21–30 of 324 posts
Postmates raised $903M since 2012: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/postmates Not a 10x exit.
Still surprising that they have managed a ~3x exit. They were raising money at a 1.3b$ valuation as recently as 2018 and to me it seems like Postmates is further behind it's competition in terms of growth and market share than it was 2 years ago.
What's Postmates moat? Having never used it, I don't necessarily see the 2.6b$ value in a smaller delivery app that is only really used in some areas of the US. Though I'm sure there is something I'm missing and 2.6b$ is probably less expensive than the cost of pricing Postmates out of the market especially considering it's an all stocks deal. It's just that delivery seems to be easily scalable and easy to just dump…
Why? I don't know. They were early to the game and I stuck with it I guess
I worked at LivingSocial in 2012/2013. We used to joke that “we lose money on every transaction but make it up in scale.”
Takeout and Delivery was one of the last bets the company made. Basically food delivery. The customer service load is huge, the services aren’t really differentiated, and you have to both pay the driver enough for it to be worth it and keep prices low for the consumer to think it’s worth it.
Attracting customers on either side of the market means spending money to undercut your competition. As soon as you stop giving free delivery promotions or introductory no-fee periods for restaurants, they can instantly churn with little to no pain. Not to mention reaching small restaurants is incredibly time consuming. They’re not all just hanging out online. They’re running a business. They take a lot of expensive (human) outreach.
Margins are terrible, if they’re ever positive. It’s just a bad business.
And yet people keep trying. None of these companies have made a net dollar. But it’s a simple enough pitch and a common enough use-case that investors think, “yeah, that makes sense!”
But it doesn’t. It just doesn’t.
Postmates raised $903M since 2012: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/postmates Not a 10x exit.
Still surprising that they have managed a ~3x exit. They were raising money at a 1.3b$ valuation as recently as 2018 and to me it seems like Postmates is further behind it's competition in terms of growth and market share than it was 2 years ago.
Postmates raised $903M since 2012: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/postmates Not a 10x exit.
I am bullish on this as a recent shareholder. We are now in the consolidation phase of delivery service where fewer companies mean less competition, more efficiency and better economics. This is where Dara’s strength is. He has a history of great dealmaking and acquisitions. I expect Uber to thrive as the industry consolidates.
What's Postmates moat? Having never used it, I don't necessarily see the 2.6b$ value in a smaller delivery app that is only really used in some areas of the US. Though I'm sure there is something I'm missing and 2.6b$ is probably less expensive than the cost of pricing Postmates out of the market especially considering it's an all stocks deal. It's just that delivery seems to be easily scalable and easy to just dump…
The only difference between Postmates and Uber Eats is that Postmates customers overwhelmingly tip the delivery driver. The Postmates app and systems is horrifically engineered. Uber Eats is an exceptionally better system.
I wouldn't go so far as to call the Uber Eats driver app an "exceptionally better system", it mostly works (modulo some annoying bugs that keep reappearing every few updates) but it's painfully obvious that they don't bother to do any serious QA on it. [They should send Dara out to be a driver for a few days, he'd love it!]
Food delivery is a terrible business. M&A won’t make it better. I worked at LivingSocial in 2012/2013. We used to joke that “we lose money on every transaction but make it up in scale.” Takeout and Delivery was one of the last bets the company made. Basically food delivery. The customer service load is huge, the services aren’t really differentiated, and you have to both pay the driver enough for it to be worth it an…
Like you said teaching small businesses is hard, and you need to undercut competition to grow.
Well you don't need to teach someone who has been using grubhub and postmates already.