#meetFlexe is an ongoing series profiling the individuals that make up the Flexe team. To learn more about Flexe, visit www.flexe.com/company.
Tell us a little about yourself — where did you grow up?
I grew up in Texas, but never got the accent, which kind of makes me sad. I went to school at Duke, where I studied economics and Russian on an ROTC scholarship. It was a great opportunity to serve my country in the military and it didn’t hurt that the Navy had bases in places like California, Rhode Island, and Hawaii.
How did you come up with the idea of Flexe?
The idea for Flexe came when I was at a housewarming party. A friend of mine, Dhruv Agarwal, presented me with a business challenge he was experiencing in logistics: the inflexibility of warehousing. His business, True Brands, was growing fast and it was difficult to predict what capacity and services he would need next month, let alone in a year. As a result he was always either short, or long on space, and he wasn’t alone in that.
He challenged us to build a technology that would allow him to tap into existing capacity when he needed it, and lease the available space when he had it. Having the background in technology platforms, the idea resonated very clearly with me, and so the Flexe was born and Dhruv became our first customer.
Did you work in logistics prior to founding Flexe?
Not exactly. Prior to Flexe, I was the CEO of AdReady, a Seattle-based advertising technology company. So you can say I am a reformed Ad Tech guy. I spent years building different variants of a two-sided marketplace in Ad Tech AND I got a front-row seat to the rise of eCommerce, trying to drive customers to shopping carts. So when the idea for Flexe came, putting those two things together made Flexe feel like a no-brainer.
What would people be surprised to learn about you?
I was an amateur musician. I played in a few bands, and was lead singer and guitar. We used to play all around the school campus, and funny enough, that’s how I ended up meeting my wife.
Editor’s note: We asked if Karl ever had long hair. He responded with, “No comment.”
What’s your leadership style?
I learned early on that one of the keys to being an effective leader, no matter what your style is, is to be authentic. If you aren’t being yourself, people can see through that. The other thing is the principle of “leading from the front.” This basically means that if you’re going to lead an organization, you must show how you want things to be done, and then do that in a credible way. It’s important that as a leader you’re willing to do the same things you’re asking of your team.
“Inspiring. Humble. Strategic. Kind. Passionate. Karl is equal parts of all of the above and is the heart and soul of Flexe. He leaves a lasting impression on everyone who gets the pleasure of working with him.” — Megan Evert, Senior Vice President of Operations on working with Karl
What makes Flexe a great place to work?
Fundamentally, it is our people. From day one at Flexe we made a very conscious decision to only hire people that we really want to work with. A couple of things that our employees have in common are grit, tenacity, and a desire to build industry-changing products.
What excites me most about Flexe is even though we’ve come a long way as a business over the last six years, I feel like we’re just scratching the surface. Logistics is a massive industry, going through poignant disruption, and we have proven that our model, our software, and our people can provide new solutions in this market that help companies compete.
“Karl is who you’d want to be with if the building caught fire or you found yourself on a runaway train–which, at times, is what it can feel like when you’re building a business. He’s our steady hand reminding us of not only where we’re headed, but also of how far we’ve come.“ — Ryan Morel, VP of Marketing on Karl’s leadership style
What’s your favorite business book?
The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. While it’s not necessarily a “business book”, it provides a great framework for solving highly complex problems. He makes the argument that most failures in the modern world come from mistakes that could have been avoided, which is why everyone — from pilots to neurosurgeons to CEOs — needs to have a checklist that will walk them through the key steps in any complex procedure. It sounds like a basic idea, but in a world where we’re moving incredibly fast, it can be easy to miss a step in the heat of the moment. This is especially true if you are building a company. Having some sort of decision-making framework can go a long way in helping to eliminate mistakes that could have been avoided.
Learn more about Karl in this Authority Magazine feature, and find more #meetFlexe profiles here.
