The gas station epiphany
Every single day, people left things behind: wallets, phones, sunglasses, headphones, you name it. And every single time, I'd stand there holding someone's belongings with absolutely no way to contact them.
I'd watch them drive away, put their things in the lost & found box, and know they'd realize it was missing days later with no idea where they'd left it.
That's when it hit me: what if there were a ridiculously simple way for finders to contact owners? No detective work. No hoops. Just scan and connect.
That gas station problem exists everywhere. Stickovate is the answer.
The story that changed everything
The bag with the locked phone
A woman left her bag at the store. Inside was her phone, switched on and buzzing with notifications. Completely locked. Completely useless to us.
We opened the bag looking for anything: an ID, a name tag, something. But that's the thing about modern life. We don't carry physical identification for everything anymore.
Her phone sat there for days, buzzing with calls and texts (maybe even about her missing bag) while we stood there helpless. She never came back. She probably thought it was gone forever. And all that time, her bag sat safely under our counter.
For someone who genuinely wanted to help, that feeling of holding someone's things with no way to reach them was infuriating, helpless, and completely unnecessary.