GrubHub: 7 delicious tips which turned two programmer’s $140 side gig into $3 billion

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Hey rebel solopreneurs 🦸‍♂️🦸‍♀️

Convinced that successful business builders have some secret superpower you're missing?

That voice whispers every time you see entrepreneurs who seem to have it all figured out while you're still googling "how to start a business."

Mike Evans and Matt Maloney felt exactly the same way - two regular web developers who had zero business superpowers when they started GrubHub as a side project.

So how exactly do you go from being ordinary programmers to building a $3 billion empire?

🍹 The humble beginnings...

Mike Evans and Matt Maloney were just regular web developers working at Classified Ventures in Chicago.

Their company owned Apartments.com, HomeFinder.com, and Cars.com - pretty standard stuff for two programmers.

They spent their days building geographic lookup searches for rental real estate websites.

Nothing glamorous, nothing revolutionary - just solid coding work that paid the bills.

Mike lived in a typical Chicago apartment, taking the crowded 151 bus home after long days at the office.

Matt was his colleague and friend, someone he could grab beers with after work.

They were the kind of guys who'd meet at Moody's Pub to unwind over burgers and fries.

Both had the technical skills to build websites, but zero experience in sales, marketing, or running a business.

Neither had dreams of becoming entrepreneurs - they were just trying to solve their own annoying daily problems.

The restaurant delivery situation in Chicago was a complete mess, and they were both tired of the hassle.

But sometimes the most ordinary people stumble onto the most extraordinary opportunities.

One cold winter night changed everything for Mike...

🧠 The napkin business plan

Mike was stuck on that late, packed 151 bus after an exhausting day at work.

When he finally got home, he realized he was too tired to cook and needed food delivered.

He cracked open the massive yellow pages book and started calling restaurants.

Seven phone calls later, he finally found one restaurant willing to deliver to his address.

But here's the thing - how do you protect yourself when bigger players could crush you overnight?

🛡️ The crazy moat approach

Mike knew Google could become a competitor, but he had one key insight.

Google wouldn't wanna call 20,000 restaurants because "they don't like calling people."

He realized no investor would hire people to manually collect restaurant data when they could just invest in motivated entrepreneurs like him.

The secret? Doing the grunt work that nobody else wanted to do.

This led to an even bigger challenge - how do you actually get customers when you've got zero credibility?

📞 The door-to-door revelation

Here's the crazy part - Mike bought "Sales for Dummies" because he was a programmer, not a salesman.

The book taught him to enter restaurants through the back door (kitchen) to reach the owner, not the front door.

He walked door-to-door, often promising features that didn't exist yet, then coding them frantically at night.

When a restaurant owner asked for a complete CRM system, Mike said yes - even though it didn't exist!

But wait - this created an impossible workload that nearly broke him...

⏰ The two-month ultimatum

Mike's advisor told him to quit his job and focus full-time on GrubHub.

Mike made himself a deal: if he couldn't support himself within two months, he'd quit the business.

The first month he made only $140, but this motivated him to focus only on revenue-generating activities.

He followed a strict routine: sell from 1-5pm, code from 7pm-1am, seven days a week for six months.

Can you imagine?

This extreme focus revealed something surprising about taking advice...

🎯 The stubborn founder lesson

Get this - Mike used to be super argumentative when people gave him advice.

One time, when he started arguing with an advisor, the advisor knocked him upside the head and told him to knock it off.

That's when Mike painfully realized he was being way too stubborn about listening to good advice from others.

From then on, he made an effort to listen to users and advisors, even when he disagreed.

But even with better listening skills, they hit a revenue model problem...

💡 The subscription pivot

Initially, GrubHub charged restaurants monthly subscription fees.

But here's the catch - this wasn't something that could grow easily.

To increase revenue, they needed more restaurants, not more orders.

They switched to charging per order instead of per month.

Bingo! Now as more customers used the platform, revenue automatically grew without signing up new restaurants.

This change unlocked something that surprised everyone...

🚀 The repeat business engine

Mike says making the first dollar was hard, but the second dollar from the same customer changed everything.

Getting repeat business cost a fraction of acquiring new customers but generated the same revenue.

They focused obsessively on getting both restaurants and diners to come back.

This repeat business model became their "supercharged engine for growth."

Smart, right?

💰 The epic win

By 2013, GrubHub was generating $137 million in revenue and serving over 30,000 restaurants.

They merged with competitor Seamless instead of fighting them.

In April 2014, GrubHub went public at $26 per share and closed the first day at $36.

The IPO valued the company at over $3 billion.

🥂 Your turn to crush it!

That's it, my fellow rebels!

Mike and Matt's transformation proves that you don't need special entrepreneurial superpowers to build something massive.

Your "ordinary" skills and willingness to do the work that others won't do is actually your secret weapon.

I'm betting you're gonna surprise yourself with what you're capable of building.

Keep rocking! 🚀🍦

Yours 'anti-stress-enjoy-life-while building a biz' vijay peduru 🦸‍♂️