Doorman

Doorman was a logistics and technology company founded in 2013 by Zander Adell and Kapil Israni to address the persistent issue of missed package deliveries in urban areas. Adell, who previously worked as a technical director at Pixar, was motivated to solve what he saw as a critical gap in the e-commerce experience, where the final mile of delivery often failed the consumer. The company's core service centered on a mobile application that allowed customers to have their online purchases shipped to a secure, local Doorman warehouse. Upon a package's arrival, the customer received a notification and could then use the app to schedule delivery to their home within a specific one or two-hour window, available seven days a week, often until midnight.

The company's initial market was San Francisco, launching operations in 2014. A significant milestone occurred in January 2015 when Adell appeared on the television show "Shark Tank," securing a $250,000 investment from Robert Herjavec for a 12% stake in the company. This exposure, coupled with a total of $3.37 million in venture capital funding raised through multiple rounds, fueled Doorman's expansion into Chicago and New York City later that year. The business model was primarily direct-to-consumer (B2C), generating revenue through either a pay-per-package fee or monthly subscriptions for unlimited deliveries, which started as low as $19. Doorman also expanded its offerings to include pickup services for returns and an API for e-commerce brands to integrate same-day, scheduled delivery directly into their checkout process.

Despite its early traction and positive media attention, Doorman's business model proved to be financially unsustainable. The low-priced unlimited delivery subscription drastically changed consumer behavior, leading to a surge in package volume that made the company lose money on its most active users. The operational costs of a B2C last-mile logistics service, which sacrifices route density for customer convenience, were too high to be covered by the subscription fees. In an attempt to become profitable, Doorman sharply increased its prices in 2016, but this move was not enough to salvage the underlying economic challenges. The company attempted to pivot towards a B2B model, but it was too late. Doorman announced it was shutting down in September 2017 and officially ceased all operations on October 6, 2017.

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