Ep. #49: Brad Perling, CEO and Cofounder of Bitfreighter

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

Andrew and Brad cover:

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

Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.

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

A special thanks to our additional sponsors:

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

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey listeners, before we get started today, I want to
give a quick shout out and wordto our sponsor, our very first
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two longtime friends of mine,guys I've known for 10 plus
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These guys know what they'redoing.

(00:23):
I'm excited to be partneringwith them to give you a little
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(00:46):
may be.
They'll build out a team andsupport whatever roles you need,
whether it's customer orcarrier, sales support, back
office or tech services.
These guys know logistics.
They know people.
It's what sets them apart inthis industry.
They're driven by an insideknowledge of how to recruit,
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In the current marketingconditions, where everyone is

(01:08):
trying to be more efficient, domore with less near shoring is
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do so, and Rapido is atremendous solution for you.
So check them out atgorapidocom and thank you again
for being a sponsor to our show,a great partner.
We look forward to working withyou To our listeners.
That's it.
Let's get the show on the road.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Welcome back to another episode of the Freight
Pod.
I'm your host, andrew Silver,joined today by a wonderful
guest.
There are always wonderfulguests, at least thus far, and I
don't think Brad will bebreaking that trend, so I'm
joined by Brad Perling, ceo andco-founder of Bitfreighter.
We're going to be talking datatoday.
We're going to be talking allthings building a business from

(02:03):
the ground up, and it's cool tosee a freight tech business run
by a freight person.
That's not often the case, butthat's what we got today.
Brad, welcome to the show.
How are you doing?

Speaker 3 (02:13):
Thanks, Andrew, Appreciate you having me on.
I'm excited to be here.
You've had a ton of big nameson the show and I'm happy to be
a part of that.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, you're a big name names on the show and I'm
happy to be a part of that.
Well, you're a big name.
You're becoming one in theindustry.
It's part of the cool thingabout building a business that
creates value in the space andyou get customers that want to
hear more about who you are as aperson and the business you're
building.
So we're going to do that today.
So why don't we start with yourbackground?
How'd you find yourself?
How'd you get into the freightindustry?

Speaker 3 (02:45):
That's a great question.
That's our go-to icebreaker foreverybody I meet.
Everybody has a story on howthey got into the industry, and
mine started with Craigslist.
My roommate from college thatwe moved into a house in
Nashville we all were servingtables needed jobs and he found

(03:08):
a job on Craigslist at a localfreight brokerage and he started
there as a logisticscoordinator.
His name is Danny Ray and heloved it.
He would come home and tell meabout how they're drinking beers
on Fridays and the culture, andI could really relate to that,
loved it.
He would come home and tell meabout how they're drinking beers
on Fridays and the culture, andI could really relate to that.
And so we had a party at thehouse.

(03:31):
His manager came over and herecruited me a couple of
different tries and finally saidokay, I'll give it a shot, and
threw my resume in the hat andgot an opportunity at Calvary
Logistics and did not know I wasstarting at a company of people

(03:55):
that have like a very longlineage in freight and I just
got super lucky I talk aboutthat word a lot luck.
And it was something that Ididn't know at the time because
I was an aerospace major and Iwas waiting on the air traffic
control school to call me.

(04:16):
So I said, oh yeah, I'll dothis for a couple of years and
see how it goes.
And I got to start dispatchingtrucks right when I started,
because that's where everybodystarted, uh, learning it from
the ground up.
And uh, I was, I think,employee number 17 or 18, there
were days where it was just meand another guy booking freight
over there in 2010.

(04:37):
And we grew to that company to350 people and I like to say
that I got my MBA in freightfrom Bob King, jj, norm and
B-Roy those guys they reallypoured into all of us guys and a
lot of us went on to startother freight brokerages and I

(05:01):
know you know one of those guyspretty well.
So, yeah, super lucky to havelanded at that company.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah.
So I mean I've got some tiesinto Calvary from hiring Ryan
Dent, who was one of the mostvaluable hires, I think.
My company definitely not.
I don't think Dent was one ofthe most valuable hires we made
at Molo and still to this day ishelping run that business and
keep it afloat.
So there is a good lineagethere and I'm curious talk to me

(05:32):
a little bit about what it waslike for you coming into that
business.
What role were youparticipating in and did you see
yourself as a lifer in freightat that point?
Or did you know you wanted toone day start your own company?
Like, help me understand kindof your thought process as you
work through your time there.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
So in college I wanted to start a company.
I wrote a ton of business plansbut I never knew it was going
to be in freight and I neverreally knew when it was going to
be in freight and I neverreally knew when that was going
to be.
I was just, you know, a hundredpercent bought in drinking the
Kool-Aid.
Um, not, from day one, I mean I.
It took me a couple of years toreally to buy into to the

(06:18):
brokerage thing, but I loved itfrom day one.
I was so interested.
Every day was a differentchallenge, every day was a
different problem.
I'd come home and tell myparents about it, like there was
a huge ice storm in 2010.
And I was like, how are allthese trucks going to deliver
their freight coming in?
And when I was talking todrivers, and from there, you
know, after three months ofdispatching trucks, I got my

(06:40):
opportunity to start bookingfreight, and it was a split
model, a Chicago model.
So I was building a carrierbase, building relationships and
, um, I worked my way up tobeing the top broker booking the
most loads every week.
Um, and from there, you know,they really pick people to grow

(07:00):
as leaders from, uh, the theeffort that you put in to the
business.
So I kept getting moreopportunities to continue to
grow within the company and so Iended up getting to do pretty
much every role at Calgary.
I started their inside salesmaking cold calls in Bob King's

(07:24):
office for six months, right infront of him.
That was definitely challengingand grew a ton get learning.
They basically just said here'sthe list, make the calls and
figure it out.
So but the thing that Calvarydid really well and the thing
that I learned from them andthat's kind of where my tech

(07:45):
background came from is theybuilt all of their own tech All
of the tech that you're seeingon the market today they had in
2011 and 2012.
They were really forwardthinkers.
We had engineers on staff and Igot to see them build that thing
from the ground up and Bobalways had a vision for what
they wanted Calvary to be andwhat their tech stack was

(08:07):
supposed to be, and it reallylike, after 10 years of building
that company, they I think theyreally uh, came through with
the vision of their tech stackand that's really where I
learned um about how tech canplay a huge role in brokerage.
But it really comes back to therelationships and building

(08:28):
strong relationships on thecarrier side, and then getting
to go start an inside sales teamand then from there I ended up
getting to start what theycalled the optimized division,
which was all of our smallcustomers, and then we kind of
sum those up into threedivisions optimize, refer and

(08:49):
flatbed and I ended up gettingto help run as a general manager
all three divisions.
So I got to experience a lot ofdifferent things at Calvary
which allowed me to grow as amanager, as a young like I was
young, they kept giving me moreopportunities and I just ran
with it.
I didn't have a family, Ididn't really have a girlfriend.

(09:09):
My focus was on the business.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, I mean I think that's one of the cool things
about freight brokerage ingeneral is, once you find a
recipe that works and you startto land like you know, it's a
rinse and repeat methodology tooso you know, if you did well
with one customer, you have theinfrastructure typically in
place to do well with a hundredcustomers or a thousand

(09:33):
customers, and that that allowsfor fast growth.
And in a lot of cases companiesdo what Brad did I'm sorry, what
what Bob did and you know, lookfor the hardest working, best
talent that exists within theirsystem today and elevate them
and give them opportunities totake on more and more.

(09:54):
That was something that likefor me at Molo was always I was
always proud of, is that wecould continue to promote from
within and give people newopportunities that, like they
previously didn't have and thebusiness had earned it and they
had earned it.
So I want to ask you, though Iwas unaware that you were a top
carrier rep.
I don't know that I've had aton of guests on here who have

(10:15):
had kind of that level ofsuccess on the carrier side, but
I do know that there are a lotof listeners who you know work
in that world.
What's a piece of advice youcan give from your own
experience for how to be areally successful carrier up?

Speaker 3 (10:30):
relationships.
I really focused on um buildingrelationships with specific
companies and I called themevery day and I really got to
know them.
I went and saw a few companiesand one of them was Kimbrel
Farms in Shelbyville, tennessee.
He actually had a load of tileson his truck.

(10:51):
When I went to go see him heshowed it to me, which is really
neat.
But they had seven trucks andthey would call me all the time
and ask me where's their nextload, and really matching those
relationships up to the lanesthat we ran and and um, it's not
hard but it's.
You have to focus on it and youhave to know where their trucks

(11:11):
are and you have to know who,um what, the best trucking
companies are for your freightand really focus in on them.
And from there, uh, you cancontinue to build, build upon
your network of truckingcompanies and really start
tendering out.
What I would do is I'll come inon Mondays and have 50 loads
booked immediately, and that wasnot through technology, that

(11:34):
was 100% what was in my brainand knowing who to call and who
to send the loads to, and that'sreally what my focus was.
I mean, it was really stressful, the loads too, and that's
really what my focus was.
I mean, it was really stressful.
Um, I only did that job for 10months and then moved on to
sales.
So, um, I you know we.
We had a scorecard at Calvaryand I'm very um motivated to win

(11:58):
Um and I always wanted to be ontop.
So it was stressful.
I didn't want to be number two,and so once you get on top, you
don't want to lose thatposition, and so that was.
Another thing that reallymotivated me was ensuring that I
was the top rep and seeing myname at the top.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
And you mentioned kind of an ode to B-Roy Brian
Roy, who I've gotten to know alittle bit Great guy and clearly
very, very intelligent and theidea that he and his team built
all of the technology thatCavalry was using.
I'm curious from yourperspective, how should
brokerages, especially kind ofupstarts, the bootstrap types

(12:42):
that start with a couple guysand gals and they go from five
employees to 10 to 20.
Typically they don't have a tonof resources day one, so they
can't just be buildingeverything from the ground up,
but there are points wherethey've had success or maybe
they've raised a little bit ofmoney.
I'm just curious how do youthink about, or how do you think

(13:03):
brokerages should think about,and even asset, asset-based
carriers, the notion of buildversus buy as pertains to
technology in general?
So there are certain things,maybe a TMS that you think
should be built versus bought,or some of the partners like
your own company.
How should someone know if theyshould build their own van
versus leveraging the tools of acompany like yours?

(13:27):
And I don't necessarily wantyou to sell your own business
right now.
I'm just think bigger, becausewe will have plenty of time to
talk about Bitfreighter and EDIspecifically.
But I'm more curious about thegeneral concept of build versus
buy as pertains to technology inour space for brokers.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
Well, back then they had no choice, right.
Like they, they, there weren'tvery many third-party freight
tech companies out there thatwere doing it better than they
could build it.
So I think you knowunderstanding what your
strengths are and understandingif you have the manpower to
build tech, and what you'regoing to focus on and what

(14:06):
you're going to be great at,because, ultimately, where you
focus is where your strengthsare going to be.
And I failed at buildingbecause it takes a lot of time,
energy and money to build tech.
And so, after my tenure atCalvary, I ended up um

(14:28):
partnering with a buddy of mineto build another logistics
company, uh, that had alreadybeen in business for a couple of
years, and we worked onbuilding our own tech for years,
um, and we ultimately ended upscrapping that project because
it took so much money and somuch time, and uh ended up

(14:48):
buying tech.
So, um, you know, you want towork with the best tech and if
you can build it better than youcan buy it, then maybe you
should build it.
But, um, it takes a lot of time,energy, resources and money to
build tech, and it takes greatpeople to do it for years upon
years.
So, like you know, I've seenpeople build tech that have um

(15:10):
worked on it and had to, like,get different teams on it, which
ends up creating problems onthe backend of tech.
So, um, you really have to bewilling to invest not only money
but time and energy intobuilding it.
So, um, I don't know I I it's a.
It's a hard question to answerand my my I think what I would

(15:32):
say is it depends on what youwant to build um and where where
you think you should focus yourenergy, because I've seen
people um build tech, and whatCalvary did really well was they
focused on different pieces oftech and they bolted it on.
So they would focus on the CRMon the carrier side and then the

(15:53):
sales side and then differentthings that would allow them to
build it together.
Rather than taking a holisticapproach, it was very focused on
specific problems.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah, my perspective is, from what I've heard and I'm
not a tech guy and I think thatwas an important strength for
myself, Vogrich and the rest ofour team to realize early at
Molo was we didn't have thattech know-how or strength within
the business.
It was not something.
I mean we had my youngerbrother who's a savant but like

(16:31):
you know he was a one-man showlargely.
I mean he had a couple ofpeople helping him who were
great, but like we had not madea commitment to invest in
building our own technology andit didn't seem to make sense to
me.
And from what I've come tounderstand from conversations
with my father who buildstechnology at Mastery, and from
conversations with other folksin the tech space, is when

(16:53):
you're building technology,everything takes longer than you
think it will and it costs morethan you think it will.
Like those two things scare me.
As someone who's a freightbroker at heart and understands
A plus B equals C for how toexecute, I know what specific
things I need to do well and myteam needs to do well for us to
serve customers and win business.

(17:14):
It's not super complicated whenit comes to technology.
It seems like it's the opposite, where, whatever expectations
you have, there generally willbe bumps along the road that you
didn't see coming.
That will cost more in terms oftime and money, and to me
that's a risk.
Where there are people likeyourself out there and other

(17:36):
companies who have made it theirsole focus to build a specific
piece of technology for brokers,why not let them make all the
mistakes?
Why not let them deal with allthe roadblocks and the extra
time and money it takes to buildsomething and I can just show
up once it's done and determineif it's going to add value to my
business?
To me, that's always been theway I've thought about this, and

(17:59):
it's why I think that brokersin general should be buying a
lot of the technology that theyutilize.
If they have a already verysuccessful business that has a
bunch of money that they'rethrowing off that they can use
to invest in developingtechnology and really think that
there is something missing inthe current market that, by

(18:23):
building it themselves, willgive them this differentiating
factor.
Okay, fine, but I've yet to seetruly differentiated technology
in the space that hasindependently built by the
brokerage that has taken themfrom here to here.

(18:46):
And for those who are justlistening, I'm just saying from
one point to a much better pointor a higher point or a more
successful point.
I just haven't seen it.
And the other piece of thisthat seems to be really relevant
now in the AI conversation isthe rate of change and the rate
of improvement in the models andthe fact that seemingly every

(19:09):
six months there's going to benewer and better technology
available to build off of, andthat's just reinvesting over and
over again, whereas as abrokerage that's not my core
competency.
Why would I want to be puttingmyself in a position to have to
continually rebuild with thelatest and greatest technology
at my fingertips?
It just seems like I'd ratherbe buying on the open market

(19:31):
from whoever has the best techavailable.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
So when you were building Molo, you guys drew a
pretty hard line in the sand andI'm sure it was a tough thing
and there was probably a debateabout whether you guys should
build your own tech, maybe, andyou guys really focused in on
being the best logistics salesorganization you could, rather
than spreading your time betweenbuilding tech and developing

(19:59):
what you guys were which is oneof the best logistics
organizations that you guyscould deliver and all the
promises that you guys made, sothat you weren't spending.
You weren't stretched thinbetween building tech and
delivering on your promises.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yeah, I mean a hundred percent.
You know, I don't know that.
It was like drawing a line inthe sand, it just was.
We had the conversationnumerous times.
Vobrich and I would sit downand say what if we were to build
this?
What if we hired someone tobuild this?
And there was just so manyunknowns around that concept and
it's like what we do know is wehave a model that works and our
customers are very happy withthe way we support them with our

(20:41):
current technology.
We had concerns in terms of ourability to scale with our
initial TMS.
That was definitely aconversation we had where it was
like how big can we get withthis?
Because the carrier procurementside was really messy and it
wasn't the best for buildinglong-term.
It wasn't easy to manage acarrier relationship and

(21:05):
thinking about getting to aplace where we'd have hundreds
of carrier reps and needing tohave as much of an automated
workflow as possible in theexecution part, where we could
create a routing guide and justsend the tenders to the carriers
and they'd accept them if theycould take them and if not, it
would go to the next carrier andthey could accept it.
That piece wasn't built out atthe time the way.

(21:26):
I don't know if it is bettertoday.
So I'm not trying to trash byany means, because we got where
we got to because of, you know,rebinova initially and
ultimately it was mastery thatwe felt could take us from where
we were to be a multi-billiondollar organization.
But it definitely was aconversation that, when we would
have it, we just constantlyfound ourselves considering

(21:48):
unknowns and it didn't seemright to think like let's make
big investment in the unknownwhen what we're doing today is
largely working and if we justcontinue to stay super focused
on what we're currently good at,there's no reason we would stop
growing.
That was the thought that justkept us more singularly focused

(22:11):
on being a great service andexecution platform and
organization, versus sayinglet's venture into being a tech
company.
And the challenge and I thinkthis is the challenge that a lot
of brokerages think about isit's really hard to
differentiate when you're livingin the service and execution
world, and that's why I thinkthere are maybe it's hundreds
now, but there are certainlytens and quite a few examples of

(22:35):
companies that ventured intothe tech space because they
thought that was how they woulddifferentiate and they thought,
well, we're going to be a techcompany, and if we're a tech
company one, we'll get highermultiples in terms of the
valuation of the business frompotential buyers and suitors or
investors, but also shipperswill look at us differently and

(22:56):
we'll be able to get morebusiness because we're a tech
company.
Well, what I've seen from 90% ofthe tech companies that also
move freight is, at the core,they're freight brokerages and
eventually the shippers find outthey're freight brokerages as
kind of the core of who they are, and their challenge is they
went and spent a ton of moneytrying to be differentiated as a

(23:18):
tech company and it doesn't endwell.
There are very few that havecome out the other side either
as like a very successful techcompany or as anything more than
a brokerage that had spent alot of money trying to be a tech
company.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
Well, I think at the end of the day, you're a
business and the goal is to getto profitability right.
So if you're building tech,it's very expensive to build it
off the profit margins of abrokerage, and if you can build
in your cost with buying techand really focus on delivering
the best service, I mean,obviously, you guys are a clear

(23:57):
example of it working reallywell and you know, I think I
will say this if you're going tobuild tech, you need somebody
on staff, a VP of technology,that understands tech but also
understands freight, understandsbrokerage, understands being in
the trenches, understandsbooking loads, the whole life

(24:19):
cycle of what it takes toactually book freight, um, and
you can hand it off to them andreally trust them to build you
what you're wanting, your visionfor your tech, rather than
trying to do it to go alonebuilding tech 100%.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
So you mentioned having kind of spent your early
years, or formative years atCalvary, and then you made the
switch to join another brokeragefor a few years.
Let's move into theBitfreighter era.
So talk to me about when youdecided to start a company, why
a EDI and data integrationmanagement company was like the

(25:02):
path.
Walk me through that early partof the journey.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
Well, the single, one of the single best things I
ever saw from an efficiency playwas implementing EDI.
With the last brokerage I wasat, we implemented EDI for a
shipper that was moving between100 to 200 loads a week.
We had to have an extra loadcoordinator to build all the

(25:28):
loads, schedule, theappointments, order, entry, all
of the things that it takes tomanage 150 loads a week Went
from that person that being afull-time job to implementing
EDI and removing hours of theirday so that they could focus on
exceptions.
And, on top of that, removingall of the duplicate loads that

(25:50):
were built, all the loads thatwere missed from being built,
all the things that come with itnot being seamlessly integrated
, with your shipper Loads beingcanceled by their shipper in the
middle of the night and you'rewaking up and they're still on
your board.
All of those things.
I thought that it was thesingle best thing that we'd done

(26:11):
for our business and I had tofigure out a way to scale it to
100% of all of our enterpriseclients.
That was really my mission.
Obviously, a lot of brokerstalk about automating the life
cycle of a load, from bookingall the way to um, you know,
integrating with their shippersand how do they do that.
But I think EDI um was one ofthe best things that we did.

(26:37):
However, what I was frustratedabout was my TMS could only give
me one option to purchase EDIfrom, and I couldn't under.
There's two things.
I couldn't understand why therewasn't a list of providers like
TMS providers Like why am Istuck with this one company that
was, um able to just chargewhatever they wanted and um they

(27:03):
set the price?
There was a monopoly on it.
I felt like, come to find outthere were more than you know
one provider, but I didn't evenreally know how to spell EDI
when I was purchasing it.
So um I.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
You know it was hard, hard word to spell.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
You know, it was.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
It was really, um, an eyeopening experience.
So, um, I ended up.
I ended up working with themfor a few months and then felt
like I could do it better myself, found a tool, put it on my
server.
It wasn't a very scalable tool,but one of the things that I
love about building companiesand building business is just

(27:42):
asking why and trying to figurethings out on my own.
So I shut the door for a coupleof months.
You know, building companiesand building businesses, just
asking why and and uh, trying tofigure things out on my own.
So I shut the door for a coupleof months to try to figure out
how to tackle this EDI thing onmy own at that previous company.
And you know, the thing is I,um, we did it for a couple of
years and then COVID hit.
We sent everybody home.
This is the first time I'mworking from home and I had a

(28:05):
lot of time on my hands.
I'm not somebody that can justsit and do nothing, um, and so,
all of a sudden, like all ofthese ideas were coming to mind
and, um, I felt like there was aton of money in EDI that was
like a huge gap, um, of peoplethat were spending too much on

(28:25):
EDI.
So like it was an opportunityfor us to come in and
potentially help people.
And you know, with mybackground in brokerage for 10
years, I, like my heart is withthe people that are moving the
freight and I felt like we couldgo and save people, like you
know, maybe 50% on their EDIbill and that was really my.

(28:48):
I guess my thesis for wantingto start Bitfreighter is like I
saw how, how it helped me in mybusiness and then how, how could
I go help other people?
And I was.
I felt like there were otherpeople that needed help, just
like I did.
So, um, I had actually workedwith my co-founder on building
some apps, brandon Joyce.

(29:10):
Um, one of the smartest people,and not only smartest people,
but his work ethic probablycompetes with anybody I've ever
met Like he, this man, he justis any.
So when I was originallyworking with him building apps
Hryder, bitfreter I would callhim randomly and he would always

(29:30):
answer and like we'd just talkabout whatever the problem was,
whatever the feature was that wewere building, and then we went
on to build other integrations,a bunch of different things
that I threw at him, and he wasalways able to really turn it
around and and provide whateverit is that I threw at him and he
was always able to really turnit around and provide whatever
it is that I was trying toaccomplish from a technology

(29:51):
perspective.
And so I pitched him on theidea.
And software engineers, by theway, get a ton of pitches like,
hey, you know, some randomperson calls you up and said I
have this idea for an app or Ihave this idea for the software.
You know it happens every day.
And, um, it happens to him alot.
He had like 20 years ofexperience, uh, prior to

(30:12):
starting Bitfreighter in thetechnology space building, um,
building software for many verylarge companies.
And uh, he said, let me thinkabout it.
And like the next day he calledme back and he said well, this
is perfect timing because I'm Igot a side hustle and it's kind
of rolling down and I can pickthis up for a few months and see

(30:36):
how it goes.
It was basically our little petproject for eight months to see
if we could make it happen.
And I kind of gave him thethesis on how much people were
spending, what was EDI, how ithelped people, and so we got to
work on it early in 2020 andspent nine months building the

(30:56):
original platform.
The MVP I heard in your previousshow talking about the airplane
, getting the airplane ready totake off.
So, uh, we um built theairplane in about nine months,
um, and in December of December15th of 2020, went live with

(31:20):
just a backend product, uh, forthat brokerage and, anyways, we,
it was working, it worked greatand we landed our first
commercial client in May of 21.
So that continued to work onthe product and everything was
bootstrapped.
It still is.
We have no institutional moneybehind Bitfreighter.

(31:42):
I focused on landing customers,not getting VC money.
So that's what we've done andit worked out really well.
But, yeah, I mean, it reallystarted with the idea of helping
other brokerages that were inthe same place.

(32:05):
I was in and you know we, whenwe went and turned on the
marketing, it was amazing to seehow many people were willing to
just take a flyer and sign upand hear what we were doing and
the the mission really resonatedwith a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Yeah, I mean it's resonating with me right now.
I don't know a ton about yourbusiness, but I'm getting a
little excited because I justlike the idea.
The bootstrap idea I love.
And when you pair it with thiskind of buy brokers for brokers
I was a freight broker I saw aproblem.
I was frustrated by the problem, so I tried to figure out how

(32:46):
to solve the problem and insolving the problem I saw a way
to that I could help a lot ofother people along the way,
because EDI is something thatwas always like this necessary
evil.
There's no doubt, as you know,molo was a heavy enterprise
business.
Over 50% of our business wasenterprise and if you're not set
up with EDI, you are wasting somuch time and money manually

(33:09):
building orders, missing orders,that you forget to build or
double build.
The things that you said wereproblems that we ran into on a
very regular basis.
But then there was the idea.
I mean we used Kleinschmidt fora while and we had him at
Coyote and I always was like,what's the deal?
They can just charge uswhatever they want.
And people like, well, yeah,they kind of just own the market

(33:30):
.
And it's like, well, why?

Speaker 1 (33:35):
that was just kind of the frustrating.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
It's like we're going to charge you x per character
and it's you know, you just dealwith it, and in some cases
that's hundreds of thousands oreven potentially a seven figure
number if you're doing enoughbusiness that you're spending
just to get the information.
So I'm picking up what you'reputting down and I guess, my
first question I've got a numberof them now that we've been

(33:58):
talking here, but let's startwith what are both the
challenges and benefits of goingthe route you did, of being
bootstrapped from day one, andyou know, just start there.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
That's a great question because it's really
hard.
We just got to profitabilitylast month, which is, you know,
four and a half years, and whatI mean by that is we are now
profitable through oursubscriptions and a lot of tech
companies can't say that we hadthis vision of getting there.

(34:36):
And it was really hard and wehad to make a lot of sacrifices.
Every single personBitfreighter we like to say that
Bitfreighters are bit baby andeverybody's, you know, taking
care of the bit baby.
So everybody that's atBitfreighter is very invested

(34:57):
and you know everybody's madesacrifices to come and help us
build Bitfreighter.
But also, I think you know wehave a lot of, I would say,
bitfreighter.
But also um, I think you knowwe have a lot of uh, I would say
, bitfreighter customerambassadors that really believe
in what we're doing.
So, instead of um taking onmoney and um, you know, going

(35:20):
really fast, in the beginning ittook us.
It was more about being patientand getting there a little bit
slower.
Most tech companies want toblow up in overnight you know,
18 months, and it's taken usfour and a half years to get to
a very, very strong spot as acompany, and you know it's.

(35:43):
You know a lot of companies.
Switching EDI over to a startupis scary because we are, and
it's funny because EDI is likethe last thing anybody wants to
talk about, but it's the firstthing that you're going to bring
up if it's broken, and it isthe thing that is the connective

(36:03):
tissue to you and your customer, and so it better work and it
better not go down.
And we understand how importantwe are to our customers'
business and so, yeah, I mean wewent slow, like the first year

(36:24):
we only landed seven customers.
But as we continue to pick upsteam, as people started to
understand where our focus wasand our mission and who we were
as a company, we've reallystarted to start to own the
integration market and we'vegrown into a full-service

(36:45):
connectivity platform betweenlogistics companies and shippers
.
And it's not just edi and edi,by the way, is not dead and it's
not going away and it'stransforming.
It's, it's a construct, it's,it's something that, um, we will
always rely on as the format toexchange messages.

(37:07):
But Bitfreighter, by the way,has started the first open API
EDI standard and we have a lotof commercial TMSs that have
picked us because of our openAPI standard.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
So we've actually we're no longer transmitting EDI
through SFTP and AS2connectivity, where I appreciate
you smiling because you arerecognizing that you're talking
to an audience of people wholargely don't understand this
stuff the way that you do, whichmeans it's my job to stop you
and say, hey, it's not a problemto get in the weeds, it's okay

(37:44):
to be in the weeds.
It's just important that weclear the weeds a little bit and
explain.
So let's start with just youmade a comment that EDI is not
dead, it's not going anywhere,and that is something that if
someone understands EDI and theframework for a lot of the
conversation around it, maybethey understand why you'd say
that.
But talk a little bit aboutwhat you mean by that and talk a

(38:05):
little bit about the differencebetween EDI and API and why
this is even a conversation thatpeople are having.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
Yeah.
So I mean, edi can befrustrating because it's it can
be finicky and there's it seemsto be like always something that
you have to fix.
But the nice thing about EDI isthat it's a standard, it's a
state.
I mean, for the most part it'sa standard format that everybody
can rely on to exchangemessaging, from your load tender

(38:34):
to your status updates, to yourtracking and then to your
invoicing.
It's a really nice constructthat we've built into an API
documentation that allows formodern TMSs to integrate with us
and not have to create thestandard.

(38:54):
We've created the messagingstandard on both sides the
broker side and the shipper side, so we have an open API for
both sides to use Bitfreighteras the middleware to exchange
the messages.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
And if you didn't do that, what would be the problem
for shippers and brokers Like?
Help me understand that.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
The problem with API and all right, I'm a freight guy
and I've learned all of thetech stuff from Brandon and all
the folks that I work with.
So if you're a tech personlistening to this, all the folks
that I work with so if you're atech person listening to this,
you know and I've screwed thisup.

(39:33):
I'm sorry, I'm trying to, youknow.
Hopefully I'm still speaking inlayman's terms, hearing how it
works.
But basically, from what I'veunderstood is APIs can be
created by anyone with anystandard, and so when you go to
integrate with it, it's whateverstandard that TMS has created,
and the thing that we offer iswe've offered a very well

(39:58):
documented EDI standard fortransportation that allows
people to stand that up veryfast, because one of the hardest
parts about engineering isunderstanding what to do.
It's not actually engineeringthe problem, it's actually
understanding how to do it, andso we already have all the
documentation.

(40:19):
That's done and it's proven andit works really well.
So that's really the advantageof using our open APIs, really
well.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
So that's really the advantage of using our open APIs
.
So you've set it up in a waywhere any shipper that comes to
the table or any broker thatcomes to the table knows, kind
of, I don't know why I'm using atable.
Let's say we're eating dinner.
They know what fork and knifeto use.
It's not like the food is satdown.
This analogy probably doesn'tmake sense, but you've set it up

(40:48):
in a way that both sides canmore easily talk to one another
or enjoy their meal togetherwithout needing Google
translator to.
You know, help them in between,or you are the kind of the
Google translator that's makingthings more clear for them.

Speaker 3 (41:06):
Exactly, and it reduces the time that it takes
to engineer the integration,because there's a lot of money
involved.
When you're talking about APIintegrations, because you have
to have an, you know you have tohave a software engineer to do
that work, and so if you'regoing to have an engineer do
that work, you'd rather havethem do the work on something
that's already proven out.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Yeah, I mean that seems to be a big challenge that
is coming up for a lot of thetech vendors in the space, as
you see, you know, especiallywith the age of AI coming into
the fold, it's like there aregoing to be more and more of
these startups who want toparticipate in this space, more
and more of these startups whowant to participate in this

(41:49):
space, and there's a cost todoing so, and there's a cost to
integration that it needs to beworth it.
And so what I've seen is abroker might want something.
They might want their techvendor that they're interested
in to be integrated into the TMS, but if the TMS has to spend
money to do that, they might sayno and they might be like
you're the only broker who wantsthis.

(42:11):
Why would we spend hundreds ofthousands or however many
dollars to make that connectionhappen when we've got a thousand
brokers on our platform andyou're the only one looking at
this?
We need to use something thateverybody else is using.
Is that kind of-?

Speaker 3 (42:25):
Yeah, and that's always a concern.
You want to make sure that,wherever you're focusing your
energy as an engineering team,you're doing that.
If you're building a platformlike a TMS, one of the first
questions is how many peoplewill this affect?
Or what is the ROI when you'rebuilding a feature or a platform

(42:46):
or an integration, and that'sthe first thing that a lot of
people look at when they'relooking to do those types of
integrations.
And so when you chooseBitfreighter, there's a huge
network behind us that comeswith that.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
So have you become?
I guess how many competitorsare there in the EDI space?
You mentioned there was kind ofthis monopoly, and then you
learned there were some others.
I was not super familiar withthe others that were available,
but I do know there are some.
Now what does the competitivelandscape look like?

Speaker 3 (43:33):
like.
So we are focused on the fullautomation lifecycle of a load,
meaning between a logisticscompany and a shipper.
So what we're doing is fromquoting all the way to invoicing
quoting, tendering, trackingand updates and invoicing.
That's really where our focusis.
So, as an EDI company, we havecompetitors.
On the EDI side, I'd saythere's like three main

(43:53):
competitors, and then on ourquoting side, there's two main
competitors, but there's onlyone platform that does all all
of the um four components that Italked about, which is quoting,
um tendering, updates andinvoicing, and that's
Bitfreighter.
So I think that's our bigcompetitive advantage.

(44:14):
Uh, when we look at like what,where we're focused is like
we're really focused in on theintegrations between a logistics
company and a shipper and allof those are intertwined.
There's a synergy betweenquoting and tendering.
You have to quote the load toget the load, and we've seen a
very big national shipper thatis using EDI to quote freight.

(44:38):
Two years ago I heard aboutthis and I laughed about it
because I said, well, that willgo away.
No, because I said, well, thatwill go away.
No, they've just dug in deeper.
So we are the only platformthat's positioned to do that
really well Because we have ourlive quote product that we can
route our EDI, essentiallytender the 204s that come in

(45:00):
that ask for a quote, route itto our live quote automated
quoting product and then sendback out a 990, which is how
they're sending out the quotes,which is an acceptance.
But on that 990, it's actuallyjust a quote.
So we obviously didn't plan todo that, it just happened and it
kind of fell into our lap thatwe are very well positioned to

(45:24):
do anything to do with EDI orAPI or quoting and the
integrations between logistics,logistics companies and shippers
.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
So that's a really interesting point and when I
kind of imagine how all of thiscomes together.
You know, we just talked aboutthe challenges of integrating
with a TMS provider whether it'syour own TMS or the TMS of the
shipper, whatever it may be andhow it's not easy to get, as a

(45:57):
vendor, to get approved to beintegrated.
So, keeping that in mind, asidefrom that, we were talking
about how your businessinitially was focused on just
the initial EDI functions and itsounds like over the last two
years you've embedded thequoting aspect to it as well.

(46:18):
I mean, I think that's justreally an interesting thing to
think about is, if I know that Imaybe if I'm a vendor or if I'm
a broker and I want to pick avendor and I don't know
necessarily who's going to beapproved to integrate with which
companies you theoreticallywant to limit the number of
vendors you're having to partnerwith to reduce that risk, and

(46:43):
having a company like yours thatcan do all of the things you
need the full life cycle of theload I think that's an
interesting advantage youprobably have in the market.
Is that how that's played outfor you?

Speaker 3 (46:56):
Yeah Well, user adoption is a real thing,
getting people to use technology.
It's not easy, and so, if youcan limit the amount of
different places that yourpeople have to go log in to go
work in a platform and you pointthem to Bitfreighter because we
allow them to do the entireconnectivity with their shippers

(47:18):
, um, it's also, um, the singlepoint of truth for any problems
that might be happening, thatthey're limiting the amount of
places where they have to gofind and be able to check out
the errors that are happening.
I don't know why I couldn'tthink of that.
The thing is that if you have ateam that's working in a

(47:42):
platform, you want to be able toquickly diagnose problems, and
I mean with any tech, there aregoing to be errors that you have
to solve, and having to go tomultiple different places can be
challenging.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
Yeah, I mean to me this is where my brain is just
going back to the idea that I'vealways thought that some of the
biggest challenges some of thedigital freight matchers had was
their companies were largelyrun by tech people and decisions
were made by tech people notnecessarily freight people who
understood where all the bodiestypically need to be or are

(48:20):
buried in a freight brokerage orin a freight execution.
And by bodies buried I just meanwhere the problems continually
come up, or where, if you createa tech solution, there will be
problems that will come upBecause ultimately, I think a
lot of these companies weren'tas successful as they could have
been because they didn'tunderstand the importance of

(48:40):
accountability end to end andthey built innovative technology
that shippers liked for certainfunctions of the business, but
when they couldn't execute andbe accountable end-to-end, they
couldn't grow with customers ina profitable way.
And so I naturally get inclinedto I don't know support or like

(49:00):
companies that are in any partof our space, that are run by
people who have moved loadsbefore, who understand the
challenges and nuance thatexists in building a brokerage
and executing within a brokerage.
So my point in saying all thisis like, as a tech company,
building a tech solution, havingpeople who have actually done

(49:22):
the job being the ones makingdecisions.
Yeah, it might mean that you'renot as nuanced on talking about
the technology at the deepestlevels, but it means, if you
have the right partnerssupporting you, who can do that
and know how to build that, butyou're there to be like, wait a
second.
These are important errors weneed to be able to solve quickly

(49:43):
because, if not, our customersare going to fail and if our
customers fail, we won't havecustomers or they won't come
back to us.
They'll go to other providers.
I mean my guess and I don'tknow this but what percent of
your customers have left overthe time to use other platforms
versus sticking with yours?

Speaker 3 (50:02):
Yeah, that's a.
That's a cool stat.
We have less than 1% churn overfour and a half years.
That's not a problem we haveTypically.
Once you pick Bitfreighter,you're really happy with the
platform.
I think the churn that we'vehad is people losing business
with their shippers.
It hasn't been from a serviceor a platform perspective.

(50:24):
But there's two thoughts I haveabout founders of freight tech
companies that are buildingfreight tech that haven't done
the job.
If they go sit with theircustomers and learn the business
, they can build freight tech,there's no doubt.
But they have to go spend thattime.

(50:45):
There's time and energy.
You have to trade that timethat you would be building the
company to go learn how to solvethe problem.
There were nights where I wassitting in bed at 10, 11 o'clock
at night.
My wife's like it's time to goto bed.
I'm like I got to cover thisload.
I've been there, I've lived it.

(51:07):
I know what it's like to missfreight, have to call the
shipper the next day and tellthem you'll get a truck on it,
and those things happen.
So my heart is with ourcompanies, our customers, the
people that, and that's why Ithink that's really where it
resonates with a lot of thepeople that we're helping in
this space is you know what are.

(51:30):
It goes back to our mission andalso, I think all of the
business people at Bitfreighterhave a freight background.
They've either worked at abrokerage, worked at a shipper.
So our business people arecustomer solutions managers, our
sales people, our accountexecutives.
They all have empathy for thepeople that are working with

(51:51):
their customers and understandwhat it's like to move freight,
and I think that's a big part ofwho we are as a company is.
We're really focused in onhelping people and I think
that's a common theme atBitfreighter.
You ask for help and there'slike five people raising their
hand, jumping in to solve aproblem.

(52:12):
So it's really cool.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
So two thoughts.
One is I appreciate you callingout the first thing you said,
which you know.
My point about founders of techcompanies being freight people
was not meant to say thatcompanies that tech companies
led by non-freight founders aredoomed to fail, because I've
interviewed some of them andthey have great businesses and
they're doing well.
I just more meant to saythere's more risk and it's

(52:41):
easier to feel confident in asolution when you know that the
person sitting across the tablehas done the very job that
you're trying to do.
But I do appreciate you callingthat up.
The second thing I want to speakto is culture, and I say it
only because what you justdescribed of having a team of
people who, when someone needshelp, five people are going to

(53:01):
raise their hand you're definingculture.
So talk to me about what theBitfreighter company culture
looks like.
What are the things that youfeel you as a leader have done
to define that culture by designand what are the things that
maybe just happened as a resultof osmosis and the way the team
worked?

Speaker 3 (53:22):
Yeah, well, you know, big props to my co-founder,
brandon.
He's one of the best in thebusiness.
People love working with him.
He is a 10X engineer and if youknow what that means, like that
, not every engineer can solveproblems as fast as he can or
just really think through things.
And I think culture reallystarts with, like and especially

(53:47):
, we're a hundred percent remote.
We have people in 10 States inEurope, um, in all the time
zones, so, um, it's uh, it canbe tough, but culture starts
with being intentional about, um, meeting with people and our
beliefs from the top down andreally doing right by people and

(54:07):
and empowering people andgiving them the ownership that
people want to do their jobs.
And I think that's like thecore belief.
If you hire somebody, you needto believe in them and what
they're capable of doing, and Ithink that's a big part of our
Bitfreder culture being 100%remote.

(54:29):
You have to trust people.
You have to trust that they'redoing what they say they're
going to do and they have totrust us.
And that's why, at the core ofone of our core values is trust,
and I know that sounds likeprobably everybody's core value,
but it really resonates with usbecause we are 100% remote.
It really resonates with usbecause we are 100% remote and

(54:52):
there's a lot of trust factor ina lot of companies that,
honestly, just don't believe inbeing 100% remote and, for
whatever reason, like it may notjust work for their business.
I know brokerage it's mucheasier to learn by sitting next
to somebody and listening tothem, book calls and just
feeling the culture in theoffice, but what we're doing it
allows us to have so much morecoverage across our business.

(55:16):
And also, I think one of thebiggest parts of our culture is
picking the best people for thejob, because we're not limited
or handcuffed to a certain city.
We've been able to pick some ofthe best people I've ever
worked with, some of thesmartest people I've ever worked
with, and we allow them to godo their thing and that's a big

(55:40):
part of who we are atBitfreighter and I think, um,
you know, uh, we've built in aphenomenal team and all our
entire team has come from within.
Everybody has come from the.
It like stem from the brad andbrandon bubble of people that
we've known and that's reallyhow our team has grown and, uh,

(56:01):
I'm really proud of that likebeing able to, just from our own
network grow Bitfreighter.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
Okay, so the remote thing scares me.
So I'm someone who was so proremote early and for me, my
perspective had been that theteam had quote and Vogel gives
me crap for saying this he saystoo often but that my
perspective was.
You know, initially we were allforced into a remote

(56:30):
environment, right, and youdidn't really have a choice.
March of 2020, everyone had togo home.
You couldn't stay in youroffice.
As a very heavy food andbeverage and retail heavy
brokerage on the enterprise side, we saw a massive bump the
first few months and the panicbuying.
We saw our volumes nearlydouble across the board, with

(56:52):
the same amount of people andeveryone working remote.
Our team executed and theyexecuted phenomenally well.
I then had the idea in my mindthat our team had earned the
right to stay remote and if thatwas the preference of people,
they had the right to continueto do that because at our most
trying time, when it was mostdifficult, in the most

(57:16):
unfamiliar new environment, ourteam showed up and executed.
So who was I to say you had tocome back and be in office.
That was my thought.
That thought has changed and thereason my thought on that has
changed is because over time.
You have to keep hiring newpeople and some people leave.
You have turnover.
That's just natural inbrokerage and it is way harder

(57:39):
to build culture, I think,remotely than it is to maintain
it.
Maybe this is mostly true inbrokerage and not so much in a
tech space, but I still thinkit's really hard.
And what ends up happening isyour culture gets changed if
you're not intentional enough.
When you're mostly remote,things just aren't the same when

(58:00):
, all of a sudden, a team ofwhat was initially a team of 300
people that had all startedtogether in an office becomes a
team of 600 people, 300 of whichhave never met the other 300
because it's all remote.
That's a different business.
And the things that you learnosmotically if that's a word but
the things you learn throughosmosis of sitting next to

(58:22):
someone and seeing what's goodand what's bad and being able to
catch people not catch people,but like hearing when someone's
doing something they shouldn'tand correcting it on the spot
that goes away in a remoteenvironment, and so I don't
think I would ever build anotherbusiness and offer the level of
remote that I did the firsttime around.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
I think it depends on the business right, like
brokerage.
I a hundred percent agree withyou.
Um, I don't know if I, uh, I Iwould do, if you know, our, our
remote culture gives us so muchflexibility.
And, um, you know, I talkedabout we.

(59:00):
One of the the things that wewanted to do this year was have
four meetups, um, and I thinkthose meetups are interesting
because when we see each other,it's so much different than
seeing, like working together ona daily basis.
It's it's almost like a party,like we're so excited to see
each other because we never getto see each other.
So it's like it's a wholedifferent look and feeling when

(59:22):
we have these meetups.
But, yeah, I think you know youhave to be intentional.
You have to make sure thatyou're doing the right things
every single day.
Having meetings you know themeetings are.
You know I spend a lot of timecalling people on my cell phone,
calling randomly calling people.
I have a one of our, the firstengineer that worked with us.

(59:44):
He likes to give me crap aboutcold calling him Like dude, I'm
not cold calling you Because youjust call him out of the blue.
Yeah, I'll just call him.
And he's gotten used to it.
Like four years after work, I'ma caller, I like to talk to
people.
So yeah, he's gotten used to it.
But in the beginning he's likecan you give me a heads up?

(01:00:04):
No, I can't, I'm going to callyou and be ready.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
So what do you when you call him?
You just want to chat, or it'sbecause you're thinking about an
idea like help me, you know,for the audience that's curious
about this.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
Yeah, uh.
So when I'm calling him whathe's, he was our first engineer
building our live quote product.
So a lot of times we were justtalking about product ideas Um,
maybe I had a question about it,but just random stuff that, uh,
I I'd rather just talk it outand over the phone or on a slack
message than rather than, uh,you know, going back and forth

(01:00:38):
over uh text.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
so and you mentioned the live quote product a number
of times.
We didn't get into that enough.
I don't think um, is that, isthat essentially a product that
allows for, you know, in the ageof api, automated or dynamic
pricing tools like that's whatthat is yeah, so we were.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
So we were approached really early on by a very large
shipper, tms, that was ended upbeing acquired um in 2022, um
or in 20, uh, the years arestarting to run together, but I
think it was 21.
Uh, we got to work on it in 22.
So what we?
What we did, what they asked usto roll out their, their

(01:01:23):
real-time rating API, Um, and sowe ended up made sense to us,
um, because it really synergizedwith our EDI product.
You have to quote the load toget the load.
So we have built a rules enginethat allows customers to build
out whatever is in their headfrom a quoting perspective into

(01:01:48):
a rules engine per shipper, andso we have 20 plus APIs.
We have an open API forshippers and an open API for
pricing engines so that anybodycan integrate with us.
And we have many shippers nowactually writing to our open API
for quoting, so that we'retalking to a Fortune 100 shipper

(01:02:10):
right now that wants to moveall of their logistics companies
over.
Can't talk about who it isquite yet, but it's a.
It's a big deal for us becauseour open APIs, our integrations,
make it really seamless for P,for shippers and brokers to work
together from a quotingperspective.
And then we also have the toolitself that allows brokers to

(01:02:33):
set up all of the possibilities,all those conditions that you
would think about when you'retrying to price a load or quote
a load.
And we spent months talkingabout all the ways that I used
to quote freight and designingthis product as the MVP.
Now it's a.

(01:02:53):
You know, looking back over thelast two and a half years
building this live quote tool,it's, it's completely
transformed into this beautifulthing that I never really even
envisioned it being.
But you know, part of it isthat we've really listened to
our customers and allowed ourcustomers to build it for what
they want.
I knew what I wanted, butreally it came down to what our

(01:03:16):
customers wanted.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Okay, I mean you're speaking my language Just in
those last few comments aroundallowing a product.
So I've never built a productthe way that you're talking
about as a brokerage.
You're not building a productin that sense, but you are
crafting solutions, and what Imean by that is you have to

(01:03:40):
design your playbook, how youoperate, what role each person
on the team is going to do youcraft that.
That's kind of the secret sauceto an extent within a brokerage
.
Am I going to have one persondo quoting for a customer and
another person do the customerservice, or is one person going
to handle everything for acustomer?

(01:04:01):
Everybody can do that a littlebit differently, and ultimately,
my perspective always was letme understand what the customer
thinks and then get back to myteam on how we should design
something as a result of whatthe customer thinks.
So that is, in my opinion, thebest way to think about building
anything, and so I credit youfor that last comment about like

(01:04:23):
you started with how youthought it should be, which is
fair as a starting point, butyou ended with, ultimately, what
your customers needed andwanted within their business,
because that's what's going todrive if customers are going to
keep coming on and using it.
So what I'm curious, though, isyou've mentioned spending two

(01:04:44):
and a half years building this.
Now I'm thinking again aboutbeing a bootstrapped company,
versus raising a bunch ofcapital and going and building
10 things at once, or buildingone thing really quickly Now
that your company is kind offour years in, you just reached
profitability, whichcongratulations.
By the way, I didn't get achance to congratulate you on

(01:05:05):
that comment.
You said a lot after it, so Ikind of forgot, but that is
quite a feat for a tech vendorin our space to be profitable.
It's not often the case.
How do you think about thefuture now?
Does it make sense to go raisesome capital and build more
faster?
Do you feel like you've gotthis product, this end-to-end

(01:05:27):
solution that's fully baked andnow it's just about getting it
in front of the right customers?
Or is there more to build thatyou have on your roadmap now?
Talk to me about how you thinkabout all of that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:41):
Yeah, great question.
I mean, obviously, having moremoney in the bank would help us
build it faster, hire moreengineers, but it also, being
strategic, it makes companies bemore focused on what they can
actually accomplish rather thangetting too far out in front of

(01:06:03):
their skis.
And when you take on money,there's always day zero and you
better know what that day is.
So I think we found that oursecret sauce is really focused

(01:06:24):
on partnering with customers tocontinue to build out the
product and build it out the waythey want it.
You know, there's a fine linebetween building a bunch of
features for random customersand then aggregating that across
all of our customers and makingsure that we're building
features that everybody wants.
But ensuring that you know wecan grow and we can have the

(01:06:47):
runway to continue to enhancethe products is obviously
something that we've thoughtabout.
And now that we're atprofitability like what is next
steps look like and I think youknow, partnering with the right
financial institutions and I'mnot saying VCs or financial

(01:07:09):
money, I'm just talking aboutfinancially like making sure
that we have the right banks orthe right people to continue to
fund Bitfreighter for theforeseeable future is definitely
part of the conversation.
But I think that where we're attoday, we're quickly gaining
ground in the top 100.
I was just looking at it.

(01:07:30):
I think we have 15 of the top100s.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
On the broker side or shipper.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
Broker side, okay, between EDI and live quote, and
I think we're seeing a lot moreof the top 100 starting to take
a look at our products and, umyou know, making plans for the
uh as the market flips because,honestly, it's hard to sell a

(01:07:57):
live uh, a spot freight tool uhwhen there's no spot when
there's no spot freight, whenthat 98 of the freight's being
accepted.
So, uh, I think people arestarting to really look at it
and prepare for 2025.
And we're really starting tosee a lot of customers starting,

(01:08:18):
or a lot of people that we'vebeen talking to over the last
six to 12 months, starting tosign up and dip their toes into
what this means for theirbusiness.
So I think we've you know,timing is everything, but I
think we're ready for a lot ofthese companies to come on board
to really start seeing the fullpower of spot freight

(01:08:41):
automation.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
I appreciate that, despite the horrible interview
tactic I just deployed of askingthree very kind of different
questions at the same time,which is not how you're supposed
to interview someone.
You're supposed to ask aquestion, let them answer and
then you can ask the next one.
And I asked you three.
I appreciate that you were ableto actually answer all three at
once, thank you.
So my understanding it soundslike what you're saying is, for

(01:09:05):
one like, you appreciate thedisciplinary approach, the
disciplined approach you've beenable to take as the more
bootstrap nature, and that ifyou find the right money to put
into the business that takes youfurther, you would consider it.
But you're not just going to goout and raise a bunch of money
out of fear that it might leadto a less disciplined approach.

(01:09:26):
Um, and then you basicallyyou're starting to finally reap
the rewards of the work yourteam has done over the last four
years.
In terms of customers, theright brokers are seeing this as
a potential solution that makessense for them.
So you're getting more of thoseconversations started and it's
just a matter of getting infront of more of them to get

(01:09:47):
this product in front of them.
And then I guess the nextquestion I would ask is like you
said, you've gotten kind of thefull life cycle of the load
with respect to EDI API in termsof a solution.
What is next?
What is the next kind of bigthing that you're thinking about
?
That maybe you're not buildingit today, but you're thinking

(01:10:08):
about that makes sense to buildwithin your business?

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
I think we sit on top of a lot of data that our
customers want and we have somereporting that we've started to
roll out, but I thinkBitfreighter insights from an AI
perspective would help.
We want to empower our customersto not be reactive but

(01:10:32):
proactive with how they buildrelationships with their
shippers and, to be honest, likewe have all the data that their
shippers are scorecarding themon and there's some really cool
things that we're talking aboutdoing from not just being like
an integration platform thatjust sends messages back and
forth, but like how do we takewhat we've built and give our

(01:10:55):
customers more tools to see howthey're actually doing, what
they're actually transmitting,so that they can be proactive in
their approach and having theright conversations with their
shippers, rather than getting ascorecard quarterly that says
that your on-time percentagesare low and that you need to go
fix it.

(01:11:16):
So, from that perspective,that's one thing that we're
talking about.
But on the live quote side,we're also talking about more
quoting insights, more abilityto see how the market's doing so
that they can see to makebetter decisions, to make better
quoting decisions.
So really giving them insightsinto their own data is really

(01:11:37):
what we're trying to accomplish,and I think that will empower
our customers to do more withour product.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
I appreciate you sharing that.
I think that makes sense as akind of evolutionary next step
for you in the business.
I want to just quick pivotbefore we close here to talk
about your own kind ofleadership journey.
You were a guy who grew up infreight brokerage from
bartending to being a carrierrep, to a sales rep, to GMing a

(01:12:10):
few regions to eventuallyhelping lead another brokerage.
Now you've been a CEO for fouryears.
Like what have you learnedthrough building a business from
scratch as the CEO face of thebusiness?
What are the lessons that otherpeople who want to start
businesses can take from yourown?

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
experience.

Speaker 3 (01:12:33):
Well, look, it's not easy, um, being a face of an
organization.
Um, it's very uncomfortable forme, to be honest, um, I uh it's
it's not easy to come on thispodcast and talk about myself or
bit freighter or any of this.
So, um, those are things thatI've had to grow into.
Um, I'm I'm lucky that atCalvary we, as all the managers,

(01:12:57):
had to get up and like givespeeches and public speak and
that was all.
These are things that I wasvery uncomfortable with doing.
So, um, but I'm also umsomething that you know I don't
talk about very often, but um, Ispent all of my youth in scouts
and ultimately became an Eaglescout, and I I really rely on

(01:13:18):
and I know scouting has likekind of a bad look these days
but um, and I really rely a loton what I learned through my
leadership and I spent fouryears on staff at a scout camp
in college, like giving back tothe scouts and um, you know,
just learning how to lead peoplein scouts and um, I really rely

(01:13:40):
on a lot of that.
Um, you know, learnings in myyouth and um, you know, being
the CEO of Bitfreighter meansthat I've gotten to surround
myself with some of the bestpeople, and I think that's
ultimately what you need to doas a leader is pick the best
people to be on your leadershipteam, and I couldn't be more

(01:14:04):
proud of the people that havechosen to come work with us and
help us build Bitfreighter,because every decision made at
Bitfreighter is a unanimousdecision.
Even though I'm the CEO, Idon't make any decisions.
Our team makes the decisions,and I think that's a big part of
who we are as a company andgetting the buy-in in order to

(01:14:25):
continue to move the needleforward.
So, yeah, I mean, it's not easybeing the face, and you know I
embrace it, and that's why Icame on here today.
I wanted to talk aboutBitfreighter.
I was excited about it, aboutcoming on here, and, before we
conclude, I did have a questionfor you what would you say the

(01:14:48):
common theme across all of thepeople?
I think I'm like number 47 or48 that you've interviewed or,
you know, had on the on thefreight pod what's like the
common theme of all thesesuccessful people, um, and their
like their success, or thecommon theme behind their
success that you've heard acrossall the people that you've

(01:15:10):
interviewed?

Speaker 2 (01:15:21):
Drive.
I think it's drive.
I think it's like seeingsomething and wanting to create
it and wanting to, like, puteverything you have into it.
Like most of the people whoI've interviewed were founders,
and like the idea of creatingsomething from nothing is not
easy and there's got to be thislevel of discomfort you're
comfortable with or pushyourself through, and it takes
drive to do it.

(01:15:41):
I can tell you're not a naturalpublic speaker.
I don't mean that as an insultwhatsoever, but one of the
things that I appreciate aboutyou and I don't know you very
well, but I know you well enoughthrough going to your golf
outing this past year and what Isaw when you invited me to go

(01:16:02):
to your dinner the night before,where some of your customers
were, and you stood up and spokein front of everyone and I
remember thinking to myself thisguy's not the best public
speaker I've seen, but man doeshe lean into how much he cares?
And when you lean into how muchyou care and you put that on,
you wear it on your sleeve likethat.
It's such a naturallygravitating thing.

(01:16:25):
People want to work withfounders and CEOs who care more
than and and will put everythingthey have into something into
building something great, andit's clear how much you care
about your team.
It's clear how much you careabout the product you're making
and how much you care about thethe customers that you're
serving.
I mean, it's like you might notbe the most polished speaker,

(01:16:49):
but I bet you're prettyeffective because the way in
which you do it so, um, yeah, Imean that that's my takeaway
from you know, the limited timeI've spent with you and I
appreciate you saying what youdid around like not being super
comfortable as the face, um, butlike having the drive to kind
of push through discomfort isthe essence of building any

(01:17:11):
business, you know, and for me,as I think about my own journey,
it's like this podcast was.
I mean, I'm comfortable talking, I'm comfortable being a face.
I got a big freaking ego.
I like I enjoy it and it'ssomething I'm working on the ego
part, but I do enjoy like beingin a conversation like this and
putting myself out there likethat.

(01:17:31):
But for me, like starting thepodcast took so long and it took
so long because I was notwilling to push through the
discomfort.
I just like sat with it for along time and was like I don't
know if I want to do it, likewill it be good or will I make a
fool of myself, do threeepisodes and then quit?
Like the nature of building abusiness successfully is

(01:17:52):
understanding that you'restarting something that doesn't
exist today.
And once you do, there aregoing to be a lot of mistakes
you make along the way, andthose mistakes often feel like
failure.
And if you let the failureconsume you, it's really hard to
push through.
You have to let the failurekind of wipe off your back or
whatever like slide off yourshoulder.

(01:18:13):
I don't know what the hell thesaying is I'm trying to say, but
like you have to be able tojust let it go and move on to
the next thing.
I've spent now the last fewmonths for my own kind of, as
I've looked at this podcast,thinking how do I make it bigger
, how do I go beyond what I'mdoing today?
How do I get a bigger reach?
How do I impact more people?
How do I create more value forpeople?

(01:18:33):
And I think it's not throughthe podcast, I think it's
through an extension with anewsletter slash website concept
that I've been toying with.
And, frankly, you and I arehaving this conversation in the
few days that have followed theTrucker Tools DAT acquisition.
It won't release until three orfour weeks from now, but just

(01:18:57):
for the audience understandingof how I'm thinking about this
like watching the FreightWave'sresponse to the DAT acquisition
and how they kind of shredded ithas created some ideas in my
head for a business and for anopportunity I think there is to
create a community in adifferent way than I had been
thinking about before.

(01:19:17):
So I'm actually grateful tohave seen that play out the way
it did.
But like I've spent so muchtime sitting and deliberating on
how do I do more, how do I domore, how do I do more, and like
worried about if I try this itcould fail, if I try that it
might not not go well, and whatI'm learning is you just got to
push through.
You just got to make the effort, commit to it, see the results

(01:19:42):
and then iterate and changehowever your customers deem the
change should happen.
So my goal in creating thispodcast was to create value for
the key stakeholders in ourindustry, which are people like
yourself, your employees, yourcustomers, the brokers, the
shippers, the carriers out there.

(01:20:04):
I wanted to create some levelof value for them, leverage my
network, to bring people likeyourself on here and share your
stories, to help uplift them,uplift your business and also
give people ideas on how theycan themselves create businesses
or how they can see.
This is why I ask you what arethe lessons you've learned?
I may be rambling here, but I'mseeing that the successful

(01:20:32):
people who I've had on the show,once they commit to something,
they go all in and it's theirdrive that, I think, takes them
from A to B to C to eventually,a successful product.
And it's their drive thatprevents them from quitting when
they screw it up or when theircustomers say this was a mistake
and you need to try again.

(01:20:53):
So that's my answer.

Speaker 3 (01:20:57):
Well, I think, andrew , you have the golden touch here
with this podcast and I lovelistening.
I've listened to a lot of theepisodes not all of them, but
I've tried to.
There's some lengthy ones outthere them, but I've I've tried
to there there.
There's some lengthy ones outthere, but I'm trying to find
some time to to listen to a lotof them and and learn from

(01:21:18):
fellow peers and leadershiproles, I mean.
And then, of course, your timeat Molo and building such a fast
growing company and yourability to do that.
So you know I really appreciatewhat you're doing.
It's been uh an incredible, uhyou know time to get to, to talk
with you about Bitfreighter anduh, obviously really appreciate

(01:21:40):
you having me on.
I know you have a huge reachand a very big following with
your audience and and the peoplethat are listening.
So, um again, I reallyappreciate you having me on.
Thanks, man.

Speaker 2 (01:21:53):
If there's one thing I'll just add to that comment
around, these episodes can belengthy and I understand that,
and that's part of the nature oflong form is it gives the
opportunity to really get toknow and to dig deep and dive
into something.
But part of the solution I'mnow trying to create is how do I
provide value to people inshort form in a two minute

(01:22:15):
article or a two minute blog youknow like?
So that's the kind of evolutionor pivot that I'm thinking
about and hopefully by the timethis airs I think it'll be
earlier mid January, we willthere will be some news from the
FreightPod ecosystem of anevolution there.
So anyways, I appreciate youcoming on the show.

(01:22:38):
It's been great getting to knowyou a little bit more, getting
to know more about your business.
I'm hopeful that this helpsbring some new customers to the
table and to our listeners.
Hope you enjoyed the episodeand we'll see you next week.
Thanks for having me, thanks.