[khalidx]

A good place to be right now is in the logistics industry - a necessity that isn’t going away any time soon. And with the current logistics supply shortage in the USA (specifically for trucking companies) it won’t be hard to compete and start delivering shipments.

With 500K you can afford to buy several freight trucks. All you would need is 3-5 trucks to start turning over real profit. The rest of the employees can be dispatchers. The trick here is finding drivers as they are in high demand. Dispatchers are easily trained.

I’ve bootstrapped a similar logistics business with less than $10,000 USD and had good success within the first 60 days. Licenses and certifications can be done in 2-3 days and is a fast way to have a business fully certified and up and running.

[knonothing]

Great suggestion. I've been looking for a way to break into logistics/ltl freight. How did you deploy your first $10k?

[khalidx]

Spent the money doing three things:

- building an application to assist with dispatching. Dispatching in the current state of the world is a human heavy process with a lot of phone calls. The application was built to make it easy to pick the correct shipment opportunities.

- paying for fuel and hotel stays. Fuel (other than labor, the drivers) will be your largest cost by far. Also, hotels for drivers that aren’t driving sleeper trucks (trucks with a built in sleeping cabin). This happened rarely but did occur when we took shipments late in the week. For the uninformed: never pick up a shipment on Friday, as it will likely extend over the weekend and your truck will stay full over that period.

- paying for trucks. Whether you rent or buy, the trucks have to be paid for. If you are brokering shipments only (as a broker vs as a carrier) this won’t be a cost

[knonothing]

>Dispatching in the current state of the world is a human heavy process with a lot of phone calls. The application was built to make it easy to pick the correct shipment opportunities.

Can attest to the first part of this statement. What went into your decision making process in selecting the right opportunities? Focusing on a specific geography/lane? Type of cargo?

[khalidx]

Lots of stuff :)

Simply: achieving the highest profit margin for LTL loads across a range of factors + route optimization.

[knonothing]

Appreciate your candor and wishing you success with your business! What do you think of this approach: I was thinking of starting off as an independent broker (I have a niche customer base I can serve) and using load boards to book independent truckers. Over time as I gain traction, add a customer facing layer for booking/tracking and retain full-time drivers.