DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
blog.doordash.com
DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
1–10 of 48 posts
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#2In Palo Alto, there are DoorDash workers EVERYWHERE. Literally every restaurant you go into you see a bunch of people in red shirts picking up meals. I'm curious how this will do in other parts of the country.
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#3It's interesting to see investors continue to pour lots of money into startups that classify their workers as independent contractors even though the risks of doing so are clear, immediate and growing[1][2]. The lines between employee and independent contractor are somewhat blurred in some cases, but given how important the cost shifting is to the economic viability of many of these companies, a lot of these investments are damn near binary. That's fine when you're investing a few hundred thousand or even a few million but not at all necessary in today's market when you're investing $40 million.
In this case, it's also somewhat ironic that Kleiner Perkins is the lead investor.
[1] http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-uber-lyf...
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#4Wow what a crowded space. This reminds me of the daily deals site era, but at least then there was some room to compete because there wasn't a $40 billion behemoth waiting to crush them. I suspect that at whatever point Uber Logistics (or whatever they choose to call this inevitable extension of their service) takes flight, DoorDash and its $40 million will quickly vanish. This definitely isn't a space I would be doing a startup or investing in at this point.
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#5My wife and I used DoorDash pretty extensively when we first moved to the bay area, we were living out of a hotel for a few weeks.
It was interesting how our reactions to the site differed. I was just happy to have a one-stop list of delivery restaurants with no phone calls, no complicated payment info, etc.
Her reaction was "There's no pictures! I just want someone to tell me what I want to eat!"
Now, whenever I go to their homepage I see a huge missed opportunity to sell advertising. As sites like DoorDash become well-known hubs for the logistics services they provide, I wonder if they will take advantage of the huge set of eyeballs landing on their homepage with open wallets. And for a restaurant, a well-done DoorDash campaign could be more effective than Facebook/TV/radio marketing.
I do see myself stuck with a bit of a paralysis of choice when I land on their homepage. Sure, there's 50 restaurants near me that I can order from, but all I really know is that I'm hungry right now. Some help choosing would be nice.
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#6Wow what a crowded space. This reminds me of the daily deals site era, but at least then there was some room to compete because there wasn't a $40 billion behemoth waiting to crush them. I suspect that at whatever point Uber Logistics (or whatever they choose to call this inevitable extension of their service) takes flight, DoorDash and its $40 million will quickly vanish. This definitely isn't a space I would be doi…
I share your opinion, but I would have passed on a Twitter seed round so what do I know.
What would really be interesting is to understand why so many smart and experienced people have the exact opposite opinion.
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#7It's interesting to see investors continue to pour lots of money into startups that classify their workers as independent contractors even though the risks of doing so are clear, immediate and growing[1][2]. The lines between employee and independent contractor are somewhat blurred in some cases, but given how important the cost shifting is to the economic viability of many of these companies, a lot of these investme…
[deleted]
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#8Wow what a crowded space. This reminds me of the daily deals site era, but at least then there was some room to compete because there wasn't a $40 billion behemoth waiting to crush them. I suspect that at whatever point Uber Logistics (or whatever they choose to call this inevitable extension of their service) takes flight, DoorDash and its $40 million will quickly vanish. This definitely isn't a space I would be doi…
I share your opinion, but I would have passed on a Twitter seed round so what do I know. What would really be interesting is to understand why so many smart and experienced people have the exact opposite opinion.
The only reason that Twitter is successful is because it was embraced by celebrities very early. I would have passed at the seed round stage as well, but that's because no one could have predicted the celebrity embrace of such a service. The reality is that they, along with most other startups, got seed funding not because of the idea but because of the pedigree of the founders.
I suspect there is some of that going on here as well. They are all current/former Stanford students and have been involved in successful companies. According to Crunchbase:
DoorDash was founded by four Stanford students: Evan Charles Moore worked on the founding team of Vevo; Tony Xu was at Square and Red Laser/eBay; and Andy Fang and Stanley Tang spent a summer together at Facebook. Moore and Xu were friends in Stanford's business school, and Fang and Tang are undergrads.
Same deal with Larry and Sergey, Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel, and most others. They weren't merely college students; they were Ivy League students. As much as people say college doesn't matter anymore, the evidence says otherwise. We'll probably never know if entrepreneurs from lower-tier and public universities can succeed at an equal rate, because they won't be given the funding to try.
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I share your opinion, but I would have passed on a Twitter seed round so what do I know. What would really be interesting is to understand why so many smart and experienced people have the exact opposite opinion.
The only reason that Twitter is successful is because it was embraced by celebrities very early. I would have passed at the seed round stage as well, but that's because no one could have predicted the celebrity embrace of such a service. The reality is that they, along with most other startups, got seed funding not because of the idea but because of the pedigree of the founders. I suspect there is some of that going…
Celebrities didn't embrace twitter for three years after it was launched. That counts as "very early"?
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#10Wow what a crowded space. This reminds me of the daily deals site era, but at least then there was some room to compete because there wasn't a $40 billion behemoth waiting to crush them. I suspect that at whatever point Uber Logistics (or whatever they choose to call this inevitable extension of their service) takes flight, DoorDash and its $40 million will quickly vanish. This definitely isn't a space I would be doi…
Many things look similar from a 1000 miles away. At the actual business level, Uber and DoorDash are different in almost every way. This is one advantage that investors close to these companies have, and one reason why it can be so hard to understand any of this just by reading blog posts. DoorDash has a great business, in many ways better than Uber's.