An interesting related recent podcast is The Answer Is Transaction Costs episode
Parts is (Not) Parts: The Life Cycle Problem for Heavy Equipment. Part of the discussion is orienting a biz to what is actually being sold. Is the equipment-time being sold or is the capability being sold? When the capability is sold the story becomes more of a total supply-chain rather than simply static capital good.
We trace how Alex Schuessler, the once and once-again President of
SmartEquip--also a scholar of expressive choice!--built a platform that makes
machines more profitable by erasing the friction between parts, service, and
uptime. The rental economy, Japan’s utilization model, and IoT diagnostics
reveal why transaction costs, not price tags, decide who should own and who
should rent.
If you aren't vertically integrate with repair, personal screening of renters, transport, education you are basically fucked in the heavy equipment rental business. The IT end of it is by far the easiest part.
Heavy equipment isn't anything like renting cars.
A difficult part of heavy equipment is that it relies heavily on personal contacts, operator skill, and having market advantage on repairs (in-house skillset) in order to operate it profitably.
Your typical equipment renter beats the everliving fuck out of the machine, operating it improperly, not letting hydraulics warm up, not taking care of the engine, doesn't lubricate the machine in the field, puts large force on the equipment with cylinders extended etc etc. It's not a model that can work anywhere close to something like car rentals where the renter can expect the police to pull them over if they really thrash the equipment that at least the median renter will only push the car so hard.
I live in a DIY heavy rural area and I have seen these guys go bankrupt while every other rental business in the area succeeded. It's a brutal business. The guy I have seen locally succeed the most basically works on the anti-model of EquipmentShare -- he gets renters largely via word of mouth and has people size you up when you enter his facility and if they think you are a tool they will only rent you something of small value to see if you beat the shit out of it.
I’ve not been on the business end of this industry but I rent skid steers and mini excavators a handful of times a year. I feel like all you said is true, I’m tough on the equipment and I don’t many many choices with the longevity of the machine in mind. However, I’ve considered buying the machines and so have realized the sticker price on a new machine is worth about 30-50 days of daily rent on most the machines I’ve used (assume that relationship exists on bigger things too). Now if they employ maintenance people then they already have a fixed cost and can do preventative maintenance and frequent monitoring. It shouldn’t be too big of a deal and should be priced into the rental rates.
So, it takes a market will pay the rates needed. It takes the business owner to be firm on those rates, under charging may drive revenue but will end up losing as repair expenses go up. And, it requires some volume. I’m guessing what you’re witnessing is businesses with one of those problems. It’s not that people are hard on them and the need a lot of maintenance. These machines need a lot of maintenance even when they’re parked 90% of the time. That’s why I’ve never bought one. I don’t want to deal with the headaches even though the financial part is probably sound for me, the hassle factor is high.
Does anyone else find the AI writing excruciating? It's not that hard to prompt the AI to not write in AI-ese. And it's a million times better if a human writes it. It's low effort just to paste the slop....
The tells:
"EquipmentShare’s founders grew up in a commune where rules were strict, and self-reliance wasn’t a slogan — it was a necessity."
"The EquipmentShare founders didn’t start by trying to “disrupt” an industry. They started by solving their own problem."
"Over time, they didn’t just build a marketplace. They built an operating system for the jobsite."
EquipmentShare (YC W15) Is Like Airbnb for Construction Equipment - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9170963 - March 2015 (10 comments)
EquipmentShare, the Airbnb of construction, raises $26M - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13473185 - January 2017 (0 comments)
EquipmentShare raises $5.5MM for peer-to-peer marketplace for heavy equipment - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11769516 - May 2016 (0 comments)
https://taitc.buzzsprout.com/2186249/episodes/18387317-parts...
Synopsis:
Heavy equipment isn't anything like renting cars.
A difficult part of heavy equipment is that it relies heavily on personal contacts, operator skill, and having market advantage on repairs (in-house skillset) in order to operate it profitably.
Your typical equipment renter beats the everliving fuck out of the machine, operating it improperly, not letting hydraulics warm up, not taking care of the engine, doesn't lubricate the machine in the field, puts large force on the equipment with cylinders extended etc etc. It's not a model that can work anywhere close to something like car rentals where the renter can expect the police to pull them over if they really thrash the equipment that at least the median renter will only push the car so hard.
I live in a DIY heavy rural area and I have seen these guys go bankrupt while every other rental business in the area succeeded. It's a brutal business. The guy I have seen locally succeed the most basically works on the anti-model of EquipmentShare -- he gets renters largely via word of mouth and has people size you up when you enter his facility and if they think you are a tool they will only rent you something of small value to see if you beat the shit out of it.
So, it takes a market will pay the rates needed. It takes the business owner to be firm on those rates, under charging may drive revenue but will end up losing as repair expenses go up. And, it requires some volume. I’m guessing what you’re witnessing is businesses with one of those problems. It’s not that people are hard on them and the need a lot of maintenance. These machines need a lot of maintenance even when they’re parked 90% of the time. That’s why I’ve never bought one. I don’t want to deal with the headaches even though the financial part is probably sound for me, the hassle factor is high.
https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/content/images/2026/01/will...
The tells:
"EquipmentShare’s founders grew up in a commune where rules were strict, and self-reliance wasn’t a slogan — it was a necessity."
"The EquipmentShare founders didn’t start by trying to “disrupt” an industry. They started by solving their own problem."
"Over time, they didn’t just build a marketplace. They built an operating system for the jobsite."