TheBite.com: P2P Food Delivery

I am a struggling entrepreneur that loves cook. I wish for a service that would let me sell my cooking to people who live in the area. It would be a way for me to make a little extra money on the side. 

A peer-to-peer food delivery service is an appealing idea. The margins on food are small, but even so I think I would be able to undercut local restaurants. So my customers would enjoy saving money when they decide to order delivery service. The selection of food would be diverse. For instance, I would offer authentic Cuban cuisine (I’m Cuban). I imagine that other hard-to-find international cuisines would also get listed on the service.

Bring the food truck movement to the web. Lower the overhead costs for the not-so-professional chef. That’s the idea. However, state laws restrict such a business from incorporating. Sellers would have to pass multiple health inspections and meet all applicable FDA regulations.

Food safety laws are generally a good thing, but I really wish that someone would build this. A long time ago I went fishing on a boat called The Bite. That’s what I would call this service. TheBite.com

Fireside Chat with Vinod Khosla from Khosla Ventures

Vinod Khosla: 

My willingness to fail gives me the ability to succeed.

To be an entrepreneur you have to be an optimist. A good entrepreneur is unreasonably optimistic, maybe even a little bit irrational. You have to be able to ignore failure until you achieve success. Who remembers a successful person’s failures? No one. Failure can become irrelevant if the entrepreneur takes the right attitude towards failing. It is okay to fail as long as you fail quickly. Trying to not fail is a self-fulfilling prophecy to mediocrity. Failure is the key to success. 

If you don’t have a vision you are unlikely to succeed. If you have a vision, then keep trying until you succeed. How do you decide when to stop thinking about an idea and start building it? Passion. If you are passionate about an idea you will not stop trying to implement it until you achieve product/market fit. Passionate people do not give up easily. The iterative process for a passionate person is seemingly endless. This is something that VCs look for.

If you are going to pitch a VC, first figure out 3-4 things that appeal to them. Pitch to that. In other words, give the VC 3-4 things to talk to his partners about.

An entrepreneur should always be trying to answer the question, “Why should a VC invest in me?” Investors only have two feelings: greed and fear. Use this knowledge to help you answer the question.

E.g.

1. Here are 3-4 reasons why an investor should invest in me.
2. Here are the risks. 
3. Here’s how my company will address those risks.

The single biggest task you will face as an entrepreneur is managing risk. Everything an entrepreneur does increases some risks while decreasing others. A successful entrepreneur knows how to successfully manage his company’s exposure to risk. Deciding whose opinion to trust is another major hurdle that every entrepreneur must face. Vinod Khosla’s best practice is to narrow your choices down to 2-3 people, hear their opinions, then make a decision on who is most trustworthy. After you make a decision, it is important to list the Top 5 reasons as to why the decision you made was wrong. People often spend more time justifying decisions than inspecting them for errors.

Be sure to check out Vinod Khosla’s 15-page essay on Gene Pool Engineering. He cited the paper on multiple occasions throughout the night.

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Material sourced from a fireside chat with Vinod Kholsa at RocketSpace SF.

On Groupon Buying The Alfred App

Alfred might be the best example of artificial intelligence used on a restaurant recommendation app. Yesterday, Jason Kincaid wrote that Groupon is on the verge of acquiring Clever Sense, the company behind Alfred. This acquisition should bode well with $GRPN investors. 

If you have never heard of Alfred, imagine an iPhone app that ‘speaks’ restaurant recommendations to you. What separates Alfred from the competition is something called model-based learning. Alfred is a semi-intelligent agent that is capable of serving a unique recommendation drawn from the user’s taste preferences. Like Siri, Alfred listens and adapts to the user. It really is something magical. 

And now Groupon is acquiring Alfred’s technology. 

Groupon will likely use Alfred’s AI technology to power a new method of targeting customers. “It seems like you enjoyed the dining experience at Chop House. I thought you might also enjoy Waterbar. You are close to the restaurant. Click here to purchase a $10 for $25 coupon,” Alfred will say.

Using location data to target customers is great, but using location data in conjunction with a user’s taste preferences is even better — thumbs up for Groupon if they actually go through with this acquisition.

UPDATE - Dec. 13th 2011 – Damn, Google outbid Groupon!

(Source: techmeme.com)