DoorDash (YC S13) Delivers Food Quickly In South Bay, Hopes To Expand Beyond Food | Hacker News Reader

DoorDash (YC S13) Delivers Food Quickly In South Bay, Hopes To Expand Beyond Food

techcrunch.com

63 pointsstanleytang48 comments

With so many startups doing things similar to this (do local tasks, fetch food, deliver stuff, clean home, do laundry) -- I am wondering where and how they will all be able to hire local runners (lets not forget ebay, google and amazon also trying to get into this 'get it now' mania).

It might actually be a killer idea to employ these local runners -- and then get jobs from all these varied companies/startups. So, doordash, instacart, prim etc. could all contact you and use your workforce -- you essentially remove the headache of hiring, scheduling and logistics for these startups. But then -- what would be the point of all these startups -- you could just offer these services yourself if you owned the runners :)

It's an interesting idea, actually. Your value-add is that you (the "runner" company) blanket the area with runners. You give them RAM mounts and tablets that run an app that predictively puts them in the most likely zone when they're not making a run. If you have enough drivers, you could conceivably dispatch one to any location within 5-10 minutes. Add 10-20 minutes of driving time to the destination and you're conceivably doing sub-30 minute deliveries like Dominos promised in the 1980s. The more customers (customers being companies like Prim, Doordash, etc.) you have, the more you can saturate and the shorter that time becomes.

Automate the pick-up arrangements and intelligently route them on best route to the drop-off. No need to collect money at the drop-off site other than tips. That's handled during the API transaction, where "RunnerCo" collects and skims it's per-transaction fee.

The reason that so many delivery services failed in years past was that they were doing radio dispatching with poor/minimal map and routing technology and they were collecting cash money at the door. No wonder they couldn't make a profit.

I like this idea. Managing a workforce like ours (DoorDash) is incredibly difficult, and our ability to do it well is probably the greatest advantage we could have. The idea is to make software that makes complex tasks simple.

I was actually just thinking of this as an API middleman to dispatch tasks to the appropriate company with a markup.

The first time we used DoorDash, Jessica said "This has changed my life." If you have small children you understand.

I called the support number today to see if we could have our delivery rushed since we had a concert we wanted to go to. One of the founders answered support and told us they'd have the car waiting before the food is even ready. Told him I would make sure to tip the driver handsomely.

When the food arrived (early), we offered whoever delivered the food a really nice tip, but he refused to accept it. In our large order of food were several mini DoorDash boxes. They had surprised us with desserts.

We feel special.

I was wondering what differed DoorDash from Seamless in NYC. This is one way.

Is this Kozmo.com version 2.0?

I LOVED Kozmo back in ~1999/2000.... and now I have small kids. So I am interested in how Jessica found this to change her life? Can you give her/your user story?

It's mainly changed my life on weekends, when I'm with my kids all day. I tend not to eat very well (eat junkfood/graze - anything quick!) because I'm not very good at finding the time to cook something for myself. When DoorDash delivered Oren's hummus/veggie skewers to me on a Saturday, I was so excited that I think I told Paul it changed my life.

When I was at RIT in '02-'03 there were two companies doing this. Both of them shut down a couple of months after launching. After I graduated and moved back to Connecticut I found two services in the area that did this. They too both eventually shut down. This model seems to have a problem making enough to pay drivers.

There were also two big ones in NYC right before the 2000/2001 .com crash, neither lasted, but everyone loved them. Kozmo.com and one other I can't remember. I do still remember the gourmet steak & lobster dinner they could deliver anywhere in an hour.

Don't worry there's plenty of VC to keep this thing going.

And on the off chance they make it work, everybody wins.

You don't really lose anything for other peoples failures (unless you're investing money you're not willing to lose)

> You don't really lose anything for other peoples failures (unless you're investing money you're not willing to lose)

A number of pension funds are invested in venture capital.

Thus, a lot of people are unknowingly losing money on these types of things. Granted, they're only losing pennies each time. But it adds up.

That's not how it works, VCs are like record publishers, doesn't matter if most of your companies suck as long as one is a hit.

You can't pick only hit companies. Well, if you could I'd sure pg would want a word!

> That's not how it works, VCs are like record publishers, doesn't matter if most of your companies suck as long as one is a hit.

I know how venture capital is supposed to work. The problem is that it hasn't been working out the way it's supposed to.

Over the past decade, venture capital has underperformed the stock market.

Thus, pension funds have gotten their money into illiquid and risky VC investments -- but they haven't been getting paid the liquidity and risk premiums that they thought they were going to get.

(Incidentally, the record labels haven't done that great over the past decade, either.)

If you supposedly know how it works why are you blathering on about pennies here and there? As the post I replied to shows a glaring lack of knowledge.

Plenty of VC funds are working exactly how they're supposed to work, don't try and wriggle out of it by claiming that 'of course you know' but somehow dropping a few million here and there on grocery suppliers is a meaningful loss to a VC or pension fund.

I'd have far more respect if you just said 'yeah, whoops, didn't know what the fuck I was talking about'.

A million here, a million there, pretty soon you're talking about real money.

As for your personal attacks upon me, I think it evident that you just want to pick a fight. Four sentences in your post, and all four contain more insult than content.

As for "Plenty of VC funds are working ...", I would simply repeat what I've already stated, and you've ignored -- that the industry as a whole isn't delivering the promised returns.

Good luck trying to pick the VC funds that are working, rather than the ones that aren't.

I missed a beat when I read South Bay, because very few of the 'cool' apps like instacart, lift, uber, taskrabbit, or any apps having real-life tangible outcomes ever work in San Jose. I thought finally something is going to work in San Jose and then I read the list of cities. Well, hopefully doordash do well enough in Palo Alto and Mountain View and expand to San Jose soon :-)

Some of us live in Santa Cruz. We don't even exist as far as all these startups are concerned.

Just ordered (from Oren's Hummus). We've used Seamless and others in the past and suffered the sometime two-hour wait. If DoorDash can get the delivery time down to closer to 'impulse' (as quick as going to the grocery store and back?), these guys will kill the competition.

How did we do? We're working on shaving off as much time as possible, that's where partnering with the restaurants really helps.

Been dying for this in MV since GrubHub and Seamless have terrible selection / high delivery costs on a per restaurant basis.

Only junk food is available on a regular basis.

No kids in my case, just lots of side projects to shepherd, rather not spend time to cook or go out.

I just took a look at this and ordered on Grubhub after looking through 5-6 restaurants. I really like the choices Grubhub gives you, more flexibility over a dish. This looks nice too but I'd really like to see some more customization options.

This must be a SV thing since the Seamless selection in NYC is quite good here.

I used to live in NYC, Seamless is a lot better in NYC. In SV it's pretty lame and overpriced.

Last year rewards programs like Five Stars were hot. This year everyone wants to do deliveries. Sucks to be waiter.com these days.

Can't help thinking that this service is providing something like the cafes in that article "The Locust Economy". http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/

> To take coffee shops as an example, an unending supply of idealistic wannabe cafe owners enters the sector every year, operates at a loss for a few years, and exits. The result is that even under normal business conditions, without swarming locust consumers, this is a loss-making business with an extinction rate of around 90% at the 5 year point in the US.

Yet, Starbucks is a healthy and profitable company with an insane number of locations. Which suggests most of those failures are a result of simple incompetence.

and presumably the lower efficiencies involved with not being a multinational?

I know one of the developers there and Peter's always struck me as incredibly smart. I wish door dash the absolute best (and hope they expand to the East Bay) as soon as feasible :) ).

I wish South Bay included you know, San Jose

Yeah, when I think South Bay, I think Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Campbell, Santa Clara, San Jose. They're missing over half of the "South Bay" at the least.

I think the doordash website more accurately defines the areas they serve as "Mountain View" and "Palo Alto".

In Miami I know of at least 5 companies doing this, none are really tech companies, or even logistics companies. One example is https://www.deliverywow.com/

I can't wait until we have driverless delivery as that will significantly change the economics. I suspect that delivery charges will be close to zero, and in principle they can serve every producer in an area.

Gas alone can cost as much as a minimum-wage driver, to say nothing of insurance and car upkeep.

I would expect the delivery vehicles to cost a lot more, but those higher upfront costs reduce the ongoing costs (maintenance etc). There would be an incentive to maximize utilization as an idle vehicle earns no money. A vehicle owner would want to deliver on behalf of many businesses, which allows combining multiple deliveries for better utilization. Software would allow for a lot of optimization in routing, pickups, delivery and transfers.

Driverless fleets could potentially be electric -- especially if the cars reported their battery charge levels back to H.Q. management software, which could rotate vehicles in & out of service accordingly.

Not to mention the fact that battery swapping on a fleet of the same model of vehicles, managed by the same company, is a lot more feasible than it would be otherwise.

Don't worry its one of my side projects, working on it slowly.

There's a company called Mosis (https://www.mosi.ch/) that has been doing this since 1998 in Zurich, Switzerland. I just checked their history. The best thing, they were apparently inspired by American and Australian companies that had already been offering the same service for a number of years. So, this is really nothing new.

I think 3rd party restaurant delivery could be disrupted in just about every metropolitan or college town. If your town is host of awesome restaurants but no unified delivery service, then make it happen! (Disrupted might be the wrong word here unless you're trying to do this in the Bay Area; most cities don't have any 3rd party delivery services so you'd be starting something new)

this model needs to be franchised out with central control, scheduling and access infra. Let any students/underemployed sign up to be a delivery person for quick cash...

Imagine if you could opt in for a delivery anytime you're on a non-rushed lege between points A and B and can accept the order, and pickup and dropoff as well.

Pfsh.

Over here in the Netherlands - and I think it originated in the UK - we have JustEat (http://www.just-eat.co.uk/), a company that connects local food restaurants behind a single web interface. If I'm correct, the restaurants still do their own deliveries; they just get orders in from another single source. It also seems that JustEat sponsors the restaurants with things like insulating delivery bags, scooters, etcetera.

I for one don't see how this startup offers anything better than that structure. Maybe a shared 'delivery guy' pool, since some restaurants / takeaway places will be more popular than others, where the others have such a low volume they couldn't support a delivery guy of their own.

That "maybe" aspect you list at the end is a huge advantage! You say that you don't see an improvement on the other structure, then list the killer improvement!

I use them in London, they're great, never have to speak with someone who barely speaks English over the phone again.

Pfsh.

For company lunches/dinners, YC also has invested in ZeroCater: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3297522

Back in Bulgaria someone got the idea to use the taxi fleet for food delivery - the delivery charge is still fixed, it's just that the car is a taxi. I always thought this was very clever.

Is this just a cheaper version of www.trycaviar.com?

This is an awesome article. Liked and upvoted :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com