![]() Since Smith had a hard time convincing retailers to let his home delivery option be integrated into their website, he had to think of another way. To make that happen, Shipt would use a network of independent contractors, or "shoppers." Smith invested $3 million of his own capital into the company, which started with a $100,000 check, gradually investing more over time.įor the first test version of Shipt, which launched in November of 2014 in Birmingham, Smith used $250,000 in capital to hire a few engineers. Smith wanted customers to be able to go to a retailer's website, place an order and have it delivered to their door that same day. And I wanted to figure out how to apply it to my problem." "And I was also seeing companies in the ride-sharing space and seeing that new model and thinking, man, this new model is out there, and it's allowing services to be offered that were not really offered at that scale before. "I said, 'Gosh, there has to be a way to buy anything from any store and get it delivered the same day,'" Smith explains. He personally hated shopping and wanted to figure out a way to get out of the dreaded task. The initial plan for Shipt, Smith says, was to build a business around same-day delivery for big box retailers. Smith knew that for his next venture, he wanted to do something in the sizzling, on-demand economy. The on-demand economy was hot, with Amazon Prime slowly starting to build a cult following and Uber making waves as the darling of Silicon Valley. His first big win came in 2014, when GreenDot Corporation, a financial technology, bank-holding company acquired Insight for an undisclosed amount, although Smith notes it was in the millions.įresh off the heels of the acquisition, Smith was already looking for his next opportunity. The business of prepaid credit cards, Smith says, was extremely complicated, but he learned the ropes simply by figuring out who the big players were in the space, doing the research and having conversations with other companies to learn more about the core product. Then, in 2009, he founded Insight Card Services, a company offering re-loadable, prepaid Visa cards. Smith spent his early career as a serial entrepreneur - after running his cellular business for three years, he built a company that issued small loans. "I think that it's kind of a flaw to think that you're going to go to a school, and someone that's never been an entrepreneur is going to teach you how to be an entrepreneur, you know? So, I just tell people you've got to get out there and start making it happen." "I think that business is all about just getting out there and solving problems, and I don't know if you can really teach entrepreneurship," Smith says. Entrepreneurship, he thought, was something that could not be learned in a classroom. But he quickly realized a traditional education just wasn't for him. While working, Smith received his GED and even did a brief stint at college. Eventually, he opened up two retail cell phone stores and was making $4,000 to $5,000 a month. It was the early 2000s, and Smith began selling cell phones to small businesses. Instacart, a platform that partners with more than 25,000 stores in North America, says orders in more recent weeks have surged 150%."At that point he said, 'Alright he's going to do what's he's going to do,'" Smith adds. During the week of March 2 - even before some cities and states imposed “stay-at-home” orders - Instacart, Amazon and Walmart grocery delivery sales all jumped by at least two-thirds from the year before, according to Earnest Research. In the U.S., grocery shopping had only been slowly migrating online, making up 3% of the food retail market, according to a report last year by Deutsche Bank.Īs the coronavirus crisis hit and millions of Americans began to stay home, delivery orders surged. “Due to high demand, some items have extended delivery dates,” is the new version of walking into an empty grocery aisle. – If you walked into the paper goods aisle at your local grocer since coronavirus cases first reached Florida and saw nothing on the shelves and then thought, “Now is the time to start ordering groceries online,” you are not alone and for many people, an app just isn’t the solution this time, as the supply isn’t meeting the demand.
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