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Show HN: Fresh-baked rustic sourdough bread, delivered within 20 minutes

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Re: Show HN: Fresh-baked rustic sourdough bread, delivered within 20 minutes

#121

Post by fiatjaf »

larrys wrote: post #96
dangrossman wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What area are you in? The simple solution to that is to get local restaurants to join an online ordering site like GrubHub -- I would be surprised if you're in a major suburb and none of the restaurants are already enrolled there or on a similar site. They're the "BCC" for online-enabling restaurants. The thing that makes it so easy is that it operates on fax. It seems antiquated, but that means any restaurant with a…

Amazingly the restaurant I am referring to is on grubhub. So the questions is, why didn't I know that? Back when we were selling (in the early 90's) advertising to restaurants and shops we provided them with window decals and things for placement at the register to alert customers. This isn't happening here. Also the other place isn't on grubhub. Nor have I seen others just checked a few. Grubhub looks good. But I wa…

I've been thinking about this for various weeks and thinking about implementing something like (no, not like, it is exactly what you described) this, but everybody I ask to comment on the idea tells me about Grubhub and similar services, and they just don't understand why there would be other kind of service.

The great thing about automatically building webapps for delivery restaurants is that this can work even if you have just 1 client, while Grubhub only works because they have lots of registered restaurants (and, as you said, it doesn't work, because the restaurant doesn't tell anybone it is on Grubhub, probably because of the fees or the inexistence of a unique readable URL to the restaurant's page on Grubhub, or because if the restaurant's client go to Grubhub he will see a lot of other restaurants besides the first).

FDRAaaS (Food Delivery Restaurant Apps as a Service), is the blog service, while Grubhub is Facebook.

Re: Show HN: Fresh-baked rustic sourdough bread, delivered within 20 minutes

#123

Post by ballard »

smacktoward wrote: post #36

I guess I'm just at a loss as to what is even remotely "hacker"-ish about this. It's a bakery that delivers. That's great, I guess, but there's nothing particularly technical about it. They're not using tech in some unusual or interesting way to cut down on delivery costs, or make bread in a different way, or anything. It's just... a bakery, that delivers. There's a Web form to order your bread through, but in 2014 t…

Seems like a hard to scale lifestyle brand because delivery and manufacturing are going to hurt (time and $). It's more of a fit for Shark Tank after they've tested that it can generate profit.

And if they ask for too much %, just quote 'pg "All we really wanted was your money." :)

Re: Show HN: Fresh-baked rustic sourdough bread, delivered within 20 minutes

#124

Post by ballard »

reso wrote: post #59
smacktoward wrote: post #36

I guess I'm just at a loss as to what is even remotely "hacker"-ish about this. It's a bakery that delivers. That's great, I guess, but there's nothing particularly technical about it. They're not using tech in some unusual or interesting way to cut down on delivery costs, or make bread in a different way, or anything. It's just... a bakery, that delivers. There's a Web form to order your bread through, but in 2014 t…

They're doing something that doesn't scale in order to learn more about their potential customers. It doesn't have to make sense as a long-term business in order for them to get good data out of it.

My hats off to folks that execute on something.

What's the end game? It seems like premeditated failure into murderously brutal markets where distribution is painful. If they're going to do it themselves they're going to learn quite quickly that it can only work in about a dozen metros. That's a 20 million a year business with margins that will be tiny....

Doesn't butter my bread.

Re: Show HN: Fresh-baked rustic sourdough bread, delivered within 20 minutes

#125

Post by ballard »

Pacabel wrote: post #110
wpietri wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I got "I don't understand" from: "I guess I'm just at a loss as to what is even remotely 'hacker'-ish about this." The overall tone of contempt is what I got "this is dumb" from. If this is just a very, very slight twist on a business that has existed for decades you might ask yourself why it's only happening now. It could be that it's not workable. It could be that nobody ever thought of it. Or it could…

He clearly understands the concept. What isn't understandable is why it's here at HN, why it's within the top 10 front page submissions, and why some people claim to think this idea is innovative or special. It's really nothing more than pizza delivery. I don't think he thinks it's a "dumb" idea, either. Clearly it's at least somewhat viable, given that pizza delivery is well and alive, with many establishments being…

Talking to someone in the baked goods manufacturing business might save a whole lot of pain.

Some markets aren't occupied for a reason and others just haven't been explored.

But if it's at all successful, they're gonna get slaughtered by incumbents unless they defend a niche or offer a more compelling "why we make bread" story. (Also the bread kind, not just the green.)

Re: Show HN: Fresh-baked rustic sourdough bread, delivered within 20 minutes

#127

Post by ballard »

sheetjs wrote: post #37

Just picked it up (two people in a black Prius :) They seemed swamped (they were 10 minutes late and were visibly frazzled) but upbeat. Bread was decent. I suspect that if you go into pastries, you probably can command a higher margin (I really dislike keeping desserts in the apartment, and "dessert on demand" definitely would be appealing)

I could also get used to delivered deserts.

Esp delivered by quadcopter.

Re: Show HN: Fresh-baked rustic sourdough bread, delivered within 20 minutes

#128

Post by ballard »

EC1 wrote: post #68
johnpowell wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't consider this validation of the idea. It is just a bunch of people in SF that don't care about five bucks. We eat a lot of bread in my house. I would love a few loafs delivered every other day for a reasonable rate like how they deliver my newspaper.

They sell bread. They got 150 orders in 2 hours. Their idea was validated.

It depends what net profit % was.

Businesses that lose money on every sale are not survivable.

They need to track all of their costs and see if it's going to be remotely profitable.

Re: Show HN: Fresh-baked rustic sourdough bread, delivered within 20 minutes

#129

Post by Schwolop »

smacktoward wrote: post #36

I guess I'm just at a loss as to what is even remotely "hacker"-ish about this. It's a bakery that delivers. That's great, I guess, but there's nothing particularly technical about it. They're not using tech in some unusual or interesting way to cut down on delivery costs, or make bread in a different way, or anything. It's just... a bakery, that delivers. There's a Web form to order your bread through, but in 2014 t…

Given the number of "we deliver X" businesses trying to find a way to maintain a profit margin on deliveries, there's probably a reasonable business in a "travelling salesman as a service" product...

Re: Show HN: Fresh-baked rustic sourdough bread, delivered within 20 minutes

#130

Post by JoeAltmaier »

ballard wrote: post #128
EC1 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They sell bread. They got 150 orders in 2 hours. Their idea was validated.

It depends what net profit % was. Businesses that lose money on every sale are not survivable. They need to track all of their costs and see if it's going to be remotely profitable.

Actually in the modern business world, as long as you're growing, you're survivable. Cash influxes (loans, investment) can support a business for years - Amazon did it. You just need to convince investors that you have a story.
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