Hey, I'm Patrick Escolas, here with another Banyan's podcast, Tire Tracks. I have Chris Reeves of WARP with me. Thank you very much.

Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Hey, glad you could be here. Now, I said WARP, not warped, maybe warped, but maybe we'll get into that. We'll start with this. Does that stand for something?

No, actually. We kind of came up with the idea with the warp speed, and warp technology.

I like that.

And trying to speed up the what we consider sometimes a very, very, very slow industry.

There we go. I like some Star Trek, so I'm with it, man. Tell me what is WARP too, give me kind of an elevator pitch. If I'm hearing it for the first time. Who is WARP?

Yes. We are an integrated logistics platform. We are coming at the LTL industry and the consolidation industry from a little bit of different angle. A lot of people are looking at it from a dock, and a forklift in the truck perspective. Everybody's looking at it a lot of times from the tractor perspective. We believe in the cargo vans, we believe in the straight trucks, and we believe in heavily technology. Technology and visibility.

Okay. No more Excel spreadsheets and phone calls?

We try not to.

Where does it come from? Where did that start? Why was that important to make that shift, and kind of the view of where to go for it?

Yes. Our founders have a background in parcel. When they were doing the parcels, they were still doing the middle mile, and doing LTL, where people were bringing stuff to their dock. When they were doing that, they were figuring out that they didn't have the visibility of when the trucks were going to land and the product was going to get there to plan manpower as well. On the parcel side, they were using a lot of the smaller equipment. They were using the sedans, and they were using the pick-up trucks –

Limited in what they could actually pick up and move.

All parcel. It was causing him such a problem with not having the visibility when the freight was going to get there, so that they could start their planning and their processing of the parcels to put it out for delivery.

Didn't even know when someone should be waiting, therefore.

They decided that they wanted to go and tack that problem. Here we are today, working on the middle mile problems of lack of visibility, as well as simplifying the pricing models as well too. 

When you say a middle mile, because that's kind of a new keyword for me. What does that encompass?

Really, the middle mile is really anything between two warehouses. I think everybody uses the term in a different format. 

Isn't that the truth? With logistics, we have Banyanese, and everybody's got their own terms. 

Everybody's got – Amazon's got their own format to it. All the gig economy, they have their own format to it. I think it really varies in terms of what is the mileage band between a middle mile, how is it used, what products are running in the middle mile. I think it's really, really, really something that – everybody has their term. They're using in their own way, and you really have to drill down to each individual company to decide how are they determining what a middle mile is. We're running middle mile, and we're doing it in different formats for everybody. We're doing it in straight trucks, we're doing it in reefer truckloads, we're doing it in tractors.

I want to say, reefer truckload, that's always – everybody's always looking to get those.

That's it. It's just somebody – some of the customers have come to us, and said, "Hey, can you do middle mile and we need reefers?" We said, "Sure, we can do this for you." 

Okay. When you talk about bringing visibility to someplace like middle mile that wasn't there and using technology, how are you accomplishing that? What does that look like?

I think it really, it really varies depending on what mode you're in. Visibility, obviously, on if you're talking about the truckload sectors, driver apps, which there's a lot of driver apps out there. 

There are.

If it's, would call bug in the trailer, putting something in the back of the trailer, so you don't have to rely on a driver leaving the phone on and stuff like that.

Yes, it makes sense.

You've got that type of product out there that we that we offer on the truckload sector. The visibility on the LTL sector, and it goes down, of course, to the street level of being able to find out where's the driver, how far they are, what stop are they on?

Really? To that level?

Immediate PODs.

Okay.

So having drivers be able to take pictures and you immediately have access to PODs and stuff like that.

That's fairly nice. Yes. Then like, with that and with this visibility, and probably with it comes a lot more data. What are people able – what are the benefits of having that visibility, other than just knowing where that is? What do you gain from a big picture?

Yes. I think if you really look at it, what it really ends up doing is it allows you to build algorithms to present information to the customers. Whereas right now, the industry is still, you see when you're getting a UPS package, or Amazon. It will be there by this time or something. I think what we've got to do as an industry, what we've got to do is we need to get out in advance and not be behind everything. So that, we're using the algorithms to say that, we think that the driver between step two and step three, he's going to arrive at this time, and we're presenting that information out.

Give you that proactive window.

Yes. And there's so much ecomm going around, where people is trying to figure out where their packages are. And there's so much residentials as well that we've got to do a better job as an industry, letting our customers know where their product is. But not, it's just going out today. 

Gotcha. What are some of the biggest struggles within that, getting the visibility? Is it just getting the bug in the truck? Because, obviously, if it was easy, someone would have done it a long time ago in taking that space. What the biggest obstacle to get that kind of visibility within that middle mile?

Yes. I think we have so many personalities in the industry, and so many – I mean, look, the basis of it is, unless you own the equipment, and it's your –

Your asset.

– your asset, then in the majority of the industry is not that. It's individual owner or operators. Really on the truckload sector, or whether you're on the LTL sector, the final mile, the middle mile, the first mile, whatever it is, I think the big thing, what we have to do is we continuously have to just talk to the drivers, that they are the key of it. Because if they're not going to use the technology, that all these amazing companies have.

If there's not going to be buy-in, and there's really not anything you can do about that.

If they're not going to turn their phone on, then there's really nothing you can do. 

Why wouldn't they. Is there a good reason? Is it stubbornness, or just the way they've always done things? I run into that, or I think any technology does.

Yes. Yes. I think it's yes, all of it. I think there's some –

It's worked this way for so long, why should I change it?

I think some people are hiding. They don't want to be tracked. Well, it goes back to the ELDs, as well too. The industry fault the ELDs because the drivers didn't want to be tracked.

They were supposed to be across the board a long time ago, weren't they? 

Yes. It even goes back to that. But I think it's stubbornness, I think some of them don't want to be tracked. Some of them – there's some guys out there, they love it, because they know that we're not going to call them for updates.

Yes. You want to know where I am, there you go. It's there every time. 

It also, it speeds up payments to them. Because when you integrate the process of the POD, and, and you integrate the stocks.

And you get that instant POD like you're talking about.

They don't have to worry about invoicing, you can auto pay on stuff. I think there's a lot of stubbornness still in industry. But there's also still – really still some really great drivers out there that are doing things, and help us out with the technology, and giving us the feedback to make the technology better.

I was going to say. Not only a feedback from them, but I mean, what's the feedback from the end result, the recipients of the shipments. They love it or –

Well, I think, I think once you're able – if you're not the actual receiver, then you love it, because you have immediate access to the documents. Not only that, when you're taking pictures of the actual freight when you deliver it, it's also showing –

You know how it got there.

How did it get there. Just for instance, we had a situation where somebody received their freight and it wasn't the right order. The driver took a picture at the pick-up, and so we just sit [inaudible 0:08:08] like, "This is what it looked like when we picked it up." I mean, obviously, it was protection for us and protection for the driver, but also –

And there's work to be done there, but they know they can narrow down that investigation, or who'd asked the question.

Do they want to buy product from there again?

Right. Okay. All right.

Maybe they were sold – they thought they were buying new product, and it was refurbished, or it was used product, and they weren't aware of until they saw the pictures.

That makes sense. That kind of goes into what you're saying with the algorithm, putting more data into your decision making, and for the future, and for the process in place. Then like, so –we're going to announce, and there's a partnership between WARP and Banyan here.

Yes. Absolutely.

Yes. Exactly. As someone who hasn't heard of, I know, I've got the Banyan logo on, and I don't know about it, but they haven't done the presentation yet. But what does that going to look like? Give me a sneak peek or kind of a few bullet points on what that partnership means?

Well, I mean, we very much believe in technology. So to be able to partner up with Banyan, and then to get that connection so that we can be partners within this information pipeline that we have within this industry. A lot of people, we were talking before we came on, about people who don't have technology, and it amazes us.

It does.

But the people that have it, they really use it. When they get it, they really use it, and they expect all parties, all ins to have it as well too. We see your product as a way for us to help out because we're trying to attack this from a technology side. The people that are on using your product are very technology savvy. S at that point in time, our partnership with you is very important to us/

You're hitting some key spots because as an account manager, I have a few clients that are literally, at a certain point, they're like, we have – some of these are using automation and technology as far as the carrier base, and they're going, "At a certain point, if the others don't fall in line, I'll find other carriers that do." Because yes, it's not like you get hooked, but you start relying on this data, and what you can do on it to where those blanks and blind spots are really hurt so much more than they did before. Because, yes, you've got all this data everywhere, and it's that much more staggeringly blind in those spots where it isn't.

I think your customers are also, they are making buying decisions and their customers that are using through them, through – however they're coming through the pipeline. I think, they're making buying decisions at the speed of data now. It's not just about, did the truck pick up, did the truck deliver on time. But it's also all the other information. It's the invoicing, it's the PODs, it's – is the invoicing nice, and clear, and clean coming from the carrier side, so that they can audit it in a quick and easy way, and show the customers where the mistakes were made in the shipping, and produce reports off of it.

That makes sense, because you almost take for granted, that's how we choose as consumers to do anything. Then, why would that be any different from your shipping needs too.

That's right.

We kind of talked a little bit about where WARP is, where this partnership is, and why it came in. What do you see for the future for WARP just more of the same? Or for even the industry of where you play into it, is there a bigger end goal or mission as you get growing?

Yes. I mean, I think they're – obviously, with the yellow bankruptcy that happened.

That was big a disrupting moment.

Oh, it just – it was, but – I was at CF when CF went bankrupt years ago, and everybody thought that was going to be ground shaking, and it was a blip. I think what we've really seen is this has really been a blip in the radar.

Yes. In the moment, it doesn't feel like it. But yes, even looking back at it a little now.

From the moving freight aspect, unless you've got really, really, really odd and big freight, I think is a blip in the radar. 

I gotcha. 

I'm sure everybody and all your listeners will agree with me that, with the way rates are going, that it's not a blip on the radar, it's having a rate effect.

Right now, it has an effect. That's for sure.

But with the yellow going, we had Wilson go out of business, we had Central Freight Lines go out of business. Again, we think that there's, there's need out there for a different look. A little more flexibility in the market, being able to jump in and out of a network, wherever you want to do it.

One hundred percent.

There's some carriers that are really easy to work with, there's some carriers they're not that easy to work with sometimes. Having in tuned, quick customer service as well too on some of the stuff. But I think the big thing is, really what we're bringing to the market is, is every other carrier is brought to the market and they're legacy carrier. There's not new carriers coming in LTL market. These are legacy carriers.

One hundred percent. It's too hard get into, really.

The capex on it is very expensive. The density is a real thing out there.

For sure. 

They all have major density, but they also all have docks that are set, they can't move them. They have all the assets, they have all the trucks. I think as the gig economy, as the ecomm continues to develop. And we don't know what this thing is going to continue to turn into. I don't think we are what we are now, but nobody thought we'd be where we are. Just looking at what happened during COVID, right?

No, exactly. Expect the unexpected, really. 

Yes. Again, there's so much capacity out there in the smaller pieces of equipment, and there's a lot of people out there that can utilize that smaller piece of equipment. So that's what we're going to bring to the market. 

Okay. I like that. I'm really excited about the WARP partnership with Banyan, and a lot of what you had to say because –

We are too.

– Banyan's big on the visibility, and the tracking, and the data that comes along with it, and using it however you need to use it because it's your data. And I've learned a lot and I thank you, Chris very much because as I've said before –

Appreciate it, yes.

I use this platform to learn not just for myself, but then for my clients. But I wanted to give you, this is everybody I talked to. Anyone listening, or talk, or watching even, what's the message you have, either about WARP, about the industry or something personally. Use my little platform here to talk and get on soapbox. 

Yes. Appreciate it. I think that there are a lot of providers that just do the general LTL out there. And yes, we can do the general LTL, but we deliver ice cream in minus 10 degrees, and walk ice cream and do a cooler.

There you go.

We deliver bread in cargo vans.

Really? And it doesn't come out as flat pitas?

No, no. Can you believe? No. We pick up at 2am and we make 10 stops to stores.

Really?

We let ourselves in the doors and they give us the key to the door, to the lock. We let ourselves in, and we lock the door back, and we deliver bread to coffee stores or whatever it is.

Very cool.

I think the big message about us is, when it's something that's a little different besides just your normal general pickup and delivery, and you're needing something a little bit extra, then I think we are very, very good people to reach out to. Because, again, who would deliver bread? Who or any of your providers that would deliver ice cream and walk it into a cooler, right?

I cannot tell you that I have seen a description within the Banyan system much for bread or ice cream, putting down on that BOL, man.

Exactly.

That's awesome.

I think I use those examples, that again, that we're currently doing as – that is how we're different. We will look at this stuff, and we will figure out, and work a plan for the customers in something like that. Where a lot of people do say, "No, that's not what we do." Which is okay, everybody has their – they have their niche, and they have their thing of what –

Where they really provide the value. Yes.

And look, and especially when you're talking about, if it messes up a density, it doesn't fit into a density scale within a certain company, they're probably not going to do something like that. So where we can jump in, and we can jump out of any market, we can jump in, and jump out of any warehouse, for public warehouse, people out there. Using our technology, dock app, our driver apps, and stuff like that, we can put together these really oddball solutions that you really what you would call a head scratcher.

Yes. No, no. That's what it sounds like. Chris, thank you so much for all the information and for talking to me today. I know I learned a good amount about WARP and look forward to learning more.

Appreciate it.

And the partnership in general.

Thank you very much.

If you're moving ice cream, talk to WARP. That's been another Banyan episode, Tire Tracks with Patrick Escolas. Happy to have you, and we'll see you next time. Thanks again, Chris. 

Thank you.