
From Selling Scoops of Ice Cream to Founding ZeroCater - rguzman
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/06/how-i-started-zerocater?query=4664
======
justin
Arram followed the advice I normally give people applying to startups for non-
technical jobs that have no relevant experience: he prepared tremendously for
his interview and actually came with real suggestions on things we should do,
and visualized himself in the position. On paper, he wasn't someone we would
have considered (his previous experience was as a security guard and ice cream
scooper with no college degree). But, out of all the candidates, Arram was the
only one who had prepared as if he had already gotten the job and was going
over first steps.

We actually ended up hiring someone else as the community manager, but I was
impressed with Arram and wanted to find a place for him at Justin.tv, so we
created the "grab bag of unwanted tasks." While he fluctuated between doing
those things well and sometimes not as well, he became a contributing member
of the team.

Because we were paying Arram not so much, I told him he should start doing the
lunch ordering for a few friends' companies for some side cash, and pretty
soon after he came to me and told me he was quitting.

Out of all the people who have "graduated" from Justin.tv, I'm most proud of
Arram. His drive to start a company is incredible, and he's done it despite
the odds. Proud to say I'm an investor in ZeroCater and I think he's going to
make me some money as well.

~~~
ultimoo
Reading inspiring stories like this makes me realize how much of
entrepreneurship is about taking risks rather than hard work. Moving to
another place with a few thousand dollars in your pocket, quitting a stable
job without a firm idea in mind, figuring things out as you go.

There may have been dozens of well prepared and hard working candidates
available that day, but probably none were out of job and interviewing for
Justin.tv at the time Arram was. There are also always tons of people working
at perfectly great jobs, but a very few of us have the gut to stop working and
forge a company built on nothing but determination to succeed.

~~~
beachstartup
> taking risks rather than hard work.

it's both. and appetite for risk is not the belief that nothing bad will
happen, it's the belief that you will be able to handle anything that happens,
no matter how bad. it's being at peace with the fact that bad things will
happen.

most people live their entire lives trying to avoid bad situations that don't
exist in reality, but rather live in their imaginations. in my opinion they
are completely delusional.

a lot of entrepreneurs have been totally broke or were poor in the past - in
my mind, this is what allows them to continually take risks. they know exactly
what it's like being broke and struggling, it's not a mystery. it has no power
over them. they simply don't care if they end up going broke. they know what
it is, and how to climb back out.

~~~
jmtame
"I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never
happened." - Mark Twain

------
jmduke
I always chuckle when I hear "MVP" in the same sentence as a RoR/node.js
stack, complicated monetization strategies and A/B testing.

A bank account and a Google Docs spreadsheet. _That's_ MVP.

~~~
ultimoo
Bang on. I would probably extend it to include the email-first startup
strategy that was posted here by Sachin of Posterous fame a while ago. Since
ZeroCater provides a physical service to companies and is located in SF Bay
Area with a uniquely high density of companies it probably doesn’t apply here,
but I can imagine some form of a computerized sign up is needed for other
MVPs.

~~~
patio11
_I can imagine some form of a computerized sign up is needed for other MVPs_

Believe it or not, services businesses did actually exist before CRM software
and online signup forms. The SF Bay Area does not have a uniquely high density
of companies. You can totally do spiritually-similar things to this.

A spiritually similar example: Appointment Reminder didn't actually exist in
summer 2010, but I had a two-page demo of it set up. I got $400 out of an ATM
when I went home to Chicago to visit, and just wandered around the Gold
Coast/Magnificent Mile region of the city looking for every hair salon and
massage therapy practice I could find. I asked them all if I they took walk-
ins and, if so, could I have 30 minutes of the owner's time for whatever the
rate was ($30 or so). In lieu of the shoulder massage/etc, I said "I'm
interested in the massage therapy industry. Would you mind if we just chatted
for half an hour about it?" And I asked about how they handled scheduling,
appointments, no-shows, etc etc. I also did a demo of my two-page AR mini-app
on the iPad and asked if they would be interested in buying it when it was
ready.

I think only one person actually accepted my money for the interviews. I got
five-ish "Please tell me when that is ready" out of a dozen or so
conversations. No Bay Area or signup form required. (I put their emails in a
paper notebook. And lost it prior to launch. Whoopsie.)

This was _mostly_ successful for me: it confirmed that there was a market
willing to pay for AR without me needing to actually build it to demonstrate
that. (My sampling technique, which found only massage therapists/hair salons,
did sort of lead me off the rails as to who I'd eventually end up targeting
for most of the business. D'oh.)

~~~
SatvikBeri
Who did you end up targeting?

~~~
patio11
That's a long story. Suffice it to say that I have more exterminators as
clients than massage therapists -- apparently when a client forgetting an
appointment means your three employees just drove 45 minutes to get locked out
of a house that irks (and costs) more than just having to play Angry Birds
until you get a walk-in.

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steven2012
I've been in the Valley for around 15 years, and I'm not someone that revels
in job perks. Sure everyone loves perks, but I prefer a great work
environment, and interesting work, etc, over things like snacks, X-boxes, etc.

That being said, my current employer has Zerocater and I freaking love it more
than any other perk in any job I've had. Sure, maybe 1 out of every 5 meals
isn't a winner, but I still really really love it. I wouldn't come close to
quitting my job if we couldn't afford Zerocater anymore, but I would be sorely
disappointed, because the convenience of having food brought to us, the high
quality, and the great amount of variety is something that I really
appreciate.

~~~
tomasien
Actually THIS is why I love HN, because it gives me access to data like this
comment, which while anecdotal, helps me validate my idea. My guess is that
most perks businesses offer mean NOTHING to their employees but that there are
perks out there that would.

------
pchivers
I'm not much of a sucker for inspirational stories, but this is one of the
best I've read in a long time.

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mikecane
I had zero idea of what that company was about and only clicked on it out of
idle curiosity that it made the front of HN.

Seriously, that was one of the most inspirational things I have read.

In another thread, someone mentioned the idea of a "valuable problem." Find
one of those to solve and you will make money. And _dahyum_ what that company
solves _is_ a valuable problem and how he started was so low-tech that it
should be _embarrassing_ to everyone who thinks they must have X-Y-and-Z to
go.

Napoleon Hill said, "Start where you are with what you have." That guy did.
And _killed_ it. Good for him!

------
tomasien
It occurred to me as I was writing another comment about how much I love
ZeroCater that they might be the perfect fit for what I'm trying to build
right now. I've started validating and getting Beta customers for a
personalized perks program where people don't get a set group of company0wide
perks, but instead get them personalized to what makes them a happier and more
fulfilled person. I've been trying to figure out the catering problem, because
I don't actually want to CREATE any perks, but instead partner with people
that already fulfill things that would be considered perks. Catering is
definitely the one I have the hardest time imagining managing.

Is this an appropriate place to ask if anyone thinks ZeroCater would be
interested in being the fulfiller for catering for that system and/or they
could ask Arram or the appropriate person what they think? (email =
tommy@thecityswig.com)

~~~
gamblor956
That idea sounds exactly like BetterWorks, a Los Angeles-based company that
shut down earlier this year. BetterWorks offered companies a way to offer
customized perks on a per employee basis by giving each employee an
"allowance" to use on whatever combination of perks they wanted.

The problem, in a nutshell, was that the idea didn't scale. They needed two
sets of salespeople: one for the customers, and one for the perks providers.
Customers were difficult to acquire because many were dubious about limited
"perks" to a small set of providers. Obviously, this meant that BW needed a
lot of perks providers. However, the perks providers were even harder to
reach, as many of them had no need to try yet another customer outreach
opportunty demanding X% for little to no work. Moreover, perks providers were
frequently not the only providers in a particular area, so discounting
competition eroded prices, lowering the income realized through this method of
customer acquisition, and thus the benefit of using BW.

~~~
tomasien
Yep, we're working on something similar to BetterWorks. I don't want to say
publicly what I think about the way that company was run, but their failure is
more validation for me (in that they were able to get the model to work at
some scale, but not the scale they wanted) rather than a warning.

My idea is about creating and managing perks that CAN scale, and using
auxiliary businesses to provide them. Since our perks are about things that
make employees happy, tangible things are only one subset of the things we're
going to offer, and all of those will be provided by large providers acting as
partners. Only some select local businesses will be offered for very specific
reasons.

------
tansey
I've heard some pretty terrible stories about the vegetarian options offered
by ZeroCater. It seems that many times they give the omnivores a full meal and
then the vegetarian meal is the same meal without the meat, meaning it
contains virtually no protein.

I'm not a vegetarian, but I am sensitive to other people's preferences. Has
the situation changed lately?

~~~
dpiers
I am the lead developer at ZeroCater, was a vegetarian for 3 of the last 4
years, and I can honestly say I that never had access to vegetarian lunch
options remotely close to the variety and quality we provide to our clients.

We currently offer 4335 vegetarian options from 190 vendors, ranging from a
Quinoa Salad with Green Apple, Crumbled Gorgonzola Blue Cheese, Candied Walnut
and Organic Baby Spinach to a Roasted Pepper and Mushroom Calzone or Green
Chile Mac & Cheese.

Our most common complaint from vegetarians isn't the lack of options; it's
that the omnivores took all of the vegetarian food before they got to it.

~~~
eli_awry
As a vegetarian fed by ZeroCater, it feels like a lot of the time the thinking
goes something like 'we have 20 meat-eaters and 3 vegetarians - let's get 20
lamb/chicken shish kebaps and 3 vegetables ones!' It sucks to have to make a
meal out of sides, and it seems like the meals are structured most of the time
such that quinoa salad or mac & cheese are perceived as being sides. And I
don't think the solution is to tell meat-eaters not to eat vegetables -
everyone deserves them. Anyway, I have to be very aggressive about getting to
the front of the line for food. Also, sometimes the vegetarian option is just
lo mein or a green salad - it rarely meets what I would consider a minimal
nutritional standard of ~10-20 grams of protein. I pack protein powder to
supplement my lunch. To be fair though, it is tasty!

~~~
ricardobeat
I'm curious, what's wrong with 20 meat/3 veg for these single-serve meals?
Most meat-eaters wouldn't be happy being forced to eat the vegetarian option,
that's bound to happen unless you provide more food than necessary. The rest
of what you said only applies to a lunch not served in individual portions.

~~~
eli_awry
Because people help themselves to food, everyone takes like 1/2 meat and then
the first six people take 1/2 veg as well. I agree, for single serving meals
like sandwiches that are not easily dividable, it makes sense to only have a
few vegetarian ones. But those meals are usually at least 60% not-meat for
meat-eaters (bread, rice, veggies, whatever). Basically every other meal is
not single serving, and the veggie entrees are seen as just another side. It's
usually family style.

------
sytelus
Very inspirational and fascinating account that is probably worth a movie and
a book on entrepreneurship. Also reminds me of the trademill quote by Will
Smith <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doqS35FfcUE>. One side note here is also
the net risk Arram actually took. He is a single guy without dependents and
health insurance to worry about. Without college degree and other specific
skills he really had little to lose in terms of other lucrative job offers on
hand, for example, compared to a Harvard PHD in CS with a wife and two
children would have. That scenario ironically simplifies lot of complexities
around for pursuing entrepreneurship.

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roel_v
Sounds like great execution, but one thing I find remarkable that of all the
talk here of 'the internet is going to cut out out the middleman', and most
business plans being build on that, this business is basically about adding a
middle man where historically none existed (because of slim margins). Quite
neat to see it work out so well - it seems a middle man can add value, even if
that added value seems small at first sight.

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marianne_navada
Thanks for sharing your story Arram. I'm going to be making this a required
reading for my college students. Most of the time, young people are advised to
find stability and to be level-headed about their goals, and in the process
lose their passion. This is reminder that to succeed, you need to be bold,
creative, and energetic.

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kayz
Just to throw my 2 cents here.

My brief but meaningful interaction with Arram and the team at ZeroCater was
nothing short of exceptional. Exceptional care for their service and customer,
exceptional determination and conviction. They are an intensely likeable
people.

All the best Arram!

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mrwhy2k
Just for the record, I remember ZeroCater's demo day and it seemed like they
were already off and running without needing to raise more money. At least
that was the feeling I got when listening in the crowd.

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Mz
Is there a TechCrunch linky that actually works for poor souls stuck in the
Android Ghetto? I would love to read this.

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jeremyjh
This is the kind of article that keeps me coming back to HN. Great
inspirational story!

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michaeltsai
great story

