Behind The Tool: Jadah From 3PeeL

Let’s kick things off with the basics. What is 3PEEL and what problem are you solving?

3PEEL is a matchmaking service for brands and warehouses; think of us as the dating matchmaker between brands and 3PLs. We help eCommerce and retail companies find the perfect logistics partners without the ghosting.

Love that analogy. So when did it click for you that this was a massive pain point in the industry?

When I was working as an Enterprise SaaS rep with Fortune 500 companies who would ask me (their unrelated sales rep) if I knew of any 3PLs. That's when it hit me: 3PLs are really hard to find. And every single company in the world who ships physical goods relies on — or eventually will rely on — them. This is a huge market, huge problem, and huge opportunity to improve access to an essential part of the global supply chain.

What do you think most brands misunderstand about working with 3PLs?

Thinking they can easily find a fulfillment partner who will be a good match for them. Asking friends or other companies for recommendations — when their business models are completely different. Thinking that a 3PL is just a warehouse who puts stickers on packages and it's a small task.

The reality is, a 3PL is a complex extension of your brand, often requiring heavy attention to detail, as the last touchpoint before your items actually reach your customers, and probably the most under-appreciated and over-looked area of your business.

How did your own background lead you to founding 3PEEL?

I had a lot of fun running and creating brands over the years: some for investors, others for myself. I realized the complexity of managing a 3PL (and a million marketplaces and other things) as a brand owner, which made me always have a deep appreciation of the logistics side of an eCommerce business.

Later on, as I was working with brands on the other side in software sales, I loved being a genuine guide and help to them, in whatever capacity I could. Organically, I placed a few brands with the limited 3PLs I did know at the time — which is when I realized this could be its own opportunity in its entirety. Finding fulfillment partners and helping brands analyze and optimize for the long term is so much fun for me. I hold brands’ wellbeing near and dear to my heart since I know how hard they worked to get to where they are.

So when brands start working with you, what’s the thing they immediately appreciate most?

The amount of time saved. We are often connecting brands with 3PLs within hours or even minutes of speaking with them. In total, most companies save weeks to months worth of time (which equals money, and frustration, right?) just by taking 10 minutes to speak with 3PEEL or fill out one of our forms.

That speed sounds like a dream for most ops teams. What else makes 3PEEL stand out from other fulfillment-matching services?

We are very brand-forward. When a brand is happy, everyone who works with them is too: the 3PL, the end customer, everyone in between. We genuinely attempt to vet our in-network 3PLs to the best of our ability, with a human touch — realizing that humans working with humans is what's going to make a successful relationship. Not a cold search online just to find a GPT-generated summary of a warehouse's "capabilities." Pairing brands based on personality, vibe, and congruences is a real thing that we uniquely bring to this world.

Zooming out, what’s a shift in your industry that more brands should be talking about?

There are an estimated 10,000+ 3PLs in the USA alone. More and more 3PLs are quietly becoming mini 4PLs: offering layered services like freight coordination, tech stacks, or marketing and customer support in order to stand out.

Most brands still think all 3PLs are the same and it’s purely about pricing. But it’s no longer just about storage and shipping; it’s about how strategic and connected your logistics partner really is and the overall integrated value they can bring to your brand.

Building a startup always comes with surprises. What’s one lesson you learned the hard way?

Quality takes time. Finding the highest quality 3PL partners, and the best quality leads/brands for them, takes time to build. It's a highly relationship-based business (as most are), and you can't rush connections. The sweat and time equity pay off over time, though!

If you could go back to your earliest days building 3PEEL, what’s something you’d do differently?

I would have more confidence from day one. I started my company as a little secret side project, to test the waters so to speak, and took a huge gamble quitting my very solid full-time job. I thought, the worst that could happen is I buy myself one year of freedom before I would have to head back to corporate.

Little did I know I would end up working 4x the number of hours weekly just to have a negative profit, and unsure if I had made the right move. But persistence and great partnerships have paid off — so I wish I could go back and tell my past self to do this sooner, because it’s inevitable that hard work would succeed.

And lastly, what’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

You don’t have to be the smartest or most well-funded business to survive — you just have to keep going. It's the grit, persistence, and unwillingness to give up (yet pivot when needed) that make a truly successful entrepreneur, in my opinion.

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