David Soileau discusses the potential of AI and automation in optimizing customer service and order processing. He emphasizes the importance of accurate order entry to reduce the need for customer service interactions and highlights the benefits of automating documentation processes. The discussion also touches on the shift towards self-service options, reducing manual data entry, and streamlining operations to enhance efficiency.

Chapters

00:00 – Gopher’s Origin & Pivot

04:18 – Why Logistics Needs Tech

07:40 – Going Digital in Old Industries

10:16 – AI Features: Pic-to-Ship & GoPilot

12:12 – Tech Challenges & Early Mistakes

16:21 – Team, CTO, and Automation

20:07 – Fixing Legacy Logistics

24:23 – Techstars, Expansion & Future of AI

About David

David is an entrepreneur and founder passionate about building companies that transform industries and create lasting impact. As a Co-founder of Gophr, he's part of a team redefining logistics and procurement. By combining pricing intelligence, technology, and service, they’re delivering a faster, smarter, and more cost-effective way for industrial and construction businesses to move materials and products. Their vision is to save teams time, reduce costs, and reshape the future of logistics. He's also a founder of Embark, a business incubator designed to launch and scale ventures that matter. At Embark, they provide entrepreneurs with the tools, network, and mentorship needed to transform ideas into thriving businesses. Alongside these ventures, David owns Integrity Homes, a residential construction company built on trust, craftsmanship, and long-term relationships. Whether it’s homes, logistics systems, or startups, his passion is taking ideas from the ground up and scaling them into businesses that create real impact. David thrives on solving big problems, building strong teams, and driving sustainable growth. Always open to connecting with leaders, innovators, and partners who share a vision for building what’s next.

Where to find David

• Website: https://gophrapp.com/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidtheguy

• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@gophrapp

Thinking outside the box. I say this often. There's two things. You can do a lot more with a lot less than you think. And the other piece is don't do it like everybody else. From the order forms to the operations to the sales processes. Disrupt. Think, this is how they do it. How can I do that in the opposite way? How do I backfill and figure out, okay, That works fantastically.

Welcome to the CTO Compass podcast. I'm your host, Mark Wormgoor, tech strategist and executive coach. In every episode, we meet tech leaders from startup CTOs to enterprise CIOs to explore what it means to lead in tech today. They share their stories and their lessons so that you can navigate your own journey in tech. Let's dive into today's episode. Hi everyone. Today's guest is David Soileau, co-founder of the Gophr app, an AI powered logistics startup. And they're rewriting how delivery works. No brokers, there's no black holes in delivery. They provide real-time quotes, live tracking and reliable delivery. And it's not just an auto delivery app. It's actually a full platform. They've shifted to a platform that I like, and it gives businesses much better control over all of their shipping.

So despite that they've been around for over five years, they just landed a spot in Techstars, which is really exciting as well. David's here to talk about disrupting settled industries, building AI tools that actually work in the field out there and how to do that, scaling a startup in a settled industry that has been around for such a long time. David, welcome. To the podcast tell me about Gophr it's been around for five six years what is the origin story behind it.

Yeah, Mark, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to talk about Gophr.

So, We pivoted, right? We have a huge oil and gas scene down here in the South, and we just moved straight into delivering for the oil and gas supply industry. And what happened was we had cars, SUVs, pickup trucks in our system. That's built kind of like Uber or Grubhub. Where, you know, a shipper could select, you know, to and from address, a vehicle size, how much the load weighed and press go.

Well, we ended up adding more to that fleet in the areas of sprinter vans, you know, 18-wheelers, gooseneck trailers, dump trailers, whatever you could think of, right? So a full array. And what this did to the industries was... It changed. The way that shipping has been done for the past couple centuries. It changed the... The idea of You know, so in the civilian sector, if you will, you can order a pizza for like 12 bucks and you can watch it come out of the oven and go into a delivery driver's car and then you get notified when it ends at your front door. If it's late, You know it's going to be late, right? You can talk to Delivery Driver or whatever through the apps that they have and different food delivery services apps and things like that. But in the industries, the oil and gas sector, you could order a $2 million pump Right? It's 20,000 pounds. And you have no idea where it is, right? It gets picked up by somebody somewhere. You got to call a dispatch. It's just, there's no accountability. There's no eyes on. And so... We took actually Cummins North America was one of our first industrial, really the first industrial plant. Player that we got involved. And we took all their feedback, built out what the system really needed to be and started pulling other people in, other companies, industrial-based companies, and getting their feedback and really building out our software to satisfy the long, much-needed... Innovation in the industrial delivery sector, right?

So that's really where we are today.

Right? So, and why did you actually go down the software route?

I mean, there's a lot of, there's so many logistics companies out there, right, that just do shipping. They have their customers. A lot happens just through phone calls or emails or WhatsApp or whatever. Why did you actually decide to go down the software route and become almost like a tech platform?

So the biggest need was, like you said, phone calls and emails. This is an outdated method. Right.

So if I want something delivered and I'm an, I'm a valve supply guy, right. Say I'm getting a valve supplied.

You know, I have to make a phone call, get a quote for this 18-wheeler. I wait 24, maybe 48 hours for a quote to come back that may or may not be right. I finally find a quote I like, right? After 15 phone calls, maybe 10 emails, I like the quote. I press go. I don't know who's coming to pick it up.

Somebody shows up at some point. It's on the road now. It'll be there.

You know, I look at Google maps, this is how long it says it'll be there.- I forgot. I need to tell this person he needs to go to this gate. I've got to call their dispatch. The dispatch calls the driver. The driver may be busy and can't answer right away. Now, you know, hours go by. Nobody knows where this guy is. Nobody knows what's going on.

So, The software is, it's much needed to just to change the way things were done, to save time, make things more efficient, to take out the middlemen in the whole process. So we added the instant quoting, right? We built out algorithms that figure out exactly what the drivers need to make. They take into account the traffic. They can take into account 46 different points that affect that the cost of delivery, everything involved, right? And gives you the perfect price. To where all parties win.

And then the bill of lading is digital. So once a carrier puts an order in, it's digitally signed. Once a carrier picks it up, It's digitally signed. Once it's delivered, it's digitally signed. And so you have full accountability of where it was in the process, what parts were delivered.

And then on top of that, you've got a map in the software where anybody can open it up. And see look, There's my order on the map. That's where it is. And worst case, you have the person's phone number that's actually driving the product. You call that person directly or text that person directly through the app. Hey, where are you at? You're in traffic. Good to go. Just wanted to get an ETA.

So there's no middleman. And that's, The software is the backbone. And what we've seen just since we've started in the past five years a lot of companies moving towards that. Right. Where, What we're kind of doing is the one-stop shop, but you've got some of the courier sector products.

Software companies, logistics companies that are doing this. You've got some of the middle...

Like bigger trailers and trucks and trailers, right? Goosenecks, whatever.

And then you've got other companies doing the 18-wheeler stuff. And we've got all those things combined into one. To where It doesn't matter if you're shipping a box of O-rings or a 20, 30,000 pound generator. It's all in one platform. Right.

Cool. And how hard is it? Because this is an, or at least it feels like to me, a very, old industry, a very physical industry where how hard is it to convince your customers to go all digital, right? Because even for them, they are used to the old ways of working. Picking up the phone, calling maybe the ship or logistics company they're used to working with. And now, It's all becoming digital. I don't know if there's an app, right, or a laptop or it doesn't matter, but it's quite a change in the ways of working and going all digital for your customers as well. How hard is it to Bring them on board.

Well, it's different, right? We're throwing a wrench in their day-to-day operations, right? But it's the right size wrench. I can say that, right? And quote me on that. It's the right tool for the job, if that makes sense.

So there is a little bit of a learning curve to get them on board with, hey, don't call anybody or email anybody. Just type in the to and from address, you know, and you can even snap a picture and our AI will take the size and dimensions of that load, categorize the right vehicle, do all the legwork for you. But you shouldn't be calling or emailing anybody. You do that enough through day-to-day business, right? Just type it in. It takes 11 seconds to get a quote.

You know, to type everything and get the quote back and then press go if you like it. And boom, you're done.

You know, if you're worried about it, you open the app and you look at the map and you're like, cool, there's a driver. No big deal.

You know, maybe the driver calls you, but he calls the person, the point of contact, that actually knows there's no phone tag going on. It's a you know, all the spaces are set. Getting people to sign up and give it a try is no problem.

You know, I would say... The big hurdle is like getting them to remember.

So we are working a lot, like, hey, Don't forget Gophr here. You know, you don't call anybody. Don't call us. And people will call us still. It's like, Hey, Glad you called. Just want to remind you, it's faster if you use the app and they're like, yeah, I forgot.

You know, what's my login? Right. And so you're right. There is a hurdle in that. And what we're seeing is the next generation that's coming up through the ranks is more tech savvy and more apt.

You know, they're on their phones already, right? So they're more apt to use the app, to use the desktop version too, if they're sitting at their desk.

So, Yeah, to answer your question, it's being accepted, but there is that little learning Nice.

Curve. And remembering to use the app or the website instead of just calling you or emailing you.

Brand awareness. Yeah.

So, and then you're doing a lot of AI innovations as well, right? Like Pic-to-Ship, where you can just snap a picture of whatever it is that you need to ship, and it's actually going to estimate the dimensions and the weight. And that's really kind of cool. Tell us a bit more about how you're using AI in Gophr.

Yeah. So you, like you mentioned the Pic-to-Ship, you can simply take a photo of anything. And it'll categorize the vehicle needed, the dimensions and everything. Thus getting you the price. All you'd have to type in is the to and from address, right? Other ways we're using it in some software we haven't implemented just yet is our GoPilot. And what it does is it takes into account when a driver snaps the photo of the vehicle with the cargo attached. It makes sure it tests it against the DOT regulations and standards.

Right? The FMCA and all that stuff. Right.

So, That way there's full accountability that this load is strapped down. And what it'll do is it'll give you a go or no go. If it says you're good to go, then that means it's strapped down per the standards. Everything's safe. That picture and that go report gets submitted and saved so that if something does happen, we can always go back to that. If it says no go, it won't even let you get the coordinates for the delivery drop-off. You actually have to restrap it down. And so the AI is assisting in all that process. And so that's one of our bigger tools right there that's really satisfying the problem of, you know, loads shifting and getting damaged and it's costing the industry tons of money. It's costing insurance companies tons of money. It's costing, you know, the drivers, their livelihoods. It's, you know, this is a solution for all parties involved. And that's really what we're getting at is just disrupting the industry from every angle. Right. And utilizing the AI.

For that. So cool. And so on the one hand, you're a. A logistics company, but really you are a tech company, right?

So what's been the hardest part of, and the things you're building are quite complex, right? It's not a simple website. It's really quite complex doing all these AI solutions. What's been the hardest part building all of that technology?

Man, I'm I would say, The struggle is real when it comes to all the systems working together, right? So we've got an Android and iOS driver app. We've got the Android and iOS driver mobile app for the shippers. We've got the web-based right? The dashboard. That, you know, all these systems have to work together. They've got to work with AWS. They've got to work with Google Maps. They've got to work with Auth0. All these different platforms and software pieces come into play. Where, you know, we'll have an outage, like AWS will have an outage. And it's like, you know, the system is down.

So we go back to the archaic phone call and email. Pathway, right. To make sure that our customers get their delivery needs satisfied. Which you're going to have, right?

I mean, phone lines go down, internet goes down, whatever, you know, it's the same problems just on a different scale, a different type of situation. So getting everything to work together properly has been a trial in and of itself, right? The constant updating for the apps in the app store, in the Google Play store, just different things like that.

Yeah, I think that's something we all recognize after publishing is a lot of work in keeping it updated and make sure that it keeps working with every new version of Android or iOS that comes out. There's work involved there for sure.

So what are the tech mistakes that you have made, right? I'm sure that over the five, six years that you've been in business, you've made some big mistakes? What is it that you really wouldn't repeat anymore?

So, I mean, even one of the mundane details, right? Our first dashboard rendition It had only a dark mode.

So.

It really comes down to like scope of work, right? The actual roadmap and mapping out you know, features and making sure that there's room for improvement. That was kind of hard coded in, so we couldn't switch to light mode. The color schemes were off to where you switch to light mode.

You know, different, verbiage and copy would disappear. So, There were simple things like that along the way. And, you know, as I myself, I'm not a coder.

So, there's probably a whole book of things we could say are you know, things we should have done differently. But what we had a big trip of trick up our sleeve. We had engineers that had built an app similar to called the Waitr App. And how, you know, they kind of took the pitfalls from that experience. And we're able to say, hey, we've got to build this like this. We've got to do this and this. We're going to mitigate these problems. We're going to build the scale from the beginning. Right. Which we really did. And having the in-house engineers building, was probably our best bet. We did outsource a little bit. And that really was another fault. Right. Where we didn't get the keys to the kingdom.

You know, we didn't have full visibility. We, you know, we have pieces of that software that's broken. And so, you know, There's a lot to be said, but I'll say taking the time and planning would have definitely mitigated many of the mistakes we made, right? And having good accountability of our engineers while they're I'd say we're more of a tech business.

Building. So what are you? Are you a logistics company or would you call yourselves more of a tech business?

I mean, our... Our sole purpose is to utilize tech. To disrupt the logistics sector. Completely from retail all the way up to government. *Cough* So.

And how have you organized that tech team? I mean, you're not a coder by any means. Do you have like a CTO that is working with you? How does that work in Gophr?

So, yes, we do have a CTO. Jared Beekman, he's kind of heading up the engineering part. And like I said, he came from Waitr. And that was his original. Gig right he was their first employee engineer. We all come from the military, right? I was in the Marines. CEO Warren Vandever was in the Marines as well and the Army.

And then Jared Beekman was in the Navy, right, as a corpsman with Marines. And so- It. His point of view and kind of how we've structured everything, we come up with features. He tells us if it's possible, right? That's kind of how our meetings go. And it's been cool, right?

Some of the things were like, Nah, someone else is doing it. It is possible. It's definitely a team effort when it comes to you know, the roadmap and the feature requests and, you know, MVPs and things like that.

Like, how do we make the most viable product. But yeah so he's kind of heading up the is it possible fighting the rest of us you know for what you know, for our wishlist, if you.

Will. I love that. And I think you're a great example of what automation and maybe even some AI can do. You actually shrunk your team over the years. I think you started, I read somewhere, you started with a team of about 40, and I think you've now brought it down to, I don't know, five or six. Most of that is through automation and AI. Tell us about That journey, right? What did that look like?

So, We had help, right? The COVID fiasco, the hurricanes, During our pivot, we really just found that there was...

You know, we could do a lot less. Or we could do a lot more with a lot less than we thought, right?

So looking into, okay, how can we mitigate the need for as much customer service, right? Problem solving.

Well, if orders are put in accurately, utilizing the AI, You know, that's going to mitigate the amount of phone calls we have. If we can make sure that the... Bill of lading is automated. Right. There's less documentation. It has to be scanned in and physically signed and returned to the shipper. If we could...

You know, mitigate the amount of phone calls and emails coming back. You know, less people on the team. Data entry, you know, everything is self sign up now.

So there's no you know, manual process there. So it was kind of just a multitude of things as well as, you know, COVID, you know, move and well, really the hurricane forced people to move from this area.

So, It was a plethora of different things that led us to that realization that we could do the operations of this company and satisfy all the needs with fewer people. And yeah, we're down to five. We have about 650,000 contractors across the United States. That are driving for us. So, It's a big team, but a small team at the same time.

That's cool. Love that. Because indeed, you're not a local shipping company, right? You cover most of North America. It says... Quite sizable.

I mean, almost everything now for us consumers is digital. Why is logistics, I'd say, so far behind? That you're upsetting it?

Well, it's hard to say exactly why. I mean... If you look at the trend is...

You know, with hotshot drivers, they'll start their own business. You know, they kind of stay within their network, right? Whoever knows me is who's going to use me. Type of deal, right?

So the relationship building, things like that. And so it's kind of like that mentality is, you know, the good old boy, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Right.

So that's kind of a lot of what we've seen where just behaviors are kind of set in stone. Right. Old dogs, new tricks.

You know, you want it overnighted Let's get it. There's a big difference in what we're doing and the way it's always been done. But I think it just really took the right technology and the right Push into... Into utilizing it correctly. In that sphere. Nice.

So, and then You have all those, right? And that's probably, I think, your hardest thing. You have all these People that are still doing it old school, right? I know this guy who can ship for me, so why would I try anything else? How are you actually winning over all those businesses that are stuck on their old ways that have the people they know, the shipper that they know and just are okay with that?

So the biggest thing is showing them the inefficiencies you know, we don't want to take that person's job. But...

Sometimes we just say, hey, you know, they can drive for Gophr. They can drive for more than just your company. They can be your preferred driver. And if they're unavailable, which they sometimes are for you, you'll have a whole fleet at your fingertips of vetted, safe drivers. You can track them.

So it really just boils down to features, right? So with software comes features. With the old school comes phone call, email. That's the features you get. Right.

So with our software, You know, we can make your current drivers more efficient, you know, you're going to pay about the same price. As if you were using them. Except that you can track them now. You have the digital bill of lading. You have the instant quotes. You have everything documented in our system.

You know, so it's just... It's really winning them over that way where it's like, hey, look, this is the change that you need.

Right? I love that. And I love that you took Basically, you're okay to just onboard their old model, onboard their old drivers, and just combine that with your technology and continue the same way of working and making it more efficient, giving them more insights, more technology. Just to let it work better, but they can still work with the drivers that they've always worked with. I love that.

So, and then if we go into the technology a bit more, you've been around for quite some time. I saw you were recently accepted into Techstars. And I always thought that was for like early startups. You've been around for so long. Why did you apply now? And what are they actually bringing to the table for you?

So we're really trying to expand our knowledge base. And I mean, we can't stop innovating, right? We're in another funding round. They actually approached us. And wanted a piece of the pie as well as to you know, to ensure that their piece of the pie gained as much traction as possible.

So moving us into Being able to learn more about the industries, get more investor visibility has been a huge win with Techstars. It's a very visual or I should say visible industry.

Right? It's the investor prospects or, you know, their eyes light up when they, when we mentioned tech stars, they've heard about it, they know about it. So really it's one of those humility things where. We don't know everything. And having, you know, and this is not our first accelerator, right? We've been through a few accelerators and some of them were better than others. I'll say there's a way to learn from everyone you come into contact with in the business world. And I really challenge everyone to have that, to kind of let their pride down and take advice, take coaching.

You know, and you've got to weed the good from the bad, but or the bad from the good, right? But, It's super important. And that's kind of what we were after was just getting more insight, more understanding of even just corporate structure, investment intake. Just different things on the business side, inside the business that we needed to focus on kind of get to our next steps. I'll say long story short, just to cap that question, You know, we've been operating along the I-10 corridor, delivering out into the United States, Canada, Mexico, and really this next big step and what we're raising funds for is to hit that national acceptance for shippers everywhere in the United States at least And that's what Techstars is helping us do is really.

Expand. Expand your network, expand your client base all over the country.

Like really go full North America. Yeah, cool. That was my next question.

So what is next for you guys? What are the big goals? And I guess that is, Going national plus Canada. Is that next big goal for you?

Yeah, that's really it. So what needs to happen?

So... Our biggest play is right. We've got a lot of features that we've got to focus on. We've got a lot, you know, we just stood up more markets within our software so that we can kind of track where people are signing up. We've got drivers signing up in droves, you know, five to 600 a month signing up to drive for us. You know, which is a lot, right? And where are they?

You know, how do we keep tabs on them? So, you know, we've got a heat map that just, I mean, it's covered, right? The United States is covered with dry... And so, you know, it's kind of going through and figuring out which markets to really hone in on. To get them, you know, the orders moving you know, and trickle in as fast as possible and making sure that drivers are there to satisfy them.

And then that the software doesn't break, right? Because if that's a daily task is, you know my gosh, you know, If AWS is down, you know, something else is broken, right?

So just kind of fixing everything to align and operationally be good. You know, successful and competent, right?

Yeah. And I think that big AWS outage a couple of weeks ago was quite painful for not just you, for I think a lot of people that are dependent on them.

So, and where do you see, I mean, you now have Pic-to-Ship, you have GoPilot already as your AI features. What do you think is going to happen with AI and logistics over the next couple of years? Where is it going to go even further than where you guys have already gone?

So... We started playing with other features too, as far as AI goes. We want to make shippers their own brokers. To where there's no middleman, to where Gophr doesn't even feel like a middleman, right? There's literally I've got the shipment. This AI is helping me. Satisfy this shipment. Right, to where there's almost no thought process. We have an extension we built on Chrome where You click the extension. You click screenshot. And it uses the AI to analyze that page you're on, whether it's an email or whatever it is. And it gives you the quote and you press go and delivery's happening, right?

I mean, it's fast. It is, you know, with the AI, when it's properly trained, It is its own broker. It's not a person. It's the end-all, be-all to... To logistic situation, yes, any logistician It keeps them up at night. It's, It is a nightmare. Dealing with people's goods, right?

I mean, Typically, the logistics of an industry or a company is different. Is the make or break for that company's revenue. If a shipment isn't on time, you lose the job If it's lost, you lose the product.

You know, there's so much involved. We are the face of most companies, right? That delivery driver that's saying, Hey. Here's your stuff.

You know, it's like, that's it. This company just dropped us off and they were very rude. It was a driver. It wasn't the company, but That's it.

So ensuring that everything moves perfectly. Is saving the face of our clients.

So having that AI piece work the system to where it's perfect. Is I see where it's going, where AI agents...

You know, actual computer generated people that are handling the day to day through AI is where it's at. Where we're headed.

Probably. Yeah. I just love it. Love how you're upsetting a very legacy industry with technology.

I mean, so many startups are just in the tech space. I love how you're in such a different space and still making it work and building a tech startup in that industry.

So final question, what is one piece of advice that you would have for somebody that's like you, trying to fully disrupt a legacy industry with technology? Thinking.

Outside the box. I say this often, There's two things. You can do a lot more with a lot less than you think. And the other piece is Don't do it like everybody else. From... From the order forms to the operations to the sales processes. Disrupt. Think, this is how they do it. How can I do that in the opposite way? How do I backfill and figure out, okay, That works fantastically. Let's do it completely different and see, you know, and test these different models. It's a disruptive behavior and that's what we're going for, right? We should change. We shouldn't do it exactly the same. No copycatting.

You know, Sometimes it is the best way, but really testing every method and process is the way to find true innovation.

Optimization and using technology in each of their steps. Thank you so much, David.

So if people want to learn more about Gophr or want to get in touch with you, where should we go and where can we find you?

So you can visit GophrApp.com. You can see us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. And, Yeah, we'd love to hear from you. Love feedback. That's what makes our innovation move, right? Disruption. Comes through feedback and understanding the problems that we're dealing with.

Love that. Thank you so much for being on today, David.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Mark.

As we wrap up another episode of the CTO Compass, thank you for taking the time to invest in you. The speed at which tech and AI develop is increasing. Demanding a new era of leaders in tech. Leaders that can juggle team and culture, code and infra, cyber and compliance. All whilst working closely with board members and stakeholders. We're here to help you learn from others, set your own goals and navigate your own journey. And until next time. Keep learning. Keep pushing and never stop growing.