Today we’d like to introduce you to LeeAnn Adams.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
MAD Freight is a mobile app designed to Make A Difference in people’s lives by helping them save time, make money, and be more efficient. The idea for this app began many years ago when Mike and his dad, both farmers, drove from Southern Utah to Caldwell, Idaho to pick up a fertilizer spreader for the farm. The day after they got back, a salesman from the local John Deere dealership pulled onto the farm and told them he had also been in Caldwell that week and he would have pulled it home for them. This was frustrating, but it sparked an idea.
What if there was an app where people could request to have items delivered for them by people who were already traveling? The idea grew brighter as we kept experiencing different scenarios with similar details. We have to travel an hour to the nearest Costco. It’s a trip we don’t mind making, although it is often inconvenient. We started noticing how many times we would see people from our hometown when we were there or heard of people who had been there within a day or two of our trip. When we need parts on the farm and one of the employees has to park a tractor or stop what they were working on to drive to the farm supply store, productivity slows or stops altogether in order to make the trip to replace supplies. I am a mom of five and over the years have spent numerous trips wrestling children or bribing them to stay in the cart and be quiet while shopping at the grocery store. These are some of our personal experiences, and we figured that if there were this many instances where these problems arose for us, other people were likely experiencing the same things.
We took a leap in January 2016 and began the process of developing MAD Freight. Although we initially hired an app developer, the lack of communication and progress led us to look around for other options. We ended up hiring Mike’s brother, Kevin, to build MAD Freight for us. He didn’t have any previous experience building mobile applications but has a background in coding and website development so we felt confident he could figure it out. We contracted for him to work for us one day a week. In July 2018, the web-based version of MAD Freight was released. It had good functionality but was missing some key elements that are crucial for an app of this nature to function most effectively. So he spent the next year transferring the code to a mobile app. In July of 2019, the app was approved and became available for iOS on the App Store. A month later it was released for Android in Google Play.
In August, I randomly came across a Facebook ad and entered our new little business in the Speedpitch competition at the Utah Rural Summit on the campus at Southern Utah University. We advanced through three rounds and received top choice from six of the seven judges, including Utah’s Governor, Gary Herbert. From the competition, we made contact with two amazing businessmen who were willing to invest in our business and help us move the app to the next level. With their help, we have since integrated a secure payment system through Stripe into the app, as well as a driver license verification system. The newest version of the app was released in September 2021.
Currently, we are exploring many different marketing options to steer traffic to the website and app and gain users. We know it has the potential to Make A Difference in the lives of many people nationwide. Also when the business is generating enough revenue, we have a lot of ways we want to reward our users and help people in our community.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Building a mobile app can be a bumpy road, especially for those of us who have little experience with technology and no experience in coding (I am a nurse and my husband is a farmer)! We hired Mike’s brother, Kevin, to build our 1.0 version then took that to a development service company to continue developing the more extensive features including ID verification and Stripe payment system. We later learned that we would have been better off to have them start from scratch rather than try and integrate new and complicated code into the old code. It was explained to us as being compared to remodeling an old home.
You can’t get a good estimate on how the project will go until you tear down the walls and see what is behind them. It took about 4 times as much time and money as we anticipated. The biggest challenge we have faced, and continue to face, is self-funding a project that continues to need development. When bugs show up or something doesn’t work right within the app, we have no way of knowing the amount of time it will take to locate and fix the bug. As the owners, and the ones responsible for funding the project, that can be a tricky spot to be in. Also, there are features we would like to add to the app to increase safety, usability, and functionality, but each time we add anything, it increases the cost.
Along the way, we have learned so many things about running a technology business and all of the components that go along with it. I fight feelings of imposter syndrome almost daily but I just keep doing the next thing that seems right and I believe we will see results from continuing to try.
Now that the 2.0 version is live and functioning, our next biggest challenge is figuring out the most effective way to market to reach the audience who will use and benefit from the app the most. People generally need to see a new idea multiple times before they decide to try it so we are currently trying multiple platforms of advertising to show up for people in different ways so they will make the decision to try it.
As you know, we’re big fans of MAD Freight. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
MAD Freight, a peer-to-peer shipping app, was created in response to multiple problems we encountered personally and in our business. As often as they were causing problems for us, we figured they would be a problem for other people too. Examples include: *Every business needs supplies, parts, or merchandise to operate. A breakdown of equipment can slow or stop production, costing the business money.
*Many people in rural communities commute to work so they can have a wider selection of job choices and still live in a smaller community. High gas prices can counteract the benefits of higher-paying jobs in the city. People in small communities also don’t have access to a variety of businesses or wholesale stores that are available in bigger cities.
*Many students can’t secure a job during school because it is hard to find jobs that are flexible enough to work around sports and extracurricular activities or college schedules.
*Taking small children to the grocery shops will likely increase the stress level of any parent.
*Social media sites become cluttered with posts from people trying to find a contact going to or coming from specific places so they can have something delivered for them.
MAD Freight is an app my husband, Mike, and I had developed to solve these problems. It was developed with three main purposes in mind: 1- people who frequently travel or commute can earn gas money going where they were already going by making deliveries for people who are willing to pay a fee. 2- individuals or businesses can utilize people who are already traveling to pick up or deliver items for them, eliminating the need to make unnecessary trips and freeing up their time. Three people wanting to earn extra money, on their own time, can search the map and commit to delivering items in their area.
The usability of Mad Freight is non-discriminatory in every demographic. There are no limitations regarding race, education, age, income, location, or gender. Being a driver only requires a driver’s license and a method of transportation. The only requirement to ship items is to be able to pay the fee you’ve specified in your shipping request. The user submits a request in the app. People who have specified to receive notifications for that area will be notified of the request and by going to the map can “commit to delivering” the request.
The driver updates the user when the item is “in transit” and when it has been “delivered”. The user then clicks “paid” and the funds are released to the driver. It usually ends up being a win/win. The user saves time by not having to run their errands themselves, and the driver makes money, often going somewhere they were already going!
We created our logo to represent our purpose in the business, as well as our why behind the business. The logo has the “A” in the word MAD set in a luggage tag to represent travel, along with the notch out of the D representing forward motion. We also capitalized the MAD to be an acronym for Make A Difference.
What matters most to you?
The WHY behind MAD Freight is to Make A Difference (MAD) in the lives of our users. From the beginning, we have wanted to build a business that will help people make money, save time, and be more efficient in their personal lives and/or their businesses.
MAD Freight has the potential to benefit people from any demographic. From students to the elderly, unemployed to business owners, moms to truckers, farmers to commuters, rural and urban communities, MAD Freight has the scalability to reach communities nationwide. A few examples include:
-Some students have a hard time finding jobs that are flexible enough to accommodate their school schedule in addition to their extracurricular activities. Anyone with a driver’s license and a car can create a job for themselves, on their own time, claiming shipping requests on MAD Freight for an income.
-A business owner has supplies for the business shipped through MAD Freight instead of leaving the business themselves or paying an employee to pick up the items.
-A mom in a rural community makes regular trips to the nearest wholesale store. Instead, she requests those items on MAD Freight, and someone already traveling to that location picks up her items for her. They make money themselves doing something they were already doing and the mom saves time, gas money, and impulse buy expenses from not making the trip herself. Or, if she does make the drive, she updates her destination on the app and picks up items for other people on her trip, and pays for her time and gas.
-A man who commutes to work every day can make deliveries to and/or from work to help pay for the rising fuel costs.
-An elderly person who can no longer drive can maintain their independence by using the app to have someone deliver their groceries, mail, prescriptions, etc. This will involve paying a shipping fee only, rather than the cost of an agency or employee to perform these tasks for them.
-An individual in an urban community who needs a little extra income can utilize their truck bed by advertising their availability to deliver furniture or other purchases made on classified sites for people who don’t have a truck.
-A family from a rural community wants to experience the wider selection of restaurants in a city without having to travel to the city each time. They can request food deliveries on MAD Freight, paying a small shipping cost, but saving time and gas money, and avoiding the stress of taking small children to restaurants.
-As the app goes nationwide, trucking companies will find loads for their truckers to complete on a backhaul or LTL (less than a load), preventing them from ever driving with empty trailers. This will reduce shipping costs and, in turn, reduce overall costs for American consumers.
As we generate revenue from the app, we also want to Make A Difference for our app users, as well as people in our community. We love to have giveaways and offer incentives to those who use the app and/or follow us on Social Media. We look forward to the day that we can offer greater rewards and prizes to our MAD Freight community!
We have seen actual results of the difference it has made in the lives of our users and drivers. As we follow these personal experiences of how MAD Freight has benefitted our users, it fuels us to continue to market and make the service available to as many people as we can so they, too, can see their lives change from using it.
Contact Info:
- Email: leeann@madfreight.com
- Website: www.madfreight.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madfreight/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/madfreight
Image Credits
Beccaevansphotography
