9 ms·

Instacart (YC S12) wants to be Amazon with 1 hour delivery

157 points by apoorvamehta 14y ago

antidaily 14y ago
Peapod but faster?
- tg3 14y ago
  Kozmo.com, but with a saner business model.
  - mmmmax 14y ago
    I remember Kozmo.com! The big difference now: Smartphones
  - fuzzythinker 14y ago
    wiki search for kozmo shows 2 more similar services: MaxDelivery, Urban Express, both in NYC though.
- AznHisoka 14y ago
  No, Amazon, but within 1 hour. No need to overcomplicate things.
  - Wilya 14y ago
    Well, except they sell only groceries, which isn't at all Amazon's core business (and isn't what Amazon does, in 99.9% of the world).
    - TillE 14y ago
      And they do their own delivery. It's nothing at all like Amazon, except perhaps for the user.
      - tomfakes 14y ago
        In Seattle, Amazon is testing Amazon Fresh for groceries. Amazon Fresh has their own delivery infrastructure with their own trucks and drivers. They also deliver other things using this system. I received a CD via Amazon Fresh on Sunday, that I'd ordered on Saturday, whilst still paying for Tuesday delivery (free with Prime) If Amazon can make this scale, they are absolutely competing with them directly. If Amazon can't make this scale, then it's unlikely to be a profitable business model for anyone else.
adv0r 14y ago
Milkplease (refused by YC) is more promising and we are trying to be faster http://www.springwise.com/retail/italy-site-lets-users-crowdsource-small-last-minute-grocery-deliveries/ http://www.springwise.com/retail/italy-site-lets-users-crowd...
makeee 14y ago
I've been using instacart a lot lately and it's awesome. I really think this is going to big.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
anthemcg 14y ago
I have been using past few week while it was in Alpha and I got say, its my favorite service for drink runs like sodas/juices/liquors. Def going to become a regular user. Gonna be following with much interest. Also, to add to the conversation.It all about timing, right? Now with Amazon being as big as it is and we see companies like Rewinery, Exec, Postmates smashing into this on-demand local delivery space. The time seems ideal for a company like Instacart. I do miss WebVan though.
zeroonetwothree 14y ago
If they were to do alcohol delivery this could be really big. Even if they charge more for it (say $20) it's going to be extremely popular.
- endeavor 14y ago
  That's a very interesting idea. I can see the demand being there, but a lot of legal hurdles.
- anthemcg 14y ago
  I've ordered alcohol with the app...
endeavor 14y ago
Are you guys limiting the invites? I'd love to check it out but haven't received my invite yet.
sethbannon 14y ago
Grocery shopping for the lazy AND impatient? Yes please.
RobAtticus 14y ago
This kind of seems like a rip off of Postmates' "Get It Now", no? http://postmates.com/getitnow/ http://postmates.com/getitnow/
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
applefanner 14y ago
It's a great idea, in theory. But who's the target market? Wealthy professionals have a wife to bring them stuff or have personal assistants (hard to believe in the world of dual income households, but I have friends that do just this). Young, less wealthy professionals just go pick up the items themselves or have friends pick them up for them. College kids aren't going to pay for such a service, they enjoy taking a break from studying to go pick up something. And yes, I know, I'm sure there are stay at home husbands that do errands for their wealthy professional wives, I just don't know of any.
DanielRibeiro 14y ago
Sounds nice. I know some people have been using Exec (YC W12) to do this, but instacart is much cheaper. The only thing that takes all the excitement for me is that it does not have a android version OR a web one....
alanfalcon 14y ago
I love that the website doesn't shoehorn me into a crappy mobile version when I load it, but what happens now is that I get a picture of an iPhone and apparently nothing else—it's not at all intuitive for me to think to scroll horizontally to find the content of the web page, especially with the hidden-by-default scroll bars on the iPhone. To clarify, the horizontal scroll bar that appeared when scrolling vertically while "looking for the rest of the page" was hidden by a thumb for me. I only barely thought to check horizontal scrolling before giving up on the page as somehow broken on my iPhone. Deatil of what I see (on the left) vs what I probably should see (on the right, after zooming manually): http://i.imgur.com/1Yjfi.jpg http://i.imgur.com/1Yjfi.jpg
- apoorvamehta 14y ago
  fixed now. thanks for the heads up :)
mochizuki 14y ago
If something is located within an hour of me I could just drive and get it, or use a local delivery service. I use the internet to buy extra weird stuff that I can't get locally.
shiftb 14y ago
This is a brilliant idea. Hard, but worth doing.
- bezaorj 14y ago
  I truly want this on my city, and I guess a lot of people are thinking the same, so the model has a lot of potential!
vgurgov 14y ago
This is the most useful service i discovered i recent months. period. I seriously recommend this to anyone in SF. I dont remember the last time i went shopping for groceries. It already saved me tons of hours and money. no-brainer. disclaimer: my company is in the same YC batch and I know Apoorva personally and was happy to get early access to service.
jhuckestein 14y ago
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out against Amazon's push into same-day delivery. Amazon is setting up local distribution centers of their own. Instacart is using existing distribution centers (i.e. retail stores). Both companies need to figure out how to best deliver items locally. This is a big logistical challenge (but luckily it's well researched). In addition, Amazon needs to predict demand locally and ship items to a local distribution center. Instacart can leverage existing supply chains but has to pay a premium for it. If Instacart is willing to operate at a loss for a while, they might actually have an advantage over Amazon and can fully focus on getting the local delivery part of the equation right. Very exciting stuff and congrats on the launch! Disclaimer: I met Apoorva a few weeks ago and have been happily using the service since. I'm extremely impressed by how he managed to do all of this essentially alone and can't wait to see what's next. Edit: typos
robinsegg 14y ago
Out of curiosity, what if you don't like the produce that was picked out - are the deliverers trained to pay attention to that sort of detail? I imagine they might be in a bit of a rush...
rokhayakebe 14y ago
This gets even better and it will save tons of money when I can create a bag, save it, then simply press one button to re-order.
- apoorvamehta 14y ago
  Coming up in the next iteration (i.e. in a day or two) :)
mthmohan 14y ago
Love the idea.. Possibilities around POS data and Nielsen like services are obvious extensions.. Good luck!!
imjk 14y ago
Wasn't there a documentary about this somewhere back in the day that came to define the dot-com bubble?
- jolan 14y ago
  Yep, E-Dreams. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oClrbijIxA&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLCD0FA1D3383E1A68 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oClrbijIxA&feature=resul...
- apoorvamehta 14y ago
  The documentary was talking about Kozmo.com, which had several issues in their business model including no minimum order size or delivery fees.
reddickulous 14y ago
How can they make money delivering for $9.99? I guess the item prices are jacked up a little.
nukethefridge 14y ago
This looks great. Today I'm sick WFH and could really use some meds delivered. I signed up for an invite... what is the process/wait time like? I may have to try something else if I'll need to wait too long.
- justin 14y ago
  You can get your pharmacy orders picked up in SF by Exec (http://iamexec.com http://iamexec.com). In California your assistant only needs your name, address and phone number to get your prescribed medications.
- danielweber 14y ago
  Unfortunately for you I would expect medicine to be something they won't deliver. Alcohol, too.
  - nukethefridge 14y ago
    I was thinking more like cough drops and advil, not prescriptions... would those still be outside the acceptable list of things to deliver?
    - dafnap 14y ago
      I ordered Advil through instacart. Really saved me.
Philadelphia 14y ago
Doesn't Amazon plan to be Amazon with 1 hour delivery?
- apoorvamehta 14y ago
  same day is different than 1 hour. not to mention, you cannot order perishables from Amazon.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    http://fresh.amazon.com http://fresh.amazon.com
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - graue 14y ago
      Only available in Seattle.
cs702 14y ago
I'd love to have this service at home, so I'm (selfishly) hoping Instacart becomes hugely successful! That said, I can't help but wonder whether the company will find a business model with sustainable economics. A lot of really smart people have tried and failed to accomplish this sort of thing before. For example, Amazon invested $60 million in Kozmo.com back in the late 90's, and they couldn't make it work. (Kozmo.com ended up raising a quarter billion dollars before shutting down.)[1] The main challenge is that same-day, point-to-point delivery is very expensive -- a complex problem. (Most delivery systems in use today rely on some kind of hub-and-spoke design.) Perhaps the wide adoption of smart phones will make point-to-point delivery economically viable for Instacart -- e.g., by giving the company cost-effective access to underused delivery vehicles as needed to satisfy the ebbs and flows of consumer demand. I'm curious to see if and how Instacart can pull it off. -- [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozmo.com#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozmo.com#History
- apoorvamehta 14y ago
  While I agree that a lot of smart people have tried this before (Kozmo.com, WebVan, etc), I believe that there are significant differences in the approach that we are taking. Specifically, Kozmo.com was founded in an era where you could IPO without having profits. Having that mentality from day one allowed them to make huge concessions to users such as give them free delivery on everything, and not have a minimum order. For example, you could pay $1.50 for a gum on Kozmo and get it delivered to you within an hour. WebVan, on the other hand spend $1B on building it's own warehouses and fulfillment infrastructure. Learning from those companies, we have done a lot of things differently. For starters, there is a minimum order of $10. There is a delivery fee of $3.99 for 3 hours and $9.99 for 1 hour. (Would you not pay $4 for someone to do all your groceries?) And, we do not hold any inventory - all of it is sourced directly from local retailers. It is also important to mention that the time that we live in is very different. People are a lot more comfortable adding their credit card information on web/mobile. Not to mention, the access to smart phones that people have gives customers the ability to shop from anywhere - office, couch, next to the fridge. We believe we are different from the companies that have tried this in the past. And, we hope we are live in your hometown very soon. (edits to follow)
kevinh 14y ago
The techcrunch article title is misleading - they don't want to be Amazon; they're not maintaining warehouses (which may prevent them from crashing like Webvan). They're effectively delivery people that you hire to bring you products from local stores, which is a very different market. Regardless, there are a lot of dead companies that litter the path for a product like this. I'd be surprised if Instacart succeeds.
HorizonXP 14y ago
Congrats Apoorva! Glad to see us 08 Elecs trying to change the world for the better.
SoftwareMaven 14y ago
Monday I was having a conversation with a coworker about the looming major showdown between Amazon and Walmart. My take was Walmart should offer exactly this, allowing them to leverage their massive supply chain and warehouses in every city with more than 5000 people (aka "The Walmart"). Awesome to see a startup rising to the challenge.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
samstave 14y ago
Kozmo.com of the new era bubble. This will be interesting.
tylerlh 14y ago
Looking forward to giving this a try. Best of luck!
tianshuo 14y ago
Groceries+short delivery window... sounds like webvan ;-P http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan
dinkumthinkum 14y ago
I can barely get a pizza delivered in an hour, and they've been doing that since the 1970s (I guess, I have no idea when pizza delivery started). Do I have to worry about Instacart maniacs driving like banshees on the road?
kfk 14y ago
Have you looked at the financials of this? 10$ for 1 hr delivery means that either the carrier is paid less than that hourly(and I guess at least 20% less than that) or he is supposed to deliver more than 1 package per hour. Considering transportation costs and idle time, I am not sure this will work smoothly. It will work if there is a list of carriers ready to drop what they are doing to go buy groceries and make some money. Basically, it will work in cities with lots and lots of students...
binarysolo 14y ago
This feels like a specialized TaskRabbit kind of thing (like what they tried to do with the $10 delivery for In-N-Out anywhere in SF). Could be workable if there's enough customers.
chris123 14y ago
Who delivers? Is this a P2P marketplace (like Taskrabbit, etc?)?
rahulnb 14y ago
Better than Peapod and Kozmo, the time for such a service is definitely now in the mobile driven world.

157 points by apoorvamehta 14y ago

antidaily 14y ago

Peapod but faster?

tg3 14y ago
Kozmo.com, but with a saner business model.
- mmmmax 14y ago
  I remember Kozmo.com! The big difference now: Smartphones
- fuzzythinker 14y ago
  wiki search for kozmo shows 2 more similar services: MaxDelivery, Urban Express, both in NYC though.
AznHisoka 14y ago
No, Amazon, but within 1 hour. No need to overcomplicate things.
- Wilya 14y ago
  Well, except they sell only groceries, which isn't at all Amazon's core business (and isn't what Amazon does, in 99.9% of the world).
  - TillE 14y ago
    And they do their own delivery. It's nothing at all like Amazon, except perhaps for the user.
    - tomfakes 14y ago
      In Seattle, Amazon is testing Amazon Fresh for groceries. Amazon Fresh has their own delivery infrastructure with their own trucks and drivers. They also deliver other things using this system. I received a CD via Amazon Fresh on Sunday, that I'd ordered on Saturday, whilst still paying for Tuesday delivery (free with Prime) If Amazon can make this scale, they are absolutely competing with them directly. If Amazon can't make this scale, then it's unlikely to be a profitable business model for anyone else.

adv0r 14y ago

Milkplease (refused by YC) is more promising and we are trying to be faster http://www.springwise.com/retail/italy-site-lets-users-crowdsource-small-last-minute-grocery-deliveries/ http://www.springwise.com/retail/italy-site-lets-users-crowd...

makeee 14y ago

I've been using instacart a lot lately and it's awesome. I really think this is going to big.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

anthemcg 14y ago

I have been using past few week while it was in Alpha and I got say, its my favorite service for drink runs like sodas/juices/liquors. Def going to become a regular user. Gonna be following with much interest. Also, to add to the conversation.It all about timing, right? Now with Amazon being as big as it is and we see companies like Rewinery, Exec, Postmates smashing into this on-demand local delivery space. The time seems ideal for a company like Instacart. I do miss WebVan though.

zeroonetwothree 14y ago

If they were to do alcohol delivery this could be really big. Even if they charge more for it (say $20) it's going to be extremely popular.

endeavor 14y ago
That's a very interesting idea. I can see the demand being there, but a lot of legal hurdles.
anthemcg 14y ago
I've ordered alcohol with the app...

endeavor 14y ago

Are you guys limiting the invites? I'd love to check it out but haven't received my invite yet.

sethbannon 14y ago

Grocery shopping for the lazy AND impatient? Yes please.

RobAtticus 14y ago

This kind of seems like a rip off of Postmates' "Get It Now", no? http://postmates.com/getitnow/ http://postmates.com/getitnow/

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

applefanner 14y ago

It's a great idea, in theory. But who's the target market? Wealthy professionals have a wife to bring them stuff or have personal assistants (hard to believe in the world of dual income households, but I have friends that do just this). Young, less wealthy professionals just go pick up the items themselves or have friends pick them up for them. College kids aren't going to pay for such a service, they enjoy taking a break from studying to go pick up something. And yes, I know, I'm sure there are stay at home husbands that do errands for their wealthy professional wives, I just don't know of any.

DanielRibeiro 14y ago

Sounds nice. I know some people have been using Exec (YC W12) to do this, but instacart is much cheaper. The only thing that takes all the excitement for me is that it does not have a android version OR a web one....

alanfalcon 14y ago

I love that the website doesn't shoehorn me into a crappy mobile version when I load it, but what happens now is that I get a picture of an iPhone and apparently nothing else—it's not at all intuitive for me to think to scroll horizontally to find the content of the web page, especially with the hidden-by-default scroll bars on the iPhone. To clarify, the horizontal scroll bar that appeared when scrolling vertically while "looking for the rest of the page" was hidden by a thumb for me. I only barely thought to check horizontal scrolling before giving up on the page as somehow broken on my iPhone. Deatil of what I see (on the left) vs what I probably should see (on the right, after zooming manually): http://i.imgur.com/1Yjfi.jpg http://i.imgur.com/1Yjfi.jpg

apoorvamehta 14y ago
fixed now. thanks for the heads up :)

mochizuki 14y ago

If something is located within an hour of me I could just drive and get it, or use a local delivery service. I use the internet to buy extra weird stuff that I can't get locally.

shiftb 14y ago

This is a brilliant idea. Hard, but worth doing.

bezaorj 14y ago
I truly want this on my city, and I guess a lot of people are thinking the same, so the model has a lot of potential!

vgurgov 14y ago

This is the most useful service i discovered i recent months. period. I seriously recommend this to anyone in SF. I dont remember the last time i went shopping for groceries. It already saved me tons of hours and money. no-brainer. disclaimer: my company is in the same YC batch and I know Apoorva personally and was happy to get early access to service.

jhuckestein 14y ago

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out against Amazon's push into same-day delivery. Amazon is setting up local distribution centers of their own. Instacart is using existing distribution centers (i.e. retail stores). Both companies need to figure out how to best deliver items locally. This is a big logistical challenge (but luckily it's well researched). In addition, Amazon needs to predict demand locally and ship items to a local distribution center. Instacart can leverage existing supply chains but has to pay a premium for it. If Instacart is willing to operate at a loss for a while, they might actually have an advantage over Amazon and can fully focus on getting the local delivery part of the equation right. Very exciting stuff and congrats on the launch! Disclaimer: I met Apoorva a few weeks ago and have been happily using the service since. I'm extremely impressed by how he managed to do all of this essentially alone and can't wait to see what's next. Edit: typos

robinsegg 14y ago

Out of curiosity, what if you don't like the produce that was picked out - are the deliverers trained to pay attention to that sort of detail? I imagine they might be in a bit of a rush...

rokhayakebe 14y ago

This gets even better and it will save tons of money when I can create a bag, save it, then simply press one button to re-order.

apoorvamehta 14y ago
Coming up in the next iteration (i.e. in a day or two) :)

mthmohan 14y ago

Love the idea.. Possibilities around POS data and Nielsen like services are obvious extensions.. Good luck!!

imjk 14y ago

Wasn't there a documentary about this somewhere back in the day that came to define the dot-com bubble?

jolan 14y ago
Yep, E-Dreams. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oClrbijIxA&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLCD0FA1D3383E1A68 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oClrbijIxA&feature=resul...
apoorvamehta 14y ago
The documentary was talking about Kozmo.com, which had several issues in their business model including no minimum order size or delivery fees.

reddickulous 14y ago

How can they make money delivering for $9.99? I guess the item prices are jacked up a little.

nukethefridge 14y ago

This looks great. Today I'm sick WFH and could really use some meds delivered. I signed up for an invite... what is the process/wait time like? I may have to try something else if I'll need to wait too long.

justin 14y ago
You can get your pharmacy orders picked up in SF by Exec (http://iamexec.com http://iamexec.com). In California your assistant only needs your name, address and phone number to get your prescribed medications.
danielweber 14y ago
Unfortunately for you I would expect medicine to be something they won't deliver. Alcohol, too.
- nukethefridge 14y ago
  I was thinking more like cough drops and advil, not prescriptions... would those still be outside the acceptable list of things to deliver?
  - dafnap 14y ago
    I ordered Advil through instacart. Really saved me.

Philadelphia 14y ago

Doesn't Amazon plan to be Amazon with 1 hour delivery?

apoorvamehta 14y ago
same day is different than 1 hour. not to mention, you cannot order perishables from Amazon.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  http://fresh.amazon.com http://fresh.amazon.com
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - graue 14y ago
    Only available in Seattle.

cs702 14y ago

I'd love to have this service at home, so I'm (selfishly) hoping Instacart becomes hugely successful! That said, I can't help but wonder whether the company will find a business model with sustainable economics. A lot of really smart people have tried and failed to accomplish this sort of thing before. For example, Amazon invested $60 million in Kozmo.com back in the late 90's, and they couldn't make it work. (Kozmo.com ended up raising a quarter billion dollars before shutting down.)[1] The main challenge is that same-day, point-to-point delivery is very expensive -- a complex problem. (Most delivery systems in use today rely on some kind of hub-and-spoke design.) Perhaps the wide adoption of smart phones will make point-to-point delivery economically viable for Instacart -- e.g., by giving the company cost-effective access to underused delivery vehicles as needed to satisfy the ebbs and flows of consumer demand. I'm curious to see if and how Instacart can pull it off. -- [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozmo.com#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozmo.com#History

apoorvamehta 14y ago
While I agree that a lot of smart people have tried this before (Kozmo.com, WebVan, etc), I believe that there are significant differences in the approach that we are taking. Specifically, Kozmo.com was founded in an era where you could IPO without having profits. Having that mentality from day one allowed them to make huge concessions to users such as give them free delivery on everything, and not have a minimum order. For example, you could pay $1.50 for a gum on Kozmo and get it delivered to you within an hour. WebVan, on the other hand spend $1B on building it's own warehouses and fulfillment infrastructure. Learning from those companies, we have done a lot of things differently. For starters, there is a minimum order of $10. There is a delivery fee of $3.99 for 3 hours and $9.99 for 1 hour. (Would you not pay $4 for someone to do all your groceries?) And, we do not hold any inventory - all of it is sourced directly from local retailers. It is also important to mention that the time that we live in is very different. People are a lot more comfortable adding their credit card information on web/mobile. Not to mention, the access to smart phones that people have gives customers the ability to shop from anywhere - office, couch, next to the fridge. We believe we are different from the companies that have tried this in the past. And, we hope we are live in your hometown very soon. (edits to follow)

kevinh 14y ago

The techcrunch article title is misleading - they don't want to be Amazon; they're not maintaining warehouses (which may prevent them from crashing like Webvan). They're effectively delivery people that you hire to bring you products from local stores, which is a very different market. Regardless, there are a lot of dead companies that litter the path for a product like this. I'd be surprised if Instacart succeeds.

HorizonXP 14y ago

Congrats Apoorva! Glad to see us 08 Elecs trying to change the world for the better.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago

Monday I was having a conversation with a coworker about the looming major showdown between Amazon and Walmart. My take was Walmart should offer exactly this, allowing them to leverage their massive supply chain and warehouses in every city with more than 5000 people (aka "The Walmart"). Awesome to see a startup rising to the challenge.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

samstave 14y ago

Kozmo.com of the new era bubble. This will be interesting.

tylerlh 14y ago

Looking forward to giving this a try. Best of luck!

tianshuo 14y ago

Groceries+short delivery window... sounds like webvan ;-P http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan

dinkumthinkum 14y ago

I can barely get a pizza delivered in an hour, and they've been doing that since the 1970s (I guess, I have no idea when pizza delivery started). Do I have to worry about Instacart maniacs driving like banshees on the road?

kfk 14y ago

Have you looked at the financials of this? 10$ for 1 hr delivery means that either the carrier is paid less than that hourly(and I guess at least 20% less than that) or he is supposed to deliver more than 1 package per hour. Considering transportation costs and idle time, I am not sure this will work smoothly. It will work if there is a list of carriers ready to drop what they are doing to go buy groceries and make some money. Basically, it will work in cities with lots and lots of students...

binarysolo 14y ago

This feels like a specialized TaskRabbit kind of thing (like what they tried to do with the $10 delivery for In-N-Out anywhere in SF). Could be workable if there's enough customers.

chris123 14y ago

Who delivers? Is this a P2P marketplace (like Taskrabbit, etc?)?

rahulnb 14y ago

Better than Peapod and Kozmo, the time for such a service is definitely now in the mobile driven world.