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Remember that Priceline had a history of loss leaders. Amazon was patient in making money too. A couple million here or there is pennies if you're funding the
by mathattack 13y ago
Remember that Priceline had a history of loss leaders. Amazon was patient in making money too. A couple million here or there is pennies if you're funding the next big thing. This turns into a way for companies to subsidize early adopters. Yes, the interface may not be perfect, and you never know what will appear in the box, but if you'll give us a go, you'll get an $8 lunch that might just be good... Sounds fair.
- smacktoward 13y agoNot all startups are created equal. The biggest difference between (say) Amazon and the startups discussed in the article is that the startups in the article are aggressively local. "We deliver lunch in the Bay Area" doesn't scale to other communities as easily as "We ship books to anywhere from a giant warehouse in the middle of nowhere" does, since the former requires building up local infrastructure (meal prep, delivery, legal/regulatory compliance, etc.) for each expansion.
- mathattack 13y agoFair enough. If a VC wants to toss money at them, why not?