Sometimes, all it takes is an idea to build lasting connections — and companies.
And for Zach Jenkins, that idea was toilet paper. Sustainable, bamboo-based toilet paper to be exact.
That idea was how he was connected to Justin Delaney, now co-founder of Wabi Capital, through a mutual friend.
"He said, 'There's a guy that wants to launch a toilet paper company,' and I said, 'Bring him to my house,'" Delaney said, noting that while he wasn't sold on the idea, he was sold on Jenkins. "The first time I met [Jenkins] I was like, 'You need to meet Angi — the three of us could have so much fun together.'"
Angi Patel, former owner of Louisville Fine Motor Cars, and Delaney bonded over a shared love of luxury cars after meeting through their kids' school. They had only been friends for a short time when Jenkins, another car guy, was introduced to the group, which collectively owns roughly 20 high-end vehicles.
During the pandemic, the trio began brainstorming projects they could work on together — including a shared garage concept called WeWrench — when they came up with the idea for Cartainers.
The new Louisville company aims to help luxury car owners store, display and transport their rides with ease.
Building to scale
Jenkins, 28, has a background in film, but has always loved to build things. He sold his first product, a lid organizer for Pelican cases, to Pelican Products Inc. shortly after launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund it.
"That sort of gave me the notion that I could make a product and have no experience in industrial design," Jenkins said. "It gave me some validation. I tried a couple other products, kept doing film work, which I love, but I hate it because you can't scale it."
Unable to stay away from building, Jenkins started designing furniture during the Covid-19 pandemic, which is where the idea for Cartainers arose.
Delaney, who lived in a mid-century modern home at the time, wanted to display one of his luxury cars in a protective case that fit in with the other contemporary elements of the property. Patel said that initial idea evolved to make it a transportable display case.
"I'm a big car collector," he said, noting there is nothing on the market where he could load his cars himself for transport to car shows and elsewhere. "It's always big semi trucks, where the driver is climbing out of the [car] window, scratching my paint."
Cartainers solved that issue with sliding, polycarbonate doors built into the design, so the doors of the car can open after loading it into the container. The customizable containers also will have motorized doors, 24/7 monitoring, GPS tracking and electromagnetic locks, among other features.
Jenkins started working on the first iteration of a Cartainer in January 2022. It took about three or four months to transform the former shipping container, he said, noting that at the same time, he and Delaney were working on Party Horses. The non-fungible token company launched its public mint last March, offering up bottles of bourbon and tickets to an exclusive event headlined by Diplo last May.
Alongside Party Horses, Cartainers is a portfolio company of Wabi Capital, an investment firm launched by Delaney and Brook Smith last year. Patel also is an investor in the company.
The investors declined to share how much capital they've put into the business.
Cartainers got its second shipping container in late June last year, and Jenkins and Patel looked to improve on the original design, bouncing ideas off one another.
The company is based in the lower level of a nondescript strip center off Old Henry Road in Louisville's East End.
"We restructured the whole container," Jenkins said, lamenting that the first model was built out of a used shipping container, and it was pretty beat up.
That leap, from V.0 to V.1, took about nine months, he continued, during which he also constructed a slat roof with custom lighting from scratch.
Now that V.1 is 99.8% complete, the friends, who all consider themselves co-founders in the company, are preparing to launch a beta test, seeking 10 customers who want to buy and try the Cartainers for a free lifetime warranty.
Depending on options — because customers can pick what bells and whistles they want — Cartainers will be priced at about $50,000. That's far less than the average Ferrari, a brand that can easily top $400,000.
In addition to selling them direct-to-consumer, Cartainers also looks to partner with a luxury car brand, as many like Bugatti and McLaren are shipping cars in wooden crates, Patel said.
It could change whole the consumer experience, the founders say.
"This could be something that works very well, and to get to build hundreds to thousands a year, you'd need an assembly line, which would create a lot of jobs for Kentucky," Delaney said. "It's actually the perfect product to be made in Kentucky. And that's the goal — create machine jobs, create journeyman jobs."
