Recap of #ODC2015: Understanding the On-Demand Economy

3 min readJun 3, 2015

This is the table of contents for a series of posts from the On-Demand Conference, organized by Pascal Levy-Garboua, Semil Shah, and Tradecraft.

Thanks to the amazing Kate Rutter for the conference sketchnotes.

Opening Remarks

Pascal Levy-Garboua discusses the future of local commerce and the workforce in the opening remarks of the conference. Read more here.

Fireside Chat

Paige Bennett distills insights from Shervin Pishevar’s conversation with Semil Shah and concludes that true grit is the the key to being a successful on-demand entrepreneur. Read more here.

New Business Models

Daniel Lee summarizes insights from the founders of Instacart, BloomThat, Classpass, and Alfred. Read more here.

Customer experience and brands

Wing Poon investigates insights from the founders and execs of Luxe, DoorDash, Sprig, and Lyft about what it takes to build an awesome customer experience and how to scale it to new markets. Read more here.

On-Demand, B2B

Sonia Bhasin summarizes both the obstacles and keys to success of building B2B on-demand companies, per founders from Caviar, Directly, and Managed by Q. Read more here.

Growth

Logan Johnston documents a wide-ranging conversation on growth with founders and execs of Lob, DoctorOnDemand, and Uber. Read more here.

City Expansion

Amy Hong parlays insights from founders and execs of Zirx, Munchery, and Shyp into 3 key takeaways: stay focused, ignore competition, and hire a great team. Read more here.

Below the API Divide

Michelle Marguth recounts the tension between classifying workers as 1099 vs. w-2 in her write-up of the panel featuring the founders of Shuddle, Managed by Q, and Playbook HR. Read more here.

Building Blocks for On-Demand

Megan Telles summarizes ideas from the execs of Sinch, OnFleet, Checkr, and Postmates, including this key takeaway: if a key business need is outside the core competency of your business, outsource it. Read more here.

Investing

Daniel Licht documents a broad set of insights from key investors in the on-demand sector, including partners from RRE, Homebrew, Greylock, and Trinity. Read more here.