Josh Schultz - Scaling CaneKast - Ep.144
My guest on this episode is Josh Schultz, current president CaneKast and previously co-founder of the Chess Group. Josh has partnered with Reg Zeller, a former podcast guest from Episode 81 and CaneKast founder, to acquire and streamline foundries across the country. But as Josh and I talked about in the episode, that is far from their only ambition. Josh and I talk about what has changed the most in the year since joining CaneKast, how he approaches scaling, organizations, and teams, documenting processes, change management, and finding a complementary partner to work with. Josh is also a great friend and a person I deeply admire. He's incredibly intelligent, process driven, and creative, and I always love talking with him. Please enjoy our conversation. Listen weekly and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and TuneIn. Links: Josh on Twitter JoshuaSchultz.com CaneKast Reg Zeller on Twitter The SMB Ops show Topics: (2:58) - What would you say are the biggest changes you’ve seen in your business in the past 10 months? (4:45) - Do you feel like there’s an order of operations for changing or tracking different things? (7:00) - How did you go about understanding pricing and mold counts? (10:47) - Do you believe you’re creating a competitive advantage beyond pricing that contributes to growing sales? (12:40) - What’s the most challenging piece to improving service? (14:45) - How much do you think making internal data more transparent has impacted your efforts? (19:46) - How do you get someone with deep domain expertise to share and document knowledge? (20:51) - What is the goal for building multiple solo companies within CaneKast? (23:42) - What are some business models that are inspiring this move? (25:05) - The importance of building a competitive advantage (27:15) - Do you feel your competitive advantage will allow you to acquire other foundries? (29:02) - Do you think there’s correct pacing to change? (30:45) - How do you approach setting a vision for the company? (34:49) - How do you view what types of aspects of the business will change next? (36:51) - Where do you think you’ll feel the strain as you start acquiring companies? (38:34) - How do you go about learning a new topic? (42:10) - How have you used media and podcasting to build relationships? (43:47) - What advice do you have for finding a good partner? (46:00) - How did you think about your role at CaneKast? (48:18) - Have you always had this Entrepreneurial Impatience? (50:43) - Where do you feel like you need to be patient? (54:56) - Evolving the CEO role to pure people & executive team management (59:26) - What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on? (1:00:09) - What’s the best business you’ve ever seen? (1:03:24) - What’s next for you in manufacturing after foundries?