Some businesses can be born out of ingenuity, while many spring from need and necessity—in Scott Moscrip’s now Boise-based company Truckstop.com, however, one finds the needs of an entire industry met brilliantly. Indeed, Truckstop seems to be that rare marriage between those needs mentioned above and savvy business insight that offers a perfect complement to one another.
In times gone by, the life of a trucker, especially those of independent owner-operators, was often lived one drive and one drop-off at a time. Once arrived and with freight delivered, the driver, or carrier, would then have to scan physical posting boards to see the next available loads they could take, or perhaps call in to a broker company that might be able to provide an outgoing load or assignment. In some cases, there might already be an assigned load in the city of drop-off, but for many years this was more the exception than the norm within the trucking industry, at least for owner-ops and smaller trucking companies. In some senses, this was akin to going out to a bar to meet someone—much time wasted, and not always a fruitful endeavor, at that. A tedious, frustrating process for both those who had the freight to move, and those truckers seeking to be on the road moving it.
It was in 1995 that Moscrip first founded Truckstop.com in New Plymouth, Idaho, seeing that while the future was rapidly becoming digital, trucking as an industry would remain—and it would need to join the technological revolution, too. Just as the internet brought in the era of being able to instantly connect with those miles or even states away, suddenly the time-consuming physical postings and telephone back-and-forths could be done away with, and where still needed, streamlined—all while keeping the workers fundamentally involved in, and in control of, their future. It’s refreshing to note that in an era that doesn’t always seem to appreciate the individual worker, Truckstop was brought about as the very opposite—a way for workers at all stages of the freight shipping and receiving process to get more done with less headache and potentially end up more profitable, as well.
So what does Truckstop do, exactly? Think of it as Match.com for truckers that need freight, and vice versa. Thanks to the digital load boards that the company has created and implemented since its beginning, truckers can now go seamlessly from drop-off to the pick-up of their next load of freight, with schedules able to be more planned-out, and with less unwanted downtime for drivers. With Truckstop, a driver can work as it fits them and any company they may be part of—the small owner-ops out there no longer have to fret about whether and when they can take vacations, or spend time with family, because thanks to these innovations, they now have a much clearer idea of the schedules around them to fulfill for their shippers. This also helps to establish clearer rates for well-defined shipping lanes, taking many of the sharper edges out of the haggling process regarding prices while still naturally encouraging a healthy, competitive market. A market in which both the truckers and shippers are mutually acting their best for each other’s benefit—a harmonious relationship, previously sometimes hard to reach. With fully digitized load boards, a single dispatcher can now guide multiple trucks back and forth across the country, with loads pre-planned and deals struck ahead of time, fully streamlining the process. Now in their 31st year, Truckstop continues to grow rather than slow down, with CEO Moscrip recently stepping back to the helm, along with long-time collaborator and Truckstop Chief Tech Officer Dan Cambron, who was kind enough to sit down with us for this article. As he listed a few of the various activities the company involves itself with, from the annual turkey drive to pop-up events literally along-the-road for their drivers to stop and meet, it’s easy to hear a genuine love for Idaho, as well as for the hard-working people of our nation. Please check out Truckstop.com for more information on the company—we feel sure they’re going to be leading this field for years to come!
