If your friends won't help you move anymore Bryant Ezeji and Julia Cook will. Well, their new app Trekk will.
“Trekk is essentially Uber or Lyft, but instead of moving people, we just move their stuff,” CEO of Trekk, Ezeji, 26, said.
“However our service doesn't end at the curb. We take it where you need it. And if you have a couch or a piano, any large or awkward item, that is kind of what we dial in on. “
Trekk, a new company based out of Santa Monica, has a focus on short regional moves. The company currently has between 700 and 800 users and has done 1,121 moves, mainly within the Santa Monica and Venice Beach area, since opening shop in July.
“We don't do interstate or across state moves. We focus on short moves within LA communities. And so far we're doing between 14 and 18 moves a day,” Ezeji said.
Ezeji and Cook, Trekk's CMO, attended Loyola Marymount University together and both worked in the student housing division. That is where the idea for Trekk began to sprout in their minds.
“We did a lot of moving dressers and beds. And for most of our moving there was no system that was created to assist in the process. We'd get a request to move something on a Monday, but we wouldn't receive it until Wednesday because we didn't really have this up-to-date technology and it wasn't really on demand,” Ezeji said.
Following college, Cook, 24, went to work for the United Nations in marketing, and Ezeji went to work with his dad in a business in Nigeria.
But a year ago Ezeji came back to Los Angeles and started doing some corporate work and he and Cook began to discuss ideas for a business they could start together. This was right around the time that Ezeji bought a large SUV.
“I still had the same group of friends [when I came back] and all of them happened to be moving at the time. And I was the only friend that was getting bugged relentlessly and mercilessly to help move people's stuff. Like I was getting harassed. So you know, Julia and I, we kind of put our heads together and thought 'What if we could create a platform for people like our friends where you don't have to wait four weeks for some person to come move for you.'
“Wouldn't it be nice if you don't have to go to Craigslist? Maybe there is a very easy way to get someone who is within a 2 to 3 mile radius to come help you. So we put our heads together and we came up with Trekk.”
Ezeji and Cook want their user experience to be similar to Uber's.
“We don't want people to wait a week, four days, two hours for somebody to come help them move. We want to get those moves happening quick and in real time,” Ezeji said.
The app also works in the same way as Uber.
“So all you pretty much do with the app is type in your pick up location, then your drop off location. Then within 15 to 20 minutes one of our Trekkers will be en route to pick up your stuff and deliver it to the drop off location.”
Trekk currently has 26 Trekkers, and just like with Uber they get to choose their own hours and are all independent contractors. The movers are all background checked and vetted before they can work for Trekk. Trekk requires that their movers be able to lift over 75 lbs. and own a truck, SUV or cargo van.
Trekk is fully insured and has a policy that guarantees replacement or a full refund if a customer's item is damaged.
Ezeji said he and Cook see matching their faces with their company as one of their main goals for Trekk.
“There is a huge deficit in terms of diversity in the tech space. Big companies like Google, Yahoo, a lot of big companies try to answer this issue. And we're really trying to make our faces known because there is a lot of underrepresented groups, like women, minorities, whatever the case might be, that don't think it's 'cool' to be in the tech space or don't think they can create something that will be 'cool' or be useful,” Ezeji said. “We just really wanna motivate and inspire entrepreneurs. And I think the biggest thing about it is we're trying to motivate people who don't think they can fit in and do something possible.”
Ezeji said Trekk hopes to be the number one app in the nation.
“We really are trying to become as big as Uber. But just in moving. That's really our goal.”
Trekk offers their services throughout all of Los Angeles. For more information about Trekk visit http://www.trekk.mobi/.
jennifer@www.smdp.com
