David Kleiman and Rory Bokser have had some interesting experiences running their new chat-based on-demand courier service called Wizrd. They’ll deliver anything from a restaurant, pharmacy or convenience store, all through text.

“It’s a pretty common experience with 18 to 25-year-olds where maybe they’ve been drinking a bit and they’d be willing to pay $20 for a big mac trio delivered to their door right now,” said the grinning cofounder Kleiman. “It seemed that it would make sense to offer a service.”

And those evening saunterers seem to be happy with the service they’re getting. Various comments from returning customers adorn Wizrd’s website. Justin said “You’re doing the Lord’s work,” Samantha said “You’re the best. Seriously. 5/5,” while Mandy said “The service is great and open late too!”

The guys, both 23 and friends since their time at Royal West Academy, are hitting on a few red-hot concepts. They operate solely via chat – text only for now with Facebook messenger coming soon – and they’re building an AI-powered chatbot to take most of the orders.

Kleiman and Bokser see an underserved Montreal market in the wake of the on-demand boom experienced around the world with the rise of Uber. While they do face direct competitors such as Postmates, TaskRabbit, and Instacart, only a select few operate north of the border, mostly in Toronto or Vancouver.

The pair want to be Montreal’s go-to service when it comes to simply delivering stuff that people want, whenever they want.

“We saw what the Magic was doing in the states and we were really inspired by the whole chat interface, staying away from apps and how we could provide a service just through chat,” said Bokser. “It’s so simple to send a message and it’s like talking to a friend and getting something done.”

The guys have processed about $20,000 in 400 to 500 orders in just a few months since launching earlier this year. They pay a couple drivers on a per-task basis that comes out to at least $12 an hour, often more, and they operate from 5:00 pm to 2:00 am.

“We’re not in the position to take advantage of people because, to be honest, we need our drivers to be happy. We need them to do the deliveries,” said Kleiman. “It’s in everyone’s best interest to actually pay them fairly.”

As of now they don’t use bicycle couriers, mostly because of the winter coming up. In the future it’s a possibility.

As for the AI component of the business, Kleiman and Bokser firmly see Wizrd as an AI company. It’s just not all the way there yet. They need the data from at least five to 10 thousand transactions before their bot can really interact with clients they way they want it to.

But they think they can get there, particularly with a bit of help. They’re currently applying to get into Concordia University’s District 3 incubation hub, where a few mentors with experience in on-demand delivery startups can help them.

“Basically we want to increase our orders to the point where we have a consistent amount of drivers, we’re keeping them busy and then we can start testing features and gathering more data,” said Bokser. “We see investment ideally in a couple months down the road.”

And one more thing: their number is 438-794-9989.