Jim Belosic is the Co-founder and CEO of SendCutSend, a sheet metal manufacturing business he bootstrapped to a $140 million revenue run rate in eight years.

We talk building a manufacturing business in the US, creative ways he financed the company early on, using speed and trust to compete with overseas competitors, lessons from restaurants, and why you can’t run a factory from a spreadsheet.

Thank you to Numeral, Flex, and Amplitude for supporting this episode

Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance https://www.numeral.com

Flex: Sign-up for Flex Elite with code TURNER, get $1,000 https://form.typeform.com/to/Rx9rTjFz

Amplitude: AI analytics, all you have to do is ask https://www.amplitude.com

Timestamps:

(0:16) Automating sheet metal manufacturing

(5:59) Zero to $140 million ARR in 8 years

(7:58) Acquiring a $750k laser with $0

(13:38) Automating factories is like baking cookies

(15:17) Being legible to capital

(17:31) Unlocking custom, low order manufacturing with software

(20:00) Building more factories instead of selling the software

(24:50) Run your company like a lemonade stand

(28:30) Raising an angel round in 2021 as a safety net

(33:21) SendCutSend’s unique bottoms-up GTM

(38:24) Fun coupons

(40:12) Building a moat with speed and trust

45:55) How US factories can beat China

(47:40) Gaslight product launches

(52:05) Lessons from non-manufacturing businesses

(55:19) You can’t run a factory from a spreadsheet

(58:10) Using data in manufacturing

(59:50) Lessons from Factorio

(1:03:17) Unlocking a negative cash conversion cycle

(1:06:14) You need to resist automating everything

(1:13:51) Surviving COVID with six weeks of cash

(1:15:47) Solving the US skilled labor shortage

(1:26:17) Teaching kids about manufacturing

Referenced

SendCutSend: https://sendcutsend.com/

Careers at SendCutSend: https://sendcutsend.com/careers

Sandy Kory: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandykory

Horizon VC: https://www.horizon.vc/

Concrete Canoe Competitions: https://www.asce.org/communities/student-members/conferences/asce-concrete-canoe-competition

Follow Jim

Twitter: https://x.com/jimbelosic

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/belosic

Follow Turner

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak

Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/