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How Instacart Grew by Doing Things That Don't Scale

By Apoorva Mehta · Startup Growth · 1 min read

Apoorva Mehta bought one of every item at Trader Joe's, photographed them in a studio, and fulfilled orders himself. No shoppers required.

Key Points

YC's 'do things unscalable' became Instacart's biggest competitive advantage
In the early days, customers could place orders with no shoppers to fulfill them -- Mehta did it himself
They bought every item at Trader Joe's and photographed them because no catalog existed
Revenue grew 10% week over week for 20 straight weeks

You could place orders on our service without there being any shoppers to fulfill those orders. I would drop everything and fulfill the order myself.

Their Biggest Competitive Advantage: No Big Company Would Do This

Mehta: YC encourages startups to do things unscalable. I find that this is one of the biggest competitive advantages that a startup has over a larger company, because there's no way that the larger company would be doing those things.

Mehta: The idea is that once your product has demand, you can figure out how to scale your product.

There's no way that the larger company would be doing those things.

He Fulfilled Every Order Himself

Mehta: We took this advice to heart. In the early days of Instacart, you could place orders on our service without there being any shoppers to fulfill those orders. Of course, this meant that I would drop everything I was doing and fulfill the order myself.

Mehta: The only thing that mattered to us was how fast we were growing and how fast we were executing.

You could place orders without there being any shoppers. I would drop everything and fulfill the order myself.

They Bought Every Item at Trader Joe's

Mehta: When we decided to add Trader Joe's to Instacart's offering, there was no API or website which had the item catalog for Trader Joe's. So the only way we could actually get all the item information was to buy one of every single item at Trader Joe's, take it to a studio, take pictures of all those things, and then put them into our catalog. And so that's exactly what we did.

Mehta: Using the same unscalable techniques, we added Whole Foods, Costco, and many other stores.

The only way was to buy one of every single item at Trader Joe's, take it to a studio, and photograph all of them.

10% Growth Every Week for 20 Weeks

Mehta: We realized that we had the best product in the market. We were growing so fast and our customers loved Instacart. Today we're in 10 cities in the United States, and our revenue is growing by 10% week over week and has been growing like that for 20 weeks.

Mehta: As we have grown as a company and as a team, we have to now make everything scalable.

Revenue is growing 10% week over week and has been growing like that for 20 weeks.