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Mar 3, 2025
#2 - Dave Evans, Co-Founder & CEO at Fictiv
#2 - Dave Evans, Co-Founder & CEO at Fictiv
00:00
21:57
Transcript
0:00
[gentle music] Dave, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast. How are you today? Very appreciated. Thanks for having me today. We, uh, we tend to keep these short and sweet. I'm so excited to chat.
0:16
Let's dive right in. Um, first, if you don't mind telling the audience a little bit about your background, and then give us the overview of Fictiv. Yeah, for sure. So Dave Evans, co-founder, CEO of Fictiv.
0:26
Can't believe I'm in year 12. I'm on my second decade, so, uh, I definitely don't feel or look the part, but we're, uh, fighting the good fight in manufacturing on decade number two.
0:37
Mechanical engineer by background, Stanford guy, did mechatronics, and then, uh, Ford is where I started my career.
0:43
So automotive, was building infotainment systems, dashboards with cars, and that's really kinda where I got my industry, industry knowledge and started off, and then we started Fictiv back in 2013, and, you know, we're a global supply chain and manufacturing company.
0:59
Our job is to help simplify sourcing for custom mechanical parts. So think plastics, metals, CNC, injection molding, 3D printing.
1:08
You know, we're doing all that stuff and helping companies scale from, you know, early prototypes into their mass production, and do that in four different countries, so it's pretty fun. I love it.
1:19
And the energy has not gone away in 12 years, has it? Uh, that probably has not. It's only increased, I would say.
1:24
And, uh, you know, you wish you had a crystal ball to like, "I'm above this global supply chain company when tariffs happen and Trump gets reelected," and, you know, like, obviously we knew all of that back in 2013.
1:36
[laughs] And did you have the beard when you first started?
1:40
You know, funny enough, I did have the beard, but my brother, uh, brother, co-founder, he was doing investment banking, and so I always like to joke, he was like sell side M&A, and he had to wear, like, a, a jacket and a tie, and he had no, no beard whatsoever.
1:57
And Nate's a 6'5", redheaded, has a full beard now, and, uh, and he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Chinese too.
2:05
And so I always like to joke, we started the company just so Nate could tr- grow a bigger beard than I could, which he now has accomplished, and, um, you know, he left the banking world, and, and if you're in manufacturing, you gotta grow some facial hair sometimes, so...
2:19
Before I go into anything else, I need to a- what, what's it like building a business with your brother? If you... Well, do, do you have br- do you have siblings, Jared? Or- I have a sister. You have a sister?
2:29
Uh, would you ever do this podcast or something with your sister? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. So I think there are two parties. There's either, like, the siblings that are like, "Absolutely not," would never do it.
2:41
You know, what I would say is that whenever you start a new venture, a business, a whatever it is, trust is probably that biggest thing for you.
2:49
Um, you know, is, is the person, is your partner doing it to get rich, to change an industry, to become famous? Like, what are those underlying motivations?
2:57
What I can tell you, having a brother on the other side, we couldn't, couldn't be more polar opposites, couldn't be more different.
3:03
Um, but that trust was there from day one, and so we got to focus on the business problem. We knew why we wanted to do it. We knew we wanted to make a big impact, change an industry, change status quo.
3:14
And so you're not questioning of, like, what those values are, the different traits.
3:18
And so I think a lot of our success comes 'cause we're this yin and yang, complete opposites, but, you know, that we got to attack the problem versus, you know, maybe internal things that are going on along the way.
3:30
H- here's the thing too, not to knock the, the people that... Not, not your... I actually like, if you're gonna start a business, I would much rather people start with a sibling than... I see a lot with spouses. Yeah.
3:40
And I'm not saying that can't work, but I've heard of more breakups with spouse co-founders than... It's your brother. Like- I mean, you know-... no matter if you wanna get away from him, you're, you're always brothers.
3:53
It's kind of funny though. Our, our partners think that we're maybe more married to each other than we are to them sometimes.
4:00
But the best thing about brothers is you get into a fight, you gives a, give him a black eye, and then you just move on. You know, it's fine. [laughs] And you get over it.
4:07
So, uh, no, there's no, no, no domestic violence between Nate and Dave. We keep it above board.
4:12
I mean, you two could go super viral on social media if you said, "Here at Fictiv, here's how we settle arguments," and it's just you two on the ground.
4:22
[laughs] You know, the irony of all this is if you met us, we're probably, like, the sweetest guys, and we're just gonna give you a hug is what we're gonna do, so, uh, that's the funny part- Even better...
4:31
about this whole thing. But we could go on a tangent. This is, this is good. We, you know, we can go down this, this rabbit hole. I love it. Well, let's, let's shift focus.
4:37
Let's go back to, um, you know, some of the questions we wanna kinda dive into today, but I appreciate you sharing some stuff 'cause it's really interesting. Um, we've had a lot of people on the podcast.
4:46
I can probably count on a hand the amount of siblings, right, out of 1,000 episodes across all the different shows we have, um, that, that were co-founders. Let's talk a little bit about global supply chain trends.
4:57
So can you share really what, you know, some of the global supply tr- and trends that you're seeing and, and really the ones that are the most impacting to the manufacturing industry today?
5:08
If you look at kind of a, a larger time horizon, I think you could definitely say the last five years have been the most complex global trade that we've had in decades, right?
5:18
Um, and so whether you wanna start the market kind of like Trump putting in a lot of tariffs in kind of '18 and '19, or you wanna say, hey, the pandemic was really what brought it to the forefront for a lot of folks.
5:30
You know, then from the pandemic we had Suez Canal, we have global conflicts in Europe, you know, uh, in, and in multiple places in the world now.
5:40
We've had, you know, we've had our fair share of, uh, of port issues, you know, whether it's, uh, ships crashing into bridges or, you know, labor related things.
5:51
And so it's kind of interesting to be such a connected global community digitally, right?
5:56
You probably have people all over the world listening to this, but the global trade has never been more cumbersome or fragile in a lot of ways.
6:04
You know, when we talk to a lot of our customers and in our business, I think that the la- I think that this year, what I brace people for in '25 It's gonna feel like 2020, not because of COVID, but we're gonna have a similar set of disruptions.
6:17
And we've seen that in the first, what, you know, 30 days of the administration, but I think we'll, we'll see a lot more.
6:24
So I think that in some ways the world's never been more connected digitally, but in other ways it's never been more complex to do business globally. And our supply chains definitely span a global aspect.
6:37
You know, very few supply chains are just built in Florida, you know, or just built in the Tampa, local Tampa area or, you know, local Bay Area where I'm in, in San Francisco.
6:47
Um, and so complex, connected, and I think we'll see a lot of, a lot of turmoil here in, in 2025.
6:54
The craziest thing just these days that, you know, people talk about, like finding time to just disconnect and go so-- You disconnect for a week now, you come back, it's a whole new world.
7:04
Don't take off and watch the Super Bowl, you know? You could have missed a lot of news, you know.
7:08
OpenAI's gonna get bought out, I guess, and, you know, we got 25% tariffs that are coming in and, uh, you know, that's just, that's just the tip of the iceberg, so...
7:17
Oh, it's cra- well, let, let's talk a little bit about these tariffs now too, 'cause I would love kind of to hear, um, your take on the impacts of these.
7:24
So, um, I know Fictiv has a unique perspective on, on tariff and, uh, on, on tariffs and the impacts that they bring.
7:31
Let's hear a little bit about that, but then also, if you don't mind focusing in on what key changes are you seeing in how, uh, these tariffs are affecting supply chains and manufact- uh, manufacturing decisions? Yeah.
7:42
So I think that it's pretty clear we're moving into what's called a protectionist or protectionism environment.
7:48
So this is one where the current administration is using tariffs to help drive different policies or, you know, different, um, outcomes that they're looking for.
7:58
Sometimes, you know, are they truly motivated by, you know, say, fentanyl, or are they motivated by other things?
8:03
It's difficult to say, but what we can look at is a heavy protection environment where we will see tariffs become an increasing stream of revenue for the US as well as to drive different political agendas.
8:16
And this is neutral. This is not pro, you know, pro or con either way.
8:20
So I think what's important is for whatever your business is or interests, you know, listening to this, what are you gonna do in a protectionist environment?
8:29
You know, there's a bunch of things y- you can, and maybe we'll get to this later on.
8:33
You know, I think that in the-- If you look at the executive orders and in the first, um, call it 30 days of this administration, you know, we've seen Canada and Mexico, you know, come under scrutiny.
8:45
We've seen China as well, as well as other, other countries. You know, just most recently we saw a 25% tariff on both, you know, on, on steel and aluminum.
8:56
So these are all, I think, acting as you would expect under a protectionist environment. And so I don't see any of this as out of left field.
9:04
It's actually pretty logical, but I think it has a lot of downstream impacts to businesses, their bottom lines, uh, consumer, uh, inflation possibly, uh, as well as spend of products.
9:16
So definitely it's a, a changing environment and a lot going on.
9:21
Fair amount of a lot of these tariffs that are being implemented are probably, I'd imagine, more than anything a negotiating tactic than actually something that'll en-- I mean, we saw it already, right?
9:30
With a lot of stuff happening with Canada and Mexico, like the next day something ends up...
9:34
I'm not saying that'll be for all of them, but I think for a fair share, first and foremost, it may end up being something to negotiate and it won't-- Although the markets take quite an impact when they first get announced.
9:45
Um- Well, I, I, I think that's right, but I think what's really important is that for anybody that is importing goods- Mm-hmm...
9:50
so that's where tariffs impact you, you gotta get out of the day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month cycle on this, and you gotta have a long-term plan.
9:59
And then you should have a plan A, B, and C, you know, some redundancy, what we call, do you really have supply chain resiliency built in?
10:07
And so I think that if you're staring at the news, you're gonna be a flag in the wind. You're just gonna be whipped around.
10:12
And so I think, yes, it's important to keep, you know, your ear to the street what's going on, but you need to have a more macro long-term perspective on your supply chain, specifically because supply chains take a long time typically for companies to move around.
10:29
You know, I think that's where a lot of our strength is as a business, you know, with companies that work with us. You know, but really having that long-term planning agility is, is a important aspect of it.
10:40
Shouldn't this be an exercise they should be doing regardless if tariffs are being introduced or not? That like, uh, like almost assuming like, okay, if best case scenario happens, what do I do?
10:49
Worst ca-- Like, and, and how often do you see organizations operating with that A, B, C type structure? It's a really great question, you know. I want you to rewind back and let's just pretend it's 10 years ago in 2015.
11:01
Do you think you'd be running a podcast that was on like supply chain disruptions? Or like would you even be an expert, Jarrod, on like tariffs of what that even was? No. Probably not.
11:11
So like typically, let's just talk about before all the craziness of the last five years. Supply chain's job was to realize revenues and reduce risk.
11:20
So it's kind of like engineers build it, supply chain makes sure that like you can ship a million, you know, Christmas toys or whatever you're, you're building, cars, and then you're reducing risks that happens.
11:30
But supply chain was kind of a functional problem. Like most C-suites weren't talking about supply chain risk. You definitely didn't have boards talking about it.
11:39
You definitely didn't have "The Journal" or, you know, uh, "New York Times" or like pick your publication, you know, Fox News talking about, you know, supply chains.
11:47
And so in that steady state, the industry was grown on mostly like realizing revenues. And so in the last five years, as we've had all the disruption, you're really seeing the industry play catch up on,
12:00
we have a lack of technology. Like we couldn't buy toilet paper in 2020. How crazy is that, you know? It's because of how fragile that system is.
12:08
I mean, most people that aren't in industry don't realize most supply chains still run on spreadsheets, PowerPoint, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint.
12:17
You know, it's run on systems that are really 30 plus years old, and so it is a, I think, a crude awakening that we need to truly digitize supply chains.
12:28
You need to have better visibility to the different tiers or what's going on in region.
12:34
I think that, yes, planning needs to happen, but it becomes really complex when you say, "I'm gonna run a supply chain in India and in China, and I'm gonna assemble it in Tennessee," and you're fighting a lot of fronts.
12:46
You know, if you're a Tennessee headquartered company selling, you know, vacuum cleaners or selling, you know, Rug Doctor, like pick a product.
12:54
I don't know if those are made in Tennessee or not, but that's a really complex world, and we have a lot of small businesses probably listening that are buying products from Asia.
13:03
They're based in the United States, and that planning is maybe not, not been a part of their DNA for the life of the business.
13:11
Let's shift focus a little bit, uh, Dave, to really vertical specific manufacturing trends that are kinda top of mind. So- Mm...
13:20
I, I guess how are manufacturing trends evolving across sectors like med tech, robotics, communications, clean energy, EV, EV, et cetera?
13:29
I think that with all of the protectionism that we'll see with the current administration and can, you know, expect going forward, I think there's a lot of great things from an industry perspective that'll be driven back to the US.
13:41
Especially if you look at the defense industry, you look at companies like Anduril, you know, that are just getting a crazy amount of funding, and you see a lot of that, or you look at anything that's kind of like climate related.
13:51
Yes, we're stepping back from, say, the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, but we haven't seen this level of factory builds ever, you know, since maybe the like '60s, meaning that we are building factories in West Virginia, we're building factories in California, Texas.
14:09
Think about the Gigafactory, you know, in both Reno, Nevada and, and in Austin, Texas.
14:14
We are actually building in the US again, and where these factories get built around, say, clean energy, not just automotive, kinda classic, but in, in new sectors like a clean energy or a defense, that's gonna drive jobs, that's gonna drive opportunity.
14:28
And so I think we're really bullish specifically on medical device, which is, you know, the US is still the innovation hub of the world for heart stents, hip replacements, you know, uh, life-saving medical devices, as well as for clean energy or think battery storage, uh, alternative energy sources beyond just coal, and that innovation is happening here in the US.
14:53
And I think that in this protectionism environment that we're seeing, these, these industries are gonna boom, and where you see factories getting built, you know, you're gonna see local communities boom, and that's really exciting, I think, for the US.
15:09
I like to-- In many cases, you'll see maybe there was an area where there was some old manufacturing plant, and it kind of went the, you know, went the way of the dinosaur.
15:19
Maybe we don't need that product anymore, and I really love when we're seeing those towns getting kind of a revamped, like new, new type of manufacturing plant or service. Because the workforce is already there, right?
15:31
There's highly trained people in those areas that are ready to go, and I'm sure they're, they're excited about that as well. Totally. I mean, I, I was just chatting. There's this awesome company called Regent Craft.
15:41
Have you heard of Regent Craft? No. So Regent Craft builds this all-electric like seaplane. It, and it lands, and it, it's incredible.
15:52
Um, and they are building a 2,000-- I was just pulling it up to make sure I got it right, but they're building a 2,000 square foot facility, Rhode Island of all places.
16:02
Imagine that, and they are building seaplanes, uh, directly, directly there, and they're supporting all the jobs that are gonna, gonna happen as a result. They're electrifying seaplanes that are gonna land.
16:13
You'll be able to fly from like Boston to New York on a, on an electric seaplane. Like, how cool is that for creating jobs, innovation, factories here in the US?
16:24
And you, you never would've thought that possible, you know, back, uh, uh, a while ago. So it's pretty awesome to see in Rhode Island of all places- Yeah... that we're building electric seaplanes.
16:35
Well, I wanna see more about like really enabling smart-- I wanna see more, um, more things being built to enable smart cities. You know, we- we're, we're in 2025 now. Yeah.
16:47
And we've obviously like progressed so much as a society with our technology, but w- all the shows when we, we watch growing up, there was flying cars, there were these- Where are your Jetsons? Like, come on now. Yeah.
16:58
Where are these futuristic cities where, you know, the, the transportation to anywhere is super easy? So I do think like we are going to experience like a really big, especially with AI, right, with b- a boom- Yeah...
17:12
and, and yeah. Yeah, b- boom is great. Look at Archer, Joby, Wisk Aero.
17:18
I mean, these are all EVTOL, so they're electric vertical takeoff, and you think about the-- It's just there is so much amazing innovation that's on the horizon, and what I-- I mean, probably the folks listening, I don't, I don't have to state this 'cause I'm biased, but I think the most amazing innovation isn't the AI of, you know, LLMs and all this.
17:38
It's the physical work that we are doing in medical, in climate tech that's really gonna transform the world around us, and that happens with our, with our hands.
17:47
You know, that's happening with dirt under our fingernails in factories building real products like Regent Craft, um, and I think it's just fantastic. Yeah, I, I would say especially in this space,
17:59
the excitement around AI is really in does it help us do that- Yes... at a higher level and, you know, with de-risking the situation and ensuring that maybe the, the product is even higher quality than it was before.
18:13
Um- Yeah, couldn't, couldn't agree more. It's the, it's helping us assist to do things we wouldn't have thought of, maybe doing mundane work and, you know, accelerating that, that future, pulling it in.
18:23
So yeah, couldn't agree more.
18:25
I would love to just as, as kind of a, a last question here before we wrap up, you know, as we look ahead, what strategies or emerging technologies do you think will, you know, really be critical for these manufacturers, uh, when navigating this current global supply chain [chuckles]- Yeah...
18:42
landscape, as well as the tariff uncertainties? I'll tell my story to maybe help give some inspiration for others.
18:47
You know, when we started the business, we actually were just focused in California, and not just California, but just the Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area. We only worked with manufacturers in the Bay Area.
18:58
We only shipped product to, to people in the Bay, and we expanded from there into California, California then across the US.
19:06
Uh, US, we added China maybe seven or eight years ago, uh, and facilities out there, and now we're in India, Mexico, China, and the US.
19:16
So we run a global business to, you know, help deliver all these custom mechanical products. You know, we ship to 20 different countries now.
19:23
And so I think that for a lot of folks, you know, in this kind of like best case, worst case, or you're looking at the tariffs, I think you need to have resiliency in your, in your supply chain, so where you're buying things from, not just one region.
19:36
And I don't, I don't care if that's just Tennessee. You need to be in Tennessee and Texas, like don't have one. Or if you're just in China, like add India onto that mix.
19:46
Or if you can't do it, find a company like Fictive that has people, boots on the ground in these regions. We've already set it up, and let us be your, your redundancy or your resiliency plan.
19:57
'Cause I think that whether you're Regent Craft or people that are building satellites or whatever it is, it's a lot of work just to build a product, and then you gotta build the product and run the supply chain and do it globally and hire a global team.
20:11
That's a lot of fronts to fight.
20:13
And so I think there are a lot of companies like Fictive, you know, that have boots on the ground technology, you know, where you're able to leverage this, and oftentimes I see too many folks just try to brute force it themselves, you know, push the boulder up the hill, uh, and it really takes a, a whole community.
20:30
So I think that's one, one thing I'd mention. The second thing, you know, which I'm just really passionate about and we're doing, is we're hosting our, our first US summit on revitalizing, uh, the US supply chain.
20:44
Uh, and this is happening in Q2, I think it's in May.
20:47
Um, and this is really bringing together thought leaders all around what does revitalization mean for US manufacturing, and it's everything from the financial world to the, you know, software and digital folks, the people that run factories every day.
21:00
So again, telling my story where get your community together, get the people that are influential, and talk about what does it mean to rebuild here in the US. We have an amazing talent.
21:11
We have people that are incredible at building the future products we, we've talked about here, and getting that community together is where the best ideas are formed.
21:19
So would love to either have people join the summit or, you know, inspire other folks to get their communities together really to talk about what that revitalization actually looks like. Yeah.
21:29
Would love to, you know, if, if possible, to attend, and if not, would love to at least share that and push it out there that you guys are doing this when, when more and more- We're, we're here to spread the word, so here to- Love it...
21:40
you know, really help, help do it and, uh, you know, for anyone, definitely just hit us up and we'd love to extend an invitation. I really enjoyed our conversation today.
21:48
Thanks for being so cool and, and easy to chat with, and look forward to future chats. Yeah, you too. Thanks for having me on, Terry. Appreciate it. [paper rustles]
Slice of Manufacturing
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