The Last Mile Lens with Matt Earish, Co-Founder of Borderline Genius – PART 2

UniUni recently partnered with Borderline Genius, Inc. to simplify the complexities of cross-border shipping for SMBs. We sat down with Matt Earish, the co-founder of Borderline Genius, to talk about how brands can navigate trade volatility and build strong operational foundations to get cross-border shipping right.

Now, in the second installment of The Last Mile Lens conversation with Matt, we shift to compliance and how brands can make cross-border shipping more predictable in a market where the regulatory goal posts are constantly shifting. 

How does the UniUni and Borderline Genius partnership simplify cross-border shipping?

Matt: The word I like to use is frictionless. We help UniUni remove the friction from their customers’ cross-border shipping process. When the details aren’t clear at the time of shipment, that’s when you start to see delays, extra costs, and things getting reworked.

Our role is to eliminate that, to make the mystery go away, and to allow UniUni customers to put products on their website and know confidently what the cost of shipping is going to be.

How does that translate into a more predictable experience for a brand’s end customers?

Matt: What our partnership does is bring clarity into the cross-border shipping process really early on. Instead of figuring things out after an order is in motion, brands have that information from the beginning. This proactive approach leads to fewer surprises, more predictable costs, and a smoother experience for the end customer.

What does a truly frictionless cross-border shipping experience look like? 

Matt: A frictionless experience is when everything goes completely according to plan, and we’ve made an international transaction look like a domestic transaction. 

You want the end customer to have no surprises, no invoices at the door, and no delay notifications because something was shipped that shouldn’t have been. The key is addressing every product early on. Some products are straightforward, like t-shirts, where there’s less regulation, while others, like fresh seeds, plants, or bulbs, come with a lot more complexity.

The earlier you understand those requirements, or decide that certain products are inadmissible and shouldn’t be offered in specific markets, the better. That’s really the ideal scenario.

If I’m a cross-border seller integrating with UniUni to ship internationally, I want to know: if my products are admissible, if there are additional requirements, certifications, or information that the border agency will require, and what the cost impact will be.

What gap did you see in the market when you started Borderline Genius?

Matt: We saw companies addressing the compliance problem, but from a different lens. It was mostly about quick HS classification codes, which we still think have a place in the market.

Our approach was different. We asked, how do we deliver what I’d call business-to-business level data? B2C data was a little less complex, or at least it was, and our goal was to build a product for companies that still need help automating and simplifying a very complex process.

There’s a lot of complexity in global trade, and internal teams are often resource-constrained. They’re usually low-budget and seen as a cost center. So for us, it was about recognizing that compliance is important and building something that addresses that.

How has the importance of compliance shaped the way you built Borderline Genius?

Matt: Just as we were building this, the B2C market changed. Compliance went from being important to absolutely critical. Now it’s not optional. You have to get it right or risk having your shipments seized, running into issues at the border, or causing delays in air and freight transit.

So we founded the company to solve that problem. We have backgrounds in HS codes for companies like Amazon, eBay, and Pitney Bowes, so we have a lot of experience operating at a very large level. But we wanted to do it better and approach it with a different lens.

We’re compliance people, but we also understand the challenges of e-commerce and the need to move goods quickly. So the question became: how do we do both? 

That’s what led us to build Borderline Genius and bring together a team with similar backgrounds. We also had the luxury of being able to hire people with backgrounds in government and law, which was the right approach and more relevant every day. 

You mentioned solutions in the market that focus on speed or automation. How is Borderline Genius approaching cross-border shipping differently?

Matt: Companies like Borderline Genius can get lost because there are a lot of players in the market doing similar things, but what we’re really focused on is compliance.

When we founded the company, our goal wasn’t simply to move packages quickly, but that’s what the industry wanted. It was all about making sure you had just enough data to get shipments across the border. That goal has changed significantly over the past 12 months.

Moving shipments quickly with limited compliance isn’t as viable. We’re now seeing a heightened level of cross-border shipping compliance from agencies all over the world, with the EU recently introducing new requirements and the elimination of de minimis in the U.S. 

This unsettling global trade environment really aligns with who we are as a company. We want our customers to be compliant, and we want their end customers to avoid the impact of delayed shipments, underpaid duties, or unexpected surprises after delivery. 

Borderline Genius combines AI with human expertise. How does that hybrid approach help improve classification, compliance, and overall decision-making?

Matt: There are two streams here. First is the content side. Many companies gather content at a surface level, but we do it differently. We’re not just collecting content for our database; we bring content in, analyze it, and make sure the applicability is correct. 

Legislation or legal text aren’t simple enough to be interpreted digitally or by AI alone. So, we use AI to scrape and build a large database, but we also have a team of lawyers and regulatory experts analyzing that information, giving our partners deeper and more accurate insights. 

Then there’s the classification side. Fully automating HS classification would be ideal, and may happen one day, but we’ve learned that without strong product data, you need a lot of info to get to an accurate code. Our process forces you to analyze details, look for additional information beyond a basic product description, and make decisions with the support of AI.

For us, it’s about handling high volume with efficiency. AI enhances this process, but a person still reviews it and does any additional research. Our proprietary AI is built on a ton of data that continues to evolve, and with our team of experts we achieve a hybrid, AI-human solution.

For more from our conversation with Matt, check out Part 1 of the Last Mile Lens.

Dive into The Last Mile Lens series for conversations with the innovative leaders shaping the future of e-commerce, logistics, and supply chain. As always, reach out to learn more about our last-mile delivery offerings to hello@uniuni.com.