

Show HN: TruckPlease – Moving sucks, so we decided to make it easier - sasan
https://www.truckplease.com

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ignostic
Cool idea, but two things that bothered me:

1) There's no easy way for users to browse. 2) The whole "gig" messaging and
the entire call to action on the page is painfully confusing. -"Describe your
gig." What? Am I in a band? Is this for a "seller" or a "buyer"? -Why do you
need a description of "moving"?? "I'm moving." would be my description. What
are you looking for here? Couldn't you just have a button for "I'm moving?"
-There's just a general lack of context here.

I do understand and don't need it explained, but I guarantee the average user
is going to be totally confused.

~~~
baddox
> 2) The whole "gig" messaging and the entire call to action on the page is
> painfully confusing. -"Describe your gig." What? Am I in a band?

I think this is a difference in regional word usage. I'm accustomed to hearing
"gig" used only to refer to a temporary agreement for musicians or similar
artistic entertainment, like a single concert or perhaps a tour of concerts.
But I have met people from the UK who use it to refer to _any_ job.

~~~
JosephHatfield
I have friends in LA/Hollywood who use the word "gig" when referring to any
job of indeterminate length; especially if it pays well. ex: "Oh, man, I'd
love to have that gig!"

~~~
Aloha
I'm also from LA - and I'd never use it in that context. I'd never say I'm
looking for a gig, I might describe my existing job as a gig.

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anigbrowl
Given the infrequency of moving, I'm not sure how you intend to displace
Craigslist for this sort of thing, since that website is already a good one-
stop shop for random services. The times when you actually need a truck seem
infrequent enough that I think you're going to run into a discoverability
problem.

Indeed, ISTM that the trouble with moving your own stuff is not so much the
truck - most people rent a u-haul or similar even if they have to bribe a
friend to drive it - as the difficulty of finding people who know how to
manhandle furniture and appliances without damaging them or the building
they're being moved into/out of, and how to pack a truck so that the contents
don't move around during transit.

~~~
username223
> finding people who know how to manhandle furniture and appliances without
> damaging them or the building they're being moved into/out of, and how to
> pack a truck so that the contents don't move around during transit.

This. If you just need a truck, U-Haul or similar will do that for under $100.
If you want to move anything fragile and valuable, pay someone knowledgeable
and insured. There just isn't much money in schlepping things around town for
$40 plus gas.

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redtexture
"local or national"

You really need to deal with both state and federal consumer-oriented laws
relating to moving, and bills of lading and the like.

You should also learn about the laws relating to "agency". As the agent of
truckers, connecting the trucker to the customer, you can find yourself to be
on the hook for movers and truckers that fail to deal with state laws, which
can be quite "interesting" to an entity in your position.

The reason for such state laws and federal regulation: low estimates on the
job, and truckers that hold a person's goods hostage for the surprisingly high
bill. Nationally: you need to know your providers are reputable and capable.

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ghshephard
I've used craigslist 4-5 times in the last 8 years (I don't drive, and I move
a lot) - and two things stand out for me from my use of them:

#1 - I'm continually amazed at how flakey the drivers/moving services are -
they all advertise multiple times a week that they have moving services
available, but you have to call about a half dozen of them and leave messages
before you eventually get one that will get back to you and commit. You would
think they would at least get back to you quickly, and then refer the work to
someone else.

#2 - The quality of service that you get varies quite a bit, and doesn't seem
to correlate with what you pay as much as you would like - I've paid anywhere
from $90 to $150 for moving and sometimes I get two, highly qualified movers,
and an _enormous_ truck capable of moving an entire house ($60/hour, 2 hour
minimum). Sometimes you get a yahoo with a big uncovered pickup truck
($90/hour).

If there was a service that could solve those two pain points - eliminate the
hassle of trying to track down the service, and making sure the person
actually showed up when they said the would, and giving me some sense of what
I would be getting (Big Truck? how big? Are the movers going to help me move
things outside? Do they bring blankets for things like glass desks?) - then
I'd be interested in using it.

~~~
andrelayer
Unpakt.com is pretty good for this, though they index only professional moving
companies. You enter the general stuff you're going to move and they compare
prices across a bunch of providers.

~~~
ghshephard
My average price for moving is around $100 - though I've paid as much as $150,
and the best experience ever was for $120.

The _cheapest_ price on unpakt is $517 for my type of move. They are clearly
looking at a different target market.

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OafTobark
I would create a 3rd category that is akin to delivery. It could technically
fall into moving but moving brings to mind the actual idea of moving.

What I mean by delivery is more something along the lines of...

\- I have something I want to pickup (maybe off Craigslist or something) and I
don't have a truck. Would be nice to have someone who has one help for a flat
rate.

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Skywing
As a truck owner, is there a way to make sure that I never end up on this
website? :) Just kidding. Any truck owner knows the joys of having every non-
truck-owner ask to borrow the truck.

~~~
my_username_is_
Owning a truck can be a blessing and a curse. I was never the driver when car
pooling with my friends, but I had tons of requests to help move things--
usually at the end/beginning of the academic years.

I wish this service was around when I owned a truck.

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jlockfre
Is this aimed at guys moving like one or two boxes?

My parents run a removals firm in the UK, British Association of Removers
accredited. Are you hoping to displace the removal industry of people moving
entire homes?

The actual physical handling of people's goods should never come down to
price, a bidding war on moving the personal belongings of your entire personal
life is never going to end well. Unlicensed, unregulated cowboys will never
handle your belongings as well as someone who has had training, is fully
insured and has twenty years of experience.

Moving people is hard work, it's difficult to judge a price based upon what
people say, distance to the truck? Amount of packing that needs to be done?
These are all things that can add huge amounts of time, and therefore money
into moving home and due to the fact you're dealing with people's hard earned
personal possessions something that shouldn't be ignored.

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noonespecial
I've thought about this on and off over the years as well but never had the
motivation to try. Congratulations.

In all seriousness, the one question I could never answer for myself is "what
happens when there's cocaine in the box?" Have you considered this and how
this risk will be handled?

~~~
sasan
Thanks! I think that's a problem every logistics/moving company has to face!

Reminds me of the Mitch Hedberg joke: "I love my FedEx guy cause he's a drug
dealer and he doesn't even know it...and he's always on time."

~~~
noonespecial
They face it with the corporate veil, insurance, and a bunch of lawyers. My
concern is, as an ordinary guy with a truck who just bid on a job to make a
little extra cash over the weekend, "Its not mine" is going to work about as
well as can usually be expected.

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mrmch
I met Sasan and Heidar at the hackathon where they first built TruckPlease.
Neat concept that definitely solves a problem, and they're smart/friendly
guys!

Super curious what their plans are to monetize (it looks like TP is currently
completely free)?

~~~
sasan
Hey, Matt! Great seeing you on here and thanks for the kind words :)

Right now we're completely free but we have a lot of ideas for monetization.
One of them being handling payments and taking a cut and another would be to
sell optional related services, like moving/rental insurance, cleaning
services, and moving supplies.

~~~
mrmch
Insurance on the moving is pretty interesting, though I'd worry about fraud
eventually being an issue.

~~~
sasan
Yeah that's definitely a great point. To start, we'd probably just sell
through a 3rd party insurer and let their underwriters deal with that!

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MIT_Hacker
You need to put something up on the home page which shows some of the gigs in
your area or perhaps some of the drivers?

Tough to see what the product looks like without actually signing up and
posting/bidding.

~~~
heidar
Hey - co-founder here :) Yeah that's a good idea, a few people have pointed
this out as well. Definitely something we'll add soon.

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swalsh
The real test for this site would be September 1st, Boston.

~~~
dalek2point3
tell me about it! I rented a Uhaul last year during this time, and it was a
complete nightmare. Im wondering how much extra money I have to pay on this
site to make it less painful and whether it would be worth it.

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midas007
<3

Should get a t-shirt that says "No I will not fix your computer and no you
can't borrow my truck, but you can pay me for either if you'd like.

Thanks guys, this is a neat website.

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baha_man
Small typo on this page:

[https://www.truckplease.com/how-it-works](https://www.truckplease.com/how-it-
works)

"TruckPlease doesn’t employee anyone..."

~~~
sasan
Thanks, man! Will definitely fix that!

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Kluny
I'm from Victoria! Cool to see local people making it on HN.

~~~
sasan
Thanks, Kluny! Appreciate it!

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shriphani
Very cool! Are you guys going to ship an app soon (something like having to
pick up a large package at a fedex location and having a streamlined UI for
requesting a truck).

~~~
heidar
Thanks! :) Yeah, once the site has all the features we want we'll definitely
start working on an app. Tracking is something we're really interested in
doing with that.

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r00fus
Awesome - I've just posted a gig for a bit of junk removal. That's a tough
market - most folks won't quote you a price without seeing the goods.

------
Aloha
It'd be useful to deal with moving moving, like city to city or region to
region, this looks like something for in the city.

~~~
sasan
Totally! Our goal right now is to focus on local moves but the site can
definitely be used for long-haul moves as well!

------
sandieman
Perfect timing, I'm moving out of the Mission to Cow Hollow...

$80 was first bid, took it. Excited to see how this goes!

~~~
sasan
Awesome! Feel free to email us anytime at hi@truckplease.com to let us know
how it goes!

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chrisBob
As a user it is more reassuring to me if I can identify the business model or
the fees involved up front. The FAQ states that the drivers don't pay
anything, and the customers pay the drivers directly in cash. That makes me
feel like I am missing something.

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rootedbox
So you want regular joe smoes to move people or fully licensed movers?

Local or national?

~~~
sasan
We currently have both! We have people using the site in Vancouver and
Victoria right now and both licensed movers and guys with trucks are bidding
on gigs. We're working on adding a badge system and reviews so users can
quickly see how they're dealing with before accepting a bid.

Edit: right now we're focusing on local moves within cities but there's we
have no problem with the site being used for long-haul moves.

~~~
rootedbox
Just wondering if you are going to handel licensing, bounding, and insurance.
It appears you could possibly be banging up against 3PL regulations.

~~~
sasan
For the time being we're thinking of ourselves as just a platform for drivers
to meet users and don't plan directly hiring drivers. Kind of like a moving
dating website. We would like to eventually verify the drivers
insurance/licensing and award them badges on the site so users know who
they're hiring, though!

~~~
rootedbox
Thats right you would be the 3PL and you would be dealing with 1PL(consignee)
and 2PL(carrier). So likely dealing with 3PL regulation. You probably already
have to worry about licensing, and insurance.

This isn't a bad market to get into. You should educate yourself though more
in it.

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mtalantikite
There is moveline.com, which I think was in TechStars out here in NYC a few
years back.

Is this more for small jobs within a city? Like if I needed to pick up some
furniture or something similar.

~~~
sasan
Hey! moveline.com looks pretty cool. We're less focused on long-haul moves,
although our site can easily accommodate them (we have a few long-haul gigs
posted up right now) and more focused on short, "I need this desk moved across
town" gigs.

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chiph
How do you think you compare with established players, like uShip?

~~~
sasan
Hey! Just a copy & paste from a comment I wrote earlier:

We really like uShip! But we're different. While uShip has the functionality
to offer local moves, their primary focus is on larger long-haul moves. Movers
generally use their service to fill empty space on their trucks so they can
get the most for their time/fuel costs.

Our main focus is on local moves. We've tried using uShip for in-city moves in
a few cities and getting bids for these on their site is pretty hit and miss
since most of their drivers prefer a longer haul.

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davemel37
Best Idea I have read about all year.

Seriously... I love this.

~~~
davemel37
As someone who likes to buy consigned furniture, or browse estate sales... but
hates paying expensive moving fees...This is a prefect solution for me.

Focus on estate sales and you will grow rapidly.

~~~
sasan
Thanks so much for the kind words! We will definitely look into marketing to
estate sales :)

~~~
davemel37
Think about all the retailers that sell oversized products. Pretty much any
item that can't fit into a sedan is a prime target. Build a large list of
items from appliances, to furniture, even trips to costco.

I think this is an excellent idea with great potential.

The moving industry is nice, but I think there is much more potential in
larger retail purchases and local delivery.

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dandroid17
Your drop-down isn't themed correctly on Chrome for Mac, FYI!

[http://i.imgur.com/Y1BZwGP.png](http://i.imgur.com/Y1BZwGP.png)

~~~
heidar
Hey :) I'm able to reproduce this by disabling JS. I'm on Chrome on a Mac as
well and with JS enabled there are no problems.

~~~
dandroid17
I have JS enabled... not sure what's up. Not a big deal though!

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damoncali
This is going to hurt a little, but these guys are 10 years ahead of you:
[http://www.uship.com](http://www.uship.com)

~~~
sasan
We really like uShip! But we're different. While uShip has the functionality
to offer local moves, their primary focus is on larger long-haul moves. Movers
generally use their service to fill empty space on their trucks so they can
get the most for their time/fuel costs.

Our main focus is on local moves. We've tried using uShip for in-city moves in
a few cities and getting bids for these on their site is pretty hit and miss
since most of their drivers prefer a longer haul.

------
bwl
Can't wait for this to migrate into NYC

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knocte
An alternative that I've used successfully in Europe in the past is anyvan.com

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rabino
"Find someone who gives a truck." would be a better tagline.

Other than that, really cool idea.

~~~
sasan
Appreciate the kind words! We'll definitely give that tagline some thought
haha.

~~~
afiler
This video with Rowan Atkinson contains all sorts of bad truck-related naming
ideas:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R5tUc1S3cc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R5tUc1S3cc)

~~~
sasan
Haha that was great! But I do have "I like trucking" stuck in my head now so I
don't know if I want to thank you for that :)

