Arrive Logistics Five Years In

It is amazing to think that just five years ago Eric Dunigan and I launched Arrive Logistics. We were both young and aggressive (26 and 27 respectively) and set out to see if we had what it took to grow a freight brokerage. We had big goals… we anticipated 50 employees by the end of year two. By the end of our second year we more than doubled that.

Being in our mid-20’s starting a business felt like a relatively low risk decision. It would be good experience no matter what and if all else failed, we could always get a sales job at another company. Eric and I had a few years of experience selling for Command Transportation and figured we knew enough to get started. We recruited 8 people who came from all over the industry, packed up a U-haul and moved from Chicago to set up our first office above a downtown bar in Austin, TX.

From day one we were all focused on selling and executing whatever it took to service our customers and carriers. We had no standardized processes, no training programs, our HR department was nonexistent and our IT was total chaos. Despite this, we still provided shippers with the same level of service (or better) as the largest freight brokers in the market. We sold $5M in truckload freight in our first five months and $30M in our first year. It was the start to this unbelievable journey.  

Many things have changed since July of 2014. For one, I have had to pivot from 100% sales to focusing on the bigger picture. It is a very tough transition for someone who likes the thrill of building customer and carrier relationships. To keep our momentum going, Arrive learned to embrace processes and developed an industry-leading training program and extremely talented management team top to bottom. Change is not an easy thing for everyone but we all understood it was necessary to get to where we are going.

This past week, on our five year anniversary, we moved into our new 80K square foot headquarters in Austin, while signing expansions for both Chicago and Chattanooga, TN; space we need for our growing team which is rapidly approaching 1,000 people. We have replaced off-the-shelf technology with proprietary technology, allowing us to more efficiently serve over 3,000 shippers and 25,000 carriers. 

Not everything has changed. Eric and I are still working together and so are the first 8 people we brought on which could not be any cooler. We will always be a people-first business. Our strategy is simple: hire only the best and create an environment where they thrive when our clients thrive. We know none of this would be possible without the hard work and hustle of our incredible team and the faith our customers and carriers have given us since the beginning. 

The next five years is going to be more of the same; constant change and evolution of the business and the services we are capable of offering to our customers and carriers. We will keep overcoming new challenges and learning from mistakes. We will always be passionate about the success of entrepreneurs in every stage of organizational growth and be relentless champions of those we work for. Our entire team knows it is our responsibility to make our clients' lives easier and more prosperous. If you have any suggestions on how we could be a better partner to your organization I would love to hear from you directly.