Founder Stories

After three years running a small Amazon Relay fleet, Christina Lim shut it down to launch OTR Drive School. She breaks down the real startup costs of a CDL school, why she trains her own instructors, and the operator lesson behind 'learn on somebody else's dime.'

Fired the week after his son was born, Chip Cox rented a box truck and started hauling flowers farm-to-farm up the California coast. Floral Trade Distributors now runs 15 trucks locally plus cross-country reefers — and Cox's biggest lesson is that chasing gross revenue almost killed him.

Brock Phillips spent nearly a decade running local freight out of Maryland, riding a peak he estimated near $80K a month before the market cut him down to roughly $20K. Here's how he downsized, kept his direct customers, and rebuilt around owner-operators, a box truck, and the CDL in his back pocket.

After a career-ending injury crushed his pro soccer dreams, Anthony Gomez went all-in on logistics during the pandemic. Today his New Jersey warehouse specializes in high-value pharmaceutical cross-docking — built entirely on word of mouth and relationships.

Anthony Durso spotted a niche almost nobody talks about: businesses that lose their cold storage and need a replacement within hours. He turned 16-foot refrigeration trailers into a growing rental fleet — and used friendly competitors to build a book of business before he had capacity.

Slicker Trucking started with a single $20,000 FedEx Ground route. Two decades later it runs P&D, line haul, and custom critical with a peak headcount Amy puts around 245. Here's the operator playbook behind the growth — including the partnership that nearly sank them.

When Conrad Daniels joined his in-laws’ trucking company in 2000, it was one of the largest minority-owned carriers in America. A year later they sold all of it and kept a single warehouse with one customer. Here’s how that “small mouse” became a seven-facility 3PL.