Another On-Time Arrival

No.413

Matt Pyatt ARRIVE LOGISTICS

Three-year growth 1,107.1% | 2018 revenue $368.6M Austin | Founded in 2014

- Una Morera

The increasing primacy of e-commerce ensures that logistics and transport companies are well-represented on recent Inc. 500 lists. (Indeed, last year’s top 10 featured two firms that serve that space, including the No. 1 company, SwanLeap.) That opportunity has drawn lots of new businesses. So how can you succeed amid all that competition? Matt Pyatt, the co-founder of Arrive Logistics—which brokers vacant space in trucks for clients like Kraft and Pepsi—knows how his company cracked the 500 this year: It all comes down to the math.

I love numbers.

When I’m driving down the highway going 47 miles an hour, if the closest city is 57 miles away, I’m going to calculate exactly how long it will take to get there.

When you’re very numerical, you’re very logical. I’m not very emotional and that’s definitely one of my issues, especially in my relationships. People hate to hear statistics.

At 13, I played video games competitively—there were teams across the world that would play each other online. At that level, you need specialty machines to compete. That got me into building computers.

At 15, I was hired at Circuit City as seasonal help in the CD department. That Christmas, I was the number-one sales rep—in the computer department. I wasn’t supposed to be selling them, but the departments were connected, so I’d wander over.