How this business is turning mobile tour trucks into COVID-19 testing sites

Founder and CEO of Aardvark Mobile Tours & Mobile Health, Larry Borden, joins Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman to discuss how the company modified its vehicles into patented, mobile COVID-19 testing units.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: As we've been discussing in this pandemic, a lot of small businesses out there had to shift focuses to stay afloat, and it's been the case for a lot of those businesses tied to marketing here in the pandemic. Anyone who's been covering that area knows that there are not many events, if any here, to really be focusing in on on that front. It's something that one of our next guests had to deal with here.

Aardvark Mobile Tours, a company based in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, typically were used by companies like Coca-Cola, L'Oreal, T-Mobile, Nike for marketing tours and experimental marketing programs with these trucks that float around and deliver on things like that. Once the pandemic hit, instead of rolling over that company adapted the use of its trucks for mobile health spots instead to help with testing in underserved communities, which is pretty genius if you ask me.

And here to chat that shift in strategy with us is Larry Borden, the founder and CEO of Aardvark Mobile Tours and now Aardvark Mobile Health as well. And, Larry, I appreciate you coming on to join us. First off, I mean, we've talked to a lot of business owners dealing with all this. I assume there was some sort of panic here that set in when you saw events starting to get canceled. So when did the shift to focus on mobile health hit you?

LARRY BORDEN: It hit me one Saturday morning. I was laying in bed trying to figure out what we were going to do with our company that was thriving pre-pandemic, and I picked up my phone and I saw that the Israelis were building shipping containers and plopping them down all over Israel. And I thought to myself, you know, we have a patented truck that we've been using for experiential marketing and for mobile retail that very easily we could up-fit and turn into mobile COVID testing facilities. The idea came, and we haven't looked back since.

ZACK GUZMAN: You know, one of those questions too that we get from a lot of people watching is, you know, obviously that costs money. It's a risk that you're taking. It's not exactly the time to take risks when you think about shutdowns tied to the pandemic. But I understand you guys also got PPP funding that may have helped in planning around that, making it maybe a little bit easier. Talk to me about what that did to kind of help you, I guess, put the strategy in place.

LARRY BORDEN: Yeah, the PP money-- the PPP money was critical for us. It literally allowed us about a month to relax a little bit. I mean, everybody was blindsided by this, and as a small business owner that's in the events space, we weren't really sure what we were going to do. And the PPP money allowed us to slow down, come up with some ideas, and take a deep breath and not have to really cut into the company. That's the last thing I wanted to do. And it really helped us bridge the gap until our next thing, which became the Aardvark Mobile Health testing trucks.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and that's really why I think both sides of the aisle have been sharing the PPP program here when they think about giving that lifeline to small businesses here. In your guys' case, I mean, how many jobs do you think it actually saved and what the other side of the coin would have looked like if you had to, I don't know, shut down because all the events were getting cancelled?

LARRY BORDEN: That's a really good question, and I'm not sure I even know how to answer it. There were some dark days for me personally sitting in my office after we just built this beautiful facility, wondering whether we're even going to stay open. Should I just shut it down 100%? And so I don't even want to venture to guess what the flip side of that could have looked like.

ZACK GUZMAN: When we think about the process right now and where stimulus negotiations sit, there's a lot of people saying that, look, these companies that were able to weather the storm initially in the pandemic-- I mean, you guys were able to pivot and really keep things afloat by finding something else. Other businesses aren't really in that position here when we think about restaurants, hospitality names, right now not seeing travel come back. So when you talk to other small business owners that were dealing with the same process to get PPP funds, what are you hearing about how badly needed and perhaps even your own experience-- how badly needed that second round of funding is out there for people struggling through this?

LARRY BORDEN: Yeah, that's a great question. And look. Thank god for my company. We are doing well. We're thriving. We have a great group of people working here every day to keep this company afloat and to continue to grow. But you're right. I have a lot of friends that are business owners, and they're in the restaurant industry and they need help. And I think that our government needs to do something to help small business further. And, look, there-- I think you're going to see two groups of businesses. You're going to see companies like mine that are going to thrive and continue to grow, and you're going to see others that are really going to be in a lot of trouble, especially in the hospitality industry.

ZACK GUZMAN: Let's talk to you about how big-- obviously we were chatting earlier in the show-- at how big the opportunity, the need, is for really mobilizing testing to get to some of those harder to hit spots here, especially as we see the pandemic now hit those Midwestern states-- South Dakota, North Dakota dealing with a terrible situation right now. What have you seen in terms of rolling these trucks out, who you're turning to medical partners, and the progress you've seen in replacing the side of your business that did fall off?

LARRY BORDEN: We can't build these trucks fast enough. We have manufacturing here in Pennsylvania, in North Carolina. Next week we're going to start a line in Wisconsin. We don't see it ending anytime soon, and the really cool thing about our trucks is they turn from testing into vaccinations, so when that comes we'll be able to support vaccinations as well. And after that we could do community screenings.

Municipalities and companies are still trying to figure this out, and it's a shame. It's eight months into it, and they're doing everything that they can. We're working off a lot of companies. We're working with a lot of municipalities. We're working with the federal government. It sounds like everybody is really trying. We're seeing it, everything from FEMA down to Waco, Texas. They're all trying to figure out how to do more testing. And the biggest issue is there aren't enough tests available. I can build the trucks. We just need the tests.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and it's something that we've been discussing with a lot of our medical guests here, but nonetheless building the trucks-- clearly not exactly the purpose that you were envisioning building them here for in the back half of 2020. But that shift, along with any effort out there for small business owners who are getting it done in a pandemic, worth highlighting. So, Larry Borden, founder and CEO of Aardvark Mobile Tours, appreciate you coming on to chat that with us.

LARRY BORDEN: Thank you.