The foundation stone
The foundation stone for the development of Cleoo was laid by Michael Beer, during an exchange year in Vancouver, Canada. At a video game night with friends it was agreed that the loser of the game had to order pizzas for the whole round.
Michael had a disadvantage and lost narrowly. He then was faced with the challenge to order pizzas for every one of the ten hungry mouths. But that's easier said than done!
The ordering procedure proved to be a nerve-wracking and time-consuming task:
Michael told this story the next day to a local Canadian who was quite in disbelieve. "What? Why haven’t you ordered from courier X? It is known citywide for its superb pizzas! "
The idea was born
This brought the ball rolling in Michael, and the idea of Cleoo was born! How much easier would it be if all the couriers had been listed on an internet portal and the customer could also evaluate this? And, of course there you would also be able to see the special offers and can order through a simple process! Besides studying, Michael had a job and had a lot of time to think. This is how the idea of Cleoo developed and continued growing into a concrete project.
He also noticed that all the cities look almost the same - no matter whether a million metropolis or a small town. Branches of the large and well-known international companies can be found on every street corner, and you feel almost at home here. It does not matter whether you are in Vancouver, Zurich or New Delhi, you always find the same fast food, pizza and hamburger chains. The problem with that is that the local atmosphere and the local cuisine of a city fall’s into the background.
For Michael it was clear that Cleoo should primarily support small and medium businesses. This allows small couriers to fight with the same bandages as their international colleagues. Concretely Cleoo wanted to take care of better prices for small and medium businesses through coordinated orders of marketing materials.
And off it went!
Even during the exchange year in the spring and summer of 2007, the first private investor was involved in the planning and the rough concept developed further. Shortly after returning to Switzerland in the fall and winter of 2007, Michael took care of further negotiations with prospective partners from Cleoo. Soon more than 30 partners were found and entered into a first version of the online portal, thanks to the arts programming of Adrian.
With Steve and his fascination with "persuasion", another passionate home delivery fan came to the team in spring 2008, while the platform was being further expanded. With Steve and another pizza lover for the field sales, Cleoo could finally take care of supporting the partners with all the strength and continue to expand with the Switzerland-wide coverage!
Due to the centralization of the purchase, outsourcing of processes and standardised procedures, Cleoo can work just as efficiently and as effectively as large companies. The advantage is obvious: permanently low prices bring the partners a big step closer to their international competitors. As the network of home delivery services grew to nearly 250 partners in major Swiss cities by late summer 2010, so the Cleoo team has also expanded to about 10 people.
Cleoo today
After a profound conceptual, design and discussion stage, a brand new version of the online portal saw the light of the world at the end of January 2011. Equipped with the latest technologies, customers and partners of Cleoo.ch are provided with an even better experience. The platform is being expanded continuously and home delivery services can do what they do best: prepare delicious meals for their customers!