May 5, 2025 • 33 mins
What mainly causes drivers’ downtime, and how can they be eliminated? Join today’s guest, Erik Malin of Tetro, for his entrepreneurship insights and his software solution’s goal to enhance driver earnings through efficient scheduling and compensation models!
About Erik Malin
Erik Malin (erik@tetro.one) is a freight tech founder and operator, currently building Tetro, an AI-native short-haul trucking fleet on a mission to boost driver earnings by eliminating wasted time. As a founding team member at Baton, he built and scaled operations from zero, launched a digital fleet, and later led the company’s talent strategy as Head of Talent through its acquisition by Ryder in 2022.
Before Baton, he architected Loadsmart’s operational backbone, driving its growth from seed to Series B. Erik brings a rare combination of operational grit and talent instinct, known for building elite teams and high-performance systems that set a new bar for the logistics industry.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Came back with a bank window down yelling now money at a day 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 lane moves fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them made 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.
(00:48):
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 a meaningful difference in your business and your life. Happy Monday, everybody. We got Freight moving. We got a lot of fun stuff to talk about. And before we get into any of that, though, you guys do me a favor. Obviously, we're trying to grow the show at any given moment that's out there, and we're trying to reach more and more of an audience. So if you get value in what you hear here today and. And you're not subscribed, subscribe to the show.
(01:24):
And if you're feeling really ambitious after this one, which you should be, rank the show on itunes and Spotify, because that's how your network's going to see value. And if you saw value, chances are they are going to as well. All right, I got a very special guest for you guys here today. The beginning of any venture is. I think it's extremely exciting. There's a lot of anxiety that comes along with it. And I always love showing the real side of business and freight and building stuff up. And, you know, a real problem out there in the industry, though, is. Is downtime for drivers, dead miles, all of that stuff. And my guest today is. Has started a company out here that's really fighting that. So I got Mr. Eric Malin back on the show with Tetro.
(02:06):
Eric, thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited about being here. The. The intro that you have, the thing that you've built is absolutely incredible. So it is my pleasure, dude.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I appreciate it, man. It's. You know, I'm actually doing a show on Wednesday to talk about it because we just crossed five years in business and it's a lot. Right. And I, I was thinking about that the other day and just like, where things have come, but, like, you know, where, like, what I wish I would have accepted earlier on in the journey on how to actually build things. And I think, like, if there's one thing to kind of like briefly summarize it takes way longer than you think. And it's like it's never going to be at a place where you're like, able to put your feet up, things look differently, but, like, you're always going to think that you can do better in certain areas.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So. Okay, so to that point, the question then for you is if you were going to go back five years, if you had a time machine to go back five years until. Tell you five years ago, one thing to just help, what would it be?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It would be to focus on the day and only the day. Focus on the tasks at hand. Stop worrying about tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and really just build a system around the day and execute upon that no matter what. And you know, you're going to get told, no, it's going to be tough, it's going to suck. But, like, if you just focus on some critical tasks in that day and you do that, results are going to come your way.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, it's a good one. It's a good one. I like that.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, dude, it's, you know, and I had heard it numerous times. So, like, I'm a big listener of Andy Frisella and the Real AF podcast and what he has. He's the founder of first form nutrition company out of St. Louis. And, you know, I'm in an entrepreneur group called R Taste Syndicate. And, you know, they talk about that a lot in there, but I feel like with most individuals, and when I say most individuals, I always like to put Chris Jolly as number one at the person on that list. I always think that I can, like, that there's an easier way, you know, like, oh, there's got to be a different way. That can't be the case.
(04:21):
And man, it was literally in January of this year where I finally accepted the fact that I'm like, dude, you just have to focus on the day. Like, who gives a about tomorrow, next week? You can't control any of that. And furthermore, if you don't accomplish what you set out for today, nothing's going to happen tomorrow. You're going to behind, right? So I think, like, it's. It's very profound because, you know, in the beginning, I look at it like this, man. Like, when you're building anything that comes in phases, you're going to feel extremely overwhelmed. You think you're way busier than you really are when you get started because you don't have any structure, right? Like, you're just, like, shooting from the hip.
(05:01):
There's no real plan, especially if you've never done it before and you're really working hard to build a system to follow. And then you're going to realize that the system that you get to early on is not the system that's going to work in six months. And you're constantly making tweaks to that.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a. That's a good one. That is a. That's a very good one. Especially just the, like, the keeping. Keeping in mind how. How long the road can be not as a deterrent is just as much as just, you know, like, that. That is like, if. If you. If you're building something only for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it's just. It's not even close. And given. Entrepreneurship is not. It is too. It is too damn hard if there's not the opportunity for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But if you're only doing it for that, it just, it makes it a lot harder because that end, like, each step along the way is that much less significant to you.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I look at it like this, Eric. If you're only in it to, like, exit and try and make money, you're going to be bought at for a less multiplier than you're probably worth or you're going to give up because you're not going to get rich as quick as you think out there, right? Like, for me, man, like, I'm not doing this for. To get acquired one day, right? Like, I'm not trying to build this up to be, like, be rolled up into anything else. Like, dude, I'm doing this to build a legacy for multiple generations of jollies to work inside of this organization. So, like, what I'm working for today is Chris in 40 years, right? Like, I might be 80 at that point, but, like, at the end of the day, man, I don't want to retire.
(06:38):
I don't want to get to a point where I'm just gonna, like, Walk away and now me. And I might look at it differently at a different stage in my life, but like right now, man, like, dude, I'm doing this to the day I die, you know, like I'm having fun. Like, why would I want to walk away from this?
Speaker 3 (06:52):
So it's funny you mentioned that.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
I.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
So I was with Ryder for two years after the baton acquisition and I'd left in October and I didn't really start working. Actually that's not the right way to say I didn't step on the gas maybe with tetro for a little bit after I left, I just, I gotten a lot of advice from people that I really respect. Said like, make sure like take time to get bored. And one of the things I learned about myself is I'm actually really bad at being bored. My wife is nothing short of the most incredible just because outside of being. The Tetra wouldn't be happening without her. Full stop. It's undeniable. And she put up with stuff. Prior to Tetro being incorporated and post me leaving Rider, I, I started doing things like I got really aggressive into the DIY and the woodworking and stuff.
(07:51):
And so I ended up ripping a hole in one of our walls where I was rebuilding a closet. And it is, it's also still to be repaired. It's actually moved from my to do list to hers because she's going to actually get it done is whereas I just like, I'm not good at that. I'm not good at being retired. So I'm with you there, dude.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I love that man. So like how did tetro get started? Like what is tetro? And like what I love the most about what you're building with this, right? And the problem that you are solving because dude, that is man, that downtime, that dead time that's out there, whether you're deadheading to another shipment. And there's a lot of stuff that's out there where, you know, drivers aren't compensated for. Right? So like what is tetra? What was the real driving force behind starting all of this?
Speaker 3 (08:39):
It's an excellent question. And actually before we even jump into that, I have a quick question for you. I wanted to ask you something is even before, like outside of Tetra, what would you say is the biggest problem in transportation?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Dude, that. That's such an open ended question with it, first thing comes to mind is I feel like it's over regulation for the industry as a whole, Because I think that they're going after some of the wrong stuff that's out there. Right. I feel like there's a lot of. Of lobbying and a lot of things that are put into place that actually harm the overwhelming majority of capacity on the road, which is small independent fleets and stuff like that. Small fleets and independent owner operators. I feel like there's a lot of hurdles that are out there for businesses to. To really stay in business. Right. And I. I do. Like, I am not the biggest fan of regulations in. In government overreach at all. So I want to be. I want to preface it with that. That any government is too much government.
(09:38):
And I. In my opinion. But like a lot of where we're at, I feel like there's so many hoops that they have to jump through and it's. And it's an overcomplicated process. Right. I feel like it shouldn't be as hard to operate a fleet as people make it out to be. Right. Like, every state has its own set of rules to be able to operate inside of. And I kind of feel like there should be a clean slate across the board of the expectations that are out there.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Strong, strong answer. I can also. Because your family history has owner operator roots in it, right?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
So makes sense with that answer, especially what's. Also, what's interesting to me is, and the reason that I asked that question, the problem tetro is going after is the fact that 40% of driver time is wasted. But if you reframe that problem for the people who are paying for it means that drivers make $0 for 40% of their time.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
And I asked you what the biggest problem in transportation was because there's this concept that Paul Graham, the guy that he's the YC guy, everybody, he's really well known and writes these incredible essays. Paul Graham wrote this essay called schlep blindness. Are you familiar with the concept by chance?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
I'm not actually. Schlep blindness.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
So Schlep blindness is where people unconsciously avoid some challenge or work or something because it is just like unfathomably big or challenging or difficult. Just like it's too much for them to try to go after to overcome losing 40% of driver time. Or again, if you're a driver, making $0 for 40% of your. I would say, is undeniably the biggest problem in transportation. Like, if you think about just like from a quantitative standpoint, like, there's. There's gotta. I can't think of anything that would come to a close second. Yeah, but the fact that everybody in the industry goes to work every single day and it's just like 40% fine. I think one illustrates schlep blindness and just that the problem is so pervasive and it has lasted for so long that people have stopped seeing it and we talk about it.
(11:58):
So it's not that it's unknown, it's just that people have stopped prioritizing it. Right. It's just. And you know, you think about it all of the different things that a driver does in a day, and you'd mentioned some of them, right? Just like the deadhead miles or the dwell time or detention and so forth and so on. And the reality is that those things are all individual components of or contributors to why drivers are not making money for 40%. And that's what Tetra is focused on. One of the things that so. And where this. Now to your original question, like where Tetro came from. So yeah, prior to being at Ryder for two years and I got to Ryder by way of acquisition, so they had acquired Baton. Baton was similarly focused on eliminating wasted time in truckload transportation.
(12:47):
The way that were focused on going after that though, was by providing a relay service to your big enterprise carriers. So a company like a Werner or a Swift or a Schneider, for example, they would drop loaded, you know, their driver would come into a yard in a market we had operated in la, they would drop loaded and then their driver, we would have a pre staged loaded trailer for them. So they would drop loaded, hook loaded, and they would just continue to burn highway miles. Right. So maximize the amount of time drivers are spending and we built technology to support that. And what we'd realized at one point in time is that we had inherited a lot of the utilization problems that our customers had.
(13:27):
So let's say a driver breaks down, misses an appointment, and we may not know that until right before, you know, we had a local dedicated fleet because were not yet operating as a fleet, yet a local dedicated fleet. We'd had our capacity managed such that we knew exactly what the driver was doing and we'd get a hole blown in our schedule. And so in order to support the utilization of that fleet, we started a local because that's all that were currently supporting. And that's what our technology was built to support, a local owner operator truckload fleet. And that ended up being the thing that really has legs. And that was where I refined my technically in startup world, you're supposed to call it a hypothesis.
(14:12):
Although I can tell you that from a conviction standpoint, you're gonna have to pry the idea from my cold dead hands for me to believe it's not gonna work. And that's where the magic really can get made. So Rider required us for the technology, which again, we built on the backbone of that fleet that were operating. And so then I was a rider for two and a half years and spent, which was awesome by the way. I have nothing but the greatest of things to say about that incredible people. And also the leadership gave Baton still gives Baton so much autonomy and it shows in the speed that Baton can deliver value to that organization. It's remarkable. But we also needed a ton of engineers. So I spent two years recruiting like leading the talent strategy.
(14:57):
And so I built, I'd hired some 30 some odd product engineer, design people and so forth. But at some point when you can't stop thinking about a problem for two years and it just sits and it sits and you just keep looping on it, at some point you have to square with the fact that it's time to go and build and that the job's not done. And so what we learned at Baton there was two things really. The big one is that downtime absolutely can be eliminated. Okay. And I'll explain the way that we're approaching that problem in a moment. But the second thing I've learned, and this is just by observing a lot of different companies and conversations when we explored even, you know, licensing technology because there's a lot of demand for that. You can't solve this problem with software alone.
(16:01):
In the same way, like Amazon wasn't going to be able to give their software to Barnes and Noble and we would have had the same outcome. It just, it wasn't going to happen. So. And also like Uber Rides couldn't have given their software to Yellow Cab and had the same outcome. It just, it wasn't, that's not how that would have worked. So you have to have control of the operations and you have to have control of the software. So the in simple form, Tetros, we are a log tech company. We are operating a fleet of owner operators. We're only moving short haul freight. So sub 100 mile length of freight though in actuality the length of haul is much shorter. But we're building the tech stack now. That's not to say that we're building everything.
(16:44):
We're certainly not building an accounting module, we're not building more than we have to. But we know that the underlying data model is going to be the most important thing for us to being able to eliminate that wasted time, that downtime. And that comes by way of having a extremely high degree. Imagine for a moment if you're going to go to the airport, for a second. Imagine you're going to the airport and you have no idea how long the drive takes you. No idea. And you've got no idea how long you're going to be sitting in security. It could be reasonably like 30 seconds. It could be an hour and a half.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
How long before your flight do you get to the airport?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I mean, normally like an hour before boarding starts when I do, you know, TSA PreCheck and everything. So at least.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Right, at least. And if you don't have any sort of idea, like if you can't look at Google Maps, you're just going to buffer that time even more. Yeah, but the thing is that Google Maps isn't the problem. It's how long a driver is going to be at each stop. So we solve that problem by leveraging machine learning to forecast out with a incredibly high degree of confidence, even if we've never been to a facility before, exactly how long a driver will be at that location.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Okay, I want to break that down there for a second. I think that right there is huge. Right. Because I've talked about this in the past on the show. Right. Not all two truckloads are the same. And the probability of like, yeah, a load hypothetically might pay $2,000, but there's a high probability that you're going to be sitting for five hours, six hours at the shipper and the receiver. Now, there's this other load that's out there in the market that might pay sixteen hundred dollars, but there's a probability that you're going to get unloaded or you're going to get loaded in an hour and offloaded in an hour. Which one is a better load for you? Right. Some people might be like, I don't care, I'll sit and wait, yada, yada. They all say that.
(18:34):
But in all reality, if you're not moving as a driver, you're losing money every single second that you're sitting there empty. Right. So it's like I would make the argument that, yeah, I might pay a little bit less on the exact same length of haul, but if you're going to get unloaded fast at the shipper and you're going to get unloaded equally fast at the receiver to get on to the next one. I think that one, I would argue that one is a better load at, you know, ultimately at the end of the day.
(18:59):
But that predictive analytics that you're talking about there, Eric, of like judging by a facility by facility basis, I think right there, that's really how we actually fix some of the fundamental issues of the industry of like some of these facilities that are notorious for like, dude, if you're a minute late, you sit for three days and like that. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (19:20):
So interesting point to that. So the first thing is that we, when we think about on time or not, we measure down to the second for that exact reason is that facilities can be unrelenting and they can be unforgiving.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
But more than that, what you just described as is actually that is how my experience in the transportation industry has been thinking about solving this problem. But let's say, for example, detention, right. I actually, and I want to be very clear, I'm not saying that detention is not a problem, but I don't think that detention is the pain point that everybody says that it is. Detention is strictly a data problem. When we ran a fleet of baton, we almost never had a surprise detention.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Which means that you should price it as such. The issue that we're going after, we think of waste in sort of two large buckets. We think of the first one, embedded waste. So let's say that, you know, you're going to be at a facility strictly for 90 minutes, for example, you have a pretty decent idea of how long it's going to take you to drive to the next location. And this is why we're operating in a local environment, is that we can. The upside for the driver, most importantly increases, because that's our whole mission, is we're increasing earnings for drivers. And so the upside for the driver increases. And on top of that, the opportunity to extract that waste increase similarly or like that's really what drives that upside, appetite for the driver.
(20:46):
So if you know exactly how long someone's going to be at a facility and you know exactly how long the drive is take, the issue is not the total time at the facility because that's technically what you're compensated for. It's the amount of time for when you arrive to that facility and you are sitting and you were sitting and then you have your appointment.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
No, I, I got you there. I've got a question that came in here is are you guys Tech. But you also have an MC carrier with owner ops or is it two separate things?
Speaker 3 (21:16):
We are a tech company and we are operating the fleet. Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Okay, so you guys have an actual mc everything.number and you guys are up. Okay, cool.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Now perfect, man, that's. That, that's good to know. So this would be a thing for drivers, you know, who are in, are you guys operating in any specific markets? Right. Are you guys just kind of hammering out the short haul market across the United States? Because you know, inevitably drivers are going to want to try and get access to whatever you guys got going there with that.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Chicago.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Okay. In Chicago.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Yep. And so what's interesting even is that you think about the Chicago market alone and sub 100 mile truckload freight in Chicago alone. Is it nearly a $20 billion market? Oh yeah. And so we're, you know, we're sinking our teeth into Chicago to really prove out some hypotheses around being able to see the waste. That's a really big piece which we like the formula is written, we know exactly how to do it. But even just being able to get to see the freight that we have, you know, that we're moving basically or even that we're evaluating and determine whether or not it's a good idea based on the amount of waste that exists in that load.
(22:27):
And the reason all of that is so important and we don't think of things for record, although also in terms of rate per mile, because the constraint drivers face is not how many miles they can drive in a day, it is how many hours they have on their clock. They can drive at different speeds and so that changes the total miles they can drive. So we think of everything in terms of the amount of money a driver gets per hour.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So how do you guys calculate that? And have you guys found a number where drivers should be shooting for, on a, you know, rate per hour as you put it there.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
So it's a great question. So in terms of how we calculated it's actually a fairly simple algebraic equation. The stuff that starts to get complicated under the hood is the machine learning, forecasting. It's interesting even to the point that I'm sure that there are a lot of questions in general people ask about AI and I've had investors, you know, say like, well what are you doing with AI? And it's funny because like the forgotten part of AI that people aren't talking about right now because ChatGPT is so popular is machine learning. Like. Yeah, and it's, if anything it is the thing where like you can't just go into ChatGPT and plug in and get the same outcome like you've got to have. There's a lot to it. And having the underlying data is also equally important. So anyway, in terms of like the threshold.
(23:46):
So the thing to think about is really how that, and this is the next type of waste. So what we think about is interload waste. So there's the embedded waste, how much waste sits in a load and how does that then translate to the amount of revenue that a driver gets for X period of time that then plays well with or not plays well, but that is then the next part of it is the interload waste. That interload waste is the amount of waste that occurs based on the selection of loads that driver has for a given day. Yeah, and so we don't have a threshold because it is not a simple straightforward like yes, this one's good enough, let's do it. Because that may not be enough for that driver stay in totality, it likely isn't in a local environment.
(24:28):
And you have to maximize returns per truck per day, not the number of miles that your driver is going to cover. And so we may take a load that may be lower, a lower value for that driver because we know that the next load we get and how that's going to get us to that next load is actually going to be what makes the driver stay.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, no, I got you. I, I think like a general rule of thumb that a lot of drivers out there, you know, are, at least in my experience when we're booking freight on day rates and everything is, you know, I like the number. A thousand dollars a day in revenue is like what comes to mind for a lot of drivers and what they kind of shoot for and especially in that turn and burn local environment that's out there where you know, we'll do a lot of local freight out there with customers of ours in there and if they can get, you know, we try and charge our customers a day rate out there and then we try and book accordingly for that.
(25:21):
And I've just found, you know, inside of that like 25, 30 mile radius per turn, we can get that down to, you know, it's almost like clockwork on what drivers are charging us kind of across the board. And a lot of the guys who we work with, they might do, you know, out of state runs and stuff, but they're like, dude, I want to stay local like that. If you can get me that three turns in a day and I can sleep in my bed every single night, like, I want that. I wish that freight was more acceptable kind of across the nation, I know in certain pockets, you know, like, you think the markets that you've operated in, Los Angeles, Chicago, there's tons of local freight that are running every single day.
(26:00):
But I think like that one, from my perspective, I, I think there'd be a lot more regional drivers or like local drivers if they could turn that revenue in a day where they could make a thousand bucks and, you know, do three loads in a day and not leave a 30, 40 mile radius.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
So our belief is that at scale, we can increase driver earnings. Like, if you think of your average driver earnings of an owner operator at a fleet that's leased on, wherever it might be, we believe that we can increase those as much as 50%.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Damn.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Which, but that makes sense, right? Like, if we're going to eliminate 40% of downtime, it should be roughly, you know, give or take, around that amount. And we think that actually that there's more opportunity to eliminate it just because the, like, the more dial that you get and the more that you understand all the idiosyncrasies of an individual facility, it's not even just that you eliminate that downtime, but you actually move through locations even faster because then, you know, you're in a local environment, drivers become familiar, they understand how that facility operates. Like, they know all of the different quirks. And in your comment, even about, you know, you sleep in your own bed. It is, it's not even just that you sleep in your own bed. And I'm sure that you have had experiences with your family roots being truck drivers.
(27:17):
I'm sure that there are times you remember when people weren't around the dinner table because they couldn't have been. Right. Like they had to be making money.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
And I'm sure that there are points in time that are painful and you forgive those people because you understand the why, but it doesn't mean it didn't suck. But that, the thing is that doesn't have to happen. Yeah, drivers can make more money and be home, not even sleep in their own bed, but they can eat dinner at their own table. They can have a predictable schedule so that if the friend says, like, hey, do you want to go to, you know, do you want to go to catch this concert on Friday? They know that they can go or if their son has. So this was one of the things that we saw and we also at Baton, we never had a single driver quit in our owner operator fleet. Not a single one.
(28:00):
Because when you empower drivers to make more money and you also respect their own lives. And so if one of them says, hey, I. My son's ball game is on Friday at 3pm Cool, we will make sure that you are off by one. You are not gonna, you will be done by one because it is important for you to be there. So changes everything. And that's why we never had a single driver quit.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
No, I'm right there with you, man. It is kind of like that quality of life balance and stuff that's out there. So are you guys going and finding freight for the owner operators? So like, do you guys have people behind the scenes calling shippers and everything, trying to develop this business for it or are you guys, you know, on load boards, calling, trying to find freight forum? How does that look?
Speaker 3 (28:44):
So it's a great question. So the difference between our model and others that you have seen in the space of the quote unquote, like the virtual fleets, if you will, and I don't really know what's virtual about it as much as just we're building our own technology. The big difference between us and some of those other companies, some of those other fleets have built their own technology is that we, we curate that driver schedule. Now, it's not forced dispatch, so the driver can tell us. Yes, but the thing is that when they might see a load that they don't want to do, but when they see how that fits into the bigger picture and what the total outcome is, they're like, yeah, I'm fine. Like, that load only sucks generally because it blows a hole in my day.
(29:24):
Like, I don't want to go to that facility because it sucks because of whatever happens afterwards. But if the outcome is such that, hey, we know that it's going to take this long and that means that you're going to be right here next to this other location that we know we can get you some, we know we can get you more out of, they're on board. So, so we curate that schedule for that driver for right now in terms of the way that we're developing what we think of as demand.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Right.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
The freight. So shippers, we're a little early for. We just don't quite yet have the operational horsepower to be able to execute we're three people strong, me and my co founder. And then this other guy, Kevin Yakim joined. He's nothing short of a legend. And it would just be really hard for us to be able to support shippers, enterprise shippers. And so because of that, I shouldn't say, but. And so because of that, we are right now engaging brokers strategically.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Gotcha. Okay. No, man, that I, I like that. I think that, you know, again, like you're alluding to. There is. Is at the end of the day, man, you got to start with something. You build that out and you know, it's going to be interesting. We see this where everything goes like that with this, Eric. And it'll have to have you back on, man, especially as this gets up and running and, you know, gains even more traction out there. But I think, most importantly, how do drivers find you guys right now? Because this is going to be something. I always want to talk to people who are developing product to help the driver community out there, to improve their business, to improve profitability and all of that stuff, man. So how does, how do the drivers reach out to you to find out more?
Speaker 3 (31:01):
It's a great question. So if they go to our website, tetro T E T R O dot one OME and then forward slash drivers.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Perfect. And then what about brokers? Any broker who's like, dude, we need help with the local markets that are out there. How do they find you guys?
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Ooh, if they were to. They can. If they drop me an email, which is Ericetro one that's. That also works.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Okay, perfect.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
To be honest, we like, we have been. So, I mean, and here's the thing. We. Our customer to us is the driver. Even just financially, the way that we're structured, our customer is the driver. And so you can tell that we've clearly been prioritizing engaging drivers because, like, we don't even have a sales inbox just yet. It's just like, hey, email Eric.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Dude, no, it's perfect, man. But dude, this is just how things are built, Eric. You got to start somewhere with it. And again, as things continue to mature, I know you guys are gonna. You got. This is. I love this stuff, man. I think you guys are on the right path with all of this. But Eric, I appreciate your time today. That's going to be it for today, ladies and gentlemen. We're gonna have a guest on tomorrow. As always, if you got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show. You guys, if you're feeling really ambitious, which you should be after this one. Rank the show as well on itunes and Spotify. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys. And we'll be talking to you soon.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
And thanks so much, dude.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Absolutely, man. We just end the stream on this, Eric.
Came back with a bank window down yelling now money at a day 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 lane moves fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them made 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.
(00:48):
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 a meaningful difference in your business and your life. Happy Monday, everybody. We got Freight moving. We got a lot of fun stuff to talk about. And before we get into any of that, though, you guys do me a favor. Obviously, we're trying to grow the show at any given moment that's out there, and we're trying to reach more and more of an audience. So if you get value in what you hear here today and. And you're not subscribed, subscribe to the show.
(01:24):
And if you're feeling really ambitious after this one, which you should be, rank the show on itunes and Spotify, because that's how your network's going to see value. And if you saw value, chances are they are going to as well. All right, I got a very special guest for you guys here today. The beginning of any venture is. I think it's extremely exciting. There's a lot of anxiety that comes along with it. And I always love showing the real side of business and freight and building stuff up. And, you know, a real problem out there in the industry, though, is. Is downtime for drivers, dead miles, all of that stuff. And my guest today is. Has started a company out here that's really fighting that. So I got Mr. Eric Malin back on the show with Tetro.
(02:06):
Eric, thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited about being here. The. The intro that you have, the thing that you've built is absolutely incredible. So it is my pleasure, dude.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I appreciate it, man. It's. You know, I'm actually doing a show on Wednesday to talk about it because we just crossed five years in business and it's a lot. Right. And I, I was thinking about that the other day and just like, where things have come, but, like, you know, where, like, what I wish I would have accepted earlier on in the journey on how to actually build things. And I think, like, if there's one thing to kind of like briefly summarize it takes way longer than you think. And it's like it's never going to be at a place where you're like, able to put your feet up, things look differently, but, like, you're always going to think that you can do better in certain areas.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So. Okay, so to that point, the question then for you is if you were going to go back five years, if you had a time machine to go back five years until. Tell you five years ago, one thing to just help, what would it be?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It would be to focus on the day and only the day. Focus on the tasks at hand. Stop worrying about tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and really just build a system around the day and execute upon that no matter what. And you know, you're going to get told, no, it's going to be tough, it's going to suck. But, like, if you just focus on some critical tasks in that day and you do that, results are going to come your way.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, it's a good one. It's a good one. I like that.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, dude, it's, you know, and I had heard it numerous times. So, like, I'm a big listener of Andy Frisella and the Real AF podcast and what he has. He's the founder of first form nutrition company out of St. Louis. And, you know, I'm in an entrepreneur group called R Taste Syndicate. And, you know, they talk about that a lot in there, but I feel like with most individuals, and when I say most individuals, I always like to put Chris Jolly as number one at the person on that list. I always think that I can, like, that there's an easier way, you know, like, oh, there's got to be a different way. That can't be the case.
(04:21):
And man, it was literally in January of this year where I finally accepted the fact that I'm like, dude, you just have to focus on the day. Like, who gives a about tomorrow, next week? You can't control any of that. And furthermore, if you don't accomplish what you set out for today, nothing's going to happen tomorrow. You're going to behind, right? So I think, like, it's. It's very profound because, you know, in the beginning, I look at it like this, man. Like, when you're building anything that comes in phases, you're going to feel extremely overwhelmed. You think you're way busier than you really are when you get started because you don't have any structure, right? Like, you're just, like, shooting from the hip.
(05:01):
There's no real plan, especially if you've never done it before and you're really working hard to build a system to follow. And then you're going to realize that the system that you get to early on is not the system that's going to work in six months. And you're constantly making tweaks to that.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a. That's a good one. That is a. That's a very good one. Especially just the, like, the keeping. Keeping in mind how. How long the road can be not as a deterrent is just as much as just, you know, like, that. That is like, if. If you. If you're building something only for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it's just. It's not even close. And given. Entrepreneurship is not. It is too. It is too damn hard if there's not the opportunity for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But if you're only doing it for that, it just, it makes it a lot harder because that end, like, each step along the way is that much less significant to you.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I look at it like this, Eric. If you're only in it to, like, exit and try and make money, you're going to be bought at for a less multiplier than you're probably worth or you're going to give up because you're not going to get rich as quick as you think out there, right? Like, for me, man, like, I'm not doing this for. To get acquired one day, right? Like, I'm not trying to build this up to be, like, be rolled up into anything else. Like, dude, I'm doing this to build a legacy for multiple generations of jollies to work inside of this organization. So, like, what I'm working for today is Chris in 40 years, right? Like, I might be 80 at that point, but, like, at the end of the day, man, I don't want to retire.
(06:38):
I don't want to get to a point where I'm just gonna, like, Walk away and now me. And I might look at it differently at a different stage in my life, but like right now, man, like, dude, I'm doing this to the day I die, you know, like I'm having fun. Like, why would I want to walk away from this?
Speaker 3 (06:52):
So it's funny you mentioned that.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
I.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
So I was with Ryder for two years after the baton acquisition and I'd left in October and I didn't really start working. Actually that's not the right way to say I didn't step on the gas maybe with tetro for a little bit after I left, I just, I gotten a lot of advice from people that I really respect. Said like, make sure like take time to get bored. And one of the things I learned about myself is I'm actually really bad at being bored. My wife is nothing short of the most incredible just because outside of being. The Tetra wouldn't be happening without her. Full stop. It's undeniable. And she put up with stuff. Prior to Tetro being incorporated and post me leaving Rider, I, I started doing things like I got really aggressive into the DIY and the woodworking and stuff.
(07:51):
And so I ended up ripping a hole in one of our walls where I was rebuilding a closet. And it is, it's also still to be repaired. It's actually moved from my to do list to hers because she's going to actually get it done is whereas I just like, I'm not good at that. I'm not good at being retired. So I'm with you there, dude.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I love that man. So like how did tetro get started? Like what is tetro? And like what I love the most about what you're building with this, right? And the problem that you are solving because dude, that is man, that downtime, that dead time that's out there, whether you're deadheading to another shipment. And there's a lot of stuff that's out there where, you know, drivers aren't compensated for. Right? So like what is tetra? What was the real driving force behind starting all of this?
Speaker 3 (08:39):
It's an excellent question. And actually before we even jump into that, I have a quick question for you. I wanted to ask you something is even before, like outside of Tetra, what would you say is the biggest problem in transportation?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Dude, that. That's such an open ended question with it, first thing comes to mind is I feel like it's over regulation for the industry as a whole, Because I think that they're going after some of the wrong stuff that's out there. Right. I feel like there's a lot of. Of lobbying and a lot of things that are put into place that actually harm the overwhelming majority of capacity on the road, which is small independent fleets and stuff like that. Small fleets and independent owner operators. I feel like there's a lot of hurdles that are out there for businesses to. To really stay in business. Right. And I. I do. Like, I am not the biggest fan of regulations in. In government overreach at all. So I want to be. I want to preface it with that. That any government is too much government.
(09:38):
And I. In my opinion. But like a lot of where we're at, I feel like there's so many hoops that they have to jump through and it's. And it's an overcomplicated process. Right. I feel like it shouldn't be as hard to operate a fleet as people make it out to be. Right. Like, every state has its own set of rules to be able to operate inside of. And I kind of feel like there should be a clean slate across the board of the expectations that are out there.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Strong, strong answer. I can also. Because your family history has owner operator roots in it, right?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
So makes sense with that answer, especially what's. Also, what's interesting to me is, and the reason that I asked that question, the problem tetro is going after is the fact that 40% of driver time is wasted. But if you reframe that problem for the people who are paying for it means that drivers make $0 for 40% of their time.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
And I asked you what the biggest problem in transportation was because there's this concept that Paul Graham, the guy that he's the YC guy, everybody, he's really well known and writes these incredible essays. Paul Graham wrote this essay called schlep blindness. Are you familiar with the concept by chance?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
I'm not actually. Schlep blindness.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
So Schlep blindness is where people unconsciously avoid some challenge or work or something because it is just like unfathomably big or challenging or difficult. Just like it's too much for them to try to go after to overcome losing 40% of driver time. Or again, if you're a driver, making $0 for 40% of your. I would say, is undeniably the biggest problem in transportation. Like, if you think about just like from a quantitative standpoint, like, there's. There's gotta. I can't think of anything that would come to a close second. Yeah, but the fact that everybody in the industry goes to work every single day and it's just like 40% fine. I think one illustrates schlep blindness and just that the problem is so pervasive and it has lasted for so long that people have stopped seeing it and we talk about it.
(11:58):
So it's not that it's unknown, it's just that people have stopped prioritizing it. Right. It's just. And you know, you think about it all of the different things that a driver does in a day, and you'd mentioned some of them, right? Just like the deadhead miles or the dwell time or detention and so forth and so on. And the reality is that those things are all individual components of or contributors to why drivers are not making money for 40%. And that's what Tetra is focused on. One of the things that so. And where this. Now to your original question, like where Tetro came from. So yeah, prior to being at Ryder for two years and I got to Ryder by way of acquisition, so they had acquired Baton. Baton was similarly focused on eliminating wasted time in truckload transportation.
(12:47):
The way that were focused on going after that though, was by providing a relay service to your big enterprise carriers. So a company like a Werner or a Swift or a Schneider, for example, they would drop loaded, you know, their driver would come into a yard in a market we had operated in la, they would drop loaded and then their driver, we would have a pre staged loaded trailer for them. So they would drop loaded, hook loaded, and they would just continue to burn highway miles. Right. So maximize the amount of time drivers are spending and we built technology to support that. And what we'd realized at one point in time is that we had inherited a lot of the utilization problems that our customers had.
(13:27):
So let's say a driver breaks down, misses an appointment, and we may not know that until right before, you know, we had a local dedicated fleet because were not yet operating as a fleet, yet a local dedicated fleet. We'd had our capacity managed such that we knew exactly what the driver was doing and we'd get a hole blown in our schedule. And so in order to support the utilization of that fleet, we started a local because that's all that were currently supporting. And that's what our technology was built to support, a local owner operator truckload fleet. And that ended up being the thing that really has legs. And that was where I refined my technically in startup world, you're supposed to call it a hypothesis.
(14:12):
Although I can tell you that from a conviction standpoint, you're gonna have to pry the idea from my cold dead hands for me to believe it's not gonna work. And that's where the magic really can get made. So Rider required us for the technology, which again, we built on the backbone of that fleet that were operating. And so then I was a rider for two and a half years and spent, which was awesome by the way. I have nothing but the greatest of things to say about that incredible people. And also the leadership gave Baton still gives Baton so much autonomy and it shows in the speed that Baton can deliver value to that organization. It's remarkable. But we also needed a ton of engineers. So I spent two years recruiting like leading the talent strategy.
(14:57):
And so I built, I'd hired some 30 some odd product engineer, design people and so forth. But at some point when you can't stop thinking about a problem for two years and it just sits and it sits and you just keep looping on it, at some point you have to square with the fact that it's time to go and build and that the job's not done. And so what we learned at Baton there was two things really. The big one is that downtime absolutely can be eliminated. Okay. And I'll explain the way that we're approaching that problem in a moment. But the second thing I've learned, and this is just by observing a lot of different companies and conversations when we explored even, you know, licensing technology because there's a lot of demand for that. You can't solve this problem with software alone.
(16:01):
In the same way, like Amazon wasn't going to be able to give their software to Barnes and Noble and we would have had the same outcome. It just, it wasn't going to happen. So. And also like Uber Rides couldn't have given their software to Yellow Cab and had the same outcome. It just, it wasn't, that's not how that would have worked. So you have to have control of the operations and you have to have control of the software. So the in simple form, Tetros, we are a log tech company. We are operating a fleet of owner operators. We're only moving short haul freight. So sub 100 mile length of freight though in actuality the length of haul is much shorter. But we're building the tech stack now. That's not to say that we're building everything.
(16:44):
We're certainly not building an accounting module, we're not building more than we have to. But we know that the underlying data model is going to be the most important thing for us to being able to eliminate that wasted time, that downtime. And that comes by way of having a extremely high degree. Imagine for a moment if you're going to go to the airport, for a second. Imagine you're going to the airport and you have no idea how long the drive takes you. No idea. And you've got no idea how long you're going to be sitting in security. It could be reasonably like 30 seconds. It could be an hour and a half.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
How long before your flight do you get to the airport?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I mean, normally like an hour before boarding starts when I do, you know, TSA PreCheck and everything. So at least.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Right, at least. And if you don't have any sort of idea, like if you can't look at Google Maps, you're just going to buffer that time even more. Yeah, but the thing is that Google Maps isn't the problem. It's how long a driver is going to be at each stop. So we solve that problem by leveraging machine learning to forecast out with a incredibly high degree of confidence, even if we've never been to a facility before, exactly how long a driver will be at that location.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Okay, I want to break that down there for a second. I think that right there is huge. Right. Because I've talked about this in the past on the show. Right. Not all two truckloads are the same. And the probability of like, yeah, a load hypothetically might pay $2,000, but there's a high probability that you're going to be sitting for five hours, six hours at the shipper and the receiver. Now, there's this other load that's out there in the market that might pay sixteen hundred dollars, but there's a probability that you're going to get unloaded or you're going to get loaded in an hour and offloaded in an hour. Which one is a better load for you? Right. Some people might be like, I don't care, I'll sit and wait, yada, yada. They all say that.
(18:34):
But in all reality, if you're not moving as a driver, you're losing money every single second that you're sitting there empty. Right. So it's like I would make the argument that, yeah, I might pay a little bit less on the exact same length of haul, but if you're going to get unloaded fast at the shipper and you're going to get unloaded equally fast at the receiver to get on to the next one. I think that one, I would argue that one is a better load at, you know, ultimately at the end of the day.
(18:59):
But that predictive analytics that you're talking about there, Eric, of like judging by a facility by facility basis, I think right there, that's really how we actually fix some of the fundamental issues of the industry of like some of these facilities that are notorious for like, dude, if you're a minute late, you sit for three days and like that. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (19:20):
So interesting point to that. So the first thing is that we, when we think about on time or not, we measure down to the second for that exact reason is that facilities can be unrelenting and they can be unforgiving.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
But more than that, what you just described as is actually that is how my experience in the transportation industry has been thinking about solving this problem. But let's say, for example, detention, right. I actually, and I want to be very clear, I'm not saying that detention is not a problem, but I don't think that detention is the pain point that everybody says that it is. Detention is strictly a data problem. When we ran a fleet of baton, we almost never had a surprise detention.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Which means that you should price it as such. The issue that we're going after, we think of waste in sort of two large buckets. We think of the first one, embedded waste. So let's say that, you know, you're going to be at a facility strictly for 90 minutes, for example, you have a pretty decent idea of how long it's going to take you to drive to the next location. And this is why we're operating in a local environment, is that we can. The upside for the driver, most importantly increases, because that's our whole mission, is we're increasing earnings for drivers. And so the upside for the driver increases. And on top of that, the opportunity to extract that waste increase similarly or like that's really what drives that upside, appetite for the driver.
(20:46):
So if you know exactly how long someone's going to be at a facility and you know exactly how long the drive is take, the issue is not the total time at the facility because that's technically what you're compensated for. It's the amount of time for when you arrive to that facility and you are sitting and you were sitting and then you have your appointment.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
No, I, I got you there. I've got a question that came in here is are you guys Tech. But you also have an MC carrier with owner ops or is it two separate things?
Speaker 3 (21:16):
We are a tech company and we are operating the fleet. Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Okay, so you guys have an actual mc everything.number and you guys are up. Okay, cool.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Now perfect, man, that's. That, that's good to know. So this would be a thing for drivers, you know, who are in, are you guys operating in any specific markets? Right. Are you guys just kind of hammering out the short haul market across the United States? Because you know, inevitably drivers are going to want to try and get access to whatever you guys got going there with that.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Chicago.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Okay. In Chicago.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Yep. And so what's interesting even is that you think about the Chicago market alone and sub 100 mile truckload freight in Chicago alone. Is it nearly a $20 billion market? Oh yeah. And so we're, you know, we're sinking our teeth into Chicago to really prove out some hypotheses around being able to see the waste. That's a really big piece which we like the formula is written, we know exactly how to do it. But even just being able to get to see the freight that we have, you know, that we're moving basically or even that we're evaluating and determine whether or not it's a good idea based on the amount of waste that exists in that load.
(22:27):
And the reason all of that is so important and we don't think of things for record, although also in terms of rate per mile, because the constraint drivers face is not how many miles they can drive in a day, it is how many hours they have on their clock. They can drive at different speeds and so that changes the total miles they can drive. So we think of everything in terms of the amount of money a driver gets per hour.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So how do you guys calculate that? And have you guys found a number where drivers should be shooting for, on a, you know, rate per hour as you put it there.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
So it's a great question. So in terms of how we calculated it's actually a fairly simple algebraic equation. The stuff that starts to get complicated under the hood is the machine learning, forecasting. It's interesting even to the point that I'm sure that there are a lot of questions in general people ask about AI and I've had investors, you know, say like, well what are you doing with AI? And it's funny because like the forgotten part of AI that people aren't talking about right now because ChatGPT is so popular is machine learning. Like. Yeah, and it's, if anything it is the thing where like you can't just go into ChatGPT and plug in and get the same outcome like you've got to have. There's a lot to it. And having the underlying data is also equally important. So anyway, in terms of like the threshold.
(23:46):
So the thing to think about is really how that, and this is the next type of waste. So what we think about is interload waste. So there's the embedded waste, how much waste sits in a load and how does that then translate to the amount of revenue that a driver gets for X period of time that then plays well with or not plays well, but that is then the next part of it is the interload waste. That interload waste is the amount of waste that occurs based on the selection of loads that driver has for a given day. Yeah, and so we don't have a threshold because it is not a simple straightforward like yes, this one's good enough, let's do it. Because that may not be enough for that driver stay in totality, it likely isn't in a local environment.
(24:28):
And you have to maximize returns per truck per day, not the number of miles that your driver is going to cover. And so we may take a load that may be lower, a lower value for that driver because we know that the next load we get and how that's going to get us to that next load is actually going to be what makes the driver stay.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, no, I got you. I, I think like a general rule of thumb that a lot of drivers out there, you know, are, at least in my experience when we're booking freight on day rates and everything is, you know, I like the number. A thousand dollars a day in revenue is like what comes to mind for a lot of drivers and what they kind of shoot for and especially in that turn and burn local environment that's out there where you know, we'll do a lot of local freight out there with customers of ours in there and if they can get, you know, we try and charge our customers a day rate out there and then we try and book accordingly for that.
(25:21):
And I've just found, you know, inside of that like 25, 30 mile radius per turn, we can get that down to, you know, it's almost like clockwork on what drivers are charging us kind of across the board. And a lot of the guys who we work with, they might do, you know, out of state runs and stuff, but they're like, dude, I want to stay local like that. If you can get me that three turns in a day and I can sleep in my bed every single night, like, I want that. I wish that freight was more acceptable kind of across the nation, I know in certain pockets, you know, like, you think the markets that you've operated in, Los Angeles, Chicago, there's tons of local freight that are running every single day.
(26:00):
But I think like that one, from my perspective, I, I think there'd be a lot more regional drivers or like local drivers if they could turn that revenue in a day where they could make a thousand bucks and, you know, do three loads in a day and not leave a 30, 40 mile radius.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
So our belief is that at scale, we can increase driver earnings. Like, if you think of your average driver earnings of an owner operator at a fleet that's leased on, wherever it might be, we believe that we can increase those as much as 50%.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Damn.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Which, but that makes sense, right? Like, if we're going to eliminate 40% of downtime, it should be roughly, you know, give or take, around that amount. And we think that actually that there's more opportunity to eliminate it just because the, like, the more dial that you get and the more that you understand all the idiosyncrasies of an individual facility, it's not even just that you eliminate that downtime, but you actually move through locations even faster because then, you know, you're in a local environment, drivers become familiar, they understand how that facility operates. Like, they know all of the different quirks. And in your comment, even about, you know, you sleep in your own bed. It is, it's not even just that you sleep in your own bed. And I'm sure that you have had experiences with your family roots being truck drivers.
(27:17):
I'm sure that there are times you remember when people weren't around the dinner table because they couldn't have been. Right. Like they had to be making money.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
And I'm sure that there are points in time that are painful and you forgive those people because you understand the why, but it doesn't mean it didn't suck. But that, the thing is that doesn't have to happen. Yeah, drivers can make more money and be home, not even sleep in their own bed, but they can eat dinner at their own table. They can have a predictable schedule so that if the friend says, like, hey, do you want to go to, you know, do you want to go to catch this concert on Friday? They know that they can go or if their son has. So this was one of the things that we saw and we also at Baton, we never had a single driver quit in our owner operator fleet. Not a single one.
(28:00):
Because when you empower drivers to make more money and you also respect their own lives. And so if one of them says, hey, I. My son's ball game is on Friday at 3pm Cool, we will make sure that you are off by one. You are not gonna, you will be done by one because it is important for you to be there. So changes everything. And that's why we never had a single driver quit.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
No, I'm right there with you, man. It is kind of like that quality of life balance and stuff that's out there. So are you guys going and finding freight for the owner operators? So like, do you guys have people behind the scenes calling shippers and everything, trying to develop this business for it or are you guys, you know, on load boards, calling, trying to find freight forum? How does that look?
Speaker 3 (28:44):
So it's a great question. So the difference between our model and others that you have seen in the space of the quote unquote, like the virtual fleets, if you will, and I don't really know what's virtual about it as much as just we're building our own technology. The big difference between us and some of those other companies, some of those other fleets have built their own technology is that we, we curate that driver schedule. Now, it's not forced dispatch, so the driver can tell us. Yes, but the thing is that when they might see a load that they don't want to do, but when they see how that fits into the bigger picture and what the total outcome is, they're like, yeah, I'm fine. Like, that load only sucks generally because it blows a hole in my day.
(29:24):
Like, I don't want to go to that facility because it sucks because of whatever happens afterwards. But if the outcome is such that, hey, we know that it's going to take this long and that means that you're going to be right here next to this other location that we know we can get you some, we know we can get you more out of, they're on board. So, so we curate that schedule for that driver for right now in terms of the way that we're developing what we think of as demand.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Right.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
The freight. So shippers, we're a little early for. We just don't quite yet have the operational horsepower to be able to execute we're three people strong, me and my co founder. And then this other guy, Kevin Yakim joined. He's nothing short of a legend. And it would just be really hard for us to be able to support shippers, enterprise shippers. And so because of that, I shouldn't say, but. And so because of that, we are right now engaging brokers strategically.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Gotcha. Okay. No, man, that I, I like that. I think that, you know, again, like you're alluding to. There is. Is at the end of the day, man, you got to start with something. You build that out and you know, it's going to be interesting. We see this where everything goes like that with this, Eric. And it'll have to have you back on, man, especially as this gets up and running and, you know, gains even more traction out there. But I think, most importantly, how do drivers find you guys right now? Because this is going to be something. I always want to talk to people who are developing product to help the driver community out there, to improve their business, to improve profitability and all of that stuff, man. So how does, how do the drivers reach out to you to find out more?
Speaker 3 (31:01):
It's a great question. So if they go to our website, tetro T E T R O dot one OME and then forward slash drivers.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Perfect. And then what about brokers? Any broker who's like, dude, we need help with the local markets that are out there. How do they find you guys?
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Ooh, if they were to. They can. If they drop me an email, which is Ericetro one that's. That also works.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Okay, perfect.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
To be honest, we like, we have been. So, I mean, and here's the thing. We. Our customer to us is the driver. Even just financially, the way that we're structured, our customer is the driver. And so you can tell that we've clearly been prioritizing engaging drivers because, like, we don't even have a sales inbox just yet. It's just like, hey, email Eric.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Dude, no, it's perfect, man. But dude, this is just how things are built, Eric. You got to start somewhere with it. And again, as things continue to mature, I know you guys are gonna. You got. This is. I love this stuff, man. I think you guys are on the right path with all of this. But Eric, I appreciate your time today. That's going to be it for today, ladies and gentlemen. We're gonna have a guest on tomorrow. As always, if you got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show. You guys, if you're feeling really ambitious, which you should be after this one. Rank the show as well on itunes and Spotify. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys. And we'll be talking to you soon.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
And thanks so much, dude.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Absolutely, man. We just end the stream on this, Eric.
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