Marshall Kools

rebuilding the arsenal of democracy

[Marshall Kools @MarshKools]

Week 14 at YC. The conversation with every manufacturer we talk to starts the same way:

"We're too custom for software."

Then we show them a quote generated from their own cost data in 47 seconds. The conversation changes.

[Marshall Kools @MarshKools]

The shop floor has robots. The back office has ERP. The front office has one person and a spreadsheet.

That's the last manual function in manufacturing.

[Marshall Kools @MarshKools]

Parspec just unified quoting and post-award for electrical distributors. distributors. meanwhile most metal fab and paper converting shops are still quoting out of email and Excel. the gap between distribution and manufacturing tech is getting embarrassing.

[Marshall Kools @MarshKools]

@ArzanaAi Hello, who is this?

[Marshall Kools @MarshKools]

I drive past 6 paper mills on highway 41 between appleton and green bay. reshoring is real here. but every new production line means hundreds more RFQs your front office has to process. is your estimating team ready for 2.6x the volume?

[Marshall Kools @MarshKools]

tariffs. Iran. fuel costs. material volatility. your quoting process was built for a world where costs changed quarterly. now they change weekly. and your estimator is still working off last month's price sheet.

[Marshall Kools @MarshKools]

55% of manufacturing execs plan to raise prices up to 15% in the next 6 months (KPMG). the decision to raise prices takes a meeting. the work of re-quoting every open deal takes weeks. unless it doesn't.

[Marshall Kools @MarshKools]

ISM Prices Index: 78.3. highest since June 2022. manufacturing is expanding but your input costs are rising faster than your quotes. the math doesn't work unless you can re-price in hours, not weeks.