Oct 25, 2021 · 40m · 20vc
20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
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In this episode of TwentyVC, host Harry Stebbings interviews Deliveroo founder and CEO Will Shu about the journey of building, scaling, and taking public a global food delivery platform. Shu discusses Deliveroo's early bootstrapping roots, algorithmic logistics, competitive battles with Uber Eats, and the expanding horizon of quick commerce.
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 29.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 2.6 Guest teaching 4.3 Guest disagreement 1.9 Harry pushing back 1.9
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 33:00 Will defends quick commerce against host's dismissal
Will directly counters Harry's claim that quick commerce is a graveyard, advising against sitting back and calling venture-funded models stupid when real consumer experience improvements exist.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 32:53 Harry challenges quick commerce unit economicsHarry forcefully refuses Will's open framing on quick commerce, asserting that unit economics per drop are broken and predicting the sector will become a graveyard.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 17:19 Will corrects host's framing on driver drops per hourWill directly educates Harry on operational metrics, explaining that tracking drops per hour is counterproductive because local operating teams easily game it by shrinking delivery radii.
Harry holds his own ▶ 32:53 Harry presses guest on unit economics and operational leverageHarry showcases strong sector expertise by highlighting Deliveroo's existing grocer relationships and pressing Will on why venture-funded quick commerce entrants struggle with per-drop unit economics.
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 Story of Deliveroo | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Harry opens with a warm intro and asks standard origin questions sourced from investor Luciana. Will explains his Wall Street background and the initial spark for Deliveroo in London. | |
| The Strategic Insight Behind Dark Kitchens | 2 | 4 | 0 | 1 | Harry asks about the early vision for dark kitchens and restaurant onboarding. Will educates on marketplace flywheels, supply density, and P&L advantages for delivery-first kitchens. | |
| Bootstrapping and Doing Unscalable Things | 2 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Harry asks if early expansion was deliberate and strategic. Will gently reframes the premise, explaining it was pure capital constraint and manual bootstrapping rather than high strategy. | |
| International Expansion and Early Growth Signals | 3 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Harry inquires how Deliveroo won international markets like France. Will pushes back on the concept of 'winning' any market given low online penetration, while explaining casual dining dynamics in Paris. | |
| Algorithmic Logistics and Rider Optimization | 3 | 6 | 3 | 2 | Harry asks about optimizing driver drops per hour. Will explicitly corrects him, explaining that drops per hour is a flawed metric prone to internal gaming, reframing the focus to rider experience time. | |
| Competing with Uber Eats and Strategic Differentiation | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Harry brings up Uber Eats' aggressive expansion. Will details Uber's competitive advantage with McDonald's but emphasizes that hyperlocal customer execution is what ultimately wins. | |
| Fundraising Without Bankers and Navigating the IPO | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | Harry asks directly how Will misread market sentiment during the IPO. Will defends his long-term orientation while expressing disappointment over negative media reactions post-IPO. | |
| Leadership Evolution as a Public CEO | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | Harry asks about Will's growth as a public company CEO. Will candidly admits he is not a professional CEO and lacks regular formal mentors, reflecting high self-awareness. | |
| The Rise of Quick Commerce and On-Demand Grocery | 5 | 6 | 5 | 6 | Harry challenges the quick commerce boom, calling unit economics unsustainable and predicting a graveyard. Will pushes back against calling venture-backed models stupid, analyzing store-pick vs dark store trade-offs. | |
| Quickfire Round: Books, Misconceptions, and Future Vision | 2 | 4 | 3 | 1 | In the quickfire round, Harry asks about common misconceptions. Will forcefully rejects media narratives surrounding gig economy flexibility, sharing personal experience doing delivery drops. |
Statements from this episode (25)
Deliveroo raised over $1.7 billion prior to its 2021 IPO
“Prior to their IPO earlier this year, Will raised over 1.7 billion dollars for the company from some of the best in the business, including Excel, Index, General Catalyst, Green Oaks and more.”
Will Shu first attempted to launch Deliveroo in 2008
“And I actually tried starting the business in oh eight.”
Will Shu: Deliveroo will continue investing heavily in dark kitchens
“Today, some markets, it's a really big part of our business, and we're going to continue to invest a lot in these kitchens.”
Will Shu predicts dark kitchens will experience huge growth post-COVID
“Because I do think about just the restaurant industry and what's happened during COVID, and it's very clear that this part of it's going to keep growing hugely, and it's beneficial for restaurants.”
Deliveroo launched with only three initial restaurant sign-ups
“So before that, we were setting everything up, and I could only get three restaurants to sign up.”
Will Shu personally signed Deliveroo's first 50 restaurants
“But I signed up every single restaurant up until probably, you know, restaurant number 50, and then I hired a guy called Justin, who's still at the company, and he, him and I worked on that side of things.”
Will Shu self-funded Deliveroo's 2012 launch with 30,000 pounds
“I funded the company myself. It's not like we had any money. It was a very different fundraising environment in 2012. So I had savings, you know, I put in 30,000 dollars or pounds.”
Will Shu personally performed Deliveroo food deliveries for a full year
“I did the most unscalable things. I did deliveries for an entire year. I, you know, signed up every restaurant at nighttime worked on product.”
Will Shu: Food delivery unit economics require hyper-local order density
“What we realized pretty quickly was driving density of orders would actually make the unit economics work pretty quickly, but it's kind of hard to do that all at once, you know, let's say 200 cities, because this is a hyper local marketplace, right?”
Will Shu: European online food delivery penetration remains at just 3%
“Online penetration of food is three to five percent still today. Now, I think the US sort of leapfrogged a lot during COVID, but if you look at Europe, It's still in that, you know, one meal out of 21 a week is online. So I think we're super, super early.”
Deliveroo originally relied on a simple greedy solver dispatch algorithm
“Our algorithm is what you would call initially was a greedy solver, which basically meant it would assign the closest available rider. To an order.”
ML models make delivery platforms far more profitable than greedy solvers
“While a greedy solver can get you maybe initially 70% of the way there, that's fine for a while. Layering on, you know, all of this, you know, additional machinery made it, you know, much more profitable over time.”
Will Shu: Tracking rider drops per hour leads to gamed metrics
“We don't track drops per hour because it's a number that's highly prone to gaming by the teams.”
Will Shu: Over 50% of Deliveroo riders work on multiple platforms
“Over 50% of our riders work on multiple platforms.”
Will Shu: Uber Eats used McDonald's as a global expansion weapon
“They had McDonald's. Right. They had this secret weapon and McDonald's is the world's most famous food brand.”
Deliveroo skipped investment bankers because of Will Shu's finance background
“Look, we didn't use a banker because we never used a banker. I come from finance, so I understand, you know, the concept of a participating preferred, and, you know, I can have a sort of high-level understanding of this stuff.”
Will Shu: Investment bankers are only useful for driving competitive tension
“I think, look, at the end of the day, what is a banker good for? I think bankers are great for running processes. They're great for, you know, driving sort of competitive tension.”
Will Shu: Monitoring short-term stock price makes leaders worse
“I think that, you know, focusing on a share price in the short term is something that's probably inevitable, right? People do it. I certainly do it, right? I'm sure my employees do it. But it actually doesn't help do your job in any way at all. It actually, it…”
Deliveroo CEO Will Shu admits he is not a professional manager
“Practical, tactical elements of management, frankly, are things that you learn at other companies. And we're building this muscle today, but that's one area where I'm like, hey man, there's a million people better at that than me. I'm not a professional CEO, r…”
Deliveroo CEO Will Shu has never had formal mentors or advisors
“I've never developed a sort of regular relationship with someone where you meet them once a week or once a month. The sort of advice has been more ad hoc as needed.”
Deliveroo's 12 markets represent a $1.8 trillion total addressable market
“If you think about the tan of the 12 markets we're in between grocery and restaurant food, it's 1.2 trillion pounds or 1.8 trillion dollars, right?”
Shu: Grocery accounts for over 7% of Deliveroo's business
“Our grocery business, I think we said in our H-one results is over seven percent of our business now, right?”
Will Shu: Dark stores beat supermarket store-pick models on inventory accuracy
“The inventory management side of a small warehouse is a better consumer experience than a store pick model from an inventory standpoint.”