Starting Trucking Company -- Insight??

Why not just let o/o join you?

 

You can make roughly 1500 a month off of one truck. You need four to stay home. No o/o is going to haul for you at 80%. Your a new guy. You'll have to start at like 5% to get someone to bite. Or get a company truck and a part time job till you find a couple o/o's to join you.

Another option is to get your cdl. Get your company truck. Run a driver in it for three weeks non stop. Then you run for one week and spend your three weeks off hustling for more drivers.

 

Study the OOIDA website.

 

Trucking is an industry of pennies for owners who don't actually drive truck. Driving the truck yourself can provide a nice income, but not the way you've described it.

 

You may know the brokerage side of the business, but trucking is a little different. You have an advantage that you know freight lanes and rates. But, you don't know trucking. Many people lose their shirts running trucks. It is very difficult to make money with a single truck when you have to pay a driver. It would help you to drive the truck yourself for the first 6-12 months so you can get a feel of this side of the business. At that point, you can decide whether you still want to hire drivers. I could share some of the horror stories I have experienced as an owner with multiple trucks and dealing with drivers. Anyone else who has owned trucks and hired drivers could share similar stories. You can make money owning trucks, but when you hire drivers you really need at least 2-3 to make any money. There will be times when trucks will sit idle for not having a driver. Without a track record, it might be difficult to find the better drivers. Trucks will break and you will get a call in the middle of the night so you can "fix" it. Unless you are getting really exceptional rates on your freight, it will be difficult to make enough money with a single truck to make it worthwhile when you have to pay a driver. The problem is that things may go well for several months and then you have a breakdown that takes much of your profit for that time period. With more trucks you can amortize those costs to all of the trucks. Since all of them won't be sitting, you will still have income to support the one that is broken. You can have a lot of cash flow, but once you start paying drivers, fuel, payments, insurance, etc., that cash flow can disappear quickly. Starting a trucking business is very capital intensive. Getting good drivers you can make money. Get a bad one and they can break you.

Something that might help you is to go to the OOIDA website (www.ooida.com). They have a spreadsheet you can download. It breaks down some of the costs of operating a truck. It might help you to look at the hard numbers. While it isn't 100% accurate, it is a good start. In the mean time, you may want to start checking around for insurance rates. If you have not already purchased a truck, you could start looking around for prices on trucks and trailers. Your payments should be calculated into your spreadsheet. Sometimes, it is good to plug in the numbers and see what they say.

 

You would be better off becoming an agent for 1 or more of the better carriers and start from there. One truck with a driver is probably not going to work. Two trucks you drive one and a driver, you will do ok but basically you furnishing someone with a job. Three trucks with good drivers should support you well enough to sit in the office and hustle freight. The guy I learned the most from always said odd numbers work best. I always drove until I got to three or more trucks. Another thing to consider is if you have little or no mechanical knowledge people,including drivers will take advantage of you.

 

Because most driver don't find a job from the websites you mentioned.And there are a lot of companies can offer as same as you , so why choose you?
The good drivers are easily find some good companies, so why drive for you?
If you can figure out the reason, then they maybe will try.As an o/o, your 80%, I even wont think about it. Lol