Lightning like Steve McQueen I'm in a fast lane when the light turns green and I built up find nothing but grit Cause I made rugged blood sweat and spit yeah, like a horse I fly for a bumpy ride I like to play hard but I work harder and I weather the storm because I'm building stronger.
What is up, ladies and gentlemen? We are back. We are live. It is a freight coach podcast, the top podcasting transportation coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines. But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome. This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen. And I say that before every single show.
And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve so you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life. Happy Thursday, everybody. We're going to jump right in. I got a very special guest for you guys here. And you know, we're going to be talking about the digitization in freight. Right? Like it's always, it's been a hot topic now for a while, but you know, for me, the progress and everything that comes along with it, where it's going, where it's heading, I think is a great evolution in this industry.
So I have the co founder and CEO of CargoBot, My friend Fernando on the show today. So Fernando, thank you so much for joining me.
Oh no, thank you so much for is a great invitation.
No, man, I'm really looking forward to this. And you know, especially like, selfishly as a founder, I always really love talking to other founders. I love learning more about like what, why they started doing what they're doing. So before we get into any of that though, man, how'd you get your start in freight, Fernando? What brought you into the transportation industry?
Oh, well, maybe I have to tell you by accident that. No, no, the truth is my wife has been running a traditional freight broker for many years and probably I think have been touching very close the inland freight industry. My background is in consulting and I used to work with so many different technology, Microsoft technology, SAP technology. And the end of the day for me was very easy to understand what's going on and what happened in this industry. And probably that was one of the reasons that I was. And it was an amazing opportunity to understand how can we improve the efficiency, Because I'm completely sure that we have a lot of space and we can help shippers and carriers at the same time.
But it was an accident because I spoke with my wife and she was all the time telling me, fernando, please. And why you are not joining me and we can work together. After three years learning the traditional way to move the freight in a traditional freight broker, this is when I saw so many different aspects of the process. I create different options, different solution. I spoke with so many different shippers, spoke with so many different carriers. And that was the reason that I'm here.
I think anybody out. So, like, I've been in this industry indirectly my entire life. I've been. I've been personally been a broker now for almost 15 years. And I think anybody who says that it can't, there's not certain aspects that can be digitized or should be digitized. I think it's just purely naive. I think that there are a lot of components of my day that need to be digitized. It needs to be streamlined. Because I think a lot of people, when you go out there and you work inside of a system, you know, like you go and work for an employer who has systems and processes and everything in place, a lot of people think like, oh, it's always been this way. They don't have that unique perspective of going out and starting something from nothing where you're literally trying.
And especially in the startup world, a lot of people like, you go from working in an environment where you have everything established for you to not having anything. A lot of people struggle with that. And then from my seat, I'm looking like, how do I get the most ROI for my efforts every single day? Because time is the only thing that really matters. How do I become faster? How do I become more efficient with my time? How do I make less mistakes as well so I don't get brought back in. Right. Because that's another whole other part of the digitization that I personally love is how do I minimize my mistakes as a person to save me time in the future that I don't have to go back and correct a lot of those things.
So it sounds like that might be a big driver behind what you guys have created at Cargobot was this is kind of, you know, streamlining a lot of those processes, which from my seat is a necessity if you're going to maybe grow and scale out of that startup phase.
Yeah, it's A lot of aspect, but that is the truth. In the last eight years we have been working so hard in the digitalization. And I have to say cargobot is one of the pioneers company at the beginning and were creating the first version understanding how can we connect together shippers and carrier using technology. But there was a lot of challenges that we need to understand very well because that is the only way that you can create an evolution. And the truth is we have a lot of fragmentations and we have fragmentation of people. We have big corporations that are using technology because they really want to be more efficient. But the true fragmentation is a complication sometimes because you need to standardize.
When you have a lot of carriers, you have owner operators, you have different brokers, and in another side, you have a shipper. The fact is it's complicated when you want to create your own technology that everybody want to use it. Because the truth is shipper needs at least a lot of brokers and carriers to move their freight. And everybody is running for their own purpose with their own technology. And that was one of the reason thinking all the time, okay, I would like to have more interaction, I would like to have more people on board, I would like to have more real digital shipment transaction. The truth was complicated. Sometimes you need to help with people and that is the opposite way of innovation because you don't want to have a lot of people for, you know, handle the operation, right?
And my question all the time, why shippers are not tech, why shippers are not using technology, why shippers are all the time using the same, you know, method that they have been doing for many years. That is the email, the phone calls on the text messages, the WhatsApp, right? The truth is they need more providers. And every single provider or every single provider is using technology for the on purpose. You cannot combine all in one. How can we create a middleware? How can we create something in the middle that you can talk with all of them? That was all the time. My transformation. Two years ago I had a conclusion. We have a beautiful and amazing technology that is running connecting shippers and carriers. But in another side, I was looking for more digital interaction. We create an amazing tool that.
The name is planiamatic. Planiamatic.com is a new product for shippers that is master planning technology that is creating a lot of wonderful interaction for shippers that use their own network of brokers or carriers. That I am thinking, I'm not thinking in Cargobot, you know, as a main provider, I am thinking in cargobot as another one. Yeah, if you have a plan in Madiga, you can use your own network or carrier as a broker at the same time that we are other extra capacities. And for me the conclusion of is a real middleware, it's a real agnostic technology that you can organize your entire operation with shippers and carriers.
We are shippers, brokers and providers don't need any login they don't need because the truth is everybody want to use the same communication channel and the same communication channel is email WhatsApp and we are connecting with them through email WhatsApp and we are adding that information directly to our master planning tool and our planning matic.
Okay, so is this all done through API connectivity and everything then? So you are out there as a middleware software between multiple platforms, right. So you know your broker has your tms, your load boards, shipper might have a tms, your rating software and everything else where this is kind of the connectivity between all of those platforms in there. So it's an agnostic tool in the sense of like it works with everything. There's not just one functionality behind this which is, you know, that's how a lot of companies come to market, right? They have their one functionality and then they start building and building on top of that. So like what was the driving force behind building an agnostic tool like that though, Fernando?
Well, the point is it's a couple aspects that definitely is an API interaction, but we have a framework. The most important for us is simplicity, user friendly and add the right functionality for shippers that they really need it. You don't need it, don't use it, don't put on there as different features in the technology because that is the complexity that we don't want it in our case definitely when we are creating technology that has to be super friendly, that is direct, straightforward to the point. We have a calendar view because then you can organize the planning. It's more your outlook, right when you have your calendar that you want to see exactly what's going on with your shipments. And you have your calendar, you have your contacts.
When you have your calendar, you have your contact, you have your shipments and it's amazing because you can connect with them, sending an interaction with emails and a WhatsApp or text message. And the fact is, if we are doing something like this, the truth we are totally digitalizing that interaction. We are collecting a lot of data. In the end of the day, we are collecting data for the shipper. The shipper need to Understand what's going on with rates and they need to organize what's going on with a lot of things that they really needed. And that is more or less that one of the challenges. But for me, this is the first dynamic can see shippers using technology, I can see brokers and carriers responding and I can observe that they are doing a great job together.
Yeah, I think that there is, you know, I think a lot of people would be surprised at how little tech is actually used out there in the vast market that we operate in within transportation. Or some of these companies that you look at them and they have a major presence. You're like, oh, they have to be the most tech savvy companies out there. And they're not like they actually use Excel spreadsheets and stuff like that, which you know, has a time and a place. But I think like there is, you know, for me it's, it's about how do I stay as organized as possible. I think any broker, any transportation provider, any shipper out there knows that. What it's like, hey, everybody is good, Fernando, to a certain point, right?
Like everybody's got that threshold where, you know what they might not be delivering that product that they think they are the busier that they get. And that's where it's like, you know, staying organized, staying on top of those things. I like to think I'm an extremely organized individual, but at the end of the day is, does my customer feel that way? Do my carriers feel that way? And I think like there's such a market in a need for something to keep everybody connected like that. Right? Because like at the end of the day that everything's changing no matter what. I am the most staunch old school freight professional out there that there is.
But I also know that like, hey, technology can make my life a hell of a lot easier if as long as it's deployed in the right areas inside of my business. And I think like you're starting to see that more and more at scale. And you know, I think like the ignorance that comes from this and my opinion is the ignorance that comes from so many people in this industry is like they don't think anything's going to come, right? Like there are very intelligent people that are out there. I mean Amazon, look at Amazon for example, nobody thought Amazon was going to exist probably 10 years ago, but look at the resurgence. Look what they can do from a visibility standpoint and a volume standpoint. And if it can be done at that level, there's something else that's bound to come into it. Right.
And I don't care how great you think you are at your job, something is going to come along no matter what, no matter how much you want to fight it and resist it. Something is going to be developed, something's going to be deployed and adopted en masse that is going to digitize these freight transactions.
Yeah, completely. If you think about it, in this industry, something that I really learned talking with many different, you know, people, shippers, they don't have enough time because they feel completely collapsed with the seasonalities. And, and then at the end of the day, for whatever reason that they don't have enough people to attend the entire operation. And we have exactly the same combination with a different dispatcher. They are trying to find a shipment for a carrier. And the truth is everybody want to improve their operation and be faster and collect the right price, the right data and trying to understand how can we organize very inefficient way that transaction. But the end of the day, they're doing it every single day, the same job every day. What I am talking about is more if you want to change, you need to transform the industry.
In the last seven years we have been investing a lot of money in this industry, you know, from different venture capitals and a huge billions of dollars that we have been putting into the industry. And right now we have another thing and another thing. We have a lot of fragmentation of technology. It's not the fragmentation of people handling operation and shipments. We have a lot of fragmentation of technology. And that means that we have load boards that we have like, you know, marketplaces. We have tracking technology, we have dispatching, digital dispatching technology. The end of the day, it's very confused for everyone what is the right one, right. But the true everybody is collecting a lot of data. This is, that this industry is data, is a data driven.
And most of the time, if you really want to do something, you know, probably something different, you have to be in an open mind. And what I mean is you have to be in a collaboration mode with everyone and you have to say, okay, listen, let me get something that I connect everyone and let's go ahead together. And we can operate in efficient way with the digital transaction. For example, in the, in planning matic is that we have an RFP that is request for proposal. Right. Right now the market is going that way there. If you don't want to, if you don't want to negotiate Every day your transaction don't go to the sport market.
But if you want to get, you know, get the right relationship with your network, the carriers or broker that you have all the time trying to get, you know, for the RFP for consistency.
Okay, yeah, from the. I want touch on RFPS here Fernando, because I want to get your opinion on something because I, I actually get a lot of pushback when I say this, but I think with where technology is developing, the yearly RFPS are going to be a thing of the past. I think that the speed is going to get so dialed in it's going to be monthly. And I'm talking like they're going to be able to compute tens of thousands of lanes on a 30 day basis and they're going to be able to spit those out because you know, like, and it's tough to sit here and comprehend that.
But I can see it, I mean even in the time that I've been in this industry for where RFPS were to what the advancements that have been done in the last two years, I mean just the complete digitization of RFPs that are like this on a platform like with what you're talking about here and what you guys have is I am convinced of this. I don't know when, I'm not saying it's going to be in 12 months or 24 months, but there will be a point in time where it will essentially be an open spot market, 30 day set rates and that's going to be it. The spot market's going to go away. Long term RFPS are going to go away.
It's going to be a 30 day thing because I think data is going to, they're going to be able to compute and it's such a high speed. What used to take, you know, two months to break down is going to be done in two weeks now. And I think that there's going to be a team of people behind it that are going to do it. I'm just, I. People call me crazy when I say that, Fernando, but I think it is only a matter of time before that happens.
Yeah, no, and also think about when, you know, when you're talking, imagine the traditional way, then the majority, you can have your tms, but for whatever reason when I am talking with shipper that they have the tms, that is only for connectivity. But the truth is when they're receiving the response for that bid or that quoting, they're receiving by email. When you have a lot of transactions receiving information by email, you're losing information because that information is into the email and that is the text. It's not a data. Okay. And we have to. The data point has to be in the database.
Okay.
When you have a database, this is when you can play with the data. Now you can have a prediction rate. RFP is the way that you can plan your operation.
Yeah.
For my suggestion, that is something that probably will be more in my background consulting. But I have been in this industry in running the digitalization for the last 10 years and have a lot of expertise. And the truth is, if you can plan your operation, if you can see exactly in advance what happened with capacity and visibility and you can launch a different project for coding, you can commit capacity. I think spot market will be all the time over there. But it's more for backup. It's not for planning. Planning first and after that you have something, there's a lot of cancellations every day is you cannot guarantee that you will have your capacity secure every day. That is something that is the reason that we have a spot market. But that's fine.
But the important thing is see what's going on, analyze exactly what is the price, how can we collect the data we have factoring company giving us how much is the price that you have over there? We have a lot of data that we can shared together to, you know, to get a lot of efficiencies.
Yeah, no, I'm right there with you. And you know, speaking of efficiencies, another. Another reason why I'm really banking on this happening is, you know, back to the Amazon effect and the Walmart effect. I truly feel like our industry is evolving into more of a hub and spoke model in the sense of like, there isn't necessarily a need for a shipment from Seattle to Miami anymore, for example. All right. I'm not saying that's going to go away, but there's not going to be a need for it because there's like the consumer behavior, you know, are you going to wait five days to do it or are you going to go to another source to get your stuff right away?
And I think that if people started to pay attention to how they operate in their personal lives and translate that into their jobs here as transportation professionals, it'll start to make a lot more sense. Where I think it's the consumer behavior, people want their stuff right now. Like, I can go on Amazon or I can go on something, I can get it delivered to my house same day. Why would I wait? Right. So it's like if that's and I just, I feel like that is where things are going to evolve to. And then I feel like the long haul truckers are going to again, they're going to switch back into a regional focus where it's like, hey, they're going to be based out of Atlanta and they'll do a 500 mile radius and that's going to be it.
They'll go out and they'll come back. The airlines have perfected this and I think like it's eventually going to come our way. I could be crazy man, but that's just where I, I just see things trending.
Yeah, no, I think that I completely agree with you that the only way that we can, you know, be more efficient if we are understanding how can we go together for a better environment with an operation. And as you know, AI is right now is the music that we're listening in so many different aspects. Because, because they are collecting a lot, they're processing a lot of information in the very real time. And with AI we can do a lot of things. That is true. AI is the way that you can have a multidimensional aspect of the data. For example, we are running a different AI algorithm internally that is not exactly more like the generative interpretation of the data.
But when you have to go and you know, all your capacity is going to New York and you have a lot of, you know, truckers going to New York because you are in the pickup process from different state. The truth is you have a cluster in New York that you can also at the same time offer that option to the carrier. Because the important thing, the way that we are helping each other is through the data. If I am helping dispatcher to get more shipments in the right location for the right time, I have to think in advance. I cannot think, you know, in the reactive actions. I cannot go wait until the shipment is in New York and trying to find a carrier to New York, you know, and that anyway, I think it's a weird transforming.
I think we're living the second version of digitalization that is true after 10 years. This is the 2.0 digitalization environment.
Yeah, no, I'm right there with you, Fernando. And you know, and that's another, you know, bringing about, you know, drivers and access to freight and all of that stuff. That's something that I'm really excited about as well is to be able to bring that down to the owner operator level. For example, you know, because my dad was an owner op, he drove for 40 years right. And you know, again, and I've said this before, and I'll say this again, it's not that he didn't want to improve his business in certain areas.
He just didn't have the time to shut his livelihood down, to go to a conference or to go learn about this stuff that's like, that's really the main driving force behind this show that I do is to get this information out to the masses, to get people to start thinking differently about it and how can they improve inside of their business. And you know, speaking about data, when's the last time you as a broker or a trucking company looked at your most profitable lanes, your most consistent lanes and then stacked that up over a 12 month period and saw, hey, maybe you know what, I don't need to take this other freight. I should really focus in on these core lanes, these core regions and maybe my profitability will increase based on doing that and stuff.
So like to me it's like having access to that and how many drivers are getting offloaded at a facility. And then there's a, the backhaul lane or the lane that they're looking for next. Is that a shipper that's three doors down but they don't have access to that freight. And now this is where you do you get more access to that. You can reduce your deadhead, reduce your downtime and everything and to keep moving.
Yeah, something that were doing also because the way that we are creating agnostic technology is because we want to facilitate also carriers that they can put capacity and they can share that capacity directly to the rest of the shippers. And I remember, you know, talking with different shippers that they have, they are handling their own fleet company. You know, it's very typical in flowers that you have for whatever reason that you have your own fleet company, but at the end of the day they need more shipment in the high season, when they have the high season. Okay, so you can facilitate with more shipment. And during the season they can provide us, you know, capacity because they need to cover the empty miles that they have.
And this is when I am collecting, you know, also the capacity for a small fleet company that we can put together and that is the same for owner operators. Owner operators, unfortunately they don't have the structure and maybe they need to talk with somebody else as a dispatcher because they need to find shipments there all the time. But with I'm the way that we are thinking, we have one of the divisions that is providing freight services and capacity that at the end of the day is more like the traditional digital broker. That is more the division that we have been running for a lot of years.
But in that case, we love to talk with owner, operator, we love to talk with, you know, fleet companies because in the end of the day, we need to know where are they moving, because that is the only. And we are connecting with our cell structure. That is more the technology that we have. Okay, hey guys. We have shipments in whatever place we have capacity. We are trying to get the right thermometer about capacity, volume of shipment that we can send directly to another shipper. And it's connecting dots. That is true. We are connecting the dots. And that is using data.
Yeah, no, I'm right there with you. And I think that, you know, because I actually just did a show about data in, you know, data compilation and everything. And you know, that's another step that I think a lot of people overlook. And, you know, it might just come from the fact that so many people, when they're out there that are trying to build a business or a book of business, they're so concerned about how do I get revenue, which is a very real concern out there, you know, but like, at the end of the day, once you have data, what do you do with it? How are you utilizing it? And there is a lot easier ways to track a lot of these things today than it has been in years past. And I think that, you know, data.
And then especially right now, like, I. I think that the big thing in this industry, Fernando, that has not been developed yet, that might be in the process of being developed is predictive analytics where it's going to start studying dwell times at facilities and everything. And it's going to start force ranking shippers and receivers out there based on what the loads are paying. Right to where I think it's going to evolve to that. Where it's like, hey, this load might be paying $2amile, for example, but there's a 70% chance that you're going to get held up. Now, this load is paying $1.50amile, but there's 100% chance that you're going to get loaded on time and 100% chance that you're going to get offloaded on time, which improves the probability of you finding something out of there.
That's where maybe I'm completely insane with that's going to happen.
Yeah. Prediction rate is probably one of the most complicated formula because it's a lot of facts that is affecting the Rates all the time. It's not only weather condition could be, you know, war. You know, whether it's in Mexico, it's affecting also capacity situation with, you know, the port in California. And at the end of the day, the truth is a lot of component that is affecting rates. And at the same time seasonality is by. You need to have your map of the different seasons that is starting in Florida, starting in California, starting in different states. And that definitely is more like the way that you have to understand where are the fish is trying to eat the food. Right. And this is complicated, but we have a lot of data that is true. It's a lot of companies.
Remember I mentioned that we have a lot of fragmentation of technology collecting data. And then one of the reality that we have in our technology, we are connecting. We have a lot of plugin collecting data, data. Why? Because we are running our own algorithm for easy interpretation. I remember sometime when you're looking something very complex that you have no idea what is exactly what that means. It's very complicated for people understand what is the right interpretation. Okay. That interpretation is the fact that information is not very accurate. And that is the truth. Sometimes it's complicated because hey, I have like a different law board telling me how much is the right rate, right average rate for this season. And the truth is, when I am trying to hire the carrier, this is not the price. And it's very frustrated. Right?
Yeah.
Now we have to add different components. That is something that we are doing with, you know, with Planimatic we have an instant quote, for example, that collecting data from so many different APIs that we have running behind and give that information to the shipper. And they shipping right now they can see exactly how much is the potential in some quota that you have for by lane by top of the trailer. But in another side, as we have, you know, the aspect that is more related with capacity. And one of the facts, for example, that is a new functionality that we are creating because we have an operation in Europe as well. And we are right now testing in the company that they are moving 100,000 over more than 100,000 shipments a year. And this company has a lot of facilities. And that facility.
He told me, I would like to organize my dog. At the same time I would like to organize my appointment. Okay. I put my idea how can I help carriers to organize by their own, you know, the appointments. Because as you know, there's a lot of things going on. A lot of extra additional fees for when you want to change the appointment. And it's very frustrating in the carrier standpoint when they have a lot of situation on the road and we have to facilitate. How can we be together and help us together. How can we organize a much better aspect, the entire logistic process?
Yeah, man, amen to that, Fernando. But hey, that's going to be it. That was a quick 30 minutes, man. I really enjoyed our conversation. I enjoyed hearing more about what you guys got going on. But how does anybody reach out to you guys to find out more about what you guys are doing?
I know, absolutely. I'm super happy. And we are sharing information, sharing information for a great future. 2025, I think is looking to us like an amazing year for everyone in terms of logistics. 100 sure about that. And I'm completely sure with efficiency, technology and integration, easy interpretation and simplicity and we can do something really great for the industry.
Yeah, I love it, man. Fernando, thank you so much for joining me. And that's going to be it for today, ladies and gentlemen. We will be back tomorrow as always. 8:30 in Pacific, 10:30 Central. I know you guys got value in this, but if you did and you're not subscribed, subscribe to the show. You guys share it out there. Dear network. Because if you see value, your network's going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys and we'll be talking to you soon.
Thank you so much.