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

From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 46 posts

Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#31

Post by justin »

_lex wrote: post #15
justin wrote: post #3

Arram followed the advice I normally give people applying to startups for non-technical jobs that have no relevant experience: he prepared tremendously for his interview and actually came with real suggestions on things we should do, and visualized himself in the position. On paper, he wasn't someone we would have considered (his previous experience was as a security guard and ice cream scooper with no college degree…

When you had him book orders for your friends, did you see it as a business opportunity, or just a problem that needed solving?

I saw it as a business opportunity for him, but I thought it would be a much smaller business.

Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#32

Post by _lex »

justin wrote: post #31
_lex wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you had him book orders for your friends, did you see it as a business opportunity, or just a problem that needed solving?

I saw it as a business opportunity for him, but I thought it would be a much smaller business.

Thanks for responding - I've been wondering about this ever since I heard the story behind ZeroC. It adds a different sort of color to things, and shows that you were trying to help him reach his goal of doing a startup the whole time. Kudos.

Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#33

Post by tomasien »

gamblor956 wrote: post #30
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 p…

Yep, we're working on something similar to BetterWorks. I don't want to say publicly what I think about the way that company was run, but their failure is more validation for me (in that they were able to get the model to work at some scale, but not the scale they wanted) rather than a warning.

My idea is about creating and managing perks that CAN scale, and using auxiliary businesses to provide them. Since our perks are about things that make employees happy, tangible things are only one subset of the things we're going to offer, and all of those will be provided by large providers acting as partners. Only some select local businesses will be offered for very specific reasons.

Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#34

Post by tomasien »

gamblor956 wrote: post #30
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 p…

That, by the way, is why catering has been so puzzling in this equation. I don't want to organize catering myself for the very reasons you mentioned. I want to have 1 set of sales people: people selling to businesses to offer perks, and then as many scalable partners as possible offering the perks.

Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#35

Post by rralian »

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…

That's stoicism.

Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#36

Post by eli_awry »

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…

As a vegetarian fed by ZeroCater, it feels like a lot of the time the thinking goes something like 'we have 20 meat-eaters and 3 vegetarians - let's get 20 lamb/chicken shish kebaps and 3 vegetables ones!' It sucks to have to make a meal out of sides, and it seems like the meals are structured most of the time such that quinoa salad or mac & cheese are perceived as being sides. And I don't think the solution is to tell meat-eaters not to eat vegetables - everyone deserves them. Anyway, I have to be very aggressive about getting to the front of the line for food. Also, sometimes the vegetarian option is just lo mein or a green salad - it rarely meets what I would consider a minimal nutritional standard of ~10-20 grams of protein. I pack protein powder to supplement my lunch. To be fair though, it is tasty!

Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#38

Post by ricardobeat »

eli_awry wrote: post #36
dpiers wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As a vegetarian fed by ZeroCater, it feels like a lot of the time the thinking goes something like 'we have 20 meat-eaters and 3 vegetarians - let's get 20 lamb/chicken shish kebaps and 3 vegetables ones!' It sucks to have to make a meal out of sides, and it seems like the meals are structured most of the time such that quinoa salad or mac & cheese are perceived as being sides. And I don't think the solution is to te…

I'm curious, what's wrong with 20 meat/3 veg for these single-serve meals? Most meat-eaters wouldn't be happy being forced to eat the vegetarian option, that's bound to happen unless you provide more food than necessary. The rest of what you said only applies to a lunch not served in individual portions.

Re: From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater

#40

Post by w1ntermute »

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.

From the comments section, by Arram himself: "Learn to program people. A lot of that pain was unnecessary."
Post reply on HN