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Comment by trevoragilbert | Hacker News Reader

This seems to me like one of those companies that exists in San Francisco and not in the real world. There are plenty of catering services that do this type of thing locally, and it's not really clear why a company would go through the friction of changing.

Anyone seeing this be $1b+ exit? Me either.

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The idea that all companies need to have a $1b+ exit seems like an idea that exists in San Francisco and not in the real world.

More so that it exists in the world of Venture Capital.

Yeah, it depends. Some people want to go for max $, and that's cool (WDWTMCW). Some go for max cool, and don't care to much about cash. Some folks even will go for cool even if it's a white elephant and not survivable. I think it's fine to aim for valuations anywhere in the $20M-$750MM USD range. Heck, some things are almost FNACs and so are $5-50MM, so that's cool to. Priorities (pre VC) are founder's personal business choices, so to each their own.

Housekeepers exist in every city (agency and private). Homejoy is doing fine, because they can do it cheaper and more efficiently. Something existing doesn't mean it can't be improved.

Yes, but most homeowners/renters don't have a contract with a housekeeper in the way that companies do with catering companies.

I'm not arguing that the system can't be improved, just that this seems to be saying "existing product, but software!" as if that's going to improve lives suddenly.

The company I work for doesn't have a contract with a catering company, but we have catered lunches. I think you overestimate the number of long term contracts companies enter into with catering companies. While catering companies may have a large number of those contracts, the percent of companies that can afford/want to pay for them is not large. Reducing the cost and quality absolutely represents a quality of life increase (I don't live in California, and I would love to use them).

> Me either.

neither*

(btw, I have an asterisk after the word "neither", but it doesn't show because of formatting. anyway to make those show (I tried adding a space after it))

Edit: when I submitted with text after the space after the asterisk it worked. But how would I do it if the asterisk was the last character in my post?

The key is software leverage. Catering company on the outside, yet scale is achieved with a small headcount and software for logistics, meal selection, ordering as well as being a true marketplace etc.

That's a possibility (though not guaranteed).

It still doesn't address the lack of compelling reason for an existing company to switch to this as a catering service.

If you're in a big company, you probably have a) a contract with a major catering service and b) lock-in by default of no unsatisfied need.

Am I missing something here?

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