YC
Apoorva Mehta at Startup School NY 2014
@ Y Combinator
06/20/14
Takeaways
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
Instacart allows you to order groceries and have them delivered to your door within one hour, without holding any inventory or using warehouses.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
I raised over 55 million dollars in financing for Instacart and we're generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue every day.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
I realized my learning at Amazon was plateauing, which pushed me to start attending founder meetups in Seattle to learn more about entrepreneurship.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
After quitting my job at Amazon, I moved to San Francisco where I found a co-founder and began working on various startup ideas without being picky about the market.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
After a year of failures with multiple startup ideas, I learned that the reason to start a company should be to solve a problem you truly care about, not just to start a company. I have always dreaded grocery shopping because it involves circling through aisles, waiting in line, and often forgetting items.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
In 2012, while everything else was being bought online, grocery shopping remained inefficient, which motivated me to create a solution.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
I started coding the first version of Instacart in the spring of 2012 and committed to not visiting a grocery store until it was ready.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
On June 2nd, 2012, I placed my first order on Instacart, and by then, the business was already profitable.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
I noticed my friends were using Instacart without any persuasion, which was a new experience for me compared to my previous products.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
Despite missing the Y Combinator application deadline, I believed that if the partners experienced Instacart, they would accept me.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
I reached out to Y Combinator alumni for introductions to the partners, and within 24 hours, I started receiving responses, mostly rejections.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
Garry Tan's response gave me hope; he mentioned the possibility of a late application, which meant it was still feasible to apply.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
I realized that none of the YC partners had experienced Instacart, so I made a last-ditch effort by sending a six-pack of beer to Garry Tan.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
After delivering the beer, Garry Tan invited me to meet the YC partners, which led to my acceptance into Y Combinator.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
I learned two important lessons: Garry Tan loves beer, and as a founder, resilience is crucial; you must persist through failures.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
During my time at Y Combinator, I faced chaos, including a shopper threatening to quit due to an overwhelming order for 202 liter bottles of soda.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
I calmed the shopper down and helped fulfill the order together, which turned out to be a convenient experience for the customer.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
In the early days of Instacart, most customers were Y Combinator founders, making it easy to gather feedback and iterate quickly on the product.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
One of the first orders was from Dan, another YC founder, who ordered bananas but refused to accept them at delivery, leaving my shopper confused.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
YC encourages startups to do things unscalably at the beginning, which is a significant competitive advantage over larger companies.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
In the early days of Instacart, I personally fulfilled orders myself, even without a car, leading to deliveries arriving in Uber black cars.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
Raising a seed round is one of the hardest challenges for a founder due to limited data and traction, especially in a space with past failures like grocery delivery.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
Despite initial investor reluctance due to past failures in grocery delivery, we eventually closed a seed round with an investor who believed in us.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
Our approach to doing things unscalably continued even after raising the seed round, focusing on rapid growth and execution.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
To add Trader Joe's to Instacart, we had to buy one of every item, photograph them, and create a catalog since there was no existing API.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
Using unscalable techniques, we successfully added stores like Whole Foods and Costco, leading to rapid growth and customer satisfaction.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
After launching in Chicago, we experienced faster growth than in the Bay Area, prompting further expansions to cities like Boston and DC.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
As Instacart grew, we faced the challenge of making operations scalable while managing diverse customer orders and crowdsourced shoppers.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
We are solving a complex problem of creating an Amazon-like experience without warehouses or inventory, as retailers come online for the first time.
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Apoorva Mehta
06/20/14
@ Y Combinator
The journey as a founder is filled with failures, but persistence can lead to success, so stay excited and keep pushing forward.