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DoorDash from Application to IPO

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#141

Post by dmitriid »

valentinemsmith wrote: post #126
koolba wrote: post #100

I just don't get it. Who's buying this stock and why do they think that a company that is not profitable during a pandemic, with people locked in their homes and in-person dining outlawed, is going to be worth billions of dollars? There's no loyalty in food delivery. Everybody is chasing the same promos. There's no moat. Just VC funded revenue.

DoorDash doesn’t intend to be a “food delivery company”. Listen to their CEO in interviews. His catch phrase is that if you solve food delivery, you solve some of the most challenging aspects of last-mile logistics. I expect they will transition away from food and into other verticals soon.

However, they are not solving that problem. They are throwing unlimited investor money at getting food delivered by overworked underpaid poor people.

That's ... that's not a solution.

UPS famously hired mathematicians to figure out the optimal way to plan their trucks' routes [1]. Now that is a solution.

[1] https://www.wired.com/2013/06/ups-astronomical-math/ and https://www.mathscareers.org.uk/ups-turn-left/

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#142

Post by rkho »

jannotti wrote: post #135
jeff18 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were able to get sushi, dim sum, boba, bagels, or even steaks promptly delivered in a few clicks before 2013? DoorDash is an easy example of a startup that has made my life better, especially during a pandemic.

Grubbhub, Seamless, Eat24, Foodler, DiningIn. They were all around and fairly large by then. But they didn't go big on spending VC money, so over time DoorDash wins. Pretty interesting, however it turns out.

Sorry I'm going to have to call on this.

Until on-demand delivery companies like Doordash/Postmates came onto the scene, the vast majority of places I could have ordered delivery from were the standard fare of pizza, Chinese, Indian, and Thai food within a half mile radius from my home.

What this generation unlocked was the ability to pay someone to grab you House of Prime Rib on Van Ness and deliver it halfway across the city. The value add here was "quality from halfway across the city, not just restaurants within a tiny radius who had large enough margins to afford to keep a driver on payroll".

This also resulted in what we now see as the normalization of national fast food brands having a coordinated delivery offering.

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#143

Post by mbesto »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #26
jgalt212 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that a company would succeed has it succeeded? What happens if their cost of capital goes positive? What happens if people start going to restaurants again?

They just IPOed to the tune of $70B market cap... This comment really comes across as out of touch... The company just went public and based on their S-1 has been massively growing even pre-pandemic! (both huge measures of success)

> They just IPOed to the tune of $70B market cap...

You must not be aware of what happened around the year 2000.

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#144

Post by moxdahfox8 »

The dichotomy between this massive IPO making the founding team and investors rich and local restaurants shuttering in record numbers (partly due to losing 25% off the top to DD with no other options) is startling.

A small case study on how inequality is growing in our country and tech like this is pouring fuel on the fire

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#145

Post by ArtWomb »

Congrats! Totally inspiring. Curious to know what you found to be the most challenging aspect of going public to be: sec filing, on the roadshow selling yourself to institutional investors, adjusting to a quarterly wall street mindset, or pricing the listing itself? Bloomberg last night made the point that the $DASH listing was around 2x over-subscribed. Contrasted to a 200x over-subscribed offering for JD Health on HKEX!

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#147

Post by SMAAART »

moxdahfox8 wrote: post #144

The dichotomy between this massive IPO making the founding team and investors rich and local restaurants shuttering in record numbers (partly due to losing 25% off the top to DD with no other options) is startling. A small case study on how inequality is growing in our country and tech like this is pouring fuel on the fire

> A small case study on how inequality ..

Can you please explain this to me?

Inequality of ... what? Opportunity or outcome?

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#148

Post by vincentmarle »

My 2 cts on the long term play of Doordash:

The long term trend is that (primarily take-out) restaurants will decline and be replaced by ghost kitchens. The unit economics of ghost kitchens is much better than paying rent for prime real estate. You can run a ghost kitchen from a warehouse. This trend was already underway before covid [1] (see also Travis Kalanick's investments in this space) but has been 10x accelerated due to covid. Many people are saying that Doordash's revenues will decline post covid, but are neglecting the fact that many restaurants struggle to stay alive. Prime opportunity for Doordash to step in and solve the supply side with ghost kitchens. Restaurant brands will go virtual. And who is going to be the "app store" of the virtual brands? Doordash.

[1] https://www.qsrmagazine.com/ordering/doordash-gets-ghost-kit...

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#149

Post by benlivengood »

908B64B197 wrote: post #114
akarma wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in DoorDash's YC application, they pitched that delivery drivers wanted to make more money. When the drivers worked for one restaurant only, they would be sitting around most of the time waiting for an order. By delivering for many restaurants at once on DoorDash, they would be able to make more money and have less idle time. I'd love to see data, but I can intuitively imagine this being true, and the common…

I like how the drivers are always depicted as underpaid yet... they flock to the app! If it paid more to have a minimum wage job, why are there so many drivers on the platform?

Drivers can easily put in consistent overtime which is harder to do at a traditional job. Removing some of the friction of overworking themselves while giving the illusion of choice.

Migrant workers consistently show up at farms too; it doesn't mean they're paid well.

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