May 22, 2020

086: Money Talks #14: Pizza Arbitrage | Doordash | Uber | Grubhub | Growth at All Costs

In this week's Money Talks segment, Pete Townsend and Eoin Fitzgerald dig into a slice of "Pizza Arbitrage" from the Margins blog by Ranjan Roy and Can Duruk on the Doordash, Uber and Grubhub strategies of growth at all costs, and delve into the importance of recharging yourself, work-life and pandemic-driven cultural changes and the staying power of massive retail brands.

Show Notes
Guest Profile

This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland’s fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment. If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

In this episode, Eoin and Pete dig into pieces of content from this week that are relevant to the cosmic cloud of startups, tech, venture deals and enterprise in which they live. The stories covered in this week's episode include:

Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage - a story from the Margins blog by Ranjan Roy and Can Duruk on just how far Doordash is going to grab market share, and how one pizza shop owner literally flipped the dough to turn a risk-free profit on his pizzas.
Uber and GrubHub tie-up - Uber's deal to acquire GrubHub for an undisclosed amount and the impact that has on the Doordash strategy.
Arianna Huffington from Thrive Global on the Business Casual podcast by Morning Brew - on the importance of recharging and being at your best when leading teams through a crisis.
Facebook Shops taking on Shopify - Facebook are extending into every corner of the commercial globe, so why not online shopfronts?
Chris Skinner on "What's the Point of an Office?" - how work-life and pandemic-driven cultural changes are challenging the corporate real estate status-quo, with a specific reference to Barclays' CEO Jess Staley's thoughts on the topic.
Joe Rogan's podcast deal with Spotify - how the Joe Rogan Experience and his 190 million downloads per month will become exclusive to Spotify.
Being at the tip of the iceberg with podcasting as a medium, with a specific reference to a16z's 2019 research piece on the podcasting market.

Soundbites include:

Pete on the growth-at-all-costs model: “I don’t think profit is the goal. I think an exit is the goal, for both the founders and the VC funds backing them. The metrics on an exit are multiples of revenue rather than profit when it comes to companies like these. The whole idea is to create these revenue-driven business, profits be damned, find someone to acquire it, cull a bunch of cost out of that business and the acquiring company keeps the revenue.”
Eoin on the growth-at-all-costs model: "It’s all well and good owning the market, but is it sustainable? I guess it is if you still have Softbank or whomever pumping money into you.”
Eoin on the cross-sell: "These companies are asking ‘how do we get more users onto our platform or our wider ecosystem in whatever way, because then we can sell them multiple different types of products.'”
Pete on Facebook Shops: "If you have a media channel where your business may already have a presence, versus going for something like Shopify that lets you create an online shop separately, well if you have a bunch of users and customers that are already going to your Facebook page, well hell, just sell to them there."
Pete (channeling Arianna Huffington) on recharging: "How can you be your most creative, empathetic and charismatic self when you’re leading through a crisis if you did not sleep the night before."
Eoin on working from home: "People want to go to work for Facebook and Google because of the in-house culture and perks as well as the pay, so if you don't have those things, is it as attractive for me to work for Facebook from my house in Naas?”

Also, see below for Pete's and Eoin's latest reads referenced on the show:

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight - a memoir by the creator of Nike
Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters - The Mind Management Program to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence and Happiness.

To listen to more, please visit https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on Twitter @MNSShow, @PeteTownsendNV and @EoinFitzgerald9 for updates and more information.