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Ask HN: Thoughts/experience in meal-delivery startups?

2 points by jmyc8 ↗ HN
e.g. https://helloyumi.com/

I would love to learn from anyone who may have experience or insights on starting/validating a meal-delivery company.

I understand food delivery startups are proven to be a hard business (focus is often on growth more than profits, high burn rates, low returns and they can be logistics nightmares). But in-spite of all that, there are still niche prepared meal delivery services that keep popping up.

Was wondering what everyone's thoughts are on this?

4 comments

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mattbillenstein
I think it's a really hard business -- I talked to the guys at Spring awhile back, and investors in that company and they were very bullish on their prospects given Sprig controlled the whole chain (supply and price thereof) vs places that just deliver food.

But after talking with some people who used the service, the feedback was that the food was just "okay" -- and at least in SF, you're competing with the endless supply and diversity of great delivery food via services like eat24 e al...

And given the economics -- it's hard to find a price point that works as a business; with the overhead of food prep and delivery, then people don't really want to pay $15 for just average delivery food.

jmyc8
Thanks! Did you mean Sprig? Looked into them and came across this article: https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/26/on-demand-food-startup-spr... that speaks about other similar-models of startups closing as well.

And I agree - I think it's as difficult business model when there are so many other options for the general consumer to purchase from.

I'm currently really interested in food-tech, and how different models/channels/markets could allow for a startup that does end-to-end operations to be successful.

mattbillenstein
Yeah, Sprig -- muscle memory typo ;)

It's an interesting space, it's just all the moving pieces to do it profitably. I would try to talk to those guys about the macro issues if you're considering pursuing something in this space.

Powerofmene
I think this is becoming an exceedingly difficult market. Profit relatively small apparently and a number of competitors who are not retaining customers over the initial VC funded starter prices.