Y Combinator Company Swapbox Launches And Aims To Pick Up Where Bufferbox Left Off

You know the drill, you order something from your favorite site and you can’t wait to get the package. Like a blogger normal person, you go to work and hope that the package is there when you get home. That hope slowly turns into worry as you picture your valuable freight sitting outside of your home, while people walk by it and wonder what it is. There are a few companies providing solutions for this problem, setting up physical locations for you to have your packages shipped to, such as commerce juggernaut Amazon. A few months ago, Google picked up a Canada-based company called Bufferbox, a YC-alum, which left the space wide open for a startup to jump in and fill the void. That startup also comes from Y Combinator, Swapbox, and the team is launching physical kiosks in the San Francisco area during its beta period. Currently, there are two Swapbox locations, one at Stanford, where the co-founders Nitin Shantharam and Neel Murthy attended school, and the other in Glen Park. Currently, you can have your first package delivered to a Swapbox for free, and pay $1.99 for each one after, which is next to nothing. I sat down with the team and discussed their plans, which are pretty lofty and impressive. TC: Tell us about your team. Neel Murthy: Team is two people – Neel Murthy and Nitin Shantharam. We’ve know each other for like 15 years, since we we’re kids in Southern California. We also have a great group of advisers and of course a ton of support from YC. TC: How many Swapbox locations do you hope to have open in the next six months? Neel Murthy: Our goal is to have at least 15 locations in the next six months. The mission is to bring a Swapbox close to as many people in San Francisco as fast as possible. In addition, we don’t want to put these in locations where people don’t need Swapboxes, so consumer demand will dictate how many/where Swapboxes are in SF. TC: What is the biggest hurdle to working in the real world vs. virtual? Neel Murthy: The biggest hurdle with the real world is that we have physical devices that take up space and weigh something, which obviously presents logistical challenges that traditional companies don’t see. However, what we really want to do is merge the real world with the

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