Small Storage

Go Minis, the Westlake Village-based portable storage franchise, has expanded across 40 states with its brand of portable storage containers, brokering nearly a dozen new franchise deals this year. 

Despite ongoing supply chain concerns and a shipping container shortage, the brand anticipates it will exceed that growth in 2022. 

“We’ve sold more franchises this year than we’ve ever sold in our history so far this year. We have 11 franchises that we’ve sold. The containers we sold more than doubled the containers we’ve ever sold in any one year,” Christopher Walls, chief executive of Go Minis, said. “Despite the problems we have with supply chain being a little slower and that it will cost us a little more money, we were able to get it done through just being tenacious and finding additional suppliers.”

Go Minis’ storage containers are rentable by the month for residential and business use. Customers can choose to pack their stuff into 12- 16- and 20-foot long units. Rentals begin at $230 per month and increase, depending on the size. 

Over the last year, demand for the units has increased as movers sought to relocate in the midst of the pandemic. Coupled with low supply of the units themselves, business in 2020 and beyond has driven prices higher and spurred company growth. 

“What’s driving our growth right now is the real estate market,” Walls said. “We heard a stat the other day that the average person moves four to seven times in a life and the average is seven miles away and that’s right in our sweet spot.”

The pandemic has contributed to growth because people are spending more time at home, leading to organizing, redecorating and home improvement.

“They’re sitting around, they weren’t going out and doing a lot of things and they’re spending so much more time at their home. They’re not going to the office, so they’re doing all these renovation projects,” Walls noted.

Currently, the company has 106 locations in the U.S., 86 of which are franchises. Recently, Go Minis celebrated its expansion into Florida with the multi-unit signing of DMD Ventures, a company that develops, owns and operates some of the fastest-growing restaurant and hotel brands in the country, including Twin Peaks Restaurants, Papa Johns, IHG and Marriott Hotels. Go Minis is in the process of converting some of its remaining dealerships to franchise locations with incentives such as waived or decreased territory and royalty fees. 

Franchise costs

The total estimated investment necessary to begin operation of a Go Minis franchise ranges between about $264,000 and $564,000, according to internal franchise documents. This includes between $203,007 and $291,915 that must be paid to the franchisor prior to opening. A franchise territory has about 400,000 people.

California and New York continue to be high-growth markets and the company intends to expand into as many states as possible as it continues developing franchise relationships nationwide.

Despite the year-over-year expansion, Go Minis has faced supply chain disruptions for its containers. Obviously, if the franchisees can’t get the containers, they can’t rent them.

“Anybody who’s been watching the news can see the supply chain disruption affecting all businesses and ours is no exception. Our minis are manufactured abroad and they’re coming in from Asia and they come in storage shipping containers — but those shipping containers have been hard to get,” Walls said. 

The problem, Walls said, is not only that the containers are a hard-to-find commodity. Limited shipping space also means the company pays four or five times the typical rate and delivery speeds remain delayed.

In response, Wall is deciding on a strategy to accommodate the company’s long-term growth.

“We’re going to change a few things, looking at different suppliers, where we might source the containers from and that sort of thing,” he explained. “So we’re entertaining all those options as we work through this process. It seems that we’re getting a little bit of relief now here in the late stages of this year, but we don’t know whether that’s going to be sustained or whether our pricing is going to go back up. We’re still in difficulty finding room on ships and we’re kind of holding our breath right now. … It’s still not great to be honest with you, but it’s better than it was at its worst.”

Geographical expansion

Going forward, the company wants to continue converting from a dealership to a franchise model. Openings in new locations will usher in the next generation of franchisees as the brand targets locations in Northern California, Washington, Virginia, San Diego, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Seattle and Portland.

“Unlike self-storage, in order to expand, (franchisees) don’t have to build anything, they don’t need to get another lot, so there’s a lot of room for growth,” Alyson Lewis, franchise development manager for Go Minis, said. 

As for the types of people attracted to opening a franchise, she explained: “There’s a wide group, but the general kind of prospect that I’m seeing lately are younger demographics than they have been in the past. They are sales driven, or they have some kind of sales experience. They’re definitely entrepreneurial. And maybe they’re looking either to diversify or they might be in the moving industry. So, they’re usually looking to either add on to a business that they have or they’re looking to start a standalone.”