Not initially no, we do not require that you rent space or open an office if you only start out with 5 vans or less. The first phase of your business can optionally be operated from your home or existing business location (if you have another business). You can work from a home office with a computer, printer and internet access. In some markets, our licensees simply rented a small parking lot and brought in a mobile storage shed, or shipping container for equipment and camping gear. Once you grow you fleet up to 6 vans or more, we suggest you lease commercial lot with small office or shop space. Our goal is to get you up to 10+ vans within the first 12 months of business.

Wandervans has a robust website and strong online presence and SEO so that your vans are found by customers in your area and rented on a regular basis. Six months prior to your ever opening your doors, we will add your location to our website to allow customers to begin booking vans for the upcoming rental season. We are often able to book up 50% of your available vans prior to you having your first customer actually drives away in a van. This helps ensure you have plenty of momentum going into your first year of business. We also provide training on Google ads and run social media campaigns that help maximize reservations.

No, but it doesn’t hurt. All of our current locations have 2 or more partners. The ideal situation is to bring on partners that have different core skill sets to provide a well rounded team to operate the business. For example, 1 partner may be in charge of the rental operation and the other would be in charge of the van conversion operation. This allows partners to each take on specific tasks and segments of the business to effectively split up responsibilities as needed. In addition, with two or more partners, you’ll have a combined strength with regards to investment capital and borrowing power. Meaning each partner can contribute capital and leverage the borrowing power of 2 separate individuals.

No. Our proven business model is designed to take the stress away from the Franchisee. We help you streamline the marketing, van maintenance, backend support, reservations, technology and customer service, to allowing you to focus on growing your business even without previous experience in the industry.

The pace at which you can grow this business is strictly dependent on your access to capital. Our ideal candidates have both cash and borrowing power to purchase vans. Typically, we see our partners purchase 1 or 2 vans with cash, and then take out personal loans on an additional 2-3 vans. The amount of cash needed depends on whether you buy used vans or new vans. Our partners often elect to purchase a mix of new and used vans when just starting out. Therefore, you may purchase 2 used vans, at approximately $40,000 each, and get loans for an additional 2 vans, which cost new at approximately $50,000 each. We also have some tactics to attract small investors to this program, which you can use to get friends and family to potentially help you fund vans when you are first getting started.

To continue your growth from the initial 5 or so vans, you’ll need to continue to invest your personal funds into the business, or have the borrowing power to personally obtain bank loans for additional vehicles. Lastly, you can also optionally raise funds from an investor, who would provide capital for you to purchase vans. Our partners have had good luck with this after they’ve been in business for 6-8 months and are able to show the success and revenue generated from their first rental season.

We make it easy for anyone to build a successful van rental business. A background in sales, networking, marketing or any other sales related industry may be well-suited to opening a Wandervans location. In addition, if you’re interested in also opening up a van conversion business, prior experience in construction, woodworking, metal fabrication, or automotive repair would come in very handy.

Wandervans is offering all the support and strength of an experienced company to our Licensees. No matter how small or big a market your location serves, you will have all the best possible tools and training to succeed and grow your business. We feel that our unique approach to building vans allows for steady and more efficient growth that will help conserve capital and allow you to become profitable much faster than other models.

No, you won’t need any specific certifications for this type of business. We will teach you everything you need to know.

The revenue growth that your business will achieve is ultimately dependent on how quickly you can grow your rental fleet. Each market is different with regards to real estate costs, and operations costs, but we typically expect that you can break even with 4 vans with minimal overhead, and you can become relatively profitable once you’ve scaled up to 10+ vans. Overall, our goal will be to help you grow up to 20+ vans at your location, which will allow you to be very profitable, hire and retain great staff, and lease a commercial location where you business can be very successful over the long run.

In addition, should you elect to also open a conversion business with Wandervans, the additional revenue from that operation will help you achieve profitability even faster and grow your top line revenues even higher over time. We don’t recommend that you take on the conversion business in the first year, but rather suggest you add that business component in year 2 or 3, after you’ve mastered the rental side of the operation.