Episode 27: Justin Sherlock

Global trade has become more expensive, more complex, and harder to manage. As tariffs rise and supply chains become more regulated, many companies are losing money without realizing they may be eligible to recover part of it.

In this episode of The Disruptors, Justin Sherlock, founder of Caspian, explains how his company is using AI to help importers, exporters, customs brokers, and freight forwarders identify unclaimed duty refunds and recover money that would otherwise stay buried inside the global trade system.

Justin Sherlock built Caspian after years of seeing the same problem repeat itself across global supply chains: companies were paying millions in import duties and tariffs, but many did not know they could claim part of that money back.

Before founding Caspian, Justin worked at Flexport, where he ran the company’s trade finance division and worked closely with brands, manufacturers, and supply chain operators. Through that experience, he saw how tariffs were affecting gross margins, especially for companies that did not have large internal customs teams or access to expensive trade consultants.

The episode begins with a broader look at the new trade environment. Justin explains that tariffs are not only a political headline. In his view, they have become a bipartisan and long-term feature of global trade policy. Whether driven by national security, industrial strategy, supply chain protection, or geopolitical competition, the cost and complexity of importing goods has increased dramatically.

That complexity is exactly where Caspian enters the market.

Justin describes Caspian as an AI command center for the trade war economy. The platform ingests trade data, identifies where companies are spending money on tariffs, and helps them find opportunities to reduce or recover those costs. The first major use case is duty drawback, a refund mechanism that allows companies to recover certain import duties when goods are later exported.

For many businesses, duty drawback is valuable but difficult to access. The process is often slow, technical, spreadsheet-heavy, and dependent on consultants. As Justin explains, many eligible companies simply never file because the process is too hard, too expensive, or too far outside their internal expertise.

Caspian is designed to change that model.

Instead of charging upfront like a traditional consultant or selling another software platform that creates more work for the customer, Caspian operates on a success-fee model. Companies only pay when they actually receive money back. That changes the economics of the process and makes refund recovery more accessible, especially for middle-market companies that may not have the same resources as Fortune 500 enterprises.

A central idea in the episode is speed to value. Justin argues that, in this market, recovering money faster can matter more than trying to maximize every last theoretical dollar through a long and expensive manual process. By using AI, automation, and customs expertise, Caspian aims to shorten what could take months or years into a much faster and more predictable workflow.

The conversation also explores the size of the opportunity. Justin estimates that tens of billions of dollars in duty refunds may be recoverable in the United States alone, with a much larger global opportunity as companies in other markets face similar trade and compliance challenges.

Beyond duty drawback, Justin outlines where Caspian may go next: customs audits, tariff classification checks, refund opportunities, trade policy monitoring, forecasting, and broader global trade management tools. The larger vision is not just to recover money from past shipments, but to help companies defend their margins in an increasingly volatile trade environment.

This episode is also a founder story. Justin talks about starting Caspian as a first-time founder, raising capital before having a full product, hiring a highly specialized team, and building in a regulated market where trust, domain expertise, and technical execution all matter.

What makes this episode relevant

This episode shows a different side of AI disruption.

Instead of focusing on consumer apps, chatbots, or generic automation, Justin Sherlock explains how AI can transform a highly specialized and regulated part of the economy: global trade. The opportunity is not abstract. It is tied to real money, real margins, and real operational pain for companies that move goods across borders.

Caspian’s story is also a reminder that some of the biggest AI opportunities may come from industries that look boring from the outside but are filled with complexity, paperwork, rules, and inefficiencies. In global trade, the combination of tariffs, customs regulations, shipping data, legal provisions, and fragmented workflows creates a perfect environment for specialized automation.

The episode is especially relevant for founders, investors, supply chain leaders, importers, exporters, customs brokers, and anyone interested in how AI is moving beyond general productivity tools into vertical software.

Justin’s perspective also highlights an important founder lesson: strong startup ideas often come from deep exposure to a specific problem. Caspian was not born from a broad desire to “build something in AI.” It came from years of seeing companies lose money because the existing system was too complicated to navigate.

Watch the full episode to understand how Caspian is turning tariff complexity into a cash recovery opportunity, why duty drawback is still underused, and how AI could reshape the future of global trade operations.