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Freight Startups Attract Silicon Valley’s Attention

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Re: Freight Startups Attract Silicon Valley’s Attention

#41

Post by thedogeye »

jbondeson wrote: post #37

I spent a decade working with and writing software for LTL freight and 3PL companies on the receivables automation side and all I have to say is I hope these companies are successful. There are tons of opportunities for efficiency gains all over these companies as they are some of the most low-tech back office operations I've seen. There's a definite gap between the biggest companies and the rest. These companies are…

Wow, want to come in and take a look under the hood at Flexport? email me: ryan@flexport.com

Re: Freight Startups Attract Silicon Valley’s Attention

#42

Post by sleazebreeze »

I work for a large NVOCC/freight forwarder that has a large IT department and builds nearly all it's software in-house. My part of it has been building migrated applications for various customer service functionalities and the kinds of systems we're migrating from are beyond shockingly bad.

Today, moving a shipment requires the operator to go between 4-6 different applications and fill out the same information in multiple places. The data doesn't go anywhere and is often recorded in terse 3-letter codes that result from ancient databases that can't be upgraded. In fact, it's a custom database server running in an emulated environment because none of the hardware has long since stopped being supported. It's pure insanity.

Flexport looks like they're making a lot of the right moves and I've been following them with equal parts interest and trepidation for my company's future with competitors like that on the rise.

If I lived in San Francisco, I'd apply there in a heartbeat because I think this industry is overdue for some serious competition and I'd rather be the disrupter than the incumbent. So many of the processes are done manually because of 25-30 years of process cruft building up and the pain of doing it differently isn't greater (yet) than building a proper system to do it.

The bigger the ship, the slower it is to turn and I'm not sure the solution is more tugboats.

Re: Freight Startups Attract Silicon Valley’s Attention

#43

Post by afarrell »

patmcguire wrote: post #40
calpaterson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was true in the container revolution also. Malcom McLean (inventor of modern shipping containers) had to sell his trucking business when he bought a shipping business because because the regulator at the time did not allow anyone to operate a trucking company and a shipping company at the same time. There were also rules in the US at various times which prevented people from operating a trucking/railroad company…

I know that the history of shipping containers might not sound like the most exciting thing in the world, but The Box is a great book http://www.amazon.com/The-Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller/dp/... Shipping rules used to be crazy

This book had a profound impact on my life for a span of 1.5 years

Re: Freight Startups Attract Silicon Valley’s Attention

#44

Post by mks »

I fondly remember interning at major freight forwarder during university. The main input interface was paper which was them keyed into the mainframe application. Only the biggest partners have been integrated via EDI. So just putting sensible API in front of all this sounds like good idea.

I have been working on operations data mart most of the time (and saving cca 30 000 dollars on carrier volume discount on shipped containers) but I always felt my most appreciated contribution was stitching together few Excel macros to make Request For Quotation evaluation easier.

So here are my two free ocean freight startup ideas:

- precise container reporting for carrier disputes (10 FCL 40 footers from HKG to HAM), including error detection when port is incorrectly filled in just because it has similar code

- RFQ evaluator - as simple and accessible as excel, but capturing the specifics of ocean freight (tens of port pairs, container specifications, splitting price to freight, terminal and surcharges etc).

Did you know you could have your container shipped for free - only for cost of terminal handling (on certain routes, at certain times)? Fascinating industry.

Re: Freight Startups Attract Silicon Valley’s Attention

#45

Post by deanclatworthy »

mks wrote: post #44

I fondly remember interning at major freight forwarder during university. The main input interface was paper which was them keyed into the mainframe application. Only the biggest partners have been integrated via EDI. So just putting sensible API in front of all this sounds like good idea. I have been working on operations data mart most of the time (and saving cca 30 000 dollars on carrier volume discount on shipped…

Re: last point. I did not know that. Could you provide some more information?

Re: Freight Startups Attract Silicon Valley’s Attention

#46

Post by sanne »

wehadfun wrote: post #14

Is this like an Uber for freight?

It's better to see it as a travel agent for cargo. Complexity is that cargo doesn't have legs nor a passport. The scheduling and booking is similar to Uber's dispatching. Value chain is much longer. In short: hard problem

Re: Freight Startups Attract Silicon Valley’s Attention

#47

Post by dfraser992 »

I was the entire IT staff for Linescape (linescape.com) for its first 4 years. I was somewhat flabbergasted at the level of IT the industry was at in 2008 - 1990s at best. The industry was still trying to decide if XML was useful vs EDIFACT (straight from the 1970s) for transmitting shipping schedules. It was interesting work though, I had some very good insights into where the industry could go / was going to go and we could had made some bleeding edge improvements in terms of IT (e.g. the use of graph databases to model shipping routes and calculating various things) We could have been the first to market with a SaaS / API for dealing with shipping schedules, but management fiddled around and Maersk beat us to the punch.

Unfortunately the founders of Linescape have absolutely zero ethics and ripping off customers (and those working for the company) was more important than anything else. I only later found out about the criminal record of one of them which explains the reluctance to go find investment money. It was a classic cautionary tale about the startup ecosystem (vet the people you're doing business with / working for very carefully) and the lack of business ethics so prevalent (aka Uber et al) The CEO and his now ex-wife are now fighting over the company...

The thing was, none of the drama was necessary! We could have really made something of the company. But capitalism these days...

Re: Freight Startups Attract Silicon Valley’s Attention

#48

Post by kifki »

character0 wrote: post #3

"Many freight veterans and analysts are skeptical of these efforts, saying forwarding is too complex and too dependent on longstanding relationships for new online entrants to compete." Because that's never been a problem technology has overcome. Any industry with veterans stating this sentiment is ripe for change. Not because an online app is going to solve all the worlds ills, but because there are people resisting…

I don't know how it is in the US, but in Europe thefts are VERY common, and because of this trust/relationship plays a very important role. That said, the industry is very, very old school, spreadsheets at best. Although with the new generation taking over, the things will change (I hope).

Re: Freight Startups Attract Silicon Valley’s Attention

#50

Post by eru »

afarrell wrote: post #43
patmcguire wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that the history of shipping containers might not sound like the most exciting thing in the world, but The Box is a great book http://www.amazon.com/The-Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller/dp/... Shipping rules used to be crazy

This book had a profound impact on my life for a span of 1.5 years

How so? I read it too, but I didn't see much impact..

It could have done with a few illustrations.

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