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Taking the Hire Road is a podcast dedicated to providing tips to help manage the driver recruiting process while addressing the ongoing challenges related to the driver shortage and driver retention. Hosted by Jeremy Reymer, Founder and CEO of DriverReach, this bimonthly podcast shines a light on the challenges that carriers are facing and aims to help companies hire quality drivers with greater efficiency.
Jeremy Reymer [00:00:08]:
Welcome to Taking the Hire Road, a special show dedicated to the trucking industry, primarily around the confluence of recruiting, retention and compliance in the 50 years. The host of the show, I bring over two decades of industry experience, both on the carrier side as well as the vendor side. Throughout the year, I interview industry experts and thought leaders who bring their insight to the driver life cycle. We discuss the industry's greatest challenges. I always appreciate your feedback, good or bad. Don't forget to leave a rating and a review. I'd also like to thank and highlight the show's valuable sponsors. Their dedication and commitment to the industry and to the show is greatly appreciated. If you're interested in being a sponsor of the show or joining me for an interview, just email jeremyakingthehighroad.com now. This week I'm honored to be joined by a great industry friend who's not only fun and super easy to get along with, but he's also a serial entrepreneur who's disrupting a space that's starving for innovation. Mats Holmbäck, Co-founder and CEO of driver recruiting technology solution, Lanefinder. Thank you so much for joining me, Mats.
Mats Holmbäck [00:01:06]:
Thank you for having me, Jeremy.
Jeremy Reymer [00:01:08]:
I'm really anxious to to dive into your background as you have a wealth of recruiting technology experience all around the world actually. And I'd love to learn more about your most recent venture, the innovative and intuitive recruiting solution that is Lanefinder. Perhaps you can share with the audience your plans to grow and expand as well as discuss how you're able to manage versus the just the ever evolving technology landscape. And I'd also love to hear about your experience with the industry since moving to the U.S. does that sound like a good plan of attack for today?
Mats Holmbäck [00:01:38]:
I've never heard such a good plan of attack for today.
Jeremy Reymer [00:01:41]:
That couldn't be better. I'm going to mix this up a little bit. So normally I ask my guests about a favorite book that they'd like to recommend to the audience and I'm still going to ask that, but I'm going to wrap it up at the end with that question instead. So now I'm giving you plenty of time to sort of think about it and I expect a good recommendation. All right, but before we get there, you know I mentioned that you have a lot of recruiting technology experience. You've been building and growing companies for years. Could you share with the audience just about your background before planting your roots in the US and getting into the trucking industry?
Mats Holmbäck [00:02:15]:
I'm actually originally from Austin, Texas, and when I Was about five, six years old. Somewhere around there a decision was made and that decision was to move halfway around the world. So my roots were planted in Sweden of all places, so I'm used to the snow. Since then I've moved back here. My background has always been around entrepreneurship. I have actually the classic stories of trying to sell my drawings to, you know, local businesses as a seven year old, all the way up to selling windmills in my early 20s had it had a company doing that and so the rest is history.
Jeremy Reymer [00:02:51]:
How did you get into building technology then? Help connect the dots there.
Mats Holmbäck [00:02:55]:
All right. After I was doing that windmill business, I had a dream about, you know, making the environment better and what better than having every farm self sufficient on, on energy. But I have to tell you there was a lot of headwinds just from a politics standpoint and.
Jeremy Reymer [00:03:10]:
Which is great for windmills by the way, right? Headwind.
Mats Holmbäck [00:03:13]:
Yeah, you know, great for that. It's, it's an old joke I used to tell. I had a friend of mine who, who said, well you know what, you know, you'd be great in the recruiting industry. I said, why? I don't have a background in that. But about a year later I, I got into working at a big staffing company called Ranch that today they're here in the US as well. Massive company and but you know, they were reading resumes on paper and so me and my co founder, we decided, you know what, let's bring out some personality in these job applications. So we actually got started as a video resume tool almost about 13, 14 years ago now.
Jeremy Reymer [00:03:51]:
That's what got you into technology though.
Mats Holmbäck [00:03:53]:
That's what got us into technology, yes. It was looking at the way that things were done, seeing, wow, we can make this a lot more efficient. So then you come out with a small product and you test it, you kind of get that first initial user feedback and you know, once we got our first beta version way back when in the hands of some users, you know, we were just so excited. Once you've done that, you can never look back. It's just helping, improving and becoming fanatical about, about improving.
Jeremy Reymer [00:04:20]:
I think you made an important point and obviously with not having this background, it's pretty incredible that you understood the power of iteration and getting feedback to help drive that which when you approach it from that perspective, that's a sign of success or usually success looking backwards. That was a foundational, you know, part of it. How did your path lead you to the US trucking industry then the product.
Mats Holmbäck [00:04:44]:
You know, quickly Morphed from a video resume tool into a full fledged applicant tracking system. Now, we weren't in the trucking industry at the time, so we were trying to help small, medium sized businesses recruit better. And for those who don't know what an applicant tracking system is, it's basically a piece of software that companies use in order to post jobs to various job sites and then it helps you manage those applications. Around 2019, at that time, we were in many different countries, many different industry verticals, and there was one group in particular that was standing out and that was third party truck driver recruiters. And so they started sending off hundreds and thousands of job ads out to our partners at the time, which were the main job boards out there. And one day the biggest one called me, upper management, big honcho gives me a call and says, matt, you know what, these job ads that are coming out of your platform right now, out of this particular platform, they're not up to our standards. You know, we're going to have to take a look at these job ads. And so it didn't take us long to try to get out of the trucking industry because we didn't understand it at the time.
Mats Holmbäck [00:05:53]:
But I had a phone call from a guy named Ray. He called me up and he said, you know what? My entire business is running off of your software. Which piqued my interest, obviously. So, you know, I came over, he happened to be here in Florida. We met up and that's when he started explaining all these intricacies. You know, out of, out of the 40 different countries, I've been blessed to have worked in and seen companies in different industries. I can say by far, for a company to recruit and hire for the trucking industry is by far the hardest, heavily regulated. The drivers don't even know if they're qualified when they're applying for work.
Mats Holmbäck [00:06:29]:
They don't know how to apply for jobs or find and identify the right jobs. And companies, they may not always know the best practices in order to actually get a driver in. You know, call them quickly, not a week later. There's a ton, there's a ton to be fixed. And so that's what got us into the industry. A year later we had created a brand called lame finder. That's the product that you can see today.
Jeremy Reymer [00:06:52]:
Yeah, and I want to unpack that a little bit. Now you mentioned Florida. We just spent some time together in Clearwater, Florida. That's your stomping grounds. We attended the driver employer council of America. DECA is their spring conference it was great to finally meet you in person and just get to know not just more about you, but also more about Lanefinder. So I would like to want to make sure you talk about that. You know, for everyone that I've talked to who's seen it or who's used it has, has been really impressed.
Jeremy Reymer [00:07:18]:
So maybe can you share with the audience a bit more about Lanefinder and how you're helping both carrier and drivers?
Mats Holmbäck [00:07:24]:
Absolutely. So I'm going to go ahead and distinguish it between, let's say Lanefinder 1.0 and what's about to hit the market. So In Lanefinder 1.0, we could clearly see the pain points that recruiters had. You ask any truck driver recruiter, they're always answering the same questions. Yes, you can bring your dog or you're going to get two weekends home per month. It's, you know, these many moving violations. So it's, it tends to be the same conversation over and over. And when we were looking at that, we said, well, what if we could just take all that information up front? And that way drivers can actually filter on all these things.
Mats Holmbäck [00:07:57]:
So if you look from an outside perspective, looking into the trucking industry, a truck driver is a truck driver. But we know there's a thousand different ways of being a truck driver. You know, what kind of holes do you work, where are you going to be running, what size company are you comfortable working with, et cetera, et cetera. So in Lanefinder 1.0, we addressed all that. So you go there today, it's still up that site. You can go in, you can filter on anything. There's nine and a half thousand carriers that have accounts on Lanefinder today. And we processed about 200,000 driver applications in that platform.
Mats Holmbäck [00:08:28]:
Now going forward, it's going to be a little bit different.
Jeremy Reymer [00:08:32]:
From an entrepreneurial standpoint. You are all about growth, expansion. When we talked in Clearwater, you shared a little bit about some, some of those plans for growth and expansion. Could you share like you raising any capital where maybe some other industry, trucking industry stakeholders, you know, might have an opportunity of, of owning a piece of, of what you've built.
Mats Holmbäck [00:08:51]:
When we took a look at what we had about a year ago now, we took a look at the platform that we had and we said with everything that's going on with AI and the way that people are going to be searching going forward is going to be fundamentally different in the future. So sometimes are these technology shifts that happen which create a ton of opportunity in the Market. If you remember, when e-commerce started up, that was a major challenge for the entire retail industry. And what we see is that search, Google, job sites, etc. AI is going to be to them basically what e-commerce was to retail. And so just knowing that, we said, you know what, we're going to do something completely different for our search experience going forward and leading with AI and AI agent structure, we're going to be able to dive into the future in a way that nobody else has started to do as far as we know it. And to do that, we're launching Lanefinder Connect. And Lanefinder Connect is that conversational AI.
Mats Holmbäck [00:09:52]:
We're not limited to a set amount of filters drivers can use. So without going too deep into that, yes, for Lanefinder Connect, now we have an open funding round. And as opposed to what you would typically do, we're actually crowdfunding to be able to be a part of Lanefinder Connect. So the future looks bright and the reason we wanted to do that is to really invite champions of the industry to be a part of this journey so that we're able to build the absolute best platform that has ever been built out there. I know in order to do that, we want to do that together with the truck, the trucking industry and community. So, yeah, it was great, by the way, being at DECA last week and meeting a lot of those industry heroes.
Jeremy Reymer [00:10:34]:
Yeah, well. And so I think, first of all, I think the idea of crowdfunding is genius. And I've had thought of that myself and approached that when with driver reach early on, and I just didn't know how to do it. And maybe it's come a long way, even in, you know, the last five, six years or seven years, and it seemed like it was maybe an expensive thing. But I think to your point, it is so valuable when you can have access to industry stakeholders who want to own something, who want to be a part of something, who want some, maybe even some input and being able to help. And yeah, they're going to be your biggest champions. It's great. And especially in an industry like this, where as big as it is, it's close and it's tight.
Jeremy Reymer [00:11:11]:
I'm excited. I think it's genius.
Mats Holmbäck [00:11:14]:
What excites me there, Jeremy, just to follow on that is you ask any company what is your number one pain point, and it is, of course, having drivers in the truck. Now, once they have their professional drivers in there that are a good match and they're going to stay there for a long time, then Obviously, companies have different problems, but you're always going to have that. Number one issue are my trucks running? And today, you know, a lot of times that's outside of the company's fate. You know, they have no control over it in terms of they don't own the job platforms that are out there. Everyone's in the hands of those major job platforms trying to outspend one another and, you know, trying the latest trends and. Okay, well, how, how do I get somebody to click on my job? How can I switch this paragraph around? Why not be a part of the solution and help build it together and take that number one spot?
Jeremy Reymer [00:12:04]:
I love that. And, you know, I've been in the industry over 20 years, always around that, like, driver recruiting life cycle. I've also, you know, embraced technology, recognizing how deficient this industry was. And one thing I've noticed, especially the last several years, is just how quickly technology is evolving, even in trucking. We were about 11 minutes into this conversation when you first, you know, said the word AI. AI is huge, it's massive, it's groundbreaking. And I know we're just tip of the iceberg. How do you view that, that continual evolution whereas we continue to evolve from a technology standpoint and what are you doing to stay in lockstep with it, if not even.
Jeremy Reymer [00:12:39]:
It seems like you're like, slightly ahead.
Mats Holmbäck [00:12:41]:
What we want to accomplish now with Lanefinder Connect, you know, it's. It's being that number one platform for drivers. They can do things with Lanefinder Connect that it hasn't been technically available before. Same thing with carriers, you know, to where we're going to be able to lift such a burden from them to where you're not going to have to have a whole infrastructure in place in order to be efficient at hiring drivers. When you have AI agents lifting a lot of that heavy work for you so that your recruiters can focus on what they do best. You know, for us, this has been such an opportunity to actually be able to execute all of the great ideas that weren't valid to go after a year ago even. And so now that the technology is there, our thought processes have been there since a long time ago. We're ready to execute quickly on all those ideas.
Mats Holmbäck [00:13:27]:
But to your question there, I think it also has to do a lot with bold decisions. We have invested heavily in, you know, that the Lanefinder original platform that was invested heavily in, a lot of brain power has got in there and building that system out to what it is today. You ask me, I believe that the 1.0 Lanefinder platform is by far superior to any other job platform out there. My opinion, absolutely biased. But from a technology standpoint, that's how we feel. And I know I had this discussion with you just a few days ago. I mentioned the word kill your darlings. Killing your darlings.
Mats Holmbäck [00:14:03]:
You know, we see what we have, but we also see how much bigger the opportunity is, how many more problems we're able to solve. So it's having that customer focus. You know, are we able to execute on the ultimate vision with yesterday's technology? No, we're not. Can we do it with tomorrow's technology? Absolutely. So. So we're always looking at what can we do to improve.
Jeremy Reymer [00:14:24]:
Yeah, and at the end of the day, being in the industry, and I love trucking, it's, as I said earlier, it's as big as it is. It's. It's really tight. And when you're all in and you embrace it, like you have, like I have for, you know, 20 plus years, I built some amazing relationships. They're priceless to me. And so that said, though, you also recognize that this industry has a lot of opportunity for improvement when you look out across the landscape at other more innovative or progressive industries, which is a great place to be because it's almost like you're from the future. You're really just seeing what others in the present are doing, but that's how far behind, you know, we've been, it seems. So I mentioned about the relationships and stuff that I've been able to build.
Jeremy Reymer [00:15:02]:
What's your experience been since you. Since you are focused in this industry, you have a dynamic personality. It's easy, as I said earlier, easy to talk to, easy to get along with. Are you building some of those types of relationships too? Are you finding that easy for you?
Mats Holmbäck [00:15:18]:
Absolutely. I think one thing that strikes me, even though a lot of the relationships that have been built so far over the years have been digital like this, and, you know, since COVID it's been a lot easier to connect this way. But being able to get together, you know, in events like we did have at the DACA conference and at the MAT show, the Florida trucking show. We were there a couple of weeks ago. We had drivers getting to take the Lanefinder connect platform, which is still in beta. So they have to sign up for the wait list. It's not official yet, but definitely, you know, just being able to connect with them, you know, what I'll do for fun, Jeremy, as soon as we have something new in the product that comes out, right.
Mats Holmbäck [00:15:54]:
I'll be talking to the team. They'll say, matt's go hunt. And then I'll. I'll drive down to the nearest truck stop that we have, and I'll put it immediately in the hands of the drivers. And I'll just stand back and I'll look at them, just to kind of see their reactions, you know, do they get it? Are they excited about it? And, you know, that to me, was something I wasn't able to do when I was living abroad. And so, you know, that that's just massive for me. So building the relationships, getting to. To meet you.
Mats Holmbäck [00:16:19]:
I mean, we had a great time a few days ago. It was such a. Such a pleasure to be able to do that. And with the drivers, for sure.
Jeremy Reymer [00:16:26]:
I do want to switch gears because, you know, speaking of drivers, you know, this is. Obviously you're familiar with Project 61, which is. It's a nonprofit venture that I kicked off late last year. Something that I'm really passionate about. 61, the reference to that number being that is the average life expectancy of a CDL driver, which is just entirely unacceptable, in my opinion. And Project 61 is the sponsor of a new segment of the show. And so this is where I ask a question related to the health and wellness of the industry. And once again, the industry health segment is sponsored by Project 61.
Jeremy Reymer [00:17:02]:
And now, and since I'm talking to someone who, who lived abroad, as you said, I think it makes sense to ask, since nutrition is such an important part of the. Of the pie here, no pun intended, with pie. But how is the quality of food in the US different from other advanced nations?
Mats Holmbäck [00:17:22]:
I mean, I could probably give a lengthy response to that, but I like to talk in stories. So one of the things that has struck me and that first comes to mind is my wife. She is baking bread all the time. She never used to do that, but, you know, for fun. Absolutely. On the weekends. But now it's almost like a constant, everyday thing. And the reason why is once we got here last summer, we got all moved in and everything, and we bought some hot dogs.
Mats Holmbäck [00:17:49]:
During summer, we had some hot dog buns, whatnot. Last week, I open up the cabinets and I see the same packet of hot dog buns. And I smell it, and it smells so good, Jeremy. I'm telling you, I wanted to eat it. But then I also knew it had a few months of shelf life living in there. And so. So that's one of the things there's so many additives just to feel good. You know, we, we've kind of rearranged the things that we would typically get that we can't find good substitutions for here.
Mats Holmbäck [00:18:19]:
And that's also one of the things I mentioned that, you know, we were taking the demo of the beta version so drivers could test it out themselves at the Florida Trucking show. And, you know, we let it rip. You know, we don't just want to be a part of their life for the job search. We want to be an assistant, like a best friend in their pocket, so they can ask to ask our AI anything that's trucking related. So, for instance, you know, hey, create me a training regimen, you know, for five out of seven days of the week. I don't want it to take more than 15 minutes at a time. Or this is what I have, you know, snap a picture. You know, this is what I've got in my fridge.
Mats Holmbäck [00:18:53]:
What can I make that's healthy? Throw me up a recipe I can make in my air fryer, stuff like that. So we're big on health. I love what's happening at Project 6, 61. It's so important, and I think that the industry needs to highlight that a lot more. At the end of the day, it's about knowledge. How do we keep that up?
Jeremy Reymer [00:19:09]:
Certainly awareness and knowledge. And then at the end of the day, we, we need the behavior to change. Don't eat that hot dog bun that's probably, you know, got full of preservatives. Over a year it's been sitting out, not even frozen or refrigerated or anything. So, yeah, that's insane. And, and I know that there's a lot of talk about additives. I know that there's ingredients, that they're illegal in Europe and other countries while in here, like, that's okay. Why is it illegal? Because it has proven health consequences, you know, but they're like, that's fine.
Jeremy Reymer [00:19:42]:
We'll give it lots of it in America for cheap. It's a standard American diet. Why are we where we are? It's, it's because of those types of things. So, yeah, I appreciate your perspective. Now, I told you early at the very beginning that I'd circle back to the question about a book. So to close out, first of all, you an early member of the trucking industry book club that I formed in January of this year. So thank you for being a participant there. It's fun to see that group grow and, and how we're selecting books to read.
Jeremy Reymer [00:20:11]:
It's It's a lot of fun and I'm sometimes I'm reading a book that I might not have selected, but that's okay. That's a crowdfunding way to select books. Absolutely, absolutely. But the question is, do you have a specific book that's been particularly impactful to you that you can share with the audience?
Mats Holmbäck [00:20:28]:
I was thinking long and hard during this interview, which, why I mean, there's so many good books and it's when I say a book, is that going to be attached to me? Like that's the number one. But I do have a book and it's a shameless plug because it's actually the author is somebody that I know very, very well. A close friend of mine, Matthew Kolinski, serial entrepreneur, just like myself, yourself. He wrote a book that's called Work Passion, Life Balance and again, shameless Plug. But this book is connected deeply with myself because sometimes as, as entrepreneurs and building product and being passionate about that, sometimes it can feel like work takes importance or precedence over everything else. And our personal desire to succeed professionally can sometimes push us to set aside our own well being. This book talks a lot about the concept of zones of efficiency. It doesn't distinguish to, you know, trying to live up to expectations of having a work life and then having your life, you know, work, life, balance.
Mats Holmbäck [00:21:28]:
This is actually a way to mend the two together because what if work is your passion also, you know, how do you fit that into life at the same time? So that book has had a great impact on me. I definitely think that for anybody that often asks themselves, you know, how am I going to find time to do this or that or squeeze that in. I think that you should definitely go pick up that book and read it.
Jeremy Reymer [00:21:50]:
Yeah, I appreciate that. I'll add that to my Goodreads list and I can relate. It's always important that balance is really important and always having that perspective. You don't want that to get skewed. Make sure that your priorities are in line. Mats, thank you so much for joining me. Always look forward to seeing you and I hope to see you again at some upcoming industry events.
Mats Holmbäck [00:22:09]:
I look forward to it. Jeremy, thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
Jeremy Reymer [00:22:12]:
And thank you for Taking the Hire Road with me. Once again, special thanks to the sponsors of the show. We really appreciate you. If you're interested in being a sponsor or joining me for an interview, please email jeremy@takingthehireroad.com. Until next time, thank you for Taking the Hire Road.