
The Woman Behind Two Men and a Truck - prostoalex
http://fortune.com/2017/12/16/two-men-truck-moving-company/?iid=sr-link1
======
mschuster91
> I didn’t know anything about moving laws, and one day the state police came
> and looked at our paperwork. They found seven moves done without moving
> licenses, so I had to go to court, and I paid a fine of $100 for seven
> misdemeanors.

Well I can understand the licensing requirements to drive a truck, a taxi, or
to work as electricians or plumbers, no one wants untrained drivers or
tradesmen on the road due to safety - but why is a license required for
moving?!

~~~
rcarrigan87
For intrastate moves only about half of US states require a license.

For long distance, interstate moves it's federally regulated and requires a
license.

Do a quick google search on 'moving scams' and this should give you a good
idea why licenses and regulations are a good idea in this industry. It's ripe
for scams and shady characters.

Unbelievable, some of the stories I could tell...

~~~
craftyguy
> Unbelievable, some of the stories I could tell...

.... go on...

~~~
Groxx
Probably not hard to fill in the gaps.

Step 1: encourage people to put the vast majority of their material
possessions in someone else's vehicle, and pay for the privilege to do so.

Step 2: drive away.

~~~
paulcole
Much more commonly, bait and switch on rates, holding possessions hostage
until the new rate is paid, etc.

~~~
jstarfish
I had a locksmith pull that on me once. They gave me one quote over the phone,
unlocked my car, then invoiced me for double.

Car movers are also notorious for this. The fun part there is that if you
don't pay the new rate, they hit the road again and it can be another week
before you get your car back-- assuming it hasn't been impounded.

~~~
craftyguy
What's a 'car mover'? Do people pay others to move their car for them? I can
understand if the 'move' requires transit over water, but is there another
reason for this?

~~~
mgerdts
I think it's fairly common with corporate relocations for the package to offer
to put your cars on a car carrier and send you and the family via plane. I've
had this opportunity a couple times and took advantage of it once.

If you see a car carrier unloading a car or two in or near a residential area
or in a corporate parking lot, it's quite likely this is part of a relocation
package.

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stacky
Great read. I particularly enjoyed her advice:

> Make it right. The standard reimbursement for moving breakages used to be 6¢
> a pound. If we broke a 10-pound ­table, we’d be liable for 60¢, but that’s
> not right. So we used to give an “I’m sorry” box to customers, with a coffee
> mug and gift certificate in it, along with fixing whatever we broke. It made
> a big difference.

~~~
jonknee
That seems like a bizarre way to pay for damages considering weight and value
are not correlated at all.

~~~
drb91
Well, they are highly correlated for tables. Or are you selling 10lb tables
for 60 cents?

~~~
jfoutz
And weirdly, I can’t think of anything I can buy for 6cents a pound.

~~~
craftyguy
Adjusting for inflation (using the only date in the article, 1991), that's
$0.11/lb in today's money! Hmm, still can't think of anything I can buy for
that amount.

~~~
Groxx
Bubble wrap maybe.

------
rmason
Quite nice to see a local and someone I know personally on HN. A while back at
my suggestion we had her at the Lansing Startup Grind:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yfyesm-
Cu8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yfyesm-Cu8)

------
bm1362
I hired these guys and they never showed. I was in contact with them every
hour, being reassured they were just running late. Eventually they stopped
responding.

By midnight I gave up and threw half my stuff on the curb and UberXL’ed my
clothes and small items to my new apartment.

Unfortunately I had a flight at 3am so couldn’t handle a cancelation, which is
my fault.

~~~
EvanAnderson
They're franchised. You didn't hire "these guys", you hired one of their
franchisees. I'm sure the company would love to know about your experience.

------
j_s
Finding the right employees is the key to the continued growth of most
businesses, but especially in this vertical: 99%+ of the experience of hiring
a moving company is directly related to the people who show up at the house to
do the hard manual labor.

PS. Set aside some extra cash to give these people directly if they exceed
your expectations (at least in the US, not sure about 'tipping'/etc.
elsewhere).

------
orionblastar
Back in 2002 one of their trucks (St Louis MO) parked and blocked my car at a
Quiktrip as I parked in the parking lot to get breakfast. When I came out I
saw my car was blocked. I could not find the drivers and asked about it in
Quiktrip and nobody knew, some even laughed at me. I was 29 minutes late when
the drivers finally showed up to move their truck without even as much as am
I'm sorry.

I never used their service but they were illeaglly parked when they blocked my
car.

It has been along time since. I suppose I can forgive them.

------
rcarrigan87
Can confirm, the moving industry is still a 'good ole boys network.' I've seen
quite a few well-funded startups in the space fail and one of the culprits
(among many) is usually because the movers are very skeptical of new services.

Seems like a lot of her early success was choosing the right franchisees. It's
notoriously hard to grow a moving company. Would love to know more about their
process back then.

~~~
prawn
There are probably some lessons from McDonalds in that - having restaurants
run predominantly by teenagers, yet swamping the world. I assume the secret is
a strict system plus solid leading staff who make sure the underlings stick to
the plan?

------
DoreenMichele
This is great. Tongue in cheek TLDR (said with a lot of admiration as a
divorced mom with two sons myself):

How to accidentally become CEO of a multi-million dollar moving company: Get
divorced. Support your two sons' desire to make a little extra money by taking
out an ad for them as local movers. Keep getting calls after they leave for
college. Run with it.

------
Hasz
The bit on a moving license was interesting. One one hand, I'm sure there's a
decent (if opaque) rationale behind it, whatever it is.

On the other hand, it was clearly a burdensome and annoying regulation to jump
through, although clearly not crippling.

How could government constantly reevaluate law to determine a careful balance
between cost and benefit?

~~~
rcarrigan87
It's actually a good industry to look at for any economist looking to study
regulation affects.

In the 80s they deregulated the industry which led to a proliferation of shady
movers and scams. Since the 80s they've been slowly adding back in more and
more regulation.

~~~
mattmcknight
The interesting part though is how the established companies limited the
number of licenses that could be issued. That kind of regulatory capture is
why "more regulation" vs "less regulation" is an overly simplistic lens
through which to view situations. The nature of the regulation can be very
important in protecting incumbents, although there is probably a certain
quantity of regulation where the inherent complexity of compliance becomes a
similar barrier.

------
dsfyu404ed
The 80s medium duty F-series really has a timeless look. You could replace the
G-vans with modern equivalents and that 80s F-series would fit right in.

>they found seven moves done without moving licenses

Um, WTF. I wouldn't be surprised by this in 2017 in some city but back then?

~~~
bluedino
The moving business is all about licensing. What state lines are you crossing,
what are you moving, what states are your trucks certified in (emissions etc),
how many guys do you have in the truck...

~~~
dsfyu404ed
But that's more of a DOT/Commerical trucking thing, not a "moving license"
thing.

~~~
bluedino
Movers usually own and operate the trucks

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Right. They'd be under DOT rules about commercial trucking which are stringent
and micro-managerial enough that I don't see the need for separate licensing.

