This week’s 1 Million Cups at the Kauffman Foundation featured startup businesses pitching rentable moving boxes and limited-edition phone cases.
The guest panel of startup inquisitors consisted of Ilya Tabakh, founder of Somametric; leadership coach, trainer and speaker Lawrence Andre; and Robb Heineman, CEO of Sporting Club, the parent organization of Sporting Kansas City.
Matt Zabielski, founder of Panda Boxes, offered a solution for residential movers who would like to go green and no longer deal with the iffy quality, high cost and general inconvenience of using cardboard boxes to transport their possessions.
“We kick cardboard’s butt” with “amazing, dry, sturdy boxes” that are “virtually crush-proof” and “delivered to you on your schedule,” Zabielski said.
Stackable, plastic Panda Boxes cost $1 a week for customers to rent. After the customers move, the company also picks up the boxes.
Panda Boxes wants to build a brand and eventually serve customers nationwide with a franchise business model, Zabielski said.
“We want to be able to deliver boxes in Kansas City and pick them up in Ohio,” he said. “That’s the goal.”
Zabielski’s partner in the business also owns and operates College Hunks Moving, a moving company that is helping Panda Boxes make national connections.
Red Dirt Shop at 1 Million Cups
Next up were Christina Eldridge and Dawn Taylor, co-founders of Red Dirt Shop, which also pitched last year at 1 Million Cups. The company still sells limited-edition phone cases designed by artists, but has added exclusive T-shirts, stainless-steel water bottles and bags, clutch purses and wallets to its product line.
One thing that hasn’t changed about Red Dirt Shop is its social impact business model: For every product that is sold, the company funds one year of access to clean water for a person living in a developing country through water.org. Since launching online in April 2013, Red Dirt Shop has funded one year of clean water for 250 people in such nations as Ethiopia, Uganda, India, Bangladesh and Haiti.
While making a positive impact on the lives of others is fundamental to Red Dirt Shop—whose name was inspired by “the red dirt of Africa,” Eldridge said—the business remains a for-profit entity.
“We can’t make an impact without making a profit,” Eldridge said. “So profit has always been No. 1.”
Red Dirt Shop recently opened a brick-and-mortar store for the holiday season on the Country Club Plaza, where Eldridge and Taylor get to put faces with the names of online customers.
“We’re so thrilled to meet our customers,” Taylor said. “That is just so gratifying to us.”
