Introducing this Blog Series on Startups
I introduce a series of blog posts in which I will be detailing my experiences building GrubSquad.
Written with Shin Wang
Hi Folks, I’m Ogo Ifelayo. I was founder and CEO of Grubsquad, Houston’s first on-demand food delivery startup. I say “was” because after operating for nearly four years, we made the decision to shut down back in February of this year. During our years in business, we experienced both highs and lows. I remember the excitement on our very first day getting an order from someone none of us knew. Early on, we had some pretty reassuring metrics growing at 9% weekly and converting over 30% of site visitors to paid customers. There were days where we practically had to shut down the site because we literally could not keep up with the number of orders we were getting. We also had some pretty strange days, like the one where the police showed up to my residence at 6AM to serve me papers because we had “wrongly” classified our delivery agents as independent contractors…That was a day.
I’ve learned a lot from my own experience by doing the work; however, I feel that I’d only gotten to where I was by standing on the shoulders of those before me. The support that I received from advisors, friends, family, tech blog posts, articles, and books were invaluable. Not to mention my now wife (girlfriend at the time), cofounders, and team members. That is why I’ve decided to put together a series of blog articles sharing the experiences and lessons that I’ve learned while running Grubsquad. I hope these articles will benefit those launching their own startup or anyone that may be interested in getting a behind-the-scenes look. At the same time, I also wanted to further my own knowledge by engaging all of you in conversation about your own experiences. To do this, I have enlisted the help of a dear friend, Shin Wang, who helped and advised me along the road on GrubSquad’s product strategy. We’ll be publishing on many topics in the coming weeks.
Here are some possible topics that we plan on discussing:
- Finding the right customers for your company
- Traits to look for in a tech co-founder if you’re not technical
- Grooming the product backlog
- Refine UI/UX based on customer feedback
- Growing supply side in a two-sided market
Let me know what you would like to hear about first! I don’t claim to be an expert in any of these topics; I simply intend to share my experiences and my decision process in these areas. I look forward to your feedback and engaging with you on how you may have handled similar situations. We are excited, and we look forward to taking you along this ride!
Other Posts in this Blog Series:
