Issue #4: Supply Chain Startups
I've had the opportunity to meet the founders of so many startups in the past few years and I try to help as many as possible succeed. Read on for how I got my start in tech and angel investing!
My experience building technology
I can recall three moments growing up that had a slight hand in shaping my desire to build technology. The first was during a time when we still had dial-up, when I learned how to write HTML to build a Chicago Bulls fan website that kept the roster updated. It was before the Bulls had their own website and so I used to keep track of trades and signings that were announced in the newspaper and then update the site. It never went anywhere, but I learned how to structure the most basic website.
The second moment was when I attended a summer camp at Lake Forest College where I learned how to build video games. I don’t remember the coding language, nor do I remember how to do it, but I remember having an immense amount of fun creating something out of nothing. I thought I was going to go into a career building video games but, alas, I did not. (I also made an attempt at filmmaking, as detailed in my FreightCavier podcast.)
The third moment was when I was a junior in high school, taking pre-calculus. We all had TI-83 Plus calculators and you could build apps or games on it. I spent the entire year building out this mega-app that had every single pre-calc formula you would need, from the pythagorean theorem to the quadratic equations. While it helped you do the work, it didn’t fully answer the questions for you. You still had to know what functions you needed to use but the calculator did most of the work. My teacher was so impressed with the app that she actually let me share it with the entire class and everyone used it for their final exams. There was only one problem – it broke about ten minutes into the exam and so I found myself running around the room working to debug the app and fix it for every single student. I still managed to finish the exam in time and aced it.
All that said, those aren’t the reasons why I’m building software today. When I started Forager, my plan was to build a cross-border freight tech company. The day I had the idea, I started sketching out a TMS in Adobe Illustrator (I know, I should’ve used Figma), and I couldn’t stop sketching until I had started the company. I had this vision in my head for how a TMS should work and it wasn’t even remotely similar to the one I had just spent the last decade using. We ended up building a TMS that we were able to use to recruit people who were used to using older technology, given that it was the only TMS built for handling cross-border freight. We also built a shipper portal that enabled our customers to get quotes and book loads instantly, and a carrier portal where carriers could bid on loads and book them instantly as well.
After spending over a year and a half at Arrive Logistics, integrating Forager into the business and then leading a core part of the cross-border Mexico group, I couldn’t stop thinking about my desire to build software again. There’s something about the joy that a user has on their face the first time they see software that was built for them that has me hooked. I needed to go do it again. And so I left at the end of September and got started on my next idea, partnering up with someone who had been at Convoy for most of that company’s journey, and who had built critical components of their business. Several newly displaced engineers wanted to follow and we were only budgeted to bring on three so we did just that. I’ll have more to share on our plans in the future
Angel Investing
I only started angel investing in late 2020 when I met a founder who had reached out asking if I would join her cap table, as her first freight-related investor. I found myself talking her out of building a freight brokerage as a part of her business, pushing her to stay focused on the core product.
When it comes to angel investing, I limit where I make these investments, or where I spend my time advising startups, to areas where I can actually have an impact. My goal when I spend time talking with startup founders is to help them avoid the mistakes that I made when building my first startup. That stretches from how you form the company and the type of attorney you use to picking your cofounders to hiring talent to raising money. Generally, I’m most impactful when a startup fits in a space that I understand (truckload, logistics, brokerage-supporting tools), where I can make introductions and stand in the shoes of a potential user to provide early feedback. I covered a lot of the advice I give founders in Issue #1: Founder-to-Founder Advice.
I’m going to highlight a few startups that I’ve been chatting with, have invested in, am advising, or just find to be really impactful in the space.
CarrierSource: CarrierSource is a carrier review website made for trucking companies to build a fair reputation online, while providing brokers and shippers another layer in their carrier vetting process with peer reviews. Every active carrier has a free profile on CarrierSource where they can publicly showcase their company information, collect reviews from their customers, create a brand, and easily be found by brokers and shippers. It is free for brokers and shippers to search for carriers based on lane or location, learn more about their services, and read peer reviews from others who have worked with them. CarrierSource currently has 55,000+ reviews across 40,000+ unique carriers, and the site is visited by nearly 300,000 people each month.
Cru: Cru helps international trade businesses process customs documents and get paid faster, increasing liquidity, and avoiding headaches. With document processing, they make it simple for companies to send and receive goods worldwide without dealing with the hassle of complex customs paperwork. Through automated payments, they provide visibility on the process of getting paid, so businesses don't lose their money. They work to reduce complexity by handling different currencies, making global trade less costly and more efficient.
FleetWorks: FleetWorks is an AI that automates tedious freight processes. When a broker needs to track a load, reschedule an appointment, or find last-minute coverage, they can use FleetWorks to handle all the phone calls, emails, and text messages to get those jobs done. The phone AI can handle inbound and outbound calls while navigating phone trees (e.g., “press 1 for dispatch). FleetWorks integrates with TMSs so that brokers can stay in their native system while leveraging the new benefits of AI.
GoodShip: GoodShip is the all-in-one platform for analytics, carrier management, and transportation procurement. GoodShip plugs into any TMS, giving shippers a control tower to take swift corrective action to keep contract rates competitive and carrier performance optimized. No technical resources are required to get set up and onboarding takes about a week of work by the GoodShip team.
GoodShip has been seeing a lot of success early, which includes a strong team of former Convoy employees, and they’ve landed surprisingly large logos who leverage their technology to make better procurement decisions.
Highway: Highway is changing how carrier compliance and carrier identity works. Highway works with brokers to help identify who's really hauling their freight to reduce fraud and supercharge their digital bookings. There are a couple legacy providers that have existed for a long time and maintained status quo for that entire duration, leading to an innovative new startup in Highway that has had a major impact on reducing fraud in the industry.
Solvento: Solvento, based in Mexico City, is helping shippers and brokers automate their audit and payment processes with the goal of achieving error-free and immediate payments. Additionally Solvento offers QuickPay and working capital loans to 3PLs, carriers and truckers. The average time a carrier waits to collect in Mexico is +60 days and over 95% of trucking companies in Mexico have less than five trucks with no access to financial products.
Solvento has quickly taken the Mexico market by storm by helping bring payment infrastructure into the 21st century, enabling carriers to be better capitalized and supporting all parties by making sure capital flows effectively across the Mexico supply chain network.
TrueNorth: My first angel investment was done in October 2020 in a startup called TrueNorth that was building software to help truck drivers build and grow their businesses. I’ve watched Jin Stedge, the co-founder and CEO, manage through some incredibly challenging markets, with a couple pivots in the process, but she’s kept a level head the entire time and is seeing a lot of success with a leaner team and stronger software focus.
Today, TrueNorth gives owner-operator carriers a single app to manage their loads and business in one place, allowing them to search for and book loads across the ecosystem, they can send invoices to their broker or factor, understand when they’ve been paid, and ultimately manage their entire business from a single app.
Zerio: Zerio has created an advanced tool that helps global shipping operations comply with international supply chain security frameworks. Their platform streamlines compliance protocols for the secure movement of goods across global borders and ensures that companies comply with complex regulations governing international shipments. The platform also ensures uniformity and consistency in security protocols across a vast network of suppliers and provides constant and up-to-date monitoring of the security status of shipments in real-time.
With the rapid expansion of manufacturing in Mexico, Zerio is helping those manufacturers maintain critical security processes to maintain their CTPAT status
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Wrap-up
I’ve come to really love angel investing and advising startups. While my main focus is now building my new startup, I believe in a few things:
You can’t build everything yourself. Focusing on building vertically and enhancing your product vs trying to expand TAM is critical to success early. We plan to partner with some of the startups I listed and that was part of the reason why I invested.
I received a lot of advice and coaching from advisors and investors while building Forager but I didn’t listen as often as I should have. When I give similar advice to founders I talk to, I see that same look in their eyes where they say “yeah sure, that makes sense” but then they don’t follow the advice. I beg and implore them to use the advice — sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. You can only push so hard before you have to let them touch the stove and burn themselves the first time around. They hear the advice even if they don’t follow it, so keep giving advice!
Angel investors tend to be stronger than most others on your cap table. They’ve done the work, they’ve been there before, and you’re going to get more bang for your buck when you bring on angel investors. I crammed twenty angels into my pre-seed round and have been working hard to leverage those relationships as much as possible. (highly recommend listening to the 20VC episode with Sam Corcos!)
Given how often I’ve been asked about how I got into cross-border freight, the next issue will be a deep dive on my story of how I became obsessed with Mexico supply chain. In the meantime, reach out on LinkedIn or X/Twitter – let’s keep this dialogue going about entrepreneurship, angel investing, and startup life!