What about @lyft for food?
We looked @Postmates + thought:
- the food arrived sloppy / restaurants don't care about delivery
- it took forever (1hr)
- too expensive
Nobody talks about failure in Silicon Valley, yet 90% of startups fail.
Why?
3 yrs ago, @neerajberry and I shut down @Sprig, which raised $60M from @GreylockVC + @socialcapital & grew to $20m revenue.
Then, it all fell apart.
For an honest story about failure,
**Read on**
What about @lyft for food?
We looked @Postmates + thought:
- the food arrived sloppy / restaurants don't care about delivery
- it took forever (1hr)
- too expensive
3 taps and $15 for a healthy meal delivered in 15 min
To make it possible, we had to run the restaurant ourselves; it would be expensive but worth it
We recruited @n8keller, Morgan Springer + @mattkent as founders
Our Series A was a hot round. I did 4 partner meetings on the same day. Raised $10M.
Great investors, great team, off to the races - @omal and @simonrothman
1) Govt. SF health + planning made our lives hell. They didn't like our innovations. We had to bribe officials ("lobbying").
2) Gross Margins (GM). As we grew, our burn rate grew too. We were losing money on every meal. If only we could get to critical mass.
We were always “1-2 months away” from managing the burn.
We finally got some progress on margins, but it meant degrading the product: food is fickle.
Less money in, worse food out.
Sprig's peak was Feb 2016:
4,500 meals per day (largest restaurant in SF)
$22M run-rate (SF + Chi)
1,300 employees (incl delivery)
$60M raised
The public treated me like a star, which was both uncomfortable & awesome.
Even my dating life felt like it had improved 2-3x.
But secretly, I was nervous - it didn't feel like a done deal.
On Feb 22, 2016: our growth curve inverted. +2%/wk became -2%/wk.
We scrambled to figure out why.
Was it seasonality? Was it our rising prices? Was it the quality of the food?
Everyone was running tests to figure out why and what to do.
🤦
It was UberEATS, which launched that week.
Fucking Uber. After hearing all the war stories from @lyft, I knew they were unsavory competitors.
Super smart, ruthless with big coffers.
What about pursuing a sale? If we do layoffs, then we can’t sell. If we don’t, we may die trying.
We decided to pivot to a new offering that focused on food quality.
Everyone (fam, friends, investors) thinks you're doing well and you can't tell them you're not.
We were in pure panic mode.
We launched Sprig 2.0, shut down Chicago and laid off 1/3 of HQ staff to conserve burn.
I shut down external activities, such as talks and press, so we didn’t become a Theranos.
Internally, I leaned on my executive team. They were honest and kind with our employees. Through it all, we had only 1 departure.
We got to $0 margins, but the traction didn’t improve.
The board asked us: what would it take to be fully profitable?
We were running a restaurant doing $6M in revenue but paying real estate for a place that needed $20M in revenue to be profitable.
After 3 pivots & multiple layoffs, we faced a final decision. We had $8M left and knew we had to restart or quit and return the money.
@neerajberry & I made an exec decision: we shut @sprig down on May 27, 2017.
1) In 2013, we mistook present for future. Delivery apps got better w scale. We got worse.
2) The profit equation was off. The market size in SF was too small for our big kitchen. We blitzfailed.
3) Cap Table + Burnout. Hard to restart after losing $50M.
Learned way more in 4 yrs @sprig than 4 years @udemy or @UCBerkeley.
Few grudges were held & we took care of the team. They mostly landed on their feet (Silicon Valley embraces failure).
A classy ending helped sow the seeds for forgiveness.
If you're gonna fail, do it fast.
If you're gonna succeed, do it slowly.
In startups, remember to watch your flanks. Your competitors are not your direct competitors, but the whole market.
Thanks to everyone who believed in us.
Follow me to read more honest takes from a recovering founder 🙏🙏🙏
Here's an equally honest thread about @udemy going from 0 to $2B valuation:
https://t.co/mc9Dd8A6xI
I\u2019m biased but @udemy is a true underdog story + thought I\u2019d share details we\u2019ve never shared before.
— Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) February 20, 2020
ICYMI, we announced a $50M raise at $2B valuation.
Udemy almost died at least 5x. We got rejected by everyone in the Valley. Startups are never a straight line.
*Read on*
More from Startups
1/ If you want to find out what is in the Y Combinator S19 batch, @Golden has compiled (using public signals) a near complete list of truly exciting companies.
If we are missing any or you want to help improve the data you can edit the topics.
https://t.co/9QGLiEPsn3
2/ Here is the direct public query if you want to check it out:
https://t.co/aqb8qYN4y9
[Note: no off the record cos are in here unless they have been publicly launched already]
3/ Also, here are 2,000+ other YC companies we have generated information
4/ We used the Golden Research Engine to generate this information, which you can find out more about here and ping me if you want a
If we are missing any or you want to help improve the data you can edit the topics.
https://t.co/9QGLiEPsn3
2/ Here is the direct public query if you want to check it out:
https://t.co/aqb8qYN4y9
[Note: no off the record cos are in here unless they have been publicly launched already]
3/ Also, here are 2,000+ other YC companies we have generated information
4/ We used the Golden Research Engine to generate this information, which you can find out more about here and ping me if you want a
Matt Mochary has been CEO coach to @naval, the founders of OpenAI, Notion, Rippling, Robinhood, Coinbase, Reddit, Plaid, Flexport, Opendoor, partners at Sequoia, YC, Benchmark, and many others.
He also open-sourced his entire curriculum, templates and all. Here's a link 👇
The Mochary Method Curriculum ➔ https://t.co/A8J51IzYhz
My recent conversation with @mattmochary where we talk about fear, anger, innovation, how to lay people off well, and his coaching practice ➔
Also in podcast form ➔
For more from Matt, buy this book
He also open-sourced his entire curriculum, templates and all. Here's a link 👇
The Mochary Method Curriculum ➔ https://t.co/A8J51IzYhz
My recent conversation with @mattmochary where we talk about fear, anger, innovation, how to lay people off well, and his coaching practice ➔
Also in podcast form ➔
For more from Matt, buy this book
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Keep dwelling on this:
Further Examination of the Motif near PRRA Reveals Close Structural Similarity to the SEB Superantigen as well as Sequence Similarities to Neurotoxins and a Viral SAg.
The insertion PRRA together with 7 sequentially preceding residues & succeeding R685 (conserved in β-CoVs) form a motif, Y674QTQTNSPRRAR685, homologous to those of neurotoxins from Ophiophagus (cobra) and Bungarus genera, as well as neurotoxin-like regions from three RABV strains
(20) (Fig. 2D). We further noticed that the same segment bears close similarity to the HIV-1 glycoprotein gp120 SAg motif F164 to V174.
https://t.co/EwwJOSa8RK
In (B), the segment S680PPRAR685 including the PRRA insert and highly conserved cleavage site *R685* is shown in van der Waals representation (black labels) and nearby CDR residues of the TCRVβ domain are labeled in blue/white
https://t.co/BsY8BAIzDa
Sequence Identity %
https://t.co/BsY8BAIzDa
Y674 - QTQTNSPRRA - R685
Similar to neurotoxins from Ophiophagus (cobra) & Bungarus genera & neurotoxin-like regions from three RABV strains
T678 - NSPRRA- R685
Superantigenic core, consistently aligned against bacterial or viral SAgs
Further Examination of the Motif near PRRA Reveals Close Structural Similarity to the SEB Superantigen as well as Sequence Similarities to Neurotoxins and a Viral SAg.
The insertion PRRA together with 7 sequentially preceding residues & succeeding R685 (conserved in β-CoVs) form a motif, Y674QTQTNSPRRAR685, homologous to those of neurotoxins from Ophiophagus (cobra) and Bungarus genera, as well as neurotoxin-like regions from three RABV strains
(20) (Fig. 2D). We further noticed that the same segment bears close similarity to the HIV-1 glycoprotein gp120 SAg motif F164 to V174.
https://t.co/EwwJOSa8RK
In (B), the segment S680PPRAR685 including the PRRA insert and highly conserved cleavage site *R685* is shown in van der Waals representation (black labels) and nearby CDR residues of the TCRVβ domain are labeled in blue/white
https://t.co/BsY8BAIzDa
Sequence Identity %
https://t.co/BsY8BAIzDa
Y674 - QTQTNSPRRA - R685
Similar to neurotoxins from Ophiophagus (cobra) & Bungarus genera & neurotoxin-like regions from three RABV strains
T678 - NSPRRA- R685
Superantigenic core, consistently aligned against bacterial or viral SAgs
First thread of the year because I have time during MCO. As requested, a thread on the gods and spirits of Malay folk religion. Some are indigenous, some are of Indian origin, some have Islamic
Before I begin, it might be worth explaining the Malay conception of the spirit world. At its deepest level, Malay religious belief is animist. All living beings and even certain objects are said to have a soul. Natural phenomena are either controlled by or personified as spirits
Although these beings had to be respected, not all of them were powerful enough to be considered gods. Offerings would be made to the spirits that had greater influence on human life. Spells and incantations would invoke their
Two known examples of such elemental spirits that had god-like status are Raja Angin (king of the wind) and Mambang Tali Arus (spirit of river currents). There were undoubtedly many more which have been lost to time
Contact with ancient India brought the influence of Hinduism and Buddhism to SEA. What we now call Hinduism similarly developed in India out of native animism and the more formal Vedic tradition. This can be seen in the multitude of sacred animals and location-specific Hindu gods
i wonder if you can make a thread bout witchcraft in malaysia.. or list of our own local gods/deites..
— r a y a \U0001f319 (@lcvelylilith) February 20, 2020
Before I begin, it might be worth explaining the Malay conception of the spirit world. At its deepest level, Malay religious belief is animist. All living beings and even certain objects are said to have a soul. Natural phenomena are either controlled by or personified as spirits
Although these beings had to be respected, not all of them were powerful enough to be considered gods. Offerings would be made to the spirits that had greater influence on human life. Spells and incantations would invoke their
Animist ceremonies of a religious or magical nature were normally held for the purpose of divination or making a request. This would either be done at a keramat or at a shrine similar to the Thai spirit houses or Chinese roadside shrines pic.twitter.com/I1hliyi0x3
— \u2745\u1710\u170b\u1713\u170e (@uglyluhan) June 16, 2019
Two known examples of such elemental spirits that had god-like status are Raja Angin (king of the wind) and Mambang Tali Arus (spirit of river currents). There were undoubtedly many more which have been lost to time
Contact with ancient India brought the influence of Hinduism and Buddhism to SEA. What we now call Hinduism similarly developed in India out of native animism and the more formal Vedic tradition. This can be seen in the multitude of sacred animals and location-specific Hindu gods
