Joseph Calderon was a longtime entrepreneur that planned on returning to corporate America after some underwhelming business launches, until his mother had a simple request: she wanted photos of his new car.
Calderon, at the time a full-time student with a full-time job, did not have the luxury of simply texting his mother a quick snap. She was in prison serving a three-year sentence, and the only way to receive photos was to ship them to the prison.
"It was such a pain point to go to Walgreens or a CVS to get photos printed and then send them to her," he said. "And I thought, 'I have thousands of photos on my phone, wouldn’t it be awesome to send them directly to the prison?'"
Calderon founded Pelipost in 2016, allowing users to go to the site, upload the photos, then let Pelipost take over the printing and send them directly to the prison.
"[Photos] are their true connection to the outside; it's the lighthouse," Calderon said. "This is something I was directly impacted by — when we go to our customers, this isn’t a random shop. This is something we truly connect with our customers on because we were in their shoes. We have that strong connection to what they were going through."
Many correctional facilities have different rules, which Pelipost directly works with to ensure the photos sent comply with those guidelines.
"They have to screen the photos, but we do have relationships with these facilities to minimize the process," Calderon said. "Now that it's coming from Pelipost, we're becoming that trusted name; there's nothing to scrutinize at that point."
The Riverview-based company has sent more than 10 million photos across all 50 states and counts more than 400,000 customers in its system.
"It's just making it easier to stay connected because it's so difficult to do that, to keep your loved one in the loop on what's going on," he said. "So, we're trying to make it much easier to do that."
And Calderon's mother, Becky, who was the inspiration behind the company, is now serving as the COO.
"Part of the reason we created Pelipost was so I could show people that this is my son and this is my life,” Becky said in a statement. “The pictures validate that you are someone, that you have a family that cares, and that you created something good. The feeling can’t be matched.”
The company is currently bootstrapped but plans to eventually expand its offerings to greeting cards and more. It also intends to serve as an educational resource for users on the rules and regulations of the facilities.
"We want to become the resource to the people," Calderon said. "We want to bring everyone together going through this. It's truly becoming the resource versus a service."
