Ep 527: Rig Hut - Truck Parking Management Software

Transcript

hey Welcome to The Hive with us podcast I'm your host Dan Martinez today we have a co-host Kyle Thompson and a special

guest Mr Jake

guso thanks guys nice to be here did I say that right you did goo most people

screw it up but you got it right the first time all right I also get the Jake from State Farm at least twice a day

okay okay so I laugh about names because my name is Daniel and it's a very popular name because it's a Bible name

and like I hate it so like there's a guy I work with his name is Daniel too I just call him by his last name because I'm like I hate saying my name so like

because I hear my name all the time so it's just like one of those things so Jake from State Farm or I hear the damn

Daniel I hear that one all the time and I'm just like all right so we here with Jake with State

Farm and uh can you give us like a 30 second elevator pitch then we're going to jump right into it just so people

know who you are and what you do yeah so I'm a I'm the co-founder and

currently the CEO of rig Hut which is a piece of property management software that's purpose built for semi- truck

parking applications so we help landlords automate and manage their inventory invoicing billing payments

Chapter 2: The Journey into Truck Parking.)

driver Communications things like that amazing I I wanted to have you on

because if you didn't know I was ex truck driver who's now I didn't know that so I wanted to have I wanted to

talk real estate and truck parking and the need for truck parking and all the good stuff but um I think I think it's

very I think it's very interesting uh the space we actually had an opportunity to turn some land into some truck

parking and then we ended up losing the deal but there's more deals out there so we're we're going to make it work either

way but um let's talk about like how did you get into truck parking as a real estate guy

because I know how I got into real estate like you kind of went backwards yeah

so I mean I've spent the entirety of my career in the real estate business right and that's kind of the lens from which I

view most opportunities the first the first opportunity that we saw in truck parking or that we identified and kind

of wanted to go after was buying building operating these truck parking

facilities from an actual you know ownership and management perspective down here in South Florida so if you

look at like South Florida from an aerial right on a map we've got the Everglades on the West Side we've got the Atlantic on the east side it's a

very it's very much a you know not in my backyard type of community there's very

little land that's appropriately zoned for truck parking and we started driving around looking at sites right and we saw

huge price dispari some guys were charging X some guys were charging 2x um

we just saw you know we thought we had an opportunity to to capture a lot of that market discrepancy so the first

thing we did was we spun up a management company right we were like hey let's go learn this business with boots on the ground management you know the hard way

so we started knocking on some trailer doors of of landlords down here in South Florida we got thrown out of a bunch of

them but we convinced one guy to give us a shot and basically what we told him was like We'll guarantee you more or

less your current Revenue so he was at somewhere in the neighborhood of like 450 bucks a month average rent and we

thought we could take him to like 500 or 525 I don't remember exactly what we pitched him and he bit right and we did

it and we thought we were going to lose a bunch of drivers in that first month because we basically gave them like seven days no and we said hey your rat's

going from this to that we thought a bunch of them were going to turn and they didn't you know to our surprise I

think we lost like three guys maybe four guys and we backfilled them in the same month so that guy was very happy we

built that you know kind of management gig where we were boots on the ground showing drivers were to park sending license agreements sending QuickBooks

invoices writing down what spot you're in in Excel and my co-founder Jose's got

a uh you know software technical background so we started building some systems behind that and it it evolved

into what righ Hut is today awesome awesome what year was that that was

20 end of 20 was when we started looking at it okay so 2021 is you're three years

in yeah now in commercial right

commercial yeah primarily retail down here in South Florida okay so three

years into this game how many of U things do you are managing for

you how many clients you kind of work with versus like how many spots that is because I know each each each thing's

gonna amount of truck spots so like how many how many how many you have like a what's your AUM now so we don't we don't

manage anything anymore I should clarify that we converted everybody to the software model but we've got 111 facilities uh how many 37

111 uh operating operating on the platform so most of the most of the customers I

get utility from righ Hut are are either portfolio operators or they've got like one fairly large facility I think our

small our smallest yard right now is 36 parking spaces or so but our average is probably over a 100 in terms of quantity

of spaces per facility um so we've been able to build some you know a good critical mass H we're happy with the

progress so far and we'll keep adding more 111 is amazing congratulations I want to say

that that that's that's no no small feet and I love the model because like I said it's there's such a need for it now I

want to hit on a tone where you said there's not much inventory for truck parking I want to kind of hit on that

tone because this is us as land people let's go down that path yeah so

um I know when I was in truck driving I lived in Atlanta and there was only one

yard that was within 30 minutes of me and it was $250 a month and it was

terrible but I had no choice and I had to pay

whatever it was and I had to go wherever I had to go because I had no other other opportunity I think this is where you

had the price discrepancy thing is there's no other choice to go if you want a permanent spot so what year was

that uh 2018 2018 so pre craze right like now it

seems everybody's you know kind of in the truck parking business or iOS launching a fund trying to buy them build them there's a lot more presents

but yeah that was I wasn't in the business back then but even from if you look at like 2020 or 2021 when we started looking at these

things to now like just go on Google and type truck parking there's at least 10 times more results than there was when

we first started now is there a saturation level you're reaching or is there still plenty of opportunity I

don't think so I mean everywhere everywhere where we have a

presence right we try to provide a really high degree of service to our customer which is the landlord right our

customer is the landlord not the driver but by association we provide a high degree of service to the driver because

if they call us we want to keep them happy we want to keep them in our customers's yard all that absolutely and

it it just so happens that we get some calls from drivers that are looking for space our number just gets sent around

these communities and our phone rings off the hook during the day with drivers looking for space I mean in pretty much

Chapter 3: Market Needs and Challenges.)

every Market I couldn't name one that I said that I could say you know this place is crickets what's do you know what your uh

occupancy rate is that you're stuff that you're managing on average I couldn't tell you

but take places like Miami and Broward County it's effectively 100% right like

there's some churn but they get back filled very fast yeah that's that's the thing about Trucking no matter this is

truck parking this is so crazy this I want to have this conversation if somebody left the yard somebody was

there taking that dude's spot like there was a weit list to get his spot yeah especially if you're well

located right or you need to be in a certain area absolutely so I think there's still a ton of opportunity ton

of opportunity I agree and this is from my six I'm down to real estate which and I just knew there was such a problem

with the the C the counties were very sparing giving out zoning for this and

there's just not much space for it in the right locations because they don't want Trucking in residential areas you

have to have some type of commercial zoning that you get a variance to get light industrial like there's this has

like its own specialty troubleshooting to solve the problem and there's just so much need for it it's everywhere it is

it's tough for sure well we've seen some municipalities Implement is you know if they're if they're vague in their zoning

code like it doesn't say you know truck parking is allowed in zonings x y and z a lot of people will try it and then

what we've seen municip municipalities come back and say is like okay you know we can't ban truck parking but what

they're trying to do is only allow it as an ancillary use to the primary business occupying a building for example which

doesn't really help right because no it doesn't help you're not providing any parking for the owner operator or the

small you know Regional local kind of guy that uh that doesn't occupy that

property already yeah it's it's so the the municipalities are they're they they fight it and then you have to go through

the the light it's like light industrial zoning is that everywhere if you know by chance if I were to give a blanket

statement I'd just say industrial industrial industrial zoning commercial typically doesn't work if you're backing

up to like even if you're industrially zoned or you think you can get it zoned industrial if you're backing up to a residential area it's tough but

Industrial in general yeah it's it's such a need and like I said I know I'm I know I'm gonna

I'm gonna get up I'm gonna create one eventually just because I come across so much land and it's gonna happen and I'm

gonna make it happen just for fun Just for kicks and Giggles because I'm I'm an ex truck driver so we're going to have a

conversation soon I don't know when but it's going to happen I already foresee it which is why we're having this conversation but I'm curious if you

could get something done outside of a municipality right like I'm not this going to sound like an ignorant

statement but aren't there certain municipalities in Texas where they're more Loosey Goosey as to what you can do and get approved so this is this is a

great question and I'm gonna answer it so you have you have What's called the etj which is your uh jurisdiction I

forget I always forget the first word but it's your jurisdiction your city jurisdiction you can be with within the

jurisdiction or outside the jurisdiction so like main main markets like Atlanta Texas whatever you're going to have

every everything in a populated area is going to have its own etj and their ejs are going to rub up against each other

but once you hit like ra you're outside the etj you probably don't have have to

fall under that certain parameter you can kind of do whatever you want but it's something it's probably G have to be outside the atj and hopefully get

grandfathered in and they bring you in you don't have to sure whenever the city expands into your area you don't have to

deal with it go a new law um where for the most part you can get removed from

any city etj um there's there's a couple rules but they've definitely gotten

super loose on it because counties are very very more favorable in regards to approving stuff and obviously in the

more rural parts they're promoting you know development and stuff like that so that's why we're working on one right now it's an entitlement we're going to

be removed from the city etj of city of San Antonio because we want to go County because we know they're going to be more

loose and uh you know they're not going to be as stricted when it comes to potential

development got it yeah so my advice is anybody listen to this that wants to get in the truck parking I would find

something outside the etj yeah whatever local etj municipality you're in of the

city or something wherever your nearest city is and you you have some like sub cities too so you got to make sure

you're not a part of any etj that's going to be the trick so um

that's you guys are looking at rural pieces all the time right I know we're answering the questions but tell me a

little bit about what you guys do that's all we do is stuff outside the etj in most cases um we're usually doing with

rural vacant uh large land and uh I have that Jesse's deal might be a good deal

we can lease if we sell it to him that is true that it's a little good little spot that's like expanding that

way so I have a deal right now that could be potentially truck parking it's 50 acres of commercial between Houston

and San Antonio off that little corridor and it's probably an hour outside I just met a guy that that has a

yard there he runs it as an RV storage facility and he's interested in converting a pad I think he's got like a

one or two acre out parcel that he wanted to do like overnight parking on um I could connect you to I don't know

if you think that would be helpful hey let's do it I'm I'm always on for connections so let's talk let's talk about revenues because I know you're

you're kind of on the software side but you know this stuff because you manage it so what's the max you seen for a

truck parking and what's the minimum you seen because I when I was paying it was

150 minimum is free right there's some there's some guys that'll let you park for free MAX what do they what do they

sell you nothing is for free you got to use their truck you got to use their mechanic or something I have no idea but

there's some guys that give it away for free you can even still get free parking at some of the major truck stops right like what we're seeing now is say a

truck stop truck Stop's got 30 spaces they'll make 10 paid 20 unpaid most

expensive so let me start with this most expensive on our platform is North New Jersey $850 a month right outside Port

nework we've seen some yards quoting ,00 bucks a month this was like Peak

pandemic over in outside of uh Port Long Beach but I I don't know whether they

were actually achieving those rates or not most expensive rate that I can verify is 850 bucks a month Port nework

that is crazy and cheap would be free so that's you brought up you brought up a really good point so truck stops do have

free parking and since as that paid prer spots whatever are you working with truck stops themselves as well not yet

there's actually good timing because there's been a big debate in my like Twitter sphere today I don't know if you

guys have seen that but there's a bit of an uproar in the driver Community today

about about paid parking and whether it should be paid or unpaid and it's kind of you know I think paid parking is

what's driving development for for these sites right and ultimately that's alleviating the supply demand imbalance

so I I have an opinion about this because I was a truck driver so this is my sense and I did not see the debate I

try and avoid like Trucking topics as a whole so when I came across you I was like okay this is a little bit real

estate I can kind of blur the lines a little bit sure but I try to avoid Trucking comp Trucking like Twitter

feeds Tik toks because once I start getting it it starts coming in and I'm just like I'm I avoided this for a

Chapter 4: Rig Hut’s Innovative Solutions.)

reason it can be a little combative the the trucking the trucking space is very

abrasive very abrasive and you dealing with truck drivers is probably the worst part of your

job look we it's honestly not because we just try to be you know this my theory

with everything just be a normal be a normal person man let's have a convers if there's an issue like we'll relay it we'll try to work something out you know

we like I said in the beginning we try to Pro like provide a really high degree of service to the drivers by association

to the landlord so we want to keep them in the yard I got you okay so here's my here's my two cents on paid part paring

cuz I've done both I've had to pay for parking and I hate I I always tried not to pay when I was driving so if you're a

local driver I 100% agree you should have a local parking spot especially if you have the truck if you're owner

operator you need to find your own truck parking spot and I think that 100% should be paid now truck

stops in major metros it's Hit or Miss because I think they should provide free

parking because parking is such a major issue there and if they're providing gas and other services I think they make money in other ways just by providing

main basic services like because this is the whole QT model and and whatever they

provide food uh entertainment um AC showers all these

things amenities and they got free parking so I like that model better but if they're not providing amenities or

anything like that I don't know I you it's it's Hit or Miss but I I ha I hated

doing I hated paying parking I never paid for parking I would I was that truck driver that I was cheap cuz I was

an owner operator so I was like I every dollar every dollar spent was money from my bottom line so I I used to Park Drive

pull over I'd be the dude parked under under on the on the ramp right on the ramp that was me because I was I was I

was cheap so I think that's just cost benefit analysis right if you in your case I think the answer was

no but you know would most people be willing to pay 20 25 bucks 30 bucks if you're in a major your MSA to know that

you have a space in a safe place where you can get diesel you can go inside have a meal like I think they would and

like I said the the revenue is what's driving the development of truck parking so if you really want to make an impact

right there's got to be there has to be some incentive for the guys that are going to put up the risk and spend their

time building them I agree I my my whole thing with Trucking this is why I got out of the business is I got I got

cleaned out by Trucking that's why honest honest to God why I left Trucking cleaned me out because the rates and pay

wasn't there to even support like it's it's a tough business like Trucking is a

tough business right in general so I think I think it was it made it harder for me to pay for parking to even

justify paying for it no matter what it came with because I had a bottom line of taking care of my family 100% I was was

I put myself I put myself in in the bottom line over everything else you

know right so now you're buying ranches so it turned out okay it turned out okay for me but I I still think about the my

my my past driver because I had I had like 10 drivers at one point when I was running the business so I still think I

had to put myself in their position when I was there and like sometimes I had to buy hotels and sometimes you pay for

parking sometimes you pay tolls and you have to kind of take on that part of the business just because it was part of the business I think it's just got to become

this is my opinion obviously but I think it's just got to become normalized it's got to be blended into the rates right I

agree you guys need to be charging enough to to pay for parking yeah I agree and that's that's where I'm

at I I if we got better rates and this is why we I'm not even in the business anymore if they got better

rates I think it it be it's okay and it's Justified and I think it would bring more it would fed it would feed

the ecosystem better because what's the the you have the regular individuals like oh there's trucks everywhere

they're parking everywhere and I'm like be put yourself in their shoes they have

no choice not only put yourself in their shoes but like you want your you know

Bark Box delivered next day for for your puppy like you need the trucks yeah you

need you want the goods and services overnight you gota you gotta pay in some way in some inconvenience and it is what

it is Kyle you have a question because I've been talking for the last 10 minutes good I just wanted to ask Jake

how did you transition from doing retail like commercial retail to getting into

Trucking like what was that transition like yeah I mean I've always kind of been like it's gonna sound cliche but in

my mind my mind is very entrepreneurial right so I'm always I'm always kind of looking at different opportunities I

started my first like little business before I could drive I was cleaning boats we built a business in college

so real estate's always been like been a passion for me I really enjoy that business I like anything to do with real

estate I like you know bunch of different facets that I won't go down but I was in the world of real estate

right and I was kind of presented with a bunch of different opportunities some of them I took some of them I didn't I'll say truck parking was

first opportunity ever that was presented to me and I said wow this could be enormous and I just jump ship

and pursued it that's awesome man that's that's the same same way I felt with L moving from

I think what you guys do is super interesting I don't really understand all the complexities of it but that's

that's what I was asking earlier can you explain to me your business model other than like you know buy by the bottle sell by the shot give me a little more

meat than that uh I do that but I provide financing

okay so you're a credit card company too well so think think of like the used car market the use car market they turn

inventory because it's it's no one can really afford it at that price point but we're dealing with higher price

valuation so like we're the used car market of land so buy seller finance

because think about this you get 100 acres 10,000 acre it's a million dollars how many people can AFF a million dollar

piece of land few there's there's few but very few people but if you cut it

down into 10 10 acre tracks and sell it for 20 grand down you're you're getting seller

financing on the buy and then you're seller financing the exit as well is that correct we do sometimes cash

sometimes both but sometimes when you when you buy by the buy by the gallon and sell by the shot you create an

Arbitrage of pricing right so you can afford to do that and then we sell we do

part of the note game so we create debt and sell debt got it but how does your seller get made whole right I assume if

he's seller financing your purchase there's some sort of like do on sale clause or well sometimes we have to sell

the notes to pay off the seller got it got it got it or cash sales we because like our our whole business model we

looking for 2x playay so if we're buying that 100 Acre Farm for 10,000 acres a million dollars we're looking at a

projected exit of two so we only need to sell five ranches to cover the purchase price and the rest is profit so if I can

sell five of those uh seller finance I'm GNA have to Discount the paper to sell them but

still have I still have Equity to play with and who in that example who's like your typical buyer on the 10 acre piece

is it like a primary residence um it's everybody it's investors it's buying holders it's uh people that are looking

to build truck parking it's people that are looking to sit on it for 10 years and just land bank it and anyone anyone

that's just buying land custom home builder it could be literally anyone just something random it doesn't matter

there's a buy there's buyers everywhere um I I heard someone say this they're they're putting ads out they're doing uh

what we're doing in Colorado and they're putting ads in like Kansas City and there's people moving

from Kansas City to Colorado just to get a piece of 10 like 10 acres to put a house on I'm like there's buyers

everywhere for it and and that's what we love about it it's like everyone there's like a cultural almost like a cultural

shift happening where like people kind of want some more land want to kind of relax from that City lifestyle and seems

to be that shi well that's why I ask hunting too

hunting I've seen that shift too right like my generation I'm 28 I grew up in

Miami a lot of my peers have left right because they're priced out or you know

they want to go live in more of a rural setting right and then if you look at my parents generation so my dad my dad is

60 right so that generation they're also moving out because they want a slower you know pace of life so if you if you

look at the Press it's always like oh Florida you know tremendous net migration blah blah blah number one state number two State Us in Texas

always but if you look at Miami Dade right which is us and Monroe County which is the keys it's one of the

highest net migration losses in the country right and that's a combination of people

being priced out right and looking for more of a of a rural setting my thing is fishing and hunting

so you know know working is a means to an end for me I enjoy what I do I love it but I do also you know I'm part of

that group that would move to more of a rural setting but I was just curious so would you say like would you

say more or less than half of your end buyers are users or some sort of

investor or like recreational property I'd say it's 50/50 50

recreational and 50 investor type holder Builder ad value at person got it 50

but yeah it's Hit or Miss but everybody's everybody wants land but land's getting more expensive so they're

trying to control whatever they can afford so you guys have to give them utilities like in that same scenario 100

Acre you divy it up into 10 10 do you guys have to feed each of those properties of Power Water Sewer Septic

it depend septic can fit on anything over 3/4 Acres so we never even talk about sewer or septic because every lot

can have septic uh water most the time we're we research it to if somebody

wants it we already know who to call whether it's they need a drill a well or if you need to connect to the

waterline we it depends on the deal but some cases you know we we'll pay for the water study and application and get

their Taps for them because typically sells better too when you're like hey we got a meter for you set up you know we

got electric for you set up you know you want to come on come in and dump a mobile home or come and build your custom home like it's ready and a lot of

times it can move quicker that way how fast do you guys typically close on your exit like to the end user um our

projects are usually like we do we have some quick deals that move quick but

most of our stuff's like three to nine months got it that's not that slow you

see some you see some stuff down here that takes years you know 12 18 months it it depends what the it depends what

the strategy is so some lot we flip so we buy low sell High We value ad that

might be subdividing we buy big and create more inventory or we'll um

entitle entitles us our last bucket which we try not to do we're trying to like do more of that quick stuff and

then we'll do like an entitlement deal every once in a while so we have like 100 180 lot housing community we're

working on we have another one that could be like 400 Lots how big is your deal the one you got that could be like

400 LS right if you can get a sewer access we could probably do about 400 homes and it's less acre than the other

one he was just talking about too just because you got higher density and we access to sewer so and that one we are

in the TJ so we're kind of breaking our stuff but our most our bread and butter is stuff outside County stuff stuff

outside the city in the in the path of progress that people are looking to and we don't we don't mess with like desert

or the middle of nowhere properties we like we like buying just outside of the city so we think of like on the edges

the edges we're we're we're feeding we we get a lot of inventory the edges that's you keep any of

them we have it's a turn it's a turn process man we have we own like 400 Acres right now

but we're selling them sure it's a you own it you sell it you own it you sell it you own it you sell or Finance it

sure like I I one of my things is I'd rather own payments on dirt than the actual

dirt I'd agree with that I get paid I get paid to hold it so sure wh why why why why hold it and get

paid to do it so interesting business it's a very interesting business we

we're Wheeling dealing and we're just moving but it's it's a fun business but we have fun how'd you go from Trucking

to that was there a Gap in between there somewhere I no I fell into it it was it was a straight pivot from Trucking I was

I was going down the trucking route I literally ran it to the ground just because if I if I didn't I wouldn't like

I didn't go all in you know I'm all in just like you're all in in rig Hut I'm all in I went all into right into the

ground and then I was looking like okay when my when I hit when I started hitting the brakes I was like okay I got to find something to Pivot into and I

heard about real estate and kind of went down that and I'm in real estate well good for you it takes tones oh yeah it

definitely does definitely does but it was it was it was a fun journey and I I think it's uh I I'm always looking back

at like truck drivers that they can really do whatever they want they just don't know what abil what what they

don't have a future set for themselves besides truing sure most people see themselves doing that forever but um I

was looking for a quick exit but beyond the point I always like I always know the need for truck parking just because

I went through it and it's it's a painful it's painful when you're in it so let's talk about your products and

services what you're doing for the driver landlord um and what kind of

includes with your software just kind of help me better understand yeah so rig

Hut at its sort of basic form is is just a software right so landlords get access to a portal with a dashboard where we

populate kpis that are automatically updated based on platform activity you know occupancy vacancy Revenue metrics

things like that um we automate the inventory management process right so what that means is instead of a driver

coming in and asking you for parking and then you quote them a price you show them where to park or give them a space

number our system does all of that right so as long as we have 100% of the Yards capacity up front the entire parking

spot assignment and vacancy process is automated right so if you come in and you create a request for Five Truck and

Trailer spaces right our system will check that landlord's inventory if it's available we assign the spaces based on chronological order and we give them

access instructions however the landlord you know decides to give them access and

terms of billing and payments most of the C most of our customers use the autopay feature right so they require

most drivers to go on autopay for monthly parking we do give land landlord is the ability to accept what we call

offline payments if you've got a you know large customer that's going to send you a wire a transfer you can still put

that customer into the rig Hut system manage that relationship from there and record the payments offline it's got

built-in reporting for revenues and accounts receiv receivable you know think of you know any property management software that you would use

it's just purpose bill for truck parking so it's got some unique things where you can relocate parking spaces with a

couple clicks you can change rates with a couple clicks change quantities a we accommodate daily reservations obviously

so short-term nature stuff that's cool yeah that's huge that's cool and then on

top of that so the software is kind of like the base package right we're rolling out our AGS automated gate

system this month so we'll be able to Grant drivers access to facilities that participate in our AGS program without

getting out of the truck they'll be able to open the gate from their phone um so that's Tech and then on top

of that if if a landlord wants a an additional level of service right like some guys sign up with this that have

Chapter 5: Future Outlook and Final Thoughts.)

either many facilities you know more than six or they've got one really large yard is they'll sign up for our

receivable service which is basically we leverage our existing customer support team to act as a landlord's receivables

agent so once they get past once a driver gets past the grace period if there's a payment failure we're the you

know our team is the the one responsible for for calling those drivers and and

figuring out how to get them paid up wow so you are you it's Property

Management it's asset management at this point that's that's pretty cool sort of someone else the other day called it

Remote Management which I guess you could say it it might be if you're if

you're engaged in the receivables component of the business but a lot of it's automated right I mean if you sign

up on the platform and you run you're operating a facility you're not really looking at it all that much you're

looking at the beginning and the end of the month and the middle of the month you're not really doing too much are you

the only one in the marketplace that's doing this right now no well there's a lot of guys doing the truck parking

Marketplace thing right like the facilitating driver to space transaction

we don't play in that space like it comes as part of rup but that's not the core functionality truck parking Club

does a great job with that stuff I don't know if you've talked to those guys but they're you know good marketers and they

seem to drive a lot of traffic to landlords and then you know there's some other guys in the marketplace game there's only one other guy that I know

of that's building parking management software for semi-trucks

um I've never I've never met him I don't really know anyone that uses it so far but that's the only one that we've

encountered that's it's amazing I think you're you're very early on in a market you can definitely control the market share I think you've had huge success

very quickly off of that just because you're the first to Market um not quickly but thank you no no no I

mean it it's still it's very commendable are how are you protecting yourself on the copycat like trademark people are

going to copy us I know that we actually had a guy the only time I've ever you

know been upset at something like this because look my theory with this is and

I tell some guys that are thinking about launching startups that are worried about the copycat thing is ideas are a

dime a dozen right the execution is really what's going to separate you so I I I almost dare anyone to you know try

to replicate this to the degree that we have and and the relationships that we have are are so ingrained at this point

that it would be very hard but I do have a problem with someone that you know

pretended to be a prospect of ours and we did a demo and we sent him a recording and then we later found out

that he was trying to launch a competitor like that's the only thing that I have an issue with but other than that I mean good luck so I have I have

the same with what we do because we what we do is very like people do what we do but they don't do it do it what we do

right like it sounds great yeah I buy land 100 acres I split it up and I sell 10 10 10 acre pieces sounds really easy

I would say the same thing good luck good good luck copying it yeah I I definitely have that same I

have that same thought process but it's it's really cool I I love I love the I love the the mindset about it because

there's definitely you definitely have a a great idea and I think it's it's very

needed in the marketplace as a whole have you thought about adding like uh in like I think you said Marketplace

Marketplace feature where you get referrals or um inbound leads to help your landlords even more because if you

have overnight parking in 111 locations now you have your own you're building your own little mesh network of

essentially overnight parking yourself we're trying to do one thing really well

so I'd rather be the number one truck parking management software provider then be you know two or three at a

couple of different things so I see a world in the future where you know platforms like ours and the inevitable

competitors that will come out I they will come out and I think it's good for the industry oh yeah where where those

like PM Systems can kind of sit as like a middle layer and use all the other marketplaces to drive traffic right

because if you look at any other traditional real estate asset class it's like if you have a vacancy that thing's

on multiple marketplaces because you want to get as many eyeballs on that property as you possibly can but when

you're managing that property with the vacancy you're doing it with a completely separate platform right you're doing that with a yardi a

buildium an AppFolio kind of software and that's that's what we are I Goa no

it's really it's really cool you got another question Kyle I've been taking on this this whole conversation you're

good no it's a lot of value what were what were some of the struggles that you kind of encountered when you guys first

started the software like

gonna pull a list no just some of like just just

outlining a few like major ones that come to your mind quickly just just as a software

company I mean the the changes evolve right so when we first when we first made the true pivot to software it was

it was really hard to find these facilities at the scale you need to sell

an affordable product right like our product starts at 49 a month you've got to sell a lot of licenses to make money

right sell a lot of licenses you got to get in front of a lot of people it's very hard to get in front of a lot of people in truck parking especially three

years ago um so I I would say that was probably our original biggest challenge

and the way we solve that was one cold calling obviously but it wasn't how it is today where it's a little more

standardized we would literally fly around on Google Maps and get on street view and see if there was a phone number and if there was no phone number we'd

call the neighbor and see if the neighbor had a phone number and if anyone told us they were willing to meet with us anywhere in the country we were

on a plane the next day to go and meet with them Inc um that was kind of the first Challenge and then as the

technology evolves right like I'm non technical I told you I spent my whole career in the real estate business so

there's there was definitely a learning curve there in terms of archite architecture and the priority in which

we should build products so it's always going to have challenges right they're unique and interesting and it's part of the fun but those are you know two that

I would highlight have you uh have you bootstrapped this or did you take outside funding we bootstrapped it

originally which kind of got us off the ground we partnered with uh some guys out in New York who have been incredible

partners for us the company name is RIS Ventures uh rist with a z a they operate

in kind of two different um playgrounds one is real estate one is technology in

their in one of their real estate businesses they built a like secondary and tertiary Market self- storage owner

operator and they kind of pioneered the unmanned Self Storage model so they don't they don't have full-time staff at

any of their locations they have some Rovers and then they built technology to automate the rest of the process amazing

so you're hand in hand right there yeah so we we felt that was a really you know appropriate fit and that's the direction

that we see truck parking going so that's been a great great relationship that's huge that's that's a really

strategic partnership for sure yeah that's cool yeah the the automated

automated technology space I see it's it's a very telling you Trucking needed it let me tell you this my truck parking

when I was doing it if I got there after business hours I had to unlock the chain

roll in yeah lock the chain there's still some yards like that there's a yard like that that one of our customers

has in uh where is this one in Broward still manual gate uh it's not a chain

lock it's like a the ones that are like a stretchy kind of I don't know cord

cable with a combo lock sorry combo lock on the end oh man it's a it's a it's it

was such a pain I hated going like I literally hated this is why I don't talk about Trucking like I have like a bad

taste in my mouth PTSD I got PTSD from Trucking but I

think I think it's funny I think we're gonna end it here this is oh what is a quote that is yours

or somebody else's that you resonate with quote yes curveball the only time

success comes before work is in the dictionary oh I don't know who said that

but I've had that quote my whole life in my head there you go there you go that's good where can people find you online I

got the righ hut.com and you are rig Hut Trucking on Twitter and uh where can we

F funny online online and Twitter I mean if you want to email us it's info theer

hut.com but find us on Twitter it's truckpark king or call me I mean my C's everywhere

all right don't call him delete his number in like a

year he's gonna delete his number for everybody here thanks for coming in thank you Jake for coming on Kyle coming

on for everybody here go like share subscribe you know what to do we'll see you the next episode this has been a blast thanks guys uh if you like this

video go like subscribe and please follow us for more informational content [Music]

English (auto-generated)

Ep 527: Rig Hut - Truck Parking Management Software

Daniel Esteban Martinez

Anthony Gaona