Here’s how Bungii delivered spot No. 981 in its Inc. 5000 fastest-growing companies debut

Nailing Bungii’s geographic expansion model has unlocked significant growth, said Ben Jackson, detailing a years-long evolution that earned his Kansas City-built final-mile delivery carrier a coveted spot on the latest Inc. 5000 fastest-growing companies list.

“Bungii’s network is becoming one of the largest sharing economy footprints across the U.S.,” explained Jackson, who co-founded the company alongside Harrison Proffitt in 2015. “And what’s exciting — specifically in the on-demand, last mile, big and bulky space — it’s absolutely disruptive.”

Click here to learn more about the Inc. 5000 list of fastest private growing companies in the US. Bungii’s spot on the list was publicly announced Tuesday, alongside such Kansas City-area businesses as Simply Fuel (No. 61), BetaBlox (No. 377), Lula (No. 542), EquipmentShare (No. 1,742), Crux KC (No. 2,341), OCCU-TEC (No. 3,084), Pushly (No. 3,806), and Full Scale (No. 4,489).

RELATED: Star of MTV’s ‘The Challenge’ whose incubator is creating business stars

Originally launched as a consumer-facing app, Bungii has pivoted to a partner-focused model that moves it firmly into a more profitable and sustainable trajectory, Jackson said, detailing year-over-year growth of more than 100 percent in 2024.

“We’re in the final stages of establishing this nationwide infrastructure layer, providing on-demand, last-mile, large item delivery,” he said. “This includes the local delivery pros, the vehicles, the partners, the customers, the platform, tech, logistical IP — the end-to-end delivery chain value process and knowledge.”

Now operating with 15,000 certified Bungii delivery pros (gig economy drivers), Bungii has the capacity to handle up to 5 million deliveries annually, and serves partners in 85 major metros across the U.S.

“We’ve been on this long march toward profitability, and we’ve finally achieved it without sacrificing growth,” said Jackson, who earlier this summer was named one Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year winners for the Heartland. “If you can stay disciplined, focus on the fundamental speed and economics, there absolutely is a path forward for sharing economy companies to be profitable.”

Bungii leverages excess capacity — a pickup truck sitting in a driveway — to solve a real delivery problem, he said.

“We’ve built this company around one specific niche: on-demand, big and bulky delivery. And because of that, we have the best drivers, response time, and performance, as well as technology that absolutely delights our partners,” Jackson said. “And we’re not focused on expanding city to city, state to state; we’re not focused on grocery, alcohol or fast food delivery.”

Ben Jackson, Bungii

Delivery as a Service

Breaking into new markets has changed dramatically for Bungii, Jackson said. Gone are the days of deep research into pickup trucks per capita, number of big box stores in the area, and the volume of furniture and big, bulky items being posted online for delivery.

Harrison Proffitt, Bungii

“Now we’re just looking at partner or customer demand,” he said. “We identify a strategic market with a partner and determine a go-live date; we’re essentially letting our partners pull us where they need us.”

Next the company recruits and trains drivers — “which Bungii can do for big and bulky, at scale, better than anybody else,” Jackson said. “And once that go-live date hits, we already have the customer demand, the supply is ready, and we pay little from there to sustain the market.”

“Unlike other gig models, we’re not establishing local offices; we’re propping up both sides of the marketplace with a bunch of ad spend. The result: our new markets are contribution margin positive on Day 1,” he continued. “The strategy allows us to really expand on a national level without bleeding cash up front. The playbook is honed for expansion.”

It’s an approach that earns Bungii a Net Promoter Score of 87, Jackson said, noting that’s 76 points above the industry average.

“The supply chain is fragmented,” he explained, detailing challenges faced by retailers and carriers. “There’s a wide discrepancy in cost, quality, availability and transparency; and it has one of the lowest net promoter scores across any industry.”

To make a bad problem worse, Jackson said, online retail giants like Amazon have essentially weaponized the supply chain, causing outsized delivery expectations for consumers.

“Companies and retailers — both traditional and online — are learning that their customers are more influenced by delivery than almost any other interaction,” he said. “And no one has figured this out for big and bulky items. Not even Amazon.”

Many consumers don’t realize the complexity difference for buying and delivering a large household item versus more traditional purchases, Jackson said, noting they’ll buy such oversized items and expect them delivered same-day.

“The industry is desperate for a solution. The only way to solve this is through a complex, multifaceted marketplace, powered by the gig economy,” he added. “We made it simple at scale. It’s almost like delivery; it’s not SaaS. It’s Delivery as a Service.”

Wired to build

Jackson credits Bungii’s success to his team’s meticulous efforts to build the company the right way, from the beginning.

And it started with Employee No. 1.

Josh Camacho, Bungii

Their first hire, Josh Camacho, now chief operating officer, oversees all delivery pros, as well as customer and driver support. His purview even includes new market launches.

“It’s a very delicate dance,” Jackson explained of the role Camacho evolved into alongside the changing business. “It’s not a matter of launching a company once; it’s like we’re launching the company 85 times. And Josh is in charge of all of that — driver recruitment, onboarding, ongoing training, the customer service element; he manages the biggest team within Bungii.”

Rewind a decade: A fellow Kansas State University graduate, Camacho was set to take a six-figure corporate job in California — offering him a hefty healthcare benefits package, the West Coast lifestyle, and an opportunity to get closer to his favorite basketball player Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors.

He’d heard about Jackson and Proffitt’s venture — a storied startup that sprung out of the K-State Launch competition in 2015 — and reached out to Bungii, wondering what the co-founders might offer him to stay (and build) in Kansas instead, Jackson recalled.

“I said, ‘Josh, here’s the counter-offer: I can pay you $25,000, no healthcare, no benefits, no Steph Curry, and by the way, we don’t even have an office, or a job title for you specifically.'”

“He sat on the phone for a couple seconds, then said, ‘Yeah, OK. I’ll take it. Let’s do it.’ And that’s a testament to the type of people who we are at Bungii and the way that we’re wired,” Jackson said. “We’re people who are entrepreneurial-minded, aren’t afraid to take bets on ourselves, and are willing to roll up our sleeves to get the job done.”

“Some people are wired to make money, and more power to them, right?” he continued. “But other people are wired to build.”

Daron Sinkler, Bungii

Kerri Thurston, Bungii

The co-founders are proud to have grown team members into leaders, Jackson said, emphasizing Bungii also found strength in bringing in experienced outside talent — like Kerri Thurston, a former C2FO executive who now is Bungii’s CFO; and Daron Sinkler, previously vice president of sales for the exited Rx Savings Solutions, and now chief revenue officer at Bungii.

Click here to for more on Bungii’s leaders.

The company’s leadership team and more than 50 employees operate largely from Bungii’s longtime Overland Park headquarters.

“Headcount — like the number of funding rounds for a startup — can be more of a vanity metric than a real indicator of success,” Jackson said. “One of the biggest flexes, in my mind, is scaling rapidly without increasing headcount or at least raising it slowly. That’s a reason we have some of the operational leverage that we do: because hiring has been incremental as we’ve expanded.”

Ben Jackson and Harrison Proffitt at Bungii’s Overland Park headquarters; photo courtesy of Social Apex Media

Sunsetting extra weight

Bungii first made headlines with its novel consumer-facing app — an approachable platform that allowed users to book idle pickup truck drivers for delivery of furniture and other big, bulky items.

From the archives: Bungii driving toward coast-to-coast on-demand hauling service

“The consumer app took us from zero to one,” Jackson said. “But it got to the point where the consumer segment was so unprofitable that it wasn’t even paying for itself, so we shut it down completely.”

Sunsetting the app last year wasn’t an easy decision, he said, acknowledging he and the team had a lot of emotion and ego tied into it.

“I was like, ‘Guys, do we really want to do it? This represents thousands of hours of work — blood, sweat and tears,’” he recalled. “But looking at the P&L, the answer was obvious. It was like 3 percent of our revenue and taking up 40 or 50 percent of our operational bandwidth.”

“You’re dealing with fickle consumers, inaccurate expectations, payment fraud, damage complaints, demands for something to be assembled or disassembled. It was just too complex for the outcome we were seeing,” Jackson continued. “It really got to the point where it was just a distraction.”

Part of the growth process, he emphasized, is recognizing what needs to change.

“We have a relentless focus, but we’re not afraid to say ‘OK. How do we need to evolve? Do we need to lose the extra weight?” Jackson said.