The 10-minute delivery Siyappa!

So apparently some delivery companies are promising/looking into the idea of 10-minute delivery for ‘certain’ items in ‘certain’ cities. Get it?! All clearly sounds very very ‘uncertain’ to me!

Sure, we all lead busy lives and would love to have the convenience of having stuff delivered to us. So that spawned a whole bunch of delivery companies that we all do use, like Dominoes, Zomato, Swiggy, and others. So, it’s all good then, right? Wrong. Now some folks with serious funding think we need to get stuff delivered within 10 minutes. The names of these companies really do not matter. What matters is exactly what issue are these chaps trying to solve? Is there a problem with pizza at your doorstep in 30 minutes? Do you really need a coffee delivered in 10 minutes? Really?! I bet by now you are wondering what is it that you would want delivered in 10 minutes. Hey, how about an ambulance – that sounds like a REAL need and a real problem, especially in larger cities. A cab? Sure works for me! So is anyone addressing that? Nah. No free money in that to burn while you strut around trying to impress folks that you are actually providing a solution.

Hope you get my drift. It’s an amazing time to be alive if you are a starry-eyed graduate with some cool-sounding start-up idea. There is so much money sloshing around in the system looking to chase returns that it’s almost like venture capitalists are falling over themselves to ‘fund’ these startups. A simple common sense due diligence too has been tossed out of the window it seems. You see I am not even talking about the various issues like driver safety, items that will be available for delivery in 10 minutes, accidents & resolutions, insurance matters, etc. because all that is just smoke being blown around to prevent you from getting to the bottom of the matter.

The real issue is that some of these companies and their solutions are simply flawed and setup to fail. However, given the amount of money in the system, there is always someone who is looking to fund such ideas and is even willing to take a loss in the process. Presentations and comparisons to Amazon and others from their early days are raked up to ensure that enough attention is always paid to the aggressive founders.

But founders forget that the simple but very powerful law of averages catches up with everyone. And the writing is already on the wall for several of these companies. It will be a spectacular unraveling and an important learning lesson for some of the founders, venture capitalists, and unfortunately, many young employees too. But that’s how the cookie crumbles! As for me, I just want to meet the ‘visionary soul’ who came up with this idea!