If the sharing economy can bring a pizza to your door, why can’t it bring some extra lumber to a work site?
That’s the simplistic take on Ottawa-based startup GoFor, which recently won a Bootstrap Award for its on-demand delivery service for construction materials. CEO Brad Rollo, who spent 10 years in the construction industry after a career in technology, told Techopia Live this week why this idea brought him back to entrepreneurship.
“I spent all my time in my vehicle running around being a gofer, getting materials for job sites,” Rollo told Techopia Live, reflecting on his time in the field. He realized that while large orders were well handled by suppliers, there was a gap in the supply chain for smaller material orders. An on-demand service could fill the void for contractors that need a few extra supplies in a timely manner.
OBJ360 (Sponsored)
The Ottawa Hospital’s Campaign to Create Tomorrow enters important next phase
For Ginger Bertrand, some of her earliest childhood memories in Ottawa are centred around healthcare. “I grew up across the street from what was originally the General Hospital,” she explains,
How the uOttawa faculty of engineering instills an ‘entrepreneurial mindset’ in students
A decade ago, Terrafixing chief operating officer Vida Gabriel was a chemistry-loving student in high school with little to no interest in business or entrepreneurship. “I didn’t like the sales
Like Uber Eats, GoFor has a fleet of independent contractors that can deliver materials as needed to job sites across Ottawa. When suppliers are booked up and delivery could take more than a day, the startup is there to fill the gap.
The problem is real and the solution is viable, but Rollo says GoFor hit a roadblock in going after the contractors. To reach thousands of potential customers, the startup would need a massive marketing budget, which, as a bootstrapped firm, wasn’t readily available.
The other barrier to adoption is the we’ve-always-done-it-this-way attitude that Rollo says is common amongst long-time contractors. He believes that now is the right time for the industry to adopt technological solutions to improve efficiency.
“You’ve got a broken industry. Productivity is way down. You’re starting to hear more tech companies going out to make construction more productive.”
So, a pivot: GoFor decided to establish partnerships with the suppliers themselves, offering the firm’s services a supplement to their own busy fleets.
“All of a sudden they were coming to us and saying, ‘This is something we really need,’” Rollo said.
With suppliers on its side, GoFor has a direct line to hundreds of contractors, who are told to sign up for this on-demand service if they have last-minute orders.
Rollo says the company plans to expand to the Greater Toronto Area, Calgary and the south-eastern United States soon, and claims to have plenty of interest from customers across the continent.
“We have a long, long list of suppliers across North America waiting for us. If I had all the money in the world, I could be in every city in the world, I’d have over 7,000 partners ready, using us.”
To hear more about Rollo’s thoughts on a lagging construction industry and the role tech can play, watch the video above.
