Founders Everywhere: Eric Wimer
Eric Wimer is the co-founder and CEO of Sway, a tech-enabled delivery & returns network built for modern brands.
Welcome to Founders Everywhere, where we highlight the incredible people behind the companies we’ve backed at Everywhere Ventures, a global pre-seed fund supported by a community of 500 founders and operators.
We live in a world where a last-minute gift arrives overnight and a ride pulls up to your curb in minutes, yet returning an online purchase still means printing a label, hunting down a cardboard box, and trekking to a carrier store across town. It already feels outdated. In 10–15 years, it will seem absurd. Sway is closing the gap by building a customer-centric delivery and returns network designed for modern commerce. Based in Los Angeles, the company operates its owned network across California, Texas, Florida and the Northeast, with plans to expand to the Midwest. Through vetted carrier partners, Sway also extends its national reach to more than half of the U.S. population. Its proactive and transparent system protects brand experience, strengthens customer loyalty, and redefines e-commerce logistics.
Co-founders Eric Wimer, CEO, and Kristian Zak, COO, were friends before building Sway. The idea for the company took shape in 2020 after they took a frustrating trip to the post office together. Eric spent 30 minutes dealing with labels, boxes, tape, and long lines just to return an online purchase. When he finally came back outside, Kristian said, “That’s why I don’t shop online.” That moment revealed a bigger insight: if returns were painful enough to push people away from e-commerce, there was an opportunity to fix it. They launched a small pilot, personally picking up friends’ returns to test the concept. That simple experiment became the foundation for Sway.
What’s Sway’s North Star?
Our North Star is to provide an end‑to‑end e‑commerce experience. When you click “buy,” Sway delivers the order to your door. And if you need to send it back, we pick it up at the same doorstep, no box, no label, no post office. We think of it as closing the loop in e‑commerce.
What sets Sway apart?
There are three core differences:
Gig-Based Driver Network - Our driver network is gig-based rather than employee-only, allowing us to operate at lower cost and without requiring the same level of route density as legacy carriers.
Smart Route Allocation - We use intelligent routing to assign newer drivers easier routes first, improving their likelihood of success and long-term retention. This approach avoids overburdening drivers with the most difficult routes upfront.
Two-Way Product by Design - Our system is built for both deliveries and returns. Routes are optimized to handle drop-offs and return pickups together, and returns are box-free and label-free at the door, something traditional carriers generally don’t offer.
Under the hood, we broker the first and middle miles through existing infrastructure, leveraging freight providers, commercial flights, and regional partners, so we remain asset-light. This allows us to focus capital and execution on last-mile warehousing, routing, and driver experience.
How does Sway inspire “customer love”?
Brands love the performance and reliability of the service. We’ve built AI‑powered tooling to make deliveries safer and more transparent. For brands using our return pickup service, we’ve seen about a 20% increase in customer lifetime value among shoppers who use at‑door pickups compared to those who drop returns at the post office or other drop‑off locations. That’s a tangible signal that when you remove friction from returns, people feel more confident buying—and buying again.
For consumers, the experience looks more like food delivery than legacy parcel shipping: you get real‑time updates, two‑way SMS to add access instructions or reschedule, photo proof at delivery, and the ability to hand back returns at the door without any packaging work.
Why the name Sway?
We originally launched as Returnmates, which captured the friendly, at‑your‑door return service we started with. But as delivery became a much larger part of the business, it didn’t make sense to have a name that sounded like we only did returns. “Sway” felt more neutral and something that could encompass movement in both directions of the parcel journey.
How has your background shaped you as a founder?
My early career was at Uber, which I joined when there were about 50 employees. I helped launch more than 30 U.S. markets, built and led UberEats in New York, and later ran the rideshare business in Las Vegas. As a GM, I operated like a mini-CEO, owning everything from operations and expansion to marketing and policy.
Looking back, it’s not an accident that I gravitated to a gig‑marketplace logistics company. I’d already spent years rolling out complex, on‑the‑ground operations with flexible driver networks. That founder‑market fit matters, especially in a space like logistics where the path is never easy and resilience is as important as strategy.’
Fun Fact:
I’ve always loved music, playing guitar and piano growing up. Over the last few years I’ve gotten into DJing. It’s become a creative outlet for me and a way to decompress from the demands of building Sway. If you see Wimes on the set, that’s me.
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