Tristan Bordallo is the Founder of Fr8topia, a brokerage focused on transparency and smarter logistics solutions, and the Founder and CEO of Iamfr8, an asset-based trucking company built on a driver-first culture.
Under his leadership, he has guided both companies through significant growth, successfully scaling asset-based operations from scratch. He also serves as a venture partner with Blue Impact Supply Chain Ventures, helping drive innovation in supply chain technology. Passionate about leveraging new tools and AI, Tristan is dedicated to modernizing logistics, supporting entrepreneurs, and empowering hardworking carriers through smarter business solutions.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- [2:54] Tristan shares how he’s transforming the freight industry through cutting-edge technology
- [4:41] How sneaker reselling taught Tristan the art and mindset of flipping
- [8:21] Why sales became Tristan’s gateway to entrepreneurship and personal freedom
- [12:48] How a friend’s successful father sparked Tristan’s drive and career vision
- [16:21] Tristan’s bold move into 1099 independence and what it taught him
- [22:40] The high-stakes journey of launching a trucking company from the ground up
- [25:12] How Tristan harnesses AI and technology to empower carriers and streamline operations
- [31:04] Why building custom software became Tristan’s secret weapon for long-term industry advantage
In this episode…
Legacy industries often resist disruption, yet innovation still finds its way in through those bold enough to challenge the norm. What happens when someone from modest beginnings steps into a traditional field like logistics, armed with fresh ideas and technology? Can one person’s relentless drive and willingness to take risks reshape an entire industry?
Tristan Bordallo faced this challenge head-on by combining his firsthand experience from both the brokerage and carrier sides of freight. Inspired by a mentor figure who thrived in freight brokerage, he entered the logistics world determined to make his mark. Through strategic risk-taking, investing in his own fleet, and developing innovative tools to empower small carriers, Tristan transformed obstacles into opportunities and turned his hard-earned lessons into solutions for others.
Tune in to this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast as John Corcoran interviews Tristan Bordallo, Founder and CEO of Fr8topia and Iamfr8, about transforming the freight and logistics industry through innovation and grit. Tristan shares insights on bridging the gap between brokers and carriers, leveraging AI and tech to support small operators, and how staying curious and hands-on can lead to meaningful breakthroughs.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Special Mention(s):
Quotable Moments:
- “Ignorance is the thing that worked for me best — I didn’t know what I didn’t know, so I just hustled and made it work.”
- “Being dumb is my superpower; if I knew how hard trucking was, there’s no way I would have started.”
- “The people doing the hard work should have the ability to service those customers and make more money — at the end of the day, they deserve it.”
- “If I’m going to go out of business, I’m going to put myself out of business. I’m willing to disrupt my own brokerage for what’s right.”
- “Who’s better to design an app for the industry than someone who’s lived in the trenches and understands the real problems?”
Action Items:
- Embrace technology to solve real industry problems: Learn and apply basic digital tools or build simple apps to remove daily bottlenecks and stay ahead in a fast-changing industry.
- Leverage your unique experience for innovation: Use your firsthand field knowledge to create or refine practical solutions that close the gap between tech developers and end users.
- Collaborate and build networks across roles: Connect with people in different positions within your industry to share insights, find common goals, and create more efficient, equitable systems.
- Prioritize transparency and empathy in business relationships: Communicate openly about risks and rewards while treating partners with fairness to foster trust and long-term collaboration.
- Upskill continuously, especially in tech literacy: Regularly learn new digital tools and technologies to stay adaptable and relevant as your industry evolves.
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Episode Transcript
John Corcoran: 00:00
Today we’re talking with one founder who is helping an old school legacy brick and mortar industry that is logistics, freight and logistics to leverage new technology and new tools to help them to operate more efficiently, efficiently in the 21st century. His name is Tristan Bordeleau. I’ll tell you more about him in a second, so stay tuned.
Intro: 00:22
Welcome to the Smart Business Revolution podcast, where we feature top entrepreneurs, business leaders, and thought leaders and ask them how they built key relationships to get where they are today. Now let’s get started with the show.
John Corcoran: 00:39
All right. Welcome, everyone. John Corcoran here. I’m the host of the show. And you know, every week we have smart CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs from all kinds of companies.
And if you look at the archives, we’ve got Netflix and Grubhub and Redfin, Gusto, Kinko’s, LendingTree, OpenTable, lots of great episodes for you to check out. And before we get into this episode, this episode is brought to you by Rise25, where we help businesses to give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. How do we do that? We do that by helping you to run your podcast and content marketing. You’re the easy button for any company to launch and run a podcast.
We do three things: strategy, accountability, and full execution. And we even invented what some are calling the Wix of B2B podcasting. It’s our platform Podcast CoPilot. So to learn more about that, go to our website, rise25.com or email our team at support@rise25.com. All right.
And my guest here today is Tristan Bordallo. He’s the founder and CEO of Fr8topia and Iamfr8, which are two fast-growing asset-based and logistics companies. They prioritize transparency and a driver-first culture. And Tristan’s got a background in freight brokerage.
We’ll talk in a moment about how he got into that. It was something close to home and an interesting guy, because he’s helping truck industry to leverage new tools and technology, like I mentioned in the preview there. And Tristan. I’m so excited to talk about this stuff with you, because I think this is an interesting topic in this age that we live in right now, where there’s so much fascination with tech. You know, you’re in an industry that has been around for quite a long time, will be for a long time.
But at the same time is being affected by a lot of these things. And so you were born in the Philippines, came over here at a young age, and we were talking beforehand about some of the things that affected you. One of the things was that you had cousins who lived here, who had been born here, who called you derogatory names because you didn’t talk like them, which is hilarious to me because we’re both Californians here like you. You sound as Californian as they come, right? So it’s hilarious to me that that was driving you at a young age.
Tristan Bordallo: 02:54
Yeah. You cut out there a little bit but it’s it’s okay. So yeah we’re that that stuck with me trying to speak perfect English. I came here when I was eight years old and. Yeah, it’s it’s funny that you said that because we the it’s not derogatory.
It’s called FOB, right. Fresh off the boat. And I definitely had an accent. So try to for years not to. You know get rid of that accent.
And so that’s why I sound so Californian I guess I assimilated pretty well.
John Corcoran: 03:32
Mission accomplished man. I mean, like, I would never would have guessed that you weren’t born and bred in Southern California, so. And let’s talk about also you you were a kid who figured out that you were interested in sales at a young age, even to the point where you were selling your lunch tickets in high school.
Tristan Bordallo: 03:51
Yeah. I mean, you know, I grew up poor. And so I had lunch tickets and that was one of my ways to make money, because lunch tickets aren’t worth anything. I’d rather forgo lunch for some money.
John Corcoran: 04:04
So you’d sell them to other kids and then you would just not eat?
Tristan Bordallo: 04:08
Yeah. And then I. Yeah, it’s, you know, I could eat at home. Wow. That’s part of that’s the hustle.
Yeah.
John Corcoran: 04:16
And you also were reselling shoes.
Tristan Bordallo: 04:19
Yeah. So back in, in college, I used to back before the internet days and the long lines. I mean, I had friends that worked at Val Surf and we would get those Nike dunks. Yeah. Or like Jordans that they were sold at Sports Chalet.
I don’t know if I’m aging myself, but these are Val Surf.
John Corcoran: 04:38
So I also grew up in the San Fernando Valley, so I know these locations.
Tristan Bordallo: 04:41
Yeah. 118 board shop I had, you know, I had friends that who had worked at Val Surf. And so I knew all of the, the stores I’d go by the, the dunks from size eight to size like 11 and then sell them on eBay. And make 2X 3X. It was pretty cool.
John Corcoran: 04:59
Wow. Now you went to Cal State Northridge and you grow. You grew up in this area, I believe, right. Santa Clarita Valley area. This is just north of San Fernando Valley.
Were you there when the Northridge earthquake happened?
Tristan Bordallo: 05:13
Oh, yeah. It was. What was that, 1993 or the summer of 93 or 94?
John Corcoran: 05:18
Yeah.
Tristan Bordallo: 05:19
I think, you know, it was the summer of 1993. It was it was scary. Yeah, we were back. Back then we were. My mom had just moved us from Highland Park, and we were in an apartment that almost fell.
It was, you know, that earthquake was super strong. I remember it was knocking it, like, literally knocked me out of out of my bed. And the house that we had bought was a one story house that my mom bought. And she we were waiting for it to be built. So we were living in the apartment at the time, and it was hard for us to even get out of the apartment because we couldn’t even open the door.
Wow. And I remember the sliding doors all shattered. So that’s how we had to get out, because the building was, like, literally leaning. Remember the five freeway? I think the or the 14th.
It actually collapsed.
John Corcoran: 06:05
Yep. That’s right. So right near there, there was a big section of the freeway that collapsed like really high. I think a police officer died. Yeah.
Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.
Tristan Bordallo: 06:17
And the crazy thing is, my mom had always worked really hard, and she worked in downtown. And she would have like, they she she would rent a hotel room with her friends. And so she didn’t have to travel back and forth. So imagine three kids I was I was going into ninth grade. My brother was going into 10th, my sister was sixth grade and we were living all by ourselves in the earthquake happened.
Pretty. Pretty crazy.
John Corcoran: 06:41
So she wasn’t even she wasn’t there.
Tristan Bordallo: 06:43
Dude. Yeah, she wasn’t there. So we had to, you know, that’s why I guess we learned at a, you know, we grew up pretty fast.
John Corcoran: 06:52
I mean, that’s like beyond latchkey kid, right? Yeah, yeah.
Tristan Bordallo: 06:56
I think I’d be considered child abuse today.
John Corcoran: 06:59
Today. Right, right. I mean, but also just I mean, I guess one way of looking at it is you grew up fast. The other way is like, you’re just. Mom wasn’t around, so it’s like, that must have been really hard for you.
And and you’re in a new country, you know, you’ve been there. Well, I guess at that point you’d been there for, you know, a number of years, but still a difficult adjustment.
Tristan Bordallo: 07:17
It was always like that. We’re used to what my mom saying, okay, here’s $20. You guys stretch it out. Well, I’ll be back next week. Wow.
You know, I remember $40 was our grocery budget.
John Corcoran: 07:30
Wow.
Tristan Bordallo: 07:31
Yeah. So, yeah, that’s, you know, that’s what entrepreneurs do. We have a crappy life.
John Corcoran: 07:37
Well, a lot of times, you know, people get interested in sales because they want to put money in their pockets. Right. And so you got into selling Cutco knives and cell phones and bank accounts and you sold jeans. Is that how you got into, you know, sales and and working was just to because you wanted money?
Tristan Bordallo: 07:55
Yeah. I mean, sales was the easiest path. I wasn’t very academic or it didn’t interest me at all. My brother was different. He loved going to school.
My sister’s same thing. She’s a nurse practitioner and my brother is math whiz. And I was just a like, I just was bored, so I just, I thought, okay, I don’t have those skills. I’m not going to be able to get a job. I’m not going to be a doctor.
I’m not going to be a lawyer.
John Corcoran: 08:20
Yeah.
Tristan Bordallo: 08:21
So sales, sales was it for me. So yeah, I, I thought that was that was pretty good. I always made friends at school, so I thought it’d be easy to just connect with people.
John Corcoran: 08:30
And you also had what I thought was a pretty cool job. You were the photographer outside of Magic Mountain, which is an amusement park in Southern California. The guys who stopped people as you’re walking by and get a picture of that kind of thing, was there sales involved in that too, like trying to get people to trying to sell it? Or was it just take a snap, a photo real quick?
Tristan Bordallo: 08:48
Well, it was my first real job, that it was based on your your your what? Your outcome. And so it was it was commission based. So you’re everyone is there’s a there’s you know, if we’re if I didn’t know what KPIs were back then but the KPI was you had to six you had to shoot six films, six rolls of film. Because back then it was all film.
And imagine that like the you got.
John Corcoran: 09:16
24 or 36.
Tristan Bordallo: 09:18
You got to wind it.
John Corcoran: 09:19
Yeah. Okay.
Tristan Bordallo: 09:20
Yeah. So you you’d, I’d have blisters because after you did six, you’d get a dollar for each one after. So it was like, you know, it’s it’s basically commission right. Yeah. So yes.
Any chance I could shoot 25 or 30? I mean, back then even an extra $20 for the night made a big difference, right? And we knew we could hit those numbers Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Yeah. Or even Thursday nights.
Right. You can. Yeah. Because. Because back then Magic Mountain was open.
Like, yeah, from like 9 a.m. all the way till like it was tiring. It was a, it was because after that we’d have to we had to develop our film too.
John Corcoran: 09:56
And then we.
Tristan Bordallo: 09:57
Then we cut it out. Right. And then we get to sell it at the end. So it is.
John Corcoran: 10:02
It’s.
Tristan Bordallo: 10:03
A hustle. Yeah. It was, it was a hustle. And then you know, if you’re if you’re if you shoot the most roles. The owner of the company also did concerts.
And I remember I went to, you know, I couldn’t afford going to concerts. I went to a Janet Jackson concert and all I did was shoot. And, you know, you shoot before the concert and you get to watch the concert.
John Corcoran: 10:21
Take pictures of people walking in, like the same thing. Like then afterwards.
Tristan Bordallo: 10:24
They sell those. And then it was a company called Periscope.
John Corcoran: 10:28
Oh, wow. Cool business model. Yeah.
Tristan Bordallo: 10:30
Yeah it was. Yeah, it was pretty cool.
John Corcoran: 10:32
I wonder if those companies make if they’re more profitable or less profitable after the switch to digital, because one the one hand they save money on chemicals and development and stuff like that. But on the other hand there was something about when you went through one of those things and then you saw that glossy like printed out on paper on the wall, and it’s like, well, they’re just going to throw this out. I might as well buy it, you know? I’m curious about that.
Tristan Bordallo: 10:56
Well, no, I know. I think like every other business, you know, technology comes in and. Yeah. And they didn’t need us to probably shoot up. They just they could probably, you know, you could do more.
And who’s going to want to shoot film, right. Like we used to get rolls. Yeah. And that was, it was a I think that’s that’s what we were motivated to do. And now it’s like when you’re shooting, like you could shoot gazillions on one camera.
Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know what the what the KPIs would look like.
John Corcoran: 11:28
No it’s not.
Tristan Bordallo: 11:29
You weren’t you weren’t able to. The funny thing was you couldn’t you couldn’t take a picture while they were walking. He would know like, okay, that doesn’t count.
John Corcoran: 11:36
Yeah.
Tristan Bordallo: 11:37
You’d get so so you really had to sell them to stay still? Yeah. You can’t take pictures of trees or.
John Corcoran: 11:44
The ground or something.