Input on starting new fleet

Skip the IT guy and sub-contract all your stuff out to a Software As A Service (SaaS) company that specializes in trucking or logistics. Make employees responsible for their own PC, tablet, smartphone, etc. You'll fare better in the long run. I give this advice as a 30 year IT guy who traded in the bits and bytes for a CDL.

 

You will need someone to handle payroll unless you plan on sub contracting that part out to a 3rd party vendor. I would keep it in-house. Most carriers will have one dispatcher for about every 35 drivers. You might push them up to 50 drivers, but that will stretch them out. With that many trucks, you may also need a good load planner, although it may not be necessary. One other area that you may want to consider is having your own maintenance people. It can save you money in the long run and you will make sure you have all equipment checked on a timely basis.

 

You're off to a great Start....... IMHO..

Because the Easiest Way to make a small fortune out of Trucks is to;

start out with a LARGE Fortune...........
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On a more serious note..
As has been noted; this is a tough unforgiving take no prisioners Industry..

your best option (I think) would be to (as has already been suggested) Buy an existing business.
This would/should save a lot of start up issues for someone without any industry background...

Just My 2 cents..

 

I would also second buying an existing business. It will allow you to start at the scale that you desire. I wouldn't be able to guess what you will buy a company for. A lot will depend on the age of their fleet. If they are spread out in age or all coming up for replacement will make a large difference because of the additional capital outlay you may have to make. Most large fleets will keep trucks 4-6 years. As well it will depend on the type of business. Some companies probably make less than $50 bucks a day off of a truck but have thousands (read van trailers). Others may make $500 a day but only have a handful (anything you don't see hundreds of going down the interstate).

If you start from scratch you will need to do a lot of work finding freight. You can't run too many trucks off of a load board or at least make money off of load boards so will need to get direct freight, which takes time to develop especially contacts that will bring your trucks back.

The other thing to note is to look at what is going on with the larger companies. Many of the general freight 100+ truck companies are all being bought up by the megas. In a few years you will likely only see independents with a handful of trucks or mega carriers unless you can find yourself a niche market which is too much work for them to bother with.

My opinion in what the industry is going to shift towards more of a hub system. Loads will still move cross country but a driver will only take it one day. He will grab another trailer and head back to his home terminal. It will help with driver retention as you will only be away from home for one night rather than weeks. As well it will reduce issues with hours of service as it will be nearly all drive time with little delay time. You would have other drivers that would be responsible to load trailers and bring them to the nearest terminal.

 

I will give this advice, it is successful advice that worked for a lot of people - get a CDl, buy a truck, sign on with a small company where you can communicate with everyone at every level and learn.

Most good successful small fleets have started with people who know the business not through research but through experience. They, like me have taken on many jobs to find niches and ways of leveraging things to their advantage.

 

Well if I sold a company for that amount of money, I would retire to a beautiful island with a beautiful woman, and just enjoy the scenery

Honestly, If I was looking to invest as you are, I would seriously consider somethimg other than this. I believe that you have the funds and the skills to do this, but there has to be something better.

This has to be one of the most highly regulated industries in the U.S. There is zero tolerance. Zero. And huge fines.

Expense is constant, ongoing, and never ending. 100 trucks could probably make a good amount of money, but dollar for dollar invested, there must be a better choice.

Having run the business that you had, I am sure that you will put systems in place to ward off trouble.

But let's say that out of 100 trucks, suddenly 6 or 7 trucks have major problems that put them out of commission for at least a week or so. You have 5 drivers that quit in addition to the ten that you need to hire.

Let's say that the economy takes another turn down and in addition to this you have 7 or 8 trucks sitting. You find that drivers are stealing fuel and tires and anything else that they can get their hands on, and let's say that 5 more of your drivers are put out of service for very large violations.

Then let's say that one or two drivers have a bad wreck. And this doesn't account for sales being off, management problems, etc.

Is this likely to happen at once. Not probable, but very possible. And most of what I mentioned will happen at some point. And one preventable wreck could close the doors for good. Zero tolerance.

You probably have the expertise and funds to recover from most things, but this business can become a minefield. And it's big piles of money that get blown up.

My point is that even though profit is possible, this entire business is about expense and liability. On the positive side, you can be profitable. On the negative side, if things turn negative for whatever reason, it's that expense and liability times 100. Money can burn very rapidly in this business.

I am sure that you can do this, but do you really want to? There has to be something better.

Just my .02. Good luck.

 

Some of the better smaller companies started as fleet owners and leasing trucks to a large carrier. Pretty much the model for all expedite carriers. Being new it would give you a tremendous advantage in building a solid driver base and learning the business. Also significantly reduces capital requirements.

PM me your email and I can send you a list of better carriers that are still doing this.

 

Go with a 3rd party vendor like Ceridian, ADP or Paychex. If you have employees in lots of jurisdictions the back end tax payments can get cumbersome and some municipalities make more money off the fines of small companies not paying the proper school district taxes (PA, OH, KY) from payroll taxes or occupational / head taxes. All it take one employee in the wrong jurisdiction and you will have paid enough fines and levies to make you an ardent supporter of third party payroll. When I supported Estee Lauders' payroll system a few years back as an IT guy we had a team of nearly 12 IT people and double that the number of payroll clerks just to get payroll out the door and we still handed our tax payments over to Ceridian for processing because the company got continually hung for some missed or late payment.

Remember you are in the trucking business not the payroll business.

 

Finance pays more than trucking any day of the week.