Levi Fawcett's guest appearances

Levi Fawcett

Seeds

The Morgo Podcast

Wild Hearts

The MVP Show

Ben Thompson

Jamie MacDonald

Eric Bahn

Brené Brown

Matt Morris

Stephen Fry

Elizabeth Yin

James Stewart

Edmund Hillary

Hiten Shah

Matthew Jackson

Brian Lovin

Elliot Taylor

Joseph Williams

Jenny Gill

OwlTail

Levi studied mechanical engineering and his first job straight out of university was as Rocket Lab’s first hardware simulation engineer. He built the Electron Hardware Simulation team and then the Internal Infrastructure Team at Rocket Lab before leaving to start AllGoods.  He was drawn to the deep engineering challenges of building a rocket engine, but rockets are not Levi’s first love – cars are.  Partly recently raised $3.7m to reimagine how the world interacts with vehicle parts. About Partly Partly is a global SaaS-enabled marketplace for auto parts. The magic is its young, ambitious team solving a messy problem with juicy network effects in a large but unglamorous industry. Partly was born out of two obvious yet unresolved problems – that there isn’t a purpose-built inventory management solution for auto parts businesses, and that most auto parts live offline. This means lots of lost time and money for businesses, and a convoluted shopping experience for buyers. Partly will bring this traditionally offline industry online, giving a massive boost to sellers and making life easier for buyers. Auto parts globally is a $1.9T market, split roughly 67% OEM and 33% after-market parts. Only $82B of that is spent online. Although 74% of auto parts buying journeys start online but only 11% are completed there. In the US alone, there are 350k auto parts businesses and the majority do not sell online. COVID-19 has accelerated e-commerce forward by 5 years and auto parts is one laggard industry that is rushing to catch up.

Levi studied mechanical engineering and his first job straight out of university was as Rocket Lab’s first hardware simulation engineer. He built the Electron Hardware Simulation team and then the Internal Infrastructure Team at Rocket Lab before leaving to start AllGoods.  He was drawn to the deep engineering challenges of building a rocket engine, but rockets are not Levi’s first love – cars are.  Partly recently raised $3.7m to reimagine how the world interacts with vehicle parts. About Partly Partly is a global SaaS-enabled marketplace for auto parts. The magic is its young, ambitious team solving a messy problem with juicy network effects in a large but unglamorous industry. Partly was born out of two obvious yet unresolved problems – that there isn’t a purpose-built inventory management solution for auto parts businesses, and that most auto parts live offline. This means lots of lost time and money for businesses, and a convoluted shopping experience for buyers. Partly will bring this traditionally offline industry online, giving a massive boost to sellers and making life easier for buyers. Auto parts globally is a $1.9T market, split roughly 67% OEM and 33% after-market parts. Only $82B of that is spent online. Although 74% of auto parts buying journeys start online but only 11% are completed there. In the US alone, there are 350k auto parts businesses and the majority do not sell online. COVID-19 has <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/24/covid-19-pandemic-accelerated-shift-to-e-commerce-by-5-years-new-report-says/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">accelerated e-commerce forward by 5 years</a> and auto parts is one laggard industry that is rushing to catch up.

#6 LEVI FAWCETT - From Rocket Engineer to Reimagining How The World Interacts with Vehicle Parts

Partly is building a global platform for replacement auto parts. Sound simple? Not when you realise there are 150M auto parts which can be used in multiple car models and configurations. Partly has catalogued 50M of these parts. Thousands of businesses, from small companies to large enterprises, use Partly's software and API to add fitment, check interchanges and manage parts online. Partly is building its business by taking a very hard problem and solving it. www.partly.com

Partly is building a global platform for replacement auto parts. Sound simple? Not when you realise there are 150M auto parts which can be used in multiple car models and configurations. Partly has catalogued 50M of these parts. Thousands of businesses, from small companies to large enterprises, use Partly's software and API to add fitment, check interchanges and manage parts online. Partly is building its business by taking a very hard problem and solving it. <a href="http://www.partly.com" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">www.partly.com</a>

Levi Fawcett with Partly

Levi shares some of his life journey so far as a young entrepreneur who has been involved in a few start-ups already and recently co-founded Partly.  We talk about that venture which builds software solutions to solve difficult problems in the automotive parts industry.  As well as rapid growth and what he's learned raising $1.7 million in funding we also learn about his childhood and startups at University as well as his working at Rocketlab and the key things he learned there as an engineer.  Some of the key takeaways from our discussion:  Don’t be afraid to be ambitious – aim high Get the right people involved and establish a good culture Learn from what you try at first, nothing is wasted – even if not a “success” it provides fuel for the next initiative Be prepared to have hard conversations if things are going along “fine” You may need to ask some hard questions and pivot to a new approach rather than just surviving  Check out Partly here https://www.partly.com We mention the work being done by Rob Vickery and the Hillfarrance site has some good resources too https://hillfarrance.com The Blackbird investment notes on Partly are interesting too https://blackbird.vc/blog/investment-notes-partly/ Ministry of Awesome: https://ministryofawesome.com There are a lot of other resources at www.theseeds.nz 

Levi shares some of his life journey so far as a young entrepreneur who has been involved in a few start-ups already and recently co-founded Partly.  We talk about that venture which builds software solutions to solve difficult problems in the automotive parts industry.  As well as rapid growth and what he's learned raising $1.7 million in funding we also learn about his childhood and startups at University as well as his working at Rocketlab and the key things he learned there as an engineer.  Some of the key takeaways from our discussion: <ul> <li>Don’t be afraid to be ambitious – aim high</li> <li>Get the right people involved and establish a good culture</li> <li>Learn from what you try at first, nothing is wasted – even if not a “success” it provides fuel for the next initiative</li> <li>Be prepared to have hard conversations if things are going along “fine”</li> <li>You may need to ask some hard questions and pivot to a new approach rather than just surviving</li> </ul> Check out Partly here <a href="https://www.partly.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.partly.com</a> We mention the work being done by Rob Vickery and the Hillfarrance site has some good resources too <a href="https://hillfarrance.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://hillfarrance.com</a> The Blackbird investment notes on Partly are interesting too <a href="https://blackbird.vc/blog/investment-notes-partly/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://blackbird.vc/blog/investment-notes-partly/</a> Ministry of Awesome: <a href="https://ministryofawesome.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://ministryofawesome.com</a> There are a lot of other resources at <a href="http://www.theseeds.nz" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.theseeds.nz</a>

Levi Fawcett on start-up learnings and co-founding Partly