From the Pitch to the Loading Dock
At 26, Anthony Gomez runs Rapid Ships LLC, a New Jersey warehouse that lives and dies on speed. The company specializes in cross-docking, transloading, and short-term storage for high-value freight — pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and retail distribution goods — running a 24/7 operation seven days a week.
"A lot of the trucks coming out from the West Coast, they come in here to the East Coast with about five to seven different loads," Gomez says. "We then sort each of their loads — it doesn't matter if it's nine o'clock, 10 o'clock at night, or one in the morning — we sort it and they go to the destinated drop-offs."
Gomez didn't grow up around business. He grew up around a soccer ball.
The Operator Lesson: Pick the Freight Nobody Wants to Race to the Bottom On
If you're running a freight business, here's why this story matters: Gomez deliberately refused to chase the dream of owning 100 trucks. He watched the trucking side get commoditized and built his moat somewhere else.
"There's always going to be guys that can go rent a U-Haul and deliver your freight for a hundred dollars," he says. "There's always going to be guys that are willing to bid on a job and lose money just to get the job."
So he chose the opposite end of the value chain. For most people in freight, the truck is the business. Gomez argues the truck is a feature — the warehouse is the business. His trucks exist almost entirely to serve in-house warehousing customers, not to win loads on a board.
The Injury That Forced the Pivot
Gomez was a genuine soccer prospect — training with Toronto FC2 at 17, called into the U.S. youth national team pool, playing for the USL's Wilmington Hammerheads. Then his body broke down.
"My adductor was torn on both sides," he recalls. He underwent four surgeries, including hip surgery, and by the time he fully recovered at 20, the window had closed. "I worked my whole life to become a professional soccer player. That was my dream and it was very attainable. I was right across the finish line."
He dropped out of Iona University, where he'd been studying psychology, and started coaching kids — including the son of a man who'd become his mentor and, later, his ex-partner.
Learning Logistics for Free
The mentor, whom Gomez calls "Key," was a major freight forwarder shipping to South Korea out of New Jersey. Gomez asked what he did, and the answer changed his life.
"I worked with him for about a year — no pay, no anything. I just learned the business for an entire year," Gomez says. He watched pallets move, took notes, and found a genuine passion. "A lot of people nowadays, they don't know where the goods come from. But I do."
The Pandemic Was the Opening
Gomez first tried a reconsolidation model — combining U.S. retail orders into single boxes bound for Colombia to save roughly 70% on shipping. The margins were too thin.
Then COVID hit. Watching the freight forwarding flow to South Korea, Gomez saw demand explode for hand sanitizer, gloves, and Lysol wipes. He described seeing one buyer purchase what he estimated at $100,000 worth of hand sanitizer and resell it overseas that same week — a figure he attributes to observation, not his own books.
On March 30, 2020, he went all-in. "I reached the lowest point of my life... I'm gonna take a leap."
His first dollar took six months and 20-hour phone days. "It took me about six months to make $120. I sold 12 cases of nitrile exam gloves, and to me that was the happiest day of my life."
The Gary Vee Cold Outreach
Gomez cold-reached out to Gary Vaynerchuk — he believes via Twitter — after Vaynerchuk posted that he needed medical masks. Gomez sourced 4,000 K95 masks from China within about a week and a half. The freight ate most of it; he made only about $300. But the proof of concept mattered more than the profit.
The First Big Break: Afghan Refugee Distribution
Gomez treated LinkedIn like a freight board before most people did. A cold message he'd sent months earlier came back as his first major contract: handling distribution for Afghan refugees brought to New Jersey, delivering medical supplies and sorting packages to Fort McGuire in Trenton for seven months.
During the same period, the operation hauled COVID test kits — Gomez says a truckload could be worth around $1 million and sell for roughly $500,000, figures tied to that specific pandemic market. He always pitched the warehousing first, knowing the glove-and-mask gold rush would end.
The Partnership That Had to End
The two trucks for the refugee contract were bought under his partner's company name — on a handshake, with no written agreement. "I don't advise anybody to do, by the way," Gomez warns.
The split came when the math stopped making sense. "He was taking half of my profit... for somebody to take half of something they don't deserve, they don't put the work in." When Gomez left, his ex-partner sent an email to a client (Vineyard Vines) claiming Gomez was just an employee, ending that contract.
His takeaway for operators: "The more I got into business, the more you don't trust no one. Everybody is here to get what's theirs. You have to protect what you've built."
How the Warehouse Actually Makes Money
Gomez moved from a 5,000-square-foot space to his current East Brunswick facility — three docks, roughly 900 to 1,000 pallet spaces, double-stacked.
- In-and-out fees per pallet (off the truck, onto the truck)
- Short-term storage charges
- In-house trucking (airport pickups from EWR and JFK) for warehousing customers
Margins run 10% to 30%, depending on the project mix. Fixed costs include rent, a leased forklift, payroll, utilities, garbage, cleaning, and landscaping — plus surprises, like the time a driver backed into a dock and tore off a dock plate that had to be welded back on.
Gomez prices by surveying competitors directly. "I like to call other warehouses... as a customer, what are you charging per pallet? I'll get five, six different rates and I'll see — okay, we're at market, or we're a little too high, or we're undercharging."
Early on, he undercharged badly. His first trucking job — five deliveries in Queens for $300 — cost him roughly $600 in time and fuel after his phone died and he had no GPS. "You have to try. You try, and then you get it right. You might lose some money on the way."
Bootstrapped, and Proud of It
Rapid Ships has taken no investors and no private loans. Growth is 100% word of mouth and LinkedIn referrals — zero paid ads. The result Gomez points to: a roughly 99% customer retention rate, with first customers still on board.
He credits accessibility. "They know who they're speaking to... my direct number is always available for my customers."
Location is his other obsession. Close to the port, Philadelphia, and I-95, the facility lets trucks get in and out fast. "Even at a different location, rent could be cheaper, but if the location is not good, it's going to do more damage than good."
The Mindset
Gomez leans into being hands-on. "I think I could probably drive a forklift better than a lot of the guys working in a warehouse," he says — and he means it as a leadership philosophy, not a brag. If he asks his team to hit a time window, he knows it's possible because he's done the work himself.
He runs a team of five — mostly young warehouse and driver labor, plus a director of operations — on a culture he sums up as "family, respect, honesty, and integrity."
And the money? "My motivation isn't money," he says. "I want to reach the pinnacle of success. I want to be the best entrepreneur that I could be."