Most people think a serious moving business starts with a truck, a trailer, and a pile of cash. Aaron Steed's path went the opposite way. He started as a broke student athlete, selling labor first, not equipment, and letting customers decide the price. It sounds risky (because it is), but it got him early trust, fast referrals, and a brand people remembered.
This story covers the scrappy beginning, the weirdly effective $9 marketing stunt, the moment competitors tried to shut the business down, and the systems that helped it grow into a multi-location moving and storage operation without losing its standards.
From broke student athlete to a real company (without trucks)
Aaron started the company in 1997 when he was 17. His goal was simple: make money while staying in school and playing sports. He grew up around financial instability, and a normal job didn't feel like a way out. His first job was at a car wash, and after two weeks he got a $66 check. That was his "nope" moment.
The early model was almost comically lean. Customers rented the truck (often a U-Haul), picked up the movers at his parents' house, and then paid the team whatever they thought the work was worth. That pricing line became a hook: people were so used to getting squeezed by hourly add-ons and vague estimates that the honesty stood out. Even better, it fit their schedules because the movers were athletes balancing classes, practice, and competitions.
The business climbed fast in the early years: Year 1 hit $50,000, year three reached $200,000, and year four jumped to $750,000. That kind of growth doesn't happen from spreadsheets alone. It usually comes from a few things working together at the same time: a clear offer, constant hustle, and a story people can repeat to friends.
Even the name came from a repeatable story. After sweaty wrestling workouts in a shared gym, the volleyball team would walk in, see the mess, and complain: "You guys are a bunch of meatheads. This is gross." The team basically shrugged and owned it, calling themselves Meathead Movers. Plenty of people told Aaron the brand would limit expansion. He kept it anyway, and the self-deprecating edge made it stick.
If you want to see the company as it exists today, start with the official Meathead Movers moving and storage services.
The $9.99 marketing stunt that made people remember the name
Some marketing works because it's "optimized." This one worked because it was loud, local, and impossible to ignore.
Aaron and his crew would make a banner by taping broomsticks to each end, then head to a local farmers market area. They'd buy $9.99 business cards from Staples (1,000 cards with clip art, plus his pager number, which says a lot about the era). Then about 20 athletes would walk downtown in a group, chanting the brand name like a call-and-response. One person yelled "Meathead," and the rest answered "Movers."
It wasn't complicated. That was the whole point. They created tons of micro-moments: eye contact, a card handed over, a quick joke, a little attention spike. Then they wrapped the day with food (tri-tip sandwiches at Firestone). The ritual mattered, too. It made the team want to do it again, which is why it wasn't a one-time stunt. It became normal.
Meanwhile, Aaron did old-school outreach that still works in any service business. He handed business cards to friends' parents in the football bleachers and pitched it the same way every time: he'd employ local athletes, show up ready to work, and they could pay what they felt was fair. People were surprised, and that surprise opened the door.
He also went heavy on magnets. He bought door magnets and pushed them everywhere until you couldn't drive 20 minutes in San Luis Obispo without seeing one. The moment he spotted a magnet on a stranger's car (someone he didn't even know), it clicked that the brand was spreading on its own.
If you're mapping out early promotion, it helps to compare this "in-person saturation" style with more standard local advertising playbooks like Nextdoor's guide on how to market a moving business locally. Different channels, same goal: be the obvious choice in one tight area before trying to expand.
Going from rented trucks to a fleet (and what the business looks like now)
At the beginning, the company didn't own trucks because it didn't need them. That changed once truck rentals became a recurring expense big enough to justify ownership. In the early 2000s, Aaron went to a bank with a simple argument: "We're spending X every month renting trucks. If you loan us money for five new trucks, our payment becomes lower than the rentals."
The number he shared was $300,000 for five trucks at the time. He didn't have co-signers or collateral, yet the bank took the risk. That decision flipped the company from "labor service" into a full moving operation, and it opened the door to competing head-to-head with established movers.
Today, the scale is very different. Aaron described 70 trucks across locations (just the large moving trucks), about 350 employees (seasonally variable), and a position as the largest independent moving company in California. The business also expanded into storage: over 1,000 traditional mini storage lockers, about 500 wine storage lockers, plus vault storage so customers can treat them as a one-stop shop.
On the numbers side, a typical job averages around $2,000 now, and a common crew is two to three movers who spend most of the day on a job. For long-distance moves, one detail stood out because it's a clear customer benefit: they don't mix multiple customers' items in the same truck. One truck, one customer, start to finish.
Aaron also shared a simple margin snapshot: for a two-truck long-distance job priced around $5,000 to $6,000, cost of goods sold runs about half. He said they close about 90 percent of leads (he noted it's hard to track exact repeat rates, but the close ratio is strong).
Where do bookings come from now? A lot of it is what you'd expect after years of service: word of mouth and repeat customers. Add to that the visual presence of trucks on the road, internet marketing, some print, and territory sales reps who earn a percentage of the work they bring in. For paid search and SEO, Aaron shared they spend roughly $50,000 to $60,000 a month, handled by outside partners, and they're paying attention to "near me" searches.
Standing out in a crowded moving market (service rules, not slogans)
Most movers claim they're careful and "professional." That's table stakes. What mattered here were the specific promises that changed the customer's experience, plus the systems to enforce them.
Guaranteed fixed pricing is one. Another is that customers get what Aaron calls a collegiate moving experience, and the same movers load and unload, which reduces handoff errors and finger-pointing.
Then there's the one you can't miss: their movers jog when they're not carrying anything. It's not optional, it's procedure. That sets a tempo for the job, and it changes the feel of the whole move. Aaron's claim was straightforward: what takes them five hours can take a typical company six to six and a half. That saves customers time and money, and it becomes a story the customer repeats later.
Protection and packing details also came through clearly. They pad wrap items, shrink wrap dresser drawers, secure pads with rubber bands, and label boxes by destination room (where it goes, not what it is). That last part sounds small, but it's one of those "less chaos at the end" decisions customers feel immediately.
Quality control, though, is where this becomes more than good intentions. They follow up with every customer after every job. They track breakage-to-move ratios, quality scores, and driving safety scores. They also stack-rank workers and team captains using key KPIs, then coach and incentivize based on what the data shows.
When a one-star review hits, it triggers an internal process. An email goes to management, an ops manager responds with what happened, whether coaching occurred, whether the customer was contacted, and what the action plan is. It's not glamorous, but it keeps quality from turning into a guessing game.
To maintain strong reviews at scale, Aaron said you have to reverse engineer every touch point, aim to come in under the "not to exceed" price, and add concierge-like help (even helping with utilities). Then you still have to ask for the five-star review. A lot of companies forget that last part.
For readers building any local service company, it's worth seeing how others formalize operations and pricing early. Xero has a practical breakdown in its step-by-step moving company startup guide.
The employee approach: "encourage turnover," build better futures
Employee churn is usually treated like a disease. Aaron reframed it. He described a concept they call "encourage turnover," where the company actively helps employees move on to better roles, as long as it's a step up.
The process starts with understanding an employee's five to ten-year goals. Then they reverse engineer what skills the person can build on the job: commercial truck driving experience, physical and mental toughness, leadership, customer service, and the ability to manage teams. They'll even help employees translate that into resume language (like transporting tens of millions of dollars of household goods, leading hundreds of employees, and hitting measurable service ratings). Finally, they'll call the hiring manager for the job the employee wants, again, if it's truly an upgrade.
That sounds almost too generous until you see the business logic: it attracts motivated people, and it creates a culture where the job is a stepping stone, not a trap. Aaron also said athletes make strong fits because the work is physical, the standard is high, and athletes are used to pressure and performance.
Extra revenue without losing focus (and why they cut house cleaning)
As the core moving operation matured, the business expanded into storage and packing. Aaron called storage and packing the best margins, especially storage because it's recurring revenue. Storage now accounts for about 10 percent of revenue, and they launched it in 2010.
Wine storage is part of that. One of their wine locker areas sits at 57 degrees with humidity control. They said people pay because they join wine clubs, collect more than they can store at home, and want to age bottles for years.
Not every adjacent service worked, though. They cut house cleaning because customers didn't want to pay for it at the level needed to make it worth doing well, and small imperfections led to costly call-backs (like returning to fix a smudge on a mirror). That's a helpful reminder: just because customers ask for something doesn't mean it fits your model.
When competitors tried to shut them down, and the legal fight that followed
Fast growth makes enemies. In the early days, a group of established moving competitors petitioned the state to shut Aaron's company down for not having a PUC permit (a permit required for moving companies). Aaron believed they didn't need it because they weren't transporting goods on public roads, since customers drove their own rental trucks. The problem was resources. They couldn't defend the position properly at the time.
Then it got uglier. Their phone lines got shut off. Aaron described it as feeling like an act of war. The response was decisive: get the permit, buy trucks, and compete directly. He said the companies that tried to shut them down are no longer in business.
Aaron also described the riskiest period as litigation with the federal government, which cost millions in legal fees and dragged on for years. He didn't choose the fight, but he chose to continue it until a mediated settlement agreement. One takeaway he shared felt blunt but real: if you're dealing with a government agency, be ready for a long battle because they have endless resources, and keep communication open until you find the people you can work with.
If you want more context on that federal dispute, these two reports show how publicly the situation played out: Goldwater Institute's overview of the EEOC case and Reason's write-up on the government action against the moving company.
Doing good became the mission, and it changed hiring too
A decision that started small became part of the company's identity. Aaron said they would occasionally get calls from women in abusive situations who needed help leaving. They'd help for free. After doing it repeatedly, they realized they needed to partner with shelters so they could do it safely and consistently.
Now they provide unlimited free services to nine different shelters across central and southern California. Aaron said it's never been something they consider cutting back, even in hard financial periods. It also helped them hire. People, including their COO, joined because they wanted to work somewhere with that kind of purpose.
This part hit harder because it's not vague charity talk. It's direct, operational help, using the company's core skill to solve a scary, urgent problem.
Aaron's "start from scratch" blueprint (PR, referrals, and picking the right niche)
Aaron's advice wasn't "go raise money." It was more like, "get moving, then get known."
If he had $100 to start today, he said he'd put it into PR, because it's more powerful when someone else tells your story. A press release alone isn't the point. The real value is relationships, the kind a good PR person already has. He gave an example of getting on Fox News with one phone call through PR help. Once you have credible coverage, you can reference it everywhere else as proof.
On outreach, he likes going after high-end residential early. He suggested knocking on doors where you see for-sale signs, leaving a door hanger, and meeting the real estate agents who sell the most homes. His line was basically: "I'm here before, during, and after the move, and I won't let you down." Simple, direct, eye contact.
For growth campaigns, he also talked about offering free or deeply discounted services to connectors, people who can refer you consistently. In his case, that meant realtors. It's not "free work forever," it's a deliberate relationship starter.
One more small but helpful customer tip set stood out too. To save money and prevent friction: give accurate inventory, donate what you haven't used in a long time, get the truck as close to the house as possible, tape boxes shut, and label boxes by the room they should land in.
For readers who like more structured startup steps, ZenBusiness has a detailed primer on moving company startup costs and setup. It's not Aaron's method, but it's a decent contrast.
And if you're building a sister service like junk removal alongside a moving business, this internal story pairs well with the same local, relationship-based theme: bootstrapping a $50K/month removal service from scratch.
A few fast facts that show the human side
The small answers sometimes tell you more than the big ones.
Aaron said the heaviest items he's moved are pianos. The most moves he personally did in one day was three. The weirdest customer request was moving a dead plant, while the customer yelled at them not to injure it. Their mascot is the "dog bear," which he pointed out on the wall. And the thing people assume about running a $20 million company that's wrong is that you get carefree vacations.
What I learned from this story (and what I'd steal for my own work)
I've seen a lot of business stories where the lesson is basically "get funding" or "buy ads." This one felt different, because the early moves were almost annoyingly simple. Go meet people, do good work, and give them something easy to repeat.
The biggest thing I'm taking with me is how Aaron treated trust like the real product. "Pay what you think we're worth" wasn't a pricing strategy forever, it was a trust shortcut when he had zero track record. Same with the chanting walk downtown. It wasn't sophisticated, but it created memory, and memory creates calls.
I also liked the honesty around systems. He didn't pretend culture magically scales. They track KPIs, review one-star feedback, and coach crews constantly. That's the part that's less fun to post on social, yet it's probably why the brand didn't collapse under its own growth.
Finally, the shelter work made me pause. It's easy to say "values matter." It's harder to build operations around them and keep doing it when the economy swings. That part felt like the clearest signal that this wasn't just about money.
Conclusion
A $20M moving business didn't start with trucks, it started with a clear offer, relentless local visibility, and standards that were enforced like rules, not hopes. Aaron Steed's story also shows that growth gets easier when you build a team that can run without you, and when your mission is bigger than the next job. If there's one idea to carry into your own moving business, it's this: make your service easy to trust, and your brand easy to remember.