5 Things You Didn’t Know About Endicia: Amine Khechfé’s Interview with Mixergy

Endicia general manager and co-founder, Amine Khechfe, was recently interviewed by Andrew Warner of Mixergy to discuss how Endicia helps businesses, his favorite moments since starting the company and much more.

What’s Mixergy? It’s a website and podcast that helps ambitious people learn from a mix of experienced mentors. Andrew Warner, founder and host of the show, created the site to provide a channel for successful founders to share their stories and advice.

Mixergy has hosted countless influencers such as Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, Gregg Spiridellis, co-founder of JibJab and Barbara Corcoran, businesswoman and television personality on ABC’s Shark Tank. We couldn’t be more excited to have Amine interviewed alongside these big names.

While we thought we’ve heard it all before, we learned a few more fun facts about Endicia’s founding that we wanted to share. Here are 5 things you might not know about Endicia:

The Name “Endicia” Was a Last Minute Thought

Many people have trouble pronouncing our company name (Andrew Warner included). During the interview, Amine let Andrew in on a little secret – coming up with a name was the very last thing on the list when founding the company. There was no money to hire a creative marketing firm and – as a team of engineers –  Endicia’s founders were more focused on building solutions than naming their business.

Bonus fact – Endicia is a play on the term “Indicia” which is the name of markings on an envelope which indicate postage has been paid.

Endicia Wasn’t Born Overnight

When we think about printing a shipping label, it seems pretty easy. But back in the day it wasn’t quite so simple. It took more than nine years for the U.S. Postal Service to approve Amine and his co-founder Harry’s idea to print postage from a personal computer.

In the meantime, Amine and Harry worked on developing software to print envelopes and do bulk mailing. The duo also went to the Post Office regularly and identified three big issues that people had – getting a tracking number, paying for insurance and completing international forms. While they were waiting for approval, they worked to automate all of these tasks for online businesses.

No Funding Necessary

Before receiving approval from the USPS to develop PC Postage, Harry and Amine kept themselves afloat by providing consulting services to other businesses and organizations. They worked nights and built Endicia software on the side. As a result, they never took outside funding and never used a single line of credit in the founding of Endicia.

Early Customers Came From Online Forums

By 1999, Endicia had launched and the company needed customers. It saw an opportunity with new online sellers that had to ship products quickly but didn’t necessarily know all their options.

Endicia started going to online help forums, such as eBay’s shipping forum, and began answering questions for people who needed help. Online sellers began recognizing the Endicia name and signing up for the software. Then those customers would tell other online sellers, and the business began growing via word of mouth.

Endicia Built Relationships with Cookies

Starting in the ‘80s, Endicia co-founder, Harry Whitehouse, began bringing chocolate chip cookies to meetings with customers. The gesture became a calling card for Endicia and helped the business solidify relationships in the early days. Today, Endicia still takes cookies with them to meetings – even international trade shows! Needless to say, the cookie has become a part of our brand and helps the company maintain a personal touch.

Follow this link to check out Amine’s full interview: “This company is EVERYWHERE and you’ve never even heard of them – with Amine Khechfe“.