Cloud Hamburger: What is possible on the internet today
What: MrBeast created a national burger chain via Cloud Kitchens + delivery services (DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc) + their own mobile app. They had so many orders the servers crashed with tens of thousands ordering at the same time. The MrBeast Burger app also hit the top of the AppStore on launch day.
Thoughts:
This is the power of the “cloud” + APIs/services as we start 2021. MrBeast does not own any kitchens, does not employ any cooks, does not deal with suppliers for meat, buns etc. Conceivably — anyone could do this. Yes it would take significant capital to roll out a nationwide chain, and certainly if you wanted the food to be consistently good it would require hiring a real team (it seems MrBeast Burger suffered from quality and consistency problems). And, no your app won’t go to the top of the AppStore on launch day (MrBeast has ~50M followers on YouTube).
This shows what is possible and excites me about the creativity we will get to experience or exhibit as people try all sorts of ideas that had previously been or felt impossible. What we are seeing today certainly builds on the great success of Kylie Jenner and her cosmetics — as well as the many that came before her (who remembers Kim Kardashian’s online shoe startup?) that have shown the value of selling to your audience and hence the importance of building an audience.
Maybe the story you see in MrBeast launching a national burger chain is one of leveraging and monetizing your audience and yes that is part of it I suppose but I think there is much more to unpack.
The product (a burger) is being ordered, cooked and delivered in real time — this is a new level of complexity that has been made “Easy”. Sure, ordering and delivery aren’t new — but this combination of ordering + production (in this case cooking) + real time pick-up and delivery is new in so far as they are all separate systems — in many ways separate APIs that are used by MrBeast to get you his burger.
With this understanding, the next realization is that the MrBeast Burger restaurant concept can be spun up and shut down on demand. This is Cloud Kitchens as a Service. Think Amazon Web Services (AWS) for the physical world. Just as AWS let’s me rent a computer by the minute, MrBeast is showing us that we can “run” a restaurant for a day — without the overhead of renting physical space for a month (or more likely 12+ months), building out a kitchen, hiring staff to cook, hiring drivers to deliver, finding and contracting food suppliers, etc, etc.
If we assume Cloud Kitchens as a Service and ordering happens via an App, now imagine all the new restaurant concepts we will see. Somewhere out there there is an incredible home cook or line cook that has the next great food idea and now their cost in dollars and complexity to try building a restaurant is at least 10x if not 100x lower. If that doesn’t excite you, think about pop-up restaurants for delivery. Over the next year we will see the delivery apps temporarily fill with pop-ups offering special foods for holidays and major events. Thinking back to the last Learnings on subscription food - I think Cloud Kitchens as a Service will empower new food creators to get off the ground and scale. It’s going to be tasty.
Summary:
New level of complexity has been made “easy” - as each component is an API.
Cloud Kitchen as a Service. Spin up a restaurant — just for the day
Cost of experimenting with new restaurant concepts is 10-100X lower
Distribution and Discover of new restaurants is controlled by aggregators (DoorDash, UberEats)
Building an audience (Twitter, Insta, YouTube) is a tried and true method of creating staggering demand - instantly.
Bets on Companies and Technology
I like to bet with friends about when technology will arrive, and how companies will preform. Here is a snapshot of my active bets:
In more legible spreadsheet form here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AR190-gqbMynSyd65MN33Lz_z788nNI6ymlo3a2gCKs/edit?usp=sharing
Each bet is for 1 Burrito.
Would you like to propose a bet? Take the other side of one of the bets listed above? Hit reply to this email or tweet @wasauce. I’m interested to learn and see the world in a new light based on how you think the future will unfold.
A recent related read on long term predictions and implications of technology:
Take a look at the Twitter thread
Modern Hardware: Build a replacement when it breaks
BUILDING A QUAD GAUGE FOR A PORSCHE 914
A few years ago this person built a custom PCB to replace a broken Quad Gauge on their classic Porsche 914. I’m incredibly impressed with this newish capability — that people can now build replacement parts with modern electronics at reasonable cost and a level of difficulty that is surprisingly accessible. This is an example of the power that comes from increasing the accessibility of designing and building PCBs as referenced in a previous episode: https://wferrell.substack.com/p/learnings-for-1182020. My bet continues to be that over the next decade it will become commonplace to design and build custom electronics for your personal needs — consumer electronics built JUST for you.
Read more about the quad gauge build here: https://evanli.com/quad-gauge-for-a-porsche-914/
Another example, with code and everything on GitHub:
Source: https://github.com/Joelzeller/DigitalRaceDashSlim
Unintended Consequences
Microplastic particles have been revealed in the placentas of unborn babies for the first time
Pair that with this article about how roadway water runoff is killing the salmon population due to the chemicals added to rubber tires. Not enough thinking about long term impact of our actions.