When my business partner Andrew Leone and I first dreamt up the idea for Dispatch, we were focused on a gap in the distribution chain. Specifically, Andrew noticed the amount of time and money that service-based small businesses were wasting every time one of their skilled technicians had to leave a jobsite to pick up a part or tool they needed.
From the data we’ve collected over the years, we've estimated that an average one-way delivery takes around 55 minutes. This means that every time an employee leaves a jobsite to pick up parts or supplies, they’ll likely lose approximately two hours of their day. That’s valuable work time that could significantly delay a project and every project scheduled after it. Plus, the cost of skilled labor continues to rise. Having highly-skilled, well-paid employees making deliveries simply isn’t a good use of resources. The other option — working with traditional courier services — isn't always viable either. We've found that traditional couriers often lack the technology and transparency to offer efficient on-demand deliveries.
Once we realized this, Andrew and I started imagining the impact on a company’s bottom line if technicians could continue working while drivers who specialized in same-day deliveries brought the necessary part to the jobsite. Skilled employees could get one more job done each day, increasing revenue. Then we started thinking about how we could leverage technology to streamline the entire distribution chain — that’s when Dispatch was born.
Disrupting the Distribution Chain
Dispatch is a next gen courier solution that enables businesses to schedule local deliveries and track orders in real-time. It wasn’t long before we realized that this little idea — using technology to make deliveries more efficient — had the potential to disrupt the distribution and same-day logistics industry in a big way.
Think about the amount of time, money, and resources that are invested in the distribution process. Roughly one-third of the U.S. GDP flows through wholesale distribution. In a world where customers expect deliveries to be fast and free, companies like Amazon continue to reinvent distribution chains and deliveries. For a while, this only affected the B2C industry. But in 2015, Amazon rolled out Amazon Business, taking the ordering platform and its nearly limitless catalog of products and streamlining delivery, as well as tailoring it to businesses. Now manufacturers of parts, tools, equipment, etc., can sell directly to businesses without a B2B distributor.
The pressure this puts on B2B companies can’t be understated. A typical business that manages its own distribution might spend 5-10% of its top-line revenue on vehicle costs, employees, and managing supply and demand. These expenses don’t even factor in gas, insurance, and other fleet maintenance. As B2B companies look for new ways to stay competitive, freeing up this chunk of revenue and investing it in growth, R&D, and talent could make a major impact.
What’s Next for Dispatch
The last year has been an incredible journey for the Dispatch team. We’re excited to open new markets, continue to improve the distribution industry, and help small businesses and B2B companies stay competitive.
We’re investing capital toward expanding into new territories. Because of this, we’re now making on-demand deliveries in more than 30 locations across the country. We can only do this expansion with a solid foundation of talented team members. We plan on hiring 100-200 new employees in the coming months as we grow our sales, customer success, business development, operations, and marketing teams. Make sure you check out our career opportunities to learn more.
With a growing team, we need to create a collaborative work environment. We’re renovating our building in Bloomington, MN, to make our office more modern, comfortable, and innovative. We can’t wait to show off our new space!
A Team Built on Values
I truly believe that Dispatch is a great place to work, and attribute that to our team’s commitment to the Dispatch core values: Belief, People First, Driven to Deliver, Speed to Value, and Transparency. We make sure our values are at the center of everything we do, and we work hard to live up to them every day.
Our story started with one big idea focused on filling a gap in the distribution chain. In just a few years, Dispatch has grown into a national company employing dozens of hard-working people who are all focused on a common goal. This success is a true testament to our values, one-of-a-kind team, and winning culture. As we like to say — there are no bad seats on a rocket ship, and we’re only going up from here.
