When? That was the intention from the beginning. The first goal was to serve 90 US cities. Broadly there was nothing seriously wrong with the plan. The idea, now common in the VC community, that can't plan such things accurately enough is absurd.

Once virality started to take hold and the package volume grew, standing in the sorting center was an enthralling experience: The astounding, mind-bending variety of what the US economy wanted to ship with high priority was beyond comprehension and belief. Early on, time critical legal papers? Sure, there were plenty of those. Okay.

A cubic foot of some specific small metal fasteners a big production line needed ASAP or shut down at some cost of thousands of dollars an hour. Fine.

But bricks? Yup: A brick oven could send some samples to an architect, or an architect could send the samples to a customer.

Spare parts for computers, etc.? Yup. But baby chicks? Yup. Medical samples on the way to a medical testing lab? Yup. A live baby bear? It happened.

The variety was beyond all belief and comprehension.

No question about the need, definitely a must have -- a large fraction of the customers would have paid nearly anything, often beyond all reason.