Last Updated on March 19, 2014 by Tim
With our offices in the heart of Toronto and other coffee lovers in our space or across the hall or even on the floors above and below us we thought of a startup of our own. This winter had been one of the coldest in recent memory but should the cold stop us from picking up a cup of java from our local caffeine disposal bar down the street? Of course not. But why should everyone brave the cold when one person could for an entire building and possibly earn a little profit.
Essentially by posting up flyers and a mini-web app we took in orders throughout the day and when there was at least a few orders an intern, yes it became an interns role, was set out to pick up coffee orders and deliver them throughout our building. There was clearly a gap between consumers and product providers that don’t provide delivery. While the constant deliveries and our very minimal markup made having an intern go out constantly to fetch coffee and constantly climb stairs in our elevator free space was getting to become a little too overwhelming, a San Francisco startup has build an infrastructure all their own to dissolve the same gap we noticed.
Postmates is a delivery service and app that lets local couriers purchase and deliver products from any restaurant or retailer – which are usually the one’s that don’t have a delivery service already. When the urge for coffee or even a bagel from a neighboring artisanal store comes a grumbling, Postmates will be the on-demand solution to figure out the logistics of an otherwise unanswered need.
While we were trying to branch out as a single service from one hub (our office), Postmates takes a much more efficient route, a passage that other tech based service companies like Uber have taken. The service works with pre-existing casual personnel that ride bikes or drive cars to become delivery service providers for every other need you may have. The service costs start at $5 and the total is calculated by adding up the distance to be traveled for delivery.
The service clearly takes an advantage of a service need by making lives of others much more efficient. If you’re too busy to go out and grab what’s needed or maybe it’s just a little too cold, Postmates can be for delivery services as Uber or Hailo is for taxi services.