Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

All of us entrepreneurs have a dream.

It’s why we got in this game, why we set up on our own, why we risked it all.

A clear vision, a dream, of making a difference. Of creating something that hadn’t been done before. Sometimes they’re lofty, world-changing. Often they are just about disrupting an industry. Some are just about doing something better. 

When I set up Gophr, I wanted to shake up the last-mile delivery world. Rubbish experiences had led me to believe that I could do better. Such was my conviction that I left my cushy job and took a leap of faith.

I knew even then that technology was going to be central to what I was hoping to achieve. It was also the bit that really excited me the most’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to this stuff, and any business I wanted to build needed technology at its core.

It was also the way that the industry was going at the time. Uber just arrived, and there were rumours that they were about to launch a courier play imminently. The guys with the deep pockets looking to put serious capital in the space were eyeing up the tech play.

So if tech wasn’t at the centre of everything you did, then what was the point? Nobody was going to fund some guys on a bike, delivering around London. 

That was ten years ago, and tech is still at the centre of everything we do. But there was always a nagging feeling at the back of my mind…had we really disrupted the space as much as we wanted to? Had we been able to? Or were we being held back?

And these thoughts came into sharp focus when Generative AI came into the mainstream.

It was then that I realised, we hadn’t disrupted the world of delivery at all. We’d just poked it. Maybe ruffled some small feathers. But proper disruption? A true transformation? Not yet.

But now, thanks to this new technology, we can.

You’re ready, but is the world?

I’m not going to make this another article about how AI is going to change everything - for better or for worse. Because we’ve had plenty of those. And they all go over the same ground.

But I do believe that every business, and therefore founder, has that moment where the lofty ambitions you had at the beginning suddenly feel possible. That moment when you realise you’re about to actually do the thing you set up your business to do.

AI is that moment for many, and definitely for us at Gophr. It changes everything for us. 

And it also gives us the opportunity to really slug it out with the big boys. Why? Because we have always been built on technology - so we have clever, curious people working here. And they are pumped. We’re already creating our own AIs. We’re using it to streamline processes, reward our couriers, and to give better customer experiences.

For example, we’re using AI to match deliveries more efficiently, reducing couriers' downtime and improving customer speed. It’s making a real impact.

It’s given us a shot in the arm. I know that I am feeling more energised than ever.

Of course, we haven’t gone into this blind. And as a founder, I know the risks of chasing something that isn’t there. Going out on a whim can be exciting for sure, but we’re not in the early start-up days anymore. We’ve been around for a decade. And while we have a good base, I’ve got to think of the business as a whole. You’re responsible for people’s livelihoods. 

But that good base means that we can play around in this new space, and put some serious resource behind it. And again, it helps that we have curious, super intelligent people working here who want to change things up.

And you can’t help but get excited about the possibilities when the world seems to have finally caught up with your dreams. There’s a sense of justification and renewed ambition.

The moral of the story? Keep dreaming? Why not! Just because the world isn’t ready now, doesn’t mean that it never will be. 

It might even take ten years, but you’ll be ready.