Working at Motus: The Leader in Vehicle Reimbursement Solutions

Keith Cline, VentureFizz  

Todd, thanks so much for joining us.

Todd Gorbski, Motus  

Hey, thanks for having me.

Keith Cline, VentureFizz  

I'm excited talk to you, because we're gonna talk about Motus, which is a company that's making reimbursements easy. So that's your tagline. So what does that mean?

Todd Gorbski, Motus  

That is the tagline. So I'd say, you know, in a nutshell, we are we built a SASS platform, we've been in existence since 2004, and been growing gangbusters. But really, we exist to, you know, eliminate the friction from mobile workers sort of day to day, and specifically to eliminate the friction around making sure that they're accurately reimbursed for assets that they bring to the benefit of their employer, whether it be their car, their mobile device, or even their personal office post COVID.

Keith Cline, VentureFizz  

So is there a typical customer profile that Motus works with?

Todd Gorbski, Motus  

Yeah, we serve, you know, we span probably focus on eight or nine core verticals, the two largest verticals that we serve really are, you know, food and beverage. So think, if we're thinking mobile workforce and mobile employees user, you know, distributors, or folks who go into grocery stores, or liquor stores and merchandise product, we also have a really large customer presence in pharma. So traditional pharma, you think, you know, of a recruiting and retention mechanism of giving farmers sales reps, vehicles, which, you know, I certainly had a number of friends coming out of college that did that, and they were the envy. But, you know, today, not everybody wants to have the burden of the company car. And it's certainly a sort of a risky proposition for some of these large farmers to, you know, assume 24/7 liability for what happens behind the wheel of a car that they oftentimes allow people to use during off hours. 

Keith Cline, VentureFizz  

So how does the platform actually work? In terms of how is it helping these companies with the reimbursement?

Todd Gorbski, Motus  

Yeah, so you know, the way the platform works is, I mean, you can think of it, you know, similarly to a, you know, a typical t and e platform, in that, you know, typical TNT platform, if you're booking, you're asking to be reimbursed for travel, you know, you're going to substantiate the dinner that you had, or the hotel you stayed out, or the airline tickets you bought with receipts. Cars, unfortunately, don't spit out receipts. And so there's a little bit more data aggregation and calculus necessary to really get down to the ownership and operating costs of using your own personal vehicle for work. You know, really day in the life of an end user is, you know, they download the Motus app, their employer has said, Hey, here's how we're going to handle, you know, reimbursing. And here's our policy for doing so, you're going to track your mileage using the Motus app. And we've made that as simple as possible, you know, users who want to hit start and stop at every stop it because they don't want to be tracked otherwise are welcome to do. So your overwhelming majority of our end users have sort of accepted that there's some tracking going on, regardless of what we're doing on our smart devices, and have sort of opted to set it and forget it. So leveraging the, you know, accelerometer, you know, on the device itself, vehicle moves, we track where they go, end of the month, or end of whatever time period, they're being reimbursed, they submit their mileage. And the Motus platform calculates an individualized reimbursement rate, depending on who it is, where they live, where they operated the vehicle, and the, you know, Representative costs associated with, you know, the vehicle itself and the depreciation of the asset maintenance that needs to be performed everything down to state and local excise and property taxes, and then variable things like cost of gas right now, inflationary pressures are pretty high. But, you know, our customers sort of rest assured that our data is real-time, and what their folks are being reimbursed each month are reflective of the costs that they're actually incurring in the field.

Keith Cline, VentureFizz  

Which is great, because it's accurate and automated, which is so much better than the historical filling out an expense report and trying to gather all that information.

Todd Gorbski, Motus  

And I would say, you know, like, yes, it's accurate. It's also compliant. And, you know, the, the platform that we've built not only accurately calculates, but it accurately calculates, you know, with a lens towards, you know, tax optimization, right. And so, you know, leveraging some IRS we've had a long standing relationship with the IRS we partner with them annually to calculate the IRS Safe Harbor mileage rate each January But we've also helped him form an IRS revenue procedure that allows mobile workers to be reimbursed tax free for using their own vehicle. There are a number of sort of guidelines and compliance thresholds that they need to stay within in our platform helps guide to make sure that the reimbursements they receive are as close to tax free as possible.

Keith Cline, VentureFizz  

You're the chief strategy and marketing officer at Motus. So talk about your career, because you've had quite the career within Motus in itself.

Todd Gorbski, Motus  

I have Yeah, it certainly hasn't been a linear path by any means. You know, I, I came to the business back in, I guess I'm probably 11 years and now 2011. And I came to the business by way of having been with a large agency called sapient nitro sapient, was brought in to do some development design and software dev work for their first mobile offerings at the time, I stayed probably for 18 months as a consultant, and opted to join a new management team that was brought in, you know, in 2012, to take the business from a call it $10 million, you know, and more than double it in the next, you know, five years. So, started leading marketing at the time, there was no marketing. And so we rebranded the business, we, you know, replac formed, you know, the architecture and, you know, grew the business, you know, about $25 million in top line in 2018. When we initially, we went out and acquired one of our larger competitors out in the Midwest, and also partnered with Thoma Bravo, who is still a very material private equity investor in the business. You know, to your question, I've worn a number of hats, I've, you know, headed up marketing. In the past, I have been Chief of Staff to the CEO for a number of years, then pivoted into a chief strategy role. And we sought new investment in the business this past December. And so we just closed, you know, new investment, Thoma Bravo was still, you know, a very valued partner, but we also welcome to premiera, out of the UK, as another private equity investor, and, you know, as part of this next hill that we're charging, you know, I slotted back into the marketing world, in sort of double duty and with strategy as well, it's a really good, good pairing and a lot of synergies.

Keith Cline, VentureFizz  

So what's the current size of the company in terms of number of employees? And what are the plans ahead in terms of hiring?

Todd Gorbski, Motus  

Yeah, in I mean, I may get my wrist slapped by our Chief People Officer for Miss speaking on the forecasted hiring numbers. So I'll try to avoid specificity there, we have very recently crossed the 500 team member threshold, which is, you know, hard to believe, I think, when I walked in the door, it was, you know, sub 30 people in a cube farm out, you know, in the suburbs of Boston, you know, so we've grown really rapidly. We, right after are coming out of COVID, actually, during COVID made a conscious strategic decision to forfeit our traditional office space. We were headquartered in downtown Boston, in the financial district, and we had, you know, beautiful Class A space, we also had offices in Chicago, Milwaukee. And we opted, we've always had a very, very open culture of really hiring the right people, people we want to spend time with in the office as well as outside of work, giving them the tools they need to do their jobs, and then getting out of their way we've never measured or, you know, rewarded folks for number of hours that they're sitting in their seats. And, you know, accordingly, we've never had a vacation policy, it's you know, do your job, do it. Well. Don't put a cap on, don't be a hero and try to do somebody else's job trust those next to you. And so, you know, we've, we've grown really, really rapidly. We have very, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, we just sort of were backed by a new private equity investor, and we've got very ambitious, you know, growth goals ahead of us and in this phase really is all about, you know, growth and scale for us and really getting, you know, to, you know, mid 20 Some percent growth rate.

Keith Cline, VentureFizz  

So, what's it like working at Motus? What's the day to day culture like?

Todd Gorbski, Motus  

Yeah, I mean, I just hit on some of it. It's, you know, it's a business. It is crazy to say, you know, I've been here 11 years and there's a reason for that. And, you know, I've obviously been, you know, both literal Really, I'm very emotionally invested in our mission. And I'd say a large part of that is the people, we're really selective in how we recruit, we really screen for, you know, three, sort of core values or characteristics and somebody, you know, their curiosity, right? How brave they are to, you know, go full steam at making a mistake. And, you know, how, how exceptional, they are, have been in anything in their life up to this point. So, you know, those are really sort of the three strategic core value pillars that we screen for, in terms of work, culture, I mean, we're really, really big on, you know, working, happy meeting, let's screen people that we want to be with and spend time with, let's work smart. Let's not measure people by what time they got in and what time they left, or whether they even came into the office. Right? Working healthy, right, we've got a number of programs around promoting mental health, physical health, financial health, for the team members. And, you know, probably last but not least, just this tenant of working anywhere, right work. There's not a traditional nine to five day Yes, we have end users, yes, we have call center support that has to be open during certain hours. But you know, if you're, if you're a creative if you're a strategist, if you're, you know, a product manager, you know, if you start at 10, and work until midnight, that's, you know, no better or worse than somebody who gets up at five. And we've got team members now who have really, really embraced the fact that we've, you know, gotten rid of traditional office spaces and folks who have, you know, opted to leave the city and the high rent districts and move to the country or, you know, we've got, I just was on a one on one a little while ago with a team member who's been in Hawaii for three or four months, and, you know, isn't yet married with children. And, you know, we're encouraging that as best we can.

Keith Cline, VentureFizz  

Now top talent always has options, regardless of market condition. So why is now the ideal time to join Motus?

Todd Gorbski, Motus  

Yeah, so it's a great question. And, you know, as you can probably tell, they don't lean on me often to be the elevator pitch man for coming to work here. But you know, I'd say right now, there's a lot of really interesting market conditions and tailwinds that make this a super interesting place to work. You know, the first I guess I'll take it chronologically, you know, global pandemics have shifted and change the way we think about work, where we work, how we work, and how we collaborate. And I'd say Motus, as a platform sits right at the center of a lot of evolving, you know, tailwinds, right, somebody who works from home? What is their employer required to reimburse them for? How do you calculate the cost of home office space or home internet use? Or, you know, like, how do you delineate between personal and business? Those are all problems we're solving for day to day right now. Along with that shift, less people are working from traditional office spaces, and more and more people are either working from home or out of their cars. Right. And so, you know, I think we've seen a trend in, you know, a lot of brick and mortar sort of divesting and investing instead in, you know, ecommerce, in fulfillment warehouses to bring things to your front door. So more people are on the roads, which is obviously a core focus of ours since inception. You know, I'd say, you know, not the least interesting part is, you know, we just sort of doubled down our private equity investor, you know, Thoma Bravo after four years, decided to re up with us and, you know, have has made a tremendous commitment in the business along with, you know, a big international private equity firm in Palmyra, and, you know, that really is in a thesis of taking the sort of enviable market position we have right now, in a market that, you know, really has been underserved up to this point, a lot of folks view it as somewhat niche and, you know, for lack of a better, you know, analogy, we know how to make hay really well, and the forecast is sunny, and let's, let's go and let's go quickly, so, you know, I think our hiring plans will certainly and have been reflective of that and, you know, it's it's a really great time to be joining a company when you've got that kind of, you know, investment backing. And we've also, you know, brought in a new chief product officer who's outstanding, he's built You know, a really robust organization really quickly. So I think from an r&d and an innovation standpoint, there's a lot that you know, come into work here is going to sort of evoke in terms of pride.

Keith Cline, VentureFizz  

Well, if you are interested in exploring opportunities at Motus, you need to go to their company page on VentureFizz, which will have all their listings there, go to venturefizz.com/motus and you'll see all their job listings. Todd, thanks so much for taking the time to walk us through all the great things happening at the company.

Todd Gorbski, Motus  

Thank you all for tuning in. Appreciate it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai