Launch HN: Terusama (YC W20) – We help warehouses schedule trucks

The status quo here is really antiquated software that is really hard to use. Not only is the current way of doing things inefficient for logistics folks, it has a big impact. The inefficiency created by poor supply-chain coordination costs $30B a year in the U.S. and generates billions of tons of C02, mostly from trucks idling in parking lots. On top of that, it has a huge impact on the lives of truck drivers, who are legally limited to 11 hours of driving time each day. Waiting at warehouses often eats up 3-4 of those. Those wasted hours really add up, making the job unsustainable for many and contributing to another problem in the industry - driver turnover, which is over 90%.

Most of this inefficiency is caused by the high level of friction in communication between the people who manage trucks, the drivers, and the people who the drivers are delivering to. The freight industry has made a ton of progress with software to help manage their fleets, but warehouse logistics software hasn’t caught up.

Chris and I were students together at Indiana University. We became really interested in this space at our later jobs. I was working at Uber Freight (formerly Otto), and Chris was consulting for companies in the industry. We were constantly amazed at how big and complex an issue it was, and surprised that nobody was thinking about it in the same way we were. We started talking to as many people in the industry as possbile to figure a better way to manage logistics. The result was the version of Terusama we launched with in the beginning of the year. We have been since iterating on the product with a core group of customers.

We streamline or automate most of the repetitive and administrative processes needed to keep trucks flowing smoothly in and out of a facility. We provide dispatchers at trucking companies and brokerages a way to search through facilities, and schedule directly with these facilities. When a truck driver arrives at a warehouse, we check them in at a kiosk. Our customers get a dashboard where they can track and manage loads coming to their facility. Logistics teams get visibility into their incoming trucks, the ability to communicate with drivers and carriers, and to track a load through its lifecycle (from staging through completion). Everyone involved is kept in the loop with smart notifications. In the future, an API will make it easy for anyone with a brokerage or trucking company to get facility availability (to feed into truck routing optimization), and schedule appointments. We’ll also offer services to help carriers reduce the risk of missing truck appointments.

One of the most important things we’ve learned in this time is how important reliability is for a mission-critical app. It's obvious in retrospect, but it definitely changes your approach when building an application - requiring heavier testing, redundancy, and support as a form of redundancy.

These days you hear a lot about things like autonomy and AI in the freight industry. We believe that to get the value promised by these things, we first have to upgrade the outdated technology infrastructure that currently runs the industry. Our goal is to build that infrastructure, while solving today’s pressing problems.

We’re excited to see what HN thinks of our platform. We’re eager to hear about HN users’ experiences, ideas, and know there is a ton of expertise among the community to learn from. And if you’re in the industry, we’d love to hear about your experiences with truck scheduling!