Chris Teetor, director of operations for DE Storage, which builds storage units, mobile homes and other properties across Delaware, needed 800 cu yd of clay material typically used for berms in ponds. He did what construction people usually do—called all his contacts, looking for the material—to no avail.

“It delayed our job for a couple of weeks,” he recalls.

然后，他从字面上打了薪水。

He came across an app called Soil Connect and put up a request. “Four days later I got a call and it was free soil. I just paid for hauling and loading,” Teetor says. “I saved $20,000.”

Similar to a dating app, Craigslist or Airbnb, Soil Connect matches builders, contractors, landscapers and other industry professionals so they can arrange the transport and management of soil between those who need it and those want to get rid of it. Traditionally, the construction community has had to rely on word of mouth and its established networks to broker these exchanges of earth.

Cliff Fetner，土壤Connect Startup的创始人兼首席执行官，两年前在一个项目中构思了这个想法。

“I’ve spent 20 years building luxury homes,” he says. “We had 2,000 cu yd of material and didn’t know what to do with it. Soil Connect was born at that minute. Why should I pay you to get rid of my dirt, when two hours later someone else will call me willing to pay for it?”

Fetner and his son hired a software development firm to build the beta version of the app. “After nine months, we had several thousand users and over 22 million yards of material posted on our site,” he says. “It is the first institutionally backed platform addressing the movement of soil in the country.”

用户可以看到多少和什么样的土壤offer, and where it is located. The app is attracting a variety of users. “You might have a national homebuilder from the Midwest who needs to get rid of one million yards of soil, and might only post one time for a year,” says Fetner. “Then you might have Tommy the pool guy who moves [smaller amounts of] dirt every day.”

Fetner used the venture capital received to invest in version two of the app in 2019. “We have a couple thousand more users and posted 83 million cu yd of material,” he says. Soil Connect says the number of users is now around 4,000. The app is still free, although Fetner hopes to someday monetize it.

New features include a text-alert function. “It’s a dirt alert,” says Fetner. Another feature vets the users and materials, as regions vary in terms of regulations and certification of material. “If you need a geotechnical report, you click a box. If you need a soil analysis, you click another box. I can post that I have 10,000 cu yd of certified, clean fill,” says Fetner.

Arco/Murray, a Chicago-based design-build construction firm specializing in commercial and industrial work, is a strategic partner with Soil Connect, providing feedback and suggestions. “We see the opportunity for hundreds of projects,” says Eric Whobrey, Arco/Murray technology manager. “We have several earthwork subcontractors that have saved money using this to trade dirt as opposed to taking it to the dump or paying to have someone take it away.”

Fetner说，第三版将在今年晚些时候准备就绪，将包括数字化拖运材料的卡车司机和整个票务过程。目前，“我们正在手动购买门票，将其放入系统并将其发送给客户，并且通常无法阅读[门票]。”“我们将使用GPS数字化票务，并将信息上传到客户的会计软件中。然后，卡车司机除了开车之外无需做任何事情。”

Fetner说，未来的版本可能包括像Uber一样的功能，其中卡车司机是按需运送材料的。“我们希望有一天能成为您所有污垢需求的一站式商店。”