Ep. #59: Dan Manshaem, CEO & Founder of Ally Logistics

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(01:34):
Welcome back to another episodeof the Freight Pod.
I'm your host, andrew Silver,joined today by a special guest
per usual.
Mr Dan Mansheim, did I say yourlast name right?

Speaker 2 (01:45):
manshim, but um, I've been hearing it butchered for
many, many years, so you didpretty good at least dan is easy
dan manshim welcome, there wego hey, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
so dan is the ceo of ally logistics, um, a
fast-growing bootstrappedfreight brokerage, and I like
the idea of bootstrapped.
I think we're going to give ouraudience something they want to
hear today.
I think your story is just areally interesting one.
As far as I know, and you canconfirm this, you started as a

(02:19):
freight intern and worked yourway up and then eventually went
off to start your own business,and I think that is, in some
ways, kind of like the freightAmerican dream for all of the
brokers out there who currentlyare in a role whether sales,
account management, I don't know.
Many of them have thought Iwould love to run my own

(02:40):
brokerage today, and I'm hopefulthat, as we get into your story
, that maybe there are somenuggets for people who have
similar ambitions.
Um, but let's start with your.
Let's start with how you got ina freight to begin with.
So you started as an intern.
How did you even get into thebusiness?

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, I guess, um it.
Uh.
It was essentially I was acollege kid and I had to pay for
my own college and I was justlooking for a job.
I was going to school atWestern Michigan University,
tuition kept going up and so Isaw some posting this company
called Transcore come work witha bunch of young people, high

(03:21):
energy, fast pace.
I said what's it hurt to apply?
And then next thing, you know,I had a phone call and yeah, I
got.
I got hired as an intern,turned into kind of more, more
like a co-op, I think.
I ended up working there forabout a year and a half, two
years during school, just kindof scheduling around my courses

(03:43):
and just, yeah, learning fromthe ground up.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
For sure, so you kind of fell into it, like a lot of
us did.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
For sure I did not have dreams of becoming a
logistics broker or owning alogistics company, I guess, to
elaborate there, I was going toschool for finance.
I still thought stock brokerswere a thing and that was really
my dream.
I wanted to light the financeworld on fire and then graduated

(04:15):
it was actually summer of 2008.
So got what I thought was goingto be my dream job Edward Jones
Financial.
As Bear Stearns, lehmanBrothers are collapsing, I've
got these finance professorsthat are pulling their hair out
and they don't know how theworld's going to function.
And yeah, so it didn't take melong in that job to figure out.

(04:36):
Maybe I should try this freightbrokerage thing out a little
bit.
And I guess the other piecethere too, is you weren't really
a stockbroker, you were justkind of a walking billboard.
Is you weren't really astockbroker, you were just kind
of a walking billboard, so itdidn't really feel like you
could add value, whereas infreight you can feel the value
that you're adding on a dailybasis.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
And what about the job did you enjoy?
What were you good at that?
You were like, hey, I think Ican make a career out of this.
What were you good at?

Speaker 2 (05:04):
that you were like hey, I think I can make a career
out of this.
I think I'm just drawn tosolving problems, and this
industry just is chock full ofdifferent problems, of varying
complexity, but there's a lot ofreally complex problems and so,
yeah, I think that's kind ofaddicting for a lot of people.

(05:26):
Um, there's, there's the incomepotential.
Obviously that comes with themarket size of freight, Uh.
But yeah, I just think, uh, allday long I'm getting stimulated
by seeing problems that I thinkare solvable and I just can't
help myself but from trying tomake a dent wherever I can.

(05:49):
And at what point did you decideI want to start my own business
?
Yeah, so I think that was athought I kind of had, even
going back to high school.
Growing up I'd always startedthese little stupid businesses
that wouldn't do anything.
I think Beanie, baby Sales atone point was something we did
for about a month with a friend,but just had always been
entrepreneurial, just wasn'tsure what that business was

(06:12):
going to be.
Even during my time at myprevious employer, I helped
start an intermodal department,just because I had been dabbling
with sales a little bit and wecouldn't find competitive
intermodal rates.
And so next thing, you know,I'm setting up contracts with
the CSX and, uh, working with itwas called Streamline at the

(06:32):
time and, um, yeah, next thingyou know, we're, we're, we're
draining our own containers andwe're setting up trailer and
flat car, uh, for the truckingcompany that was attached to the
brokerage.
So I just tend to go down theserabbit holes and solve problems
and yeah.
So I guess back to the originalquestion.
Yeah, while I was working atthat brokerage I got really

(06:57):
curious on the technology side.
I've always kind of been techie, started dabbling with some
things, and my best friend fromhigh school decided he wanted to
start a business as well.
We tried a small business wherewe were buying and selling
store return TVs on the sidewhile I was working on the
brokerage.
We actually had warehouse space.
He built an inventorymanagement system for this

(07:19):
business.
I think we sold like $250,000worth of TVs in a summer.
But then we got to theaccounting part and we started
running the numbers and by thetime you added up the damaged
TVs and the returns and all therest of it, we just weren't
making money, and so that led touh, that was actually a tough
time, like seeing my first likereal business not turn out.

(07:42):
Um, but a couple months laterhe said, hey, I got this guy
from my work.
He always wears these bold,colorful socks into work.
Socks are the opposite of TVs.
They're small.
There's tons of SKUs.
Why don't we take the inventorymanagement system, take what we
learned and we'll start a sockcompany?
So that's what we did.

(08:04):
We started buying clearancesocks, listing them on this
website and, yeah, it took awhile to get some traction.
But a couple of years I thinkprobably a year and a half in,
we started seeing sales grow andwe went from $5,000 a month to
$10,000 a month to $15,000 amonth.
And then, finally, I was 26 andI said there's not going to be

(08:26):
a better time in my life to takea leap of faith.
I didn't have a girlfriend, Ididn't have kids, I didn't have
a lot of commitments, and soit's kind of the the origin
story of ally.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
And so the sock business and the TV business you
were running while stillworking at your old job.
So this was like kind of a sidehustle.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
This was a side hustle Plus.
I was trying to like teachmyself to code.
I was on lyndacom trying tolearn PHP, trying to learn Ruby
on Rails.
I have ADHD, I don't have theattention span, so I never
really got good at it.
But I think learning to codedoes teach you a certain way of
thinking about things.
So I think that's kind of beenthe benefit.

(09:08):
But but yeah, that was allstuff, just doing it on the
sidelines trying to figure outwhat the next pivot could be.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
I mean, I like the idea of just kind of throwing
yourself into something you know, especially while you have your
kind of main job that's payingthe bills, and then just
following the ambition towhether it's a sock company, a
TV company.
I'm curious if there were anylessons you could take away from
those experiences that youbrought with you into the ally
world.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah, I mean a ton of them.
Hard to know where to startthere.
But I think, just making acommitment, being willing to try
different things, I think whenI go into something new, if I go
into uncharted territory, Ialways think to myself worst
case, I'm probably going tolearn some really valuable stuff

(09:58):
, and so I think there's.
I guess the way I would sum itup is like really just this idea
of embracing failure as astepping stone to your eventual
success.
I know definitely my story hasbeen filled with a lot of those
smaller failures that just Ireally genuinely view as
building blocks, just becausethat's what's helped get me to

(10:19):
where I am.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
And when did you decide to start ally logistics
again?

Speaker 2 (10:26):
yeah, so that was october of 2012, uh, so I had a
roommate, uh, uh at the time,who worked in operations at the
same brokerage.
I had made my way into a salesrole.
The company was called uhtranscore.
Now they're called, they'recalled venture.
Um, so, convinced, convincedhim, I said this sock business
is starting to take off.

(10:47):
Let's take a leap of faith.
He was all in, so we both putin our notices.
I think the unique thing was weactually went and signed a lease
on an office for two years.
We found a small officebuilding.
We got our office space for Ithink it was 300 bucks a month
Initially.
It was ridiculously cheap.
It was some uh extra space inthe upstairs of uh, you had to

(11:09):
go through like an unfinishedstairwell, but um, but yeah, we
quit our jobs.
We joined a small agent, uhbrokerage.
Initially, cause, neither of ushad any capital.
Um, I say any capital.
We put 2,500 bucks into a bankaccount.
Um, I say any capital.
We put 2,500 bucks into a bankaccount.
We went on eBay, we went onAmazon.
We, I figured out where to buydesks and phones and um, yeah, I

(11:31):
mean, we, we just starteddialing for dollars.
We trusted in our skills and werespected the non-solicit
agreements that we had.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
And we just started cold Months of bootstrapping a
business from scratch with nomoney, I mean $2,500.
You, and I guess just one otherguy, walk me through those
first few months, first sixmonths, what, what was that?
Like you know, there's, thereare hundreds of people who are
listening to this, who probablythinking I'm 26.

(12:03):
I want to take a chance.
I want to start my ownbrokerage.
Like for those that arelistening and have similar
ambitions, what are they walkinginto if they do take the leap?

Speaker 2 (12:12):
yeah, I would say one part exhilarating and one part
terrifying.
Um, I mean, definitely had abig vision for what I wanted to
build on the logistics side, um,but but yeah, the rubber meets
the road when you make acommitment like that.
My co-founder, his name's JeffChidester.

(12:36):
What we always said to eachother is the best way to get
really motivated to sell is tohave a dwindling bank account,
and I think there's a lot oftruth to that.
So we just failure wasn't anoption.
We were just going to keepgoing, and that's what we did.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
And just for context, because we're going to get
there.
But I want the viewers to kindof understand it now.
How big is ally today?
What?
How large is the team?
Whatever you're comfortablesharing in terms of the size of
the company?

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah, yeah.
We're at about 95 people rightnow.
We should finish the.
It's early in the year butwe're projecting 140 to 145 in
terms of top line.
We did I want to say around 120million in 2024.
So just starting to see maybethe market pickup just a touch,

(13:25):
yeah.
So that's to see maybe themarket pick up just a touch,
yeah.
So that's kind of our profile,I guess.
Customers we serve enterprise,cpg, big food and beverage
customers.
It makes up a lot of our volume.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
A lot of truckload drive-in.
Refrigerated type stuff.
Yeah, Full truckload, A lot oftruckload drive and refrigerated
type stuff.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, full truckload Um, probably 70% of our
truckload business is dry, 30%refrigerated.
Um, automotive makes up a bigpart of the business.
And then, uh, drayage issomething we got into about
three years ago.
We're moving about a thousandcontainers a month there, um,
and then there's a there's atech component of our business

(14:05):
that we're kind of weaving inover time, yeah, trying to just
yeah, I guess, make our peopleas productive as possible.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
Gotcha.
Okay, thank you, I appreciate.
I think that helps give theaudience understanding.
Is we're going to kind of gothrough the story over the last
I guess 12 years that you'vebeen running this business.
I think it helps for people tounderstand on the front end,
like where's the business now,as we kind of walk through the
early days.
So you and Jeff get started.
Failure is not an option.
Dwindling bank account $2,500becomes 24, becomes 22, becomes

(14:40):
2,000.
When you buy a desk, you knowjust day by day and your job is
to go out and get business.
So what does that look likewhen you're just getting started
and you're calling people inthe first few weeks, months,
trying to get opportunities?
What are the roadblocks you runinto?
What does that look like?

Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, I, I want to say that it was harder than I
thought it was going to be.
I think there's a lot of peoplethat move into the agency model
from a call center brokerageand they have the skills, but
they may be under credit, likethe benefit of having, like this
strong brand behind you and allof that.

(15:23):
So it was just, you know asmany cold calls as we could cram
into a day.
We were making them.
Um, yeah, same with the carrierside.
If we, if we got a load on theboard, I mean, that was uh, that
was a big deal.
And you bend over backwards tofigure out what you got to do to
service that load.
Just because, yeah, whenthere's an element of scarcity

(15:43):
like that, like it again,failure not being an option, you
turn up, you turn up the, uh,the intensity a couple of
notches, I guess.
I guess you would say, and then, and then, um, yeah, things
start snowballing a little bit.
We go from you know our firstload, uh, to you know, maybe

(16:03):
five loads a day, seven loads aday, and then we actually
brought on a third partner.
His name is Brandon, so he cameon about six months into the
business, worked for the samecompany actually.
He actually used to be mymanager for a period of time.
Jeff and I had said, hey, ifthere's one guy from that last

(16:25):
business we'd love to have onour leadership team.
He just represents the valuesthat we want to bring to the
business and coincidentally hecame knocking on our door and so
at that point it kind of feltlike fate.
So we had to I think we madehim buy it a thousand bucks and
start commission only orsomething like that, so he could

(16:45):
kind of earn his way in and uh,yeah, so that's, that's great.
That's the early days.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
And what, what are you?
What's the message?
Right, Like you know, as you'regetting started and you're
calling X Y, z shipper, X Y, g,x, y, whoever, and you're saying
hey, this is Dan Mansham withally logistics.
We just started three monthsago.
We'd love to haul your freight.
And they said well, why shouldI choose your company?

(17:13):
Why should I give you anopportunity?
Like what's, what are youselling?

Speaker 2 (17:18):
I think at that point in time, I guess, at least in
my opinion, there's there'sreally only one approach for it,
and it's I'm going to out,brine the other guy.
I'm going to be available anytime of day to answer the call.
Maybe there's other approachesthat work that early, but that's
the one that I've always heardabout and that's definitely, I
guess, what kind of sums up theapproach we took.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
I mean, as you think about it, it's like what else is
there Right?
You know, in your earliest days, it's not like you've got some
technology that others don'thave that you can offer.
It's not like you've got moreresources than others can offer.
You can't say you've got morecarriers or better carriers.
I mean you can say whatever youwant, but it wouldn't be true

(18:04):
and I kind of always defaultedto.
That too is like when I feltlike there was nothing else, I
just sold myself and one I thinkI could count on myself.
You know, I knew that if I'mmaking a commitment that I will
always be available, or I willmake sure that any issues get
remedied in a timely manner, orI will proactively communicate.

(18:24):
Get remedied in a timely manner, or I will proactively
communicate, I'm not counting onanyone else to follow through
there versus saying, like youknow, I've got great private
fleet capacity and then you knowyou go to XYZ private fleet and
these other private fleets tomove your loads and whatever.
It doesn't work for them.
You're kind of stuck there.
So you know, I just think that'sreally interesting because it's

(18:48):
hard To me.
It's the hardest thing in thisindustry is getting
opportunities for new shippers,and it's because of how
saturated the space has become,where brokers are a dime, a
dozen I don't know if it's25,000 or so, whatever the
number is that people say nowthere's a lot, to the point
where when a shipper gets anemail from a broker they've

(19:10):
never heard of, it's not likelythat they are eager to respond.
I'm curious, as you've seenyour business mature over the
years, how do you think aboutsales and how do you think about
giving your employees theability to stay?
How do they stand out?

Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah, I guess backtrack in just a second
Betting on your your yourability to grow outgrind the
other broker.
what I think of is, like theestablishing the chain of
accountability, and while Ithink that's especially
necessary when you're an agent,if you're in a call center
brokerage, it's the same thingand I think that's a big part,

(19:52):
just holistically, of evenselling your organization to an
enterprise account.
Right, they want that chain ofaccountability, they want to
know that somebody gives a shitand somebody is going to respond
when, when needed.
But um, yeah, sorry, kind ofwent on that tangent um, um, but

(20:12):
yeah, refresh my memory where,where were we?

Speaker 1 (20:14):
going.
I tend to do that, by the way,you're fine, I'm an adhd guy
with you, so it happens.
I'm curious about selling inour space.
I'm curious about brokers likeyourself, who are good companies
, hardworking, bootstrapbusinesses that don't have the

(20:35):
same resources that the largestplayers in the industry have,
and for your salespeople, howcan you put them in a position
to win in such a saturated,competitive, challenging market?

Speaker 2 (20:49):
Yeah, yeah.
No, I think of it as a game ofinches in terms of any sort of
differentiation you can get inthis industry, and so I think
that's what we're always workingto build wherever we can within
the organization.
It's not that we are going tochange the game in any
particular way, but if we can bean inch better in a hundred

(21:12):
different ways, I think that'sreally how we can stand out with
our customers.
There's a tech element.
We've got our own proprietarypricing engine.
That's been a big part of ourpitch to enterprise brands.
We've built that to be embeddedin our culture so that it works
more cohesively from theaccount managers to the

(21:34):
technology team Doesn't meanwe're doing anything
revolutionary, but we're gettingenough proof from the market
that it's working and it'sgaining some traction, I would
say at a high level.
Just moving freight better isour company mission, and it's
just this commitment tocontinuous improvement, wanting

(21:55):
to be scrutinized, wanting tohear the constructive criticism
if our team has to step up in acertain way.
I think there's a lot of littlethings with the technology One.
For example, we're integratingon the DRAID side OpenTrack so
that all our load statuses getupdated from the ocean liners
Anytime a shipment gets updated,we're going to be able to build

(22:17):
that into our portal, give ourcustomers access.
We're going to be able to trackper diem, demurrage.
All the extra charges make someof those things easier.
So there is a tech element tothat.
I don't want to suggest we'rethe only company doing that.
I know there's a lot of peoplegoing down that path, but kind
of across the board we're justalways looking for how can we
make sure we're doing all ofthose little things to set

(22:40):
ourselves apart, um, wherever wecan.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
I appreciate that.
I think that makes sense and Idon't know that there's a better
answer.
I mean, I think it's leveragingthe resources you have to
create the most value possiblefor your customers, and I think
the challenge for yourself and acompany like yours is with
limited resources, how do youdecide where to spend them?

(23:07):
So you know, I think it's it'spretty easy I don't want to say
easy, but the decision-making isprobably easier in your first
year, when there's no money inthe account and you're just,
there's not a lot of decisionsother than just sell, go, get
the freight.
As your company has grown, youknow, by years three years, five

(23:27):
, seven, nearing 50, 75, threeyears, five, seven, nearing 50,
75, $100 million in annualrevenue.
You are starting to build sometraction and you're seeing
success and all of a sudden, youare put in a position to start
making some financial decisionsaround how you want to leverage
the resources you have.
What I'm curious about is, asthe CEO of a growing company

(23:49):
like that, how do you thinkabout using your resources most
effectively?

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yeah, I think there's kind of two sides to that.
The two areas of focus for ushave been I mean, it's always
going to be a people industrytrying to bring in expertise.
I think post-COVID we or Iguess during COVID we maybe went
a little crazy.
You could get freight from allof these customers, and so we

(24:17):
built a team that, in hindsight,was maybe a little oversized
and not as efficient as it couldbe.
And so now, yeah, bringingexpertise into the fold.
I think that pairs with theother side of it, which is
technology.
I believe that having the rightpeople behind the technology is
going to be critical to make itactually work.

(24:38):
There's a lot of new problemsthat are created when you layer
in a new piece of technology,and so what we talk a lot about
internally is getting our peopleto participate in the
experiment and then de-riskingwherever those experiments are
for rolling out a new technology, and we're going to have an AI
system read a PDF and build aload.

(24:59):
Well, it's super important thatthose loads are all
double-checked by the accountmanager, who's working closely
with the tech team to make surethat that doesn't create any
issues.
And I think, yeah, we're justkind of investing in those two
different areas and thenculturally trying to bring those
things together so that we can,I guess, get as far ahead as

(25:23):
possible in terms of some of thenew emerging technologies.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
Are you looking to grow your brokerage?
Are you struggling to land newcustomers in these challenging
market conditions?
Look within so many companiesthat tender you freight
throughout the domestic UnitedStates also have business coming
out of Mexico.
A year ago I understand why youmight not have seen that
freight as an opportunity, buttoday Cargado exists and that

(25:49):
means any load coming into orout of Mexico is now an
opportunity for you to support.
In just over a year I've beenable to see Cargado go from
ideation to launch to rapidgrowth.
It's amazing to see how manylogistics companies have been
able to use Cargado to expandinto Mexico to grow their
business.
Cargado is the first platformthat connects logistics

(26:10):
companies and trucking companieswho are moving freight into and
out of Mexico.
If you move Mexico freight orare planning to reach out to
Cargado today at cargadocom,that's C-A-R-G-A-D-Ocom.
So what you just said I think isso fascinating.
If you zoom out and think aboutall of the technology that's

(26:32):
been brought into our space inthe last decade and the
companies that brought it andthose that succeeded and those
that failed, I think that therewere these heavily VC-funded new
entrants to the space in thelast 10 years that brought more

(26:54):
technology than the industry hasever seen before and with it
they wanted to transform andrevolutionize and whatever other
buzzword you want to throw inthere our industry On paper,
like the idea, makes sense,archaic industry.
Throw technology at it,everything gets more efficient.

(27:18):
But that's not really howthings played out and I think
what you just said.
There was something very smallin there that is very
representative of why and a bigreason why there are some that
have won in implementing newtechnology and others that have
lost.
You talked about how, when youbring new technology into your
business, the thing that youmentioned is having an account

(27:38):
manager who looks at how thetechnology comes in during the
experiment, checks the impact tothe customer and validates that
things are going how theyshould be before just pumping it
out.
I don't think that's what a lotof the big VC funded companies
did and I think it's a bigreason why they failed.

(28:00):
I think a lot of the companiesthat came into this space just
were innovating whatever theycould without understanding the
impact to the customer andwithout understanding how it
would alter their ability toexecute and when in an industry
where the exception is moreoften the rule and you don't

(28:22):
have a system designed tosupport that, slash people
designed to support that.
When the system doesn't do itright, you fail, and I think
these shippers that got burnt.
They got burnt because newtechnology was brought into the
space that didn't have all itsT's crossed and I's dotted in a

(28:42):
way that set up the broker,slash digital, whatever and the
shipper to succeed.
So I just think it's reallyinteresting because what you
said I don't even know if yourealized you were doing it, but
like talking about a prioritywhile implementing technology,
as making sure my people and thecustomers are aligned and how

(29:03):
the technology is going to work.
That is so crucial.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yeah, and I think for me, having spent 18 years
probably 12 or 13 of those inthe trenches doing the jobs I
think it's hard to really thinkabout it a different way.
And so, yeah, I do agree withyou.
I think there was I think we'veall seen a little bit of maybe

(29:28):
arrogance from some tech playerswho come in and kind of
underestimate the value of ofthe broker.
Um, I think that's created alot of vitriol over time from
brokers saying you, you justthink I'm some dumb hillbilly?
Uh, right, I'm sure.
Uh, I'll, I'll say it.
Maybe, maybe you shouldn't onyour show, but I feel like

(29:51):
there's kind of that perceptionand in reality, as you know,
there's so much nuance and thereis just so much that goes into
every single step of thisprocess and if you ignore one of
those details, you're going tocreate as many new exceptions as
you just fix and and.
Are you really helping anything?
So I think one of the thingsthat changed because I haven't

(30:14):
necessarily been an earlyadopter, ally hasn't necessarily
tried to be an early adopterfor a lot of technology, but I
think that's one of the thingsI've seen with the rise of AI a
lot of those problems thatexisted with the other
technologies of not being ableto get that last 10%.
That's where I see AI reallycoming in and being able to fill
those gaps and, while certainlyit's not there yet and I'm

(30:37):
certainly not advocating forfully automated process I think
it's going to be able to solve alot more problems and I think
people are starting to see thatand that's why you're starting
to see, I guess, this new waveof technology companies gaining
a little bit more traction,because I think there's a little
bit more respect for just thedepths of some of the problems,

(30:58):
because there's kind of thishistory now and there's maybe
some skeletons that approved itover the last five to seven
years.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, I think that's a great point.
I do think that if the newentrance to the logistics tech
space that are being founded inthe last 12, 24 months that are
bringing the newest, latest andgreatest, whatever, if those
folks aren't learning from theskeletons and the graves of VC
funded past, shame on them,because I agree with you, there

(31:31):
are a lot of lessons to belearned there.
I think your comment around AI,filling the gap on that 10% is
really interesting.
There's one problem I thinkabout immediately that gets
solved with, you know, in thatkind of 10% window, and that's
the voice AI, something that youand I have briefly exchanged
some communication about.

(31:52):
You sent me a text about thisthing, sesame.
I don't even know where that'sfrom.
Maybe you can fill me in, butmy point in bringing this up you
sent me a yesterday morning.
You sent me a text with thisSesame dot com or Sesame dot AI.
I would assume is the website,and it's a simple.
Assume is the website and it'ssimple.
You open the website.
There's two choices between awoman and a male.

(32:15):
I can't remember the woman'sname, maybe Molly.
The male is Miles.
I hit Miles, the male, and boom, he and I were having a
conversation.
I talked to him for fiveminutes sitting there with my
wife.
I was talking to him about if Iwas starting a brokerage and I
wanted you to talk to thetrucking companies or the
drivers, what would that looklike?
And it was the smoothestconversation I've had with AI

(32:39):
ever.
I mean it was smooth.
There were definitely elementswhere, if I was really
nitpicking, I could tell youthis is not a person, this is an
AI, not a person, this is an ai.
But it wasn't something thatmattered materially in a
negative way at all.
Um, yeah, and I even asked him.
I was like are you able tothink on your feet?
And he's like think on my feet,I dance on my feet.

(33:00):
So he's, he's making jokes.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
Um, how did you feel after that call?

Speaker 1 (33:07):
I, aside from like kind of amazed, I I felt like he
could do what I needed him todo, which is the point I was
about to bring up, which is onespecific problem I've talked
about three or four times on theshow now, given that I've
interviewed some folks isbrokers managing inbound phone
calls from carriers and theability to answer all of them in

(33:29):
a timely manner.
Barriers and the ability toanswer all of them in a timely
manner.
It's not possible today formany companies to get that done
as effectively as possible, andby as effectively as possible, I
mean 100% of the phone callsget answered in a timely manner.
Even if AI didn't exist, evenif you didn't have too many
phone calls for the number ofpeople you have, there are times

(33:51):
where someone gets up to go tothe bathroom, there are times
where someone is busy dealingwith another issue.
The idea that an AI can answerthe phone, take the information
the carrier needs or give theinformation the carrier needs,
handle even simple problems orjust be an assistant to take the
notes that is a materialimprovement from nobody

(34:12):
answering the phone.
Yeah, so we can talk aboutvoice AI all day, and there's a
lot there, but I just bring thisup to talk about that little
nuance of even if it's 10% ofyour calls that you can't answer
in a timely manner.
This can solve that.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, you had Paul from Fleetworks on the show
recently.
Yeah, I've gotten to know Paulpretty well we were one of their
first commercial clients butstill vividly recall the first
demo.
We're sitting in my office with, I think, two or three Ally
team members, paul's on theother line, yeah, 11 am.

(34:51):
He said what's your 800 number?
So I gave it to him.
He calls the number and he justhe just sits there and we just
hear it ring and we hear it ringand, as I'm sure you would be,
I'm like starting to fume rightLike somebody pick up the phone.
But we're in a loose market andthe reality is there's some of
these loads, there's a lot ofcalls that come through and you
have to vet these carriers andit's just really cumbersome.

(35:14):
And so, yeah, I think that waskind of an aha moment for me as
well, where it's like, man, evenif we're just helping get to
the remainder of those calls,those carriers are going to get
access to information theywouldn't have otherwise had.
Carriers are going to getaccess to information they
wouldn't have otherwise had.
They're going to have a betteroutcome because they at least
had that opportunity for accessor for information and the

(35:39):
humans on the other side who adriver can ask for at any point
during the call are more likelyto be available because of the
fact that this system is helpingalleviate some of that burden.
None of those systems areperfect.
The kinks are still beingworked out, but that was the
moment in time that I said thisis an experiment that we need to

(36:01):
be participating in, and ifthis is the worst that the tech
is ever going to be which Idefinitely believe is the case
this is going to have a place inthe industry, and let's work
with Paul and the team andfigure out where that place is
100%.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
I think a couple of points coming out of that.
I mean, there's so much we cantalk about, but one you're right
this is the worst it'll ever be.
That's a very simple, true fact, and the idea that it's the
worst it'll ever be and can onlyget better hard not to want to
be involved in some capacitythere.
The second thing which I thinkis interesting is, anytime

(36:43):
something new comes along thatcould disrupt us in any way,
shape or form especially, youknow, we're talking about humans
being quote-unquote, replacedor supported by robots we're
always looking for the negative.
How do we point out that thisis not going to work?
And so you're just like lookingfor these negative things like,
oh, I could, there was a pausethere that felt a little too
long, or oh, it was, his accentfelt a little too fake, or

(37:08):
whatever it is you're lookingfor.
I noticed that in myself as I'vebeen testing these things, but
as I was talking to the Sesameguy, miles, that you sent me, I
can't remember what exactly Isaid, but he made a point, a
counterpoint that I thought wasso exceptional.
Where he's like, he's likebesides, like it's not like.
People don't make mistakes.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
And then I'm like wait a second.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Hold on.
I haven't even considered that.
Let's just talk about, let'ssay, 100% of the calls are
answered by my carrier reps andmy team.
Do I have full confidence that100% of those conversations are
going exactly how I want them to?
The answer, undoubtedly, is no.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
And especially this market gets, gets, gets going a
little bit.
There's going to be brokersthat are bringing in new people,
right, and those people arehalf are going to have to get
trained and they're going tohave to get acclimated.
And then you start comparingthe AI voices ability versus,
versus the new guy who's threemonths in on the floor.
Um, so, again, I think the keyis figuring out where are the

(38:16):
right places to use thetechnology and what's overkill
and what's not ready, and sothat's something that we're
still actively exploring.
We still have, uh, humansinvolved in that booking process
, um, and yeah, we kind of atrust but verify approach at
this point, uh, but very bullishthat there's going to be a

(38:39):
place for it.
The example I always bring up,too, is like pod collection,
right, like if, if, five yearsfrom now, you're at a brokerage
that still has humans calling onevery POD request, I think
that's a massive sign that youmissed something right.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
Or I'm wildly impressed that they're somehow
still in business.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Yeah, that as well.
It's definitely impressive in away, but I just feel like
there's so many.
I remember the headache I usedto have after a 12 hour day of
brokering freight and if youreally dissect what were the
things that gave you theheadache, certainly a lot of
those exceptions a human isstill required for, but like
there's a good chunk of thosethings I think about where it's

(39:22):
like man AI voice could probablyhelp make that headache a
little bit lighter if it coulddo this thing, that thing and
that thing a little bit lighterif it could do this thing, that
thing and that thing.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah, I mean just time itself, like that is the
one of the biggest gripes peoplehave about freight is the
amount of time you have topersonally invest to make
yourself available, to supportyour customers, your carriers.
The idea that I can work withan assistant, an AI, whatever
assistant and it can supportdealing with all the stuff that
I don't want to, that doesn'tmean I'm never available.
It just means that there'ssomeone else and by someone I

(40:03):
mean an AI bot that's going toqualify any situation before I
have to get involved.
And if I can manage thatrelation, like all I'm, the more
and more I think about this.
The winners of the future aregoing to be those that can
manage the best In conjunctionwith their team.

(40:25):
Knowing what do I put a personon versus the bot?
And I don't.
I don't.
There's not a playbook for thattoday.
It doesn't exist.
I know that there's no way.
If there is a playbook for italready, it's full of crap
because nobody has been able toutilize real experience to do

(40:46):
this yet, which I think is whatmakes this really interesting to
do this, yet, which I think iswhat makes this really
interesting is there's no reasonthat you, dan, who is
theoretically under-resourcedcompetitively relative to, I
don't know RxO, you knowone-on-one, you know they've got

(41:06):
more resources, more a lot ofthings, but that doesn't mean
you can't come up with a smarter, more effective way to combine
your team with the AI toolsyou're going to use to support
your customers in a moreeffective way.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, no, that definitely matches how I think
of it.
I think something else that tiesinto is uh, yeah, there's a lot
of companies that went heavynear shore over the course of
the last three, four years.
And uh, yeah, there's a lot ofcompanies that went heavy near
shore over the course of thelast three, four years.
And uh, near shore can be great, I think, for an organization
our size is there.
You kind of have to go go inbig enough right To really

(41:43):
establish like a near shoreculture.
Ultimately, we we thought longand hard about that, but like
one of the reasons that wedecided not to go as heavy on
the nearshore side we do havesome people nearshore but was
because we really liked the ideaof having our expertise right
in one place in Grand Rapids,michigan, working alongside of
our tech team and really solvingthese problems hand in hand.

(42:06):
Again, for a lot oforganizations they can manage
that effectively.
For us, we didn't see thatbeing possible and so we kind of
decided to leapfrog some ofthat phase and go right to kind
of the AI technology integrationto try to optimize our process.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
Does that mean it's fair to assume you are not a
remote first company?

Speaker 2 (42:30):
We are not a remote first company.
We are not a remote firstcompany, we are not anti-remote.
I'm a big believer that remotework has a huge place.
We have hybrid work available.
Yeah, we do have some remotework within the organization,

(42:50):
but we just believe that thatcollaboration especially right
now in the season that we're inwith this new technology it's
just so much easier to get thesetools collaborated when you can
just quick hop in a room andshow something to somebody and
you can do those things remoteit.
Just for us it's more efficientto do it in person.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
What do you think a good remote policy looks like in
2025?
We're not going to spend a tonof time here, but you kind of
walked me into this door so I'mgoing to sit here for a minute,
but I just I was very pro-remotewhen COVID first hit and I just
don't think you can.
My perspective has changed onit.

(43:31):
I think it's one thing to giveremote work to people who you
already know and trust.
They've earned it from you,they've worked for you for a
while.
You have confidence in how theyshow up every day.
It's another thing to be aremote first company that hires
a lot of new people over timebecause you have no idea if the

(43:54):
person you're hiring is good ornot.
I mean, you have confidence inyour hiring team, but they're
not right all the time.
They're definitely.
Even the best teams misssometimes of a hidden remote
employee, I think is way biggerand takes way longer to find and

(44:15):
manage than people who aresitting in the office with you
and I.
Just in an industry thatcontinues to get more and more
seemingly commoditized, whereit's harder and harder to tell
the difference between fivebrokers standing next to each
other, I really think how youremployees show up in
conversations with carriers andcustomers matters, and there are

(44:40):
new technologies and AI eventhat will allow you to manage
that in a remote world better.
But I do think there's anintangible element to culture
that there's more of a negativein a remote world than it is in
person.
I think there's more positivefor being in person and seeing
the people next to you osmoticlearning.

(45:02):
I'm not intentionally listeningto the guy next to me on the
phone, but when I hear somethingI haven't heard before and it
piques my interest, there's achance I'm going to learn
something.
And now I'm going to tune in andtry to pay attention.
I'm curious for someone likeyourself who's led this kind of
hundred person company over thelast few years that's been
through.
You know it says nothing to dowith you, but like the, the

(45:25):
world has gone through this kindof cultural shift over the last
three or four years from likethe most pro employee employees
are the kings of the world andthey decide everything to now
we're on the other side of itwhere it's like employees are
going to do what they're told orthey're going to get fired, and
I don't mean to make it seem sodramatic on both sides.
But that is kind of what thecultural shift has felt like in

(45:48):
the last few years, and I'm justcurious.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
I think we had a little bit of an advantage in
terms of like experimenting withthat prior to COVID, especially
coming up through the agentmodel, and we collaborated with
some different offices early onin the model and we had some
reps that came in and theywanted to be remote or hybrid.
So I guess we dabbled, and sowhat we kind of came up with is

(46:12):
earned flexibility is what wecall it.
It's not a perfect solution,but if you're hitting X KPI,
you're in sales role, you gaineligibility for a certain amount
of remote.
We give our managers discretionto make some of those decisions
for specific roles, whether ornot remote might make sense.

(46:33):
I think the toughest roles forus are some of the operations
roles where things are still sotribal, knowledge-based and
information flows from oneperson to the next and they're
helping their neighbor out, andthat also tends to be where your
new trainees would come in andthey'd sit and they just learn
so much faster when they're kindof engulfed in that environment
.
So I guess earned flexibilityis kind of the way I think of

(46:58):
that.
I'm optimistic, though, that thetechnology, as we're forced to,
like dissect process and AI isgoing to force us to really get
more granular in terms of how wethink about freight brokerage
process.
I use the word orchestration alot.
That's the next thing we needto really be working on is not

(47:21):
just how to plug in the righttools, but how do you keep
context on what those tools aredoing, and so I think this
technology over the course ofthe next couple of years is
going to be conducive to maybemaking it easier to consider
more places where remote couldwork.
Yeah, don't want to put thecart in front of the horse, but

(47:43):
optimistic that the world willcontinue to become a bit more
remote friendly, I guess.
The last thing I would touch on, though, is we've also had a
lot of people come to us lookingfor employment who were remote,
and they don't want to beremote anymore.
I think hybrid is what we hearthe most demand, for.

(48:03):
Most people want theinteraction that they can have,
and it depends what season oflife you're in, how experienced
you are, et cetera, where youfall on that spectrum.
But that kind of sums up mythoughts on it.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
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(48:38):
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(49:01):
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That's interesting.
I've never heard I haven'theard that take yet that we're
at the point where peopleactually are interested in

(49:22):
wanting to come back to theoffice a little bit.
It doesn't surprise me, I thinkthat it's hard to speak and
you'll find someone who fitsinto every bucket of remote in
office, hybrid, earned whatever.
I mean, there's differentflavors for everybody and I
think your take is a very wiseone, and I think it's.

(49:44):
You know, I spent a lot of timethinking about, if I were to
start another brokerage, what itwould look like.
I mean at least a few times aday thinking about, if I were to
start another brokerage, whatit would look like, I mean at
least a few times a day.
And in doing that, one of thethings I find myself thinking
about the most is this kind ofin-office remote concept, and I
always end up where you'retalking about, which is this
kind of earned flexibility.
I don't want people to feellike they're required to be at

(50:10):
their desk all day, every day,but I also want our best people
to positively impact our newpeople and people who need help,
and that's a lot harder to dowhen they're remote.
So how do you create a delicatebalance?
How do you make sure you're notgetting burned by new employees
who are taking advantage of thesystem?

(50:31):
I mean, there are people whoget four different remote jobs
at the same time and just see ifthey can juggle all four of
them to get four paychecks,because they're sitting at home
on four different, like theworld has changed drastically in
terms of how people approachlife, and there's not exactly a
handbook for CEOs like yourselfon how to navigate it.
You just kind of got to gofigure it out and deal with

(50:52):
whatever comes at you.
So I do appreciate yourperspective and I think you're
thinking about it the right way.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
I think the first time I really thought of it was
when we started Ally right, likewell, had my roommate, we were
going to start a business, welived in the same place, we
could have done this from thecondo right, but at the time
time I just said, no, I want tobe able to focus, I want to be

(51:19):
able to focus on on the business, and I want a separation
between my personal life and mywork life.
And that hasn't necessarilyworked as well as I would have,
uh, would have hoped all thetime.
But I do think there issomething about leaving an
office at 5 pm as well andtrying to leave whatever you can
there, um, um, yeah, again,never a perfect science in
brokerage, but uh, um, yeah,that that's.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
That's kind of the first, uh, first time I really
thought down those pathssomething you said before that's
sticking with me is around theidea of tribal knowledge, and
you talked about the value ofhaving people in the office,
especially on the operationsside, because of the, the tribal
knowledge that exists there,and I've always thought that

(52:03):
tribal knowledge, to some extent, has been a almost a
differentiator or a um, a standout, and it certainly once upon
a time was an advantage inplaying the market game.
I mean, if you, as a broker in2014, if you caught wind from

(52:25):
some of your carriers thatproduce rates were picking up
already out of South Florida,you could adjust before 99% of
the market.
Your shippers weren't hearingfrom anyone, freight waves
didn't exist, there weren't theindices.
None of these tools wereavailable that really gave you
real-time or near real-timewithin a few days updates on

(52:48):
what's going on in the market.
So there was value there.
What I'm curious about what I'mabout to mention is, like you
talked about process and howmuch better at process we're
going to have to be as a resultof AI.
I'm curious if there's a worldwhere AI kind of kills the

(53:09):
entire value add of tribalknowledge.
To make our AI tools mosteffective, your job is to take
every ounce of tribal knowledgethat exists within your 95
employees' heads and get itdumped into this AI tool and

(53:30):
once it's there and itunderstands how to leverage it
the right way, I think it shouldbe able to improve your
business in meaningful ways.
I think I'm curious as I thinkabout tribal knowledge and what
you, what your thoughts are onhow that plays with AI.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
Yeah, no, definitely, I think, having good SOPs so
that these AI co-pilots can domore to to help, it's going to
require them to have some sortof digital context, for sure.
I guess.
The one example I would give isis like our, our pricing engine
, and since we've launched thispricing engine and started
connecting this to enterpriseshippers kind of what we've

(54:13):
experienced, right, like on onehand, you might theorize like,
oh well, this would alleviatethe need for the relationship
with a shipper because thatpricing is happening more
automatically and that tribalknowledge is being pushed
through the algorithm.
Right, I would say what we'veseen is, yes, the pricing is no
longer the central focus of therelationship, but there's a lot

(54:34):
of other problems that need tobe solved, and what it's doing
is it's allowing us more time tohelp, I guess, develop deeper
relationships with our clientsand focusing on other problems.
I guess one example I wouldgive is we have one client that
we're working with prettyheavily on the API side and one

(54:56):
of the things they need helpwith is helping get their data
cleaned up, because if you'regoing to be more automated, kind
of across the board with yoursupply chain, you need help from
your partners upstream anddownstream really to be able to
maximize the potential of someof those automations.
So I think there's a lot ofcollaboration opportunity with

(55:16):
projects like that.
Sustainability within brokerageis a challenge that I'm talking
to one of my shippers about justreally trying to figure out how
do we start better measuringwith these small carriers very
fragmented base, starting withmeasurables and then trying to
translate them into moreactionables.

(55:37):
I think there's a lot morechallenges beneath the surface.
I think there's a lot morechallenges beneath the surface
if we kind of get away from, Iguess, the very transactional,
sometimes mind numbing tasksthat a lot of people do

(55:58):
currently view as a significantportion of their jobs, and so,
yeah, I think people need tostart thinking about that right,
how can they be moreintentional with their focus if
they get a little bit of thistime back?
But that's what I think we'llsee.
Certainly, if your job is justdependent on moving data point
from system A to system B,that's probably not a great

(56:20):
place to be in a couple of years.
But I think most people want toelevate and they just need the
leadership and they need somedirection of what they can do to
elevate kind of in this newecosystem that's developing 100%

(56:41):
, 100% 100, 100.
I, I think, a couple of theroles internally to some of the
things we're doing is we're we.
We created a power user programor a super user program.
So now we have, I guess, uh,one woman in particular.
Her job previously was justbuilding and scheduling
shipments.
She's in a leadership role atAlly.

(57:04):
She is now becoming a superuser for Qt and she is just
going to get the Maddie Barkeris her name.
She's going to get our Qtsystems dialed in so that she
can help the rest of the accountassistants is what we call them
account managers learn how touse that tool as we get it
connected to more systems and asit gets better calibrated.

(57:28):
I guess, to shout out one moreemployee, jason Lacey the wizard
.
Maybe you've seen him onLinkedIn before, but he actually
used to be a roommate with Jeffand I back in the day, but he's
techie but he's not a coder andhe just is kind of Mr
Everything on the technologyside.
Well, now we have all thesetools at our disposal, we've

(57:50):
been able to kind of repurposehis role and he just got a
promotion to director of processautomation because he's just
going to town.
He's got all the contextualunderstanding that you would
need to be able to connect thesedots and build these
automations.
So that's what we're thinkingabout how do we keep pivoting
these roles internally so thatwe have more people helping

(58:12):
facilitate this evolution thatwe believe is coming in the next
couple of years?
And and so far so good on that,and so far so good on that.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
So you mentioned kind of getting your sales team and
employees to a place wherethey're solving bigger problems,
better problems.
And I'm just curious, like howdo we get our salespeople to do

(58:47):
that?
Because, like, if I were topull my old sales group and ask
them how many of you have had aconversation with your customer
about sustainability in the lastmonth, the number that would
raise their hand is probably oneperson, I think, who would have
said they did and that's justbecause they personally cared
about it.
Um, and I'm not saying ESG islike the only thing.
There's a bunch of things andESG is an interesting one
because you know the latestadministration is less

(59:09):
interested in it than previousand you know that may change how
companies behave.
But what I'm more interested inis like how do we take our
sales groups and employee basesin general that are so used to
doing things a certain way andhelp them pivot to be focused on
these newer things that wethink can create and add more

(59:31):
value?
It's a hard question to answer,I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
It is a hard question to answer.
I think if we see obviousopportunities for growth and
expanding knowledge, we have tochase after those.
Like, let's say, we puttogether the infrastructure for
measuring sustainability.
Well then the next thoughtwould be how do we get our sales
team into a room where we cantrain on this?

(59:56):
And then how do we make thissomething we can showcase to our
customers?
So I guess that would be onestep.
Yeah, I guess what I've justseen and maybe I theorized this
might happen.
But the more connected we get toour customers, the more
organically we start to seethese conversations happening,

(01:00:17):
because you're just not focusedon the same type of problems.
You're focused a little bitless on what went wrong with
this shipment right now and youcan raise up a level.
Yeah, I don't have all theanswers for how that's going to
evolve, but yeah, there'strailers as a service.

(01:00:38):
Wabash has their offering,repower's got an offering out
there More flexible access todrop-and-hook capacity for
brokers.
That's something we're startingto dig into and learn more
about, because I think that'ssomething that's coming in the
next couple of years.
That's going to have a learningcurve, but I think that's going

(01:00:58):
to open up more interestingconversations with our customers
If we can say hey, ally has theability to provide a universal
trailer pool for largeenterprise CPG customer.
I know there's a lot ofenterprise CPG customers that I
think would be interested inhaving that technology, or uh

(01:01:19):
service technology, that, that,that service capability, and if
we can get our sales reps in thecoming years up to speed on uh,
I guess first we have to buildout the internal infrastructure
but then we get our sales teamup to speed of how to sell that
and how to approach thoseconversations.
I think those are the thingsthat are coming.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
Yeah, and how do you even know?
Like just you mentioning a fewof those companies like Wabash
and Repower, I am sure you'reinundated with companies,
vendors, who want.
There's a bunch of differentofferings.
Whether you're focused on droptrailer capabilities, voice, ai,

(01:02:05):
pod, collection, apar, whateverit is, there's numerous options
for every potential problem youmay want to solve.
How do you think about andapproach new technologies that
are available to your business?
One, from the idea of like,should we build versus buy?
And two, okay, if we're goingto buy it, how do I know if I

(01:02:28):
should use Paul at Fleetworks orDave Bell at CloneOps or Javi
at Happy Robot?
I'm just using them as a simpleexample.
But how do you think, how haveyou thought about those problems
?

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
Yeah, I'm endlessly curious so I tend to kind of
keep a pulse on everything Ipossibly can.
That's out there.
But in terms of the vendorrelationships, I'm always
looking at, okay, how, what'sthe lowest hanging fruit in
terms of the problems that we'retrying to solve?
Is the technology there whereit can actually make an impact
on solving this problem?
And then from there, what isthe lowest risk working
relationship that I can puttogether with this vendor to

(01:03:13):
give it enough inertia where ithas the commitment to be able to
work but also hold that vendoraccountable to have to deliver
on their end and continue toimprove their product.
So I think what we're doing andagain, so far we've had really
good results with the Fleetworksguys but we have quite a few

(01:03:38):
different vendors who we believein and we chose them because we
think they're the best.
But we didn't go sign five-yeardeals and we are going to
monitor, I guess, how the restof the environment evolves.
Who else steps up?
Is somebody else doingsomething really interesting?
Majority of the vendors we'reworking with five years from now

(01:03:58):
will be the same vendors, butwe're giving ourselves the
flexibility that, if somethingbetter comes along, that we're
able to think objectively andbuild the organization to be
able to flex and change as theresources around us kind of
change.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Are those trials challenging to set up?
I mean, you know I appreciatehow you think about it in terms
of like the least risk and leastinvestment on your side to get
a test and understanding.
But then, as you've got yourkind of toes dipped in several
ponds like, does that create itsown set of challenges to
navigate?

(01:04:36):
And like how to like what isthe integration process
challenging?
The implementation, are thosechallenging with a lot of these?
What does that look like forthose that haven't yet gone?

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
down the path you're on.
Yeah, we've had to kind ofestablish a cadence internally,
like we.
We do have quite a few toolsthat we're weaving in, but
that's been kind of on asequence.
Over time we figured out whothe internal stakeholders are
going to be, that are going tobe able to maintain and manage
those vendor relationships.
The super user program has beena big part of that.

(01:05:07):
I wouldn't say we're settingthem all up.
As you know, 30 day trials Likewe're generally looking at one
year commitments is kind of thego to.
We have made a couple of longercommitments.
It really depends how strong ofconviction do we feel going
into it that, how much change ishappening.

(01:05:31):
I guess in the tech spacerelated to like voice AI is a
brand new thing, Right so so forus we knew we love what Paul
and Kwong are doing over there,but like the world can look
entirely different in voice AIin a year and so um yeah no,

(01:05:52):
they're, they're delivering forus, um, and and, and I'm
thinking they're going to bearound for a long time, um, but
at the same time, like aone-year chunk is kind of a good
opportunity for both sides tooperate in good faith and make
sure they're still feelingaligned.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
At Molo, we built a great company and I'm proud of
the work we did.
We knew when to ask for helpand sometimes that meant going
outside of our own company.
I'm proud we built an ecosystemof trusted partners like
Metaphora own company.
I'm proud we built an ecosystemof trusted partners like
Metaphora.
When we needed differentiatedindustry expertise in business
consulting or technologyservices, we looked at Peter
Ryan and the team at Metaphora.
They've consistently deliveredvalue in the transportation and

(01:06:32):
logistics space for over adecade for mid-market and
enterprise brokers, for shippers, carriers, private equity and
freight tech companies.
At Molo, we use Metafora tosolve problems we simply
couldn't on our own.
Metafora is the only partneryou should trust to help you win
, whether that's doing ops andtech diligence, growing revenue,
optimizing spend or selectingand building software.

(01:06:54):
Go check them out atmetaforanet.
That's M-E-T-A-F-O-R-A dot net.
I'm curious about the datasharing and it's, you know, part
of what I think the secretsauce is.
You know we talked about tribalknowledge and we definitely
think that's a secret saucewithin a business, and a
differentiator is how well yourteam knows their customers and

(01:07:17):
knows their processes and how tosupport them in a way that
keeps them happy.
The way the AI tools get betteris by digesting all of those
trade secrets and informationand then actionizing them, and
what I'm curious about is, forAI to be at its best, it has to

(01:07:38):
have the most possible correctinformation digested into it or
brought into its system, andfrom my understanding, a lot of
these AI companies are not justtraining their AI with your data
.
They're training it with all ofthe brokers that they work with
, and so I'm curious how youthink about that.
The tool you're buying andusing yeah, you're giving it

(01:08:03):
it's, it's giving you results,but your data is being used
potentially to make yourcompetitors better while also
making you better.
You're benefiting from otherpeople's data.
To an extent, it's kind ofputting everybody's data into
one mosh pit, so to speak.
Curious if you think about that.

(01:08:25):
If that matters, it doesn'tmatter, I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
I do think about that a bit.
I would say that the world ismoving.
As soon as you can come to theconclusion, the world's moving
in a certain direction.
There's going to be a bigconglomerate of data and it's
really a bigger question of doyou want to participate in

(01:08:55):
helping shape the way thattechnology looks, because you're
going to probably have to geton board at some point or
another.
Anyways, I do think with someof the tools there's, there's
opportunity and there's placeswhere you'll want to silo your,
your data.
Um, hard pricing data issomething.
Yeah, we don't, we don't rushto to give out Um.

(01:09:15):
But um, if it's appointmentscheduling data, I would say the
net benefit of joining anetwork like Qt, where everybody
has the potential to get waymore efficient at a role that
hasn't necessarily been maybesuper popular, at least at our

(01:09:38):
company.
It's not necessarily a 10-yearpath to schedule these
appointments.
It's near short at a lot ofcompanies.
Yeah, I think the net benefitis a lot greater than the net
cost, and I mean we live in aworld where we're all giving
Google a huge amount of data.
It's probably finding a way tolisten to this.

(01:09:59):
It will when it comes out, ifit's not already listening to
this, so I don't know.
I guess I just prefer to kindof stay on offense guard against
the biggest obvious risks there.
But in general, just bet thatthe net benefit will outweigh
any cost that comes with it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
Last thing, on technology.
Here I'm curious as someonewho's been running a bootstrap
brokerage for 12 years in thelast call it 12 to 24 months,
what have you seen change themost in terms of technology to
operate a freight brokerage, interms of the tools available,

(01:10:42):
whatever?
What have you seen since I gotfired let's say so, since I was
last operating a freightbrokerage March 8th 2023, what
have you seen change?
I'm curious because I don'tknow.
I'm not there anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
Yeah, I mean voice.
Ai has been a big one sincethat came along.
It's definitely the mostpopular to talk about, right?
Because it definitely dividespeople into these.
There's a lot of strongopinions there, I would say.
Api pricing, real-time rating,is something We've seen a lot of

(01:11:14):
growth there, but I think thatwhen the market turns, there's a
lot of people that are kind ofslowly moving in that direction.
The adoption of that has beenbig.
I think one tool in particularthat's been really high impact
for us.
I've posted about it a bit, butthere's a cool tool called Sola

(01:11:36):
.
Called Sola, it's an RPA toolthat has an AI element to it,
just makes it really easy tomove data from here to there
without having to get developersinvolved.
Rpa has been around for a longtime, but AI powered RPA again.
It gets you that last 10%, thattraditional RPA where it fell

(01:11:59):
short.
That's allowing us as amid-sized brokerage, to do a lot
of things we couldn't otherwiseafford to be able to do in
terms of the number of devs wehave on board.
It is hard to really pin itdown, though.
I think it's just theculmination of so many of these
problems needed that last 10% to20% that AI can bring to the

(01:12:21):
table, and a lot of theseautomations are kind of
dependent on something elsebeing automated, and so I think
there's almost like a flywheeleffect that we're starting to
see you solve this problem overhere.
Well, that actually makes thisother problem a little bit
easier to solve, and I thinkthat's just going to accelerate
in the next couple of years.

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
That makes sense.
What's been the biggestchallenge for you and your team
as you've implemented these newtechnologies under the business?

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
I think I think we've made a lot of progress, but I
think culturally, there's that'salways going to be an ongoing
challenge.
Just there's a lot of peoplethat are really good at their
jobs and they're great atbrokering freight and I don't
think it's necessarily that theydon't want to participate, but,
as you can attest to, you getvery busy and it's hard to maybe
dedicate the time, sometimestheir role, to be able to focus

(01:13:16):
on appointment scheduling,automation or whatever the next
thing might be.
I just think that's going toalways be a challenge.
I think building a tech team, abootstrap tech team, is
something I'm really excitedabout.
I'm really happy about, but,like we have had to try to do

(01:13:38):
these things without we don'thave a 50 person tech team, so
we have to really find theseright people that are talented
but like they're willing tomaybe be good at three or four
things.
So that's been a stretchexercise for those people.
That said, I think we've got theright people for it.

(01:13:59):
Those would be the two biggest.
I mean, honestly, I'm just kindof a kid in the candy store
with with this stuff.
It's just fun for me, um, uh,so, so just uh, it really
reinvigorated, coming, uh, feelslike we're coming out of this
freight recession knowing thatwe have what I view as some

(01:14:21):
really exciting stuff in frontof us in terms of just making
the freight brokerage job moreeffective, something I get
pretty geeked about.

Speaker 1 (01:14:31):
Yeah, great points across the board, especially
when it's changed to someone'sjob that you know they've been
making good money, or howevermuch money, for a long time
doing it the way they know how.
And there's got to be some partof every employee's back of
their mind where they'rethinking like one day this tech

(01:14:54):
replaces me in some capacity,and you know, I don't know that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):
I don't, I don't think that I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
I don't think that's true.
I don't think that's a patentlytrue statement.
I do think that these, thetechnology that's coming to the
fold, will allow brokers tooperate with fewer people.
That's the truth.
Um, but it doesn't mean thatbecause I'm giving you this cued
tool or flea works or CloneOpsor whatever tool, it doesn't

(01:15:23):
mean that you're out of businessand there's no more need for
people.
Just, things are going tochange and people hate change,
especially if that changepotentially feels like a risk to
them.
So I get that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
I think AI has made a lot of people think about their
vulnerabilities.
And yeah, I mean the brokeragemodel in general.
You hear people say freightbroker.
I mean, you've been hearingthis for years.
Right, tech is these companiesare going to come in and
obliterate freight brokers.
It hasn't happened yet but,like I know that feeling of
vulnerability of is is is somesuper genius going to come in

(01:15:59):
and next thing you know there'sno more loads on the board.
I think you have two choicesthere, right, you either sit
around and you think about thefears that you have and you
dwell on those fears, or, Ithink you lean into your
vulnerabilities and you chooseto attack and accept the fact
that this is a reality, that'scoming, and so that's what I'm

(01:16:23):
doing and that's what I'mencouraging the rest of my team
and, I would say, the rest ofthe industry to do.
There is some level ofinevitability here, in my
opinion.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
So you mentioned coming out of the freight
recession.
Are we coming out of a freightrecession?
Are we coming out of a freightrecession?
Are we coming out or are westill there?
I'd love to understand, assomeone who's been sitting in
the seat of a 100-personbrokerage.
You're as close to this asanybody and I'm curious what are
you actually seeing in terms ofthis year's bid cycle?

(01:16:57):
What are customers saying?
Are rates going up?
What are you seeing?
What are you feeling fromcarriers?
I just threw a couple ofquestions at you to sit on.

Speaker 2 (01:17:07):
If I had to summarize it, I would say we are very
slowly coming out of this raterecession.
I'm kind of a data geek, so I'mlooking at all the charts and
trying to keep track of thisversus that and just even
revenue per load.
We're starting to see smallincreases happening on revenue
per load.
You start seeing the capacitycharts and where trucking

(01:17:28):
companies are versus where youwould expect them to be, based
on kind of historical inflationin the market.
I look at the cast index a lotand yeah, so I don't know that
there's a dramatic recoverycoming in the next three months.
I would never make a bet likethat.

(01:17:49):
At the same time, sometimes youjust get a feel when you look
at all these data points thatit's coming close.
So I guess that'd be my bestway to describe how we're
feeling Slow recovery ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
So you're trusting the data, but your gut does say
there might be something coming.

Speaker 2 (01:18:10):
You got to be prepared for the fact that you
got to be prepared for eitherscenario.
That's how I view it.
We need to build the businessso that we're prepared for it to
be a flat, very slow recovery,so that we're prepared for it to
be a flat, very slow recovery.
But we also need to build thebusiness so that we're prepared
if things do go nuts, and we'rekind of ready for either of

(01:18:31):
those scenarios.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
Yeah, I think best case scenario it goes nuts and
all the brokers are like oh myGod, there's too much for us to
do.
I mean brokers.
If there's one thing they knowhow to do is navigate chaos.
Even if many have forgotten,because it's been over two years
since they've seen it, you knowit's like riding a bike.
So having too many loads andneeding to figure out how to
cover them is not something thatbrokers struggle to navigate.

Speaker 2 (01:18:56):
Yeah, and if you've been in, I mean you've been in
the industry a long time, Ithink it's.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
I always think back to how quickly things can change
on a dime in this industry, andso you kind of you never want
to get settled in, right, youalways have to be prepared for
that next pivot.
And so, yeah, as much aspossible we're trying to kind of
build that into our strategy asyou think about the next few
years for Ally.

Speaker 2 (01:19:28):
What's coming?
What's the focus?
Yeah, super excited.
I feel like we are building areally efficient way to serve
large enterprise CPG companiesin particular.
We're seeing a lot of traction,becoming a strong contract
provider but also a strongrecovery provider to those
shippers.
I think we're going to be ableto grow without the same

(01:19:48):
headcount growth and I thinkwe're going to be able to do
that by not hiring for some ofthe roles that maybe were some
of the pain point roles withinthe organization.
Yeah, and we're just going tomaintain flexibility.
We don't pretend to know whatthe future holds, but we're
going to be ready to flex inwhatever direction we need to.

Speaker 1 (01:20:14):
What advice would you give to the interns of today's
freight world who want to be theCEO of tomorrow's yeah, I would
say view everything as alearning experience.

Speaker 2 (01:20:29):
If you don't love the job you're doing, just realize
how much you're gaining just interms of, uh, of knowledge.
And then, uh, yeah, takingtaking risks, being willing to
raise your hand, uh, beingwilling to put yourself out
there, I think, uh, I think forme that was a big part.

(01:20:50):
I haven't, I've never beenafraid to shoot my shot, and
that isn't easy.
That's something I've had tokind of train myself to do, um,
but at the end of the of the day, you lose a lot more by just
sitting on the sidelines andwondering than you do by just
putting yourself out there andseeing what happens.
Yeah, so that'd be my advice.

Speaker 1 (01:21:15):
All right, last one what's your proudest moment of
your ally career?
What's your proudest?

Speaker 2 (01:21:20):
moment of your ally, career man?
That might be a timely question.

Speaker 1 (01:21:23):
Uh, we we we just won the craft noodle award about
two weeks ago the noodle award.

Speaker 2 (01:21:33):
Um, he had Jake Otto, our VP, and I.
We traveled down to Chicago.
It was our first time everbeing uh invited to the award
ceremony.
So we traveled down to Chicago,it was our first time ever
being uh invited to the awardceremony.
So we had very low expectations.
We thought we were just goingto go watch everybody else
collect their uh, collect theirhardware.
And then, yeah, they got donewith six awards and, uh, we
noticed there was one more onthe table and so, um, yeah,

(01:21:57):
super proud of that team, uh,for what they were able to do.
That's craft isn't easy, butthey're fair and they run a
tight ship, and so I thinkthat's kind of the culmination.
To be able to win an award likethat for a blue chip shipper
Just says a lot about, yeah, usand hopefully our ability to

(01:22:20):
maybe move from the minorleagues into the majors in the
next couple years here that'sawesome, man the noodle award.

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
Why isn't it called the macaroni award?

Speaker 2 (01:22:30):
I don't know.
You're gonna have to take thatup with michelle, I think I you
know.
You know, michelle, right, youcan shoot a text on that one
I've known mich myself since Iwas 19 or 20 years old.

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
I worked on site at Kraft before Mondelez, when it
was just Kraft Foods.
I spent a year working on siteafter my junior year of college
at the old Oscar Meyer plant inMadison where I made many great
relationships with folks whoeither are there today or have
gone on other companies but AdamHaas and Michelle who helped

(01:23:01):
run that business over there.
They're great.

Speaker 2 (01:23:03):
I heard you were her full-time bouncer at Food
Shippers for a couple of yearseven.

Speaker 1 (01:23:08):
I've been a lot of things for her.
She's a good friend of mine,she's great.
She's great.
Their business is hard.
It's a tough business tosupport, but it's a good
business.
So congrats to you guys.
That's a big deal and there'snothing better than, I think,
seeing your people receivepraise that you feel they

(01:23:30):
deserve for really hard workfrom people or customers who are
important to you.
There are few feelings as goodas that one, because you see how
much your team works behindclosed doors.
They don't, uh, you do, and youhope that your customers will
show some level of appreciationfor that, even if it's just
continuing to give you loads, uh.

(01:23:52):
But when they get on stage andgive you a big noodle and
congratulate you, it feels alittle bit better yeah, I mean
we can.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
We can talk all we want about what we're doing, but
when a customer is actuallywilling to raise their voice and
say you did something prettygood, that's a.
That's a good feeling for sure.
So very proud of the team.

Speaker 1 (01:24:11):
I'm with you.
Any parting thoughts before wecall it?

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
Man, I think we covered a lot of topics.
I nothing nothing, man.

Speaker 1 (01:24:22):
I think we covered a lot of topics Nothing on the tip
of my tongue.
I thought you did great foryour first podcast interview
ever.

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
Well, thank you.
I used to say I'm not going todo podcasts until we hit a
billion dollars in revenue, butwe're only at 150, and I'm
getting old, so I figured whenyou threw the invite out there,
it's time to spread my wings alittle bit and do one of these
things.

Speaker 1 (01:24:45):
I appreciate it.
We'll have you back on when youguys hit a billion in a few
years.
Just in a few, that soundsgreat, I'll hold you to that.

Speaker 2 (01:24:52):
All right, man.
Thanks so much.
All right, appreciate it.
All right, everyone.
Have a great week.
Have a great week.
We'll see you.

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