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DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

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Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#91

Post by lilyball »

aphextron wrote: post #78
ben174 wrote: post #70

One of the big players should launch a giant warehouse - serving as a giant kitchen. Capable of cooking all kinds of different varieties of cuisine and tons of automation. And a huge staff of well-trained chefs cooking, and delivering to a ~50 mile radius. I'd imagine they'd open this in - say Fremont - and deliver to the entire bay area. It would be great, because I could order Mexican food for me, Indian food for t…

>One of the big players should launch a giant warehouse - serving as a giant kitchen. Capable of cooking all kinds of different varieties of cuisine and tons of automation. And a huge staff of well-trained chefs cooking, and delivering to a ~50 mile radius. They did, it was called SpoonRocket. I loved it, you could get a decent meal delivered in under 5 minutes. But they failed horribly because the economics just don…

I miss SpoonRocket. It was super convenient and they had some really good food.

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#92

Post by wuliwong »

manifest23 wrote: post #89
ben174 wrote: post #70

One of the big players should launch a giant warehouse - serving as a giant kitchen. Capable of cooking all kinds of different varieties of cuisine and tons of automation. And a huge staff of well-trained chefs cooking, and delivering to a ~50 mile radius. I'd imagine they'd open this in - say Fremont - and deliver to the entire bay area. It would be great, because I could order Mexican food for me, Indian food for t…

We actually just did something like this, but on a much smaller scale than "a giant warehouse". We've ( https://myaccio.com/ ) been running as a premium delivery service in Victoria, BC for a few years. Instead of taking a 25-30% discount from restaurants we were marking items up by 20%. We deliver mostly from the "good" restaurants who can't afford to take a 25-30% hit just to provide delivery. While this was turnin…

That's really cool. I hadn't considered that model before. Seems other's have, my gut tells me there's a successful business to be had just have to keep the financials inline.

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#93

Post by tyingq »

dmode wrote: post #86
tyingq wrote: post #27

Doordash is a tire fire. 10x worse than Uber Eats for basic service. My experience is less than 50% success at delivering what I ordered. Missing items, wrong items, wrong totals, completely failed deliveries, and non-equitable compensation. Then, shit follow up when they fail. I’ll savor in more than a little Shadenfreud when they fold.

I have ordered with Doordash 10-15 times. It failed me only once when the "dasher" delivered my food to a random neighbor (who actually ate all of it)

Guess it's a regional issue then. Upvoted. Dfw is honestly terrible. Less than 50/50. I'd be embarrassed.

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#94

Post by eridius »

simonbw wrote: post #8

I'm surprised I've never heard of them before. Are they doing the same thing as Uber Eats, Postmates, Eat24, GrubHub, Amazon Restaurants, etc? That seems like a really tough market to succeed in. How is so much money being funneled into it?

DoorDash is literally a Postmates clone.

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#95

Post by wuliwong »

aphextron wrote: post #78
ben174 wrote: post #70

One of the big players should launch a giant warehouse - serving as a giant kitchen. Capable of cooking all kinds of different varieties of cuisine and tons of automation. And a huge staff of well-trained chefs cooking, and delivering to a ~50 mile radius. I'd imagine they'd open this in - say Fremont - and deliver to the entire bay area. It would be great, because I could order Mexican food for me, Indian food for t…

>One of the big players should launch a giant warehouse - serving as a giant kitchen. Capable of cooking all kinds of different varieties of cuisine and tons of automation. And a huge staff of well-trained chefs cooking, and delivering to a ~50 mile radius. They did, it was called SpoonRocket. I loved it, you could get a decent meal delivered in under 5 minutes. But they failed horribly because the economics just don…

>SpoonRocket had reached a positive contribution margin — it was selling meals for more than it cost to cook, package, and deliver them. But due to other costs and the frosty fundraising climate, it wasn’t able to get the money it needed to continue operating.

I wouldn't describe that as "failing horribly". They just couldn't raise money. I was under the impression that they were turning a profit. Maybe this article isn't accurate, do you have other information? I'm actually quite interested in this story, seems like a cool idea but I imagine the financial side of this needs to be really well managed. So many possible places that costs could get away from you.

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#96

Post by c1utch1 »

ben174 wrote: post #70

One of the big players should launch a giant warehouse - serving as a giant kitchen. Capable of cooking all kinds of different varieties of cuisine and tons of automation. And a huge staff of well-trained chefs cooking, and delivering to a ~50 mile radius. I'd imagine they'd open this in - say Fremont - and deliver to the entire bay area. It would be great, because I could order Mexican food for me, Indian food for t…

SpoonRocket (as noted) and Sprig were doing this and neither survived. Great concept, but extremely difficult to pull off.

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#97

Post by wuliwong »

ghaff wrote: post #49
WisNorCan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Congrats you aren't losing money on every order! I think this misunderstands how marketplaces are built. Traditional economics would agree with you and say that selling $1 at $0.90 is insanity. Traditional economics have been slow to catch up with marketplace economics although there have been some recent papers that start explaining a better framework. If you know that a marketplace has strong network efforts and…

I'm not sure I even understand what the network effects are here. I guess there are some potential efficiencies with having a single delivery company that handles deliveries rather than individual restaurants but it seems like a stretch. People I know who live in cities tend to just have a stack of take-out pizza/Chinese food/etc. menus for places that deliver (or not). Maybe I'm missing something but it doesn't real…

I'll see your anecdote and call with mine: I live in Atlanta and I can't think of a single person that doesn't use some app to order delivery anymore. Do you live in a city or just know people who live in cities.

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#98

Post by rargulati »

wuliwong wrote: post #95
aphextron wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One of the big players should launch a giant warehouse - serving as a giant kitchen. Capable of cooking all kinds of different varieties of cuisine and tons of automation. And a huge staff of well-trained chefs cooking, and delivering to a ~50 mile radius. They did, it was called SpoonRocket. I loved it, you could get a decent meal delivered in under 5 minutes. But they failed horribly because the economics just don…

>SpoonRocket had reached a positive contribution margin — it was selling meals for more than it cost to cook, package, and deliver them. But due to other costs and the frosty fundraising climate, it wasn’t able to get the money it needed to continue operating. I wouldn't describe that as "failing horribly". They just couldn't raise money. I was under the impression that they were turning a profit. Maybe this article…

Others in this space: Sprig (failed) and Munchery (still around) come to mind.

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#100

Post by toephu2 »

traviswingo wrote: post #25

Unfortunately I no longer use DoorDash. The concept was amazing, but I’ve had one too many questionable people deliver my food that the last time it happened I didn’t even eat it. I’m a huge fan of the “1 million jobs” type of companies like this, but there’s a level of trust that comes with allowing someone to handle the food you eat. I’m not even a judgemental individual, and I hate people that are, but I shouldn’t…

What exactly have they done to your food? and what incentive do they have to mess with your food? They get rated after each delivery you know..

You said "I’m not even a judgemental individual", but the sentence before reveals you judge the people who delivered your food (apparently based on appearances?) so much in that you wouldn't even eat the food they delivered. That's being very judgemental.

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