Lightning like Steve McQueen? I'm in a fast lane when the light turns green And I built tough I ain't 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 built stronger. What is up, ladies and gentlemen? We are back. We are live. It is a freight Coach podcast, the top podcast in transportation, coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines. But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome. This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen. And I say that before every single show.
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. All right, you guys, we're just going to jump right in. I got a very special guest for you guys here today. He's been on the show in the past, but they're like, they're literally everywhere. And, you know, I have a ton of respect for him and his team because they're out there, they're hustling, they are building.
And I love talking to individuals like this because it takes a certain personality and certain grit to get something off the ground and running. So with that being said, I got my. My friend Jesse Buckingham with Booma back on the show. Jesse, thank you so much for joining me.
What's going on, Chris? Thanks for having me back. It's good to be here.
No, man, it's great. It's great to have you here. And, you know, it was funny. I. I got hit up by your. Your pr and they're like, hey, we got this awesome company that, you know, they. They're. They got this raise that they're about to announce, and it's Vuma. And I'm like, wait, Jesse. I'm like, hey, I love it. But B, it was awesome to kind of hear about that, and I was just so excited to see all of that because I know what you've put into this and your team has put in to get this off the ground and to secure. What you guys secured this week is, you know, I know it's like it's just got to feel amazing like to finally get that buy in, you know, that were kind of talking about before we started recording.
Yeah, totally. I mean it's a really exciting milestone for me really because of like what it enables when I look like look forward, you know, in a way somebody like one of my mentors said that like celebrating financing rounds is like celebrating like getting your student loans or something. Like really, you know what I mean? It's sort of like it's not the thing. Like the thing is like building a product that like drives a lot of impact for businesses. But it is like, it is an exciting milestone because I think what it does is it enables us to like be a lot, you know, more ambitious in like what we can build to help the logistics industry. So no, we are taking a moment to like pause and celebrate. And it is exciting.
No, I mean it's when you're going out there and you're building everything up because I know this is your, you know, you guys also had raised a little bit, you know, in a seed round and then now this just, that injection of capital is, you know, at least for me when you've grinded like you have over the years, like I know that capital is going to be like properly allocated, right? Because like you've been down this road before and everything. And I feel like that's got to be probably a big hurdle to overcome when you're out there seeking investment is it's if you haven't been down that road before, right? So it's like you're kind of fighting that two pronged monster at that point of like, hey man, you've never done this before. How can we trust you with millions of dollars?
And then B, this idea seems like a fallacy like how the hell is this going to come up and run?
Yeah, yeah, totally. No, and it is. And that's why like a lot of this stuff happens in phases, right? Like you start out with a little bit, you prove out some stuff and really the phase that this kind of last round of funding is significantly more than, you know, we'd raised before really is like, hey, this is working, let's go and like get this out to as many people as we can. So it, yeah, it is exciting.
So what's, you know, what's the big news with a lot of this as well? Because you guys kind of have like a new release coming along with this as well because you know, you had came to market with, you know, A core product and then now this is seemingly going to help you guys kind of expand out on what it is. So what's that, that announcement of that piece that's coming out with your guys product and service offering?
Yeah. So the original vision for vuma as you know, is that like today in logistics it still takes so many touches and so many humans to be able to move freight from point A to point B. It doesn't really matter if you're the biggest broker or the smallest broker, it just takes a lot of work to execute. And so the vision for like what we've been trying to do is give logistics brokers, both on the customer side initially, tools that allow them to be dramatically more productive in their work. We started that with order entry and load building and expanded that then out into quoting. But the vision here has always been to build a more generalized multi channel agent that has the capability to execute across email, where we started, but also text message voice across all parts of the load lifecycle.
So that if you're a broker, your role then becomes a lot of like, hey, how do I like pass off work to execute to an AI, to provide input, to resolve exceptions, to provide coaching, to be able to like allow that AI to help me make decisions. And so now like a lot of what this investment enables is for us to continue building up our platform. And so with this we announced the release of what we're calling Voomer agents, which is a multichannel agent that allows you to build really like autonomous workers that can execute workflows from quoting and load building, but scheduling, track and trace, covering and booking freight. Really powerful. And you can define these things in natural language, you can give it access tools to be able to execute and it will come up for help when it needs it.
So we think that this is going to be really transformative and a lot of this capital is going behind, you know, continuing to build out the product and engineering team to bring that fully to life.
Yeah, I think that, you know, there's always gaps in everybody's operation, right? Like no matter what, even the most efficient people out there's always gaps. There's always something that you need to be looking for as a leader in, like how do we improve efficiency? You know, like, because to me speed is everything, right? Like they're saying out there, speed kills all deals. And if you're not quoting back fast, if you're not accepting loads fast, if you're not building them fast, if you're not getting them covered fast, what are you doing? Right? And it's like, and you gotta look for those little things out there because like, I say this all the time, Jesse, and I know not everybody likes it when I say this, but like C.H.
Robinson by revenue, largest broker in North America and the smallest broker by revenue in North America offer the exact same service. All right? I don't care what anybody says. We're all going after the same customers, we're all going after the same carrier. So what makes a broker unique out there? Right? I truly feel like your ability to solve problems and communicate is very high up there. But how are you the most efficient operator is number two. And it's a very, very close number two, right? It's like, how do you make your accounting more efficient? Right? How do you solve those billing issues? How are you order, like, is your order entry as efficient as possible and everything?
So I feel like something like this really even brings the playing field even closer out there where somebody who could be a brokerage of any size, but I'm going to use myself as an example, a smaller business who's out there trying to piece it together. This helps us kind of go after a more enterprise level account now because this helps us deploy somebody out there doing order entry, doing a lot of those tasks on the back end so we can go out there and focus on the actual execution of the freight.
Yeah, totally. I mean, this is what we're saying. And you're right, like we find our product works across, you know, with brokers that are moving, you know, a couple hundred loads per month all the way out to like many of the big guys. And we find that it adds value across the spectrum. I mean, take the order entry use case, for example. I was sitting in the office of a big Chicago brokerage with one of the teams that had just implemented Vuma and it was transformational on that account because they were spending 25% of their day building loads. And that just went basically to zero. So I asked this rep, what does that enable you to do? And he's like, well, I'm not spending 25% of my time on that, but every other broker that this customer is working with is.
And so now I'm thinking about like, how do I provide better service, thinking about like getting better appointments and like freeing up that headspace to then like adopting more of like a strategic posture, you know, on the account. Whereas if you're just caught in the knife fight the entire time, it's really hard to do that. So if your like Goal is to provide really good service, you know, a lot of which I think like is critical. Like I think the relationships really matter here. I don't think these things are at odd, right? Like it's more about like how do you get that stuff off your plate so that you actually have the headspace in order to be able to focus on that stuff.
No, I mean it's a very real thing and it's a very big issue I think for a lot of companies out there. I mean I look at myself, you know, I'll always use myself as an example, right. Like I have to structure out my day in a sense where it's like I have to get a certain amount of sales call done in a day. I have to get all of my current customers taken care of, our current freight taken care of. I do the show, I'm back at it and doing those other things, right. So it's like how do I keep to make sure it's that peace of mind, right? Of like hey, that load that we accepted and built up, it was done right. You know, like I don't have to go back, I don't have to double check anything that's out there.
But again I can focus on revenue producing activities because I mean, you know this as a founder man, most small businesses, most startups are so fragile in the beginning, right, of like really getting your processes dialed in, getting your service dialed in, the execution dialed in, that you're wearing 18 hats at all times and you know everybody, this is what you signed up for. But like ultimately though, the fragility of your business early on is you know, in closing those gaps. Like I just put a post out about this the other day where it's like when you go and you're building something up, you're like you have nothing.
Then you have a record month and then you have down two months and then that, that gap closes and it's like getting that off the ground now I feel like is in and it's in a lot better position for a lot of people now because like you can hit the phones harder, you can get out there and visit more customers, you can focus on the revenue drivers early on in your business as opposed to being sat back and dealing with a lot of clerical work.
Yeah, totally. I mean this is a lot of voomer agents is defined and built based on these sops. So like exactly what you're saying there is like when you're building a Brokerage, there's a lot of stuff that just has to happen consistently really well.
And the challenge is that maybe you're documenting that in an sop, but, like, you know, and then you've got somebody in operations that doing is doing that task for you, but maybe they transition out of their role in, like, six to nine months, and then you kind of like, back training that person back up, and it's like, how do you make sure that the investments you're making in defining and setting your process, like, are, like enduring investments, you know, rather than being on this sort of hamster wheel of continuing to have to kind of like, figure that stuff out necessarily, or retrain.
And that's like, part of the power of our product is what it allows you to do is, like, embed a lot of that tribal knowledge in an AI that then, you know, will learn and improve and then execute with a lot of discipline and consistency, right? Like on the processes that you put in place so that you can kind of say, all right, we're good here. Like, this is. This is working. Now I can, like, turn my mind to driving revenue. Right, and making those calls.
Are you able to use this product to help train maybe your new hires, right, who are coming in? Because I feel like training and development is something that I don't want to say people overlook, but I don't think a lot of people have all the time in the world to give, you know, a new hire, two full classroom weeks of training and everything else. And, you know, I was talking to an individual yesterday, and she was explaining. She's like, yeah, we had a process for everything. Like, how do I change the ink on the copier style? Like, everything was documented. Because I think, like, that's another thing, too, is, you know, you're talking about that tribal knowledge, and I think that holds a lot of people back in business, especially in freight.
And I mean, I was speaking at a conference earlier this year, and I, you know, I asked a question to the audience. I'm like, hey, how many of you guys fret taking a vacation because the work seems to never get done? And almost everybody in the room raised their hand. I'm like, this is where tech and AI can come in and help it to where it's like, I mean, I use AI in my business all the time, Jesse. And the media stuff, where it's like, hey, we have an AI transcriber that puts out a bunch of stuff for the podcast and everything, but we also used it to document all of our processes, all of our training and it spits out a training format for us. So like were able to do all of that.
Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I mean, I think there's like opportunities for AI really across all of these things. I mean, this point that you're making about it being really hard to like take vacation is something that we see and hear all the time from our customers, like because they're able to leave and then the instruction to somebody else is like, pay forward these like loads to Voomer or just like hit create quote through Voomer and like, and they've already done the training on the AI, so like they're the ones so they can like step out and somebody else can like step in. And that's just like important for people to be able to take breaks. It's also important as like a business leader to like have redundancy in your business as well.
But I do think that there's also a lot of exciting opportunities for like separate products that are in the market to like help train reps on phone calls, et cetera. As well. That's not a focus area of ours, but I think it's an exciting space.
No, I agree, man. And I think that, you know, this is where you're able to really go out there, you know, because it's like to me, it's like, how do you take those next steps without, you know, having to take out a loan or something like that to hire people and everything else. And you know, because like, that's something that I think about a lot is it's like, hey, I want to grow, I want to scale, but we don't have the revenue to justify bringing on four or five sales reps. Right. Or go out there. You know, we don't want to take out a line of credit or use our line of credit at the bank to go out there and do that.
Because like, if it doesn't pan out for 90 days, like we're out money and is that going to put you out of business and stuff like that. So it's like to me, this is where I'm the most excited about a lot of these tools that are coming out.
Right.
It's because I help. I think it helps a lot of small to mid sized companies, or companies of any size for that matter, to grow and scale at a more rapid pace if they're able to do it without, you know, possibly not having them work out.
Yeah, I mean we hear this all the time from our customers. Like we have a Customer that implemented vooma initially on the load building side, and they think that they just look at it in terms of they're a growing business. They're not trying to like, they want to like double, triple revenue over the next few years. And they've been able to push out their hiring curve very substantially because now they're able to look at like, okay, we can do this many loads like per head now with Boomer, we don't need to make that higher now for six, maybe 12 months. Or maybe it's like bridging the gap between. Because there's this interim period where you're like, shit, we're going to break if we get much more. But we're not quite at the low level that we really want to make that higher.
But if you put that through an AI tool that you can just scale up and down on demand, then it helps to solve that problem. And now, similarly with them, we're working through, we're asking that question of where's the next bottleneck? If you doubled your load count tomorrow, where is this thing going to break down? Because there's a lot of manual process all across the business. But for a growing brokerage, that's a great framework for how to think about it is like, okay, you double tomorrow. How does this whole thing come crumbling down? And so now for them, we're shifting out to now unlock scheduling automation and we'll do pod retrievals and track and trace automation from there. So I think you're exactly right.
A lot of this is like, hey, how do I keep scaling without, you know, but being able to make those hires when I've got real conviction that they're going to like, have a high return for the business.
No, that's exactly it. I mean, I was just talking about this the other day on the show. Jesse is, you know, when you're out there trying to develop your book of business as a freight broker, you know, being very aware of like, who you're going after and the level of customer that you're going after because, like, say they onboarded you, but their requirement is you need to move 500 loads a day for them. Was my hypothetical example. Can your team actually execute upon that? Right. And if they can't, you need to go back to the drawing board about who you're going after. But say you're, you know, you're pushing across the goal line for one of your prospects and they're like, hey, we want to do this, we're publishing this RFP. Even if it's only 100 loads a month, for example.
Can your team do that? Are you able to do that? And now it's like, with something like this, that makes it an emphatic yes, in my opinion, where you have somebody who's out there where it's like, you know, just breaking it down. You have a sales rep and a carrier sales rep. You're each doing 20 loads a day, you know, in total at that point. And then you have somebody behind the scenes who's pod retrieval, who's making sure that the operations are going on. So now you can pack a larger punch as a broker and not potentially break the bank. But this also helps you set up your cash reserves for the future then.
So as you're going to go out there and scale at that point, and then you have the money in the bank to pay for that salary for six months or 12 months or whatever it is, I think it helps you actually save in the long term, in the short term to be able to pack a larger punch out there in the market when it comes to hiring and who you're going to go after from a customer acquisition strategy.
Yeah, fully agree. And it allows you to, you know, make those, like, investments in folks are going to help, like, drive revenue in the business.
Right.
And. And grow the business. And I think that's exactly right.
So what's it like? I kind of want to shift focus a little bit because I feel like, you know, you guys. And then there was a happy robot, I think, announced this week that they had raised money. And I know that this is probably something a lot of people think about right as they're going out there. And I wanted, I want to kind of shift this to, like, those startup founders who are kind of in the initial phases. What do you like after you've gone through this now, Jesse? How, like, how could you set somebody up for, like, to go about this differently now? Like, what did you learn in this process to where it's like, hey, if we ever go back out and search for funding again or whatever, that looks like this is what we would do differently.
That's an interesting question. What would we do differently? I mean, overall, I'm like, really proud of, like, the sort of journey and the team that we've been on, because, I mean, I think the framework that I would encourage folks to think about, it's definitely the framework we've adopted here, is that like, in an industry like logistics, we believe that the relationships and trust that you build with your early customers in the industry really matters. And so a lot of it was starting out making commitments to customers and then doing everything that we possibly can to make those, to deliver on those commitments and to make our customers excited and deliver a ton of value in their business so that they're excited to tell other brokers in the industry about us and to be able to want to partner with us as we expand out.
Because we started with these initial, we call them kind of like wedge products to solve specific pain points, which allows you to get in and deliver value quickly to folks and then you build trust and credibility that your team is one that is going to be a really good partner for the long term and then expand out over time. And I think overall we did a really good job of that. And I would definitely encourage founders to think about it, because you can't be churn and burn. There's some industries where startup founders, I think, go for that approach, but especially in an industry like logistics, it's really important that you're just continuing to deliver for folks so that you build that reputation in the industry. I think that's a big one.
The other thing that I think is kind of interesting is the speed that AI is evolving is one thing that I think we think a lot about where I think if I look back two years, we started Vuma before even ChatGPT, which I think of as the world's awakening. A moment were before that where there was an API that only developers had access to. And if you were playing with it, you kind of have this little vision into the future of, like, wow, everything's about to change. And that was like the initial version of Voomer. And so it was sort of clear to us that the world was going to, like, change very dramatically.
And then I think it, like, the rate of improvement just, like, happened a lot faster than even, like I was expecting as somebody who was, like, working at the bleeding edge of it. And so now a lot of it is, like, we are being much more ambitious in terms of what we think AI is going to be capable of. And I think that changes, like, the way that you build the business both in terms of, like, our products, but even as we look at our internal operations. And so I think that, like, that's maybe another one is like, you know, having, like, having a strong point of view and conviction about, like, where. Where the puck is heading here. Because I think, like, these tools are improving a lot and that's going to. That's going to be pretty transformative.
And I think that applies to freight brokerage as well. I speak with brokers that are at all different levels of the spectrum of some of them are still wanting to take their first step with AI, which is really great. Others are like, wow, this is actually going to be pretty transformative for how we can run our business. And I think that posture is going to be important because I think things are going to change a lot over the next three to five years. Kind of thinking a little bit about like not just where we're at today, but actually like, where does this go kind of three to five years in the future and are you setting yourself up for success in that future? So I think that's important for founders. I think it's important for logistics as well.
I think there is a lot of naive people in this industry who don't think that technology and AI is going to make a real mark inside of freight brokerage in particular. You know, I know that everybody likes to point out to the, you know, the convoys of the world and all of this stuff, but I, I'm of the belief of this, Jesse, someone's going to come along and nail it and they are going to decimate people with it. They, they truly are. I truly feel that way. This is strictly just my opinion. I've said it enough on this show. Someone's going to dial it in, someone's going to dominate. And if you don't think that your job could be affected by this, you need to pick up a book and read.
You like, you need to do a little bit more research on this stuff. Because I think the smart companies out there inside of transportation in particular are going to do a leverage boat. They're going to revolution that, leverage that tribal knowledge, that experience that customers still are really asking for, right? They're like, hey, I want to deal with that. But I'm going to leverage the out of technology inside of my operations, all right? Because I'm going to free up all of my time to do those revenue generating activities, all right? I don't need to sit there and type on my keyboard all day long to build a load to find a PO number or anything like that.
I'm going to leverage the shit out of technology to do all of that stuff so I can make more sales calls, so I could be out in front of as many people as possible so I can improve my revenue number per seat inside of my organization to run lean at that point. And that's where. So then ultimately I can deliver a better price per mile to my customers out there and pay my carriers more money, I'm. I'm going to boldly say I'm going to be the one to do it. All right? I don't know if I'm going to build a platform like Convoy had or Uber Freight has or anything like that, but I'm going to leverage this out and I'm going to dial this in because I am all on board with this stuff, man. All on board with it.
Because, like, this is what's needed out there, okay? This is what is needed to really amplify your output. And if you talk to any founder, any business leader that is out there, and especially because, you know, I also say that I will never cap commission on my sales reps. You can put this in right now, screenshot this. Do whatever you need to do. Freight Coach Logistics will never cap commissions on their sales reps. This gives people an opportunity to make more money. Everybody wants to make more money. Everybody wants to provide a better life for their family. And we're going to leverage that within technology to do it.
Yeah, no, and look, there's very real differences between this wave of, like, technology and the wave that Convoys and Uber Freights were kind of riding. I have a lot of respect for those businesses and I think, you know, drove a lot of innovation in the industry. The challenge was that the, like, highly automated operation is only really works with really the like, top, you know, like top X shippers for everyone else. Like, you've got 200,000 shippers that are, you know, wanting to transact with you over email and phone calls. And it's really hard with the sort of prior forms of technology to actually drive, you know, like, you can't really automate a bunch of, like, unstructured emails and stuff that's like coming over or phone calls, et cetera.
And that's just like, critical in logistics, where you have 400,000 trucking companies and 25,000 brokers and, you know, one to 200,000 shippers out there. This is quite different because now we have tools that are able to traverse email, phone calls. You're able to build agents that can actually, like, you know, start to do all of those pieces that wasn't possible in the private, like, version of technology when sort of like Convoy and Uber Freight came along. So I like, fully agree. Like, I think there's two things that are going to happen is the businesses that adopt this and implement it effectively will be able to operate at, like, dramatically higher loads per head over time.
And then the individuals within businesses that figure out how to use AI to their own advantage, are going to earn a lot more and are going to, like, crush it because their productivity is going to be that much higher. So I think it's going to happen at both levels.
Yeah, I'm right there with you, man. I think that, you know, innovation and, like, the people that are first to the party of freight tech always take the most arrows, but they are really laying the groundwork for the next group of highly intelligent individuals to come in and do. And I think, like, there's, you know, ultimately, yes, you need freight experience, you know, to truly go out there and make a difference in this industry. I mean, even on the tech side, I truly believe in that. But ultimately, you guys, there's a system, all right? It's a process that can be followed. And I think the most famous example of somebody out there in our industry that came in without having freight experience is, look at a guy like Brad Jacobs. Read the book how to Make a Few Billion Dollars.
Yeah, systems, you guys, it's all about that. And that really, that prob. After reading that book, Jesse, this year, that completely flipped my perspective on what we could do as an organization and as a company. When it comes down to it really, really does, man. And I think, like, it's only a matter of time before that. That becomes a reality. And then there's gonna be a lot of people, unfortunately, who are going to be sitting back saying, why didn't we do anything?
Yeah, yeah. Well, there's opportunity. We're so early still. I mean, it feels like with. There's so much noise and excitement around this stuff, but we're. We're just. This is. This is the very beginning, and so it's the right time for anyone to kind of jump in and get up to speed now.
I agree, man. Jesse, thank you so much for joining me though, today, man. It's always great having you on. I can just. I can feel your passion about this stuff. Every time we talk, I see you out there at all those conferences putting in the work, building your brand, getting in front of people. I know what you go through, and I just. I appreciate the hustle, man.
Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it. Pleasure, as always. Great to be on.
All right, guys, we'll be back on Monday. That's going to be it for this week. As always, if you guys got value with what you heard, which I know you guys did, and you're not subscribed, subscribe to the show. You guys, share it out there to your network. Because if you see value the rest are going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys, and we'll be talking to you soon. Dude, we need to get you, like, a.