In the next installment of our Developer Feature series, Spiffy talks to the co-founder of Packnada, Jonathan. Packnada is a fresh new Singapore-based startup with a unique online business revolving around business travel and quite literally, your dirty laundry.
1) Tell us about Packnada, and what is its origin story?
Like most startups, Packnada was born out of frustration. Johnbosco (my co-founder) and I were stuck in a stupidly long queue at the Hong Kong airport during a business trip, and I guarantee we weren’t the only frustrated ones. If we didn’t have to carry around our clothes, we’d be saving a lot of time, not just from skipping queues, but from skipping packing and laundry altogether.
We’re both geeks at heart, so we decided to combine something traditional like clothes, with the concept of cloud storage! If we can have our files wherever we go, why don’t we do the same for clothes? You’d never have to pack, and always find your essentials waiting at your hotel!
2) Quite amazing that you guys seem to have made a OneDrive or Dropbox for travel clothes!
How does it work? What do you think makes it successful?
You can get started with Packnada in a couple of minutes, it’s quite simple! Just sign up and inform us of your first trip here, and bring along the clothes you want to store with us. We’ll have an empty bag waiting at your hotel room, just leave that behind with your dirty clothes at the end of the trip. We’ll pick it up, wash and make sure it’s ready for your next trip!
Travelers like Packnada because we make frequent travel simple. Instead of worrying about the mundane and repetitive stuff, Packnada lets them focus on the important stuff like work or getting back to their families.
3) You guys have had some private betas of this service, are there any interesting stories that happened then?
There was a client who started off leaving only a few tattered clothes. When we first got it, we looked at each other with raised eyebrows. We eventually found out it was because he didn’t quite trust that his clothes would be safe. A few trips later the clothes started to ‘mend themselves’ – we started getting his more expensive stuff. He was so happy about how well Packnada worked that he left us home-made cheese sticks. Our very own rags to riches story 🙂
4) I understand you are newly onboard the Microsoft BizSpark program!
How do you think the resources from BizSpark will help you guys in making Packnada more successful?
Microsoft Singapore’s network and resources will be incredibly helpful in helping Packnada to scale quickly in development and deployment. We’ll definitely look to Microsoft Azure for our hosting and online computing needs as well.
5) So, what’s next for Packnada? Oh, and if I’m interested in trying out Packnada how should I get started?
The more markets Packnada is in, the better it is for our users. We’re going to be focused on making sure Packnada is available in more countries in the region. Meanwhile, if you travel to Singapore, go try out the service for free!
Also, if you’re a Microsoft employee, you enjoy an additional USD20 off subsequent trips. Use coupon code “MICROSOFT20” when planning your trip. Just our way of saying thanks for the hospitality!
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Thank you Jonathan for your time! You’ll be seeing some of his posts on Spiffy soon as he joins us as a guest writer.
Do remember to check out Packnada at their website: http://packnada.com/
See you in the next developer feature. If you have any interesting developers that you want to highlight to the community, feel free to do so in the comments!
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