Good Morning,

We’ll be back with the next Cool Capacity newsletter next Friday.

I just got home from a long week on the road at F3 and figured it appropriate to reflect on the experience. If that sort of thing interests you, read on.

As always, I appreciate any and all feedback, so reply to this email if you feel so inclined.

-Reed

F3

First, I’d like to give the Freightwaves team props.

They do a fantastic job with their events. Every experience is top-notch and it was awesome making our way around Chattanooga. I highly recommend attending. IRL events are a force multiplier.

Their next big event is in Atlanta this summer. Go.

Second, thanks to REPOWR for hosting us at their office on Monday night and to the many folks who showed up. I drank many transfusions. It was great.

Meet Internet People IRL

Myself and others frequently say this. The internet enables us to connect and build relationships regardless of geography. It’s incredible and I highly encourage folks to get involved. Post more. Speak up. Share. It will feel unnatural at first, but keep pushing.

You’ll find me posting on X, Linkedin, and Discord.

Meeting people online is great, but it’s even better when you get to meet them IRL. For me, it feels like I’ve already known them IRL. I can skip small talk and immediately get down to business with people. It’s helped in just about everything I am working on.

Freight Gong

I had the unique pleasure of demoing freightgong.com. You can watch that recording here. Jake built us a sweet leaderboard and it’s been awesome to watch companies duke it out to get to the top.

It was especially fun to watch folks in the audience react to the demo. Which brings me to my next point.

Memes

I know very little about traditional marketing.

All I know is that when I started spreading the word about LOST FR8, the only thing that felt natural to me was memeing, joking around, and occasionally slipping in serious posts.

So far it’s worked out pretty well. We’ve spent $0 on marketing and have started to see serious growth. Time will tell if this strategy works, but I have a good feeling it will.

It’s difficult to strike a balance between joking and being serious, but if you can, people will spread your ideas, product, or brand for you.

We’re starting to see established companies join the fun, most notably Truckstop, who is busy winning hearts and minds through shitposting. I expect others to follow suit. Some will succeed, others will fail. At the end of the day, it’s about authenticity. If what you’re putting out there feels forced, then it will fall flat.

Craig is clearly bullish on memes, as he’s offering free tickets to F3 next year to those who produce a meme a day till then.

Brief Reflection On The Tech I Saw

The cool thing about conferences is being exposed to all the tech various companies are working on.

F3 was no exception.

Fraud, naturally, is a big focus of many emerging companies.

Double brokering is a big problem for carriers, brokers, and shippers alike and I applaud efforts to use tech to end it.

But I think there are unintended consequences tied to our obsession with fraud.

One being that way more online ink is spilled on calling out fraudulent carriers/brokers than is spent highlighting quality, legit carriers.

This is why we will continue to provide carriers a place to market themselves and we will continue to highlight them on our socials and in our newsletters.

If you know any legit carriers, refer them to us!

Ok. That’s enough for today. Next week we’ll be back to our regular, scheduled programming.

Have a nice weekend.

-Reed