The explosion of Internet-connected technology has led to both newfound convenience as well as increased expectations of productivity. MiButler, a service created by Milwaukee resident Baker Al-Qudsi, has found a business opportunity in this intersection.
MiButler will perform any delivery or service for you with only a few exceptions. Along with anything illegal, MiButler does not transport humans, pets, money or alcohol, as these are all liabilities that MiButler is not able to handle.
The initial brainstorming for the company began in 2013, with the venture picking up steam the following year.
“Guys were sitting together and thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if…,’” Al-Qudsi recalls of those initial brainstorming sessions.
The service was conceived as a mobile auto care center where the mechanic would come to you, then as a mobile hair and nail salon. The concept eventually snowballed into providing any service imaginable through a text-based system that allows users to text 262-671-4756 any request that they may have.
Al-Qudsi, who has a background in business development and marketing, is proud to have started such a venture right here in Milwaukee.
“You don’t see too many techie startups here in Milwaukee,” he says. “I’ve always had an entrepreneurial mind, and I’ve always wanted to make things more efficient. If I could give myself a middle name it would be efficient.”
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Al-Qudsi began to grow disillusioned with the corporate world because of his desire to disrupt traditional processes. He enjoys having his own company because of the ability to make big decisions without having to jump through hoops.
“When I worked for other companies, and some were Fortune 500 companies, I would sometimes get frustrated about the ways that we were doing business,” Al-Qudsi says. “I thought that there was always a better way, but you can be a bit shackled when you work for some of the big names.”
The decision to be a text-based service and not an app came from research Al-Qudsi found stating people check their smartphones 200-300 times a day. He felt that he could capitalize on how intertwined humans and machines are in the modern world.
“Just about everyone is familiar with texting,” Al-Qudsi says. “So instead of building an application with costs and time associated with it we found that we could have everything done through a text format.”
There is an account that is built for users on the back end of the system that allows MiButler to keep track of user’s transactions. The company does not see any user credit card or bank information according to Al-Qudsi.
MiButler is a small operation with only six employees, but Al-Qudsi says they are in growth mode and looking to hire. They are also looking to expand into new areas such as Madison and Chicago.
Delivery drivers function with an Uber-like system, where drivers can log in to be on-call and then dispatched when needed. Baker sees this system as the most efficient way of doing business in this market.
“The drivers are on-demand,” says Al-Qudsi. “When we have a request come in we’ll send it out to the driver that’s closest to the area and give them the timeframe that it needs to be done in.”
The most common request so far is for food delivery. Most restaurants will only deliver within a certain range that excludes many customers. MiButler will deliver anywhere, but for a cost, of course.
Pricing is based on the service provided and how far away the customer is. Al-Qudsi says there has not yet been a request that has been turned down by the customer because of price.
Al-Qudsi understands that a service like this will mainly appeal to people with disposable income, and envisions a customer base that sees the extra time they will have from using MiButler as an opportunity to be more productive or spend more quality time with their loved ones.
Al-Qudsi says MiButler is currently running on very low profit margins, but he is not worried about this because he wants the company to have repeat customers who use the service every day. He envisions that volume will make up for the low margins.
While the most common request is food delivery, there have also been requests for car washes, grocery runs and some odd requests such as setting up a helicopter ride.
“There’s a little bit of chaos that’s involved in this,” Al-Qudsi says. “We don’t know what the next text message will be requesting.”
Turnaround time has been the biggest success the company has so far. MiButler has done around 300 transactions after launching five weeks ago. There are already around six people who use MiButler either daily or every other day, yet the company is still able to deliver orders rapidly.
“It is literally all hands on deck,” Al-Qudsi says. “We are putting in tremendous hours. In many cases it’s only 40 minutes or less from the time we get the first text message until the time of delivery. These are for things that before would not have any other way of getting to you unless you went out and got it yourself.”
The response so far has been appreciative. People are happy to be able to have time to do extra work or spend more time with their families. People from different states have contacted Baker wondering when MiButler will come to them. He sees the company expanding into different areas in the near future, and hopes to move on from being focused solely on food into more errands and other services.
“A company like this will never be perfect,” Baker says. “We are always going to be evolving and growing.”
