Popchew 🍟

The largest online restaurant chain

Author

Brett Perlmutter
November 14, 2023

Setting the Scene

  • Over the last decade, some of the fastest growing brands have captured digital consumers without owning physical assets.

  • Here are some examples:

    • Uber is the world’s largest taxi business without owning taxis.

    • Instacart is the world’s largest supermarket without owning stores.

    • Airbnb is the world’s largest hotel business without owning hotels.

  • This week’s company is building the largest fast food chain without owning any real estate, employing any line cooks, or purchasing any inventory.

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In a Sentence


Popchew is a digitally native fast food chain that leverages pop-culture and existing restaurants to fulfill its orders.

  • Digitally native: Popchew monetizes through an asset light model where they can scale globally without investing in real estate, food, or labor, serving customers solely through food delivery platforms.

  • Pop-culture: Popchew partners with iconic brands and celebrities to build its customer base, then engages them through gaming, content, and rewards.

  • Restaurants: Popchew adds to the revenue stream of established restaurants, providing recipes, a supply chain, and technology, but leaving the prep to their partners.

Bulleted version: Popchew is building the world’s next big fast food chain with pixels instead of bricks.  👾

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The Basics

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IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

  • Escalon’s essential business services streamline your processes and free your talent to focus on what you do best: Growing your business.

  • Here are a few of their services that might benefit your startup:

    ✔️ Their people operations solution sets your company up with outsourced HR, payroll, benefits management services, and more.

    ✔️ Their financial operations solution offers a full suite of services including accounting, monthly reporting, FP&A, fractional CFO support, tax & valuations, and more.

    ✔️ Their risk solution prepares your company to manage and mitigate risk with right-sized insurance, policies, and procedures for optimal performance.

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Due Diligence

WHAT WE LIKE

  • 🛒 Market and consumer sentiment: Popchew is positioned to capitalize on the rapidly growing $26.1B US food delivery market expected to double in the next 5 years.  

    • Additionally, behavior among Gen-Z and millennials is shifting towards convenience and ordering in.

  • 👩‍💻 Adding revenue to restaurants: Popchew's business model significantly benefits partner kitchens, offering the average restaurant an extra $92k a year.

  • ⭐️ Playing into pop-culture: Popchew has incorporated drops, mini-games, content, prizes, collectibles, competition, and more to build trust, brand affinity, and create an emotional connection with customers. 

    • Popchew also collaborates with renowned brands and celebrities to enhance brand appeal, setting it apart in the competitive food delivery market.  

POTENTIAL RISKS

  •  🙄 Failure of past models: Notably, Virtual Dining Concept’s Mr Beast Burgers, exploded to $100M in revenue and then shut down due to quality control issues and lawsuits.

    • Despite Popchew's emphasis on quality control software and its consumer facing brand, continuous monitoring is essential to avoid similar pitfalls.

  • 😳 The health-conscious consumer: Popchew’s fast-food-centric menu might clash with the health-conscious tendencies of its Gen Z target audience.

  • 📈 Buying into the brand: Popchew faces the challenge of swaying users to buy into its brand and initiatives over other established and well recognized brands.

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Founder Profile

To request an introduction to the founder, respond to this email.

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Comps

Why Popchew: Popchew is poised to redefine the fast-food landscape with its innovative, asset-light model and customer-obsessed approach, perfectly positioned to take a bite out of legacy restaurant franchises. 😋 

📌 Bulletin Board

  • 🗞 This week in venture: Here were the most active US investors in October and some of the deals they did.

  • 💡 The innovation situation: This was a massive week for AI with Open AI’s DevDay and the introduction of what might be the smart-phone replacement.

  • 👋 See you in two weeks: There won’t be a Bulletpitch feature in you inbox next week, but if you miss us you can always check out past companies we’ve featured.

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