Randall Moore, chief procurement officer at Boston University, first met Fairmarkit co-founder and CEO Kevin Frechette at a pitch event at Shark Ninja headquarters in 2017, when the startup just launched.
Frechette pitched a platform that made it easy to identify new suppliers they may not have heard of, and Moore says he was “all ears.”
It was just the beginning of Moor and Frechette's working relationship. The two would collaborate for the next seven years to build Fairmarkit into a multimillion-dollar startup.
“The story he told (was) about building a platform that makes it easy for your people to identify suppliers they are not aware of in categories of spending that they don't have a contract. This is the perfect solution for that, and the fact that you can get qualified bids from real suppliers in 24 to 48 hours was super-appealing to us,” said Moore
Fairmarkit offers an autonomous sourcing platform that helps businesses find the best deals on the materials and supplies they need to run their businesses. The Boston-based company helps companies engage with business users early, automate repetitive spending, and build strategic sourcing processes.
But that isn’t how it all started.
“When we started in 2017, it was a whole different problem we were trying to solve. We thought it was crazy that two companies could buy the same thing for a massively different price,” said Frechette. “So it got us thinking, how come there isn't a TrueCar or Kelley Blue Book for ... software and hardware?”
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The company was originally founded on the premise of bringing price transparency to companies, which caught Moore's attention. Moore first heard of Fairmarkit during Frechette’s pitch.
"We just knew we were solving this problem, but I don't know what exactly the main thing he saw was," said Frechette.
Moore, Boston University's chief of procurement since May 2017, says he was looking for sources of innovation that could bring additional value to the university through an improved business process.
“So after that presentation, we invited Kevin to our office, and right from the start, it was apparent that there was instant chemistry there. Their passion for this tailspin management tool that they had envisioned and had built and demonstrated to us and our desire to be innovative made it great,” said Moore.
Two of Fairmarkit’s first customers were the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and Boston University.
Frechette attributes much of its early and current success to the collaboration with its early customers and the feedback they provided early in the process. The BU and Farimarkit teams would have meetings once a week for several hours, focusing on the end-user experience Fairmarkit could provide.
According to Moore, some of the early suggestions from the BU procurement team were simple, involving the user interface, ordering items, and even suggesting different color palettes.
But Frechette says some of the early suggestions from BU became a core part of the business, such as Fairmarkit's supplier recommendation engine. The supplier recommendation engine is driven by AI, which helps to analyze massive datasets of suppliers to determine which companies should be invited to the bid.
The team at BU suggested a feature where an end user could plug in what they’re looking for, and Fairmarkit could make recommendations based on that inquiry.
“So literally that night we went back, we stayed up almost all night, and we built out V1 of that, and then we came back. It wasn't good, but it was the starting point,” Frechette said.
Today, Fairmarkit does work with companies like Walgreens, BP, and Nestle at scale.
Moore still collaborates closely with Fairmarkit as part of its consumer advisory board to provide product reviews and give real-time feedback on the product's roadmap.
As Fairmarkit looks to expand its use of generative AI, Frechette has put together what he calls a generative AI "SWAT team." According to Frechette, the email went out to people across the industry, including Moore, who responded positively.
“Any partnership comes down to trust,” said Frechette. “It's trust and both sides being competent to execute a strategy and a plan. I feel like we have those two in spades with each other, which once again has let us work together for this many years.”
