WeDeliver wins 2013 Techweek Launch Competition
Chicago, IL (PRWEB) July 14, 2013 -- On June 28th, WeDeliver was recognized as one of Chicago’s most promising start-ups for 2013’s Techweek Launch competition. Chicago is quickly becoming a start-up hub with entrepreneurs breaking new ground daily and Tandem HR is providing the managed HR services allowing them to launch quickly.
Paul Fehrenbacher from Briteseed, 2012’s Techweek Launch winner, commented on their experience since winning last year:
It’s surreal to think that exactly a year ago we won Techweek Launch. We were a young company, born out of the 2011-2012 Northwestern University NUvention: Medical Innovation program, who had this great idea of making surgical tools safer by identifying blood vessels in real-time and integrating our technology into existing surgical tools. This would allow surgeons to know whether a vessel is present before they cut tissue. We had an early working prototype, but had R&D left to do to commercialize our technology. This year has been a learning process from establishing the core engineering team we needed, building out a fundraising campaign, establishing payroll, figuring out how we’ll be getting health insurance, and importantly, putting in place the HR best practices to become one of the best places to work. All these things are important in building a business, and I look forward to talking to the company who won yesterday to help them prepare because it’s been an uphill climb, but one that we’re willing to continue to work at and we’re still very excited about.
Recently Briteseed became the first company to join Insight Accelerator Labs founded by InsightPD to help medical start-ups go from conceptualization to achieving a market-ready product.
This year’s Techweek Launch winner WeDeliver offers the opportunity for local businesses to expand their reach and get items to their customers faster by allowing them to provide same-day delivery. Founder Jimmy Odom shared how he came up with the idea:
"I like solving hard problems and I like tackling problems that are difficult for me or people around me. WeDeliver came from my mom asking me to go to the store for her while I was watching The Walking Dead. It's my number one show, but when it's your mom, you can't say no. So I did it, but I thought, ‘I'd pay somebody ten bucks just so I don't have to deal with this right now.’ That was the seed of the idea. From there, I did my research — dug in and grabbed every bit of data I could about the market and the competitors. I've gotten really good at the process of identifying what moves a business.
"Talking to merchants revealed they wanted this too. Business owners that have been in the community for long periods of time, but they are getting squeezed out by the big online retail like Amazon. Local merchants needed an alternative to e-commerce. We thought, ‘How about we give them back a competitive advantage, the ability to get their product to a customer with delivery on the same day?’ Sure enough, it clicked."
To help WeDeliver accelerate their business, Tandem HR is providing a full year of managed HR services which will include payroll, payroll tax administration, compliance, hiring guidance, benefits expertise, workers compensation administration, and employee relations. “Most entrepreneurs’ passion is to create value and help clients and customers. The reality is that running the people side of a business often leads the owner to six to ten different vendors. This reality is costly, inefficient, and a big distraction from their mission,” said Sam Kashy, Director of Development at Tandem HR. Tandem HR, a professional employer organization (“PEO”) headquartered in Chicago, partners with 200 businesses and their nearly 9,000 employees by providing their clients HR infrastructure and expertise as an outsourced service to help simplify business. The secret sauce of Tandem HR’s business includes a couple of key differentiators:
1) Focus on Chicago headquartered management teams; Tandem supports clients with employees in 49 states, but the majority of the management teams are in the greater Chicago area. “We know that being proactive in helping clients manage their number one investment (people) needs to be hands-on. Providing dedicated professionals who go on-site regularly becomes an integral part of how clients run their day-to-day operations allowing them to focus their energies."
2) The ability to customize solutions vs. national companies. Chicago is unique in the importance of being flexible, whether that is unique benefit plan options, providing strategic guidance on performance management systems, or the frequency of regular weekly visits on-site.
WeDeliver is rapidly ramping up to support local retailers with solutions that beat online-only firms whose models do not support the local community or foster local job growth. Tandem HR will be there every step of the way to help them succeed in their mission to make Chicago a city that truly supports local business.
Sam Kashy, Tandem HR, http://www.tandemhr.com, +1 (630) 335-0275, [email protected]
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