Question
I'm wondering how on demand delivery startups such as postmates, washio etc went about launching the first release of their products.
I'm about to launch my first version of a local on-demand delivery product, but worried to go live because I will be doing a lot of manual processing as no 'intelligent backend' has been developed yet. (Simply going live with landing site and mobile friendly order form - true mvp)
How did postmates and Washio test their ideas and handle the eta's at the very beginning
Answer
There isn't a lot of published information that I've seen (or can quickly find) on how washio and postmates validated their business model, but I definitely agree that starting fairly lean and validating your business first even if that means a lot of manual effort up front is a better approach than investing heavily in infrastructure before launch.
Of course, if you are very successful, that manual work will pile up quickly and managing it could be quite painful, but you can have worse problems than a successful launch.
Maff Rigby's 7-day startup recommendation is definitely a good one.
