There are so many on-demand food delivery services, including Spig, Spoonrocket, and Bento launching in the Bay Area. There has to be a consolidation eventually, especially as leading players become more efficient with network effects.
I'm curious if Operator directly competes here as well (read @joshconstine's article on TC for more info).
@joshconstine@rrhoover
1/ Fastbite is as much an answer to Sprig/Spoonrocket as a defensive move against an UberFresh (Disclosure: I am an investor in Sprig/Caviar but have much less information about Caviar since they got acquired by Square)
2/ Operator seems much closer to a Company like Magic than anything else.
@rrhoover do you really think consolidation is inevitable? I thought so before, but now I think they can become more similar to restaurants. I could easily see people saying, "Do you feel like Sprig today or Bento?" "Eh, I'm feeling more like Spooonrocket dude."
@rrhoover@lylemckeany I think something is inevitable in the preemptive delivery space. Mostly because the variety of foods you can pick up (before they're ordered) and drive around with that will still taste great after sitting is small. I think we've seen this with SpoonRocket.
The last time I was in SF, I heard The Melt was working on heating box tech that could be a game changer in this delivery niche. (It's hard to keep a grilled cheese hot, fresh, and crispy for an hour.)
(Disclosure: I am a co-founder of a similar but unrelated startup in pre-emptive pizza delivery, called Pepperonio.)
@rrhoover@lylemckeany Problem with the restaurant analogy is they're all going for a platform play with the same commoditized "healthy-ish food in a box".
"I'm feeling like spoonrocket" feels devoid of meaning compared to "I'm feeling like Thai" or "How about an upscale place this time!"
... and even if they did differentiate, there'd be economies of scale pressures to combine into one right? And on the user side, I only open one app, THEN choose whatever I'm feeling like that day and it's all in one place
Personally a claim like "as fast as 10 minutes" means very little if not nothing. That could mean 10min-60min
As an individual consumer, I'd much rather be impressed by "Guaranteed under 20 minutes" than "Hey once in a while it'll be there in 10min".
Also... I'm bitter because this doesn't cover Dogpatch! :P
NYC is a Seamless-dominated world still. Delivery charges/fees from competitors still cloud the value for singer users. Group dining (office lunches) are really the bread and butter (pun intended) for delivery startups to scale.
@andythegiant The deal breaker for Seamless in SF for me is that most places run a 60-90 minute wait. Is it different in NYC? Maybe we'll see expansion in the customer segment of those willing to pay more to get their food in 1/6 the time.
@kicksopenminds The wait is certainly an issue still from popular places, but NYC is dense enough to have 10 options for "bagels" that drive the times down significantly.
@andythegiant I'm curious to see how they'll make this work at the Taco Bell price point. I mean, no one eats $10 worth of TB for lunch.
Apparently, they're also experimenting with: online ordering, a loyalty program, and a catering service.
Source: http://nypost.com/2015/04/08/tac...
This is so awesome. I love Caviar's service, pricing and curation. This is an affordable, fast service with supposedly high-quality food from my favorite restaurants. How can Sprig, Munchery compete with that?
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