Meet Phillip Gulley
Phillip Gulley is the Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder
Hey, I'm Phil! I co-founded a company that supports critical industries with supply chain risk and traceability. But how does one end up here? Fade to….
Phil's Story
It's the late 90s. Jnco jeans are having their first wave of significant popularity. Pop music was peaking. I'm listening to punk rock and riding a skateboard in Tampa, Florida. I’m causing trouble. I’m bad at kickflips. I loved the arts and theater. So, I ignored my father's recommendation to pursue something practical in my young adult chapter and spent the next 8 years grabbing a couple of degrees in fine arts which guided me to New York—more specifically, Brooklyn: the greatest borough in the universe.
Creativity and Engineering
As I moved through my career, I developed a focus on technology, drifting closer and closer to the copper. Apparently, using video conferencing in a theatre performance is the gateway drug to Arduinos, then it's a slippery slope to writing code and CAD. After a few years as an artist making edgy music for academics and designing museum installations and tours for bands (I was once extremely cool. Buy me a beer and I’ll talk your ear off.) I found myself as the director of media at a nonprofit arts institute, 3LD Arts and Technology Center. There I connected with Matthew Haber, a plucky fella with the same intolerance for inefficiency that drove me in most endeavors.
The Start of BeSide Digital
2 years and a lot of strange projects later Matthew and I teamed up to create BeSide Digital, an engineering firm that utilized best-in-class and custom hardware to solve problems in creative industries. We made IoT devices for escape rooms, holograms for nonprofit galas, and interactive window displays to help sell little blue boxes. Over the following years our creative clientele evolved into a more practical group. We started prototyping medical devices and developing design tools and firmware pipelines for autonomous vehicles. BeSide was solving unusual technological challenges that warranted that extra special combo of creative direction, software, and hardware. We weren’t afraid to get our hands dirty and dive into big problems. The team grew, we started getting attention, and built a reputation for the team that ‘did the hard things right.’
After several years of running BeSide Digital the word got out. Someone knocked at our door with an offer we couldn’t refuse. This led to the good fortune of BeSide being acquired by private equity and folded into the agency family of MAS/Opus/TENCUE. The following years allowed us to work with some of the best tech companies in the world: Google, Meta, Dell, Intel, Crowdstrike, and a whole bunch more that sound great when lined up like this. We wrote white papers, launched products, and built conferences and innovation centers.
The software ecosystem that supported our efforts and those globally-leading organizations was robust. As for the hardware ecosystem, incredible companies existed to get to mechanical prototypes fast, but the world of electronics manufacutring seemed to lag behind. Electronics was tough category for us as BeSide, just as it was tough for the biggest players in the world. What's the deal with that?
After our tenure bridging the gaps between creative, advertising, and emerging technology in agency land, we parted ways with the marketing and events world. We wanted to keep collaborating but the consumable culture of events and expereinces was wearing on us. We wanted to solve a bigger problem. Having seen the challenges in electronics manufacturing, Matthew and I naively believed that the manufacturing process itself was the challenge, so we dove into PCBA… as you do. We bought a Juki line and built a factory in Brooklyn, New York. Obviously, this was the most reasonable place to build a factory. LOL.
Creating Cofactr
Our background in software meant that we were focused on creating a solution that leveraged data and automation to provide highly efficient materials management, from sourcing to procurement, through receipt and capture of compliance documentation, and then tracing those materials through to the final assemblies. We were proud to offer a more reliable supply chain than many of the incumbent contract manufacturers. This was during COVID, so things were rough and the landscape was changing. After about a year, our customers were not quiet about the fact that they were hiring us because we did a great job with the supply chain. Unfortunately, they also mentioned that we were only, let's say, so-so in the manufacturing quality department. The request was clear, “Please keep handling our supply chain, but could you send that kit to a different manufacturer?”
This was a huge a-ha moment! We immediately shut down the line. We took the internal tools we built, polished the front end, and turned them around, giving our customers access to the same intelligence, data, and process we utilized internally.
Boom! Cofactr, in its current iteration, was born. We got into Y Combinator and were funded by Bain (THANKS, AJAY!). Years later, we continue to offer amazing supply chain risk management, traceability tooling, and processes for critical manufacturers. We’re proud to have expanded beyond just electronic parts to help our customer with their full balance of system.
It’s been an incredible experience moving from art through helping brands connect with their audiences to solving some wild challenges in critical industries. I still own a skateboard though, and I still listen to punk rock.You can catch me in the mosh pit on a Saturday night but now during the week you’ll find me doing things that are significantly more impactful. I’m excited and thankful for it.