First, he predicted it. Now, he’s riding it. Sendle CEO James Chin Moody knows all about waves of disruptive innovation, and he thinks this one’s just beginning.
James Chin Moody knows all about the wave of disruption currently turning entrepreneurs into millionaires. After all, he predicted it before it happened.
In his 2012 book The Sixth Wave: How to Succeed in a Resource-Limited World, the ex-satellite engineer and senior CSIRO scientist predicted a new wave of innovation – the sixth since the industrial revolution, for those counting. Now building his own multimillion-dollar tech start-up Sendle, Chin Moody is relieved to see what he saw stirring in his crystal ball is actually coming to pass.
“Prediction is a dangerous game. But there’s a well-understood phenomenon in innovation theory that innovation occurs in waves of about 35 to 40 years in length. They always start with disruption - lots of businesses are created and new business models born - and they always end in a global depression.”
Picking the GFC as the final bookend of the last wave of innovation, Chin Moody decided to trade theory for practice by launching his own start-up as the next wave was just beginning. “I decided it was time to eat my own dog food.”
Sendle delivers parcels all over Australia at flat, affordable rates. However, instead of owning the usual infrastructure required for such a huge job – like a courier company, or Australia Post – it instead uses technology to utilise already existing courier company assets to get parcels door-to-door at cheaper rates.
Targeting cash-conscious small businesses and consumers fed up with the inefficiency and cost associated with Australia Post or courier networks designed – and priced – for big businesses, Sendle’s online platform has already propelled it to disruptive status in just a year, and it is growing at 50 per cent a month.
“What that is telling us is there is a strong demand in the marketplace for both convenience and price certainty. What we do that nobody else does is deliver every parcel door-to-door nationally at flat, affordable rates,” he says.
As Chin Moody sees it, Sendle isn’t actually a logistics company. It’s a software company that happens to be doing logistics. “This is part of the sixth wave. We are using technology to unlock idle capacity in that existing big business network and make it available to small businesses and consumers.”
Just like Airbnb (the largest hotel company in the world that doesn’t own any hotels) or Uber (the same, but for the taxi industry), Sendle doesn’t own the infrastructure required, but is still able to use it to deliver a service via software to end customers.
Chin-Moody is unapologetic about taking on legacy player Australia Post, which he sees as an expensive monopoly. Instead, he argues Sendle will have positive effects by creating competition in the market, and by levelling the playing field for small businesses in particular no matter where they are located.
“Finally small businesses can get the same rates as larger businesses, and it doesn’t matter where you are located. If you are company in Armidale you can now compete with a business based in Sydney or Perth. Instead of paying $40 while a big business is paying $10, you are put on the same competitive footing.”
Looking ahead, Chin Moody says would-be tech entrepreneurs need to realise “software is eating the world”. “There are two types of companies – those that know they are software companies and those that don’t know it yet.” The innovation wave underway is one where there is more value in the information in a business and the way it interacts with other people through software.
That’s why Chin Moody says now is a great time to be a start-up. Those willing to take the leap now could be in for a long ride on the wave of innovation.
“One of the things that inspired me to become an entrepreneur is that now is the time when things are changing, and that’s a challenge for a lot of big businesses, so there is a huge amount of opportunities, particularly for start-ups. We are right at the beginning, and the seeds that get planted now are the ones that will grow and bear fruit over the next 30 or 40 years,” Chin Moody says.
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