Instacart, a San Francisco based startup, was founded by Apoorva Mehta. He personally found grocery shopping to be extremely tedious and painful. Practically every product but groceries could be shopped online back then. He wanted to change that, and coded an app and Instacart was born.
Apoorva was keen on expanding the business and wanted to get into Y-Combinator. He was willing to do anything to get into it. But unfortunately, he had missed the deadline by 2 months, that’s 60 days. It wasn’t poor planning or procrastination, the deadline had passed by the time he learned about it.
Being determined, he came up with a master plan to circumvent the problem. He believed if the Y-Combinator partners witnessed his product and service first-hand, they will love it and let him in. While it was just an hypothesis, it had to be put to test.
Apoorva managed to gather emails of all the partners and insisted them on letting him in. All except one of the partners, Garry Tan, insisted on allowing a late application. This boosted Apoorva’s hope. He used the app to order 6 pack beer for Garry and got one of his drivers to deliver it to Garry’s place. Within half hour, he received a call from Garry asking, “What is this?”. Apoorva responded, “this is Instacart”. Garry was taken by surprise. He asked him to come to Y-Combinator the next day and explain Instacart in detail. Apoorva met with four partners, the meeting lasted for an hour and concluded with “We will call you if you get in”. Within 10 minutes, he received a call from Y-Combinator and they asked him to join immediately. Brilliant, isn’t it?
Apoorva’s startup idea became successful within a year of its inception. Instacart was pioneer in the online grocery shopping space which made it stand apart and perhaps the reason behind its Instant Success? Would I be completely off-base to compare Instacart as ‘Uber’ equivalent of grocery shopping? There are no additional grocery warehouses, no official vans bought for deliveries. In fact, groceries came directly from the retailers, and the company hired people with their own vehicles to do deliveries. Both Instacart and the retailers benefitted from the shared economy model without spending money on physical resources.
If nothing else, Apoorva’s story of resilience teaches is to give it a shot, no matter how slim the chances are. Better yet, never stop looking for a chance. If he had assumed the Y Combinator deadline and won’t be able to get in, he would not have been proved right. The hustle and determination to participate in Y-Combinator helped him further set roots for his company. Apoorva approximately owns 10% stake in his company, valued at USD 39 billion. Thus, making him a member of the three comma club.
You cannot swim for new horizons until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.
― William Faulkner
Sources:
https://techcrunch.com/2012/08/18/how-instacart-hacked-yc/
https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/468
https://blog.ycombinator.com/qa-with-apoorva-mehta-founder-ceo-instacart/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkmR7TYUt_c
http://www.yourtechstory.com/2019/08/29/apoorva-mehta-founder-instacart-uber-grocery/
