A Massillon Jackson graduate, Jake Vellucci had an easy in at DeliverThat. He’d gone to high school with the founders and a few of the employees. He’d heard the talks and seen the texts in group chats years in the making, almost getting a behind-the-scenes look at times. Those talks three and four years ago have since expanded into a role as a driver with DeliverThat for Vellucci. Beginning in January of 2020, while working as a GA for a college football team in Chicago, Jake found some time on his hands during the off-season. As Chicago was an up-and-coming market for DeliverThat, the conversations behind the scenes turned to action and we got Jake on the road. Reflecting on the earliest days with DeliverThat, Vellucci had this to say, “The flexibility aspect is great for me. Being a driver with DeliverThat allowed me to create my own schedule and pick up deliveries when it was convenient with my schedule which was perfect. Being a college football coach, I don’t have a ton of time during the day, but being able to pick and choose days that work for my schedule is awesome.” A kind highlight to our pre-scheduled tendencies that we’ve always had. Even though same-day deliveries have been at an all-time high, even more deliveries are still being sent days and weeks in advance.
Having since gotten a new job with the University of Dayton football team, Jake had to pick up and move. One thing he could be sure was coming with him though, DeliverThat. “When you’re able to operate with the same company across cities, states, at a time span of months or even years, it’s nice to know wherever I go I’ll have an opportunity to make money”, Vellucci explained. DeliverThat is now in over 80 metros across the United States and Vancouver, Canada. A few quick favorite restaurants of Jake’s to deliver for, Bibibop, and Bj’s Brewhouse. “In my experience, both of those operators are on-time 99% of the time which is huge for me as a driver. I’m typically on more than one delivery, stacking or doubling as much as I can to optimize my day, so any minor setback whether it be a restaurant delay or an issue finding a customer can be costly, time is money”, Vellucci continued. He brings up a great point about the opportunities on the DeliverThat platform to take multiple deliveries at the same time. The logistics team on our end is able to manipulate pickup times to run deliveries in the same area within the same timeframe together. Boosting the payments for drivers in the same amount of time it would have taken to run one delivery anyway. We’re always more than willing to work with the drivers on deliveries they have selected for the day.
A few final questions to finish the conversation, we asked Jake about his favorite delivery experience, he said fairly briefly, “Anytime I get to run a double it is going to be one of my favorite delivery experiences. It is fun dropping off food to multiple people in a day and getting to see the customers' joy in receiving their food on time”. Advice for new drivers? “Don’t panic, the app is easy to use, the dispatch team is always available, and the restaurants DeliverThat works with are great, so everything always works itself out with the delivery”, Vellucci advocated. In closing, since Jake is so close to the company and everyone involved, we asked for his perspective on where DeliverThat was 2 or so years ago, where it is now, and where it could be headed, he had this to say, "It’s just wild to see something your friends built from the ground floor up into a business generating millions of dollars of revenue year over year, to be honest. Going from maybe 40 cities 2 years ago now covering over 40 states and 80 cities is kind of unimaginable from my perspective. And where it’s going, who knows. With the pandemic causing the spike in delivery needs and restaurants focusing more on off-premise activity, DeliverThat could realistically be a billion-dollar business in a decade. I know that would be my goal at least”. Lofty goals that I think a lot of people within the company would agree on.
We appreciate the moments Jake took to speak with us about his time with DT and his experiences along the way. As a brother, friend, and driver, he’s done more for us along the way than would ever be talked about publicly. Thank you for that, cheers to another decade together.