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From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

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Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#21

Post by steven2012 »

I've been in the Valley for around 15 years, and I'm not someone that revels in job perks. Sure everyone loves perks, but I prefer a great work environment, and interesting work, etc, over things like snacks, X-boxes, etc.

That being said, my current employer has Zerocater and I freaking love it more than any other perk in any job I've had. Sure, maybe 1 out of every 5 meals isn't a winner, but I still really really love it. I wouldn't come close to quitting my job if we couldn't afford Zerocater anymore, but I would be sorely disappointed, because the convenience of having food brought to us, the high quality, and the great amount of variety is something that I really appreciate.

Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#22

Post by mikecane »

I had zero idea of what that company was about and only clicked on it out of idle curiosity that it made the front of HN.

Seriously, that was one of the most inspirational things I have read.

In another thread, someone mentioned the idea of a "valuable problem." Find one of those to solve and you will make money. And dahyum what that company solves is a valuable problem and how he started was so low-tech that it should be embarrassing to everyone who thinks they must have X-Y-and-Z to go.

Napoleon Hill said, "Start where you are with what you have." That guy did. And killed it. Good for him!

Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#23

Post by jechen »

dpiers wrote: post #18
tansey wrote: post #10

I've heard some pretty terrible stories about the vegetarian options offered by ZeroCater. It seems that many times they give the omnivores a full meal and then the vegetarian meal is the same meal without the meat, meaning it contains virtually no protein. I'm not a vegetarian, but I am sensitive to other people's preferences. Has the situation changed lately?

I am the lead developer at ZeroCater, was a vegetarian for 3 of the last 4 years, and I can honestly say I that never had access to vegetarian lunch options remotely close to the variety and quality we provide to our clients. We currently offer 4335 vegetarian options from 190 vendors, ranging from a Quinoa Salad with Green Apple, Crumbled Gorgonzola Blue Cheese, Candied Walnut and Organic Baby Spinach to a Roasted P…

Reading the article made me smile. Reading your comment made my day.

Looking forward to trying your service someday. :)

Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#26

Post by jmtame »

beachstartup wrote: post #17
ultimoo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading inspiring stories like this makes me realize how much of entrepreneurship is about taking risks rather than hard work. Moving to another place with a few thousand dollars in your pocket, quitting a stable job without a firm idea in mind, figuring things out as you go. There may have been dozens of well prepared and hard working candidates available that day, but probably none were out of job and interviewing…

> taking risks rather than hard work. it's both. and appetite for risk is not the belief that nothing bad will happen, it's the belief that you will be able to handle anything that happens, no matter how bad. it's being at peace with the fact that bad things will happen. most people live their entire lives trying to avoid bad situations that don't exist in reality, but rather live in their imaginations. in my opinion…

"I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened." - Mark Twain

Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#27

Post by aashay »

dpiers wrote: post #18
tansey wrote: post #10

I've heard some pretty terrible stories about the vegetarian options offered by ZeroCater. It seems that many times they give the omnivores a full meal and then the vegetarian meal is the same meal without the meat, meaning it contains virtually no protein. I'm not a vegetarian, but I am sensitive to other people's preferences. Has the situation changed lately?

I am the lead developer at ZeroCater, was a vegetarian for 3 of the last 4 years, and I can honestly say I that never had access to vegetarian lunch options remotely close to the variety and quality we provide to our clients. We currently offer 4335 vegetarian options from 190 vendors, ranging from a Quinoa Salad with Green Apple, Crumbled Gorgonzola Blue Cheese, Candied Walnut and Organic Baby Spinach to a Roasted P…

I'm not sure how involved you guys get with the post-delivery processes (i.e. what the companies do with the food after it's delivered), but here's an idea you can communicate to try and solve that: One of the things I asked our lunch caterers to do was to put the vegetarian food at the very end of the lunchline. People tend to pile their plates with the food they see first (I believe Google modified its lunchlines to include healthier food at the start of the line due to this phenomenon [0], which is what gave me the idea) so if the vegetarian food is at the end, the omnivores will have less room on their plate for what they sometimes perceive as side dishes.

It worked. Our vegetarians always have food to eat now (there's even leftovers).

Of course if you don't have an ordered line, just have a vegetarian volunteer run over and horde/separate all the vegetarian food before the others get to it. This is what we do for dinner.

[0] Source: http://www.bonappetit.com/blogsandforums/blogs/badaily/2013/...

Edit: Added source for the Google article

Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#28

Post by tomasien »

steven2012 wrote: post #21

I've been in the Valley for around 15 years, and I'm not someone that revels in job perks. Sure everyone loves perks, but I prefer a great work environment, and interesting work, etc, over things like snacks, X-boxes, etc. That being said, my current employer has Zerocater and I freaking love it more than any other perk in any job I've had. Sure, maybe 1 out of every 5 meals isn't a winner, but I still really really…

Actually THIS is why I love HN, because it gives me access to data like this comment, which while anecdotal, helps me validate my idea. My guess is that most perks businesses offer mean NOTHING to their employees but that there are perks out there that would.

Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#29

Post by snowwrestler »

jmduke wrote: post #8

I always chuckle when I hear "MVP" in the same sentence as a RoR/node.js stack, complicated monetization strategies and A/B testing. A bank account and a Google Docs spreadsheet. That's MVP.

Where's the P? Don't you have to build something for it to be considered a [P]roduct? Where is the line between MVP and just prospecting?

Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#30

Post by gamblor956 »

tomasien wrote: post #9

It occurred to me as I was writing another comment about how much I love ZeroCater that they might be the perfect fit for what I'm trying to build right now. I've started validating and getting Beta customers for a personalized perks program where people don't get a set group of company0wide perks, but instead get them personalized to what makes them a happier and more fulfilled person. I've been trying to figure out…

That idea sounds exactly like BetterWorks, a Los Angeles-based company that shut down earlier this year. BetterWorks offered companies a way to offer customized perks on a per employee basis by giving each employee an "allowance" to use on whatever combination of perks they wanted.

The problem, in a nutshell, was that the idea didn't scale. They needed two sets of salespeople: one for the customers, and one for the perks providers. Customers were difficult to acquire because many were dubious about limited "perks" to a small set of providers. Obviously, this meant that BW needed a lot of perks providers. However, the perks providers were even harder to reach, as many of them had no need to try yet another customer outreach opportunty demanding X% for little to no work. Moreover, perks providers were frequently not the only providers in a particular area, so discounting competition eroded prices, lowering the income realized through this method of customer acquisition, and thus the benefit of using BW.

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