How Storemax built an unmanned storage network with two employees heading order

A golden nugget in an underserved market

Storemax started 14 years ago, on a very small scale. For years it stayed that way.

That changed when Claudio, now the owner, stepped into the business two or three years ago. He saw what most of Germany had not yet noticed: self storage is still a young market there, with far more demand than supply. The decision was made to grow, and to grow fast.

Demand was never the problem. Land was.

Koblenz is what Claudio calls a side location, not a prime one. It opened in May 2025 with around 170 containers. Eighteen months later it sits at roughly 80% occupancy. It was one of two sites Storemax opened in 2025. Two more followed in 2026, with four more to come.

Filling sites is not what slows Storemax down. Finding them is. The model needs the right plot in the right place, and those are scarce. Storage is also still new to many Germans, so part of the job is explaining what it is and why they might need it. Once customers try it, Claudio says, they are usually hooked quickly.

A business drawn on a blank sheet of paper

Before building anything, Claudio's team took a blank sheet of paper and drew the whole customer journey. From the moment someone finds Storemax to the day they move out, every step had to work without a person on site.

The result is a deliberately lean operation:

• Two employees run the whole German business.
• Maintenance is outsourced at every location.
• No site is staffed. Bookings, move-ins and move-outs all happen without anyone on the premises.
• One standard product. Every unit is a 20ft shipping container. "We don't do fancy, very deliberately," Claudio says.

Container storage suits this model well. There is no building to manage, every unit is the same, and a tenant can drive straight up to their door.

Software that bends to the model

A model this lean only works if every provider behind it can keep up. Claudio found Storeganise through a Google search and compared it with a few other platforms.

Two things decided it. The team felt hands-on from the very first conversation. And Storeganise was flexible. Storemax brought its own wishes and changes to the table. Some were met quickly, others took longer, but all of them were met.

Where Storemax needed something specific, the open API let the team build it themselves. "We definitely had some special wishes, but the API made it super easy for us to implement them," Claudio says.

What Claudio would tell other operators

• Start with the customer journey. Draw every step from first search to move-out before you build anything.
• Keep the product standard. Identical containers keep operations simple. Fancy can come later, or never.
• Build lean if you want to grow fast. A small team, outsourced maintenance and unmanned sites let you add locations without adding headcount.
• Pick providers that adapt to you. Your software should fit your model, not the other way round.
• Expect location to be the hard part. In a young market, demand follows. The right plot is what you have to hunt for.

What's next for Storemax

Storemax is already one of the bigger pure container storage providers in Germany, and wants to lock in that position. More sites open this year.

After Germany comes Europe. Claudio has a few selected markets in view, and the plan is to take the exact same operating model there.