IAM309- CEO Revolutionizes The Packaging Industry by Providing Reusable Shipping Packaging

Mike Newman is the CEO of Returnity Innovations, the pioneer in the elimination of single-use shipping packaging. Mike has worked at the intersection of supply chain and sustainability for over 20 years. After directing the Sierra Club's political operations in 20 states, he received his MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. As Sales and Marketing Vice President for ReCellular, he built e-waste programs for Verizon, AT&T, Walmart, Best Buy and more, saving millions of used cell phones from landfills. Through his leadership at Returnity, reusable packaging will replace the use of over 1 million cardboard boxes and poly mailer bags in 2019. Mike has been featured on The Today Show, the New York Times, NPR and more.

• CEO Hack: Transparency to share what's happening with me and the company
• CEO Nugget: Early decisions in a start-up make a huge impact to later decisions
• CEO Defined: (1) Handling big problem head-on (2) Facilitates the vision and accountability

Website: https://www.returnity.co/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/returnityinc/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/newmanmi/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/returnityinnovations/

Full Interview

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TRANSCRIPTION

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INTRO 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:30

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today as Mike Newman of Returnity Innovations. Mike, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Mike Newman 0:39

Thank you for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:40

No problem. Super excited to have you on and what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Mike so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And Mike Newman is the CEO of Returnity Innovations, the pioneer in the elimination of single-use shipping packaging. Mike has worked at the intersection of supply chain and sustainability for over 20 years after directing the Sierra Club's political operations in 20 states he received his MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

As Sales and Marketing Executive Vice President for re cellular, he built e-waste programs for Verizon AT&T, Walmart, Best Buy, and more saving millions of used cell phones from landfills. Through his leadership at Returnity reusable packaging will replace the use of over 1 million cardboard boxes and poly mailer bags in 2019. Mike has been featured on today's show, The New York Times, NPR, and many more including the I AM CEO podcast Mike, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Mike Newman 1:38

I'm excited. Yeah, thanks.

Gresham Harkless 1:40

Awesome. Let's do it. So the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Mike Newman 1:47

So I was actually brought in two years ago by the investor group for Returnity. It had been incubated out of a reusable shopping bag business and one of the companies that was buying those reusable shopping bags was a very early days threat which has since grown to be this huge market creator and use clothing remarketing. So at the time, James Reinhardt was buying new shopping bags for thread up and he tasked the founder of that shopping bag company, Mitch with the idea of, could you make me a reusable shipping bag? And that sort of spun Mitch down this rabbit hole of, you know, the initial ideas on how to figure out how to make functional reusable packaging that could replace poly mailer bags and cardboard boxes.

And after working on the tech for a little while, the investor group brought me in to leverage my experience in supply chain and sustainability and figure out how we can take this technology and actually create markets for it. And so that's been this two-year roller coaster of learning and applying and growing. And it's a really exciting time, I think, for this technology and where markets are going to be able to have that. That knowledge and that toolkit.

Gresham Harkless 3:04

Yeah, absolutely, especially in something that's so you know, very much needed for in our environment, in our economy in our world, it's great to hear that you guys are on the forefront working on that. And definitely, you know, making the world overall a better place.

Mike Newman 3:17

Yeah, so I think, you know, whether it's the, you know, needed and growing attention to climate change, or just the explosion of E-commerce and the problems of last-mile delivery, I mean, it's we're kind of at the intersection of a lot of trend lines, which, which is exciting. And, you know, we're making new markets, which is always hard. But also, there's never a dull day. So it's really cool. Cool to see how it's developed.

Gresham Harkless 3:42

Yeah, it's funny that you say that making new markets sounds very, very exciting. Definitely not a dove. But definitely, I'm sure, it's definitely a lot of stuff that you're juggling and a lot of, you know, working through things and pioneering that, you know, a lot of people have to do whenever they're doing something innovative. So I appreciate you guys for that. I know you touched on it a little bit, but I want to hear a little bit more about what you guys are doing. Can you take us through how you're serving clients? And probably have different people that also benefit from that.

Mike Newman 4:08

Yeah, I mean, at its most basic, what we've developed our bags and boxes to replace the cardboard and poly mailers, and you know, is fairly simplistic on its face. The challenge, of course, is then what that actually means in the real world. And how do you get companies and consumers to adopt that, that evolution and so a lot of are the first things we had to do as a company was figure out just how to make a functional reusable pack or bag. But then, you know, what I found is over the last few years is what we've had to evolve beyond into as an essence of services company because packaging traditionally and really, you know, cardboard has been around for over 100 years.

Everyone knows how it works and what to do with it when they're done with it. Getting companies and consumers to think differently about how they can package and convey goods requires touching on all parts of the supply chain and business functions from accounting because now instead of, an expense, which is just a cardboard box that gets recycled or thrown away, you have an asset, which is a reusable package to marketing to consumer, you know, education to the shippers like DHL and UPS who are having to convey it, it touches everything in the supply chain.

So what we started out was called a dumb packaging company, we just made dumb boxes and dumb bags, and what we've kind of evolved into is a systems company that develops the packaging, but then also guides your enterprise through the process of integrating this new way of, of shipping and delivering products.

Gresham Harkless 5:40

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And, you know, I always wonder, you know, whenever you are, you know, innovating and doing something pioneering, like how much, you know, education and awareness probably has to, you know, play a big part of that. So I can definitely see how you're talking about, you know, operations, technology, and probably awareness is probably a tremendous part too, you know, getting people to understand the benefits of it, and understanding also what it is.

Mike Newman 6:05

Yes, and I think that really has been, for me, one of the most critical things, is finding ways to develop products and have them work in the marketplace as closely to cardboard and poly as possible. Because the less that you have to train both your internal stakeholders and consumers on what this thing is and how to use it, the better off you're going to be. So we've really done a lot to make it a seamless integration as much as possible for that reason, because if you know if you really have to change behavior, any behavior change is going to create friction and challenges. And so the less you do, the less education the less training, the fewer new behaviors you have to introduce the better off you're gonna be.

Gresham Harkless 6:47

Yeah, that makes very sense. It's funny, because I've had like, sales jobs in the past. And one of the things that I remember like one of my managers saying is that you think your competition is all these things out there, sometimes your biggest competition is the status quo because a lot of people just don't want to change anything else. So it kind of makes sense that you would align that with what people are already doing. So it's, you know, an easier transition, and then they're already doing the same things. And then they can have all these benefits as well.

Mike Newman 7:12

Yeah, that's right. I mean, one example is, you know, all the carriers have this service fee that they apply to non-traditional packaging. And the way, you know, like, the way FedEx described to us is we have people who will put a shipping label on a tire and then just drop it off at a store. Well, obviously, that is problematic. So they had to have this special classification.

So for us to not have that be a problem, we really had to think, Okay, well, how do UPS and FedEx and the Postal Service handle cargo? Like how does it move in through their system, our boxes need to be able to work in that environment for them. So they're not having to create new systems that handle these products especially, because that always adds cost. So all those the minutia are is really, you know, the devils in the details, like, that's where these things can thrive or die. And that's, you know, where we've really had to try and be smart.

Gresham Harkless 8:00

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And let me ask you this, would you consider that to be like your secret sauce, you know, for your you or your organization? Do you think that's what sets you guys apart?

Mike Newman 8:09

Well, I think that you know, partially, I think it is that you know, cardboard and Poly have been successful. Because it's cheap, it's like, it's easy to use, it's and it's effective, it protects the goods, mostly during shipping. And so I think we were the first ones to understand that if you're going to change that system, you have to innovate packaging that competes on all of those criteria. You know, there are things out there like rigid, cases that you, you know, people probably seen for shipping things to trade shows and stuff like that, that are just big and heavy and very expensive.

And they are, they're effective at protecting goods, but they miss all those other criteria that have made cardboard and poly successful. And so I think one of our sort of differentiators has been understanding that, to actually scale out a replacement to what has been, you know, a wildly effective packaging solution. And over time, you have to address all of those factors that have made us successful at once and you're not, you're gonna be better on some and not as good on others. But if you have to at least compete in all those areas, and I think that's what we've been able to do from an innovation standpoint.

And then the second I think, is, is coming back to what we were talking about a little bit earlier, which is that it's not just about manufacturing box and dropping it off at your customer's doorstep and saying, Thank you very much, you have to hold their hand throughout this evolution because it touches on every part of the business, and it requires them thinking differently. And the more they have to figure that out on their own, the harder it's going to be for you.

Gresham Harkless 9:37

Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. Just, you know, creating your own category, you have to take all that into account and getting that awareness out, you know, is extremely important, but also understanding like all the different stakeholders, and while they're doing XYZ takes a lot of you know, listening and due diligence to understand that a lot of those boxes are checked so that when you are creating your own category, it does, you know, provide those benefits. And now, what I wanted to do was switch gears a little bit. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Mike Newman 10:13

Well, so yeah, I mean, I think, for me, the word that I was the thing I always think about is transparency. And I think that what I've learned about myself, you know, eight years into my entrepreneurial career, starting and running startups, is I think I was early on I always prided myself on my transparency about the business and can really communicating effectively to stakeholders, whether it's employees, or customers or investors, on what was happening with the company.

I didn't necessarily translate that into my personal life, so much so. But then I have two young kids, now I have a four and a two-year-old, and they take up a ton of time and energy. And that's time energy that, you know, frankly, I used to devote to my startups. And so now I'm like a nine to five, and then, you know, eight to 10, or 11. But I like a nine-to-five employee more often during the workweek. And what I've learned about myself, and then what I've been able to sort of bring an organization is being transparent about where I'm at personally with the team and having sort of the confidence in myself and in my team to be able to share what's happening to me.

You know, I think at first I tried to hide why it wasn't necessarily in the office as long or wide to duck out early for, you know, something at a kid's school because I felt like almost it was a negative that was taking me away from the business. Now, I found that actually being more transparent about not just what's happened with the company, what's happening with me, and why I'm so why I have to be more focused when I am at my desk or in the office.

Gresham Harkless 11:50

Yeah, I think that makes perfect sense. Because I think sometimes when we look at, you know, businesses and organizations, we forget that it's made up of people, and people have kids, they have wives, they have, you know, sons and daughters, dogs, you know, all these things that you know, people have. So, a lot of times, you know, showing and being transparent as you said, you can a lot of times have a type of connection, because they're like, oh, I have to run to my son's soccer game or something like that to so they kind of understand it kind of creates a better engagement. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Mike Newman 12:27

Yeah, I say I actually talk about this a lot now. So it's something you know, I think the thing I could not understand as a young entrepreneur or a first-time entrepreneur, I should say, is just how fundamental those first choices you make are on the kind of business you have as it grows. And, you know, whenever when you're in that early exciting days, you have an idea, you just want to go at it. You tend to kind of just glob on to whatever can help you whether it's, you know, a mentor, an employee or a funder, like whatever the thing is, that's gonna get you going like, you tend to just want to great like, I'm I Let's get going.

The problem with that is that once you're a year 234 In those earliest choices really impact what that company looks and feels like to you, then entrepreneurs are always understaffed under resources like, you know, you have to make choices. But, you know, a classic example, I think, is with, you know, it's more popular these days to raise money with convertible debt because you're like delaying decisions that you know, around equity and valuations and the things that as an entrepreneur, if that's the type of company you're trying to create, and you're raising money that way, you think, Oh, that's great. Except for now, you've started this clock that is like an up-and-out mentality that the only way you're going to succeed is if, in a year or two, you've grown enough to go and raise money again.

And that is putting you on a path that is almost impossible to get off of and you may not even understand what they want. And so you might be a year or two in and feeling like things are going great, except they're not going so great that you can raise more money, and now your companies might be done, even though you've created so much traction.

So those early decisions make huge impacts on later decisions. And you have to I think, therefore have a very honest conversation with yourself when you're starting a new venture.

Gresham Harkless 14:21

That makes perfect sense. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is kind of in alignment with what we just talked about, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote unquote, CEOs on the show, as you mentioned, you know, the lifestyle entrepreneurs or the billion-dollar, you know, entrepreneurs that are looking to build that. But I want to ask you, specifically Mike, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Mike Newman 14:40

I think about being a CEO how and as somebody who has to handle the problems head-on when things go wrong, and then facilitates a vision and accountability to make sure things go right.

Gresham Harkless 14:56

Absolutely. I think that makes perfect sense and is a great reminder, you know, kind of the buck stops with you as a CEO one way or another. So it's a great thing to kind of remember. So I truly appreciate your time again, what I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, Mike, and let us know if there's anything additional, you want to let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best people can get out of you?

Mike Newman 15:16

Well, I guess, I think the only other thing I would say is sort of dovetailing a little bit off of what we're talking about earlier is that when I, as a relatively experienced, founder and CEO at this point, what is what I'm constantly reminded of is how hard it is to get off the train. And once you start down this path, and as an entrepreneur, as a CEO, you think, you know, it's easy to tell yourself, I'm just going to do it for a little while and see how it goes. And almost never happens. That way you get invested financially, and emotionally, in your relationships with your funders, and with your partners. I always love to hear from others. You know, the easiest way to get me it's just my Returnity email, which is mike@returnity.co.

Gresham Harkless 16:02

Awesome. And we'll have the link for that on the website as well in the show notes. But Mike, I appreciate your time again, I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Mike Newman 16:10

Thank you so much.

Outro 16:10

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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