Issue #39: What we're building and why

I've tiptoed around what we're building but we're finally ready to talk about what we're building and why we're building it the way we're building it.

For the past eleven months, you’ve seen a lot of content from me through this newsletter, on LinkedIn and on X/Twitter. I’ve poured a lot of what I know about moving cross-border freight into all of this content. But as I have hinted at, we at Cargado have been building that knowledge into a product, which we are finally excited to unveil. We stealthily launched the very first version of our product on April 1st, 2024, less than six months after forming the company. Now that we’ve been live for nearly six months, building for over sixty customers who use our platform on a regular basis, we felt it made sense to share more about what we’ve been building and why we’re building it.

Why freight brokerages are here to stay

To explain why I started Cargado we need to rewind to when I first started Forager. My goal was to build software that would allow shippers and carriers to connect. I thought we could replace the need for traditional freight brokerages. All we had to do was automate the 15 different steps it takes to move a cross-border Mexico load and then, boom, we’d change the industry. To be fair, we were in good company on this thesis with the likes of Convoy, Flexport, and Transfix.

After spending nearly a decade at Coyote, I felt like I had a really strong understanding of what it takes to build and scale a freight brokerage, and why the great ones stand out from the rest of the pack but I misunderstood a key detail about the industry. At Forager, we spent four years building what ended up being a digital freight brokerage, not this futuristic frictionless freight marketplace.

See, relationships matter. I know this isn’t a novel concept to anyone who brokers freight, but they are at the center of the industry. It isn’t just about having a load that needs to go from A to B, or from Monterrey NLE to Chattanooga TN; it’s about every little thing that happens outside of the “can you run this load for me” call.

You can’t automate away the freight brokerage model. You can help the freight brokerage model evolve, though.

When I met Rylan in late 2023, we immediately connected on the problems we had both experienced in the industry. Rylan had seen the same thing I did, but at Convoy, having founded and led teams for over 7 years there, including Convoy for Brokers. Rylan’s deep product and software development expertise made for the perfect partnership between a longtime freight veteran and a technological expert.

From our past experiences, we had a vision for what we wanted to build at Cargado. Instead of providing logistics services to shippers ourselves, we felt it was critical to serve those who serve by working instead with the best brokers, 3PLs and forwarders in the industry. We got excited about the idea of creating the first collaborative platform for cross-border logistics, a product that actually elevates the industry. We want to make North American logistics interconnected, dependable, and transparent. Our vision is that brokers and carriers come to Cargado first knowing it’s the most dependable, secure way to get their loads and trucks covered.

What we are building

Our initial product on our path to an integrated freight experience is an invite-only load board for freight moving into and out of Mexico. Logistics providers (brokers, 3PLs, and forwarders) can post their cross-border freight in Cargado and trucking companies bid on that freight. We help customers book freight faster as the entire negotiation takes place on our platform. Logistics providers and trucking companies can connect safely and online, with an immense amount of transparency. 

Today, our customers have the ability to post both spot freight and consistent opportunities (such as RFPs or mini-bids, known as “Lanes” in Cargado) from Canada and the US to Mexico, and vice versa. Our customers use Cargado to source ad hoc and consistent capacity and unlock new opportunities. The carrier network as it stands today includes nearly 300 US-based trucking companies, 44,000 trucks and 130,000 trailers, including vans, reefers, flatbeds, stepdecks, RGNs, double drops, and conestogas. The majority are either CTPAT certified or have partner carriers in Mexico who are CTPAT or OEA certified.

We’ve poured a lot of love into the fine details of this product and the reason is to cut down on all the back and forth and bring significantly better visibility to everyone in the industry.

Collaboration

Cargado was built by freight experts who know that collaboration is one of the core pillars of the freight industry. When a load is moving from Mexico to the United States, collaboration occurs between three different trucking companies, two customs brokers, multiple facilities, customs agents, and inspections. It takes a lot of people to get freight across the border. Our vision is that each of these parties will eventually be able to collaborate within the Cargado platform - from start to finish.

We also believe in building our product collaboratively for every person involved in moving a load. We want a broker or carrier’s experience in Cargado to feel natural to the user – to have everything they’d want in a product. When we first started working on Cargado, Rylan put all the designs together in Figma to create  a visual prototype. We immediately took those designs and our founding team of engineers to Laredo in December where we showed them to about fifty different carriers and brokers in Laredo and thereafter. We made adjustments on the fly until it was shaped into what we launched in April. We love the amount of feedback and product requests we’ve gotten from everyone using Cargado and it’s helped shape our roadmap, something we’ll share more about in the future.

The final major area of collaboration for our team is working with other companies in the industry who will help move the industry forward. We plan to integrate with TMSs to enable brokers to seamlessly post and cover their freight, with plans to integrate with several technology partners who will help us create the safest and most trustworthy experience in the industry.

Fraud, trust, and security

I see social media posts on a regular basis that harp on double brokering and fraud through the traditional tools that everyone’s been using for the past few decades. I see more of these posts in a week than I’ve seen loads get stolen in Mexico in my entire career. 

We believe a great load board must play a significant part in preventing fraud and double-brokering. To that end, while our product is free for trucking companies, we are invite-only. This means we rely on referrals, but also meet the owners or senior executives of the companies before they get access. This also means we need to have people on the ground meeting and onboarding carriers in person so we can actually shake hands and see their operation. 

We aren’t driven by short-term growth metrics or quarterly growth reports which require us to let just anyone on the platform. We know that moving the industry forward, creating a more connected experience and delivering long-term value to our customers will result in much more long-term success. 

How does it work and how much is it?

If you are a brokerage, 3PL or freight forwarder, go sign up on our website to join the waitlist and get a demo. We don’t currently have public product demos or self-service sign-up as we want to help keep everyone in our marketplace secure.

It’s $500 per user per month for anyone who wants to post freight. We’re building some really cool stuff that will make this incredibly valuable for every person on your team. We typically preview some future items on our roadmap in these demos so you’ll get to learn more about the future vision on a call.

If you are a carrier that actively services Mexico, you can sign up through the waitlist and kick off our vetting and onboarding process.

Who does this work best for?

Literally any logistics company that is moving or wants to move cross-border Mexico freight. We have some of the largest brokerages in the industry using it, including twenty-three of the top one hundred brokerages in the industry. We also have brokerages who had never moved a Mexico load until they signed up for Cargado. They had customers offering them cross-border opportunities but had no idea how to find the carriers to do it.

We’re really proud of the product we’ve built and, as it continues to grow, the impact we believe our software can have on the industry can be massive. This has been the most fun I’ve ever had in my professional career and, while I’m thrilled to not be brokering freight anymore, I do enjoy living vicariously through all our customers who are growing their Mexico business with Cargado.

Anything else?

We’re growing rapidly and looking to hire the absolute best talent. If you know of someone who would be a great fit for one of these roles (in particular Border Partnerships Managers and Engineers), please send them our way at jobs@cargado.com.