When WorkHound co-founders Max Farrell and Andrew Kirpalani launched their start-up company in Des Moines, Iowa, the idea wasn’t necessarily to work only with trucking companies, Farrell said.
Shortly after their idea formed for a feedback software that would allow workers to anonymously post their concerns to employers, it became clear that front-line workers, like truck drivers, could be the people to benefit the most from their product.
In 2018, the average turnover rate at some of the largest truckload carriers in the country is 95 percent, and Farrell said it can cost roughly $8,000 to replace a driver. In manufacturing, it can cost $4,000 to replace a worker and a staggering $35,000 to retrain and hire a worker in specialized health care industries, he said.
“The goal was to start to tackle some of the big workforce challenges in the American company, and trucking just happened to be a really great industry for us to get the company off the ground,” Farrell said.
Now, two years after starting at the Lamp Post Group and participating in the Dynamo Accelerator, WorkHound’s feedback software is being used by roughly 40 trucking companies nationwide, they have grown their revenue ten-fold and the co-founders are now planning to expand into new industries in 2019 and add to their nine-person team divided between their two offices in Des Moines and Chattanooga’s Innovation District.