
A pizzeria owner made money buying his own $24 pizzas from DoorDash for $16 - kkotak
https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/18/21262316/doordash-pizza-profits-venture-capital-the-margins-ranjan-roy
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hanging

      GrubHub... lost $33.4 million over the last 3 months. (In fairness: COVID-19.)
    

I don't understand the qualifier. Hasn't Covid-19 been a _boon_ to delivery
services? If they can't profit during these artificially beneficial market
conditions (boosted demand and endless supply of minions to do delivery), how
can they ever profit?

~~~
boublepop
They are engineered to take a loss. If market conditions improve they ramp up
costs. It’s not a game to maximize profits yet, it’s a game of trying to
maximize vale extracted from losses.

~~~
hazbot
"We're losing money on every sale!"

"Don't worry, we'll make up for it in volume."

~~~
jjeaff
Is that from silicon valley? Because I have to say that Seinfeld (Kramer)
already did that bit, hilariously, many years ago.

~~~
tanseydavid
According to this post:
[https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/we_...](https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/we_lose_money_on_every_sale_but_make_it_up_on_volume)

the original use of the joke/phrase goes back to at least 1933 and likely
further.

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greenyoda
Extensive discussion of original source:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23216852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23216852)

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someluccc
I live in Colombia. A couple years ago right before a new funding round (I
guess looking to pump the revenue numbers), Rappi offered 50% cash back on
unlimited purchases, up to $1000 per purchase. Bought a few iPhones and netted
like 10k reselling them on FB, lot’s of people did too. How’s that for CAC.

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desertrider12
Ha, the show Silicon Valley predicted this exactly.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txl90NEl92U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txl90NEl92U)

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exabrial
Yelp is another one of the trash companies that's acquired their customer base
through bullying small business owners. They're welcome to piss off as well.

