The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner - $250K/Month Renting Out Things He Doesn't Own - Ep. #340

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

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250K a month? 250K a month, yeah. Wow. Just from Facebook Marketplace posts? Yeah, just from Facebook Marketplace posts. I've been traveling to Columbia for years now because I could do everything for my phone. It's straightforward stuff. Any AI really can take you 90% of the way there.

How much money did it take to start this business in total? I just had to pay my insurance. By the end of this episode, if someone has no experience in the industry, will they be able to have enough knowledge to where they could start this business themselves? Oh yeah, definitely. I had no knowledge when I was starting this business. I had no idea. You know those big semi-trucks driving on the highway? Well, someone probably leases those trailers to them. And today, that someone was Eli. In 2019, he was a real estate agent in Connecticut who'd started matching truckers with loads for about 80 bucks a pop. Then one day, his uncle asked if he could rent a trailer for a semi. And Eli didn't know anything about this business.

So he found a company to lease him a 53-foot semi-trailer from a big company for about. 350 bucks a month and then he rented it to his uncle for about 750 bucks a month. After getting an insurance policy, he was in business and that's the whole startup cost. Six years later, he had 300 trailers and was profiting over $50,000 a month with two virtual employees that he'd never met in person. And he ran this whole business from his phone in Columbia. Please enjoy. Okay, well, why don't we start by you just telling me who you are and what you do? All right, cool. So my name is Eli. I run a trucking company. Basically, I rent trailers to truckers. And, you know, I got started in November 2019. I got into trucking. I started dispatching truckers. And, you know, basically I was looking for loads

for these truckers. And a lot of them were like, we also need equipment. And so, you know, I found a supplier. I found someone to give me inventory, which meant, you know, found someone to give me trailers. They would give me flat beds and they would give me dry vans. And so I started. started off with a couple for me and for I had a driver at that time. And then my uncle was like, oh, you know, I don't have really good credit. Are you able to, you know, rent me a trailer? And I was like, yeah, I can rent you a trailer. And from there, I was like, wow, well, if I can do this with my uncle, I can do this with

a whole bunch of other people, too. And so I started off with one trailer. That was in November 2019. I probably started making a profit probably by May or June 2020. Okay, so let's back up. In 2019, you were like dispatching trucks. Is that right? Like you were trying to like make loads, like match loads.

Is that right? Yeah, yeah, I was matching loads to truckers. So I had a trucker which was available in a certain area. It was a pretty good gig too. I mean, everything was virtual. I always try to be virtual and everything that I do. So yeah, it was virtual too. You know, I would find a trucker who would be looking for work.

And they would tell me, look, I'm available this day. I'm available this time. And then I would match them with loads. There's load boards that you can get on to. And you would try to, you know, give them loads. You know, match them loads. Was there any licensing you needed to start matching loads to truckers? Or you just find these boards and you just start calling?

No, yeah. You don't need a license to dispatch. You do need a license to broker loads, which means it's on the other side, you're representing the shipper and you're finding them the driver. On dispatching, you have the driver and you're finding them the load.

And anyone can just do that. What are some websites where you would go to find loads? DAT load board. There's a bunch of load boards. They're called load boards. Okay. And, you know, people post,

shippers post their loads. And sometimes they post it with the rate that they're willing to give you per mile, their requirements, a load it is and you know you just call them tell him look you know I have this driver you know they check the the driver's MC number and then you know they tell you that if he's good to go or not and then they tell you the rate and stuff like that how long were you doing this before your uncle asked about renting a trailer I was doing it only for like like six months okay and were you finding success

with the I mean dispatching yeah with the dispatching it's kind of like you're you're taking a very small margin per load, you know, because the margins are already thin. So it's like, yeah, I wasn't making, I wasn't making too much money. You know what I mean? What's an example of a load and the margin you would make from it, like an average load? This was like seven years ago. Let me see. It was like maybe a load from Connecticut to upstate New York. And these rates are much different now because remember diesel is much higher now, you know, so diesel goes into these rates too. Tolls goes into, go into these rates. So I'm talking about rates that were seven years ago. I would do a load from Connecticut to New York paying maybe like $800.

And each load, you would think that you're going to be taking at least a margin of 10%. So that's kind of where you're at with it. Okay. So your uncle asked, hey, he was already a truck driver or he wanted to be a truck driver? He was already a truck driver. Okay. And he wanted, he needed a trailer. And you would say trailer.

We're talking like the 42-foot 18-wheeler semi-trailers? We're talking about 53 foot trailers. So the trailers connect to the truck. They're not part of the truck. You know what I mean? They connect to the truck. So they have eight. Eight wheels.

Let me see. Yeah. Two on each side, four on each side. So, yeah, eight. Eight wheels. I think a big part of this type of business is how you're billing people. So and how you're being billed, which I think is really important for a lot of types of businesses, you know, you can apply this to a lot of types of businesses.

For example, I'm getting billed for the first piece of equipment, net 30. So I get it this month and then I pay for it at the end of next month, right? And so I start billing it right away, though. I don't bill net 30. I start billing right away and I take a deposit. So I would take a deposit and I would bill weekly, which was key because I would start cash flowing right away. Yeah, yeah.

And so I found these people that were able to give me the trailers. And, you know, they didn't charge me a deposit. They charged me at 30. They didn't charge me per mile fee for any mechanical stuff, like repair stuff. Because some companies, they charge you in it. They charge you by how many miles you use the trailer. They charge you like a mileage fee, like, like, 20 cents per mile or something like that. And then they add it to the final fee.

and so to the bill at the end of the month. And so, you know, that's, that's, that's something that was really critical. Okay. So what was the first thing you did when your uncle asked that question? So the first thing I did was, was create contracts, you know, to protect myself and protect, you know, the business, protect the trailer. You know, any, you know, it was kind of like a boilerplate sort of thing. While, while you have the trailer in your possession, it's, it's, uh, your responsibility.

Don't use this trailer for anything illegal. you know, and from there, I, it was, the first contract wasn't really like airtight. I had revised the contract over the years based on situations that would happen to me, you know, you know, like I needed an emergency contact after a while. So then I got my insurance, you know, that was kind of the biggest expense for this type of business. I got a trucker policy for the trailer, which was really like a ghost policy because really when an accident happens, your trailer is the one, whichever trailer that's connected at the time of the accident

is the one that's going to be getting a claim. So, you know, I had to get that policy, but really no trailer was ever going to be connected to one of my trucks at the time of an accident. So I always had to get a policy from the people that were renting, and I had to be additional insured. Sorry, why wouldn't your trailer ever be attached? I don't get it.

My truck, my truck would never be attached, because I'm renting. it, I'm renting it to, I didn't have any trucks, and I'm renting it to people that have trucks. So it went to the, at the time of the accident. The claim went to the truck, the owner of the truck, not the owner of the trailer. But you still needed something just to like be extra safe. Yeah, yeah, definitely. You always want to be safe.

What did that policy cost? That policy cost like 4,000. A year? A year. Yeah. For one trailer? In the beginning, yeah. In the beginning, yep.

afterwards I was probably paying on a month on a on a yearly basis like 13,000 after a couple of years. So did you have to get a separate $4,000 policy for every trailer or that $4,000 one was like an umbrella policy for your company and all the trailers under it? Until they told you, hey, you got to up your policy because you got too many trailers now. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. That's exactly what it was. Now, where did, did you already own a trailer to rent to your uncle when he asked or did you have to go find one? No, these were all sub-leased. So I would lease it and then I would sub-lease it to him.

Okay. So how does that look? Where do you find a trailer to sub-lease and what does that cost? So I just went on the internet. I googled places that were around me at that time. Like in Connecticut, you know, there was a bunch of companies. And I found a company that really, you know, the cost was really good, which was $350 per month.

So they were charged me $350 per month. It was, you know, it would be. net 30, which means that I could take a deposit, I could start billing, and then I would pay at the end. So you're cash flow positive from day one. So I would be cash flow positive from day one, which I think is something that can be applied to a lot of businesses. Yeah. If you, you know, are able to. So they're charging you $350 a month.

And do you have to pay a deposit to the sub-leasing company? No, I don't have to pay deposit. Okay. So for $350. You've got a trailer. Mm-hmm. And do you need good credit to get that like your uncle didn't have? I mean, I didn't have spectacular credit.

I had like $6.50 at that time. Okay. Yeah, 6.50. So it wasn't anything. In order to rent to you? They just told me to send them, they just told me to send them a screenshot. And I said to send them a screenshot. They didn't check my credit.

They didn't run a check, yeah. And they were a big company. It wasn't like a small company. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It was a multi, like 50. yard company, like they had a lot of. Now, if your uncle had known about this company, could he have leased it directly from them or no, because he didn't have good credit? No, because he didn't have good

credit. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So then how did you know what to charge your uncle? Like, did you do research or did you just come up with a number? And what did you charge him? I kind of came up with a number, honestly. And I stuck with that number probably throughout, well, I raised it a couple of times. I think I started doing 180 per week that I was, that I was billing him. So like $750 a month, give or take. You're like trying to double your money, basically. I'm trying to double. You're always trying to double, you know, your money when, you know, at least double.

If you can triple because, you know, you have to think about taxes and insurance fees and things like that. Mm-hmm. So a third is, you know, for paying whatever you need to be. pay. A third is your expenses, which is, you know, the taxes, whatever payroll you have, and then another third for your profit. So first trailer, you're like break even on the insurance, right? Yeah. Okay. Very cool. Did your uncle push back on that price at all? No, he didn't. He just needed a trailer because these people, you know, I mean, the truckers, they need the trailers to work, to get to work. Yeah. Okay. So he was happy with it and you're off to the races? Okay. So I was like,

well, how can I replicate this? How can I do this a hundred times? And so I asked my vendor if they would be willing to give me more trailers. And they said, yeah. And so it was at that point that I really, you know, created the company, created the LLC. You know, you always have to test your ideas before, before creating the LLC, creating a bank account, things like that, see if it will make money. And if it will make money, at least something, at least one client. And my, opinion. I started doing all that stuff. I started getting everything together. And then the thing that really was really game changing for me was Facebook Marketplace because I think the Facebook Marketplace started in like 2019. And I was like one of the only people that was doing trailers, you know, renting trailers. And people would and I would do like the boost post. Boost. Yeah. And yeah, boost post. And so, you know, people would hit me up on.

Facebook I would get back to them I would tell them look this is what I have available even if I didn't know that I would basically be matching them inventory matching inventory to the driver wherever they would need it mm and then I would yeah so that's kind of the premise behind everything like you eventually it was like we're matching you a trailer to where you need it and then we're billing on a weekly basis okay so and all right so yeah go ahead no and so that's that's that's that's eventually it got up to multiple states. You know, we started doing it up to Florida.

We did Florida, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, PA. So what did you do with Facebook Marketplace exactly? What did you post and what did those posts look like? Yeah, so they were super basic. I would post a picture of a trailer inside, I mean, outside of the trailer and some inside pigs, some picks of the tires. I would say, you know, 53-foot drive-in for rent were flexible with new companies because a lot of trailer rental companies were not flexible with new companies. They wouldn't allow new companies.

They wouldn't want to rent to new companies. And so I would say that. I would say, you know, the year of the trailer, the make of the trailer, where the trailer was located. It was really simple information, basic information. And I would put that on Facebook Marketplace. And I don't remember. I think I would post multiple posts in different areas because they were able to give me trailers. Yeah, they were able to give me trailers in different areas.

And this can definitely be replicated today, too. So what happened when you started posting these? You got a ton of inquiries? I got a ton of inquiries. Yep. Right off the bat. I started boosting the post like I told you, right off the bat too. And that was in November, December of 2019.

And then, you know, I kept working January, February. It was kind of, it was that I definitely, I started having clients for sure. People were interested in both drive-ins and the flatbeds, which is the, you know, platforms, 48-foot. And so the need for equipment also double or triple during that time. People are always going to need equipment. Yeah. So what did your numbers look like? Like first, after your uncle, how long did it take you to rent out?

You know, your first five or ten trailers. Five or ten trailers, it probably took like two months. But then from there, I mean... Just from Facebook Marketplace posts? Yeah, just from Facebook Marketplace posts. And was that five or ten? How many in your first two months? That was probably...

That was probably 10. Yeah, because I was doing probably like two a week. Okay. And were you using the same company for all of these? I was using the same company for all of them, yeah. Do you have any examples of, like, other companies or any companies that people could use to find these trailers? there's. Yeah, Penske, Rider. Let me see what else. Penske rider. I think there's a, what is it called, Premier, Premier leasing. What else? Yeah, companies like that. There's, there's also small companies that do renting. So in Grockbot, I would tell them, you know, do, like, I want to do ad management with Facebook and Instagram and stand up all of these bots for me. And I would,

was just seeing what it would do, how it would source the inventory, because it's straightforward things. It's just you got to kind of put them together in the right way. And Rockbot would definitely be able to it, it would probably, if I had it in the first year, it would have probably saved me like two years. Now we have AI agents like Rockbot. Do you think considering everything, right? We don't have COVID, but we do have AI. Is this business easier or harder to launch today than it was in 2019? I mean, people are always going to need equipment. Like I said, said, people are always going to need equipment. I think that Grogbot kind of levels the, I mean, it's, you got, you're talking about

operations versus demand for a specific asset. I mean, I don't think it'll be as quick as it was for me, because my business exploded. I probably got to 100 trailers in the first two years. Holy cow. Yeah. And then, you know, by the time, I mean, you know, this is 100 trailers, but this is not 100 clients. I probably had much more clients because I would give a trailer to a client. You know, someone would be returning and then I would give them that trailer. So I didn't need a new trailer.

You know what I mean? By the end, I had 300 trailers, but I had more than 1,000, 2,000 clients because, you know, I was reusing the trailers. Okay. So first two months, you had about 10 trailers. Were you charging $3.75 a month for all of these? Or what was your average price on the first 10? I was charging weekly $180. Okay. And that was really an advantage to me, I think, because people really like that weekly charging thing. They wouldn't really notice it. They wouldn't really notice it.

And they had the asset. They had the trailer that was working well. You know, and so they were happy to pay the $180. So you were making $7,500 a month recurring in your first two months. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. After that, so that's like, that gets you through $1.80.

2019. What does growth look like in 2020? How many trailers are you adding every month? And do you increase your prices or are you staying at 180 a week? I stuck with the prices because I figured that I needed the volume instead of the, I figured that I could raise the prices later, but I wanted to get the people in the door first. Because when you have an asset like that, when you have a piece of equipment like that, it's kind of difficult to get out of it and then get into a new one. So it's very like sticky, as they said. And so, you know, I wanted to get them in the door. Gotcha.

Okay. What, like, headaches did you encounter? Unexpected, like, you know, horror stories that first full year. Unexpected horror stories. But you, because, like, you said you had to revise your contract over time. Like, you had to add emergency contact. I'm assuming because you couldn't get a hold of someone. Like, did someone try to steal your trailer?

Like, what learning curves did you have that were tough? The main learning curve that was tough was probably... The GPS on the trailers. Like in the first year, I didn't even think about putting GPS on the trailers, which is something that I should have done from the first, first trailer. And it was a mess because, you know, they would go missing and I would have no idea, you know, how to get them back. They would eventually turn up or some would eventually turn up. You know, I think over the years, over the six years, I probably had like 10 or 15 that never came back out of 300 trailers. Out of how many?

Of 300? All right. So like three to five percent just disappeared. What happens when that happens? Do you have an insurance claim? Do you have to pay up to the sub-leasing company? I had to pay up to the sub-leasing company, yes. We're able to do an insurance claim.

Some were not. That's kind of a bigger conversation. Insurance is a big conversation. It's very complex, you know, because a lot of times insurance companies don't want to pay. So you have to structure your insurance policy and the policy that, you know, you get from the renters in such a way where they will pay. So that was another learning curve, you know, how to structure these contracts and how to structure what you ask from people in terms of additional insured so that when something happens, you're actually covered, not theoretically

covered, you know. So that was a big learning curve, you know, just kind of getting people in place for repairs when repairs happen. that was that was another learning and do they care that you're renting it out i didn't tell them in the beginning i didn't tell them in the beginning i just kind of grew the company i didn't think to tell them really but eventually i did and they were cool with it yeah and that was a big part of selling the company being able to sell the company to another person you know that they knew what exactly he was doing yeah okay and for those you know 10 to 15 that went missing what did those costs when you had to replace them they would cost

I mean, it would range anywhere from 15,000 to 25,000. Okay. Some were covered by insurance claims. Some were not. Some were complete in total. I mean, not all of them were stolen. Not all of them were missing. Some were complete losses that I couldn't recover from an insurance claim or from the client because the client had no money.

And so I had to pay for the unit. And, you know, the people that I was that I was renting. with were really cool because they would give me like payment plans that I could pay over time. Yeah. So at the end of 2020, you've got 100-ish rented out, 75K a month. Is that what you're making? Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the end, how much of that was make profit, like net profit? Probably like, probably like 10,000, 15,000 thereabouts. 10,000 a month of the 75K month? Okay. So like 15% net margin profit? net profit margins?

Yeah. Okay. And then you said you got it from at the end of 2020, it was 75 and then up until you sold it, you got to do 250K a month? 250K a month, yeah. Wow. Okay. So how many is that?

It was like 300 rented out, give or take? That was 300 trailers, yeah. Yeah. Wow. And what was your net profit per month at that scale? At that scale, it was like 40, 50,000. Wow. Did you have employees at that point?

I had two virtual employees. Yeah. And they had to be bilingual because a lot of my clients were Spanish speaking. So then they, you know, they were they were overseas. So what I paid them, it was less than what I would pay someone over here. But for them, it was a lot of money. You know, I had one for, from Venezuela and one from Brazil. Where did you find them?

Like Upwork or? Upwork, yeah. I used Upwork. And then I moved them off of Upwork. Okay. Yeah. And then what were their job titles? What were they doing?

doing for you? So I had one employee that was running Facebook ads and she was running the ads and also closing the client. So she would run the ads, people would respond to the ad. She would call and follow up with these people and see if they wanted to rent. And if they did want to rent, she was sending them the documents. She would coordinate, you know, the billing. And then she would coordinate the pickup and then move on to the next person. So that was something that, you know, took a lot off my play because that was basically what I was doing day to day. How were you billing? Like what tools, what software? Could they pay my credit card, quickbook, Stripe? What were you doing? I was using a payment processor called Pay Simple, which was super, super great. I don't, I don't really like Stripe because in the

beginning, Stripe, I had Stripe, but they would like, they would freeze my funds over no reason. So I was like, I'm not, yeah, I'm not using Stripe anymore. Pay Simple. Never ever did that to me, even when I was like billing, like I said, $250,000 per month. Imagine if you're billing $250,000 per month with Stripe and then they freeze your funds for no reason. And then having to like go through this process, lengthy process, not quick in order to unfreeze your funds. And it's for no reason. So it's like what, you know, what am I?

What are we doing? So pay simple was super, super good. And I was, I was running everything for my phone too. So I had PACE-if, I had the payment processor. Like that's what enabled me to travel. That's why I've been traveling to Columbia for, you know, for years now. Because I could do everything from my phone. And I think with like an AI too, it would enable me even further.

It would have enabled me even further, you know. And that's a big kind of thing that I think people don't really know about or maybe people that are just beginning, you know, putting money into paid ads is for me, at least, was critical. Like, every time I said, wow, I want to move more inventory. I want to get more clients. You know, what do I do? The answer for me was putting more money into paid ads. That was always the answer. It was never like anything else. It was never anything else, really. Yeah. What's like the, what, what worked for you on paid ads?

Like US only, did you let Facebook choose the audience? Did you choose the audience? Were you doing video, still image? Yeah. It was still images. It was throughout the United States because truckers, we learned after a while that truckers, if they, if they see a good deal, they will travel to get to the deal. I had people traveling sometimes from Florida to New Jersey in order to get a trailer of

They would travel sometimes from Chicago to New Jersey, Chicago to PA. Sometimes they would travel from Texas to New Jersey in order to get a trailer. And so I would do ads. So that enabled us to do ads in the country nationwide. You know, our audiences were male. You know, we would do the age. And did you tell Facebook that? Like only show it to men?

Okay, now what did your Facebook ad numbers look like? How much were you spending? What was your return on ads? spend? Well, I was spending towards the end, $5,000 a month on Facebook ads, which is not a lot. And I was getting probably 25 new clients per month on Facebook from Facebook ads. That's not from my referrals because by the end, people were referring, you know, other truckers to me because I had been doing this for a long time. So we were getting like 25 new clients. So 25 times, you know, I would say the deposit of 750.

the time's 25. That was kind of our, I never really analyzed our return on ad spend, though, you know. But, I mean, you're spending $5,000 to get 25 new clients. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, you're spending $5,000 to get, to make $18,750 a month. Yeah, yeah.

And that's just new clients. That's just new clients. Yeah. That's not the clients that I got from last month that are still here from last month. And then how long does a client stay on average? How many years or months? They would stay. I had a minimum time that they needed to stay with me, which was three months.

They needed to stay with me three months or else they would lose their deposit and I would charge them sometimes a penalty. How much was their deposit? And how long did they end up staying on average? Their deposit was $750. And like I said, they used these units to work. And so if they have it and they're good with the price and they're working and they're making money.

Okay. So $750 times three, you're making like $2,100. on average per client. And so let's say 2100 times 25. So you're spending 5,000 in Facebook ads to make $52,000, give or day. So 10X return on ads. Mm-hmm. Facebook was really good.

That's crazy. Facebook was really good. And just a still image that said, hey, we'll like rent truck from us. Like just very simple. Yeah, it would say, you know, we have the, yeah, it was very simple. We have this trailer. Look, brand new trailer, 53 foot trailer, drive van, food grade. because they would need a food grade, no leaks.

DOT inspected, because we would DOT inspect them, which is, you know, Department of Transportation inspection that these trailers need yearly. You know, so it would come already inspected, people like that. And then, you know, we would say inventory available. You know, things like that, you know, simple things. How much money did it take to start this business in total?

I just had to pay for my insurance, which was $4,000. What was your solution to the GPS problem? Like, what company did you use to provide those or whatever? My sub-leasing company did provide GPS as they were willing to install GPSes, but I just never took advantage of that. You just got to ask, right? Just ask. Yeah, I just had to ask. I just had to ask.

And that's a really good lesson for people that may be starting out. Ask them really, what can they do for you? What are the terms? can you do net 30? You want something called triple net, which is that you take care of the maintenance so that your cost on a monthly basis is the lowest possible. And when it's the lowest possible,

you can start cash flowing immediately. You mentioned other equipment. In a hypothetical scenario, if someone could not do trailers for whatever reason, what other equipment out there do you think has a lot of opportunity to rent out? You can do smaller trailers, you know, the types of trailers,

that people use to move like a motorcycle or thing. You know what I'm talking about? Like the smaller, the 20 foot trailers, 15 foot trailers. You can do this with that type of equipment. And those are super popular too. You can do this with storage equipment as well. You can lease mobile storage equipment for if people need it for home projects or if people need it for any other thing.

You could lease that and then sub lease it to a client. You know, it just, you really, I think that the way that you make ads and the way that you test a market, I wasn't able to test the market or, you know, see data. Yeah, to see data into a market. And that's something that you can do now for what, like, how much does it cost like $20 a month or $40 a month, you know, for whatever AI? Eli, this has been amazing. If people have questions, where can they find you or reach out if they want to reach out?

I don't know, my email. My email is Eli Galarza 33 at Yahoo.com. You know, if people have questions and things, I'm not selling any sort of course or anything like that. Okay, perfect. Thank you, Eli. All right. All right.

Thank you, Chris. Hey, guys, if you're still listening to this, it's probably because you haven't had a chance to take your AirPods out. You're still mowing the lawn. You're still driving. What have you. If you're still here with me, I would really, really love and appreciate a five-star review on Spotify,

Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. It would mean a lot if you want to go the extra mile share this episode with a friend that might have an interest in starting a business It would mean a ton hope you have the best day of your life today