Blue Collar Smart Guest
Founder & CEO of Distro, the Agentic AI Sales Platform
He studied AI at Stanford, then spent months standing at distributor counters to learn how inside sales actually works before writing the software
Background
Jason Sullivan is the founder and CEO of Distro, an agentic AI sales platform built for wholesale distributors and manufacturers' reps. He holds a master's in computer science with a focus on artificial intelligence from Stanford and an undergraduate degree in cognitive science from Yale. Before Distro, he co-founded a fintech startup called Vested, led data and engineering at hedge funds, and served as CTO of multiple startups. Distro went through Y Combinator, relocated from New York to Palo Alto, and now serves distributors ranging from single-location family shops to multi-billion-dollar operations.
Sullivan came into distribution from the outside and treated that as a problem to solve rather than a detail to gloss over. He spent months visiting distributors and rep agencies across the country, standing at counters, sitting in on sales calls, and studying how inside sales teams, outside reps, and operations actually work. What he found was an industry full of deep human expertise running on tools that had fallen behind the people using them. He stays hands-on with the product, working alongside his engineering team daily, and built an advisory network of experienced distribution people to cover what he did not know.
On Blue Collar Smart, Sullivan sat down with Hugh Hornsby to argue that AI in distribution should be a force multiplier for trusted employees, not a replacement pitch. The two covered why there is no one-size-fits-all AI rollout in distribution, how to earn buy-in from a workforce that spans ChatGPT users and thirty-year veterans, the security questions buyers forget to ask vendors, and what private equity pressure means for owners weighing succession. The throughline: technology does not excuse leaders from the human work.
Key Insights
01
Mid-market distributors built their processes over years, sometimes generations. Some of it slots into a platform and much of it does not. Sullivan says the job often means sitting with an owner and mapping where AI fits and where it does not, before any customization happens.
02
Tech-fluent employees need little convincing, and assuming they represent the whole branch is the mistake. Sullivan's team runs live training, flies people out, buys lunch, and stays present at day zero, day 30, and six months in when formats and customer requirements change.
03
Sullivan says most buyers never set those expectations up front. Walk through how data is stored, how your data is separated from other customers' data, what security practices exist, and exactly how an incident would be handled.
04
When IT staff at a larger distributor start assembling internal tools with AI assistance, nobody can fully account for what is installed or wired into company systems. Sullivan's words: that creates security holes you may not notice for weeks. Be deliberate about build versus buy.
05
Sullivan's point is about position, not preference — you want to be choosing, not cornered. A sales team that can quote, plan, and spec more effectively lets you compete pound for pound with larger players, whether you stay independent or sell.
Featured Conversation
Episode 8 · September 3, 2026
Distro founder Jason Sullivan on rolling out AI in trade distribution without losing your people: adoption, data security, succession, and real leverage.
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