Building Human-Centered Business

A thoughtful, dynamic and innovative entrepreneur, Tyler Scriven is the Founder & CEO of Saltbox, a co-warehousing startup on a mission to make logistics approachable, accessible, and efficient for all. In Season 6 of Serenbe Stories, we talk with Tyler about his vision for a human-centered business and how - even as an introvert - one of his favorite things about Serenbe are the serendipitous interactions with his neighbors.

Tyler and his wife lived in the Bay area of California before moving to Atlanta in 2016, where they missed the lack of access to nature and “retreats” they enjoyed in California. They came across Serenbe, during a weekend stay at The Inn, not realizing there was a entire community on the other side of the wildflower meadow. As they kept visiting, they were absolutely enchanted with the entire community,  which led into spending weekends, then eventually renting a place, and finally on the cusp of the pandemic, a home purchase. Tyler says his favorite times in Serenbe are also the quietest times, when he can find solidarity and peace in nature. He also loves all of his neighbors in the Mado hamlet, despite being a self described introvert. He says in his interview, “that’s a really unique experience for me, especially being someone who is pretty focused on work and pretty introverted to actually enjoy the serendipitous interactions I have with the people who live in my community.” We’re so thrilled to have Tyler and his family in the community.

During Tyler’s interview he shares the story behind his highly successful startup Saltbox. The idea stemmed from Tyler purchasing a separate company earlier on in his career, a consumer product goods business that was built out of the trunk of the founder’s car, successfully growing it to a million dollar company yet the company hit some production roadblocks that were hindering the growth. When Tyler purchased the company, he discovered that although they had a plethora of digital tools that were enabling growth - from Stripe to Facebook to Mailchimp - the physical aspect of e-commerce was “incredibly messy” said Tyler. There is a dichotomy where you have a small number of large companies with impressive logistics infrastructure and millions of small companies that have no logistics infrastructure, making it difficult for them to compete and succeed. Those small companies need a place to produce, store, pack and ship things and Saltbox is creating those spaces. Tyler sees Saltbox as “human-centered logistics”, switching the narrative of the logistics world from being product-centered to human-centered. He says, “if you think about the human at the center of that design, you can build a very different set of products and services to support them.”

The warehouses and work spaces that Saltbox is producing are all about making logistics more affordable, flexible, accessible and approachable, all things that humans need. At Saltbox, you can get a warehouse suite from 300 to 10,000 square feet, some spaces including photography studios, private offices, conferences rooms, fresh coffee, and more basic human needs. They focus on the physical workspaces, seeing the warehouses as a platform, but they also focus on delivering services and other technology solutions on top of that that give that merchant or entrepreneur more leverage to succeed.

Listen to Tyler’s full episode on Serenbe Stories podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.