You’ve (Still) Got Mail! But How Can You Get It When You’re Here And It’s Somewhere Else?

What’s the difference between a digital nomad and a twentysomething just out of college?

They don’t have places where they can get their mail.

Mail still matters. Although most communication today takes place via email, texting, social media, or even voice, plenty of important documents still arrive by mail.

These include checks, agreements, leases, registration documents for students, even lawsuits — things you need right now, not a few weeks from now.

And whether you are an entrepreneur working virtually and flying around the country or a college grad moving, because of job or further schooling, from one location to the next, you’ve got to be able to get your mail.

The whole idea of being a digital nomad is that people can ping you wherever you are on the planet. The same thing is true if you are, say, a med student moving every July 1st to start a new fellowship or rotation.

But even in a primarily digital world, you still have to be able to get your mail.

Most co-working spaces will hold your mail for you, and perhaps even text you to let you know that something has arrived.

But that still doesn’t give you access to the document or information inside, and if it’s a check, you can’t cash it until you can hold it in your hot little hands.

Marcel Buechi, an entrepreneur, recognized that here was a need to be filled, both for businesspeople, twentysomethings and world travelers in our digital world.

“Mail still matters,” says Buechi, co-founder and CTO of Anytime Mailbox. “I thought, wouldn’t it be great if there were a service that not just received your mail at a physical address, but opened it, scanned it, and emailed it to you, so that you could see what was in it?

“Let’s take the worst case scenario,” Buechi adds. “Let’s say someone sues you, and you only have a certain number of days to respond. But you’re out of the country when the legal paperwork arrives. If somebody cannot open it up for you, scan it, and send it to you, so that you can pass it along to your attorney, you’re going to be in trouble.”

Anytime Mailbox has signed up well over 40,000 clients, entrepreneurs, travelers and young people in need of a fixed address, who get their snail mail opened, scanned, and sent to them for a monthly fee.

“It’s remarkable that a need of twentysomethings match up so uniquely with the needs of entrepreneurs,” Buechi notes. “We live in a world where people are constantly on the move, and that’s facilitated by the ease of the internet and modern communications technology. But the Achilles heel is snail mail.

“Most people associate snail mail with junk mail,” Buechi says. “But when you think about the fact that people still send checks and other documents through the mail, you realize you have to have a solution.”

Buechi’s clients, for example, can deposit checks by using the scanned images of the checks they receive from Anytime Mailbox.

“Let’s say a check arrives on Monday,” Buechi says, “but you’re on travel for 10 days. Would you rather have that money in the bank than sitting in a mailbox collecting dust at a co-working site?”

Buechi knows that parents and grandparents are raving fans of the service.

“They sign up their kids and their grandkids,” Buechi says. “For twentysomethings, they have to have an easy way to get documents like health insurance materials or, in some cases, grades. And then since some of them become entrepreneurs, they end up as customers as they transition into their working lives.

“It’s exciting to create a service for which there is a real need, and that’s been our experience with creating Anytime Mailbox.”