We shut down our startup
I’ve worked in the food industry for about 20 years now. For the last 3+ years my business has done nothing but sell to restaurants. I sell them food. Perishable food with a short shelf life. The most common responses to our products by people who have eaten them are. “I love them” and “That’s the best I’ve ever had.”<p>On average, my customers resell my products for about 2.5 times what they pay me. Depending on the customer, my products requires anywhere from no labor to 20 seconds of labor from restaurant staff.<p>The business was profitable its first month and has shown year-over-year growth every year in both product sales and revenue. Everything is done by myself and one other person (who joined after two years). We’ve spent $40 on marketing from that time I had business cards printed. We have higher per-month revenue than Dishero and there’s never been a monthly loss.<p>As food industry people, we use our understanding of the food environment to help our customers. We know the awfulness that is restaurant life and we accommodate our customers’ needs using what we know, what customers tell us, and what we see that isn’t stated.<p>Probably my favorite action is when I show up delivering what my customer has ordered, only to cancel the order because I know the customer does not need the items. These are not products I can simply sell some other day. When that happens—and it always does—my customers know our focus is taking care of them, not making every possible sale.<p>In short: We have relationships with customers, and relationships are always give-and-take arrangements. I’ve found that focusing on the giving ensures we make enough to keep giving.<p>All those self-congratulatory things said, I have no doubt that our success thus far can be attributed to customer service. No, that’s not saying anything novel, but—as always—it requires listening, watching, adaptability, frustration, flexibility, and a host of other behaviors&#x2F;actions. It’s hard work and it’s not easy to get out of my own head to get inside someone else’s head.<p>The economic and non-economic results have been good. We haven’t lost any customers. The majority of our customers have found ways to get more products from us. All new business has come from word of mouth.<p>But I don’t think there’s anything novel in what we’ve done. I say that because I believe the success of every business come down to three factors: cash flow, logistics, and people skills. I don’t know of an instance in any industry where a great product overcame deficiency in those areas.<p>I was unfamiliar with Dishero prior to this piece. From what was shared, it’s hard to see if they did well with logistics or people skills (the author says they missed on cash flow). The author noted they had trouble overcoming the logistics of interacting with restaurant staff. If so, it’s difficult then to build relationships, so there goes people skills.<p>It certainly sounds, though, like the people behind Dishero had some good product-making skills. And I have nothing but respect for the decision to cut their losses. I can’t imagine the difficulty of that choice, and the accompanying pain, despite the apparent wisdom of that decision. My best to those people in their next pursuits.