Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

DoorDash from Application to IPO

blog.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 277 posts

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#261

Post by MrFantastic »

nojvek wrote: post #242
raziel2701 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're in a bubble, every IPO is being bought, we're in the manic state, "stocks only go up" they say, people FOMO into all kinds of stocks. I think we're in the peak time of scams, grifters and conmen. Heck, even the president is one. BTC at all time valuation again. Everything is amazing in the stock market right now. But look at the food lines, look at the covid cases and deaths, unemployment. We're heading to an i…

BTC is high because BTC is in limited supply. While US govt is pouring in trillions of dollars out of thin air into the economy, BTC is seen as a safe store of value. You can’t create that much BTC out of thin air. Just like gold, BTC is a good place to store money that doesn’t lose if value. Albeit a risky one. Gold is perhaps better.

BTC is a great store of value until better tech come out then it's done.

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#262

Post by joshribakoff »

joegibbs wrote: post #234
ramphastidae wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve experienced the same thing. It makes sense. Ghost kitchens are a purely profit-motivated enterprise. Local restaurants are for-profit, but also places where hospitality, socializing, community, etc. has value. I would expect the food to reflect that.

Plus, if you’re an actual restaurant it’s a lot harder to rebrand if people don’t like what you’re doing. They’ll notice it’s the same people, the same location and a similar menu, but if you’re a ghost kitchen that gets bad reviews you can just shut down Phil’s Mouthwatering Mexican and open up Tabasco Flavour Tacos the next day.

You all sound like people in the 90s explaining why e-commerce will never take off because of returns

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#263

Post by nrmitchi »

nojvek wrote: post #241
nrmitchi wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that this was a joke, but physically healthy people should definitely still be visiting their doctor on a somewhat regular basis too.

Visiting a doctor in US costs a fortune. Even with insurance a doctors visit costs me 200-500 out of pocket. That’s nuts. I’ll pass unless I really need to see the doctor.

I think you misunderstood my statement.

I completely understand that doctors in the US was way to expensive to see for acute issues. However my understanding is that with any ACA-compatible plan, "basic preventative care" (ie, yearly physical/check-up) is no cost out-of-pocket.

"They are young and healthy and shouldn't need it" is not a valid excuse to not provide health insurance to those who work for you (in the US).

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#264

Post by simonebrunozzi »

nmfisher wrote: post #232
hardwaregeek wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good middle ground between a ghost kitchen and a full on restaurant is the food court model. Restaurants get to pay a little less for rent, keep some in person dining but mostly focus on takeout.

I relocated to Singapore earlier in the year, and I have to say that the hawker centres here are amazing. I know the economics require a bit of government intervention (and it only really works in a dense urban environment), but I would love to see more governments embrace this model. That being said, I also expect that implementing this somewhere like Australia would also require a lot more security to deal with dru…

> the hawker centres here are amazing.

I lived in Singapore 2010-2012. 100% agree with you. Quality and taste of food, especially price-wise, is so good!

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#265

Post by darkwizard42 »

mbesto wrote: post #200
darkwizard42 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at their S-1 there isn't a chance of this looking like what happened in year 2000. Way too much capital, way too low interest rates, and a real path to profitability

> real path to profitability You had me up until here. This is WIDELY debatable.

Sure, but their S-1 shows REAL TRENDS not handwavy private loss sheets and leaked financials.

Widely debatable is now up to the common investor to determine.

By the way, with such faith, I assume you will short the stock.

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#266

Post by cm2012 »

arkitaip wrote: post #248
cm2012 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I've easily spent 10k this year on delivery, not once.

How is that even possible? You would have to order every single meal you eat...

250 deliveries of about $40 each for my wife and I. We order almost every day, sometimes twice a day (lunch and dinner). We are well off and lazy.

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#267

Post by wenc »

bsder wrote: post #164
vincentmarle wrote: post #148

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 accelera…

> You can run a ghost kitchen from a warehouse. This trend was already underway before covid And it was already failing before Covid. Delivery requires proximity --every minute in delivery is a minute your food is shittier. And warehouses aren't proximate to residential in most places. Why do you think food trucks became a thing (and even they were declining)? They changed "proximate" to "immediate".

I think it's a spectrum: some foods deliver better than others. Not all cuisines are equal, so there's no one-size-fits-all business model. Here's a rough list of foods that travel well.

https://www.7shifts.com/blog/food-that-travels-well-for-deli...

Pizza travels exceedingly well over larger distances. Most types of non-soupy Chinese dishes also deliver well. There are proven delivery business models for pizza and Chinese food, even pre-covid, and they've mostly been successful.

Other foods, not so much. Good soup ramens don't travel so well (in fact, ramen is so time-sensitive that you're supposed to eat it within the first 10 minutes of it being served). Similarly, good pasta is time-sensitive. (I'm sure you've had gloopy pasta at potlucks where it's been left out on a chafer for a while)

I believe there is potential for innovation around packaging (for preserving food quality) and maximizing efficiencies, but the economic window is very small in high labor cost jurisdictions. There are lots of people working on this problem though. Solutions will likely end up being bespoke, and likely involve complementary sources of income. (for instance, tipping in America is a lever in the economics of a sit-down restaurant; delivery-only businesses need similar levers)

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#268

Post by rchaud »

joshribakoff wrote: post #262
joegibbs wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, if you’re an actual restaurant it’s a lot harder to rebrand if people don’t like what you’re doing. They’ll notice it’s the same people, the same location and a similar menu, but if you’re a ghost kitchen that gets bad reviews you can just shut down Phil’s Mouthwatering Mexican and open up Tabasco Flavour Tacos the next day.

You all sound like people in the 90s explaining why e-commerce will never take off because of returns

I feel like the Amazon analogy here would be the fly-by-night Chinese brands that dominate search results for products that aren't branded.

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#269

Post by rchaud »

skc wrote: post #253
bamboozled wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually know of any good "take out" only restaurants that don't have people eating there? I don't. I live in a city so maybe that's the difference, but one things for sure, if people could be in there, sitting at a table enjoying food with their friends, they would be.

I think there is a very obvious opportunity here that people seem to be missing. The first "high end ghost kicthen" to stick a camera in their kitchen and stream their food prep will probably make a killing. You can probably build an entire social network for foodies around this stuff.

I can see them streaming food preparation in a highly curated setting. But they would never show the actual line cooks at work, with all the yelling, swearing and less-than-perfect hygiene and sanitation. That would just be asking to be reported to the health and sanitation authorities.

Re: DoorDash from Application to IPO

#270

Post by fakedang »

graaben wrote: post #175
vpears87 wrote: post #103

Just eyeballing this, but trading at $180 gives DoorDash a market cap of $60 billion. The IPO priced it at $30 billion. Uber's market cap is $95 billion. Lyft's market cap is $14 billion. UPS's market cap is $120 billion. Delta's market cap is $40 billion. So with this naive analysis, I assume there is a lot of potential in last mile delivery. And moving things is more profitable than moving people. Or moving things…

I keep reading about how the long term play to justify the valuation is moving to last-mile delivery of retail, pharmacy etc. But there is a reason that Amazon distributes out of a central warehouse - it's much more efficient than sending individual drivers to a bunch of Walgreens around the city to pick up prescriptions.

Perhaps that is the Doordash play? Force restaurants to either exclusive dining or ghost cloud kitchens in warehouses (presumably owned by DD)?
Post reply on HN