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- Viral food, their own TV network, and oh so much more 🌮
Viral food, their own TV network, and oh so much more 🌮
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Finlay Williams
July 23, 2024
2 minute wacky businesses, you can tell your buddies about 🧠
Prepare to be hungry. Meet Goldbelly, the ultimate destination for gourmet food lovers. Bringing in $30M-$50M annually, (www.goldbelly.com) made DoorDash for gourmet food. Hosting meal boxes from some of the worlds most famous chefs.
Genius marketing plays 🧐
Goldbelly was founded in 2013 by Joe Ariel. He wanted to bring regional foods from across the U.S. to food enthusiasts everywhere, making iconic local dishes accessible nationwide. Goldbelly offers one-off orders or a completely separate side of the business offering subscription boxes.
To me, the most fascinating part of the business is their marketing strategy, which focuses on selling “viral food”, they even have a section on the site for it. Increasing the perceived value of the item as not just a “food box” but a hype item you can brag about on Insta. Making Goldbelly more attractive to the masses without altering their price point or sacrificing quality.
What are the nuggets? 💎
🌮 Origin: Goldbelly was founded in 2013 by Joe Ariel, Trevor Stow, Vanessa Torrivilla, and Joel Gillman in Noe Valley, San Francisco. They were accepted into Y Combinator, which provided love, support and one hell of a credibility boost. That same year, Time magazine named Goldbelly one of the 50 Best Websites (the site is awesome if you haven’t checked it out yet).
🌮 Pivotal moment: COVID-19 dramatically increased demand for Goldbelly’s services as restaurants looked for alternative revenue streams. This period was one of the craziest times for Goldbelly, with 400 of the 850 restaurants on the platform joining post-pandemic. At the time, Goldbelly also started running cooking classes with renowned chefs, creating not only a new revenue stream, but you guessed it, more viral content.
🌮 Funding: The initial spark was self-funded via of the founder’s previous exits (Joe Ariel sold Eats.com to Delivery.com in 2009 for a “life-changing sum”). Post this, Goldbelly went on to raise a total of $133M to date.
🌮 TV: In 2021 Goldbelly launched Goldbelly TV “With [typical] food programming, you watch these shows and you want the stuff but you can’t get it. There’s a disconnect for anyone who views that food content. I would always vent about that,” - Create the demand, provide the supply.
Figures laid out 💵
🍕 Revenue: $30-50 million annually
🍕 Team: 113 employees
🍕 Restaurants: 1000+ restaurants listed on the site
🍕 Funding: $133M including their time in Y Combinator
🍕 Valuation: $400-$600 million
🍕 Fun fact: Goldbelly added a million new customers in 2020
Goldbelly CEO Joe Ariel (left) and Goldbelly Studios head Art Edwards.
What’s the cherry on top? 🍒
Goldbelly uses data analytics to understand customer preferences, and delivers personalized recommendations to each and every user. Yet again proving themselves as a marketing machine.
Final thoughts 💭
I think this may be my favourite business yet. Not only is this a great use of “X for Y” (DoorDash for gourmet food), but Goldbelly has proven to be a marketing machine throughout their entire run, with an extensive content web, really earning the “empire” title.
I think this is a super awesome business, I’m just bummed that more public data isn’t out there (I spent wayyyy too long trying to find TV viewership numbers 🥲).
All of that’s pretty awesome in my eyes.
See ya tomorrow folks! 👋
Fin
Would you like to own a business like Goldbelly? |
P.S. If you're crushing it with your own unconventional empire, hit me up! I'm always looking for inspiring stories to share.
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