How Stord Built a Commerce Enablement Platform ($1B+ Valuation) That Rivals Amazon's Logistics Network

"Two 18 year olds don't really have the capital to build Amazon's level logistics network from scratch."

This candid observation from Sean Henry , founder and CEO of Stord , highlights the audacity of his mission: challenging Amazon's logistics dominance. Yet today, Stord operates 11 warehouses spanning 3 million square feet, with 50 partner facilities, serving brands like Athletic Greens, Seed Health, and Native.

From eBay Sales at Age 7 to Founding a Logistics Empire

Sean's entrepreneurial journey began remarkably early. "The first time I ever sold a product online was in 2003 when I was 7 years old," he recalls. "Thankfully I was able to open an ebay account and sell my Christmas presents as I really wanted something else than what I got for Christmas."

This sparked a passion for e-commerce that continued through his youth, where he repeatedly encountered the same frustration: "I just kept feeling the pain point of being an independent brand and having to manage my own supply chain and competing against giants like Amazon who are setting standards like next day or same day free delivery with the best in the world tracking and visibility and returns processes."

The realization that customer satisfaction often hinged more on shipping than products became his catalyst: "Just kept realizing that so many of my reviews and my customer feedback and more is as much based on my shipping experience as it is based on the products I'm selling to them. Yet I can't compete with these giants out there who have the advantage of scale and team to build out the end to end complex supply chain needed to deliver on that."

Building an Asset-Light Network

Faced with limited capital, Sean and his co-founder took an innovative approach. "Day one, we kind of stepped back and said, if we want to deliver this Amazon like value proposition to brands, what is the most unique element of their operation and their supply chain?" The answer was inventory placement—"It's how they place inventory across a network close to consumers to mitigate shipping costs and enable fast speeds, that algorithmic spread of inventory."

This insight led to their initial strategy: "Let's start there and let's just build a network of partner warehouses. We don't have the capital to go open our first warehouse. So what if we call warehouses across the us, kind of like Airbnb or Uber or somebody else and say, hey, we'll stock product in your building asset light and build the software layer on top."

When pitching to a major logistics company early on, they faced skepticism: "I won't name a name, but it was one of the largest parcel businesses in the world and one of the largest incumbent warehousing businesses in the world met us early on...Only to eventually basically say you guys are idiots, this doesn't need to be built." Rather than discouraging them, Sean says, "It was less defeat and oh no, the biggest company out there in our space is now going to compete with us. It was more a realization that were onto a real problem...This just validated the problem, didn't unvalidate it and make us stop. It made us go even faster and even harder."

Evolving into a Commerce Enablement Platform

What began as a warehousing network has evolved into what Sean calls a "commerce enablement platform" offering "robust software, robust insurance products and robust fulfillment and shipping products."

This reflects their strategy to become "a multi product compounder... we're going to launch this warehousing network, but then we're going to launch a trucking network, a last mile network, a returns network, order management software and so on."

Marketing Value, Not Features

While many logistics companies focus on capabilities, Stord concentrates on business value. "The best businesses out there are taking something that a customer needs no matter what and making it so much more valuable for them," Sean explains.

Their pitch is transformative: "You're going to spend 10 to 15% of your revenue on your end to end shipping, fulfillment returns... Unless you plan to 3D print stuff in consumers homes. Let us take that from you and take it from being a fragmented, clunky cost center... to a value engine and a driver of your business."

This addresses a fundamental truth: customers care more about solving problems than categories. "I wouldn't say a customer really says I need a commerce enablement platform. They'll say I need to fix my fulfillment and delivery, it's harming my customer experience, it's harming my reviews."

Finding the Right Customer Focus

Contrary to conventional startup advice, Stord began with a broad customer approach. "My maybe contrarian advice," Sean shares, "was instead of focus on just defining the super narrow ICP to start and saying that's only who we're going to serve and build for, let's actually start with a wide aperture. A lot of people look for the smallest market for product, market fit."

This approach suited their model: "And that's partially because this type of business is a flywheel business where the more volume you have, the lower prices, the faster speeds. And so we kind of needed a volume land grab to start."

Only later did they narrow their focus: "Today our ICP is really a brand doing 10 + million in revenue all the way to single digit billions. Omnichannel likely selling both retail and E commerce, obsessed with their customer experience."

The Power of Founder-Led Sales

Perhaps Stord's most important go-to-market decision was maintaining founder-led sales. "Well, this one may sound selfish, but I do think that founder led sales is probably the most important commitment we've made as a business," Sean states. "We created a process whereby every deal at Stored has a named executive sponsor...I'm doing that in a lot of deals, probably 50 plus percent of our deals."

While seemingly unsustainable, Sean argues: "if I don't know 50% of my valuation or my business is driven by growth, how much time am I really investing in growth? And really, is it ever a bad use of my time to be talking to a customer and growing and adding new revenue into the business? No, I don't think it ever is."

The results speak for themselves: "I just talked to two founders this morning who are both agreeing and committing to coming to Stored and they're signing their contracts. And these are multimillion dollar deals each and both of them reference. It's the exact team engagement that was the game changer for them to say, this is the business I want to work with."

The Three-Act Vision: Reverse Engineering Amazon

Stord's ambitious vision is methodically planned in three phases:

"Act one for us was really build that prime like delivery network. Act two is really build all the software needed to power our brands and all the business tools they need that surround that delivery and that customer experience," he says.

The third phase is perhaps the most ambitious: "And then Act 3 is really win the consumers and build a brand that the consumers trust and check out at a higher rate across the Internet at a brand where they see Stord's logo somewhere in that checkout, shipment, selection, post purchase flow than when they don't."

What distinguishes their approach is the starting point: "And so I'd just say that we're reverse engineering Amazon and doing it from the back end fulfillment and delivery rather than from the front end of selling products and then having to do the fulfillment and delivery."

Building for Decades, Not Just Years

Unlike many startups focused on quick wins, Sean is building for longevity. "The thing I love the most about this is just the total Runway. We have to really build something massive over the next few decades," he says, emphasizing their first phase alone addresses "hundreds of billions of dollar tam of total revenue potential."

By starting with the unsexy but critical backend logistics and expanding toward consumer-facing offerings, Stord has found a path to challenge even the most dominant players in e-commerce—proving that sometimes the best way to take on giants isn't by copying their approach, but by attacking the problem from an entirely different angle.

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