Is it hard to get load for new authority company

Dude, I want to know something ... well a couple things ... first is how much do you make working for the Amazon guy?

Second and more important - how do you know you can even drive a truck?

The first one would put a lot of things in perspective why you are asking these questions, the second one is something that you can't claim you can drive a truck without driving a truck and many many people who wanted to just jump into this owner thing learned they can't drive a truck no matter how much schooling they went through.

 

Then to start you should get a truck and with a driver lease on to another company to get you feet wet, see how it goes before you try it on your own. You will be amazed how much money it takes to operate, at least with a lease you should get paid in a week or two. Hauling for brokers and direct customers you may have to wait 30 days to be paid, and sometimes the broker disappears and you never get paid. Depending on how you start, I would encourage you to invest your money somewhere else. The trucking industry is a tough go.

 

How do you plan on getting experienced drivers to leave their current job and work for someone that has no experience in the industry? Drivers will either make you or break you, and being a new startup you won’t be getting good drivers. You’ll be getting drivers that can’t work any place else.

 

Everyone is telling you in all the threads you make to get your license and work for a company first in order to get experience.

What’s your plan when a driver gets fed up and leaves your truck and trailer on the other side of the country? It stays there until you can get time off work to go get it?

The point is this: the good drivers who won’t tear up your equipment and who show up and get the job done every day already have jobs. They’re not going to risk their financial well-being on someone who has zero experience running trucks. Your pool of potential drivers will all come with their own issues. They will all have reasons why they’re willing to work for someone with no industry experience.

Buying your trucks and getting insurance and activating your authority will be the easy part. What is your plan for when the trucks are sitting empty with no drivers?

What’s the number one reason why you want to buy a truck and have your authority?

 

OK I asked a specific question for a reason, but I see these threads all over the place with people saying it is a great time to start or some other garbage.

What I think, with years of experience is this ---->>> you need to step back and think about what I wrote for a bit.

It takes a lot of work to be a fleet owner, you are approaching this without any experience and you need to get on the road for a little bit (at lease two years) before you can plan on anything. Coming from an outsider to a complex subject, to jump into something that you have to understand what's going on from the driver's point of view.

Fleet failures are high, especially for arm chair owners - somewhere above 70%.

The number one reason for failure is underfunding, the second is mismanagement of money and resources and the third is buying and using JUNK.

There is a fourth reason - disrespecting the driver. You avoid turnover as much as you can.

Money wise, most make around 12% of an ROI, best fleets are around 9% ROI and those who make >20% or more are USUALLY cheap POS fleets who squeeze the drivers hard enough they can get blood out of a rock.

For every truck, you should have at least $20k for repairs.

For every driver you have to have at least a months worth of wages put away, three months >>> the best.

You can't run your drivers as 1099 - meaning you are not responsible for the taxes, you legally have to have a specific structure for that to happen with solid legal advice by someone who knows what they are doing. 1099 independent contractors have a contracts in place dictate everything, they define who does what and how it is done. Fleets that run the drivers as 1099 without a contract or without understanding what it is all about, they are cheap POS owners who need to be put out of business.

Finding drivers takes a lot of work and time, it isn't a case where you can just interview someone, go through the legal (FMCSA) process and hand them the keys. Onboarding can take a couple weeks, sometimes a month depending on your level of quality you expect out of the driver. Depending on the level of investigation into their background, it can cost anywhere from zero to $2400. You can't just stick one in a $100k piece of equipment and expect them to make money for you.

You asked about warranties, these help but they are not what you can depend on. You still need to have money in the bank to cover expenses like driver housing and other repairs. You will be paying for insurance because the truck is in the fleet and so on. You want to save $20k on an engine repair, you can spend another $25k on everything else. If the truck breaks down under load, then you lost the load and the cost of getting it there.

I can go on about logs, technology and so but I think you need to drive to learn as much as you can before you think you can get a fleet.

EDIT ---- IMPORTANT TO YOU TO UNDERSTAND - there is a huge difference between a good fleet owner and a good owner operator. I am a fleet owner, I have low turn over and I work at this every day - up at 4 and go to bed at 9 every day. This is my life, having happy drivers is what motivates me and I take it very seriously, because I am providing people a means to support their families which is what the really successful fleet owners mindset is.