Rafael Ilishayev
Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Gopuff. On 1 show, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveinvestor@Rafaelilishayev ↗gopuff.com ↗
In 2013, Rafael Ilishayev co-founded Gopuff with Yakir Gola while studying at Drexel University. Serving as Co-CEO, he has led the instant delivery company's expansion across hundreds of cities and raised billions in venture funding.
1shows
2appearances
55statements
14resolved
7supported
4contradicted
50%fully supported
7said about them ↓ Everything Rafael Ilishayev said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Ilishayev: GoPuff will be a multi-hundred billion dollar business by 2026
“And I think this business over the next five years is a multi-hundred billion dollar business.”
Ilishayev: GoPuff will achieve full company profitability by 2024
“That balance for us at least meant that we're profitable in 20, 24.”
Ilishayev: 10-to-15 minute delivery is not a sustainable business model
“In the U.K., the consumer was almost taught that 10 or 15 minute delivery is a norm. Maybe in somewhat, in New York, that was the case too. And that's not a sustainable business model. Any stretch of the imagination.”
Ilishayev: Capital markets will crush grow-at-all-costs delivery startups within three quarters
“Or you said, Hey, I want to grow at all costs. I want to expense as many cities as I can. And we'll figure out our distributors later. We'll figure our vendor relations later. We'll figure out our technology inside of the four walls and routing, binning and ba…”
Unprofitable startups ignoring cash flow will fail within 18 months
“Any company in any space that's not thinking about profitability right now and is not focused on profitability, there's a higher chance they're not that the, these companies will probably not exist in the next year or year and a half.”
Ilishayev: GoPuff operates markets generating $8 to $9 profit per order
“We have markets that are doing eight or nine dollars positive on a per order basis.”
Ilishayev: Vertical integration is essential for viable instant-delivery unit economics
“The only way to effectively solve this problem for both consumers, which is first and foremost, and then ultimately unit economics, is by vertically integrating. So owning the entire experience end-to-end, owning the micro-fulfillment centers, the inventory, a…”
Ilishayev: GoPuff was EBITDA profitable from day one without external funding
“We didn't raise money for our first two and a half years. Day one, the business was producing EBITDA. It was profitable from day one”
Ilishayev: Competitors' scale-first instant delivery strategies were fundamentally flawed
“Pretty much everyone else in the instant need space from across the globe had the opposite strategy. You know, all we need to do is open up a whole host of buildings. We'll figure out the tech later. We'll figure out the operational excellence later. We don't …”
Ilishayev: GoPuff achieves gross margins in the high 30s to low 40s
“We have gross margin in the high thirties, low forties, depending on the region that you're in.”
Ilishayev: GoPuff fulfillment center payback period dropped to just three months
“In the beginning, right. It took maybe a year or a year and a half for a building to recoup its investment. And now it's some buildings you open up and three months later, where you recouped all your fixed costs, right?”
GoPuff created a financial plan requiring no additional outside capital
“We built a new financial model that's completely self-funded. Right. One that doesn't require any more outside capital.”
Ilishayev: GoPuff will not add hundreds of warehouses over the next 18 months
“We're not going to add a, you know, fleet of hundreds of more buildings in the next 18 months, right? We'll strategically open buildings where it makes sense, but we're not going to be opening up buildings like we were opening up buildings in the last 18 month…”
Ilishayev: Delivery customers value consistency over raw speed
“People don't necessarily want a really fast delivery. They want a really consistent delivery. So they read that really have like a 30 minute average with, you know, a seven, eight minute deviation, then like a 20 minute average with a 15 minute deviation, righ…”
Ilishayev: High driver order density reduces variable delivery costs by 50%
“You know, in a market that has a high ODH, the amount of orders a driver could fulfill an hour, versus a market that has a weak ODH, the cost difference on the variable cost side could be as high as 50%.”
Ilishayev: GoPuff loses only 2% to 3% of customers after third order
“If you look at, you know, order three, customers that made it over three and you look at the retention cohorts over the next 12 months, we're losing like low double, low single digit percent of our customers, like two, three percent.”
Ilishayev: GoPuff controls 70% of the New York City instant needs market
“We own 70% of the instant needs market in New York right now.”
Ilishayev: Unannounced GoPuff business line could eventually match core retail app
“I think that business one day can be as large as our retail business or as large as large as, you know, GoPub as it exists today, right? The GoPub app.”
Ilishayev: GoPuff gross margins grew from high 30s to high 40s
“When we started this business, the blended gross margin was in the high thirties, right? It's Now in the high forties and growing and the contribution margin is double digit positive.”
Ilishayev: GoPuff has grown triple digits annually for eight consecutive years
“We've been able to scale triple digits year over year for the last eight years consistently”
Ilishayev: GoPuff opens 30 micro-fulfillment centers per month and is accelerating
“We're opening up 30 of these a month and accelerating even more.”
Ilishayev: 100% of GoPuff mature markets are profitable and cash-flow positive
“A hundred percent of our comp markets that are profitable. They're producing cash flow.”
Ilishayev: GoPuff will invest hundreds of millions into European expansion
“So we'll be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the European market.”
The other half of the tape: Rafael Ilishayev's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 7 times in 3 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 6Emil Michael 1
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 7
2022 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
- Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 20VC: Chris Sacca, Chamath Palihapitiya, Gary Vee, Brad Gerstner and more on Their Relationship To Money, How It Has Changed with Time and Wealth, How They Bring Up Their Children To Engender the Same Values of Ambition and Hard Work?
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Rafael's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Gopuff | 2 | 55 | 50% 7/14 | full record on 20VC → |