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Will Shu

Co-Founder and former CEO, Deliveroo · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutiveanalyst@WillShuRoo ↗deliveroo.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

He co-founded the British food and grocery delivery company Deliveroo in 2013 alongside Greg Orlowski, serving as its first courier. He directed the business through its 2021 London Stock Exchange IPO and global expansion until its acquisition by DoorDash.

23statements → 10claims → 6claims resolved → 67%fully supported → 4.17/5average certainty → 1.52/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 27said about them ↓

4 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted 4 not checkable as stated how the 10 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 8 assertions · 1 opinion · 5 insights · 7 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 10 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 6 are resolved, and 4 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Will argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Will Shu: Over 50% of Deliveroo riders work on multiple platforms
“Over 50% of our riders work on multiple platforms.”
Will Shu Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 18:13 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
83% certainty 4
75% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

256 words/min while actually speaking · 1.4 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Will Shu: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 28 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 6,418 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Will Shu is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 2/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 3/10
setup questions received 60%

Everything Will Shu said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Supported
Will Shu: Over 50% of Deliveroo riders work on multiple platforms
“Over 50% of our riders work on multiple platforms.”
Will Shu Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 18:13 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Opinion
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 Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 23:54 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Disclosure
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…”
Will Shu Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 27:29 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Prediction Not checkable as stated
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.”
Will Shu Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 6:20 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Insight
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 Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 11:39 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Assertion Supported
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.”
Will Shu Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 12:56 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Insight
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 Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 16:29 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Insight
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 Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 17:28 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Insight
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…”
Will Shu Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 24:54 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Disclosure
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.”
Will Shu Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 28:03 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Disclosure
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 Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 29:44 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Insight
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.”
Will Shu Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 31:03 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Prediction Partly held up
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 Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 6:15 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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 Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 6:52 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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 Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 7:33 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Disclosure
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 Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 8:08 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Assertion Partly supported
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 Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 8:33 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Assertion Supported
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.”
Will Shu Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 20:33 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Disclosure
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 Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 23:43 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Assertion Supported
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?”
Will Shu Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 29:12 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Disclosure
Shu: Deliveroo CEO still completes rider deliveries every few weeks
“I was a delivery writer for a year every day. I do the job, you know, every few weeks now. I just did it in Paris last week when I was there.”
Will Shu Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 36:20 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Disclosure
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.”
Will Shu Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 16:12 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Will Shu first attempted to launch Deliveroo in 2008
“And I actually tried starting the business in oh eight.”
Will Shu Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 4:14 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats

The other half of the tape: Will Shu's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 24 times in 8 episodes on 20VC. 3 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Hussein Kanji 10Fred Destin 7Martin Mignot 3Luciana Lixandru 1James Cameron 1Harry Stebbings 1Emil Michael 1

Statements about Will Shu, by other people (3)

Opinion
Accel would back Deliveroo founder Will Shu on virtually any idea
“Will Shue over at Deliveroo. I mean, the guy could get anything off the ground. I think it's just a level of ambition and sheer bloody mindedness that makes you want to back him no matter what company. He could come in with Facebook for dogs and I think we'd p…”
James Cameron Jan 20, 2016 ▶ 25:07 20VC: James Cameron @ Accel on Building Great Startup Communities and The Rise of Enterprise and Cyber Security Software
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kanji: Deliveroo grew 5-7% week-on-week prior to Hoxton's seed check
“And the, and he was growing five, seven percent, week on week.”
Hussein Kanji Jan 20, 2025 ▶ 12:39 Hussein Kanji, Founder @Hoxton Ventures: Why AI Means London Can Compete with the US | E1248 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
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.”
Harry Stebbings Oct 25, 2021 ▶ 0:19 20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Fierce Competition with Uber Eats

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
00821532016201720182019202020212022202320242025episodesmentions
0232016201720182019202020212022202320242025episodes it came up in
002.51.5532016201720182019202020212022202320242025episodesmentions per episode
2025 14 mentions in 3 episodes 5 per episode
2022 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2019 3 mentions in 1 episode
2016 5 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Deliveroo Founder Will Shu on The IPO This Year, The Rise of Quick Commerce and The Oct 25, 2021 27m
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