There is a certain shame that accompanies begging friends to help move you in exchange for pizza and beer. When that stops being an option, the sticker shock that comes from hiring, even pricing, a moving company can be overwhelming.
Moving yourself? It's an even worse option.
Cameron Doody thinks there's a billion-dollar company in the space between those scenarios.
It's what led him and college friend Stephen Vlahos to found Bellhops, a website dedicated to finding willing college-aged movers to help people in need of having stuff moved. Doody and Vlahos met at Auburn University and launched the service at the University of Georgia. They're now in more than 130 markets, including Fayetteville.
As perfectly put at GetBellhops.com: "Moving is awful. It pummels you. It shreds you emotionally just as much as it does physically. Support is tough to come by. People are busy."
What started as a company geared for moving students has now expanded off campuses. It still employs college students -- mining fraternity houses, athletic teams and student groups such as ROTC for able-bodied workers.
Somebody with stuff to move -- a houseful, an apartment, a couple of appliances -- logs on, answers a few questions and waits for a call. Local workers who can make it work with their schedules then arrive, wearing the company's trademark green sweatbands, to assist.
Yes, kinda like Uber, but for moving stuff instead of people.
Two thoughts are likely striking you at this moment: Where has this been all my life? Why didn't I think of it?
Doody and Vlahos came up with the idea in 2012. It began to rapidly take off last year after the company brought its total of venture capital raised to nearly $8 million. Rapper Nas is one of the notable individual investors, and funding has come from venture capitalists who backed SnapChat, Twitter, Facebook, Uber and PayPal.
Fayetteville was added as a market last year. Jonesboro also is listed on the Bellhops website.
Pricing, at least in Fayetteville, is $40 per hour per worker. About $25 of that $40 goes back to the company, but that still leaves between $13-15 an hour for each mover. Captains, the leaders on crews, are paid more than their wingmen.
Customers book in one-hour blocks and pricing is prorated in five-minute increments. So if a job takes an hour and 15 minutes, there aren't two hours' worth of fees to pay.
And don't worry. Pizza and beer haven't been completely phased out of the equation.
It isn't unusual for the traditional moving payment to be offered as additional incentive when movers show up. Tips also are a common occurrence. Those can range from cash to "a free lawnmower and weed eater. You get a lot of tips from people because they know you're a college student and could use it," said Nader Khan, the company's UA campus manager.
Kahn heard about the company last year from a friend whose fraternity had become involved in Bellhops. He worked his way up to captain and now serves as market manager, which puts him in charge of recruiting and hiring workers.
In that sense some of the quality-control aspect of the job falls on Kahn, a junior from Forth Worth majoring in supply chain management and marketing. Workers also are expected to keep each other accountable. Hired in pairs, each mover is required to anonymously evaluate the other on performance metrics.
Customers rate the movers on the basis of effort, attitude, communication skills, moving skills and punctuality. "Provide peace of mind. That's one of our maxims," Doody said.
Though the service was founded for campus moving jobs, Doody said student customers make up less than 10 percent of the business. That number will pick up in May-June as campuses end their semesters.
Bellhops currently is in 134 cities. There are plans to add 40 others in 2016.
No specific revenue figures are available, but Doody said he was comfortable revealing that the company has grown between five and six times each year since it was founded. It's on track for 6.5 times the revenue it brought in last year.
Still, rapid expansion hasn't kept Doody's mom from calling him for help moving, he said. She recently called from Knoxville, Tenn., asking him to drive three hours from Chattanooga to help move bags of potting soil.
"'Mom, no. I started a company for this,'" Doody recalls telling her. "'Use them. You don't have to call me anymore for this.'"
SundayMonday Business on 05/03/2015