Inland Empire company plans to expand

In February 2016, Pomona businessman Glenn Todd announced he was starting EZER, which uses private drivers to haul goods instead of people. At the time, Todd predicted his fledgling company – which he based on UBER – would turn its first profit in 2018.

Todd spoke with IE Business Daily about his expansion plans, how several changes to EZER’s original business plan have worked out and how the rise in e-commerce has changed the delivery business.

Q: When you started the business, and several times since then, you said you would be profitable in 2018. Now that it’s 2018, are you standing by that prediction?

A: Yes, I am. We aren’t turning a profit yet, but we’re getting there. Probably by the end of the second quarter. Definitely by the end of the year.

Q: So far, how much have you spent building up EZER?

A:  About $500,000. Some of that was setting up and maintaining the app, the rest was mostly on hiring drivers and  staff. We have a pretty sophisticated app. It’s easy to use if you’re a driver or a customer, but on our end it can be difficult to maintain.

Q: How many calls are you getting?

A: We’re up to about 10 to 15 per day, and we’ve signed up about 50 drivers. Some of those are from established clients, the rest are people who want to try out the app. With a business it’s an easy pitch. Once you tell them what we can do for them – they don’t have to buy a truck or hire a driver, they don’t have to take out insurance or pay workman’s compensation – they get very interested.

Q: We last spoke with you in July. How much have you progressed since then?

A: I think we’ve grown, but the business model is still basically the same as it was when we started. We’re a business-to-business and business-to-consumer operation, basically. That’s our meat and potatoes. Our original model was to help the guy in the parking lot at Home Depot who bought too much to fit into his car, and of course we’ll still work with him. But our main focus now is to work with Home Depot.

Q: What other changes have you made?

A: We’re starting to concentrate more on same-day deliveries, which is what more and more e-commerce is doing. Some businesses are starting to outsource that kind of work to us, because they’ve figured out they can increase their business and not increase their overhead if they do. But the e-commerce boom has changed everything.

Q: In what way?

A: It has sped things up. It used to be that “delivery” meant two to four days. Now it means two to four hours. It’s what people want, and what they expect.

Q: As of last summer you had branched out of California, having established drivers in Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and Miami. How has that progressed?

A: We’re up to five drivers in Florida, five in Minnesota and three in Miami. We got a lot of business in South Florida last year because of the hurricanes. Right now we aren’t as busy in Minneapolis and Pittsburgh, because of the cold weather. People are hibernating in that part of the country. But we knew we had to make a move out of state. We were getting too many calls, mostly because we got the word out through social media.

Q: Are you still getting interest from outside California?

A: We’ve gotten hundreds of calls from all over the country. There’s interest, but we don’t want to expand more until we’re more established.

Q: Is it frustrating knowing there’s interest but you can’t take advantage of?

A: No, it’s exciting, because we know there’s more business out there and that we’re eventually going to go after it. We expect to have positive cash flow starting in middle of this year, and when that happens we’ll look at more expansion.

Q: Do you have any competition?

A: There are few businesses that are trying to do what we’re doing, but they’re going after the consumer directly, like we used to do.

Q: Going back to when you started, were you more confident because you were basing what you were doing on UBER, which by that time had been successful?

A: Yes, and it also helped that I already had my own business [Todd Construction Services, also based in Pomona]. If not for that, I probably would have wondered where I was going to get my start-up money.

Q: Do you feel that EZER is no longer a start-up, that it’s an established business that’s here to stay.

A:  Yes, absolutely. I think we’ve gotten the word out, mostly through social media, and that we’ve established a presence. If I had it to do over again, knowing what I know now, I would start it all over again. I believe that strongly in our business model.