The Arrival of Dispatch

A quick anecdotal history

Do you remember the evening of February 8th, 1996? Considering it was 18 years ago, probably not. But first, think about all that’s happened over the past 18 years to “improve” the customer experience particularly within the services industry…

• The internet
• Smart phones
• Mobile apps
• Tablets
• Cloud-based software

What’s one thing that hasn’t changed though? What’s one thing that was a considerable pain point for consumers and businesses in 1996 that remains unchanged and a mindboggling frustration today in 2014? The answer lives simply in February 8th, 1996.

Yes, thank you Seinfeld for perfectly highlighting the reason we started Dispatch.

The crossroads

We are at a fascinating crossroads today. On one hand, the on-demand economy and the “Uber for x” mindset is rapidly expanding (along with new marketplace start-ups to meet this demand) by the day. Consumers want and expect services from alcohol to car washes and they want them now, with the simple press of a button.

On the other hand, we have legacy enterprise service companies that face the extreme challenges of managing mobile workforces. Appointment setting, tracking and service management with existing systems is disconnected to say the least and there’s no closed loop. In the end, it’s the customer who suffers the most with multiple-hour appointment windows and unpredictable experiences. These customers, however, now have social media at their fingertips and they have the ability to drive millions of dollars in revenue away from your company pending a negative customer experience.

These two forces (start-ups vs. enterprises) are crashing into each other right now, and we’ve reached the breaking point.

I think about my own life and can draw on a recent experience that is a relatable for millions of people. I was doing laundry, or trying to, when the washing machine broke (not cool when running a house with three children). I didn’t know what to do, so I quickly called Home Depot, who directed me to my home warranty company, who told me they could not find a service provider to fix it for at least two weeks. I started hitting a bunch of online directories and calling providers, but I had no clue who was legit or what quality I’d get. I was getting responses comprised of 4-hour appointment windows, or “I’ll try to come by in the next couple of days.” What??? This type of experience just doesn’t cut it anymore, hence, the competitive landscape is rapidly changing.

Your enterprise is a target

Bostinno posted an article last week citing the emergence of “Uber for x” and highlighted 50 recent start-ups each focusing on a unique niche market. While this list only represents a fraction of the number of start-ups that are assembling right now, it helps to visualize the threat so I am going to list all 50 from the article below:

Alcohol, anything, articles, beauty, broadband, cash, doctors, dog walking, drone pilots, economies, erotic dancers, everything, fitness, flowers, gentleman companions, haircuts, home cleaning, investing, kids, laundry, lawn mowing, long distance travel, massage, moving your stuff, nightlife, nurses, odd jobs, online matchmaking services, parking, photography, pizza, private air travel, private yoga sessions, public transit, real estate, seniors, shipping and carriers, sick pets, snowplowing, stuff, tech support, teeth, the electricity grid, the restaurant obsessed, the retail world, tow trucks, waste, weed, your hangover, your uterus.

While I use the word “start-up” to describe these companies, don’t make the mistake of thinking they’re not a threat just because they haven’t been in the past (there was a time when nobody had heard of Uber, AirBnB, Handy…etc) during competitive analysis initiatives. For perspective, Uber has raised $1.5B of VC money and AirBnB has raised $794M.

These companies are fast, pose a real threat and have changed your competitive landscape. As far as funding, most of these start-ups will receive VC money and will be given one assignment under the following context — to disrupt your big, slow, outdated clunky enterprise business.

Your enterprise is a target, and you’re being hunted by a brand new foe.

So why is Dispatch here?

So why is Dispatch here and what do we care about?

First we have a supreme appreciation for “Uberfying things”, and our mission is to help companies apply the concept of “on-demand” to as many things in life as possible.

Second, we care about simplifying. I’ve started multiple companies before Dispatch and each one required a sizeable amount of capital (over $1B collectively) to get off the ground. With Dispatch, however, once the need was identified, we were able to build immediately, gather data and see people’s reaction almost instantaneously.

As an enterprise, you know that the following critical changes are needed in order to compete in the on-demand services market and deliver exceptional customer experiences:

• Visibility into your employee workforce and network of third party contractors
• Customer feedback and relationship management
• Ease of booking and scheduling
• Allowing your customers to track providers in real-time
• Billing & payments

And that’s why we’re here.

Thank you

With support from amazing investors like Ray Lane and Mark Goldstein, who helped solidify our vision and roadmap, as well as Salesforce Ventures, Promus Ventures, GrandBanks Capital, LaunchCapital and Kima Ventures, we were able to quickly attack the market need and roll out our solution. The past year has been an exciting one to say the least, and we are proud to unveil the first-to-market platform for enterprises to Uberfy their existing business processes and join the on-demand economy. Our platform is easy to implement, offers seamless integration to existing systems, and is completely customizable. We are happy to say we are on our way to revolutionizing the ‘last mile’ of home service.

To read more about our launch, read our press release here.