Number
FastBite delivered food in 7 minutes when the industry average was 80
Avlok Kohli's FastBite hit a 7-minute average delivery time by having a driver circle with a few pre-made items in the trunk, versus an industry average of 80 minutes — an order of magnitude faster, which is why Square acquired it.
$7
Average food delivery time · minutes
“Yeah, and it was magical because back then the average delivery time was 80 minutes, you know, and our average delivery time for Fastbite was 7 minutes. So we were literally an order of magnitude better.”
Fact
Acqui-hires happen to buy the leader and team, not the metrics
Avlok argues most strategic acquisitions of tiny startups are about the leader and the team who already burned the learning curve, not revenue or users. Buying lets the acquirer skip the build-vs-buy cost of finding an internal leader and the time-to-market delay.
“Most of the times it ends up being we just need the leader in the team so that we can speed up time to market.”
Steal thisIf you want to get acqui-hired, prove your small team can ship a hard product fast — buyers pay for the leader and the burned learning curve, not your traction.
Idea
Build an async meeting tool where everything is logged by default
Avlok pitches an asynchronous meeting tool (for design or product reviews that don't need to be live) whose key advantage is that, by definition, everything is recorded and stored in one repository — giving every new employee a searchable record of decisions.
“So I think there's space for someone to build a really great asynchronous meeting tool. And really fascinating thing about that as I was digging there was when you build an asynchronous meeting tool, by definition, everything is logged.”
Steal thisBuild the async-meeting tool so the recording and decision log are a byproduct of the format — no extra capture work, instant org-wide context for new hires.
Framework
Innovation is removing steps — the company absorbs the complexity
Avlok's definition of innovation: take away steps for the customer and you've made something magical. When Square launched the dongle, it removed the credit checks and paper forms a merchant faced — those steps didn't vanish, they moved to Square, which used software to handle them (per Jim McKelvey's 'The Innovation Stack').
“And by the way, that is innovation, right? Innovation is let's take away some of the steps and boom, you've got something magical. You know, just using an example from Square, when Square launched payments with a little dongle, the real innovation there was that they removed all of the steps that a merchant would have to go through to start accepting payments.”
Steal thisTo innovate, list every step your customer endures and delete the most painful ones — then build software so your company eats that complexity instead.
Framework
Venture is a power law: take out the unicorns and returns go negative
Avlok explains early-stage venture as a power law where 2-3 of ~20 investments drive all returns. Remove any unicorn or decacorn from a fund's portfolio and the returns turn negative — which is why LPs should back access and judgment, not pick deals one by one.
“Returns— if you take all the winners out of a venture portfolio, um, it's negative, right? So if you take any unicorn or decacorn out of like any venture fund's portfolio, uh, the returns are completely negative. And what that really means is you're dealing with a power law here where you're making, let's say, 20 investments and you're really looking for 2 or 3 to become really, really big and all of your returns are dictated by that.”
Steal thisAs an LP, never deal-by-deal pick early-stage — back a GP with access and judgment and get exposure to 15-30 companies so one power-law winner carries the fund.