Leveraging Third-Party Logistics: The Ups and Downs of Starting a Remote Business

This Is Small Business

Can you still start a business if you’ve got no space or time to create, store, and pack your products at home? Just ask Marilyn Yang, the Co-Founder and CEO of Popadelics, who managed to do just that by starting her business remotely using third party logistics. She shares the ins and outs of outsourcing your operations as a startup, some of the early risks she had to take to make it work, and the benefits and challenges that might come your way.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

(01:05) How Marilyn, a picky eater, created and introduced mushroom chips to the snacking world.

(02:38) The steps it took for Marilyn and her husband to collaborate with a food start-up consulting firm.

(03:25) What to do if you hit a snag with your outsourced co-packer. In this case, Marilyn had ingredients that took many months to arrive with nowhere to go, and a co-packer that was still on the fence – but she still managed to make it work.

(6:42) Why Marilyn started her business using third party logistics – something that companies usually do as they scale.

(7:30) How outsourcing your operations can help your business scale faster.

(8:29) How having your operations spread out across the US can make your business eligible for more opportunities but makes applying to them more complicated.

(10:11) How to balance running a remote business with the rest of your life.