Doordash
Doordash's Thesis
- Value creation:
- Consumer benefits (restaurant food at home), increased addressable market for restaurants and new category of ghost kitchens, new jobs for drivers. Solving issues such as fraud and refund.
- Value capture:
- Three-side network effect (customers, restaurants, drivers).
- Exclusive data (restaurant data, customer order history, delivery routing etc.) that can be leveraged to make a better product and in advertising.
- AI-driven market expansion (winner-take-most).
- Its root in the physical makes it harder to displace.
- High-risk workflows (payment flow across all three sides) -> trust premium.
- Business model immune to AI disruption (they monetize as a percentage of the transaction, whether initiated by agents or humans).
- Horizontal coverage (more meaningful for Shopify which covers all parts of a merchant's business)
