August 7: The story of DoorDash

DoorDash is the largest US meal delivery company – but it started with just a few menus and a website.

Source: Lenny Rachitsky
Published: May 2020

The story of DoorDash

Circulated: August 7, 2020

The very first iteration of DoorDash was a website called PaloAltoDelivery.com with PDF’d menus of restaurants in Palo Alto, California. To reach customers, Tony Xu and the team printed flyers and put them all over Stanford University. The team first wanted to see if there was demand when they charged $6 for delivery. That was how it all started. A website with PDF menus and flyers.

Now, DoorDash has raised $2.5B and is the largest US meal-delivery company.

Big things start small.

Bonus: See DoorDash’s original website from May 2013.

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