Michael Kanko

Information is power—but only if you can access it, and only if you can trust it.

The business world is full of macroeconomic indicators and trendlines and opinions. They are abstractions that don’t always help companies make the decisions they need to make. But at the end of the chain, there’s an ocean container full of stuff, and containers don’t lie. That’s where to find the real ground truth about how the economy is doing and where it is headed.

I had been working in imports and logistics for over a decade when I realized that the customs data from U.S. seaports was publicly available. I realized immediately how valuable it was not just to my own business, but to everybody’s business. So we created ImportGenius to make that data accessible.

Trade data transparency makes every business that uses it smarter and more efficient. It makes America more competitive in a global economy. It helps protect intellectual property by rooting out counterfeiters and knock-offs. It surfaces leads for law enforcement and exposes illegal practices like dumping and forced labour. When it comes to trade data, the more eyes the better.

Transportation is in my blood. I grew up in a working-class family in Miami, in a home near the railroad tracks, and I was captivated early on by the locomotives and railcars and graffiti. When I was in college, I started riding freight trains. I had railway maps and I learned the routes. I got really good at it, until I got a $50 ticket from a Union Pacific agent in Yuma on my way to Los Angeles. I went cold turkey after that, but it was a great way to see the country.

I was a magician as a teenager, performing at birthday parties and nursing homes. Then I invented a magic trick I called Card Encounter. I manufactured it in my basement and sold it to magic stores around the world. It got reviewed in all the magic trade publications. I realized I was having way more fun making and selling my invention than performing. I’ve been an entrepreneur ever since. I became one of the first major sellers on eBay, before eBay was a thing.

Since then I’ve imported and sold scooters and dune buggies. I imported walk-in bathtubs from China, and when they turned out to be leaky, I nearshored and then re-shored their assembly. I’ve been through all the headaches that manufacturers, importers, shippers and freight forwarders experience. I know how fierce the competition is. We built ImportGenius for them.

ImportGenius is a very resilient business. When times are good, people need trade data. And when things get chaotic — whether it’s a pandemic or tariffs or supply chain breakdowns — people really need trade data.

The current climate of uncertainty is fueling a new wave of awareness about what we do. The clients who join us now will be with us long after the dust has settled.

We continue to add new datasets from countries around the world and develop our technological capabilities. And I’ve spent a lot of time these past few years in Washington, advocating for legislation to open up U.S. air cargo manifests. It’s a quirk in the law — it was never updated to match the reality of how goods are shipped. But making that data public will have a major impact not just for business but for law enforcement. We have garnered strong bipartisan support for the Manifest Modernization Act.

If we can make trade data transparent, we can make global commerce smarter, safer, and more accountable. Without it, our economy is essentially flying blind.