Yesterday for the first time I used Gorillas. It’s been a while since several friends talked to me about it enthusiastically. Shopping at home in ten minutes! When they told me I thought: why all this rush? Then came the news of a round, the third in a year and a half. A huge round: from one billion euros, entered the company’s coffers to make it grow even faster. So I downloaded the app and ordered a bottle of wine thinking: how will they do it in ten minutes? After seven minutes a smiling boy was at my door: with the wine there was a handwritten welcome card and a complimentary selection of vegetables, including small kiwis I had never eaten before. I was thrilled: how had they managed to bring me the chosen wine in seven minutes at dinner time? To answer I have to tell you the story of Gorillas, or an app born as a side effect of the pandemic.
In May 2020, while the world is shyly restarting after the first wave, in Berlin there is a boy of Turkish origin, Kagan Sumer, who has two failed startups behind him. He sees an opportunity in our new behaviors: with the lockdown the home delivery sector exploded but they are not efficient; delivery times too long and every time you find that something you ordered was out of stock. For the first problem, imagine opening ghost supermarkets, or better, warehouses, in all the neighborhoods where the app is operational; for the second, it is enough to make the best use of technology. He makes the first delivery himself: he bought a selection of products and placed it at home. Three months later he takes Berlin, then Germany, half of Europe, and recently he is in some Italian cities. Gorillas says it is different from other similar services: the riders only do neighborhood deliveries on electric bikes and are regularly hired. But in Berlin in recent days there has been a major protest for better working conditions and Kagan responded by firing everyone and hiring new deliverymen. We will talk about it again soon.
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