Josh Owens on Growing SupplyKick on the IBJ Podcast

In August 2018, Josh Owens sat down with the Indianapolis Business Journal to talk about what it takes to grow a company fast without breaking it.

At the time, SupplyKick had just been named #3 on the IBJ Fast 25, the annual ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in the Indianapolis area. Revenue had grown 335% from 2015 to 2017. The company was managing the tension between speed and process, ambition and uncertainty.

What This IBJ Podcast Episode Covers

SupplyKick’s rapid growth trajectory. The conversation opens with the company’s origin story: Chris Palmer launched SupplyKick in 2013 selling Herman Miller chairs on Amazon. Owens joined as CEO in 2016. By 2018, the company had over 1,000 ASINs and was growing 50%+ year-over-year.

Why communication became a core operating principle. Owens described “excessive communication” as one of SupplyKick’s core values. When you’re scaling fast and the path forward isn’t clear, the default response is to talk more, not less.

Key Takeaways From the Conversation

Managing uncertainty during fast growth. Most companies project confidence they don’t have. SupplyKick went the opposite direction: acknowledge what you don’t know, say it out loud, and work through it together.

Building process without losing momentum. The IBJ host asked what Owens did right and what he did wrong. One of the recurring themes: figuring out when to formalize and when to stay scrappy. Too much process too early kills speed. Too little process at scale creates chaos.

Why marketplace expertise mattered to SupplyKick’s early expansion. In 2018, the Amazon agency space was less crowded than it is now. SupplyKick’s dual model (owned brands plus agency services) gave the company direct operating experience to bring to client work. That differentiation was hard to replicate.

Why This Story Still Matters

The growth trajectory Owens discussed in 2018 was real and continued. SupplyKick appeared on the Inc. 5000 list five consecutive years (2017–2021), won the Mira Award for Scale-up of the Year in November 2018, and now manages $100M+ annually across owned brands and partner brands.

The principle Owens highlighted—excessive communication during uncertainty—has been validated repeatedly by leadership research. A 2025 Forbes Business Council article noted: “By embracing overcommunication, you are naturally building a culture of transparency and trust.” Chris Palmer, who returned as CEO after Owens’ departure and later passed leadership to Michael Slate, framed the company’s culture similarly in a 2025 podcast: “people over profit” and “default to trust.”

What started as a Fast 25 honoree became a company with over $100M in lifetime sales from owned brands alone. The podcast captures one specific moment in that evolution.

Listen to the Full Episode

The original post includes a Podbean embed. If the player doesn’t load, you can access the episode directly through the Indianapolis Business Journal website.

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