[jmduke]

Mehta, in a call with TechCrunch, stated that simply tacking on new cities to his company’s service doesn’t, in a sense, prove much; that’s just hiring.

I think the whole idea behind geographic expansion is that it proves more people are willing to pay for service X or Y than just those living in the Bay Area, who are perhaps the most amenable cross-section of the country for a service like this.

(Not advocating expansion for expansion's sake -- I think Instacart is making a wise choice -- but saying "It's just hiring" is disingenuous.)

[rdl]

New York is probably even stronger than the Bay Area for this kind of service, but there are entrenched competitors there.

College campuses, big industrial parks, and maybe military bases would be my next pick after NYC and SFBA. Another interesting market might be events -- during Sturgis, or Oshkosh, or other vents, running something like Instacart would work, while it wouldn't work in the same towns otherwise.