#230 Co-founder & CEO, Wolt & Head of DoorDash International, Miki Kuusi: The Next Mountain

55 snips

Feb 17, 2025

Miki Kuusi, co-founder of the successful Finnish delivery startup Wolt and head of international at DoorDash, shares his insights from the tech industry. He discusses the evolution of food delivery services and the competitive landscape, revealing key strategic decisions during Wolt's journey. Miki reflects on his experience running the Slush tech conference and how it served as a school for entrepreneurship. He emphasizes balancing ambition with personal fulfillment, alongside the importance of recruitment and maintaining focus in a rapidly changing market.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Early Innings of the Internet

Miki Kuusi sees the internet as still early in its transformative power.
He believes local commerce will be redefined by bringing offline services online.

ANECDOTE

Wolt's Expansion and Acquisition

Wolt, initially focused on restaurants, expanded to grocery and retail by 2019, driven by COVID.
They were preparing for an IPO when DoorDash acquired them in 2022.

ANECDOTE

Wolt's Underdog Story

Wolt was underfunded compared to competitors, having 100 times less financing at one point.
This constraint forced them to be more efficient with product, technology, and customer experience.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Guest: Miki Kuusi, head of international at Doordash + CEO & co-founder of Wolt + co-founder of Slush tech conference

Before Miki Kuusi launched the Finnish delivery startup Wolt, which DoorDash acquired in 2022, he wasn’t just another startup entrepreneur. From 2011 to 2015, Miki was the CEO of the hugely influential European tech conference Slush, which brings thousands of founders and VCs to Helsinki every winter.

“You could argue that Slush was my university for things leading up to Wolt, and what I do today,” Miki says. “That's where I learned most of the core lessons that I put into action.”

One thing he remembers thinking in those early days: Everything was going to be redefined by the internet.

“I just wanted to get a shot at building one of these services of the next hundred years,” he says. “And that was the driving motivator for me. If the driving motivator had been money, I don't think we would be here today.”

Chapters:

(01:14) - Act 3
(03:36) - Unlocking local commerce
(06:13) - Selling Wolt
(09:27) - The competition
(14:20) - DoorDash’s and Wolt’s origins
(17:50) - “Maybe we’re the idiots in the room”
(22:44) - Difficult years
(25:13) - Startups in Europe vs. U.S.
(28:56) - Learning from DoorDash
(31:51) - Market correction
(35:24) - Delivery around the world
(39:17) - “ Glorified recruiting companies”
(42:31) - Convincing restaurants
(44:11) - Slush
(48:21) - The next mountain
(54:13) - Ambition and concentration
(59:58) - Family and distractions
(01:04:34) - Email overload
(01:07:07) - Time as currency
(01:09:25) - Priorities and onboarding
(01:15:49) - The power of culture
(01:19:32) - Who Wolt and DoorDash are hiring
(01:20:39) - What “grit” means to Miki

Mentioned in this episode: Tony Xu, Uber, Lyft, Uber Eats, Postmates, Delivery Hero, GrubHub, DeepSeek, OpenAI, Anthropic, Kees Koolen and Booking.com, 83North, Supercell, DashPass, Wolt+, Microsoft Excel, Amazon, Parker Conrad and Rippling, Andreeseen Horowitz, Fortnite, WhatsApp, Barry’s Bootcamp, and Slack.

Links:

Connect with Miki

Connect with Joubin

Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm