On a recent episode of Taking the Hire Road, Jeremy Reymer joined Spencer Ware, Co-Founder and CEO of Repowr, and Patrick Visintainer, Co-Founder and COO of Repowr, to talk about asset underutilization and its impact on commodity industry. . The co-founders also shared some of the experiences that led to the creation of the on-demand trailer booking platform.
It’s not easy starting a company from scratch, and for Visintainer, an important part of handling the challenges is maintaining a positive mindset. One way to do this is to embrace the struggle. “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. So sometimes you have to embrace the struggle and learn from it and know that progress is being made,” he said.
Learning about fleet racing was one of the things that sparked the creation of the company. Ware’s trucking industry experience began on the insurance side. After graduating college, he became an insurance agent in Birmingham, Alabama, building a book of business with small to mid-sized fleets on the road.
Working with these fleets as they grew introduced Ware to the challenges of using equipment and assets.
“Every year I noticed that my customers would do it [when] the market would be very good, go out and buy as much equipment as they could,” he said. “And then by the time they got that equipment, trucks and trailers, the market had turned around and a lot of that equipment was just sitting idle [and] is underutilized. They didn’t really have any kind of flexibility: they were stuck with it.”
Sunk costs were another factor Ware noted, adding, “They didn’t really want to sell the trucks and trailers. they might need it if a big project comes up.”
While Ware started in insurance, Visintainer began his career in trucking logistics for a major trucking company in Birmingham. “On a daily basis, I coordinated the transportation of customer merchandise, working with our shippers and planning the drivers,” he said.
Visintainer saw firsthand the challenges and inefficiencies, especially when it comes to trailers. He notes that in the early days after the ELD mandate went into effect, trailers began to play an important role due to the stricter reporting requirements for hours of operation. “People wanted to drop trailers… and if they’re not in the right place at the right time, that can be very detrimental to you and your business. … So a lot of huge problems come from just the trailer aspect and the use of the trailer.”
Starting a company, especially one focused on sharing equipment, was not without its early challenges. “We’ve had a lot of people say, ‘No, I’m not going to give somebody that trailer. It’s got my name, my logo on the side, stuff like that,” Visintainer said. To overcome these obstacles, the Repowr team decided that a personal touch was a great way to sell the concept. Going out and meeting with customers and listening to their ideas and suggestions were some of the early wins as the company developed its vision.
Another advantage for the founders, who have been best friends since sixth grade, is their early rapport—something that isn’t always the case with startups. “You don’t inherently have some of the challenges that other co-founders might have if they don’t know each other as well,” Reymer said.
How Repowr works
“The fundamental reason Repowr exists is to improve trailer usage,” which Ware calls a big problem in the industry. “Seventy-five percent of a trailer’s life is spent detached from a truck.”
This lack of utilization is what prompted the founders to focus on connecting logistics companies, carriers, shippers, brokers and owner-operators to collaborate and share trailers with each other seamlessly.
“We’ve built a market for idle, underutilized and available trailers across the country,” said Ware. This marketplace can allow users to search by location and type of equipment and then reserve it “with three clicks of a button.”
Another challenge affecting trailer usage is fragmentation, in which large, well-capitalized fleets are the ones that can afford additional trailers. Visintainer notes, “97% of the available trailers owned in the market are owned by only 3% of the market. And on the other hand, 92% of the trucking companies that operate are these smaller fleets. which creates fragmentation as well as underutilized assets in the market”.
Additionally, for carriers looking to make better use of their trailers, knowing the trailer’s location, load status and how to access it remains a barrier to entry. Visintainer talked about how shared visibility is the first step towards a solution, leveraging telematics and integrations to know where the trailer is and its status. The second is whether the trailer is used and loaded and how long it has been there. With ELD integrations, Repowr can now know where drivers are, helping to match trailer demand with trailer supply.
“As we go deeper, we’re looking at integrations like TMS integrations and loadboards because we want to meet our customers where they operate every day,” said Visintainer.
Small fleets and owner-operators aren’t the only ones benefiting from the additional use of trailers. Large business fleets use it to redeploy or adjust shortages if more trailers are needed in a given market. “We have corporate fleets that supply trailers every day, but then we also see them crossing and holding trailers in an area where maybe their trailer capacity is low and they have a launch program that they need trailers for today,” added Ware .
From early adopters to early movers
As Repower continues to grow and evolve from its early days in a basement during the COVID pandemic, an abiding key to their success is learning from customers and turning those early adopters into an asset that will first ones.
“I think the reason we’ve been successful so far is that we really rely on those early adopters and early customers and learn from them.” Visintainer said. “We wanted to know what they thought about our product, and we still do that today. So spending time with clients, seeing them face-to-face… was a huge aspect.”
“Whether you own an asset or don’t own an asset, there’s an opportunity with Repowr, and it’s just fitting all the pieces together and fully understanding and getting used to [the platform] and try it.”
To learn more about Repowr, Click here.