New businesses are born and developed every day in Hong Kong, which has been hailed as one of the most exciting places for startups businesses. Several valet storage companies have mushroomed in the past few months in the race to provide the best service to the millions of people struggling with small, crowded living spaces.
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Most of these start-up companies boast tailor-made, flexible storage price-points and arrangements made possible by the proliferation of technologies.
They offer more control for users during the whole process. Storage boxes are delivered and collected at the door. The users can keep track of their inventory any time as they photo the contents of the box and upload the images to their online accounts.
on average, an individual in hong kong only has 0.5 square feet of self-storage space
The users can also store however small or large a quantity at different time intervals ranging from weeks to months, at an entry fee that is little more than the price of a Starbucks coffee. They can even recall the boxes whenever they want with just a flick of their finger on their smartphones or tablet devices.
Norman Cheung, co-founder and CEO of Boxful, says there is a void in the self-storage market because people are put off by traditional warehouse services, which usually require users to make the trip back and forth to the warehouse, and offer a limited choice in storage space and lease duration.
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Cheung and co-founder Carl Wu were quick to act on their idea. It took them only about 10 weeks to build the business from scratch and secure US$1.5 million in venture funding that allowed them to invest in the technology, enter into long-term leases with warehouses, hire their own fleet of vans, and roll out various marketing campaigns including print advertisements and social media advertising.
