Today we’d like to introduce you to Chad Wittman.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I was living in Gold Coast and moving in with my girlfriend at the time (now wife) in Naperville. I had a small studio apartment and just needed help with a few of the big items. I wanted a guy and a pickup truck I could pay $50 to help me out. Having horrendous experiences with U-Haul over the years (even driving into a low overhang with one of their trucks) I was not going to use them no matter what. After not being able to find any alternatives, I did the move in my 4 door sedan. I spent a lot of time on YouTube trying to figure out how to strap down a mattress to the roof. It seemed good enough and I hopped onto 88 out to Naperville. The car was bouncing up and down the highway and I was sure that I was doing something illegal. I managed to eventually get that mattress to my new place, but there had to be a better way. Then it hit me, what if there was a Lyft for moving stuff? Dolly was born.
Has it been a smooth road?
There are many challenges when building an entirely new service ranging from the typical challenges all the way to the newly invented one. One challenge with that paradigm is that you don’t know which problems you need to invent solutions for and which ones others can help educate on.
Our biggest challenge was making sure that we were building a product that people wanted. Once we knew that, we had to determine how we could scale the business. Scale is incredibly difficult.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Dolly story. Tell us more about the business.
Dolly is Truck & Muscle, Anytime You Need It. We’re like Uber or Lyft for moving stuff. Anytime you need a friend with a truck or thinking about renting a U-Haul, Dolly is a great fit to help out. We help move big bulky furniture a few feet or a few miles. We’re an iPhone and Android app to keep the moving experience lightweight and as pain free as possible.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
There are several trends that are making Dolly’s timing really interesting. First, we have smartphones in just about everyone’s pocket. This means we have strong computers and network ability to make incredibly smart decisions about how to work most efficiently. In an industry that’s still relying phone calls and paper quotes, we’re leveraging technology to do a lot of the heavy lifting. The second trend is that car ownership is changing and people want to live in cities. 2 guys and a pickup truck can actually move quite a bit of stuff at a fraction of the cost of a traditional moving truck.
I think Dolly is riding both of these waves to build a really interesting business.
Out in the future, autonomous trucks are coming. We see ourselves as a company obsessed with our customers and having the ability to fulfill their demands with an autonomous truck fleet is very interesting. Our Helpers would provide the physical labor and service of loading your stuff up, our autonomous trucks drive it to the drop-off location. Exciting future!
Pricing:
- Pricing starts at $35
Contact Info:
- Website: dolly.com
