My Coffreo/La Poste: A Winning Startup Partnership

The startup Pack'n Drive is the brain behind My Coffreo, a mobile app that lets users access a vehicle's trunk without the owner being present. This success story started back in March last year during the "Code avec La Poste" hackathon organized by BeMyApp. At the event, 14 hacker and startupper teams took part in a dedicated weekend to develop digital solutions using APIs provided by La Poste.

After the hackathon, Pack’n Drive joined the incubation program offered by the postal service operator. The startuppers already had an idea for a service that lets you access a vehicle’s trunk via a mobile app for a while, but they first wanted to build a prototype, and an incubator would help them launch the product sooner. Badri Ahmed, Pack’n Drive’s co-founder, tells us more about My Coffreo’s big adventure with La Poste.

Inside the Partnership: From Hackathon Idea to Real Product

Badri Ahmed, Pack'n Drive's co-founder, walks through how the idea came together, what the incubation program added, and where the product stands today.

Where did the concept come from?

"Today, French couriers consider more than 16% of parcels never reach their destination because the recipient is not there to receive it. He/She finds themself forced to retrieve the parcel from the post office, which implies limited hours and a lot of stress. On the transportation companies side, parcel returns generate substantial costs..."

What's the solution offered by Pack'n Drive?

My Coffreo turns your car trunk into a pickup spot outside your home. The app lets a courier open it remotely, without the owner needing to be there.

The solution is built for transportation companies. It helps them digitize freight delivery and coordinate more easily with the different parties involved, including contractors and clients. An optimized platform and precise geo-tracking give the startup more accurate parcel tracking.

"We're facilitating the delivery process," explains Badri Ahmed.

This solution offers a new logistics model for couriers.

How did your startup benefit from incubation?

"Thanks to La Poste's incubation program, the whole idea of this solution evolved efficiently and conclusively. The incubation phase was truly interesting because the different levels included in the launch of a new service were covered, from technical aspects, to legal and selling ones, but also for design etc. From there, we needed to foresee the matters of security and responsibility."

Maud and Alexandre, BeMyApp startup experts, led the incubation follow-up and brought their methodology and tools to the Pack'n Drive team.

This program also allowed the startup, among other things, to conduct an audit in a post office. The results met expectations. With questions like "Is it useful? Would they pay for this kind of solution? Would they be ready to install this technology on their own vehicles?", the service was judged "useful" by 80% of participants. These numbers reassured the startup and proved the viability of their new solution.

What Could Be Improved?

It was a satisfying support program that could be improved in one particular aspect: the post-incubation follow-up. If companies want to build a long-term ecosystem with startups, I believe they should keep working with these kinds of projects post-incubation with an accelerator. This would bring a steadier path to market.

What are the next steps?

"This technology should be commercialized from the first quarter of 2017. Today, we're going through the approval and certification phase; our hope is to start a collaboration program with La Poste in order to launch an operational and functional experimental phase, then start recruiting and spreading the activity."

The point of collaborating with a courier is to understand their expectations, address their needs and issues, and save time in spreading the solution thanks to their existing regional and national networks.

If a short-term collaboration with La Poste is not feasible, Pack'n Drive is ready to proceed without it and build an independent delivery model. Today, they have the tools and skills needed for a market breakthrough of their own: "We have at our disposal a platform and the My Coffreo technology: useful and precise tools that we can count on."

What This Success Story Teaches Us About Collaborating With Startups

La Poste's partnership with Pack'n Drive clearly shows the advantages of collaborating with startups. Here are a few key takeaways.

• Real access, not just funding. La Poste gave the startup working APIs to build with, not just financial support.
• A faster route to market. The startup could test the product with real customers early, instead of waiting on a traditional internal development cycle.
• Fresh thinking for the corporate. In return, La Poste got a working solution and from an outside perspective it likely wouldn't have been built in-house.
• Follow-through matters most. The founder's own takeaway was that the partnership should not stop after incubation. Staying involved through an accelerator phase gives the idea a steadier path to market.

The lesson for companies exploring startup collaboration is that the value comes from staying engaged across the whole journey, from sourcing ideas at a hackathon, through incubation, and beyond.

Want to Collaborate With Startups at Your Company?

Bringing startups into your organization is one of the fastest ways to test new ideas and get to a working product. Whether you want to run a hackathon to source fresh solutions or build a startup program end-to-end, BeMyApp can help you organize your hackathon and connect with the right startup ecosystem, from strategy through to incubation and follow-up.

 

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