The Library of Minds The Untold Story of Building DoorDash
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Oct 16, 2025 Stanley Tang, co-founder of DoorDash and head of DoorDash Labs, discusses his journey from a Stanford class project to a multi-million dollar delivery service. He shares insights on the chaos of startup life and emphasizes the importance of operational excellence over sheer software innovation. Stanley reveals how early tactics, like manual dispatching, fueled growth, and recounts a pivotal moment when preserving reputation meant sacrificing 40% of their cash. He also dives into the future of delivery, exploring robotics and the balance of speed and quality.
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Class Project Became Real Delivery Service
- A class project turned into PaulToDelivery.com after a caller mistakenly used their landing page and they delivered the order themselves on January 12, 2013.
- The founders manually coordinated orders with texts and Google Sheets before DoorDash existed.
Product-Market Fit Before Software
- Early DoorDash prioritized solving a clear customer problem over building software first.
- They realized restaurants lacked delivery capacity and a shared driver pool solved that unmet need.
Scaling By Doing 'Unscalable' Work
- DoorDash literally bought prepaid debit cards and withdrew cash daily to fund drivers' orders in the early days.
- They scaled 'unscalable' work like order-placing to thousands of contractors rather than premature automation.