Munich Startup: Who are you and what do you do?
Driverhero: Hi, we’re Richard, Michael, Emanuel and Steven, the founders of Driverhero. Since early 2021, we’ve been helping job seekers find jobs as delivery drivers quickly, easily and safely. We’ve known each other for several years now and often met up for a beer after work, which was when we often talked about founding a company. What we needed, however, was a good idea.
Richard was working for Amazon at that time, and recruiting drivers in Europe was one of his duties. He and his team ran into quite a few obstacles during the recruiting process because the existing solutions in the market often didn’t suit the requirements. Previous solutions in the market usually work by first posting a job offer that job seekers then apply to. Then all of the applications need to be looked through and the suitable candidates need to be filtered out and invited to a job interview. The whole process not only requires an incredible amount of time, but is also quite exhausting for both the job advertiser and applicants.
Driver recruiting requires more efficient processes
Especially when drivers are needed quickly, it’s often not possible to meet the demand, which then leads to delivery problems in a company. That’s why driver recruiting requires more efficient processes and there simply isn’t a company that concentrates on this niche. So why not create our own platform for it? After he told us about his idea, we were immediately fired up about it and decided within just a few days to implement the plan together. At that point in time, however, we were still permanent employees or involved in other projects as freelancers. Michael was working in recruitment, Emanuel in software development and Steven in marketing. The fact that we bring together so many competencies as a team is something we view as an absolute stroke of luck. And because we’re such good friends, we get along really well as a team. Working together is a lot of fun!
Munich Startup: What problem does your startup solve?
Driverhero: The e-commerce market is booming and the delivery industry has been growing steadily for years. Moreover, new business models are launching daily that include delivery options. To able to meet that growing demand, however, delivery companies need one thing above all else: drivers. We help them find new employees quickly, easily and effectively.
A machine learning-based matching algorithm
Munich Startup: But that’s nothing out of the box!
Driverhero: There are obviously lots of ways to find new employees, for example, on well-known job recruitment platforms. The problem is that a job ad can be quite inefficient. Companies pay money for a job ad, but do so without any guarantee of success while still investing a lot of effort. All applications have to be looked through, matching candidates have to be filtered out and interview appointments have to be made. That eats up a tremendous amount of time. With Driverhero, you just have to save the key requirements for employees in the job ad. Then, thanks to our machine learning-based matching algorithm, the delivery companies are immediately shown suitable candidates. With one click, the job seeker can be contacted and an interview appointment can be arranged. It’s that easy, fast and effective.
We’ve already organized several hundred job interviews through our platform. In the matching process, we deliberately side with the job seekers and our service aims to serve them. All they have to do is register on Driverhero and save what they would like in terms of their new job. That takes about five to ten minutes. We think sending out applications is something that should stay in the last century. Based on our database, we only bring candidates and companies together that really are a good match. In the end, the job seeker can filter out the best jobs from a selection of different positions. We’re very pleased that nearly every one of our registered users have already received at least one job offer so far. That shows that there’s a market and that our service is needed. We complete our offerings for our drivers with additional offers like the Driverhero Academy and the Driverhero Club, and services like online training and employee benefits.
Munich Startup: Was there a point when you nearly failed?
Driverhero: Thankfully, not yet. But our company is still pretty young and we’re just getting started. We’ve been very lucky so far in terms of searching for investors, acquiring customers and finding new employees. But we aren’t going to rest on our laurels, we’re going to keep putting on speed.
In one year, Driverhero should hopefully be active in every major city.
Munich Startup: Where would you like to be in one year, and where in five years?
Driverhero: As a marketplace, the business model works particularly well when there’s a lot going on in terms of both supply and demand. That’s why we’re planning to launch in other major cities as quickly as possible. Things are about to get going in Berlin. In one year, Driverhero should hopefully be active in every major city. We also see a strong international demand and want to expand in the near future.
Munich Startup: What do you think about Munich as a startup location?
Driverhero: We aren’t able to compare Munich to other cities in Germany but still think Munich has pretty much everything that a good startup location needs – be it capital, qualified employees or a good startup network. On top of that, we live in what we think is the most beautiful city in the world.
Munich Startup: Quick exit or staying power?
Driverhero: We firmly believe in the idea behind Driverhero and want to work on Driverhero in the years ahead. We’ll see where the journey ultimately takes us.