Josu Gurtubay

When I was a kid in the '90s, my dad and I would order stuff from eBay. It took months to arrive. Months. That's when I first understood that logistics was the thing standing between "I want this" and actually getting it. Fast forward to 2020. I'm running a supply chain consultancy, working with dozens of ecommerce brands across Mexico, and I keep seeing the same thing: brilliant founders with great products who can't grow because their backend is broken. Wrong inventory, Horrible CX, Late deliveries, lost packages, zero visibility. The infrastructure simply wasn't there. So we built Cubbo. What started as a no-code MVP I built together with Zapier is now processing 12M+ orders a year across Mexico and Brazil. 85-90% delivered in under 48 hours. 1000+ people. 40,000m²+ of fulfillment space. Projecting $80M+ in revenue for 2026. My consulting background turned out to be a cheat code. I'd spent years optimizing distribution networks, so we baked cost efficiency into Cubbo's DNA from day one: - 5-10% cost reductions YoY - Clients see up to 50% savings in cost-to-serve - +37% LTV from better post-purchase experience - +20% conversion from real-time visibility - +17% AOV from trust - Our customers grow 30%+ YoY on average The part I'm most proud of? We became cashflow positive in 2023. Unlike most VC-backed startups burning cash and praying, we self-finance our growth. We control our own destiny. But honestly, the thing that keeps me up at night (in a good way) is the culture. Since day one we've been obsessed with building a team where speed, transparency, and growth mindset aren't just values on a wall. They're how we actually operate. Every person who joins Cubbo goes through our "cubbording," real warehouse operations, because you can't build for a problem you haven't lived. We hire on attitude, develop like crazy, and the goal is that working at Cubbo is the best career chapter of your life. VAMOS!

I never planned to become a professor. But I've always had this thing where if I learn something, I can't help but want to explain it to someone else. It shows in how I lead, how I mentor, and apparently now it's how I spend some of my weekends. What got me into this was simple. LatAm needs more operators. Not more people with MBAs who can make slides. More people who can actually execute, scale, and build things that work. Logistics and ecommerce are where the biggest gaps are, and very few people teach them from real operating experience. So that's what I do at ISDI. No textbook theory. Just the stuff I've learned building Cubbo, running supply chains for Fortune 500s, and making every mistake in between. 1,000+ students so far. The most common feedback I get? "There's no better way to learn logistics and ecommerce than from someone who's actually doing it." If even one student walks away and builds something that changes how commerce works in this region, every hour I've spent teaching was worth it.

WiCore started because the director of Logyt (my old boss) called me up and said "let's start a business." I had no mortgage, no kids, no real financial obligations. So I said yes. We launched as a supply chain consultancy. Sounds great until you realize the revenue swings are brutal. One month you're thriving, the next you're wondering how to make payroll. That instability forced us to rethink the whole model. Instead of selling one-off projects, we pivoted to a fractional COO model. Companies paid us a fixed monthly fee and got long-term logistics expertise without hiring a full-time exec. From there we evolved into a 5PL. Asset-light model where multiple brands could share logistics infrastructure and scale without massive upfront investment. - $3M+ in revenue - 120K+ ecommerce orders processed annually - 20+ companies supported - Sometimes managing 3 different 3PLs simultaneously - And obviously, EBITDA positive since day 1 haha Some of the coolest ops: - Unilever: built a real-time distribution control tower - Banco Sabadell: designed and operated a secure inter-branch document logistics system - Yoyoso: optimized the distribution network for 200+ retail locations The thing that really saved me early on was AT&T. Right after they acquired Iusacell and Nextel in Mexico, they hired me to merge their supply chain and distribution networks. That project lasted almost two years and financially kept WiCore (and me) alive while we built up recurring revenue. This is also where Cubbo was born, by the way. At WiCore I built my first no-code fulfillment system using Zapier to automate logistics. That scrappy prototype didn't just become Cubbo's MVP. It evolved into the core technology that still powers our operations today. But my real obsession was always ecommerce. Once I knew Cubbo had legs, I sold WiCore's operations and went all-in.

I stumbled into Logyt completely by chance. Changed everything. I came in knowing very little, but I had this realization early on that stuck with me forever: a company is just a system of interconnected processes. If you understand the processes, you can optimize anything. That became my operating philosophy for everything I've built since. At Logyt we did supply chain optimization for some massive brands: - Redesigned distribution networks handling up to $500M MXN annually - 12.3% cost-to-serve reduction for clients like Nike, Mars, and Bacardi - Led 5+ large-scale network redesigns - Got mentored by the first person to bring TPM from P&G to Mexico. That resulted in a +28 point improvement in process reliability I went from analyst to lead consultant faster than anyone expected, managing end-to-end logistics transformations across retail, manufacturing, and consumer goods. The biggest thing I took away from Logyt: thinking strategically matters, but execution is what actually moves the needle. Diagnosing a problem is one thing. Structuring the solution and making it happen with precision... that's what separates good from great.

My first real job. Got selected top 5 out of 5,000+ candidates for Vasconia's trainee program. Basically a crash course in "this is how a company actually works." I rotated through purchasing, manufacturing, logistics, and operations. Got curious enough to request extra rotations in commercial and marketing too. In every single area, I found the same thing: processes that took people days could be done in minutes if you just built the right Excel macro. So I built them. - Purchasing: automated import cost calculations that used to take days - Sales: cut supermarket data processing from 3 days to minutes Here's the fun part. 10 years later, I met Vasconia's Logistics Director at Cubbo. His first reaction? "You're the guy who built that Excel? We still use it." A macro I built as a 22-year-old trainee was still running a decade later. That tells you something about building things that just work.

This was a wild one. I worked on the early-stage design of what's now known as the Tren Maya. Back then it was called the Tren Transpeninsular Merida-Cancun. My job was processing thousands of simulations to figure out the most efficient railway configuration. Track design, operational efficiency, cost-benefit analysis. I built automation tools in Excel that cut data processing from days to minutes. (Are you seeing a pattern here?) The project itself was fascinating, but the real takeaway was bigger: automation doesn't just save time. It drives better decisions. That mindset has shaped every company and system I've built since.

We built long-range telecom networks for corporate and government clients. My contribution: centralized all the infrastructure data into Google Earth, integrated inputs from multiple providers, and built an automated visual diagnostic system. Network design time dropped by 90%. What used to be a slow, manual process became something where engineers could make data-driven decisions in real time. This was my first real proof that one-time optimization creates exponential long-term value. Build the system once, it keeps paying dividends. That principle has been behind every business decision I've made since.

My dad always told me I had to be an entrepreneur. So with that push, a friend and I jumped into solar energy. Researched suppliers, built pricing models, calculated how much customers could save on electricity. We even imported solar panels (which are probably still collecting dust somewhere). We did everything right except the one thing that actually matters: selling. No customers, no business. Just a very well-researched project on paper. All the capital, all the models, all the preparation in the world means nothing if you can't get someone to buy. That was my first real lesson. The companies that win aren't always the smartest. They're the ones that know how to sell. I've never forgotten it.

 Reconocimiento de Excelencia Académica (Agosto - Diciembre 2013)  Estudiante en el Programa Principia de Alto Rendimiento (Enero 2011 - Marzo 2012)  Beca 40%