Unpacking complexity in logistics
BURLEIGH-BASED start-up CartonCloud is a classic find-agap-and-fill-it story.
Vincent Fletcher, a software engineer, and Nic Comrie, with a background in logistics, “misguidedly” ploughed all their savings and then some into a failing transport and warehouse business. It continued to fail under their stewardship. So far, so bad.
The pair, then in their early 20s, found themselves weeks away from ruin, driven by a dated manual process which sapped time and money.
Quests for existing solutions to manage manifests, point-of-distribution capture, invoicing and other admin tasks were fruitless.
So they made their own and CartonCloud was born.
Two years later, after using the system to reverse the fortunes of their first company and selling it, they turned their full-time attention to their new enterprise.
“Our competitors are guys that have been in business for 20 years or more, they’re desktop-based and they look old school,” he said.
CartonCloud mobilises
logistics operations by bringing the admin on to a tablet, with the information accessible from anywhere – invoicing is simplified, proofs of deliveries digitised and searchable.
It is now in use by more than 50 carriers and warehouses across Australia and New Zealand, processing about 120,000 deliveries a month and invoicing more than $8 million dollars of freight each month.
“A lot of the software in our sector is focused on enterprise level clients, so if you’re a small or medium enterprise the software is too expensive, and overkill or really hard to use,” Mr Fletcher (pictured) said.
“Ours is cloud-based, with a low upfront fee and charges based on how many jobs are processed – it’s easy to use.
“There are tens of thousands of SMEs in Australia and it’s an under-serviced market.”
CartonCloud’s system may have applications beyond logistics, with the company scoring a Queensland Government grant to explore whether it could be used in academia and organising research reports.
The company’s roster has grown from three staff last April to 12 staff today, with active recruiting under way for six more roles, and another six in the pipeline by next April.
Therein lies the company’s current top challenge, according to Mr Fletcher, who has cast a recruitment net across Australia and New Zealand to find the right people.
“Gold Coast isn’t really a strong place for programmers,” he said.
“We don’t have that revolving door of people leaving other businesses and looking for work like you have in Sydney and Melbourne.
“At the moment, the team we have are strong people who are passionate about what they do – but they are accountable.
“We try to make the most of being based on the Gold Coast where we can – last Friday we went to Coolangatta for beach volleyball, and then all went out for dinner.”