Why The Backhaul exists
A $1.6 trillion industry moves this country. Almost nobody writes about it honestly. Here's what The Backhaul is, what it isn't, and why you're going to want it in your inbox every Tuesday morning.
Freight runs the country and almost nobody writes about it in a way that's useful to the people actually doing the work.
That's the gap I started The Backhaul to fill.
Most of what passes for "freight coverage" falls into two buckets. One is trade press that's been captured by the companies it's supposed to cover. The other is LinkedIn commentary from people who've never quoted a lane, covered a load late on a Friday, or sat across from a shipper's procurement team explaining why the rate went up. I've read a lot of both. Neither of them tells me anything I can use on a Monday morning.
So I decided to write the thing I wanted to read.
What The Backhaul is
One email, Tuesday mornings. Short enough to read with coffee. Written by a working broker who runs a logistics firm and still watches the board every day.
The audience I'm writing for is brokers, carriers, shippers, 3PLs, and the people running managed logistics or government contracting work in freight. If you've ever had to explain the difference between a lane rate and a delivered landed cost to somebody who outranks you in the org chart, this is for you.
Each issue has a mix of these, depending on what's actually worth saying that week:
The Lane. What actually happened in freight that week, in language people on the phones would use. Market moves, M&A, policy changes, capacity shifts.
Rate Check. What shippers are actually paying versus what the indexes claim. Accessorial trends. Fuel surcharge weirdness. Stuff I see on bids.
Broker's Desk. The letter. What I'm seeing, getting wrong, learning, and arguing with myself about while I build Carolina Expressways. Fair warning, it's the section most likely to offend somebody.
Shipper Spotlight. A short piece on a shipper, 3PL, carrier, or broker doing something worth copying. Specific tactics. Not aspirational "leadership" stories.
Federal Desk. Because a chunk of Carolina Expressways is SDVOSB federal contracting work, I cover what operators in that world are actually seeing. GSA moves, set-aside activity, DoD logistics patterns, agency-level procurement shifts.
Viral Freight. The clip or thread the industry is actually talking about this week, with context so you know whether it's real or just loud.
The Deal Sheet. A short classifieds section. Lanes looking for carriers, capacity looking for homes, RFPs worth a look, roles worth knowing about.
What it isn't
Not a trade magazine. Not a press release laundry. Not consulting advice you can cite in a board meeting. This is one broker's read of the market, written out loud. You can take it, leave it, or argue with it. I'd rather you argued.
Also not a pitch. Carolina Expressways has customers and I don't need this newsletter to be a top-of-funnel tool for the business. If reading The Backhaul makes you want to work with my firm, great, and there's a page on this site for that. But the newsletter is not where I'm hunting for work. It's where I'm trying to add something to a conversation I care about.
Who I am
Ted Fyock. Founder of Carolina Expressways, a freight and logistics firm based in North Carolina. The primary business is freight brokerage. We're also an SBA-certified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business working federal contracts, and we run managed logistics and advisory engagements for shippers who want a grown-up sitting on their side of the table.
I didn't come up through a corporate 3PL and I'm not trying to sell you software. I'm building a firm, one customer and one carrier relationship at a time, and I've opinions about how this industry ought to work that I don't see reflected in what's already out there. The Backhaul is where I'm going to put them.
The deal
Give me four issues. Tuesday mornings, for a month. If I haven't earned a spot in your inbox by then, unsubscribe and don't think twice about it. I won't email you about it, I won't run a "we miss you" campaign, and there are no hard feelings.
If it does earn a spot, forward it occasionally to somebody in the business who'd get something out of it. That's the whole marketing plan.
Loads of signal. Zero deadhead. See you Tuesday.
Ted
