Chief technology officer Adam Haney, vice president of operations Nathan Sexton, and COO Matt Patterson, from left, stand on stage with the Spirit of Innovation award presented to their company Bellhops on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2014, at the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce's Spirit of Innovation Awards luncheon at the Chattanooga Convention Center in Chattanooga, Tenn. The company 3DOps won the Early Innovator Award.
Charles Wood, vice president of economic development with the Chattanooga Chamber, left, talks with Bellhops co-founder Cameron Doody Wednesday at Bellhops. Bellhops is the first of three businesses to receive the City of Chattanooga's Growing Small Business incentives.
Bellhops is a Chattanooga-based startup that uses a tech-enabled platform and a workforce of college students to sell manpower for small- to medium-sized moves.
Nov. 2014Bellhops announced Tuesday it's adding a built-in rental truck option in some of its currently served markets, including Chattanooga.
The Chattanooga-based moving service currently provides on-demand labor in its service cities through its Uber-type mobile app. Matt Patterson, the chief operating officer at Bellhops, said with the rental truck option, the company seeks to become an end-to-end, full-service moving business.
"Right now, we're just solving a small problem," he said. "We're just solving the labor."
But with the addition of the truck rental option, Bellhops will be adding "more of an all-in-one solution to moving day," Patterson said. The new service means customers never have to lift a box or sit behind the wheel of a moving van.
The truck rental option will premiere in coming weeks in cities in Arizona, Delaware, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi and here in Tennessee.
Patterson said he'd like to see the truck rental option be available in every Bellhops city by the end of the year.
Bellhops is not investing in a fleet of trucks of its own. Instead, the company will order, pick up, refuel, load, drive, unload and turn in a rental moving truck on behalf of its customers, for a built-in fee.
A rental truck option can be booked for a $125 flat rate. That includes truck rental, a moving dolly, 12 furniture pads, fuel and rental insurance. Bellhops labor is $40 per Bellhops employee per hour. Customers can check online to see the availability of truck rental.
Patterson said Bellhops is not striking up partnerships with specific moving truck companies. He said the idea is the customer simply avoids the hassle of booking, driving and returning a truck.
"You're dealing with one company, and this is just our way of solving moving problems," said Patterson.
Bellhops currently employs around 5,000 student Bellhops movers across the country, and about 100 in Chattanooga alone, where it operates out of a 12,000-square-foot rented headquarters at Warehouse Row. The company was founded in 2013, and has seen explosive growth, including securing millions in investment dollars in the last year alone.
In December 2015, Bellhops secured $13.5 million in additional funding from major startup investors around the country.
Patterson said right now Bellhops is happy to add its rental truck option through existing rental businesses, but he isn't counting out the possibility of the company someday investing in a fleet of its own.
"It's the model for the foreseeable future, but we're certainly not going to shut the door on a possibility like that," he said. "It's a possibility."
Patterson said he and other officials see the rental truck option as a chance to expand on what's already "a really incredible service."
Contact staff writer Alex Green at agreen@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6480.