Self-proclaimed “data nerds” Steph Barlow and Wesley Goodhoofd used to enjoy tracking shipments, always interested to see how an item got from point A to point B.
The two met in 2016 when working at Ottawa-based software company Iversoft, Barlow in HR and Goodhoofd as a developer.
Since the pandemic, Barlow said she’s seen how HR and operations teams have had to cope with some of the challenges related to remote work, including shipping and retrieving equipment employees need to do their job.
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“As an employer, it’s a difficult time when you’ve laid someone off. It’s a little uncomfortable to try to do that awkward back and forth (for equipment),” said Barlow, who left Iversoft two years ago and moved to the West Coast to head her own firm, Octopus HR. “One day, I was thinking that there has to be someone that came up with a solution for this.”
In fact, there were solutions, but many were U.S.-based and used subscription models, leading to many barriers for Canadian customers.
“There were several solutions in the U.S., but if you wanted to use it in Canada, there was a fee for it being an international shipment. And it was all charged in U.S. dollars,” she said.
Seeing a gap in the logistics market in Canada, Barlow reached out to her former colleague Goodhoofd, who had stayed in Ottawa and became co-founder and CIO of logistics solutions firm LiveLoads. Last April, they started work on LapDrop, a Canadian-first logistics company that specializes in sending and retrieving work devices on a pay-per-use model.
For example, an employer on-boarding a remote employee would go onto the LapDrop platform and enter the company’s location and the employee’s location. Once the fee is paid, the team at LapDrop gets a notification to prepare a shipment kit, which includes a padded box, labels and tape to seal the box. The employer gets the kit, packages the equipment and brings it to a Canada Post location.
Throughout the process, both employer and employee get notifications that track the shipment, until Canada Post drops the box off at the designated location.
Barlow said they chose Canada Post to benefit from its vast reach. “We wanted to be a Canadian platform for Canadian organizations. The nice thing is that there isn’t really a place in Canada that Canada Post does not go to,” she said, adding that LapDrop has back-up options in case of labour disruptions.
Being a Canadian-first company differentiates LapDrop from competitors. “We found that, with a lot of these services, Canada is an afterthought. Everything in Canada works slightly differently in the HR space, from things like benefits to payroll. We’re not American, so you kind of end up awkwardly shoving the puzzle piece in to make it work,” she said.
The pay-per-use model makes sense since most businesses only ship equipment every few months or even years, Barlow said. At the same time, it’s tough to stay top-of-mind for businesses. Looking ahead, she said the firm would like to add more marketing expertise.
Since launching earlier this month, Barlow said she’s received notes from former colleagues and connections in Ottawa. In fact, LapDrop’s first customer was Ottawa-based AI firm Pluvo.
“We’ve benefited from having an amazing network in Ottawa. I’ve been so impressed by how supportive everyone has been. It’s been great to actually see it impact people,” she said.
As they built the startup last year, Barlow said she and Goodhoofd received interest from several venture capitalists, but turned any offers down.
“We kind of like that this is a thing that we’ve bootstrapped ourselves. We’re kind of proud that it’s something that we’ve managed to create ourselves without any external investment,” she said, adding that LapDrop wouldn’t be against investors in the future.
Going forward, Barlow said LapDrop is working on improving the product to make it easier for customers, such as with scheduled pick-ups with Canada Post. And though they’ve gotten requests to include pick-ups and drop-offs in the U.S., Barlow said LapDrop’s main focus will be to perfect the product for Canadian customers first.
Barlow said she and Goodhoofd still laugh at the irony of their startup.
“It was a running joke between (Goodhoofd) and I that anytime we shipped anything, we always loved to see what the tracking of it was like. Where were the shipping lanes? How did things transition? Now we laugh that we made a shipping company to get this data for fun. And we’re looking at how (we can) optimize that data to get the company to perform better. That’s just us being data nerds.”
