Featured Startup Pitch: Storrage is on a mission to help people de-clutter their homes with an innovative on-demand off-site storage service

By Terry Drayton, Storrage founder and CEO

Elevator Pitch: We hold on to your seasonal and infrequently used items so you can use your space for living. When you need them again, just click on our free app and they’ll be there. Use Storrage for safekeeping holiday decorations, seasonal clothing, sporting goods, tools or documents.

Service Description

Customers use the free mobile app (iPhone, iPad and Android) to schedule on-demand delivery of new containers to their doorstep. Customers fill them with possessions, catalog the contents with photos and descriptions, and use the app to schedule pickup. Storrage picks up the containers and stores them in a secure, climate-controlled warehouse until the customer uses the app to request delivery.

Founder’s Story

I’m a collaborative innovator and entrepreneur who, over the past 28 years, has founded and managed nine companies, including online grocery delivery service HomeGrocer.com, and raised more than $500 million, including an IPO, for my businesses. My high-energy, positive attitude has allowed me to recruit and lead world-class teams. Comfortable making decisions in uncertainty, I’ve been a pioneer in many industries—from bottled water, to ecommerce, to software-as-a-service.

Marketing/Promotion Strategy

We discovered that most of our customers use Storrage to support their lifestyles, rather than to get organized. Because of this, we focus on the lifestyle changes our customers can make when their space is available for living. Our marketing asks: “We give you more living space. What will you do with yours?” And we get wonderful responses! Customers have been able to do everything from entertaining friends more often to starting-up a new business.

How We Differentiate From the Competition

Self-storage is a $22 billion industry in the U.S., but isn’t a solution for a majority of the population. In fact, only about 10 percent of households use self-storage facilities due to inconvenience and high cost, which averages $175 per month. Urban apartment and condo dwellers in particular have limited access and choice when it comes to personal storage. Our customers spend an average of $25 per month with the convenience of home delivery and pickup, thanks in large part to our container model, app-based technology, and logistics expertise.

Business Model

We’ve used experience from my bottled water delivery and HomeGrocer.com days to streamline our processes with app-based warehouse management and distribution systems, and customer-centric service. These elements help keep operating costs low, and savings are passed on to our customers. Our straightforward pricing system costs $15 for pickup and delivery plus $2 per item, which is priced at breakeven to cover our operational costs. We make our profit on the storage costs, which are $4 per month per container, set of golf clubs, pair of skis or snowboard, and $6 per month per bike.

Market Opportunity

While there are similar companies operating in the U.S., like Boxbee in San Francisco and Makespace in New York, Storrage stands out for our deep logistics background, our franchise program, and our use of app technology to provide a superior customer experience. We designed and operate a super-efficient warehouse and distribution system with patent-pending systems and processes. In addition, we’ve established a franchise model that prefers military veterans with a 50 percent discount on the franchise fee to qualified applicants.

Current Needs

We are recruiting a community manager in the Seattle market, and will be looking for franchise candidates in additional Seattle territories and our first expansion market. We plan to raise $5 million in our second round of financing in Q2 from VC or strategic investors before we begin our national rollout.

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Headquarters: Seattle

Website: www.storrage.com

Founder: Terry Drayton

Investors: Private Angels

Year Founded: 2013

Twitter: @storrageinc

Facebook: facebook.com/storrageseattle

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/3068365