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We haven't seen one impact.
it's up to DoorDash, right, to make that decision in the sense that, you know, how do we This is what I was saying earlier, right? Like this is really a complicated math problem, right? Keep it simple for the consumer, easy to understand, flat fee, right? But how do we then, you know, build the technology, everything in the background to make a set of, you know, choices such that the system works in a very simple way.
we're always about offering the widest selection. And And And for us to be able to do something like that to all of our customers and make, you know, delivery accessible to everyone, kind of have to serve everyone.
I think companies are built inside out, not by analogy or by looking at what's hot and what's working. You know, for for us, we're a bunch of math geeks who started the company, right? We don't know anything about making food, right? And in fact, you know, our idea is, you know, let each side of the marketplace be. Our restaurant tours, they know how to make food, right? They know that best. They know that way better than we will ever know, right? Our Dashers, make it as easy as possible for the
85% of restaurants never offered delivery before, right? So, we're in that tiny percent, you know, growing very very quickly.
We haven't seen one impact.
So, most of the 24 markets came in the last 12 months.
For us, it was I mean, proving to ourselves is this something customers actually wanted. That was actually my biggest skepticism, by the way. Was that Do customers want Well, because if 85% of restaurants don't deliver, maybe there's a very good reason why. Maybe there's a market reason why. Two, will, you know, Dashers actually want to partner with us at a wage we can afford? And three, will restaurants pay us, right? And so, you know, until we prove those three points, we actually didn't For t
Well, I think in New York passionate about their food. They're very educated type of customer. Meaning that New York is the delivery Mecca in the US. Is it? Yeah, cuz the density. And and because, you know, half of the merchants there already deliver. And so they're very used New York customers and residents are very used to this. And so I would say they certainly hold a high bar.
they make around 15 to 20 an hour.
you as the consumer would pay us, you know, $4.99 for the delivery fee. And then we would charge a percent on the order to the merchant.
the main challenge for a service like that is that they're a lead gen service, which means that by not offering the driver, two things kind of come come to be. One, they can only serve 15% of the market. So, that's the 15% of restaurants that offer delivery. And that's why you don't see a lot of restaurants, you know, in in the Bay Area for example working with, you know, service like Grubhub. And then two, quality control.
it is possible to build a profitable company.
Our first, you know, you know, four markets are actually cash flow positive.
It's it's not what we think matters most. Huh. Um what we think matters most is, you know, you know, I mean, for example, the analogy I always give is if I take off my wedding ring, I'm still married to my wife. I I I hope that it's not a sheet of paper or Right. you know, a a piece of jewelry that that signifies that relationship. And it's the same way I view, you know, our relationship with our merchants, right? We We need to constantly, continuously serve them better every day.
if it doesn't work out, obviously, you know, in the case of In-N-Out, for example, we stopped serving them.
We always want to work with all the restaurants on the platform. ... we always go into testing environments with all of our merchants first.
you always have too many or too few drivers, right? And you never get it right. Even Domino's, who does over a million deliveries a day in the US of pizza, it's amazing. It it really is. Even, you know, Domino's can't get it right.
one of the most difficult parts of building a company like DoorDash is that you kind of have to find product market fit with three audiences.
the two general points that at least I took away from the settlements were one, how do we maximize and maintain flexibility for the Dashers? And two, how do we offer them input into the marketplace?
we noticed that a lot of our Dashers were actually coming to us from Starbucks.
consumers pay us a delivery fee that goes to the Dasher... they also keep all the tips... they're netting about 15 to 20 dollars an hour.
when we started the company, it actually had nothing really to do with the hotness of the sector... it was actually a want to help small businesses.
when it comes to any business, unit economics has to be one of the first things you think about.
the smartphone really allows the on-demand companies to access a pool of workers that were very difficult to assemble in the past.
I think the interesting thing about on-demand and and, you know, this particular point you're talking about is it it never was easy. And I think the thing that has changed, you know, maybe since, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago, even when some of these ideas were tried before, is just the unprecedented level of demand actually that really has, you know, I would say made the economics as well as the operations possible.
DoorDash is an app and a website where customers can order delivery from over 20,000 restaurants. We're live in 24 markets across North America, including Toronto and Vancouver in Canada. We launched actually our 24th market just a week ago in Columbus, Ohio. Um we're headquartered here in San Francisco. We have over 200 people.
I think sometimes people don't give companies like Webvan enough credit of how close they were actually in making it work. I think that's one of the parts of the story that's less told.