Ok so here is the truth… we’re a bunch of techie geeks that love playing with new toys AND we’re addicted to adrenaline. You know — that rush that takes over when you’re sitting in a car flying down an open road (middle of the night Nairobi roads) or on a motorcycle dirt biking down Mount Suswa? Except our adrenaline for speed is a bit different.
Let me explain…
Instead of racing down a road or mountain, most of the time we’re sitting behind our computers clunking away. No wind in our hair or breeze down our back. No… instead it’s slightly unbalanced swivel chairs and uncomfortably long hours sitting squished with too many people to a desk. Unless of course one has gotten up to make a fresh pot of Jason’s (fancy) Tomoca coffee roast.
So where do we get our adrenaline kick?
Well… on those computers where we clunk away… sits a dashboard. And on the dashboard… a lot of real time delivery metrics. One of those metrics: Deviation from Expected Time of Delivery (ETD). Back when we first started Sendy, it was always positive deviation, meaning our Riders were taking longer than expected ETD to deliver. But why?!! Traffic, accidents, blocked roads, gridlocked intersections, matatus in the oncoming lane, rain… I don’t really need to explain, do I? So we spent more and more hours on our lopsided swivel chairs elbow to elbow heads down trying to solve this challenge.
In a gridlocked city with poor transportation infrastructure, how does one increase the speed of a delivery?
Ding Ding Ding Ding!! I spy with my little eye … a DRONE?
Jump ahead… and imagine a team of 22 all standing around one computer watching one number… ‘Deviation from ETD’. Woaaahh… let me tell you what it feels like with you see a HIGH negative number on the screen. The RUSH!
Long story short — us 22 geeks are proud to announce we’ve just tested our first Drone Delivery in Nairobi — and damn it was cool!!
Delivery got #Droned.
#Sendyit
Malaika Judd
