Ep. #66: Andrew Silver, Former CEO & Founder, MoLo Solutions

This week, The Freight Pod flips the mic as host and former MoLo Solutions CEO Andrew Silver becomes the guest. Hosted by colleague and friend Derek Zetlin, this candid conversation dives deep into Andrew’s journey through freight, including growing up around logistics, learning the ropes at Coyote, and ultimately founding, scaling, and selling MoLo.

In this episode, you’ll hear Andrew talk about:

• His early experiences and pivotal moments at Coyote Logistics, from being a high school-aged intern to learning from key mentors and the challenges of early career growth.
• The decision to leave Coyote and his motivations behind founding MoLo, including the itch to build something independently and overcome his own personal insecurities.
• The early days of MoLo, the importance of culture, and the strategies behind the company’s rapid and transformative growth, going from $5M in revenue in 2017 to $625M in 2021.
• His reflections on leadership, the pressures of being a CEO, and the acquisition of MoLo.
• His perspective on the evolving freight brokerage landscape, the potential impact of AI, the future of the industry, and his own next steps.

Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.

*** This episode is brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services. Visit gorapido.com to learn more.

A special thanks to our additional sponsors:

• Cargado – Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies that move freight into and out of Mexico. Visit cargado.com to learn more.
• Greenscreens.ai – Greenscreens.ai is the AI-powered pricing and market intelligence tool transforming how freight brokers price freight. Visit greenscreens.ai/freightpod today!
• Metafora – Metafora is a technology consulting firm that has delivered value for over a decade to brokers, shippers, carriers, private equity firms, and freight tech companies. Check them out at metafora.net. ***

Chapters

• 0:00 Sponsor message and episode intro
• 3:45 Introducing guest host Derek Zetlin
• 7:15 Andrew’s early life and start in freight
• 23:58 Starting at Coyote post-college in customer sales
• 27:05 Landing his first shipper: a tough produce brokerage
• 32:02 Leading Coyote’s Denver office and first people management role
• 38:33 The one time Andrew almost left the industry
• 44:15 Managing a $350M book of business and 50 sellers
• 47:55 Leaving Coyote, the noncompete, and MoLo’s early groundwork
• 56:16 “Does the world need another broker?”
• 1:00:25 Noncompete ends and officially launching MoLo in 2018
• 1:13:24 Building MoLo’s culture and Andrew’s leadership values
• 1:18:25 From raising capital to selling MoLo
• 1:22:41 Getting introduced to ArcBest
• 1:25:03 Differentiation in brokerage and the role of AI
• 1:30:30 Does Andrew want to build again?
• 1:39:56 Predictions on where the industry is heading

Transcript

Andrew Silver: 0:00

Hey FreightPod listeners. Before we get started today, let's do a quick shout out to our sponsor, rapido Solutions Group. Rapido connects logistics and supply chain organizations in North America with the best near shore talent to scale efficiently and deliver superior customer service. Rapido works with businesses from all sides of the logistics industry. This includes brokers, carriers and logistics software companies. This includes brokers, carriers and logistics software companies. Rapido builds out teams with roles across customer and carrier sales and support, back office administration and technology services.

Andrew Silver: 0:33

The team at Rapido knows logistics and people. It's what sets them apart. Rapido is driven by an inside knowledge of how to recruit, hire and train within the industry and a passion to build better solutions for success. The team is led by CEO Danny Frisco and COO Roberto Lacazza, two guys I've worked with from my earliest days in the industry at Coyote. I have a long history with them and I trust them. I've even been a customer of theirs at Molo and let me tell you they made our business better. In the current market, where everyone's trying to do more with less and save money, solutions like Rapido are a great place to start To learn more. Check them out at gorapidocom. That's gorapidocom.

Derek Zetlin: 1:33

Welcome to the Freight Pod. My name is Derek Zetlin. You're probably a little bit surprised hearing my voice instead of Andrew Silver's. This is a different and unique episode of the Freight Pod. I wanted to give Andrew the opportunity to tell his story. He's done such a good job over the last almost two years now giving folks the forum to tell their story and dive deep into their businesses. I wanted to give Andrew the opportunity to do that for himself. So this is a unique episode.

Derek Zetlin: 2:01

I'm going to play the role of host. So, andrew, I'm going to do my best to play you for the next, however long this takes, you are the guest, so we're shifting roles here. I'm really excited to be here. Thanks for having me, and you know I called you probably a few weeks ago with this idea. I think it was something that you had thought about, maybe not necessarily as me, as the host, but here we are so excited to be able to guide you down your story. I obviously, again, I'm going to try to do my best to play you, as you've done so well for all of your previous guests. So with that, I'll kind of kick things over to you.

Derek Zetlin: 2:40

I think generally we start the FreightPod with a little bit of background on your early years. Certainly, freight is in your blood. You had your dad, jeff, on the show a few weeks ago, which was really intriguing and fun to listen to. I know a lot of people, but yeah, I just wanted to give you the opportunity to tell your story. I guess we'll start as close to the beginning as you want to here today.

Andrew Silver: 3:07

Well, thanks for having me on my own show. This definitely was somewhat it wasn't necessarily out of the blue. I guess credit to the old adage in sales that you'll never get anything you don't ask for. I have been asked by people in the past to do an episode on my story and I always kind of just punted it and you maybe just called me at the right place, right time and said, you know, would you be interested? And I kind of was like why not? And so here we are, so hopefully we don't screw this up. But all right, so you want me to start back at the beginning?

Derek Zetlin: 3:43

Yeah, it may be better as I think about it. I'll give a quick intro on myself, since I jumped right in, and maybe give the folks who don't know me on the show to have an understanding of maybe why I'm here.

Andrew Silver: 3:57

Yeah, go ahead. It's your show. I'm just the guest.

Derek Zetlin: 3:59

All right, fair enough, you're driving. Yeah, as, as I didn't mention, I'm. I'm Derek Zetlin. I spent 14 years in brokerage prior to last year Actually, my yesterday was my one year anniversary at Good Ship. So I've been with Good Ship for a year and enjoyed every minute of it, really excited about the mission that we're on as an organization.

Derek Zetlin: 4:21

Like it's not this isn't a show about me or Good Ship, but I at least want to give a background on myself. Prior to last year joining Good Ship, I spent 14 years at brokerage. So 10 years at Coyote Logistics and then the more recent four years leading into last year at Molo Solutions. So obviously a lot of overlap at both organizations. With you, I felt like that resume put me in a position to be able to have this conversation today. So I know a lot of your stories, certainly not all of it, but wanted to at least again give you the opportunity to tell that story, and I was alongside you for a decent chunk of that. So just wanted to at least give the background there. I probably should have intro'd with that, but I'm a first time host and now we'd love to turn it over to you and kind of get into your story, and both from a personal standpoint, and then obviously get into the businesses that I just described.

Andrew Silver: 5:15

It's crazy to me to think that you were at Molo for four years. I don't know why that seems like such a long time, but it makes sense, I guess sense I mean time in COVID doesn't seem like real time.

Derek Zetlin: 5:26

So I joined in August of 2020, right in the thick of it and uh, it's kind of a black hole of time. So maybe that's part of the reason why it doesn't feel like four years.

Andrew Silver: 5:35

Yeah, Okay, Well, yeah, listen, I I I definitely think is professionally. You know me as well, know me as well as most, or almost as well as anyone. So we've been on two journeys together and so I definitely thought that you were positioned well enough to do this, and I also, frankly, there's a little part of me in the background that's like there's a chance we record this and I never release it if it sucks. So I'm keeping that in my back back pocket I think people will like it.

Derek Zetlin: 6:07

So I think, uh, your listeners uh will enjoy your story. That's my opinion, so I think we'll, uh we'll, do a good job here today.

Andrew Silver: 6:15

I'll do my best. I think where I struggle with this mentally is I don't. This might this might seem hard for some people who know me to believe, but I don't actually like talking about myself so much, so it's a big reason why I've avoided doing an episode on my story. I like putting bits and pieces of my stuff into other people's conversations as I interview them, but it feels like it's hard to you know when you think about telling your story. I don't know why it feels like credit is something that needs to be given along the way, um, whether it's you know for your accomplishments or to people that built things with you, and so maybe it's just me that I'm mindful of. I don't want to sound super arrogant or like feel like I'm taking credit for things, so I think that's part of the mental block that I've had with this whole idea. But in any case, I grew up in northern suburbs of Chicago, in a couple different towns Highland Park, lake Bluff, lake Forest. I was an athlete, or I wanted to be an athlete. I played sports is probably the right way to put it Super competitive basketball, football, baseball throughout high school, and I worked too. I grew up. My dad worked in the trucking business, as far as I knew, when I was young and by high school I got to understand what freight brokerage was and I had this idea. I told myself I wanted to be a millionaire by the time I was 25. I don't know why that was this. I was financially motivated and I remember thinking that.

Andrew Silver: 8:05

I remember telling my parents that when I was like 17, 18 and my first job actually was as a baseball umpire, which was fun, cause I had younger siblings who played in the little league that I'm umpired in, and one of them was very athletic and it was easier to manage his games. The other was not as athletic and it was a little more challenging. It was like T-ball level or like 5, 6, 7, 8 years old and I was umpiring and I'd try to help him along, whatever. But my first job was a baseball umpire and I was like 13, 14 and started making I don't know what it was like 12 bucks an hour or something like that, um, but I always wanted to work and you know, when I was 16, my parents started coyote and, um, that was kind of the first real job I had an opportunity to participate in. I got, I guess, hired, and by hired I mean Jeff brought me to the office one day I think I was on my Christmas break in high school and I think he sat me down next to Brian Brenner and Brian was at the time, was managing an account, I think like Pentair Pools, and he was showing me how to schedule appointments and, you know, brian would eventually lead a big part of the organization, like a lot of the people who started there in the early days would grow into these big roles and would be kind of stalwarts at that business.

Andrew Silver: 9:39

I was really lucky, I think, because I was put next to all of these really influential people when I was 16, 17, 18 years old and I learned from them. They became good friends of mine or mentors or just people I could count on for advice or information as needed. Brian Brenner was one of those. He would eventually run, I think, all of sales or a big part of sales as I grew through my sales career.

Andrew Silver: 10:07

Another guy who I sat next to in my first days was Tim King, and I've talked about him maybe I've brought him up once or twice on the show before and another very influential person in the Coyote journey and he showed me how to call trucks and I mean, it was as simple as listening to him.

Andrew Silver: 10:26

I was Y-cording, as you called it, where you had two people I don't know it was a cord that literally made the shape of Y and each end of it went to a headset and so one person could talk and the other person could listen to them on the phone. And I listened to him call a few carriers and then he said go ahead and start calling, listened to him call a few carriers and then he said go ahead and start calling. And that was my first kind of foray into freight I. You know, I still remember my first load I booked. It was, uh, nina wisconsin to mechanicsburg, pennsylvania, on a carrier called guyan transportation g-u-y-a-n, and I think we lost like 200 bucks on the load. But uh, maybe that was the first um lesson in executing for your customers, no matter what, as I would carry on for the next 18 years in in the freight industry yeah, it's funny.

Derek Zetlin: 11:15

I mean, you remember the origin, destination, carrier of your first load, however many years ago. Uh, it's funny how we all remember so many of the specifics in this business. Did you know you want at that point, did you know you wanted to be in freight and like, this is the route I'm going to take, obviously just given the freight being in your blood, as we mentioned earlier? Or was there ever a question of what you wanted to do at that point from a professional standpoint?

Andrew Silver: 11:51

Yeah, I don't think I took it seriously right away, because I remember getting in trouble. I got in trouble a lot as a kid and into my adulthood, just by way of, I don't know, being a rebel is maybe the right term. I was always looking for something. A rebel is maybe the right term. I was always looking for something and you know, I started, you know, messing around with alcohol when I was too young and marijuana when I was too young and you know partying and stuff like that, which, like you know, frankly I think some of that and it started before Coyote. But even when I got there, you know you had this very young, vibrant culture of postgrads and so I kind of grew up there and as a 17, 18, 19 year old I was hanging out with all these 22, 23, 24 year olds who had just graduated college. They were living in Chicago for the first time. You know the kids who came from IU and Wisconsin and they like to go out and have a good time and so I would join them in the summers I'd go downtown and hang out. So I say all that to say that I remember distinctly there was kind of like a wake-up call at one point where I was in maybe my first year as an intern and I didn't show up to work one morning. I had been out the night before. I don't remember why, but in any case, you know, my my manager had reached out to me and I hadn't answered, and so, naturally, you know small company at the time Jeff was probably walking around the office and he's like you seen, andrew. Uh, he didn't show up today and, um, you know, I got the call from my dad and said get to the office. And when I got to the office he sat me down and was like you know, this is serious and if you're going to be here, you've got the same last name as mine you need to like, act accordingly and you need to show up, and otherwise I just certainly I it's not, you're not messing my day up with with your nonsense. So I don't ever want to have to get a call from your manager looking for you and you know, something like that I think was was a bit of a wake-up call to say like, okay, if you're going to be serious about this or if you're going to do this, you need to be serious about this. You know, know you've got other people who are kind of counting on you and it's not just your name that you're kind of carrying as you do this. So I definitely loved the the aspect of the work, but I was never a guy that was gonna. I was always the guy that wanted to figure out how to get things done easier.

Andrew Silver: 14:30

Like I remember one of my best, one of my biggest mentors in my life, randy Miller. He was my first sales manager and Randy's like a freight savant. For people who don't know him, people who do know him know him as a freight savant, especially on refrigerated freight. He was like a guy you could go to at any point any time of the year and be like what should the rate be on produce from Florida to Illinois on August 15th? And he'd be like, ah, that's a month after it's done in Florida, so $1.40, whatever, know, buck 40, whatever. But he was my boss, he was a great mentor, but he was similar to me. He wasn't like a very structured, organized person. He was more like just get the work done, figure it out.

Andrew Silver: 15:17

And I remember a time in this. You know, by this time I was 23, 24 years old. I was now like a full-time sales guy and I was doing well, I was probably in the top 10% of sellers and I remember him sitting me down too and saying you know, if you could just apply like you apply yourself 20% of what you could, and your results are there Like, can you imagine if you would be willing to apply yourself 100% and what that might look like for you versus 20%? And you're kind of doing the bare minimum that you can do to accomplish somewhat. Well, you're in the top 10%, but you could probably do better if you just applied yourself more. It's a theme throughout my life. Growing up. That was always kind of an issue and I can't necessarily tell you why.

Derek Zetlin: 16:08

Um, it just kind of was what it was so at this point, um, just thinking about the, the jeff example and the randy example, is this pre-college, middle of college, post college? Where is that time, time wise for for you?

Andrew Silver: 16:23

well, those two, those two interactions, were pre and post. Jeff was pre-college. I was like 17, this was when I was first getting into the business and my point was just that, like my point in bringing up the ladder was with randy when by the time with randy it was I was older, I was like 24 at this point and I was two or three years into being a sales rep at coyote, a customer sales rep at Coyote, a customer sales rep, I should say a shipper facing sales rep. And if you look at the timeline of my career at Coyote, I started as a carrier rep and I did that job for maybe four years on and off. On and off being. I was an intern the first couple times and then, by, I think, my third time as an intern.

Andrew Silver: 17:08

I had such strong relationships with the carriers and I really didn't enjoy school. I mean, I enjoyed being at college. I enjoyed being at University of Michigan. I just didn't enjoy going to class and I would sign up for, like the big lecture class at the big school, at least at Michigan you could create a schedule that allowed for you to do the minimum amount of work. As I stay with that theme, I guess, and my point being is you could sign up for a lecture class that had maybe three classes a week, but attendance didn't count, and your whole grade was based on two tests. You took a midterm and a final. So I would seek out those classes. There wasn't a homework assignment every week, there wasn't an attendance, and I would you know, sign up for those classes and then by my sophomore or junior year, I was continuing to work as a carrier rep, because I just had carriers.

Andrew Silver: 18:02

I had owner operators that were counting on me and that I loved working with and I made money working with them, and it was as simple as every day. We got on the phone, they told me where they were going to be and they didn't really have to tell me by the time we were this far along in the relationship, but they told me what they wanted for the week and I'd get them all their loads and then you just had to manage it and I was probably booking about 20 loads a day, um, as a kind of carrier rep working from ann arbor michigan part-time as a student.

Derek Zetlin: 18:35

He's got your laptop up in your dorm room just cranking out, uh, carrier sales.

Andrew Silver: 18:37

so I tried to actually have my laptop in my fraternity house, which was a disaster, uh, I mean, if I'm perfectly honest, like I was sitting there with my laptop and there was a kid sitting five feet away from me with a bong playing fifa, um, so we got a little office above a bar in ann arbor um, just a tiny little. It had five desks. Uh, eric wine garden uh, who's awesome. He, he. I don't know if he's still at Coyote, but he wanted to live in Michigan and this was before there was a real Ann Arbor Coyote office. So he and I just had this tiny little office. That was just a way to get away from all the kind of college nonsense that people participate in.

Andrew Silver: 19:25

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Derek Zetlin: 20:23

That's right. I forgot about the Ann Arbor office. That makes sense. So, um, you're at, you're at college. You mentioned carrier sales for four ish years, transition into men chipper facing sales. Uh, that was the Randy conversation I think there was was the craft, there was a yeah, there was a stop in between that.

Andrew Silver: 20:43

So there was a yeah, there was a stop in between that, so there was a year off.

Andrew Silver: 20:45

I took a year off school. Coyote got its first big refrigerated contract with craft foods at the time it was craft foods um, which they still owned the business that is now mondelēz, and they had a transportation operations center in madison, wisconsin, and because it was a large enough award, they wanted an onsite rep and so I got asked to do that and it was more of like an operational role combined with sales, I would say, because your onsite, well, I guess it was whatever you made of it, and as someone who was, I was living in Madison. I didn't know anybody in Madison. I actually I signed up for like four rec league basketball leagues as an individual player, so four nights a week I would just go to a rec league and play basketball, cause, again, I didn't know anybody.

Andrew Silver: 21:38

And then I made friends with all the people from craft that I was working with and my job was, I guess, guess, to manage the account, and you know, I think it was 50 plus loads a day or something of that nature. And so there were operations folks who did all the scheduling, um, but I was the yeah, you were one of them at one point.

Andrew Silver: 21:57

Yeah, I remember that and um, but my job I was like the face of the business now and there was still a sales guy on the account I think it was Zach at the time but I was the one that the people at Kraft went to. If there was an issue they just would walk over to my desk. But I thought it was so fascinating to be working on site in a shipper's operations center because I just was so curious about what information I could get and what I could learn to help us get more business and I also was super competitive. I mean there was a CH Robinson guy whose desk was like five feet from me Super nice guy, mike Schoenhals. But I had to make it competitive. At one point there was Adam Haas sat across from me. He's now in charge of all the freight for craft.

Andrew Silver: 22:45

At the time he was a carrier on-site carrier rep for martin transport well, I didn't know that okay yeah, he was, and I actually I think he won carrier rep of the year, whatever they had like on-site rep of the year award and uh, this is just my nature. I was like campaigning for myself to win. I made a sign. I think I put it on his on his desk or his puppy, whatever they're called a cubicle. That was just like boat Andrew. Carrier of the year that checks.

Andrew Silver: 23:21

Yeah, but I spent a year there and I mean I got to know some of the really awesome people who were from Kraft. Some of them still are. Plenty of them have gone off to different businesses. Kraft has made a whole bunch of organizational changes, from selling off Mondelez to merging with Heinz 3G getting involved and all that fun stuff. Well, it depends who you ask Fun. That's fun stuff. Well, depends who you ask fun. But in any case, um, yeah, I spent a year doing that, which was my first foray into the customer side of the business, and then went back to school, finished up my last year, and I actually remember I was driving home from ann arbor after my last day in class and, um, I was, I was pretty sure I was coming back. Well, I guess I was definitely coming back to coyote.

Andrew Silver: 24:08

I just didn't know to do what. And I called my dad and was like, hey, you know I'm driving home. When should I start? You know it wasn't like let me go, take off three months or whatever. I wanted to work and I wanted to make money. And he's like, okay, and I wanted to make money. And he's like, okay, you can start tomorrow, what do you want to do and I said I don't know what do you recommend? He's like well, you know, you've done carrier sales, you've done the operational stuff. The only thing you haven't done is customer sales, and that's the hardest job. You should probably do that one. I said, okay. He said here's brenner's number, call him. And, you know, figure it out with him. So I called brenner and said hey, you know, I'm gonna come join you on customer sales. The company was still, I guess it's like 2013 yeah, company's 2013.

Andrew Silver: 25:02

The company's pretty big at this point uh, hundreds of people in downtown, I think and Brian. One of the things I remember from my call with Brian was and he knew me pretty well at this point and he knew I was well. I guess what he said was okay, customer sales, andrew, is very different than carrier sales and you need to be patient because you're going to eat shit for a while. It's probably going to be six months before you have a chance to make commission, because everyone's going to tell you no for the first six months and I remember hearing that and I even maybe have said it I was like there's no way I'm going to, I'm taking six months to hit commission. Like, absolutely not, I no way.

Andrew Silver: 25:55

And he's like Andrew. You, you tend to lean towards instant gratification, which is a hundred percent true. He's like this is a very different game. You know, know, it's not like you just call up a carrier, ask them where their truck is and if you have a good load, they take it. It doesn't work like that. You call up a shipper and they don't answer. Or you call up a shipper and they hang up, or you know, even if they answer the phone, it's unlikely. They're giving you freight right away I.

Derek Zetlin: 26:21

I got the same advice from brenner for the record, so I can certainly resonate with that. It's great advice.

Andrew Silver: 26:28

It just doesn't. You know, part of my personality is like if you tell me I can't do something, that's when you get a hundred percent of me, that's when I'm going to put every ounce of energy I have into trying to do something. And even if you don't tell me that, I might, you know, manufacture in my mind some world where you did tell me that and use it as motivation to go. You know, do whatever I want to do.

Derek Zetlin: 26:55

We're going to put a pin in that because we're going to use that later, so I'm going to. I'm going to make a note for that one.

Andrew Silver: 27:00

So so, yeah, I mean I joined customer sales and it was such an awesome, it was fun. I mean it was a lot of fun. It was hard. As Brenner said, a lot of people tell you to pound sand or, more importantly, a lot of people just not more importantly, but more often people just don't answer. And I had this idea that I was going to go through all old accounts that Coyote had worked with in the past but didn't work with anymore and just thought like, okay, maybe I'll find some good ones there and I at least can get some loads on the board. And in one thought you might be like, okay, that sounds like a good idea. Another thought you might have is there's probably a reason why they don't haul with them anymore. I was hoping the reason was going to be that it was just a bad rep from Coyote and a good rep could make it work. That was kind of what I convinced myself is other people might have screwed up this opportunity, but I could figure it out and make it better. And that's when I stumbled across a company called Ruby Robinson and they were my first customer and Ruby Robinson was a produce brokerage and so they bought and sold mostly potatoes and onions, but other stuff too. They also owned a, a melons business. So you know, certain times of year they were doing watermelons with sweet mama produce was the name of their sister company. And so I, you know, I call these guys to get them on the phone and they're brokers like we were. So it wasn't as much like I'm gonna make you wait six months to earn my business. It was just like can you help me today? And if so, can you do it at the rate I want? And if so I'll give you the load.

Andrew Silver: 28:45

And so I started taking these onions and potato loads Onion loads out of Las Cruces, new Mexico, which is like 60 miles west of El Paso. Potato loads out of Pasco, washington, twin Falls, idaho there were some onions up in western Idaho slash, eastern Oregon as well Going to the US foods the pfgs of the world. And these loads were a nightmare. I mean, I think the carrier reps to some extent hated me. I, you know I was, I was. We didn't have a ton of refrigerated freight at the time and I was putting it on the board and it was not easy to move, but we just didn't have a ton of it. So the carrier reps would figure it out. And that was kind of my first taste of the customer side and I grinded that account. I mean we got to a point where we were doing like 15 loads a day and the margins weren't great. You definitely want to have higher margins on produce business because there's way more risk. The bad bounces are way more expensive.

Andrew Silver: 29:49

For people who don't understand bad bounces, bad bounces are the load. Let's say I get a load from Las Cruces, new Mexico, to Nashville, tennessee, which was an order we used to move. It's refrigerated, I think it's 1,400 miles, I can't remember. But let's just say they're going to pay me $4,000. I find a carrier a day in advance for $3,500.

Andrew Silver: 30:14

And what would sometimes happen was this reefer carrier would show up in Las Cruces to this farm and it would take 10 hours for the product to be ready and for them to pull because they're picking it from the farm and this guy would leave after five hours. He'd be frustrated and leave like you. You know, I didn't know it was going to take 10 hours. I didn't know me. I is the broker. I didn't know it was going to take 10 hours. They didn't tell me that. Uh, and so the bad balance is this guy says all right, right, I'm out. And Ruby Robbins says you still got to go pick up this load. And so now, last minute, I'm finding a new carrier and instead of paying $3,500, I'm paying $5,000. That's just more likely with refrigerated loads. It's less capacity, so the rates are more volatile when you're having to find someone last minute and that was kind of the initial challenges I had.

Andrew Silver: 31:02

It was tough freight, the. And that was kind of the initial challenges I had. It was tough freight, the accessorials weren't good, but it was great freight to learn how to be a broker. I mean, if you can broker produce freight, you can pretty much broker anything. And I carried that account for the rest of my career and as I became a manager and then led an office or whatever you know, I used to give that account to my newest reps and I say, here, go move these produce loads, good luck. And it was just a great way to learn how to do the business. And eventually those guys became the first investors in Bolo. So you know, when I ended up quitting Coyote, they were the first ones to call me and say you know, would you want to build a brokerage with us. We're thinking about doing that, so yeah, would you want to build a brokerage with us.

Derek Zetlin: 31:45

We're thinking about doing that. Yeah, I had a feeling the Ruby Robinson name was going to come back up. I was going to get there, but no, it's interesting just to listen to how you remember so many intimate details of things that happened 12, 13 years ago. It's really interesting to listen to. You referenced this quickly, leading an office. So career path for you carrier sales. Then there was the experience at Kraft, then customer shipper sales. As you mentioned, you ended up in Denver. I think I'm kind of going chronologically in the right direction here, but how did that happen and can you talk a little bit about the transition there?

Andrew Silver: 32:25

Yeah. So I had been in customer sales for maybe two, two and a half years and I had a solid book. I think my gross margin monthly was around $250,000 to $300,000 a month across a pretty good base of customers and so I was probably in the top 10%, I think, at this point. And I remember Coyote used to be a one office shop. Like everything's got to be centralized. And then Coyote bought access america which had offices all over the place minneapolis, knoxville, chattanooga, birmingham, whatever number of places and so that kind of pushed coyote to think like okay, maybe, maybe multiple offices around the country geographically makes sense. And they sent out a survey to the entire company saying would you be open to moving? If so, where would you want to go?

Andrew Silver: 33:32

And Denver won the vote and so they were looking for someone from the carrier side and someone from the customer side to be kind of the office leaders. I had no ties, interest in any of it or connections to Denver, but Marianne called me into her office and I guess they had been thinking about me as a potential person to do this and said would you be willing to move to Denver to lead the customer side of that office? And I said yes on the spot because I was 25 years old and had nothing else to. You know, there was nothing keeping me, nothing keeping me in Chicago, and this was a good opportunity. So I said yes.

Andrew Silver: 34:10

So Dave Herbert and I moved out there in March of 2015 with a group of 10 or 15 studs and the goal was to build it into a, you know, as you know, for and. Uh, the goal was to build it into, uh, you know, as you know, for me, the goal was to make it the most profitable office in the country um, for in the company for coyote and and to grow it faster than all the other offices. And we definitely grew it faster. I don't know if we were the most profitable, though I remember one year year seeing our.

Andrew Silver: 34:44

I was there for a year and a half before moving back to Chicago, but Denver was a lot of fun. I was not a great people leader, people manager. I struggled with maybe what some people struggle with when they move from sales to management, which was I maybe had 10 or 15 sales reps on my team and it was hard for me to teach them how to sell versus trying to just show them slash, do it for them, um, and you know, I don't know if you've had that issue before or seen that, but I'm familiar with that feeling, yeah.

Derek Zetlin: 35:28

Yeah, for sure it's very common for high performers, right, it's the, the internal drive and the know-how. To then translate that to a team I think is very common. I absolutely know what that feels like.

Andrew Silver: 35:41

Yeah. So I think that was part of my biggest struggle. I mean, we, our office, grew quickly. We, we brought in a bunch of accounts and grew them. It was a tough freight year too. I want to say 2015, 2016,. I think rates were pretty, pretty low at that point, 2015, 2016. I think rates were pretty, pretty low at that point, um, and so it was hard to to grow at at strong margins, but you could grow at at thinner margins and make up for it in volume, um, which was, you know, a decent strategy at the time for us to at least get our footing and build out our, our you know our network.

Derek Zetlin: 36:16

It also came in a really interesting time for Coyote's business because you mentioned the Access America merger acquisition was 2014. Then we ended up selling the business in 2015 to UPS. So your transition to Denver was right in the middle of both of those transactions. Did that impact any of the way you navigated Denver or was it kind of just head down in Denver trying to grow that office as fast as you could?

Andrew Silver: 36:41

No, it was pretty head down. You know, the Coyote acquisition happened I think six months into Denver opening UPS.

Derek Zetlin: 36:50

Yeah, what did I say Coyote that's okay.

Andrew Silver: 36:53

Sorry, yeah, ups buying Coyote happened, I think, six months into me being in Denver and I don't remember there being a much impact there. I mean, I think there may have been some organizational changes made high above my head as kind of all that was navigated, but for me it was no change, no change.

Derek Zetlin: 37:15

Nope, makes sense. And so you said you were there for a year and a half, so that gets us to say, the 2016 ish air area. You then came back to Chicago and led our Chicago sales team. Um, so I think, chronologically again, that's the next step for you. You want to just talk about going from Denver back to Chicago and, ultimately, what led to that, and then what, what led you to to lead our group and what that experience was like yeah, you know, this was the only time I ever almost left the industry.

Andrew Silver: 37:44

Uh, I interviewed for a job at a company called pillow pillow it's new for me.

Derek Zetlin: 37:54

I don't. I don't know this part of the story.

Andrew Silver: 37:55

It was it was a. It was a. It's a new for me. I don't. I don't know this part of the story. It was, it was a. It was a pillow manufacturer for water beds, and so the pillows were made of water as well, and it was the first water pillow. I'm just kidding. That was. That was not the business it was. It was a company named pillow and bill driegert and clay stroner worked there.

Derek Zetlin: 38:14

Bill driegert and Clay Stroner worked there.

Andrew Silver: 38:17

Bill Driegert was the COO and Bill went up and opened up Uber and now is part of Convoy platform via Flexport and Clay is also at Convoy platform via Flexport. But, yeah, I had been at Coyote for a long time and there was this itch I always had or this mental flaw is probably the right way to describe it today. It was an insecurity around being the son of Jeff Silver, the son of the CEO of a business, and kind of feeling like my accomplishments would never be valid enough. Feeling like my accomplishments would never be valid enough. Whether that was valid enough for me or for other people, I don't really know, but it was some kind of itch that was like you need to go do something outside of that business, you need to go get outside of the industry, you need to make your own way, which is years later. I realized how foolish that was and I regret letting that be a thought I had for such a long time because, um, I think it was bill gates's daughter who I saw recently being interviewed about essentially being a nepo baby and you know, nepo baby being someone who was born whose parents are super successful in an industry and it gives them legs up in said industry and like she doesn't, she didn't have any like insecurity or embarrassment or regret about it. She just was like, yeah, it's, it's what I was born into. And with it, frankly, comes responsibility to make the most of the opportunity I have. Because, you know, we're all born into the situation we're born into. We can complain about it, we can be embarrassed about it, we can whatever, but, like, at the end of the day, all we should do is make the most of it and certainly honor what resources and opportunities we have and make sure not to, you know, be an ass about it, not to mess them up, not to screw it up whatever, um, and so, like I regret spending so much time feeling like this insecurity, when it could have just been partially pride and also partially like responsibility. You know, okay, I was given these opportunities. I need to make the most of them, um, cause other people weren't, and you know that, that. You know I was given these opportunities. I need to make the most of them because other people weren't, and I have a responsibility to live up to the opportunity in front of me.

Andrew Silver: 40:44

Attention freight brokers and 3PLs. Greenscreensai is transforming how freight professionals price and quote freight With AI-powered pricing and real-time market intelligence, greenscreens delivers accurate, reliable predictions to help stay competitive in a constantly shifting market. Whether managing spot rates or long-term contracts, greenscreens empowers brokers to quote with confidence and boost profitability, removing the guesswork from freight pricing strategies. Trusted by over 220 brokerages, greenscreens is leading the way in the future of freight pricing. And now there's Illuminate, greenscreens' latest product. Designed to shine a light on deeper freight market insights. Illuminate provides unparalleled visibility into spot and contract freight trends, giving users a clearer view of pricing fluctuations and market conditions to inform smarter, more profitable decisions. Visit greenscreensai slash thefreightpod and discover how Green Screens and Illuminate can help win more business more profitably. Do you feel that way?

Derek Zetlin: 41:43

now, andrew, like now that you've run your own business, sold your own business. I'm obviously skipping ahead here a little bit, but do you have that perspective now versus, say, 10 years ago, when you're going through some of these mental challenges? I'll phrase it that way say 10 years ago?

Andrew Silver: 41:58

when you're going through some of these mental challenges. I'll phrase it that way yeah, um, I I think my perspective now is way more I. I just don't feel like I did anything on my own. I think that I was very grateful to I was I was lucky to have to be supported by my father, by my stepmother, by my mother. Like I was supported by great people and like you know, I don't think Molo would have been as successful if I wasn't Jeff's kid. Like I think that I was given a ton of opportunity. As a result of that, I learned a lot that put me in a position to do the job I needed to.

Andrew Silver: 42:33

Because of that, and I also think all the people we built it with were like so instrumental in the whole thing that it's like you know, it's not even just about your parents. It's about the people you're lucky enough to call your partner, your co-founder. You know the people you're lucky enough to call the managers beneath you, whatever it is Like. Some of that is osmosis, some of that's kind of luck that you know they. They happen to interview for your company and you happen to make a connection with them and they happen to agree to work for you and and then you know the opportunity is there and you guys make the most of it. So, um, yeah, I definitely think my position has changed on it and and I don't beat myself up as much over it I don't see it as some weight need to carry or a chip on my shoulder. I don't carry it as a chip on my shoulder anymore.

Derek Zetlin: 43:28

All right, that's fair. I mean, that's obviously just a sign of personal growth. So credit to you for getting there. Let's go back. We were in Chicago You're leading the group. We kind of went a couple. We kind of oh hello. Well, I should probably explain pillow, um, yeah.

Andrew Silver: 43:43

So I was thinking I you know, I was wanting to get out of the industry and I saw that clay was a buddy of mine and he'd gone to work for bill at this company pillow, which was not a water pillow manufacturer, they were a. They were like an airbnb support, so for people who owned condos or houses that they put on Airbnb, they would manage the property for you. They were out in San Francisco. I went and interviewed with them and thought about it and then talked to my family about it. My parents and they were like, listen, we think you should come home, we think you should come back to Chicago. We've got a pretty big job we need someone to do, which is leading our Chicago sales team, which was like a $350 million book of business across 50 sellers, and we think that you're in a position where I think you could get their respect, which was a hard thing to do amongst a group of 50 sellers, many of whom had been doing the job for a very long time, and so they asked me to do that instead of leaving.

Andrew Silver: 44:50

So I said okay, sure, and I moved back to Chicago in October of 16. But it was short-lived. I don't think I made it six months before I had a bigger itch to scratch and I don't know what it was that transformed my mindset and took me to a place from I'm going to leave the industry to I'm going to just leave the company and I want to build my own company in the industry. But that happened and I got to a place where I felt like I wanted to build my own business in the industry. I didn't want to be the CEO's kid, I wanted to be the CEO, and so I quit Coyote in April of 17.

Derek Zetlin: 45:36

I remember that day. You brought me into a conference room, probably 8 am, and said I wanted you to hear from me, but today's going to be my last day. Personally, I had a ton of respect for you at that point. You were leading our sales group, as you mentioned. I was one of the individual contributors on that Chicago sales team and you were leading the group. Then, obviously, you pulled me in that day and and, kind of, the rest is history.

Derek Zetlin: 46:02

It's certainly a pivotal moment for, I'd say, you and me and a lot of other people, the industry in general, because of the decision to ultimately, uh, lay the groundwork for Molo. So I'm glad we got to that point in the story, but there is a small gap there because you, you didn't go directly to Molo. So I'm glad we got to that point in the story, but there is a small gap there because you didn't go directly to Molo. I know you spent some time at another shipper, so before we get to the Molo story you went back into I think it's probably sat out your non-compete at that point in 2017. Can you talk a little bit about going back to leading? I believe it was Shamrock Foods at the time.

Andrew Silver: 46:37

Yeah. So that was somewhat naive of me to think I could quit and just go start a brokerage the next day and the CEO at the time was Jonathan Sissler and, yeah, what I thought I could do. I was wrong, and so I had this idea. Ruby Robinson reached out right away when they heard I quit and wanted to start this brokerage. I was all in.

Andrew Silver: 47:02

I was like, yeah, let's do it so you quit without like there wasn't, the groundwork was not late at that point, you just had no I, I just I just knew I I needed to go and try to do this and I took their call and we essentially agreed loosely on terms, which I'll never agree loosely on terms with anyone again. It's a mistake you learn in business if you just do business and you agree loosely on terms with people and you don't get everything written to a T and you don't protect yourself. Well, because I've done both sides and from starting a company where you agree on terms loosely to selling a company where you don't give yourself enough protection across all the paperwork and all the agreement, you know I've seen issues on both sides of that. So in any case, loosely agreed to terms where they were going to put in $5 million over time and we would build a brokerage. We'd start with their freight and I had been kind of joking around not even joking, but Matt Bogrich had become a good friend of mine and we were in a text group that talked pretty frequently daily.

Andrew Silver: 48:17

A good friend of mine and we were in a text group that talked pretty frequently daily and when I told that group of people that I was quitting, he was at a place in his career where he'd been super successful selling for IBM, but felt like he was just kind of a number at this massive organization where he didn't really matter and he didn't feel connected to any of the people he worked with, and so to him the idea of starting a business was was interesting. Even though he knew nothing about freight, he figured well, you can teach me the freight and I'm pretty smart guy otherwise and I can help you know, run a business and I'll put everything I have into it and we'll make it work. So that was the kind of initial plan, was him and I, and we talked to Ruby Robinson and got a deal set up and I quickly got my hand slapped by the Coyote legal team. That was just like, hey, you can't go do this, like you're not allowed to do this for a year. And so I'm like, okay. And I actually told them. I like reached out to them and said, hey, this is what I'm going to do, just want to let you know I'm not going to steal any of your people or stealing your customers, I'm just going to doing this. Like you know, I have to do this. And they were like, okay, well, no, you're not, you've got a non-compete, so you're not going to do that. And I said, okay, well, let's figure this out.

Andrew Silver: 49:34

So that was actually when I reached out to Will Jenkins and Stephan Mathis, two guys who I'd worked with. Will had worked for me and was, like always, one of the hardest working guys I'd ever known and just had an incredibly positive attitude. And Stephan was had been a carrier rep who booked some of my reefer loads and he was just was a stud carrier rep and you know really good dude who, um, again, had great head on his shoulders and, like you know, call them Papa jumbo, cause he's got this kind of Papa feel to him that people just like to be around him. And uh, will was easy, he was like I'm ready tomorrow. I think he had taken a job he didn't really enjoy and, uh, you know, we we knew each other well enough to, I think, believe that we could build something. And so he's like, yeah, I'll join you.

Andrew Silver: 50:22

And Stefan took some selling. Like Stefan took me a while to convince him he was working at another company Kander Expedite, I think was the name of it Good company, nicole Glenn's the CEO, she's great and I think he liked her a lot and didn't necessarily believe or know that this business was going to be a hit and he was worried about, you know, screwing up what he had going. But eventually we convinced him and got him on board and then I stepped out. I had to you know Coyote was not letting me out of my agreement so I kind of said, all right, you guys figure it out. Matt Will, stefan, ruby, robinson guys there were three of them. It wasn't the actual company, it was just the three main sales guys. I said, you guys got this and they went off to work. They started the company in July of 17.

Andrew Silver: 51:15

I went and worked at a shipper it was actually Tilos was the name of the company and they were a third party that managed all the freight for Shamrock Foods, maine's Paper and Food Service and a company called Nicholas Co. And this was something started by a guy, Todd Jackson, as a way to kind of try to compete with the bigger food distributors. And so the thought was you know, shamrock and Mainz and Nicholas Co are much smaller in comparison to, like, us Foods and Cisco. However, if you could bundle them all together and essentially create one transportation network for them other and essentially create one transportation network for them, maybe there are economies of scale and there's an opportunity to compete better with the big boys.

Andrew Silver: 52:03

So that was kind of the origin of Telos and it was a small team but they had a lot of freight they're managing and I got connected to Gabe who's the CEO there, gabe Villareal. He's awesome and he and I worked out a deal and I started helping manage his carrier network, which was, you know, it was fun it's probably the best word to think of just because I had sat on the other side of that table so many times and now I was, you know, in the seat of being inundated by sales reps, emails, calls, all of it, and it was fun to deal with that. And sometimes I messed with people, uh, because I couldn't help myself.

Derek Zetlin: 52:46

Um, but I go ahead, go ahead.

Andrew Silver: 52:50

No you go, no, I just was. It was a fun job and I I, you know I set up. I set up good carriers. I made good relationships with brokers. Andrew Voss today is a good friend of mine. He works with Direct Connect Logistics. He was a broker hauling for me when I was at Tilos and listen, it was a pretty simple thing for me, like do what you say you're going to do. If we make an agreement on a lane and a price for a certain amount of time, move the loads at that price on that lane for the duration of time. If you have issues, just communicate them with me as proactively as you can and then we'll figure out how to navigate issues together. Pretty simple philosophy and guys like Andrew did a great job for me. There were other people who did not do as great of a job and I had to fire, but it was fun.

Derek Zetlin: 53:42

I'm going to selfishly put myself into the story a couple of times here, so I guess, insert myself, so I remember getting emails from you, forwarded emails from you. There's probably a group of us at Coyote where you would just share poor solicitations or poor brokerage activity. We'll call it. Which I know we enjoyed. This is back in 2017 as well and uh I uh also respectfully declined the opportunity, uh, which I know you you'd like to, to bring up uh yeah, you could have been some test.

Derek Zetlin: 54:30

You could have been like molo, employee number four my, you were like one of the only people I was willing to potentially steal from coyote well, I appreciate that yeah I know it's, it's humbling, you know, I look back on it and uh, it's the, the courting, if you will, or the uh salesmanship to get me to join molo was a three-year process. So you, you started in in those conversations were in 2017. I, I ended up joining uh in in August of 2020. So, uh, yeah, I mean, look, I appreciate the opportunity. I didn't take you up on it, but I did jump on board three years later, so that Stefan probably took a little bit less convincing than I did. Um, it's I mean, look like I honestly, uh, it's credit to the four of you, and and and others that joined before me. What you guys were able to build.

Derek Zetlin: 55:18

I think you had Jeff on the show um, obviously, in his opinion to you he was very direct about it and I knew this previously was that he and most a lot of other people, myself included, just didn't see the need for another brokerage and thought there'd be a lot of consolidation in the industry. And, uh, you know, my perspective at that point in 2017 was I just don't see it. So you know, looking back on it now, what are we eight years down the road? Credit to you all Certainly the four of you. There are obviously other people that were instrumental in growing Molo. I know we're going to get to that here in a moment, but you know, for me personally at that point in the middle of 2020, I was like, okay, they proved me and a lot of others wrong, and that was a lot of the reason for me ultimately leaving Coyote and joining the Molo Group. So I just wanted to at least give that perspective on the story and I know we'll get to the Molo origin and business here in just a bit.

Andrew Silver: 56:17

So it's interesting because I think about that a lot even today your point around does the world need another broker? And it's not even necessarily. Does the world need another broker? Maybe the question is, can a new broker succeed still, and can they succeed still without some highly unique differentiator?

Andrew Silver: 56:38

That's probably a better way to put it, yeah 99.9% of brokers in the industry don't have a unique differentiator. The few that do are they own something, they're a part of a. I think a broker that owns equipment owns assets trailers. That's different, it's unique-ish, it's challenging because there's a history of asset-based brokers or asset-based carriers that have brokerages. Those don't tend to be the best-performing brokerages and I'm just speaking from historical performance. I don't have numbers to back that up, but it is a belief that I think most in the know people in the industry would agree with.

Andrew Silver: 57:27

And that often is because typically an asset-based carrier with a brokerage will treat their brokerage like an overflow or like a secondary kind of business to the assets, and that really becomes challenging if you think about, let's say, you're an asset-based broker and your brokerage has this lane from Chicago to Dallas five times a day and your asset has plenty of that, usually two, so they don't need it from the brokerage.

Andrew Silver: 57:59

But when the market gets slower and the asset all of a sudden is low on volume and they want to take the freight from the brokerage, which typically the company allows them to do, what happens to the carrier that was running that lane consistently for you? And typically they get made second fiddle to the owning asset. So that's one example of where that becomes a problem or has historically been a problem. I do think shipper-owning brokerages, I think, is an interesting concept that could become more prevalent in the future. It, like you know, it's just a different resource to have as a brokerage. If you own freight, um, and you have relationships with vendors that could be a little unique.

Andrew Silver: 58:47

so I I don't know I, but my point is like I still think about that today because, you know, my non-compete ends in um just under 18 months and I wonder could I start a brokerage November 1st 2026? And could it be successful if it's?

Derek Zetlin: 59:09

not, not that you're counting.

Andrew Silver: 59:11

Yeah, I try not to count because it's so far away, but time has flown. I mean, it's crazy. I think it's been two years since I got fired, but it has been two years and two months.

Andrew Silver: 59:23

So time flies, attention, freight brokers and 3PLs. Greenscreensai is transforming how freight professionals price and quote freight. With AI-powered pricing and real-time market intelligence, greenscreens delivers accurate, reliable predictions to help stay competitive in a constantly shifting market. Thank you, greenscreens is leading the way in the future of freight pricing. And now there's Illuminate, greenscreens' latest product, designed to shine a light on deeper freight market insights. Illuminate provides unparalleled visibility into spot and contract freight trends, giving users a clearer view of pricing fluctuations and market conditions to inform smarter, more profitable decisions. Visit greenscreensai, slash the freight pod and discover how Greenscreens and Illuminate can help win more business more profitably.

Derek Zetlin: 1:00:23

I remember that day too. I mean you mentioned the need like we're on the thread of the need for another brokerage, probably a good segue for the origin or the continuation of Molo. You're at Telos, the non-compete expires. You mentioned that being a year. Now you're guns blazing, starting Molo. I think we're probably in 2018 at this point. Talk about where the business was at that point when you jumped back in Obviously Matt and Stefan and Will kind of bridging the gap there for a year and getting things off the ground, with you sitting at TELOS, and then you jump back in, bring us up to speed on what that was like and then, ultimately, how you all grew the business to where it became.

Andrew Silver: 1:01:11

Things were so chaotic. I joined as employee 25, technically, april 25th 2018. I was the 25th employee. Was I the 25th or am I confusing that? No, I think I was the 25th employee.

Andrew Silver: 1:01:23

Sam Rivera and I started at the same time, I thought, or maybe Kirsten Woolley and I, one of the accounting people and I started at the same time. In any case, the business was being run out of a 2,000-square-foot I guess what probably used to be an apartment, maybe. I guess maybe it was an office space. It was pretty run down and there were just desks jammed in everywhere. The accounting group was in a closet. What was once a conference room was now basically more desks and it was jammed in there. It was so fun. What was once a conference room was now basically more desks and it was jammed in there. It was so fun. I mean, everything was exactly how it should be for a startup. Like there was rarely toilet paper in the bathroom, like I mean just I don't know, that's not a good example of how it should be at a startup, but I just mean like things were very disorganized and very much. Just figure it out. I don't know why I remember and feel like bringing this up, but I remember when we were only a few months in, before I had even gotten there and this just kind of speaks to the chaotic nature of how the business was founded or started I remember there was a day where I went on LinkedIn and all of a sudden I saw like three big titles for people at Molo where, like people just and I call Vogrich I'm like what the hell is going on over there? Did you just give these people these vice president titles? He's like what? I don't know what you're talking about and people are just taking titles for themselves. That's kind of where things were in the first year of the business. I'm like who is this person putting VP of this and that? And he's like we'll fix it.

Andrew Silver: 1:03:05

So I got there and there were 25 of us and you know what was interesting? Matt had been running the business. Matt was the de facto CEO or the president. I don't even know if people had. I don't think he had given himself a title yet At that point, despite other people giving themselves titles. He had not.

Andrew Silver: 1:03:30

And and it was hard for us to figure out how to navigate that because, again, for a year he ran the business, he was the point man on all communication. And I came in and I think part of me was like a little disgruntled because it was like where I probably should have just been grateful, but I was pretty much a mess. But I just think I was like this is supposed to be, like, you know, I was starting this business and I couldn't. So I you know none of these people knew that I had been the original idea behind the thing. And so I came in and now I was going to be the CEO and Matt's like.

Andrew Silver: 1:04:07

We've hired Andrew as the CEO of the business and I start handling all communication and Matt was really good about letting me fill in the places that I was good at filling in and I think he had to take a bit of a not step back. But he had to be very malleable and he was extremely malleable, and what I mean by that is he had to be be able to shape, shift into whatever role the business needed. And you know it can't be easy to essentially be the CEO of a company for a year that you pour your life, your heart and soul into where you're putting. He was putting 17 to 18 hour days in at this time. I mean he had just gotten married too, but like he had to because nobody else could I mean, nobody else was going to do the accounting for him, um, things like that.

Andrew Silver: 1:04:59

And so it's got to be hard to be like the face or not the face, but like the point man running the show, and then one day you just kind of take a step back, like, okay, he's going to do that now. Um, but we, we found our footing and and we were a and we were a great team. I mean he was such a good yin to my yang, such an excellent operator. I think far and away he was the most important piece of the Molo puzzle and I became the face of the business. And I don't know if that was right or wrong. I think it helped in some, some regard, because my connections to Jeff and people saw the name and thought, okay, this guy probably came from a good, good backstory, that like he knows what he's doing, so maybe that got us more opportunity. Yeah, I'll tell you what as you pause.

Derek Zetlin: 1:05:57

I mean I was always super impressed with matt, like and honestly I I may not have told many people this I, when I came in 2020 um, or I was thinking about coming in the beginning of 2020 I obviously knew you and folks like chris agnew and others that were already there.

Derek Zetlin: 1:06:17

I had a lot of respect for that group and liked working with them because of our history at Coyote. And then I met Matt and I was like I was blown away by Matt At that point. He was like he came from IBM, he had no freight background and the things that he was saying and talking about were at a level that shouldn't have been for someone who had three years of experience in the business. And then, when I came over, it only got exacerbated. From there he ran the whole business to your point. Everything ran through Matt. You obviously played a huge role as the leader, which I thought and, to your point, I thought that the dynamic there played to people's strengths, but Matt was super impressive coming from the outside in and that that role grew exponentially in 2020, 2021, as we ultimately sold the business to our best.

Andrew Silver: 1:07:08

I mean Matt was everywhere and again, just like to your point just was really, really impressive from an operating standpoint and as a leader yeah, I mean, I appreciate you saying that because, like I always feel like I don't do a good enough job of making sure the world knows, like, how important he was to that story, to my story, to my success, to the business's success, like it just none of it happens without him. Like I really think if I never came to molo, it still becomes a multi-hundred million dollar deal, million, multi-hundred million dollar brokerage. And I think you could say that about pretty much everyone else except for matt. I don't, I don't know that we get there without him. I really don't. And and part of me, I think, because I became such the face of it, I always carried this almost guilt that it's like he should be the face. He was so much more important than I was, I think.

Derek Zetlin: 1:08:10

I know it's interesting. These are things I thought about and have thought about during and since. I mean I don't think it may be that unique to businesses interesting and these are things I thought about and have thought about during and since. I mean, I don't think it may be that unique to to businesses where you have a ceo that plays a certain role and that is very externally facing and kind of the figurehead of the business, but there are either one person or many people in the business that everybody knows is or maybe folks don't know that are super, super, super valuable and basically irreplaceable in the business. I would guess that that's not super unique, but definitely the case here and I will say I think you're also discrediting yourself a little bit.

Derek Zetlin: 1:08:51

The business needed your personality and leadership during COVID. I came right in the middle of it, matt. As I mentioned, I was super impressed with the actual running of the business from, say, an operations standpoint, kind of the role of what I consider a president or COO. But the group rallied around you and your leadership in a time where I'll use the word uncertainty we didn't know what was coming in the business and in life at that point. We're in the back half of 2020 into 2021 and it's shelter in place and there's all these crazy things going on.

Derek Zetlin: 1:09:26

People rallied around the two of you, but you played a really instrumental role in making sure that people saw the vision of the business. And I mean the, the momentum that we had and just the, the charisma that you brought forward and kind of tying everybody together. I thought was really really impressive. It fired me. I remember, after, say, you know the all hands calls or whatever we called them, um, where everyone would jump on a zoom call and you, you, would lead. I remember just wanting to run through a wall after all of them and that was important. And so I do think to your point the two of you, as the leaders of the business, really played off each other well Matt certainly more so behind the scenes than you, but it was definitely a good duo from a leadership perspective. At least that was my perspective. I definitely feel that way today.

Andrew Silver: 1:10:17

Thank you. The only certainty from COVID was that leaders would use the word uncertainty while communicating to their teams, which is like COVID was such a perfect example of focusing on what you can control. Like I mean, if that lesson, I feel like you can always look at a situation and take solace from thinking about focusing on what's within your control. Like I mean, if that lesson, I feel like you can always look at a situation and and take solace from thinking about focusing on what's within your control. But COVID was like the ultimate scenario, persisting over time, where all you could do was focus on what was within your control. And you know, our, our business, we we haven't really talked about numbers or anything but like our business grew at such a ridiculous rate that every year, the business was transforming itself. Every year, the business had to undergo some very significant change, because it was just how we had to scale.

Andrew Silver: 1:11:10

If you think, like our first year, we started in july. We moved our first load July 5th of 2017. In the back half of that year so July through the end of December of 2017, we did $5 million in revenue. In all of 2018, we did $40 million. In all of 2019, we did $130. In all of 2020, we did $275. And then 2021 was $625. In all of 2020, we did 275, and then 2021 was 625. So the first few years it's 8X, then 3X and then 2X, and then a little more than 2X to 50 to 175, to 400 to a thousand. You know, over a five-year period.

Andrew Silver: 1:12:06

It was really tangible because you jump on the Zoom calls and you see how many people are at the bottom of all those calls and it felt like every two weeks that number would just skyrocket and I remember seeing 500 for the first time, being like man, this is insane yeah, and you know what for me I thought, you know, as I thought about what I was good at and what I wasn't a lot of the operational things I couldn't be counted on because I wasn't consistent enough in like the last thing I wanted to do was hold you to a kpi, wanted nothing to do with that.

Andrew Silver: 1:12:44

And matt, thankfully, was able to take on all of that and so he owned the operations of the business and my job became, um, a couple of things, but part of it was like cultural with the people and I made it like I made a significant effort to know every person at molo and that got so hard and and I failed at the end of it. I mean, I was, it was. It was. It was either beyond what I was capable of or beyond what I was willing to to tackle.

Derek Zetlin: 1:13:17

That was an impossible task, but I hear you.

Andrew Silver: 1:13:20

Yeah, but I felt like that was important. I felt like we wanted to have I don't, like I don't. I used to use the word family when you talk about work, culture, and I get why people don't anymore and and I don't but like I didn't want us to feel a like, a very. I wanted us to feel like a group of people that cared about each other and that would go to great lengths to support one another, while sharing a common mission and vision for what we were doing together. I think that's the best way to describe how I felt, and I felt like it was my job to instill the mission and the vision in people, however I could, and to make them feel important however I could, and sometimes that was as simple as good morning. People take for granted how valuable not valuable, but how easy and, I guess, meaningful it can be. If you're the CEO of a company and you spend 15 minutes every morning walking around your office saying hi to your team, I think there are people that really appreciate that.

Derek Zetlin: 1:14:32

There absolutely are.

Andrew Silver: 1:14:33

But I think there were, and one of my favorite memories is from the earliest days of Molo, my earliest days, and our office was two and a half blocks from a Starbucks. I want to say it wasn't far, but in the earliest days every morning I would go get iced coffee for everyone and when we had 16 people in that office I would go. Sometimes I'd bring vogers or other people and it's you'd be surprised how much of a workout and how hard it is on your wrists to be carrying two of the four cup holders with full cold brews. Even just for two blocks is a significant workout on your wrists. But there was something I really just enjoyed about bringing people coffee in the morning and coming back to the office and like who wants to ice coffee and, and you know, giving it to whoever wanted it. Like it's a small thing but it's something that I took, it gave, it filled my cup, it gave me a lot of joy. Um, and I also think again, I think it, it, it, it.

Andrew Silver: 1:15:43

I think it's easier for someone to work for, I think it's easier for people to work for someone when they know they care about them, and so, like, I tried to make sure that our team knew that I did because, like I, you know I just there were certain things I knew I was not going to be great at that some CEOs are great at and you know I wasn't going to be the guy spending hours and hours every day in Excel, but I could.

Andrew Silver: 1:16:09

I could get in front of people, whether it was our employees, our teammates or our customers, and make sure that they understood exactly how we were trying to build our business and understand what are the things that they need for our business to be better. I felt like it was important to give our people a space where they could talk to myself directly and articulate issues they had with the business, issues they had with our philosophy Didn't mean that I always would agree with them, but I felt like giving them the space to communicate those, those feelings, was, I don't know, part of part of what I I think I did well.

Derek Zetlin: 1:16:49

There's no doubt. There's no doubt. Uh, if there's any sort of uh hesitation there, you shouldn't have it. I mean, I think you, that was your, that was your superpower. And then I think you did a really great job surrounding yourself, with the people to run the business. That perhaps were the places that were not your strengths right, and you obviously mentioned Matt, and there were a multitude of other people that you brought on board over time to play those different roles to ultimately grow the business and manage the crazy growth that was going on during those years, because you have to have the right people and leadership in place outside of the very top. Say, with you and Matt, you grow from 100 to 200 employees. There are a lot of management of people and change that has to happen to be able to successfully manage through that. I think you guys did an unbelievable job doing that and putting the right people in place to be able to accomplish that.

Derek Zetlin: 1:17:47

I remember when I came on and you and I were talking in the middle of 2020, as I mentioned, I joined August 1st of that year I mean you were very transparent and open to me. You were like we're on a rocket ship. We need to grow. We need capital to grow. I don't want you to get blindsided by that, so I just need you to know that, if and when you come, we're going to do a cap raise likely private equity. There's a potential for us to sell the business, but we're really motivated to keep this thing going and grow it. So that's like the back half of 2020. We sold the business at the end of 2021. So what was the transition like from your seat? And again, you were really transparent, not only with us as leaders in the business, but with the entire employee base, as you're thinking about raising capital and growing the business. What was that like in 2020 and 2021, amidst the chaos as we transitioned to ultimately selling the business to ArcFest in 2021?

Andrew Silver: 1:18:52

Yeah, what was that like? It was extremely stressful, I'll tell you that, and I was not in a place where I was dealing with it. Well, I started drinking a lot through that process, which was a big mistake. I just did not deal with the emotional stress well, and we spent two years talking to interested parties about acquiring our business and there were two companies before ArcBest that had come sniffing around and both of them we thought about, and this was before we were going to do a capital raise. This was before we were even thinking about private equity. This was kind of out of the blue. These companies were interested in buying someone and and our name somehow got put in front of them and they reached out and the philosophy was kind of like we might as well hear what they have to say and see if we can come up with a deal that makes sense for us in terms of allowing us to continue to build what we want to build, because there was zero part of us that wanted to be done. That was the only certainty was we wanted to continue to build our business.

Andrew Silver: 1:20:18

Just the same question of like how can you make a successful brokerage today, or is there room for successful brokerages who don't have unique resources, and that was a question I constantly wrestled with. You know, as part of being the head, I was the de facto head of sales and there were people who managed the sales team and had titles. They managed and led the sales team, but it all kind of made its way to me if it had something to do with selling to customers, and so I spent a lot of time mentally thinking about how do we differentiate? Because service is important and I believe to an extent it is a differentiator, but it's not enough of a differentiator to take us where we want to go, and so I think the first time I got a call was in June of 2020. No, this was the second time. The first time was shorter.

Andrew Silver: 1:21:14

I mean, there was a company that was really good at LTL that looked at it. There was a company that was really good at LTL that looked at us. There was a company that was really good at Intermodal, and that was in June of 2020 when that one called, and we spent a year talking to them and it just I never felt safe enough with what the future was going to look like and it never felt like the deal was put into a position where we could could really win and build what we wanted to. And so I think, as that deal died down and we realized we weren't going to do it, that's when we said let's, let's go raise some money, let's just, let's just do it on our own and let's raise some capital and put us in a position to get to multi-billion.

Andrew Silver: 1:22:03

And so we hired JP Morgan and, through connection, someone knew someone and they had done big deals like this and Matt and I had no idea what the hell we were doing, but kind of just let them take the lead. And we spent a few months preparing to go to market, essentially creating a sim that would essentially have all of our information, essentially a package of the business to propose to people so they could take a look and see if it was something of interest to them. And that was when we got introduced to Danny Lowe at ArcBest and he came in. I remember he came to our office and actually the first time we talked I was giving him the names of other brokerages they could consider buying, because they didn't want to buy one at our size. There were so many things that we thought this would never work, because we were too big or too small.

Andrew Silver: 1:23:07

Well, two separate things. One, we were too big for what they were initially planning to buy and two, there were a lot of things that on the surface that he was like this would never work. He's like you need freedom and we have a history of kind of smothering companies when we buy them, so he's like there's a lot of signs that would say this shouldn't work. And we talked about it and over time I just really got to like Danny Matt really got to like Danny Matt really got to like Danny and we liked the rest of the team that we met, judy and the group there, and it looked like a deal that could make a lot of sense. Again, I'm looking for differentiators. I'm looking for ways to cement our place and put us in a position where we can always win.

Andrew Silver: 1:23:55

And ArcBest has this massive asset-based LTL network through ABF that you know, the big LTL players outside of Yellow, like they all seem to have a footing that would be hard to lose, like a strong foothold in the space that will allow them to compete for decades and beyond. And so my thought was these guys have thousands of LTL customers. We have like 400 truckload customers and we don't have a very robust sales team. We never built out a large sales team. We always were pretty small on the sales side and pretty enterprise-oriented in terms of the business we moved and pretty enterprise-oriented in terms of the business we moved, and so it just seemed like a perfect fit and my thought was these guys can introduce us to the thousands of companies that they have as customers and we'll show them how we do business, and this thing will grow to the moon.

Derek Zetlin: 1:24:54

I'm going to pivot for a second. I'm going to pivot for a second because you're sparking some questions from my mind here. We kind of went down this thread a minute ago or a few minutes ago and I'll bring it back. Do you think now, because you're saying you're looking for a differentiator, because you were concerned that just sheer grit wasn't going to get you to where you wanted to go? Do you were concerned that just sheer grit wasn't going to get you to where you wanted to go? Do you still feel that way? Because you said, thinking about into the future and kind of the landscape of brokerage today, do you feel like you need that type of differentiator to be successful, or can you just kind of run through a wall to get where you need to go, kind of the way Molo was the?

Andrew Silver: 1:25:37

first few years, the way you described Molo. It's such a hard question to answer. I think the willingness to run through a wall can get you pretty far in anything. I mean it's just the idea that you'll never quit and you'll do whatever it takes. So few people really have that. People think they have that, but I think it's rarer. It's more rare than than than you might think on the surface, and so I do think it's very valuable.

Andrew Silver: 1:26:09

But the industry is changing man. It's changing fast, and I'm so fascinated and I don't know if I mean the word fascinated in the sense that I'm like awestruck that I think it's amazing because I'm not there, but I'm just fascinated by the rise of these AI bots and agents that are going to start talking to everybody. And I'm not fascinated again from a place of thinking like it's incredible. I'm not fascinated again from a place of thinking it's incredible. I'm more fascinated, curious, and I could see it crashing and burning, and I could see it becoming the cornerstone or a big part of how every brokerage runs their business, how org charts change and how staffing changes as these bots get better and better. And is there a world where they replace the need to run through a wall.

Andrew Silver: 1:27:11

I don't know and I'm super curious about it, but I think the jury is still out there and it's it's going to be interesting to see that play out in the next I don't know 12, 24 months, because you know, if it works, every broker will have it and companies will arguably become less differentiated. Right, because if currently, 100% of your phone calls to anyone are handled by people, then it's very different the way that your people are talking versus someone else's people. That's just natural. But if everybody hires the happy robots, the clone ops, the fleet works I shouldn't have named companies Now I feel like I got to name all of them. Whatever, if everybody hires these guys and they actually get to a level of quality and productivity that they can handle 90% of the phone calls, how different are any of the brokers really going to be?

Derek Zetlin: 1:28:18

People are going to have to evolve. Yeah, it's always differentiated, for sure.

Andrew Silver: 1:28:23

The organizations all share the collective data to improve the bot for themselves and for the group. The answer that the AI bot guys will say is well, the differentiator is going to be how you instruct the bot and how you SOP the bot, and whoever has the best SOP is going to win. How different are they? I mean, how much? How much differentiation are you going to get on your SOPs? I mean, like you know, it shouldn't be that hard for a brokerage that really understands brokerage or a leader who understands brokerage, to create the right SOPs to execute effectively. So that's what I'm curious about, because it's hard for me to answer the question and I'm so hopeful that I'm in a position to play the game. I miss playing the game. I'm sad I'm not in the game while everyone else is in dealing with this and part of this potential technological revolution in our space.

Derek Zetlin: 1:29:22

but my time will come, I'm sure so, under the assumption that you know we, we get there. You've mentioned 18 months, not that you're counting, but does does the evolution or this technical revolution, does that make you more or less excited to then ultimately play that role in the future? Because it's A, it's an opportunity to create something new that you've kind of been itching for, that you talked about, or? B, everyone's going to be so similar that it doesn't allow me to differentiate the way I want to. How are you thinking about that if you're looking down the road? 18, 20 months from now?

Andrew Silver: 1:30:02

So it's hard to do that. It's hard to think about it 18 to 20 months down the road, because if you just think about where these AI agent companies were 18 months ago, they didn't exist, yeah. So it almost feels like you're playing the wrong game by trying to play it 18 months in advance, because you just don't know who the players are, the characters, the rules, like any of it. But in general, I think that I think that why I would do it again, regardless, is because I think I can get an edge against, frankly, the leaders of the other brokerages, and I think that edge comes from I lean into the customer more than most is my perspective.

Andrew Silver: 1:30:58

It could be wrong, but I think that I think about the customer in a different way than a lot of other companies do, especially because I don't only think the customer is the person who pays the bills. I think the customer includes the employee base. I think the customer certainly includes the driver base and the customer certainly includes the employee base. I think the customer certainly includes the driver base and the customer certainly includes the shipper. But I think that at Molo, the proof is in the pudding that we had a recipe that worked in a lot of ways and applying those same principles should if the playing field is otherwise evened by technology. I think we can win on kind of the rules we create for our own game it's funny because I meant to say this earlier.

Derek Zetlin: 1:31:50

Uh, it's on the same idea. I remember sitting with you and Matt in early 2020, as I was kind of deciding what I wanted to do, and I asked you two the question like what is the differentiator of Molo? And you turned to Matt and said I knew he was going to ask that question. I told you he was going to ask that question and you came back to me and said do we really need one? Like I think we're proving that we don't necessarily need one. We can just out, grit out, run everybody and if we do what we say we're going to do, we will grow.

Derek Zetlin: 1:32:25

I used to think that we needed some special sauce or differentiator. I don't feel that way anymore and I remember you saying that to me with Matt in the room, and this again is the first half of 2020. You saying that to me with Matt in the room, and this again is the first half of 2020. And that was part of the reason that I ended up joining. I was like, okay, you answered honestly and I can get behind that and I do agree that or did agree at the time and still do that effort and commitment and just fundamentals can get you to a very large number or a certain place in the business. So I certainly felt that way then, and the business and the industry and business in general is evolving, with certainly the way you described it, with all these different technologies and AI. But I also agree to your point that commitment and grit and work ethic are as important as ever, despite all those other components yeah, I mean, I'm with you, I think it.

Andrew Silver: 1:33:28

You know, if if I can just simplify it as much as possible I had this thought that was essentially if. If we just make our customer happy today, they're going to give us more freight. If I can deliver 10 loads well for a customer the way they want me to, I'm in a pretty good position to ask for the 11th load. And we created so much of our business strategy around such a simple concept, which was just to make the customer happy. And I think when you kind of use that philosophy it clears out a lot of the nonsense and you don't find yourself making decisions trying to save a buck or two here or there.

Andrew Silver: 1:34:18

If it, if it got in the way of the execution for the customer, you create more pressure for yourself because you have to be better at organizing yourself internally and executing internally so that you can run at a profitable numbers. But I think it was easier from the concept of like. We just were super focused on making sure the customer was happy and in doing so it was never a question of if we were going to grow. It was just going to like were we going to grow with the right customers with the right freight in a way that allowed us to make money. Those were the. Those were the questions that we had to get really good at answering.

Derek Zetlin: 1:35:00

Do you feel like you did or we did?

Andrew Silver: 1:35:05

I think we did. I can only speak until the end of my tenure, which was March 9th 2023. 23 um and I think we, I think we did. You know, I, I think we ran fatter than we needed to, I think we were bloated at times, um, and like, I don't think we were as efficient as we maybe could have been, but I think we did execute on those things, uh, in a way that that I was happy with. I mean, it's hard because you, because the industry is so cyclical, but at the top, we were performing better than 99% of our competition, with growth and profitability, and I got fired before we left the top, so I can't speak for the bottom.

Derek Zetlin: 1:35:53

I mean look, it wasn't specific to freight brokerage, I think there were the hiring practices and what needed to be done in the middle of COVID, and a lot of businesses were higher now because of the business need and we'll figure it out later. So we certainly weren't alone in that category when it came to probably over hiring, but at the time it wasn't over hiring. Those people were necessary to be able to execute the business because the opportunities flowed our way faster than we could essentially execute them, or at least as fast as we could. But yeah, ultimately, when things calmed down, did that mean we were bloated or had too high of a headcount? Sure, but it was necessary to be successful as the orders were coming in in the middle of COVID.

Andrew Silver: 1:36:40

Yeah, I mean, listen, there were times where both things could be true, because we would feel bloated and also, at the same time, felt like we didn't ever have enough people. That was one of the hardest things about building a business in a cyclical market is especially in COVID. It goes up and down so fast. I mean I remember the first couple weeks of COVID when our orders had tripled. With some customers Like Aldi, we doubled overnight. I mean we were doing like 100 and something loads a day for them and we just did not have the people. We were having our marketing people come try to schedule loads for us and I remember like cavalry laid off a bunch of people and you know Dent, who used to work there. I'm like, can we hire like 20 of these people tomorrow to help? And then a month later there was no freight. So like it was a very hard thing to plan.

Andrew Silver: 1:37:32

You got to give so much credit to megan sweeney or savelle and and kara kinney, because we needed them badly. I mean megan led our talent and carolette hr um, and we we had a really good supporting cast. That, um, everybody owned their roles so well and I, I, you know, I think that that put us in a position to. I mean that's more credit to Vogel because he put people in a position to own their roles well, but it was, it was, it was fun, it was. It's hard to not look back and just say it was fun. It's stressful and at points as miserable as I became to be around, you know, as I navigated stress poorly. I think that it's we. We took on a lot and our team did such an amazing job of like getting from one day to the next.

Derek Zetlin: 1:38:31

Yeah, I mean, I remember being on multiple calls with Matt and Chris Agnew at 10 PM trying to navigate what was going on. And, uh, I think Chris's wife, casey, thought we had some sort of special relationship, given how often I'd call him either an odd hours in the night or or texting just because of how much craziness is going on and and. But that wasn't unique to to the few of us. It was. It was everybody navigating the chaos and and and really trying to ultimately because we cared so much there, there was so much passion and effort in that group during that time. Um, yeah, I look back on it and and and you know there are obviously things that I wish I had done better. I know you feel similarly and then have reflected on that in other episodes. But I mean, man, we were, we were running fast and genuinely trying to do what was a best for the business and be best for our people, and that was never in question. So, even as I look back, I mean that is certainly the forefront of what we were all trying to do, which is easier said than done, in the midst of a ton of volatility in the freight market and a world that was navigating COVID, which, again, no one knew what was coming the next day. So it's definitely interesting to think about as we kind of shift a little bit from the sale to kind of what happened after.

Derek Zetlin: 1:40:05

I don't want to belabor that, but I am interested in. You kind of touched on this a little bit with just some of the AI and technology advancements that's going on in the industry. But what do you see from the sidelines today, although the freight pod is instrumental in the industry, but from the sidelines of brokerage, where do you see things going and what do you see with the landscape of the business? We've been calling for a turnaround in the freight rates and the freight market for the better part of two and a half years and it hasn't really happened. What do you see objectively, because you're not part of a freight brokerage today?

Andrew Silver: 1:40:45

I definitely think there's consolidation coming, and by consolidation I mean I think there are a lot of brokers on life support. I think there are a lot of brokers that are tired. I think that there are leaders that are tired, and this has been a very long downturn and probably a very stressful one. So I would not be surprised to see a lot of acquisitions that that otherwise would be companies going under. And you know, I think the brokerage is is is going to change in that. You know this. This AI technology is becoming more abundant.

Andrew Silver: 1:41:40

I do think, if I had to guess, I think this is going to replace a lot of roles, and I don't know for sure. I haven't operated a brokerage and seen this stuff in action, but it feels like brokerages are going to be able to operate at way better ratios of loads per person. We used to say like a five loads per person across your company was a good number, and trying to get there was the goal. I could easily see that doubling or even tripling. If the technology works the way that it should and it's hard for me, not being in it, to truly understand where it's going to go, because I need to see the drivers interact with it. I need to see the customers interact with it. I need to see the customers interact with it. I need to see the employees managing it, and that would make me feel better about having a real instinct to what the future might look like.

Andrew Silver: 1:42:48

I don't think it takes long to figure out once you actually see if it works or not and how it works. But my guess is it will get to a place where brokerages will not need nearly as many people and sales might continue to be the most important role or become even more important of a role as that plays out. If I'm an operator who spends their time scheduling appointments, I'd start looking for a new job or I'd start learning new skills or moving into a role within the company. That I just think sales is the answer. But I know a lot of people don't want to be in sales. A lot of people don't want to hunt and eat what they kill, but I think that's the safest role to be in in a brokerage in the future.

Derek Zetlin: 1:43:43

What about industry-wide? You mentioned the prolonged downturn, so, thinking about it outside of just the brokerage lens, what happens here? We've been calling for the, for the recovery for I don't know the better part of 18 months, and and it hasn't come is is. I know leaders in the industry feel differently about it. I'm I'm interested in your opinion.

Andrew Silver: 1:44:05

I've never been a crystal ball guy. I, I and I definitely didn't think the industry, the market, was turning around. I thought people were just saying that because they wanted it to. Um, and you know, the tariff stuff has only made it more challenging. There are now people saying that there's going to be the tariff bull whip because all these ships are going to launch from china now and I'm sure there will be a backlog from what wasn't shipping for a few weeks, but enough to like categorically change market rates for a sustained period. I don't necessarily believe that, but I don't look at the data close enough to have an informed opinion. It really is outside of any impact it'll have to me in the next year and a half. But I never was that guy. Anyways, I didn't think it was my job to try to predict the future as much as prepare ourselves for whatever was coming, regardless of if it was good or bad. That's kind of back to the focus on what's within your control motto.

Derek Zetlin: 1:45:11

Yeah, noble answer. So we talked about. You mentioned the 18 months number. So, looking at the end of next year, when, when your non-compete expires, how do you? How do you spend the next 18 months? I know the people listening at this point. If you're over an hour and a half in this episode, you're probably a a long time freight pod listener, like like I am. I've listened to almost every episode leading into this one. I've got to get caught up. So, outside of the FreightPod, what do?

Andrew Silver: 1:45:47

the next 18 months look like for you. Well, I'm hoping there's a deal that's had or made so I don't have to actually wait 18 months, because I really do miss building, like really building, and I spend my time today. I spend a little bit of time on the podcast every week and then it's a lot of free time. I play a lot of pickleball. I play pickleball at least once a day, typically for two hours, and as the weather warms up I'll start playing golf again.

Andrew Silver: 1:46:23

And I try to be mindful that this doesn't sound like I'm complaining, because I'm very grateful to have the ability to take the free time, but I miss like feeling pressure and responsibility in building a business and feeling like you have to get creative to figure out how to solve a problem or get on someone's radar a potential customer. And, um, there are a few feelings in in in the world that I enjoy more than getting an email response from a shipper that I've been pursuing for six months. Seeing that email show up on my phone or in my inbox like that is a gratifying feeling that I miss so much and I just I want to get back to that. So I'll be sad if I wait 18 months before I'm doing that again. But you know, if hopefully I'm in a position where I'm doing that sooner, we're working on it.

Derek Zetlin: 1:47:29

Got it. Well, this is generally the as a longtime listener, this is the point in time where you turn to the guests and say anything else you that we missed or you want to add. It's been uh, I really enjoyed the. You know you open it up, telling your story pre coyote through the end of Molo, um, any anything you wanted to add that I missed. I tried to navigate this as best I could.

Andrew Silver: 1:47:59

So I didn't have any expectations coming into this. I didn't know if I was telling my story the way we did or if you were going to ask questions about who knows what. I really came in with zero expectations, um, which was freeing. It was nice to not feel like I had to craft the story or be responsible for how it went. Do I have anything to add About what specifically? Maybe that's the fault in how I asked that question.

Derek Zetlin: 1:48:32

Yeah, now you're on the other side of the table. It's generally how you ask it to guess, at least from what I've heard. No, look, I'm happy to own the responsibility. I kind of went in pretty open-minded here today. Also, I wanted to see where you took it. I was trying to navigate that and kind of at least let it organically evolve the conversation and I think just telling the story and hearing your perspective the folks who listen to the podcast and enjoy hearing from leaders in our business about themselves, the way they think about the business, their stories and then ultimately how they see the industry and just how they've thought about business in general I think is kind of the theme of the freight pod. I wanted you to be able to play that role today, so I think we did that. I'm obviously open to people's feedback certainly yours but I wanted to give you an opportunity to tell that story. I feel like we did a pretty good job of that today.

Andrew Silver: 1:49:29

Thank you. Yeah, no, I feel good about it. So it's not, it will get get released, I'll give you that it did not. It did not get cut mentally by me already, so and I won't listen to it after we finish recording. I can't do that. But, um, what you know what I'll add, I'll add something about ryan dauby.

Andrew Silver: 1:49:47

Ryan dauby passed away a few days ago. Um, I only got to know him in the last few years and from what I knew of him, from how I knew him, he was a really really good guy and I didn't know him from his AFN days, from his back haulers days. I did interview him. I regret how I did that interview in hindsight, but I listened to some of it the other night when I got the call that he had passed and I was very sad, shocked, frankly, because I had talked to him maybe five months ago and he had just been diagnosed and he was in good spirits and it's hard to fathom how quickly someone can be taken by cancer like that. At least, this is the first time for me knowing someone well enough that to see it happen that like that. But he and I got connected through Kevin Nolan, a good friend of his and Kevin's a good friend of mine and Kevin actually told me that I reminded him of him and that's probably why he connected us. He's like you guys are very similar in a lot of ways and I saw he and I went to Bionlicks for lunch, at my favorite burger spot in the northern suburbs, and he was so attentive and so interested and so curious about my life and my story and and you know how he could help me. Um, we talked a number of times because he was interested in me partnering with him at his. He was doing weed cannabis logistics and our best mola wasn't allowed to do cannabis and so I thought that might be a way around the non-compete. So, like, technically we're not competing because you're not allowed to move weed. So, um, so I.

Andrew Silver: 1:51:37

It's just as a result of that, he and I met a bunch of times and he was just such a good guy in the time I spent with him. I mean just the amount of interest he showed in me and you just don't get that from people all the time, especially people who've been CEOs A lot of time. They want to tell you their story and they want to tell you what they're doing, and that's just not what he. He wasn't looking for me to help him. Um, he was, like actively trying to help me and, as there was some things I was navigating that I wasn't dealing with, well, and and I used him as like a mentor resource, like I just wanted his advice and he would read my emails and like, look at things that I was showing him and just took such an interest.

Andrew Silver: 1:52:16

And so I think our industry lost a really good person, and I think it's our responsibility as people who have been touched by someone like that in light of their passing, to kind of shine that light on them and make sure that the world around us at least hears one more time from people like us that he meant something to us and that he was important to us and that he played a role in our life in a meaningful way. So rest in peace to Ryan Dobby yeah.

Derek Zetlin: 1:52:55

No, it's a good reminder. Right, life is short and don't take things for granted. So I remember listening to ryan's episode, uh, of the fray pot and be really impressed and I didn't know him personally either, uh, but certainly enjoyed that episode and then also heard that I heard the news today um, some some stuff, uh, flying around LinkedIn in his memory. So I appreciate you bringing that up. I kind of ended the episode on a sad note, but certainly worthwhile to bring up because, to your point, I think the industry lost a good person this week. So thanks for mentioning that. But no, andrew, as I mentioned, we'll kind of land things serious.

Derek Zetlin: 1:53:38

I'm host. I'll make the final call here Again. I wanted you to be able to tell your story and we didn't come in with a script, we didn't have a game plan, just wanted to hand over the mic and I think that your listeners, the people who have been along for the ride of the FreightPod, your listeners, the people who have been along for the ride of the FreightPod, will enjoy this hearing the way you think about your story and our industry in general. So I'm glad we got to do this. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to host and grab the mic from you. Maybe we'll have to do it again or talk about our business a good ship but wanted this one to be about you and your story as the guest of your own show. So hope people enjoyed it. Freight pod listeners, thanks as always for jumping on and, andrew, thanks for playing guest today. We'll see you next week, thank you.