Speaker 1: 0:10

Welcome back to that's Delivered, the podcast where we delve into the latest innovations and stories in trucking and logistics industry. I'm your host, trucking Ray, and today we have an inspiring story. Episode combines entrepreneurship and practical solutions for truckers. Our guest today is Chetel Ponchel and is the co-founder of Stacklycom, a platform revolutionizing the storage and parking industry by connecting property owners and utilizing spaces to those who need affordable storage and parking solutions. Often described as Airbnb, storage and parking Stackly is moving waves, making waves, especially in the trucking community. In this episode, we'll explore Chetel's entrepreneurial journey and the challenges she's faced in building Stackly and how her platform is providing much-needed solutions for truckers and fleet owners across America. We'll dive into her motivations, her stories and the advice of aspiring entrepreneurs in the trucking industry. So, whether you're an owner, operator, fleet manager or someone in the entrepreneurship, there's something here for you. Let's get started. Chetel, welcome to the show. Let's get started from the beginning. What inspired you to create Stackly?

Speaker 2: 1:31

So first of all, ray, thank you so much for having me here and giving me this opportunity to share my journey. And, like you mentioned, I'm the co-founder of Stacklycom, and Stacklycom is a hybrid marketplace for storage and vehicle parking solutions. Before we start with the oppression, ray, I would like to share a quick background about myself and how did I land up over here. So, growing up, I was always curious and deeply interested in problem solving and technology. I pursued my studies with the focus on software engineering, and I have 17 years of experience in software industry, managing technical projects, building high performance teams and leading innovations. So this experience like not only sharpened my technical acumen but also instilled the leadership qualities that prepared me to co-found Statly and address real-world challenges in storage and parking industry.

Speaker 2: 2:33

So, going to your question, ray, you know what inspired me to start Statly was. The idea was very simple, but it was solving an urgent problem of travelers and truckers struggling to find safe and convenient as well as affordable parking spaces and, at the same time, you know, property owners having unused spaces sitting idle. So I have been a real estate investor myself, and so I had seen this problem, and then I also had conversations with a few truckers you know, which confirmed that you know there should be some solution for this problem. So that is how you know. We started Statly.

Speaker 1: 3:24

That's amazing. I mean I love the story of you take technology and your experience and bring it together with property owners and also truckers. You're solving a problem that's huge right now. It's that having parking where to park and affordable parking. You're making sure you get that taken care of for a lot of those truckers out there that need to be out there and be safe. You know don't want to be parking on the side of the road. So now building that platform serves both property owners and also seeking storage parking for small fleets.

Speaker 2: 3:59

What are some of the initial challenges you faced in launching Stackly yeah, so some of the challenges was, you know, on the property owner side. You know it was they were like used to, you know, signing the traditional way of signing lease whenever they want to rent out a space, and you know they would like to meet the renters in person. So it was they were used to like very traditional way of renting out their spaces. So convincing them to you know that that property or their land can be managed digitally for parking purpose was a challenge. And not only that even on the truck, on convenience, security and affordability, we are able to adopt both sides of the market.

Speaker 1: 5:15

Nice Was there moments where you thought maybe, hey, this is something I need to approach a different way, that was a challenge for you, or that maybe there was something else.

Speaker 2: 5:26

Yes. So, like I mentioned, gaining trust from both the side was a challenge, but we overcome, we overcame this by, you know, making it easy for both the sides, like for the property owners. We provided them with easy onboarding. We waived the service fee completely for them. So there was no service fee at all for the property owners initially.

Speaker 2: 5:49

And, um, along with the easy onboarding, we also provided them flexible methods of payouts, because we saw that many property owners they were reluctant to go with a specific type of payout method, so we gave them more flexibility. We made our platform onboarding very easy for them as well, as we did not charge anything. It was completely free for the property owners to list their spaces on our platform. Uh, on the trucker side, we gave them discount. We still offer them discount if they are, you know, going to park for long term or if they are going to, you know, park multiple vehicles. So, uh and uh. One other thing um, the advantage that trucker has, uh booking spaces on our platform, is they are able to lock the rates. So, uh, with all these advantages, you know, uh, we were able to convince them and onboard them easily all right, and that's that sounds like a good problem-solving plan.

Speaker 1: 6:58

So I think some of our listeners and truckers out there face difficulties with secure, affordable parking. Can you share how you had any success stories, maybe like truckers that benefited from Stackley, maybe give some feedback, anything like that?

Speaker 2: 7:15

Yes, so we provide you know many of our our majority of our parking spaces have secure amenities, like you know security cameras, gated access, everything so we provide, you know, many options for them in terms of security as well as affordability, and if they go on our website, they can easily filter out. You know what amenities they are looking for so that way you know they can pick and choose what is the best option for them. And definitely, we have a lot of success stories we have. We have helped a lot of truckers and even after midnight we have had many truckers reaching out to us looking for parking spaces and with our 24-7 customer support, we have been able to help them to get secure and reliable parking spaces at any time of the hour.

Speaker 1: 8:14

Perfect. That makes makes a lot easier.

Speaker 2: 8:17

Yes.

Speaker 1: 8:20

Trying to ask about your journey. We want to see hey, what was it like? Maybe people out there want to be an entrepreneur. We see you having success. What was it like for you? Was there a learning curve diving into this? Was there some lessons you've learned throughout the way that you could share with people? Maybe how you handled some setbacks or failures um, doesn't necessarily have to be with stackly, but, uh, maybe just share with them. Maybe there's some young ones out there. They're trying to be an entrepreneur for themselves yes, uh, definitely.

Speaker 2: 8:52

So I would advise, you know, young entrepreneurs who you know want to get onto this entrepreneur journey is to not wait for that perfect moment. Or, you know, do not wait for everything to be perfect before you launch, because that you can never figure out, you know, what is going to be the perfect solution. So I would say, you know, know, be bold, uh, take the risk and, you know, get started. Uh, get started with something. Uh, you know, don't, don't hesitate to. You know, bring out your ideas or bring out your perspective, uh, to life and uh, just take that step forward. And uh, you know, launch uh with a small, uh, you know, maybe launch a small MVP version and then validate with the real customers, and then you can adapt as you go and you can, along the way, you can take the feedback and then make me refine your product as you go.

Speaker 2: 9:52

But I would say, do not wait for that perfect moment or that perfect solution yeah, so so did you wait uh, no, I mean, initially I used to think that, you know, I can get it perfect, but I realized that you know, no, I should get started, and so we have also made some changes. We did some pivot as well, uh, along the way, and that is how I mean we are still, you know, adding more features as we learn. So I would, I would highly recommend that you know to not wait for that perfect moment and, just you know, take that bold step oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:26

So no regrets, because you, you even did the same thing you're telling people to do. That's awesome. Um, that's huge. Uh, was there someone that helped you along the way? Maybe kind of there was some hesitancy, I'm sure, with certain areas that you had.

Speaker 2: 10:43

Maybe somebody mentor you and uh, just or maybe someone that just gave you helpful advice. Yeah, so, uh, definitely, you know, we have a team of like we have, we have I have a co-founder as well. So, um, we have a small team, but what we did differently, like we actually went and interviewed. I already had conversation with the few truckers before, you know, we launched Staggly or before we started Staggly, but along the way, as well, you know, we kept on. You know, meeting the property owners. I have myself interviewed property owners as well as truckers to learn more and more and how we can refine our product and make the experience seamless on both the sides. So, yeah, wow.

Speaker 1: 11:32

So good advice, Co-founder. Wow, so good advice, co-founder. You also interviewed and then also listened to your customers, your truckers.

Speaker 2: 11:42

Yes.

Speaker 1: 11:44

What great advice that is. Shouldn't ignore that because, like you said, it's all in your success. It shows. So thank you. Circle back to the business. It looks like it's grown over 300 locations nationwide.

Speaker 2: 12:01

Is that correct?

Speaker 1: 12:01

that is correct. Yes, wow, so, man, so it started out with one, or did it start out with like five, or how small was it at first?

Speaker 2: 12:09

yeah, so initially we focused only so we are based out of Dallas, fort Worthort Worth, so initially we focused only in Dallas-Fort Worth and, like I mentioned, the initial onboarding of the property owners, I actually went and met them before we onboarded them. So I met with many property owners and so we focused initially with a small area like Dallas-Fort Worth and then we expanded to Texas and now we are expanding nationwide. So, along with understanding how, in convincing them by giving them more flexibility and all, we also targeted in reaching out certain property owners having commercial lots, having private property. So we did some target reaching out, we gave flexible onboarding and we basically took care of the entire onboarding process. We still do. We gave them flexible payment options, payout options and we also waived initially the service fees. So that is how we were able to get more and more property owners to trust us, trust our platform and onboard with us.

Speaker 1: 13:38

How do you ensure consistency and quality across all those locations? 300 locations, it's quite a bit. So how do you do that?

Speaker 2: 13:44

Yeah, so, yeah. So, like I said, we have a consistent approach or consistent process to onboard these property owners. We have a set of questions and I would say that we take down all the information and we create our team, create the listings for them, we add the pictures, so more I would say. Our process is very streamlined now so, and more and more we learn, obviously, okay, we should also add this, you know, information. This is, you know, very useful for the truckers or very useful for, you know, any other travelers looking for parking spaces. So then we, you know, apply that to all our listings format and consistent information. That would be helpful and make it very easy for anyone, including truckers looking for parking spaces.

Speaker 1: 14:49

So, man, you get to trust, you get to security, a fair amount and storage and parking industry. You guys are doing such a great job with that. Reflecting on the journey, is there any particular moments or milestones that Snackly, as a company as a whole, has been able to celebrate?

Speaker 2: 15:14

like I mentioned, we were, you know, focusing only on the proper, like private property owners. But as we, you know, met with more and more property owners and we also realized that you know even the commercial facilities, even they have, you know, a lot of vacancies, so we started onboarding commercial facilities as well. So we are doing both the private property owners as well as commercial facilities.

Speaker 1: 15:43

Maybe the first 100. You guys are pretty excited about that. I mean, that's a big number too. What?

Speaker 2: 15:52

did you guys do when you hit that number? So initially, yeah, we were, like you know, focusing on, you know, to get 100. And then, yeah, I think we reached like 100 locations within Texas itself and then we started expanding and with that expansion then we added more and more locations. So currently we have like 300 plus locations. So, yeah, every 100 locations you would say like it is like a milestone for us and a small moment for us to celebrate.

Speaker 1: 16:25

Yeah, that's huge. So, man looking ahead. So where are you guys thinking it's going to go? I mean looking ahead so you know you can continue to solve the problems. Still, there's more to go. What does the future look like for plans to continue to address and solving these issues, or partnerships, or collaborating with others?

Speaker 2: 16:46

How do you guys see that forecast going? Yeah, so in the next couple of years, our focus is to expand our network of locations as well as make our product more improved in our product, to make storage and parking like a seamless, more and more seamless experience for both the property owners as well, as, you know, the travelers or truckers looking for parking. So adding more features, I would say. And we also take feedback, like I mentioned earlier. So one of the feedback that we have received from, you know, truckers, or like individual truckers, as well as logistics companies that you know they many times they need like a small warehouse, you know, like a small office, along with the parking spaces. So we are also going to expand in that area, where we will have that on our website, like where they could also lease out small warehouse or small office space along with the parking. So that is how, if we are, you know, planning to uh, you know grow and, you know, provide better and better solution every day for our customers I like it.

Speaker 1: 17:57

That's a good plan. So you guys, uh, are you kind of, you get time off or you guys get to go and do something outside of work? I mean, what do you guys do as a team? That you guys get together and and celebrate?

Speaker 2: 18:10

yeah, I mean once in a while we do. But I would say we like work, uh, you know, seven days a week, um yeah, so yeah, but yeah, once in a while, like I mentioned, like when we hit our milestone we do, we do a quick small celebration along the way.

Speaker 1: 18:31

Wow, Seven days huh.

Speaker 2: 18:34

I mean, I think, everyone out there, all the entrepreneurs. I'm sure they must be working all seven days a week.

Speaker 1: 18:44

Or they got something else they're doing. Yeah, you can't stand still. Yep, exactly. So, yeah, that's great, you know. Great knowledge for those that want to be an entrepreneur. Also, great solutions for a big problem that's going on in America. You guys are, you know, taking the bull by the horns. That's really good. Anything you would like to let people know, maybe before we end the show, that some words of advice that you want to give to people that you know?

Speaker 2: 19:19

you've set a great example already, but anything you want to share, yeah. So one other thing I would like to add for the, you know, entrepreneurs or young entrepreneurs who want to get onto this journey is you know, be like, stay adaptable, like you know, along your journey, and focus on sustainability. So that is what we are doing as well, and you know there are a lot of, like I mentioned earlier, instead of, you know, waiting for any funding or anything, you know all those available resources and you know make your product quickly. And you know validate your idea and then refine and you know, adapt along the way. So, and at the end or along the way, always focus on, you know, being sustainable, how you are going to sustain your business. So I would say, focus on sustainability is very important.

Speaker 1: 20:26

Okay. So when you say sustainable, I was thinking maybe like the planet or like sustainable energy things you know, but you're saying for the business side of it, things that can keep you going. What's some things that you would say helps you be sustainable. What's some things that you would say helped you be sustainable?

Speaker 2: 20:42

Yeah, so we, you know, try to keep our cost as low as possible, you know, and try to maximize, you know, whatever low-cost tools are available. So, yeah, so that is how we have been doing and that is what I advise the young entrepreneurs as well. That you know. And to answer to your question is you know, I did mean that on the business side, you know, be sustainable so that you can go a long way till you get that perfect product, or, you know, till you get that perfect product, market fit or whatever your goal is. So keeping your costs low and focusing on sustainability will help you go a long way. And it's like same with trucking.

Speaker 1: 21:37

You know they say always keep your costs low because when things you know aren't good, you can weather the storm. Um, you know you got a high cost and you're you're spending too much and it can really mess up your operation. And when there's there's nothing there, you know, so nothing to fall back on because it's all all spent on, um, a lot of extras. So yeah that's good.

Speaker 1: 22:03

Yeah, great advice. So yeah, I'm glad to have you on the show talk about what you guys are doing. How can people get in touch with you or our listeners? I know there's stacklycom. Is there any way that also, too, they can follow you or your team? Your co-founder too.

Speaker 2: 22:23

They can follow you or your team, your co-founder. Co-founder yeah, so, yeah, they can, you know, get almost all the information by visiting our website at wwwstatlycom. They can, you know, even sign up to get. We have a weekly newsletter that we send out with our updates on all the locations that we add each week or any new key features that we add to our platform. So, for example, like we are going to soon have an iOS app coming up. So all those updates we share in that newsletter so they can sign up on our website to get keep in touch with us and know more about our updates and learn more about Stackly and what new things we are bringing up.

Speaker 1: 23:09

Perfect. That's great. So also, we want to make sure if you guys have any questions or concerns, our listeners always feel free to reach out to us in a review. It's definitely been an inspiring story hearing your stories to tell, um. I think it's one of a success and one to celebrate, so definitely want to let the listeners know about what you guys are doing and where you're going in the future. So we appreciate you guys listening to our show. Please stay tuned for next episode of that's delivered, um. We gain viable insights about entrepreneurs and even the latest things that are going on in the trucking industry, like solving the problem with parking. So you can always send this to your friends, let them know, hey, there's options out there and they can also reap the benefits from Stagleycom. So keep it safe out there, keep moving, and we really appreciate being on the show, chantel.

Speaker 2: 24:04

Yeah, thank you so much, Ray. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my journey. And yeah, and if anyone has any questions, like I mentioned, they can visit our website and we also have our support email so they can reach out to us there or contact our support number, available 24-7. Nice.

Speaker 1: 24:23

All right. Well, that's another episode of Fast Deliver.

Speaker 2: 24:26

Thank you.