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We’re F*cked, It’s Over. Or Is It?

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Re: We’re F*cked, It’s Over. Or Is It?

#11

Post by pavel_lishin »

city41 wrote: post #8
kelukelugames wrote: post #2

Please change the title to something else.

I agree. The title isn't useful at all. Neither was the first paragraph, had no idea what the article was about.

Neither are the next several. It takes awhile to get down to the meat of it: "having your neighbor cook for you doesn't work for shit as a business, so we're just going to open a restaurant."

Re: We’re F*cked, It’s Over. Or Is It?

#12

Post by creshal »

dvcc wrote: post #5
pavel_lishin wrote: post #3

> The plan was simple yet ambitious: > One month to set up a new business (rent a kitchen, hire a chef, hire motorbike drivers, create the menu, design logo, website, build mobile app for drivers, build first version of the routing algorithm plus complete all the legal and admin paperwork). So... they opened a delivery restaurant with its own app?

Oh god, as I read through it I kind of just started laughing to myself. They opened a chain restaurant -- surely VC-money worthy.

Surely a chain restaurant with its own routing algorithm is worthy a bazillion dollars?

Re: We’re F*cked, It’s Over. Or Is It?

#13

Post by ferbivore »

dleslie wrote: post #4

Let me save you some time: In the end they ditched their "sharing" economy model of food production and delivery, rented a kitchen and hired staff, and became a delivery service with a teeny tiny menu. It may be successful; the model is as old as civilization and the market allows for new entrants. But it's not easy.

Or particularly news-worthy.

Re: We’re F*cked, It’s Over. Or Is It?

#15

Post by riebschlager »

This is just like the time I created a startup where a group of friends in separate locations could select custom drinks and alcoholic beverages using our app which would then be automatically delivered to a location equidistant from each friend in the group.

But then we pivoted and just opened a bar.

Re: We’re F*cked, It’s Over. Or Is It?

#17

Post by dvcc »

creshal wrote: post #12
dvcc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god, as I read through it I kind of just started laughing to myself. They opened a chain restaurant -- surely VC-money worthy.

Surely a chain restaurant with its own routing algorithm is worthy a bazillion dollars?

"We placed ants in a scale model of the entire city. Placed food at the delivery points and recorded their steps. In the end it's the first swarming, multi-node, organic-learning food delivery algorithm."

Re: We’re F*cked, It’s Over. Or Is It?

#18

Post by athenot »

dleslie wrote: post #4

Let me save you some time: In the end they ditched their "sharing" economy model of food production and delivery, rented a kitchen and hired staff, and became a delivery service with a teeny tiny menu. It may be successful; the model is as old as civilization and the market allows for new entrants. But it's not easy.

And their conclusion that "cooking is dying" is a huge stretch. It might be more believable if they had a huge menu of truly authentic items, but that would eat into their business model.

Similarily, claiming that "fast food is dying" is because they haven't realized what most fast food engineers have discovered through many years of iteration: at scale, the masses prefer salty, greasy food with habit forming taste characteristics.

Still, I wish them luck in their current business.

Re: We’re F*cked, It’s Over. Or Is It?

#20

Post by athenot »

I'm starting to wonder if most "sharing economy" models wouldn't be better served through some form of co-op. Basically the business equivalent of open-source. Sure, that won't produce a golden egg goose but it might actually serve the users better.
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