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Comment by getbreadbox | Hacker News Reader

Hi everyone!

Thank you all so much for your interest in this!

The spike in interest from HN has been totally overwhelming, so while we are thrilled with the validation of this concept, we are running out of stock and falling behind on delivery schedule.

I'll be sure to reach out individually to everyone who submitted an order.

We can't wait to launch this service in a way that can handle demand spikes like this -- thank you all for yor support.

Edit: for reference, we've had orders for 150 loaves of bread in 2 hours.

View on HN

So you achieved your goal right? Historically bakeries are very 'spikey' in their demand, a friend of mine runs one and they spend 3AM to 6AM making donuts and bagels which they sell out of between 6AM and 7:15AM, and then sell maybe a handful or two for the rest of the day.

Given the complexities of bread, it would interesting to hear a post mortem about ways you might both account for spikes without compromising delivery times, delivery scheduling to make maximum use of delivery resources, and even recipe variations to support those goals.

There is a donut place in Berkeley that works very similar to that. The reason for them is that there are a lot of large-scale orders that want the donuts for breakfast (e.g. the school dining facilities).

150 tiny orders is like cutting down a forest with a herring. Catering events is where the real cash is at. Large universities like Stanford operate like cities with 100s of autonomous departments free to choose whichever vendor/s they like.

That's an interesting logistic problem I hadn't even thought of. I bake a lot of bread (today's was buttermilk chile cheddar) and it can be very uncooperative and unpredictable, unlike cakes and other pastry.

I understand that in a production environment they will be more process driven than my own kitchen, but I wonder what the timing variation is in the typical small commercial bakery. i.e., from start of mixing to fresh bread out the oven, how repeatable is the time to completion?

I wouldn't consider this validation of the idea. It is just a bunch of people in SF that don't care about five bucks.

We eat a lot of bread in my house. I would love a few loafs delivered every other day for a reasonable rate like how they deliver my newspaper.

They sell bread. They got 150 orders in 2 hours. Their idea was validated.

Was the idea really validated? Is their business model "get on the front page of HN daily"? If not, absolutely nothing was validated.

They didn't just get a lot of people to their page. They also got a large chunk of their visitors to pay them. The first part might not be sustainable - and it seems they weren't planning for it to be as this was a one time offer - but it definitely validated something, and also put them in touch with a lot of customers.

It depends what net profit % was.

Businesses that lose money on every sale are not survivable.

They need to track all of their costs and see if it's going to be remotely profitable.

Actually in the modern business world, as long as you're growing, you're survivable. Cash influxes (loans, investment) can support a business for years - Amazon did it. You just need to convince investors that you have a story.

That's an anecdotal example. Amazon is different in that Bezos has enough room to dial back reinvestment and generate more cash or turn up reinvestment to reduce apparent profit.

Profit doesn't just magically appear, costs and pricing have to eventually face reality. Sooner, the better.

Spending more money does not necessarily make a business any better. That's like these noob business people that buy stock before they sell any of it... An example of a horrible waste of cash.

Without profit, it's not a business, it's an idea-guy dream.

No that's just an 'example'. Many startups fit this model. I'm in one that's in the 5th year, still growing, still with financial backing. Many are in this mode until bought out (or of course until they fail).

But what about the stuff you are putting onto your bread? Unless you also have a delivery service for groceries, you'd still have to go to the store.

http://getbreadbox.com

> Beyond bread, we offer a rotating selection of coffees, cheeses, cured meats, oils and vinegars and more. Each is locally produced and carefully selected.

"so while we are thrilled with the validation of this concept"

When you say "validating the concept" what do you mean? That if you get a high amount of orders you can deliver?

Because obviously you can't depend on getting placement on HN or equivalent to drive business. And the cost of customer acquisition could kill your model assuming the price point stays the same.

Cool - was wondering why there was no text confirmation in over 30 mins, this explains it. Must not be an automated process.

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