So, without further ado, let me welcome our guest today, Craig Fuller. That’s what led the business to be successful.
There are great things about being in a family business, and there are a lot of things that make it harder to be in a family business. : In 2014, I left TransCard, and it wasn’t on my own accord. So the very first thing we did a FreightWave was – I didn’t know what the product was going to be necessarily. As long as they’re doing well as a private equity fund, then they’re going to leave you alone. I know the rules of engagement. He writes big checks. The problem was, I had to ask him every single time we needed money. They both had built these very large freight businesses, and I wanted to be like my dad and wanted to be an entrepreneur like my father.
If you can leave a review as well, that would be fantastic. Craig has 8 jobs listed on their profile. I think when you have outside rational investors, you know what the expectations are, and they’re treating it as a business the same way I’m treating it as a business. They basically reneged on it. They’re not emotionally tied into your business. For them, the returns are exponential. Then I learned how to dispatch trucks, wash trucks, and maintain trucks, and all the things you need to do as a truck company executive. I left Chattanooga in ’14. I was in the family business and worked for my father. It’s very formal. There was no board structure. But we had burned so much cash not selling or not distributing into a channel that we were always playing catchup. One of the things my dad would do when we needed funding, he wouldn’t fund it upfront, but he would fund it on-call. : It was TransCard. In this business, the first thing I wanted to solve was distribution. As part of that transaction with US Bank, we had sold the field business, and we kept the prepaid business. So what would you say were the three biggest things that you learned with TransCard that you knew for sure you were really going to do with FreightWaves? But around the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport, people would call me and say, “I don’t care what it costs, but I need a truck.” I realized it was a lot of money and providing last-minute trucking capacity to these airfreight porters. But that’s how venture investors think. If you think about COVID, in a COVID world, it’s actually ideal. Venture investors will make ten investments a year or ten investments in a portfolio, and they only need one of them to get that 100x return. How much capital have you guys raised to date? I just became burned out, and my dad took me out of my misery if you will. : I would say the successes of these businesses are all about distribution. It wasn’t because I was the best salesperson. Perhaps they will also appreciate it. I was running wires and loading, and in those days, it was MS-DOS. Then we found an angel investor that ended up putting money in. I don’t know that he had a ton of confidence in me. Well, Craig, thank you so much for being on the, If you like the show, make sure that you hit that subscribe button. Even if I had gone to him for money, he would have invested in me, and that didn’t seem right anyway. I think having the freedom of not taken family money or friending money – the original investment came from a credit card that had – I didn’t have a lot of liquidity or cash, but I did have really good credit. : Amazing. That was what led me out of US Xpress to go start a payments business that we ended up selling to US Bank in 2012. Correct? Craig Fuller, founder and CEO of FreightWaves, with a SONAR screen behind him. These are full-time journalists or analysts that diagnose the freight market and publish articles and podcasts and videocasts of what’s happening around logistics.
Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below. Then, he had two sons. Alejandro: And, obviously, this was a nice segue that led you into what you’re doing today, FreightWaves. They bring it home, and they talk about stuff at the table. Then I learned how to dispatch trucks, wash trucks, and maintain trucks, and all the things you need to do as a truck company executive. We have about 130 employees. Also, remember, if you need any help, whether it is with your fundraising efforts or with selling your business, you can reach me at, Sujal Patel On Selling His First Business For $2.6 Billion And Now Raising $108 Million From Jeff Bezos And Others To Improve Medical Diagnostics, How To Turn Your Hobby Into A Successful Business, This Entrepreneur Raised $82 Million To Help You Order Your Favorite Pizza, Ilir Sela On Raising $82 Million To Help You Order Your Favorite Pizza. It’s not fun, especially in a town as big as Chattanooga. Welcome to the show. Craig Fuller also has been deep in the industry, having founded and managed the largest provider of on-demand trucking services in North America the Xpress Direct division of US Xpress Enterprises. But my dad thought it would be an experiment and a lesson for me. How did you get started with FreightWaves? If you think about that oil example, you may go through 100 holes and not come up with anything. I think it exceeded a lot of expectations in both the internal folks and external. Very cool. Alejandro: Absolutely. The Fuller Company / strategic counselors Through decades of leadership responsibility in executive levels of business, government and association management, Craig Fuller and a network of professionals have successfully navigated But we help companies that are in logistics deal with issues, monitor the market, and manage any of the issues that take place in the industries. How was life growing up there? : And, obviously, this was a nice segue that led you into what you’re doing today, FreightWaves. What we realized when we did that was, there was this whole ecosystem around commodities markets that included financial data services and media services, etc. But if you happen to strike oil, then all of a sudden, that oil well may generate millions or hundreds of millions of dollars for you, and it offsets all the losses or zeros that you got in every other well you drilled. To Then, you get this emotion tied into it, both on his side and on my side, where there’s a lot of pent-up emotion. He didn’t put the money into a bank account, unlike an investor does, where the founder decides how that money is spent. I was in the family business and worked for my father. Alejandro: Wow. I think that has enabled me to become a much more effective founder and entrepreneur because I know what I’m working for.
He’s not institutional money, but he’s sort of a personal investor. I left Chattanooga in ’14. I think you know that going into it that your goal in a private equity fund is a) protect the business from any significant downturn, and b) grow the business and help them achieve their 3x to 5x return. Thiel was the first angel investor in Facebook with a $500K check that turned into more than $1 billion in cash. So, why did you say, “I’m going to go at it on my own?”. As he’s thinking more – in some ways, he’s thinking like a founder because in some ways, you’re the proxy of him as a father-figure because you’re executing, oftentimes, what he wants of you. He got a bonus, but I didn’t get one. : How did you get into all this entrepreneurial and business-type of drive? I would get a lot of education running this small division’s company, sort of an upstart. I went to my dad and my dad’s company when it was public, and I said, “I want to start a business based on on-demand transportation.” He sort of patted me on the head and said, “Well, I’m a CEO of a large corporation, and you can’t go start this business that competes with mine. Obviously, in today’s technology, they’re far better than they used to be. Craig Fuller is the founder and CEO of FreightWaves which is a data and content forum that provides market participants with near-time analytics. As soon as we launched this within the first month, they ended up changing it to 5%. How much capital have you guys raised to date? He taught me a lot about running a business and also taught me a lot about transportation. Did you have anyone in the family, or how did this come about? I know that you’ve done some VC and some private equity, so what is the difference between VC and private equity. It was a different product than what I was supposed to be selling, which was airfreight; it was trucking services. But my dad thought it would be an experiment and a lesson for me. It was immensely successful.
Go to zero. If you’re like me, and you adore your father and idolize him, you find that the most effective way to learn is to spend time with him and learn what makes him tick is to learn the business, and that’s what I did. That’s not how venture capitals work.
: It’s funny now. But the first thing is, I didn’t take money from my dad. My dad started a company by the name of US Xpress, which has about 12,000 employees today, and my uncle started a company called Covenant Transport, which has about 5,000 employees. This was during the commodity crash in ’15 and ’16. So, if he didn’t agree with the decision, he would hold that decision over my head, and in order to get funding for payroll, he would play these mind games of, “Well, I may not fund this anymore. That’s essentially how FreightWaves came about. After about two years of that, I decided I could go start my own business. For them, the returns are exponential. My dad, in the early days, had nothing to do with the company, and he did not invest. : Yeah, I follow a long line of entrepreneurs and founders. Craig Fuller is the CEO and founder of FreightWaves, the leading provider of data and analytics for the global logistics industry. We have about 130 employees. He served eight years in the White House, first as Assistant to President Reagan for Cabinet I thought, “Why isn’t there one on trucking? So, how was that experience? As of September 2020, we’re a 19-million-dollar company. We had one bank as a customer from 2005 to 2010. I just became burned out, and my dad took me out of my misery if you will.
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