While getting an MBA from Emory University, Julius Bryant bought a $6,000 Volkswagen Jetta. His plan: to rent it out by listing it on a peer-to-peer platform.
One customer, an Uber driver whose car was rear-ended, kept extending her rent period for multiple weeks. That was Bryant's lightbulb moment.
He tried connecting to drivers through a platform, but it cost up to $12,000 per month. So he launched his own in 2017 with co-founder Max Hockley, a former consultant at professional service company Accenture (NYSE: ACN). They named the company Jax Rideshare Rentals, a rental marketplace for drivers for companies such as Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER), Lyft Inc. (Nasdaq: LYFT) and DoorDash Inc. (NYSE: DASH).
Bryant took out a 10-year loan for $250,000 from the U.S. Small Business Administration to buy a fleet of vehicles. He paid it off within 18 months. After being rejected by Y Combinator, the company raised $1.2 million from Atlanta-based Collab Capital. Growing initially without investors helped Bryant understand his business and customers.
“If I was able to raise venture capital on day one, we might not still be alive,” Bryant said. “Your first investors should be customers. You should build something people will pay for, rather than sell a percentage of an idea that people might not want.”
Now, Bryant's Atlanta-based car rental startup continues to see growth as a shift toward remote and flexible work grows the gig economy.
In the past year and a half, Jax has rented out more than 400 vehicles — up from 50 in 2020. Revenue is expected to jump this year to $1.1 million from $870,000 in 2021. The goal for 2023 is to grow revenues to $6.4 million, raise $3.5 million in venture funding, expand its team and customer footprint.
Jax hopes to triple its full-time workforce of five, primarily in marketing and product development. The startup has an office at 2244 Metropolitan Pkwy SW and opened a second office this year in Dallas.
In 2020, it was one of 35 startups to get funding from Google for Startups’ inaugural Black Founders Fund. This year, it was one of five companies in Endeavor Atlanta’s ScaleUp ATL program and one of 36 presenting Atlanta companies at the Venture Atlanta conference.
In 2020, the gig economy grew by 33% — with 2 million Americans trying gig work for the first time, according to recruitment platform Wage Development. Four in five U.S. companies are planning to increase their use of gig workers. Over 86.5 million Americans could enter the gig economy by 2027.
Around 15% of active drivers working at rideshare companies have used a vehicle they don’t own for work, Bryant said. The addressable market for renting cars to gig economy drivers is at as much as 500,000 vehicles, said EVmo CEO Stephen Sanchez, reported financial news outlet PYMNTS.com.
While drivers can rent through those companies’ platforms, Jax distinguishes itself as platform agnostic, said Bryant. If it's more economical for a driver to be on Uber one day and Lyft the next, they can switch while renting through Jax.
