Episode #27: From Handshakes to Marketplaces: Accelerating Supplier Connection through the Veryable Vendor Network - with Caleb Wiley
In this episode of U.S. Manufacturing Today, powered by Veryable, host Matt Horine welcomes Caleb Wiley, VP of Corporate Development at Veryable, to discuss the transformative Veryable Vendor Network (VVN). They explore the historical foundation of trust in American manufacturing and highlight the need for speed and responsiveness in today's industry, especially within the reshoring movement. Caleb elaborates on how VVN serves as a dynamic, verified marketplace that bridges the visibility and trust gap between manufacturers and suppliers. They also discuss the impact of VVN on small and mid-sized shops, the role of technology in streamlining the supply chain, and its significance in shaping the future of American manufacturing.
Links
- Caleb Wiley on LinkedIn
- Blog: How the Veryable Vendor Network Shrinks Sourcing Cycles to Just Hours
- Veryable Vendor Network Homepage
- Navigating Trump 2.0
- Revitalizing U.S. Manufacturing
- Sign Up on the Veryable Platform
Timestamps
- 00:00 Introduction to U.S. Manufacturing Today
- 00:15 The Foundation of American Manufacturing
- 00:47 Introducing the Veryable Vendor Network (VVN)
- 01:21 Interview with Caleb Wiley: Challenges in Manufacturing
- 01:49 The Gap in Manufacturer-Supplier Connections
- 03:58 How VVN Transforms Supplier Directories
- 05:39 Verification and Trust in the VVN
- 11:24 VVN's Impact on Small and Mid-Sized Shops
- 14:07 The Future of Supply Chains and Marketplaces
- 18:23 Conclusion and How to Get Involved with VVN
Episode Transcript
Matt Horine: Welcome back to US Manufacturing today, the podcast powered by Veryable, where we talk with the leaders, innovators, and change makers, shaping the future of American industry, along with providing regular updates on the state of the industry, the changing landscape policies and more.
Today we're gonna take a step back and think about the foundation of American manufacturing. Trust for decades, supply chains were built on long-term relationships, phone calls, and handshakes. You knew your supplier, you knew their work, and that trust was earned over years of working side by side. But in today's world where speed and responsiveness are critical in the reshoring movement, those traditional methods don't always keep up.
Manufacturers need new partners quickly. Suppliers need access to the right buyers, and both sides need a way to know that when they shake hands, even if it's digital, they can trust what's on the other end. That's where the Veryable Vendor Network comes in. VVN isn't just another directory or RFQ board.
It's a living, breathing marketplace where suppliers are verified, capabilities are transparent, and buyers can move with confidence. [00:01:00] Manufacturers can see who's truly capable, who's reliable, and who's ready to deliver. It's a shift that mirrors what we've seen in other industries and in our marketplace.
Digital marketplaces, transforming how we buy, how we sell, and how we compete. But here it's not about retail goods and travel bookings. It's about the very heart of us manufacturing and building a resilient supply base that can power Reindustrialization. Joining us today is Caleb Wiley, Veryable's, VP of Corporate Development and Platform Expansion.
Caleb and his team are tackling one of the biggest challenges in manufacturing, making sure suppliers get discovered, buyers find what they need, and the American manufacturing base grows stronger, faster, and more connected. Caleb, welcome to U.S. Manufacturing today.
Caleb Wiley: Thank you, Matt. I appreciate you having me on here today.
Matt Horine: We're excited to have you because I think this is a huge development in what we've seen in our marketplace. So let's just start right here and get to it. What do you see as the biggest gap in the way manufacturers and suppliers have traditionally connected, and how does the Veryable Vendor Network start to close that gap?
Caleb Wiley: The biggest gap is visibility and trust. [00:02:00] You mentioned it in your intro. We're moving to a lot more marketplaces. Whether you're buying or selling things, because it does offer that visibility and trust, particularly with manufacturers and suppliers. In the past, we've seen them connect by word of mouth or a trade show or through long vetting cycles, and that means that suppliers are often invisible outside of their local network.
And it takes a lot of time for buyers to try to figure out who they can rely on and where they can access those suppliers. So the Veryable Vendor Network closes that gap by making capability, credibility, and visibility upfront. Suppliers are verified before they join. Buyers don't have to start from zero with cold calls or guesswork.
And for suppliers, it levels the playing field so they can showcase what they do best to buyers who are actively searching and not just the ones that are local or happen to have mutual connections with 'em already. So in short, the VVN makes it faster and safer for both sides to discover and trust each other [00:03:00] without losing the relationship driven nature of manufacturing.
Matt Horine: That's really great. I think it mirrors a lot of what we've seen in the marketplace, right? Because we always add Veryable and what we've seen in manufacturing. Is that most challenges that arise out of a manufacturing environment are either tied to one of two things, right? Labor or suppliers. And usually when it's not the labor, it's the supplier component, which has been very jumbled over the past couple of months and maybe even the past couple of years if you come out of pandemic timeframe, if you come out of the recession that we've been living through.
We talked a lot last week about the BLS BS scandal is what we called it, that essentially over almost a million jobs were wiped off the board. And we talked with people around in our episode with. Era growth a couple weeks ago that machine shops need to find the right customers, find the right suppliers.
Everybody's out there in the fight right now, and I think that's something that this initiative really highlights because the next question outside of labor is suppliers and the big guys already have their suppliers lined out. But how does VVN differ from [00:04:00] traditional supplier directories or RFQ platforms?
You think about that in the past where people maybe, you know. You're going back two decades ago, maybe getting it off of a fax machine or a request for a quote, or they're looking for a new type of supplier. How does this different, how is it changing the dynamic?
Caleb Wiley: I think it's a step into the future.
People want things now, and technology has allowed us to increase visibility. So you can not only get news, get products quickly, see what's out there, but there's now marketplaces that allow you to do that even faster. And that's what we're trying to apply here. So traditionally these directories and RFQ sites, they often just stop at a list of names with mass bid requests, so you don't get your size fit of one, you just get a list of names that you can then start the process of calling or faxing or filling out RFQ information.
And what VVN does is it goes a step further. So it's an active living network with these verified supplier profiles, and it creates the ability to connect directly and very quickly. So. You get a lot of visibility [00:05:00] about what's out there, and you can form a cookie cutter example of what you're looking for and find a supplier who can build just that.
So it's about quickly finding the right supplier for the job and then building that lasting partnership instead of just a hit it and quit it type deal. You can build a relationship with someone who can make you custom orders based on what you're looking for, and then continue to work with them well into the future.
Matt Horine: Yeah, that's a really important point. We talk a lot about on the labor side that access is a major issue. Workers traditionally not having access to flexibility in their schedules. It's a new environment where people want to be able to choose where they're going in a merit-based system, and businesses want to do the same thing.
So this parallels that and mirrors it a little bit. I think the big question and where we tie back to trust is, what does verification mean? What does that mean in practice and why does it matter? For both the buyer and supplier that are maybe looking for a new route here.
Caleb Wiley: I think it means that suppliers are reviewed by other buying companies and they're graded on their capabilities, certifications, their track record, and that helps them be a [00:06:00] thriving part of this network.
So I think if you look at like anytime you go out to eat, I think based on our conversations, our wives are very similar and my wife loves looking at a Yelp review. The reason that Yelp review is valuable is because other people just like her have gone in and graded that restaurant, and that helps us make our decisions.
The ratings wildly important, and I think you see the same thing. That same concept is carried over to businesses when they're looking for suppliers. So that verification builds in that trust, and you can say, okay, another company like me has already used this supplier. They've vetted them. They've rated them good or bad.
I can now use that to base my decision off of it moving forward. So. For buyers, it reduces some of the risks and it saves a lot of time. You don't have to go through and vet 'em yourselves. You can rely on somebody else's judgment based on their experience with that supplier. And then for suppliers, it signals credibility.
So you talked about a merit-based system that gives suppliers an opportunity to go in and do really [00:07:00] good work and perform well for buyer companies, and then be rewarded for it on the backend. And that that credibility is really the foundation of the trust in the VVN.
Matt Horine: Yeah, it's been a really big component of this, and we've talked about it a couple times already.
That trust being the currency and manufacturing where, you know, some type of verification or some type of experience have to often trade hands and trade off. Sounds like a lot of that lifting is done on the front end, which is great. And if we take it down to the shop floor level. Say you're a machine shop or you're a contract manufacturer, they often rely on like a word of mouth or a long vetting cycle, right?
If you've ever taken anything to a contract manufacturer, you bring in your specs, they go through a design process. There's the sourcing question, which a lot of products require domestic sourcing now, where before they were offshoring that or nearshoring that. There's a lot of moving parts to this. How does VVN shorten the cycle while maintaining that trust?
That's the critical path, right? I
Caleb Wiley: think exactly what you were saying. Trust is built on transparency, [00:08:00] and that's what the goal of VVN is to build transparency into this marketplace. If you think about one of the most trusted methods of finding suppliers is word of mouth. You're gonna trust these people who you've worked alongside.
You know their opinion, you know the kind of person they are, and so you trust them, and so you're gonna take what they have to say with some weight in it. We're trying to just replicate that into a system that removes maybe the constraints of having to reach out to somebody who may know something about it.
This allows you to directly access these suppliers and get that transparency without having to go through the traditional methods. A lot of people we've talked to as we've put this platform together, they'll tell me that word of mouth is how they find suppliers. As the conversation moves on, we find out that they may be looking for a particular supplier.
So I'll just point blank ask them who have you talked to about that? Everybody they've talked to, nobody knew a supplier. And so you've reached a point that your network can no longer help you find that supplier. And what VVN does is allows you to [00:09:00] just short circuit that path and get directly to the suppliers out there who can build what you're looking for.
Then also give you the transparency and the visibility to make an informed decision on which one you want to go with.
Matt Horine: Really good point, because I go back to my time in manufacturing, specifically working with contract manufacturers, and you'll give them the specs, you'll give them what you're expecting to build, what the product can do, all those things.
There's not a lot of transparency sometimes, and the supplier network, they have their sources, they have people that they go to. You don't really get the full bomb or the bill of materials. You just know that they're getting that from somewhere. And then at some point it pops up in a problem in your production timeframe, especially if you're doing contract manufacturing, that maybe you can't get an order on time because all of a sudden there's some supplier that you don't know about or have visibility to that's not gonna meet their delivery window.
And so the transparency factor is a really big deal. And the vetting on top of that kind of leads me to my next question. What are the risks with unverified supplier marketplaces, and how does VVN address that?
Caleb Wiley: I think with things like [00:10:00] this, I like to relate it back. To everyday life. If you've got a problem with your AC or let's say your toilet, you can go vet different suppliers, different plumbers, or people in the marketplace to come and fix that.
A lot of places right now do have marketplace esque type setups to where you can go in and get some visibility into how well somebody can do. But you may decide that a plumber's, a plumber, anybody with the skills can come over and fix this, but there's no rating system. It's not verified. There's a good chance that plumber may not even show up.
They may come up and make the problem worse, but having a verified system and a system that conveys some kind of credibility allows you to make a better decision on who you want to come into your house and fix your problem. So I think the same thing applies to buyers and suppliers in a manufacturing space.
They have a problem that seems like a fixable problem, that they can just go onto anybody's website. Make a call, have somebody come in and build a product form or provide a service. But having a verified system allows them [00:11:00] to take that a step further and make sure that this job is gonna get done based on their track record.
I think we talk about it a lot in even hiring people. You look at somebody's resume, you want to know they've got a track work record and a successful one that they can come in and do the job you're asking 'em to do. I think it's the same thing with finding a supplier. You wanna make sure that those people are capable and have done the job in the past and can come in and do a good job for you this time.
Matt Horine: Really great points. And so now if you break it down into both sides of the equation, the supplier and buyer dynamic for a supplier, how does VVN help small and mid-sized shops? Because I think that's a lot of our audience. How does it help those size shops punch above their weight connecting with larger buyers?
Caleb Wiley: The VVN is perfect for small and midsize shops. They're gonna know people in the area who can connect them with customers. But again, that's a slow process. There's a lot of timing that goes around with that. They've gotta be talking to the right person who is looking for something that they can provide.
This gives them visibility to people not only in their local area, but also across the [00:12:00] United States. You've mentioned it and you've done a lot of good work on reindustrialization, people, reshoring, bringing jobs back to the United States. And a huge thing that those companies need are suppliers in the United States that are not gonna get hit with a tariff.
And the VVN gives those small, mid-size shops. A lot of visibility with the VVN and the way things are moving. Macroeconomically, these shops are gonna have a lot more problems than finding customers because customers are no longer gonna be the bottleneck. You're gonna have people coming not only in your local market, but also across the United States.
There's a lot of really niche things that. These suppliers make, and this platform allows them to be more well known outside of their network. And just like you said, it allows them to punch above their weight.
Matt Horine: That's a really big component for suppliers. Basically the bottleneck flip, right? Where if we're turning down orders and we find ourselves in that situation, then something's gotta change dynamically.
What about the buyer though? How do buyers know they're getting quality, capability, reliability. I think there is a great quote, I won't attribute it to [00:13:00] us, but a mutual connection that we had on the show. Dan Reamp from Aero Growth had said, how do you get your buyer promoted? That was something that was really important for their organization, was basically making a buyer look like a rockstar.
But how do, how do buyers know they're getting the quality and how does this streamline it for them? I
Caleb Wiley: think it's by leveraging everything that a marketplace offers. So you have a rating system, you've got visibility into companies that have used these different suppliers. And understanding that performance that a supplier is committed to other companies is gonna give buyers the confidence before they ever place an order.
So it goes back to what you were talking about with trust and transparency. It's providing real data to these companies before they make a purchase or submit an order to customize a product that's gonna give them the confidence before they ever. Place that order and engage with a potentially long-term relationship with that supplier.
Matt Horine: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Most of the time buyers are looking for something based on price, but in reality, they're probably looking for a little bit more on the delivery [00:14:00] promise of their timeframes and where it's getting sourced from, which is all a very changing. Rapidly changing dynamic in this market.
But speaking of that, introduced the marketplace dynamic and what I think is probably the future of supply chain, where it's gone from this globalization offshore to how it's either nearshore, reshored, or local. We had a great mutual friend, James Hartman, who was on the show not too long ago, talking about his suppliers and what he, where he is getting acrylic for a plastic shop.
And he said he didn't have to worry about it and he didn't care. He said, I don't care because my supplier is about a half mile down the street from me, which, that's the localization of it, but how we speed that up in a marketplace dynamic, we've seen digital marketplaces transform other sectors like retail, travel, logistics, manufacturing, labor.
How is the supply chain next and how does it apply to this, to this endeavor?
Caleb Wiley: I think it just makes it a lot faster. You think about anyone who's ever gone through an RFQ process, even if you cut out the vetting part, making sure that somebody can even build something the right way [00:15:00] for you. It takes a long time for you to get ahold of the right person.
The procurement people are not always responsive. Their contact information is not always readily available, so it takes a long time to figure out who you even need to talk to before you can even send them specs. A lot of times this is critical, like the timing is critical. We all get so used to this next day shipping from Amazon and we get to expect it.
And so when you need products the next day you don't have a week to figure out who to send the RFQ to, and this, this whole marketplace is trying to mitigate those risk and eliminate that time spent on figuring out who you even need to get ahold of the marketplace. Already today has it built in where you just click.
Request quote for a specific company and fill out a couple pieces of information when you need it, how much you need of it, and then some details if you, if you have those readily available and it gets sent straight to the company. So we've already bypassed a lot of those processes that need to take place in order to [00:16:00] request a quote, and we're making that quicker for these companies.
That's a huge part of the value of streamlining the sourcing for buying companies in the manufacturing space.
Matt Horine: Yeah, that's something. And the speed and efficiency is critical and it ties in a lot to Veryables. Broader mission, right? And what we've seen on the labor front and what we've seen with companies just trying to find better access, find better paths to speed and efficiency.
How does it tie into the on-demand labor component and the fast nature of what it takes to win in today's manufacturing environment?
Caleb Wiley: Yeah, I think that's a great tie into what Veryable's core product is the on-demand labor marketplace. This idea came from labor being a huge constraint for manufacturing, warehousing companies, and so Veryable aims to fix that, and we've seen a lot of that success by utilizing a marketplace of laborers.
The VVN is built on those shoulders. So when you have a supplier on the VVN that is actively using the on-demand marketplace, you know that those people can flex up and down [00:17:00] immediately. If they get hit with a huge order that you need the next week or the next day, doesn't matter how fast those people have access to labor pools that they've already built, that they can quickly act and get those products returned to you when you need them.
You also worry about is the supplier gonna be able to get this job for me? And we brought up James Hartman the other day. I talked to him a while back and he had a customer reach out to him recently with a huge order. There was no way he could get that to him, but he took the order because he has access to the on demand labor marketplace and he got the order to.
And so you've got a lot of confidence in these suppliers on the marketplace that are using the on-demand labor marketplace. To deliver on those orders and get you the quality products that you're looking for quickly.
Matt Horine: Yeah. It's a really good story of how being responsive allows you to take the risks that you need to take on the big orders, grow your business, do things that it takes to win on the shop floor.
And that's what we've talked with about with a lot of guests over the past few weeks. Uh, probably a bigger vision of building a truly responsive [00:18:00] manufacturing ecosystem in the United States. There's a lot of talk about that and reindustrialization around the defense industrial base. Or around these mega industrial bases, whether you're talking about other types of infrastructure, but the mid-size manufacturer and the small to medium-sized manufacturers are something like 95% of you know, manufacturers in the United States.
And so this is a resource and something that ties in directly for them. If you are a supplier listening today, why should you explore joining BBN right now?
Caleb Wiley: I think this is your chance to get some more exposure and be discovered by serious buyers. So the people who are. Buying products and services on the VVN are ready to purchase right now.
And so getting that visibility not only allows you access in companies looking for local suppliers, but it gives you access to thousands of companies that Veryable works with across the United States. So especially if you're a niche supplier, you've got an opportunity to get your name out to a lot of other buying companies very quickly.
Matt Horine: That's the speed and efficiency. Again, we're [00:19:00] taking a step a little bit further back, and this is always a big question we ask all of our guests, where do you see in the next five to 10 years this concept? How is it reshaping American manufacturing over the next five to 10 years?
Caleb Wiley: Marketplaces like this will be commonplace in reshaping American manufacturing, and I think if you lean into where policy is heading, macroeconomically, there's gonna be more and more people looking for vendors down the street to buy from, and suppliers popping up who are providing products and services for companies that are bringing jobs back to the United States.
So I think this is something that the timing is perfect based on what we've got going on in the United States and the world. It's gonna allow a more responsive distribution system. You are cutting down on time, you are increasing the trust and reliability, and that's what people are looking for as we move into the future.
And I think the next five or 10 years, it's gonna be really exciting to see how companies respond. If you look at just the way America has performed in [00:20:00] history, like we've, we have invented a lot of really cool things because we have a free market society. This is leaning into that free market society and promoting a merit-based system.
So the good suppliers are gonna be elevated to the top. The good buyers who have a very robust supply chain are gonna be the ones that succeed. And we live in a very competitive environment that is moving very quickly. And marketplaces allow that competition to weed out the weak ones and to promote the strong ones.
And I think it's gonna be really cool to see who floats up to the top in that and who's quick enough to be agile and, and make changes. Quickly in that kind of environment.
Matt Horine: That's a huge takeaway, being able to increase efficiency and speed, but also increase trust simultaneously. A lot of times those things are competing ideas because you're looking to do something fast and you're cutting corners versus taking a long bureaucratic approach to what should be a simple problem to accelerate growth for your organization or growth for whatever it is that you're building and doing.
If somebody's listening today and they say, [00:21:00] I want to check out the Veryable vendor network and how this marketplace idea works, where should they go?
Caleb Wiley: If you're a Veryable user, you've got access already in your Veryable portal. There's a vendor network tab on your left side that you can access. You can go ahead, you can request quotes.
If you're interested in being a featured supplier, there's an area where you can submit your request for that. The featured supplier area is a list of good users of suppliers in the Veryable network that are looking to get their name out there. You can also invite your procurement team. There's an area on that VVN tab where you can do that.
And then if you're interested in learning more, you can visit the Veryable website or uh, just reach out through our website and we can get you hooked up to get access to the Veryable portal.
Matt Horine: Excellent. Caleb, thank you for joining us today.
Caleb Wiley: Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it.
Matt Horine: To stay ahead of the curve and to help plan your strategy, please check out our [00:26:00] website at www.veryableops.com and under the resources section titled Trump 2.0, where you can see the framework around upcoming policies and how it will impact you and your business. If you're on socials, give us a follow on LinkedIn, X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram. And if you're enjoying the podcast, please feel free to follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and leave us a rating and don't forget to subscribe. Thank you again for joining us and learning more about how you can make your way.