It is often talked about how MyTrucking was created to help out some mates. But we’ve never really told you the story of how it all happened. To celebrate nine years of MyTrucking, Sam and Sara Orsborn recently took four very special people away on a trip to celebrate what they helped create
Stu and Em Taylor, and Henry and Tori Bunny were the first-ever customers of MyTrucking. And if it hadn’t been for them, MyTrucking may never have existed.
Going out on their own
In 2010 longtime New Zealand friends and brothers in law Stu and Henry joined forces to purchase Wairarapa-based transport company David Pope Transport, owned by David Pope in New Zealand.The newly named Wairarapa Livestock Transport Limited was a new venture for the duo but a challenge they were hungry to meet.
Henry, who had worked for David Pope straight out of high school, was working as a stock agent for Silver Fern Farms NZ, with David doing much of the transport. After doing some stints in Western Australia, Stu and Em decided it was time to head back to NZ. Stu took up a dispatcher, and then later driver role for Martinborough Transport in NZ.
After 30-plus years in the business, David Pope was ready to put his trucker hat into retirement and sell up. Henry immediately saw an opportunity, and over lunch discussed it with Stu and Em. By the end of lunch, a partnership was formed and a plan made and in 2010 they completed the purchase and renamed the business – Wairarapa Transport Limited.
The paperwork that came with taking over the day-to-day operations of the longstanding transport business was not for the faint-hearted. It was something Stu and Henry quickly decided needed dealing with more efficiently.
The Orsborn solution
Enter friend, Sam Orsborn. Sam’s sideline interest in modern technology and its impacts on business efficiencies, made him the first port of call for Stu and Henry.
The trio got together with a whiteboard and started working out a solution. Many whiteboard markers later, Sam went away and created the first version of MyTrucking. Built in Microsoft Access, it could load jobs into the computer, allocate trucks, print run sheets, and assign delivery times and dates. A job could be updated as it progressed and once a job was in the system it could never be lost. It was simple and easy to use.
There were hours spent going back and forth and lots of thinking ‘What if it could do this?’ and ‘Can it do this’. While it wasn’t perfect and still required the occasional bit of paper or a laptop with Microsoft Access (the cloud system was a pipe dream at this stage) the result was one Sam was proud of.
And then the phone rang: The birth of MyTrucking as you know it
“That thing you built for the boys at Wairarapa Transport Limited – we want it too” was the call from Martinborough Transport.
So Sam set to work, duplicated what he’d made for Stu and Henry, and set it up. What came then was an influx of businesses wanting the ‘Orsborn solution’ to all things paper. Eventually Sam and Sara realised they were on to something.
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2014 photo: Stu and Henry – Wairarapa Livestock Transport; and Sam and Sara Orsborn – MyTrucking
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They started working with local developer Dave Mckinley to redevelop the programme, not only improving the underlying architecture, but allowing it to be fully cloud based, enabling clients to log in anytime and anywhere.
Sam and Sara worked on developing the business and spent countless hours visiting clients, cold-calling prospective clients and doing customer support. MyTrucking grew quicker than anyone would have believed.
Aussie calling
Working with Xero was a no brainer, as was becoming a Xero add on partner. Not long after, they were invited to attend the Xero conference in Melbourne, Australia. With a spot in the start up alley, Sam and Sara headed over to share their creation.
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They met an accountant who had a transport client in Orange, NSW – Jeremy Pittman of Pittman transport. The company has been going for over 100 years and after seeing what MyTrucking was all about, signed up on the spot.
Countless Australian roadtrips later, MyTrucking now has over 250 customers in Australia (and over 650 around the globe!).
And it’s been ‘put the pedal to the metal’ ever since.
9 years later…
In 2022 Stu and Henry decided the time was right to move on from Wairarapa Transport Limited and sold the business to Martinborough Transport. Stu and Em have set up a handyman extraordinaire business which sees them get stuck into everything from gardening, landscaping and digger work through to fencing. Henry is the operations manager for the newly named Moa Transport.
If it hadn’t been for Stu and Henry, MyTrucking might never have come into fruition. Those hours and days spent brainstorming with Sam ensured the programme was fit for purpose – made by truckers, for truckers. Here’s to the next nine years…