Now your package can hitch a ride
Inspiration sometimes comes when we least expect it. In Marc Diamond’s case, traffic woes lit the creative spark that led him to conceive Shipbird, a new service based on an innovative model that uses technology and crowdsourcing to match shippers with individuals who can make deliveries.“The idea came from my brother, John,” says Diamond, explaining that his sibling, John Williams, owns Real Estate Options of Texas in Houston and, in August 2013, had to go across the city and back to pick up a check from an investor. “John was forced to sit in traffic for three hours to pick up one check,” he says. When he heard about his brother’s experience, he started thinking about people who are already planning to be on the road and how they could earn some extra cash by making deliveries along the routes they’ll be traveling.
His pondering turned into reality with Shipbird, a fledgling business serving the Bay Area’s nine counties, which made its debut in May 2014. “The premise is that people are already on their way,” says Diamond, of Cotati. “It’s not a separate car. People are already going that route.”
It’s a novel concept, and while efficiency is its primary motive, profitability and a green aspect also make the new service attractive as a viable option to traditional shipping companies.
Proprietary software that stores profiles of individuals who can make deliveries, called deliverers, is at the heart of Shipbird. Each deliverer uses it to create an availability profile that shows where he or she will be at a certain time; people who need deliveries go to Shipbird’s website and enter information on what they have, where they want their items picked up and where they want them to go. They can even designate a specific timeframe for delivery. An email message then goes out to all the deliverers who will be in the area at that given time, and the first one to respond gets the job. Payment is through PayPal, and the recipient gives a confirmation code to the deliverer, allowing payment. “We tried to make it simple,” says Diamond.
A creative endeavor
Actual development of the concept for Shipbird began in November 2013, after Diamond contracted LitmusBox in San Anselmo to design the web application. “He came to me with a rough idea,” says Business Director Paul Seymour, who explains his team started by identifying three functions: sending packages, delivering packages and explaining the service, while recognizing that it would be disrupting long-established delivery services. Next, they identified the personas they wanted to reach: shippers, deliverers and potential customers. He explains that the system checks for any matches when someone has a delivery and sends out emails to appropriate deliverers. “That’s the key, because it gets the shipment really moving,” he says.
Seymour describes a relatively simple process: A user enters a shipment, and then a delivery person claims the shipment, makes the delivery, receives a confirmation code and gets paid. An algorithm calculates the price based on time and mileage. “We tested all that,” he says, explaining that a pre-launch site went up at the end of February, and his team tested the functions without actually going out and driving around to make deliveries. He adds that Diamond advertised for delivery people on craigslist, so by the time the site had its official launch, it had a substantial number of deliverers already enlisted.
When the service went live on May 1, “It was extremely hands-on,” says Seymour. “The products development cycle was based on an untested assumption,” he says, so they tracked shipments and discovered additional needs. They found, for example, that they needed additional reporting functions. “It was a great creative endeavor from our point of view,” he says. “I think it’s a great service.”
One of the biggest challenges was cellular telephones, because deliverers need to be able to access information on smartphones, but each brand works differently. However, other than a couple of bugs, which were quickly resolved, everything went well. “We’ve had 100 percent on all deliveries,” say Diamond.
The funding that made it all possible came from friends. “We have a core group of investors. It’s been organically funded,” says Diamond. “They all thought it was a great idea.”
Flying high
Now that Shipbird is up and running, “We have several other people helping out,” says Diamond. Jay Trevor is an adviser who helps with day-to-day operations, and Shipbird has a crew of interns from UC Berkeley, Santa Rosa Junior College and the Academy of Art College. “We really love the young minds and creativity,” says Diamond, explaining that the students are involved in advertising on social media, which can be time-consuming. “They’re on top of the newest and coolest stuff on Facebook, Twitter and all the others,” he reports.
Social media is a major source of exposure because Shipbird has a small marketing budget and it’s a low-cost way to reach lots of people. “The social media can get really exciting,” says Diamond. He encourages people to take pictures, and shippers often ask for a photograph as confirmation of delivery. “Almost every order has a picture. A lot of people like to get personal pictures of the delivery person,” he says, then adds, “We really want to have videos.” He has one person who wants to make deliveries aboard a skateboard, and another who is an Uber driver (www.uber.com), so opportunities for photos are plentiful, and he thinks it would be fun to have a monthly contest for best photo or video, which social media makes easy. In addition, “A lot of people like to get personal stories,” he says, sharing one about a driver who strapped a box of flowers to his motorcycle to make a delivery.
So far, the response to Shipbird has been positive. “We’ve had great feedback from the users, delivery people and companies that use us,” says Diamond. “It’s great for businesses that have their own driver who can’t make all the deliveries or who don’t have a system in place.” He gives farmers with community supported agriculture programs (CSAs) as an example. “Now they have a larger potential customer base. Maybe it wasn’t feasible before, but now they can have a delivery every week.” He also points out that the service is useful for mom-and-pop businesses and retail stores that can’t currently make deliveries. “It helps them out when they’re in a jam or can’t handle deliveries internally,” he says.
Deliverers are people who are already planning to be on the road, and a substantial number are commuters who incorporate deliveries into their daily routine. “Or maybe someone wants to take a day trip to Sonoma Mountain to go on a hike and can pick up an extra $30 or $40,” says Diamond. “We want to keep it to a distance less than 100 miles,” he says, explaining that the goal is to keep an extra vehicle off the road, saving time and using less gas, which has environmental advantages as well as being convenient. It’s also less expensive than the usual delivery services because of its low overhead and the ability to use crowdsourcing to reach people. Without a complicated system, it has the potential to be faster as well.
Diamond uses Shipbird himself, so he has first-hand experience. “I purchased some clothes at a store, but I had another meeting to get to,” he says. He didn’t want to carry the clothes, so he arranged for a driver to pick them up and deliver them to him several hours later so he could wear them that evening, and everything went as planned. “It’s like a will-call,” he says.
As word spreads, he expects the company to grow. “Even though it’s a big market, we’re so new that a lot of people don’t know about us yet,” he says. “We estimate recovering our startup costs in the very near future and are continually increasing our sales exponentially.”
He’s optimistic about Shipbird’s future and is making plans for phase two, which will include an app and insurance so people can ship objects of higher value. He also speculates that people could ask for green transportation only or for no-carbon-footprint deliveries, using hybrid vehicles or perhaps bicycles. “The system’s already set up for different criteria. That’s the reason we kept everything small and nichey. Then we could use that to scale up quite easily,” he says.
The environmental aspect is very important to Diamond. “I’ve always been an advocate of recycling and keeping the environment clean,” he says, recalling that his plan was to build green-friendly homes in Texas. He observes that in Northern California, everyone is committed to keeping the environment clean, and Shipboard shares that ethic. “We think it’s a win-win for everyone,” he says. “This is such a beautiful area.”
Looking to the future, Diamond is optimistic. “It’s very exciting. We’re very pleased with our progress, and we’ve overachieved our goals,” he says. “We’ve heard so many times, ‘Why didn’t I think of this?’” He especially likes the local aspect and reports that people elect to use the service, knowing the money they’re paying for a delivery service stays in the community. “It’s exciting to see how well everyone takes to it,” he says, adding that he hears from several people a day who tell him how cool the idea is. “People are more excited about this than steel or real estate. It’s nice when everyone is excited about what you’re doing” he says.
At Home in California
Marc Diamond, 34, thinks Sonoma County is a great place to live. He was born in Port Arthur, Tex., and grew up in several cities, including Oklahoma City, Okla.; Boca Raton, Fla.; and Houston, Tex. After attending the University of Texas in Austin, he went to work in his family’s steel company. In 2006, his father sold the company, and Diamond went into the real estate business in Texas. “I’ve always been interested in real estate,” he says.
The economic downturn in 2008, however, put a damper on the real estate industry, and it wasn’t a good time for building in Texas, so he decided to explore other options. He started looking at real estate investment in California, specifically in Sonoma County, because it’s the place where he wanted to live. He found a house in Cotati that appeared to have investment potential, moved in and stayed. He describes himself as one of those people who came and never left. “It’s paradise here,” he says.
Shipbird’s Numbers
Area: 9 Bay Area counties, going as far north as Cloverdale
Distance: Deliveries are within a 100-mile area, from shipper to receiver
Weight: 5 pounds or less recommended, to make items easy for anyone to carry
Payment: Shipbird gets 15 percent of the delivery fee; deliverers get the balance (85 percent).
Users: More than 2,100 and growing
Prediction: 100,000 users in 2015
Facebook Likes: 2,665 at the end of August 2014
Satisfaction
Jason Braatz, co-owner of San Francisco flower shops Rossi and Rovetti Flowers and Podesta Baldocchi, explains that a florist’s needs are unique. “You can’t just throw it in your car and go. Every item we have is fragile,” he says. He explains that a vase can’t have a tilt of more than 9 percent, and the presentation of a delivery is important. “We have high standards,” he adds, pointing out that the two floral businesses have long histories—Rossi and Rovetti was founded in 1900, and Podesta Baldocchi goes back to 1871—and have to maintain their reputations.
Although he has an employee to make deliveries, “It can go absolutely crazy some days,” he says, so he needs extra help. “We’re always looking for new and innovative ways to have flowers delivered,” he says, and reveals that he’s heard from lots of companies and some well-funded startups, but Shipbird is the only one he’s encountered that could meet the demands of his businesses.
Braatz and his partners wanted a service that uses technology, has a tracking system and doesn’t require the sender to go out to make a shipment. Shipbird fit the bill, meeting all three requirements. “We have to choose the people we work with judiciously,” says Braatz. When Diamond contacted Rossi and Rovetti, “We really put him through the wringer to tell the truth,” he adds. “We use Shipbird every single day,” he reports. “He [Diamond] has not failed.”
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is a hybrid of two words: crowd, which refers to the large number of people technology can reach, and outsource, the term for contracting work to individuals outside a business—sometimes outside the country. Editors Jeff Howe and Mark Robinson of Wired magazine created the word in 2006 and, today, it appears in respected dictionaries.
It’s popular for fund-raising and flash mobs as well as being a business strategy, and imaginative people are continually coming up with new applications. It’s an effective way to tap into a crowd and even has a website, www.crowdsource.com.
