Blythe Brumleve:
0:05
Welcome into another episode of everything is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight. I'm your host, Blythe Milligan, and we are proudly presented by SPI Logistics. And in this episode, you are hopefully listening to it on Monday, February 10, and we are live, are going to be live at manifest, the future of supply chain and logistics, making this announcement publicly for the first time about the newest venture of Brumleve brands, and that is a company called CargoRex. It is essentially the Google search of logistics. Got really tired of, I think if you are on LinkedIn whatsoever, and you work in logistics, you have probably seen, you know, a couple of different images floating around with all different kinds of logos and all different kinds of solutions and providers, not only just services, but for technology as well. You've probably seen that image floating around somewhere, and I've seen that image for years, and I thought to myself, we can do better. And so that is what this episode is going to be talking about. Is what is CargoRex, the reasoning behind it, why it should be beneficial to you, and a little bit of the behind the scenes of how this product came to light. So figured I would kick things off with reading directly from these parts of the press release that we are releasing on February 10. So it should be hitting, you know, a lot of different media inboxes on the 10th, and so hopefully you'll be seeing a lot more coverage about this platform as we debut it and make improvements on it in the future. So I really spent, you know, obviously, this project has been in the works for me for years. That's not obvious to anyone else, but to me, but from if you've been listening to this show at any point in time, then you have probably heard the voice of grace Sharkey on this show. She is a freight waves fame. She gets press releases all the time. So I thought, Who better to read my CargoRex press release and to offer feedback on it than Grace Sharkey herself. So this press release is Grace Sharkey approved, and I'm just going to read through some of it because it really does it, hopefully, obviously a press release. Should you know, go through what your company is and what your company does. And so if you are watching on the screen right now, I have really just the Google Doc that we have used to submit the press release to various media outlets, which will be released on February 10, depending on when you're listening to this. But it goes through as naturally a press release should all of the high level points. And so just I'm going to read from this press release just really quickly. And so the title goes breaking down information silos, CargoRexx unveils a smarter way to navigate logistics solution providers. And so explore, discover Evolve is the next sort of headline in this press release, because that it just to sort of take a step pull on that thread for a minute, explore, discovery, evolve, is the CargoRex tagline. That is what I wanted to really bring home and hammer home for the audience, whether you're using the flat the flat platform as a free user, or if you are upgrading in the future to some of our premium options. Just want to make it perfectly clear that CargoRex, I'm building this out to start off. Everybody can use the platform for free. You just have to create an account, and so once you create an account, then you'll be able to navigate throughout the platform pretty seamlessly. That's the goal, anyways. So explore, discover, evolve, is our tagline. So you will see that on all of our marketing on the homepage of the website, all of that good stuff. So I just love that. I love that phrase. So obviously I love it, although otherwise I wouldn't use it in my own day of press release. So for further reading into this press release, says CargoRex, a comprehensive hub for logistics researchers, leaders and creators, launches today with a vision inspired by the age of exploration. Unlike broad search engines, CargoRex breaks down these information silos, empowering logistics professionals with tools, services and insights to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving industry. Now, you probably are saying to yourself, Well, what? Okay, that's that sounds like a press release. What's in it for me. So what's in it for you is essentially this tool is built for researchers. It's built for leaders, and it's built for creators. Right now in logistics, and this has, it's not necessarily a now problem. This has kind of always been a problem where we have these silos that exist in logistics. We have trucking that operates in their own silo, and even in that silo, there's different functionalities within those silos. LTL, for example, is a silo in and of itself. Within trucking, you have warehouse, you have technology, you have service providers from insurance consultants. You have all of these creators that have exploded onto the scene in the last five years. And so you have all of these different information. Silos that exist with CargoRex. My goal is to bring it all together. And you might say to yourself, well, you know, that's what Google is for. That's technically what AI is for, not necessarily my, my perfect use case. I just did this search the other day, go to perplexity, which is in, you know, a search engine plus large language models. They pull from all of these different large language models. If you go to perplexity and you do a search for the top freight agent companies in the world, it will give you a list of all of the freight brokerages in the world. And so it doesn't know, and when I say it, I mean our modern sort of search that exists right now in our information ecosystem, it doesn't know the nuances of logistics. That is my ultimate goal with CargoRex, is to break down those information silos so that someone who's working in trucking can have a fundamental understanding of what's going on at the ports, what's going on in at different warehouses. This capacity fulfilled, or is it capacity overflowing at different warehouses around the port of LA or the Port of Long Beach? And so for you know, a lot of these information silos, we kind of, and I experienced this. I came from an asset based three pl where I only knew brokerage and I only knew trucking coming and starting this podcast was my way to be able to explore maritime and warehousing and all of the cross border freight and all of these different parts of the logistics ecosystem that I frankly didn't have even a basic level understanding of. And so using the podcast, I was able to have conversations with folks and be able to explore those different those different moments that are impacting the rest of global trade and the rest of logistics, specifically in the United States. And so that's how this idea has really sort of formulated, is that we have all of these different silos of data, but then the main search engines don't really understand the nuances, and so why don't we just take them out of the picture, and then why don't we create our own search engine for logistics that can be that research assistant for everybody that's making a software transition if you're looking for a New insurance provider that my goal with this is to create all of the incredible content that all of the creators and the podcasters and YouTubers, they're all out there creating. My goal is to take that content and to match it to the different categories and to the different searches that people are doing on CargoRex, or will be doing on CargoRex. And so that way we can help influence buying decisions from a lens of that you are listening to the conversations that other folks are having. And so that's where different podcasters come into play. That's where different YouTubers come into play, and all of the fabulous content that they've created. We surface that through our own, you know, proprietary search engine, that it has our own proprietary database, and so we surface that content to the relevant users who are going to be making those buying decisions or future buying decisions, so that you can find out what is the the latest TMS solution that I should be thinking about TMS is famously, it really any WMS, robotics, any of these solutions that you are going to be investing it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of money, and you want to make sure that you're making the right decision, because the wrong decision could cripple your company. And so my thought process behind CargoRex is really surfacing that knowledge, providing it all into one place. And so then that you as a user can create a free account. You can check out all of these different solutions. You can save different solutions that pique your interest. You can save them to your own profile. You can also save content. And so what I mean by content is the podcast and the YouTube videos and even company content that you can save all of that to your own account and you can reference it at a later date. So then that way you during that buying journey, you can listen to the real conversations and the real insight from a variety of different creators, but it all starts with having a data source of all of the solution providers, and then having a data source of all of the creators, and merging the two together. And so that is where CargoRex is is coming from, and that's the solution that I aim to provide with this tool. Now going back to the press release, let's talk a little bit about what sets CargoRex apart now. It says, explore with precision. You can break free from fragmented research with the centralized directory of logistics providers, tech vendors, industry associations and events. Just to pull on that thread for a minute, industry associations. Imagine someone comes into this and. Industry for the first time. They don't know where to go, they don't know where to learn. They don't know what associations to be a part of. There's new people coming in constantly, and we don't really have a way to introduce these people to the industry right off the bat. So that is one of the goals that we're aiming to solve with CargoRex. Next one on the list is discover meaningful insight, advanced privacy, focused analytics offer actionable trends without compromising user data. I specifically chose not to use Google Analytics on this site because number one Google Analytics is just if you work in marketing, you probably understand my gripe with Google Analytics, especially for Google Analytics, four that has been released within the last couple of years, it's just incredibly cumbersome to navigate. So with a privacy focused analytics solution provider called Fathom analytics, it will allow us the ability to have, you know, analytics that are basic to a normal website, you know which pages are the top visited, and things like that, but it anonymizes the user activity. And so that's where I was really focused on, is like, how can we get good data, but also protect that data and protect people's privacy? And so we use Fathom analytics. That is their bread and butter. They also simplify analytics reporting, and my favorite aspect is that we'll be able to have analytics across the site, but then also, for future Premium Members, we'll be able to isolate that traffic down to customizable Analytics reports at the listing level. So what that means for you is, say, if you have a business and you want to have your business listed on CargoRex. First of all, it's free, but if you wanted additional benefits in the future, such as additional profile expansion, creator tools, things like that, for your listing page, then we have the ability to add analytics code to your specific listing so that you can see different traffic reports of who's arriving, not who, but how many people are arriving onto your listing page. What buttons are they clicking? Are they clicking on your social media? Are they clicking on your company? News? Are they downloading a white paper? There's also contact forms built directly into each listing page that uses the contact email that you signed up with, or whatever your listing email is attached to, and then any contact forms that a user will fill out on the site, it goes directly to you. I don't see any of that information. Our tech team doesn't see any of that information. We just act as the middleman as far as like the data providers go. So we just facilitate the connection, but all of that information is saved for you under your account, and you get that information directly. So that's something also I'm I'm really pumped about. Next up is evolve with purpose, leverage the platforms depth to find solutions tailored to logistics professionals, unique challenges, building strategies for long term success. I think that's kind of self explanatory. You need to know what kind of technology and solutions and service providers are coming into the landscape, and just keep an eye on them. And so if you're keeping an eye on them, whether for your own curiosity or for your own business investments, this is also a way to think about using the CargoRex platform. And then the last one is bootstrapped and independent, as a company with no VC funding, CargoRex prioritizes user focused platform solutions open to all service and solution providers in the logistics industry. This one was really important to me, because it's my money. It's directly this money that I have invested into building CargoRex has come directly from sponsorship support. Shout Out svi logistics, because they were a big help in that regard, because when you have a sponsored podcast, especially sponsors that just allow you to be editorially free, I am able to talk about, you know, any kind of relevant logistics topic on this show without the fear of, like sponsors breathing down my neck, of, why haven't you listed or how I Haven't you talked about our company, yada yada yada. And also to get kind of I needed to be able to have a way to to speak to more companies, but or to broadcast more companies, is probably the, the better way to put it. I'm one person. I cannot possibly cover this entire industry. We have about 100 creators in this industry, which is nuts to think about. But even then, we all can't cover all of the news that is happening within this industry, but there are some companies that are trying. And so from my lens, what I didn't want to have the perception of is that, you know, say I'm going out and I'm looking for VC funding for this particular project. And if I go to a certain company, they might want me to favor their companies. Maybe, let's just use a hypothetical, you know, VC firm that works in logistics, and they probably have a dozen different businesses in their portfolio. If I were, if they were to fund me, i, and this is all hypothetical, but they would probably want to see a priority for their businesses and and their their solution providers. I didn't want any kind of like, even hint of that kind of biases. CargoRex will be open for all logistics businesses, all logistics creators, all logistics events. So there's lots of different solutions that exist within this ecosystem that we all work in. And so from my lens, from my perspective, I wanted to be a platform for everybody. I didn't want to even have a perception that there was going to be some favoritism going on down the line so completely invested by me, with help of my sponsors who has supported the podcast, it's allowed us to, you know, have that freedom to invest in different automations and invest in different AI solutions that can help with some of the admin tasks for really small business like mine, but to also be able to have some extra cash left over so that you I can invest in products and solutions that I think are going to be worthwhile for the industry, and that's exactly what CargoRex is. So no VC funding. I'm not saying I'm completely opposed to it in the future, but if I were to accept it in the future, there would have to be that understanding that we are open to all logistics companies, and that's not something that I'm ever willing to budge on. So those are a few different, different highlights from the press release that I really wanted to, sort of, you know, talk through and and really there's a few strings that I want to pull on from it, especially from the lens of the age of exploration. And in case you don't know what the age of exploration is, it's essentially where mankind started building ships and started sailing around the world and finding out that new continents exist, that new cultures exist, that in new foods and spices. And you know, global trade was really established, and I was really inspired through learning about the age of exploration. And this really kicked off with this book endurance. I it took me all year to read it. That's how busy 2024 was for me. So I'm getting slowly back into book reading. It took me all year to read this, but it was so worth it. I cried several times throughout this book. It's about the story of a crew of about 22 men. Ernest Shackleton is the leader of this expedition, and they lead from off the southern tip of South America to be the first team to traverse Antarctica. So they wanted to land or in Antarctica and be the first team to traverse to the South Pole. Now on foot, to traverse, or on foot, which I guess is kind of applied. But this book is so much more. Ultimately, this book, they failed and but the lessons that were learned from this failure was incredible, because all 22 people, spoiler alert this. You know, if you don't know the story, you should in history class. I didn't know in history class. But spoiler alert, everybody survived, and they survived because of the leadership, because of the teamwork that was on display, that even through in the harshest of climates and the harshest of times that people were able to come together and survive and depend on each other to survive. And the book just really touched me. So if it's it's really a central point in a lot of the different theming, behind the design of CargoRex, behind a lot of the phrases that we use throughout the copy of the site. And I know this is probably only applicable to the marketing nerds out there, but that's where a lot of the inspiration comes from. And in fact, if you see me out at conferences and in the future, maybe, you know, even on social media, I'm wearing a pin for CargoRex. It's all it's golden black. It's not our, you know, green and purple colors, like what you will see on the site itself. But I wanted to use it as a compass, because I want people to think of CargoRex, and if you notice, it's in the shape of a compass. And for my little pin. So if you're listening to this, I apologize, but I just to briefly describe it. I make little pins. And I'm not talking about writing pins. I'm talking about like lapel pins that you can pin on a conference badge or on a t shirt or on a book bag. So I've had everything as logistics pins. I've had digital dispatch pins. Another company that I founded is Jack's podcasters united, which is a local group here in my hometown, Jacksonville, Florida, we have pins for that. So it was only natural to get pins for CargoRex as well. We did it in the shape of a compass, because I want people to use the site as a way to find their next move, to find what tool or what solution, what provider is going to be the next thing that brings them to. With that next phase of their business life, and so that is really where a lot of the inspiration comes from. Now, the next thing I kind of wanted to talk about is some of the use cases, you know, I mentioned, you know, researchers, leaders and creators, but just to highlight from the press release going into it, so for researchers, you can easily track emerging logistics trends, compare providers and validate insights with industry experts and so a few different ways of how we're doing this is that we have essentially a directory with over 300 businesses. I think it's up to 361 right now. Don't quote me on on the I think, yeah, it is. It's 361 as the date of recording. It's going to be a lot bigger than that. This is just what we're launching with. And so if you think about it from that lens, you can find out who are the latest, you know, WMS is that have come onto the scene this year, who are the oldest, who are the most relevant, who which of these WMS providers have, you know, several white papers or YouTube videos or explainer videos that I can watch. And then, separately, who are the creators that are talking about this particular topic, this particular type of solution, and can I listen to them more? And can I develop my own sort of thought process and my own sort of point or point of not point well, point of contention. Also ideas for improvement, things like that that you know that is the goal of using CargoRex is that you have a free account, you'll be able to go in and find these different solution providers, save them to your account, and also save that relevant content to your account. So then that way you can listen on the go. You can listen as you as you need to. You can research as you need to. And so that's really, that's the goal of using that particular functionality for researchers within the industry. Now the next one use case is leaders. And so for leaders, it's find strategic partners, enhance brand visibility and stay ahead of the market shifts with industry insights. So it's very similar to maybe how a researcher would use this tool as what would use CargoRex as well. But for leaders, you'll be able to check out So say, for example, if I'm a TMS provider and tie software is a perfect example of this. Ty has several integrations across the industry. You know, highway is a, you know, one that comes to mind. Highway is a company that, you know, tries to or prevent fraud within the industry. And so Ty integrates with highway if you weren't paying attention to certain parts of Ty's website or highways website, or if maybe you missed the news that was posted out on LinkedIn a couple of different times, maybe you didn't see any of that news. And so that's where CargoRex comes into play, where you can go to Ty's landing page, their listing page on CargoRex, and you can see a brief description of what their tool provides, of what their software provides. You can see their different integration partners. You can see the different associations that they're a part of. And so knowing that off the bat, then that allows your research process and your your strategic research process, especially for leaders out there to know what's coming up on the what's what you should be paying attention to, maybe some different solutions that are coming down the pipeline and tools that you should be looking into as well, and also relevant content. And so that's sort of the way that we have our listing pages mapped out. Is that you have a general description of the company. You have links to all of their website, their social media, their contact information. And then we go into, you know, what are some of your business stats we plan. And then company content. And then below that, company content, some other relevant companies that are just like this, whatever company you are looking at. And so just being able to as a leader, be able to stay ahead of the different solutions and providers that have come into the market and the moves that they're making. You know that that's where CargoRex is going to continue to shine. Is that as we build out this database, then it's only going to get much more intuitive and much more widespread that you'll be able to easily follow a lot of these different trends and information and break down those information silos to, you know, to go back kind of to the tagline of the company. And then to round it out, is creators. There are. I'm a creator in logistics, and I can tell you right now, I get dozens of press releases every week. I can't keep up with this, I am only one person. I don't release dozens, dozens of shows every week. I don't do that every month. And so for a lot of creators out there, we're all kind of working in our own silos. And so being able to with CargoRex, the way that I have used CargoRex so far, and still, it's very. Early infancy is that I'm able to go and find the companies that I'm going to have a guest on a future show. What I'm going to do is I'm going to go to CargoRex. I'm going to find out the general information about their company. I'm going to check out their social media, see what kind of news releases that they've gotten, see what kind of content they're promoting. I also want to check out their company news. I want to see what they themselves have released, and then I want to see what other creators have put, what other podcasters, YouTubers have posted about that company. And so that is the way to help me as a creator, be able to do my research faster. I have lists in the back every user actually has access to this. So even if you're a creator or not, you will be able to have access to these same functionalities to do their do your own research, from a creator lens, from a business lens. And so we have a feature called lists within your every user account, and you can create as many lists as you want to and so the way I personally am using it is that I'm I have a list that's interviews targets or interview targets and research companies, companies that I like. So these are all different lists. And then as I'm exploring through the CargoRex site, I can save and bookmark different providers, different content, and this goes for content as well. So if you find a great podcast that you want to listen to, but you want to keep but not at this very moment, you want to stop everything you're doing so you can listen to it, you can also save episodes to a podcast list. And so being able to use these different lists and bookmark features is to me, like a game changer for my research process. So researchers, leaders, creators, these are all different options, and I do have to emphasize free user accounts for everyone also free listing accounts. Anybody can list their business on CargoRex completely for free. Now we will have upgraded premium options that will debut within the month. We're still testing those right now as of the episode release date, but you can look for additional profile enhancements, additional profile customizations on your listing page itself. I mentioned a little bit earlier about different integrations or different associations you're a part of with a premium account, you'll be able to add that information in also events. If your company is hosting events, webinars, virtual, hybrid, in person, it doesn't matter. You'll also be able to add events to your listing page as well. And then the analytics. Already talked about the analytics earlier, and so the analytics is something that will also be incredibly valuable. We're also working on some different social media promo as well to the different CargoRex channels. And so if you are a premium account member, that will run you about $1,400 a year. But it's very it's compared to, let's just say my other competitors out there, who go very wide, as far as directories are concerned, they don't go deep. It's a 1400 bucks is a tremendous amount of savings. I last I checked g2 which is another sort of software review platform, charges about 10 to $10,000 minimum a year for the same service. And so we're very price competitive, price savings, and also very, very deep within the logistics community. But with that said, you know, we are only, there are only a little over 300 businesses at the time that I am recording this. We probably should add another zero on the end of that before I feel like we're getting kind of close to the logistics solution providers, and at first, we are only focused on the solution and tech vendors and events within the industry, also associations as well. It was a very conscious effort to not go after not be a glorified top three PL list or a glorified like Trucking Companies list, those different providers are already covered by other media outlets. And so from that lens, I felt like they were really already covered in pretty in depth. From that regard, I'm not going to restrict, you know, brokerages and carriers, especially asset based carriers, from signing up to CargoRex, but the main focus right now is where the industry is lacking, and it's lacking in a database of all the industry events, no matter who is hosting them. So we showed a favoritism depending on who was hosting the event. So all of the different events, also technology associations and service providers. There's really just a missing piece where no one can go to know if I want to go and I want to look for the top logistics insurance providers right now. Good luck, because the current system for that just doesn't exist. And so these are the this, this the different type of thought process that you know, with. Building out CargoRex. That I really wanted to focus on is, what are the missing information silos that exist, and how can we bring them all together? So those are a few of the different notes that I wanted to talk about, especially as we've been building this out. Because, like I said, it's it's been a pain. It's not easy, especially during, you know, 2024 when you know it's it's a downtime for the market, and lots of people are looking for different solutions. And I but I truly also believe that this during a down market is when the best businesses are built, because you see where the needs are, and you can use, sort of the modern ecosystem of the environment that we're all playing in. So we're playing in these these archaic but still modern systems of global trade, while trying to also navigate all of the different tech and service providers that are come into the scene and then add that extra layer of creators on top of it. And so that's where we want to be. That's what CargoRex is going to aim to be. We will be consistently investing in new solutions, and we've got some new features already coming down the pipeline. Soon. We are not stopping as far as like building this company. This is just phase one of the company. So another part of the site that is really important to me is our different feedback areas. I've made sure to add a little green tabs is help us improve on every page of the site. It might be a little annoying at first, but you guys, you you gals and and and men and women, whatever you identify with, are all welcome to join the platform and submit, you know, ways that we can improve and ways that we can make this platform better. I read every single one of them that comes through, and then we pick the ones out that kind of align with our vision for the company itself, and then being able to to make that research process seamless and make sure that creators can also put their work in front of their target audience. And so that's where my, my, really, my heart lies, is being able to match creators hard work to the business owners that are also doing hard work, and then the people who are trying to save time and save money and still stay ahead of the game and marry all of those three together. So that is what I've been working on, in a formal sense, since June of 2024 but this idea has been cooking up in my head for a few years now. I would say it was probably 2021 that I really started brainstorming of how to turn that image, that image that we've all seen on LinkedIn, of all of these different logistics providers and these logistics companies, but turning that image into something that is an actual searchable database. And you can continue to do the research process by reading the different, you know, white papers or case studies that the company themselves provides, maybe even seeing funding rounds for some of these companies, and then taking it an extra step of listening to the podcast or YouTube videos surrounding that specific topic, you know, bringing all of those things together. And I'll tell you, when I was first mapping this out, I hit pause. When chatgpt was first released, it was almost like an earth shattering moment, because when I first started, and maybe other people have experiences as well, but when that tool first hit the market and it hit mass adoption, it was one of those situations where I thought that every part of my job was going to be taken away, that was going to be ruined, and I just put CargoRex to the at the time it was actually called freight Rex. I changed the name halfway through developing this project, because I just feel like there's so many companies named freight whatever to and to me, like freight kind of signifies, like, almost like trucking only. And I wanted the name to instantly be something that is all encompassing of a of of logistics. And so cargo just made the the perfect sense. And then Rex is, if I can, if you know, if you notice throughout the navigation of the CargoRex site, you'll see a little like, what looks like a little green box. And that's Rexy. That's, I affectionately named him Rexy. It looks like a little dinosaur I was going for, like a T Rex kind of look. And so if you, if you look at his little face, it's a the shape of a box, and he has a little face on it, and he looks, you know, slightly curious, slightly annoyed, slightly happy, and but he's he's on the go, he's on the move. And I thought that that's such a perfect encapsulation of everybody that works in logistics. So I hope help y'all like little Rexy, because I have a lot of like, cute little or cool, depending on if you. Or bail or female listening to this, a lot of like, you know, just interesting to me, marketing initiatives that we can play around with using little Rexy. So I love him, and so I hope that y'all love him too. But yeah, it's so chat GPT came onto the scene. I thought the whole business idea was going to be shattered, so I put it on the back burner, and it's been on the back burner for a while, just kind of trying to see what was going to happen with this whole, like aI thing. But then to my example that I used earlier, you can go to perplexity right now and ask it for the top freight agent programs in the world, and it will send you a list of the top freight brokerages. And so it not knowing the nuances of the differences between a freight broker and a freight agent. I thought these tools are learning off of the information that already exists in Google and, you know, g2 and some of these other, you know, platforms there, they don't have a database to learn from. And so that was my goal, is to create that database for other people to learn from. And you might be saying to yourself, well, don't you think you're just going to get commoditized by AI, maybe, but I I just frankly, got tired of waiting around for AI to take my job, and I said, Well, why don't I just build a solution that is a solution that I would want, that is a solution that I see lots of other people needing. And so why not just build the solution and then figure out how AI can play a role on top of the data that we are building? And so that is a little bit of a hint of what's to come in the very near future, is, is having that kind of capability to have that informational research assistant sit on top of the data. But you need somewhere to pull consistent, reliable, trustworthy data to begin with, and so if that doesn't exist, we went out and built it. So that's where, that's where my thought process was is, let's just start building it. Let's see where the tides kind of take us, and then we'll see how AI can be a compliment to this platform and not a hindrance. And I think for a little while I thought of AI as something that was going to take my job, that was going to replace me, but it's just going to make now I see it from the lens of it's just going to make me more powerful. And that I firmly believe for other just not you don't even have to be a small business owner. I think it's a game changer for small business owners, small to medium sized business owners, because, number one, we do not have the Bloat of software of this. What do they call this? The software industrial complex. We do not have that kind of bloat that these larger enterprise solutions do have. And we also have probably better data, because we don't have as much data as some of these enterprise solution providers. And so I am a firm believer that AI is my helper that it has helped me, you know, craft out messaging for this project. It has helped me take the lens of I'll give you an example. I took all of my marketing initiatives so our who is our user case for the website, our research that we did for this website, mapping out what the project looks like in the different phases of development. Using all of those different resources, I was able to create a project on chat, GPT, and be able to have my own research assistant that would be able to help me answer some of these questions. So I'm very much like a tech optimist, and I see AI as you know, my right hand woman that you know, I've always wanted to hire someone who works like me and thinks like me, and now this is an opportunity to be able to have that in a digital landscape, and then be able to go and hire people that don't think like me, that don't have Maybe share the same company vision and goals, of course, but that could think differently, who that could have a different way of solving problems, have a specialty in different areas that I lack in, and so that, to me, is where the strength of AI comes in. And I was, I got tired of being afraid, and so I said, let's just go for it. And that's why we are here, and you're listening to this episode right now, hopefully you're still listening. But it did not change the business. It did not ruin my career. It only made my career more in demand, but shifting with this technology and knowing about it ahead of time, and being able to have a clear thought process, not freak out, not have panic porn or anything like that, but be able to listen to different shows, listen to different creators, think about the solutions, and think about them a little bit more in depth than a panic response. And so that's how I think about AI, and that's also how I think about CargoRex and its future development is being that right hand man or woman to your research process, whether you're looking for a different solution or tech provider or a new association to join, or a new event to be a part of, or a new creator to discover. That is what the mission of CargoRex is, is to explore, discover and evolve. And so that is my mission in my regular life, and it's also my mission with CargoRex as well. This all comes to fruition a little bit after Thanksgiving. I told you. We started the development process in June of 2024 I thought we would have an MVP ready to go by August. Did not happen. I was a little what do they call it? The optimism bias was very optimistic to have it ready by August. It was not so because of my timeline and that I was getting married in October, and I said, well, obviously I can't launch a new company at the same time that I'm getting married, so let's push it back until around Thanksgiving, I thought it would be ready the week before Thanksgiving, still wasn't quite ready for an MVP testing, so I waited until just the week after, I believe, Thanksgiving, to send out an email to a bunch of different logistics founders. Nate shoots over at the ballast community, which is for logistics founders, was kind enough to let me you know, explain what CargoRex is on one of our founder meetups, highly, highly recommend if you're a logistics founder, joining that community because it has been such a godsend, mentally and just strategically. So we were able to do an MVP launch and get dozens of people. So we had around 40 people sign up and submit their business, and they gave me feedback and what they liked, what they didn't like. And so since December, it has been a process of implementing those suggestions, and then also our different product features, like customized search. It's not just, you know, an out of the box search engine that we're building in CargoRex. It's a customized search that we'll be able to tweak as we go along. And my thought process behind searches, how do I showcase the businesses that have a verified owner? How do I showcase the businesses that have their profile completed the most meaning you have, your integrations, your associations, your business description, your social media links, even you know company content. Do you have those things filled out on your profile, or did you just slap a logo up there with a brief description and call it a day? To be fair, I'm not going to down grade. I'm not going to prevent those listings from showing up in search, but I want to showcase the businesses that have completely filled out their information and give them higher priority. So if you are a user on CargoRex, that's that's a little bit of key insight there to have your business show up higher than maybe somebody else's business, is just fill out your profile completely again, free listings for every company that wants to be for every logistics company that wants to be on CargoRex, if you don't have a logistics company, don't submit your business. It's going to be deleted. Already ran into that issue too, of companies finding out about this platform and submitting their business that has nothing to do with being a logistics provider, a logistics solution provider. So that is sort of the the thought process behind that. I kind of lost my train of thought there. But moving on, there are lots of different feedback that I got, different people that submitted their business right away, which was insanely helpful, because I was able to see where there's what, especially from a user experience standpoint, sometimes things are clear to me that are not clear to other people. And being able, during this MVP process to go through what is not clear to other people and adjust that, that has been super enlightening. And so we've spent the better part of the last month, month and a half of implementing those changes and implementing those suggestions, integrating our new search into the platform, because when we first did the MVP launch, the search, frankly, was shit, and it was unacceptable. And when you have a website like this, search is the most important part. And so that's where the customized search comes into play. So that is another great feature I'm excited for on the site, another item that's coming down the pipeline in the future. I probably should talk about all these things that are coming down on the pipeline. Just stay tuned to our social media and you will you'll see it's CargoRex on all different platforms. But you will see some of those announcements coming up. I probably shouldn't talk about them publicly until they're actually ready to be put, you know, on full display. But a few other people that really helped out, I just wanted to give them a quick shout out. Josh Lyles at sales, dash, CRM, he was actually the very first company that, well, I should say the very first company, because. I use digital dispatch, which is my other company, and everything's logistics the podcast. I use both of those as my test cases on the site before sending it out to the MVP testers. But Josh Lyles was the first one to sign up and complete his profile, so special shout out to him for being the very first one. Also Trey Griggs at beta Consulting Group. He was our first creator, not affiliate. He was our first creator, I should say, not affiliated with everything is pretty kind of is not really but Trey Griggs, thank you for being the first creator to list your podcast on the creators and voices section of the site, which is, it is different. We are treating creators differently, and because we're creating, treating creators differently. If you are an approved creator on the site, meaning you have a YouTube channel, you have a podcast, you have a newsletter, if you have any of these three things, I need you to apply to become a creator. I will send you, if you are of interest, send me an email, use the contact form on the CargoRex.io website, say that you are interested in becoming a creator, and we can approve you as a voice. And then when that happens, we're able to import your podcast directly into the site. And then once you're in the site, anybody who cooks play on a podcast episode on CargoRex, that play that download, that you know, that traffic, that analytics, goes right to your feed source. That's a way of saying that your podcast. And for anybody who doesn't understand what an RSS feed is, an RSS feed is the almost like a data file that your show gives off. And when I you send me your RSS feed, I can plug that into our site, and we can import your podcast, and then we import your podcast, and anyone who finds it, not only are you having your content recommended the relevant content recommended to relevant searches within the site, but anytime someone hits play on that podcast, you get credit for that download and it goes directly to whoever you are hosting your podcast with. So maybe it's Buzzsprout, maybe it's Libsyn, maybe it's you know, any other you know, sort of podcast host, but that's the beauty of an RSS feed. God bless RSS feeds. I love RSS feeds, and I will be a proud supporter of them for as long as we have internet in our lives. But that's the power of an RSS feed, is that the creator gets credit for the work that they're already creating, and then CargoRex hopefully is able to facilitate those different relationships and those different discovery of that content that's relevant to the searches that you are trying to do. So shout out to Trey for being one of the first also another first for creator and business is Brian Glick [email protected] he's always been a super insightful interview. We've had him twice on the show now, and he just is a wealth of knowledge. But he was also one of the first to list his company on here, and then also at alamonte Studios, he gave me such fabulous feedback for the site as well. So shout out to him for being one of the first two. Also speaking of a really great feedback. Kyle at a five tool productions, both of them are on the platform. Both of them are listed within CargoRex because they provide video solutions for different event providers, like a board member of the TMSA transportation, marketing and sales Association and so Kyle and his team over at five tool productions, they provide a lot of on event coverage. So photography, videography, things like that, making sure that, you know, speakers get their photos taken, sessions are recorded and provided to people who could be there in person, or maybe people who missed a certain talk and want to catch it later. So that's what his company provides. And so he was one of the first on the site as well incredible feedback from Kyle. And Kyle and I also go way back to our sports blogging days and sports content creating days. And he's also from Jacksonville, another, another insufferable Jaguars fan. And so it's been really cool to come up in sports together and then come up in logistics together and still be able to support each other. So that that's been really cool. And then also, I mentioned him earlier, but Nate shoots with with the ballast group, if you are a logistics founder, then you need to be a part of this group, because it's like a therapy session, not just for my mental well being, but also for my business well being. And I could, I cannot, recommend that group enough. Highly, highly recommend. If you have the financial means which, they do have pro rated rates depending on where you're at. They have early stage rates for, you know, early founders. And then they have, you know, if you're more of an enterprise level founder, they have different rates for you, which is, it's kind of cool. It's for someone like me to be able to a, afford to be in a group like this, and then B, be able to learn from these other folks who have been there, done that, and that's what I love. Most about the ballast community, and then also shout out to my friend Don Everett over at TransFlo. We're all me and him and Grace Sharkey and Lars Ward, who also just recently joined the trans flow team. We're all in a group chat together, and we have a lot of free gossip that we'd like to let we like to talk about. But Don is also one of those people who will keep it real with it real with me. And he told me straight up, he's like, look, I tried to sign up, but the form is too damn long. So that was very valuable feedback that really only a friend would give you. I don't I didn't get I didn't get much harsh I want the harsh criticism because I want to know where the pain points are on the site. And Don was one of the few to actually tell me this sucks, like this form is way too long. I saw it, and I immediately X out. And so I took, I take that, and instead of, you know, getting mad or anything, I go and I try to fill out as many of these companies as possible, and so that's why we have little over 300 businesses on the site right now, is because a lot of them we filled out manually. We added that data manually into the site. So if your company is missing, it's not it's not on purpose. I need you to submit it, but the form is still a little long, but it's all information, relevant, information that your potential audience is looking for. So we will be adding more companies in the future, but I also want to make sure that, you know, we are doing it from a spot, a space of integrity, that you know, I'm not just adding 1000s of companies, you know, without any rhyme or reason that may not have anything to do with logistics, like I'm very intentional about the companies that we have added so far and the companies that we will add in the future, because we we need that database, and we need that resource in order to be to break down these information silos, which is the whole Damn goal of this site to begin with. So thank you, John for giving us that feedback, because it really helped to spearhead another issue that we needed to solve was, how do we make the sign up process stupid easy for folks? And that is something I think that I will always continuously work on, is how to make the the use of the site as easy as possible, so that people can find what they're looking for as easy as possible, like I said, the Google search of logistics. But you know, in this case, this we actually know logistics, and we know the difference between a free agent and a free broker. So that kind of brings us to present day, and I think that I have kind of, oh my god, this podcast is looking at the recording time, and it's close to 54 minutes. So if you are still listening to this, thank you. We have plenty of new features coming in the future. I've talked about a lot of my favorite features so far. Like I said, business listings, creators, also events. Is another thing that I've kind of barely touched on. If you host events, I want you to list your logistics events. If you host logistics events, I want you to list your company on and your event on CargoRex. And the reason I want you to do that is because I want these events that people find out after the fact that have been so great and they're so beneficial and they're so useful, whether it's virtual, whether it's in person, or a blend of the two, I want to be able to surface that information to other relevant users, other relevant visitors that are coming to the site. So please list your event now, I will have to say. The caveat is, you have to be a verified user on the account. You also have to have a business listing. It doesn't matter if it's free or paid, but you have to have a business listing in order to list an event. So that's a little bit of a caveat. I didn't want this website to be spammed. We have to really take precaution into avoiding Spam. Spam businesses, spam comments is it's also a spam is a big reason why I didn't want to go the traditional review route. Reviews I think are too gamified. I would rather focus on the content that users are already creating and the content that companies are already creating. Put that content in front of you, allow you to listen, and then you make the best judgment for your business. We are the information facilitators, and so you can take that information and you can run with it. The same with events. I didn't want somebody spamming our site with a bunch of different irrelevant events, because data integrity is very important to a site like this. So that is something that is a little bit more like behind the scenes, but it's something that is of great importance, and it's something that I really was thoughtful about before we ever released this product as an MVP test. And so that's something that I'm going to continue to be very picky about. Is open for all, but it has to be related to. Logistics. That is the biggest takeaway is that don't spam the site. Biggest takeaway, okay, so last few questions, or last two, I guess, miscellaneous items, is, how does this change the podcast? How does this change this podcast? With this new company launching the there is a slight change, because anytime you launch a new company, you kind of have to readjust your schedule a little bit, and you have to be able to prioritize that company in your work day. We are going to be scaling back a little bit on the number of podcasts that I release. So typically it's been anywhere from two to three episodes a week that I release. I think that's too much, and I felt, especially over the last year, and especially around the time that I was making the NASA content, that I have been focused on quantity and not quality. And when I recorded a lot of our NASA series, or NASA Space logistics series back in August and released those episodes, I was like, this is the kind of content that fuels my soul like, you know, being able to go somewhere and see the operations in front, in front and center, and then be able to talk about it, record conversations about it like that is the kind of content that feeds my soul. So how can I continuously do more of that style of content? And that's where I think the podcast needed to have a little bit of an evolution to where we only have on here, like star studded banger conversations. I don't care if you are a star or if you're not, I don't want to have boring conversations on this show. And I say boring from the lens of you gotta come with stories. You gotta come with stats. You gotta have something of substance. And so that's where I'm going to be focusing a lot more of our content efforts. And so the podcast will scale back a little bit. And so instead of, you know, say, I don't know, like 12 to 16 shows a month, you're going to be getting around six to eight a month, at least four, because I'm going to aim for at least one new episode every week, but then, depending on conferences that I'm at, or anything like that, naturally, I'm going to be recording content at different conferences, and so you might see a fluctuation or an increase in episodes on the pod, just because, you know, last year for reference, I recorded half A dozen interviews at manifest, and I was able to space them out. So it was over a period of like two months that we had these new episodes that were releasing for manifest. But at the two month mark that effort, that content should probably already been released. And so thinking about it from that lens of we need to be able to find a way to get these types of shows out faster and not space them out due to this arbitrary two episode a week rule. And so that's where that my thought process is coming into. I want to create more quality, less quantity, kind of hover around the four to six episode release a month. And then also be able to with CargoRex. Be able to have, you know, webinars within the CargoRex platform, on the CargoRex YouTube, be able to bring in four different experts to talk about TMS, four different experts to talk about warehouse robotics. That's where I see my content evolving. And also I really love I don't know if any of you have ever watched Windover productions, but he has a regular series on the logistics of x, not x, the formerly Twitter, but the logistics of whatever. And that's where I've gotten a lot of content. Inspiration from is his particular YouTube videos. I would love to be able to create YouTube videos like that in the future, experimented with some of that style in Tiktok format. You can go on the everything is logistics website to kind of see, you know, two to three minute long videos that talk about different topics. And so these are the different types of things I want to explore with my content. And I felt like 2024 i With the exception of the NASA series and freight friends, episodes, to be frank, the rest of the content was lacking a punch. And I want to have an impact when I when I say punch, I mean an impact, a positive impact on a negative one. And so that's where my content process is evolving. So it only changes, it slightly, just less episodes, but must listen episodes, and so that that's the angle that I'm going on with the podcast. Another question is, how does this change digital dispatch? It doesn't, and in fact, digital dispatch last year had its best year ever, and it's because that we have process optimized to add my team's ad nauseum of all of the different ways to develop and manage and host websites, we probably have a process for that already in place. I learn something new every time I work with a new website or a new client or we launch another site, I learned something new. Every single time. And so every time we update our process to get a little bit better. And so this new venture does not change digital dispatch whatsoever. We host more than 40 websites within the logistics ecosystem, and we manage all of them very effectively, I might add. And so that's not stopping either. I'm just fortunate enough that we are at a place where I can use different AI tools to streamline our processes, find out where our weaknesses are, and then the tech team can really hit the ground running, because we have our process dialed in, not just from an admin perspective, but also with our clients as well. Our clients provide us everything that we need ahead of time. And so then, that way, when we are available or when we are able to start a new website project, we are able to complete it within two weeks, a lot of the times. And so we're able to speed up our development and our launch process significantly. And so digital dispatch that doesn't change at all. We actually have, you know, some, some other additional help that we're going to be hiring for that. So it doesn't change it at all. And so this is, this is CargoRex is a new company to add to the portfolio of Brumleve brands. I'm really, really happy about that. And so we are finding different ways to and I'm finding different ways to be the conductor of the orchestra and not trying to play every single instrument of my business. That's been a little bit of a learning curve, but it was something that has been much needed as well, too. So now that essentially does it. I have talked for about an hour about this new venture, about CargoRex, about how, you know, if it changes, you know, the podcast, if it changes digital dispatch. It doesn't I, you know, I, I feel very strongly that it makes these two everything is logistics, and it also makes digital dispatch much more stronger, because CargoRex exists and so but CargoRex will likely take up a much more commanding moment of and it needs to, right now. It needs to take up, you know, more of a commanding time slot in my life as we build this solution out and and build these different new features. And I'm excited for it, and it's the first time I've been excited about a new venture in a long time, and it feels great to be building something, especially building it during, tentatively, a freight recession, but being able to come out on the other side and be able to provide a tool that I genuinely hope is helpful to everyone else in logistics, all the content creators, the researchers, the leaders, if you work in logistics, I want your feedback. I want you to list your business on CargoRex, and then I want you to let me know what what sucks and what doesn't suck, and maybe what you would like to see from the platform in the future. So that's a lot to say. I'm a I'm a little out of breath, I'm a little hungry, I'm a little thirsty, but it's launch day, and if you're at manifest and you're listening, and you've somehow listened to this episode, please come say hi. I will give you a pin that you see here, or maybe you've seen in the the video that I've been recording here, in the podcast episode I've been recording but you can probably tell my voice that I need to stop talking right now, because I need to actually save my voice so I can do much more talking over at manifest conference and future conferences during the year 2025, but please, please, please, if you supported this show in any way, or you supported me in any way possible, go over To CargoRex, tell all your friends, get them registered on the site. Like I said, it's free. It's free to register for the account. It's free to register your business if you want some some greater perks. There are paid options in the future, but we will always have free users, and we will always have free business listings. It's just, you know, some of these other tools are a little little pricey to maintain and implement, so we gotta charge for it, but the rate that we are charging is very affordable, especially compared to my competitors and with CargoRex. Lastly, with every other platform, they're going wide, we're going deep, and that is the it's really the first solution for this industry that is agnostic for whatever tool that you provide or whatever event that you are hosting, or whatever solution that you have created, we have a home for you on CargoRex. And I want to be able to showcase not only your business, but your content and your events to the rest of the logistics audience. So go over, get signed up, tell your friends, tell your colleagues. But until then, thank you for listening. Go follow me on other all the social platforms of your choice. We'll have some handy links in the show notes on how to submit your company, how to submit an event, things like that. And we'll have more helpful content in the future. Welcome to phase one of CargoRex, thank you for listening and go chat. I hope you enjoyed this episode of everything is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight, telling the stories behind how your favorite stuff and people get from point A to B. Subscribe to the show. Sign up for our newsletter and follow our. Socials over at everything is logistics.com and in addition to the podcast, I also wanted to let you all know about another company I operate, and that's digital dispatch, where we help you build a better website. Now, a lot of the times, we hand this task of building a new website or refreshing a current one off to a coworker's child, a neighbor down the street or stranger around the world, where you probably spend more time explaining the freight industry than it takes to actually build the dang website. Well, that doesn't happen at Digital dispatch. We've been building online since 2009 but we're also early adopters of AI automation and other website tactics that help your company to be a central place, to pull in all of your social media posts, recruit new employees and give potential customers a glimpse into how you operate your business. Our new website builds start as low as$1,500 along with ongoing website management, maintenance and updates starting at $90 a month, plus some bonus freight, marketing and sales content similar to what you hear on the podcast, you can watch a quick explainer video over on digital dispatch.io, just check out the pricing page once you arrive, and you can see how we can build your digital ecosystem on a strong foundation. Until then, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'll see you all real soon and go Jags, you?
