Two years ago, we had trucks, frustration, and a half-built idea. We were running freight out of Dayton, using three different software systems that didn't talk to each other, paying a dispatcher who went offline every Friday at 5pm, and watching our ELD vendor raise prices while delivering a product that made our drivers' lives harder.
We had been in trucking since 2015. Our tech team had been building software since 1999. We looked at each other and said the obvious thing: why are we paying other people to solve problems we're more qualified to solve ourselves?
2024: Starting with nothing but a plan and our own trucks
ESSE INC was incorporated in 2024. The first thing we did was not write a business plan or pitch investors. We plugged our prototype ELD device into our own truck and drove it across Ohio to see what broke.
A lot broke.
The first version of ERETH ELD lost GPS lock on overpasses. The portal dashboard crashed when you tried to add a second stop. The AI dispatcher, in its first test call to a broker, quoted a rate of $1,937.42 — which is not a number any real dispatcher would ever say out loud. The broker paused for a very long second and said "...is that a real number?"
"We learned more in the first month of running our own trucks on our own software than we had in six months of development. Every bug report was personal — we were the ones sitting on the side of I-70 watching the dashboard show our truck in Memphis when it was clearly in Columbus."
What we actually shipped in 2025
By mid-2025 we had a working TMS. Not pretty. Not feature-complete. But working. Loads could be created, assigned to drivers, tracked in real time, and documented with digital rate confirmations. ERETH ELD was logging HOS correctly and passing FMCSA's technical specifications.
The AI dispatcher was a different story. Getting AI to negotiate freight rates naturally is harder than it sounds. The model knew the rules of negotiation but didn't know the culture of freight. Real dispatchers say things like "that's pretty light for this lane" and "what can you do to work with me here." The AI said things like "the proposed compensation is below current market benchmarks for this origin-destination pair." We rebuilt the conversation model four times.
2026: The year it started working at scale
By January 2026 we had 10+ carrier companies on the platform. Real carriers, running real loads, using ESSE every day. The feedback was immediate and specific: the Rate Con AI was the feature carriers loved most. Upload a broker PDF, load creates itself. Dispatchers were saving 2-3 hours per day just on data entry elimination.
The AI dispatch call center went live for external carriers in Q1 2026. Aida — our primary AI dispatcher — books loads after hours that our customers' human dispatchers would have missed. One carrier told us she went to sleep on a Friday with two empty trucks and woke up Saturday morning with both booked. "That has never happened before in 8 years," she said. That was the moment we knew the product was real.
Where the platform is today
As of April 2026, ESSE Portal includes: full TMS with load management and Rate Con AI, ERETH ELD with real-time telematics and DVIR, AI dispatch with 11 voice agents calling brokers 24/7, driver onboarding with e-signature and DQ file management, a live fleet map with ELD-synced GPS, and carrier vetting with FMCSA SAFER database integration.
None of this was on a roadmap two years ago. It was built in response to real problems on our own trucks and real feedback from carriers who trusted us early.
What we're building next
The honest answer is: a lot. The truck stop finder and GPS navigation to replace TruckerPath. Direct integration with DAT and Truckstop.com load boards. AI dashcam integration with ERETH ELD. Factoring partner integration. A shipper portal. Autonomous vehicle research on our own fleet that we expect to produce results by 2028-2030.
The less honest but more useful answer: we're building the features that our customers are asking for most loudly. Right now that's load board integration and better broker management. Those are next.
The thing we're most proud of
Every carrier that uses ESSE gets a platform that was tested on our own trucks before it was offered to them. We have skin in the game. When ERETH ELD has a compliance bug, we find it in our own operation before it affects yours. When the AI dispatcher makes a mistake negotiating, we catch it in our own bookings before it costs you a load.
That's the thing that's different about ESSE. We're not a software company that serves trucking. We're a trucking company that also writes software. The distinction matters.