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Re:Fallen Pizza Startup Zume Shuts Down After Raising Millions by deltaninenine on Saturday June 03, 2023 @11:24AM (#36177379)
>The wisdom of the ages speaks of being ten times better.

This is an efficiency move. Cut the human out of the loop.

Looks like the failure is less about creating an assembly line and more about creating a mobile assembly line.

Re:Fallen Pizza Startup Zume Shuts Down After Raising Millions by iepathos on Saturday June 03, 2023 @11:35AM (#36177485)
Failure in the mobile assembly line is what the article mentions but is kind of irrelevant if you're still just selling pizzas to people. No one really cares about buying pizza from this unknown company so they have no product market fit. imo cutting minimum wage humans out of the loop will not yield a big enough profit weighed against the machine and vehicle maintenance costs combined with the skilled labor costs to deal with them.
Re:Fallen Pizza Startup Zume Shuts Down After Raising Millions by kevinventullo on Saturday June 03, 2023 @11:37AM (#36177507)
So maybe ~10x cheaper? I wonder what is the cost of ingredients for a $20 pizza. $2 seems low.
Re:Fallen Pizza Startup Zume Shuts Down After Raising Millions by newman8r on Saturday June 03, 2023 @11:49AM (#36177623)
Flour costs less than 50 cents, sauce maybe 25 cents, probably at least $1-2 for cheap wholesale cheese, plus toppings.
Re:Fallen Pizza Startup Zume Shuts Down After Raising Millions by SideburnsOfDoom on Saturday June 03, 2023 @12:08PM (#36177801)
Hot pizza ovens aren't free to buy or operate. It's hotter than a normal kitchen oven, and energy isn't free.
Re:Fallen Pizza Startup Zume Shuts Down After Raising Millions by Fordec on Saturday June 03, 2023 @11:26AM (#36177405)
Not just cut the human out, but I must also assume having it truck based cuts out building rental/ownership costs also
Re:Fallen Pizza Startup Zume Shuts Down After Raising Millions by AlotOfReading on Saturday June 03, 2023 @12:00PM (#36177725)
It didn't truly cut most humans out of the loop. The one near my house still had 2 delivery drivers because the pizza vehicle was permanently parked down a side street. They were only saving the cost of the third, pizza cooking employee and the capital expenses of the robot truck probably outweighed that single minimum wage several times over.

Their MVP was simply missing any key differentiators from established competitors except for the terrible pricing.