It's a not-so-interesting coincidence that the three most loquacious people I know are my mother Bobbie, my daughter Buck Wheat and my fiancée Gaetana!
Thankfully at the moment I’m only living with one-and-a-half of them!
My mother continues to ride out the pandemic surfing between my sister Marci’s house and the Stamford headquarters of THE Revolution. Missing her friends and family in Florida, the arrangement is not a great one for “Mah,” my 81-year old mother’s most common moniker from her youngest child. Whether it’s Mah, Nonner’s, Lipp, mom, Momma-bear or mother as Billy used to refer to her, Bobbie wants to go home!
She receives her second vaccine shot this week! Getting closer.
Despite the inconveniences of the 45-minute trip to my sister's and back, mom has good reasons to want to play the ping pong ball. In Stamford we have beaches, which even in winter make for a nice afternoon walk with her youngest.
Beaches though are not enough to keep mom in Stamford. Because Marci has Cadi!
Who I’m told, offers more companionship than a work-from-home revolutionary who spends too much time at his desk!
Of course, when mom comes back it's not the beaches or the conversations about paint she is coming back for!
Timing is Everything
Like long-lost sisters separated by a generation, my mother Bobbie and my wife-by-another-name, Guy, spend their nights practicing their loquacious ways.
THE chatter starts the moment Guy gets home from work; with the combination of a comfortable couch, a warm fire and a glass of wine keeping their respective lips keep flapping through the night. As I retire to the smoker's lounge hours after they began, they are often still at it.
One story from the past reminds them of another and the night goes on as such. As close friends and roommates tend to do, Guy and Mah have taken to the same expression and use it ofter during the marathon (listening for me) sessions!
"To make a long story short!"
”Too late!” My frequent reply.
With the sites of THE Revolution primarily completed, I have been able to focus some attention on one of my next planned steps: expanding the platform.
Earlier in the development process for THE Revolution I shared with you why I insistNce on using an open source platform To more easily integrate other functionality as the system matured.
Last week I began projects to test integrating two significant improvements into the sites of THE Revolution.
Dispatchit is an on-demand currier service: Like Uber, only for paint! Or anything else a customer needs delivered. A company built on technology, it won't take long to connect my test site, RoostersPaint.com with the Dispatchit infrastructure.
There were plenty of companies to choose from when it comes to on-demand shipping. The pandemic, and consumers desires to get what they need without leaving their homes have made this a burgeoning niche locally, as businesses pop-up to fulfill the demand. Like most of the players in the space, Dispatchit has the ability to connect electronically to their retailer-customers, a mature market in Austin, Texas, where Roosters has four-stores and most importantly a price structure which is based more on volume than weight.
A huge advantage for paint stores where a 250 pound 24 gallon delivery worth $500 can be delivered across town same-day, for $18!
A deliver many small dealers currently spend an hour making themselves!
If I do my job right, as soon as a customer's order is ready at the Roosters counter, a Dispatchit vehicle will be on it's way to pick-up the order at the store and then deliver it to the consumer.
Inside if required. With the fee already added to the invoice, unless the customer has met the free shipping threshold.
Giving Roosters the ability to make same-day deliveries to DIY customers. Without ever lifting a finger beyond making the paint.
We are about to find out what it’s worth to be able to say “yes” to every celery instantly, without ever paying a drive (and truck!) to sit and wait for the call!
While this upgrade has great potential, I am much more excited about my other test, adding multi-leveled or tier pricing and a POS system.
Which space requires I leave until the next time!
