Background: DoorDash is the food delivery platform that was founded back in the US in 2013, and is actually the largest food delivery company in the US.

What happened: Despite serving more than 450,000 merchants and 20 million consumers, DoorDash has never seemed to turn an annual profit. In fact, it reported a net loss of $102 million in the three months to June 30.  

What else: So, DoorDash is thinking of some new ways to boost revenue. And they came up with...selling restaurant ads in the search results section of the app. Kinda like...exactly what Google does. 

So what's the key learning?

💡Companies are always looking for new revenue streams to grow, grow and grow. 

💡Delivery platforms make their revenue through a few key streams:

1. Restaurant commission fees (i.e. the commission that a restaurant pays when customers order meals via the app)
2. Delivery fees (i.e a portion of the cost of delivering the meal)
3. In-app advertising (at Doordash, it's a fee paid by retailers when when they get a sale on the platform)

Because commission and delivery fees tend to be fixed, the only lever to boost revenue is increasing ads. 

💡 And now they're using your data. DoorDash knows how many burgers you've devoured in the last month (and ice cream, ya snack fiend). Which means it can sell restaurant ads based on your previous behaviour. The world is watching, team.