Inc. Magazine – September 2019

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116 ● INC. ● SEPTEMBER 2019 ● ● ● ● ● ●

but the departments were connected,

so I’d wander over.

In college, a friend convinced me we’d

learn more starting a company than

going to class. Right or wrong, I kind of

bought into it. We started Miami Mus-

cles, which sold supplements across the

country through people we’d known

growing up, who’d make commissions

by selling on their college campuses.

Then we found a handheld portable

mixer that instantly dissolved protein

powders in shakes. We rebranded it the

Vortex—and quickly realized selling it

was better than selling supplements.

We partnered with a company called

Nutrabolt, which had relationships with

big retailers. I brokered the distribution

rights, and earned a per-unit royalty

while still in college.

I convinced myself that I was going to

be this really big entrepreneur at a very

young age. But when I was a senior, we

started having some issues with our

manufacturer in China—the units were

becoming defective at an alarming rate—

and Vortex fell apart.

After graduation, my fraternity

brother Eric Dunigan persuaded me to

join him at Command Transportation, a

freight brokerage company in Chicago.

To be honest, at the beginning, I didn’t

know anything about transportation.

But we lived together, and soon we were

joking that we would be able to do this

on our own.

Then the co-founders of Nutrabolt—

Manish Patel and Doss Cunningham—

called us from Texas. Manish said,

“We’re looking to make investments in

young, aggressive entrepreneurs. We

would love to do something with you.”

I thought, “We could build a freight

company using Nutrabolt’s domestic

freight.” If you have a large customer

that’s going to guarantee you business

on day one, it will lower the risk of your

business plan. It made the choice a lot

easier for us—and the timing was right.

The conversation started in October

2013. We spent the next few months

pitching them on the amount of capital

needed and what the projections looked

like, and Eric and I put in our notice

in January. We had a six-month non-

compete, so we spent that time getting

everything ready.

We made plans to move to Austin,

because our investors said, “You’re 25

and 26. We’d like you to be a little bit

closer.” We decided to bring around five

people from Chicago with us. We want-

ed a team for day one, so that we could

hit the ground running.

That May 13, I’m driving the largest

U-Haul you can rent, in a school zone.

I’m paying attention to that, and not

paying attention to anything else—and

I hear this explosion.

I’m stuck under a bridge, and I’ve basi-

cally ripped the top off of the U-Haul.

We were there for three hours. We had

to deflate the tires all the way to get

unstuck. That’s when Manish joked, “I

don’t know if I should be investing in you

guys for a transportation company.” And

why I joke that that’s when we decided

not to own any big trucks, and instead be

a nonasset-based broker.

Nutrabolt was 70 percent of our busi-

ness in 2014. In 2015, it was 13 percent.

This year, it will be less than 1 percent.

Have you seen Moneyball? We do the

exact same thing, but in sales and trans-

portation. We have data to support the

performance of every individ ual. Every

month our model gets more accurate

as we add more data points from each

employee. As long as we continue to

hire well, train people, and retain them,

then the metrics are going to come

true, right?

We’ve simply taken an antiquated

industry and applied decent math to it.

Have you seen Moneyball?

We do the exact same thing,

but in transportation.

The Logic of Logistics

The Bureau of Transportation
Statistics’ Transportation

Services Index for U.S. freight

this May—the most recent
data available at presstime—

shows some slight softening
from recent peaks, but still

clocks in near this century’s

all-time high. Which means
there are a lot of trucks on the

road—and connecting carriers
with shippers continues to

be a challenge on a scale that

trucking hasn’t seen before.
The industry remains frag-

mented: There are only a
handful of major carriers with

large fleets; most carriers

have six trucks or fewer—and
e-commerce-stoked demand

for faster and better shipping
continues to mount. This

creates a huge opportunity for

companies like Arrive Logis-
tics. “The industry is an $800

billion market, and we haven’t
even scratched the surface,”

says founder Matt Pyatt. “Not
all businesses have the ability

to build a math equation like

that.” —U..M.