A “ Y Combinator” Startup Story — Your Hero Delivery
Case Study: Your Hero Delivery:Heroes love what they do.
A laundry service picked up and delivered by super heroes between the hours of 6:30 am to 8:30 pm in San Francisco, seven days a week.
Welcome to the members of Your Hero Delivery. Starting from the left: Ioannis Giannaros, Michael Dunworth and yours truly, Chris Baker.
So first of all the main question WHY and WHAT were you thinking.
The laundry service industry is stale, boring and overall a pretty naff experience. Which is why we were kind of amazed, when we heard “Y-Combinator” invested in one. When ever this is present, there is an opportunity to act on it. So our main question to ourselves was:how can we take a really miserable service experience and make it exciting and fun? Your Hero Delivery was born….
1. Simply select your super hero. Batman, Spiderman or Thor.
2. Simply select your load size:
3. Make the call
Pick up at 6:30–8:30am and drop off’s the same day from 6:30–8:30pm.
Batman delivering in Dolores Park, San Francisco, 2013.
So here are the six lessons which were learned which may help you with your venture.
1. Validate your idea
Put a post on Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit informing your friends of your idea — see what your friends think of it. Do not think your idea is gold dust from the start because it won’t be. Every idea needs work and will always needed to be worked on. Speak to people and get some sort of feedback before you starting gambling on your idea, validate everything before investing any time and money into it. For more on this I would recommend the Lean Startup by Eric Rries.
2. Make everything that little bit better.
Come in fresh faced and wide eyed. This should be your main thought running through your mind when proving your concept. How can we make every little step that little bit better than your competitors.
2. UX — User experience
If you ignore this important aspect — you are disrespecting any user you may have. Make a list of all shit user experiences you may come across on the web, which annoy you and get under your skin. This will be your list of where you can possible enter the market and do a better job. Here is our Facebook Page for ideas.
3. Community
Everything comes back to building a community. Why should anyone care about your website, idea or product?
GO ABOVE AND BEYOND TO PLEASE YOUR FANS
4. Surprise your customers
Your first 100 are the most important. Anyone who has gone out of their way to make a comment on your product. Surprise them and do what ever it takes to please them. Write a personal thank you note or re-tweet/follow them on Twitter. Do what ever you can to please them, they have invested time and money into what you believe in, so repay them and surprise them. You could even make a spread sheet where you put your “super hero” die hard customers in.
5. Know the WHY not the WHAT
Make sure you make this clear and apparent to any potential customers. Do not inform your customers what you are doing but inform them WHY you are doing it. This is the difference
WHAT
Your Hero Delivery picks up and delivers laundry between picks up s of 6:30–8:30 dressed up as super heroes — would you like your laundry picked up by us?
WHY
Hero’s love what they do. Our service is simple to use and you will not find a better price on the market. We just happen to be able to pick up your laundry and drop it off on the same day. Would you like to use Your Hero Delivery?
People buy into WHY you do what you do and not WHAT you do. Invest 15 minuets of your time and watch this video by Simon Sinek to learn more.
6. Hard work
You got it, prepare yourself to for long nights and some hard times. Running any business is not easy, it can be the best of times and the worst of times. So make sure you have 100% DESIRE, BELIEF and FAITH in what you are doing. You have to fully back your idea and concept with burning desire if you want it to work.
Conclusion
What ever you do in life it all comes down DESIRE. If the desire is not there you will never have the PERSISTENCE to carry through with ANY venture.
Here is a picture of me and Michael washing and folding someone’s laundry. This just happened to be on the day of my birthday. Ioannis the third member made a very valid point, and that was “what ever you do on life you should want to do it on your birthday or Christmas day.”
If you do not have the desire to do it even on these days then you have not found what you truly love in life. So keep throwing shit at the walls until something sticks. in this case the laundry now and again did stick to the walls.
