Deliveroo’s Australian launch killed Danny Burrito but helped inspire Cookitoo

The arrival of Deliveroo in Australia changed the way many inner-city consumers look at food delivery for the better – for James Jordan, it meant the swift demise of the startup he had spent months bringing to life.

The idea for Danny Burrito was simple – burritos delivered on-demand, combining a couple of areas Jordan felt he knew well: he was working at a Mexican restaurant at the time, had experience as a bicycle courier, and was a frequently disappointed user of other food delivery services himself.

“I was ordering food through Menulog once a week, and it was just the worst experience; you would order and then hope it showed up within an hour and a half. You never knew when it was going to turn up, then it would always turns up in a soggy plastic bag, and it made you feel like you’re lucky to even have food, and as a customer that’s not really the best experience,” he said.

Jordan felt there were two core issues with the existing process. On the restaurant side, he saw that delivery was simply an add-on revenue stream for many, coming as a second priority to their primary focus on sit-in diners, while there were also inefficiencies in the delivery model as no one at the time was optimising their couriers’ time and routes.

The third piece of the puzzle was finding the first cuisine to work with that would avoid the soggy plastic bag trap.

“Working at the Mexican restaurant in Newtown and living in Bondi at the time, I’d get a free burrito after work, put it in my backpack and ride to Bondi. I’d be eating the burrito at home half an hour later and it tasted absolutely fine, or even better than when it was fresh.”

Jordan set up a Pozible campaign in late 2015 to facilitate the development of Danny Burrito and build excitement around its launch. Read more

Gina Baldassare - Startup Daily - 4 Aug 2017