By: Deborah Johnson Wood
Myway mobile storage launched just a year ago. Since then, a Pittsburgh entrepreneur purchased a franchise, the company established an in-house entrepreneurial program whereby employees learn the trade and earn their own franchise, and at least eight new jobs are on the drawing board.
The company, based in downtown Grand Rapids, provides mobile storage containers for customers to fill at their leisure with the things they have no room to store. Myway delivers the container (which holds a room-and-a-half of furniture) and when the customer is ready, picks it up and stores it in a high-security warehouse until the customer needs it. With a call or the click of a mouse, the customer arranges to have it re-delivered. When they're done with it, another call or click returns it to storage.
People often call when they're having a life event like downsizing from a house to a condo, says company founder Bryan Houck.
"Along with that comes a long list of problems," Houck says, "like 'What do we do with all our heirlooms and Christmas decorations?'"
Although Houck's endgame is to expand through internal growth and not through franchise sales, he is excited about the inquiries the company has generated.
"There's interest in the marketplace primarily because of the branding we've done," Houck says. "With the branding comes the business model of repeating revenue and a relatively low number of employees for each location."
Source: Bryan Houck, myway mobile storage
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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