How Lanesurf has offers on 62% of loads before a brokerage office opens

Lanesurf works brokers’ loads for them. It starts the moment a load appears rather than in a scramble the morning it has to move, so your team walks into the morning to pre-vetted carrier options already sitting on the loads, priced and ready to book.

“Two out of every three loads we move already have vetted carrier options on them before anyone even walks into the office,” said Rob Workman, chief operating officer at CW Carriers USA in Tampa, Florida. 

“I’ve been doing this for over 15 years, and I honestly didn’t think that was possible. We come in, look at the options Lanesurf found, pick the right carrier and rate, and book it.” Rob spent those 15 years in freight, including a stretch at Echo Global Logistics. On his board, that works out to 62% of loads with options waiting at open.

Every broker knows the good trucks on a lane don’t sit around waiting for the pickup date. They get booked days early, by whoever asked first.

So Lanesurf asks first. A load gets worked from the day it becomes available, starting with the carriers that actually run that lane, widening out as the week goes on, circling back to the ones who said to check tomorrow. Outreach goes out when carriers are actually answering, and it doesn’t stop until there’s a truck under the load.

The rest is arithmetic. Three days out, a broker is choosing among vetted carriers at market. On the morning of pickup, he’s paying whatever the last available truck wants.

“So the job for us now is: we walk in, offers are there, and we book,” Rob said. “That’s it.”

Inside CW Carriers USA, Lanesurf handles more than 400,000 annualised carrier communications a year.

“A rep works one carrier at a time, all that back and forth, that’s your whole day for just a handful of loads,” Rob said. “Lanesurf works dozens of carriers simultaneously. Stuff gets covered before we’d have even gotten to it.”

The team is the same size it was. What changed is what reps spend the day on: choosing between carriers rather than hunting for them, and grinding on the freight that genuinely needs a person.

Lanesurf works with several Top 100 brokers to agent-based networks, and demonstrated the software at FreightWaves’ F3 last year, where it booked a load live in 10 minutes. It works carriers over calls, email and text, and connects to the brokerage’s existing TMS.

The company is based in San Francisco and backed by General Catalyst and Y Combinator.

Click here to learn more about Lanesurf.