As I get more and more questions on my website the most common one has been how I came up with my idea. Perhaps more important, what future ideas do I like. Without giving out specifics on what I might be focused on I am all too happy to share my broader thoughts.
Worldwide Express was born from an assignment I had at Trammell Crow. I was asked to review our overnight express spend, and found that FedEx was charging us nearly list price across the board. This made no sense to me because our aggregate spend was in the millions yet FedEx would only discount based on each locations volume. I saw a flaw here, FedEx was already going to our locations so actually each time we gave them a package we were making them incrementally more profitable. Light bulb moment for me. Here is a massively large company who actually invented the space telling me it “was what it was” and to look elsewhere if we needed to. I figured there were lots of companies who didn’t believe in this take it or leave it arrogance, so I left Trammell Crow and started to Worldwide Express to address this market imbalance
I have seen many opportunities along the way to make very large markets and spaces more efficient by addressing inefficiencies and fragmentation while utilizing existing infrastructure. Think MCI, Sprint and WorldCom historically. And while I have been very busy with Worldwide Express there many others out there and new opportunities in the pipeline. Here some existing examples of the model I know and love. Energy deregulation in Texas and other states has been leveraged by MLM’s who focus on the fragmented retail sector of the market and use existing infrastructure to deliver their service the same way we do at Worldwide Express. Gexa, Direct Energy and Champion are just a few examples here. Wireless service aggregation is another and has been addressed by many including Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile and others; again using the same model we utilize at Worldwide Express. My new favorite is Uber which I have been using for months. Uber utilizes a Google maps based system leveraging the existing, unused capacity of commercial limousine services to provide on demand Town car and SUV drivers.
Again, the theme is the same folks. Find a big space, utilize existing infrastructure and make things more efficient by aggregating a fragmented market. And please remember, it is not the big that eat the small it is the fast that eat the slow.
