How Limestone Moving Scaled From College Flyers to Nearly $5M and Said No to a Deal

Alright. I'm here in Austin, Texas at Limestone Moving and I'm here to meet Matthew. He took a 2020 college side hustle moving business and has turned it into a multimillion dollar revenue business.

2024, we were above a million. This year we'll be pushing 5. What? That's great.

I would have never guessed. Now he wants to expand into storage pods. Great business model, really asset heavy.

Is it recurring revenue? It's literally just a billboard that sits in people's driveways that they pay you for.

The question is, how much capital does he need to grow into that space?

A $500,000 loan to go out and purchase a pod truck and thirty thirty five pods.

Can I write him a check to help him expand faster? So I am asking you to put your money where your mouth

I'm bringing money, you're bringing The equity chunk for me to make sense for your deal would have to be significantly higher than 20%.

If you want more equity, you put up some other money.

Hey. How are you doing? Doing well. I'm Nathan. Nice to meet you. I'm Matthew. Good to meet you. This is your place, Yeah. We wanted a place for the guys to chill so we could host events and this is sort of our operations center.

Okay. Cool. And you say the guys, how big is the team today?

We got about 45 movers.

Holy mackerel. That's bigger than I would have expected. Is this a family business? Did you launch it yourself? When did you launch it? Give me the story.

I was going to UT Austin here in town. I'm from Austin and I worked for a couple moving companies my first couple years of college. I found that they were pretty poorly run and so I decided I could do it myself. Basically just walked around West Campus with a stack of flyers and I was running a tailgate at the time so I had a big storage unit full of liquor. So my marketing was would rock up with like a bottle of Tito's and a stack of flyers and I would make a little pitch. People would call me. I would get a U Haul. I didn't have any trucks.

You're talking like a $100 a job, $300 a job, or what were you making?

I was charging $80 an hour. So that's far less than what we're charging today. But you know, for a college kid that that's decent money.

If had a sum of all the money made just in college with the Matthews Moving concept on flyers with liquor bottles, what would you think the total amount you made?

Not that much, like 40,000 maybe. Okay. It wasn't that much.

For some college kids, they go 40,000 while I'm in college. It's not bad. What did you see at the other moving companies you were working at previously where you're like, man, one day if I get some money and you know, launch my own thing, I'm going to change X, Y, and Z.

It just came down to like they weren't treating people right. So the first company I was working for was actually a drug front I think and they would lock the truck and try to get payment from the customer before we had completed the job. Just kind of icky stuff that I thought like really as long as you're treating the customer right, you could really have a business here. Our first full year was 2021.

How many trucks in year one?

Started with zero. My first truck I got in January, second in April, and by the end of the year we had four. 95% of our business is in town, but we go all over the place, so New York, Chicago, whatever. But it has to start or end in the general Central Texas area. This is our dispatch director Connor, and this is Geotab, our geolocation software. So Geotab will show camera footage of front of truck inside the cab. It's a live camera.

So these guys are parked out of job?

Yep. Yeah. Stuff like this really allows you to get real data on what's happening in the field.

And are most of these drivers just driving from South Austin to North Austin moves, will

all these trucks be in different states? Different places. Let's say we're going to Kansas City. We'll load it here. We'll drive it up. It's a one way rental, and then our guy flies home. Because then you don't have to pay for the cost of the guy to drive back. We got this place about June of last year, so a little less than a year ago. What we did is we cleared everything out. We rebuilt this house

because this is the quickest way for us to have a little clubhouse for us all to work at. And then cleared out the land in the back, put down some road base and a good parking area for the trucks. And eventually we'll build the warehouse back here.

This doesn't feel cheap to do all that work. Where'd you get the money early on? It's all it's all just cash. So you just reinvested early capital from 2021.

Correct. And that's kinda how we've been doing it.

Okay. Can I ask what total revenue was your first year?

Yeah. Between, 500 and 1,000,000. 2021 was basically the hottest year in real estate in Austin. And so we kind of hit the ground running. So I mean, how many

of you guys are 24 year olds running a business, you know, doing half north of $500,000 the first year? That's pretty darn good. What was the average price per move in 2021?

We started at 80 an hour and we worked our way up to just under $1.50 an hour. I wanted to get people in the door first. We started low and I didn't really have a good price metric. I just knew I wanted to be lower than our competitors.

That first year, did you generate profits, meaningful profits or no? You're breakeven?

No. We we had profits. Yeah. We we were about 25% profitability at that time.

Okay. And is... I just don't know the moving industry. Is that good or bad?

That's good. You're generally pretty profitable for the first million ish in revenue. Once you get to about 1,000,000, you'd start needing levels of management and people who aren't directly compensated by the work. So your profitability goes way down. But once you hit about 3,000,000, it starts to tick back up as you hit economies of scale. This was the original truck. In the past couple of years, we have decommissioned these. These were the first trucks I bought.

I just got used U Hauls. I think this one was like $8,000, so really cheap. These were never gonna knock out big jobs. So whenever we had big jobs back in the day, we would have to rent. But this could knock out one bedroom apartments all day.

That's one thing I don't understand about the moving business. How do you estimate to know how many trucks you might need without coming and doing a site visit?

Yeah. So we have a great CRM and so it's called smart moving. Basically we'll load in all of the inventory. We'll load in how long the walk is. We'll load in if there's stairs or elevator, and based on the cumulative data of moving companies across the country that use the software, the CRM will spit out within five to 10% accuracy based on what you've input, how long the move is gonna take and how many movers it would recommend.

One of the things I'm looking for in the world of AI is this idea of atoms plus bits. And so you are an atoms company.

Right? This is like it's it's Physical.

Physical stuff. Right? And I'm always thinking about is there some way I can invest in a company like the software to see which moving companies are doing the most revenue to then go roll up moving companies?

A lot of people do that. Have been approached to be acquired? Yeah. So we've been approached several times.

So how do you think about that as someone that's actually in the weeds on the ground? You can either be the group that's getting acquired by someone else, or you could say, you know what? I wanna be the one to build the empire and go buy up all the other moving companies.

I wouldn't wanna buy a moving company that has a poor reputation. If they're just cranking out jobs that doesn't really align with our mission, they've got a real stamp in the community and they've been there for ten, twenty years. That's a company that I'm interested in. And you

guys are building your brand. Obviously, are important. Reviews also fuel ranking high on chat GPT. So how are you driving top of funnel? How are you getting those reviews?

We have five point o on Google. We're perfectly rated at both our locations here in town on about 750 reviews. We just try to treat people as well as we can. But obviously moving is an imperfect industry. Sometimes things break, sometimes people don't have the best experience with us. But our back end team is amazing. We've got a great claims process. We make sure that the customer feels whole when they walk away from their interaction with

us. And so we've been able to turn what might have been a one star review into a five star review time and time again. This has a lot more carrying capacity than those small trucks. So we got our first one of these in 2021. We've got nine of these now. During the summer, that's our hot season and the trucks will be out all day every day. So walk me through the economics on one of these trucks.

This is not $8,000. How much did this cost?

This one's probably about 60. Okay. Our sweet spot, like if you buy this new, it's about 130,000. And then the wrap's about 7.

So you're between 500,000 and a million in 2021. What'd you grow to in 2022?

We were still below 1,000,000. I had made enough that I was able to get to doing some stuff and I'd really wanted to go see the world. So I bought a sailboat in mid twenty twenty two with my with my best friend Sean.

Okay.

And we bought it in San Francisco and sailed to Mexico and eventually sailed to Australia. Business still ran it did okay but I was at that point in time the main marketing guy. So I got back in early twenty twenty four and that's when our growth really started. 2024 we were above a million. 2025 we were between two and three and this year we'll be pushing five but probably in the four to five range.

What? That's crazy. I would have never guessed. Just like walking around I would have never guessed four to this year.

Really? Yeah. That's awesome, dude. I mean, seriously. We're hoping to hit 50,000,000 at some point, but, you know, just trying to double as much as possible, but the doubling growth gets harder as the numbers get bigger. So

How has the business grown? Is it just more trucks, more moving, or are

there other products you're selling? We do moving. We do packing. We do junk removal. Movings are real bread and butter. That's where 90 plus percent of the revenue comes. We also also have a lighting company. The lighting company I thought was gonna be fun. I was like Christmas lights awesome. Grandmatically, is really random. I watched a YouTube video and I saw that people were doing Christmas lights and I was like, well, we slowed down in the

winter. This would be fun. Turns out I don't love being up on houses. I've done like one lighting job and the guys who actually have to

do it hate it. Wait. So how much would you do on a Christmas lighting in a Christmas season?

Not that much. We do like 70,000 this year.

What? Mean, for someone like watching, if they wanna go do $70 on like Christmas lights, I mean...

If you wanna do $70 on Christmas lights and you see this video, call me because I will sell it to you and on the cheap.

Take us back to the margins on something like this. So what

do you charge for the average move? Our average ticket's about 1,700 right now. That's way up from where it was a year or two ago. We're going into more large luxury homes. An average apartment move is probably $600. But, know, we've had our biggest move ever was like 43,000. That was a four truck move to Florida.

Let's just do the margin on the average ticket size of $1,700. What are your costs on that kind of move?

Yeah. Your cogs is about 50% roughly.

Okay.

And then you've got some office overhead salaries to pay things of that nature. But will you ideally target for net profit on an average move? Net profit. I mean, we're shooting for 20 to 25%. Okay. But that's a pretty tough mark to hit in moving. It's pretty chaotic.

Yeah.

The industry profitability average is like 8%. We're above that, but 25% is pretty tough.

50% of 17 You're spending like $800 on cost of goods sold. Correct. Is that labor for the movers? Like what is COGS?

Yeah. About 30, 32% is labor for the movers. And then you also have insurance, which is really expensive for moving these trucks. Each one of these is 18,000 to 20,000 a year to insure.

Oh, I wouldn't have expected that. $20 per truck on insurance.

Per year. Per year. And you have nine trucks. Yeah. Wow. Okay. The materials cost quite a bit. So this Dolly is actually like $650. Doesn't look like much, but this stuff costs quite a bit to get the nicer stuff. Details matter. We're big on protection, so we do a floor runner, door jam protector, door protector, like a door cover. We're moving oftentimes like an $8,000,000 house. And so you put a scratch on the floor, that could be a $30,000 fix.

You can tell it's a well oiled machine based on all the prep work you're doing. How many moves will you do in an average month during your busy season?

During our busy season, we're probably pushing 400. Okay. Slow season, 200 to 300.

How many total moves do you think you've done life to date since 2021?

I think we've probably done about 18,000 moves. We're starting off in the fall of this year with pod storage. So we need places to put the pods when they're being rented out and people don't want them in the driveway. Our pod... Is that a good business model? Great business model, really asset heavy. You can collateralize the pods against stuff that you wanna buy. The thing I like about it is it's recurring revenue that sits in people's

driveways. It's literally just a billboard that sits in people's driveways that they pay you for. Average billboard is 72,000 a year. And if you want one of the Primo ones downtown, that could be 250, 300,000 per year. So this is, you know, you spend that 300,000, put it towards pods. You can have 30 pods sitting in people's driveways as long you're getting them rented out.

How do you grow the business? What's the vision of like the next ten years?

I want to do pod storage and I want to be the number one mover in Austin. Once we've completed that, we have expansion plans to DFW first, then San Antonio, then Houston. With all of those locations, my goal is 50,000,000.

And how would you plan to capitalize that? Is it just off profits from the business? Are you considering equity investors? Tell me about the capital stack today.

Yeah. So we've just done everything on a cash basis so far. I haven't ever financed a truck. It's likely that when I get into stuff like pod storage and the warehouse, I'm going to take out a loan on those.

Is there a specific ask you have for me in terms of how I could potentially help the business with extra cash?

What would be the interest rate if I said a $500,000 loan to go out and purchase a pod truck and thirty thirty five pods?

You definitely wanting to raise debt for that where then you have to manage cash flows or do want to would you ever consider selling a chunk of the business on the equity side?

I want to maintain 100% ownership on the business side. So yeah, sorry. Any deal that I do, I definitely want it to just be debt.

You seem very excited about the pod model because you're asking me was Nathan, what would 500,000 cost and the use of funds would be to go buy a bunch of pods, right? Yeah. Is that the next big sort of growth initiative for you are the pods?

Yeah, so we work with a lot of flooring companies and restoration companies right now and for those contracts we're the labor but we always have to rent out the pod. So I've got built in business for the pods and for us, I just view it as a great way to brand ourselves in different neighborhoods. You're looking at 40 plus percent margins for pods. It's their recurring revenue stream, and it's asset heavy. And the biggest thing that we have to our advantage right now is we've got a bunch of space in the yard that we're not using.

Who do you lease the pods from right now and what do they charge?

We mostly lease from Mule Box and Me Box and they charge about $250 a month per pod with a delivery fee of about $150 We want to be one stop shop so we can say, use our pods, we'll put it in the driveway, we'll be the labor, and like, you know, we'll load it, we'll unload it.

Mhmm. Let's do the economics on one pod so I can reverse engineer what a debt deal could look like just for one pod, then we can multiply by 30 pods. Alright? So what would one pod cost you? Roughly 6,000. Let's say I wasn't here right now considering, you know, considering a deal with you, you... Without me, your best alternative, what would that be to get 30 pods?

I had two options. So I could either go equipment financing route, five year terms, but higher interest rate talking like eight to 11%. I could also do an SBA lower interest rate 10% down. I would prefer to do the SBA because it's a longer payback period. How long? It's ten to twenty years typically. Okay. And it's like a six to 8% interest rate.

Okay. So I could not beat that deal. My money would be more expensive than 68%, and I want a faster payback. The difference is is I'm much faster moving than the SBA. I know many people that work with the SBA, it takes your time, like six months, your time to get a deal done with them. Is that a hard red line for you if I can't beat 68% in a ten year payback? Is that no deal?

Yeah, I think I think that's no deal for me. We're trying to double every year the moving company. And so there's a cost to trying to take on another project. And I found that out in a big way when we did lighting. Yeah. Like three months out of our year we put towards something that like didn't really make us any money and if I could go back I would have just never done the lights. Yeah. The

pods is different because there's recurring revenue from it. It's a great option for incorporating storage into the business. And just kind of like what I was saying, like, it's good marketing for us too.

So what if I did this? If I can't give you cheaper money than from the SBA, I will go buy 10 pods. Okay. I'll let you brand them whatever you want. Okay. But you sign a contract with me that you're going to rent them for me for $200 a month and then you go upsell them for $300 a month. You get free branding. I have assets. I'm holding them. You don't have assets on your balance sheet so you're more asset light. How would you think about something like that?

It's not crazy. That's a funny deal. What are you funny? I'm trying to get creative.

Won't let me buy your equity. You have a great business. I can't get 6% interest rate, so I'm trying to be creative here.

The problem for you, and I should say this right now, the pod truck is expensive. That's about $120,000 investment, and for Ted Pods it's not worth it for you.

Okay, how many pods do you think you could have live, like out in the wild within the next twelve months?

Well, was personally going to start off with like 25 to 35.

Would you be willing to sign a contract with me committing to within the first six months you are contractually committed to use 10 pods at $200 a month? Within the first twelve months you're is committed to 20 pods because if I have a guaranteed revenue stream from you, I can then... It's worth my while to just go buy the $120,000 truck plus 30 pods because I bought a contract already with you. It's interesting. So I'm gonna ask you to put your money where your mouth is if you really think you have 30 in the wild in twelve months.

No, the problem is do I want to scale your pod business or mine? And then if they're all branded for me but some of them I own and some of them I'm leasing from you it just creates this kind of

I think it keeps your balance sheet asset light.

Yeah, which is not necessarily something I like. Well one, I can depreciate them and two, I can collateralize them against trucks and anything else I need to buy if I need to.

Well, what if we set up an LLC where you own 20% of it, the equity, I own 80%, so now you're a business owner in the pod business. I put up all the money though, and the first contract is with you.

Here's the thing, like the direction of the deal, but transparently like I've got the capital, I've got the space, I've got the brand recognition. I could just do all this myself right now if I wanted to. Just directionally, I want to continue to scale the moving company because that's what's working right now. And so I think I have to unfortunately decline your offer.

So I guess I'm not understanding. So what you told me is important to you is you want to keep on ownership.

You

want free billboard space. That's really what you're reverse engineering to.

Yeah. You said,

Nathan, quote, I have all the cash I could do it myself, but you already told me distraction is something you're trying to optimize against. I'm effectively putting this in a nice little side thing and offering you potentially equity ownership in that as well even though I'm putting up all the cash.

What are you going do with a bunch of pods that are branded for me? Well, you're contractually committed to them. Yeah, yeah, I'm contractually committed to them, but what's the lifespan of that and like are you just gonna scale limestone pods? You know what mean?

If you go bankrupt, I put white panel on them I sell them to somebody else. I go compete with Mule Box.

Yeah I mean the thing is if I'm gonna do it either way, like the equity chunk for me to make sense for your deal would have to be significantly higher than 20%.

If you want more equity you put up some of the money.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I got to say no deal for now.

YouTube, what do you guys think?

Tried to

get really creative here. I mean, Matthew has built a great business. There's there's there's no question about that. Any ideas from you? I mean, we've tried debt. We've tried equity. We've tried combination. Tried shell companies. What are we missing? Tell me in the comments below. Alright. Matthew, I'm out of ideas.

Alright. But we should keep looking... We'll we'll we'll we'll keep chatting. Later. Yeah. Appreciate it. Great time. Great business, man. Yeah. Thank you.

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