The gophr journey

The idea began several years ago when founder, Warren Vandever, and his father were building a house. Like any major project, most of their time was spent making trips to the local hardware store for materials and supplies. After about the 30th trip, Warren’s father said, “It would be really nice if we had a ’gofer’ to do all this running back and forth for us.” 

​A few years later, Warren found himself in a business pitch competition at McNeese State University. The objective was simple; design a business concept that would create 10,000 jobs in 10 years. As he brainstormed business models, he remembered what his father said that day; “Something about how not having to make so many trips to the store would be nice, or whatever.” With that, he began developing a scalable concept for last-mile delivery.

​Not only would same-day delivery require around 10,000 employees, it would provide the perfect solution to consumers for everything from large scale projects to everyday basic retail needs, and a competitive advantage to local brick-and-mortar stores in the digital age. The judges agreed. 

Gophr quickly grew from concept to business, building a talented team and partnering with local stores all across Southwest Louisiana. But we didn’t stop there. We’re dedicated to positively impacting our community, so we created the Gophr Embark initiative which supports existing and developing local businesses. Embark does this by providing local startups with affordable office spaces, mentorship, and other critical resources to help develop a successful business. 

WARREN VANDEVER
​Founder & CEO

The People

I have to take a minute to thank an amazing group of individuals. The Gophr App team is an unparalleled collection of professionals. I have never worked with a group that has such a high amount of collective knowledge. The culture we’ve created here is absolutely phenomenal and unlike any other. These people have really become part of my family over the last couple of months. 

​We have come so far in such a short amount of time, I can't wait to see what the future has in store. Thank you all for accompanying me on this journey.

The gophr team

DAVID SOILEAU
​Chief Revenue Officer

MATT SARADET
​Chief Operations Officer

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   JARED BEEKMAN
   Director of Engineering

HAIRUI WANG
Senior Software Engineer