Sep 27, 2021 · 37m · 20vc
20VC: The Rise of Quick Commerce and Why CPGs ARe Misaligned Being Powered By Ad Spend, The 5 Core Components Consumers Care About When Ordering Today & Why Amazon and Alibaba Will Not Be The Big Players in 10 Years with Ralf Wenzel, Founder & CEO @ JOKR
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of 20VC, host Harry Stebbings interviews Ralf Wenzel, founder and CEO of Joker, discussing the evolution of quick commerce, vertical supply chain integration, hyper-local personalization, and why agile platforms will disrupt legacy e-commerce giants like Amazon.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Harry holds 25.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 3.8 Guest teaching 4.9 Guest disagreement 1.8 Harry pushing back 3.1
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 17:08 Rejection of fixed SKU model
Ralf explicitly rejects and opposes competitor strategies like Getir's standardized SKU catalog, arguing that fixed SKU counts represent an outdated retail dilemma.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 4:50 Challenging personalization economicsHarry directly presses Ralf on whether prioritizing personalization and local brands ruins fulfillment efficiency and economics compared to traditional bulk models.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 23:52 Reframing rider drops per hour metricRalf reframes Harry's question about Rappi's drops-per-hour benchmark, explaining why optimizing for drops per hour is the wrong metric and how NPS/CLV actually drive hub profitability.
Harry holds his own ▶ 16:43 Citing Nazim at Getir SKU thresholdsHarry demonstrates deep industry insider knowledge by citing conversations with Getir's founder regarding precise SKU count thresholds (1,000 vs 1,500 vs 2,000).
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Origin of Joker and Shifting Consumer Behavior | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Harry asks about JOKR's founding and gently pushes back on whether offering hyper-personalization and local brands undermines unit economics compared to standardized bulk models. | |
| Reimagining Retail: Vertical Integration and Supply Chain Democratization | 4 | 6 | 2 | 4 | Ralf reframes existing e-commerce as ad-tech businesses built on inefficient supply chains. Harry pushes back on how JOKR replaces lucrative CPG ad revenue streams. | |
| Data-Driven Selection of Micro-Fulfillment Centers | 2 | 5 | 0 | 1 | Ralf details JOKR's data-driven micro-fulfillment strategy using 300m x 300m city hexagons. Harry listens attentively with minimal pushback. | |
| Catalog Management vs. Fixed SKU Counts | 6 | 6 | 4 | 5 | Harry cites Getir's CEO and their 1,500 SKU sweet spot to challenge JOKR's strategy. Ralf explicitly rejects Getir's premise, opposing standardized SKU counts in favor of dynamic neighborhood catalog management. | |
| The Five Core Components Consumers Value Today | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Ralf breaks down the five core pillars of modern quick-commerce consumer demand while Harry moderates politely. | |
| Rider Employment Strategy, Efficiency Metrics, and Hub Profitability | 6 | 6 | 3 | 5 | Harry references Rappi's target metric of four drops per hour to question rider efficiency. Ralf rejects this metric as flawed, explaining how rider employment and NPS drive true retention and profitability. | |
| Customer Acquisition Levers and Private Label Ambitions | 5 | 4 | 1 | 4 | Harry references high CAC and intense competition from players like Zap and Getir in London, playfully calling out the reality of 15-minute delivery promises. | |
| Quickfire Round: Poetry, Talent Battles, and Disruption of Tech Giants | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | In the quickfire round, Ralf makes a bold contrarian claim that Amazon and Alibaba will be disrupted and viewed like Yahoo in ten years. |
Statements from this episode (14)
JOKR has raised over $170M from GGV, Balderton, SoftBank, and Kaszek
“To date, Ralph has raised over a hundred and seventy million dollars for the company, from the likes of GGV, Balderton, Soft SoftBank and Kazak, to name a few.”
Traditional retailers are fundamentally advertising businesses
“Existing commerce companies, both offline and online commerce companies, which are only a differently colored iteration of an advertising business. So whoever e-commerce company that you're looking at, and whoever offline commerce company that you're looking a…”
Wenzel: JOKR achieves higher product margins than marketplace delivery platforms
“We become the supermarket, the wholesaler, the warehouse company, the distribution company, all as part of our company. And hence the profit pool that we have on the actual product margin is significant and significantly higher than with any comparable marketp…”
Amazon and Walmart lose trillions annually in inventory waste
“If you look into the inventory losses and the wastage costs of the likes of Walmart, or even an Amazon, or like normal supermarket chain, it's in the trillions of how much they're losing on a yearly basis of like food and other items that are actually being so…”
JOKR built a custom mapping tool dividing cities into 300-meter hexagons
“So one of the things that we have done was to break down the entire Western world, every single city of the world into 300 times, 300 meter hexagons. And we have developed our own iteration of a Google Maps type of tool”
Wenzel: JOKR opposes fixed SKU limits in favor of individualized catalogs
“So we would contradict and would oppose the strategy of focusing on standardized catalogs because the joker business is Reversing the thinking of a standardized catalog. So for us, it's not focusing on a standard set of SKUs, be it 1001 1500 or 2000 SKUs that …”
Local brands drove 50% of global FMCG growth in 2020
“Last year, for the very first time, 50% of global FMCG growth was driven by local brands as compared to global brands.”
JOKR aims to employ all delivery riders as full-time staff
“We are aiming at employing our riders as Full-time employees. We make them basically part of our team, of our culture, and then an equally valued, basically a team member as they would be on the engineering side, on the marketing side, on the operational side,…”
Wenzel: Drops per hour is the wrong metric for delivery logistics
“Getting a certain drops per hour, which we think is The wrong metric to focus it because you have to focus on whether you make your customers happy and whether you make your team happy.”
JOKR's first delivery neighborhoods turned profitable within six months
“Even though we are only like six months in business, we have the basically first neighborhoods turning profitable now, even though we expected that ourselves to come in significantly later.”
Wenzel: JOKR can be profitable with one order per week per customer
“So I think we can run a profitable business if the customer comes back just once per week, like four times per month.”
Wenzel: JOKR will expand beyond grocery and convenience product categories
“In the future, we will open up to other product categories so that if you're sitting at home or in the office, or if you're at a gathering at an event or wherever you are, you have the ability to order what you need in that particular moment. And it will alway…”
Wenzel: JOKR is doubling down on private label product expansion
“No, private label is a big focus of ours. We're doubling down on our efforts with regards to basically a private label product offering.”
Amazon and Alibaba will lose top e-commerce positions within 10 years
“I think in 10 years from now, Amazon and Alibaba will not be the biggest e-commerce companies anymore. They will get disrupted by other companies, younger companies, more creative, more agile companies, and I think people will look back at Amazon and Alibaba l…”