May 2, 2025 • 30 mins
As we close the week, we’ve got two amazing guests back on the show, Towns Agnew and Jonathan Sinton of Drayage Insight, sharing more of their expertise about the drayage market!
This episode with Towns and Jonathan focuses on their customer-centric growth, the effectiveness of adapting products to market needs, challenges involving the drayage market, particularly its limited technology solutions, significant business planning challenges due to tariff policy volatility, financial resilience practices, and a new market intelligence tool!
About Jonathan Sinton and Towns Agnew
Jon Sinton brings over 20 years of experience in international supply chain management to Dray Insight. His extensive career includes senior roles at Maersk, where he held positions in regional procurement, equipment flow, vessel capacity execution, trade management, and led the global out of gauge and break bulk cargo division. He also gained valuable startup experience at PortPro, a technology company developing a SaaS TMS platform specifically for drayage providers.
Towns Agnew brings over 15 years of extensive experience in international and domestic supply chain roles to the table. His expertise spans drayage finance and operations, as well as ocean and rail operations, where he has excelled as a customer, operator, and financial specialist within the industry. This multifaceted background uniquely positions him to comprehend the nuanced challenges in drayage finance from various perspectives, including those encountered by founders and executives.
Connect with Jon and Towns
- Website: https://drayinsight.com/
- Email: towns@drayinsight.com / jsinton@drayinsight.com
- Town’s Phone: 713 679 8472
- Jon’s Phone: 704 910 9926
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Came back with a bank hey oh Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm get to the back hey Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the blame moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them hate them make a bigger boss hey.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What is up, ladies and gentlemen? We are back. We are live. It is the Freight Coach Podcast, the top podcast in transportation, coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines. But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome. This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen. And I say that before every single show.
(00:49):
And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve, so you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see meaningful difference in your business and your life. Happy Friday, everybody. I got some very special guests. Yes, that is plural guest for you guys on the show today. And we're going to break down literally all things Drage. There's a lot of stuff that's going on right now with port container volumes, kind of what's going on out there. And these guys are like literally on the front line doing that. So I got my friends at Dre Insight on the show, Mr.
(01:28):
Jonathan Sinton and Townes Agnew on the show. So, guys, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks, Chris.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Good to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, I saw that. Eyes going back and forth on who's gonna see, who's gonna reply first there.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, you got it.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh, I love it. So, guys, what's new, man? It's been a while since you guys have been on the show, but you guys have been busy behind the scenes building some stuff up here. So what's. Let's bring people up to speed. Where's everything at with. With your guys company now?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
John, you want to take this one?
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Yeah, I'll take it. It's. Yeah, it's been a wild ride. We were on the podcast back in. Was it August when were first starting out? And we've come a long way. A lot of development on the product side, a lot of customer acquisition, making good progress. So we're really pleased as to where we're going. And the nice thing is we're building our platform based on customer feedback. So it's directly from our customers and catering it to that so we hit the right points within the tool so that it really provides a benefit. We don't want to provide any unnecessary items that people aren't going to want to deal with.
(02:41):
So overall, we're very pleased and glad that we can be back on your show kind of eight months later and, you know, give an update as to where we are and, you know, talk about the industry.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
No, I, I love having people like yourselves on the show. Right. Like, I, you know, documenting that journey of starting out your venture is something that, you know, I, you know, like, I've been very fortunate to kind of do throughout my entire self, you know, entrepreneur journey, we can call it, you know, because I've been documenting since, like, day one. And I love kind of seeing the progression of people's journeys out there and then, you know, a lot of, like, what you're learning as you go. And, you know, I, I, I always talk about the fundamentals of a lot of this stuff because I, I don't think, I think people try and get away from the fundamentals and way too soon, and what they end up realizing is they, they always end up coming back to it because that's what works the most.
(03:36):
And I think, like, you know, from your guys's perspective, you guys are building this up at like, a very interesting time. Right? Like, all things considered. But, like, I think in five years from now, when you guys look back at this, you're going to be like, I'm so glad everything happened the way that it did, because it prepared us way more than we thought. And, you know, that's where, when we started our brokerage here a couple of years ago, like, I jumped in when I did because I'm like, I know it's going to be tough. No, you know, I know how the market's performing out there, but I'm like, if we can develop business in that climate, I'm like, we're gonna dominate when things change and shift into our favor.
(04:15):
And, you know, so it's like, with all the stuff that's going on right now with tariffs and, you know, the, and then you throw the Longshore Union port strike, all that stuff that's going on, I feel like you guys are going to look back in a few years and be like, we got so much more prepared than we ever thought in the moment, and it just may not seem like it right now, you know?
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Yeah, it's been, it's been great. And it's much better to come in when, say, not everything is perfect and the market is perfect, because then you really understand. And it's. It's listening and understanding what people are saying and why they're feeling that way so that we can help to provide that solution. The other part is you're talking about from the start, you know, when we first started out to where we are now is we've talked with several prospective customers back in the fall who have now become customers here in the spring. And they're like, it's a. It's a completely different product. Like, the amount of growth and what you've been able to build is. Has been incredible. And they're really amazed. And for.
(05:10):
I think for both of us, it's really exciting to see that feedback because it tells us that, all right, we're on the right track, we're making progress. We're actually providing value out there, which is, you know, overall beneficial.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
No, and that's exactly it, right? It's like the. The silent times that only you guys know about. I know what you guys are going through with that because I've been there, right? Because you're like, you're sitting there, you're banging your head against the wall, and you're like, why isn't. Like, what. What's going on? What am I doing wrong? And, you know, I've had that conversation with my business partner numerous times over the years here. You know, we're like, what is it like? You know, but, like, sometimes it's not your delivery, it's not your product, it's just the market. And there's a lot of, you know, and then especially with what you guys are doing inside of the drayage space like that, like, how much actual technology is out there for drayage carriers alone, you know, yeah, there.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
And there's. There's not a lot. It's a special. It's a specialty business. But I think one of the things that we've understand and then you look at, with. With what's actually happening in the overall market is really being able to let people know that have been doing the same thing for the same way, that there is an alternative out there. And actually I might be looking at my finances wrong or my cost wrong, and I'm not factoring in every little thing. And so we've had some. Had a conversation yesterday where it's. When you look at some of the owner operators, you look at the market and everything's dropping.
(06:40):
If you actually understand your cost and you know what your cost is and you know what you're going to get paid, you know what the company is going to get paid and are you actually making money that helps drive a different mindset and be able to really think as to what you need to do. So within the overall space, being able to talk, especially in the market the way that it is, where there's so much pressure on volumes and rates is understanding your cost and really knowing that and being able to let our customers understand what the impact is of the decisions that they make. And really that's going to help the carriers and different drayage companies be able to survive the uncertain times that we have over the next couple months.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
No, definitely. And you know, Towns, from your seat with everything that's going on with tariffs and you know, it's seemingly like a ping pong match right now, right? It's back and forth. It's like it's going to be 80 today. No, no, we're gonna go down to 10 here for a little like there's so much back and forth and if there's any complaint that I have regarding, you know, the tariff talk out there as a whole is the back and forth, right? Like, I'm just like, dude, if we're going to make a statement, stick your flag in the ground and stay there, right? Because there are a lot of blowback that the small businesses of this country suffer from the most here. And that's amazing. I hate that personally because I'm like, dude, if we're going to be at 50%, let's stay at 50%.
(08:03):
Let's not be like 50 today, 10 tomorrow, 45 the next day, 30 then like we can't do that because there are real businesses that are on the ground level who are trying to plan inventory and then the downstream effect is the drayage carriers that are at the ports wondering how much volume is going to come through. They're trying to budget out their, you know, their anticipated volume and everything. So what are you guys hearing from that perspective?
Speaker 3 (08:27):
I mean, what I'm hearing, Chris, and I love the question. I think you, you said it without saying it. But I think the word of 2025 is going to be uncertainty, right? And everybody we talk to and I, I imagine anybody you're talking to is the business environment is uncertain. The news this morning is that China basically responded to the US Propositions for like engaging on negotiations that we need to see a unilateral removal Of. Of tariffs that you've applied, which is basically what we want to see the United States blink first. You've got to imagine that with the White House focused on, like, kind of righting some historical wrongs in the global economy, that they're not going to be the ones that want to blink first here.
(09:03):
So I think this all goes back to your point, which is companies, customers, shipping lines, trucking companies, everybody wants to be out of the uncertainty. Whether that's a. Here's the level for a tariff that we expect for this type of good, or just here's the country that's going to apply to. We all just want some. We want to lock down that uncertainty so we wouldn't. We know what to plan around. And frankly, it's a little bit scary out there. I mean, we've seen volumes of the port of L. A. We're expecting a 35% drop in cargo volumes next week as a result. Direct result of that uncertainty. So when I think when we look back at this year, it's that the words could be uncertainty. It's going to be a long couple of months. And, you know, from our standpoint, it's.
(09:42):
It's just there's no really way to navigate around this other than trying to be smart about the decisions you're making, trying to know your fundamentals and doing the best you can to respond to an uncertain environment.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, no, I'm right there with you. Right. And like, you know, I am a fan of the re. Industrialization of the United States. Right. Like, I truly feel like this is the right play in the. In the long term. And, you know, but it is. It's like, as the individual out there, I'm kind of like, come on. But then I'm also like, this should have probably happened 30, 40 years ago, you know, and they're like, I don't think that there is ever going to be a perfect way. But, you know, to Sunny Sharma's comment here, you know, hard now equals easy later. Easy now equals hard later. Do you really believe you're going to be the first person in history to change that? Except the path is going to be hard and it's the truth. Right?
(10:26):
Like, at the end of the day, this is going to be a very hard time in the short term. But I do feel like long term, it is the best play for us as a whole. I just wish there was like a little bit of a softer landing thing. But, you know, at the end of the day, man, when you got big egos and Big economies and a lot on the line. You got to be bold at the end of the day to make.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I mean, I'm not an economist. I don't think anybody here on the channel claims to be like this. This is wildly complicated. It's not an easy way to do it. But the reality is that if you want to change a multi trillion dollar global economy overnight, there's going to be some pain. Like, you could probably adjust it a little bit more slowly, but you know, what are we going to see the benefits as quickly? Probably not. So, you know, drawing a line in the sand saying enough is enough. And there are some certainly, you know, regardless of like what your political standpoint is, there are some unfair trade practices that China participates in that have unfairly, you know, hurt American workers.
(11:20):
And I think trying to address that when the World Trade Organization hasn't, when we have not had the levers that, you know, we basically been playing by the rules for years and they haven't. So resetting that equation, I think is the right thing to do. And it hurts now and it sucks. We'd all like to get through a little bit faster, but you know, we've just got to kind of hope that we get through this quickly and as painlessly as possible.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yeah, I mean, I would throw a temper tantrum too if the gravy train got shut off. And now all of a sudden I had to start paying my fair share, you know. So I like, I see a lot of the reactions around the globe is like, yeah, I get why they're acting that way, but it's like at the end of the day, like we can't keep paying for stuff. Right. And you know, I think, you know, I, I, Wilfred put a good comment in here and I, you know, he was saying when he had worked for Cub Foods, he fine tuned the process and the stuff that didn't sell and optimize the sale of the products that did. And I look at it from that perspective, like I've actually truly, admittedly never thought about it like that. Right.
(12:15):
How much of a benefit is this going to give the manufacturers that are out there to have a better, it's going to help them better control their inventory. Right. Like they're going to be probably, they're going to let items go a lot faster. They're not going to like draw out that process here. They're probably going to have to make better change, you know, like more realistic changes to their inventory. Processes and like, hey, this guy's selling at a higher level. This one's not where we need to be and can help them fine tune that process. Right.
(12:39):
So I think like that could be a true positive down, you know, in a downstream effect of this is it's like the shelf life for product is probably going to be shortened because it's like, hey, if you're not selling, shut that off because we're not going to continue to pay a tariff on a good. That's not selling that, you know, above a hypothetical 50% mark or whatever that looks like.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yeah, 100%. I mean, what's interesting is warehousing is pretty full right now because we had such a strong pull forward effect in Q1 and now slightly into Q2 to try to get ahead of these tariffs. So you're seeing warehousing space is pretty limited. But honestly, what this really makes me kind of like think about. And John, I don't know what your take is, but I think there's analog in the dray space or in trucking in general, which is this idea of like you know, doing your lane analysis, understanding your mix, knowing which customers are profitable, knowing which customers are not, or in Wilfred's analogy here, like which products themselves so that you optimize for where you're making money and you're doing so in a high volume manner rather than taking on things like loss leaders.
(13:36):
And as the economy goes through this period of uncertainty, whether you're otr, whether you're dre, whether you're intermodal, you know, these are the things you need to be thinking about is am I making money on every shipment, am I covering my operating costs, am I running my business based on the fundamentals so that when the rebound comes, I'm, you know, in fighting shape and I'm ready to take advantage of that because I know my business, I've been tight with customers and when things do eventually recover, we're going to go through a bullwhip effect, just like we did with COVID which is people are going to want to restock quickly, whether that's domestic manufacturer or overseas. And there's not going to be enough trucking capacity. There's also not going to be enough warehouse capacity. So, you know, buckle up.
(14:14):
We're, we're at the early days of COVID almost aligned to the month. And you better believe that at some point we're going to go through that again. But, and I think Wilfred's point here that you really need to understand what the product is what the customer is, what the lane is. You know, focus on the fundamentals, know your numbers. Don't get sloppy and focus on how you come out of this in better shape to take advantage of the eventual upturn.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yeah, you know, I, I look at it as, you know, at least for me, you know, if I, I got a little bit more data to play with because I've been, you know, I've been self employed now for five years and I look at where it's like you go from, no revenue at all, low overhead coming in, then you're like, then you have that inevitable spike where like, damn, I got revenue coming in. You increase your overhead, then you're like, shit, I overspent. I over committed. I thought the good times were going to stay good for a lot longer than they did. But now I'm at a point in my business where I'm like, all right, I learned a lot here over these last five years. Now it's all about cost control. You know, I, all about cost control, building up that emergency fund.
(15:17):
So if there are any levers that are pulled where, you know, there's any drop in revenue, I can sustain my fixed cost for, you know, an extended period of time. So I'm looking at a lot of this as, from the perspective of like, do these times suck? I mean, yeah, it's frustrating at times, right? Because like, just like everybody, I want easy too, you guys, right? Like I just want to make all the money in the world and not have to worry about everything.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Wouldn't that be right, dude?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah. But I also look at it as like, this is making me such a better operator a lot sooner than maybe I had thought. But I'm glad because I'm going to be so much more prepared for the next five years now and how much better I'm going to be able to run my company and grow my company during that time frame based on the lessons that I'm learning during these ups and downs of a market.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Well, let's, I mean, let's, I mean, you know, I love some data and John does too. Let's, let's dive into that. Maybe, maybe we can give away some free advice here. But like when you look at your business and you talk about your cash reserve and everybody should have one, you know, best practices are to kind of maintain somewhere between 60 and 180 days of cash depending on the volatility of your business, meaning you can cover your fixed costs without any Revenue coming in, like in your world, what do you think good looks like? How much should an operator keep on hand to cover their fixed costs?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Oh, man, I, I mean, realistically, if you're talking from day one, $1, I think you should try and set aside at least 15 to 20% of your profits early. Right. And try and stick with something like that. And again, this is a perfect world pie in the sky conversation right now. But if I were starting from zero again, I would set aside, I would read Profit first, the book Profit first right away.
(17:00):
And then look at how do you set aside, you know, a couple of different accounts for your taxes and everything else and start setting cash aside, Start a, a tax account, a business savings account and a business checking account and then filter that money because again, when Uncle Sam comes calling, you know, like, you're going to have to pony up and you can't throw your hands up in the air and say, I don't have any money for that. Right? But I feel like ideally, if you're looking at it when you're beginning, I would get in the habit of saving as much as possible as soon as possible right away.
(17:32):
And then, especially if you are in an asset heavy business like trucking, you know, like, do you have the capital set aside for tire, roadside, all of that, have that emergency fund kind of set aside and you know, like, just for basic math here, if you profit $1,000 for your company, and that's after you pay yourself and everything, if you have a thousand dollars in profit, I would set 200 aside of that right away and put that in a savings account and then just get in that habit of doing it early so you can build that up. Because there is going to be times where your revenues are going to drop, your expenses are going to increase, your variable costs are going to go up one month for repairs, or you know, something's going to happen and it's inevitable.
(18:13):
You need to be in a position where you know, at least have enough of available credit on your credit card if you want to play that and you know, keep those balances down. It's not as hard as you think. I think like the thing that got me in trouble was is you go from not making any money to making money and then you're like, you think it's gonna always last. And I didn't do anything dumb, but I also didn't save as much. Like I more recklessly added stuff into my business and I was like double paying for services and that. I was like, yeah, that was dumb. I'll never do that again. But again, I feel like I'm one of those guys where, you know, towns John, you guys could tell me, hey man, the stove's hot, don't touch it.
(18:52):
I'm not gonna go up and touch the stove still in that moment. So. So I feel like ultimately experience is the best thing for most people early on and hopefully you don't make a fatal mistake right away. But I feel like ultimately you gotta set more money aside than you think early on and don't let your lifestyle get ahead of you until your business is in a spot where Ideally you have 90 days of operating capital on the table in the event everything shut off one day.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Yeah. And the big thing is we like to say is like that rainy day fund, especially for maintenance because if you have a truck in the shop, you have something that is out of service, you're not running that, you're not making any revenue. So you need to account for that and make sure that your equipment and your assets are working and running or else you're missing opportunity. And the other part I think, you know, you made a point is not looking at what is actually happening the here and now, but thinking about what is actually going to happen within the next month or two months or three months down the road and start to prepare for that.
(19:52):
And I think a lot of individuals and especially within drage companies are looking at what is what's going on this week and next week and not thinking about what's happening in the future. And this is a time where everyone really needs to think is well what is it going to mean with volume dropping or if there's fluctuation with rates this month, next month or three months down the road, maybe even through the summer and can I sustain it? And that's the key is it's, it's kind of like the, you know, survive in advance. It's just survive make sure that you there and then you take advantage when things can turn around because things will turn around. It's just a matter of when.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, no, I, I completely agree and I, I feel like you know, you guys have, I'll let you guys talk on this, but you guys have some updates with your guys's product where it is talking about more like real time market intelligence and stuff to help people better price. Right. Because like I think like from my perspective that is one of the hardest things that you're going to do consistently out there is how do you know you're not under bidding? You know, because you can win business and it might be great, but your customer might have had a better buy point that is out there and you might have undercut yourself by a couple hundred bucks and you might not even know that.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Yeah, I mean if.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Well, let's.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
We'll give you a story.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
We were.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
So we just rolled out the beta for our market intelligence platform. So we basically. DRE Insight now has two different platforms. We have quoting app that helps carriers, primarily asset based carriers, but also brokers basically send and manage quotes for their customers. And we help you go through a CFO like checklist like what are your operating costs, what's your overhead, what's your maintenance budget so that you know before you take on that business how much money you should make. But the number one question that John and I would get when talking to people is, you know, what's the market rate for point A to point B? So we're just rolling out our new market intelligence tool. It basically provides DAT level information for the dray space, which is the first of its kind.
(21:49):
And to give you an example, were actually on a phone call with a quoting app customer two weeks ago and we brought up a quote that he was working on. And the trip was about 250 miles if I remember correctly, John, and It was for seven shipments a week. He was going to quote roughly $2.50amile. Because this is kind of into the regional OTR space.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
And we went to the market intel app. We pulled it up and we saw that the market for that trip was actually more like $3.66amile. So he was able to go back to the customer in real time. He quoted $3.50amile. So a dollar a mile higher and won the business on the spot.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
And that'll be, I think it's a six month contract with seven loads a week, which is pretty damn good in the current market. And he would have otherwise been operating at cost and left money on the table. So to your point, like knowing where the market is and not shooting yourself in the foot by giving your lowest and best whenever they somebody asks for it the first time, it will put more money in your pocket and it will help you survive a little bit better. And it will also help you articulate the difference between, you know, a fleet based company that can handle high volume accounts versus maybe an owner operator that has lower overhead but can't handle that same amount of volume.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah, I mean I, I also look at it like this. It's always no unless you ask, you know, and. Yeah, exactly, you know, and I, I'm also of the point where I would rather not get the freight than take it for an operating break even or like a knowing loss. You know what I mean? And if, I mean from my perspective, again, I try and be as fair as possible and if I quote something to a customer and I'm off on my rate, I'm going to eat it and I'm going to move on with my day. I'm not going to ever push that back upon them. But again, I would rather overbid something than be at, you know, like a knowing 500 loss per shipment out there just to get the revenue at that point. Right.
(23:38):
And, and I feel like with, you know, especially inside of Drage, like there's so many different variations of how a container can, you know, actually be moved. Is that live pole, live offload? Is it pre pull? Is there storage involved? Does it drop at the receiver? There's a bunch of stuff that comes in and you know, it's not a one size fits all. So I feel like having an accurate pricing tool that is drayage specific, what you guys are building out is going to be a game changer for those community, the community out there. Because you know, we've moved plenty of containers and trust me, there's five different carriers and you're getting eight different rates, you know, essentially out there because there's. Everybody's got different operating costs, everybody prices it differently. And obviously you got the ones who are overpriced at it.
(24:20):
You got the ones who are clearly under bid, but then you got the ones who are right in line who are like, I literally know everything down to the minute of the hour, what we need to operate.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Yeah. And I think the thing that we think is so exciting is the data inside of the app. What you're actually looking at are live shipments. This isn't quote data. It's not what somebody thinks the market is. These are live shipments telling you like this is where the dollar that moves the freight sits. This is what it is per mile per hour by lane and by market. So it's really a new level of information that just, it exists in the OTR world. And it's really difficult to pull it together for Dre because the overarching theme for Drayage is it just depends depending on the market that you're in. And this Is what we hear from customer to customer is, hey, you do your rates this way, but I do mine differently. Like every Drake here you talk to does it a little bit differently.
(25:06):
Yeah, but now that we've got like the dashboard up, people are actually like starting to participate and contribute. Like it's really starting to give some fantastic information. We, we actually marketed last week the first ever national drayage rate curve. So by mile, what is the price per mile by distance? And it's the first to our knowledge, rate curve in the United States. And it covered all markets, so it doesn't work everywhere. So you really want to drill into the market and get that market's actual data. But the fact that we have enough shipments in the system now to say that this is what drage looks like in the United States is something that has never existed. And for people that are using it right now, it's free. The whole point is just to help the industry.
(25:43):
We're just putting this together to help Drake carriers run their businesses better and hopefully stop under quoting. And we do see that it has a positive impact on rates.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Is this tool now live on every coast? East, east coast, west coast, Gulf coast ports, Everything out there. This is all live. And that it's not like, you know, fixated just in, you know, Savannah and Charleston or something like that.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
The focus right now is, or the initial beta was Savannah, Charleston to get it off the ground. What we found is that most carriers don't actually operate just in one location. They have multiple terminals. So on a weekly basis right now we have people updating all their terminal data, all their shipments. It goes into the system. We anonymize it, we standardize it and clean it. And then you can go in and if you're contributing data as well, you can go in and compare your rates to the industry. So as we get more people in, it's growing, but right now it's live in west coast, east coast, Chicago and the Gulf.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I love it. No, that's fantastic. No, I mean, I talked to a lot of people. I don't know of anybody who's built this out there or who has anything similar.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
I mean it's, I mean, we love it. I mean this is what John and I wanted when we worked at the steamship lines. We wanted to know what the rates are. It would have saved everybody so many questions, so many back and forth emails, and frankly, if I had been a carrier with this, I could have gone to my customer and said, hey, I know you want a rate of, let's say, 400 bucks to go from Savannah to a certain destination. I can give that to you on the nose without having to go back and forth and haggle it. We can all save time and just get the freight move so you. You don't miss your last free day. And we can go on with our lives.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah. Now. And that's exactly it. Right? It. Man, this is exciting. Like, I'm pumped for you guys. I'm so glad to see the. I mean, from interviewing you guys a few months ago to now, you guys are way more dialed in now than where you guys are. And that excitement's there. Right. And that just naturally comes with time. You know, it comes.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
I mean, you've been there. I mean, it's not, it's never, you know, there's no easy day in entrepreneurship. It's like every day is like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. But, you know, we've. We love the problems. We love the people. We love the industry. The uncertainty, I think, scares us. It scares everybody else's, too. And it's going to take like an industry, like working together to kind of get through the next couple months.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah, no, I, I agree with that. But how does anybody reach out to you guys to find out more about what you guys got going on with this?
Speaker 3 (27:56):
John, you want to take it?
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Yeah, you can visit dreinsight.com and then you can also email us and then our. We can. Well, we can put. If you can put our email and phone in the, in any of the chat or the comments, it would be great.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, absolutely. We'll put that information out there for you guys. But now I appreciate you guys coming back, and we're going to definitely have to have you back on probably later this year at some point. And we're going to talk about the next update that you guys have and where things are going out there, and especially with everything that's going on in the ports right now. But I appreciate you guys so much. Thank you for taking the time to join me today. But that is going to be it for this Friday, you guys. We will be back on Monday. We got more guests coming on next week. And as always, if you got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show.
(28:43):
You guys, if you're feeling really ambitious after this one, which you should be, rank the show on itunes and Spotify as well. Because if you saw value, that's how your network's going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys. And we'll be talking to you soon. We. We still don't have any cool, fancy outro, man.
Came back with a bank hey oh Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm get to the back hey Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the blame moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them hate them make a bigger boss hey.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What is up, ladies and gentlemen? We are back. We are live. It is the Freight Coach Podcast, the top podcast in transportation, coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines. But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome. This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen. And I say that before every single show.
(00:49):
And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve, so you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see meaningful difference in your business and your life. Happy Friday, everybody. I got some very special guests. Yes, that is plural guest for you guys on the show today. And we're going to break down literally all things Drage. There's a lot of stuff that's going on right now with port container volumes, kind of what's going on out there. And these guys are like literally on the front line doing that. So I got my friends at Dre Insight on the show, Mr.
(01:28):
Jonathan Sinton and Townes Agnew on the show. So, guys, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks, Chris.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Good to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, I saw that. Eyes going back and forth on who's gonna see, who's gonna reply first there.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, you got it.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh, I love it. So, guys, what's new, man? It's been a while since you guys have been on the show, but you guys have been busy behind the scenes building some stuff up here. So what's. Let's bring people up to speed. Where's everything at with. With your guys company now?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
John, you want to take this one?
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Yeah, I'll take it. It's. Yeah, it's been a wild ride. We were on the podcast back in. Was it August when were first starting out? And we've come a long way. A lot of development on the product side, a lot of customer acquisition, making good progress. So we're really pleased as to where we're going. And the nice thing is we're building our platform based on customer feedback. So it's directly from our customers and catering it to that so we hit the right points within the tool so that it really provides a benefit. We don't want to provide any unnecessary items that people aren't going to want to deal with.
(02:41):
So overall, we're very pleased and glad that we can be back on your show kind of eight months later and, you know, give an update as to where we are and, you know, talk about the industry.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
No, I, I love having people like yourselves on the show. Right. Like, I, you know, documenting that journey of starting out your venture is something that, you know, I, you know, like, I've been very fortunate to kind of do throughout my entire self, you know, entrepreneur journey, we can call it, you know, because I've been documenting since, like, day one. And I love kind of seeing the progression of people's journeys out there and then, you know, a lot of, like, what you're learning as you go. And, you know, I, I, I always talk about the fundamentals of a lot of this stuff because I, I don't think, I think people try and get away from the fundamentals and way too soon, and what they end up realizing is they, they always end up coming back to it because that's what works the most.
(03:36):
And I think, like, you know, from your guys's perspective, you guys are building this up at like, a very interesting time. Right? Like, all things considered. But, like, I think in five years from now, when you guys look back at this, you're going to be like, I'm so glad everything happened the way that it did, because it prepared us way more than we thought. And, you know, that's where, when we started our brokerage here a couple of years ago, like, I jumped in when I did because I'm like, I know it's going to be tough. No, you know, I know how the market's performing out there, but I'm like, if we can develop business in that climate, I'm like, we're gonna dominate when things change and shift into our favor.
(04:15):
And, you know, so it's like, with all the stuff that's going on right now with tariffs and, you know, the, and then you throw the Longshore Union port strike, all that stuff that's going on, I feel like you guys are going to look back in a few years and be like, we got so much more prepared than we ever thought in the moment, and it just may not seem like it right now, you know?
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Yeah, it's been, it's been great. And it's much better to come in when, say, not everything is perfect and the market is perfect, because then you really understand. And it's. It's listening and understanding what people are saying and why they're feeling that way so that we can help to provide that solution. The other part is you're talking about from the start, you know, when we first started out to where we are now is we've talked with several prospective customers back in the fall who have now become customers here in the spring. And they're like, it's a. It's a completely different product. Like, the amount of growth and what you've been able to build is. Has been incredible. And they're really amazed. And for.
(05:10):
I think for both of us, it's really exciting to see that feedback because it tells us that, all right, we're on the right track, we're making progress. We're actually providing value out there, which is, you know, overall beneficial.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
No, and that's exactly it, right? It's like the. The silent times that only you guys know about. I know what you guys are going through with that because I've been there, right? Because you're like, you're sitting there, you're banging your head against the wall, and you're like, why isn't. Like, what. What's going on? What am I doing wrong? And, you know, I've had that conversation with my business partner numerous times over the years here. You know, we're like, what is it like? You know, but, like, sometimes it's not your delivery, it's not your product, it's just the market. And there's a lot of, you know, and then especially with what you guys are doing inside of the drayage space like that, like, how much actual technology is out there for drayage carriers alone, you know, yeah, there.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
And there's. There's not a lot. It's a special. It's a specialty business. But I think one of the things that we've understand and then you look at, with. With what's actually happening in the overall market is really being able to let people know that have been doing the same thing for the same way, that there is an alternative out there. And actually I might be looking at my finances wrong or my cost wrong, and I'm not factoring in every little thing. And so we've had some. Had a conversation yesterday where it's. When you look at some of the owner operators, you look at the market and everything's dropping.
(06:40):
If you actually understand your cost and you know what your cost is and you know what you're going to get paid, you know what the company is going to get paid and are you actually making money that helps drive a different mindset and be able to really think as to what you need to do. So within the overall space, being able to talk, especially in the market the way that it is, where there's so much pressure on volumes and rates is understanding your cost and really knowing that and being able to let our customers understand what the impact is of the decisions that they make. And really that's going to help the carriers and different drayage companies be able to survive the uncertain times that we have over the next couple months.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
No, definitely. And you know, Towns, from your seat with everything that's going on with tariffs and you know, it's seemingly like a ping pong match right now, right? It's back and forth. It's like it's going to be 80 today. No, no, we're gonna go down to 10 here for a little like there's so much back and forth and if there's any complaint that I have regarding, you know, the tariff talk out there as a whole is the back and forth, right? Like, I'm just like, dude, if we're going to make a statement, stick your flag in the ground and stay there, right? Because there are a lot of blowback that the small businesses of this country suffer from the most here. And that's amazing. I hate that personally because I'm like, dude, if we're going to be at 50%, let's stay at 50%.
(08:03):
Let's not be like 50 today, 10 tomorrow, 45 the next day, 30 then like we can't do that because there are real businesses that are on the ground level who are trying to plan inventory and then the downstream effect is the drayage carriers that are at the ports wondering how much volume is going to come through. They're trying to budget out their, you know, their anticipated volume and everything. So what are you guys hearing from that perspective?
Speaker 3 (08:27):
I mean, what I'm hearing, Chris, and I love the question. I think you, you said it without saying it. But I think the word of 2025 is going to be uncertainty, right? And everybody we talk to and I, I imagine anybody you're talking to is the business environment is uncertain. The news this morning is that China basically responded to the US Propositions for like engaging on negotiations that we need to see a unilateral removal Of. Of tariffs that you've applied, which is basically what we want to see the United States blink first. You've got to imagine that with the White House focused on, like, kind of righting some historical wrongs in the global economy, that they're not going to be the ones that want to blink first here.
(09:03):
So I think this all goes back to your point, which is companies, customers, shipping lines, trucking companies, everybody wants to be out of the uncertainty. Whether that's a. Here's the level for a tariff that we expect for this type of good, or just here's the country that's going to apply to. We all just want some. We want to lock down that uncertainty so we wouldn't. We know what to plan around. And frankly, it's a little bit scary out there. I mean, we've seen volumes of the port of L. A. We're expecting a 35% drop in cargo volumes next week as a result. Direct result of that uncertainty. So when I think when we look back at this year, it's that the words could be uncertainty. It's going to be a long couple of months. And, you know, from our standpoint, it's.
(09:42):
It's just there's no really way to navigate around this other than trying to be smart about the decisions you're making, trying to know your fundamentals and doing the best you can to respond to an uncertain environment.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, no, I'm right there with you. Right. And like, you know, I am a fan of the re. Industrialization of the United States. Right. Like, I truly feel like this is the right play in the. In the long term. And, you know, but it is. It's like, as the individual out there, I'm kind of like, come on. But then I'm also like, this should have probably happened 30, 40 years ago, you know, and they're like, I don't think that there is ever going to be a perfect way. But, you know, to Sunny Sharma's comment here, you know, hard now equals easy later. Easy now equals hard later. Do you really believe you're going to be the first person in history to change that? Except the path is going to be hard and it's the truth. Right?
(10:26):
Like, at the end of the day, this is going to be a very hard time in the short term. But I do feel like long term, it is the best play for us as a whole. I just wish there was like a little bit of a softer landing thing. But, you know, at the end of the day, man, when you got big egos and Big economies and a lot on the line. You got to be bold at the end of the day to make.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I mean, I'm not an economist. I don't think anybody here on the channel claims to be like this. This is wildly complicated. It's not an easy way to do it. But the reality is that if you want to change a multi trillion dollar global economy overnight, there's going to be some pain. Like, you could probably adjust it a little bit more slowly, but you know, what are we going to see the benefits as quickly? Probably not. So, you know, drawing a line in the sand saying enough is enough. And there are some certainly, you know, regardless of like what your political standpoint is, there are some unfair trade practices that China participates in that have unfairly, you know, hurt American workers.
(11:20):
And I think trying to address that when the World Trade Organization hasn't, when we have not had the levers that, you know, we basically been playing by the rules for years and they haven't. So resetting that equation, I think is the right thing to do. And it hurts now and it sucks. We'd all like to get through a little bit faster, but you know, we've just got to kind of hope that we get through this quickly and as painlessly as possible.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yeah, I mean, I would throw a temper tantrum too if the gravy train got shut off. And now all of a sudden I had to start paying my fair share, you know. So I like, I see a lot of the reactions around the globe is like, yeah, I get why they're acting that way, but it's like at the end of the day, like we can't keep paying for stuff. Right. And you know, I think, you know, I, I, Wilfred put a good comment in here and I, you know, he was saying when he had worked for Cub Foods, he fine tuned the process and the stuff that didn't sell and optimize the sale of the products that did. And I look at it from that perspective, like I've actually truly, admittedly never thought about it like that. Right.
(12:15):
How much of a benefit is this going to give the manufacturers that are out there to have a better, it's going to help them better control their inventory. Right. Like they're going to be probably, they're going to let items go a lot faster. They're not going to like draw out that process here. They're probably going to have to make better change, you know, like more realistic changes to their inventory. Processes and like, hey, this guy's selling at a higher level. This one's not where we need to be and can help them fine tune that process. Right.
(12:39):
So I think like that could be a true positive down, you know, in a downstream effect of this is it's like the shelf life for product is probably going to be shortened because it's like, hey, if you're not selling, shut that off because we're not going to continue to pay a tariff on a good. That's not selling that, you know, above a hypothetical 50% mark or whatever that looks like.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yeah, 100%. I mean, what's interesting is warehousing is pretty full right now because we had such a strong pull forward effect in Q1 and now slightly into Q2 to try to get ahead of these tariffs. So you're seeing warehousing space is pretty limited. But honestly, what this really makes me kind of like think about. And John, I don't know what your take is, but I think there's analog in the dray space or in trucking in general, which is this idea of like you know, doing your lane analysis, understanding your mix, knowing which customers are profitable, knowing which customers are not, or in Wilfred's analogy here, like which products themselves so that you optimize for where you're making money and you're doing so in a high volume manner rather than taking on things like loss leaders.
(13:36):
And as the economy goes through this period of uncertainty, whether you're otr, whether you're dre, whether you're intermodal, you know, these are the things you need to be thinking about is am I making money on every shipment, am I covering my operating costs, am I running my business based on the fundamentals so that when the rebound comes, I'm, you know, in fighting shape and I'm ready to take advantage of that because I know my business, I've been tight with customers and when things do eventually recover, we're going to go through a bullwhip effect, just like we did with COVID which is people are going to want to restock quickly, whether that's domestic manufacturer or overseas. And there's not going to be enough trucking capacity. There's also not going to be enough warehouse capacity. So, you know, buckle up.
(14:14):
We're, we're at the early days of COVID almost aligned to the month. And you better believe that at some point we're going to go through that again. But, and I think Wilfred's point here that you really need to understand what the product is what the customer is, what the lane is. You know, focus on the fundamentals, know your numbers. Don't get sloppy and focus on how you come out of this in better shape to take advantage of the eventual upturn.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yeah, you know, I, I look at it as, you know, at least for me, you know, if I, I got a little bit more data to play with because I've been, you know, I've been self employed now for five years and I look at where it's like you go from, no revenue at all, low overhead coming in, then you're like, then you have that inevitable spike where like, damn, I got revenue coming in. You increase your overhead, then you're like, shit, I overspent. I over committed. I thought the good times were going to stay good for a lot longer than they did. But now I'm at a point in my business where I'm like, all right, I learned a lot here over these last five years. Now it's all about cost control. You know, I, all about cost control, building up that emergency fund.
(15:17):
So if there are any levers that are pulled where, you know, there's any drop in revenue, I can sustain my fixed cost for, you know, an extended period of time. So I'm looking at a lot of this as, from the perspective of like, do these times suck? I mean, yeah, it's frustrating at times, right? Because like, just like everybody, I want easy too, you guys, right? Like I just want to make all the money in the world and not have to worry about everything.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Wouldn't that be right, dude?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah. But I also look at it as like, this is making me such a better operator a lot sooner than maybe I had thought. But I'm glad because I'm going to be so much more prepared for the next five years now and how much better I'm going to be able to run my company and grow my company during that time frame based on the lessons that I'm learning during these ups and downs of a market.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Well, let's, I mean, let's, I mean, you know, I love some data and John does too. Let's, let's dive into that. Maybe, maybe we can give away some free advice here. But like when you look at your business and you talk about your cash reserve and everybody should have one, you know, best practices are to kind of maintain somewhere between 60 and 180 days of cash depending on the volatility of your business, meaning you can cover your fixed costs without any Revenue coming in, like in your world, what do you think good looks like? How much should an operator keep on hand to cover their fixed costs?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Oh, man, I, I mean, realistically, if you're talking from day one, $1, I think you should try and set aside at least 15 to 20% of your profits early. Right. And try and stick with something like that. And again, this is a perfect world pie in the sky conversation right now. But if I were starting from zero again, I would set aside, I would read Profit first, the book Profit first right away.
(17:00):
And then look at how do you set aside, you know, a couple of different accounts for your taxes and everything else and start setting cash aside, Start a, a tax account, a business savings account and a business checking account and then filter that money because again, when Uncle Sam comes calling, you know, like, you're going to have to pony up and you can't throw your hands up in the air and say, I don't have any money for that. Right? But I feel like ideally, if you're looking at it when you're beginning, I would get in the habit of saving as much as possible as soon as possible right away.
(17:32):
And then, especially if you are in an asset heavy business like trucking, you know, like, do you have the capital set aside for tire, roadside, all of that, have that emergency fund kind of set aside and you know, like, just for basic math here, if you profit $1,000 for your company, and that's after you pay yourself and everything, if you have a thousand dollars in profit, I would set 200 aside of that right away and put that in a savings account and then just get in that habit of doing it early so you can build that up. Because there is going to be times where your revenues are going to drop, your expenses are going to increase, your variable costs are going to go up one month for repairs, or you know, something's going to happen and it's inevitable.
(18:13):
You need to be in a position where you know, at least have enough of available credit on your credit card if you want to play that and you know, keep those balances down. It's not as hard as you think. I think like the thing that got me in trouble was is you go from not making any money to making money and then you're like, you think it's gonna always last. And I didn't do anything dumb, but I also didn't save as much. Like I more recklessly added stuff into my business and I was like double paying for services and that. I was like, yeah, that was dumb. I'll never do that again. But again, I feel like I'm one of those guys where, you know, towns John, you guys could tell me, hey man, the stove's hot, don't touch it.
(18:52):
I'm not gonna go up and touch the stove still in that moment. So. So I feel like ultimately experience is the best thing for most people early on and hopefully you don't make a fatal mistake right away. But I feel like ultimately you gotta set more money aside than you think early on and don't let your lifestyle get ahead of you until your business is in a spot where Ideally you have 90 days of operating capital on the table in the event everything shut off one day.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Yeah. And the big thing is we like to say is like that rainy day fund, especially for maintenance because if you have a truck in the shop, you have something that is out of service, you're not running that, you're not making any revenue. So you need to account for that and make sure that your equipment and your assets are working and running or else you're missing opportunity. And the other part I think, you know, you made a point is not looking at what is actually happening the here and now, but thinking about what is actually going to happen within the next month or two months or three months down the road and start to prepare for that.
(19:52):
And I think a lot of individuals and especially within drage companies are looking at what is what's going on this week and next week and not thinking about what's happening in the future. And this is a time where everyone really needs to think is well what is it going to mean with volume dropping or if there's fluctuation with rates this month, next month or three months down the road, maybe even through the summer and can I sustain it? And that's the key is it's, it's kind of like the, you know, survive in advance. It's just survive make sure that you there and then you take advantage when things can turn around because things will turn around. It's just a matter of when.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, no, I, I completely agree and I, I feel like you know, you guys have, I'll let you guys talk on this, but you guys have some updates with your guys's product where it is talking about more like real time market intelligence and stuff to help people better price. Right. Because like I think like from my perspective that is one of the hardest things that you're going to do consistently out there is how do you know you're not under bidding? You know, because you can win business and it might be great, but your customer might have had a better buy point that is out there and you might have undercut yourself by a couple hundred bucks and you might not even know that.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Yeah, I mean if.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Well, let's.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
We'll give you a story.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
We were.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
So we just rolled out the beta for our market intelligence platform. So we basically. DRE Insight now has two different platforms. We have quoting app that helps carriers, primarily asset based carriers, but also brokers basically send and manage quotes for their customers. And we help you go through a CFO like checklist like what are your operating costs, what's your overhead, what's your maintenance budget so that you know before you take on that business how much money you should make. But the number one question that John and I would get when talking to people is, you know, what's the market rate for point A to point B? So we're just rolling out our new market intelligence tool. It basically provides DAT level information for the dray space, which is the first of its kind.
(21:49):
And to give you an example, were actually on a phone call with a quoting app customer two weeks ago and we brought up a quote that he was working on. And the trip was about 250 miles if I remember correctly, John, and It was for seven shipments a week. He was going to quote roughly $2.50amile. Because this is kind of into the regional OTR space.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
And we went to the market intel app. We pulled it up and we saw that the market for that trip was actually more like $3.66amile. So he was able to go back to the customer in real time. He quoted $3.50amile. So a dollar a mile higher and won the business on the spot.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
And that'll be, I think it's a six month contract with seven loads a week, which is pretty damn good in the current market. And he would have otherwise been operating at cost and left money on the table. So to your point, like knowing where the market is and not shooting yourself in the foot by giving your lowest and best whenever they somebody asks for it the first time, it will put more money in your pocket and it will help you survive a little bit better. And it will also help you articulate the difference between, you know, a fleet based company that can handle high volume accounts versus maybe an owner operator that has lower overhead but can't handle that same amount of volume.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah, I mean I, I also look at it like this. It's always no unless you ask, you know, and. Yeah, exactly, you know, and I, I'm also of the point where I would rather not get the freight than take it for an operating break even or like a knowing loss. You know what I mean? And if, I mean from my perspective, again, I try and be as fair as possible and if I quote something to a customer and I'm off on my rate, I'm going to eat it and I'm going to move on with my day. I'm not going to ever push that back upon them. But again, I would rather overbid something than be at, you know, like a knowing 500 loss per shipment out there just to get the revenue at that point. Right.
(23:38):
And, and I feel like with, you know, especially inside of Drage, like there's so many different variations of how a container can, you know, actually be moved. Is that live pole, live offload? Is it pre pull? Is there storage involved? Does it drop at the receiver? There's a bunch of stuff that comes in and you know, it's not a one size fits all. So I feel like having an accurate pricing tool that is drayage specific, what you guys are building out is going to be a game changer for those community, the community out there. Because you know, we've moved plenty of containers and trust me, there's five different carriers and you're getting eight different rates, you know, essentially out there because there's. Everybody's got different operating costs, everybody prices it differently. And obviously you got the ones who are overpriced at it.
(24:20):
You got the ones who are clearly under bid, but then you got the ones who are right in line who are like, I literally know everything down to the minute of the hour, what we need to operate.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Yeah. And I think the thing that we think is so exciting is the data inside of the app. What you're actually looking at are live shipments. This isn't quote data. It's not what somebody thinks the market is. These are live shipments telling you like this is where the dollar that moves the freight sits. This is what it is per mile per hour by lane and by market. So it's really a new level of information that just, it exists in the OTR world. And it's really difficult to pull it together for Dre because the overarching theme for Drayage is it just depends depending on the market that you're in. And this Is what we hear from customer to customer is, hey, you do your rates this way, but I do mine differently. Like every Drake here you talk to does it a little bit differently.
(25:06):
Yeah, but now that we've got like the dashboard up, people are actually like starting to participate and contribute. Like it's really starting to give some fantastic information. We, we actually marketed last week the first ever national drayage rate curve. So by mile, what is the price per mile by distance? And it's the first to our knowledge, rate curve in the United States. And it covered all markets, so it doesn't work everywhere. So you really want to drill into the market and get that market's actual data. But the fact that we have enough shipments in the system now to say that this is what drage looks like in the United States is something that has never existed. And for people that are using it right now, it's free. The whole point is just to help the industry.
(25:43):
We're just putting this together to help Drake carriers run their businesses better and hopefully stop under quoting. And we do see that it has a positive impact on rates.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Is this tool now live on every coast? East, east coast, west coast, Gulf coast ports, Everything out there. This is all live. And that it's not like, you know, fixated just in, you know, Savannah and Charleston or something like that.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
The focus right now is, or the initial beta was Savannah, Charleston to get it off the ground. What we found is that most carriers don't actually operate just in one location. They have multiple terminals. So on a weekly basis right now we have people updating all their terminal data, all their shipments. It goes into the system. We anonymize it, we standardize it and clean it. And then you can go in and if you're contributing data as well, you can go in and compare your rates to the industry. So as we get more people in, it's growing, but right now it's live in west coast, east coast, Chicago and the Gulf.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I love it. No, that's fantastic. No, I mean, I talked to a lot of people. I don't know of anybody who's built this out there or who has anything similar.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
I mean it's, I mean, we love it. I mean this is what John and I wanted when we worked at the steamship lines. We wanted to know what the rates are. It would have saved everybody so many questions, so many back and forth emails, and frankly, if I had been a carrier with this, I could have gone to my customer and said, hey, I know you want a rate of, let's say, 400 bucks to go from Savannah to a certain destination. I can give that to you on the nose without having to go back and forth and haggle it. We can all save time and just get the freight move so you. You don't miss your last free day. And we can go on with our lives.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah. Now. And that's exactly it. Right? It. Man, this is exciting. Like, I'm pumped for you guys. I'm so glad to see the. I mean, from interviewing you guys a few months ago to now, you guys are way more dialed in now than where you guys are. And that excitement's there. Right. And that just naturally comes with time. You know, it comes.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
I mean, you've been there. I mean, it's not, it's never, you know, there's no easy day in entrepreneurship. It's like every day is like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. But, you know, we've. We love the problems. We love the people. We love the industry. The uncertainty, I think, scares us. It scares everybody else's, too. And it's going to take like an industry, like working together to kind of get through the next couple months.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah, no, I, I agree with that. But how does anybody reach out to you guys to find out more about what you guys got going on with this?
Speaker 3 (27:56):
John, you want to take it?
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Yeah, you can visit dreinsight.com and then you can also email us and then our. We can. Well, we can put. If you can put our email and phone in the, in any of the chat or the comments, it would be great.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, absolutely. We'll put that information out there for you guys. But now I appreciate you guys coming back, and we're going to definitely have to have you back on probably later this year at some point. And we're going to talk about the next update that you guys have and where things are going out there, and especially with everything that's going on in the ports right now. But I appreciate you guys so much. Thank you for taking the time to join me today. But that is going to be it for this Friday, you guys. We will be back on Monday. We got more guests coming on next week. And as always, if you got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show.
(28:43):
You guys, if you're feeling really ambitious after this one, which you should be, rank the show on itunes and Spotify as well. Because if you saw value, that's how your network's going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys. And we'll be talking to you soon. We. We still don't have any cool, fancy outro, man.
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