Requests For Startups: Software Meets Physical World with Sean Linehan

Erik is joined on this episode by Sean Linehan (@seanlinehan), Village Global Network Leader, and former VP of product at Flexport.Sean explains how he found his way to Flexport, which he says was like “the TurboTax of customs brokerages.” He explains the trend of entrepreneurs building software companies that are not afraid to “get their hands dirty” in areas that involve a lot of people and logistics. He talks about his study of the history of different industries and why he says that today is analogous to the early industrial revolution. He says that there is a trend of “productizing professional services.”Erik asks which industries Sean would be most excited about if he was starting a venture capital fund together. Sean explains why he works as a product manager rather than a software engineer in the interest of maximizing his impact per unit of time and talks about why zero-sum thinking is pervasive in the world today but is in most cases, wrong.We apologize for the audio in this episode and the last couple episodes. We had technical difficulties the day of recording, but we’ve got them fixed now and have some great episodes coming up for you.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.