Road & Factory Bingo, a Field Report

Or: What happens when a CEO spends too long in rental cars.

Here’s something you learn quickly when you run a CommerceOS company willing to travel with your customers: The actual business is not in the office. It’s in the factory. It’s in the warehouse. It’s in the rental car between the factory and the warehouse. It’s at the diner attached to the hotel attached to the airport.

We’ve been on the road a lot this year. Brian, me, our client teams, whoever else we rope in for a given trip. Factory tours, QC walkthroughs, vendor meetings, the occasional “this was supposed to be a 30-minute stop but now we’re three hours in and someone’s showing us their new line.”

Glamorous? No. Essential? Extremely.

Also, surprisingly fun.

At some point on our last trip (third factory of the day, maybe fourth, I lost count) I looked around and realized the same specific things were happening every single time. Someone pulls out a tape measure. A vendor says “let me be transparent with you” and then says something mildly concerning. A forklift nearly takes out a teammate. We leave with more samples than luggage space.

So I made a bingo card.

Road & Factory Bingo, Field Edition No. 01.

25 squares, point values, house rules (witness required, no backfilling, disputes settled by group vote). A belt for the highest total at trip end.

The team got weirdly into it.

A few hours into the first trip we used it on, people were angling for squares. (I will not name names, but someone absolutely tried to bait a vendor into saying “MOQ” five times on purpose. Respect, though, right?)

By the end of the week we had three contested BINGOs and at least one reversal by group vote...

Here’s the link if you want to play it on your next trip: https://chaos.endlesscommerce.com/road-bingo

Print it. Torture your travel team. Send me your scores.

The larger point, if there has to be one: Operations is chaos. The road is where you see it most honestly. Tape measures, forklifts, handshake deals in parking lots, supplier dinners that turn into product roadmaps. None of it fits in a CRM. All of it matters.

You can’t vibe code the supply chain... but you can make a game of it.

xoxo,
Chaos