260: From Rabbi School to Supply Chain Innovator. How Izzy Rosenzweig is Saving Customers Time & Money with Portless!

Background on Izzy Rosenzweig of Portless:

Izzy Rosenzweig is the Founder and CEO of Portless, a company that fulfills e-commerce orders directly from China to their client’s customers' front doors, massively improving lead times, decreasing shipping costs, and lowering import tax fees. Born from a family that has a strong entrepreneurial spirit, Izzy discovered his passion for business at an early age. He was studying to become a rabbi but he also had a side business selling Sukkah to the local Jewish community. With his early experience as an entrepreneur, Izzy started his own company called Browze, which is a marketplace that curates unique low-cost products, directly sourced from factories overseas. Today, Izzy has completely pivoted towards the supply-chain world, which is why he has started Portless.

Portless has its own fulfillment center in China, allowing them to buy only the inventory they needed and immediately ship it to customers anywhere in the world with a domestic shipping experience. The benefits of this business model allow for improvement of cash flow, no wasted inventory, and better high-end packaging.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

• [1:37] Izzy Rosenzweig, 34 years old, is the founder and CEO of Portless, which is a company that does a unique and different way of supply chain and logistics for direct-to-consumer companies. Izzy provides a more in-depth explanation of their services.
• [4:53] Portless is only based in China but they are currently building in Vietnam.
• [5:31] More benefits and savings for customers when they use Portless.
• [6:10] Austin is curious how much customers pay them for using their service.
• [7:34] Using Portless exempts the customers from import taxes or import duties.
• [8:55] Izzy points out the benefits of using Portless in terms of inventory.
• [11:17] Their typical customers have a thousand orders or more per month.
• [11:43] Izzy talks about their pricing structure.
• [14:18] The first 7 to 8 years of the business, their process was not completely efficient.
• [15:48] More discussion on the business model and process of Portless using a tshirt business as an example.
• [16:51] Izzy used to sell kitchen accessories and home decors shipped from China. He also talks about the evolution of Portless and how
• they transitioned into having a more efficient business model.
• [23:31] Their customers are mostly in the US, Australia, and UK.
• [24:44] It was only 6 months ago that they started their Portless website and build their brand.
• [26:22] Since the supply-chain industry is deemed as very inefficient and messy, Izzy saw this as an opportunity for Portless.
• [27:20] Being a consumer business himself for 10 years, Izzy has enough experience to provide better services for a consumer business.
• [31:02] Izzy shares how he used to do business during his earlier days with his company, Browze.
• [32:04] One of his earliest advisers is the former CFO of Alibaba.
• [33:55] Originally, Izzy was destined to be an ordained rabbi in a synagogue. However, he always had a passion for business even when he was still growing up.
• [35:09] Izzy shared the story of his family and why entrepreneurship runs in his blood.
• [39:24] His father started a business that produces wedding dresses.
• [41:11] The wedding dress business that his grandfather and father started had a mid-sized factory with about 20 employees. Their market was Toronto, Montreal, and New York.
• [44:41] After high school, Izzy wanted to become a rabbi.
• [46:34] When he was still studying to become a rabbi, Izzy had this side business that gave him more experience on importation and moving products between borders.
• [49:49] His Sukkah business was doing pretty well, with about a few hundred thousand in revenue. However, this business is only seasonal, which is why Izzy considers it a side-business.
• [52:35] The first time he received his shipment delivery of Sukkah, he had to unload the packages himself and it took him about 6 hours.
• [54:26] On his first year of selling Sukkah, Izzy was handing out flyers and he knocked on the door of a person who is also in the business of selling Sukkah.
• [56:27] Another important lesson Izzy learned along the way is working with good people.
• [57:21] There was a lot of big lessons he learned when running Browze.
• [1:00:06] In 2020, there was another big lesson that Izzy learned in running a business.
• [1:03:22] The first 5 years of Browze was a lot of growth and they were doing great. However, when the Apple privacy update happened, things turned bad for them and they had to pivot to supply-chain, which led Izzy to Portless.
• [1:06:56] Izzy talks about how he was able to start the tech side of Portless.
• [1:09:34] Getting more in-depth on the history of the development of his tech platform. They started from WordPress to Magento, and then Shopify.
• [1:13:24] Izzy offers more business advice and lessons for every entrepreneurs.
• [1:14:42] When Izzy was going through rough times in the business, he took care of his health and developed a different mindset and attitude.

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The Fabulous 4 Questions:

1. 📖📚 Favorite Books? Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
2. 🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com Purchase? All Books
3. 🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? Notion
4. 💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? Exposure

Key Point from Our Episode with Izzy Rosenzweig:

• “Don’t take anything for the way it is, be curious, ask lots of questions, and don’t be afraid to try anything out.”

Resources Mentioned:

• LinkedIn: Izzy Rosenzweig
• Twitter: @IzzyRosenzweig
• Portless.com
• Izzy Rosenzweig – Rethinking Supply Chain (Beyond Traditional Boundaries)

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