Startup Callbox Storage expands to first out-of-state market and aims to make self-storage easier by picking up, itemizing, storing, organizing, and bringing back a customer’s items at rates comparable to traditional self-storage. After finding success in North Texas out of its Grapevine headquarters, Callbox now plans to open its first out-of-Texas hub in Phoenix.
“Phoenix is one of the fastest growing cities in the country,” Callbox co-founder Kyle Bainter says. “We’ll be up and running in Phoenix in about a month. We’ve hired an operations manager and are putting the finishing touches on the launch.”
Callbox leverages less expensive real estate in the outskirts of a major city, such as Grand Prairie in DFW and Pflugerville near Austin, to offer more services (i.e. delivery and itemization) to customers. By paying less for its real estate, Callbox can still offer rates competitive to “main and main” self-storage facilities, Bainter says.
Since co-founders Bainter and Dan Slaven launched Callbox locally in September 2016, it has expanded to Austin and Houston in recent months while almost simultaneously raising $5.25 million in its last round of financing which ended in early 2018. Bainter and Slaven both have background in real estate, which led them to this idea.
“It’s crazy that the e-commerce industry is so evolved, yet self-storage is still so difficult to use. We created a process where we have a team of employees licensed and trained like a moving company to make it easy for people to do this from the convenience of their own home,” Bainter says.
In addition to launching its self-storage business in Phoenix, Callbox has a partnership with Kansas City-based mattress company Prime Sleep to handle inventory management and delivery. “Even when we picked the name Callbox, we felt like it could be relevant to many things. We knew in the long run, logistics would be a compliment to the storage business,” Bainter says.
In Dallas and Houston, Callbox has also expanded to include instillation services, typically for senior living developments where customers may require assistance putting together furniture.
Long term, Bainter says, Callbox has the ability to scale quickly and is already looking at expanding to an additional out-of-state market and San Antonio.
“Houston and Austin are off to a great jump, and that’s validated to us that this is a very scalable concept. Beyond that, we believe this is going to grow throughout the East to West coasts and potentially internationally.”
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