BTS of Shipping New CargoRex Updates

Building a logistics search engine sounded cute… right up until I was elbows-deep in dev tickets, spam signups, and 2,000+ business listings.

In this behind-the-scenes episode of Everything is Logistics, I’m breaking down what we’ve actually shipped on CargoRex over the last six months, why the site has been such a giant pain in the ass (in a good way), and what Plus and Premium members get for their money.

What we cover:

• What CargoRex actually is: a search engine for logistics associations, tech, creators, services, and events so you stop guessing on what tools and communities deserve your time.  
• How the new listing manager works so your CargoRex profile can act like a one-page website for your company.  
• Verification badges, quarterly update reminders, and a rebuilt search engine that finally doesn’t suck.  
• Why we added categories like tariffs tools, CDL schools, and space logistics--and how they’re curated from drivers, practitioners, and the freight nerds already in this community.  
• The not-so-fun part: spam and fraud protection, email/domain verification, and keeping the data clean enough to actually trust.  
• A breakdown of the Free, Plus, and Premium plans, including page-level analytics, lead-gen forms, promo campaigns across Everything is Logistics, and upcoming panel spots for Premium members.  
• Why I kept CargoRex bootstrapped, how I’m funding it through the podcast and Digital Dispatch, and how your feedback is shaping the roadmap.

Who this episode is for:

• Freight tech founders and marketing teams who want another distribution channel that isn’t just “yet another website rebuild.”  
• Associations, media, and creators who want their work found by the right logistics audience.  
• Buyers and operators who are tired of random LinkedIn DMs and just want a clean place to research vendors, events, and content.

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THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!

SPI Logistics has been a Day 1 supporter of this podcast which is why we're proud to promote them in every episode. During that time, we've gotten to know the team and their agents to confidently say they are the best home for freight agents in North America for 40 years and counting. Listen to past episodes to hear why.

CargoRex is the search engine for the logistics industry—connecting LSPs with the right tools, services, events, and creators to explore, discover, and evolve.

Digital Dispatch manages and maximizes your #1 sales tool with a website that establishes trust and builds rock-solid relationships with your leads and customers.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:42

My team and I have been building the site cargorex.io for the better part of the last year, and I'm finally able to start sharing some more updates and a behind-the-scenes look at what some of those updates have taken out of me and taken from my soul. So welcome into another episode of Everything Is Logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in Freight. I am your host, Blyth Milligan, and we are proudly presented by SPI Logistics, the best freight agent home for freight agents all across the globe for the last 40 years and counting. So if you are a freight agent looking for a new home, there's no better place to look than SPI Logistics. Um tell them Blythe at Everything Is Logistics sent you because I just love working with them. They've been working with me since 2023 of January. So January 2023, we're coming up on almost our three-year anniversary working together. They've been the number one supporter of the show. And so I have to give them a little bit of an extra um shout-out for the support because because of the support that they have given the show, have given the podcast, you know, I'm able to take that income and invest it into my own business. So digital dispatch, but primarily cargo racks that has been taking up the overwhelming majority of my money of my time over the last, you know, sort of year, uh the conceptually, the the idea has been in the works for years now, um, but been in you know, elbows deep dev code, project planning, mapping, all of that good stuff um for the last year. And I want to talk about what some of those updates that we have shipped. And so over the last year, if you haven't uh tuned in or know anything about Cargo Recs, I am building the search engine for logistics. So think associations, technology, creators, events, and service providers. So not necessarily, you know, three PLs and carriers, but more of the people that serve those individuals that work in and around logistics, um, maritime, warehousing, things like that, but more on the technical and networking side of things. And so the creators that are making the content around those industries, the solutions that are being created within our industry, and then highlighting all of them on Cargo Rex, which has um been such a pleasure and a curse to work on because it's a it's uh it's almost a culmination of my entire career where I'm taking content and building websites and working in logistics and crafting up a new business that is sorely needed in the market. And that is a central place to find what association you should join, what technology solution that you should be researching that you should know about, what creators should you be following, what events should you be going to so you don't waste thousands of dollars and lots of time going to events that don't make sense for you and your customers and your audience. And so we've been building that out on the CargoRec site for the last year. And as a little bit of a background timeline, now we launched uh an MVP version back in around December of 2024. Yes, I'm getting my ears right. And we officially went live at Manifest. Uh, it was early February 2025. And ever since then, it's just been building in public. And so these are the cool companies that we've been finding. We'll pump those out on social media. Um, there's also been several different new features that we have uh you know released over the last few months, and uh just to kind of give that background of the timeline, that kind of is what brings us here at the time of recording. This is October 2025, and we've shipped a lot of things that I haven't done a great job about communicating those things because frankly, I wanted to get to a place where I felt not only comfortable but confident in talking about this company. Using the site myself, I know that I have to be the number one fan of this company and using this tool. So then that way I make sure that the user experience is top-notch, that the user that there is a need that I'm fulfilling as far as creating this site and creating this enormous database that exists on the site now. And so being the number one user of the site, you know, giving feedback, asking for feedback, getting, you know, I've probably bugged friend of the show, Grace Sharky, uh 12 million times in order, hey, can you check this out? Hey, can you log in and see if this issue or if this bug is is uh you know resolved? Um, all of those good things. So shout out to her, shout out to everyone um who is signed up um early in the process in order to give things a go. It's free to sign up in case you haven't signed up and you want to um check things out. Um it's free to list your company. We do have some paid and premium options while we'll get to in you know a little bit later on. But finally, I feel like I'm in a good place to confidently talk about this company. So let's get into what we have officially shipped over the last say probably six months or so. First, we have what's called a listing manager. And so typically the way that the site works right now is that a listing is a business profile. And when you sign up, you can claim that business profile using a variety of different verification methods to make sure that you actually own that profile or you're you have permission from the company in order to speak and manage that profile, we take that very seriously. And so with the new listing manager, whoever has uh started managing that profile can now add additional users to it. Now you might ask, like, oh, why do I need to add additional users to this? Well, because we have new features coming out all of the time that can enhance your listing. So adding your associations that your company is proud to support, um, the integrations that maybe your tool or technology provides, listing those on your listing page, adding case studies, adding uh, you know, media, adding events that your company is hosting or creating, and all of those things that you are able to add with your listing now on Cargo Rex, and you're able to add help to help you manage all of that different content that you are available, um, that not that you are available, but that you have the capability in order to showcase. You know, with my history of building websites, you know, I've there used to be a day when I would talk about how, you know, a perfectly built website probably has around 15 to 20 pages, and you should have a blog and you should have a podcast, and you should have all of these like bells and whistles within your website. I don't think that internet experience exists anymore. I think that internet experience is really geared more towards our most, I would say, for folks within this industry, you need a very basic website, five pages or less. That's actually what digital dispatch specializes in now. We don't necessarily do these huge projects that require, you know, a whole branding redesign and things like that. We do have partners that do. Shout out Varago Marketing that will help in that regard. And, you know, creating copy and branding and um social media efforts and things like that. You know, we work with different agency relationships and partnerships that will take care of that for you. But for Cargo Rex, it was really about okay, if you have one page to really make it shine, this is what I want it to be. And this is where I want you to be able to show off your company, what you do, who you do it for. And that's where the listing manager can come into play. So a few other, you know, different um feature sets around that, it makes managing your Cargo Rex profile way less plainful. Um, and you have the ability to add others to manage that page as well. There's faster load times, cleaner interface, and easier editing. So uh yeah, new listing manager that was shipped just recently. So if you already have your profile and it's claimed, um your listing is claimed on the Cargo Rec site, you're now able to add, you know, additional users to that, which may be maybe it's a PR relationship that you work with, maybe it's a content creator or a freelancer that you're working with, and you want them to add, you know, the that additional context um to your listing page. Um, now you have the ability to do so. We also have rolled out verification badges and quarterly update requests. And so the reason that we do this is because in our search algorithm, which has also been completely overhauled, I think um I actually don't have this on the list of things that we have shipped, which is a huge mistake of not listing that because frankly, when we first launched, our search sucked. And I have mad respect now for the big search engine, you know, Google Bing, even Yahoos of the world. That search is really hard because you have to accommodate misspellings, you have to accommodate intent, you have to accommodate uh so many different things from a programming perspective, from a human-level perspective, and you have to kind of marry those two together in order to build a search algorithm. Then you know you have to decide what are you going to prioritize and why? And so the the early decisions that we have made in order to prioritize certain content required that we completely overhaul how our search functions. Um it took three times. The third time was the charm, because shout out to Garrett over at Garrett Makes. Um, you've probably seen him with search carriers. Um, he was very experienced in building a search algorithm or building a search engine. And so we hired him over the summer to completely re-haul it. It's lightning fast now. And the best thing about with our search is that if you're a user and you're going to the site and you're searching for something or you're searching for a company or maybe some content around you know a certain type of philosophy or um buying problem, anything like that that's logistics related, then you will go to our search engine and you just type in whatever you're looking for. And it will not only surface the listings that are related to what you're searching for, but it'll also surface the content and links to that content that various creators all over the industry have created. And so we have all of these creators and all of their content listed on the page. It directly links to their content. So we are surfacing that information, surfacing that insight in addition to company listing pages, events, and things like that. And so, shout out to Garrett for helping us, you know, rebuild that really from scratch. And now it's just incredible. So uh the verification badges work like this, where if you have an account, you're able to claim a listing for free and you have a certain amount of parameters within your listing that is readily available. Now, the more that your listing is filled out completely, then the higher you're going to rank in our search results. And so there's a lot of different factors that that play a role in that. But frankly, filling out your profile as much as possible. Do you have a verified user that has claimed that listing? Do you have a plus or a premium account? You're gonna surface higher in the search results. We have to pay for the site somehow. Uh, and so in lieu of charging outrageous, you know, website development fees or you know, things like that, or you know, uh throwing a bunch of advertisements and just annoying pop-ups all over the site. We chose to go a plus in a premium route. So then that way it encourages users to fill out their listing as completely as possible in order to better serve the users that are coming to the site and they just want to do research, they just want to do informational discovery. And so having a profile that's filled out completely is gonna rank you higher in the search engine. Now, in addition to that, if you have a plus or a premium account tied to that listing, you'll also show up higher in search engine rankings or in our search engine rankings because we want the most completed information to surface to the top. We want the most engaged users to surface to the top, but also relevant to the phrase or the term or the query that the user is searching for. Um, so verification badges have been launched. So then that way you can quickly tell on the site of which profile has been claimed, which ones haven't. Highly encourage everyone to go out and claim their listing. We have more than 2,000 businesses and counting within the freight space. Um, and we have had some instances where I don't want to say fraudulent users, but uh the wrong users trying to claim management of listings that they clearly do not own. Um, so we do take the verification process very seriously. And if that profile or if that listing has been claimed, then you also show up higher in the search algorithm. We also have what's called quarterly update request, where every quarter we remind the listing owner hey, you need to add more information, um, add your latest case study, a white paper, maybe a virtual or an in-person event that you're hosting, add it to the site because then that also helps with the user experiencing or user experience and surfacing the relevant data and associations, events, uh, content, uh, you know, case studies, all of that stuff. It helps surface that relevant uh information to the users that are already on the site. Um, so highly, highly recommend paying attention to those quarterly update reminders because we all get busy. And so that's why we've kind of um automated a little bit of that process to help, you know, fight against spam, fight against you know, fraudulent users and to keep your page and your listing updated as much as possible. We also added a ton of new categories. I believe we have more than 250 logistics specific categories on the site. And the more I think about it, the more that these it's gonna probably double within the next year. I was surprised to kind of hit around 100 categories, uh, but just the it this industry, I've said it before and I'll say it again. The more layers that you peel back, the more layers you realize that you you have to go. And and so that is especially true for this site, especially when we we kind of started pretty broad. I probably, if I had to do it again, I would probably have started this site out as, you know, just technology focused. That's super deep. I actually I'm gonna I'm gonna take, I know I just said that statement, I'm gonna take it right back because uh based on how deep we've gone with certain categories, associations was probably um one that I thought would be the easiest, but was the most surprising uh because there's over a hundred associations that exist within this industry. And I that to me was shocking. I thought maybe a few dozen, and that would that is still a lot, but there's over a hundred associations that exist within the logistics industry. Um, so we went deep on associations, we've gone deep on creators, which we have over a hundred creators, logistics creators on the site now, publications, print mags, podcasts, YouTube, um, all of those things count as creators. And they're all all of these people are making incredible content that goes, you know, that that mile deep instead of a mile wide. And so that's the the kind of research and insight that we wanted to surface for our users that a traditional search engine, that uh, you know, a social media channel, they're just not going to send you that kind of information. So we want to be the providers of that information. So we've gone deep on creators and associations. We also had to add events, not had to add, but wanted to add events to the site as well. And so we have uh with events, it's a little bit different than all of the other things that we've or all of the other main categories. I talk about, you know, sort of the five pillars that we have on cargo recs, and that is associations, it's creators, it's uh technology, it's services, and then it's events. Events has to be managed separately from all of the rest of the categories because it's a lot less um automatic, or it with the nature of events, there's new events all the time, and there's recurring events, and there's virtual events, and then there's in-person events, and then there's localized events versus national or global. And so we had to develop a system to not only keep track or document all of the events that are going on. I mean, we can't, we barely scratch the surface with virtual events. We primarily focus on in-person events. Um, but even still, we had to develop a separate process for not only bringing in those events, but then monitoring those events for whenever they add, you know, the next show. Because typically, when you're at an event, at the end of the conference or at the end of the event, they'll say, you know, we're going to XYZ City and this date next year, mark your calendars. Um, so typically when that happens, we have to be the ones to, you know, monitor those announcements. So then that way we can make sure that we have that event added to the site as well. So events have been a slightly uh different challenge versus the rest of the categories, but I'm really glad that we put um both the events and the creators in this mix because technology is something, uh especially when it comes to logistics technology, even though we have hundreds, maybe thousands of businesses within that particular category on the site, it's going to require so much more than the last say six months to add and really go deep on the technology, the freight tech, logistics tech category that currently exists on the site. So I probably went a little too wide to start at launch. But if I have to, if I'm looking back on the situation, I am glad that we did choose to go wide because we really need we dialed in a couple of those categories that you know were much needed. So the associations and the creators, and then had to develop a different system for events. But now we're in the process of really just like going a mile deep on technology. And so um, a little bit of a sidebar that if you have any suggestions, if you've checked out that category, if you think that you know it's so we have a main technology category, and then we have all of these different subcategories underneath. And so that's where we're really going to be looking for help. And so we're always asking for feedback during that process. So if you just scroll down to the bottom of the cargo rex.io website, then you'll see a, you know, a submit a tip or, you know, uh submit a suggestion. Um, we are always looking for suggestions. So we this I want this platform to be something that continuously improves. And so we can only do that if we have the shared expertise within this community and within, you know, that this this platform that we're building. So that was a long-winded way of saying that we've added a ton of new categories to the site, um, more than a couple hundred now. Um, there's also a couple ones that I, you know, I'm I'm really proud of. So we've added tariffs category. We also added a CDL schools category. The CDL schools one I'm particularly proud of because there's a lot of, I would say, probably um questionable schools out there that, you know, will train a driver for one or two days. And uh that driver has no business being on the road after two days of training. I'm sorry. Um, but for these CDL schools, the ones that we have on the site were highly recommended by other drivers. I actually polled my audience on Twitter and asked them, what are the good CDL schools that we should highlight on the website and so on or on cargo recs? And so we were given this long list of personal experience from these folks. Um, so we were able to add all of those CDL schools onto the website. And then obviously I don't have to explain tariffs, um, but there's lots of uh or the reason that we added the tariffs category to the site um because there's a lot of tools out there, but there are some that's sp that are specifically targeting, you know, all of the fluctuation within tariffs and you know, cost analysis and um shipping analysis, all of that stuff. Um, so we've added the tariffs category as well. And then last but not least, is certainly when it comes to like my personal preference, um, we added a space logistics category. If you follow this podcast, you know going on you know the everything is logistics website. Uh this the space episodes are some of my favorite to produce, and frankly made me fall in love with creating content again because it was it combined a lifelong passion of like space travel, NASA. I was able to visit the NASA site, um, we got a tour of the grounds over a two-day period, got to one watch a launch, most incredible experience of my life, or one of the most incredible experiences of my life. And uh I it propelled me into learning more about everything that's going on within the logistics process of building an outer space. And so, because there's a lot of companies that providing storage, they're providing transport, they're providing maintenance, refueling, all of those things count in space too. So we now have a space category, which I'm I'm pretty pumped about. So go check that out over on the Cargo Rec site. Um, next up, another thing that we delivered um was spam and fraud protection. I'm I mentioned this earlier. We we've had instances where fraudulent folks have tried to sign up on the site and claim a listing that clearly did not belong to them. And when we tried to ask for, I did to uh additional verification, um, we looked at their LinkedIn, we looked at the company LinkedIn, um, we asked for any kind of verification um that this person worked at this company and they weren't able to provide it, so their claim was denied. Um, and so there, when you have, and just to I guess sort of give a little bit more of a peek behind the scenes, the way that our site is programmed is that if your email domain matches the domain that's already on the site, then you're automatically approved as part of a user or part of a manager on that particular listing page. If you don't have an email that matches up to that, then we have to take additional steps in order to verify that you can actually speak on this company's behalf. Now, whereas instances might occur that are perfectly uh uh up to up to par, up to board, is somebody like a PR rep who is, you know, they they want to make sure that their, you know, uh PR releases, uh their case studies, things like that that they've created for their clients are also appearing on their page. So that is a very uh legitimate reason of why, you know, maybe a PR professional with a different email address than the company that they're on might, you know, want to uh be a manager or or be a part of that particular listing page. Um, so we've added in fraud protection upon launch. When we launched back in February, we got hit with spam hard. I mean, there were thousands of users that signed up for the site. And I we had to go through and remove all of them. And so now we have additional verification just to make sure you're a real user. So it's slightly annoying maybe during the sign-up process that uh, you know, you got to verify your email. Um, you can avoid having to verify your email if you sign in uh via LinkedIn or Google. So we've added additional parameters to make the sign up and login process easier, but also make sure that we're not allowing, you know, some bad actors into the site to do nefarious things. And we also want to make sure our data is actually clean. So we spent a long time collecting this data and building this database. We want to keep the integrity of it because we know that you're using the site for research, you're using it for discovery. And so we want to make sure that we are surfacing the most accurate results and the most up-to-date results that are free from uh the bad actors. So spam and fraud protection was one of those things that was added in. Um last couple notes here is that we do have, I think, hold on, if you bear with me just for a second, I want to get the exact number at the time of recording. We are in late October of 2025. And the official business count, if my own site would load during this time. Okay, here we are. All right, we we got it now. Um, so it looks like something else we got to add to the to-do list of something to work on. Um, but on the site, we have uh 2,297 businesses listed and we have 129 categories. I just said earlier that I thought our categories were over 250. So I'm gonna take that back. Was probably confusing it for the companies that were on the site. Um, but yeah, uh 129 categories. So we got some work to do in that regard. Um yeah, just uh make a mental note to myself that that needs to be updated and we need to add more categories to the site. Um, most of these listings were added manually, and we now also have a system that, you know, I'm constantly scrolling social media, reading newsletters, things like that, um, hearing about all of these new companies and podcasts and events. And anytime I see that, we now have a process in place that I'm able to save that company uh to our database and we're able to manually add that to the site in the future. So a lot of these has just been just a matter of personal scrolling and trying to figure out okay, is this company already added onto the site or is it not? Okay, we need to get it added and you know, just that manual effort that that all is involved. All right, next up on what we are announcing, and I hinted at this earlier, but premium and plus options. So we have an always forever free plan, like I mentioned earlier, um, that any person can sign up for free, any user can sign up for free and use the full features of the site. But if you want additional capabilities on your actual listing page, then you have to upgrade. Um, because you'll have a basic profile, you have a basic company information. I was like, but if you want additional benefits for your listing page, that costs us money to develop. It costs us money to troubleshoot these things, it costs us money to, you know, provide support for those features. And so uh it's an unfortunate reality that we do have to charge for these types of things. Uh, but I'm in a place now where I feel comfortable saying, hey, this is something that you should be paying for. Um, so with that said, let's go over a couple of what the plans actually are. And so I mentioned that we have plus and premium. Plus is kind of the mid-tier option. It allows you to manage up to two listings and that you'll have those priority search result placements. Um, you have a premium support, you have also a lead generation contact form that exists on your page as well. So if a user is searching through and they're doing their research and they find a company, your company, that they want to reach out to, all they have to do is fill out the form right on your listing page, right on the Cargo Rex website. They could select what they're interested in and what they're looking for. If they're looking for a meeting, if they're looking for a request for quote or looking for something else, then they can reach out and contact you directly. And so that's one feature that I'm really pumped for with the plus account. And so that again will let you manage up to two listings and have that premium search priority listing as well, or the the search algorithm placement for that listing as well. And then also we have our premium plans. Now, the premium plans is where all of the bells and whistles live. We have so many updates that are coming in the future. Of course, there's gonna be like a uh, I don't want to say of course, um, but there's probably going to be an AI chatbot component that's added to it in the future. I have tested some AI chatbots in on some of my other websites and properties, and I frankly just haven't been all that impressed um with the performance of those chatbots. It's I think anybody who's played around with maybe any agents or any um AI, you know that it can be kind of questionable at times. Um, so what we've decided to do is that we're gonna ship that as far as a chat bot at a later date. What we do have the ability, or maybe you know, one of those features that's coming down the pipeline, which I'm kind of getting ahead of myself, but you you have the ability to export. So if I take a step back, getting a little ahead of myself, as I said. Um, any user has the ability in their account to create a private or a public list. Now you can create as many lists as you want to, um, but within those lists, you can label it as, you know, project TMS. Maybe your company is looking for a new TMS and you want to save a bunch of different TMS. You're doing your research, you're looking at the features, you're cross checking them. You can save and you can favorite those companies to your specific list of companies that you maybe want to reach out to, or maybe you want To research a little bit more, you can save them to your list, and then a feature coming down the pipeline will allow you to export that list. So then that way you can take that exported CSV file and you can upload it to Claude, you can upload it to ChatGPT or Gemini. Choose your AI tool of choice. But then that way all of that data is in a structured format and a CSV file so that you can take it to your tool of choice. I think that that is for right now, that is the smarter play for us because come to find out, you know, there are a lot of people who have a very particular tool of what they like to use in what certain circumstances. And certain tools are better at looking at CSV data than other tools. And then some tools are better at looking at your project requirements and then combining that data set. So our role, I believe, is in during the research process that we can provide you with those with those companies, with those, the with that information, and you can customize it by saving it to your list. So coming soon in the future, for all premium accounts, you'll be able to everybody has access to the list feature. But if you want to export it, then that is coming to both premium and plus accounts in the near future. So we're actually actively um developing that as we speak. So it should be available very soon. But for right now, at the time of recording, late October, um, what's available for you as a premium plan is not only do you get like the top placement in our search algorithm, but you also get priority email support, you get unlimited free listings, you get up to five premium listings, which might not uh be of interest to some folks, but maybe you have, you know, a certain location that has several locations and you want a listing for each one of those locations. An association or CSCMP is probably a perfect example here where they have a main CSCMP page, but then they have local chapters all over the country. So that's a good use case of uh for somebody that would want something uh, you know, more than one or two premium listings. Um, so you get five premium listings with a premium account. You get the lead generation request form, just like the plus account does. Um, but then also you get, and what I'm super pumped about is that we use um an analytics tool that can go custom at the page level. So we install analytics at your page level on your listing page that is exclusive only to you. And so you can see the traffic reports for how many people are arriving on your page, what links they're clicking on. Are they clicking on your social media links? Are they clicking on your website link from there? Um, did they submit a form? So you can see all of those analytics. So you get upgraded analytics, um, which is something that I think is a huge value because a lot of people don't have access to even their damn website analytics, which is crazy to me. But with Cargo Rex and you have a premium account, then you will have access to those analytics and regular reports that we'll provide to you on a regularly scheduled basis. Um, I believe the frequency is sent out once a month right now, and it includes all of what we like to call events or goals. And that's, you know, somebody searching for for whatever reason, they arrive on your listing page. Now they may want to check out your blog, they may want to check out your YouTube, they may want to follow you on social media, um, you know, all of those things, but you will at least be able to see those types of clicks and interactions that uh is is proving that your listing is valuable, but it's also protecting the privacy of the user themselves. Um, so I'm very, very big on privacy-focused analytics. Um, so we anonymize the data so that you can see the event count, but you can't see the actual person because I I think it's very important um to have a consent-based model where we have the lead form or we have the contact form directly on your listing page. So if the user wants to reach out to you, that option is available to them. Um, and so then that way we we're protecting our users, but we're also providing you as a business owner very valuable insight into what's resonating with your audience that is visiting that listing page on the Cargo Recks website. Um, a couple of other features that are available in premium, which I'm super pumped to be rolling out here in the next few months and definitely a lot in 2026, is that we're going to be doing featured campaigns with those premium accounts. So you might have seen over the last, you know, say six months or so, um, we highlight different companies within different categories. We promote you on social media, um, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, um, all of the platforms that we are active in, we are promoting companies there as well for informational discovery. We talk about what your company does, what they specialize in, we even tag your company. Um, so that's included in premium as being included in those different promotions. We've also started including uh promotional uh materials for those companies in our in the everything is logistics email newsletter. Um, so we include them there. So it's it's really using the power of distribution with my podcast that I've been hopefully, you know, if you're still listening to the show at this point, you have developed a relationship with me uh and you trust what I say and you trust what I build. That's the goal, that's always the goal. Um, but then uh the power of being a podcaster in this space is that I'm now able to use the businesses that we highlight and feature on Cargo Rex and use them in my own distribution channels to get that maximum output, that maximum outreach and awareness built around the solutions that you and your company are providing. Um, so that those are additional benefits there. And then in the future, coming soon, we're going to be doing much more panel discussions. So, central topic, pick a couple experts and we're going to go deep on one panel discussions. I am inundated with press releases. I am inundated with people who want to be a guest on the show. It's a very um, I feel very fortunate to have that problem. But with that problem, uh it, I'm only one person. I can't talk to everybody. I can't talk about everything. And so with these panel discussions, that, and if you are a premium member, we are only going to be having premium members from Cargo Rex be the chosen panelists that are going to come on the everything is logistics sort of roundtable discussions that we're going to be, um, we're going to be doing some trials here in the next couple months. I really want to fine-tune it. And then from there, um, then, you know, preferably, you know, by springtime, then we'll have a process that's pretty dialed in where premium members can absolutely take advantage to share their expert uh, you know, insight and uh perspective on the show. And then that way we can create these, you know, content moments um with questions that researchers and buyers are already asking for, and then have the panelists that are able to answer those questions as well. So those are the oh, well, Jesus, the okay, I should also say the price of each of these plans. And so obviously, free is free forever. The plus members, it's$525 a year. The premium member is$1425 a year. So very affordable, especially from like a website perspective. If you don't want to go through the process of like building a website and paying thousands of dollars and hoping that it gets done, you know, within you know, four or five months, then this is what you should be putting your energy towards because it is a website page for you to help with information discovery, to help with building trust moments. And so, you know, that that price tag, and in my opinion, I I wanted to keep it highly competitive and I wanted to keep it affordable for the folks who need it the most and who are trying to build their company and build out their brand awareness, and then also help users during that research and informational discovery. So um, if you are interested in signing up, just go to the cargo rex.io website. You can choose which plan matters most to you or what you think is the best fit, and then our team will be in contact if it's appropriate. But most of the time, especially if you're a premium member, that requires a little bit more hand holding because we have to set up the analytics. Um, and then we also have to figure out who those analytic reports are being delivered to. Um, and then the the frequency that you would like to see from that typically monthly is best, but sometimes people don't, you know, it might be like email overload for them. Um so we could schedule it every quarter, you know, what whatever your preference is. Um, and then also talk about future content opportunities in the future. Um, so that is the plus in premium plans, which are now available. And like I said, I feel confident in selling those things to you now because it's it's I I think it's uh the best bang for your buck in logistics. So I think that about does it for as far as all of the updates that we have shift, shifted, shipped, but when shifting gears a little bit into what's coming down the pipeline, what's coming in the future. I mentioned, you know, some of those um listing features where you'll be able to export whatever companies because you're able to save. If you find a company that you like or a piece of content that you like on the Cargo Rec site, you can save it to your profile. And it's private unless you want to make it public. And so you could choose to make that probably it's very similar to like a social media network where you as a user, which is free, you can take all of that information and you can showcase the companies that you can create a list for companies that you love. You can create a list for um articles or podcasts that you love, and you could choose to make those lists private or you can choose to make them public. And so you as a user have ultimate control. So um those features are actually available on the site now. Now, if you want to export them in the future, because that's data, data costs us money, you know, you there will be a little bit of a limit um as far as the plans are concerned. If you're a free user um and you want to be able to export, I think we have a cap at like two a month, um, and it just resets every month. Um, and then plus in premium, obviously, we'll we'll get more because you know they're they're paying for it. Um, but we I wanted to make sure that I give some features available to the free users as much as I reasonably can because I've said this before, but this is a completely bootstrapped company. I did not take any kind of VC money to build this company. It has been me and my dev team, Garrett helping out with uh helping out tremendously with search, um, you know, some contractors that have been helping us out, you know, on the on the promotional side of things as well. And so this is all money that I've earned from the show, from doing digital dispatch work, and I've taken that money and I've reinvested it into Cargo Rex. And so hopefully we have developed a product. I think we've developed a product that, you know, users across the industry are going to, you know, become a member, use, love, promote it, you know, you use it again, over and over again, and then um hopefully, you know, submit some tips and advice on on feature requests so we can continuously make this platform, you know, better and better. So looking ahead, uh, we will have more companies added, more events added. So be sure you're checking back on a regular basis. We also have more emails going out so that if you are following a you know a certain category, maybe you're following to go back to the TMS category or maybe even the tariff category. If you were following those different categories and you'll get an email digest um every week or every month, we're gonna start off with once a month, just so not to overload people's inboxes. Um, we're gonna send that out once a month. So then that way um you can stay on top of all of the companies that have either been added to that category or have maybe added some new updates, some new news to their page that you might want to be aware of. Um so we have that coming soon, content opportunities coming for plus and premium members. Um, we also have listing tags. So those are coming down the pipeline as well. So it's it's not enough to, you know, to go back to the TMS category to list yourself in like a TMS category, but the listing tags will be, you know, maybe you only serve the LTL market. Um, maybe you only have, or maybe you have a browser-based um application, maybe you have a mobile app. Um, so all of these different additional features that your tool may offer, we're gonna have those listing tags and an ability to add those tags to your profile and to your listing uh that's coming soon. Um also we're gonna have more creator outreach. Uh we have tons of creators already on the site as well, but we're gonna be looking to those creators as to sort of pool a lot of their insight and a lot of the coverage that they're gathering by talking to a bunch of different people. We wanna be able to pull those insights together to develop more uh, you know, it more insight for you to kind of cut through the noise when it comes to you know certain events, uh associations, uh technology solutions, all that good stuff. Um, so we want to be able to use the power of the network and aggregate a lot of that that data and that insight that it best serves the industry. And, you know, like they say, you know, rising tide lifts all sales, and that's what we're aiming to do here with Cargo Rex. And so um, if you have been a part of this journey at all so far, I deeply thank you for your support. If you haven't checked out the site in a while, I highly encourage you to go and check it out again because we've made a ton of improvements. We've got uh we're always going to be a site that's going to be improving. And I use your direct feedback in order to make the site better. So hopefully, with all of that said and with all of that, you know, it rehashed if you heard it here, you know, before, or maybe you haven't, um, thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening to my schwiel on, you know, that just the I guess the giant pain in the ass has been to build the site. I thought it was gonna be so much easier than what it is, but I think that's sort of the journey of all founders, where you you you have an idea, you have you got the spark, and then you you're you're building it and you launch it and then you learn, and then you gotta launch and you gotta learn again, and you gotta just keep continuing that process to where you gotta humble yourself, where you can care so much about a project and you can care so much about what you're building, but ultimately, how are the users interacting with that product? What's their feedback? Can we implement that feedback in a realistic timetable? Um, all of those things that we're now, you know, elbows deep in that process as well. And so I hope you will support the platform. I hope you will, you know, claim your listing. I hope you'll be a user of the platform, and then I hope you will ultimately help to make it better with your own suggestions and feedbacks and you know, all that good stuff. So, all that to say, thank you so much for tuning into this behind the scenes of building Cargo Rex episode. Uh, go check out the site, cargorex.io, get signed up, hopefully get a plus or a premium account, and then uh we can talk to you more in the future. So thanks again and take care.

SPEAKER_00: 47:01

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Everything Is Logistics where we talk all things supply chain for the thinkers in freight. If you like this episode, there's plenty more where that came from. Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss a conversation. The show is also available in video format over on YouTube just by searching Everything is Logistics. And if you're working in freight logistics or supply chain marketing, check out my company Digital Dispatch. We help you build smarter websites and marketing systems that actually drive results, not just vanity metrics. Additionally, if you're trying to find the right freight tech tools or partners without getting buried in buzzwords, head on over to CargoRex.io where we're building the largest database of logistics services and solutions. All the links you need are in the show notes. I'll catch you in the next episode and go jazz.