Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / From Scalpel to Startup: Dr. Matthew D. Jones and the Birth of Towlos

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From Scalpel to Startup: Dr. Matthew D. Jones and the Birth of Towlos · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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Break Fix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all
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over the autos sphere, from wrench, turners, and racers to artists, authors,
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designers, and everything in between.
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Our goal is to inspire a new generation of Petrolhead that wonder.
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How did they get that job or become that person?
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The Road to Success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
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Today on Break Fixx, we're joined by Matthew D. Jones, a man who's
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truly redefining what it means to take a bold career pivot.
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After a decade in medicine at renowned institutions like Northwestern Medicine
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in Chicago, he made the remarkable leap into entrepreneurship in 2022,
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driven by a personal challenge during a track day road trip when
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he couldn't find a trailer to rent.
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A former orthopedic surgeon turned tech entrepreneur, Matt is the founder
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and CEO of Towlos, the world's first peer-to-peer trailer sharing marketplace.
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Through Towlos, Matt is transforming an underutilized asset class trailers that
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sit idle 90% of the time into income generating opportunities for owners while
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giving renters affordable on demand access to haulers across the United States.
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Think Airbnb or Touro.
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For trailers.
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And with that, let's welcome Matt to Break Fix.
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Great to be here.
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Thank you, Eric.
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Every good break fix story starts with the superhero origins.
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So tell us about your adventures in the world of motorsports and what
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inspired you to make such a drastic shift from the world of orthopedic
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surgery into entrepreneurship.
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Yeah, man, it was a car.
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It was, uh, the car that you may see behind me it was the C seven Corvette.
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That was kind of what spearheaded this whole thing.
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So I've been kind of an Audi fan for a long time and I've
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had a few Audis in the past.
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2019, came around then 2020, and you know, I think for the first time.
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In history, the RS six platform was coming to North America.
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You know, read about that in Car and Driver or something and got
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excited and called my local dealer in Chicago, Fletcher Jones, who
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I have to give a shout out to.
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'cause they were great and they were working with me.
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Really.
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That was a great experience and I, you know, they were gonna get me a, an RSS six
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Avant at sticker, but they told me, here's the bad news, it's gonna be two years.
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And I was like, oh, you know, it's amazing how like your emotions get
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so high and then they get dashed when you, man, that's a long time to wait.
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So I did what any logical thinker does, which is okay, what other
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car am I gonna get in the meantime?
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And so I talked to my wife.
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I think she kind of got it a little bit, or at least she played along.
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And so then I started just thinking what might be a good car to get in
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the meantime that I can kind of have.
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And then I'd sell when the RSS six was available in, in two years.
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And so I really kind of started on this little journey where
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I think I had four criteria.
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So it was one, I just wanted a, a naturally aspirated engine
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knowing that those are going away.
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Number two, I wanted a car with a manual gearbox.
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Number three, it needed to be in a specific price range.
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You know, I, I couldn't afford a $150,000 car, so I was looking more maybe between.
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Let's say 50 and $80,000, something like that.
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And then I guess number four is I was looking for something that it wouldn't
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probably be a daily driver, but something that it would be comfortable enough.
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It had ac, it had power steering, and so it was a little bit more of,
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let's call it 2000 plus rather than nineties or eighties type cars.
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So those were my four kind of criteria.
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So then.
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Course start looking around.
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Right.
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And you can help me out.
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You could probably could just name like five or six cars that
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fit that criteria right now.
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Well, this is shaping up to be a what should I buy episode.
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Okay.
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Exactly.
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Exactly.
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What would you buy?
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Well, I mean, you had me at Avant, I mean, anything long roof.
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I mean, I'm into wind.
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Yeah, yeah.
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But what you ended up with is about as diametrically opposed as you can get.
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Right.
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I, I've never been a Corvette guy, but I kind of came across Mustangs, right?
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I the Porsche Cayman.
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What else?
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There's a few other vehicles that, that was manual gearbox, naturally
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aspirated, you know, not terribly old, and then was in the right price range.
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So I kind of stumbled across the C seven Grand Sport was a COVID
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purchase, as many can attest.
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Bought it sight unseen, I think from Kansas City.
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It was awesome.
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3000 miles on it and I just kind of really fell in love and
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it, you know, I've definitely.
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I got new balance shoes and found my jorts and become a Corvette guy.
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And so got that car in 2020 and then it turns out the RSS six came a year
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early, which never happens, right?
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So then of course I had this dilemma and I didn't wanna get
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rid of the Corvette and, and I was fortunate to be able to keep both.
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So I can tell you about the RSS six on another story, but I'll continue with the
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Corvette because that is basically what helped spearhead this Towlos adventure.
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Of course met a couple buddies with Corvettes.
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My good buddy Trent was kind of my enabler, and he was like,
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Hey, do you track your car?
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And I was like, well, no, I, I've been to a couple different racetracks with Extreme
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experience and some other deals like that.
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I had, one of my buddies was in the Viper Club back when I was in med school,
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and so I would do Ridealongs with him, but very limited track experience.
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And so I was like, no, I. You know, he's like, well, you know, again, we're
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living in Chicago right at the time.
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And so he's like, we like going to tracks around here, a
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couple tracks around Chicago.
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And then they had gone up to Road America a couple times, and so they were like,
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Hey, let's swap out the brake fluid and then you're pretty much ready to go.
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Like, and so I was like, okay, so you always need a buddy, right?
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You always need an enabler into these money losing adventures.
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That's one way of putting it.
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And so that was 2021.
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When that happened and we were able to drive to Road America,
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which is about two hours away, that didn't really seem too bad, but
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we, we all kind of caught the bug.
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There's about four of us, and that's when we were like, Hey, we would love to
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plan some weekends where we can just go to tracks farther and farther from home.
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We wanted to go to Amid Ohio.
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We wanted to go to NCM, we wanted to go to VIR, you know, we wanted
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to get to Road Atlanta, you know, all these iconic tracks over the us.
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And that was like, okay, let's just rent a car hauler.
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My buddy had an F four 50, so all we needed was a double car hauler.
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Then we can ride together.
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This will be great.
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Then we, we won't get stuck at the track.
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And it was amazing how hard this is, 2021 and it still is how hard
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it was to rent the right trailer.
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You could rent a trailer, but it was so hard to rent the right
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trailer, the right tool for the job.
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Right.
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And that's kind of how Tolo started.
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We identified.
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U-Haul, they make a car hauler that works for Toyota Camrys and Honda Accords.
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People have Jerry rigged it and, you know, kind of made it work.
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'cause that was the only option to get their race cars to the track.
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I mean, I, I've been to a bunch of grid life races and you see all these U-Haul
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haulers out there in the yards with like stacks of three, two by twelves on them to
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get them high enough so that the splitter.
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Gets over top, then the car door gets over the fender.
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Those U-Haul haulers are just not meant to haul a race car or a sports car.
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And so that's kind of how things started for Towlos.
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And by the way, I'm working as an orthopedic surgeon at this time.
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I ended up doing both for about a year.
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And then I kind of felt my legs starting to split, and I realized that there was
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just no way to do both well, and so I was gonna have to make a hard decision.
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So what's in a name?
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Where'd the name Towlos come from?
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I wanted to make up a word.
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You know, you've heard all these crazy words like Turo,
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you mentioned Turo, Airbnb.
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I mean, that's not even really, that's kind of a combination
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of a couple words, right?
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Uber, I mean, I guess that's a word we, so we wanted to kind of follow that
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same kind of geeky, techy kind of thing.
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The other reason that we wanted to make the word up was.
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When you make a word up, you can own its definition, and so you don't have to
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play on somebody else's presuppositions about what some word means.
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The challenge you have, of course, is, as you know, how do
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you pronounce that made up word?
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So we wanted to make up the word that was number one I I
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wanted it to be two syllables.
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Often a two syllable word rolls off your tongue a little bit better.
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Uber Turo, Lyft is one syllable, but I wanted it to be two syllables and I also
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wanted it to be six letters or less.
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If it was six letters or or fewer fits better onto a logo.
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There was several things here, Eric, that I just kind of got lucky as I
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was going through these criteria.
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'cause I didn't realize till about a year later that there was like, Hey,
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there's some real method to that.
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And I was like, well, at the time I was just kind of winging it.
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But then the most probably important criteria is that it has
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to be a domain that's available.
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And so we went through this whole list, and so we wanted something
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that had hitch or tow hall.
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Hitch Lee was one of the ones we kinda liked for a while, you
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know, so we just kinda landed on.
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Towlos, T-O-W-L-O-S.
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And that was kind of the origin for the name.
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Well, as long as nobody's calling you up, Taos, that happens and that's fine.
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And even now, Google likes to auto correct me to say, did you mean towels?
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And I'm like, no, I'm not searching for bathroom towels.
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You know?
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We know we'll have made it when Google stops trying to auto correct us.
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Alright, so you made the jump from the medical industry into tech.
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That is just like going from the RSS six to the Corvette.
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They could not be any more different, like I always say, apples and chainsaws.
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What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in turning your career?
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Into this peer-to-peer trailer sharing marketplace and making it a scalable,
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functional, profitable business that was at least five years in the making.
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You know, you, you don't make a decision like that overnight, right?
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As some of your listeners may know, when you're a surgeon, you basically
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go to school for your entire life, or at least that's what it feels like.
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So I did 14 years of training after high school, so that's four years of college.
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Undergraduate, then four years of medical school, then five years of
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orthopedic surgery residency, and then I did an optional one year
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of sports medicine fellowship.
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By the time I finished training, I was 32, and then I worked, as you
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mentioned, in Chicago, worked at Northwestern Medicine, which was a great
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institution to work for for 10 years.
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You know, did orthopedic surgery for 10 years.
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I really, I enjoyed parts of it.
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Most parts of orthopedics I liked.
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I mean, I, I think ortho is one of the best professions within medicine and
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we in, in medicine and people inside medicine will probably appreciate this.
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Those outside might not, but there's, there was a real separation in my
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head between orthopedic surgery and American medicine and American
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medicine changed a lot in the.
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The 20 years that, that I was a part of it, there was a lot of bureaucracy that
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has come in a lot of corporatization.
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You know, insurance has, has played a large role in just the deprecation
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of the professionalism of the field.
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There just seemed to be a wedge that was being driven between the patient and
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the doc and that's just not fun for the patient and that's not fun for the doc.
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And so, you know, it became a little bit of a grind and, and people are
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in the medical field, are pretty familiar with burnout and there's
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a lot of docs that are burning out.
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There's not too many of 'em that make this crazy pivot like I did, but a lot of
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them are seeking some type of intellectual outlet outside of their chosen profession.
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That was a, at least a five year in the making.
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I, I don't remember saying this, but my wife reminds me that probably two or three
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times a week, I would say, man, I don't, I don't know how much longer I can do this.
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In my head, I, I just kind of thought, Hey, I spent hundreds
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of thousands of dollars to go to medical school and, and undergrad.
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You know, you really kind of silo yourself into this and you learn a lot
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about a little sliver of the world.
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It's hard to pivot from that.
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So, earlier you talked about your buddies in your car adventures, you know,
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getting you into the world of Corvette.
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You never go at it alone.
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Kind of like hiking, kind of like off-roading and a lot of other things.
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In the world of tech, usually there's someone else in the equation.
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So who was your buddy on this adventure?
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Or did you just pick up a bunch of programming books and go to town?
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I am the sole founder.
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I also now have a co-founder named Jeff who's been an at.
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Great partner, but I did kind of go this alone, I guess.
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Primarily I started building a team around me 'cause I don't know how to code.
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I had to find a full stack developer and then a ui ux designer, and it was
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basically, we were the three amigos.
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For about a year as we were building this and we were benchmarking Toro, we
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were benchmarking another peer-to-peer marketplace called Outdoorsy.
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They do RVs and travel trailers, so people are, they want to
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kind of go on an adventure.
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That's not our space.
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We focus on car haulers.
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Enc.
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Closed trailers, boat trailers, horse trailers, dump trailers.
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That's kind of our niche.
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And so for travel trailers or campers, outdoorsy or RV share are great options.
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And so we kind of benchmark some of these other peer-to-peer marketplaces
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just to kind of see how they did it.
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Almost kind of copy some of the lessons that they learned.
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One of the parallels as an orthopedic surgeon is we kind of extreme attention
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to detail into the design of Towlos.
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And, and I'd encourage anybody in this listening just to kind of go to
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Towlos tw os.com and, and check it out.
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And I'd love a honest, candid review.
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We are looking for that.
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And you can call me, you can email me, I'll put in our information at
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the end, but I didn't really have a. Buddy in a sense, like I kind
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of went alone in a way, and then started building a team around me.
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I think that's one of the things that you learn as a surgeon.
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Of course, when you're in the operating room, you are in charge.
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In my situation, you'd be working with the anesthesiologist, also, A-C-R-N-A.
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There's your scrub tech, there's the circulator.
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Often there's a device rep. Many times there's also a resident or a medical
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student that's there in the room.
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I had my PA that was kind of assisting me often, you know, so there's probably
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a team of let's say, six to 10 people in the room and you're working as a team.
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So there's a real comradery, and that was something that at least I
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was familiar with in that capacity as a surgeon, that has served
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me well as I've built this team.
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Here at tos.
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So let's switch gears and get into the meat and potatoes of Towlos.
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Alright.
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Let's talk about how it works.
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Let's do it.
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You mentioned some peer-to-peer marketplaces.
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You mentioned specifically in the trailer space with respect to campers and RVs.
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We've mentioned some peer-to-peer market spaces people would be
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familiar with if they're on holiday or taking vacations like Airbnb and
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even Turo with the car rental stuff.
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How does it work?
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For race trailers and car trailers and even some of the extensions to
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this, you know, the horse trailers and dump trailers and stuff like that.
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How does it work?
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U-Haul would be the household name.
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That would be our, eventually would be probably our direct competitor.
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Okay.
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Think about U-Haul as the company that worked well for the 20th century.
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We think of ourselves as U-Haul for the 21st century.
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So we're bringing technology.
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We're bringing a safe and secure platform.
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So the way it works, you know, you need a specific type of trailer, then
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you just go on Towlos, you put in your city and state and you put in the
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dates that you need it, and you hit go.
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And then it'll bring up just all the list of the available trailers.
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And then you can filter by type.
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So if you know you need an enclosed trailer, just filter
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for an enclosed trailer.
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If you know you need a horse trailer, you filter for a horse trailer and
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it'll show you just all the options.
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And so for those that are familiar with Turo, it works very similar to Turo.
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So it'll look and it'll feel like Turo.
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So you'll see the list of trailers there.
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Then if you see one that seems interesting, you click on
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that and then it brings up.
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The trailer page and it has all the information, the photos, the
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videos, the hitch size, the GVWR, the capacity, the dimensions, and
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then all the description right there.
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So the person renting has to go to the person that's listed their trailer.
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Up on Towlos and go get it, right?
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Mm-hmm.
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Mm-hmm.
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Okay.
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As far as going to pick it up, you mean?
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Yeah.
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Mm-hmm.
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Basically, if you see a trailer that you kind of like, all right, this
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is gonna work for my needs ground clearance, the approach angle,
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everything that seems to work, okay.
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These are low fenders, so I can get my car door up over the fender.
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You know, you just follow the steps to create an account and rent it right there.
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And what it'll do is it'll shoot a request to the owner.
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We call the owner, the host, the owner will kind of review the request.
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You have to answer a few questions.
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Towing experience, what's your plan?
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Tow vehicle, where are you planning to go?
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You know, what's the approximate mileage?
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And then what are you planning to haul, you know, and what's
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the approximate weight of that?
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Those four vetting questions really gives the host a real sense for, hey.
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Who's this guy that's trying to rent my trailer?
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It's interesting you bring that up because I kept thinking, does the
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system do any matching to say, tell me about your rig, about your truck.
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What are you gonna be pulling this trailer with?
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Because for those of us that have our own trailers, we bought trucks that
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match our trailers or vice versa.
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So we know what we're towing, we know what our payload is and our tongue weight,
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and you know how we need to position the car and all this kind of thing.
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But if you're just a casual track day goer.
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You know, your wife drives a Nissan Pathfinder.
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Well, it doesn't have a ton of tow capacity.
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So does the system match up and say, Hey, all of these trailers aren't
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compatible with your vehicle, or is that up to the host to make that decision?
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Right now?
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We leave it up to the host.
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So those four vetting questions basically then get pinged to the host,
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you know, and so then when the hosters are reviewing that request, they see,
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oh, this guy, he has a Ford Ranger.
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Yeah, that's not gonna work with my trailer.
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Oh, this guy has an F two 50.
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That'll be, you know, that'll be fine.
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So we will probably do some, and this is where we're kind of leaning
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into some of the cool AI tools that are now becoming available.
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And so that might be one where we'll kind of do some kind of automatic matching.
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Right now we've allowed just the host to kind of do that compatibility match.
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I show up at the host house to pick up the trailer, and I look
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at his trailer and I go, Hmm.
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I mean, I saw it in picture, but in person, you know.
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A picture's worth a thousand words until you see something live, right?
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Mm-hmm.
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What's the onus on the host to keep the trailer up to snuff and up to spec?
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I mean, trailers are kind of strange because they don't get inspected
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like cars do, and there's not a ton of facilities that you can take a
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trailer too to have it gone through.
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I'm very fortunate.
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I have one around the corner where I drop my trailer off and I have it
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serviced and all that kinda stuff.
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So what's the obligation on the owner's side to make sure that
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the trailer's in tiptop condition?
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I'll answer that, but first, can I. Kick it back to you and I, 'cause I'm kinda
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curious, what's the process that you go about keeping your trailer serviced?
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And how often do you typically do that?
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Is it usually an annual thing?
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So trailers are when and not if.
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Mm-hmm.
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So there's no set number of miles.
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It's always the, the amount of time that it sits.
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Mm-hmm.
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So when I take my trailer in, when I was more actively trailering,
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it would go every two years.
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Mm-hmm.
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So at the end of the second season, it would go in for a full overhaul.
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Bearings, brakes, tires, lights.
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Wiring because generally the chassis stuff doesn't really have any sort of issue.
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Take a look at the Leaf Springs, Reese, the Jacks, you know, that kind of thing.
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And then you don't worry about it again for maybe another year or two.
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Now that it's sat a little longer, I haven't taken it in because I haven't
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used it, but as soon as I start using it again, it's the first thing on my list
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is gotta take the trailer in because it's been sitting for too long and that
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whole checklist has to be gone through.
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So again, it's when and not if, and it's definitely not miles, right.
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Do you mind telling me approximately how much that costs to kind
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of do that type of service?
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Do you have any, just an estimate.
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The last time I took it in for service to include a new set of
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tires and everything, I don't know, it was like four or 500 bucks.
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You know, not nothing, but also not $2,000.
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And, and that includes probably four new tires, right?
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Probably.
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Exactly.
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And so we follow the same thing, and actually this is something
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we're working on right now.
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As you can imagine, there is some built-in motivation for these trailers
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to be in great working condition.
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The hosts, we've had really good track record with this so far,
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is that they upload photos that.
19:51
Obviously you can upload a photo that doesn't show that a tire
19:55
is dry rotted, but then if you show up, that could be different.
19:58
We've not had any, any issues with that so far.
20:01
One of the things we're working on right now, the concept we're kind
20:03
of rolling around is kind something called Towlos verified, which would be
20:06
similar to, you know, a super host on Airbnb where they get perks, they get,
20:11
they're higher ranked in the algorithm.
20:13
There's some perks that we do to give them that carrot to
20:16
kind of fulfill certain things.
20:18
Everybody has to go through an annual inspection.
20:21
Some people do it with a, a shop, some people do a self inspection.
20:25
That helps to kind of keep the quality up.
20:28
And then what we're gonna do is continue to kinda lean into that and try to
20:32
kind of gamify it a bit by giving people a carrot rather than a stick to
20:36
be even more motivated to keep their trailer in good working condition.
20:40
So, you know, the adage.
20:41
Two is one and one is none, especially when it comes to spare tires.
20:45
On the trailer is the owner, the host, obligated to provide spare tires, gear
20:50
for changing the tires, extra things for the trailer in case something goes wrong.
20:54
Every Towlos trailer is required to have a. A spare tire.
20:58
We don't have specific requirements for jacks or for, you know, things like that.
21:03
Most of the guys do keep those kind of things in their toolbox, but we
21:06
do have a requirement that every to trailer has to have a spare tire.
21:09
So what happens if something goes wrong?
21:11
Is there insurance?
21:12
Is there roadside assistance?
21:14
What are some of the other things that get added when you're booking the trailer?
21:17
Does Towlos provide insurance?
21:18
That's probably the number one question that we receive, both from the host, the
21:22
trailer owner, and maybe not as often from the guests, but we often get hosts.
21:27
Again, these are guys that care about their assets, right?
21:30
They care about their race car, they also care about their trailer.
21:32
So it makes sense, and I'll tell you probably the biggest challenge that
21:36
I've had in this entrepreneurial adventure is solving the insurance.
21:41
Problem.
21:42
So all these insurance companies, and we've, I think we've talked
21:45
to every major carrier out there.
21:48
There's this chicken and egg problem.
21:49
They don't want to really put a lot of effort and money and time into, you
21:55
know, creating all these policies for this startup that may or may not make
21:58
it, and it's not providing them with $500,000 minimum in premiums per year.
22:03
It's like, well, how do we get from where we are now to where we wanna be?
22:07
And there's this kind of always been this chicken and egg problem.
22:09
The short answer right now is that we have a tiered process for safety.
22:14
And I'll just kind of run through that real quick with you, Eric.
22:16
So one thing is there's obviously very clear wording in the terms of service
22:21
that put all the legal responsibility for that trailer onto the guest.
22:26
'cause they're the one operating the trailer.
22:27
So it's their responsibility.
22:29
So there's very clear wording in the terms.
22:31
Number two.
22:32
All the guests upload a photo of their ID and a photo of their insurance card,
22:38
and that gets uploaded into Towlos, and that's available in what we call the
22:41
rental record, kind of in a, an electronic record of that rental transaction.
22:46
Number three is the host.
22:49
Can set a refundable security deposit for every rental.
22:52
That range is typically somewhere around 200 to $300, depending
22:56
on the value of the trailer.
22:58
We have a minimum, but we allow for the kind of the host to set
23:01
to have some autonomy on that refundable security deposit.
23:04
So that ends up covering probably 93% or so of all.
23:09
Incidental damage.
23:10
So you back a trailer into a tree or something, you
23:13
scratch break the taillight.
23:15
You bend something.
23:16
Obviously won't cover total loss, won't cover theft, but it covers about 90
23:21
plus percent of all incidental damage.
23:24
What we don't offer yet is this integrated insurance plan.
23:28
I was actually working on that earlier today 'cause that's something
23:31
that's we're gonna be offering here in the next couple months.
23:34
And so that will be an integrated insurance option for those trailer owners.
23:39
There are insurance companies out there and you can get a policy.
23:42
We work with, there's a couple different insurance companies
23:45
that quite a few hosts use.
23:47
You know, they take out a policy that covers physical damage for the trailer.
23:51
Some of the track day insurance providers that we've spoken to, like Lockton and
23:55
Open Track and places like that have extensions to their track day policy
24:00
that can cover the vehicle while it's on the trailer in motion or at mm-hmm.
24:04
In the paddock and things like that.
24:06
They're very carefully worded, so it's really interesting because I always feel
24:10
that trailers are, they're a liability.
24:12
They're not as.
24:12
Set.
24:13
It's like you paid for it, you use it, you consume it, and something goes wrong.
24:17
And it's really unfortunate.
24:18
There's really no recourse at the end of that conversation.
24:21
You know what I mean?
24:21
But in this case, I'm borrowing somebody else's trailer and it can go either way.
24:26
Did my trailer cause your car to have a problem?
24:29
Or did you do something to my trailer?
24:31
Or did your car do something to my, you know, it gets really gray
24:34
and really muddy really fast.
24:35
It actually doesn't.
24:36
We have hundreds of rentals where it goes smoothly every time.
24:40
Is that a possibility?
24:41
Yes.
24:42
But it's amazing how things go smoothly almost every single time.
24:46
That's been our experience.
24:47
We've talked to a couple guys that work in insurance, and of course those guys
24:51
are always thinking about the worst thing that can happen, and I tell those
24:54
guys, you're not a good fit for Towlos.
24:56
That's just the truth, right?
24:58
But I'll tell you, almost every progressive State Farm, you know, a
25:02
lot of these major companies, they have a specific trailer policy.
25:06
So this is not the paddock insurance that you're talking about.
25:09
This is a separate policy for the trailer, and those are often not that
25:12
expensive just because the trailer is what, 8,000, 9,000, $10,000, you know,
25:17
unless you're getting a nice high-end intech trailer or something like that.
25:20
Right?
25:20
Probably our average trailer is value is somewhere between eight and $12,000.
25:25
So what about tags and registration?
25:27
Anything special there for the trailers that have to be considered for the host?
25:30
We do require a registration for all Towlos trailers.
25:34
You know, there are a few states that don't require trailer registration.
25:37
We require it.
25:38
Again, that's just a kind of a safety mechanism.
25:41
If something goes south, it's a little easier to track.
25:44
Just we require, even though not every state requires that,
25:47
we require a registered trailer to be able to list it on Towlos.
25:51
I'm sure there's some folks thinking about this right now.
25:53
Hey, my trailer's sitting around.
25:55
It might be a good idea to rent it out, make some money off of it.
25:57
It's like renting a parking spot, you know what I mean?
25:59
Mm-hmm.
25:59
When the minute comes that you cross that threshold and you watch
26:02
your trailer go off down the road with somebody else pulling it.
26:05
I've had this moment myself where friends borrow my trailer and I kind of cringe.
26:10
You're not a good fit for Towlos.
26:12
Is there any sort of tracking for the trailer?
26:14
Because let's just say, I don't wanna say somebody's gonna report it stolen, but you
26:18
kind of wanna know where your trailer is.
26:20
Yeah, absolutely.
26:21
And that's another, you know, GPS trackers are very common at this time.
26:25
We don't require, they have a GPS tracker on the trailer,
26:29
but we strongly recommend it.
26:30
And I think about.
26:31
80% of our trailers have GPS trackers.
26:34
That's another thing that we're working on from a software perspective, and
26:37
this is where some cool stuff comes in, is we're working towards being
26:41
able to do contactless rentals.
26:43
So you physically don't even have to be present.
26:46
Obviously, if you want to be present, and especially sometimes we encourage
26:50
it for the first time you're meeting a, a renter, but say, you know
26:53
Bob, you know he's a good guy.
26:54
He takes his Miata to the track.
26:56
He's already rented your trailer on Towlos a couple months before.
26:59
Now he wants to do it again.
27:00
You're in the office through contactless rental, he can come
27:03
pick it up and you can initiate everything kind of in a contactless
27:07
manner and you can do that right now.
27:09
We have the capability right now, but we're making it better with
27:11
some of the integration of some of the technology that comes along.
27:14
So you, with some of the geofencing, the automated alerts that like.
27:18
Hey, you know, your guest is at your trailer.
27:21
You know some, some of those real time alerts that you can get with different
27:25
hardware and different device technology.
27:27
So the short answer again, is that we don't require GPS trackers,
27:31
but we strongly recommend them.
27:33
So then you know where that trailer is.
27:36
At all times.
27:37
There's also a lot of these trackers that have accelerometers on them.
27:40
So then, you know, you can also kind of know if something's
27:42
being moved when it shouldn't be.
27:44
Also, that's good information for the guest, you know, is if for some reason
27:48
he's at a track day and he knows that he parked the trailer in the paddock and
27:52
should, should just be there overnight and you know, he is getting an alert
27:55
that says, Hey, this thing's being moved.
27:57
You know, like, okay.
27:58
That's a problem that shouldn't be happening.
28:01
How is pricing structured?
28:03
Obviously that's set by the owner.
28:04
Is that set by the platform?
28:06
Mm-hmm.
28:06
What kind of fees are involved in this?
28:08
We provide suggestions on pricing, and that is getting better and
28:12
better every month as we scale.
28:15
Then just there's economies of scale that we can, you know, give better
28:17
recommendations, give suggestions, but we allow each host to set their price.
28:21
Per day.
28:22
So where do you see the break even point, where the time comes, where you go,
28:26
well, I'm gonna just buy my own trailer?
28:28
Yeah, that's a good question.
28:29
So what we found is it's not so much the price for some of us, it's the
28:34
buying a 8,000, $10,000 trailer.
28:37
That's not nothing.
28:38
But that's also, I mean, how much does your race, car cost?
28:41
You know, like.
28:42
30, 40, $50,000, 60, 70, you know, like you can keep going.
28:46
Right.
28:46
So it's, it's often somewhere like 20% of the cost of your car or something.
28:51
Right.
28:51
So it's often we found that it's not so much the price, that's the barrier,
28:55
it's the convenience, it's the, Hey, I don't have the space I live in.
29:00
Park, you know, outside of Chicago and I just don't have the space for a trailer.
29:04
I could afford a trailer.
29:05
I'd rather just rent one.
29:06
So that's tends to be where we find a lot of folks that would
29:09
rather just rent the trailer.
29:11
Especially now that they know that they have access to the right trailer.
29:15
Before it was like, ah, I guess I'll rent a U-Haul.
29:18
'cause that's all that's out there.
29:19
And now that people are finding it out, oh man, I could rent the right trailer.
29:23
I'm happy to pay a hundred bucks a day.
29:25
Our national average for a, a single.
29:28
Car open Hauler is one 16.
29:31
The unit economics are actually quite favorable for the host.
29:34
You know, think about it.
29:35
If you know, if you rent a trailer out for, let's say four, two day rentals,
29:40
that's eight days, somewhere around $800.
29:42
I mean, that's a decent amount.
29:44
So the unit economics are quite favorable.
29:46
You asked about the pricing and just kind of the business model.
29:49
Towlos, like most other marketplaces, just takes a marketplace fee.
29:53
So we just take 17% of that daily rate.
29:56
So you list it for a hundred bucks, you keep $83, and then Towlos keeps
30:01
17 future renters or maybe future owners looking to list their trailer.
30:05
They always like to hear about.
30:07
Other people's experiences and testimonials are at the top of that list.
30:11
Do you have any feedback from current owners or renters?
30:14
Things you can share?
30:15
Stories that have shaped the evolution of the platform.
30:17
One of the things that we have realized recently is that third
30:21
party credibility is huge.
30:22
You know, like if I say it's great, people are like, okay, cool.
30:25
I'll check it out.
30:26
If, I don't know if you know Rutledge Wood, if you know Rutt,
30:29
we've become buddies with him.
30:31
You know, if Rutt gets out there and says, Hey guys.
30:33
Check this out, this thing's pretty cool.
30:35
That's huge, right?
30:36
Kind of getting that third party credibility I think is really important
30:40
and just kinda helps that brand awareness and then the brand trust, just 'cause
30:43
we're only being three years old.
30:45
Nobody's heard about us yet, and that's one of the big struggles.
30:49
Again, I think that one of the things as a, as an orthopedic surgeon is.
30:52
We don't necessarily are the smartest guys in the room, but we're probably one
30:55
of the guys that has some of the most persistence and the most grit of anyone.
30:59
That's one of the things I've brought to the table is just having that
31:03
perseverance, that resilience, that grit to kind of keep pushing through.
31:06
So yeah, the, I think the testimonials, I think you're exactly
31:10
right, as Towlos continues to grow.
31:13
Any strategies that you're employing to scale the business while maintaining,
31:18
you know, quality that community and the trust amongst the owners and the renters?
31:22
I mean, you mentioned AI is one avenue to pursue anything else.
31:26
We see ourselves as not so much a trailer rental company, but as a company that
31:32
allows people freedom, brings experiences.
31:35
So you think about getting a horse to another state to get to a competition.
31:39
You could borrow a friend's horse trailer.
31:41
Or take advantage of the convenience in a safe and secure platform like Tolo.
31:45
So we really see ourselves as helping people have more fun, and it just, the
31:49
tool is a trailer, and so we're really leaning into the experience, the passion.
31:54
That's one of the reasons we love the Motorsports community.
31:56
I mean, that's where Tolo started on a racetrack, specifically Road America.
32:02
And we love the passion.
32:03
We love the community.
32:05
We see ourselves being defensible by building a community of passionate people.
32:10
You know, you and I talked about Grid life before we came on air and
32:13
just the community and what we found.
32:15
It's amazing.
32:16
So we have, you know, we have the Towlos chat, and I cannot tell
32:19
you how many times, you know this one guy, oh, I have my GT three.
32:23
I'm thinking of a specific scenario where one of our hosts has a Futura
32:27
trailer, which are amazing trailers.
32:29
Those are those aluminum lowering trailers, right?
32:31
And so they were back and forth and talking about, oh yeah, I have
32:35
some small race ramps that I use.
32:37
Because I have a big splitter on mine and so you're welcome to use those.
32:40
And just like there's a real sense of community and like helping
32:44
each other and we love that.
32:45
I mean, that's how, why I started this, and it's just, it puts a
32:48
smile on our face when we see these conversations and we see these guys
32:52
helping each other and basically expanding this already very vibrant.
32:56
Community, and we're just trying to add to that.
32:59
Matt, let's switch gears yet again into our final segment,
33:02
and let's turn back to you.
33:04
You know, we did a lot of data crunching there, a lot of
33:06
figuring out how Towlos works.
33:08
But let's talk about how, not just the transformation of the platform,
33:12
but your personal transformation.
33:14
So what have you learned after a couple years of going through this process,
33:19
transitioning from the operating room to Towlos and into the startup world?
33:23
A couple things come to mind.
33:25
You know when you're in pre-med and then med school and then residency,
33:29
and then fellowship, right?
33:30
Your, your head is down, you don't really come up to breathe.
33:33
You're just going, and then you wake up and you finish training and you're 32.
33:37
You know?
33:37
So you did that for your entire teens and twenties.
33:40
One of the things that's been a really cool, I think, professional
33:43
and personal journey for me.
33:45
My last surgery was December 18th, 2021.
33:49
I do miss it sometimes, especially if I'm thinking about this, talking about
33:52
it like this, but I'm so intellectually stimulated now, and I'm not bored.
33:57
I think if I was bored or if Towlos wasn't as exciting or something,
34:01
you know, I, I would miss it more.
34:03
But I've realized at least two things.
34:05
One is that I'm actually more naturally a generalist.
34:09
Of course when you go to medical school, you have the opportunity to be
34:12
a general practitioner pediatrician, more of a primary care doc.
34:16
Of course, I kind of went the other route where I was a specialist and actually a,
34:19
what's considered a subspecialist, and as I've kind of reflected on my natural
34:24
personality, I love being a generalist.
34:26
I actually love learning a little bit about a lot of things, you know,
34:30
whether it's cars and I don't do everything that you guys do as far as,
34:33
you know, just pulling engines out.
34:35
But now I can change the rear diff fluid and the clutch fluid, and the
34:38
brake fluid and the trans fluid and the Corvette and, and that, you know,
34:41
learning a little bit about that.
34:44
I'm now learn a little bit about social media, a little bit about marketing,
34:48
a little bit about web development.
34:50
And so what's been fun for me is to identify people with talent, try to
34:55
position them in a way that they're set up for success, and then figure
34:58
out how to get out of their way.
35:00
That's been something that's been real exciting.
35:02
And so I see in myself in some ways as more of a chief inspirational officer,
35:07
someone who I can inspire people.
35:10
I have a plaque right over here that I'm looking at.
35:12
So when I was in high school, one of the sports I played was basketball,
35:16
but I wasn't very good, and so I was still playing JV when I was a junior.
35:21
Then I got the plaque.
35:22
It wasn't even most improved.
35:24
It was most inspirational.
35:27
That was the plaque.
35:27
I'm looking at it right here.
35:29
I keep that there as a reminder, Hey, you may not have talent, but you can
35:33
inspire others to do great thing.
35:35
And so that's been something that I've continued to aspire to do.
35:39
Second thing I think that I've learned, Eric, is I'm naturally more risk tolerant.
35:44
Of course, in medicine, we're taught to be very risk adverse,
35:47
which I think is appropriate.
35:48
You don't want some cowboy saying, Hey, I think we can fix that rotator cuff.
35:52
I used to do a lot of rotator cuff surgery, a lot of ACL reconstruction,
35:56
you know, Hey, I think we can fix that.
35:57
I mean, you don't want some cowboy just.
35:59
Trying to figure it out.
36:00
Let's see how it goes.
36:01
So you want docs to be very risk adverse and you want, you know, that
36:06
success ratio to be up 95 plus percent.
36:09
Of course, in the startup world, you almost have to be the opposite.
36:12
You have to be very risk tolerant, you have to be willing to kind of try things.
36:16
We call 'em high risk, low data decisions.
36:20
And we, we make those every day.
36:22
And so I've found that actually naturally my personality is more risk tolerance.
36:26
So I would say those would be two things that I've kind of learned as
36:29
I've reflected back on my journey.
36:31
So if you could talk to Matt on December the 19th of 2021, the day
36:36
after you retired from medicine.
36:38
Knowing what you know now, what would you tell 'em?
36:40
One of the advantages of being a first time founder, which is what I am, is that
36:45
you'd not been through the pain before.
36:48
So you just don't know.
36:49
In some ways, our naivete is our greatest asset.
36:54
If you knew how hard something was gonna be, you just wouldn't do it.
36:57
You'd be like F that you just wouldn't do it.
37:00
Right.
37:01
So I guess what I would tell myself is.
37:03
Hey, continue to basically do what you've done your entire life, which is just keep
37:08
taking one step forward every single day.
37:10
And I, I have a little bit of a, I have a quote right here that I'm,
37:14
I memorized from one of my heroes, Winston Churchill, and it says, success
37:19
is stumbling from failure to failure.
37:21
With no loss of enthusiasm.
37:23
And so I would remind myself on December 19th, 2021, just, Hey, the definition
37:29
of success is stumbling from failure to failure, but not losing enthusiasm.
37:33
And, and that's, I think what I would encourage your audience, Eric, is
37:37
for those people who feel kind of stuck in what they're doing, whether
37:40
it's their career, whatever they're in, and, and it most often applies
37:44
to a particular position at work or, or, you know, a career is that.
37:48
Have the courage to step out because if you do nothing, you guarantee the outcome.
37:52
So, Matt, what's next, not just for Towlos, but for you personally?
37:57
Is there a new direction, technology, partnerships, anything
38:01
you're particularly excited about?
38:02
There's a couple partnerships that I can't speak about publicly yet
38:06
that we're really excited about.
38:07
What we're kind of right at the beginning of right now is raising a
38:11
venture capital round, and so we're raising a couple million dollars and
38:14
that's both exciting and intimidating.
38:17
'cause that's, again, not something that I've done before.
38:19
You know, I've been working on a pitch deck for the last couple months.
38:22
We've just started to talk to some believers.
38:25
That's what really what they are at this point.
38:27
People that are in the motorsports space.
38:29
They see the passion, they get it, they see an opportunity, and they wanna
38:33
be a part of that, and they believe.
38:35
And so that's what we're kind of looking for.
38:36
So if anyone out there has an interest and wants to talk, thinks that they may
38:41
be interested in investing or maybe be able to help in an advisory capacity,
38:45
I'd encourage them to reach out.
38:46
I'd love to have a conversation.
38:48
Uh, you know, I have a rule in life that's, um, it's always talked to Bob.
38:52
I don't know if you've heard this one.
38:53
I know about the Bobs from office space and what about Bob, but who?
38:57
Who's this next?
38:57
Bob?
38:58
Exactly.
38:58
This one's a different Bob.
39:00
Alright, so here's the deal.
39:01
I've adopted this philosophy, which is always talk to Bob.
39:05
You know, you got somebody, you're telling him about some problem you have.
39:08
Let's say, you know, I need an AI engineer.
39:10
That was the problem for us about two months ago.
39:12
We need somebody who is a software engineer, who has a passion for ai.
39:17
And so of course you always have people that say, Hey, I have this friend
39:20
Jim, you know, I know this guy, Jim.
39:22
I think he might be good.
39:23
And he's describing what Jim does and you're just like,
39:26
you're thinking in your head, no.
39:28
Way, this is not a good fit.
39:30
Jim is not gonna be the person I'm talking to.
39:32
You know, that's gonna kind of solve my problem.
39:35
What I've kind of just told myself is, if at all possible, always meet, in this
39:40
case, Jim, and I can't tell you how often you have this conversation with Jim and
39:44
he says, Hey, I get what you're going for.
39:46
I'm actually probably not the best person for that, but I have a friend named Nancy.
39:50
She's been working in this space, and she starts just, he starts describing
39:53
her skillset and you're thinking, oh.
39:56
Okay, now we're getting somewhere.
39:57
And it is amazing how many times, Eric, you end up finding Nancy, only
40:02
because you first talked to Bob and so you would've never talked to Nancy if
40:07
you wouldn't have first talked to Bob.
40:08
So I, I have this, I always gotta always talk to Bob philosophy, man.
40:13
I'm gonna change my name to Bob 'cause I seem to play that role quite a bit.
40:16
Do you really?
40:17
Yeah.
40:18
Okay.
40:19
We need to talk Bob.
40:21
Well, Matt, we've reached that part of the episode where I like to invite
40:24
our guests to share any shout outs, promotions, thank yous, or anything
40:28
else we haven't covered thus far.
40:29
You know, one of my main goals for being on this podcast today is just to
40:34
kind of inspire people that feel stuck.
40:37
You can apply that same principle to I think a lot of things.
40:40
Again, not too many people are kind of making a really crazy shift.
40:44
If you talk to my father-in-law, he, he would, he wanted my head examine you.
40:47
Imagine like your daughter getting married to some orthopedic surgeon.
40:50
Oh, that sounds good.
40:51
And then he's like, no, you know, given this up, pursuing some startup
40:54
that has no guarantee of success.
40:56
It's been a, it's been a real journey.
40:58
I'll tell you, there's a couple criteria I think for this and, and I
41:02
would say one, if anyone's considering doing a tech startup startup of any
41:07
kind, you gotta just go in knowing that that's gonna be difficult.
41:10
And I would say, I don't know if this is an absolute criteria, but I would probably
41:14
consider this as a criteria, is make sure your partner or your spouse is on board.
41:18
If there's tension there, you know you're going in this direction
41:21
because you kind of feel.
41:23
That's the direction you want to go.
41:24
That's gonna be hard just on its face.
41:26
But then I think you're really introducing a lot of additional
41:29
tension and hardship if your spouse, if your partner is not also on board.
41:34
So I have to give tons of credit to my wife, Emily, for just being
41:38
willing to let me take this leap.
41:41
I guess one thing that I'll say is as I was preparing for the podcast, I was
41:45
listening to the episode with Boris said, and I would say if anyone that's listening
41:50
to this right now has not listened to that one, go back and listen to that.
41:54
That was like, that was so good.
41:55
I found myself laughing a ton.
41:57
I mean, just kind of like reliving some of his memories, the way that he can
42:01
kind of describe and bring to life some of the experiences that, that he had.
42:05
So that would be one shout out is go listen to Boris said.
42:08
The other thing is anybody that wants to reach out to me,
42:11
matt@Towlos.com, MATT, at Towlos, T-O-W-L-O s.com, love to hear from you.
42:18
Thirdly, if you are looking for the right trailer, the right tool for the job, we
42:23
created a, just a custom promo code that you guys, that your listeners can insert
42:27
at checkout called fix 15 for 15% off your, your first rental, so FIX 15, and
42:34
just put that promo code in at checkout.
42:37
Well, folks, that's a wrap on today's conversation with Matt Jones, founder
42:41
and CEO of Towlos, the world's first peer-to-peer trailer sharing marketplace
42:46
from the operating room to the open road.
42:48
Matt's journey is a powerful reminder that innovation often
42:51
begins with a personal need and the courage to do something about it.
42:55
If you'd like to learn more about Towlos.
42:57
And how it's transforming the way people rent and share trailers.
43:00
Visit www.Towlos.com or follow them on social media at Towlos for the latest
43:06
updates and stories from the community.
43:08
And with that, Matt, I can't thank you enough for coming on Break Fix
43:12
and sharing your story with us.
43:13
And I have to say that the idea of transforming idle trailers
43:17
into income generating assets.
43:19
Absolutely brilliant.
43:21
It's one of those ideas that's so simple, you sit back and go, dang
43:24
it, why didn't I think of that?
43:26
It's amazing to see that even in 2025, there's still something new
43:31
that can be built, that can be created and that can blossom into something
43:35
great and we wish you and to los the best of success in the years to come.
43:39
It's been a real pleasure.
43:40
I really appreciate you extending me this opportunity.
43:44
Um, it's been a real honor.
43:45
Really, really appreciate it.
43:51
We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Break Fix Podcast, brought
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