Get to Know: lokii

What inspired you to found lokii?

Richmond was the inspiration for lokii and we’re so happy we were able to launch in such a big way here. I (Polly) grew up here and I have memories of going to Carytown - we would walk around, get ice cream, and go to all the local stores. When we moved to other cities like Chicago and Los Angeles, we saw small business districts fade out as more and more corporate stores came in and took over. I never want to lose that part of Richmond - the local businesses, the artists, the makers - that is what makes makes a city so great. Why is it easier to buy something from halfway around the world than it is to buy from a store right down the street?

As the pandemic started unfolding, it became even more pressing to solve this problem. The issues were there before covid but the pandemic made things move more rapidly. We didn’t want the empty storefronts of local coffee shops to be replaced by Starbucks locations - we wanted to help people support the local businesses that matter to them.

How did you decide to work together?

We’ve been together for nearly 10 years and we got married this fall. Although we never officially worked on the same business before - we’re always thinking about different business ideas. On roadtrips, Ryan will drive and Polly will have a pen and paper out because we’re always brainstorming. We work really well together, we complement each other in our strengths and our weaknesses - it’s really nice that we balance each-other in that way and we’re obsessed with problem solving.

Nitin with the University of Miami Herbert Business School Assistant Dean of Programs in 2006 - Nitin was the first student from Nepal to enroll at the university

What do you hope to get out of Lighthouse and acceleration?

We used 2020 to do research and development - a lot of shopper and retailer interviews - before launching delivery in Richmond in November. Seeing the proof-of-concept after our launch made us want to bring lokii to life even more. We had seen early signs of product-market fit and wanted to put resources behind it to see how far we could take it!

We see Lighthouse helping us scale lokii in Richmond and in similar cities. We’ve already been able to put $20,000 back into the local community, so it is really exciting to see what can happen on a larger scale and if we can do 10 or 20 times that with acceleration.

“Why is it easier to buy something from halfway around the world than it is to buy from a store right down the street?”

— lokii

What are the most exciting moments of your entrepreneurial journey thus far?

A few come to mind! Getting our first store on board for delivery, it was so exciting and validating that someone trusted us to do that.

Our first order that wasn’t from a friends or family came on our wedding day - Ryan ran out and made the delivery before the ceremony!

Watching orders come through during the holidays and seeing people get our orders like it was a normal delivery. We were running deliveries ourselves at first and when we’d drop at someones house they’d just say, “Ok, thank you, bye.” We felt like Grubhub but it was nice to see lokii normalized in that way.

And getting into Lighthouse - we have very visceral memories of running across the road and hugging after we got accepted to the accelerator!

Kimberly in Cape Town, South Africa - she’s traveled to more than 40 countries

What have been the most challenging moments of your entrepreneurial journey thus far?

A lot of the problems we have come across have ended up being opportunities and we ended up building solutions for.

Initially we were just a marketplace, without delivery, and we linked directly to the retailers websites but we learned that shoppers didn’t have an easy way to get products from stores. When we saw that disconnect, we thought lokii could help make local shopping easier than Amazon and thought about delivery.

Also, early on we didn’t take payments in app - we were collecting payments at the door and it was on good will that we would deliver the product and they would pay. We’ve since updated that!

What founders or companies do you admire?

Stripe solved a really tough problem and have run into so many different speed bumps and have been really smart about the tech that they built to provide payment solutions. They are now the backbone of the internet for payments.

Airbnb had a lot of issues up front that seemed really major but looking back were more minor - they didn’t think people would be comfortable sleeping with other peoples beds so they thought they would need to put airbeds on top of them. Of course that wasn’t the real issue, but they were visionaries and they stuck with their vision all the way through.

Melanie Perkins of Canva is a non-tehcnical founder who really communicated her vision to get people on board and build a tool we use every day.

Caterina Fake was an early-stage investor in Etsy who is focused on using tech for good and also making money along the way - just like us!

What is your big vision for lokii?

We want to see people opening the lokii app before they open Amazon so they can try to buy local first - we want to be the first stop on the shopping journey. We get 98% of what we need right here in Richmond - and lokii makes it easier. And this goes beyond consumer goods - we want there be a local camera store again, for a local hardware store reopen, and for lokii to be a platform to find anything you need locally.

COVID forced us all to stop and look around, and we saw that our cities look different because there is no modern way to support the local businesses in our community. We hope lokii can help us all be aware of what we want our cities to look like and give people a convenient way to support small businesses.

How can we connect with lokii?

If you are in Richmond, you can download our iOS app and shop locally with lokii!

“COVID forced us all to stop and look around, and we saw that our cities look different because there is no modern way to support the local businesses in our community. ”

— lokii