The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
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Oscar Pierre Faces a Potential Six-Year Prison Sentence Over Glovo's Labor Model
“And unfortunately, the, yeah, the country where we suffer from regulation the most is Spain. I'm not going to go into the details, but it's so extreme that I'm now in a criminal process for so the, yeah, the prosecutor, the general attorney accused me with six…”
Early-Stage European VCs Lack Founder Experience and Add Unproductive Pressure
“Most of the people that I found had never built things. Right. So it was really hard to connect. Even the ones that invested in us. Building a company is such a rollercoaster, right? That if you don't have people that are used to this rollercoaster they add so…”
Subsidized Service Traction Does Not Equal True Product-Market Fit
“So that's not really product market fit because you're delivering a service that people like, but at the price that people don't want to pay.”
On-Demand Delivery Was the Bloodiest VC Battle in Consumer Tech History
“And that's why the 2018 to 2022. I think it was probably the bloodiest VC bat battle of maybe of all consumer history.”
Oscar Pierre Pitched 120 VCs for Glovo's Series B, and All Passed
“I still have the list, a 120 VCs. And that passed not, not, not an email, but an actual call or a meeting.”
Oscar Pierre Launched Glovo in Kenya and Kazakhstan Without Investor Approval
“I had to really convince them or even launch without their approval in countries like Kenya or I don't know, or Kazakhstan, because from the European point of view was like, who's going to order food delivery in Kenya?”
Delivery Giants Can Crush Local Rivals With a €20M to €30M Investment
“Because they have so much scale that they can just go into your home market and destroy your business with maybe like 20, thirty million investment.”
Oscar Pierre Says Softening His Communication at 1,000 Employees Ruined Glovo's Culture
“And that coincided when we got to around a thousand people. And I think I ruined it because I started getting scared of some part of our team reacting to how I said certain things. No, and I started being a bit of a politician.”
Leaders Must Constantly Challenge Team Outputs to Maintain High Company Standards
“When I walk into a meeting, I try to remind myself, okay, my mission here is just to add more velocity and to raise the standards. No, nothing that they will present is going to be fine. No, this is the mentality that any leader has to go into, because if you …”
Glovo Aims to Capture at Least 50% of Spain's Online Grocery Market
“We know that when this two percent of online penetration turns into 20, we can capture at least half of it.”
Glovo Was Burning Nearly €1 Million Per Day Prior to Its Acquisition
“And we started looking at both options IPO-ing with we were still burning almost a million a year, a day, a million a day.”
Building a Hard-Working Culture Requires Finding Thousands, Not Millions, of Dedicated Talent
“If you sustain a hardworking culture, you will keep finding the talent is there. Young talent that wants to work hard. I mean, you don't need to convince a, you know, a million people. That's what I told the team, like when they told me, no, because now, you k…”
Glovo Will Overtake Uber Eats in Portugal Within One Year
“I'd say Portugal, but we, but we're gonna get there in a year. Uber Eats is still ahead because we launched too late, but we're gonna get there.”
Glovo Secured the Largest Delivery Deal in History With McDonald's
“We unlocked the biggest deal of all history for delivery, which was McDonald's.”
Glovo Is Profitable in Very Few Markets as the Number Two Player
“It can work, and we have out of the three markets we have very few where we are number two and are profitable, but it's tough. You need to be a very relevant number two.”
Glovo's GMV Reached Nearly 1% of National GDP in Certain Markets
“Like we were in some markets where our GMV, our gross merchandise value is getting too close to one percent of the GDP of the country, right?”
McDonald's Mandated Global Uber Eats Exclusivity for Delivery in 2018
“The CEO of McDonald's in Chicago sends a message to all the countries and says, Hey, we have to go into delivery and we have one exclusive partner, which is Uber Eats. That was in 2018.”
McDonald's Once Accounted for 70% of Glovo's Order Volume in Spain
“At some point it was very scary because 70% of our volume in Spain was McDonald's, but I was okay because I knew this was just, it was just part of the customer flow.”
Most European VCs Passed on Glovo, Doubting It Could Beat Uber Eats
“All the European VCs or most of them passed on us. Nobody believed in our story, you know, a bunch of kids from Barcelona beating the Deliveros and the Uber Eats of the world who were always like one step ahead in fundraising, right?”
Oscar Pierre Claims Glovo Is the Market Leader in All Operating Markets
“I don't think any large competitor is now bigger than us in, in any of the markets where we operate.”
European Founders Project Less Ambition Than US Peers, but Businesses Compete Equally
“I'd say an average. Yes. When you speak to not only Americans also, I know you go to Tel Aviv, you also feel that that, that, that just feel smaller. And then you look at the business you have and they have not nothing to envy.”
Oscar Pierre Never Turned Down an Investor During Seven Years of Fundraising
“We, in the seven years of fundraising, I could never choose. I never said no to an investor. That's how little optionality I have.”
Glovo's Monthly Burn Rate Reached €30 Million During Its Rapid Expansion Phase
“The burn was really scary, and it kept going up, no? 1520, 30.”
Generous Layoff Severance Is a Vital Investment for Remaining Employee Morale
“It's not only about the people that will be leaving, which they deserve it. It's not their fault that you have to lay off or do a big layoff, but it's even more important for the people that stay because those people that you lay off are their friends and the …”
Acquired Founders Will Usually Stop Building and Leave the Organization
“Of course, when you buy a company, that founder will most probably stop thinking about building and leave.”
Glovo Rejected a €100M Acquisition Offer Despite Half the Board Favoring It
“I think a hundred million. And we had half of the board was in favor of taking it.”
Delivery Hero Acquired Glovo in an All-Stock Transaction Valued at €2.3B
“It was an all stock acquisition for 2.3 billion.”
Exited Entrepreneurs Who Stop Working for Wealth Management Lifestyles Are the Unhappiest
“I think one thing I realized very fast is a correlation between unhappiness and people that had stopped working. So those entrepreneurs that had made a big exit and moved into a wealth management lifestyle were the unhappiest.”
Founders Should Never Assume Pitch Conversations With Venture Capitalists Are Confidential
“I think one thing I realized as a first time founder, when I spoke to VCs back then, I thought I was having a one-on-one conversation. And in reality is like, if you are broadcasting to the entire VC community now, so the amount of chit chatting that happens a…”
Glovo Aims to Generate 5% of Its GMV From High-Margin Advertising Revenue
“We believe in our business out of every 100 euros of GMV, we will be able to generate at least five euros of advertising money, which of course are almost Full margin, right?”
Oscar Pierre Predicts EU Regulatory Burdens Will Not Ease for Future Entrepreneurs
“Generally, I'm very optimistic in life, but I just don't see the incentives so that this trend changes. So in, now, in, in EU and regulations getting easier for the next wave of entrepreneurs, I'm not super optimistic.”
European Founders Do Not Need to Relocate to Silicon Valley to Compete
“No, I strongly disagree. Look, I think from Barcelona where there was very, a very small ecosystem of tech and tech talent, we were able to build top notch technology. I don't think our technology had anything to envy our American competitors. So I fully disag…”
Oscar Pierre Predicts All E-Commerce Will Eventually Feature 30-Minute On-Demand Delivery
“I think that's going to be the future, so everything will be on demand, and everything will be delivered in, in 30 minutes.”
Glovo Raised €100K at a €280K Pre-Money Valuation in Pre-Seed Round
“The first round was valued at 280 K free money, and we raised a hundred K.”
First-Generation Food Delivery Platforms Left Massive City Supply Unlocked
“There was the generation one of food delivery in, in the case of Spain, Barcelona, where we started the business, it was Just Eat that basically had a marketplace where they aggregated restaurants that did the delivery themselves, but there wasn't a marketplac…”
Food Delivery Network Effects Stop at National Borders
“When you cross the border, it doesn't matter how big and how well-known your brand is in Spain. You go to Portugal and you start from zero.”
Glovo's Paris Expansion Failed Due to Launching Years Behind Competitors
“Milan worked really well. Paris didn't work well. And the main reason was because in Paris we were late. No, we were launching maybe like two or three years after Deliveroo and Uber Eats launched. So we never gained the scale and the leadership to be a sustain…”
Launching Glovo's Operations in Tunisia Cost Between €5M and €10M
“So in the case of Tunisia, maybe I'd say between five and ten million.”
Glovo Achieves Lowest Cost to Serve by Building the Largest City Fleet
“We very fast, we become the largest logistics fleet in any city where we operate. That means that we have the cheapest cost to serve to move something from point A to point B.”
Delivery Delay Trade-Offs Must Be Calculated Against Customer Lifetime Value
“Yeah, it's an optimization game. Like it's all about lifetime value and understanding very well how every minute of delay is going to impact the lifetime value or the retention of that customer for the next order. We try to measure this all the time. It's the …”
Rakuten's Hiroshi Mikitani Led Glovo's Series A After Chance FC Barcelona Meeting
“When there were no VCs left to pitch to, Glovo was saved because I was in a, I was in an event of the FCB, Football Club Barcelona, whose sponsor back then was Rakuten. Rakuten is the Amazon of Japan. And Mikitani was, which is the founder, he was there in the…”
Glovo Had Only Three Weeks of Cash Left During McDonald's Deal Negotiations
“Like these contracts take time and I have three weeks left of cash.”
Spanish Startups Have a Natural Competitive Advantage Expanding Into Latin America
“I think Spaniards entrepreneurs, it's a small secret we have there, but it's actually pretty natural for us to expand into LATAM, which is a massive market, right? There's a cultural and language thing there, right?”
Courier Acquisition Is a Small Expense for Food Delivery Compared to Ride-Hailing
“Courier acquisition is, is it's not a huge line in the P&L in our business compared to ride hailing. It's fairly cheap.”
Traditional TV Advertising Drives Significant Customer Acquisition and Downloads for Glovo
“We use a lot, believe it or not, we use a lot of TV on top of online media, but TV has worked very well for us to drive a lot of downloads and new customers.”
Labor-to-AOV Ratio Matters More Than Absolute AOV in Food Delivery Economics
“More than the AOVs is the ratio between cost of labor and AOVs, which matters a lot.”