Four years ago, Daniel and Steven Bluman, international professional equestrians saw an opportunity that grew out of the struggles of transporting their equine athletes. It was a painful process, calling each of the large shipping companies to get a quote, waiting a day or so for a quote and then when you thought you were all set, they changed the schedule on you. “They wanted to change that process, because the only thing that was changing was the equipment to transport horses, nothing else,” said Juan Palacio, CFO and CMO of Equo.

Uber + Expedia = Equo
“Our platform works like Uber, everything is scheduled, tracked and paid on the app, and the planning and shipment aspect is similar to how you use Expedia,” explained Palacio. To date, Equo has more than 1,500 active users and 4,000 who have signed up and logged in. 

Four Stages to Each Trip
Reliability, and safety are what matters when transporting precious animals and Equo has developed a method in achieving that to deliver on their promise. “There are four stages to a trip,” said Palacio, “It starts with the request from a customer, and then you are assigned a shipper with name and full details, followed by a pick-up notification on the day of travel and live tracking in route (including alerts and updates), and lastly, a post-trip history and summary.” There is also a two-way rating system, where the user can rate the driver and driver can rate the user, just like Uber. 

In terms of safety, all of the drivers have to go through background checks and are under contract. Equo is the only online horse transport that hires legal drivers. The app launched in January 2017 and they now have 150 shippers available in their network.

What’s Next?
“We are working on introducing 2.0 in the next few weeks,” said Palacio. The plan is for a redesign of the app from improving the graphics to the navigation and overall user experience. “We want the experience to be seamless and mirror what customers are used to, similar to an airline app,” added Palacio.  The new enhancements will also include the ability to add comments so both parties could compliment the rating.

Who uses Equo?
Equo is proud to offer land transport for some of the largest and most successful barns in the country. “We originally were focused on the Southeast, mainly Florida and have now expanded into Canada and Mexico and the rest of the U.S. with a high concentration in California,” said Palacio. We also have sponsored riders mainly from the hunter/jumper community including Daniel Bluman, Andy Kocher, and Tanya Jenkins(from the reining world). Young riders are also part of the brand ambassador strategy to build awareness at an early age.

“In 5 years, technology adoption for equestrians will depend on how well technology companies work together to make it easier.”
- Juan Palacio
CFO and CMO
Equo

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