AI transcript
0:00:04 A thousand bucks a month, renting out plastic bins?
0:00:05 What’s up?
0:00:06 What’s up?
0:00:07 Nicole Over here.
0:00:08 Welcome to the Side Castle Show.
0:00:09 It’s the entrepreneurship podcast.
0:00:10 You can actually apply.
0:00:15 I’ve got a fun case study for you today under the category of buying something once and
0:00:17 getting paid for it over and over again, a creative rental business.
0:00:23 For the last 10 years, my guest has been renting out moving boxes, relatively low startup
0:00:28 cost, steady and maybe even increasing demand in just a few hours to week that it takes
0:00:34 to run on the side from his day job from HalBoxRental.com Gary Graywall.
0:00:36 Welcome to the Side Castle Show.
0:00:37 Thanks, Nick.
0:00:38 Thanks for having me here today.
0:00:39 You bet.
0:00:40 Stick around in this one.
0:00:44 You hear how Gary came up with this random idea, how he gets customers and how he handles
0:00:49 the storage and delivery logistics for this physical inventory business.
0:00:54 Now, you know, I love a fun rental side hustle, fun rental business and boxes certainly aren’t
0:00:58 the only thing that you can rent out for a profit, which is why I put together a list
0:01:02 of 25 other unconventional things that you can make money renting out.
0:01:09 That is yours for free to download at the show notes for this episode at sidehustlenation.com/Gary
0:01:13 or you can just follow the link in the episode description and it’ll get you over there.
0:01:14 Gary, how’d you come up with this idea?
0:01:15 This was a pretty random one.
0:01:20 Basically, like I was in college UCLA and I think it was move-in day for fall quarter.
0:01:21 There was just tons and tons of boxes.
0:01:25 There was piles and piles and piles of boxes everywhere and I was like, man, that’s pretty
0:01:26 unsightly.
0:01:28 Like I’ve always been very sustainability focused.
0:01:31 You know, I thought, well, there’s got to be something better than this.
0:01:36 And so I just typed in in Google like rent moving boxes and I found there was a company
0:01:41 in Canada called Frogbox and I thought that was such a cool idea.
0:01:46 You just basically get boxes delivered to you and then there are these plastic crates
0:01:50 basically with the lids attached and then you pack them, you move and somebody comes
0:01:51 and takes them away.
0:01:52 That’s a great idea.
0:01:56 Why don’t I start something like this because there’s nothing like that where I could find
0:01:57 it during that time.
0:01:58 Okay.
0:02:00 So somebody was doing it in Canada, Frogbox.
0:02:05 And instead of being discouraged, which would sometimes be my reaction, like, oh, I come
0:02:09 up with this great business idea, of course, Google it and then, oh, somebody else is
0:02:10 already doing that.
0:02:12 I could be like, well, back to the drawing board, like, no, no, no.
0:02:15 Well, maybe in this case, they’re doing it in a separate area and say, okay, I could
0:02:17 bring this idea to California.
0:02:18 Yeah.
0:02:21 That’s the thing is like these kinds of businesses.
0:02:22 It’s like, it’s just like a coffee shop.
0:02:27 If you go to this really cool shop or restaurant and there’s nothing like that where you live,
0:02:28 you can duplicate it.
0:02:29 You can make it your own.
0:02:32 Now, if it was like, if I was selling these boxes and I was like, I’m just going to sell
0:02:36 these boxes, well, I probably would be out of business because there’s much larger companies
0:02:40 doing that who can take on smaller margins and have greater exposure.
0:02:43 And it becomes a commodity type of thing.
0:02:44 Yeah.
0:02:45 Yeah.
0:02:46 It’s very localized, right?
0:02:50 Like, they’re not going to deliver boxes to your door from Canada to California.
0:02:54 And so this was something that, you know, my hometown in Sacramento, California, there
0:02:57 is no company that does what we do.
0:02:59 Even today, I don’t know of any.
0:03:00 That’s their primary line of business.
0:03:02 Now, it has caught on.
0:03:06 Some movers are like offering this to their customers, but we are the primary offering
0:03:07 here.
0:03:08 Yeah.
0:03:11 And I want to highlight too, even if there is somebody else doing it, there’s room for
0:03:13 more than one sushi restaurant in town.
0:03:17 There’s, you know, if you have a decent population, there’s, there’s a little room for a healthy
0:03:18 competition.
0:03:23 And you can think about other ways to differentiate yourself aside from just the product.
0:03:26 But in this case, it was somewhat of a, of a blue ocean.
0:03:29 But then the next question is like, is there any demand for this?
0:03:34 Like, did, did moving customers know that this was an option or is there a little like
0:03:36 market education that has to happen?
0:03:40 You know, Nick, even today, after 10 years in business, I still get calls and emails
0:03:42 like, why haven’t I heard from you guys before?
0:03:44 I didn’t even know this existed.
0:03:48 So obviously we could do a little bit of a better job, I guess, of publicity.
0:03:51 And this just goes into the fact that, you know, it is a side gig.
0:03:56 I contribute maybe three hours a week to it, probably could do more, but we have a consistent
0:03:57 stream of customers.
0:04:02 And we’re at this point, we have the biggest groups that come to us, biggest clients is
0:04:07 return clients and people finding us from referrals and Google.
0:04:10 So fortunately our Google search is working well.
0:04:16 They search rent, moving boxes in Sacramento or any of the outlying suburbs.
0:04:17 They’re probably going to find us.
0:04:19 We’re on that first page.
0:04:24 And we have relationships with a lot of interior designers and organizing companies out here.
0:04:28 So that’s kind of like our niche is if they’re working with a client who wants to redo their
0:04:32 kitchen or have a, organize their whole house, well, they got to pack it all up because they
0:04:34 have to redo it.
0:04:39 And they like to use our boxes because they’re eco-friendly, they’re ergonomic, they’re useful,
0:04:41 and they can stay on site for a couple of weeks.
0:04:43 So what was the first move here?
0:04:47 So you Google rent, moving boxes, you find this competitor in Canada for some level of
0:04:52 validation and then you just go to Home Depot and order up a bunch of those, like I’m picturing
0:04:55 like the giant Tupperware bin type of things.
0:04:59 Yeah, it’s funny you say that because that’s exactly the first thing that I did as I went
0:05:03 to, I think it was Lowe’s and they have like these big black, you know, like people store
0:05:05 their Christmas decorations in their garage.
0:05:06 Yeah.
0:05:07 Yeah.
0:05:08 Our attic is filled with these things.
0:05:09 Yeah.
0:05:11 And that’s what you should use because I didn’t know where else to buy them.
0:05:13 I was just like, oh, I’m just going to start this business.
0:05:14 Why not?
0:05:15 I was 23 years old.
0:05:18 And so I bought like five and I was like, well, it’s kind of a lot of money.
0:05:20 You have to do a different business.
0:05:22 And then I kind of hemmed and hawed for a couple of weeks on it.
0:05:28 I returned them and I Googled like, I think I reached out to a competitor in Texas.
0:05:29 It’s like, where do you guys get your boxes?
0:05:34 And they’re like, oh, there’s this company in Florida and Nevada called Reusable Transport
0:05:35 Packaging.
0:05:38 They’re one of the companies that sell, they’re kind of like a U line where they sell all
0:05:45 kinds of various business products like forklifts and dollies and trays and tape and all kinds
0:05:46 of stuff.
0:05:49 So these companies sell boxes like this in a bulk inventory.
0:05:54 You can’t just buy one or two, you need to buy 50, 100, 500 boxes.
0:05:59 So when I saw that I was like, okay, I’m going to go in with both feet and make the investment
0:06:00 and see what happens.
0:06:02 Do you remember how much it was or how many boxes you got?
0:06:03 Yeah.
0:06:07 I initially ordered, I think 50 and it was close to $2,000 with delivery.
0:06:08 Yeah.
0:06:09 You can’t do this with just five.
0:06:11 People got more than five boxes worth of stuff.
0:06:16 It’s got to have enough to hold a house or an apartment’s worth of belongings.
0:06:17 Right.
0:06:23 And I quickly found that out is clients would consistently ask, especially after we got
0:06:27 established after a couple of years, they would want 100 boxes.
0:06:30 And that’s especially true for when we started to do office moves.
0:06:35 So a lot of law firms or what not want to move offices, they want 100 boxes.
0:06:38 And so that’s when we had to start ordering more.
0:06:41 And then the nice thing too is these boxes last over 100 moves.
0:06:42 Yeah.
0:06:43 Right?
0:06:46 So we’re not ordering new boxes every month or even every year, it’s maybe every couple
0:06:47 of years to refresh our inventory.
0:06:48 Okay.
0:06:51 So you’re a couple grand into it, you got 50 boxes.
0:06:52 Where do you, where do you put them?
0:06:55 Like is there a room in your garage for this stuff?
0:06:56 No, I wish.
0:06:57 Initially there was.
0:06:59 First month was there.
0:07:02 I then got a storage unit so that I could, because you know, sometimes people want to
0:07:03 pick up the boxes.
0:07:07 I don’t want people coming to my house and picking up boxes, you know, and I think it
0:07:11 was like $80 a month to rent a storage unit for my boxes.
0:07:15 And then after that, when we started to get a little busier, I actually had moved to Denver
0:07:18 and I said, okay, well, I don’t want to step down the business, but I want to move to Denver
0:07:19 for this job.
0:07:24 So I reached out to a moving company and this is one of the craziest things I’ve ever done.
0:07:27 He’s one of the, this guy, he owns a moving company out here.
0:07:30 He’s one of the top rated movers in Sacramento.
0:07:33 And I explained that he had referred some customers to me and I had reached out to him
0:07:36 like, hey, tell your customers about our boxes.
0:07:37 And I said, hey, I have this crazy idea.
0:07:39 You want to go into business together?
0:07:43 Everyone that you bring to me and you take care of the delivery, I’ll handle the clients
0:07:45 and we’ll share the revenue.
0:07:48 And I went into business with somebody I’d spoken on the phone, but I’d never actually
0:07:52 met, which I thought was the craziest thing anybody could do, but I did it and we continued
0:07:53 to grow.
0:07:57 But this solves your logistics problem of, you know, having to meet customers at the
0:08:01 place, like maybe the moving company can keep them at their facility or they can handle
0:08:05 that delivery since they’re going to be moving those belongings anyways.
0:08:06 Yeah.
0:08:07 And that’s exactly what happened.
0:08:09 They moved all the boxes to their warehouse area.
0:08:13 And so that basically took care of rent and reduced our expenses.
0:08:17 And so when they would have a move, they would just, you know, take our boxes with their
0:08:20 moving truck, deliver them and then go to another move.
0:08:25 And so it’s very strategic kind of how they do it, but some customers do still pick them
0:08:26 up.
0:08:30 So the first booking, you know, and how that person found you, is it still trying to get
0:08:37 on moving company’s preferred vendor list or, you know, was it early Google rankings?
0:08:40 Talk to me about the first couple of bookings where you’re like, oh, I’m slowly going to
0:08:42 start to recoup this initial startup cost.
0:08:43 Yeah.
0:08:46 So it’s funny enough, our website initially was very clunky.
0:08:50 I had one of our interns at the first job I was at, I paid him 50 bucks to make our website.
0:08:53 So there wasn’t a way to book it like there is now.
0:08:57 And so the first, I actually started off marketing on Craigslist.
0:09:01 So on Craigslist, there’s a section where it says services offered, right?
0:09:03 Or like, you know, you need some help with something.
0:09:06 So I put on their rent moving boxes, right?
0:09:08 Super, super sketchy.
0:09:09 But I said, well, it’s free.
0:09:13 There’s no harm in this because I don’t have to pay a search engine, I’m to put up Facebook
0:09:14 ads or anything like that.
0:09:18 You know, 10 years ago, Craigslist was a different landscape than it is today, right?
0:09:20 It was a different era of the internet.
0:09:21 Yeah.
0:09:22 It was, right?
0:09:25 It was where you, I mean, I found a tennis partner on there, roommates, I sold my car.
0:09:29 Like it’s not, it was used much more than I feel like than it is now.
0:09:30 Yeah.
0:09:33 And maybe today you could do a similar tactic on Facebook marketplace because that’s where
0:09:36 I went to look for moving boxes for our recent move.
0:09:37 Right.
0:09:38 And people are giving them away and like, okay, we’ll go pick these up.
0:09:40 So you’re exactly right, right?
0:09:44 Like people give stuff away, it’s easier, it’s more community feel, you have a more trustworthiness
0:09:45 there.
0:09:46 But back then I just had no inhibition.
0:09:50 I was like, yeah, I’ll just go on and, and I couldn’t believe that we got an email from
0:09:51 somebody that was like, yeah, I want to rent these.
0:09:52 I want to try these out.
0:09:56 And it was a woman living in an apartment, like a senior apartment in a not so great
0:09:57 part of town.
0:10:02 And so I took this intern with me, we rented a truck from Home Depot, like those $19 per
0:10:05 hour trucks, because I don’t know what else to do.
0:10:08 And one of the boxes actually flew out on the freeway.
0:10:09 No.
0:10:12 So we learned that we need to close the lids and tie them down.
0:10:13 Who would have thought they could fly out.
0:10:18 And so we grabbed that, got back on track and we went to this woman and delivered the boxes
0:10:21 and was like, yeah, so we’ll be back in a week to pick them back up.
0:10:22 Okay.
0:10:24 And so she was just doing an in town move.
0:10:25 Yeah.
0:10:29 She was moving from a one bedroom apartment from North, the Northern part of town to one
0:10:32 bedroom apartment on the Southern, to the Southern part of town.
0:10:35 So it was just her and her cat and she was a great fan.
0:10:39 And we learned the one thing about the negative about this business, Nick, is that think about
0:10:40 it.
0:10:41 You’re renting stuff out.
0:10:43 What it’s, what’s means you get it back, hopefully.
0:10:46 So the things you have to look out for is, are you getting all your boxes back?
0:10:47 Are they damaged?
0:10:48 Yeah.
0:10:49 And are they clean?
0:10:50 Like they should be.
0:10:55 Sometimes you’ll find like pat hair, human hair, sprinkles, all kinds of stuff in the
0:10:57 boxes after people have done moving.
0:11:00 And you have to make sure that it’s clean and sanitized for the next customer.
0:11:02 So the not so luxurious part of this business.
0:11:04 No, that makes sense.
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0:13:46 What does it cost to rent these things out?
0:13:47 How do you figure out pricing?
0:13:51 That’s where the competition really helps is that you look at what other people are charging
0:13:53 in other cities.
0:13:59 There’s companies now in Southern California, Bay Area, Texas, Arizona, even Colorado.
0:14:01 You see what they’re charging.
0:14:04 What we did is basically just test out the market.
0:14:08 We wanted to have a higher margin to make up for the lower volume.
0:14:13 We started to increase our prices and we would still get people that wouldn’t say, “There’s
0:14:18 maybe a few people per year that are like, ‘That’s a lot of money, $400 for rent boxes.
0:14:19 I don’t know if I want to do that.'”
0:14:25 But most people really don’t bat an eye because they see that if I’m paying movers $2,000
0:14:29 or $3,000 to pack up and move my house, I don’t have to go because they’re going to
0:14:33 charge too to bring you boxes and tape them up and build them up and dispose of them and
0:14:34 everything.
0:14:38 So we figured out pricing just from trial and error and also just looking at what the
0:14:41 competition nationally was charging.
0:14:46 On the pricing page at CalBoxvernal.com, it looks like it’s a combination of how many
0:14:49 do you need and how long do you need them.
0:14:53 So like 50 boxes for a week, it gives you plenty of time to pack everything up, move
0:14:54 it across town.
0:14:59 You got to do local moves because if you’re moving to Seattle, I need my boxes back.
0:15:03 It’s got to be in town moves so your moving company partner can bring them back to headquarters
0:15:06 or you can go pick them up and take them back to the storage unit.
0:15:07 Yep, that’s exactly right.
0:15:11 And we do quite, actually, we’ve had a few people that moved.
0:15:13 Sacramento’s been a hot spot for people from the Bay Area to move to because it’s much
0:15:15 cheaper, especially after the pandemic.
0:15:20 So we actually had people that said, “I want to rent your boxes and I’ll drop them off
0:15:23 to you once I move to the Bay Area, once I move to Sacramento.”
0:15:28 So if they moved to Sacramento, they would drive here, pick up our boxes, go home, pack
0:15:31 and once they move here, they’d either pick them up or they’d drop them back off.
0:15:34 So I will say it’s just a culture, I guess.
0:15:38 People are big into sustainability in different parts of the country and want that zero waste
0:15:40 and there’s that brand awareness out there.
0:15:44 There’s a great company in the Bay Area called ZipGo, they do what we do.
0:15:48 They rent out these boxes and sometimes they’re like, “Yeah, I wish we could give our boxes
0:15:51 to somebody and they move up there and then you take them and we somehow get them back.”
0:15:54 So there is a logistical issue, obviously, if you rent them out.
0:15:58 So long distance moves are not our strong suit, but everything else is.
0:15:59 Got it.
0:16:05 And then if somebody is sitting on these, maybe it’s a corporate reload and they need
0:16:08 to go into storage for a minute, I guess you’re charging them every week so you’re still making
0:16:13 money on that inventory, but it kind of limits the booking requests that come in to say, “We’ll
0:16:16 shoot that inventory as tied up right now.”
0:16:17 Yeah, we’ve had that.
0:16:21 We’ve had, and especially it’s the corporate moves and those renovation projects, is they’re
0:16:22 like, “Okay, we’ll have it.
0:16:24 We want to rent it for two weeks.
0:16:25 Two weeks turns into three weeks to four weeks.”
0:16:28 We’ve had a customer that rented it for almost two months.
0:16:33 And yeah, it does tie up the inventory, but from what I see it as they’re paying, we could
0:16:35 have had a customer that week, we could have not.
0:16:39 And if we do, yeah, I do have to say, “Really sorry, we’re booked up.”
0:16:42 And that creates a, “Wow, it’s like kind of that waitlist phenomenon.
0:16:44 I’m like, “Oh, I want it even more now.”
0:16:48 So maybe I’ll, I mean, I’ve had people that honestly, they’ve delayed their move date
0:16:53 or delayed their escrow or closing their lease on their apartment because like, “I’ll wait
0:16:54 till you’re ready.”
0:16:57 I mean, that’s like music to any business owner’s ears, right?
0:16:58 Yeah.
0:17:02 Is you have to turn away a customer, but you’re creating that scarcity effect in an inadvertently,
0:17:03 right?
0:17:04 But you’re still creating it.
0:17:08 And now they want to come back and like, they’ll change themselves to work with you.
0:17:09 Yeah.
0:17:10 The inventory is making money.
0:17:11 So it’s fine.
0:17:13 How many boxes do you have now?
0:17:14 Close to a thousand.
0:17:15 Oh my God.
0:17:16 Okay.
0:17:17 That’s more than I expected.
0:17:18 Yeah.
0:17:20 Cause like, I mean, most rentals are like 100 to 200 boxes.
0:17:23 And sometimes we have two or three at a time.
0:17:24 Okay.
0:17:25 So you’ve got plenty of capacity.
0:17:26 Yeah.
0:17:30 And it’s also a lot cheaper to order a lot at once so that you’re not paying additional
0:17:34 shipping and logistic fees and also if some boxes break or whatever, like you have the
0:17:35 rest of that.
0:17:36 Yeah.
0:17:37 You make sense.
0:17:38 So you got to be able to fill that demand.
0:17:39 Wow.
0:17:40 Okay.
0:17:43 So starting out marketing on Craigslist, you know, renting, renting the pickup truck from
0:17:44 Hope Depot to deliver these things.
0:17:49 And then eventually it sounds like your move, you know, even though this is a hands on local
0:17:54 based business, you’re moving several states away halfway across the country to Colorado.
0:17:59 And yet the business is still able to operate thanks to this moving company partnership.
0:18:03 Can you play that card, you know, with multiple different moving companies?
0:18:07 Like you sprinkle that inventory around to like to cast a wide net here or what’s, what’s
0:18:08 the play?
0:18:12 You know, the funny thing is like when we were new and even, even once we were like a couple
0:18:15 years into business, moving companies did not like us.
0:18:20 And the reason is a lot of moving companies already want to sell boxes to their customers
0:18:22 cardboard boxes, right?
0:18:26 So in essence, if we were partnering with them, we’re drawing their attention away, we’re
0:18:27 taking revenue from them.
0:18:31 The way I approached it with them was like, it’s not, you know, obviously you can present
0:18:35 the choice, but if they want to rent, obviously it’s going to be financially lucrative to
0:18:38 you because you’re helping them get what they want, right?
0:18:41 Giving your customers options is always a good idea.
0:18:45 But that it wouldn’t really be logistically possible because, I mean, to coordinate with
0:18:49 several different people, I mean, a one person can’t, can’t do all that.
0:18:53 And I honestly think that our service radius is a pretty good amount.
0:18:55 It’s about 25 miles in Sacramento.
0:18:59 And we still service outlying area, we just charge additional for delivery.
0:19:01 So we still are able to do that.
0:19:05 And Steve, my business partner, is just an incredible human who’s very flexible.
0:19:06 He’s on top of things.
0:19:09 And he’s the only person I can really trust to do it.
0:19:10 What was the pitch?
0:19:16 Was like, we’ll split revenue 50/50, we’ll, it sounds like, because after a few of these,
0:19:20 my entrepreneurial spidey senses got to go off and be like, well, maybe I should just
0:19:21 buy my own boxes.
0:19:23 Why am I sharing revenue with this guy?
0:19:24 I’ll do it all the work.
0:19:25 Yeah.
0:19:26 No, it’s true.
0:19:29 I mean, and I thought of that too, but I said, do you want to buy the company from me?
0:19:33 He’s like, you know, I want to get out of the moving business.
0:19:34 And he’s been saying this for a while.
0:19:38 So he’s like, no, I don’t, I don’t want to really do that.
0:19:41 And he doesn’t want, I guess he just really doesn’t want the hassle of doing it.
0:19:43 But to be honest, that’s another thing somebody could have done.
0:19:46 I think there was another company actually in Sacramento, there was two.
0:19:49 One was called Ubox, I think they went out of business, you know?
0:19:53 And so it’s just a matter of like, people think it’s a great, you know, they see it
0:19:54 in concept.
0:19:55 Oh, he’s doing it.
0:19:57 I can just do it as a simple concept, but there’s an execution involved.
0:19:59 And also I have very low overhead.
0:20:04 So it’s like, once you buy the boxes, the arrangement that we have is that, you know, I pay hosting
0:20:10 for the website, I pay for splitting the revenue, cleaning the boxes, delivery, all of that comes
0:20:12 through only when we have a client.
0:20:16 If I don’t have a customer for a whole month or two months, I’m not paying anything.
0:20:17 There’s no expenses other than the website.
0:20:18 There’s no utilities.
0:20:19 There’s no rent.
0:20:20 There’s no employees.
0:20:21 There’s nothing.
0:20:22 So we can withstand dry spells.
0:20:23 Got it.
0:20:24 Got it.
0:20:29 If you get a booking request that is independent of the moving company partner, does he still
0:20:32 have to go and deliver those boxes?
0:20:33 Yep.
0:20:36 Our delivery guy does everything, whether they come through that lead source, any lead
0:20:37 source.
0:20:42 So most of our leads are coming from Google referrals, previous customers and interior
0:20:43 remodeling specialists.
0:20:44 Okay.
0:20:45 Yeah.
0:20:48 When you start kind of listing these off, you know, I think of just, you know, oh, my
0:20:50 lease is up, I’m moving or my change jobs.
0:20:53 So I’m moving to a different area, but there’s a lot of different occasions where you might
0:20:54 need to pack up stuff.
0:20:58 I guess we did it last year with the kitchen remodels, I guess we got to, you know, move
0:20:59 everything out.
0:21:01 And it’s like, oh gosh, there’s a lot of stuff here.
0:21:06 And so all these different occasions where people might be in the market for something
0:21:10 like this and kind of looking for those strategic partnerships, I love the interior designer
0:21:11 angle.
0:21:13 I’ve never thought of, but that makes sense.
0:21:14 Yeah.
0:21:15 And we kind of fell into it by accident.
0:21:19 We had somebody reach out to us saying, oh, I didn’t even know.
0:21:20 Another one that was like, I don’t know.
0:21:21 You guys existed.
0:21:22 Why didn’t I know about you before?
0:21:24 And she introduced us.
0:21:27 There’s apparently there’s like meetups of interior designers and there’s like, there’s
0:21:32 like these conventions for like organizers, which I would never have imagined.
0:21:34 And they have a lot of business.
0:21:39 A lot of people have big homes and discussion or income and they want to hire these people
0:21:42 to make their pantries Instagram worthy.
0:21:47 And you know, what happens is that then translates into their office needs work.
0:21:48 This needs work.
0:21:49 Their kids need work.
0:21:53 So whether they move, remodel, get a design work done, get any renovations done.
0:21:57 And we also do a lot of retail stores now, which just was from accident.
0:22:02 There was a store that sold auto parts and very mom and pop stores, auto parts and machinery.
0:22:04 And they were getting their floors redone.
0:22:08 So they had to pack up everything off of their shelves and store it for two weeks while the
0:22:09 floors got done.
0:22:12 So they wanted our boxes because they thought the cardboard, everything’s going to collapse.
0:22:13 It’s going to tear.
0:22:14 It’s not strong enough.
0:22:15 Okay.
0:22:18 And, you know, so there’s just so much opportunity for using these boxes.
0:22:22 That’s not just for somebody moving from one house to another house.
0:22:23 Gotcha.
0:22:24 And did they find you through the website?
0:22:25 They did.
0:22:26 Okay.
0:22:32 Was there anything specific that you did to help it in terms of local SEO ranking?
0:22:37 I honestly just Googled like how to improve your search rankings and I use Wix, which I
0:22:40 guess wasn’t very recommended, but it was cheap at the time when they had a package
0:22:41 deal.
0:22:45 And so I just, you know, would put keywords on our homepage and other pages and connect
0:22:46 our socials.
0:22:51 One business owner gave me a suggestion to, you should allow people to directly have a
0:22:55 booking request on your website rather than sending you an email or calling.
0:22:58 Just put some, you know, form in there, how many boxes you want, when you want it, all
0:23:00 of that and send it to you.
0:23:02 And that’s been heavily utilized as well.
0:23:04 So I’m really not sure what it is.
0:23:05 I’m grateful for it.
0:23:08 But, you know, Wix too also has like an SEO checklist, like, did you do this, did you
0:23:09 do this, do this?
0:23:11 So I’ve been working on that.
0:23:15 I haven’t hired anybody to do any of our website or technical stuff.
0:23:17 Maybe I should, but it’s been working so far.
0:23:18 So far.
0:23:19 So good.
0:23:20 If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
0:23:21 Yeah.
0:23:26 Ten years ago, I would have been really hesitant to recommend Wix from an SEO standpoint just
0:23:31 because a lot of their stuff was kind of dynamically loaded, hidden behind JavaScript in a lot of
0:23:32 ways.
0:23:33 Right.
0:23:37 So it’s been a bit, and by virtue of being one of the few players in town, it sounds
0:23:40 like, hey, look, you know, eventually you’re going to trickle to the top of Google just
0:23:45 by virtue of word of mouth and, you know, the on-page factors that you do have in place
0:23:49 here where it says, you know, if you need moving boxes in Sacramento and you want to
0:23:50 rent them, here we are.
0:23:51 Yeah.
0:23:52 Some of it is luck.
0:23:55 Some of it is just doing what you can to be proactive about making sure you have the right
0:23:56 content on your website.
0:24:02 Now, how about the interior design, like, it didn’t sound like you went to this conference,
0:24:06 but it sounds like you were proactive about building those relationships, too.
0:24:07 Yeah.
0:24:12 It was, once this first woman had reached out to us, she was really nice, and she did
0:24:15 like an, we didn’t have Instagram until about two years ago.
0:24:20 We just had a Facebook page, again, I’ve never done any advertising, really.
0:24:23 And she’s like, you need to get Instagram so I can put you guys on my story.
0:24:26 So we created an Instagram page, and she did.
0:24:27 And that was great.
0:24:28 She’s like, look at these boxes.
0:24:29 They’re called great.
0:24:30 They are.
0:24:31 They’re so easy, eco-friendly.
0:24:35 You need a little spin on the, on the dolly and, and her friends found it, like, wow,
0:24:36 where are these?
0:24:37 Who’s the owner?
0:24:38 Where do I find them?
0:24:42 So that’s the power of the community here is that it’s, it’s, it’s just like they trust
0:24:45 each other, they lean on each other, even though they’re in competition, right?
0:24:49 They don’t want somebody doing something that their clients are, think are really cool and
0:24:51 they don’t offer it or they don’t know anything about it.
0:24:56 So we don’t do a lot of moves with them, but we do a lot of, like I said, organizing projects.
0:24:57 All right.
0:24:59 This is Cal Box rental on Instagram.
0:25:00 We’ll link that up.
0:25:04 If you want to go check it out, what kind of risks are associated with this business?
0:25:07 I mean, it’s, it seems pretty straightforward.
0:25:11 Like it’s a, it’s a plastic box, but I don’t know, you find any risk or liability here that
0:25:12 people should be aware of?
0:25:13 Yeah.
0:25:14 It’s a couple of things.
0:25:18 I mean, one of the things that we did was, I mean, my first customer, we did have a rental
0:25:19 agreement, right?
0:25:23 So technically she could have just like kept the boxes or destroyed them and I would have
0:25:25 no recourse or she’s like, I don’t have any boxes.
0:25:26 What are you talking about?
0:25:27 But fortunately she didn’t do that.
0:25:28 So it was after that.
0:25:29 I was like, you know what?
0:25:33 I should probably have something more than email to make sure customers are on the hook
0:25:34 for this.
0:25:37 So I went to, I think I went to the library and I looked up like, you know, those NOLO
0:25:39 books and they have like how to write a contract.
0:25:42 So I just Googled like how to have a rental contract.
0:25:45 And I would just put stuff in there that basically indemnified us for anything.
0:25:49 If they were, the boxes were dirty, if they were, if they were late, how much we would
0:25:50 charge them.
0:25:53 If they got hurt or if there’s liquids in them, like we’re not liable.
0:25:58 So we basically made sure that the rental agreement had, what are they renting from?
0:26:00 What dates are they renting it?
0:26:01 When are they do?
0:26:02 And also payment information.
0:26:06 So in the beginning days, we only took credit card, we had, you know, square, it was like
0:26:10 if I was meeting them, we would slide little thing on your smartphone, but now you can
0:26:11 enter it manually.
0:26:16 And now we’ve gradually moved since Venmo does business now, we, we primarily try to
0:26:18 do Venmo and just keep all our transactions there.
0:26:22 We also take PayPal because the thing is like when I send a rental agreement to a customer,
0:26:24 we don’t have any fancy docusign or anything like that.
0:26:28 They would have to enter in their credit card information onto the PDF and then send it
0:26:29 back to me.
0:26:30 And that’s not very secure.
0:26:34 So most of the time, if they’re really persistent on doing credit card, which usually they are,
0:26:38 if they’re like a company because they want that, the points and all of that is we would
0:26:39 do it over the phone.
0:26:41 So I would take their information over the phone.
0:26:45 And then once their rental is complete, then I discard the information because one mistake
0:26:50 I made was if somebody paid by credit card or whatever, and then they didn’t return all
0:26:55 of the boxes or they were damaged or something, I don’t find out until somebody goes and cleans
0:26:56 the boxes.
0:26:58 And they have to call them back and be like, we have to charge you this.
0:27:01 And if they don’t, if I don’t have the information on file, I don’t have as much leverage.
0:27:02 Okay.
0:27:04 How did you find that cleaner person?
0:27:08 Is this like, is this like an Airbnb short-term rental type of cleaner?
0:27:10 Take a pressure washer to these things or, you know, spray them out.
0:27:11 I used to do it most of the time.
0:27:15 I mean, when I was, when I was here and then, you know, since I’ve been back, I’ve been
0:27:16 doing it.
0:27:19 But now in the last few years, it’s the same value to their deliveries.
0:27:21 He’s an employee of the moving company.
0:27:25 And you know, they have downtime if they have one move or two moves a day, there may be
0:27:30 done by three o’clock and he’ll spend an hour or two cleaning the boxes and it’s, he doesn’t
0:27:33 charge much and it, but it is work, right?
0:27:36 Because it’s like, you have to clean each box inside and out.
0:27:40 And the one, the sticky things literally Nick is that people leave their labels on these
0:27:41 boxes.
0:27:45 So fortunately they’ll say, like they’ll put painters tape, which is great, right?
0:27:50 You can just tear it right off, but sometimes they’ll put like, you know, like really adhesive
0:27:53 stuff on these boxes, like, and those are hard to take off.
0:27:57 So we now provide dry erase markers for our customers.
0:28:00 If they request them, they can just write it on the boxes.
0:28:02 And then if they forget to do it, it’ll just come off.
0:28:03 I’ll be clean them.
0:28:04 Oh, interesting.
0:28:05 So the dry erase will just, uh, just scrub off.
0:28:06 Yeah.
0:28:10 There’s actually a pre-made smooth section of plastic on the boxes, on the side and on
0:28:13 the top, where they can put a label in like designed for that.
0:28:14 Yeah.
0:28:15 Exactly.
0:28:18 On the other risks, though, I would say that there, there is a concern that if a client,
0:28:22 if a customer, you know, when you pick up your boxes, if you’re not there doing it,
0:28:26 you may not know because let’s say somebody returns their boxes, they’re gonna be in stacks
0:28:27 of five, right?
0:28:30 They’re not going to have every box just out on its own because you’re just stackable.
0:28:35 So if they go back to the warehouse and let’s say if you are cracked or there’s some that
0:28:40 are really dirty or have hairs or dirt or something, who knows what they moved, right?
0:28:43 You have to go back to the customer and you have to make a decision because if you call
0:28:48 them and say, I’m going to have to charge you a hundred dollars for cleaning or whatever,
0:28:49 you’re probably going to put a bad taste in the mouth.
0:28:51 Well, I didn’t do that or I don’t remember that.
0:28:53 And now they may not write you a good review.
0:28:55 They may not come back as a customer.
0:28:56 They may not refer you.
0:28:59 So you have to really play that accordingly.
0:29:02 So I try to just judge it based upon my interaction with the customer.
0:29:05 If it’s one or two boxes that are dirty, I’m not going to charge them.
0:29:08 But if it’s a consistent amount, we’re going to charge them.
0:29:10 And also if they damage the boxes, we have to charge them.
0:29:15 And the thing about that that’s difficult is if I’m not there, if my business partner
0:29:19 is not there and the delivery guy misses it, and let’s say that that box that’s already
0:29:21 damaged goes to a new inventory.
0:29:25 Now that customer got something and I may have to charge them.
0:29:28 So it’s really making sure that we play our due diligence correctly to make sure that
0:29:35 we’re giving each customer clean, new, good shape inventory so we don’t run into this.
0:29:37 And we have a reminder on the rental agreement.
0:29:42 When their rent is when their rental period is due, we also say please make sure you wipe
0:29:46 down the boxes and they’re all empty and all the labels are removed.
0:29:47 Most people listen to that.
0:29:50 Some people don’t, which is why we just clean boxes after each rental.
0:29:51 Sure.
0:29:52 Got it.
0:29:58 And you carry some sort of like general liability policy in case, I don’t know, somebody cuts
0:29:59 their hand open.
0:30:03 It doesn’t seem like there’s a huge level of liability there, but you never know.
0:30:04 Yeah, you never know.
0:30:07 And that’s the thing is like, you know, I’ve toyed back and forth with bundling this with
0:30:12 another LLC or, but yeah, you definitely want to have business liability insurance because
0:30:16 you never know, let’s say somebody, you know, hurt, like you said, hurts their hand on the
0:30:21 box or, you know, they feel like they were charged for cleaning when it wasn’t really
0:30:22 dirty.
0:30:24 So you just want to make sure you protect yourself in any case.
0:30:27 I don’t think this is a very high risk business at all.
0:30:32 Now, if we were like helping them back and I had employees, then that’s a different concern.
0:30:35 But this is just them getting boxes delivered to their doorstep.
0:30:38 They’re then in their possession and then we pick them up.
0:30:42 You know, compared to some of the other rental businesses that we were renting out cars on
0:30:46 Turo or we did an episode on renting out mobility scooters, like, oh, you know, this thing had
0:30:47 a mind of its own.
0:30:52 It accelerated and it drove me into a ditch and there’s other things that, you know, would
0:30:56 definitely check the box for having more liability than a plastic tub.
0:30:58 Yeah, an inanimate object.
0:31:03 More with Gary in just a moment, including collecting positive customer reviews, managing
0:31:07 the inventory and scheduling and his goals for the future of this business right after
0:31:08 this.
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0:32:35 Being an entrepreneur and being able to work remotely definitely has its perks.
0:32:41 I’ve recorded podcasts everywhere from Vietnam to Italy, drafted newsletters from Japan,
0:32:45 hosted mastermind meetings from Spain, ended up being the middle of the night to get to
0:32:49 US business hours, and outlined courses in Mexico.
0:32:53 The common thread of all of these trips though is Airbnb.
0:32:57 We love being able to get exactly what we’re looking for in a place to stay and have a
0:33:02 more local experience than staying in some giant hotel chain.
0:33:03 And you know me.
0:33:06 I’m always thinking about the next side hustle idea, the next income stream, right?
0:33:11 And one that’s at the top of the list is hosting our place on Airbnb while we’re traveling.
0:33:13 That way the house doesn’t have to sit empty.
0:33:17 We could use the income to help pay for the trip, and we’ve heard from several successful
0:33:19 Airbnb hosts on the show.
0:33:24 And what’s interesting is a lot of them started with almost that exact strategy, running their
0:33:27 place or even a spare room while they’re out of town.
0:33:32 Taking inspiration from that, you might have an Airbnb right under your nose.
0:33:35 In fact, your home might be worth more than you think.
0:33:39 You can find out how much at Airbnb.com/host.
0:33:45 That’s Airbnb.com/host to find out how much your home is worth.
0:33:47 You bet you’re collecting reviews.
0:33:52 This is going to be Google, Yelp, Facebook, any platforms that you’ve prioritized and
0:33:56 anything proactive that you’re doing to collect those reviews from happy customers.
0:33:57 Yeah.
0:33:58 So I am under my signature for our business email.
0:34:02 I do have a link to both our Google page and also Yelp.
0:34:06 So most of the time customers will leave it on their own, but I do make an effort.
0:34:09 I think my business partner told me about this app called Nice Job or something like
0:34:12 that where it sends like a couple of texts to the customer.
0:34:13 Hey, how was your experience?
0:34:14 Write a review.
0:34:19 So I just have like a template that I just text to the customers through our phone app.
0:34:21 We use Google Voice.
0:34:23 And so I would just ask them like, how was your experience?
0:34:27 Like I would call them and say, Hey, if it was good, like would you mind leaving us a
0:34:28 review?
0:34:29 Most people are happy to do that.
0:34:30 Some people are just like, you did great.
0:34:31 I’ll refer you.
0:34:32 I don’t leave reviews.
0:34:34 And then some people that didn’t have a good experience just don’t answer me.
0:34:37 They’re just like, I’m not going to leave you a bad review, but I’m not going to talk
0:34:38 about this anymore.
0:34:40 Like I just want to be done with it, which is fine.
0:34:41 Like right.
0:34:44 It’s everybody’s right, but we’re really fortunate in the people that have done left
0:34:45 reviews.
0:34:49 I mean, we have a five star rating on Yelp and Google, a clean five star rating, which
0:34:53 is, it’s really, I’m proud of that because after 12 years of business, right?
0:34:57 You might have a disgruntled customer that was like, Oh, they overcharged me.
0:34:58 Their boxes are bad quality.
0:35:02 They were late on their delivery or, you know, these boxes aren’t that great anyways or
0:35:03 whatever.
0:35:04 Right.
0:35:05 But fortunately, like it’s been pretty cool.
0:35:06 Yeah.
0:35:07 Yeah.
0:35:09 It’s like a law of large numbers is bound to happen after you serve enough clients.
0:35:11 Somebody is bound to be unhappy, but that’s great.
0:35:15 I like this proactive follow up to say, Hey, how was your thing?
0:35:19 And if you were, you know, giving me positive, would you mind just typing that same thing
0:35:22 into the review platform of your choice?
0:35:23 That’d be great.
0:35:24 Yeah.
0:35:25 Exactly.
0:35:26 You mentioned it just takes a few hours a week to run.
0:35:28 Where does your time go in the business these days?
0:35:29 Yeah.
0:35:33 Honestly, Nick, it’s just a matter of answering requests by email and phone.
0:35:37 So I’ll get a phone call, get a voicemail, I’ll get an email and they’ll be like, they’ll
0:35:40 have some questions when it kind of get the boxes, how many boxes do I need, how big are
0:35:42 the boxes, et cetera.
0:35:45 And then I help them kind of create a rental agreement and I’ll do the scheduling.
0:35:49 I’ll connect with my business partner and then he gets the rental agreement.
0:35:52 He contacts the customer and what they’re able to deliver.
0:35:53 And that’s basically it.
0:35:57 And then during the deliveries, I have a, I have a spreadsheet of, you know, who’s renting
0:35:59 what during what time, what do they do?
0:36:01 So we make sure we get them back on time.
0:36:02 And that’s really about it.
0:36:06 I also spend a couple of hours a week creating those relationships in the industry.
0:36:09 So if we’ve worked with people in the past, like, what are you seeing today?
0:36:12 You know, would you like to do a custom promo code together?
0:36:15 Do you want to do a, do you want to collaborate on a social media post?
0:36:19 You know, we’ll have like specials, like a spooktober, like this month, we’re giving
0:36:23 a free extra week of rental for anybody who rents with us.
0:36:28 So we always just try to do something creative and just try to connect with people and those
0:36:32 who are centers of influence to make sure that they are aware of us still, that we are
0:36:34 still around and then we can work together.
0:36:35 Got it.
0:36:39 I was going to ask about the spreadsheet for inventory management because with a thousand
0:36:44 boxes and people with different parts of town, you know, with different numbers of boxes,
0:36:49 like that starts to become a little bit of a logistical challenge, but it is just to
0:36:50 just spreadsheet.
0:36:54 You kind of have an idea of which, you know, how many are with which customer at what time
0:36:55 and when they’re supposed to come back.
0:36:56 Yeah, that’s exactly right.
0:37:00 It’s just a matter of where are these boxes, when are they due, and that’s what we go
0:37:01 based off.
0:37:06 So if I get a rental request and I see that there’s boxes due in a week, but they want
0:37:10 them this weekend, I’m like, well, they’re not, we can deliver them as soon as this time.
0:37:15 So I can see like which boxes are coming back when to make sure because if a customer wants
0:37:20 like a hundred boxes, that’s a lot harder to do if we’re booked than if they want 50
0:37:21 boxes.
0:37:24 But usually at most the time with the level of boxes we have now, I mean, we’re not a
0:37:27 crazy, you know, million dollar company, right?
0:37:29 So we usually have the ability to do that.
0:37:32 We’re just the neighborhood box rental company here.
0:37:37 Is there a target revenue number or fulfillment metric, like how many are being utilized at
0:37:38 any given time?
0:37:41 Like, are there key metrics that you’re tracking for this business?
0:37:45 You know, it’s just, did we do better than last year, right?
0:37:46 That’s what it is for me.
0:37:50 I mean, I mean, I should be more and I know there’s been people on this podcast and show
0:37:53 that are really like running lucrative businesses.
0:37:57 But for me, this is not something that I can really scale nationally, right?
0:38:00 Because it’s very localized and also a lot of people do it in other cities.
0:38:04 And for me, I’m just happy doing like, this is a, this is an experiment to me, to be honest.
0:38:07 Like I was 23, I was like, what risk do I have?
0:38:11 I want to say that I started a business and I wanted to combine it with my passion for
0:38:13 sustainability and zero waste.
0:38:14 So I started it.
0:38:19 And this now, I mean, it pays for basically all of my fun money, you know, I don’t have
0:38:23 to worry about, oh man, I can’t join my friends out to eat or go on this trip or buy a new
0:38:25 paddle board or whatever I want to do.
0:38:26 It pays for all of that.
0:38:27 It’s a side hustle.
0:38:28 That’s exactly what it is.
0:38:30 And my hope is that it continues to grow.
0:38:35 So more people use it and save, save cardboard boxes and the, you know, maybe we can do something
0:38:36 else.
0:38:40 But I mean, we were recently in like a local magazine and there was a feature on us on
0:38:42 Good Day Sacramento.
0:38:47 So you know, we try to speak to good community partners and make sure that we continue to
0:38:48 do well.
0:38:51 Were you doing any proactive PR outreach for that or they somehow found you like, hey,
0:38:52 this is a cool story.
0:38:57 I actually researched, there was a segment I saw on another local business and I was
0:38:58 like, oh, they do that.
0:38:59 That’s a really cool segment.
0:39:00 They do.
0:39:03 I mean, it’s not a very, it’s not obviously a national audience like the today show or
0:39:04 anything.
0:39:07 But you know, I reached out, I saw that there’s a lady who had an email that did this and
0:39:09 I reached out to her and we went back and forth a few times.
0:39:12 So you know, hopefully we have a chance to do something.
0:39:19 I think a lot of local side hustles have this, you know, PR play in their playbook because
0:39:23 especially if it’s something that’s a little bit, a little bit creative, a little bit different,
0:39:26 like renting out moving boxes or it’s like, oh, that’s unique.
0:39:31 Oh, you could turn that into a business and these publications like to feature local people
0:39:36 and feel good stories and they’re kind of looking for angles like this, especially oh,
0:39:41 there’s a sustainability play or there’s some angle here that can weave into the story that
0:39:42 they already want to tell.
0:39:43 Yeah.
0:39:44 Yeah.
0:39:46 Oh, look, you know, local businessman does good or local side hustler.
0:39:50 It’s kind of how can you tap into what they’re already looking to talk about?
0:39:51 Yeah.
0:39:52 100%.
0:39:53 Yeah.
0:39:54 It’s a really good community magazine.
0:39:55 It’s called Style Magazine.
0:39:56 It’s great.
0:39:57 It’s free.
0:40:01 It’s always got like cool little stories and tips from experts, but it’s really great in
0:40:06 that it brings business owners, small business owners in the community to give advice or like
0:40:08 they’ll pro like they always have like business profiles.
0:40:09 Why’d you get into this business?
0:40:11 You know, what made you get into this business?
0:40:12 Why do you live here?
0:40:13 Blah, blah, blah.
0:40:16 And so you really get to meet the business owners behind your local coffee shop, your local
0:40:19 auto mechanic or whatever it might be.
0:40:23 So it really kind of ties that together with their business and to your point gives a unique
0:40:27 angle on people with that expertise, how they can help the community.
0:40:28 Yeah.
0:40:31 And if nothing else, hopefully a backlink, hopefully some social proof, you know, as
0:40:34 seen on, you know, good day Sacramento or something.
0:40:35 Yeah, exactly.
0:40:39 So you may look, you know, this is local, we don’t do cross country moves.
0:40:43 Is there a geographic expansion?
0:40:45 Is there a, you know, product skew expansion?
0:40:48 Like where do you, you know, aside from just, we’re going to ride.
0:40:53 The rising tide of interest and awareness in sustainable moving box rental.
0:40:54 Like there’s a new category.
0:40:57 This is something that, you know, more and more people become aware of it for moving
0:40:58 or for storage.
0:41:00 Like you’re going to be a beneficiary of that.
0:41:04 Is there anything else to like pour some gas on the fire or say we’re, we’re good with
0:41:05 what we get?
0:41:07 You know, obviously there always is, right?
0:41:12 We can always get more inventory, rent a bigger space, have a bigger space, get more clients.
0:41:16 But for this particular business, I don’t, I don’t anticipate us 10 Xing or becoming
0:41:20 like a, you know, franchising different units or do anything like that.
0:41:25 I mean, we have a really good name and our clients and community loves us and hope that
0:41:30 as the population continues to grow, there’s tons of more houses out here that we can continue
0:41:31 to serve them.
0:41:34 And there’s, there’s a more renting boxes.
0:41:39 I’ll be happy when renting boxes is more normal than buying cardboard boxes, right?
0:41:41 That means that we were able to prove our concept.
0:41:44 I don’t know if or when that’ll happen.
0:41:47 But if people are like, Oh, I got to rent boxes from him move and they’re like, Oh yeah,
0:41:48 where do you rent your boxes from?
0:41:51 And that’s like an actual normal conversation that happens.
0:41:54 Then I’ll be like, okay, we succeeded because we were the only ones, at least the first
0:41:59 ones here to bring rentable moving boxes to the Sacramento area.
0:42:00 And now it’s normal.
0:42:04 Now it’s something that everybody does and that’ll be mean success.
0:42:05 Very good.
0:42:09 Well, I imagine you keep chipping away toward that goal and I’m excited to see where you
0:42:10 take it.
0:42:14 It’s been over a decade in the business and sounds like it’s set up to be sustainable
0:42:17 without a lot of time investment required to keep it growing.
0:42:18 So very cool.
0:42:23 Gary, thanks so much for stopping by your, the author of financial fives.
0:42:29 This is the top 325 ways to save, earn and thrive to retire before 65.
0:42:33 You can find that at financialfives.com.
0:42:36 The box rental business is CalBoxRental.com.
0:42:43 If you want to check that out, check out what that Wix site looks like, CalBoxRental.com.
0:42:46 Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side hustle nation.
0:42:50 The number one tip is just try, just start something, right?
0:42:52 Do something that’s going to move the needle.
0:42:56 That’s all the best thing I can do because we can plan and research and talk to people.
0:43:00 But I can tell you that unless I just told myself that I’m just going to go to home deep
0:43:03 in by these boxes and you see that receipt and you see the box in the back of your car
0:43:07 and sitting in your garage, you’re like, okay, I need to do something, right?
0:43:09 It’s something to start that wheel turning, right?
0:43:14 Buy that domain name, you know, reach out to somebody, whatever you need to do, pay somebody
0:43:18 a hundred bucks to give you a really cool logo and slogan, whatever it means that whatever
0:43:20 your idea is, just try something and start.
0:43:23 Yeah, some kind of a forced action.
0:43:28 You’ll find that momentum breeds momentum and there’s some law of entrepreneurial physics
0:43:31 where an entrepreneur in motion tends to stay in motion.
0:43:35 It’s just that zero to one to get that motivation to go do that first thing.
0:43:36 And here we are.
0:43:40 10, 12 years later, it’s become a really cool side hustle that you built.
0:43:44 A couple of takeaways for me before we wrap up.
0:43:49 Number one is obviously this focus on partnerships and relationships.
0:43:53 Partnerships on the delivery and logistics side and then on the relationship side, think
0:43:58 about that strategic partner of who are your target customers already doing business with?
0:43:59 How can you make them?
0:44:03 You’re not a competitor, but they’re an ally or a potential referral source for you.
0:44:09 We talked about them as lead fountains instead of onesie-toosie lead trickles.
0:44:11 It’s like, who might need this service again and again and again?
0:44:13 I really like the focus there.
0:44:16 And then the second thing is like, well, what else could I rent out?
0:44:20 Like thinking about something that checks this box, like pretty durable asset, sure, some
0:44:24 of them are going to break, but the cost of each individual one is not a ton and something
0:44:28 that could really have a long lifespan, long shelf life.
0:44:30 I think that’s really just an interesting one.
0:44:33 And something that, like you mentioned, is going to be more and more people become aware
0:44:34 of it.
0:44:37 So you put yourself in a good position to capture some of that demand, just like side
0:44:42 hustle nation has captured a rising tide of interest in side hustles over the last decade.
0:44:47 So I’m trying to see what gold rush can you sell shovels into almost and the sustainability
0:44:52 zero waste is like a broader umbrella, maybe one of those to look into.
0:44:55 So like we talked about, not the only thing that you can rent out for a profit.
0:44:58 So make sure to grab your free listener bonus for this week.
0:45:01 That’s my list of 25 other unconventional rental ideas.
0:45:05 You may be able to borrow some of Gary’s playbook for on the marketing and partnership
0:45:06 side.
0:45:12 You can grab that for free at the show notes for this episode at side hustle nation.com/gary.
0:45:16 Or just follow the link in the episode description in your podcast player app.
0:45:17 It’ll get you right over there.
0:45:20 Other rental episodes for consideration, if you like this model.
0:45:23 We talked about the mobility scooter guy.
0:45:24 Love this episode.
0:45:27 We’re doing like three grand a month with a fleet of six or seven mobility scooters
0:45:28 in LA.
0:45:31 That is episode five 64 with Lenny Tim.
0:45:35 Fascinating episode, you know, relatively low startup costs, relatively quick to break
0:45:36 even.
0:45:37 And then it’s, then it’s gravy.
0:45:42 And then four 28, you know, one of the episodes I refer people to most often these, this is
0:45:47 a Steve Nadremia with his portable hot tub rental business and not really that portable,
0:45:51 but like portable compared to a, you know, a fixed, you know, hot tub that’s not going
0:45:54 anywhere, delivering these things in his pickup truck.
0:45:59 And I think he had like 25 or 30 of them really, really cool creative episode on the side from
0:46:00 his teaching job.
0:46:05 So four 28 on the hot tubs, five 64 with Lenny on the mobility scooters.
0:46:07 But big thanks to Gary for sharing his insight.
0:46:11 Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:46:15 You can hit up side hustle nation.com/deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors
0:46:16 in one place.
0:46:19 Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show.
0:46:20 That is it for me.
0:46:21 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:46:25 If you’re finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a
0:46:26 friend.
0:46:27 So fire off that text message.
0:46:28 Hey, check this out.
0:46:30 Maybe we should do this in our area until next time.
0:46:31 Let’s go out there and make something happen.
0:46:35 And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the side hustle show hustle on.
0:00:05 What’s up?
0:00:06 What’s up?
0:00:07 Nicole Over here.
0:00:08 Welcome to the Side Castle Show.
0:00:09 It’s the entrepreneurship podcast.
0:00:10 You can actually apply.
0:00:15 I’ve got a fun case study for you today under the category of buying something once and
0:00:17 getting paid for it over and over again, a creative rental business.
0:00:23 For the last 10 years, my guest has been renting out moving boxes, relatively low startup
0:00:28 cost, steady and maybe even increasing demand in just a few hours to week that it takes
0:00:34 to run on the side from his day job from HalBoxRental.com Gary Graywall.
0:00:36 Welcome to the Side Castle Show.
0:00:37 Thanks, Nick.
0:00:38 Thanks for having me here today.
0:00:39 You bet.
0:00:40 Stick around in this one.
0:00:44 You hear how Gary came up with this random idea, how he gets customers and how he handles
0:00:49 the storage and delivery logistics for this physical inventory business.
0:00:54 Now, you know, I love a fun rental side hustle, fun rental business and boxes certainly aren’t
0:00:58 the only thing that you can rent out for a profit, which is why I put together a list
0:01:02 of 25 other unconventional things that you can make money renting out.
0:01:09 That is yours for free to download at the show notes for this episode at sidehustlenation.com/Gary
0:01:13 or you can just follow the link in the episode description and it’ll get you over there.
0:01:14 Gary, how’d you come up with this idea?
0:01:15 This was a pretty random one.
0:01:20 Basically, like I was in college UCLA and I think it was move-in day for fall quarter.
0:01:21 There was just tons and tons of boxes.
0:01:25 There was piles and piles and piles of boxes everywhere and I was like, man, that’s pretty
0:01:26 unsightly.
0:01:28 Like I’ve always been very sustainability focused.
0:01:31 You know, I thought, well, there’s got to be something better than this.
0:01:36 And so I just typed in in Google like rent moving boxes and I found there was a company
0:01:41 in Canada called Frogbox and I thought that was such a cool idea.
0:01:46 You just basically get boxes delivered to you and then there are these plastic crates
0:01:50 basically with the lids attached and then you pack them, you move and somebody comes
0:01:51 and takes them away.
0:01:52 That’s a great idea.
0:01:56 Why don’t I start something like this because there’s nothing like that where I could find
0:01:57 it during that time.
0:01:58 Okay.
0:02:00 So somebody was doing it in Canada, Frogbox.
0:02:05 And instead of being discouraged, which would sometimes be my reaction, like, oh, I come
0:02:09 up with this great business idea, of course, Google it and then, oh, somebody else is
0:02:10 already doing that.
0:02:12 I could be like, well, back to the drawing board, like, no, no, no.
0:02:15 Well, maybe in this case, they’re doing it in a separate area and say, okay, I could
0:02:17 bring this idea to California.
0:02:18 Yeah.
0:02:21 That’s the thing is like these kinds of businesses.
0:02:22 It’s like, it’s just like a coffee shop.
0:02:27 If you go to this really cool shop or restaurant and there’s nothing like that where you live,
0:02:28 you can duplicate it.
0:02:29 You can make it your own.
0:02:32 Now, if it was like, if I was selling these boxes and I was like, I’m just going to sell
0:02:36 these boxes, well, I probably would be out of business because there’s much larger companies
0:02:40 doing that who can take on smaller margins and have greater exposure.
0:02:43 And it becomes a commodity type of thing.
0:02:44 Yeah.
0:02:45 Yeah.
0:02:46 It’s very localized, right?
0:02:50 Like, they’re not going to deliver boxes to your door from Canada to California.
0:02:54 And so this was something that, you know, my hometown in Sacramento, California, there
0:02:57 is no company that does what we do.
0:02:59 Even today, I don’t know of any.
0:03:00 That’s their primary line of business.
0:03:02 Now, it has caught on.
0:03:06 Some movers are like offering this to their customers, but we are the primary offering
0:03:07 here.
0:03:08 Yeah.
0:03:11 And I want to highlight too, even if there is somebody else doing it, there’s room for
0:03:13 more than one sushi restaurant in town.
0:03:17 There’s, you know, if you have a decent population, there’s, there’s a little room for a healthy
0:03:18 competition.
0:03:23 And you can think about other ways to differentiate yourself aside from just the product.
0:03:26 But in this case, it was somewhat of a, of a blue ocean.
0:03:29 But then the next question is like, is there any demand for this?
0:03:34 Like, did, did moving customers know that this was an option or is there a little like
0:03:36 market education that has to happen?
0:03:40 You know, Nick, even today, after 10 years in business, I still get calls and emails
0:03:42 like, why haven’t I heard from you guys before?
0:03:44 I didn’t even know this existed.
0:03:48 So obviously we could do a little bit of a better job, I guess, of publicity.
0:03:51 And this just goes into the fact that, you know, it is a side gig.
0:03:56 I contribute maybe three hours a week to it, probably could do more, but we have a consistent
0:03:57 stream of customers.
0:04:02 And we’re at this point, we have the biggest groups that come to us, biggest clients is
0:04:07 return clients and people finding us from referrals and Google.
0:04:10 So fortunately our Google search is working well.
0:04:16 They search rent, moving boxes in Sacramento or any of the outlying suburbs.
0:04:17 They’re probably going to find us.
0:04:19 We’re on that first page.
0:04:24 And we have relationships with a lot of interior designers and organizing companies out here.
0:04:28 So that’s kind of like our niche is if they’re working with a client who wants to redo their
0:04:32 kitchen or have a, organize their whole house, well, they got to pack it all up because they
0:04:34 have to redo it.
0:04:39 And they like to use our boxes because they’re eco-friendly, they’re ergonomic, they’re useful,
0:04:41 and they can stay on site for a couple of weeks.
0:04:43 So what was the first move here?
0:04:47 So you Google rent, moving boxes, you find this competitor in Canada for some level of
0:04:52 validation and then you just go to Home Depot and order up a bunch of those, like I’m picturing
0:04:55 like the giant Tupperware bin type of things.
0:04:59 Yeah, it’s funny you say that because that’s exactly the first thing that I did as I went
0:05:03 to, I think it was Lowe’s and they have like these big black, you know, like people store
0:05:05 their Christmas decorations in their garage.
0:05:06 Yeah.
0:05:07 Yeah.
0:05:08 Our attic is filled with these things.
0:05:09 Yeah.
0:05:11 And that’s what you should use because I didn’t know where else to buy them.
0:05:13 I was just like, oh, I’m just going to start this business.
0:05:14 Why not?
0:05:15 I was 23 years old.
0:05:18 And so I bought like five and I was like, well, it’s kind of a lot of money.
0:05:20 You have to do a different business.
0:05:22 And then I kind of hemmed and hawed for a couple of weeks on it.
0:05:28 I returned them and I Googled like, I think I reached out to a competitor in Texas.
0:05:29 It’s like, where do you guys get your boxes?
0:05:34 And they’re like, oh, there’s this company in Florida and Nevada called Reusable Transport
0:05:35 Packaging.
0:05:38 They’re one of the companies that sell, they’re kind of like a U line where they sell all
0:05:45 kinds of various business products like forklifts and dollies and trays and tape and all kinds
0:05:46 of stuff.
0:05:49 So these companies sell boxes like this in a bulk inventory.
0:05:54 You can’t just buy one or two, you need to buy 50, 100, 500 boxes.
0:05:59 So when I saw that I was like, okay, I’m going to go in with both feet and make the investment
0:06:00 and see what happens.
0:06:02 Do you remember how much it was or how many boxes you got?
0:06:03 Yeah.
0:06:07 I initially ordered, I think 50 and it was close to $2,000 with delivery.
0:06:08 Yeah.
0:06:09 You can’t do this with just five.
0:06:11 People got more than five boxes worth of stuff.
0:06:16 It’s got to have enough to hold a house or an apartment’s worth of belongings.
0:06:17 Right.
0:06:23 And I quickly found that out is clients would consistently ask, especially after we got
0:06:27 established after a couple of years, they would want 100 boxes.
0:06:30 And that’s especially true for when we started to do office moves.
0:06:35 So a lot of law firms or what not want to move offices, they want 100 boxes.
0:06:38 And so that’s when we had to start ordering more.
0:06:41 And then the nice thing too is these boxes last over 100 moves.
0:06:42 Yeah.
0:06:43 Right?
0:06:46 So we’re not ordering new boxes every month or even every year, it’s maybe every couple
0:06:47 of years to refresh our inventory.
0:06:48 Okay.
0:06:51 So you’re a couple grand into it, you got 50 boxes.
0:06:52 Where do you, where do you put them?
0:06:55 Like is there a room in your garage for this stuff?
0:06:56 No, I wish.
0:06:57 Initially there was.
0:06:59 First month was there.
0:07:02 I then got a storage unit so that I could, because you know, sometimes people want to
0:07:03 pick up the boxes.
0:07:07 I don’t want people coming to my house and picking up boxes, you know, and I think it
0:07:11 was like $80 a month to rent a storage unit for my boxes.
0:07:15 And then after that, when we started to get a little busier, I actually had moved to Denver
0:07:18 and I said, okay, well, I don’t want to step down the business, but I want to move to Denver
0:07:19 for this job.
0:07:24 So I reached out to a moving company and this is one of the craziest things I’ve ever done.
0:07:27 He’s one of the, this guy, he owns a moving company out here.
0:07:30 He’s one of the top rated movers in Sacramento.
0:07:33 And I explained that he had referred some customers to me and I had reached out to him
0:07:36 like, hey, tell your customers about our boxes.
0:07:37 And I said, hey, I have this crazy idea.
0:07:39 You want to go into business together?
0:07:43 Everyone that you bring to me and you take care of the delivery, I’ll handle the clients
0:07:45 and we’ll share the revenue.
0:07:48 And I went into business with somebody I’d spoken on the phone, but I’d never actually
0:07:52 met, which I thought was the craziest thing anybody could do, but I did it and we continued
0:07:53 to grow.
0:07:57 But this solves your logistics problem of, you know, having to meet customers at the
0:08:01 place, like maybe the moving company can keep them at their facility or they can handle
0:08:05 that delivery since they’re going to be moving those belongings anyways.
0:08:06 Yeah.
0:08:07 And that’s exactly what happened.
0:08:09 They moved all the boxes to their warehouse area.
0:08:13 And so that basically took care of rent and reduced our expenses.
0:08:17 And so when they would have a move, they would just, you know, take our boxes with their
0:08:20 moving truck, deliver them and then go to another move.
0:08:25 And so it’s very strategic kind of how they do it, but some customers do still pick them
0:08:26 up.
0:08:30 So the first booking, you know, and how that person found you, is it still trying to get
0:08:37 on moving company’s preferred vendor list or, you know, was it early Google rankings?
0:08:40 Talk to me about the first couple of bookings where you’re like, oh, I’m slowly going to
0:08:42 start to recoup this initial startup cost.
0:08:43 Yeah.
0:08:46 So it’s funny enough, our website initially was very clunky.
0:08:50 I had one of our interns at the first job I was at, I paid him 50 bucks to make our website.
0:08:53 So there wasn’t a way to book it like there is now.
0:08:57 And so the first, I actually started off marketing on Craigslist.
0:09:01 So on Craigslist, there’s a section where it says services offered, right?
0:09:03 Or like, you know, you need some help with something.
0:09:06 So I put on their rent moving boxes, right?
0:09:08 Super, super sketchy.
0:09:09 But I said, well, it’s free.
0:09:13 There’s no harm in this because I don’t have to pay a search engine, I’m to put up Facebook
0:09:14 ads or anything like that.
0:09:18 You know, 10 years ago, Craigslist was a different landscape than it is today, right?
0:09:20 It was a different era of the internet.
0:09:21 Yeah.
0:09:22 It was, right?
0:09:25 It was where you, I mean, I found a tennis partner on there, roommates, I sold my car.
0:09:29 Like it’s not, it was used much more than I feel like than it is now.
0:09:30 Yeah.
0:09:33 And maybe today you could do a similar tactic on Facebook marketplace because that’s where
0:09:36 I went to look for moving boxes for our recent move.
0:09:37 Right.
0:09:38 And people are giving them away and like, okay, we’ll go pick these up.
0:09:40 So you’re exactly right, right?
0:09:44 Like people give stuff away, it’s easier, it’s more community feel, you have a more trustworthiness
0:09:45 there.
0:09:46 But back then I just had no inhibition.
0:09:50 I was like, yeah, I’ll just go on and, and I couldn’t believe that we got an email from
0:09:51 somebody that was like, yeah, I want to rent these.
0:09:52 I want to try these out.
0:09:56 And it was a woman living in an apartment, like a senior apartment in a not so great
0:09:57 part of town.
0:10:02 And so I took this intern with me, we rented a truck from Home Depot, like those $19 per
0:10:05 hour trucks, because I don’t know what else to do.
0:10:08 And one of the boxes actually flew out on the freeway.
0:10:09 No.
0:10:12 So we learned that we need to close the lids and tie them down.
0:10:13 Who would have thought they could fly out.
0:10:18 And so we grabbed that, got back on track and we went to this woman and delivered the boxes
0:10:21 and was like, yeah, so we’ll be back in a week to pick them back up.
0:10:22 Okay.
0:10:24 And so she was just doing an in town move.
0:10:25 Yeah.
0:10:29 She was moving from a one bedroom apartment from North, the Northern part of town to one
0:10:32 bedroom apartment on the Southern, to the Southern part of town.
0:10:35 So it was just her and her cat and she was a great fan.
0:10:39 And we learned the one thing about the negative about this business, Nick, is that think about
0:10:40 it.
0:10:41 You’re renting stuff out.
0:10:43 What it’s, what’s means you get it back, hopefully.
0:10:46 So the things you have to look out for is, are you getting all your boxes back?
0:10:47 Are they damaged?
0:10:48 Yeah.
0:10:49 And are they clean?
0:10:50 Like they should be.
0:10:55 Sometimes you’ll find like pat hair, human hair, sprinkles, all kinds of stuff in the
0:10:57 boxes after people have done moving.
0:11:00 And you have to make sure that it’s clean and sanitized for the next customer.
0:11:02 So the not so luxurious part of this business.
0:11:04 No, that makes sense.
0:11:08 More with Gary in just a moment, including how he priced the rental service, the pitch
0:11:12 for his partnership deal and other interesting ways he’s connecting with customers right
0:11:15 after this.
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0:13:46 What does it cost to rent these things out?
0:13:47 How do you figure out pricing?
0:13:51 That’s where the competition really helps is that you look at what other people are charging
0:13:53 in other cities.
0:13:59 There’s companies now in Southern California, Bay Area, Texas, Arizona, even Colorado.
0:14:01 You see what they’re charging.
0:14:04 What we did is basically just test out the market.
0:14:08 We wanted to have a higher margin to make up for the lower volume.
0:14:13 We started to increase our prices and we would still get people that wouldn’t say, “There’s
0:14:18 maybe a few people per year that are like, ‘That’s a lot of money, $400 for rent boxes.
0:14:19 I don’t know if I want to do that.'”
0:14:25 But most people really don’t bat an eye because they see that if I’m paying movers $2,000
0:14:29 or $3,000 to pack up and move my house, I don’t have to go because they’re going to
0:14:33 charge too to bring you boxes and tape them up and build them up and dispose of them and
0:14:34 everything.
0:14:38 So we figured out pricing just from trial and error and also just looking at what the
0:14:41 competition nationally was charging.
0:14:46 On the pricing page at CalBoxvernal.com, it looks like it’s a combination of how many
0:14:49 do you need and how long do you need them.
0:14:53 So like 50 boxes for a week, it gives you plenty of time to pack everything up, move
0:14:54 it across town.
0:14:59 You got to do local moves because if you’re moving to Seattle, I need my boxes back.
0:15:03 It’s got to be in town moves so your moving company partner can bring them back to headquarters
0:15:06 or you can go pick them up and take them back to the storage unit.
0:15:07 Yep, that’s exactly right.
0:15:11 And we do quite, actually, we’ve had a few people that moved.
0:15:13 Sacramento’s been a hot spot for people from the Bay Area to move to because it’s much
0:15:15 cheaper, especially after the pandemic.
0:15:20 So we actually had people that said, “I want to rent your boxes and I’ll drop them off
0:15:23 to you once I move to the Bay Area, once I move to Sacramento.”
0:15:28 So if they moved to Sacramento, they would drive here, pick up our boxes, go home, pack
0:15:31 and once they move here, they’d either pick them up or they’d drop them back off.
0:15:34 So I will say it’s just a culture, I guess.
0:15:38 People are big into sustainability in different parts of the country and want that zero waste
0:15:40 and there’s that brand awareness out there.
0:15:44 There’s a great company in the Bay Area called ZipGo, they do what we do.
0:15:48 They rent out these boxes and sometimes they’re like, “Yeah, I wish we could give our boxes
0:15:51 to somebody and they move up there and then you take them and we somehow get them back.”
0:15:54 So there is a logistical issue, obviously, if you rent them out.
0:15:58 So long distance moves are not our strong suit, but everything else is.
0:15:59 Got it.
0:16:05 And then if somebody is sitting on these, maybe it’s a corporate reload and they need
0:16:08 to go into storage for a minute, I guess you’re charging them every week so you’re still making
0:16:13 money on that inventory, but it kind of limits the booking requests that come in to say, “We’ll
0:16:16 shoot that inventory as tied up right now.”
0:16:17 Yeah, we’ve had that.
0:16:21 We’ve had, and especially it’s the corporate moves and those renovation projects, is they’re
0:16:22 like, “Okay, we’ll have it.
0:16:24 We want to rent it for two weeks.
0:16:25 Two weeks turns into three weeks to four weeks.”
0:16:28 We’ve had a customer that rented it for almost two months.
0:16:33 And yeah, it does tie up the inventory, but from what I see it as they’re paying, we could
0:16:35 have had a customer that week, we could have not.
0:16:39 And if we do, yeah, I do have to say, “Really sorry, we’re booked up.”
0:16:42 And that creates a, “Wow, it’s like kind of that waitlist phenomenon.
0:16:44 I’m like, “Oh, I want it even more now.”
0:16:48 So maybe I’ll, I mean, I’ve had people that honestly, they’ve delayed their move date
0:16:53 or delayed their escrow or closing their lease on their apartment because like, “I’ll wait
0:16:54 till you’re ready.”
0:16:57 I mean, that’s like music to any business owner’s ears, right?
0:16:58 Yeah.
0:17:02 Is you have to turn away a customer, but you’re creating that scarcity effect in an inadvertently,
0:17:03 right?
0:17:04 But you’re still creating it.
0:17:08 And now they want to come back and like, they’ll change themselves to work with you.
0:17:09 Yeah.
0:17:10 The inventory is making money.
0:17:11 So it’s fine.
0:17:13 How many boxes do you have now?
0:17:14 Close to a thousand.
0:17:15 Oh my God.
0:17:16 Okay.
0:17:17 That’s more than I expected.
0:17:18 Yeah.
0:17:20 Cause like, I mean, most rentals are like 100 to 200 boxes.
0:17:23 And sometimes we have two or three at a time.
0:17:24 Okay.
0:17:25 So you’ve got plenty of capacity.
0:17:26 Yeah.
0:17:30 And it’s also a lot cheaper to order a lot at once so that you’re not paying additional
0:17:34 shipping and logistic fees and also if some boxes break or whatever, like you have the
0:17:35 rest of that.
0:17:36 Yeah.
0:17:37 You make sense.
0:17:38 So you got to be able to fill that demand.
0:17:39 Wow.
0:17:40 Okay.
0:17:43 So starting out marketing on Craigslist, you know, renting, renting the pickup truck from
0:17:44 Hope Depot to deliver these things.
0:17:49 And then eventually it sounds like your move, you know, even though this is a hands on local
0:17:54 based business, you’re moving several states away halfway across the country to Colorado.
0:17:59 And yet the business is still able to operate thanks to this moving company partnership.
0:18:03 Can you play that card, you know, with multiple different moving companies?
0:18:07 Like you sprinkle that inventory around to like to cast a wide net here or what’s, what’s
0:18:08 the play?
0:18:12 You know, the funny thing is like when we were new and even, even once we were like a couple
0:18:15 years into business, moving companies did not like us.
0:18:20 And the reason is a lot of moving companies already want to sell boxes to their customers
0:18:22 cardboard boxes, right?
0:18:26 So in essence, if we were partnering with them, we’re drawing their attention away, we’re
0:18:27 taking revenue from them.
0:18:31 The way I approached it with them was like, it’s not, you know, obviously you can present
0:18:35 the choice, but if they want to rent, obviously it’s going to be financially lucrative to
0:18:38 you because you’re helping them get what they want, right?
0:18:41 Giving your customers options is always a good idea.
0:18:45 But that it wouldn’t really be logistically possible because, I mean, to coordinate with
0:18:49 several different people, I mean, a one person can’t, can’t do all that.
0:18:53 And I honestly think that our service radius is a pretty good amount.
0:18:55 It’s about 25 miles in Sacramento.
0:18:59 And we still service outlying area, we just charge additional for delivery.
0:19:01 So we still are able to do that.
0:19:05 And Steve, my business partner, is just an incredible human who’s very flexible.
0:19:06 He’s on top of things.
0:19:09 And he’s the only person I can really trust to do it.
0:19:10 What was the pitch?
0:19:16 Was like, we’ll split revenue 50/50, we’ll, it sounds like, because after a few of these,
0:19:20 my entrepreneurial spidey senses got to go off and be like, well, maybe I should just
0:19:21 buy my own boxes.
0:19:23 Why am I sharing revenue with this guy?
0:19:24 I’ll do it all the work.
0:19:25 Yeah.
0:19:26 No, it’s true.
0:19:29 I mean, and I thought of that too, but I said, do you want to buy the company from me?
0:19:33 He’s like, you know, I want to get out of the moving business.
0:19:34 And he’s been saying this for a while.
0:19:38 So he’s like, no, I don’t, I don’t want to really do that.
0:19:41 And he doesn’t want, I guess he just really doesn’t want the hassle of doing it.
0:19:43 But to be honest, that’s another thing somebody could have done.
0:19:46 I think there was another company actually in Sacramento, there was two.
0:19:49 One was called Ubox, I think they went out of business, you know?
0:19:53 And so it’s just a matter of like, people think it’s a great, you know, they see it
0:19:54 in concept.
0:19:55 Oh, he’s doing it.
0:19:57 I can just do it as a simple concept, but there’s an execution involved.
0:19:59 And also I have very low overhead.
0:20:04 So it’s like, once you buy the boxes, the arrangement that we have is that, you know, I pay hosting
0:20:10 for the website, I pay for splitting the revenue, cleaning the boxes, delivery, all of that comes
0:20:12 through only when we have a client.
0:20:16 If I don’t have a customer for a whole month or two months, I’m not paying anything.
0:20:17 There’s no expenses other than the website.
0:20:18 There’s no utilities.
0:20:19 There’s no rent.
0:20:20 There’s no employees.
0:20:21 There’s nothing.
0:20:22 So we can withstand dry spells.
0:20:23 Got it.
0:20:24 Got it.
0:20:29 If you get a booking request that is independent of the moving company partner, does he still
0:20:32 have to go and deliver those boxes?
0:20:33 Yep.
0:20:36 Our delivery guy does everything, whether they come through that lead source, any lead
0:20:37 source.
0:20:42 So most of our leads are coming from Google referrals, previous customers and interior
0:20:43 remodeling specialists.
0:20:44 Okay.
0:20:45 Yeah.
0:20:48 When you start kind of listing these off, you know, I think of just, you know, oh, my
0:20:50 lease is up, I’m moving or my change jobs.
0:20:53 So I’m moving to a different area, but there’s a lot of different occasions where you might
0:20:54 need to pack up stuff.
0:20:58 I guess we did it last year with the kitchen remodels, I guess we got to, you know, move
0:20:59 everything out.
0:21:01 And it’s like, oh gosh, there’s a lot of stuff here.
0:21:06 And so all these different occasions where people might be in the market for something
0:21:10 like this and kind of looking for those strategic partnerships, I love the interior designer
0:21:11 angle.
0:21:13 I’ve never thought of, but that makes sense.
0:21:14 Yeah.
0:21:15 And we kind of fell into it by accident.
0:21:19 We had somebody reach out to us saying, oh, I didn’t even know.
0:21:20 Another one that was like, I don’t know.
0:21:21 You guys existed.
0:21:22 Why didn’t I know about you before?
0:21:24 And she introduced us.
0:21:27 There’s apparently there’s like meetups of interior designers and there’s like, there’s
0:21:32 like these conventions for like organizers, which I would never have imagined.
0:21:34 And they have a lot of business.
0:21:39 A lot of people have big homes and discussion or income and they want to hire these people
0:21:42 to make their pantries Instagram worthy.
0:21:47 And you know, what happens is that then translates into their office needs work.
0:21:48 This needs work.
0:21:49 Their kids need work.
0:21:53 So whether they move, remodel, get a design work done, get any renovations done.
0:21:57 And we also do a lot of retail stores now, which just was from accident.
0:22:02 There was a store that sold auto parts and very mom and pop stores, auto parts and machinery.
0:22:04 And they were getting their floors redone.
0:22:08 So they had to pack up everything off of their shelves and store it for two weeks while the
0:22:09 floors got done.
0:22:12 So they wanted our boxes because they thought the cardboard, everything’s going to collapse.
0:22:13 It’s going to tear.
0:22:14 It’s not strong enough.
0:22:15 Okay.
0:22:18 And, you know, so there’s just so much opportunity for using these boxes.
0:22:22 That’s not just for somebody moving from one house to another house.
0:22:23 Gotcha.
0:22:24 And did they find you through the website?
0:22:25 They did.
0:22:26 Okay.
0:22:32 Was there anything specific that you did to help it in terms of local SEO ranking?
0:22:37 I honestly just Googled like how to improve your search rankings and I use Wix, which I
0:22:40 guess wasn’t very recommended, but it was cheap at the time when they had a package
0:22:41 deal.
0:22:45 And so I just, you know, would put keywords on our homepage and other pages and connect
0:22:46 our socials.
0:22:51 One business owner gave me a suggestion to, you should allow people to directly have a
0:22:55 booking request on your website rather than sending you an email or calling.
0:22:58 Just put some, you know, form in there, how many boxes you want, when you want it, all
0:23:00 of that and send it to you.
0:23:02 And that’s been heavily utilized as well.
0:23:04 So I’m really not sure what it is.
0:23:05 I’m grateful for it.
0:23:08 But, you know, Wix too also has like an SEO checklist, like, did you do this, did you
0:23:09 do this, do this?
0:23:11 So I’ve been working on that.
0:23:15 I haven’t hired anybody to do any of our website or technical stuff.
0:23:17 Maybe I should, but it’s been working so far.
0:23:18 So far.
0:23:19 So good.
0:23:20 If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
0:23:21 Yeah.
0:23:26 Ten years ago, I would have been really hesitant to recommend Wix from an SEO standpoint just
0:23:31 because a lot of their stuff was kind of dynamically loaded, hidden behind JavaScript in a lot of
0:23:32 ways.
0:23:33 Right.
0:23:37 So it’s been a bit, and by virtue of being one of the few players in town, it sounds
0:23:40 like, hey, look, you know, eventually you’re going to trickle to the top of Google just
0:23:45 by virtue of word of mouth and, you know, the on-page factors that you do have in place
0:23:49 here where it says, you know, if you need moving boxes in Sacramento and you want to
0:23:50 rent them, here we are.
0:23:51 Yeah.
0:23:52 Some of it is luck.
0:23:55 Some of it is just doing what you can to be proactive about making sure you have the right
0:23:56 content on your website.
0:24:02 Now, how about the interior design, like, it didn’t sound like you went to this conference,
0:24:06 but it sounds like you were proactive about building those relationships, too.
0:24:07 Yeah.
0:24:12 It was, once this first woman had reached out to us, she was really nice, and she did
0:24:15 like an, we didn’t have Instagram until about two years ago.
0:24:20 We just had a Facebook page, again, I’ve never done any advertising, really.
0:24:23 And she’s like, you need to get Instagram so I can put you guys on my story.
0:24:26 So we created an Instagram page, and she did.
0:24:27 And that was great.
0:24:28 She’s like, look at these boxes.
0:24:29 They’re called great.
0:24:30 They are.
0:24:31 They’re so easy, eco-friendly.
0:24:35 You need a little spin on the, on the dolly and, and her friends found it, like, wow,
0:24:36 where are these?
0:24:37 Who’s the owner?
0:24:38 Where do I find them?
0:24:42 So that’s the power of the community here is that it’s, it’s, it’s just like they trust
0:24:45 each other, they lean on each other, even though they’re in competition, right?
0:24:49 They don’t want somebody doing something that their clients are, think are really cool and
0:24:51 they don’t offer it or they don’t know anything about it.
0:24:56 So we don’t do a lot of moves with them, but we do a lot of, like I said, organizing projects.
0:24:57 All right.
0:24:59 This is Cal Box rental on Instagram.
0:25:00 We’ll link that up.
0:25:04 If you want to go check it out, what kind of risks are associated with this business?
0:25:07 I mean, it’s, it seems pretty straightforward.
0:25:11 Like it’s a, it’s a plastic box, but I don’t know, you find any risk or liability here that
0:25:12 people should be aware of?
0:25:13 Yeah.
0:25:14 It’s a couple of things.
0:25:18 I mean, one of the things that we did was, I mean, my first customer, we did have a rental
0:25:19 agreement, right?
0:25:23 So technically she could have just like kept the boxes or destroyed them and I would have
0:25:25 no recourse or she’s like, I don’t have any boxes.
0:25:26 What are you talking about?
0:25:27 But fortunately she didn’t do that.
0:25:28 So it was after that.
0:25:29 I was like, you know what?
0:25:33 I should probably have something more than email to make sure customers are on the hook
0:25:34 for this.
0:25:37 So I went to, I think I went to the library and I looked up like, you know, those NOLO
0:25:39 books and they have like how to write a contract.
0:25:42 So I just Googled like how to have a rental contract.
0:25:45 And I would just put stuff in there that basically indemnified us for anything.
0:25:49 If they were, the boxes were dirty, if they were, if they were late, how much we would
0:25:50 charge them.
0:25:53 If they got hurt or if there’s liquids in them, like we’re not liable.
0:25:58 So we basically made sure that the rental agreement had, what are they renting from?
0:26:00 What dates are they renting it?
0:26:01 When are they do?
0:26:02 And also payment information.
0:26:06 So in the beginning days, we only took credit card, we had, you know, square, it was like
0:26:10 if I was meeting them, we would slide little thing on your smartphone, but now you can
0:26:11 enter it manually.
0:26:16 And now we’ve gradually moved since Venmo does business now, we, we primarily try to
0:26:18 do Venmo and just keep all our transactions there.
0:26:22 We also take PayPal because the thing is like when I send a rental agreement to a customer,
0:26:24 we don’t have any fancy docusign or anything like that.
0:26:28 They would have to enter in their credit card information onto the PDF and then send it
0:26:29 back to me.
0:26:30 And that’s not very secure.
0:26:34 So most of the time, if they’re really persistent on doing credit card, which usually they are,
0:26:38 if they’re like a company because they want that, the points and all of that is we would
0:26:39 do it over the phone.
0:26:41 So I would take their information over the phone.
0:26:45 And then once their rental is complete, then I discard the information because one mistake
0:26:50 I made was if somebody paid by credit card or whatever, and then they didn’t return all
0:26:55 of the boxes or they were damaged or something, I don’t find out until somebody goes and cleans
0:26:56 the boxes.
0:26:58 And they have to call them back and be like, we have to charge you this.
0:27:01 And if they don’t, if I don’t have the information on file, I don’t have as much leverage.
0:27:02 Okay.
0:27:04 How did you find that cleaner person?
0:27:08 Is this like, is this like an Airbnb short-term rental type of cleaner?
0:27:10 Take a pressure washer to these things or, you know, spray them out.
0:27:11 I used to do it most of the time.
0:27:15 I mean, when I was, when I was here and then, you know, since I’ve been back, I’ve been
0:27:16 doing it.
0:27:19 But now in the last few years, it’s the same value to their deliveries.
0:27:21 He’s an employee of the moving company.
0:27:25 And you know, they have downtime if they have one move or two moves a day, there may be
0:27:30 done by three o’clock and he’ll spend an hour or two cleaning the boxes and it’s, he doesn’t
0:27:33 charge much and it, but it is work, right?
0:27:36 Because it’s like, you have to clean each box inside and out.
0:27:40 And the one, the sticky things literally Nick is that people leave their labels on these
0:27:41 boxes.
0:27:45 So fortunately they’ll say, like they’ll put painters tape, which is great, right?
0:27:50 You can just tear it right off, but sometimes they’ll put like, you know, like really adhesive
0:27:53 stuff on these boxes, like, and those are hard to take off.
0:27:57 So we now provide dry erase markers for our customers.
0:28:00 If they request them, they can just write it on the boxes.
0:28:02 And then if they forget to do it, it’ll just come off.
0:28:03 I’ll be clean them.
0:28:04 Oh, interesting.
0:28:05 So the dry erase will just, uh, just scrub off.
0:28:06 Yeah.
0:28:10 There’s actually a pre-made smooth section of plastic on the boxes, on the side and on
0:28:13 the top, where they can put a label in like designed for that.
0:28:14 Yeah.
0:28:15 Exactly.
0:28:18 On the other risks, though, I would say that there, there is a concern that if a client,
0:28:22 if a customer, you know, when you pick up your boxes, if you’re not there doing it,
0:28:26 you may not know because let’s say somebody returns their boxes, they’re gonna be in stacks
0:28:27 of five, right?
0:28:30 They’re not going to have every box just out on its own because you’re just stackable.
0:28:35 So if they go back to the warehouse and let’s say if you are cracked or there’s some that
0:28:40 are really dirty or have hairs or dirt or something, who knows what they moved, right?
0:28:43 You have to go back to the customer and you have to make a decision because if you call
0:28:48 them and say, I’m going to have to charge you a hundred dollars for cleaning or whatever,
0:28:49 you’re probably going to put a bad taste in the mouth.
0:28:51 Well, I didn’t do that or I don’t remember that.
0:28:53 And now they may not write you a good review.
0:28:55 They may not come back as a customer.
0:28:56 They may not refer you.
0:28:59 So you have to really play that accordingly.
0:29:02 So I try to just judge it based upon my interaction with the customer.
0:29:05 If it’s one or two boxes that are dirty, I’m not going to charge them.
0:29:08 But if it’s a consistent amount, we’re going to charge them.
0:29:10 And also if they damage the boxes, we have to charge them.
0:29:15 And the thing about that that’s difficult is if I’m not there, if my business partner
0:29:19 is not there and the delivery guy misses it, and let’s say that that box that’s already
0:29:21 damaged goes to a new inventory.
0:29:25 Now that customer got something and I may have to charge them.
0:29:28 So it’s really making sure that we play our due diligence correctly to make sure that
0:29:35 we’re giving each customer clean, new, good shape inventory so we don’t run into this.
0:29:37 And we have a reminder on the rental agreement.
0:29:42 When their rent is when their rental period is due, we also say please make sure you wipe
0:29:46 down the boxes and they’re all empty and all the labels are removed.
0:29:47 Most people listen to that.
0:29:50 Some people don’t, which is why we just clean boxes after each rental.
0:29:51 Sure.
0:29:52 Got it.
0:29:58 And you carry some sort of like general liability policy in case, I don’t know, somebody cuts
0:29:59 their hand open.
0:30:03 It doesn’t seem like there’s a huge level of liability there, but you never know.
0:30:04 Yeah, you never know.
0:30:07 And that’s the thing is like, you know, I’ve toyed back and forth with bundling this with
0:30:12 another LLC or, but yeah, you definitely want to have business liability insurance because
0:30:16 you never know, let’s say somebody, you know, hurt, like you said, hurts their hand on the
0:30:21 box or, you know, they feel like they were charged for cleaning when it wasn’t really
0:30:22 dirty.
0:30:24 So you just want to make sure you protect yourself in any case.
0:30:27 I don’t think this is a very high risk business at all.
0:30:32 Now, if we were like helping them back and I had employees, then that’s a different concern.
0:30:35 But this is just them getting boxes delivered to their doorstep.
0:30:38 They’re then in their possession and then we pick them up.
0:30:42 You know, compared to some of the other rental businesses that we were renting out cars on
0:30:46 Turo or we did an episode on renting out mobility scooters, like, oh, you know, this thing had
0:30:47 a mind of its own.
0:30:52 It accelerated and it drove me into a ditch and there’s other things that, you know, would
0:30:56 definitely check the box for having more liability than a plastic tub.
0:30:58 Yeah, an inanimate object.
0:31:03 More with Gary in just a moment, including collecting positive customer reviews, managing
0:31:07 the inventory and scheduling and his goals for the future of this business right after
0:31:08 this.
0:31:13 Well, what if you no longer needed five separate apps for your business bank account, expense
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0:32:35 Being an entrepreneur and being able to work remotely definitely has its perks.
0:32:41 I’ve recorded podcasts everywhere from Vietnam to Italy, drafted newsletters from Japan,
0:32:45 hosted mastermind meetings from Spain, ended up being the middle of the night to get to
0:32:49 US business hours, and outlined courses in Mexico.
0:32:53 The common thread of all of these trips though is Airbnb.
0:32:57 We love being able to get exactly what we’re looking for in a place to stay and have a
0:33:02 more local experience than staying in some giant hotel chain.
0:33:03 And you know me.
0:33:06 I’m always thinking about the next side hustle idea, the next income stream, right?
0:33:11 And one that’s at the top of the list is hosting our place on Airbnb while we’re traveling.
0:33:13 That way the house doesn’t have to sit empty.
0:33:17 We could use the income to help pay for the trip, and we’ve heard from several successful
0:33:19 Airbnb hosts on the show.
0:33:24 And what’s interesting is a lot of them started with almost that exact strategy, running their
0:33:27 place or even a spare room while they’re out of town.
0:33:32 Taking inspiration from that, you might have an Airbnb right under your nose.
0:33:35 In fact, your home might be worth more than you think.
0:33:39 You can find out how much at Airbnb.com/host.
0:33:45 That’s Airbnb.com/host to find out how much your home is worth.
0:33:47 You bet you’re collecting reviews.
0:33:52 This is going to be Google, Yelp, Facebook, any platforms that you’ve prioritized and
0:33:56 anything proactive that you’re doing to collect those reviews from happy customers.
0:33:57 Yeah.
0:33:58 So I am under my signature for our business email.
0:34:02 I do have a link to both our Google page and also Yelp.
0:34:06 So most of the time customers will leave it on their own, but I do make an effort.
0:34:09 I think my business partner told me about this app called Nice Job or something like
0:34:12 that where it sends like a couple of texts to the customer.
0:34:13 Hey, how was your experience?
0:34:14 Write a review.
0:34:19 So I just have like a template that I just text to the customers through our phone app.
0:34:21 We use Google Voice.
0:34:23 And so I would just ask them like, how was your experience?
0:34:27 Like I would call them and say, Hey, if it was good, like would you mind leaving us a
0:34:28 review?
0:34:29 Most people are happy to do that.
0:34:30 Some people are just like, you did great.
0:34:31 I’ll refer you.
0:34:32 I don’t leave reviews.
0:34:34 And then some people that didn’t have a good experience just don’t answer me.
0:34:37 They’re just like, I’m not going to leave you a bad review, but I’m not going to talk
0:34:38 about this anymore.
0:34:40 Like I just want to be done with it, which is fine.
0:34:41 Like right.
0:34:44 It’s everybody’s right, but we’re really fortunate in the people that have done left
0:34:45 reviews.
0:34:49 I mean, we have a five star rating on Yelp and Google, a clean five star rating, which
0:34:53 is, it’s really, I’m proud of that because after 12 years of business, right?
0:34:57 You might have a disgruntled customer that was like, Oh, they overcharged me.
0:34:58 Their boxes are bad quality.
0:35:02 They were late on their delivery or, you know, these boxes aren’t that great anyways or
0:35:03 whatever.
0:35:04 Right.
0:35:05 But fortunately, like it’s been pretty cool.
0:35:06 Yeah.
0:35:07 Yeah.
0:35:09 It’s like a law of large numbers is bound to happen after you serve enough clients.
0:35:11 Somebody is bound to be unhappy, but that’s great.
0:35:15 I like this proactive follow up to say, Hey, how was your thing?
0:35:19 And if you were, you know, giving me positive, would you mind just typing that same thing
0:35:22 into the review platform of your choice?
0:35:23 That’d be great.
0:35:24 Yeah.
0:35:25 Exactly.
0:35:26 You mentioned it just takes a few hours a week to run.
0:35:28 Where does your time go in the business these days?
0:35:29 Yeah.
0:35:33 Honestly, Nick, it’s just a matter of answering requests by email and phone.
0:35:37 So I’ll get a phone call, get a voicemail, I’ll get an email and they’ll be like, they’ll
0:35:40 have some questions when it kind of get the boxes, how many boxes do I need, how big are
0:35:42 the boxes, et cetera.
0:35:45 And then I help them kind of create a rental agreement and I’ll do the scheduling.
0:35:49 I’ll connect with my business partner and then he gets the rental agreement.
0:35:52 He contacts the customer and what they’re able to deliver.
0:35:53 And that’s basically it.
0:35:57 And then during the deliveries, I have a, I have a spreadsheet of, you know, who’s renting
0:35:59 what during what time, what do they do?
0:36:01 So we make sure we get them back on time.
0:36:02 And that’s really about it.
0:36:06 I also spend a couple of hours a week creating those relationships in the industry.
0:36:09 So if we’ve worked with people in the past, like, what are you seeing today?
0:36:12 You know, would you like to do a custom promo code together?
0:36:15 Do you want to do a, do you want to collaborate on a social media post?
0:36:19 You know, we’ll have like specials, like a spooktober, like this month, we’re giving
0:36:23 a free extra week of rental for anybody who rents with us.
0:36:28 So we always just try to do something creative and just try to connect with people and those
0:36:32 who are centers of influence to make sure that they are aware of us still, that we are
0:36:34 still around and then we can work together.
0:36:35 Got it.
0:36:39 I was going to ask about the spreadsheet for inventory management because with a thousand
0:36:44 boxes and people with different parts of town, you know, with different numbers of boxes,
0:36:49 like that starts to become a little bit of a logistical challenge, but it is just to
0:36:50 just spreadsheet.
0:36:54 You kind of have an idea of which, you know, how many are with which customer at what time
0:36:55 and when they’re supposed to come back.
0:36:56 Yeah, that’s exactly right.
0:37:00 It’s just a matter of where are these boxes, when are they due, and that’s what we go
0:37:01 based off.
0:37:06 So if I get a rental request and I see that there’s boxes due in a week, but they want
0:37:10 them this weekend, I’m like, well, they’re not, we can deliver them as soon as this time.
0:37:15 So I can see like which boxes are coming back when to make sure because if a customer wants
0:37:20 like a hundred boxes, that’s a lot harder to do if we’re booked than if they want 50
0:37:21 boxes.
0:37:24 But usually at most the time with the level of boxes we have now, I mean, we’re not a
0:37:27 crazy, you know, million dollar company, right?
0:37:29 So we usually have the ability to do that.
0:37:32 We’re just the neighborhood box rental company here.
0:37:37 Is there a target revenue number or fulfillment metric, like how many are being utilized at
0:37:38 any given time?
0:37:41 Like, are there key metrics that you’re tracking for this business?
0:37:45 You know, it’s just, did we do better than last year, right?
0:37:46 That’s what it is for me.
0:37:50 I mean, I mean, I should be more and I know there’s been people on this podcast and show
0:37:53 that are really like running lucrative businesses.
0:37:57 But for me, this is not something that I can really scale nationally, right?
0:38:00 Because it’s very localized and also a lot of people do it in other cities.
0:38:04 And for me, I’m just happy doing like, this is a, this is an experiment to me, to be honest.
0:38:07 Like I was 23, I was like, what risk do I have?
0:38:11 I want to say that I started a business and I wanted to combine it with my passion for
0:38:13 sustainability and zero waste.
0:38:14 So I started it.
0:38:19 And this now, I mean, it pays for basically all of my fun money, you know, I don’t have
0:38:23 to worry about, oh man, I can’t join my friends out to eat or go on this trip or buy a new
0:38:25 paddle board or whatever I want to do.
0:38:26 It pays for all of that.
0:38:27 It’s a side hustle.
0:38:28 That’s exactly what it is.
0:38:30 And my hope is that it continues to grow.
0:38:35 So more people use it and save, save cardboard boxes and the, you know, maybe we can do something
0:38:36 else.
0:38:40 But I mean, we were recently in like a local magazine and there was a feature on us on
0:38:42 Good Day Sacramento.
0:38:47 So you know, we try to speak to good community partners and make sure that we continue to
0:38:48 do well.
0:38:51 Were you doing any proactive PR outreach for that or they somehow found you like, hey,
0:38:52 this is a cool story.
0:38:57 I actually researched, there was a segment I saw on another local business and I was
0:38:58 like, oh, they do that.
0:38:59 That’s a really cool segment.
0:39:00 They do.
0:39:03 I mean, it’s not a very, it’s not obviously a national audience like the today show or
0:39:04 anything.
0:39:07 But you know, I reached out, I saw that there’s a lady who had an email that did this and
0:39:09 I reached out to her and we went back and forth a few times.
0:39:12 So you know, hopefully we have a chance to do something.
0:39:19 I think a lot of local side hustles have this, you know, PR play in their playbook because
0:39:23 especially if it’s something that’s a little bit, a little bit creative, a little bit different,
0:39:26 like renting out moving boxes or it’s like, oh, that’s unique.
0:39:31 Oh, you could turn that into a business and these publications like to feature local people
0:39:36 and feel good stories and they’re kind of looking for angles like this, especially oh,
0:39:41 there’s a sustainability play or there’s some angle here that can weave into the story that
0:39:42 they already want to tell.
0:39:43 Yeah.
0:39:44 Yeah.
0:39:46 Oh, look, you know, local businessman does good or local side hustler.
0:39:50 It’s kind of how can you tap into what they’re already looking to talk about?
0:39:51 Yeah.
0:39:52 100%.
0:39:53 Yeah.
0:39:54 It’s a really good community magazine.
0:39:55 It’s called Style Magazine.
0:39:56 It’s great.
0:39:57 It’s free.
0:40:01 It’s always got like cool little stories and tips from experts, but it’s really great in
0:40:06 that it brings business owners, small business owners in the community to give advice or like
0:40:08 they’ll pro like they always have like business profiles.
0:40:09 Why’d you get into this business?
0:40:11 You know, what made you get into this business?
0:40:12 Why do you live here?
0:40:13 Blah, blah, blah.
0:40:16 And so you really get to meet the business owners behind your local coffee shop, your local
0:40:19 auto mechanic or whatever it might be.
0:40:23 So it really kind of ties that together with their business and to your point gives a unique
0:40:27 angle on people with that expertise, how they can help the community.
0:40:28 Yeah.
0:40:31 And if nothing else, hopefully a backlink, hopefully some social proof, you know, as
0:40:34 seen on, you know, good day Sacramento or something.
0:40:35 Yeah, exactly.
0:40:39 So you may look, you know, this is local, we don’t do cross country moves.
0:40:43 Is there a geographic expansion?
0:40:45 Is there a, you know, product skew expansion?
0:40:48 Like where do you, you know, aside from just, we’re going to ride.
0:40:53 The rising tide of interest and awareness in sustainable moving box rental.
0:40:54 Like there’s a new category.
0:40:57 This is something that, you know, more and more people become aware of it for moving
0:40:58 or for storage.
0:41:00 Like you’re going to be a beneficiary of that.
0:41:04 Is there anything else to like pour some gas on the fire or say we’re, we’re good with
0:41:05 what we get?
0:41:07 You know, obviously there always is, right?
0:41:12 We can always get more inventory, rent a bigger space, have a bigger space, get more clients.
0:41:16 But for this particular business, I don’t, I don’t anticipate us 10 Xing or becoming
0:41:20 like a, you know, franchising different units or do anything like that.
0:41:25 I mean, we have a really good name and our clients and community loves us and hope that
0:41:30 as the population continues to grow, there’s tons of more houses out here that we can continue
0:41:31 to serve them.
0:41:34 And there’s, there’s a more renting boxes.
0:41:39 I’ll be happy when renting boxes is more normal than buying cardboard boxes, right?
0:41:41 That means that we were able to prove our concept.
0:41:44 I don’t know if or when that’ll happen.
0:41:47 But if people are like, Oh, I got to rent boxes from him move and they’re like, Oh yeah,
0:41:48 where do you rent your boxes from?
0:41:51 And that’s like an actual normal conversation that happens.
0:41:54 Then I’ll be like, okay, we succeeded because we were the only ones, at least the first
0:41:59 ones here to bring rentable moving boxes to the Sacramento area.
0:42:00 And now it’s normal.
0:42:04 Now it’s something that everybody does and that’ll be mean success.
0:42:05 Very good.
0:42:09 Well, I imagine you keep chipping away toward that goal and I’m excited to see where you
0:42:10 take it.
0:42:14 It’s been over a decade in the business and sounds like it’s set up to be sustainable
0:42:17 without a lot of time investment required to keep it growing.
0:42:18 So very cool.
0:42:23 Gary, thanks so much for stopping by your, the author of financial fives.
0:42:29 This is the top 325 ways to save, earn and thrive to retire before 65.
0:42:33 You can find that at financialfives.com.
0:42:36 The box rental business is CalBoxRental.com.
0:42:43 If you want to check that out, check out what that Wix site looks like, CalBoxRental.com.
0:42:46 Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side hustle nation.
0:42:50 The number one tip is just try, just start something, right?
0:42:52 Do something that’s going to move the needle.
0:42:56 That’s all the best thing I can do because we can plan and research and talk to people.
0:43:00 But I can tell you that unless I just told myself that I’m just going to go to home deep
0:43:03 in by these boxes and you see that receipt and you see the box in the back of your car
0:43:07 and sitting in your garage, you’re like, okay, I need to do something, right?
0:43:09 It’s something to start that wheel turning, right?
0:43:14 Buy that domain name, you know, reach out to somebody, whatever you need to do, pay somebody
0:43:18 a hundred bucks to give you a really cool logo and slogan, whatever it means that whatever
0:43:20 your idea is, just try something and start.
0:43:23 Yeah, some kind of a forced action.
0:43:28 You’ll find that momentum breeds momentum and there’s some law of entrepreneurial physics
0:43:31 where an entrepreneur in motion tends to stay in motion.
0:43:35 It’s just that zero to one to get that motivation to go do that first thing.
0:43:36 And here we are.
0:43:40 10, 12 years later, it’s become a really cool side hustle that you built.
0:43:44 A couple of takeaways for me before we wrap up.
0:43:49 Number one is obviously this focus on partnerships and relationships.
0:43:53 Partnerships on the delivery and logistics side and then on the relationship side, think
0:43:58 about that strategic partner of who are your target customers already doing business with?
0:43:59 How can you make them?
0:44:03 You’re not a competitor, but they’re an ally or a potential referral source for you.
0:44:09 We talked about them as lead fountains instead of onesie-toosie lead trickles.
0:44:11 It’s like, who might need this service again and again and again?
0:44:13 I really like the focus there.
0:44:16 And then the second thing is like, well, what else could I rent out?
0:44:20 Like thinking about something that checks this box, like pretty durable asset, sure, some
0:44:24 of them are going to break, but the cost of each individual one is not a ton and something
0:44:28 that could really have a long lifespan, long shelf life.
0:44:30 I think that’s really just an interesting one.
0:44:33 And something that, like you mentioned, is going to be more and more people become aware
0:44:34 of it.
0:44:37 So you put yourself in a good position to capture some of that demand, just like side
0:44:42 hustle nation has captured a rising tide of interest in side hustles over the last decade.
0:44:47 So I’m trying to see what gold rush can you sell shovels into almost and the sustainability
0:44:52 zero waste is like a broader umbrella, maybe one of those to look into.
0:44:55 So like we talked about, not the only thing that you can rent out for a profit.
0:44:58 So make sure to grab your free listener bonus for this week.
0:45:01 That’s my list of 25 other unconventional rental ideas.
0:45:05 You may be able to borrow some of Gary’s playbook for on the marketing and partnership
0:45:06 side.
0:45:12 You can grab that for free at the show notes for this episode at side hustle nation.com/gary.
0:45:16 Or just follow the link in the episode description in your podcast player app.
0:45:17 It’ll get you right over there.
0:45:20 Other rental episodes for consideration, if you like this model.
0:45:23 We talked about the mobility scooter guy.
0:45:24 Love this episode.
0:45:27 We’re doing like three grand a month with a fleet of six or seven mobility scooters
0:45:28 in LA.
0:45:31 That is episode five 64 with Lenny Tim.
0:45:35 Fascinating episode, you know, relatively low startup costs, relatively quick to break
0:45:36 even.
0:45:37 And then it’s, then it’s gravy.
0:45:42 And then four 28, you know, one of the episodes I refer people to most often these, this is
0:45:47 a Steve Nadremia with his portable hot tub rental business and not really that portable,
0:45:51 but like portable compared to a, you know, a fixed, you know, hot tub that’s not going
0:45:54 anywhere, delivering these things in his pickup truck.
0:45:59 And I think he had like 25 or 30 of them really, really cool creative episode on the side from
0:46:00 his teaching job.
0:46:05 So four 28 on the hot tubs, five 64 with Lenny on the mobility scooters.
0:46:07 But big thanks to Gary for sharing his insight.
0:46:11 Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:46:15 You can hit up side hustle nation.com/deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors
0:46:16 in one place.
0:46:19 Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show.
0:46:20 That is it for me.
0:46:21 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:46:25 If you’re finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a
0:46:26 friend.
0:46:27 So fire off that text message.
0:46:28 Hey, check this out.
0:46:30 Maybe we should do this in our area until next time.
0:46:31 Let’s go out there and make something happen.
0:46:35 And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the side hustle show hustle on.
Sometimes the simplest ideas can lead to remarkable success.
That’s certainly the case for Gary Grewal, founder of Cal Box Rental, a moving box rental service that has grown from a college student’s brainstorm to a successful side hustle generating $1,000 in monthly recurring revenue.
For the last 10 years, he has been renting out moving boxes with a low start-up cost, consistent and increasing demand, and only a few hours per week to run on the side of his day job.
Tune in to Ep 635 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:
- how Gary turned a college idea into a thriving box rental business
- the tactics that helped him gain his first customers
- how strategic partnerships fueled his success in the moving industry
Full Show Notes: $1000/mo Renting Out Plastic Bins: Starting a Box Rental Side Hustle
Free Listener Bonus: 25 Unconventional Rental Business Ideas
New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here!
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