[burgers]

> even if your company isn’t tech-heavy (such as Dinnr).

I feel like this would be a giant red flag to me. You are essentially a logistics startup, and you believe this is not "tech-heavy". Logistics is likely one of the most complicated tech-heavy problems being solved right now.

Things like pricing(30% margins in grocery food sounds very high), recommendations etc. Was there ever a way for food bloggers to have their recipes automatically pulled into Dinnr for readers to purchase?

This is almost a 100% tech company. I wonder how much of underestimating that, combined with the founders possible(I'm guessing) lack of tech knowledge contributed to the failure.

[privong]

> This is almost a 100% tech company. I wonder how much of underestimating that, combined with the founders possible(I'm guessing) lack of tech knowledge contributed to the failure.

I think you are right about logistics being tech-heavy. But, I also do not think that having more knowledege/understanding of tech would have "saved" Dinnr. The tech and logistics (i.e., not being able to scale, fill orders, etc.) were not what did them in – lack of customers/market is what seems to have done them in and I do not think tech alone would solve that problem.

[randomflavor]

I do not agree - they never even got close to the point of this being a tech heavy logistics play. 26 order on v-day does not require much tech. Maybe some paper and pencil and a spreadsheet if you feel so inclined. I agree that if he got a ton of orders and had the market excited for it - he might have failed from a logistics problem of not being able to serve the customer effectively, killing the brand.

[dmbass]

Based on the post, I would guess not very much. It mostly sounded like they were unable to get people to pay for their service, not that they had problems fulfilling the orders they did receive and at their scale (23 orders on Valentines Day), I doubt a super sophisticated pricing algorithm would have helped.

This would maybe be a "100% tech company" operating at the scale of say Amazon. Over-engineering the technology would have been a huge waste of time and resources.

[jroseattle]

Sorry, but no it isn't a 100% tech company. It, like many many others, are actually service companies that are using technology as a means of implementation. Understanding that separation is critical.

Should they have outsourced their development? Absolutely not, but only because they needed to iterate in order to find what makes the service useful for their customer base.

[tptacek]

I think this is probably wrong; it's part of the playbook of early logistics companies that they can start with an Excel spreadsheet. What's important is that you find a market. ZeroCater seems to have found one, but Dinnr chose a value proposition that was way too niche-y to succeed.