The term “bootstrapping” carries with it all kinds of great connotations.
A business that bootstraps its way to success relies on little more than its own devices and its own team, along with plenty of sweat, toil and time. There are no handouts here, no free passes, no excuses. There is just ingenuity, thinking outside of the box and moving the ball far down the field, into the endzone.
These are the guiding principles that allow GoLocker to deliver success for its clients and its partners while surpassing its own expectations. In fact, the smart locker startup was bootstrapping its way to success when it landed its first anchor client, The Real Real. That accomplishment and ramped up bootstrapping allowed GoLocker to break wide open with an initial investor who set the stage for a raise of $1.4 million.
GoLocker is a public network of smart lockers that eliminates delivery and returns challenges for consumers while creating operational efficiencies for brands and carriers.
The GoLocker solution is not only timely, but it remains forward thinking and anticipatory while managing the increased deliveries and returns generated by the explosive growth of eCommerce.
Driving GoLocker’s achievements are the diverse backgrounds of its executive team. Illustrating the success that inspires this startup is the partnership that GoLocker recently announced with PackageHub, the nationwide franchise of shipping centers, to build a vast network of PUDO—pick up and drop off—points.
For insight into GoLocker’s formula for success, look no further than the company’s CEO and founder, Nigel Thomas, who has spent his entire career in logistics and supply chain management. Nigel’s passion for this sector is underscored by the 15 years he spent at FedEx, working on projects directly and indirectly related to the endeavors that GoLocker is currently advancing.
Nigel’s command of the shipping and logistics market was in full swing during a trip he took to Europe some years ago.
While working for FedEx and traveling by rail in Germany on business, Nigel discovered DHL Packstations at numerous train stations.
He was inspired to bring this service to the U.S. He quit his job at FedEx— and launched GoLocker. Seeking to reimagine an industry that hadn’t seen innovation in decades, Nigel developed the first-of-its-kind smart locker, last mile logistics, out-of-home, contactless package delivery network in the U.S.
And the bootstrapping at GoLocker was underway.
“The GoLocker team is diverse and complementary,” said Kiley Tkaczyk, the startup’s Vice President of Partnerships. “Targeted backgrounds help each other see things holistically. We keep our eye on the bigger picture.
“We are innovative and highly collaborative. We encourage ideation and curiosity. We are driven by growth and an ‘all hands on deck’ mindset. But what informs our every move is the customer-centric approach to everything we do. We look at everything through the lens of the customer.”
GoLocker started off serving New York City subscribers in need of the firm’s services. Now, in addition to growing and expanding its b2c market, GoLocker is helping brands realize the potential of their marketplaces.
Helping to steer GoLocker’s clients toward solutions that will advance their own growth is President and Co-Founder Amanda Cowan Sanchez, who has more than 20 years experience as a Med-Tech sales executive.
Amanda’s powerhouse credentials include strategy development and multimillion-dollar contract negotiation. But what really defines all that Amanda does is her mastery of disruptive technology.
Amanda spent 22 years in healthcare. She owned a consulting agency that assisted physicians as they mastered the business side of running a medical practice. She expanded her operation to include pharma companies, then built a 10-year career at a high tech company called Intuitive. That’s where Amanda managed the relationship between the largest nonprofit healthcare organization in the country and the producer of the technology it harnessed.
Amanda met Nigel through a mutual friend and ended up at GoLocker in a most interesting way—she was the company’s second investor.
Amanda came on board at GoLocker in the wake of Nigel’s now infamous trip to Germany, where he first saw the DHL Packstations. She invested in the company and a few years ago asked herself a very telling question—why wasn’t she working at GoLocker? After all, she had invested her money in the startup and firmly believed that its solution met a pressing need in the U.S.
“That’s why I decided to leave my career and do this full time,” she said.
Amanda boosted the GoLocker team even further by recruiting Kiley—with whom she had worked at Intuitive. From Intuitive, Kiley had moved on to a women’s healthcare startup called Kindbody, where she served as a business development lead. Overall, Kiley maintains an expertise in all things sales, partnerships and business development, be it at a Fortune 500 company or in a startup setting.
“Kiley and I have experience in bringing collaboration between engineers and sales, which is a big deal here at GoLocker,” Amanda said. “Half of our leadership has an engineering focus, while the other half is more sales and communication. We were able to bridge that gap at Intuitive, and we’ve transferred that skill to what we’re doing here at GoLocker.”
Added Amanda, “I brought Kiley on board because at Intuitive she was by far one of the most talented sales people we had in the organization. She had left there to go to a startup company, so I knew she had the mental fortitude to work in an uncertain environment, and bring her skill sets here. She’s just been absolutely amazing.”
Like Nigel, Chief Product Officer Sherin Davis is a “tech guru” who spent more than 15+ years at FedEx. That’s actually where the two met, when Sherin worked with Nigel on various innovative supply chain initiatives. Over the years, Nigel and Sherin remained in close touch whilst fostering their shared interest in building cutting edge logistics technology.
Sherin has forged a design thinking and problem solving spirit throughout her career, beginning at SAIC’s Research and Development team, building high fidelity simulators to train military troops. While at the global shipping firm, Sherin served in many leadership roles, in product management and product marketing, developing product strategy, vision, and design. She also served in technical advisory, project management, and software development capacities. Before her exit from FedEx, she played a key role in building a smarter supply chain data analytics platform for a startup mindset—FedEx Dataworks. This platform was rooted in connecting the physical and digital sides of the supply chain networks.
As GoLocker grew over the years, Nigel was looking for talent to expand and build the GoLocker smart public locker network and was in need of someone with a strong technical background who understood the complex supply and logistics landscape. Nigel brought Sherin to the GoLocker team to drive his vision for the company.
“As we are building the product, having a deep understanding of customer needs and meeting them where they are is the key to our success,” says Sherin.
She was very excited to join the team for the same reason that brought Amanda and Kiley on board—she wanted to be a part of a revolutionary and disruptive technology.
All told, that is what lies at the heart of the bootstrapped enterprise called GoLocker.
Visit golocker.com to learn more.
