World's Most Unusual Moving Company

Selling Cyber-meals

Shawn Lyons Story

http://www.rabbitmovers.com/

Rabbit markets itself as an anomaly in an industry with a bad rep, capitalizing on a staff of artistic types, word-of-mouth referrals, and a Web site that posts positive customer testimonials and descriptions of extra services traditional moving companies don't usually offer.

So far, Rabbit's bare-bones sales and marketing strategy—except for maintaining its site, the company spends no money on advertising—is working. Rabbit's founder, former itinerant writer Shawn Lyons, who started the moving company in 2004 for $1,500—the cost of a 1981 Dodge Ram cargo van—estimates revenues will be around $300,000 in 2006. This is up one-third from a year ago. "Originally, I was just going to do the 'man with a van' thing and have time to write," Lyons says.

But about nine months into helping friends move their furniture in his spare time, Lyons decided he was onto something because demand kept increasing. So he pursued the licensing and insurance required by New York City and State and started to build Rabbit into more than just a traditional moving company, carving out a niche with young urban dwellers.

Today Rabbit, apart from making residential and commercial moves within the New York metro area and renting storage space, also offers massages ($80 per hour) and feng shui ($200). Clients normally take advantage of these extras after the move. Moving prices range from $100 an hour to a flat $1,500 for a complicated, labor-intensive move that includes packing.

Toby MacPhearson, a 31-year-old information-technology worker in Manhattan, paid Rabbit about $650 to move from the neighborhood of Chelsea to Hell's Kitchen, and is glad he took advantage of the feng shui service. "I was mostly in it for the practical aspect: It helped me reduce my stress by helping me set up the apartment in a logical manner," says MacPhearson, who has since referred two friends to Rabbit.

Still, Rabbit is a tiny presence in an industry that generates approximately $7 billion a year in revenues and employs an estimated 450,000 workers. David Sparkman, a spokesperson for the American Moving and Storage Assn. (AMSA), an industry advocacy group with 3,400 members, estimates that there are 5,000 to 6,000 mostly small, family-owned moving companies, with just a handful of large van lines.

With so much competition out there, concentrating on a unique group of customers has helped Rabbit establish a strong reputation. Apart from Rabbit's positive plugs in its Web site's testimonials section, sites like Apartmenttherapy.com and Brooklynian.com include posts such as: "Rabbit Movers are awesome. I've used them and passed them on to friends as highly highly recommended."

That seal of approval lends multiple benefits to Rabbit. "The notion of community in an urban setting leads to positive word of mouth, customer loyalty, and branding, and it seems like Rabbit has all of those," says Heidi Neck, assistant professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College.

Those who hire Rabbit to help them move shouldn't expect stereotypical movers. "Most of our guys are artists or in some creative field; they're just a really creative bunch," says Lyons, who counts chefs, painters, musicians, and writers ranging in age from 23 to 43 as his employees. "We're trying to move away from the perception of movers being supermacho creeps. Movers kind of have a bad rep in New York, and for good reason. There are a lot of scams, so we try to combat that," he says.

Aside from wanting to work with people whom he liked on a personal level, Lyons says it was easier to communicate the tone he's trying to create for the company to people who already intuitively understood it through their own experience. Trying to nurture friendly interactions with clients further sets Rabbit apart from the competition.

Since good employees are the key to creating a good moving experience, Rabbit pays fair wages across the board. Lyons says most of his movers make between $13 and $15 an hour, while many other companies pay workers under the table or at minimum wage. Keeping morale up, he says, is a necessity when your primary selling point is alleviating stress for the customer.

Also atypical of a moving company: Rabbit's community of young movers and customers is forming around the Brooklyn art scene. Lyons studied literature and writing at Temple University in Philadelphia and wanted to have his career fit with his creative background. So he recently bought and renovated a space in Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood (Dumbo stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge), where he now rents space for artists to display their work.

Not directly related to Rabbit's moving business but intimately connected with its people and its style, the studio will host exhibitions at this year's Dumbo Arts Festival, and some of the artists will be Rabbit's own movers. Lyons says most of the people he expects to attend the exhibition are former customers who asked to be added to the Rabbit mailing list.

The company also specializes in moving art for galleries. Lyons says the movers' appreciation for the work establishes a trust between them and the client. "What's really great is that they're not just movers, they're really smart guys. In a business you need things that are malleable—people who are quick and able to adjust to what you need," says Priyanka Mathew, gallery director for Gallery Arts India, one of Rabbit's clients, and a former banker at Goldman Sachs. Mathew says Rabbit has moved scores of contemporary Indian paintings and sculptures without damaging a thing.

The company also employs a design aesthetic on its Web site, trucks, and T-shirts that appeals to its target demographic of young urbanites. "I just went along with what I would want in the aesthetic of the designs, the character, and quality of the movers. So far it's working, I think," says Lyons.

Rabbit's faithful clients—Mathew included—agree that the company's got staying power. "I really think this is the way that business is going to be moving—especially small business. You have to be sound fundamentally, but to create a niche and an edge, you've got to try and differentiate yourself, and that's what Rabbit does very well," says Mathew.
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Entrepreneurship Booming in Emerging Economies

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Start-up activity grew in China and India in 2006, but fell slightly in the U.S., according to a new study.

Developing countries have experienced a boom in entrepreneurial activity over the last year, while entrepreneurs in the United States have created most of the 6.8 million new jobs added here since 2003. Those are among the key findings of new research released this month by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM).

The eighth annual GEM report measures entrepreneurial activity in 42 countries by surveying more than 2,000 people in each country. The 2006 data show a systematic relationship between a nation’s economic development and its level of entrepreneurial activity. Countries with the lowest Gross Domestic Product have seen a rise in start-up activity, according to the report. In the United States, on the other hand, early-stage entrepreneurial activity among people 18 to 64 years old fell to 10 percent from 12.4 percent in 2005. Among the countries in the survey, entrepreneurial activity is highest in Peru at 40.2 percent and lowest in Belgium at 2.7 percent, according to the report.

GEM researchers explain that the percentage of start-up businesses is higher in the poorest countries because there are fewer alternatives available for making a living in those places. Developing countries tend to foster innovation, creating room for entrepreneurs to replicate something locally that has been produced elsewhere, according to Maria Minniti, Research Director for the GEM Consortium and professor of economics and entrepreneurship at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.

New business start-ups also rose significantly in China and India this year. Entrepreneurial activity in China is up to 16.2 percent from 13.7 percent last year. In India, meanwhile, one in every ten people is engaged in entrepreneurial activity, the report shows. But India also has the highest level of failed start-ups--at 15 percent--among the nations studied. Governmental bureaucracy and the presence of large companies in India make it more difficult for start-up companies to establish themselves, GEM researchers note.

For high-income countries such as Japan and the core nations of the European Union, early-stage entrepreneurial activity remains low, at 10 percent or less. While the proportion of people starting businesses in the U.S. dropped slightly in 2006, the level of entrepreneurship remains high compared to European countries such as the United Kingdom, where it hovers just above five percent.

Even in low-income countries, entrepreneurs are often driven by passion and opportunity, the study found. A majority of entrepreneurs across the world claim they are starting a business to capitalize on an opportunity, according to the report. Reasons for choosing the entrepreneurial lifestyle include the desire to be independent and to be passionate about work, Minniti said. "Satisfaction is a big motivation for productivity," she added. In high-income countries, this translates into high percentages of entrepreneurs forsaking other career options to pursue an entrepreneurial opportunity. In Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands, that type of opportunity-driven entrepreneurship accounted for more than 90 percent of new start-ups.

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