Doordash in YC Demo Day: Pitch Breakdown

When creating a business pitch, the best source of inspiration is to look at successful examples to understand what works. A well-known success story that serves as such an example is DoorDash's pitch at Y Combinator's Demo Day, which helped them secure significant initial funding and pave the way for the food delivery industry as we know it today.

DoorDash, founded by Stanford students Tony Xu, Stanley Tang, Andy Fang, and Evan Moore, presented their (back then) innovative food delivery concept at Y Combinator's Demo Day. In the high-stakes world of startup pitches, Y Combinator's Demo Day stands as a pivotal moment for emerging companies. Here, promising startups like Airbnb, Brex, Dropbox, and, of course, Doordash are honed through YC's intensive program to then present their ideas to a room full of potential investors, hoping to secure the funding that could catapult their business to success.

DoorDash’s initial 2013 pitch, presented by CEO Tony Xu, helped them secure $120,000 in funding from Y Combinator. The founders’ efforts paid off. Following their Demo Day pitch, DoorDash raised $2.4 million in their seed funding round, led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Charles River Ventures, SV Angel, and Y Combinator's Paul Buchheit, among others. This initial funding round propelled DoorDash from a small Palo Alto-based startup to what would eventually become a major player in the food delivery industry.

We’ve added all the original slides in this article and a redesigned version of the entire pitch using our Slidebean pitch deck templates. Read on as we’ll tear down each slide—looking at what made their business pitch effective and how it can serve as a business pitch example for aspiring entrepreneurs.

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DoorDash Pitch Deck Outline:

1.    Cover

2.    Problem

3.    Solution

4.    Traction and Growth

5.    Market Opportunity (Target Market)

6.    Product

7.    Competitive Advantage

8.    Future Vision

Let's go slide by slide:

1. Cover Slide

A pitch deck’s cover slide is crucial for making a strong first impression and raising capital. It should clearly state the company name and a brief tagline encapsulating the core value proposition.

In the case of DoorDash, the pitch begins with a brief introduction: "Hi, We’re DoorDash, and we enable every restaurant to deliver." The cover slide features the DoorDash logo and the company’s mission, which serve as a concise : to compare average delivery times when using DoorDash in Palo Alto  pitch that immediately states who they are and what they do.

2. Problem Slide

Now, let’s look at their problem slide—a critical slide as it establishes the need for a company’s product or service. Your problem slide should resonate with the audience and make them understand the pain point you're addressing. Looking at the 2013 YC pitch video on YouTube, Tony Xu, CEO, doesn’t identify a “problem” visually. Instead, this initial slide features three columns labeled lead gen, courier, and integrated.

These columns represent the two existing food delivery methods. In his pitch, Xu mentions Seamless and GrubHub, food delivery services that aggregate menus but don’t actually do the delivering, and courier services like Task and Postmates. Courier platforms like Task and Postmates don’t partner directly with merchants and only dispatch people to pick up takeout orders on someone’s behalf. Hence, they’re slower and structurally more expensive.

This is where Xu begins to introduce DoorDash as the solution. Just after Xu outlines the problem with existing food delivery systems, he says: “This means the market is underserved because over 70% of the United States live in areas where restaurants don't deliver.” Put simply, DoorDash challenged the assumption that food delivery was a solved problem. This effectively highlighted the lack of delivery options in suburban areas and how DoorDash solves food delivery pain points.

3. Solution Slide

This slide should clearly articulate how your product or service solves your identified problem. It needs to be concise, compelling, and easy to understand. In the case of DoorDash, Xu succinctly explained the company’s solution for potential customers and restaurants. This slide has an obvious point and purpose: to compare average delivery times when using DoorDash in Palo Alto to similar cities. For customers, the solution is clear: using DoorDash in Palo Alto cut average delivery times by 24 minutes.

Xu goes on to clearly explain how DoorDash’s ordering process works from a tech and logistics perspective. When an order is made in the system, it gets placed immediately on an iPad installed at a restaurant. From a driver’s perspective, DoorDash is also the solution. DoorDash’s proprietary logistics software made it incredibly simple for any driver to join the Dasher network.

DoorDash's value proposition, as presented in their solution, is clear, concise, and effectively communicates benefits for both sides of their marketplace. They convey the essence of their service and its key differentiators in a brief statement, which is crucial for maintaining audience engagement during a pitch.

4. Traction and Growth Slide

This is where we get into proof of concept (POC). The next slide is equally as straightforward. This slide contains a graph highlighting DoorDash’s week-over-week growth of 31%.

When showcasing your business model, its momentum, and its product-market fit, your goal is to demonstrate that your solution works and has gained market acceptance. This is crucial for proving viability and potential to investors. In the case of DoorDash, they provided specific metrics on delivery times, week-over-week growth, and $1.5 million in annualized sales, which strongly support their case.

5. Market Opportunity Slide

What DoorDash doesn’t have in their YC Demo Day pitch is a market opportunity slide. Typically, this type of slide shows the potential scale of your business model. Potential investors want to see that there's a large enough target market to support significant growth. 

In the case of DoorDash, while Xu does not explicitly mention a dollar figure, he does imply there’s a large market to tap into by noting that 70% of the US lives in areas underserved by food delivery. DoorDash's use of this statistic effectively communicates its market opportunity. It succinctly conveys the scale of the problem they're addressing and the potential for their solution. The simplicity and surprising nature of the statistic make it memorable, while its national scope positions DoorDash as a potentially large-scale operation.

8. Future Vision Slide

A final slide, or a slide that speaks to where your business is headed, shows investors the long-term potential of your company. It should inspire confidence in your ability to grow beyond your current offering. By comparing themselves to "FedEx of today" for on-demand local deliveries, the DoorDash founders painted a picture of expansion beyond food delivery.

Lessons for Creating a Strong Business Pitch:

DoorDash's pitch exemplifies several crucial elements of a compelling business presentation. They masterfully articulated a clear problem-solution statement, demonstrating their understanding of the market gap and how their service addresses it.

The strength of DoorDash's pitch lies in its strategic use of specific, impressive metrics to demonstrate traction. By sharing data on their delivery times, week-over-week growth, and annualized sales for restaurants, they provided concrete evidence of their model's viability and growth potential. This use of hard data is crucial in building credibility with investors and proving that the business is not just a concept but a working model with demonstrable success. 

Furthermore, DoorDash effectively highlighted its competitive advantages, particularly its unique position as the only company managing both logistics and merchant partnerships. They also showcased their ability to succeed in challenging conditions by emphasizing their success in suburban areas, traditionally more difficult for delivery services than urban centers. This differentiation is critical in a crowded market, helping to set DoorDash apart from potential competitors.

To create a strong business pitch, entrepreneurs should focus on these elements:

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1. Clearly define the problem and your solution, ensuring they resonate with your audience.

2. Use specific, impressive metrics to demonstrate traction and validate your business model.

3. Clearly articulate your competitive advantages and what sets you apart in the market. 

4. Show how you can succeed in challenging conditions or underserved markets.

5. Present a compelling vision for the future that extends beyond your current offering.

DoorDash's pitch excelled in these areas, particularly their presentation of market opportunity and current traction. However, every pitch can be improved. In DoorDash's case, they could have provided more detail on their specific technology or operational processes that enable their efficient service. Additionally, while hinting at future expansion beyond food delivery, they could have elaborated more on this vision to excite investors about the company's long-term potential.

Conclusion

Ultimately, a strong business pitch should tell a compelling story explaining what the company does, why it matters, how it succeeds, and where it's going. It should keep investors informed and excited about the business's potential. DoorDash's pitch, with its clear problem-solution statement, impressive metrics, and vision for the future, largely accomplished this goal, setting a strong example for other entrepreneurs to follow and making it a success story.

In DoorDash's case, the verbal pitch effectively covers most key areas typically found in a pitch deck. It presents an apparent problem, offers a compelling solution, demonstrates traction with specific metrics, hints at a significant market opportunity, describes the product, and concludes with a vision for future growth.

Each of these sections plays a vital role in crafting a compelling narrative for investors:

• The Problem and Solution slides establish the "why" behind your business.
• Traction and Growth prove that your solution works and is gaining acceptance.
• Market Size shows the potential scale of your business.
• The Product slide demonstrates how you're addressing the problem in a unique or compelling way.
• Future Vision inspires confidence in long-term growth potential.

Together, these elements create a comprehensive story that answers investors' vital questions: What problem are you solving? How are you solving it? Is there proof it works? How big can this get? What makes your approach unique? Where can this go in the future?

Even without visual slides, their concise, verbal pitch touched on all these key areas, creating a compelling case for their business.

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