Episode 2: How Filterbuy Built a $280M Manufacturing Powerhouse with AI, People, & Speed

What does it take to walk away from Wall Street and build a $280 million manufacturing company in rural Alabama? And how do you scale culture across 1,000+ employees when half your corporate team works remotely?

In this episode of the Procurement Pulse, host Friddy Hoegener, Co-Founder and Head of Recruiting at SCOPE Recruiting, sits down with David Heacock, Founder and CEO of Filterbuy, who left his finance career to build a vertically integrated, tech-powered manufacturing brand.

David left his Wall Street career to build Filterbuy into a $280 million direct-to-consumer manufacturing company specializing in HVAC filters. But this isn't just another startup success story, it's a masterclass in scaling operations, culture, and people across multiple facilities while navigating the realities of American manufacturing.

Filterbuy operates seven facilities across the US with about 1,000 employees, including 50-60 remote corporate workers. David shares hard-won lessons, why geographic hiring requirements kill your talent pool, and his three-pronged approach to building real corporate culture: Model it, Articulate it, and Incentivize it.

What We Discuss:

00:00 Introduction

3:31 Why forcing geographic requirements limits your talent pool significantly

5:32 Which manufacturing roles can be remote vs. must be on-site

8:54 The three-pronged approach to culture: Model it, Articulate it, Incentivize it

15:55 How AI is transforming factory operations and data analytics

17:25 Why AI won't take your job, but people who use it will

21:21 The competitive advantage of building custom ERP systems vs. legacy solutions

25:14 Why next-day delivery matters more than you think for commodity products

27:11 The reality of bringing manufacturing back to America (and why it's not that simple)

Connect with us:

SCOPE Recruiting | https://www.scoperecruiting.com/

Connect with Friddy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhoegener/

Connect with Evan | https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-cave

David Heacock | https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidfilterbuy

Filterbuy | https://www.linkedin.com/company/filterbuy

About Procurement Pulse: Real conversations with supply chain and procurement professionals who've been on both sides—building teams, solving problems, and staying ahead of what's coming next.

About SCOPE Recruiting: Every recruiter at SCOPE is a former supply chain professional. Freddy and Melissa, both former ABB global category managers, started the company because they were tired of recruiters who didn't understand the roles they were filling. The result? Better matches, higher retention rates, and fewer headaches for everyone involved.

If you're building a supply chain team and the usual recruiting approach isn't working, check out scoperecruiting.com.