Tony Xu says DoorDash raised almost no capital relative to its peers between 2016 and 2018.
“In fact, between 2016, 17, and 18, we barely were able to raise a dollar relative to our peers.”
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Tony Xu
1 episodes · 23 quoted claims
Tony Xu says that during a Stanford football game in 2013 DoorDash had a night where every order was late, while he was struggling to raise its seed round.
“This was a Stanford football game in 2013, and I had trouble raising the seed round.”
Tony Xu says DoorDash refunded every customer from the late-order night, costing over 40% of the company's bank account.
“we made the decision to refund everyone that cost us over 40 % of the bank account.”
Tony Xu says DoorDash cut restaurant commissions by 50% during COVID, at a cost of over $100 million, before it was profitable.
“Or in COVID, we were the only company to cut commissions by 50%. When we were not yet profitable as a company, that was an expense over $100 million.”
Tony Xu says restaurants have on average 17 days of cash on hand.
“because restaurants have on average 17 days of cash on hand. So you need to order.”
Tony Xu says DoorDash's business fell 80% in the first week of COVID shutdowns, then roughly doubled the next week.
“COVID, the first week, actually the business tanked 80%.”
Tony Xu says China has over 7 million restaurants, compared with about 1 million in the United States.
“over 7 million restaurants. You know, versus what we have here in the U .S. at about a million restaurants in comparison”
Tony Xu says census data shows the number of US restaurants rose in nearly every year over the last 60 years.
“in the last 60 years, I think there's only a couple years where the number of restaurants in the current year didn't exceed that in the previous year.”
Tony Xu says that in the 1950s Americans spent roughly 75 to 80 cents of each food dollar on groceries rather than restaurants, a split he says has since almost reversed.
“in the 1950s when the government was measuring this we would spend in this country in america maybe 75 to 80 cents on the dollar on groceries versus restaurants”
Tony Xu says large quick-service restaurant chains account for almost half of US restaurant spending.
“the big QSRs that you've heard of, which, you know, represents almost 50 cents on the dollar of restaurant spend in a place like the U .S.”
Tony Xu estimates a restaurant's dollar of sales splits about 30% food and packaging, 30% rent and 30% labor, leaving about 10 cents of profit.
“You're going to have 30 % of it in the rent. You're going to have 30 % of it in the labor. Something like that. Rough math. And on that dollar, a restaurant can net 10 cents.”
Tony Xu says a takeaway order earns a restaurant roughly three to five times the incremental margin of a dine-in order.
“you're going to make, you know, three to five X the margin, you know, the incremental margin.”
Tony Xu says DoorDash acquired SevenRooms, which manages in-store bookings, particularly for higher-end restaurants, in the previous year.
“we recently acquired last year a company called Seven Rooms that manages a lot of the in-store bookings of restaurants, particularly of higher-end restaurants.”
Tony Xu says DoorDash has over 100 million annual customers and tens of millions of monthly customers.
“our product with now over 100 million plus annual customers, tens of millions of monthly customers”
Tony Xu says he attended a hospitality training at Chick-fil-A in 2017 or 2018.
“I went through a hospitality training at Chick-fil-A in, I want to say it was 2017, maybe it was 2018.”
Tony Xu says a healthy burger brand launched with DoorDash sold well on its first weekend but struggled to retain customers because reviews called its quality inconsistent.
“half of the reviews said your burgers were great and the other half said that they were inconsistent in quality.”
Tony Xu says DoorDash began its autonomy project in 2018-2019 expecting to partner with an outside company rather than build its own vehicle.
“when we started the autonomy project in 2018, 2019, we actually did not set out thinking that we needed to build anything”
Tony Xu says DoorDash is mainly testing its Dot delivery robot in one market, with much of the work in Arizona.
“We're primarily testing right now. We really want to get it right in one market. We're doing a lot of this in Arizona.”
Tony Xu says DoorDash has run drone deliveries for a couple of years, mostly outside the US in places like Australia.
“we've been doing drone deliveries actually for a couple years now, mostly outside of the United States, outside of the U .S. Places like Australia.”
Tony Xu says DoorDash's SafeChat feature was built after it found that over 90% of physical altercations are preceded by a verbal one.
“we noticed that prior to any physical altercation that may unfortunately happen between audiences, 90-something percent of the time it's always preceded by a verbal altercation.”
Tony Xu says DoorDash built its own mapping system because it cares more than third-party maps about exact delivery locations, such as an apartment door.
“We have our own mapping system, for example, that we built. Why do we build our own? Well, it's because we care much more than any, you know, third-party mapping system”
Tony Xu says DoorDash Tasks began as a way to catalog items in stores, and retailers and consumer-goods companies then called asking for that data.
“Interestingly, while we were doing this, we started getting calls, actually, from people you probably would expect, retailers and CPG companies who might be interested in this information.”
Tony Xu says Google launched food ordering around 2015 or 2016, letting users order delivery from Google surfaces such as Maps and Search.
“Google food ordering launched in, I forget, 2015 or 16. And they allowed you to order delivery, for example, from various Google surfaces”