Ask HN: what about this idea for a startup?

Interesting idea. I think of your idea as a general p2p delivery system comprised of a network of pick-up points and drop-off points, whereby a person is compensated for delivering an item from a pick-up point to a drop-off point.

p2p restaurant deliveries seems like a bad idea because the deliveries are too time sensitive (food gets cold relatively quickly).

Why not partner with UPS/Fedex as a way to reduce some of their costs? So driving home from work, you stop by a local UPS/Fedex pick-up point where you are given a package to deliver to Fred, who lives a mile away from your home. (The local pick-up points can established such that all package have associated drop-off points within a X-mile radius.) Or for deliveries between airpots, people can be compensated (i.e. offered a discounted ticket) if they carry-on a package to be dropped off at their destination airport.

With the rising gas prices, I suspect many people would love to be compensated for going a few minutes out of their way during their regular commutes. Not to mention, the publicity this would generate is immense.

Thanks for the input, will definitely think about it and incorporate it into the system

Interesting idea, but a few points:

-Who are you targeting? People who bike? Teenagers?

-The $ one receives is essentially the tip right, so is that enough to justify the slight inconvenience of picking up package, routing to destination, spending time at destination, then returning back home?

-Would you consider expanding this to businesses outside of restaurants that normally don't have delivery services (e.g. hardware stores, video game stores, etc.)

-How do you verify "good" delivery man? Track record? How do you establish good track record?

I'd be super interested to see how far you can run with this crazy idea lol.

Yea...it's kind of a crazy idea I know, asking people to be delivery man.

-I am targeting mostly people with cars, maybe bike. As of age group, I am thinking of 18 - 40.

-Yes the $ is the tip..I think it will vary depending on what the restaurant/business is willing to offer. People can either take it or not. The system could give the business a recommendation at what rate people usually take the deal.

- I am actually planning to expand it even further not just beyond businesses, but as a replacement of USPS, Fedex, UPS. Imagine about it, the market of people using this is basically people delivering/shipping things. I bet if shipping was made more social, it would be more effective than USPS. It just needs a system that coordinate all of this and that's what I am trying to do here.

- To verify the delivery man, I was thinking of having the user to put a security deposit first (to cover the lost cost if someone ran away with the item) when initially registering. It will be hold after a user gets X amount of positive feedback and after that it's just reputation from the business/merchant.

One of my inspiration of this idea is based of my experience when going back from school. Almost every time I went back to my apartment from school, I always show this same pizza delivery guy all the time, I know his pizza store is located along my route of school - home. Then I had a thought that I would want to deliver it, won't cost me anything too much, it lies along my usual route, cost me probably 5 minute, and I might be getting $5++ each time. Not bad as an extra money for college kids right.

Honest feedback alert: I would never use the service because I don't know what the other person might put in my food or mess with it, and I would never provide this service because the margin is too low and/or I don't want to knock on a stranger's door. That bing said there a lot of crazy things that became wildly successful so if you truly believe in it and you can actually see yourself getting the service and providing it happily then do it.

Thanks for the honest feedback. I agree with that, you even don't know what they put in your food when you order food at a restaurant right? Not until someone told you what's going on back at the kitchen. But again, the incentive is there. Might still need to think about it more throughly for any loopholes.

You're right, we have no idea what is being put our food in the kitchen but the restaurant has for many years possibly tried to establish its brand and reputation as a trustworthy establishment, one idiot with nothing to lose could ruin it. Why would they be willing to take the risk if it does not affect their bottom line or save the customer scrilla? But please do not be discouraged by my comments, I am just thinking it through with you...

cool idea. you could have some 'ebay rating' style thing to rate the delivery people that could probably result in something reasonable happening. Maybe let the delivery person report paid/didn't pay and nothing else to prevent the reciprocal feedback problem ebay had... that, or just pay through the website, then there is no question of the delivery person getting paid.

You'd need to make sure you had a solid 'independent contractor' deal with the delivery people; I don't know how hard that would be to do.

I don't think you'd be stepping on the taxi people, so I don't see any entrenched party who would want to kill the idea (except maybe pizza places that have already solved the problem, but only for themselves?)

I eat a lot more pizza than I would otherwise, just 'cause it's the only thing that delivers, so if you can figure it out, I think it's a great idea.

Yea and to think about it, it can be expanded to other stuff as well. Not just restaurants. Imagine this:

1. I am located at LA, have a friend at New York who has something that he needs to give me.

2. A person named Adam is on his way back to New York to LA.

3. Why not let Adam take that something from my friend in New York and bring it back to LA with him?

4. Waiting/paying for USPS, UPS, Fedex, is too long and costly. This is better

eh, I think that the economies of scale UPS/USPS/FedEx have will make it difficult for this to work for long-haul shipping; my understanding is that most of the fuel used is used getting the package from the local hub to your house, so I think taking care of the long-haul part as you describe doesn't make all that much sense.

On the other hand, whenever you get such a large megacorp involved, there are certain inefficiencies inherent to being a large megacorp... e.g. I remain price competitive with amazon, so I could be wrong.

Really, I think the food idea is great because it's filling a need that isn't being filled at all. As far as I can tell, delivery services are pretty dang good. you can get something light shipped across the country in a day or two for ten or twenty bucks. Seems like a good deal to me. Food on the other hand, other than pizza, where I am, I can't get food delivered until I'm at 'catering scale' (water.com doesn't work for just me and my employee, unless I want to pick up myself, which defeats the point)

The thing is, I'm in the heart of silicon valley. Lots of overpaid nerds who don't want to leave the house (or office) - we'd be glad to pay even taxi per-mile rates to get someone to bring us our take-out.

There are more underpaid kids around here than you'd think, people who would be happy to make food runs for less than taxi per-mile rates.

Figure out how to hook up those two groups, and you have a business model.

thank you! this was a very good comment.. I'll think about it more and see if I can come up with a solid plan.. anyhow, whatever people say here.. whether it will work or not.. I am going to build this thing

I can just imagine trying to explain to the TSA agent at the airport that I was carrying someone else's package. I'm sure something could be worked out.

Yea, that's also one prevention that needs to taken care off in the system. The user should make it clear what package is being carried and have the permission to open the package, if necessary. I don't want this to be a drug smuggling facility in the end.

I am not sure it this could simply be "worked out". I think this TSA issue could get nasty.

I remember coming across the idea of crowdsourced shipping before; google around and you might get some more thoughts (e.g. http://www.cambrianhouse.com/idea/idea-promoter/ideas-id/8TI...)

so has anyone implemented it and be successful?

Doesn't this already exist? I don't like to base my comments off things I see in movies, but I seem to remember the characters in the movie Eurotrip getting discounted flights to Europe because they were acting as couriers.

can we expand this to do drug delivery too?

such as from CVS/Walgreen? I guess yea! Any kind of delivery from a business - customer I guess

I was joking about illegal drug delivery. I don't think its legal to send medicine through intermediaries, so I don't actually think it would work for something like CVS/Walgreen. But besides that, I like the idea of sending physical packets in a P2P network. Think of how torrents work and try to apply that to your business model. (might help)

Interesting idea. There is something similar to this in India although only available for one city at the moment. Check it out may be you can get some useful insights http://www.deliverychef.in/

Most takeaway orders happen at a different time of day from when most people are going home from work.

Unless the restaurant can use this system for a substantial proportion of their deliveries, it will be more hassle than it's worth.

Eh, I think that the delivery idea has the potential to attract people doing it for the money. You could be "the ebay of courier services" (or, at least, that's how I imagine describing it to a vc, not that you'd need vc for a project like this)

I mean, I know this is getting away from the "crowdsourcing" idea, but as I said in another post, I know there are many times I'd be glad to pay taxi per-mile rates for someone to pick up my food, especially if you could figure out a way to make sure they are somewhat trustworthy.

I also know there are plenty of people around here who would be willing to work for taxi per-mile rates.

If you do it right, you could even have an 'elastic' system where very heavy days/times paid better/cost more for delivery. I mean, once I ordered a pizza, not realizing it was superbowl Sunday. the pizza got here three hours later.

I am not only considering it just for restaurants, as explained on my reply below.

The "substantial proportion" bit still holds for other businesses.

For general package delivery, what happens if the recipient is not in and the package cannot be delivered? The courier will not want to turn round and take the package back to the depot. If they take it home with them, they have a package they don't want taking up space in their home.

How much do individual couriers earn, anyway? How much money are you trying to save for customers?

That can be solved by having some rule:

1. Package not picked up after X amount of days are discarded, unless a communication between the courier and receiver are made

I am trying to save them at least not getting a higher price than the regular USPS but faster delivery time. That is the goal

Irrelevant: are you indonesian by any chance? Cause I am :)

yes sir! student in the US! and you?

Me too, we should really chat and talk, I would love to exchange ideas, being a one man band gets really tough sometimes :P anyway i can contact you?

Cool idea in that it's more efficient than the status quo.

it's cool, but not sure if the traction is enough.. this kind of worries me