Square Buys OrderAhead | Hacker News Reader

Square Buys OrderAhead

bloomberg.com

72 pointsprostoalex16 comments

Just this last weekend I had my friend tell me about the crap he went through with OrderAhead when they created a counterfeit website for his Michelin-starred restaurant.[0]

He reached out and asked for them to hand over the domain. They refused and said he should be thankful for the free advertising and free work they put into his business. He got a lawyer and they gave it to him.

Maybe Square/Caviar bought those!

[0] http://www.geekwire.com/2015/exclusive-thousands-of-rogue-re...

> Square won’t take on any of the San Francisco startup’s employees, according to a person familiar with the matter.

So they just bought their customer list?

I bet that many off the customers on that list already use Square (e.g. Philz is a big user of both Square and OrderAhead). They may have purchased OrderAhead so that "preordered" items don't cut into their revenue.

An acquifire, wth??

I wonder if this means Square doesn't have much headcount to fill at the moment - usually you'd expect to see them find roles for the employees in a deal like this.

Assuming that any money from this deal hits common stock - I hope that some kind of fast-forwarding was negotiated for the employees. It seems like anybody who got hired in the last year ostensibly is being let go before hitting cliff, meaning that they lose stock and get no upside from the acquisition.

i remember "using" orderahead ~4 years ago.

there is a popular lunch spot in sf/soma called hrd. if you've ever been there you know the line gets ridiculously long. i saw they had orderahead available so i dled the app, and tried to preorder from the restaurant the next day.

except the app prevented you from ordering during the lunch rush hour.

I can understand this, though. An Indian restaurant close to me does not accept orders in Seamless during lunch rush hour (noon - 1pm).

For a restaurant with limited bandwidth that offers pickup and delivery as an additional method, it makes sense for them to honor only earlier / in time pickup orders.

> Square won’t take on any of the San Francisco startup’s employees

How does this even work? Give us your database keys and get out?

I would imagine something like the official close on the transaction being a short time in the future.

Then, an offer of some kind of severance to existing employees...provided they participate in some kind of handover work during the transition period. If you don't cooperate, then no severance. Not unlike typical outsourcing.

How exactly does this compare to Caviar? Screenshots show the app used to support delivery, so sounds like they scaled back to pickup only. Why did Square buy them when they could have just added a pickup option to caviar? Was it just to add their merchants to their network?

Quick example: Philz uses both Orderahead and Caviar.

If you are going to a Philz store and want to skip the line, use OrderAhead to have the drink waiting at the bar. Particularly helpful during a morning rush.

If you are at home and want a bagel delivered to your door, use Caviar.

I mean I understand that, but am wondering why Square bought them. Is there some sort of sophisticated technology that goes into adding a pickup option when you can already handle pickups by deliverers? No, I'd think it's not a technology acquisition. Are they buying the customer list, as someone asked? Did they just not pay very much?

Caviar actually launched pickup as a service about the same time this acquisition was announced.

The acquisition was two-fold.

Increase merchant count, and integrate pickup into the rev stream. Later down the road I imagine Orderahead's app will be absorbed into Caviar (or vice versa) in some capacity.

Seems like an interesting strategy:

1. Launch a new pickup feature.

2. Buy its main and arguably well established competitor.

3. Migrate their users and restautants to your service.

4. Let the actual employees go (probably with a nice severance package).

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