SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza to lay off up to 80% of its staff
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SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza to lay off up to 80% of its staff
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Re: SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza to lay off up to 80% of its staff
#2Can at this point SoftBank Vision 1 fund chance to be even a modest success?
A lot of failures at late stage. Most of VCs can afford many failures as they invest early and one home run can make the fund, though investing late at high valuation limit the payoff.
Re: SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza to lay off up to 80% of its staff
#3WOW... $300 mil to deliver pizza.
Also wasn't there a company on SV that PP bought that had a similar idea?
Re: SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza to lay off up to 80% of its staff
#4Yikes! I just interviewed at Zume Seattle less than 3 months ago and they had over 100 head count open with plans for an office move that doubled the space. Wasn't the right place for myself at the time and I seemed to have dodged a bullet. Seems they banked a little to hard on their relationship with SoftBank and the promise of future funding.
Re: SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza to lay off up to 80% of its staff
#5HN discussed Zume a few years ago when they launched (106 comments):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11980694
A more recent article that didn't earn discussion includes this interesting tidbit:
https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/21/20974979/zume-pizza-so...
> The four-year-old company has largely pivoted to an enterprise model where it works with restaurants that have no storefront and prepare their food in shared centralized kitchens, or “cloud kitchens”; with delivery providers like DoorDash and Postmates; and with existing pizza companies to build a hub-and-spoke model for the entire delivery industry.
Re: SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza to lay off up to 80% of its staff
#6Sliceline from Silicon Valley show :)
Re: SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza to lay off up to 80% of its staff
#7Hindsight is 20/20.
On a Pitchdeck it may have appeared disruptive (therefore right up Softbank's alley), and not very far from Travis Kalanick's Cloud Kitchen.
“Pizza was our prototype,” Zume CEO Alex Garden told TC’s Brian Heater back in April. “There’s no reason why this technology wouldn’t work for any restaurant or any food category. Any restaurant who wants to adopt our system can now easily do that. They don’t have to be experts in technology or appliance manufacturing. They can just be restaurateurs, who have a more flexible offering for customers.”
Nov 2018: https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/01/zume-reportedly-snags-375-...
Re: SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza to lay off up to 80% of its staff
#8HN discussed Zume a few years ago when they launched (106 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11980694 A more recent article that didn't earn discussion includes this interesting tidbit: https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/21/20974979/zume-pizza-so... > The four-year-old company has largely pivoted to an enterprise model where it works with restaurants that have no storefront and prepare their food in shar…
Reminds me of the YouTube guy who sold microwave meals on Deliveroo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k47u9tduwb8
Re: SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza to lay off up to 80% of its staff
#9Re: SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza to lay off up to 80% of its staff
#10WOW... $300 mil to deliver pizza. Also wasn't there a company on SV that PP bought that had a similar idea?
IIRC their business model was "buy pizza from Domino's - repackage it - lose money" which at least explains its failure.
As usual the show is much more sensible than reality.