yishanl

At first glance, it sounds like you may be overfitting an overly-comprehensive technical solution to an extremely cost-sensitive/archaic/offline-centered industry.

Explaining the stack you used to build this platform will likely come off as pure alien speak to the restaurant owners you try to sell to.

But that being said, I only understand restaurants in the US, and not Sicily.[0]

Research is a good place to start - first with your own product, then the larger market (how is it being used, how much value does it bring prestofood, how many orders do they process per day).

If the metrics give you conviction, start by talking to some restaurants.

There was a YC company (Trackin) that focused on this exact concept in the US that went through enough trouble that they've since pivoted to catering like Zesty, Zerocater, etc...

Oh, and effort != good product.

[0] Started/ran www.eatmise.com in SF, grossed 35K+, achieved ramen profit in 7 months solely on organic WOM.

I'll be interning in SF and study on the East Coast as well.

Shoot me an email!

Ylin 5*2 [@] Boston university

I actually do this.

I try to follow a low-carb diet and it's really easy to follow when you spend a Sunday cooking everything at once, then the rest of the week, reheating from that same menu.

Don't drink coffee, alcohol, or eat sweets/desserts except for fruit. Exclusively drink water, unsweetened almond/coconut milk.

I've asked some of my friends in college and for them, the notion of eating the same things every day is unfathomable. At least for someone who doesn't value food highly or today's culture around food, the benefits are immense.

The time you save that you'd usually spend casually browsing "where to eat" and "what to eat" is substantial. The time saved cooking along + just thinking about food in general.

It just takes one morning to cook it all together and prep for the week. Potatoes are a nice comfort and chicken is roasted whole.

Breakfast: 2-3 eggs, baked potatoes, 2 strips of bacon, with two corn tortillas.

Lunch (if needed, usually skip): Small bowl of homemade chia seed pudding with dark chocolate + strawberries and/or apple.

Dinner: Chicken, potatoes, broccoli/bacon/onion/carrots.

I walk on average 6-10 miles/day and run for 4 every other. Try to eat more fats/protein. Don't crash with this menu and can eat x2 volume if particularly hungry that day without worry.

Originally inspired by - https://www.fastcompany.com/3059116/this-y-combinator-startu...

I feel for you.

Don't do it.

Money brings out the worst in people.

Arguing is healthy. Just depends on how it comes & what it's over. Obviously, if your relationship deteriorates to the point that you are arguing for little value then that's bad - I do think arguing early is better than arguing late. It'll be insightful for you and him, to be honest. You'll learn a little more about yourself and a lot more about him in how the argument progresses and more importantly, how it ends.

All non-tech founders are insecure about their position in the business. I think any competent non-tech founder should be insecure about their position imo, if there is a component of technology to the business.

I was too, so I just kept working and supporting in as many ways as I could think of.

Thankfully, our product was online-to-offline, so there was plenty of work to be done.

But don't do it.

Eek, went through the same thing except we did it for a whole year. Skillset or not, sharing core values/beliefs is most important. Because when shit goes south, if you have someone who is just as committed as you are (for the right reasons), there is nothing you can't overcome when the core values align.

Although this is really hard because people show their truest faces when shit goes south. So you won't know for sure unless this is someone who you've spent and enjoyed spending lots of time with for a while.

After spending time thinking critically about the past year, here are some rough open-ended questions I've come up with that I think would shed light into one's core values.

How do you approach solving a problem (any size, scope)? What locus of control do you believe in? Is there value in rolling up your sleeves?

Emailed.

Hope the rest of the team benefited.

Cool, thanks Jennifer! That was some serious dedication, super admirable. :)

One more question, although I've already asked a lot of you. How did you make sure you conceptually understood what you were learning at every stage, not just simply taking code and just replacing bits of it here and there?

This is super awesome and inspirational. What was the most frustrating experience you had in your 180 day challenge?

Thanks! Means a lot. It's a good idea - one day, I hope when we're successful, perhaps then writing such findings then may be more meaningful and valuable as learnings for others.

Delivery is not as heavy as a cost as running the kitchen itself. I think food production is so overlooked in these discussions. The operating cost for a kitchen is insane, labor, ingredients, storage, inventory, etc...

Peter Thiel always uses restaurants as a good example of a business model that is so costly that there's no margin left, combined with the impossibility of a monopoly. So you take something that's already tight on margins and you make that even tighter with delivery.

Airport terminals where there is only one "cafe"/snack kiosk.

I met Sama at one once. He was incredibly humble.

Isn't one of Gobble's selling point is that it's super cheap? like $10/person? I remember seeing that as their main homepage jumbotron, which seemed to successfully target and reassure their audience of parents who wanted to know how much it'd cost to feed a family of X.

We tried a variant of this with Mise very early on but we've since pivoted to a much more stable model with massively improved results & proper regulation.

There are some highlights from what we learned trying "Airbnb for food."

1. Our target was not home chefs, but instead professional chefs. We worked in the industry for several months and identified how difficult being a chef. Lack of progression, opportunity, and a chance to showcase your skill.

2. We rented out a commercial kitchen for chefs, let them work their own hours, and cook the things that they wanted. We took on amateur chefs as an experiment, using their passion and food samples as determinant/predictor of success.

3. We wrote stories for every chef and dish. We'd even take photos of the chefs and edit those to make sure that they looked just as respectable as they sounded.

The Findings:

1. Food quality was inconsistent, ranging from inedible to passable. Because most professional chefs (professional doesn't mean much) and home cooks don't have any experience running a business of their own, their ability to scale and cost-control is poor.

2. That resulted in not only inconsistent food, but insanely overpriced meals ($15 for a bowl of chili, $16 for shrimp & pesto pasta).

3. The amateur chefs we worked with did not understand how to cook outside of recipes and/or they'd cut corners in production. Resulting in some shockingly bad food or overpriced mediocre meals.

4. Because there is no one checking over the food during production, you can't catch people cutting corners. If any of our chefs woke up on the wrong side of the bed that day, one of these things would happen (shitty food, tiny portions, unfulfilled orders).

5. No rational user is going to stick around and experiment their way around a Wild West marketplace that has such a wide range of quality and price. And no amount of "humanization" with stories, photos is going to save the fact that the food sucks.

6. Chefs are really good at pumping up their own food. "Best in the Bay Area", "everyone tells me they love it", "people ask me to open my own restaurant all the time", "there's so much love in this", or "I cooked for X person for Y years". (None of this means anything.)

7. Poor retention (and deservedly so from shitty product) and declining sales. With small orders, our chefs earned minimum wage or worse, which either drove them away ("I quit, fuck you!") or encouraged them to cut even more corners (smaller portions, terrible inedible quality).

8. We experienced ridiculous turnover (someone would quit every week, mad rush to find someone else to replace, unconsciously lowering standards in desperation).

9. At the end of the day, if the food sucks, it sucks. Doesn't matter if it's coming from your "neighbors" or "supporting the local chef down the street".

We've now partner with the best Bay Area mobile food businesses and sell their most popular items. Mise is now sustainable, food quality is consistent/high, customers are really happy (feels awesome whenever we have power users). And we've been able to offer more affordable and better-tasting meals week over week.

Ben (my awesome cofounder) and I take a lot of pride in what we do now, because we know it's awesome food going out to awesome people at affordable prices.

Order for the week ahead, get it all delivered to your door on Saturday, and enjoy a meal on your own schedule. :)

www.eatmise.com

Some highlights from Glassdoor. Strange since Zappos is championed on a regular basis by bschools for customer service, employee satisfaction, and culture.

"It was great the first 4 years, great leader great benefits. it has changed tremendously and not for the good at all."

"The reality is once someone leaves, they become persona non-grata to an extreme. They are not allowed to come to events, if they show up as your guest… Figure out how to say goodbye with some class. Figure out how to let people go with their souls intact. There is over 20% turnover every year."

"The relaxed environment becomes hindering when you need to get work done. Even simply asking others to tone it down or that you need to focus is met with purposeful continuance of whatever it is you tried to stop in the first place. It is a "so what?" environment."

"Many people joke around so often that nothing gets accomplished when it matters or takes a very very long time to do simple tasks. Voluntary outings that are really mandatory. You are viewed as an outsider if you do not act like you're part of the Zappos college fraternity like lifestyle. It is very much like high school or college all over again."

"After getting rid of the attendance policy, people are no longer showing up to work on time. Those that do show up to work are forced to deal with how busy the phones are. There are petty incentives and rewards for actually coming into work and doing what you're supposed to do."

tl;dr sentiment is that Zappos is like high school and college all over again with a lot of politics getting in the way of work. Reminds me a bit of some startups here.

Sure. But doubt loopholes like these would be openly documented.

Best option seems like if I was still back at school and just asked some international students.

Would this really be cheaper? It's an awful lot of man hours committed to just one area vs. a centralized one that can dedicate the time/effort/resources accordingly based on needs and corresponding urgency.

Also one of the bigger question would still be how would these EMTs have their equipment with them + how would quality of care be ensured?

Uh, a bad experience is a waste of time.

And I'd call these opinions, not ideas.

Not sure if I agree with being downvoted but out of my hands. :)

Well, we've had movies on airplanes for a long time. And I agree it makes things marginally more bearable.

But just because they've moved it from a shared television on the aisle/ceiling that everyone had to lean out to watch from to a little touch-screen in front of a chair hasn't really changed the fact that flying is a waste of time. And very uncomfortable.

It doesn't matter how we categorize Uber. (We can just call it a platform.) What is way more important is what Uber means to a customer. The average person in SF knows is that Uber is cheaper than a taxi, more plentiful in supply, and more convenient.

So it doesn't matter what the discussion is about, since the core product hasn't changed. It provides utility to both the avid users and occasional users like me. And that's why there are people giving these "simpletons" money.

Now with Uber, people who out of budget don't have to ever consider buying/leasing a car. Even those who do have cars are starting to see just how affordable it is to Uber around. http://blog.samaltman.com/uber-vs-car-ownership

As for people using their cars to drive "98% Uber miles", that's their decision. And it's a pretty logical one if you don't have a stable, decent-paying job to begin with.

- You already own the car and are going to be paying for maintenance and gas and DMV fees anyways, which isn't cheap. Since chances are, you're already living/driving around that area, you might as well just drive a few extra miles here and there to earn a few bucks.

- Cars depreciate fast. It's not like you will get substantial value when you resell if you've kept your mileage low. Maybe it's a few hundred dollars, but given the thousands you already paid for the car, you might as well drive it and earn money with it.

- Your car can become an asset if you can make it one via Uber. It can't be an investment if it's losing value as soon as it rolls out of the dealership. Otherwise, it'll just be sitting in your garage as a liability, collecting dust and you'll just be waiting for the eventual yearly bills from DMV/mechanic. Might as well go out and make money with it if you need to offset your costs.

Hilarious.

That's why the key is not having any expectations.

Because they have a very compelling future and a really strong product. They evoke discussion on the economics of car ownership and have made transportation accessible/convenient for a lot of people who can't afford cars.

I feel there is a stereotype of Uber that it's mostly used by rich, spoiled, college students and young folk. I used to believe that as well, but since working on my own startup in the restaurant industry, I've seen how a lot of blue collar workers like chefs who really do rely on Uber for day-to-day transportation or supplemental income when their paychecks aren't enough.

Sadly don't think it's stopped anyonw. Friend told me it's 50,000/person at any one time, but given the amount of money I've seen being being spent, I doubt that is stopping anyone.

Going to dig into if there are any loopholes for this. I think it's fascinating how so many people in China suddenly became self-made millionaires/billionaires + can spend that money so extravagantly in the US without much consequence.

There was a classmate from China last semester who came to class every day in a new custom sports car. Mondays was Lambourghinis, Tuesdays was R8, Wednesday was McLauren, Thursday was wrapped Panamera turbo, etc. And this kind of spending/demographic is pretty noticeable in Boston/Allston.

Does anyone really expect anything of airline flights anymore? At least those of us in commercial/economy class?

Years ago great customer service was defined as giving someone the can and some free peanuts. Now it's touch screen "entertainment in-flight systems." Not like any of those things have made the flying experience any better. So I just pick the cheapest flights available. Sure, Wi-Fi is a plus, but the environment in economy isn't exactly ideal for work.

I've primed myself to fall asleep as soon as I get into my seat before takeoff, regardless of time of flight.

Sure. Although I do think if people don't respond out of fear of being labeled, then it's a shame because it is possible to discuss this topic without being portrayed as a xenophobe/racist. A lot are just observations I've heard and seen, especially when I was a chaperone for children from some of China's elite a few years ago.

Interesting on limiting real estate to only citizens. Although I doubt homeowner(s) who are selling care about where the money comes from, especially if it's upfront and comes in cash. And if you look at some of the prices for these townhouses/homes in South Bay suburbs, I imagine it'd be hard to say no.

I think there's a ton of economic incentive for the rich to leave China and move to the US. In fact, I'd argue it's happening now already, regardless of the performance of the Chinese economy.

Some observations:

- The luxury goods that the rich in China are looking for are much cheaper here in US. The international students I know at school go on insane shopping sprees at the Apple/Sony/Microsoft stores since how "cheap" all the products are compared to the 1.5-2+X markups they have to pay back home. I've seen some classmates fill their suitcases with luxury brand clothing, Apple computers, iPads, Playstations, Xbox, to all bring home and share with their families.

- Assets in the US are much more appealing options in terms of investments, especially real estate/property. There's been a lot of stuff written up in NYT about this. I've seen the same things here in South Bay (Mountain View, Cupertino) where brand new townhouses get snatched up instantly by wealthy families from China that can commit that much $ in such a short amount of time. Being able to pay for your house in cash moves you towards the front of the line.

- Avoiding the whole "corrupted officials with lots of $ in bribes" anecdote (despite it being somewhat true from the crazy stories that I've heard from friends in China), it is much easier to spend the money here without worry of alerting the Chinese government. Especially if you're paying for a lot of your things in cash. Spending money in a lavish manner in China raises a lot of eyebrows.

- Not too knowledgable on this aspect, but apparently there's the loophole where if you bring aging parents in China over to live in America, they can qualify for senior benefits from the US government. They come, despite never having worked in the US, and get monthly checks to cash that are substantial enough to live on. Don't know enough about this to elaborate and I'm a little skeptical about this, but have heard a lot about this.

- America is so much more attractive than China. A lot of the wealthy international students I met in college had very tracked and relatively stress-free lives growing up. They never had to study for or take the gaokao, which is the infamous college entrance exam, since they knew from early on that they would be coming to the US for their college education. A lot of them do try and swing for jobs here after graduation as well, since the pay is substantially higher than in China. Heard this sentiment from a lot of Hong Kong residents.

Curious if anyone has heard/observed similar.

Really helpful, thanks!

Hi Kevin and Sam,

We're from Mise. We are an online marketplace and meal delivery service for the signature/best dishes from professional chefs in the Bay Area. There’s a face and a story behind each dish. We do free weekly delivery to SF Bay Area, including San Jose & the Peninsula.

We operate on a revenue share model. Chefs source their own ingredients, pay for kitchen rental, cook dishes, and earn 70% of everything they sell. We apply our 30% towards delivery, personalized packaging, copy, and kitchen administrative fees.

We'd love to talk about obtaining that 10% week over week growth. We're launching in 2 weeks and have a lot of orders (but a good amount are on us and going out to influential members of the community). How do we grow that into paying customers? And is it too risky to keep giving out free product that when you have to also balance the returns of the suppliers/chefs themselves?

http://www.eatmise.com

Thanks! :)