Ep. #13: Brian Cristol

We've got some news for our audience , our listeners , and we are going to make sure that this is good news , great news for you all .

Paul and I this will be our last episode co-hosting the Freight Pot together we have decided to move forward , each with our own show splitting off , which should mean more content , more episodes , more guests , more great stuff for all of you . I will be keeping the Freight Pot myself and Paul will be starting his new show in the near future here , named TBD .

Let me just say , Paul , this has been really fun the last few months . I appreciate the work we've done together . It's been great getting to bring guests on and I'm excited to see what you do with your show . I'm excited for myself to get creative and see what I can do with mine .

So just been a really fun journey and thank you for being a part of this with me .

I mean , when we got this off the ground this is something I've been thinking about starting a podcast for three-plus years and I got to give a quick shout out to Chris Jolly , the Freight Coach . He started his podcast I want to say back in 2020 , and I would just text him from time to time like man , I really want to do this , how do I get started ?

And he would just constantly say he's like you just got to hit the record button , and for the longest time I just would not hit the record button , for whatever reason .

And then fast forward a couple of years and I get a somewhat out of the blue text from you , andrew , which initiated the next four months and hours and hours of work that would come from that one text .

But it's been a very fruitful , wonderful journey , learned a ton in the process , and so I just want to use these last few minutes to thank a few people that have helped get us to this point , and so the first people that I want to mention are people that you guys don't see . It's the men behind the Iron Curtain and that's our co-host .

Not our co-host , but our producers , andy and Steve from Spellbinder Media . They're constantly in the background , in our ears , helping us ask the right questions , doing a lot of the pre-production . So if any of you guys are thinking about starting your own podcast , shout out to those guys .

They've been awesome to work with and helped us sound somewhat decent , so appreciate all your efforts there . We want to thank our listeners as well . Andrew joked around a little bit that , hey , paul , we got three , four listeners . We had thousands of listeners and that came in a very short period of time that we had that level of success .

It was overwhelming . Andrew and I would go out to conferences and it was the first thing people would say when they would come up to us was talk about the freight pod and how much they're enjoying it , and that's just .

It's a very fulfilling thing to be able to put yourself out there and have people appreciate what you're putting out there , so that was really fantastic . And the last thing is again thanking Andrew for going on this journey together . You have to be really vulnerable to do something like this , especially when you're not trained in this sort of thing .

You don't grow up doing this sort of thing , and we were literally staring each other in a computer screen we didn't know each other that well , by the way and you hit a record button and you're basically opening up the most vulnerable parts of yourself .

You don't know if you sound like you know how you sound or how ridiculous you might sound , or the stupid things that are coming out of your mouth , but we gave each other the space to learn in that way and that was just really fantastic .

I feel like we've made some progress on that , but , man , it was just nerve wracking and we gave each other space to do that . So I really thank you , andrew , for that .

And , lastly , I got to thank my family that you know I already put in enough hours at work at my professional career and you know taking hours before and after work to do a passion project like this is , you know , really tough , but we made it work . I've got , you know , my . You know .

One thing I didn't expect to come out of this is , you know my oldest son , my five year old Adrian , listens to every episode . So he's one of our biggest listeners , and that's with curse words and all . So I think he might have Andrew .

We might have influenced him in a negative way in a bit , but he really enjoys it to the point where he's underneath my chair right now listening to everything that's going on because he wants to start his own podcast in the future . So , you know , I think maybe along the way we've inspired a few people , including my son , so I'm excited for that .

So , yeah , lastly , like Andrew said , I'll be back in the new year with the , with a podcast of my own . I don't know the exact format , the name , any of that sort of good stuff , but you know Andrew and I will continue to collaborate together and bring you guys good content , like he said . So with that Andrew , who do we have today ? Well , said .

I won't call it the Paul Estrada show , but whatever his new show will look like , paul drives this episode through and through and he and Brian do a great job here , so I hope you all enjoy it . It's a good one . Let's get this thing rolling . Let's do it .

Today's guest spent the first decade of his career as an investment banker before trading in his blackberry for the tech world , joining Uber eats . While there , he stumbled in the freight and logistics world , eventually pitching the concept that would become Uber freight . He spent the next three years there , helping to build out the platform that we all know today .

In 2020 , two months before COVID lockdown , he founded and launched isometric technologies , where he serves as the CEO .

Prior to starting his professional career , he was a long snapper at OCC , with zero block punts in 176 attempts , before being recruited to play for the cow bears , where he was teammates with Aaron Rogers , marshawn Lynch , dishon Jackson's , among others , and winning the 2005 Las Vegas Bowl Wearing his signature flannel . Welcome to the freight pod , brian Crystal .

How are you doing , brian ?

So when you were 10 years old , you started your first entrepreneurial venture painting mailboxes . You demonstrated a pedigree early on . So , looking back , where did the early drive come from and how did you use that to help set the foundation for a successful career ?

Your child didn't have any siblings , brothers or sisters had a lot of time to explore the neighborhood and really think on my own and I was just very self driven on everything that I did . And you know when , when you really want something and you want something bad enough , you figure out a way to go get it . And it's not always very easy to get there .

So you know , I've always had that entrepreneurial mindset and drive in me . I've just been learning as I've been going through life various stages on . You know ways to kind of get that out of myself and apply it to the , to the working world .

But you know , growing up is an only child and having divorced parents , I spent a lot of time with my grandfather and that's also where where a lot of that drive came from . You know he lost his dad when he was four years old .

He was , you know , hustling the produce markets in San Diego , taking produce back and forth between San Diego and Tijuana , one of four brothers , providing for his family and his mother . And then he married into you know , the nut brokerage business where he further took that skill set and ended up running my grandmother's company , the LA nut company .

And that constant hustle and drive is what was instilled in me from him and that if you want something , you just got to go out and get it . Nothing's going to come to you , nobody really cares . You really got to apply yourself and find self motivation to go out and do things .

I think spending a lot of time with him and hearing all those you know grand pious that we always hear . Right , Growing up you know you're not really listening . But then you get older and you actually were listening , right . You remember those things and you just kind of find your own way to apply those learnings .

And for me , a lot of that time spent , you know , I've found those opportunities and always think back to his experiences and my families and you know , just going out and making things happen , finding a way .

You know , I was a young kid can't get a job anywhere and I would go around the neighborhood and see these old metal , rusting , paint , shipping mailboxes and figured , hey , can I get 20 bucks for my mom ? Go to Home Depot , you know they used to have those recycling stacked boxes , right now they're trash cans and just throw a bunch of supplies in there .

And figure out a way to create value for the neighborhood and created flyers and kind of started paint mailboxes so I can make money . And then I discovered actually did , if I could distribute flyers on my roller blades , I could get the word out faster , right , so I could kind of sprint . This was a learning from Halloween , from trick or treating .

I remembered I could get candy faster . So then I applied that same learning to to get the word out on mailboxes and it was hard for people to turn down a 11 year old kid . So that's where I made my first thousand dollars .

I remember there were some old candies from a fund a soccer fundraiser that were in my freezer and I went out and sold those that were probably two years old , trying to collect 40 bucks so I can go out and buy a you know a box of cards that might have one of those you know special , limited edition type deals in there .

So we're gonna have to go through our card collections because , hey , if you still have yours , there's probably some good stuff in there .

And you go on to play , you know , very successfully college football , including division one football , and just talk through , I guess , how you continued the drive from those early days in childhood and how did that manifest itself in the athletics that you were doing .

But yeah , no , I mean I liked content . I love sports . You know I played everything I could as a kid soccer , baseball , basketball , golf , football , lacrosse but I liked contact sports . I just like to get out and hit . It was just a good outlet for me as a kid .

And watch a lot of football on TV and , all honesty , my , my intent was not to play football in college .

Like I was a diehard USC fan , believe it or not , growing up , that's where my , my dad went and most of my family , yeah , boo and and I just wanted to go to college , join a fraternity and play some club lacrosse and have a good time , and that's that's all I really wanted to do .

But my friends that I played pop Warner football with when I was a kid , up until the end of high school , wanted to go play junior college ball down in Southern California , which is the best you know junior college conference in the country , and they were .

They were like you got to come with , you know , come with us , have a great time , and they convinced me to play football .

So , yeah , moved down to Southern California and went to Orange Coast and Costa Mesa there , moved to Newport and then my friends quit three games into the season and moved back to Northern California and I actually thought about quitting too , because I was really there for them and I'm really fortunate to have some coaches that pulled me aside and said , hey man ,

like we just got a call the other day from Lou Holtz If you know who that is who was coaching at South Carolina at the time , saying he needs some special teams , guys right and look at it along , snapper , and you'd be stupid to quit and go back home like , tough it out . So you know , so I ended up staying . I'm happy that I did .

You know , for me , yeah , five foot nothing , a hundred , nothing .

But like players make plays , man , like that's that's what I always say , and like , once you step on the field or anything you do in life , you just got to make something happen , right , like , and so that was , that was kind of my craft , you know , growing up , and it , you know , got me an opportunity , got me visibility and had an opportunity to get to a

great college in Cal Berkeley .

But football is a game of leverage , you know , at the end of the day , right , and you know it's just repetition , it's practice like anything else , and and honing in that craft , I think you know nobody notices the long snapper or the kicker until they mess up Right , like no one .

They're just like not visible , and so you know it's , it's a high pressure , you know kind of position like any other position , right , and I think it's all about making plays .

But you know , that's where I spent a lot of my time and effort and when I found out that not only could you get your college paid for but you could , you know , potentially play in the NFL , which was also not my intention . But , you know , met a lot of folks that had played in the league and got their perspective .

David Bin was a guy that I met at Orange Coast . He was , I think , also about five , 10 , five , 11 , 190 pounds , played 19 years with the San Diego Chargers also dated Pamela Anderson , by the way , which was kind of random but a great guy , and just showed that you know anything is possible . So you know it was a . It was a good experience for me .

But , funny enough , I show up at Cal and I got beat out , which is a whole nother story . But I never even got to snap the ball to Cal , believe it or not .

Of course , little did I know I'd transfer in with Aaron Rogers and JJ Arrington and then guys like Marseille Lynch and Deshaun Jackson and Zach Follett and a bunch of guys were coming to the party . But yeah , I showed up and I got beat out and that didn't feel very good and I said well , you know what ? I got to find another way onto the field .

So I got to run down on kickoff and hit somebody or I got to block pints . I got to do something . Fortunately , I was able to make enough plays and created some enemies of my best friends today . They couldn't stand me because I was just practicing 120% all the time , because I wasn't fortunate enough to be the big recruit and get everything paid for .

I had to go in and work a little bit harder to earn it .

But got on the field and got to be in the locker room with some pretty incredible people talented athletes but really good people at heart , with different backgrounds and experiences and was really a good experience for me and my life and something that I've cherished , and definitely had some tough times in college and it was nice to have that group around me in

the locker room and a support group to pick me up in times that I needed it .

In the spring of 2004 , I was in the middle of spring ball and had some family events occur my grandfather passed away , who I loved and respected and was really close with , and then four weeks later my dad passed away . In that moment , and that for me is an only child and not having siblings was a tough moment for me .

And so to go through something traumatic like that , that was out of the blue right , this just life changed overnight to have that support group around me because in those moments you can go a bunch of different ways , right , and you have the mental challenges , the physical challenges to deal with .

And so I'd say that those experiences of sadness and grief , combated with excitement , and having people around you to pick you up and then achieve success in a group environment and take those experiences on with you throughout life , was critical for me , because I would never wish that upon anyone .

But life brings adversity in all these different shapes and sizes at different times . It's unexpected and it can be tough to deal with , and so to go through that early on helps you when you get into the working world right and as tough and hard as it may seem at times , it doesn't compare to some of the things that I've personally experienced earlier in life .

So it's helped me get through those moments , because it's not rainbows and unicorns all the time , as both of you guys would know . We all go through it at different levels , but it's getting through those moments that make you stronger and you get better , and I think that that has tremendously contributed to what I've been able to do .

It sounds like you had some good influences from coaches and things like that . But I mean , how did you feel that you were able to stay on that positive path ? Because you're dealing with a lot ? It sounds like you're dealing with a lot of things at that point , and so just how are you able to stay on that positive path ?

Just , you know , remaining positive and optimistic . You know , understanding that things happen in life , right , and you know you got a choice right . And so understanding that you know we control our own destiny in life , right , and we have decisions every day to make . You know , are we going to have a good day or are we going to have a bad day ?

We can control our emotions right . We can tell ourselves , you know , hey , we want to have a great day , or you know what I'm pissed off and upset and I'm just going to be angry , right , and I'm sure we've all had both of those and everything under the sun .

I know I have , but it's good to kind of , you know , check yourself and you know , for me , I was 21 years old , so I was still young , figuring out myself .

I'm still figuring out myself , but you know , I think you know , fill in the void of what I didn't have , which was like I didn't have siblings or people around me , but I had this locker room of brothers and people that have gone through you know , other challenges in life at that point .

And so I think , having that support group and being positive and optimistic and just working really hard and focusing on the work that was being done , which was a lot . I mean , just trying to stay in school at Cal was its own challenge . It's not easy .

I remember getting my books the first semester and I was like , dang , this is a lot of books , and I found out it was for one class , holy shit .

But you know , it was great to have that support group and really for me , I got to understand the true value of a team , you know , and having people around you and setting goals right together that can be achieved . And that really helped me was being excited about that and really having that support .

So I appreciate the transparency there . All right , so you finish up at Cal and then you decide you want to get into the banking world . Just want to understand , you know , especially with where we're at with investments in the logistics and transportation space .

I would have to imagine that first eight , nine years of your career spent in banking has served you really well as you continued your career . But just want to get a quick overview of what was that experience like for you and what are some of the things that you've been able to leverage from that experience into what you're doing today .

You know , funny enough , I remember listening to your guys's first podcast with Kevin Nolan talking about the days of him working it . I think it was the waffle house for a hot minute down in the south . So so I uh , it not resonated with me because I got , I got my uh , my first job out of school .

Uh , you know , got my series seven , sixty three , sixty five , all those licenses to be a trader , uh , and then the financial crisis hit , um , and everyone's losing their jobs , and I'm sitting here , it uh what they call the triple nickel in San Francisco , the big bank of America .

Uh , building up top , just staring out the window , being like man I I'm , I think I'm going to lose my job , like what am I going to do ? And I need to get another job . And I'm looking out the window , I'm just kind of staring into the you know , the city and I look on top and I don't know .

Uh , last time you guys were in San Francisco , but on top of the Macy's at Union Square , the big shopping district , there's a cheesecake factory . It's on the roof and I looked down in . This place is packed and , like I've been into tons of cheesecake factories , it's always packed .

And I'm sitting there being like you know what , I could probably go make some money there . And so I grabbed my sport code and went down and went up and asked to talk to the manager .

Um , and I ended up getting a job working , uh , waiting tables at the cheesecake factory , uh , a couple of days a week on top of my job , uh , only to do that for about six months before uh moving to to to JP Morgan .

But uh , uh , what I'd say is it was uh working experience between going through that moment right , another kind of element of you know challenges in the world , but the , the finance you know experience was great to give perspective on just businesses Right , like uh operations , profitability , corporate structures and what a big bank looks like at scale when you look

at a well-oiled machine , right , and having that perspective of a well-oiled machine and a big corporate structure helps when you make the move into the startup world , right , when it's just complete organized chaos . Right , you're waking up every day and no one's telling you what to do .

Right , you just got to go out and do it and so to kind of have that perspective it .

It was really helpful for me when I finally decided to make the jump , which was a scary jump , but never looked back and very happy about it , um , but that was , uh , that was a good perspective to uh , to kind of see and experience that that has really been helpful for me .

You decided , hey , I'm going to take this eight , nine years of investment that I've made in my career in myself , but I'm going to go do this like in a completely different , unknown space . And he decided you want to go into tech , right ? So what led to that decision ?

And again , just taking it from the context of you've already invested so much time and probably developed some expertise in the banking and finance space , but now you're taking a bet on yourself and saying , look , I'm going to leave all all this behind and jump into this completely unknown area . What went through that decision-making process ?

I was in it 4 30 am , west Coast time , firing up my Bloomberg screens , like all my friends are like no one's up , right , it's just it's it's dead downtown and you do that for so long .

And and what was happening was I was starting to get off the desk and get out on customer meetings , and customer meetings on the West Coast was very much focused on startups and technology . And so I was meeting with , you know , the founders of emerging technology companies and trying to figure out what businesses were they building .

Did we think it would be successful ? And we were building pipelines for future liquidity events to bring those you know , those opportunities into the bank when those companies would make it right , they'd be clients of the bank . And I started coming back to the desk at 4 30 in the morning , again looking at my screen , being like what am I doing .

I've met with so many cool people building awesome products and businesses and , like , I still had that itch and I've always had this concept of having no regrets in life and like , am I going to wake up in 10 or 15 years and look back and be like ?

You know , I thought about it and I wanted to do it , but I didn't do it because I was comfortable and I'm like you know what man , I'm just going to do it and it wasn't easy .

To be honest , like , at first , I looked at all the fintech companies you know , the lending clubs , the prospers , the , the sofas you know , there there are all these you know emerging fintech companies and really that was just tangential , right , it wasn't really , you know , ripping off the chains and and hopping into the startup world .

And so I really wanted to make sure that I could get to a place where I could be comfortable with being uncomfortable .

That makes sense , yeah , and the the day that I did that was the day that , like , I started to accelerate and and really find success in the startup world , which was I wasn't worrying about how I was going to pay the bill the next week or I was .

All these worries went away and I could really apply my mind and really think you know about , you know innovating and and how to build things . And so that started with a you know going to a 19 person hospitality startup .

And you mentioned earlier trading in the Blackberry for the , my first laptop . I do miss the Blackberry a little bit because I used to rip on that thing , but but like , yeah , man I was , I was nervous you know like I was and I wasn't very good my first , you know , six months in startup world .

right , I was probably , you know , one of the laughing guys of the office or like here's this finance guy trying to make the jump and be a , you know , tech startup guy and you know you could feel those feels .

But , you know , just spending the time and digging in and understanding kind of how that world works really helped prepare me for when that company was acquired and I found myself as the first sales hire at Uber .

You know I had some kind of base infrastructure and perspective in the startup world to build off of , in addition to , you know , the last eight years I had spent in finance .

So that was , that was really the key you know kind of decision was , you know , no regrets and really put myself out there and what's the worst that could happen I could always go back .

You mentioned that there's maybe always a fallback plan , but is that just what it was Like ? There's this insurance policy that you felt like you hadn't , so you felt like you could take this big leap of faith and see where it goes .

You could go , you could , you could go back , but I didn't want to go back , right , I I consciously made a decision , knowing you know what . I don't think this is for me anymore . I've got what I need out of it . I know how to . You know , I know how to underwrite a loan .

I know what you know underwriters look at when they you know when they're underwriting risk . I can get a mortgage . Like you know just basic financial skills . That you know probably should have been taught to us in high school , but you know , I learned you know more after college . But you know , I think that it was .

It was buying in to , to where I was at and what we were doing Right and spending the extra time to understand how it all works Right . Like I had never worked with engineers , I had never worked with product . I had no idea what product did Right . I had no idea how people sold software .

It was my first , you know experience using Salesforce right as a CRM and having to do product demos through . You know the zooms of the world . Right it was . It was very new stuff , and so I think the for me personally , the only thing I knew At that time to kind of get comfortable with being uncomfortable was just working extra hard .

Yeah right putting in the extra hours , being the first one in the last one to leave , like I don't need to play Rage Cage or , you know , beer pong at five o'clock . Yeah , I mean we all need to do that . But you know like I can do that on Friday , you know , but to hit it hard and you know it's like sometimes it takes extra preparation .

And you just got to dig in the To help to educate yourself and spend that extra time to get up to speed and , and once you do that , now you start to have that foundation , the anxiety goes away , right , and now you start to build processes and and really hit it , and so for me , that was that's what I did , because that's all I really knew .

Because Uber wasn't doing it , uber was still a black car business and so I was driving tech kids around asking them what companies they worked it . You know , what did they like and not like ? I was just kind of doing doing some research , but a little did . I know I would wind up it at Uber about two years later .

But you know , uber at the time was a B2C company hit a button , get a ride , right and . And they woke up one day and said , hey , we have the largest on-demand career network in the world . We have all this data around how people and how these assets move within cities . But the the world was changing from , like , a consumer buying behavior perspective .

Right , we were moving into this world of this on-demand economy hit a button , get a ride . Hit a button , get a meal . Hit a button , get your stuff , thanks to Amazon Prime , right .

It was called Uber everything , and I got hired by Jason Jroghi UCLA grad , by the way and you know it's tasked with figuring out how do we find product market fit .

And so , before we even started Uber eats , you know I was pulling Yelp lists and calling every flower shop , book store I mean you name it trying to figure out would they deliver products in a Uber car ? And what we recognized at the time was the only thing that moved at scale , for the most part within cities , was flowers and food .

And there was a lot , yeah , and there was a lot of delivery Platforms out there . Right , uber eats was nothing new to the market , but , given this supply and the tech stack that they built , you could really bring that to . You know restaurants , and we thought about restaurants as many fulfillment centers , little manufacturing plants .

Right , you could drive better optimization out of the kitchens and drive incremental revenue for for customers . So we launched that you know business and spun it out as Uber eats , but I was still focused on final mile . Right it was , it was all these other things and whether it's delivering tires , all sorts of different . You know pilots we worked on .

But it wasn't until I started to work with Walmart and Target and Helping them to launch a final mile delivery business is when I really started to learn about logistics and how the supply chain worked . And freight wasn't even in my vocabulary .

Guys like I knew nobody that worked in trucking or freight Out here in the Bay Area you didn't know what a 53 foot drive-in was right . I didn't know what FTL or LTL man I mean , like I fake it till you . Make it though right , you gotta , you gotta fake it till you make it . But you know , hearing it , you know and you gotta listen .

Man Like I , you know I can talk a lot , but , but I can also listen and I like to listen because I like to learn and solution around what I hear and you know , at Walmart , delivering from a Walmart grocery store back in 2016 was not an easy task .

Right , like they were , you know to to to aggregate e-commerce orders and to not route them to a distribution center in the middle of the country and to route it to the nearest store and and track against real-time inventory was like pretty new .

Right , order online pick up in store was a fairly new concept in 2016 , and so to pick and pack a 30 item order for any retailer that could do it could take an hour .

Right , it wasn't really scalable because those , those supply chains weren't built for this kind of on-demand Turning brick and mortar retailers into mini fulfillment centers , and so what was interesting was we didn't really have product market fit at the time for final mile .

Right , we couldn't just plug in this , like you know , on-demand delivery drivers to go pick up from retailers If they couldn't fulfill those orders quickly enough , and so that's really where the the research started to come in , where I got connected to 3PLs and freight forwarders and I was like what's a 3PL and what the hell is a freight forwarder ?

Yeah , and and I was like , oh , they're kind of a you know a tour guide , but for your , your goods , right .

And so , um , I went on a nice little research sprint and called a bunch of you know leading 3PLs and freight forwarders and you know some funny stories about cool calling echo logistics and talking to Doug Wagner and those guys , uh , and I had no idea the difference between , you know , an echo versus a db , shanker versus jb .

We're like I didn't know , um , and I'll never forget Um him telling me saying , hey , you know what ? I don't know if you're a partner or a competitor , but we're gonna not sign an nda . We're just gonna kind of yeah , we're gonna pass for now , and I'm like hey , no , all good man , you gotta tell

me how .

I would say that I was fortunate enough that I was at uber and uber in a subject line was intriguing to a lot of people . Right , right , it was turn off . To some they're like not dealing with you know , with uber , but to a lot they're like wait , I want to hear what what this guy's got to say .

I've put all sorts of slogans in in subject lines like how hedge funds make billions . Right like what does that have to do with anything ? But like it gets someone to open the email Right . Like I mean , it's you got , you got to have something to say , but um , brian .

And what you're saying about the subject line alone is brilliant , right , because you look at the subject line and just say I'm not even going to open this , like I'm just moving on Right off the bat , right ?

I think that gets talked a lot about more now that email quality matters , subject lines matter , but you're talking about this back in 2016 , when it's still not really a thing . So did you ? How did you pick up on that early on and use that as a Tool to your advantage ?

You're not trying to sell someone in your email Right , like you want that's where they get it wrong , that's where everyone that's where they get it wrong . Man , first off , like you got to know who you're talking to . Right , you got to have something to say .

But you got to get them to open the email and read the first sentence , right , or beyond the first sentence , um , and just get their attention . And you got to be creative , you got to do research , you got to think creatively .

You just can't put people in mass blasts and let it rip , right , you got to really , you know , do your homework and you know , find out , you know people's uh , mailbox businesses they built when they're 11 . I have no idea how you guys found that out , but , um , you know , maybe it's because you know silver's got some sales chaps .

it . I love it , man , but like that's the thing , you're not trying to sell someone on a call or an email , right ?

So , you know , I think that you gotta , you gotta have the mindset of how do I help somebody versus how do you help yourself , right , and , and that's that's what I've learned , you know , early on , and I had a corporate finance professor at cal , you know , and still that I mean too , this guy , steve atter , uh , was like you need to wake up and figure out

how you help your friends . That's it , man , how do you help your friends ? How do you help people Like that shit will come back to you , but like , uh , and and and don't expect it to , right , it's not . It's not apples for apples , but I like helping people . I think sales and solution is about helping people .

Everyone's got challenges and if you're trying to sell tech or you're selling solutions , like you got to , you got to understand , you got to seek that understanding , and what I'd say is , you know , going back to the , the uber days , I was always a vulnerable seller , right ? So , like you know , and you know , I sat at truck stops .

The summer 2016 interview , truck drivers with which stopper still thinks is absolutely ridiculous , right , 10 years and freight brokers . But like I didn't know man , like you know , and uh , and I wasn't even .

I was at uber at the time and I was driving out there with one of the the first engineers , a director of engineering , curtis chambers Uh , at uber , who's you know , a technical advisor for us great guy , by the way , um , and he was pretending to be my ta and I was pretending to be a college student , right in the paper about truck , okay , and like these

guys , it was out in Manteca , california , and you know got , you know these drivers are pulling in their rigs and I'd approach them and and say , hey guys , you know I'm writing this researcher paper and you know I'm just trying to understand what you like and not like about being a truck driver and how do you think technology can improve your life .

It had nothing to do with uber , it had nothing to do with , you know , freight . It was just really talking to them and and sometimes that turned into , uh , you know , having chicken sandwiches and share your limates at sonic across the street for the next 45 minutes Because you hear their , their whole lives .

But it was really fascinating , like that was my first experience with trucking , was like talking to drivers and just like Hearing them talk about everything under the sun and it was enough to really understand A lot of the challenges that existed in in the space around just cash flow and fairness and having a voice Right , and and just , you know how stressful it

is to be a truck driver .

I guess , uh , you know continuing on after some some late night conversations with Travis Kalanick on getting into the trucking business and , uh , you know launching that , uh , when I would talk to executives in in the industry , who am I to walk into a , you know a fortune 500 shipper and tell them how to manage their supply chain , like these guys have been

doing this for 30 years and I always took the approach of you know , once you get that meeting Right , you know walk in and say , hey , you know what , help them be a part of the solution , empower them to be at the table and say , hey , if you can share with me the challenges that you have and what you're trying to do , whether uber can solve it or not ,

you know I'll share our perspective .

I would say , um , but I think that goes back to like this , almost like this emotional intelligence to know , like you said , knowing your audience and Selling them something that they actually want . Not , you know , a solution that's , hey , I'm gonna , I'm gonna take your job away and not realizing that that's what you're asking for , right ?

So , um , but yeah , hey , I want to touch on , uh , the time with travis

. For those that don't know , travis Kalanick was the founder of uber , the ceo , for a long time . I think your careers overlapped for a couple months , if not a year or so , right , it sounds like you had a direct relationship or connection with him , particularly as you were doing research around this uber freight concept .

So Can you take us into those conversations ? What were those early conversations like and how did you ultimately get Uber freight off the ground ?

It had nothing to do with freight and so you know , early encounters with Travis was when we launched Uber Eats and as we scaled out sales it really took off right and that's where I first got to connect with him .

But my interactions with him for the most part were at like 12 , 1 , 2 in the morning Was the only time I could get a meeting with him right , like he was that busy and sharing with him a bunch of research that had been done and that we really didn't have product market fit for Final Mile at the time , which he thought was a bit shocking to come from the

sales guy . Right , he's saying so can you not sell what's wrong ? You know it's like no , no , no , you didn't . You didn't hire me for that .

You hired me to tell you how it is and solution around it and like we should be doubling down on Uber Eats , absolutely , but there's this whole other network when you think about you know Uber's concept was how things move within cities , right , and optimization and efficiency of assets and people .

Uber wasn't built to optimize to and from cities , and that's where trucking comes into play .

And so , as soon as we started talking about that and talking about you know all the research that everybody knows the fragmentation in the market and a million trucking companies and 90% of them being less than 10 trucks , like we all know those stats the key is there's lots of small trucking companies out there and , at the time , not a lot of great tech to

aggregate that right . And so the infrastructure of what Uber had and the engineering resources that they had and the capital that they had , along with a brand that people trusted and , like you know Andrew will tell you this like sales is all about . You know , trust in relationships , right , like it's . Do I trust what you say ? Do I want to work with you ?

Do I trust that you're going to do what you say you're going to do Right and like that's how relationships and sales are built and if you can do that , that's where sales come from . And the idea of you know , when you think about Uber hitting a button and getting a ride with a stranger , right , it was like you know , in that moment was a lot of trust .

Oh yeah , and so , and so you know , sitting there saying , hey , people trust this brand . If they , if they trust the concept of hitting a button , getting a ride with a stranger , then you know , maybe we can come out into the commercial space and build a platform that shippers and drivers will also trust .

And that was really kind of you know where that concept came in and and , and I'd say that you know , obviously we weren't first to market right . Convoy and Transvix and Cargomatic were already , you know , around .

They were actually in the pitch deck is , you know , companies that were there , and the competitive nature , and Travis , when he knew that there were some former Uber folks at Convoy that really put , put things into into drive .

So , you know , got his head around that and you know you had to really challenge him right , and you know , go five levels deep on well , why , why , why , why , and so that that was , you know , really good to turn the head .

But we really didn't start to accelerate and build out that business until Uber acquired Auto right , which was the self-driving technology company , with , you know , anthony Levandowski and Learon out of out of Google , and went down to the warehouse and that's where we all got together and I met Lear and Anthony , met John Stoffer , who was there their product manager

at the time , and brought a couple engineers that we were doing all of this research on and at the time we were unsure of of building out a digital freight brokerage right , like we were actually thinking about getting into factoring right , because money was free , right , interest was zero , and so you know , there was a way to attract a big network around cash

flow , which was our research , which was like drivers didn't care if they had to stop at a truck stop and pay $5 to fax of proof of delivery , if they could get $20 more in the in the shipment right , five cents more , wow , they didn't care .

And so , like those understandings in in like speed of cash and getting that couple extra bucks was like front and center . But as soon as we collaborated with Lear and Anthony around self driving technology and especially in freight and the future of self driving trucks , those trucks need a network to run on right .

They're still going to have to adhere to all the other regulations and and service level metrics and things of that sort than any other trucking company you know has to do .

And so we kind of put our teams together , met Bill Driger actually at the time who was it , you know , pillow and and doing some consulting work that you know eventually came on board and we really launched that business . And that was really you know where the , the learnings I'd say you know , started to accelerate .

I mean , were you , were you guys dead set early on and we're going to take over the world with this brand , or we're just kind of let's fill it out and see how it goes ? Like what was the intent early on , when you had just started out ?

So , like I understand , understood the basics of the business , but it was really interesting because the whole time I'm sitting there like , well , why hasn't this been done yet ? Right Before , I'm not the smartest cookie in the room .

What we did understand is just fragmentation and supply and demand was something that Uber really understood and understood . Well , really what ? What we thought of was more around data and turning unstructured data into structured data and what that means for a true optimization engine around arbitrage , right and systematic .

You know price , price and demand and you know Kevin Novak , who's a close friend of mine and the former chief data scientist at Uber . We call him the surge guy , so you can thank him for for your surge pricing with someone that I was fortunate enough to work with and convinced to come over and build out our data science team .

You know , for Uber and , and lots of conversations with him around what was possible , right and and , so that that was really kind of the thought . It wasn't that we're going to build a brokerage , because , again , I didn't come from come from freight .

What we knew was we needed freight and we needed to move the freight in order to get data and get the engine flowing Right , and and what that meant for pricing and all these other you know applications and so and so that that is what we were really after .

But what's funny is you just you just made me remember something that is actually super critical and in the Uber freight story is I had a colleague at the time at Uber that was , you know , moving our bikes around the world , the autonomous cars , the Uber freight bags .

Heather Gifford was her name Fantastic , like bright minds of the industry , really , really talented and young , and she used to work for this guy , jim Crane , down in Houston . Okay , and I'm like who's Jim Crane ?

And and so she , she , she's like you got to talk to this guy about freight because I told the story about you know , the final mile and working with Travis . But you know , convincing your colleagues that Uber should get into trucking was Really really hard , especially from the sales guy .

But what I needed was I needed an industry expert to actually come in and sit in front of people and have an objective third party , tell them why we need to get into freight and that what we were preaching was was true .

And Jim Crane flies up and and tells his story about being a truck driver and building out his business and selling it for , you know , a couple of billion bucks and buying the Houston Astros .

And he's like look , guys , like you know if you can tell me how my neighbor on the 40th floor of my condo and Houston , how , how the company that moves that 50 pound bag of dog food actually makes money . And then you know , kudos to you . But you guys are in the business of making $8 , $10 a ride .

You know I'm in the business of , you know , moving freight for $1,000 a truck load . So you know I'm not sure what you guys are thinking , but you know , hey , there's a big opportunity here and you guys , if you're not going to do it , someone else is going to do it and he delivered it much better than than that . That summary there , but it was .

It was incredible to meet someone that was a truck driver , that built a business , that sold it and is sitting here saying I don't need skin in the game .

I'm just telling you , you know , from an industry veteran , there's opportunities in this industry and you guys need to really look at transportation and freight and logistics , and so that was really crucial and and kind of getting everyone rallied around the idea of freight before we really came in to kind of , you know , launch that business .

Next , thing , you know you're at a CSCMP selling something that you don't even know if you have to sell , right , and I think that's where we first meet and you start booking loads and I , I mean I think you got to tell the people , right , you're trying to book loads and just give the people a sense of what that environment was like .

You said you don't know anything about brokerage , but now you find yourself as a freight broker , right ? So what was moving those first few loads like ?

And then we got John Stoffer and thank God for John , because he was the only guy at Uber that knew how to move a truck , like you know , and and and so you know this is , you know , embarrassing to say , but like I was on Google Maps looking around airports , at warehouses and just picking up the phone and calling those companies , and one of those companies

happened to have a warehouse right around the Ontario airport in LA called Niagara , and that's where I called , called Sunquok of all people , and almost gave everybody a heart attack because I had no idea how much freight , you know , I didn't know who Niagara really was , and so arranged that meeting and heard about the , the CSCMP conference , and I'm like , all

right , I need to get out and talk to some people that move freight . Um , and you know that conversation turned into , you know , getting to know the , the Niagara team , and when we started to move our , our first loads . This was , you know , september of 2016 , I think .

Yeah , okay , let's , let's see how this goes . So it's pretty it's pretty accurate .

But when we , when we moved our first load , our first couple loads , I got to understand what the , what the dat was and how hard it was to , first off , call a shipper right , we're calling small , you know , paper and plastics companies trying to move low value goods anyone that would give us a truck and hey , we're uber , like the hit a button , get a ride ,

uber . We . We also moved trucks now , uh , which was , uh , actually more challenging than you think to get those first shipments .

But then when , when , when I got a load and then I had to cover it , that's when I first realized you know how hard people work and freight right and and what the grind's like , and I made 53 calls , okay , off the day to book one truck to book one truck and I had to pay in advance and then convince finance to pay some guy in advance .

Uh , because we actually , yeah , you know we're , we're moving freight , like it was . Uh , it was really challenging and and I really got to appreciate this industry just doing it right , like I realized you just can't plug in , you can't build tech and just plug it in right , like ops is still very much a core .

I think there's ways to optimize certain areas around operations with tech , but , like , people are important , operations are important . It's , it's the difference in making money and losing money .

But to to not only uh , you know , be putting someone on a whole asking what our scat code was , but then to also turn to john stopper and say , hey , man , they asked me to send a rate count . Like what is that ? And this is john every day , like , like , you've got to be kidding me .

And so I just googled what a rate count was and I just created one and sent it .

I think vogue rich had to quick pay the first few carriers that we hauled with because they just don't trust you and they shouldn't , because you know 90 of the brokers go out of business within probably six months .

Or I mean , what was your aspirations for uber at that time versus what they've been able to accomplish today ?

A lot of folks , a lot of a lot of silvers , old colleagues from from coyote with , you know , bob chapius and clay and bill drigard and some other folks drew mcglacklin , timmy paulson a lot of folks uh felt like a freight family and , uh , I was learning from them and we were really in sync .

And , um , you know , to be able to go out and just , you know , live on airplanes essentially for three years and just get entrenched in the industry and , uh , really learn and be a sponge was , uh , was incredible . I had no idea what what would be built . You know , we also knew that that uber wasn't the one-stop shop .

Uh , there might have been people that thought that , but it was pretty clear , coming from the finance world , the diversification right , you're just never going to give all your freight to to one , uh , you know one person , uh , because there's a lot of risk , right , and you really got to diversify your network .

He's gonna divulge maybe a name to a story that we talked about a few episodes ago . So , andrew , you want to jump in here ?

I was missing something .

But for those that have been listening , I made a call back to a time in Nashville when I was buying around a shots for Paul uh , as a potential customer and Clay , and there was a guy who , uh , who would have been able to partake in these shots , a guy who I was told I would get along with and I'm starting to understand now as I'm listening to you talk

why why that would have been true , but we never got that chance . In fact , I think I hated you for about a year after that because you did before those shots could be received by the customer , so to speak . You took them and tossed them . So what do you have to save ?

Yeah , but it was . We were , uh , you know , three sheets uh into the wind that night and I turned to Paul and Paul's like get that shit out of my face , uh , and I look at it that doesn't sound like something I would say for the record .

Yeah , yeah yeah , it was , it was pretty late , it was pretty late but , anyways yeah , I thought , I was being all slick and and not not the the proudest of moments , but uh , yeah , there was a moment of trying to hide the tequila over the shoulder which , uh , you know I apologize for and and wasn't wasn't the best , but uh , you know , there's something in

the male silver and I think , you know , hopefully it'll make up for it .

So for those that don't know , we have briefly mentioned you guys in the past but just give a brief overview of ISO , what you're all about and what you're trying to accomplish yeah , uh , so , yeah , no , uh , appreciated guys and you know again , I I've learned so much from , from guys like yourselves , especially in that experience of building Uber freight and people

there .

So , uh , john stoffer fantastic , you know , co-founder and friend and very fortunate to have worked with them for almost eight years now , from the times of not knowing what FTL and rate cans and all that good stuff was to , you know , build out this business .

But we both saw this vision and so you know ISO at its core were a transportation intelligence platform and we're really creating the FICO scores for the logistics industry , and so what we've come to market with is a performance management hub that really brings shippers , brokers and carriers together in one platform to measure , you know , service levels and the total

cost of doing business with one another . Right , um , you know relationships and and you know revenue streams go well beyond just paper rates and what you negotiate throughout the year . There's a lot of costs associated in in operations , right , and things that happen , but how we report on that is really challenging , right .

And so at uber what we recognize is is I was out there working with a bunch of major you know uh , food and beverage cpg companies , big fortune 500 companies , um , and we were building out those relationships and moving freight .

We would receive scorecards from them and they'd come weekly , monthly , quarterly . They'd come in 30 different flavors , they'd be different tms modules , they'd be free form text in an email . The best we ever saw was a pdf or data dump via power bi or tableau or some you know bi tool and guess what ?

The data in the scorecard never aligned with what rtms , right , and I'm sure you know from andrew silvers perspective whether it was at coyote or mollo or whatever . You get these scorecards you're like wait , a second customer says we're at 90 percent , we're at 96 percent brian , the customer's always right , the customers .

I mean , I see , I see the value in what you're talking about because that was our operations team and it was almost like you had to have one person in a team depending on how often you were getting scorecards . If it was monthly , it was , like you know , five percent of their time was spent rectifying scorecards .

So you know , I'm I'm picking up what you're putting down here yeah , at your point .

And sure point , andrew , that the challenge was is if they're done , you know , every couple weeks or monthly , like the data is already old right , and so what you're doing is a service provider , is your , your fight in the fight to ensure that the data is accurate in the eyes of the customer .

So when they're evaluating , you know how they do business with one another . You need to make sure it's as best as it possibly can be , because it directly impacts your revenue stream , and so you throw everything you can at it .

But , to your point , it wasn't very efficient , um , and it was a time suck and and it was really challenging to to operationalize around I'm just thinking back to you know , maybe 10 years ago , and then just trying to have a qbr mbr .

So you got a lot of money being spent to have this meeting and you're gonna talk about the state of the partnership and you sit there and you pop up this deck and you start going through data and start arguing over the legitimacy or the accuracy of that data derails the conversation .

It doesn't even let you get to the strategic or you know conversations the the more value add conversation that you want to have , because you're just literally going back and forth on the data or , like you said , you've got people on both sides trying to reconcile this data to get to this one source of truth . So made a ton of sense .

Um , I I feel like the industry is actually still just getting to a place where this is even becoming common practice . So I'm actually curious from your perspective , like where do you think the industry is as a whole in terms of their sophistication around scorecard and what are the opportunities that that exist in that space ?

You know , sure , we have , you know , great analytics and bi capabilities , but whether you know a shipper or a broker or a carry wants to consume data , you know , within iso or within their own , you know power bi or tabular bi tools , like we're agnostic to that , um , but what ?

What we've seen , if you really think about , at least from my lens , coming into this space , you , you've had this evolution . So you know the . The emergence of the cloud , call it 15 years ago , right , you know , the iphone has not been around that long , but what that did was , um , with the cloud , brought investment and innovation into the freight market .

Right , and for a while everybody was sitting around saying , hey , I want , I want to know where my stuff is , where's my stuff , I want visibility , I want dots on them , right , like that was one point out . Right , that was 10 years ago , right , where's my stuff ? And and so you had these visibility providers kind of come to market .

And then what happened is everyone said , well , I don't want to just know where my stuff is , I want to know where the 1% is , where's the problems ? Right , I don't , I don't need to see all all my stuff , and I want my stuff and I want one place to see it .

Um , and then that evolved into well , not only do I want to see my 1% , I want to know attributes of the shipment or the order of what's happening , right , temperature , humidity , vibration , all these different things .

And that's really where the , the kind of technical advances of uh , iot and telematics and elg's came in to provide other valuable data sources that could is , they could help provide some level of context , but more just kind of attributes as to kind of what's happening .

And so now we're we're at is , is , we have all of this , but they're all siloed right , and so they're , they're all in different systems , right , visibility is here , the orders are in the erp , the tms , there's all these different things , and so what ? What we recognized was the way that people kind of manage performance data today .

Is is really broken and the data that's needed to . You know , understand the cost of service is scattered amongst all those different systems , and so you know , if , if we could harmonize and really bring that all together in one place and provide stakeholders with tools to essentially reconcile and validate that in an efficient way that doesn't take half your day .

Right , you create the single source of truth . You create a data set that everyone agrees to . Right , like where a shipper and a broker and a carrier can say , yep , this is what happened , this is why it happened . Here's the proof to back it up and knowing who's responsible for it .

So then , when you have all of that , you can back into what does it actually cost me ? And you're left with this qbr in a box , right to andrew's point . No more getting into a qbr with a shipper and saying your data versus my data and what you're saying earlier , paul around , you spend all your time arguing over whose data and like .

That is not why you work with carriers and brokers . Right , shippers , like carriers and brokers , are an extension of a shippers brand . They're the last touch point into your customer's customer .

You know , and knowing that it's , you'd think , if you can remove that friction and ambiguity around the working relationship , which is really the data and the service level information . You can really improve those working relationships and eliminate all the bs you're talking about a massive level of sophistication .

But you know , from a procurement perspective , there's something really interesting about that concept of total cost of ownership , and I tried to articulate that in what we call nominal versus effective rates , a nominal rate being the rate that you get on a bid on a piece of paper , right , carrier A comes in and says I can run this at $2 a mile .

Then you get another carrier that comes in and says I can run this at $1.80 a mile , and then you say , okay , well , obviously , on paper , take the carrier that runs at $1.80 . No brainer , right . But then you look at that carrier that runs at $1.80 and their spot exposure . They've got you exposed to spot 30% of the time they're missing .

Delivery 20% of the time they're missing . Pickup X% of the time . It's like so , and then I have to go recover that on the spot market at an incremental cost and there's a cost component to that . I've got to be able to factor in all those costs .

And then oh , wait a second when I look at the data , that $1.80 a mile carrier is actually a $2.70 a mile carrier . So as a procurement guy , I should actually go with the quote unquote higher cost provider , because in the long term , when factoring in performance , this is the right decision .

And even as few as like five , six , seven years ago this was like not a concept , and when I would talk to my counterparts at other shippers this was not a concept .

So to me this is a very new way of thinking about things , a far more sophisticated way of thinking about things , and I think the way that you are trying to approach it with the solution that ISO is trying to create is that right .

When you factor in what's the cost of a tender declination , when it falls to carrier B or C and the routing guide or goes to the spot market , there's a cost when you start to understand no truckloads created equal , what orders are on that truck and what retailer is it going into ?

Is it target that finds 5% of the purchase order on a late delivery , versus Walmart at 3% , or another retailer that doesn't find it all right ?

All of those are costs that are incurred , and so being able to aggregate those data sets into a singular place and then use that in the form of what we call an ISO score , which essentially is a standard performance metric and really where we see things going , can help optimize transportation procurement in a total different way , and you know we're very excited

about that .

They undercut their incumbent provider , Say , okay , that's like an appealing , okay , you're giving me a dollar value here , so I'm willing to give you a chance , right .

And for somebody like Andrew , that always preached service , like it's important that you know you lead with service , but you don't want to have to come in and undercut and like slash your margins just to get your foot in the door with a shipper at the same time , right , so if you have I'm just thinking right like something like an ISO , some sort of score ,

FICO score , even a broker can come in and say , hey , you know , I know you don't know me , you don't know my service , but why don't you go check out my , my ISO score , and you'll see for yourself that I'm a legit high service provider .

And now maybe , instead of having to buy your way into business , you can lead with that and it's like no , I can just come in because I'm a solid provider . Yeah , I don't know if I'm being too idealistic there , Andrew , but does that , does that sound like something that's possible ?

I knew that the Molo team was phenomenal at executing and that 98 times out of 100 , they were a top one , two or three provider for shippers . But when I go meet a new shipper and tell them that I wasn't they , they didn't necessarily believe me . I mean , because everybody was saying that and it .

You know , everybody learned to talk the talk , but who was able to actually walk the walk ? I knew my team was walking the walk because I was sitting there looking at the numbers and it was all I cared about was making sure we were hitting those numbers . But but such a thing never existed until now .

So I I I definitely see , see the value in it and I think it's an interesting way to potentially weed out poor players over time or at least elevate their game . I mean , if you , if you find yourself where you're a provider that has a score of I don't know if it's like a grading system would call it a , c minus .

I mean that's , if there are enough shippers that buy into something like this , then that's really detrimental and we'll force them to either get better or get out of the business .

You know , today you think you're good , right , it's certain lanes base , you know , based on on where you're at , and in some areas you may know , but you don't actually know unless you can benchmark yourself against the industry , right , and so that's this whole level of performance benchmarking that we're introducing and coming to market with right now is the first

ever service index , Right , you know , how can you understand where you're really good and sell into those power lanes and if , if you're a shipper , it would be nice to actually know , versus guess . You have no idea when you're getting solicited by 500 people where they're good , there's nowhere to go . And we think it's .

It's incredible that it's a service based industry and there is no service index available . And that is what we are first to market building right now . And you know Andrew made it made a good point too Also like where , where are you not good ? You know there's .

No , there's no film you can watch if you're a broker , a carer , to understand , you know , hey , are you performing well against the industry on a given lane into a given you know a facility and understanding why , right , like it may just be , you know it's the wrong carriers that you have .

It might just be the facility , it might just be the freight profile , like there's different attributes and things that occur that drive performance in a certain direction .

It's not just because it's a bad carrier , a bad broker , right , and drilling into that is is what we're focused on and producing that intelligence so you can use that , because we think that the the good really service based

. You know , players out there are going to rise to the top and the people that don't care about service shouldn't be in the industry , right , they , they should weed out , right . We don't need 10,000 plus freight brokers , I think .

You know freight brokerage is definitely a need in the market and there should be several of them , but there should be some consolidation and and the ones that are really good at service should have kind of a Switzerland for performance data to point to , so they can objectively understand how they perform and use that to their strengths and price based on service .

If you're really good to your point ball , you shouldn't have to cut your price . Yeah , right , like you'll pay for service , right ? Any shipper would . So that's what we like about what we're doing .

So if this thing actually can get to scale where there are enough shippers using , where it's literally like the standard , and let's say , I think , in your ideal mind , anytime a shipper is considering onboarding a new carrier , the first thing they're going to go do is check the ISO score , and what that will do is it will tell a carrier you know they either

have to get to this level , where they're you know , where they're considered a high quality carrier , broker , or they won't . They won't , they won't have business . So it it will either naturally weed out or it will improve the quality of of the carriers or brokers that exist . My question to you , though , is how challenging has it been to get shippers interested ?

What's been the the the biggest thing you've had to overcome to generate interest in what you're doing ?

You know we started this business right before COVID , right , and it was like you know , we went out and raised some capital and we're like , oh shit , we got a high , remotely build , remotely , sell remotely , onboard , remotely . I mean it was like a new , a new world .

Um , and you know , our biggest challenge for our first couple of years which felt , like you know , the triceps were sore from pushing a boulder up a hill is when , when COVID happened , you know what shipper cares about , talking ISO at that time , right , like the world was kind of on fire and and their own house was the one that they needed to keep in order

. So evaluating new solutions , you know like an ISO was not front and center .

Right , we were fortunate enough to get some really big shippers , um , in the market to the table that that believed in kind of the future of procurement and and what ISO could do to solve a problem in a practical way today , but also like where we were going with , you know , building up this industry standard for performance measurement , um , and and could get

to market . Now that you know , uh , things have , I wouldn't say , returned to normal , but we've , you know , kind of uh , uh , normalized a bit and you know rates , where they are and and you know , not having the the the world on fire for transportation procurement teams is , meetings have accelerated .

We are talking to a lot more of them about procurement and processes and solutions that they use . But our biggest challenge , honestly is , is how they view total cost Right . So you know , for some organizations , if you think about kind of enterprise shippers , historically the way that they buy software solutions or evaluate is vertically right .

So transportation buys for transportation , warehousing , for warehousing , finance , for finance , sales , customer logistics and and so on . And when you think about , you know , evaluating and understanding the total cost of , of procurement and looking at your cost structure differently , you need to look horizontally , which is a new way of of thinking about .

You know how you adopt and manage costs , and what I mean by that is when you can pull in things beyond just transportation related , where you have uh , warehousing and OTIF vendor compliance programs , understanding how Amazon versus target versus Costco versus Walmart evaluates their vendors and how they put .

You know monetary , you know punitive , you know fines and penalties on not hitting service level thresholds . When you can tie that into transportation related , you know issues , it starts to tell that different story .

But it only affects certain groups and so , from transportation procurement , their , their job is , you know , manage that , you know your costs and and save the company money , right .

But but in the world of having access to all these different data points , when you can pull that in it , it changes the way that that you construct and and manage your procurement , which doesn't necessarily tie into how these leaders are incentivized at a lot of shippers , right , they may not care about customer service as much because it's not how they get their

bonus at the end of the year , and so that's that's part of our , our , our challenges getting the right stakeholders together at the right leadership level .

To say you know what we actually do need to work together in certain ways , right , and we need to evaluate solutions that can help us drive the overarching goal , which is make great products is efficiently and cost effectively as possible and deliver them through our distribution channels at the lowest cost available , with the best possible service , which is what their

goal is at the end of the day .

But that requires collaboration and it requires data collaboration , and so we're we're trying to drive that new narrative and new thinking which you know , unfortunately doesn't happen overnight , but we're having really good conversations is just getting them to the table to say you know what we actually need to do , this and and that's kind of where where we're at and

what we've seen- so so essentially , the challenge is getting them to buy in a way they have not historically bought .

But but to your point , if we can bring everyone together and start to rally around the importance of , you know , standardized performance metrics and what it means for everyone , we can start to move the industry .

And you know , I've realized that , yes , some things just don't happen overnight , you know , and and you really just got to keep pushing , and , pushing , and pushing and really remain positive and just educate , because there will be a day where it really flips , and you know , hopefully that sometime soon . You know who knows ?

But that's what we're trying to do and just be great partners .

I realized as I'm looking on there they're pretty philosophical here . So stick with me , guys . But you know , I think , brian , you get , you get . You went real deep with us today . So we appreciate that . But number one motivation comes from within . To how do you wake up and help your friends . Three , when it comes to selling , be a vulnerable seller .

Sales is all about trust and relationship . And finally , players make plays . What did I miss , brian ? Be comfortable with being uncomfortable there you go .

If you can always look at a situation with positivity , I think there's a much higher outcome potential for for for something good to come there . So I would add that , no doubt . Yeah , thanks for dropping that . In . All right With that , brian it was awesome .