Robin Chan's "operators" will find anything you want - all you have to do is drop them a text. "If you say, 'I'm looking for a leather sofa,' we take your request, in text form or a photo, identify that you're looking for furniture and connect you to a furniture expert," explains Chan (pictured), Operator's co-founder and CEO.
Your new helper will research and recommend an item, and, if you buy it, arrange delivery - an exchange that takes place entirely via chat on the Operator iOS app (or, since April, in Facebook Messenger). "Messaging apps are now bigger than browsers," says Chan. "If the internet's going to look like a conversation, commerce should be completely rethought."
Chan, 38, an angel investor with early wins in Twitter, Square and Xiaomi, developed the idea in 2013 with Uber co-founder Garrett Camp. "We saw a need to create a new type of routing system between people who needed stuff and people on the other end who could solve their problem," he says.
After two years in Camp's startup studio Expa, the pair launched Operator together in November 2015. The Uber connections continue: Camp is on Operator's board, and last December Operator partnered with UberRUSH for delivery of Christmas presents from two department stores in San Francisco. "There's [now] a logistics layer at the local level that allows you to move goods," says Chan. And that layer is Uber.
Operator has raised $10 million (£6.9m) in funding. Chan says there are "many business models", from advertising to taking a percentage of the sale. Looking ahead, he sees Operator's future lying with AI - the app currently uses bots to connect shoppers to experts, but the whole system could be operated that way.
For now, however, the goal is growth. "The key thing is for us to scale this whole system," he says. "I imagine Uber's thinking the same thing."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
