Instacart (YC S12) wants to be Amazon with 1 hour delivery

Peapod but faster?

This is the most useful service i discovered i recent months. period. I seriously recommend this to anyone in SF. I dont remember the last time i went shopping for groceries. It already saved me tons of hours and money. no-brainer.

disclaimer: my company is in the same YC batch and I know Apoorva personally and was happy to get early access to service.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out against Amazon's push into same-day delivery. Amazon is setting up local distribution centers of their own. Instacart is using existing distribution centers (i.e. retail stores).

Both companies need to figure out how to best deliver items locally. This is a big logistical challenge (but luckily it's well researched). In addition, Amazon needs to predict demand locally and ship items to a local distribution center. Instacart can leverage existing supply chains but has to pay a premium for it. If Instacart is willing to operate at a loss for a while, they might actually have an advantage over Amazon and can fully focus on getting the local delivery part of the equation right.

Very exciting stuff and congrats on the launch!

Disclaimer: I met Apoorva a few weeks ago and have been happily using the service since. I'm extremely impressed by how he managed to do all of this essentially alone and can't wait to see what's next.

Edit: typos

This gets even better and it will save tons of money when I can create a bag, save it, then simply press one button to re-order.

I remember Kozmo.com! The big difference now: Smartphones