How a felon built a 3-truck waste-hauling fleet on $6,500 a week

How did Debon Sims survive when his Amazon rates dropped in half?

Debon Sims knew his cost to operate one unit cold. When Amazon freight that paid $6,500 to $7,200 a week fell to half that for the same work, he jumped off. He had the discipline to walk away from freight that no longer covered his numbers, a lesson most operators learn after they've already gone broke.

Sims started in a prison cell in 2015 with a pamphlet about car hauling. The math was simple: four cars on a trailer, $250 a car, $1,000 a day. He studied for his CDL behind the walls, got out in April 2018, had his license by December, and flew out for his first job Christmas Day. He never hauled cars. He climbed into a semi and fell in love with being his own boss.

What does a lease-purchase truck payment actually cost per week?

Sims ran two lease-purchase programs, first with Trans Am, later with Hirschbach. The truck payment came out every week before anything else: $1,300 to $1,500, before fuel, before the maintenance account, before he saw a dollar. The week runs Thursday to Wednesday, not Friday to Sunday, and if you miss too many days you go negative. Once you're negative it's nearly impossible to climb back out.

Sims never went negative. Not once. There were weeks his tank hit E and he was praying out loud just to make it to the next station, but he knew his numbers and he made it work. In 2019 he bought his own truck outright. Eliminating that $1,300-to-1,500-a-week payment changed the whole equation. But it came with more responsibility, no dispatcher, no direct lane, and a lesson he wishes he had learned slower: understand what maintenance actually costs before you jump, not after.

How much was Sims making on Amazon freight before the rates fell?

Sims landed an Amazon contract early on, right around the pandemic when everything shut down and freight had to move. He was clearing $6,500 to $7,200 a week. He bought his truck in August 2019 running Amazon freight and was shopping for a second truck by December.

Then, for the exact same work, the rates fell. Nearly in half. Sims did not chase it down. He knew his cost to operate his unit, and because he knew that number, he understood something most operators learn too late: he could not move the truck just to be moving. "Don't depend on them," he says now, plainly, about building a business on someone else's freight. "Don't get fixated."

What happened when Sims jumped to the load board?

When the Amazon rates stopped making sense, Sims jumped to the load board. He hated it. The prices posted were not the prices you got when you called. Brokers, in his experience, played games, and some were flat disrespectful. He lost sleep. The load-board stretch was everything a routine is not: you do not know what you are hauling, where you are going, or what it pays.

But he kept running, because standing still was not an option, and he kept doing something else that mattered more. Sims kept inquiring. He kept asking questions. He had spreadsheets of companies to call in his area, and he called them, and a lot of them gave him the runaround, and he did not stop. "I couldn't," he said. He had built a mindset around the belief that he did not know everything and was never afraid to ask, because not asking would cost him.

How did Sims land his waste-hauling contract?

Less than six months into his load-board stretch, something came across his phone through an app. A contract hauling waste. He recognized it instantly, because he had hauled that kind of freight once for a broker and knew it was not hard: they load the trailer, he takes it to the landfill, he dumps it. He contacted the company, landed the contract, and has been running it ever since.

The contract is with Holland Waste. Sims is quick to push back on anyone who would look down on hauling trash. It is a niche most dry-van operators will not even consider because they think it is beneath them, and their loss has been his stability. He had to learn things he did not know going in, how many tires the weight would eat through, what those loads actually do to equipment. But the freight is consistent, it is routine, and most of all, it gets him home every single day, unless they need him out of town, in which case they pay extra.

What does Sims's fleet look like three years in?

After his first year Sims went to the company asking for a rate increase. They denied it flat. But then they turned around and did something better: they gave him a contract with no end date, and told him that when they need trucks, they come to him first, because they like how he operates. They also let him bring on operators under his own authority.

Today Sims owns three trucks, runs one himself, and has two more operating under his authority with other owner-operators. He has run as many as seven. The one location in Charlotte where he started has become access to multiple sites: Charlotte, Charleston, Savannah, and Virginia, with the company calling him first. The answer is either yes I'm coming or no I can't make it this time, no love lost, and they call again the next week, because when he shows up, he does exactly what he is supposed to do.

He is deliberate about not growing faster than he can manage. He is not in a rush to put a driver in his own truck, because that is two headaches, the driver and the equipment. He watched mega-carriers with massive fleets go under because they could not manage what they built, and he decided a long time ago that the biggest fleet was never the goal. A business that survives the slow seasons and stays profitable is the goal. Whatever truck count delivers that is the right truck count.

What kept Sims alive when most operators with his background go broke?

Asked for the honest reason he made it, Sims does not hesitate: knowing his numbers. Knowing what it costs to operate one unit is what let him take on two and three, what let him cover the repairs that are not a possibility but a certainty, what kept the bills paid while he grew. Without that, he says, he would have lost everything.

Sims made it through incarceration, a lease-purchase, a lost contract, the load-board years, and COVID. Most people who go through that do not end up where he is.

Can you get a CDL with a felony record?

To anyone out there with a record who has been told the trucking industry is closed to them, told no enough times that they have started to believe it, Sims has a direct message. He is a felon who got his CDL, and getting the license is not a no. Some companies will not hire you with a background, that is real, but with all the freight moving in this country, somebody is going to give you a chance.

When you get it, take it as the opportunity it is and excel. Start your own if you have to. Get your own equipment, start on the load board, figure out what works, and know that it is genuinely possible to land a direct contract from there, because he did it. Stay respectful when you are told no. Keep it pushing. It is not pride, it is not personal, it is business, and there is plenty of freight out here.

He named the company Another Day Another Delivery Logistics on purpose. It started as another day, another dollar, but that did not feel professional enough to walk into a shipper's office and say. Another day, another delivery is exactly what it is. Every day, you are trying to move something. Today is another day. Today is another delivery.

For DJ Sims, that is not a slogan on the side of a truck. It is a survival strategy that turned into something real. The trucking industry did not care where he started. It cared whether he showed up, stayed disciplined, kept learning, kept adapting, and treated the whole thing like a business instead of a way to stay moving.