Andrew welcomes Paul Singer, CEO and cofounder of FleetWorks, a carrier-facing voice AI agent. It’s been a year and a half since Paul and his cofounder Quang Tran tested the idea for FleetWorks. They signed up for a load board, posted an attractive load, and to their surprise, three carriers responded and negotiated with their AI agent — a product Paul calls “janky” compared to what they have today. “Ever since those three calls, we’ve been off to the races.” 

On this episode, Andrew and Paul cover:

• The recent DeepSeek announcement and why it’s a foundational moment for AI
• Paul’s biggest takeaways from his four years working in carrier product for Uber Freight
• What separates FleetWorks from other AI companies and how it's returning 10x the ROI in operating costs for its broker-customers
• The biggest challenges the FleetWorks team has faced so far
• Can a brokerage with a sophisticated tech team build AI on its own?

Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.

*** This episode is brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services. Visit gorapido.com to learn more.

A special thanks to our additional sponsors:

• Cargado – Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies that move freight into and out of Mexico. Visit cargado.com to learn more.
• Greenscreens.ai – Greenscreens.ai is the AI-powered pricing and market intelligence tool transforming how freight brokers price freight. Visit greenscreens.ai/freightpod today!
• Metafora – Metafora is a technology consulting firm that has delivered value for over a decade to brokers, shippers, carriers, private equity firms, and freight tech companies. Check them out at metafora.net. ***

On this episode, recorded live from Manifest: The Future of Supply Chain & Logistics, Andrew interviews nine founders about their budding startups:

1. Ed Burns with TruSygnal, a connection platform for shippers and carriers
2. Tom Curee with Qued, automated appointment scheduling through AI
3. Omar Singh with Get Real Rates, an API pricing tool
4. Chip Reeves with Enablers, logistics human and AI staffing
5. Alex Bezzubets with myMechanic Inc., a roadside assistance platform
6. Shan Wu with Forward Labs, a brokerage sales prospecting tool
7. Sadie Frank with N4EA, predictive intelligence tools for climate risk
8. Thomas Mella with TrackFlo, a track-and-trace optimization platform
9. Annalise Sandhu with Chain, AI-powered freight booking and visibility

Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.

*** This episode is brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services. Visit gorapido.com to learn more.

A special thanks to our additional sponsors:

• Cargado – Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies that move freight into and out of Mexico. Visit cargado.com to learn more.
• Greenscreens.ai – Greenscreens.ai is the AI-powered pricing and market intelligence tool transforming how freight brokers price freight. Visit greenscreens.ai/freightpod today!
• Metafora – Metafora is a technology consulting firm that has delivered value for over a decade to brokers, shippers, carriers, private equity firms, and freight tech companies. Check them out at metafora.net. ***

Andrew welcomes Jim Berlin, CEO and founder of Logistics Plus, a company he founded in 1996 and has built into a global logistics powerhouse in more than 50 countries, with $600M in revenue, customers like GE and WeWork, and a HQ within Erie, Pennsylvania’s Union Station. But success didn’t come without taking risks — and learning from failures. “I dive in with both feet without checking the depth of the water.” 

In this episode, Jim and Andrew cover:

• The journey of how Jim built his company from a small operation supporting GE's transportation into a global logistics powerhouse.
• His biggest lessons, best leadership advice, and hiring mentality at Logistics Plus, which has more than 1,200 employees.
• The biggest failure of his career — launching a cargo shipping business on the Great Lakes that nearly sank his entire company.
• Stories of how simple gestures, out-of-the-box thinking, and creative problem-solving have sustained his career and the growth of Logistics Plus.

Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.

*** This episode is brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services. Visit gorapido.com to learn more.

A special thanks to our additional sponsors:

• Cargado – Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies that move freight into and out of Mexico. Visit cargado.com to learn more.
• Greenscreens.ai – Greenscreens.ai is the AI-powered pricing and market intelligence tool transforming how freight brokers price freight. Visit greenscreens.ai/freightpod today!
• Metafora – Metafora is a technology consulting firm that has delivered value for over a decade to brokers, shippers, carriers, private equity firms, and freight tech companies. Check them out at metafora.net. ***

Andrew welcomes Grace Maher, COO of OTR Solutions, one of the industry’s top factoring companies. Grace graduated from Georgia Tech with a business degree and an accounting certificate and went on to be an auditor for five years. But she felt she was meant for something else. In 2011, Grace got her first job in freight at Nolan Transportation; a year later, Nolan founder Kevin Nolan was starting OTR Solutions, and Grace found the opportunity she was looking for. 

In this episode, Andrew and Grace cover:

• The best parts of her dad that she’s carried into her life and career 
• Grace’s journey into freight and to OTR Solutions, the early days at OTR, and how the company continues to evolve and differentiate itself
• Factoring 101: What it is, how it works, and its importance in the industry 
• Grace's personal story of sobriety — how it has influenced her career and where she is today

Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.

*** This episode is brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services. Visit gorapido.com to learn more.

A special thanks to our additional sponsors:

• Cargado – Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies that move freight into and out of Mexico. Visit cargado.com to learn more.
• Greenscreens.ai – Greenscreens.ai is the AI-powered pricing and market intelligence tool transforming how freight brokers price freight. Visit greenscreens.ai/freightpod today!
• Metafora – Metafora is a technology consulting firm that has delivered value for over a decade to brokers, shippers, carriers, private equity firms, and freight tech companies. Check them out at metafora.net. ***

In this episode, Andrew welcomes Cole Stevens, chief strategy officer at Stevens Trucking, a family-owned trucking company based in Oklahoma. Cole’s dad, Kenney, founded the business in 1979 with a single hotshot pickup truck in an Oklahoma oil patch. Today, they operate 400 tractors and 1,800 dry van trailers across the U.S. 

Andrew and Cole cover:

• The founding story of Stevens Trucking and how the Stevens family uniquely runs the business.
• All that Cole has learned from his dad about business and leadership, and what Cole believes has led to his dad’s success.
• How Cole evaluates what new tech to bring into the business, how he thinks about tech for a team of employees ranging in age from 20 to 80, and the three things you have to get right to ensure internal adoption.
• The current tech landscape for asset-based providers and where Cole sees the greatest opportunity.
• The challenges of managing drivers and driver turnover and how to get drivers to buy in to delivering exceptional service for Stevens Trucking customers.

Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.

*** This episode is brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services. Visit gorapido.com to learn more.

A special thanks to our additional sponsors:

• Cargado – Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies that move freight into and out of Mexico. Visit cargado.com to learn more.
• Greenscreens.ai – Greenscreens.ai is the AI-powered pricing and market intelligence tool transforming how freight brokers price freight. Visit greenscreens.ai/freightpod today!
• Metafora – Metafora is a technology consulting firm that has delivered value for over a decade to brokers, shippers, carriers, private equity firms, and freight tech companies. Check them out at metafora.net. ***

Andrew welcomes David Bell, CEO and founder of CloneOps.ai. David has been in the logistics industry for more than 30 years. He once had a vision to make Lean Solutions Group a 10,000-employee organization — he and his team accomplished that. Now, with his new voice AI business, CloneOps.ai, he plans to hit 1 billion talking minutes for his customers in three years.

In this episode, David shares:

• How he founded his early LTL brokerage business and the challenges of LTL.
• How he and cofounder Roberto Cadena built Lean Solutions Group.
• His recipe for building long-term loyalty with the people who work for him. 
• What inspired him to start CloneOps.ai and how he got it off the ground.
• How CloneOps.ai is solving the biggest challenges in brokerage.

Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.

*** This episode is brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services. Visit gorapido.com to learn more.

A special thanks to our additional sponsors:

• Cargado – Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies that move freight into and out of Mexico. Visit cargado.com to learn more.
• Greenscreens.ai – Greenscreens.ai is the AI-powered pricing and market intelligence tool transforming how freight brokers price freight. Visit greenscreens.ai/freightpod today!
• Metafora – Metafora is a technology consulting firm that has delivered value for over a decade to brokers, shippers, carriers, private equity firms, and freight tech companies. Check them out at metafora.net. ***

For the 50th episode of The Freight Pod, Andrew welcomes Dhruv Gupta, CEO and cofounder of Drumkit. Dhruv shares his journey from studying transportation planning at Harvard to founding Drumkit, an innovative AI-driven workflow solution for logistics companies. 

In this episode, Andrew and Dhruv talk about:

• Dhruv’s experience of dealing with failure — calling his first business a “faceplant” — and what he learned that he still carries with him today. 
• The importance of leading with confidence, especially through uncertain times.
• How Dhruv and his team are building Drumkit to be a tool that “conforms” to customers’ processes — and with that, how he thinks about scaling his team internally to build faster and land more customers.
• The biggest challenges the Drumkit team is having with securing new business and the unique qualities they’re bringing to the brokerage sales process.

Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.

*** This episode is brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services. Visit gorapido.com to learn more.

A special thanks to our additional sponsors:

• Cargado – Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies that move freight into and out of Mexico. Visit cargado.com to learn more.
• Greenscreens.ai – Greenscreens.ai is the AI-powered pricing and market intelligence tool transforming how freight brokers price freight. Visit greenscreens.ai/freightpod today!
• Metafora – Metafora is a technology consulting firm that has delivered value for over a decade to brokers, shippers, carriers, private equity firms, and freight tech companies. Check them out at metafora.net. ***

In this episode, Andrew talks to Brad Perling, CEO and co-founder of Bitfreighter. Brad was an aerospace major waiting to get into air traffic control school when he became an early employee at Calvary Logistics. He says that’s where he got his freight MBA, working up from carrier rep to general manager. Frustrated by the lack of options when it came to EDI technology, this former broker is now building another cost-saving option for integration technology in Bitfreighter, named to FreightWaves’ 2024 FreightTech 25 awards.

Andrew and Brad cover:

• When brokerages should invest in building their own tech versus buying it
• If you can build truly differentiated technology without prior brokerage experience
• Is EDI dying? Its role in modern logistics and the role Bitfreighter is playing
• Fostering company culture in a remote working environment
• The challenges of bootstrapping a tech business

Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.

*** This episode is brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services. Visit gorapido.com to learn more.

A special thanks to our additional sponsors:

• Cargado – Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies that move freight into and out of Mexico. Visit cargado.com to learn more.
• Greenscreens.ai – Greenscreens.ai is the AI-powered pricing and market intelligence tool transforming how freight brokers price freight. Visit greenscreens.ai/freightpod today!
• Metafora – Metafora is a technology consulting firm that has delivered value for over a decade to brokers, shippers, carriers, private equity firms, and freight tech companies. Check them out at metafora.net. ***

In this episode, Andrew is joined by Jesse Buckingham, CEO and cofounder of Vooma. Jesse studied law and economics at the University of Sydney and got his MBA from Stanford. Before Vooma, he was CEO at ASG LogisTech, whose businesses included Trucker Tools, Record360, e-Courier, and PackageRoute. He was also a consultant at Bain & Company.

Now, Jesse’s leading the Vooma team in building AI tools that will automate the shipment lifecycle and help brokerage teams enhance productivity and reduce opex. Vooma recently raised $13M in Series A funding led by Craft Ventures, on top of a $3.6M seed round led by Index Ventures, with support from founders and execs at companies like Motive, Project44, Ryder, and Uber Freight. 

Andrew and Jesse cover:

• How to motivate teams, lead with passion, and build trust when you’re not the founder.
• The greatest challenges around addressing and automating manual processes in logistics. 
• How AI tools like Vooma will reinvent the way brokerages run their internal operations. 
• The future of hiring for the skills required to thrive in an AI-driven environment.
• The artful balance of building an innovative, new business with having a newborn at home.

Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.

*** This episode is brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services. Visit gorapido.com to learn more.

A special thanks to our additional sponsors:

• Cargado – Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies that move freight into and out of Mexico. Visit cargado.com to learn more.
• Greenscreens.ai – Greenscreens.ai is the AI-powered pricing and market intelligence tool transforming how freight brokers price freight. Visit greenscreens.ai/freightpod today!
• Metafora – Metafora is a technology consulting firm that has delivered value for over a decade to brokers, shippers, carriers, private equity firms, and freight tech companies. Check them out at metafora.net. ***

For the last episode of 2024, we welcome our first driver to the show: Chad Boblett. He created the longstanding Rate Per Mile Masters Facebook group, which, in its 11 years, has grown to be a vibrant community of close to 37,000 owner-ops, carriers, brokers, and agents. 

In this episode, we go back even further — 13 years — to how Chad got started in trucking, when a severe injury caused him to lose just about everything in his life — including his job and his house. He was living in a motel. But he still had his CDL. So with a $35,000 credit limit and a half a tank of gas, Chad bought his first truck and ran his first load. And that's how his trucking company, Boblett Brothers, was born. 

In this episode, Chad joined The Freight Pod from his house, on a lake in Lexington, Kentucky, where he talked to Andrew about:

• Building community in trucking
• What he's seeing in the truck market
• His rules of engagement with brokers
• The broker rate transparency debate
• What he thinks about freight AI
• The one thing that irks him about digital brokers

***Episode brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services.***

Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.

*** This episode is brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services. Visit gorapido.com to learn more.

A special thanks to our additional sponsors:

• Cargado – Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies that move freight into and out of Mexico. Visit cargado.com to learn more.
• Greenscreens.ai – Greenscreens.ai is the AI-powered pricing and market intelligence tool transforming how freight brokers price freight. Visit greenscreens.ai/freightpod today!
• Metafora – Metafora is a technology consulting firm that has delivered value for over a decade to brokers, shippers, carriers, private equity firms, and freight tech companies. Check them out at metafora.net. ***