We had the good fortune of connecting with Mahlon Tillotson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mahlon, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Design Logistics kind of just happened. While I have always been in leadership roles, my original intention was to have a truck running as a contractor through a broker so I bought the truck, as a passive income sort of situation.
Through a series of events, it snowballed into something completely different. A number of clients insisted on me starting my own company and committed their business and 8 years later here we are. In April we start our 9th year and it is crazy to think it’s been that long. We are close to 20 employees now, also strange.
You never know what is around the corner.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
As a start up in 2017 our first order of business was to make it through the first 3 years. We then were faced with the shutdown.
The following two years were brutal however the silver lining was it taught us what we needed to do or have when operating in a worst-case scenario and the processes needed to prevent things from spinning out of control under any circumstance.

We took that knowledge and put it into action and created our current receiving program, which has come a very long way since its inception. We have a small army handling that department which is very costly at first however it has given us the foundation to build on. We are starting to see the fruits of that hard work in terms of growth and having a good reputation.

We also had to buy our way out. 2020-2022 were very costly years. The shipping industry was a mess, and it was causing many problems with the flow of goods, so you would have periods where the volume was artificially high as opposed to periods of much lower numbers making staffing impossible to predict. It was wild. Lot’s of damaged goods, items coming to us that were not addressed to us, missing items etc… If my team misses a damage, we might be held liable and have to buy it, and we had a few!
Under normal circumstances though, it would take you 10 years to gain the kind of experience we gained in just two, so there was a silver lining.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
San Diego has much to offer with an endless list of restaurants and nightlife destinations. Things like the zoo, wild animal park are staples but places like the Midway or Star of India are also interesting. There are nice places to hike along the coast and inland such as Cowles Mtn. Balboa Park and the museums are also good for an afternoon. And of course the beaches. Jet skis in the bay, fishing, boat tours. Gotta love it here! Endless things to do here.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Divine intervention & the San Diego Interior Design Community. Thank you for many years of fun projects and encouragement.

Website: https://www.dsgnlogistics.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dsgnlogistics/

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutSoCal is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.