Billor Launches To ‘Democratize’ Trucking For Indepedent Drivers

The Bill of Rights was a seminal set of basic freedoms enacted as the United States of America became a new democracy. Now a company coming out of year of what it calls stealth operation is officially launched Wednesday with the goal of democratizing the trucking business for drivers.

It’s an attempt to not only attract new drivers but retain those still behind the wheel of commercial trucks who may be attracted to jobs requiring less travel, less stress and steadier schedules by providing a host of services, or amendments.

Indeed, company is called Billor, short for Bill of Rights.

“We start with our first amendment, that is, we believe every truck driver should have access to truck ownership. Our mission is to help every single truck driver to become a small entrepreneur,” said Billor CEO Vincent Goetten, in an interview.

To accomplish that mission Billor offers a lease-to-own option for member truck drivers. With zero down payment and no residual costs, at the end of any given leasing period, drivers can own their rig.

Those trucks aren’t new. Billor buys three-year old vehicles primarily from Freightliner truck dealers, according to Goetten. It’s a way to keep costs down while being able to offer trucks still in good shape and retain most of their value.

“After three years, or during these three years, is when the biggest depreciation hit happens so it’s the first three years that you have the biggest appreciation,” explained Goetten.

The trucks are also still under Freightliner warranty, he said.

Along with leasing, Billor offers a number of other services to member truckers including financial services and freight management.

As it comes out of stealth operation Billor has also revealed its artificial intelligence tool, Billor CoPilot using a specially equipped tablet computer mounted in the truck. Its purpose, says Goetten, is to help drivers make more money and improve their quality of life through better scheduling, vehicle maintenance and travel needs using machine learning and AI.

“So let’s say you have a family and you need to be next weekend at home,” explained Goetten. “So you set that goal in the platform and say I want to be home next week. We are going to guide you to the places where you should go and you also have a goal of how much money you want to make in the week. I’m going to guide you on the flow of the loads you need to pick up and deliver. Let’s say if you are at a very good location to have to get a new load, but it’s time for you to come home, we are going to provide a car, let’s say Uber cargo, to bring you to the airport.”

There’s a cost to joining Billor—14% of a particular load. For example, if a load is hired for $1,000, the driver receives $860 and Billor’s cut is $140.

However Billor does not charge for dispatching—normally a 3% charge or for factoring. That’s a practice where a fleet operator sells accounts receivable to a third party in order to gain fast cash. The third party then collects from the customer.

So far Billor has about 130 member drivers with a goal of increasing that to 300 by the end of the year and 5,000 by 2028 according to Goetten.

One of those 130 drivers is Maryland-based Douglas Amorim. During a stop while moving primarily construction materials, Amorim paused long enough to answer a few questions via email.

He joined Billor earlier this year seeing “an opportunity to own my own truck and have the freedom to haul anywhere I wanted to go.”

Amorim says he’s used a number of Billor services including CoPilot, specifically road assist, pre and post-trip inspections, and to “collect the documents needed to ensure I get paid for the loads I’ve hauled.”

So far so good. After two years on the road and less than a year with Billor, Amorim says joining the platform has made a difference.

“I have been making over $3,000.00 net per week,” Amorim explained. “I am now planning to fulfill another dream, which is to buy my first house here in the U.S. Billor has also allowed me to support not only my family in the U.S. but also my parents who live in Brazil.”

Billor looks to retain its drivers by providing enough support through its wide menu of services powered, in large part, by Billor CoPilot and its lease-to-own program.

To attract new drivers, Billor employs a sales team, relies on word-of-mouth through current driver social media channels and by offering training through Billor Academy.

“Our goal is to attract recent graduates CDL (commercial drivers license) students that they don’t have the experience yet,” said Goetten. “So what we do is we pair them with more experienced drivers in our model.

If the veteran driver offers a positive evaluation of the trainee, Billor might offer that new driver a shot at a lease deal on a truck.

The Billor Academy is also open to drivers from other countries requiring training in order to earn their U.S. CDLs, Goetten said.

Just as the original Bill of Rights grew into a full Constitution, the company named for those freedoms has some growing to do as well, including its CEO who only joined Billor at the beginning of April after spending time in what he calls the “enterprise software world.”

Now that Billor has come out of stealth, operating in the open and launching its AI Billor CoPilot tool, what’s next for its new leader?

“Making sure we have the right team in place because when you go from when we started just one year ago with three trucks, we go from three to 300 this year to 800 next year, you need the right people in place to make sure you can support the growth,” said Goetten.