4 ms·

A thought experiment: Lets say they manage to offer restaurant quality food(in-spite delivery) for business lunches, at half the price of a restaurant. And le

• golergka 8y ago
  Regular guy already profits from such trends when he orders from Uber and similar services. I know that I profit every day when I use taxi at with higher quality and lower price than 10 years ago. Or you can always set up a ghost kitchen - they're about to boom all around the world, I'd guess.
  • mooreds 8y ago
    If you do set up a ghost kitchen, would suggest you do some research first. Lots of laws and insurance and marketing and logistics. I was co-founder of a startup for a few years heavily involved in this space ( https://www.thefoodcorridor.com https://www.thefoodcorridor.com ) and running a kitchen is not for the faint of heart. In fact, being anywhere in food is not (I also have a relative who runs a couple of food businesses). Lots of cash flow, but skinny margins.
    • JoeAltmaier 8y ago
      I used to think that. But then all these food-delivery services with around 100% markup showed up and seem to be thriving
      • mooreds 8y ago
        Ah, being in software around food is great. It's just like the other parts of the food chain. Being a primary producer or a end retailer are very low margin businesses, but being in the middle can be healthy.
      • dragonwriter 8y ago
        Which food delivery services have 100% markup? Delivery or subscription fees that work out closer to 10% seem to be common for the ones I've seen; even with the aggressive begging for tips built into the apps, it wouldn't hit anywhere near 100%.
        • JoeAltmaier 8y ago
          We have Chomp. My sister reports folks ordering coffee or chocolate from her shop, and paying as much for delivery as the product.
          • dragonwriter 8y ago
            Sure, the flat delivery charges can be 100% on a minimal order, but I don't think that that is the majority of the business of a food delivery service.
            • JoeAltmaier 8y ago
              Its almost the entirety of her Chomp orders
              • dragonwriter 8y ago
                Perhaps, but on what basis would you suspect this one business (which you know about largely because it seems surprising) is representative of food businesses accessible through Chomp generally (much less some segment consisting of multiple delivery services)?
    • petra 8y ago
      I read that travis kalanick. ex uber founder, has a set up a chain of ghost kitchens("cloud kitchens") for rent for entrepreneurs. Do you think he can offer something new ? Are ghost kitchen inherently a big business(with a large advantage to scale) ? And if so, how centralized will it go, what tasks do you think will go to the big biz, and what will remain for entrepreneurs ?
      • mooreds 8y ago
        Ghost kitchens are an interesting play. I think they could have scale advantages as you need to build software systems to: See demand in the market Deliver customers Pivot when demand changes I think those are all systems that will be better at scale. Actually creating food at scale is a known problem that has been done many times (McDonald's, Chipotle, etc). However, cloud kitchens are providing mass customization of restaurants, rather than stamping out the same (or very similar) franchises. That is going to be one of the more difficult parts.