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Tony XU immigrated with his parents from China to the United States when he was 5 years old. His parents wanted to do the American dream and worked very hard to put food on the table. Tony learned during his time at Stanford by asking local merchants in the San francisco Bay area what they needed to grow their business and were surprised to find out that the merchants were experiencing problems with delivery. Tony also wanted to enrich the communities in which he operated.
Tony realized that if he could make possible the delivery of ice cream before it melts, or pizza before it gets cold, or groceries in an hour, he could make the on-demand delivery of anything within a city a reality. He started with restaurants because of the potential to build the most efficient logistics network with the highest node density.
He also knew that logistics alone would not help physical businesses compete. Doordash is providing a broad array of services that enable merchants to solve mission-critical challenges such as customer acquisition, delivery, insights/analytics, merchandising, payment processing, and customer support. The Membership program called DashPass, where customers can pay a flat monthly delivery fee (today $9.99) for unlimited deliveries from eligible merchants is also revolutionizing the delivery business.
Tony believes that Doordash is inspired by their merchants—by their entrepreneurship, their passion for their craft, their ingenuity, their resilience, and their many contributions to their communities—and the company is committed to helping them grow and thrive as consumer expectations evolve.
He also believes that the value Doordash delivers to merchants, consumers, and Dashers is a key reason why Doordash has become the largest and fastest growing business in the U.S. local food delivery logistics category, with 50% U.S. category share and 58% category share in suburban markets.
According to Tony, Doordash’s expertise in food will help the company scale to other verticals as more and more local businesses beyond restaurants seek to participate in the convenience economy in search of more consumers and continued growth.