#StartupsEverywhere Profile: Joshe Ordonez, Founder, CEO, & Creative Director, Airpals
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Building a Platform to Close Critical Gaps in Local Logistics
Airpals is a New York City, N.Y.-based platform working to close gaps in the local delivery logistics market. They have built their technology with “a triple bottom line approach”—focusing on people, the planet, and profit—in mind. We spoke to the Founder, CEO, & Creative Director Joshe Ordonez about the goals she has for Airpals, how she navigates building her workforce as a growing startup, and the ways in which policymakers can support the interconnected tech ecosystem.
Tell us about your background. What led you to create Airpals?
I started my career in the fashion industry. Some people might be surprised by how the fashion, logistics, and technology industries intertwine. People think fashion designers are professionals in the business of only making things prettier, but they actually design a product that solves a problem and people use day in, day out. This translates to building tech products as well. As I progressed in my fashion career, developing fashion products and trying to break through, I was introduced to the world of logistics. In this field, you need materials from all across the world that are then consolidated at one location into one final product, and from there, the products go to the seller. As I navigated the fashion industry, I discovered gaps in the availability of reliable, local logistics companies. This was very interesting to me because you have large air cargo companies or companies like Flexport to help with long-distance or international shipping. But local companies struggle in this area and still use an outdated approach. For example, they take orders over the phone, they don't provide electronic shipment tracking, or even lack the technology to create more efficient shipping routes. In those gaps is where Airpals was born.
What is the work you all are doing at Airpals?
We're a technology based logistics company that, currently, focuses on business to business (B2B) local courier services in New York City for internal operations. So if you work for a fashion brand, for example, and are planning a photo shoot, you’d need to ensure you have the proper equipment ready for that event—the cameras, the props, the wardrobe, and everything in between. We have built software as well as the delivery fleet to accomplish all those logistical tasks with Airpals. Our mission is to create a model that has a triple bottom line approach. To us, that means we are focusing on people, the planet, and profit.
We demonstrate that commitment in several ways. We are using our technology to maximize the efficiency of our routes on the ground, so we can pay our delivery workers a higher than average wage for their work. In fact, we proudly pay our delivery drivers three times higher than any other traditional on demand delivery marketplace. We also cover the cost of parking tickets for drivers, which is a huge problem in this sector due to lack of city parking—especially with the increase of outdoor restaurant seating at the expense of parking spaces—and often comes out of the driver's pay. In regards to pollution, logistical transport is one of the biggest contributors to pollution in the country. We're actively using the data our platform has collected to help us reduce travel times to minimize our carbon footprint. There are a lot of factors we’re focusing on simultaneously, but we’re really proud of the intentional way we’re building our platform and company.
You mentioned how your company prioritizes the wellbeing of drivers. What types of drivers do you rely on? What do you think policymakers should keep in mind when crafting policies that could impact the talent your company relies on?
Our drivers are independent contractors. Medium to long term, we would like to employ them full-time or collaboratively build a model that works for them and the business. They have the right to feel protected, to have vacation, benefits, and a decent wage that can allow them to grow personally, if that’s what they need. But, at the same time, as a startup, growing our workforce is incredibly costly. For example, in New York, the processes and costs of providing insurance and workers compensation for full-time employees are really significant cost barriers.
Unclear workforce regulations also serve as a barrier for startups. Even something as small as misunderstanding a complicated rule, or going off of an outdated resource, could spell trouble for our company. And I think that's why we have these mismatched and broken systems in traditional on demand marketplaces. Additionally, cities are not adapting fast enough to the surge in deliveries. Delivery activities need to be factored into parking and vehicle registration laws, not only for the benefit of logistics companies which are a critical component of the economy, but to benefit drivers who already have a lot of responsibility behind the wheel. Their job is intense and they work under stress. Policymakers can work together to make these jobs easier.
It’s true there are companies that hire independent contractors because they want to avoid paying for benefits. But at the same time, there are a lot of workers who want the opportunity of stable, independent work and that shouldn’t be disregarded. And there are many startups that are in a growth stage, trying to get the capital needed to build a workforce, that employ independent contractors to meet their talent needs for where they are at in their startup journey. I see the future as this hybrid model of a permanent fleet of drivers that is supported with independent contractors. And we're working towards that at Airpals.
Have there been any startup support organizations or other companies that have particularly supported you on your journey? In what ways can policymakers better support this aspect of the broader ecosystem?
We went through LAUNCH Accelerator, which is a program founded by Jason Calacanis, one of Uber’s first investors. And now we're currently doing a one-year long program with Google for Startups as a part of their Latino Founders Fund. What I can tell you about both these programs is that they require a lot of resources in order to actually move the needle and have a positive impact on the company the entrepreneurs are building. These resources take the form of both financial capital and human resources because we need so much support in areas like fundraising, connecting to potential clients, getting feedback on our finances, and understanding what tech resources are available for startups. I am grateful to companies and organizations like Google that invest in underrepresented founders like me, as we have a direct impact on creating jobs for minority communities. More investment and resources support from federal policymakers to these founder communities is critical.
I applied to state economic support programs, but those were really hard to get into and Airpals was never accepted. I think the private sector approaches these support systems very differently. The public approach of support programs is often narrowly tailored to a specific type of company, is very risk averse, and excludes a lot of innovative sectors. I think diversifying the goals of these programs would be great. Also, one of the real benefits to public support grants or economic development programs is that they are best situated to help entrepreneurs navigate the process of contracting with the different levels of government or understanding how to obtain key certifications, which is important for a lot of startups. If these programs were to focus on those concerns, they could have a competitive advantage in comparison to similar private programs. Those tasks can be so bureaucratic and hard to navigate that many entrepreneurs give up rather than risk sacrificing the time it takes to figure it out that could be used to focus on month over month growth.
How does Airpals interconnect with other technologies in the ecosystem? Would you have been able to get off the ground or grow at your current pace without these connections? What would it mean if policies made those sorts of relationships harder?
We're building our core technology from scratch—we have an amazing team of engineers that works hard to build a great platform—but we leverage integrations with other platforms to maximize value. As a startup, you have limited resources. It would be impossible for one startup to build every single system from scratch. For example, if you need customer support technology, it’s much more efficient—from both a time and financial perspective—to take advantage of products that are already available in the market and focus on building the pieces of your platform that will provide you with your competitive advantage. For us, that is the automation in routing we are building. That's how we are able to provide affordable prices to the client, but at the same time, make the work so efficient that the drivers can get paid three times more than working for any other delivery apps.
Integrations with platforms like Intercom and Zendesk to get what we need out of our website are super helpful. Plus, many companies offer special pricing for startups for a certain period of time, which is really helpful to reduce expenses and keep our cash that we can invest in what will provide our customers with the best product. We also get credits, as a startup, from companies like Airtable—that's how we build our product—and Google ads that help us to get our first customers. All of the programs like these have been very helpful to our work and were important to getting us to where we are today.
What are your goals for Airpals moving forward?
Our hope is to expand to several other major cities—Los Angeles, Miami, Austin, and more. But that’s a huge challenge because every state has different regulations in our sector—whether that’s around workers compensation, insurance, or something else. We’re working to be even more trusted with the mission we have created. That will include working to adopt widespread usage of electric vehicles in our fleet to keep our commitment to minimizing our environmental impact. We’re excited about building our company around our mission and sharing that with our customers.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
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