Five years is a long time in the life of a start-up. Lots of things can happen, good and bad, from the initial idea for the company, to launching and getting it off the ground, and then working hard to see it grow. Forto has been through exactly this cycle and Masashi Beheim, now the company’s Chief of Staff to the EVP Engineering, has been there at every stage and continues to be a key player in its stratospheric growth. Now celebrating his fifth anniversary with Forto, here he talks about why he joined in the first place, his philosophy for success, and why he’s excited about the future of the company.
Can you outline what your current position at Forto involves?
I have different operational and strategic roles within Forto. My background is in engineering so most things I do revolve around that. For example, we’re aiming to more than double the size of the engineering team by the end of the year so I’m heavily involved in hiring. Forto started small, with just a handful of engineers, but now we have a large engineering team and part of my job is to make sure the engineering teams are well organized so they can function effectively. I’m also part of the engineering leadership team where we make strategic decisions about Forto’s future. I really like the variety of what I do.
You’ve now worked at Forto for five years—what attracted you there in the first place?
Erik (one of the founders) and I are friends and have known each other for quite a long time. We studied computer science together and we also share a passion for sailing. We were sailing together in the days before FreightHub existed and I mentioned that I was about to leave my full time job and switch to freelancing. Erik was very compelling in explaining his vision and I was greatly inspired by what he said even though I didn’t have a clue about the logistics industry. But I heard more than enough and made the decision to join Erik on this journey.
Is there anything specific about this market that appeals to you?
I like the challenges that the complexity of this domain throws my way. The more I get to learn about the domain, the more I have the feeling there is even more to learn and I need to go deeper, even after five years. It means there’s lots of potential for technological innovation in the logistics and supply chain management areas. I’m not quite sure what those innovations will be, but there will be something coming and that motivates me.
I also feel that what we’re doing at Forto makes a difference. Some fundamental things like logistics always have to work so the rest of the world can function. I’m half Japanese, and Japan is a country that has more than its share of natural disasters like earthquakes, typhoons, and tsunamis. When these terrible things happen, it’s a well functioning logistics infrastructure that can help supplies get through and at least mitigate some of the suffering. I have a personal vision that one day we’ll be so good at delivering goods from A to B that we’ll be faster and more effective than local authorities. I was proud that we were able to ship millions of masks and other medical equipment for a customer in the early days of the pandemic.
The company has experienced phenomenal growth in the past five years–how has that looked from your perspective?
We’re growing so fast sometimes it feels my past experiences are no longer relevant to the new now. When I started five years ago I couldn’t have foreseen just how much my role would change. What I do now looks very different to what I did then. I’m heavily involved in setting the department up for future success to match the growth we’re experiencing. This means I’ve had to grow professionally because the challenges are growing with the scale of the company.
What has made you stick around for so long?
Apart from the people? We have a really good team here at Forto and I genuinely like the people I work with.
But I also believe in compound interest–good things take time to develop. This reinforces what I’ve always believed, keeping a positive mindset when things aren’t going your way and if you stick around long enough you’ll see that it all works out just fine. This comes from a teaching in Judo, which I’ve practiced for more than 20 years, that says ‘It’s the journey, not the destination’. I really believe this, and so far the journey has been great.
Here’s a fun fact–you used to work for Simon Pierro, a digital performance artist and iPad magician. Does any of the experience you gained as “the (digital) sorcerer’s apprentice” help with your work at Forto?
I had a lot of fun doing that job but at the same time it was technologically demanding and there was a lot of pressure to get it right, everytime. Simon performed in front of thousands of people during his shows and the illusions had to work every time. It simply wasn’t acceptable that the application crashed one time out of a hundred because that one time means thousands of people would be disappointed. We had high standards and expectations and I’ve carried that forward into my work with Forto. If the technology doesn’t work each time, every time, our customers don’t know where their shipments are and they lose the visibility that is our USP. Sometimes peoples’ lives depend on us getting it right, like when we had to deliver face masks and medical equipment for a customer to help in the fight against Covid-19.
Forto is on a hiring spree and attracting many talented people from diverse backgrounds. What would you say to anyone reading this who is thinking about applying to the company?
I use one of our values ‘We Are One’ when describing Forto. It captures the fact that we’re a multicultural company and there are people from all over the world working here. It also captures the genuinely strong company culture we have, that we are a collective of diverse people who share strong values. If these things matter to you, you should check us out.
On the technology side, the engineering team has doubled in size every year for the past five years and this is one measure of how successful we’ve been. But we’re not resting there–Forto is currently undergoing a transformation. We’re setting ourselves up so we can be even more successful in the future. This requires innovation, which is hard. Disruption is even harder. We’re here to solve hard problems, hopefully with simple solutions. If you’re an engineer who likes a challenge check out our careers page.
