Dale Williams: SafeDigit Is a Logistics Integration Platform, Helping Couriers Win and Retain Ecommerce Merchants

SafeDigit is a logistics integration platform, helping couriers win and retain eCommerce merchants. Some people have referred to us as the “Zapier of Logistics”.

Our core offering is providing last mile couriers with their own integrated fulfillment apps that they can release on an eCommerce app store (like Shopify’s — apps.shopify.com). We plan to empower tens of thousands of delivery services so that they can grow their business, and offer better experiences than FedEx and UPS.

Tell us about yourself?

I was the Chief Revenue Officer of the LogisticsTech startup Routific. Delivery businesses would come to Routific asking for help with integrations, but it was outside of the scope of what we did.

Once the COVID-19 pandemic hit, eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce and Wix were becoming so widely used that merchants only wanted to work with delivery partners who could integrate with them.

Some couriers told me they were paying up to $60k to custom development agencies for integrated apps/plugins, and I knew Marat (co-founder) and I could do something better, much more affordably.

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

Sell your stocks now! But I would also tell myself to start my own company earlier. Not everyone should start a company, but for those of us that have an underlying compulsion, the risk of getting trapped in cushy jobs that can never scratch your itch is greater than the risk of failure.

What problem does your business solve?

There’s now around 24m online stores on platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, more, and eCommerce merchants live out of these platforms. They demand integrated workflows with delivery partners, but couriers aren’t technically equipped to build and manage these kinds of integrations.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

(my “tell us about yourself” question probably answers this): I was the Chief Revenue Officer of the LogisticsTech startup Routific. Delivery businesses would come to Routific, asking for help with integrations, but it was outside of the scope of what we did.

Once the COVID-19 pandemic hit, eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce and Wix were becoming so widely used that merchants only wanted to work with delivery partners who could integrate with them.

Some couriers told me they were paying up to $60k to custom development shops for every integrated app or plugin, and I knew Marat (co-founder) and I could do something better, much more affordably.

What is your magic sauce?

We’ve come up with a way to create eCommerce fulfillment apps at scale, by creating our own platform that handles the logic and grunt work.

Up until now, if a last mile courier wanted to build a Shopify app they’d need to build one from scratch, or hire a custom development shop to build one from scratch.

We realized 95% of the use-cases in last mile logistics are the same, and if we could just nail the way data flows between each courier and the major eCommerce platforms, you could make these custom apps easy and affordable.

So thats what we did. If you ask me though, the real secret sauce is my Co-founder, Marat. He’s specialized his engineering career in data integrations and worked for Amazon, Trulioo and other data giants.

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?

Last mile is where we’re starting because there’s a “hair on fire” problem we have a lot of familiarity with, but what we’re seeing in the broader Logistics & Supply Chain is a technological revolution, with tons of new software providers and lots of data silos.

There’s so many logistics co’s sitting on their own data that’s just one piece of the puzzle, and not nearly enough industry collaboration.

The only company with a truly unified view of the supply chain is probably Amazon because they’re so vertically integrated they don’t need to collaborate.

Our interest is in being the connective tissue in logistics that enables everyone to connect, collaborate, and create new competitive advantages by doing so.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

Raising money right as the venture capital market started to implode was not fun. We were always willing to bootstrap, but capital at the early stage lets you move faster and provide your customers with an optimal experience upfront.

Luckily, we found some great investors in our Pre-Seed ($1.2m USD — just announcing), led by Ascend.vc, who were never making decisions based on noise in the market, and instead focused on a practical and smart evaluation of our company.

How do people get involved/buy into your vision?

We want last mile couriers and delivery services to go to www.safedigit.io, and come talk to us about the integrations their customers are asking for.

The nice thing about serving a niche is we have high overlap in requests, and can help these delivery businesses get their brand into eCommerce app stores where they’ll be discoverable by new customers.