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I am very curious what Salzberg has to say about this. They do seem to have done a good job out-maneuvering the direct competition. However, looking through the

I am very curious what Salzberg has to say about this. They do seem to have done a good job out-maneuvering the direct competition. However, looking through their website, it does seem hard to find a niche they can play when the inevitable 'me-too' introduction from a behemoth comes. It's also kind of comical how they preach the "Eliminating the costly middleman" card even though all they've really done is become their own version of a costly middleman.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
> It's also kind of comical how they preach the "Eliminating the costly middleman" card even though all they've really done is become their own version of a costly middleman. Without sounding crass or like a broken record, thats all most of Silicon Valley startups are: the new middleman. More efficient, sure, but still a middleman. I believe the colloquial term is "platform".
- wonder_bread 9y ago
  Good point
elgenie 9y ago
"Eliminating the costly middleman" can be read more honestly as "Eliminating the costlier middleman that adds little value in favor of ourselves, a (theoretically) less costly middleman that adds more value".
eldavido 9y ago
If by "even though all they've really done", you mean, (1) They've opened several proprietary warehouses, (2) They've developed direct sourcing relationships with numerous farms, cutting out any distributors/wholesalers/etc, (3) They've hired chefs to figure out how to take real-time supply data from (2) and convert it into recipes, with the right portions, that account for seasonality, weather, and other supply variations, (4) They've executed a consumer marketing campaign that's led to over 159 million meals served across 25 million orders then sure yeah, they're just a "costly middleman". I don't use this service, but you might try reading their S-1. It contains a lot of interesting commentary on their strategy, and hard data on the business. I don't know whether this thing will be worth its IPO price, or have a lot of upside when it goes public, but I do think there's space in the market for a company that handles all the logistics and gets the exact right quantity of stuff on your table. Per their S-1, 21% of all food purchased in the US is thrown out - that's plenty of room for innovation. Also, consider that they've done all this on $195 million vs. $675 million blown by Instacart. I know for sure which one I'm more impressed by, but you be the judge.
- wonder_bread 9y ago
  By "even though all they've really done", I mean most of those achievements could be replicated by supermarkets without spending 18% of their revenue on marketing. They coined the "costly middleman" term in this scenario, I'm sure you could fluff up a lot of achievements about any company in that indsutry in terms of the nature of their supply chain.

toomuchtodo 9y ago

> It's also kind of comical how they preach the "Eliminating the costly middleman" card even though all they've really done is become their own version of a costly middleman. Without sounding crass or like a broken record, thats all most of Silicon Valley startups are: the new middleman. More efficient, sure, but still a middleman. I believe the colloquial term is "platform".

wonder_bread 9y ago
Good point

elgenie 9y ago

"Eliminating the costly middleman" can be read more honestly as "Eliminating the costlier middleman that adds little value in favor of ourselves, a (theoretically) less costly middleman that adds more value".

eldavido 9y ago

If by "even though all they've really done", you mean, (1) They've opened several proprietary warehouses, (2) They've developed direct sourcing relationships with numerous farms, cutting out any distributors/wholesalers/etc, (3) They've hired chefs to figure out how to take real-time supply data from (2) and convert it into recipes, with the right portions, that account for seasonality, weather, and other supply variations, (4) They've executed a consumer marketing campaign that's led to over 159 million meals served across 25 million orders then sure yeah, they're just a "costly middleman". I don't use this service, but you might try reading their S-1. It contains a lot of interesting commentary on their strategy, and hard data on the business. I don't know whether this thing will be worth its IPO price, or have a lot of upside when it goes public, but I do think there's space in the market for a company that handles all the logistics and gets the exact right quantity of stuff on your table. Per their S-1, 21% of all food purchased in the US is thrown out - that's plenty of room for innovation. Also, consider that they've done all this on $195 million vs. $675 million blown by Instacart. I know for sure which one I'm more impressed by, but you be the judge.

wonder_bread 9y ago
By "even though all they've really done", I mean most of those achievements could be replicated by supermarkets without spending 18% of their revenue on marketing. They coined the "costly middleman" term in this scenario, I'm sure you could fluff up a lot of achievements about any company in that indsutry in terms of the nature of their supply chain.