May 27, 2025 • 39 mins
Finding a safe place to park is just one of the many challenges facing truck drivers. There’s just one space for every 11 trucks, according to the American Trucking Associations, which estimates drivers spend 56 minutes looking for available parking, amounting to about $5,500 in lost compensation. In this episode of Talking Transports, Evan Shelley, co-founder and CEO of Truck Parking Club, joins Bloomberg Intelligence’s senior transportation and logistics analyst, Lee Klaskow, to share how his company is tackling the problem, which also poses a safety risk to the driving public. Shelley discusses building scale and explains how his real estate experience led him to the trucking industry.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hi everyone, this is Lee Claskalwar We're Talking Transports. Welcome
to Bloomberg Intelligence Talking Transports podcast. I'm your host, Lee Klaskow,
Senior Freight transportation and Logistics analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, Bloomberg's
in house research arm of almost five hundred analysts and
strategists around the globe. Before diving in a little public
service announcement, your support is instrumental to keep bring a
(00:28):
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do your support, So please, if you enjoy this podcast,
share it, like it, and leave a comment.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Also, if you have any.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Ideas for future episodes or just want to talk transports,
please hit me up on the Bloomberg terminal, on LinkedIn
or on Twitter at Logistics Lee.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Now on to our episode.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
We're delighted to have Evan Shelley, the co founder and
CEO of The Truck Parking Club, as our guest on
today's podcast. The Truck Parking Club was founded in twenty
twenty two and provides parking for by monetizing vacant properties
for landowners. Evan is a truck parking expert with a
deep knowledge of the business. Using his experience in truck
(01:09):
parking and real estate. He's working to help solve the
truck parking shortage and bring awareness to the issue. So
welcome to the Talking Transport podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Evan, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So, you know, people might not realize that trucking for
versus should I say parking for truckers is not an
easy thing.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Can you talk about the shortage that's out there?
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Yeah, so there's one space for every eleven trucks. That's
an ATA American Trucking Association stat And the average driver
spends fifty six minutes a day driving around looking for parking.
And when you think about that across you know, three
or four million drivers, that's billions of dollars of inefficiencies
that are created and also stressed that's created for drivers.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Right, And so it's not only it's a it's an
issue obviously, and it's an issue that Washington's trying to tackle.
Could you you know you're coming joining us live here
in New York and you're from a trip based in DC.
Could you talk about what's going on in Washington and
what I guess senators and legislators are trying to do
to tackle the problem.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
So we actively participate in Days on the Hill with
various associations because of the truck parking issue. We're in
full support of taxpayer funded public parking because we believe
there's hundreds of thousands of spaces needed and there's a
billion or so in taxpayer funding, which is about ten
thousand spaces, and we think every little bit is going
(02:35):
to help with the issue. And at the end of
the day, we're in support of the broader issue. But
was at Capitol Hill yesterday and got to meet with
Mike Boss, Congressman Mike Boss, representative that sponsors the Truck
Parking Safety Improvement Act, which is pushing for hundreds of
millions of dollars in funding across all the states.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So I guess what kind of what's the genesis of
the Truck Parking Club?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Like, how did you come up with the idea?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I'm assuming you're not a truck driver by trade, but
I know you were in logistics in your past life,
So could you talk about, you know, how you came
up with the idea of the Truck Parking Club.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, so I was really focused on real estate.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
I went to school for some engineering, then went out
and started doing general contracting, then site development, which led
me into getting into I'd always been interested in houses
and flipping houses, and I did that, and then I
started doing large scale land deals, and through doing those deals,
I came across an industrial a property that was zoned
industrial that I put under contract that I was interested
(03:42):
in doing a warehouse on. Ultimately, the site layout would
and work for a warehouse, so I started looking at
other ways to use the property because I had a decent.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Amount of capital invested in it.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
And I started talking with brokers and other investors and
just trying to figure out what to do with it,
and everyone I just kept here truck parking over and over.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
This is twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
One, and you know the common what I would hear
is there needs to be more of it that ultimately
it's hard to build.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
More of it.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
And I thought, I came across this great parcel and
I was I was smarter than everyone else, right, So
I go to the municipality and I say, I want
to do truck parking here, and they go, well, even
though it's non industrial, you're not going to get support
from us, and we don't think you'll get support from
any of the surrounding parcels.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
And it was then that the light bulb went off
on what is actually going on here?
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Because I thought, you know, I was pretty good at
entitlements and getting property zoned properly, and I just got
I got shut down quite quickly. But then everyone's saying
it's a good investment. So it's like a classic supply
demand and balance, right, you don't have enough supply. The
demand is there continues to grow and it's really hard
to create more supply. So me being a real estate guy,
(04:58):
you know, I thought I was just going to be
smarter and go figure it out and buy and build
a bunch of truck parking. But ultimately, in twenty twenty
one into twenty twenty two, the numbers really didn't make sense.
Real estate was high. You know, we were in a
low interest rate time at the time, so real estate
was quite expensive. So ROI didn't make sense. So I
(05:19):
actually I raised some capital but never deployed any of it, fortunately,
and then started looking at other ways to be a
part of the solution to the issue. And I came
across marketplaces, and when I came across marketplaces, I'm like,
I think this could make a lot of sense for
being a part of the solution to this issue by
leveraging existing space. So we go into trucking companies, tow
(05:41):
truck companies, truck repair shops, warehouses, truck stops, any space
that's suitable for parking that they have extra parking, we
monetize it for them, and ultimately we've been able to
create tens of thousands of spaces through that model.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
And can you talk a little bit about the economics
for the landowner, like how does it work, because it's
like an Airbnb for truck parking, right?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Is that fair to say?
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Yeah, it's very similar, So very similar to an Airbnb
for truck parking. We take a cut of every booking.
The property owner gets the majority of every booking. Typically
you're going to see a seventy thirty split something around.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
There, gotcha, and not many you know people listening to this,
why not realize? So when you when you're providing the
trucking parking.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Space, what is it? Is it just asphalt? Is there
a hook up? Like? What what is available?
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Are there facilities or is there a bathroom or a shower?
Like what's available to the truck driver?
Speaker 4 (06:35):
So we have one ninety two locations as of today,
and I can tell you every single location is unique,
right between the access points, between the pavement that's at
the property, between the level of security at the property, amenities.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Does it have.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Restrooms, does it have showers? We have some locations that
have free showers, some locations that have paid showers, some
locations that have no showers. You see a little bit
of everything. It's very AIRBNBESQ where every location is unique.
I think what we do is make sure that the
driver can can access to property easily, get safely parked
at the property, and exit the property. And that's the
(07:14):
minimum standard. And then from there, you know, the more
amenities you provide, the more you could make on the property.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
And if a property owner wants to sign up, do
you guys go on site to check it out or like,
how do you vet the properties?
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Yeah, so we have a very extensive vetting process that
we've created over vetting thousands, maybe tens of thousands of properties.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
At this point.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
It's proprietary, of course, but we know what we need
to look for at every single property and technology these
days you don't actually have to go on site. But
with that being said, we do have crews that are
all the time on the road going to each and
every site, vetting them, putting up free signage, doing drone
photos and aerials, making content at the sites, meeting with
(07:57):
the property. We call them property members, doing all the things.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
We need to do.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Although we are a tech company, we still are boots
on the ground, right.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
So are you guys talk a little bit about it.
I guess your ownership are you like VC funded or
are you self funded or private equity owned? What's what's
the ownership of the company.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Yeah, so at this point, I'm the majority owner of
the company. We have raised around eight million dollars to date,
all through private capital. We have not went out and
raised anything from vcs at this point. Although we've talked
with vcs, we have not raised anything from vcs at
this point. We just go to very successful founders and
(08:38):
raised capital from them and that's that's been the right
route for us so far.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And can you talk about the scaling because you know,
as I mentioned earlier, you were founded in twenty twenty
two and I think you said you have just under
two thousand properties, So how fast are you growing? What's
the right growth rate? Where how many properties.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Is like scale.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
We add eight to ten properties per day right now.
We believe we can get much much higher than that.
We have an amazing chief sales officer that's built out
our property team. We call them on boarding specialists, and
there's a lot of things that goes into this, actually
vetting the properties and making sure that trucker members that
book there have a great experience. But have an amazing
(09:22):
chief sales officer, Chris that is growing out that team,
and we expect to be at ten thousand locations in
the next twenty months.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Twenty months and thousand. Wow, and how many? I guess
how many truckers do you have?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Like on your app?
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Do you track it by the number of I guess
log in and IDs?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
And I guess with that?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
What is your who is your typical customer? Is it
the owner operator? Or is it the super large fleet
or everything in between? Where do you Is there a
sweet spot for you guys?
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Yeah, So we don't give away exact numbers, but I
can say we have tens of thousands of drivers actively
finding and reserving parking on our app. We're not to
hundreds of thousands of yet, but we have hundreds of
thousands of pieces of equipment that have been booked on
our app.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
At this point, it's made up.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Of Actually it stays at about a fifty to fifty
split between owner operators and company drivers. It's been consistently
that where owner operators love using US to be more
productive with their lanes and running new lanes because we
have capacity parking capacity in places that they normally wouldn't go.
So we see that a lot, and we also see
(10:32):
that carriers are adopting paying for parking for their drivers.
More that, we have a very easy to use app
accounting reporting structure, user sub user structure that makes it
very easy for carriers to use US now and make
their drivers raise retention, make them more productive, lower stress.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
On a daily basis.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
So we see about a fifty to fifty split.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So the large publicly traded companies are users of of the.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Platform sixty the top one hundred carriers have used US
to date, but their drivers have used US and typically
hundreds of their drivers have used US at each of
the each of the companies.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Besides scale, what else can you guys do to make
the platform more inviting to whether it's property owners or
the drivers out there.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yeah, I think scale really leads.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
It is the biggest driving factor because the more locations
you have, the more options you have, the more productive
you can be, the less stress a driver has, the
easier it is for them to find parking on a
daily basis. But also I think, you know, we're kind
of naturally going into building out a bunch of enterprise
tools that these large carriers want, and I think that
(11:45):
will be part.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Of it as well. But and just continuing to make the.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Product easier to use, which we fortunately get a lot
of compliments on how easy the app is. But I
would say scale, I know you didn't on that answer,
but that is internally, that is what we talk about
a lot, because it really is, you know, having open
capacity for a driver. Our goal is to have to
(12:12):
always have a location within ten minutes of a driver.
Right now, they spend fifty six minutes driving around looking
for parking. Staff in office staff spend hours a day
looking for parking for their drivers, you know, fleet managers, dispatchers.
We're trying to get all them down to ten minutes
or less. And we're seeing results like that now with
carriers and drivers.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And when you're adding these these eight to ten new
properties a day. Is most of the editions property owners
coming to you. Are you guys going out and trying
to find these properties?
Speaker 4 (12:44):
It's all inbound. Yeah, we have no outbound sales motion
at the moment.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Now.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
We do go to truck shows, we go to events
and things of that nature, but we have no salesperson
that's sitting on a phone outbound calling. We're just very
active on social media, where it kind of.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Where certainly are.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Yeah, we're very active in the industry in general and
just getting our brand out there and making sure that
we deliver great experiences and word of mouth growing that way,
and that's served us quite well.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I think I came across you guys about a year
ago at some sort of trade show and I was like, oh,
this is a pretty cool, pretty cool idea. I'm glad
to have you on the podcast. Could you talk a
little bit about you know, I know what a hotel
costs in New York, but like what is a parking
spot cost. I'm sure it depends on the amenities and
the location, but like just generally speaking, yeah, it varies
(13:35):
very widely by market, but across the entire platform.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
If we're speaking on daily it's about twenty dollars. Across
all the bookings we've ever had, it sits at about twenty.
But you can get into you know, Newark or southern California,
Long Beach, and you're looking at anywhere fifty.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
To one hundred dollars a day.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
But when you consider maybe that driver had to drive
an hour out of his way if he didn't want
to park, you know, in New York or in Long Beach,
he had to drive out to Ontario or city of Industry.
That costs a lot of money to do that, and
it's actually makes sense to pay, you know, fifty hundred
dollars for that spot.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
You know, in the beginning of the conversation, you talked about,
you know, the the the the amount of time that
truckers spend the shortage, and so a lot of truckers
are kind of forced to, you know, park on the
side of the road, sometimes illegally.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Can you talk about some of the.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Maybe guess the dangers of you know, the dangers of
the shortage of available parking for truckers.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Yeah, so, I'm sure you know everyone's seen at this
point a common question I asked people just in generally
is have you ever seen a semi truck parked on
the shoulder of an interstay on the on ramp, on
the off ramp, And the common answers, yes, I've seen that.
I don't know why they're doing that, but I've seen that. Ultimately,
that in dangers the driver, that endangers civilians pedestrians that
(15:04):
are driving past that. It you know, puts the carrier
at risk for nuclear verdicts. Ultimately, not having a legal, safe,
suitable place to park leads to a lot of consequences,
and so ultimately getting them into suitable places I think
(15:27):
makes a world of difference, and not only legal, safe, suitable,
but productivity in general because if that driver can you know,
commonly drivers I hear from carriers that their driver drive
eight or nine hours out of the eleven available out
of a fourteen hour period, right, and imagine an hour
(15:47):
further per day per driver. You know, even if you
have to pay twenty dollars for that spot, it's going
to pay you back quite nicely and make your drivers
more productive and hopefully raise retention amongst the drivers because
you're going to reduce stress.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, absolutely, and you know when you're when you're talking
about its taking, you know, fifty five minutes to find
a parking spot.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I mean that takes away from their hours of service.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
And obviously, you know, truckers, they make their money by
the mile, So if they're not driving for for pay,
then they're they're.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Not making making money.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
So are there regions in the country where you guys
are more concentrated right now?
Speaker 2 (16:27):
On the platform?
Speaker 4 (16:29):
So we're in forty eight states now, but we're definitely
less dense in North Dakota than we are in Georgia.
I would say we're pretty dense in the southeast. We
are becoming pretty dense in southern California. We are becoming
more dense in the northeast. But with that being said,
are you know our golden goal in the next twenty
(16:49):
months is to get to over ten thousand locations, So
we want to be we want to have more locations everywhere,
But I would say the southeast is probably where we're
most ends today.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Does that include like Canada or Mexico or that that's
those are regions you're not looking to go into quite yet.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
So request for Canada is almost on a daily basis
at this point. Drivers that are up there say it
is quite a problem, although it maybe is a little
bit different in the problem that that is there. But
there are certain areas of Canada where from what I'm hearing,
I'm not well versed on it. At this point, you
(17:30):
just can't find any parking. It's just madness. So we
are looking at Canada. We have a lot of work
left in the US, right, so we're very focused on
the US, and then Mexico's coming up more and more,
which I think, you know, as you can imagine, has
a lot of complexity to how you even approach that.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
No one's ever done it.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Really, But there are locals that we meet out and
about at shows and stuff that that say that they
they would love to work with us. So I'm not
saying never. I am saying I think it is going
to be complex to get into the you know, Central
America Mexico market, and we're going to be very cautious
(18:14):
before we do so.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
And when you look at your platform, does it tell
you anything about like the state of the trucking market?
I mean, do you do you get any readthroughs by
the data that you see?
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Yeah, that's a great question. So what is super interesting?
We do have a ton of data about parking and
you know where vehicles are, a piece of equipment are
at certain times, and you can watch the movement of
parking go across the US like a think of like
(18:46):
a heat map, and we can watch it move. I
think it is still to be determined on you know,
you think, well, maybe that's just where the freate's going,
but I think it is a little bit more complex
than that. But we're starting to layer data and really
look at why is Newark on fire right now?
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Is it the port? Is it something else?
Speaker 4 (19:06):
And then two weeks later Atlanta's Atlanta's on fire and
we're seeing a lot of demand there and just watching
the kind of that heat map shift across the US.
We're constantly setting that data to see what insights we
can get. I think there's a lot of value in
that data and we do have a lot of it
(19:26):
now that we have tens of thousands of drivers.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Right And do you have any statistics or metrics in
terms of like repeat business from from the from the
drivers that are on the system.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Yeah, So across our what we call P two P
airbnb style users, we're at around fifty percent today, which
we're pretty proud of because you know, not so long
ago it was it was less than that. But it
just continues up, trend nicely up into the right every
single month, month over month, which I think goes to
show the experience that we delivered a driver that they're
(20:00):
they're willing to come back and keep trying us. And
we commonly see that, you know, drivers are using us
five six, seven times in just the last little bit.
It's them finding out about us than us delivering a
great experience, and they just continue to come back over
and over.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Our drivers asking for any more services on the app.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
You know, repairs is something that's requested constantly. What we
do today is we allow the property owner, let's say
it's a truck repair shop, we just allow them to
advertise it on the on the app. At this point,
I do think it's it would We're not focused on it,
but I do think at some point we will either
partner or do it ourselves in the sense of, hey,
(20:44):
for another one hundred dollars, you can get X right,
and it's just a tack on at the booking, like
this is a verified repair shop by us. Tack on
this booking for one hundred dollars and maybe get your
parking free, or your parking twenty dollars, so your totals
one hundred and twenty dollars and it'll be done, you know,
in twenty four hours or whatever. I think there's a
(21:06):
pretty natural approach to that. And we get asked by
the truck repair shops and some trucking companies because they
a lot of them do their own services, and it's
definitely something on our mind. But I think it's my
job as the CEO to say, but let's focus on
the main goal and get to liquidity what you'd call
(21:28):
liquidity in a marketplace, and then once we're there, I
think there's a lot of cool things we can do.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Can you talk about the relationships you have with like
the large truck stops that are out.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
There, Yeah, so todate, we do work with some of
the dealer locations. I was actually just talking with DeBie Baffa,
CEO of TA last night. We do some business with them,
monetizing some of their extra space. And we've communicated or
are working on partnerships with a lot of the truck
(21:59):
stops in various ways, not always the obvious ways that
maybe you would think. I mean, at the end of
the day, none of the truck stops have enough parking
for their customers, right, which is kind of crazy to
think about. We have more parking, so think about additional
capacity for the major truck stops to help them satisfy
(22:19):
their customers better because we have this extra space, you know,
ideally right next door. So helping them help their customer.
That's in a place of hey, I just bought seventy
five gallons of fuel with you. You have no parking spaces.
Oh okay, we can work with Truck Parking Club on that.
So that's it at a high level. You know, some
(22:41):
of the things we're talking about with various truck stops.
We're also monetizing some of their parking spots, not in
any huge way at this point, but I think the
former partnership is what we think is super exciting.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
And I'm assuming most of the drivers that use your
app and website there they're just staying there for the
night or for a couple for a certain amount hours
while they rest.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Do they do they.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Like park their truck there for maybe like more than
a day sometimes like if they're I don't know, they
need to go do something, or like you know, I
don't even know what the LI scenario would be.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
It's a great no, it's a great question because we're
known for the overnight parking, you know, we we do
talk a lot about helping with the truck parking shortage
and things of that nature, but there's there's a huge
shortage in multi day parking, weekly parking, and monthly parking
as well, and awareness thereof.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
So we do.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly on our platform. I think our
average rations stay is two or three days actually, which
is not you know what you would think. I think
the average person would think we were doing all overnight.
We do a ton of overnight, but we also do
a lot of multi day, we do a lot of weekly,
and we do a lot of monthly as well. You know,
(23:53):
for local guys. You know, some of these local guys
like me, I grew up in the middle of nowhere
in Kentucky. There's a lot of drivers that live around
there and there aren't a lot of known options for parking.
Even though it's rule, it doesn't mean you can just
go park in any lot. You'll get boted, booted, towed, fined.
(24:14):
But we can go into these local markets as well
create brand new areas for drivers to be able to
park when they're at home for the weekend or a
week or whatever. So we found that that's been an
interesting part of the business that I never honestly really
thought of. But drivers are ectatic because maybe they were
having to drive forty five minutes from where they were
(24:35):
parking to get home, just three days later, drive back
forty five minutes and go back out on the road.
So that's been an interesting part of the business. And
then just to add on top of that, just trailer
placement in general, especially for mid sized carriers where they
may have one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, five hundred trailers,
(24:57):
maybe a couple of thousand trailers. Placing those trailers across
the US has been a very interesting business that I
never really thought.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Of, Right, I was going to ask about the drop
and hook like trailers. So you're doing you do do
a lot of business, if not necessarily a truck, you're
storing trailers as well.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Yeah, yeah, So it's it's become a big part of
the business just naturally. You know, we created a fully
self service app, and our customers have just decided on
how to use us to better do their business. Right
at the end of the day, we've got to provide
value to them, and they really choose on how they
want to use the app as long as they're using
(25:33):
it properly, but how they want to use the app,
And We've seen a lot of different use cases.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
And I'm assuming that the users they have different security needs,
Like some need a you know, a gated I don't know,
maybe even video monitored a lot, and others just need
to patch your ground to sleep. So I'm assuming like
when you're going on to the site, you list like
all that sort of stuff with each property.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Yeah, you can filter by amenities, you know, common ones
are security at the gate, twenty four to seven access lights, cameras,
full time secured gate fencing, and they'll filter for those
and based on what their needs are.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
But you're totally right.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
I mean, sometimes an empty drive in all it needs
is a graveled lot and that suits them just fine.
Then at other times they need they need more security
based on whatever they're hauling.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
All right, So what are the long term plans for
the Truck Parking Club.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Our mission is Truck Parking Club helps truckers save time
and fuel by efficiently finding and reserving truck parking across
the US. How do we do that? We do that
by getting tens of thousands of locations, hundreds of thousands,
if not millions of spaces, and then focusing on providing
a great experience to our trucker members every single time
(26:52):
they use us. And that's all we really think about.
And how do we scale that while delivering a great experience.
That's all we really think about, because there's there's a
huge problem.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
To be solved here and.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
I do not want to get distracted with with you know,
shiny outcomes or ancillary businesses and things of that nature.
So all we really think about is adding a lot
of locations, delivering great experiences and and doing that as
quickly as possible.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
And what's the competition? Like in your space? Are there
other players doing similar things?
Speaker 3 (27:26):
There are other companies that have tried.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
Recently, spoke with a company that made an acquisition of
a small truck parking app a few years ago and.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Trying to sell us the domain. Now.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Yeah, but you know, you think about proof of concept,
are building an app? Proof of concept product market fit?
And I would say there are a handful of companies
out there that are trying to do truck parking, and
they're very much doing like build the app proof of
concept stage. We're not seeing anyone get through kind of
(27:58):
that death Valley product market fit stage, which I would
say we got through maybe eighteen months ago. And so
I would say, you know, think about like Uber and Lyft,
we don't have a lift today. Not to say that
it won't emerge, you know, that's that that would be expected,
but I would say we behave as if there is
(28:18):
someone right behind us at all times, even though as
of today there's not. But I would expect that, you know,
a competitor would emerge, an actual competitor, because these days
it's so easy to I built our first app. It
was not great, but I built our first app in
a few days. So it's it's very easy to kind
(28:42):
of say you're doing something. It's much harder to execute, operate,
govern you know, provide all the ancillary things that you
don't think about on a daily basis. So like we
have twenty four seven three sixty five customer service made
up of former drivers, half our team's former drivers. So
(29:05):
we built that out from the ground up with our
own processes. We haven't outsourced any of it. Things like
that that you can't snap your fingers and do that.
It takes a lot of work, and we have an
amazing woman that runs that that department.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Do you have a do you have a physical office
or you guys all remote.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
So we are in the final final stage of inking
a contract on a headquarters just south of Chattanooga. It's
not not final, but good luck with that.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
So we've been looking for eighteen months and I've been
very picky about it, and we have found a location
that has a couple of acres for parking, so we
can meet our members on a daily basis, get feedback
from them, make content with them, hopefully, just spend time
with them in general.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
And I'm assuming the amenities will be really nice for drivers.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Yeah, we're gonna work to create a g experience for
them and then set the standard for other property members
and then have our property members in and say here's
what we're doing, here's what you guys could do to
improve or or vice versa. We could learn from them.
But we're in the final final stages of that. But
a couple acres, a lot of office space to have
a lounge and stuff for our truck members. So we're
(30:21):
very excited about it. I can't can't until it's final, final,
I really can't say too much.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Sure, sure, So what other challenges have you had, you know,
when your journey as an entrepreneur, you know, building this business.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Yeah, it's it's you.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
Know, like I was saying, from that proof of concept
to product market fit stage is just gruesome.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
It's just greaty it's so bad. Like you're building tech.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
I mean it's that common saying, what is it build
the airplane as you're flying or.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Whatever you are.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
You're building the tech, you're building the operations, and the
tech's not working for a little bit. The operations just
trying to cover up the fact that you've got some
bugs in the tech. And then you have, you know,
at that point, dozens or hundreds of drivers that are
using you, and you're trying to make sure they have
a great experience because if they have a bad one
and then they go tell everyone, that could ruin you.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
You know, one one bad review that's real.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
I mean we get fake, like kind of fake bad
reviews sometimes, but the real bad reviews that you just
neglected the customer because you're doing all these other things
at the same time could sink you. You're at a
very vulnerable stage in the company. So I would say
just getting through that part, which is why market places
are hard, right.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
It's like it's a beautiful.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Thing when you're on the other side of it, it's
a really tough thing in the beginning to get any momentum.
So I think I think getting through that has been
the has been the main thing. And you know, you're
hiring staff at the same time, and you're trying to
stay ahead of the growth and just being able to
manage that I think as a whole at a high
(31:56):
level has been tough.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
And your drivers, I'm assuming they raid each proper they
were they have the ability to raid each property for sure.
What's the biggest disappointment. That's an amenity that they're looking for.
That's that a property might not have, like the biggest
I guess constructive criticism if you will have a property.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
Yeah, And you know, so it's our job to make
sure they know before a book what a minute is
they're going to get and if they don't know that,
then that's our fault, okay, and we take responsibility for that.
But let's say, for example, they want restrooms out of property.
If it doesn't show that it has restrooms, you kind
of know that going in. Now we do see people
make suggestions like, hey, lack the location, but I want
(32:37):
restrooms here, and then you kind of see that. You
see the review happen over and over, and then eventually
the property member goes and does that because the revenue
is able to support restrooms or whatever the request is.
But I would say commonly restrooms is the biggest one
just in general, because if you have this open lot
and you know, theft or whatever is not a concern,
(32:59):
it's just having a restroom there that you don't have
to go off off site uh to use it. So
that that's a common one. Uh. Lighted areas are, you know,
very common one. But like I said, it's our job
to let them know beforehand. We don't want them to
have any surprises at the property, and so we focus
on delivering a great experience. It's similar to like what
(33:23):
you know Airbnb leans into is they're they're an experienced company.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Right.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
If you have a bad experience on Airbnb, there's a
there's a chance they're not going back.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
So you've really got to focus on.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
The entire experience, and one of those is just making
sure our truck members know exactly what they're getting.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
So besides, like the truck stops out there that are
that are on the platform and using you uh to
monetize their space, are there any other like institutional large
property owners that you're either are working with or trying
to work with to try to you know, increase that density.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Yeah, and truck stops, I think think they're about three
percent of our locations right now, so not a huge
part of our business at the moment, but we love
working with them.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
They're great partners.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
You know.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
We've started working with.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Some three PLS companies like Logistics Plus that have a
lot of warehouses across the US, and they have all
this yard space that's just sitting there, and we're able
to get them in the business and help that run
smoothly and then continue doing their own business. And then
this is all bottom line for them, which I think
(34:34):
what we've found is they're very appreciative of because we
can make them ten grand that may be one hundred
grand in revenue for their core business, right and this
is all bottom line. They're not paying any more for
that property and all the amenities that they have at
the site are already there for their own for their
own operations and self storage companies. So there's a lot
(35:01):
of self storage companies out there that have yard space.
Now the hard party is getting in with them because
you were very dialed in with our processes at this point,
and we were able to develop a partnership with the
third largest self storage company in the US, which has
been very exciting and we see them as a great partner.
Prime is the company's name, and there we're working toward
(35:25):
one hundred locations with them now because they have a
lot of locations with yard space, and we've been able
to make them a very good amount of money in
just the last few weeks and deliver a lot more
brand new parking to drivers that was never available.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, and what's been the biggest surprise, I guess getting
deeper into the trucking market over the last couple of years.
To you about the industry.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
I think you would agree we've been in a downmarket
the whole time. Right, Certainly, I've been naive. I was
naive to that getting it getting in. I had heard
it was bad or whatever, but I was just so naive.
I didn't really consider it, so we've been kind of
We've been growing quite quickly in a in a down market,
which I think goes to show the general need and
(36:10):
the and the value we're providing. But I think on
top of that, I think it's just the industry as
a whole is amazingly fragmented between owner operators and drivers,
and I think I'm continually amazed with like how fragmented
it is, which for us is just a bigger moat
(36:32):
within the business because you know you're clawing away at
one driver at a time on the owner operator side,
and they're this massive part of the market. I would
say I'm continued continue to be amazed by that. And
I think probably lastly, I come from real estate, relationships
are very important. We're in New York City. Relationships for
real estate is probably everything in a lot of situations.
(36:56):
I think logistics is quite similar. I've found that That's
why I go to all these events, That's why I
meet with everyone such as yourself and talk with as
many people as I can, because I think relationships and
showing people that you're in the industry for the best
interest and you're willing to listen and get feedback on
a business, especially ours and newer business model I think
(37:19):
is everything to really developing a staying power long term.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Great.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
And I usually like to end the podcast with this question,
is is there like a book that you've read recently
on whether it's transportation or leadership that's kind of close
to your heart, you know, our entrepreneurialship again in your case.
Speaker 4 (37:39):
Yeah, I got asked this on a podcast the other
day that you know. What I would say is, I've
been really onto a podcast called Founders.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Have you heard of that?
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Yep? Yeah, so I think Michael Bloomberg. He did one
on Michael Bloomberg.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
I've heard of him.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Yeah, so he's Bloomberg.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
You're talking about David Center, the the guy that started
the podcast, but he did one on Michael Bloomberg I
think a year or two ago. But it's an hour
or so podcast about a biography on a successful entrepreneur,
business business person. He has hundreds of them on there,
and pretty much any of the biographies I've ever read
(38:18):
he's done.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
He's done a.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
Podcast on them. And I've been really into that that
that's been.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
I'm assuming it's your second favorite podcast after talking.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
To course, of course, of course, of course. Yeah, I
think I would say that.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
And if I had to choose a book, it would
be Sam Walton Made in America. Just such a good
example of just head down, working hard for decades and creating,
you know, a really amazing business that's stood the stood
the test of time.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
All right, great, thank you having for your time and
your insights. Really appreciate it today.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
I also want to thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
If you liked the episode, please subscribe and leave a review.
We've lined up a number of great guests for the podcast,
so please check back to hear conversations with C suite executives, shippers, regulators,
and decision makers within the freight markets. Also, if you
want to learn more about freight transportation markets, please check
out our work on the Bloomberg Terminal at Bigo and
(39:16):
on social media. This is Lee Clasgal signing off and
thanks for talking transports with me.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Bye.
Hi everyone, this is Lee Claskalwar We're Talking Transports. Welcome
to Bloomberg Intelligence Talking Transports podcast. I'm your host, Lee Klaskow,
Senior Freight transportation and Logistics analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, Bloomberg's
in house research arm of almost five hundred analysts and
strategists around the globe. Before diving in a little public
service announcement, your support is instrumental to keep bring a
(00:28):
great guest and conversations to You are listeners, and we
do your support, So please, if you enjoy this podcast,
share it, like it, and leave a comment.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Also, if you have any.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Ideas for future episodes or just want to talk transports,
please hit me up on the Bloomberg terminal, on LinkedIn
or on Twitter at Logistics Lee.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Now on to our episode.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
We're delighted to have Evan Shelley, the co founder and
CEO of The Truck Parking Club, as our guest on
today's podcast. The Truck Parking Club was founded in twenty
twenty two and provides parking for by monetizing vacant properties
for landowners. Evan is a truck parking expert with a
deep knowledge of the business. Using his experience in truck
(01:09):
parking and real estate. He's working to help solve the
truck parking shortage and bring awareness to the issue. So
welcome to the Talking Transport podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Evan, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So, you know, people might not realize that trucking for
versus should I say parking for truckers is not an
easy thing.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Can you talk about the shortage that's out there?
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Yeah, so there's one space for every eleven trucks. That's
an ATA American Trucking Association stat And the average driver
spends fifty six minutes a day driving around looking for parking.
And when you think about that across you know, three
or four million drivers, that's billions of dollars of inefficiencies
that are created and also stressed that's created for drivers.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Right, And so it's not only it's a it's an
issue obviously, and it's an issue that Washington's trying to tackle.
Could you you know you're coming joining us live here
in New York and you're from a trip based in DC.
Could you talk about what's going on in Washington and
what I guess senators and legislators are trying to do
to tackle the problem.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
So we actively participate in Days on the Hill with
various associations because of the truck parking issue. We're in
full support of taxpayer funded public parking because we believe
there's hundreds of thousands of spaces needed and there's a
billion or so in taxpayer funding, which is about ten
thousand spaces, and we think every little bit is going
(02:35):
to help with the issue. And at the end of
the day, we're in support of the broader issue. But
was at Capitol Hill yesterday and got to meet with
Mike Boss, Congressman Mike Boss, representative that sponsors the Truck
Parking Safety Improvement Act, which is pushing for hundreds of
millions of dollars in funding across all the states.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So I guess what kind of what's the genesis of
the Truck Parking Club?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Like, how did you come up with the idea?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I'm assuming you're not a truck driver by trade, but
I know you were in logistics in your past life,
So could you talk about, you know, how you came
up with the idea of the Truck Parking Club.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, so I was really focused on real estate.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
I went to school for some engineering, then went out
and started doing general contracting, then site development, which led
me into getting into I'd always been interested in houses
and flipping houses, and I did that, and then I
started doing large scale land deals, and through doing those deals,
I came across an industrial a property that was zoned
industrial that I put under contract that I was interested
(03:42):
in doing a warehouse on. Ultimately, the site layout would
and work for a warehouse, so I started looking at
other ways to use the property because I had a decent.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Amount of capital invested in it.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
And I started talking with brokers and other investors and
just trying to figure out what to do with it,
and everyone I just kept here truck parking over and over.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
This is twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
One, and you know the common what I would hear
is there needs to be more of it that ultimately
it's hard to build.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
More of it.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
And I thought, I came across this great parcel and
I was I was smarter than everyone else, right, So
I go to the municipality and I say, I want
to do truck parking here, and they go, well, even
though it's non industrial, you're not going to get support
from us, and we don't think you'll get support from
any of the surrounding parcels.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
And it was then that the light bulb went off
on what is actually going on here?
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Because I thought, you know, I was pretty good at
entitlements and getting property zoned properly, and I just got
I got shut down quite quickly. But then everyone's saying
it's a good investment. So it's like a classic supply
demand and balance, right, you don't have enough supply. The
demand is there continues to grow and it's really hard
to create more supply. So me being a real estate guy,
(04:58):
you know, I thought I was just going to be
smarter and go figure it out and buy and build
a bunch of truck parking. But ultimately, in twenty twenty
one into twenty twenty two, the numbers really didn't make sense.
Real estate was high. You know, we were in a
low interest rate time at the time, so real estate
was quite expensive. So ROI didn't make sense. So I
(05:19):
actually I raised some capital but never deployed any of it, fortunately,
and then started looking at other ways to be a
part of the solution to the issue. And I came
across marketplaces, and when I came across marketplaces, I'm like,
I think this could make a lot of sense for
being a part of the solution to this issue by
leveraging existing space. So we go into trucking companies, tow
(05:41):
truck companies, truck repair shops, warehouses, truck stops, any space
that's suitable for parking that they have extra parking, we
monetize it for them, and ultimately we've been able to
create tens of thousands of spaces through that model.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
And can you talk a little bit about the economics
for the landowner, like how does it work, because it's
like an Airbnb for truck parking, right?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Is that fair to say?
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Yeah, it's very similar, So very similar to an Airbnb
for truck parking. We take a cut of every booking.
The property owner gets the majority of every booking. Typically
you're going to see a seventy thirty split something around.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
There, gotcha, and not many you know people listening to this,
why not realize? So when you when you're providing the
trucking parking.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Space, what is it? Is it just asphalt? Is there
a hook up? Like? What what is available?
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Are there facilities or is there a bathroom or a shower?
Like what's available to the truck driver?
Speaker 4 (06:35):
So we have one ninety two locations as of today,
and I can tell you every single location is unique,
right between the access points, between the pavement that's at
the property, between the level of security at the property, amenities.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Does it have.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Restrooms, does it have showers? We have some locations that
have free showers, some locations that have paid showers, some
locations that have no showers. You see a little bit
of everything. It's very AIRBNBESQ where every location is unique.
I think what we do is make sure that the
driver can can access to property easily, get safely parked
at the property, and exit the property. And that's the
(07:14):
minimum standard. And then from there, you know, the more
amenities you provide, the more you could make on the property.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
And if a property owner wants to sign up, do
you guys go on site to check it out or like,
how do you vet the properties?
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Yeah, so we have a very extensive vetting process that
we've created over vetting thousands, maybe tens of thousands of properties.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
At this point.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
It's proprietary, of course, but we know what we need
to look for at every single property and technology these
days you don't actually have to go on site. But
with that being said, we do have crews that are
all the time on the road going to each and
every site, vetting them, putting up free signage, doing drone
photos and aerials, making content at the sites, meeting with
(07:57):
the property. We call them property members, doing all the things.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
We need to do.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Although we are a tech company, we still are boots
on the ground, right.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
So are you guys talk a little bit about it.
I guess your ownership are you like VC funded or
are you self funded or private equity owned? What's what's
the ownership of the company.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Yeah, so at this point, I'm the majority owner of
the company. We have raised around eight million dollars to date,
all through private capital. We have not went out and
raised anything from vcs at this point. Although we've talked
with vcs, we have not raised anything from vcs at
this point. We just go to very successful founders and
(08:38):
raised capital from them and that's that's been the right
route for us so far.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And can you talk about the scaling because you know,
as I mentioned earlier, you were founded in twenty twenty
two and I think you said you have just under
two thousand properties, So how fast are you growing? What's
the right growth rate? Where how many properties.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Is like scale.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
We add eight to ten properties per day right now.
We believe we can get much much higher than that.
We have an amazing chief sales officer that's built out
our property team. We call them on boarding specialists, and
there's a lot of things that goes into this, actually
vetting the properties and making sure that trucker members that
book there have a great experience. But have an amazing
(09:22):
chief sales officer, Chris that is growing out that team,
and we expect to be at ten thousand locations in
the next twenty months.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Twenty months and thousand. Wow, and how many? I guess
how many truckers do you have?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Like on your app?
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Do you track it by the number of I guess
log in and IDs?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
And I guess with that?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
What is your who is your typical customer? Is it
the owner operator? Or is it the super large fleet
or everything in between? Where do you Is there a
sweet spot for you guys?
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Yeah, So we don't give away exact numbers, but I
can say we have tens of thousands of drivers actively
finding and reserving parking on our app. We're not to
hundreds of thousands of yet, but we have hundreds of
thousands of pieces of equipment that have been booked on
our app.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
At this point, it's made up.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Of Actually it stays at about a fifty to fifty
split between owner operators and company drivers. It's been consistently
that where owner operators love using US to be more
productive with their lanes and running new lanes because we
have capacity parking capacity in places that they normally wouldn't go.
So we see that a lot, and we also see
(10:32):
that carriers are adopting paying for parking for their drivers.
More that, we have a very easy to use app
accounting reporting structure, user sub user structure that makes it
very easy for carriers to use US now and make
their drivers raise retention, make them more productive, lower stress.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
On a daily basis.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
So we see about a fifty to fifty split.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So the large publicly traded companies are users of of the.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Platform sixty the top one hundred carriers have used US
to date, but their drivers have used US and typically
hundreds of their drivers have used US at each of
the each of the companies.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Besides scale, what else can you guys do to make
the platform more inviting to whether it's property owners or
the drivers out there.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yeah, I think scale really leads.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
It is the biggest driving factor because the more locations
you have, the more options you have, the more productive
you can be, the less stress a driver has, the
easier it is for them to find parking on a
daily basis. But also I think, you know, we're kind
of naturally going into building out a bunch of enterprise
tools that these large carriers want, and I think that
(11:45):
will be part.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Of it as well. But and just continuing to make the.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Product easier to use, which we fortunately get a lot
of compliments on how easy the app is. But I
would say scale, I know you didn't on that answer,
but that is internally, that is what we talk about
a lot, because it really is, you know, having open
capacity for a driver. Our goal is to have to
(12:12):
always have a location within ten minutes of a driver.
Right now, they spend fifty six minutes driving around looking
for parking. Staff in office staff spend hours a day
looking for parking for their drivers, you know, fleet managers, dispatchers.
We're trying to get all them down to ten minutes
or less. And we're seeing results like that now with
carriers and drivers.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And when you're adding these these eight to ten new
properties a day. Is most of the editions property owners
coming to you. Are you guys going out and trying
to find these properties?
Speaker 4 (12:44):
It's all inbound. Yeah, we have no outbound sales motion
at the moment.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Now.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
We do go to truck shows, we go to events
and things of that nature, but we have no salesperson
that's sitting on a phone outbound calling. We're just very
active on social media, where it kind of.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Where certainly are.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Yeah, we're very active in the industry in general and
just getting our brand out there and making sure that
we deliver great experiences and word of mouth growing that way,
and that's served us quite well.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I think I came across you guys about a year
ago at some sort of trade show and I was like, oh,
this is a pretty cool, pretty cool idea. I'm glad
to have you on the podcast. Could you talk a
little bit about you know, I know what a hotel
costs in New York, but like what is a parking
spot cost. I'm sure it depends on the amenities and
the location, but like just generally speaking, yeah, it varies
(13:35):
very widely by market, but across the entire platform.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
If we're speaking on daily it's about twenty dollars. Across
all the bookings we've ever had, it sits at about twenty.
But you can get into you know, Newark or southern California,
Long Beach, and you're looking at anywhere fifty.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
To one hundred dollars a day.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
But when you consider maybe that driver had to drive
an hour out of his way if he didn't want
to park, you know, in New York or in Long Beach,
he had to drive out to Ontario or city of Industry.
That costs a lot of money to do that, and
it's actually makes sense to pay, you know, fifty hundred
dollars for that spot.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
You know, in the beginning of the conversation, you talked about,
you know, the the the the amount of time that
truckers spend the shortage, and so a lot of truckers
are kind of forced to, you know, park on the
side of the road, sometimes illegally.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Can you talk about some of the.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Maybe guess the dangers of you know, the dangers of
the shortage of available parking for truckers.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Yeah, so, I'm sure you know everyone's seen at this
point a common question I asked people just in generally
is have you ever seen a semi truck parked on
the shoulder of an interstay on the on ramp, on
the off ramp, And the common answers, yes, I've seen that.
I don't know why they're doing that, but I've seen that. Ultimately,
that in dangers the driver, that endangers civilians pedestrians that
(15:04):
are driving past that. It you know, puts the carrier
at risk for nuclear verdicts. Ultimately, not having a legal, safe,
suitable place to park leads to a lot of consequences,
and so ultimately getting them into suitable places I think
(15:27):
makes a world of difference, and not only legal, safe, suitable,
but productivity in general because if that driver can you know,
commonly drivers I hear from carriers that their driver drive
eight or nine hours out of the eleven available out
of a fourteen hour period, right, and imagine an hour
(15:47):
further per day per driver. You know, even if you
have to pay twenty dollars for that spot, it's going
to pay you back quite nicely and make your drivers
more productive and hopefully raise retention amongst the drivers because
you're going to reduce stress.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, absolutely, and you know when you're when you're talking
about its taking, you know, fifty five minutes to find
a parking spot.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I mean that takes away from their hours of service.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
And obviously, you know, truckers, they make their money by
the mile, So if they're not driving for for pay,
then they're they're.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Not making making money.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
So are there regions in the country where you guys
are more concentrated right now?
Speaker 2 (16:27):
On the platform?
Speaker 4 (16:29):
So we're in forty eight states now, but we're definitely
less dense in North Dakota than we are in Georgia.
I would say we're pretty dense in the southeast. We
are becoming pretty dense in southern California. We are becoming
more dense in the northeast. But with that being said,
are you know our golden goal in the next twenty
(16:49):
months is to get to over ten thousand locations, So
we want to be we want to have more locations everywhere,
But I would say the southeast is probably where we're
most ends today.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Does that include like Canada or Mexico or that that's
those are regions you're not looking to go into quite yet.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
So request for Canada is almost on a daily basis
at this point. Drivers that are up there say it
is quite a problem, although it maybe is a little
bit different in the problem that that is there. But
there are certain areas of Canada where from what I'm hearing,
I'm not well versed on it. At this point, you
(17:30):
just can't find any parking. It's just madness. So we
are looking at Canada. We have a lot of work
left in the US, right, so we're very focused on
the US, and then Mexico's coming up more and more,
which I think, you know, as you can imagine, has
a lot of complexity to how you even approach that.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
No one's ever done it.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Really, But there are locals that we meet out and
about at shows and stuff that that say that they
they would love to work with us. So I'm not
saying never. I am saying I think it is going
to be complex to get into the you know, Central
America Mexico market, and we're going to be very cautious
(18:14):
before we do so.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
And when you look at your platform, does it tell
you anything about like the state of the trucking market?
I mean, do you do you get any readthroughs by
the data that you see?
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Yeah, that's a great question. So what is super interesting?
We do have a ton of data about parking and
you know where vehicles are, a piece of equipment are
at certain times, and you can watch the movement of
parking go across the US like a think of like
(18:46):
a heat map, and we can watch it move. I
think it is still to be determined on you know,
you think, well, maybe that's just where the freate's going,
but I think it is a little bit more complex
than that. But we're starting to layer data and really
look at why is Newark on fire right now?
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Is it the port? Is it something else?
Speaker 4 (19:06):
And then two weeks later Atlanta's Atlanta's on fire and
we're seeing a lot of demand there and just watching
the kind of that heat map shift across the US.
We're constantly setting that data to see what insights we
can get. I think there's a lot of value in
that data and we do have a lot of it
(19:26):
now that we have tens of thousands of drivers.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Right And do you have any statistics or metrics in
terms of like repeat business from from the from the
drivers that are on the system.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Yeah, So across our what we call P two P
airbnb style users, we're at around fifty percent today, which
we're pretty proud of because you know, not so long
ago it was it was less than that. But it
just continues up, trend nicely up into the right every
single month, month over month, which I think goes to
show the experience that we delivered a driver that they're
(20:00):
they're willing to come back and keep trying us. And
we commonly see that, you know, drivers are using us
five six, seven times in just the last little bit.
It's them finding out about us than us delivering a
great experience, and they just continue to come back over
and over.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Our drivers asking for any more services on the app.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
You know, repairs is something that's requested constantly. What we
do today is we allow the property owner, let's say
it's a truck repair shop, we just allow them to
advertise it on the on the app. At this point,
I do think it's it would We're not focused on it,
but I do think at some point we will either
partner or do it ourselves in the sense of, hey,
(20:44):
for another one hundred dollars, you can get X right,
and it's just a tack on at the booking, like
this is a verified repair shop by us. Tack on
this booking for one hundred dollars and maybe get your
parking free, or your parking twenty dollars, so your totals
one hundred and twenty dollars and it'll be done, you know,
in twenty four hours or whatever. I think there's a
(21:06):
pretty natural approach to that. And we get asked by
the truck repair shops and some trucking companies because they
a lot of them do their own services, and it's
definitely something on our mind. But I think it's my
job as the CEO to say, but let's focus on
the main goal and get to liquidity what you'd call
(21:28):
liquidity in a marketplace, and then once we're there, I
think there's a lot of cool things we can do.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Can you talk about the relationships you have with like
the large truck stops that are out.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
There, Yeah, so todate, we do work with some of
the dealer locations. I was actually just talking with DeBie Baffa,
CEO of TA last night. We do some business with them,
monetizing some of their extra space. And we've communicated or
are working on partnerships with a lot of the truck
(21:59):
stops in various ways, not always the obvious ways that
maybe you would think. I mean, at the end of
the day, none of the truck stops have enough parking
for their customers, right, which is kind of crazy to
think about. We have more parking, so think about additional
capacity for the major truck stops to help them satisfy
(22:19):
their customers better because we have this extra space, you know,
ideally right next door. So helping them help their customer.
That's in a place of hey, I just bought seventy
five gallons of fuel with you. You have no parking spaces.
Oh okay, we can work with Truck Parking Club on that.
So that's it at a high level. You know, some
(22:41):
of the things we're talking about with various truck stops.
We're also monetizing some of their parking spots, not in
any huge way at this point, but I think the
former partnership is what we think is super exciting.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
And I'm assuming most of the drivers that use your
app and website there they're just staying there for the
night or for a couple for a certain amount hours
while they rest.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Do they do they.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Like park their truck there for maybe like more than
a day sometimes like if they're I don't know, they
need to go do something, or like you know, I
don't even know what the LI scenario would be.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
It's a great no, it's a great question because we're
known for the overnight parking, you know, we we do
talk a lot about helping with the truck parking shortage
and things of that nature, but there's there's a huge
shortage in multi day parking, weekly parking, and monthly parking
as well, and awareness thereof.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
So we do.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly on our platform. I think our
average rations stay is two or three days actually, which
is not you know what you would think. I think
the average person would think we were doing all overnight.
We do a ton of overnight, but we also do
a lot of multi day, we do a lot of weekly,
and we do a lot of monthly as well. You know,
(23:53):
for local guys. You know, some of these local guys
like me, I grew up in the middle of nowhere
in Kentucky. There's a lot of drivers that live around
there and there aren't a lot of known options for parking.
Even though it's rule, it doesn't mean you can just
go park in any lot. You'll get boted, booted, towed, fined.
(24:14):
But we can go into these local markets as well
create brand new areas for drivers to be able to
park when they're at home for the weekend or a
week or whatever. So we found that that's been an
interesting part of the business that I never honestly really
thought of. But drivers are ectatic because maybe they were
having to drive forty five minutes from where they were
(24:35):
parking to get home, just three days later, drive back
forty five minutes and go back out on the road.
So that's been an interesting part of the business. And
then just to add on top of that, just trailer
placement in general, especially for mid sized carriers where they
may have one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, five hundred trailers,
(24:57):
maybe a couple of thousand trailers. Placing those trailers across
the US has been a very interesting business that I
never really thought.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Of, Right, I was going to ask about the drop
and hook like trailers. So you're doing you do do
a lot of business, if not necessarily a truck, you're
storing trailers as well.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Yeah, yeah, So it's it's become a big part of
the business just naturally. You know, we created a fully
self service app, and our customers have just decided on
how to use us to better do their business. Right
at the end of the day, we've got to provide
value to them, and they really choose on how they
want to use the app as long as they're using
(25:33):
it properly, but how they want to use the app,
And We've seen a lot of different use cases.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
And I'm assuming that the users they have different security needs,
Like some need a you know, a gated I don't know,
maybe even video monitored a lot, and others just need
to patch your ground to sleep. So I'm assuming like
when you're going on to the site, you list like
all that sort of stuff with each property.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Yeah, you can filter by amenities, you know, common ones
are security at the gate, twenty four to seven access lights, cameras,
full time secured gate fencing, and they'll filter for those
and based on what their needs are.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
But you're totally right.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
I mean, sometimes an empty drive in all it needs
is a graveled lot and that suits them just fine.
Then at other times they need they need more security
based on whatever they're hauling.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
All right, So what are the long term plans for
the Truck Parking Club.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Our mission is Truck Parking Club helps truckers save time
and fuel by efficiently finding and reserving truck parking across
the US. How do we do that? We do that
by getting tens of thousands of locations, hundreds of thousands,
if not millions of spaces, and then focusing on providing
a great experience to our trucker members every single time
(26:52):
they use us. And that's all we really think about.
And how do we scale that while delivering a great experience.
That's all we really think about, because there's there's a
huge problem.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
To be solved here and.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
I do not want to get distracted with with you know,
shiny outcomes or ancillary businesses and things of that nature.
So all we really think about is adding a lot
of locations, delivering great experiences and and doing that as
quickly as possible.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
And what's the competition? Like in your space? Are there
other players doing similar things?
Speaker 3 (27:26):
There are other companies that have tried.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
Recently, spoke with a company that made an acquisition of
a small truck parking app a few years ago and.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Trying to sell us the domain. Now.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Yeah, but you know, you think about proof of concept,
are building an app? Proof of concept product market fit?
And I would say there are a handful of companies
out there that are trying to do truck parking, and
they're very much doing like build the app proof of
concept stage. We're not seeing anyone get through kind of
(27:58):
that death Valley product market fit stage, which I would
say we got through maybe eighteen months ago. And so
I would say, you know, think about like Uber and Lyft,
we don't have a lift today. Not to say that
it won't emerge, you know, that's that that would be expected,
but I would say we behave as if there is
(28:18):
someone right behind us at all times, even though as
of today there's not. But I would expect that, you know,
a competitor would emerge, an actual competitor, because these days
it's so easy to I built our first app. It
was not great, but I built our first app in
a few days. So it's it's very easy to kind
(28:42):
of say you're doing something. It's much harder to execute, operate,
govern you know, provide all the ancillary things that you
don't think about on a daily basis. So like we
have twenty four seven three sixty five customer service made
up of former drivers, half our team's former drivers. So
(29:05):
we built that out from the ground up with our
own processes. We haven't outsourced any of it. Things like
that that you can't snap your fingers and do that.
It takes a lot of work, and we have an
amazing woman that runs that that department.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Do you have a do you have a physical office
or you guys all remote.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
So we are in the final final stage of inking
a contract on a headquarters just south of Chattanooga. It's
not not final, but good luck with that.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
So we've been looking for eighteen months and I've been
very picky about it, and we have found a location
that has a couple of acres for parking, so we
can meet our members on a daily basis, get feedback
from them, make content with them, hopefully, just spend time
with them in general.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
And I'm assuming the amenities will be really nice for drivers.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Yeah, we're gonna work to create a g experience for
them and then set the standard for other property members
and then have our property members in and say here's
what we're doing, here's what you guys could do to
improve or or vice versa. We could learn from them.
But we're in the final final stages of that. But
a couple acres, a lot of office space to have
a lounge and stuff for our truck members. So we're
(30:21):
very excited about it. I can't can't until it's final, final,
I really can't say too much.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Sure, sure, So what other challenges have you had, you know,
when your journey as an entrepreneur, you know, building this business.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Yeah, it's it's you.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
Know, like I was saying, from that proof of concept
to product market fit stage is just gruesome.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
It's just greaty it's so bad. Like you're building tech.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
I mean it's that common saying, what is it build
the airplane as you're flying or.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Whatever you are.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
You're building the tech, you're building the operations, and the
tech's not working for a little bit. The operations just
trying to cover up the fact that you've got some
bugs in the tech. And then you have, you know,
at that point, dozens or hundreds of drivers that are
using you, and you're trying to make sure they have
a great experience because if they have a bad one
and then they go tell everyone, that could ruin you.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
You know, one one bad review that's real.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
I mean we get fake, like kind of fake bad
reviews sometimes, but the real bad reviews that you just
neglected the customer because you're doing all these other things
at the same time could sink you. You're at a
very vulnerable stage in the company. So I would say
just getting through that part, which is why market places
are hard, right.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
It's like it's a beautiful.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Thing when you're on the other side of it, it's
a really tough thing in the beginning to get any momentum.
So I think I think getting through that has been
the has been the main thing. And you know, you're
hiring staff at the same time, and you're trying to
stay ahead of the growth and just being able to
manage that I think as a whole at a high
(31:56):
level has been tough.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
And your drivers, I'm assuming they raid each proper they
were they have the ability to raid each property for sure.
What's the biggest disappointment. That's an amenity that they're looking for.
That's that a property might not have, like the biggest
I guess constructive criticism if you will have a property.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
Yeah, And you know, so it's our job to make
sure they know before a book what a minute is
they're going to get and if they don't know that,
then that's our fault, okay, and we take responsibility for that.
But let's say, for example, they want restrooms out of property.
If it doesn't show that it has restrooms, you kind
of know that going in. Now we do see people
make suggestions like, hey, lack the location, but I want
(32:37):
restrooms here, and then you kind of see that. You
see the review happen over and over, and then eventually
the property member goes and does that because the revenue
is able to support restrooms or whatever the request is.
But I would say commonly restrooms is the biggest one
just in general, because if you have this open lot
and you know, theft or whatever is not a concern,
(32:59):
it's just having a restroom there that you don't have
to go off off site uh to use it. So
that that's a common one. Uh. Lighted areas are, you know,
very common one. But like I said, it's our job
to let them know beforehand. We don't want them to
have any surprises at the property, and so we focus
on delivering a great experience. It's similar to like what
(33:23):
you know Airbnb leans into is they're they're an experienced company.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Right.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
If you have a bad experience on Airbnb, there's a
there's a chance they're not going back.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
So you've really got to focus on.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
The entire experience, and one of those is just making
sure our truck members know exactly what they're getting.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
So besides, like the truck stops out there that are
that are on the platform and using you uh to
monetize their space, are there any other like institutional large
property owners that you're either are working with or trying
to work with to try to you know, increase that density.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Yeah, and truck stops, I think think they're about three
percent of our locations right now, so not a huge
part of our business at the moment, but we love
working with them.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
They're great partners.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
You know.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
We've started working with.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Some three PLS companies like Logistics Plus that have a
lot of warehouses across the US, and they have all
this yard space that's just sitting there, and we're able
to get them in the business and help that run
smoothly and then continue doing their own business. And then
this is all bottom line for them, which I think
(34:34):
what we've found is they're very appreciative of because we
can make them ten grand that may be one hundred
grand in revenue for their core business, right and this
is all bottom line. They're not paying any more for
that property and all the amenities that they have at
the site are already there for their own for their
own operations and self storage companies. So there's a lot
(35:01):
of self storage companies out there that have yard space.
Now the hard party is getting in with them because
you were very dialed in with our processes at this point,
and we were able to develop a partnership with the
third largest self storage company in the US, which has
been very exciting and we see them as a great partner.
Prime is the company's name, and there we're working toward
(35:25):
one hundred locations with them now because they have a
lot of locations with yard space, and we've been able
to make them a very good amount of money in
just the last few weeks and deliver a lot more
brand new parking to drivers that was never available.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, and what's been the biggest surprise, I guess getting
deeper into the trucking market over the last couple of years.
To you about the industry.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
I think you would agree we've been in a downmarket
the whole time. Right, Certainly, I've been naive. I was
naive to that getting it getting in. I had heard
it was bad or whatever, but I was just so naive.
I didn't really consider it, so we've been kind of
We've been growing quite quickly in a in a down market,
which I think goes to show the general need and
(36:10):
the and the value we're providing. But I think on
top of that, I think it's just the industry as
a whole is amazingly fragmented between owner operators and drivers,
and I think I'm continually amazed with like how fragmented
it is, which for us is just a bigger moat
(36:32):
within the business because you know you're clawing away at
one driver at a time on the owner operator side,
and they're this massive part of the market. I would
say I'm continued continue to be amazed by that. And
I think probably lastly, I come from real estate, relationships
are very important. We're in New York City. Relationships for
real estate is probably everything in a lot of situations.
(36:56):
I think logistics is quite similar. I've found that That's
why I go to all these events, That's why I
meet with everyone such as yourself and talk with as
many people as I can, because I think relationships and
showing people that you're in the industry for the best
interest and you're willing to listen and get feedback on
a business, especially ours and newer business model I think
(37:19):
is everything to really developing a staying power long term.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Great.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
And I usually like to end the podcast with this question,
is is there like a book that you've read recently
on whether it's transportation or leadership that's kind of close
to your heart, you know, our entrepreneurialship again in your case.
Speaker 4 (37:39):
Yeah, I got asked this on a podcast the other
day that you know. What I would say is, I've
been really onto a podcast called Founders.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Have you heard of that?
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Yep? Yeah, so I think Michael Bloomberg. He did one
on Michael Bloomberg.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
I've heard of him.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Yeah, so he's Bloomberg.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
You're talking about David Center, the the guy that started
the podcast, but he did one on Michael Bloomberg I
think a year or two ago. But it's an hour
or so podcast about a biography on a successful entrepreneur,
business business person. He has hundreds of them on there,
and pretty much any of the biographies I've ever read
(38:18):
he's done.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
He's done a.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
Podcast on them. And I've been really into that that
that's been.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
I'm assuming it's your second favorite podcast after talking.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
To course, of course, of course, of course. Yeah, I
think I would say that.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
And if I had to choose a book, it would
be Sam Walton Made in America. Just such a good
example of just head down, working hard for decades and creating,
you know, a really amazing business that's stood the stood
the test of time.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
All right, great, thank you having for your time and
your insights. Really appreciate it today.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
I also want to thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
If you liked the episode, please subscribe and leave a review.
We've lined up a number of great guests for the podcast,
so please check back to hear conversations with C suite executives, shippers, regulators,
and decision makers within the freight markets. Also, if you
want to learn more about freight transportation markets, please check
out our work on the Bloomberg Terminal at Bigo and
(39:16):
on social media. This is Lee Clasgal signing off and
thanks for talking transports with me.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Bye.
Host
Lee Klaskow
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