The crowd who regard US$10m as a milestone are the money men: The venture capitalists who typically bankroll startups, taking progressively larger stakes in a business after Dragon\u2019s Den-style negotiations, in seed and Series A, B and C raises.<\/p>\n
Meshki’s Sydney warehouse. The Australian-founded retailer says Starshipit’s platform – recently expanded to include warehouse management – has helped it expand internationally and sharpen its shipping as it moved from one carrier to a choice of five.<\/p>\n
But Plummer \u2013 who owns 91% of Starshipit \u2013 has never taken a cent in outside capital. <\/p>\n
Its push into warehouse management systems was funded from cashflow and there are no capital-raising plans.<\/p>\n
Plummer grew up on a farm in Hawke\u2019s Bay. He was bundled off to boarding school (Christ\u2019s College) in Christchurch, then enrolled at Lincoln University to pursue a degree in natural resource engineering. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t really go very well,\u201d Plummer says. \u201cIt got to the point I couldn\u2019t continue. So I went around all the different faculties and asked everyone how quickly I could get a degree.\u201d The Computer Science Department said they could wrap things up quickly. <\/p>\n
“The truth is I’ve never really had a plan” – Starshipit founder George Plummer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was on the back of a failed engineering degree, but it was a good match. I loved it. It was a really good match for my skill set. And that\u2019s how much I ended up in this industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
After an OE in London, Plummer settled in Auckland in 2004 where he founded MaSal, whose eponymous software made it easier for big organisations to upgrade their apps.<\/p>\n
Just a couple of years later, in a rapid-fire series of transactions, MalSal was bought by American software firm ScriptLogic for around $1m, with Plummer staying on. <\/p>\n
Since 2014, Starshipit has been helping retailers dispatch online orders.<\/p>\n
ScriptLogic was acquired shortly after by Quest, which in turn was snapped up by Dell. <\/p>\n
Plummer worked for Dell for several years as a senior software architect before he crossed paths with Alex Webster, the owner of upmarket retailer Coast \u2013 which was grappling with the best way to fulfil its growing online orders.<\/p>\n
Plummer put together software for address labelling and courier dispatch, and the company known today as Starship it was born (Webster owns the 9% outside Plummer\u2019s holding).<\/p>\n
Starshipit has recently expanded to offer warehouse management software.<\/p>\n
It was hard graft in the early days. \u201cIt took a while to get to the point where I could pay myself a salary,\u201d Plummer says. He briefly considered outside investment, but in the end decided to tough it out, bootstrapping from his savings for the first few years. His MalSal money was ploughed into Starship, rather than going toward a house in Auckland), notwithstanding the stress of a young family.<\/p>\n
It paid off as fashion retailers Trelise Cooper, Superette and Quicksilver signed on.<\/p>\n
Starshipit partnered with DHL and NZ Post in New Zealand and, from 2015, DHL and Australia Post across the ditch. Today, DHL is a global partner for Starshipit. The Auckland firm has a white-label service with the courier giant that\u2019s used in more than 100 countries.<\/p>\n
Plummer engineered his start-up\u2019s software to integrate with popular e-tail platforms. A Starshipit dashboard can appear on Shopify\u2019s admin screen, for example. <\/p>\n
Mask up, lockdown<\/p>\n
The pandemic was a defining moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very uncertain times and, with everything closing down in New Zealand, we weren\u2019t sure what was going to happen,\u201d Plummer says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a massive increase in uptake. A lot of small businesses wanted to get online for the first time and a lot of traditional retailers put a lot more investment into their platforms \u2013 and they had to react fast. It was a crazy time. Our growth was really strong. And we\u2019ve seen a lot more focus on e-commerce since Covid.\u201d<\/p>\n
AI arrives<\/p>\n
Today, the biggest threat and opportunity comes from AI.<\/p>\n
Is Plummer worried about \u201cvibe-coded\u201d opposition? The Starshipit founder says, \u201cYou can\u2019t necessarily go to some API docs and start building stuff. You have to talk to all the couriers and know how they work.\u201d There are ever-shifting tariffs and other messy real-world complications that make it a bracing area for newcomers, even with help from artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Having said that, Plummer is a major fan of the new technology. \u201cWhat\u2019s happening with AI is just quite incredible. It opens up so many possibilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cInternally, we are getting rid of some of the systems that we use [made by third parties], and we\u2019re rebuilding them ourselves. It\u2019s easy and it can be highly beneficial because you get to build something based on your workload.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s next?<\/p>\n
How will the next few years play out? Does Plummer see Starshipit doubling size? Would he cash in with jumbo Series A or a trade sale?<\/p>\n
\u201cI get asked this all the time. But the truth is I have never really had a plan. One of the best things about having no outside investor is you can just focus on working closely with customers. I don\u2019t have an exit plan. I\u2019m open to all possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald\u2019s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The crowd who regard US$10m as a milestone are the money men: The venture capitalists who typically bankroll…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[20389,30751,665,138,24369,4381,26399,27501,3594,221,300,3025,13631,111,139,69,1118,7493,98226,302160,1046,14907,8202,1339,377,4512,2963],"class_list":["post-613746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-18m","tag-30751","tag-around","tag-business","tag-cent","tag-customers","tag-ecommerce","tag-heard","tag-hit","tag-how","tag-money","tag-most","tag-never","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-revenue","tag-scaled","tag-starshipit","tag-startups","tag-successful","tag-vc","tag-without","tag-world","tag-youve","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}