ShipHero’s Journey to $12B | Aaron Rubin, Founder and CEO

The Peel with Turner Novak

Building an enterprise-ready SaaS app? WorkOS has got you covered with easy-to-integrate APIs for SAML, SCIM, and more. Start now at https://bit.ly/WorkOS-Turpentine-Network. Aaron Rubin is the Founder and CEO of ShipHero, a warehouse management system for brands and 3PL providers. We talk through Aaron’s journey building ShipHero, starting with what is now the largest Jiu Jitsu apparel brand in the US, which he almost went bankrupt running during the financial crisis. He shares how that business led to ShipHero, takes us inside the early days, explains why warehouse robotics and 4PL’s are overhyped, and discuss the rapid rise of TikTok Shop, Temu, and Shein. Timestamps (00:00) Intro (02:01) The USPS shipping label scam (07:10) Starting the largest Jiu-Jitsu apparel brand (09:46) Narrowly avoiding bankruptcy in 2008 (17:08) Why ecommerce is so hard (21:16) Starting ShipHero to manage their own warehouse (28:00) Powering Shopify’s early fulfillment network (30:59) How 3PL’s are still solving basic problems (34:02) Why warehouse robotics is overhyped (41:48) Where drones fit into logistics (44:55) Aaron argues why the 4PL model doesn’t work (55:40) TikTok Shop is the fastest growing US ecommerce channel ever (58:42) How Temu and Shein leverage the 321 program to avoid tariffs (1:02:49) Why Temu and Shein are slowing US ecom growth (1:04:17) Topgrading: The most boring, most valuable hiring strategy (1:11:29) Business lessons from playing poker Referenced ShipHero: https://shiphero.com/ Topgrading: https://www.amazon.com/Topgrading-Hire-Coach-Keep-Players/dp/094400234X Where to find Aaron Twitter: https://x.com/AaronandML LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronandml Where to find Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it