[sfeng]

I think broadly their team was just too big for the stage of the company they were at. It probably would have made more sense to have perhaps one engineer, one operations / business person, and a few part time delivery drivers / baristas. Ideally the first two would be founders who don't need a salary in this early stage. With those economics they wouldn't be printing money with ~150 orders a day, but they would be solvent.

This seems to be the classic case of building much more than the stage of the company demands, and then not having the business-side be ready to bring in the revenue that level of commitment demands.

[nprateem]

Ideally the last 2 would be the founders and they could invent orders or delivery coffee for free to even avoid the trouble of getting customers. We all know if we build it they will come, so the problem is always going to be operational.