Meet Mitesh Patel of deliv

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mitesh Patel.

Mitesh, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Just over 9 years ago, the idea for deliv (then ZipSendr) was born. After my wife left for work with both sets of keys to my car, I wondered how having her leave work and come back was so cumbersome. Yes, a courier might have been an option, but picking up the phone, getting a quote, and then paying an arm and a leg was just not fair.

As the owner of a shipping store, I knew people were looking to get purchases faster and faster. Even Amazon made two-day delivery a thing, and now was experimenting with same-day delivery.

As an entrepreneur my whole life, small business is in my blood and is a passion. I wanted to help small retailers compete with Amazon and the big retailers.

For those 3 reasons, deliv was born. A local, same-day or scheduled delivery service for small businesses. A delivery platform that makes delivery simple and helps grow businesses at the same time.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As always, starting a business is not smooth and is never without struggle. Deliv started as a delivery service with its own drivers, using a technology platform that kept the business and recipient notified of the delivery status. As we grew, in 2020 the world stopped, and that’s where deliv kept delivering. Food, medicine, and essentials kept flowing because of our services. What we quickly learned through those 2 years was that delivery was difficult and labor-intensive. If we wanted to scale, we would have to change the business model. We therefore transitioned to a delivery orchestration platform where we partnered with local couriers and national driver aggregators like Roadie and Uber. We transitioned our platform to be able to take in orders and match the delivery order to the right carrier to make the delivery. We transitioned away from recruiting, hiring, training, and monitoring our own drivers to a platform that would allow us to better serve small businesses. One platform to access multiple carriers and trust delivery to match the order to the carrier

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
deliv is a delivery platform built specifically for independent retailers, the boutiques, gift shops, and specialty stores that get squeezed by Amazon and by whichever shop down the street can move faster. We’re not a courier company. We’re the technology and management layer that sits on top of multiple carriers, so a shop owner gets one system instead of juggling three or four apps and hoping nothing falls through the cracks.

I started this business in 2017 under a different name, so this isn’t a company chasing a trend. That time taught me that delivery is the one part of running a small shop where owners have almost no leverage. They pay retail shipping rates with no negotiating power, they hand their brand over to gig drivers they’ve never met, and every delivery goes out the door as a dead end instead of a chance to bring that customer back.

That’s the piece I think we do differently. Most delivery platforms stop at “did the package arrive.” We built a feature called AdReach to answer what happens after it arrives: every delivery address becomes a chance to retarget that customer later, and to reach shoppers who are currently buying from a competitor nearby. I don’t know of anyone else combining reliable same-day delivery with that kind of built-in marketing. I describe it as the only delivery that brings customers back, not just the one that shows up.

Right now we’re building out in 14 marketes, working directly with independent retailers in categories like fashion, gifts, and specialty goods, businesses where most purchases happen within a day of someone deciding they need the item. Reliability is what we lead with, and it’s what we hold ourselves to as we grow. But AdReach is what I’m proudest of, because it’s the part of the business nobody else in this space has bothered to build. The goal is simple: give small retailers the same delivery and marketing infrastructure that used to be reserved for chains with enterprise budgets, without asking them to give up their brand or pay enterprise prices to get it.

So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
As mentioned earlier, being a small business entrepreneur my whole life, my passion is with that. I want to build deliv so that it can help small businesses compete, gain traction, and continue to grow.

Pricing:

• On-demand – Pricing for single orders without a commitment
• Prime – Discounted delivery pricing with a monthly subscription
• AdReach – Delivery marketing add-on which puts the business’ web and banner ads on electronic devices at the delivery location
• BrandTrack – Branded delivery experience coming soon

Contact Info:

• Website: https://deliv.us
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/deliv_ai