Building Cargado and Navigating Mexico's Freight Market

In this week’s episode of The FreightCaviar Podcast, we sit down with Matt Silver, CEO and Co-Founder of Cargado. He shares exclusive insights into the current state of Mexico’s freight market, discusses the importance of regular team meetings, and reveals the strategies he implemented when building Cargado.

A Partnership Born from Industry Change

In October 2023, around the time of Convoy’s collapse, Matt met Rylan Hawkins, who today is Cargado’s Co-Founder and CTO, who at the time was leading Convoy Go and Convoy for Brokers. The two joined forces after the company was acquired by Flexport in November 2023, and decided to create a seamless platform for U.S.-Mexico cross-border logistics.

Lessons from the Past

In 2022, Arrive Logistics acquired Forager, a cross-border freight platform founded and led by Matt as CEO. Reflecting on the changes he made this time around when building Cargado, Matt shared advice his father, Jeff Silver, gave him during Forager’s early days.

“There was a point where I was building the company, towards the end, where I had a conversation with my dad. I said, ‘You know, we're struggling with the business and we're going through this process. I think our tech is good; I just don't necessarily want to keep running a freight brokerage. And he said, ‘Well, you have an identity crisis. You can either be a freight brokerage or a tech company, but you can't be both.’"

Moving Beyond Traditional Freight Brokerage

He also opened up about the lessons he’s learned along the way since Forager's acquisition and what he did differently when building Cargado.

‘In hindsight, I was not focusing on building a profitable company. My vision was to build something that would eliminate the need to be a freight brokerage. If I were to do the same thing all over again, I would have brought somebody on who knew how to run a profitable freight brokerage and let them run the day-to-day operations. But I like what we're doing now. Customers pay us a monthly subscription. It's really nice.’

Team Meetings: A Key to Success

Matt emphasized how regular team meetings are crucial to Cargado’s success.

“How often you get together with the team is really important. Early on, one of our first investors encouraged us to meet as a team quarterly and get everybody together. We're going to move from quarterly to biannual just because the team's getting bigger. We've got an office in Chicago now with five people and are about to be six or seven. We're about to be out of room in the current office space that we've got. So getting groups of people together more often is important. But ultimately, if you're building a team, meeting together on a regular basis is critical.”

Mexico's Freight Market: New Opportunities on the Horizon

Matt also gave us an exclusive look at the current state of the freight market in Mexico.

“They're building these plants. They're not shipping tons of truckloads of freight yet. That'll come, but it's not immediate. And so the next question I ask these carriers is, are they going to buy more trucks if their trucks are full? ‘Oh, no, the market's not good.’ So I’m seeing all these brokers starting to post freight and it's new freight and it's new opportunities. So there is a lot of opportunity out of Mexico. It's just a matter of finding the right freight and the right carriers and matching all that stuff out there."

As Cargado continues to evolve, Matt Silver's insights shed light on the challenges and opportunities in the freight industry, particularly within the U.S.-Mexico cross-border market. His reflections on past experiences and the innovative strategies he’s embracing with the company show a clear commitment to building a tech-driven platform that moves beyond the traditional freight brokerage model. With a growing team, strong leadership, and a keen focus on efficiency and collaboration, the company will certainly make a significant impact on the logistics landscape.

Listen to the entire interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or watch it on our YouTube Channel.