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| Aroostook Republican photo/Joshua Archer Teaming up to operate Aroostook Deliveries are Jonathan Clark and Kimberly Englund. |
By Joshua Archer
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — A history major and an accounting major have dipped their toes into the delivery game with their new startup Aroostook Deliveries.
Jonathan Clark and Kimberly Englund have spent the past few months building steam with their new delivery service based in Caribou, but have only been making deliveries for almost three weeks.
“Honestly I wanted to quit my job and do something technology-based,” Clark said.
According to Clark and Englund, all a customer has to do is send them a text and request something they want, be it food or even toilet paper, and the next minute it’s at their door.
They spent their first month designing a website, which they scrapped and have already begun work on a second iteration. Their end goal is to design a user friendly app customers can submit orders to, and they hope to debut the app later this year.
“We found that people would rather text us or call us,” Englund said. “Once the app is up and running and it’s normal for them, that’ll be one thing, but for now we’re getting a lot of texts and calls.”
Their company consists of a few drivers, a Facebook page, and a phone number. They plan to test the waters with Aroostook County with the hope of someday offering their service to other parts of the state.
Clark made rounds to local businesses in Caribou, collecting menus and tried to build a little buzz for his new business. Only a few businesses have raised an eyebrow to the idea of a message-based delivery service, and Clark said his company will work with all business to keep things copacetic.
“We’re a new company and a new idea and not a lot of people are used to that, they’re all like who are these people, what are they doing,” Clark said. “We had a couple hiccups in the beginning and it was a little stressful, but when you go in and you put two-hundred dollars down on the table and walk out and come back again a few hours later with fifty bucks on the table they can get used to this,” Clark said.
Englund feels that businesses and customers will grow to understand their idea. “You can watch the look on their face change from when you’re in there at ten o’clock for one order and you come back for lunch order and you’ve got a ton of money,” Englund said.
Clark and Englund have started out in Caribou and plan to branch out to the towns of Limestone, Fort Fairfield, and Presque Isle within a month.
