

Ask HN: what about this idea for a startup? - aherlambang

I have suddenly come up with a silly idea in the middle of the afternoon. What if I create a startup based on this idea. Lets see how people react to this.<p>What if we create a site for restaurant deliveries. Scenario is like this:
1. I am going home from work
2. There is a restaurant X along the way from work  to home where it has food that needs to be delivered to customer Y.
3. It seems that customer Y's house is also along my route going home. 
4. What if I can be the delivery man for this restaurant and earn $ for delivering it?
5. Benefit: restaurant pays less for a delivery service/labor.<p>Again, I just came up with this idea a couple hours ago. Some of you will think, what kind of moron I am to come up with ideas like this and such, but I think it seems interesting. There are still loop holes, such as what if I just go and run away with the food. There are ways to solve this, such as verifying so that only "good people" can participate as a delivery man. What do you guys think?<p>I am going to work on this idea for the Summer. If there are any hackers or UI/UX designer interested in joining me. Shoot me an email. You need to be awesome though!
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gg_
Interesting idea. I think of your idea as a general p2p delivery system
comprised of a network of pick-up points and drop-off points, whereby a person
is compensated for delivering an item from a pick-up point to a drop-off
point.

p2p restaurant deliveries seems like a bad idea because the deliveries are too
time sensitive (food gets cold relatively quickly).

Why not partner with UPS/Fedex as a way to reduce some of their costs? So
driving home from work, you stop by a local UPS/Fedex pick-up point where you
are given a package to deliver to Fred, who lives a mile away from your home.
(The local pick-up points can established such that all package have
associated drop-off points within a X-mile radius.) Or for deliveries between
airpots, people can be compensated (i.e. offered a discounted ticket) if they
carry-on a package to be dropped off at their destination airport.

With the rising gas prices, I suspect many people would _love_ to be
compensated for going a few minutes out of their way during their regular
commutes. Not to mention, the publicity this would generate is immense.

~~~
aherlambang
Thanks for the input, will definitely think about it and incorporate it into
the system

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hansy
Interesting idea, but a few points:

-Who are you targeting? People who bike? Teenagers?

-The $ one receives is essentially the tip right, so is that enough to justify the slight inconvenience of picking up package, routing to destination, spending time at destination, then returning back home?

-Would you consider expanding this to businesses outside of restaurants that normally don't have delivery services (e.g. hardware stores, video game stores, etc.)

-How do you verify "good" delivery man? Track record? How do you establish good track record?

I'd be super interested to see how far you can run with this crazy idea lol.

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aherlambang
Yea...it's kind of a crazy idea I know, asking people to be delivery man.

-I am targeting mostly people with cars, maybe bike. As of age group, I am thinking of 18 - 40.

-Yes the $ is the tip..I think it will vary depending on what the restaurant/business is willing to offer. People can either take it or not. The system could give the business a recommendation at what rate people usually take the deal.

\- I am actually planning to expand it even further not just beyond
businesses, but as a replacement of USPS, Fedex, UPS. Imagine about it, the
market of people using this is basically people delivering/shipping things. I
bet if shipping was made more social, it would be more effective than USPS. It
just needs a system that coordinate all of this and that's what I am trying to
do here.

\- To verify the delivery man, I was thinking of having the user to put a
security deposit first (to cover the lost cost if someone ran away with the
item) when initially registering. It will be hold after a user gets X amount
of positive feedback and after that it's just reputation from the
business/merchant.

One of my inspiration of this idea is based of my experience when going back
from school. Almost every time I went back to my apartment from school, I
always show this same pizza delivery guy all the time, I know his pizza store
is located along my route of school - home. Then I had a thought that I would
want to deliver it, won't cost me anything too much, it lies along my usual
route, cost me probably 5 minute, and I might be getting $5++ each time. Not
bad as an extra money for college kids right.

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abbasmehdi
Honest feedback alert: I would never use the service because I don't know what
the other person might put in my food or mess with it, and I would never
provide this service because the margin is too low and/or I don't want to
knock on a stranger's door. That bing said there a lot of crazy things that
became wildly successful so if you truly believe in it and you can actually
see yourself getting the service and providing it happily then do it.

~~~
aherlambang
Thanks for the honest feedback. I agree with that, you even don't know what
they put in your food when you order food at a restaurant right? Not until
someone told you what's going on back at the kitchen. But again, the incentive
is there. Might still need to think about it more throughly for any loopholes.

~~~
abbasmehdi
You're right, we have no idea what is being put our food in the kitchen but
the restaurant has for many years possibly tried to establish its brand and
reputation as a trustworthy establishment, one idiot with nothing to lose
could ruin it. Why would they be willing to take the risk if it does not
affect their bottom line or save the customer scrilla? But please do not be
discouraged by my comments, I am just thinking it through with you...

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lsc
cool idea. you could have some 'ebay rating' style thing to rate the delivery
people that could probably result in something reasonable happening. Maybe let
the delivery person report paid/didn't pay and nothing else to prevent the
reciprocal feedback problem ebay had... that, or just pay through the website,
then there is no question of the delivery person getting paid.

You'd need to make sure you had a solid 'independent contractor' deal with the
delivery people; I don't know how hard that would be to do.

I don't think you'd be stepping on the taxi people, so I don't see any
entrenched party who would want to kill the idea (except maybe pizza places
that have already solved the problem, but only for themselves?)

I eat a lot more pizza than I would otherwise, just 'cause it's the only thing
that delivers, so if you can figure it out, I think it's a great idea.

~~~
aherlambang
Yea and to think about it, it can be expanded to other stuff as well. Not just
restaurants. Imagine this:

1\. I am located at LA, have a friend at New York who has something that he
needs to give me.

2\. A person named Adam is on his way back to New York to LA.

3\. Why not let Adam take that something from my friend in New York and bring
it back to LA with him?

4\. Waiting/paying for USPS, UPS, Fedex, is too long and costly. This is
better

~~~
amorphid
I can just imagine trying to explain to the TSA agent at the airport that I
was carrying someone else's package. I'm sure something could be worked out.

~~~
aherlambang
Yea, that's also one prevention that needs to taken care off in the system.
The user should make it clear what package is being carried and have the
permission to open the package, if necessary. I don't want this to be a drug
smuggling facility in the end.

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anubhavgupta89
Interesting idea. There is something similar to this in India although only
available for one city at the moment. Check it out may be you can get some
useful insights <http://www.deliverychef.in/>

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mooism2
Most takeaway orders happen at a different time of day from when most people
are going home from work.

Unless the restaurant can use this system for a substantial proportion of
their deliveries, it will be more hassle than it's worth.

~~~
aherlambang
I am not only considering it just for restaurants, as explained on my reply
below.

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mooism2
The "substantial proportion" bit still holds for other businesses.

For general package delivery, what happens if the recipient is not in and the
package cannot be delivered? The courier will not want to turn round and take
the package back to the depot. If they take it home with them, they have a
package they don't want taking up space in their home.

How much do individual couriers earn, anyway? How much money are you trying to
save for customers?

~~~
aherlambang
That can be solved by having some rule:

1\. Package not picked up after X amount of days are discarded, unless a
communication between the courier and receiver are made

I am trying to save them at least not getting a higher price than the regular
USPS but faster delivery time. That is the goal

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hyuuu
Irrelevant: are you indonesian by any chance? Cause I am :)

~~~
aherlambang
yes sir! student in the US! and you?

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hyuuu
Me too, we should really chat and talk, I would love to exchange ideas, being
a one man band gets really tough sometimes :P anyway i can contact you?

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timmm
Cool idea in that it's more efficient than the status quo.

~~~
aherlambang
it's cool, but not sure if the traction is enough.. this kind of worries me

