Uber Eats

Ghost-kitchen 'Edible Arrangements' built on top of DoorDash for last-minute gifts

Shaan's idea: build a ghost kitchen that lists on DoorDash/Uber Eats specifically as a gifting brand, like an Edible Arrangements that arrives same-day. It rides on apps that already have the user's payment info, so you skip customer-acquisition cost and serve the 'desire path' of last-minute gift-givers.

“why doesn't somebody make the version of like Edible Arrangements or like one of these like gift basket products on top of Uber Eats and Postmates and all these companies that we all already use. So if you're on top of DoorDash, it already has my credit card. I'm already opening the app every day. Why doesn't somebody make the best way to just send a gift product to somebody else as a ghost kitchen on top of this? I think this is a no-brainer, successful idea.”

Steal thisLaunch a ghost-kitchen gifting brand on existing delivery apps to inherit their payments and demand for $0 CAC.

Testing a low-carb ghost kitchen: $3K in month one on an $8K bet

Sam's friend Andrew tested a low-carb bakery idea cheaply: he paid a chef a few hundred dollars to develop monk-fruit-sweetened recipes, built a Shopify site, listed it on DoorDash/Uber Eats with local delivery only, and did $3,000 in month-one sales against $8,000 invested. It lost money but proved the idea fast.

“Dude, he sold like $3,000 in month 1 worth of stuff and he's like invested $8,000 into it. So it didn't make a profit, but it kind of sick. He was able to test this idea very easily.”

Steal thisValidate a food brand for ~$8K: hire a chef for recipes, list on Shopify plus a delivery app, local-only.

Clout Kitchens: celebrity-branded virtual restaurants on delivery apps

Guest Stu Iverson's idea, ranked among Shaan's favorites: instead of celebrity brick-and-mortar restaurants, influencers and celebrities launch branded virtual restaurants on DoorDash and Uber Eats, fulfilled by cloud kitchens or existing restaurants behind the scenes.

“And he's like, you know, these celebrities create their own restaurant chains. I think people are gonna do this as cloud kitchens on top of Uber Eats, DoorDash, et cetera. So I thought it was a great idea. I put it in my newsletter, 'cause I started ranking in my newsletter some of our best ideas, right?”

Steal thisPartner an influencer with a cloud-kitchen operator to launch a branded delivery-only restaurant overnight in dozens of cities.

Co-brand growth hack: ride a sister brand's search on Uber Eats

Because Focus Brands co-locates multiple brands in one kitchen, an Uber Eats listing must have a lead brand — but searching for the secondary brand (e.g. Cinnabon) still surfaces the Auntie Anne's listing with the Cinnabon menu item, capturing both brands' search demand from one location.

“So it shows up as an Auntie Anne's location. But right when you pull up the menu, it says— that's the problem is it's got to have a lead location. But because it— because the brand shows up in the menu, it does show up in the search. So if you search Cinnabon, but Cinnabon's actually co-branded with what was first an Auntie Anteans. You search Cinnabon, it pops up, it says Anteans, but then it shows you the Cinnabon menu item.”

Steal thisCo-locate complementary brands in one kitchen so each brand's menu items capture search demand on delivery platforms from a single listing.

Cross-restaurant dessert upsell layered on every food-delivery order

Shaan applies e-commerce upsells (which lift order value 20-40%) to food delivery, where they barely exist. Uber Eats could run a cloud dessert company that adds 'want ice cream?' to every order across all restaurants, not just one.

“Why doesn't Uber Eats just do a, you know, sort of have a cloud dessert company that's always just like, do you want to add some ice cream on top of that? Or, hey, we just made brownies, whatever. And like, I bet they could increase the cart size. And it shouldn't be another restaurant. It should be an upsell across all orders of all restaurants that day.”

Steal thisTake a tactic that's standard in one industry (e-commerce upsells) and apply it where it's absent (food delivery).

A startup raised $8M copying the org-chart idea from the show

After Shaan and guest Daniel Gross brainstormed a public, crowdsourced org-chart tool on the pod, a stealth startup called The Org launched doing exactly that and raised $8M from Sequoia and Founders Fund.

“There's actually a startup that came out of Stealth that is doing this after we talked about it. Clearly stole our idea. It's called The Org. They raised $8 million from Sequoia and Founders Fund, and it looks like they're doing exactly this.”