A Startup Journey With GrubHub Founder Mike Evans

Marketing Podcast with Mike Evans

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Mike Evans. Mike founded GrubHub in his spare bedroom and grew it into the multi-billion-dollar online food delivery colossus that is a household name. Since leaving GrubHub, he founded Fixer.com, an on-demand handyperson service focused on social impact. He lives in Chicago with his wife, daughter, dog, and bike. He’s also the author of a book that is to be released later this year —Hangry: A Startup Journey.

Key Takeaway:

The journey of GrubHub began late one night in Mike Evan’s spare bedroom when he was hungry and tired and looking to get pizza delivered. At the time, there was no seamless way to know what places were open and which restaurants delivered. So, as an avid coder, he created GrubHub in his spare bedroom to figure out who delivered to his apartment. Over the next decade, Mike grew his little delivery guide into the world’s premier online ordering website. In doing so, he entered the company of an elite few entrepreneurs to take a startup from an idea all the way to an IPO. In this episode, I talk with Mike about his founding of GrubHub and he shares details of his entrepreneurial journey.

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Questions I ask Mike Evans:

• [1:46] Could you give us a high-level overview of the startup of Grubhub to IPO to what you’re doing now?
• [2;47] When you did this was it kind of a like lark – meaning you created it because you could?
• [3:38] Did you knock on restaurant doors saying ‘I have this idea, do you want to be a part of this?
• [6:06] Was there a moment where you thought this is actually going to work?
• [7:15] At what point did you say we’ve gotta go get money?
• [7:52] Was there competition that you had to buy up, and/or what type of acquisitions did you feel like you had to make?
• [9:19] You put in a lot of hours – there are a lot of entrepreneurs and startups some of who don’t achieve anywhere near the level of success you did – what toll did that take on your personal life?
• [12:51] Right up to IPO at which point you quit, which I think some people would actually say, you made it now, why are you quitting? So what’s the story behind that and how do you position that story?
• [15:53] Are you an investor in GrubHub still?
• [16:08] Let’s talk about the bike across America, how many days were you riding?
• [16:23] Did you meet people along the road that knew who you were?
• [18:48] Where was the best beer?
• [19:45] What can you tell us about Fixer.com?
• [20:46] Will the expansion of this be much slower?
• [23:25] Where can people find the book and connect with you?

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This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network and Semrush.

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