Deliverr's product-market fit journey: Michael Krakaris on enabling Prime for all E-commerce

Deliverr's product-market fit journey: Michael Krakaris on enabling Prime for all E-commerce

Author: Unusual Ventures September 11, 2023 Duration: 46:57

Started in 2017, Deliverr is an E-commerce fulfillment company that integrates with marketplaces such as Shopify and Walmart. The company offers a two-day shipping service to small merchants selling on these online marketplaces helping them compete with Amazon Prime. Co-founded by Harish Abbott and Michael Krakaris, the company was acquired by Shopify for US$ 2.1 bn in May 2022.

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde joins Michael Krakaris and Sarah Leary (GP at Unusual) to discuss Deliverr’s path to product-market fit.

Join us as we discuss:

01:00 The insight that led to Deliverr’s founding

04:20 Why E-commerce fulfillment needed to be democratized

08:18 The value of understanding customers to achieve product-market fit

15:11 Early product-market fit signals for Deliverr

20:15 Pivoting Deliverr's business model to drive revenue

26:23 How Deliverr built and scaled its sales team

29:33 Deliverr’s breakthrough with Walmart

33:06 Deliverr's expansion: From Walmart partnership to multichannel integration

35:11 Managing E-commerce during the pandemic

40:36 Overcoming crisis through innovation

44:12 E-commerce tech post-pandemic


Find the transcript for this episode and all past episodes at: https://www.unusual.vc/podcast


Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and 

Twitter

LinkedIn


Sarah Leary is a Venture Partner at Unusual Ventures, with a focus on Unusual’s consumer practice. Prior to joining Unusual, Sarah co-founded Nextdoor, the free and private social network for neighborhoods. She can be reached at sarah@unusual.vc and

LinkedIn



Michael Krakaris is the co-founder of Deliverr. Prior to starting Deliverr, Michael was a product marketing manager at Symphony Commerce.


Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.


Further reading from the Startup Field Guide:

Customer Discovery

Building a sales team

Developing your founding insight








Behind every so-called overnight success in software, there's a long, often messy journey of finding exactly what customers need and how to deliver it. That's the central theme explored in Startup Field Guide by Unusual Ventures: The Product Market Fit Podcast. This series is built for those in the trenches of early-stage software companies, from founders just starting out to leaders tasked with building something from nothing. Each episode moves beyond theory, offering grounded conversations with people who have actually navigated these challenges. You'll hear them unpack the real work of identifying a true market need, the nuances of early hiring decisions, and the practical steps of crafting a go-to-market strategy. Fundraising, often a opaque process, gets broken down into more understandable components. The focus remains consistently on the actionable and the specific, providing a kind of audio manual for the foundational phase of a business. Tune in for a candid look at the less-glamorous, critical work that separates an idea from a viable company, all brought to you by Unusual Ventures. This podcast serves as a resource for turning those initial concepts into a sustainable operation, one hard-won lesson at a time.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 53

Startup Field Guide by Unusual Ventures: The Product Market Fit Podcast
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