Just-Eat no. 1 in Switzerland without the “Just”
It is with great pleasure Just-Eat tonight can announce that we have entered into a partnership with the no. 1 Swiss operator of online takeaway ordering, Eat.ch. Reto, Lukas and the other guys behind Eat.ch has done a very good job with limited resources the last couple of years. Combining their position, local insight and energy with our capital and knowledge of how to scale a business aggressively will create a very strong company in the Alps.
Reto & Co. actually found the original inspiration for their venture when they a handful of years ago experienced Just-Eat in Denmark. We know that quite a few entrepreneurs around the world has been inspired by how we do business, and we take pride in that. Especially when the same entrepreneurs end up partnering with us.
Thanks to Eat.ch for trusting Just-Eat, and thanks to Rasmus, Camron and Jeff for making it happen on the Just-Eat side.
Just-Eat does everything to make customers happy
Except in Denmark, Just-Eat is not involved in the logistical part of getting food delivered. We help to facilitate the process, and if things turns bad (hot food turned cold, late delivery, etc.) we often get involved to turn the situation around via our Customer Care teams. There are also other ways to help out, and a new approach was tested the other day in the office: we insert one of our colleagues into the actual bag that the food is delivered in! In that way we can provide first hand support and keep the food warm by hugging it all the way.
We are still tweaking the concept – next week we will try with a robot.
Just-Eat fills up the fridge with big funding round
It is with enormous joy we can announce that Just-Eat has secured a $48 Mio. series B funding round co-lead by Greylock Partners and Redpoint Ventures which both are world class investors. Existing VC investor Index Ventures also participated significantly. It is by far the biggest funding round ever in this sector.
This event means a huge amount to us here at Just-Eat. Firstly, we get our bank account filled up, so we can keep on growing our company throughout the world. We are already the world leader, but getting significant amounts of fresh capital into the company means our launch plan for new geographies can become even more ambitious. We are already profitable in our existing countries, but this funding round makes it possible to keep on investing heavily in existing countries, launching in a few of the remaining key markets in Europe while also pushing into Asia and the Americas.
Furthermore, the investment is a big pad on the shoulder to everybody in the company who has helped grow this company the last 10 years. Many people have played a significant role in the success of the company all the way from a small start-up Denmark to the international success story which is now run out of London.
Lastly, I think it is great, that for once, Americans VC’s are acknowledging that it is a European company who is the clear leader in a future multi-multi-billion dollar industry. I have lots of respect for the US/Silicon Valley ecosystem and it’s amazing ability to churn out world beating tech companies, but I think we will all benefit from Europe getting joining the race for the future to a much bigger extent.
Thanks to all Just-Eat’ers, and thanks to the investors for believing so much in us. We will do everything we can to show that the trust was well deserved. Cheers for many more years of growth – and now we will go back to work!
NB: to be honest, even though I am extremely happy about this milestone for our company, then the situation in Japan with fires and explosions in a nuclear facility is dampening my mood a great deal. Must be terrible and nervewreaking for the people of Japan. Let us all hope that this situation gets under control ASAP!
Moving office
The UK business was launched out of a small office in Canary Wharf, London. That area is more known to be one of the key centres for global finance than a tech start-up hot bed, but it served the company well in two years from March 2006 to the beginning of 2008. I never visited that first office because I didn’t sign up with Just-Eat until March 2008, so in my memory Just-Eat UK will always be our Edgware office, North London. When the internationalisation gained momentum in 2008, we also needed to build up more centrally located staff, and since UK was our key future market, and London provides access to a lot of talent, then Just-Eat Group HQ also became our Edgware office. Therefore, I have for almost 3 years spend most of my working life in Edgware. But that is changing now.
We have decided to split our London office up in two. UK operations and some central functions (e.g. Finance & Accounting and most of central Marketing) will stay in Edgware, but me, the international team, etc. will join Tech & Product which since June 2010 has been based in Farringdon, City of London. In effect this means that Group HQ is now in Farringdon. 5 of the partners/exec’s will be based in Farringdon, 2 will be split 50/50 between Edgware and Farringdon, and one (UK MD) will be mainly in Edgware. It sounds a bit complicated, but given the way we are organised, how much we grow, rental costs in London and a bigger need for some of us to be close to agencies, bankers and collaboration partners in London, then it is the best model.
Key challenge when splitting offices is of course to maintain a close relationship, and secure that sub-cultues are still part of the overall Just-Eat Jam, but that is no different from what we already is dealing with, as we grow our company internationally and have offices thousands of kilometers apart.
So, how complicated is to move the office of the CEO of Just-Eat? This picture says it all:
I grabbed my computer, a couple of bags, our world domination map and then it was off in a taxi. At Just-Eat we prefer to travel light.
Introducing Adrian: from music to food
In the summer of 2010, we started to look for a COO here at Just-Eat. Throughout the autumn we talked to dozens of candidates, many of them with very strong backgrounds and personalities. A couple of times we were really close, but then something came in the way. When we recruit to our partnership (i.e. the exec team), it is a rigid process, where all the partners/exec’s are involved, and everybody has a veto. It is so important that the chemistry and balance in the team is right, so I don’t want one or two guys not buying into the arrival of a new partner. The process dragged out a couple of months until we met Adrian Blair in November. Not only does Adrian has an impressive pedigree (Oxford, Ask.com Harvard, Google, Spotify), but much more important is it, that he is a genuinely smart and energetic person with a nice personality. Exactly what we were looking for.
Late in December we then agreed with Adrian that he should move out of the music business and join the food business, but unfortunately he had to spend a couple of months before he could leave his existing employer, so it is not until next week Adrian is fully on board. Together with the local teams, Adrian shall secure Just-Eat always become market leaders wherever we are. The international team is now almost fully in place, and together with Rasmus heading up our Incubator activities (new launches, partnerships, M&A), we have a very strong group of paratroopers that can support the local teams in their pursuit of gold and glory.
And when talking about internationalisation, stay tuned because quite a lot will happen the next month!
Our Glue: the Just-Eat Jam
Key to almost all successful companies is an organisational culture which gives an edge compared to the competition. Something that gives a bit of intangible x-factor (sorry for using the term). This “glue”, that holds the company together, and supports the growth of the company has always been a key part of the JustEat success, all the way back to when the company was founded 10 years ago. But a culture should not be static, it has to evolve with the company, and the wider society. There has to be a clear red line linking old and new, and that has also been the case as our glue developed. This has been especially important the last few years where we have seen a big change in the company which we had to adapt to.
When a company reaches the size we have now (around 300 employees - I think!), then you have a situation where the “veterans”, that know what the glue is, and who is living it 24/7, is hiring people that is hiring people who is hiring people. This is potentially dangerous, since the culture fit test that is an important part of any recruitment is at risk. We are trying to deal with this in a number of ways, e.g. making sure that several people incl. veterans are involved in all recruitment. However, last spring we decided to make it explicit what our glue is, since it makes it easier to talk about when meeting new people, and it is also easier for people who has been in the business for 6 months to talk to new candidates about what JustEat is all about. My first reflex when thinking about “documenting the culture” is to run away screaming, but I can rationally see it makes sense. So, we have done it – but don’t expect to see posters with our commandments on office walls, and rules of how to repeat the rules 3 times every day. To get to the written definition of our “JustEat Jam”, we went through a process of more than half a year where many people were directly involved, and everybody in the company was encouraged to give input.
Finally, we have ended up with what I think is spot on for who we are today – take a look for you self below. If you like it, and don’t already work for JustEat, then consider joining us -;)
The Just-Eat Jam: Fruity chunks of goodness that make us taste great
Call us Frank
We have a frank, no-nonsense house style built on mutual respect and enjoying each others company
We love facts that generate great debates, and we’re willing to take the correct decisions even if they hurt
Hungry for success
We have the desire to win, we passionately pursue success
We respect people who take a risk and try something new
Entrepreneurialism is key to our success
Winning is challenging but the challenge is fun!
Talented staff are the cherries…
We always hire the best people for the job
We each have the freedom to succeed and not be afraid to fail
We respect hard work and commitment as much as skill and ability
…but Teamwork is the cake
We work & play together as one global team – collectively we know so much and we use this knowledge to succeed
The heroes are the ones that get the job done, but super heroes also help others too
We enjoy freedom within our roles, but we work for the success of the overall company
NOTE: We demand you enjoy your work at all times. If you are found not to be enjoying yourself you will be executed as a warning to others – alternatively dipped in a vat of molten chocolate and rolled in coconut flakes.
World Meeting January 2011, London
Yet again a great World Meeting, this time we had a total of 45 JustEat managers gathered just outside London. Here is first a picture of all of us trying to look professional:
And then another one, in the classic JE style:
No extra explanation required. A good start on 2011, where JustEat hopefully will see a lot of new highs, and very few lows.
Our new logo
We have a new logo, yehaa. Let’s look at a bit at the history of JustEat logo’s, and then the reader can assess if the progress has been for the better or the worse.
Our first logo was designed by the original JustEat guys back in 2000 and it is no secret that I have personally never liked it. I felt it was too downmarket and old fashioned, but it did have one thing going for it: it did do the job in terms of supporting the amazing growth of our Danish business, so respect for the classic JustEat logo:
Then at the end of 2008 we decided it was time to modernize the logo. We stood in front of our first serious investor presentations, and I felt it was too embarrassing to show the JustEat “classic” logo (shame on me, but hey, that is what I felt), so we decided to do a “quick and dirty” process with our ad agency. They were not logo specialists, and they even warned us that they were not necessarily the right ones to talk to, but we had some sense of urgency, so spending 6 months on a logo process was not a real option. The most difficult thing when picking a new logo is often the internal discussions, customers I can deal with, but internally it tends to become a bit of mess. After a very speedy process, we ended up with a logo that clearly had roots in the old “tandoori” logo, but it was more modern, and even though not perfect, then I felt much better about presenting it. Internally half the company didn’t like the change, and the other half either liked it, or got exhausted by discussing and just wanted to move on. So ahead we went:
When we picked this logo in the beginning of 2009 we agreed that even though the new logo was a big improvement, it was still not aligned with our ultimate objective: to build a global, much loved 21. century consumer brand. We therefore knew, that within 2 years, we had to come up with the “real new” logo. The process to find the winner logo started several months ago, and we now have a unanimous winner:
Doesn’t that just take your breath away -;) Anyway, we love it, and we will do everything we can to make it awell known consumer brand all over the World during the next decade. The guiding principle in designing the logo has been to find a logo where there still is a link back to the previous logo, it has to show our internet heritage, and it should be simpler, more modern and “smarter”. As a extra benefit, the new logo works well with many different colors, so I am sure we will play a bit with the color palette in the coming years.
The logo is online now in the UK and will be rolled out in all other countries over the coming weeks – as well as here on my blog. Hope you like it!
Just-Eat in India
I have great news from the world of online takeaway ordering: Just-Eat has partnered up with the best team in India, and HungryZone is now part of the family.
We have for a long time been looking with great enthusiasm at the opportunity to do something ambitious in India. It’s a fascinating and massive country that is finally on it’s way up to take it’s position among the top countries of the world. It’s the worlds biggest democracy with a vibrant economy and all sorts of promises for the future, and now we at Just-Eat wants to participate in that progress.
Originally we were planning our own launch, but then in the summer of 2010 we started talking seriously with Ritesh and Sandipan, who are the two entrepreneurs behind HungryZone who set up shop some years ago, and the last two years they have had full focus and angel investor backing to develop their offering (big thanks to Kimmi, Joe and the other guys at the Indian Angel Network, who has supported the team up until now, and who will continue the journey for a while yet). Since India obviously is different in a number of ways compared to the countries where we are operating today, then local knowledge is even more key than normal to establish success and clear leadership. And this is exactly what Ritesh, Sandipan and the rest of the team can offer us in abundance. We are very-very pleased to enter this partnership in India.
What now for HungryZone? Well, we are already in full speed executing on the plan we made together. Over the next several years, Just-Eat will invest several $ Mio. to get good restaurant coverage throughout this massive country, and evangelise the message of “online ordering the smart way” to millions of hungry surfers. Just in Mumbai, there are 20-30 Mio. people, which for a guy from a small country is fairly intimidating. Of course not all of those inhabitants ready for online takeaway ordering, so we have to be a bit smart in our approach to the roll-out. But we are very ambitious and bullish about what needs to be done. It will take several years before India will be a big business for us, but Just-Eat is in this game for the long haul, and India is one of our important, long term growth opportunities.
There are of course other big countries in Asia, but India is our top priority due to it’s size and how it welcomes foreign companies, and we will move on from there. Lots to do ahead of us, and this will be a proper entrepreneurial challenge. Think about the tens of thousands of delivery restaurants we ultimately will have to work with in order to offer our service to the millions of hungry surfers in Indian cities and towns. We will need to re-invent the classic online model a few times before we get there, but that is the fun part of scaling a business.
Again, thanks to Ritesh and Sandipan and all the other HungryZone employees and angel investors for inviting us into HungryZone, we hope we will be able to pay you back ten fold.
Happy New Year
201o was a great year for Just-Eat, so thanks to all the customers, restaurants, partners and not least: thanks to all the employees who put in the effort. Best of luck to all of you who supported us – let us hope for an equally super 2011! I think online takeaway ordering has come to stay.