nstaboxx founders Larry Balaban and Carmen Mirabella have been friends for nearly 25 years, but when they first met, self-storage wasn’t even on their radar.
“I was the creator of Baby Genius,” says Balaban, who had recently become a father and developed the brand of CDs, DVDs, books, and toys to stimulate the development and wellbeing of children. The products proved to be wildly successful and were featured on numerous shows of the time, with popular celebrities like Rosie O’Donnell touting their benefits. “Once they blew up on the talk show circuit, I realized I needed someone else to handle fulfillment,” says Balaban.
“That’s an understatement,” Balaban says with a laugh, as Mirabella was eventually moving upwards of 40,000 packages per day and even more during the holiday season.
Interest in Baby Genius continued to grow, but one day Balaban received an offer he couldn’t refuse. “I sold the business,” he says. “It was a great deal.” He and Mirabella parted ways, though they remained friends. During their time apart, Mirabella built his own successful fulfillment house, Fulex, and Balaban (the serial entrepreneur that he is) began playing with new ideas. One of those was Instaboxx, which was conceived as a smart e-commerce platform that would ship curated moving kits directly to consumers, removing the need for self-storage facilities to stock on-site inventory.
“Storage customers want speed and simplicity,” says Balaban, noting that the ready-to-ship kits arrive in one to three days nationwide. “Typically a day, unless they’re out somewhere like in Kalamazoo,” he jokes. “We saw a void in the industry and Instaboxx fills it. It also makes it easy for operators to earn ancillary revenue [20 percent on every sale] without having to keep any inventory or deal with shrinkage.”
To get those boxes shipped expeditiously, he knew he wanted Mirabella along for the ride. The two worked on Instaboxx and had some help along the way from Darren Kelly, president of Right Move Storage, and Jim Mooney, president of Freedom Storage and co-host of numerous successful self-storage podcasts. “Those guys were instrumental in helping me and Carmen get this thing going off the ground,” says Balaban. “They spent so much time with us, showing us how their business works, explaining what customers need, and giving us a lens into the future of the industry.”
Mike Rowe from the reality television show “Dirty Jobs” had a hand in the development of Instaboxx as well. “We actually worked together on Baby Genius,” adds Balaban. “He did a lot of voiceover work for us.”
As a television show host, Rowe had a knack for marketing and advertising. So when the duo approached him for an Instaboxx slogan, he was ready. “‘You Got This,’ that’s our slogan, and that’s all Mike,” says Balaban. “The idea being that moving is tough and stressful. ‘You Got This’ is a quick, memorable, and encouraging statement. And it gets to the heart of what Instaboxx does: make moving a little less painful.”
But Instaboxxes are not just another box. “They’re designed to be ergonomically correct,” says Balaban. “They’re more rectangular versus square-shaped, so they’re easier to carry.”
Adds Mirabella, “The corrugate is also hard, so they stack well.”
Prior to the launch of Instaboxx, a study they conducted revealed that 50 percent to 80 percent of people book their storage units online, so they never step foot in the facility until their move-in date, which means they likely get their boxes elsewhere, such as Home Depot or Lowe’s. “Now, they can simply order Instaboxx from the storage facility’s website,” says Balaban. “They don’t need to go to a separate site; we create custom branded landing pages and QR code access for our clients.”
Even if Balaban and Mirabella have built a better box, they have no plans to stop there. “A box is too easy to replicate,” says Balaban. “Our intention is to not just be a box delivery service but to leverage technology that will help people during their moving process. You know how moving boxes have the little lines on the side so you can write what’s inside? This takes that concept to the nth degree.”
When pressed for more, he explains the plan but says it’s off the record for now. “It’s still in beta, and we’ll be releasing it soon, but I can’t give away the secret sauce just yet,” Balaban says with a laugh.
In other words, stay tuned for more Instaboxx innovation in the near future!