Drive Yello is revolutionising the way food is delivered.
Named by Fairfax as one of 13 Australian start-ups to watch this year, Drive Yello is a delivery management platform and market place with a difference, allowing vendors to outsource their delivery capability completely. Franchises, restaurants, chains, cafes and small food producers simply post delivery jobs and the Drive Yello team provide them with a reliable, trusted delivery driver on-demand. The platform allows vendors to search, hire, manage, track and pay drivers for either one-off deliveries or full shifts. As a result, businesses save significant time and money on managing deliveries internally.
Founders Steve Fanale and Johnny Timbs came up with the idea for Drive Yello on Halloween of 2014. Steve describes hanging out at Johnny’s place sipping a few glasses of red wine when Johnny’s phone went off. “It was one of Johnny’s pizza stores with the news that three of their delivery drivers had unexpectedly called in sick. Johnny started trying to find drivers to fill in to no avail and had to make do with the staff he had. It occurred to us that it was crazy that we couldn’t book a driver on-demand like we could order a cab. That evening, the idea for Yello was born,” says Steve.
With the popularity of websites and apps such as Menulog and Delivery Hero, the pair saw the increasing need for delivery drivers. In fact, there are approximately 166 million delivers per year in Australia. “Consumers now expect food delivered to their door with one click of a button on their smartphone. It’s vitally important for businesses to be able to provide this on-demand service and not risk letting down their customer base if a driver calls in sick or misses a shift,” says Steve.
Yello gives food vendors the ability to post shifts to the Yello driver market to find qualified and rated drivers, who they can then track and message. Vendors are also given the choice as to whether they would prefer to pay drivers directly or pay through the Yello platform. Vendors can also use the Yello platform to manage their existing drivers.
“Drive Yello gives businesses the opportunity to grow by saving costs and time associated with managing deliveries. A lot of businesses just don’t have the management tools, systems in place or time to manage delivery drivers. Simply finding good drivers and training them is hard work, let alone the hours involved in managing shifts every day,” says Steve. “It also provides an exciting business opportunity for vendors who currently can’t offer home delivery to increase revenue.”
Increased efficiency, improved monitoring, reduction of administration and accessibility to a crowd-sourced work force makes Yello very attractive to businesses across the food service industry. From independent vendors to major franchises and menu aggregators, Yello is a platform that the industry is crying out for. Current businesses that use Drive Yello include Crust Gourmet Pizza, McDonalds, Delivery Hero, Elvis Pizza and Zeus.
Daniel Wedgwood, a Delivery Hero Key Account Manager, says “Drive Yello has been the ultimate solution in enabling the extension of our takeaway delivery capabilities across Sydney CBD and East. As a start-up ourselves a few years back, we understand the challenges of establishing a successful business model in a highly competitive marketplace. It’s these similarities along with market-leading tech and driver tracking that were a good fit for our needs. With the power of Yello we are looking forward to expanding our delivery footprint further.”