. So just from a very young age, always, you know, I was inspired by how she was able to sort of run a business. And Dubai, even though it's progressive, you know, a woman running a business at the end of the day is like a big challenge in itself. So very inspirational to see my mom, sort of go through that.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:05:40]:

So that was definitely a factor in me deciding to pursue entrepreneurship. But then, while I was still sort of in, school and I, for my college and I went to Madrid for my study abroad program, I actually met with a professor. His name was, Juan Ignacio Diaz Vidar. So people in Madrid have very long names. But, yeah, he had so it was just interesting because considering he was doing his global MBA over there. So he taught me just some business administration courses. But After classes, I would, you know, often meet up with them, talk to them about a couple of ideas I had, for ways that, you know, we could sort of introduce some solutions to the food tech space. My first project, I called it Foodoo, was we connected local neighborhoods, barrios, in communities and we allowed them to sell their surplus meals.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:06:36]:

So a little bit more on the sustainability end, but also trying to bring on this home cooked food revolution, if you will. So I went back to the US to complete my degree, found out that it's incredibly hard to run a business overseas while you're doing, you know, engineering courses. So I I had to dial that back down. But I never really wanted to give up. So I continued sort of pivoting through making renditions of What I thought of over there but I figured out that was so I worked with the IPDC in Case Western, found out about the cottage food laws, how Back in the seventies, apparently, McDonald's KFC lobbied against Amish people considering they didn't have to pay for commercial kitchens. And that's sort of how We came to where we are today. California is actually at the forefront of that. For some reason, it's still all of this information is still there considering.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:07:30]:

Spent so much

Jeffrey Stern [00:07:31]:

time. Yeah.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:07:33]:

This company called Josephine, there is 1,000,000 of dollars to try and, like, bring this about. They failed, but they made the Legislation legal in, like, Orange County, California for, like, micro kitchen home laws. So it's like a whole movement in itself. Yeah. But I segued more into cottage food laws that were sort of the exceptions, the gray area where we could really get nimble, test, and we don't have to go through extensive, you know, regulation process.

Jeffrey Stern [00:08:01]:

And just for for my own edification here, what you know, can you explain a little bit what what cottage laws refer to and and what that's all about?

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:08:08]:

Still a lot on the end of, like, non perishables. So baked goods, for example, that are fairly safe from a food safety standpoint. There's exceptions that like, it's state by state, but Ohio is one of those states that has the cottage food laws where you don't need Extensive commercial kitchens and licenses to actually sell food products. But you can't sell that there's only certain categories of products you can sell Outside of that, especially when it comes to perishables, you know, that's where it's outside of the cottage food laws, and you need to work with a commercial kitchen.

Jeffrey Stern [00:08:41]:

Even just taking a step back as we make our way towards, you know, the the renditions that you work through and, assuming that that ultimately lands at the work you're doing Now with with supply now. But where did your interest in, you know, food tech come from? You know? Because I imagine you you you could have focused on any variety of different areas. You know, what what was it about this space that that interest you?

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:09:05]:

So I've surprisingly always been Like, I've my biggest passions and interests beyond, you know so I have base level things like watching movies, going out occasionally for, like, hikes and things like that. But more interestingly, I think of restaurants very differently from from a very young age because how Dubai sort of shapes some of my experiences. I see restaurants as sort of the beating heart of cities. It's more than just the food in itself. It's the experience of going out, connecting with people, actually, like, Getting to experience different cultures, different tastes, and, you know, just it's the experience in itself that makes it so special when it comes to how it even defines cities and the experiences you have when you travel or you live in a said city. And I think they're very underrated, in my opinion. Like, people think food service, just because it's so age old and people They've been doing it for, what, centuries now that it doesn't have room for innovation. And I think that's where I disagree heavily.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:10:15]:

I think, If anything, food should be one of the core things. We should always look to innovate, optimize, and, you know, just change because It is just such a core component or aspect of our lives, I think, and how we just jet like, yeah. I see food, like, just restaurants And food as, just a core sort of structure in terms of, you know, how we live our lives and, like, what it means to, you know, I think human beings at the end of the day. And that's sort of how it started. And I also had mem like, members of my family that owned restaurants, Distributors, manufacturers. So I've seen different aspects of it through my life, but I definitely had a lot of appreciation for the art because It's a time plus job at the end of the day. It's hard, but there's a lot of things about it I like. And my dad, he was a civil engineer like me.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:11:09]:

His granddad was a civil engineer. But so fascinatingly enough, he would always tell me his biggest dream

Jeffrey Stern [00:11:15]:

was to start his own restaurant and have the

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:11:17]:

dog kids. So, yeah, I guess There's a lot of things that sort of led me to food service in particular.

Jeffrey Stern [00:11:24]:

Sure. Sure. That's awesome. So you're you're, you know, exploring the rabbit hole, Figuring out the nuance of cottage laws. How do you come to the procurement challenges facing, you know, food vendors? Where where does that line of questioning Shouldn't come into the the research you're

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:11:41]:

doing. So and then just to explain how that happened essentially, I pivoted to Pastrina, which connected local bakeries, home bakers to college students late at night. We started expanding through case in Cleveland state, But the pandemic hit and we lost our customer demographic overnight. And that's where procurement, restaurants started becoming into the picture. I just had to sort of bridge that gap because it wouldn't make sense otherwise. But the reason why we got into this When when it comes to my civil engineering degree, I focus on construction management. So a lot to do with procurement of a lot of construction materials that, you know, generally have to be acquired, the processes of bidding. I noticed there was a lot of there was a lot of structure in place and It was still evolving versus food service was fairly traditional.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:12:32]:

After the pandemic, I noticed restaurants were some of the most It I think in terms of labor costs, food costs rising, it it was just a nightmare of challenges to deal with and it wasn't like You have a line of investors lining up to invest in restaurants. It's it's definitely started declining, you know, even in the past 5, 10 years, and the pandemic did them no favors. I noticed there were people solving some of the glacier solutions like food delivery, POS systems, but There were some of the back of the house structural issues that needed focus, attention. Things like crises, dealing with your on demand supplies, which We've all known supply chain issues are just generally a thing to deal with. And recovery is 12 to 18 months down the road where it's sort of an ongoing process. Even beyond that, like, when I when things started, you know, after the pandemic, I started working with a colleague, Matt Van from the Jolly Scholar on the Case Western campus. He owns few restaurants, a cafe, brewery, Food truck, all that. So I started working with him through different aspects of his operation.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:13:43]:

And I noticed when I started dealing with his procurement in general, It was just, there was a lot going on. And it was a nightmarish kind of scenario where he had know, multiple relationships with some of the larger broad liners where he would buy 1,000 of dollars worth of product every week, but he would also Instacart product every day almost. And I I was and I I would have to take on all of that and deal with it. So just navigating through and he's been doing this for, what, 16, 17 years now at this point. He's serviced as a distributor as well. So we would kind of like lock ourselves in a room after like, Every year, like little iteration, pivot, testing, and just like brainstorm sort of what are the techniques that he used to sort of like stay ahead of the curve, adapt to a lot of these procurement challenges. What are the things we could replicate, not just on a base level, but also by infusing technology in that process And what are different avenues that haven't really been explored as much because everyone is more focused on either Just the pure scalability side of software where you don't really help as much on the execution versus a hard boiled, you know, sort of Blue street well, main street business where you have, you know, more labor involved, moving product to logistics behind it. And bridging that gap is where, you know, we went through extensive customer discovery, spent a lot of time dealing with different restaurant group owners.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:15:13]:

And Finally, I think October of 2021, we officially incorporated, raised our 1st round of venture capital funding through combat capital and a few other venture capital firms. MatHavan also invested. And since then, we've been growing and that's sort of how supply now got to where it is today where I'd say in a little bit of a gist, we're a food service platform that can help you with all of your procurement and your logistics pain points. We can get you on demand supplies basically 7 days a week as early as 1 to 3 hours from cash and carries like Restaurant Depot to actually going to, like, your existing distributors. We can help sort of optimize your general routine purchasing, help you save sort of time and money in the process. Five like, 5 to 8 hours a week is what we see. And roughly about 10 to 15% on your procurement cost is what you get out of putting, you know, The putting it through the ringer. But yeah.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:16:10]:

That's the sort of the a little bit of a gist on, I guess, how we got here and what we do.

Jeffrey Stern [00:16:16]:

So let's just paint kind of a a more detailed picture here of the the problem itself. You know, you mentioned in in some of the diligence and and observation, we we can call it, You know, organized chaos, maybe. I don't know. But, you know, I'd love to just go a little bit deeper on You know, you have someone spending 1,000 of dollars a week from, you know, their traditional distributor. And in addition, you know, this Kind of ad hoc, you know, filling the void with with Instacart in in your kind of research. And is that kind of the core problem is the management of, You know, filling that that ad hoc void of, you know, what someone is anticipating they may need and then what they actually need And and how, you know, ubiquitous was was that problem?

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:17:02]:

So that, like, that is actually A big sort of, not just a problem, but an initial focus that we had just because it was a lot easier to help solve crises that restaurants face rather than trying to come in and basically take on your entire purchasing, which is just a whole other thing to deal with where you already don't have time. So Our approach is rather we get our foot in the door, show you we can actually deliver on what we say we do, provide sort of light switch access, pay as you use, No commitment. And we build up the relationship from there where our sweet spot is the intersection between on demand supplies and optimizing your general supplies by sort of acting as that one stop shop, if you will. So for Instacart, You can say, like, right now from just comparative studies, we've seen roughly about a 25 to 40% difference in just pure margin. This is also because they have, which a lot of people don't necessarily look at, they have an embedded markup, Roughly about 12 a half to 17 a half percent, depending on the store, the type of product. And then they have service, long distance, heavy delivery, priority fees, and Tips, it just extends. So if you look at the overall service in itself, wholesale supplies in a pinch to restaurants, That's where we can really deliver in terms of our bread and butter. But we can also start incorporating more complex scenarios where We're dealing with will call operations where a restaurant can call their existing distributor.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:18:37]:

We can help distributors also with crisis is when they're like, people in their warehouse, if they have missed picks and a wrong order gets sent out, they have a very set delivery sort of schedule. Finding drivers is a pinpoint in itself. And CDL drivers are the hardest. Like, it's just a nightmare in itself. We focus on sort of commercial lands under the CDL threshold, which is about £26,000. That way, we can build out more of an effective sort of labor shared pool model for both distributors and restaurants in the process. So that's sort of how the on demand piece works. For general, not only can we sort of the the fact of combining and Price shopping amongst multiple vendors in itself has both monetary and time savings, which is just off the bat the base value we provide.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:19:29]:

But beyond that, we then start looking at 2 things. 1, providing access to options that don't necessarily have their own logistics. So Restaurant Depot, for example, they already are hyper competitive on disposable spices where it's vertical. They own their own manufacturing. So they just don't have logistics. And there's still plenty of restaurant operators that just physically go there in their own cars, pick up product once, twice, 3 times a week, and bring it back depending on the type of storage they have. Even something as simple as that, we can provide access. Or if it's a little bit more intricate where we analyze your invoices, understand opportunities for market arbitrage, We try to directly work with suppliers or manufacturers depending on how we can consolidate demand for the common products involved.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:20:20]:

So there's a lot of ways we're continuously working with restaurants and distributors to essentially help them with a lot of their procurement and logistics sort of pain points that they regularly face. And finally, on the logistics and offsetting or outsourcing some of those tasks. We can help restaurants with moving larger wholesale catered orders just because there's a level of complexity with handling the orders properly and getting a good enough rate moving more like, you know, kitchen equipment or Commercial equipment that's a lot heavier. Keg runs. Those are the things where we can also sort of get out of our way and be that additional resource that the restaurant or the distributor can lean on.

Jeffrey Stern [00:21:03]:

That's that's fascinating. I'm curious as you know, because there's a lot of of breadth of, You know, kind of service and and value that that you're offering there. What what did it look like at the onset? You know, what what was kind of the first big break You you had it, if you will. Like, where where was the initial focus? How did it look like in the earliest days of of supply

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:21:22]:

now? Yeah. The earliest days Primarily focused on the crises just because exactly to your point, restaurant operators already have a lot that they're going through. We like, for us, it you know, it's obviously great that we're focusing on the substance behind what we're trying to build and have all of these intricacies involved. But At the end of the day, we need to keep it simple enough to at least start the relationship, which is where crises came as more of that initial focus. At least plugging in your base level supply chain, like, issues where your product gets charted, inventory gets miscalculated, your wastage it's just a little bit more unpredictable. Those are ways where we can immediately tap in. And once we've we started building out that relationship, Then we started building more on the general routine sort of like purchasing where we then discovered sort of the pricing volatility And the product mapping aspect of what we can do when it comes to bidding and consolidating different vendors for our clients' needs. And after that, we then went into sort of volume based aggregation where if you ordered the same type of products, we could try and get better discounts and better access to pricing in the

Jeffrey Stern [00:22:34]:

process. Yeah. It it's always fascinating because there there's really kinda 2 sides to the to the market That that you're working with. Right? You have to kind of think about how do you grow restaurants, right, and and the people that that you can service as your customers. And and then you're also Trying to grow the supply network. Right? Like, who who are the the folks who the distributors who who have access to the the the products that the the the restaurants need. How have you thought about, you know, the expansion of those of those networks and and how how you grow those? And and I feel like it's a different relationship building process on either side.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:23:10]:

Right? Initially, when we started off, we focused a lot more on the restaurants just because you know, there was more to work with. We had larger sample set. They had more pressing issues Chews that needed to be solved at the end of the day when it came to the labor and their food cost generally. So that's where we started. But to your point, when we started sort of expanding on just not only the mom and pop shops, but sort of the mid to market, 2 to 15, 20 type location brands, that's where we started working a little bit more and sort of understanding how when it came to sort of the distributors, Initially, they were a little skeptical as well considering they thought we were just competing with them directly, but we then sort of focus a little bit more on the approach of bringing them in into more of a collaborative sort of vendor network where we're not necessarily looking to compete with them When it comes to just stealing business from them, we're trying to at least maximize the amount of business they can keep with customers while still providing value at the end of the day because and I was telling this to GFS earlier. We're in the final stage of their food tech foundry program. And this is exactly the question they had for me. The GFS execs, some of them are old.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:24:25]:

They see this as competition. What would you say to them? I said, for the customers that In the past, in the nineties, you could see them using 70 to 80% of their spend directly through broadliners. That's fundamentally changed to about 30 to 40% if you're on the stronger side. What GFS should be looking to do is focus on What competitive sort of buying patterns they have those competencies in, the advantages that they sort of already have, the segments of categories that, You know, like, for example, disposables where they can obviously, like, aggressively compete against Sysco US Foods or if there's niche products where They know they have a supply source that the other key vendors don't. Those are the ways that they should be sort of focusing on. And, obviously, for the additional customers out there that they would have originally lost out in their old model, they're at least getting to retain about 30 to 40% of that customer spend instead of losing out to another distributor entirely. And feeding back that data of understanding how to sort of not just stay relevant, but compete both on price and quality because those are 2 different aspects that restaurants look at in different scenarios. Some are more price conscious.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:25:41]:

Some just specifically want high you know, fairly high quality product. And your processes, your infrastructure, obviously, determine how you would deal those products. So I'd say that is how we started spending a lot of time working with distributors and helping them understand the value we provided with that network. And since then, we've also expanded to work with them, Not just as suppliers, but as clients as well, which is what I was talking about where we service or we provided the same sort of on demand services to their distribution fleets when they came shorthanded to their existing restaurant clients. So we're trying to build it out in a way where we're still collaborating with them and not necessarily infringing on what they're doing or

Jeffrey Stern [00:26:27]:

building. It makes a a lot of sense just Honing in on the what is the win win scenario in in in collaborating here? Oh, okay. That's fascinating. So In the evolution of supply now, you mentioned, you know, you're now at a point where, you know, you've you've recently been able to close on a a round of of funding, which, You know, congratulations. That's amazing. What is the pitch sound like to the investors? I'd love to just hear a little bit about the fundraising process, where where the actual company is today, what what it looks like, and kinda the, you know, the vision that that you painted for the future of You know, in in this in this hypothetical where supply now is successful, what does success look like? What is the kind of impact that that you hope to have?

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:27:10]:

In terms of fundraising, we've raised 3 rounds of funding, October, March, and July, totaling about $660,000. We have about 17 employees right now. 6 are full time. And then the rest, I sort of count to part timers 0.5 just for simplicity's sake. And then in terms of where we're at, we've expanded through Northeast Ohio. We have roughly about 63 customer locations. And we've also built out, sort of more bare bones, online drop shipping model based operations in Boston with 18 locations. The chicken and rice guys were sort of the initial customer that got us there.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:27:52]:

But, yeah, now we've started expanding across, primarily on things like non perishables, your disposable spices, things like that. That way, we have much more reliable demand before we start scaling. In terms of So I guess that sort of speaks to where the company is at right now. Mhmm. We're currently raising a $750,000 round to expand a lot more aggressively into Columbus, just because we have a client wait list there, it's fairly close by and Columbus is a rapidly growing city. We have some, you know, interesting clients that we started lining up there. Romeo's Pizza is one, for example, where we have a franchisee owner that has Three locations in Columbus, 1 in Dayton that he's sort of been looking, to work with us to sort of expand through. So that's just an example of White Columbus is definitely in our sights and then, obviously, Boston thereafter.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:28:44]:

But we have a little bit more time there considering we can grow up some of our more, you know, less overhead involved operations. In terms of where we wanna take this and sort of the vision of the company, if you will, I see us being able to reshape how the food service sort of supply chain evolves over the next few years, Considering we've had a lot of shocks, we've gone from moving from a sort of more lean, supply chain to more of an agile one and having boards has just been more of a priority now compared to before. Dealing with the massive labor shortages from boards, you know, not just the hospitality industry, but also on the driver end, particularly for CDL drivers. I see a lot of gaps in some of the ideas that people have right now and how they wanna solve it. So even things like autonomous trucking, great idea, but it's gonna take 5, 10, 15 years when it comes to legislation for it or for it to be widely adopted enough to start dealing with sort of the shortage to that extent. And when you when it comes to food service, it's not just the pure aspect of Trucking in itself even. There's also a lot of heavy lifting and stopping store to store in restaurants that people just haven't It's kinda like hitting the hammer on the nail. You keep trying the same thing over and over again.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:30:12]:

That's where I see the food service industry kinda being stuck in right now. There's a gap. We see some of these pain points. And what we're we're looking to do is help bring it to the new age of, you know, sort of technology being infused into some of these more traditional age old processes and us being able to revitalize an industry that's been at the heart of sort of everything we do.

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:37]:

That's an awesome

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:30:39]:

vision. Thank

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:40]:

you. Yeah. I mean, one of the the the questions I I had was Was related to how how you will think about, you know, where to expand next. And I think Columbus makes a makes a lot of sense. But I I feel like there's this whole part of the business that that maybe is, you know, somewhat highly local, right, in terms of figuring out in a given city Who are the restaurants? And maybe the the supply side is a little bit more extensible in terms of maybe some of those companies have More of a national presence. But I was curious what it what it looks like to to go from city to city and try and, you know, build those relationships and find, Essentially, you know, your customer base in in those in those places?

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:31:23]:

Yeah. So we've been fortunate in the in those instances just because, some of the advisers we've brought on, they for their regular jobs consult restaurant groups across the country. So Melvin Reyes, for example, from Stacked LS, He, you know, brought us some of our clients in Boston, Cleveland, and he's actively, you know, going city to city, Boston, Chicago primarily, helping us with restaurant and distributor relationships. We've built out our process in a way where We routinely get interest from different cities, but we try to, like, compile it in sort of a wait list, if you will. And we analyze how much demand we can expect when we do enter So ideally, at least 50 locations is a good enough base where we can be reliable for more fleet heavy operations. But up until that point, we do still try to add value with comparative shopping, focusing on areas where we noticed there's significant market arbitrage where we can add, you know, we can pass down a lot of savings to our end customers, whether it's on certain categories, recognizing opportunity buys. There's just a lot of ways where we can still work with customers remotely. Is just that for a lot of the things where we have commercial vehicles, labor, the shopping, those are the aspects where we just wanna be a little bit more careful considering, You know, those are capital intensive overhead costs.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:32:52]:

So we try to be a little bit more strategic which is why we try to build up enough of a wait list, preset demand. And when we do enter a territory, it's that much more stable compared to going in and, you know, trying to find out what's gonna happen, I guess.

Jeffrey Stern [00:33:09]:

Yeah. Right. So maybe we can go on a a little bit of a A detour here, and we'll we'll make our way back to supply now and and Cleveland just to to round it out. But I I know you're you're currently serving as a A global entrepreneur in in residence, for Global Cleveland's GEIR program. I also found this Kind of really fascinating. But but I'd love if you could just paint a picture of what this program is, what are the challenges of You know, for for foreign born entrepreneurs and and your whole kind of experience navigating this process.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:33:44]:

Yeah. I was and that was actually the other thing I was gonna say. That's how we connected with Doug in the 1st place through this whole program. So, yeah, the Program is called the Global Entrepreneurship in Residence Program or the GEIR. So It's in Cleveland, primarily been, sort of the main organization that's in charge of it is called Global Cleveland. And they work at least for this program right now, directly with Cleveland State as an affiliate of Cleveland State University to effectively provide visa pathways for foreign born entrepreneurs to essentially keep them in Cleveland, grow their companies, and, you know, give them a way to stay versus there are a lot of challenges when it comes to immigration. Not so well known, but like if you're born So I was born in Dubai, raised there, But Dubai doesn't really give you birthright citizenship. You need multiple lines of lineage, particularly on the parental side to get citizenship, but now they've started introducing some measures.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:34:54]:

So my dad is Indian. So I was Technically, for these cases, an Indian citizen. Right? So immigration looks at the population of the country. They have a lottery based system. So Right off the bat, like, India has, I think, like, 10, 15 year backlogs or something like that. It's crazy. And when you go through the lottery system, you have One shot every year, you have to pay an exorbitant amount of fees. No companies really want to hire you.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:35:22]:

And it's just because they have to go through the nightmare of dealing with all of this when they could rather just be an American citizen more at the end of the day. So you're constantly having to go above and beyond and be that much better to even be in the conversation. So There's a lot of challenges for sure, but Global Cleveland has been phenomenal. I So once I graduated, they give you what's called OPT for 3 years, where you can have worth authorization. I directly started just Went right into entrepreneurship. So I had to have an American partner. He would be my bonafide employer. It was a whole thing.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:36:01]:

And, You know, we had to make sure we were still compliant. There was the E Verify system that we had to go through, but we got through all of that, Had everything set up. But after that, the h one b, I unfortunately didn't really get through. And early on, it was Too expensive for me to even apply. So there was a lot of challenges that I faced there. And through this process Where I was trying still trying to figure out if I could even stay in the country, I found out about the GIR program and how they worked with different universities And that universities had a loophole where they had what was called an uncapped h one b system, where it wasn't a lottery. It's basically guaranteed. You just had to work in some capacity or affiliation with the university in itself.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:36:50]:

And I was honestly shocked. So I started working with the program founder. Apparently, in the past, they tried doing it here in Cleveland. But Flash Starts, who is the company that was gonna help with this, The main founder, Charles Stacks, apparently, he thought he wanted to start his own company at the end of the day and tried to compete against GIR. So it just completely shattered from there. So they they had no guarantees for me whatsoever. This was when the program wasn't even established yet. So they said, if you are involved, you help out, you help create this program.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:37:24]:

You can potentially be the 1st entrepreneur that gets to stay in Cleveland. So I thought, I mean, I'm already taking a risk when it comes to startups in general. What's another risk? Right? So I went back to the drawing board, started finding organizations like Global Cleveland, Local Family Funds, putting together this entire process, the pitch decks, the just getting everyone on board. And I finally got Approval literally on the last day of my OPT, right when I thought, like, I just didn't know what was going to happen. So it was this whole experience for sure. But Yeah. I ended up going to Dubai for about a month, came back. I got my uncapped H1B, and now my concurrent H1B is, like, almost through as well.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:38:11]:

So That was a big relief for sure.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:15]:

I I can't even imagine. That's that's amazing you got through it, though. And so so you're now in some ways just, you know, trying to raise awareness

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:38:24]:

about, you know, the So I'm still involved with the program. Work with them 5 to well, 8 hours a week, where I basically help bring in other entrepreneurs, collaborate with local immigrant restaurants. And that's sort of how me and Doug work together as well. And generally when it comes to immigrant entrepreneurship, just helping identify some of these challenges and work closer with the city. That way The resources, the the experience, and the help that immigrant entrepreneurs need is actually provided just because The US is literally one of the 2 countries, I think, in the world that officially doesn't have a startup visa. Most other developed nations in the world do, Which is shocking because even Republicans agree with, you know, just generally entrepreneurship. Democrats do. But it's just A lot of fighting in between where you can't just get policy across and that's where programs like this really help out because At the end of the day, it's not policy.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:39:22]:

It's execution and getting these things done that's more important. Immigrant entrepreneurs have a dime a dozen of challenges to go through, but that resilience is what makes for exceptional companies. And I think That's where the delineation is. There's tons of studies that show Fortune 500 companies, the fastest growing ventures in America, all started with least an immigrant founder just because those challenges compared to what you have to go with through at UCIS is nothing. So it's a lot easier. Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:39:57]:

Yeah. I was I was going to ask you what the biggest challenges have been in this journey, and it is it it'd be tragic if it's If it's dealing with startup visas, but, you know, what what what has it been in in your reflection of of the journey so far?

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:40:15]:

It's been, it's been a journey. All right. I mean, come a long way. It's definitely gotten a lot better. I just Try to take these things day by day. There are so challenges I even face today, basic things that regular American citizens can, I guess, take for granted? Like, something as simple as just credit programs. Like, when I came here, I had no idea, like, how the credit system or any of this worked. I couldn't leverage or credit piggyback, if you will, off of my parents' credit scores.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:40:48]:

I finance everything from the startup perspective mostly on my own. So I I didn't really understand how any of that worked. So just right off the bat, I had A lot of disadvantages where I had sort of resources to help me understand from an earlier stage. It would have been a little smoother. But I appreciate sort of how I've gotten here and where I am. So For me now, it's more about helping other people that kind of go to the same spot to try and maybe avoid some of those pitfalls because It's an uphill battle just being an immigrant entrepreneur because at the end of the day, not only do you have to bring in money, spend exorbitant amount of Cash via visas and things like that. But you just have to be that much more exceptional. Otherwise, what are you doing at the end? You just might as well go back.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:41:36]:

Right? Because, Yeah. Like, the journey ahead is tumultuous to say the least. They're high expectations for sure.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:44]:

Yeah. What what would you say the the biggest lessons that that you've learned in the in the journey so

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:41:52]:

far? I generally look at things from more of an iterative approach. So I never look at something really as black and white. I think that is a big Dissociation that I have from just general people I generally deal with. My girlfriend is actually studying psychiatry. She's gonna be doing her residency. Finally, it's like a whole Phenomenon in itself where majority of the population think of things in terms of just one way or the other. I love to see things right in that gray area, like getting in the mud, understanding how we can tweak, fine tune, and, like, sort of change things pretty much day by day. So for me, my biggest lessons, honestly, I'm learning pretty much every day as I go.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:42:38]:

It's like, I could name a few, but it's just an ever growing list. Just even things like time management, the organization of, You know, who I deal with, the way I delegate responsibilities, hold people accountable, how I see Longer term contracts versus short term deals. How I deal with fundraising investors, non diluted versus diluted funding. There's it's just there's so many Things that I've learned, I'd say the biggest thing, one, I've definitely gotten a lot better at communicating some of these things just because Back then, I had a lot of ideas up here, but it was hard to articulate. I I mean, I did speak and learn English, basically, you know, Same as most other people did. But I also do speak other languages. And I don't like, when I convey text, like, I can mix up sometimes American and British English as well. So does the way I explain things are also a little different.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:43:36]:

So that bridge of Me understanding how to articulate myself was one of the bigger challenges I had. So just literally going through Meetings, interviews, talking to people, and actually refining the way I even, like, presented ideas. I think that's been the biggest part of my growth in the past a few

Jeffrey Stern [00:43:56]:

years. What what has you most excited when you think about, you know, the immediate future, midterm, long term future, and and what what's coming down the pike?

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:44:06]:

I'm excited to see how we can scale not just across Northeast Ohio, but enter Columbus as well just because That is a close enough market. I've been there several times. I I see a lot of potential with, you know, what we can do. And when it comes to some of the distributors we wanna work with as clients. I see a lot of exciting things ahead when it comes to how we can really scale just because We've had some success so far, but growing a company is just a day by day struggle. So I think how we scale these next few months is, I guess, the biggest worry, but also the biggest excitement for me considering Things can go wrong, but at the end of the day, you learn and you grow. And I think there's a lot of yeah. There's a lot of things that I am excited for when it comes to dealing with new clients, building new vendor relationships, bringing on more strategic partners like The FoodTech Foundry, for example, Dutchwood, hopefully, it goes well.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:45:06]:

I think it gets announced in the next 2 to 3 weeks. So will be interesting. So, yeah, I mean, I guess that, off the top, would be an interesting upcoming road map milestone.

Jeffrey Stern [00:45:18]:

Yeah. Yeah. But before we, you know, kinda close it out here, are there other parts of your journey, Topics you find particularly important, things we haven't touched on yet that that you would like to share.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:45:32]:

I think we covered a good amount. I guess immigration wise, I mean, definitely keep stressing that as like, you know, dig in yourself. I can send you more resources. Any attention you can provide, like, when it comes to the spotlight, Immigrants can always use help. So I always try to vouch any time any chance I get.

Jeffrey Stern [00:45:54]:

Appreciate that. So I'll ask you our Traditional closing question, which which we ask everyone who comes on the the podcast, which is, not necessarily for your favorite thing in Cleveland, but For, you know, hidden gem for for something that other folks may not know about, but but that that is special to you.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:46:15]:

Taste of Kerala, beautiful place. It's, in Woodmere right next to Trader Joe's. Very authentic. And When I told this to Doug, he's like, wait, that's the best thing you need? Because obviously his concepts as well, which I mean are fantastic too. It's just My dad is from Kerala. It's a state in India. So it's like, we actually work with them too. We just signed them up.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:46:38]:

But, the owner, his name is Anil Kumar. Amazing guy. One of the most hardworking people. He's just always running across the restaurant. Like, a lot of energy. The food, beautiful. Like, some of the most authentic just because growing up, I knew exactly considering Dubai is a lot closer to India, you can get more fresher ingredients. Indian spices are a lot more prevalent as well.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:47:02]:

And I had family members that can cook in traditional, like, Kerala or we call it Malayalis, essentially. So I'm I'm a Malayali. I speak Malayalam, but my accent's bad. I haven't spoken it in a while. So I'm not gonna speak Malayalam in case you do have it for my early listeners but yeah, I'd say that's a hidden gem for sure. Definitely check it out. It's in Widmer. The food is amazing.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:47:23]:

Try the shrimp roast and the Kerala Perrata. It's heavenly. It's kind of like

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:27]:

Oh, that sounds really good.

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:47:29]:

Like a flaky, soft, Like, non type bread, circular. And then the shrimp roast, it's yeah. Kerala has a lot of coconut and, like, spices, so It's fairly fresh, and it's like a very yeah. You'll definitely enjoy it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:45]:

Wow. Yep. That that sounds amazing. Thank you for

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:47:48]:

You see why I love restaurants now.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:51]:

Yes. Well, it's important, you know, that you have the passion for for what you you love doing. Well, Aaron, I really appreciate, you know, you coming on today and for for telling us about, you know, your your own journey and and the work you're doing at SupplyNow. And, Just wanna

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:48:06]:

thank you. Thank you so much, and appreciate you having me and for taking the time as well.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:10]:

Absolutely. If folks had anything they wanted to follow-up with you about, What would be the the best way for them to do so?

Aaron George (SupplyNow) [00:48:17]:

My email is aaron@supplynow.org, supplynow.org. Our website is supplynow.org as well. So you can check us out. Feel free to email me. Thank you so much.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:38]:

We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show. So if you have any feedback, please send over an email to jeffrey@layoftheland.fm or find us on Twitter at podlayoftheland or at @sternjefe, j e f e. If you or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please reach out as well and let Snow. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us Spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of The Land.