My favorite part of DoorDash is how they got the tipping right. Add it upfront and then they just quickly drop off the food. Munchery is awkward because you're never sure if the person that ordered it included the tip and the driver is hanging around awkwardly making small talk.
DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
11–20 of 48 posts
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
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"?
That must be why they didn't really grow until about 3 years after they were founded:
http://static1.businessinsider.com/~~/f?id=4abbcbef60b187740...
And yes, it was "very early" in their growth cycle. In fact celebrity embrace was the catalyst for their growth. No Ashton Kutcher = no Twitter today.
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#13Wow 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.
Whether carrying passengers or food, they are both in the delivery business. The primary difference is that one is worth $40 billion and one is not. Doordash may have some restaurant relationships that Uber doesn't, but that is ground that can be quickly made up with money. These VC's are merely hedging their bets with this investment.
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#14Wow 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.
> DoorDash has a great business, in many ways better than Uber's.
Have you considered what happens to that business if DoorDash is forced to reclassify its workers as employees? A delivery business is particularly sensitive to classification because of all the expenses that drivers incur, namely those associated with the use of their vehicles.
Do a Google search for "delivery driver class action" and look at the Glassdoor reviews for some of the companies in the space, this one included. Instacart has already been sued and it's only a matter of time before all of the major players are forced to defend their models in court too. You don't just get a free pass because you build an app, raise a bunch of money from VCs on Sand Hill Road and try to position a basic delivery service as a technology-based communication platform.
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#15Wow 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…
Few startups die because someone else stepped in. Most of the time they die by their own mistakes.
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#16im just waiting for the promo codes that follow these funding rounds
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Whether carrying passengers or food, they are both in the delivery business. The primary difference is that one is worth $40 billion and one is not. Doordash may have some restaurant relationships that Uber doesn't, but that is ground that can be quickly made up with money. These VC's are merely hedging their bets with this investment.
In that case you should assume that FedEx will put them all out of business. There's a lot more going on than "delivery".
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#18It's disappointing to see that the biggest "disruption" in the logistics space involves shifting risk further down the economic hierarchy. The most difficult part of last-mile logistics has been capacity planning, both human and infrastructure. And yet, much of this risk is now being pushed down to the entities least capable of absorbing it - what is the opportunity cost of being "available" as a DoorDash driver for a given shift with non-guaranteed compensation?
The message that is emerging loudly from the SV VC community is that they believe this model is one that should be pursued, aggressively. Let's be clear that in terms of labor and risk management, this is not innovation, it is a return to the status quo of a century ago - one that we as a society fought hard to change.
I fear that the plan is to just fight the legal and PR battles, and hope that the robots arrive fast enough and make the situation moot (aka the Foxconn gambit).
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whether carrying passengers or food, they are both in the delivery business. The primary difference is that one is worth $40 billion and one is not. Doordash may have some restaurant relationships that Uber doesn't, but that is ground that can be quickly made up with money. These VC's are merely hedging their bets with this investment.
In that case you should assume that FedEx will put them all out of business. There's a lot more going on than "delivery".
I wouldn't assume that. Fedex has many constraints on its business, and shares almost no core competencies with DoorDash or Uber. Its fleet consists not of nimble passenger cars, but of large, fuel guzzling trucks - making one-to-one pickups and deliveries inefficient and unprofitable. It also has no expertise in the area of recruiting independent contractors to perform work for it, which is one of the core competencies of both DoorDash and Uber.
I wouldn't turn to DoorDash to deliver live lobsters to me from Maine overnight, and I wouldn't turn to Fedex to get me food from down the street. Those are very different businesses requiring very different infrastructures. Therein lies the problem for DoorDash: they are not that different from Uber. They have similar core competencies, but Uber is vastly better known and financed.
Re: DoorDash Raises $40M, Led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
In that case you should assume that FedEx will put them all out of business. There's a lot more going on than "delivery".
I wouldn't assume that. Fedex has many constraints on its business, and shares almost no core competencies with DoorDash or Uber. Its fleet consists not of nimble passenger cars, but of large, fuel guzzling trucks - making one-to-one pickups and deliveries inefficient and unprofitable. It also has no expertise in the area of recruiting independent contractors to perform work for it, which is one of the core competenc…
Time will tell :)