1988: Solving the Pizza Delivery Problem

PS: My first $20 product as a 12 year old entrepreneur

Good morning, happy Sunday friends.

This is a PS.  A personal story linked to GSD.

This is a story following the pattern of GSD efforts to create value and lead. 

As your read, you will see this pattern emerge. This is what I hope you can apply to whatever GSD effort you are currently in.

Here is the pattern it follows:

• Problem or Opportunity

• Vision

• Intention

• Means

• Outcomes and Learning

• Repeat the Loop

Remember when Die Hard, Beetlejuice, and Roger Rabbit hit the movie theater? 1988

A time before the internet. 

People had dark wood paneled walls, pagers, fax machines, and movies on VHS.  Blockbuster and local movie stores were how you found and watched movies.

Dominos Pizza had a “30 minutes or less or its free” guarantee.

It didn’t really seem to apply to people like me who lived in rural areas.

As a result…

I had a problem, a Pizza delivery problem.

I was probably 11 or 12 years old at the time and my mom or dad would order pizza on a Friday or Saturday and we would typically wait 45 minutes to an hour for it to be delivered.

Logically as an adult I know it’s because restaurants are at their peak volume during dinner time, and we lived on the outer-most edge of their delivery area.

If you’ve seen the Netflix series, Stranger Things, it was kind of like that with small town feel and our neighborhood had one way in and out.  All the neighborhood kids definitely road our bikes everywhere.

Picture in your mind it’s 7pm, dark and you just turn off a county road onto an unlit neighborhood road with no sidewalks, no streetlamps, and half the people just having tiny porch lights over their front door.  All cross streets were dead end cul-de-sacs and there was not always a sign.  The road and the lawns were separated by dugout drainage ditches.  We had a little walkway and culvert from our front door over the ditch to the road where our mailbox was.

Because of this, the drivers always struggled to find the addresses on the houses at night.

We’d watch some random car drive back and forth down the street and eventually flag them down by flashing our porch light when they came by or walking out with a flashlight.

This was a problem!

A problem my kid brain had to figure out how to solve. 

Yes, I’m a nerd and have been this way all my life.

I began to fantasize about this problem also being other people’s problem.  Who else hated watching the pizza driver go up and down the street looking for their house and having to walk out in their night close to flag them down?   

An idea was taking shape.

What if the driver could see my address easily from the street? 

How would they know they were at the right house?

What materials do I have to achieve that? 

Talking to my dad, he understood the challenge and encouraged me. He said he didn’t have the answer, but he would help me with the solution.

I stood on the street, looked at my house and driveway, tried to get a sense of what the driver saw, both during day and night.  I looked around the garage and the shop for materials I might use.

For context, I was already mowing yards for money and my dad was an entrepreneur who always instilled a sense of action to get going and make things happen. 

 As I was solutioning, I had a limited concept of home ownership and hardware stores, so my range of options where limited to what I had personal knowledge of. I was thinking about my lunchbox as something portable and about the right size. I was thinking about spray paint on a sign maybe. Perhaps something on or near the mailbox.

I found some plywood, nails and several lengths of rebar (long metal rods), and bags of concrete. I saw these little circular reflectors about the size of half-dollar coins.

In my minds eye I pictured a lunchbox sized concrete block that was big enough to paint our address on and keep by the walkway to our front door.  Near the mailbox on the road before our ditch.

Talking to my parents about my idea, my mom suggested it could be painted the same color as the house for aesthetics, my dad suggested stencils for the numbers instead of freehand spray painting it. 

Good ideas! 

Dad helped sketch and measure and cut plywood to create a concrete form to pour the concrete into. While the concrete was wet we inserted two lengths of rebar so it stuck out, like a popsicle stick which we used to insert into the ground and keep the concrete block in place. 

In the end, my solution was a concrete block slightly bigger than a lunchbox, painted a light pink color like our house with our 3 numbers of the address stenciled on it, and a reflector. 

Easy to see day or night.

I had a solution to the problem I cared about! 

I did something, made a thing, and I was proud of what I had accomplished.   

But did I have a product?

I talked to my dad about whether other people would think this was useful to them like it was to us.  My dad, the entrepreneur and business owner said he thought so. 

He asked me what I would charge for it.

I wasn’t sure. 

He asked me how much it cost to make; I had no idea. 

So, he wrote out the materials list we used as if we had to purchase them instead of just scavenging from materials in the garage and shop.  He then suggested how many of these address markers we could make based on one bag of concrete.  It was three.  Everything was so cheap; I remember thinking I could charge $5 and cover cost and make money!  And that’s what I told him.

He asked if my time was worth anything.  I wasn’t sure.  Was it?

Yes.

So, he added to the sheet with materials cost an estimated hourly cost of my time, divided by 3 since that’s how many concrete blocks I could make with one bag of concrete. 

I understood, looking at the paper and seeing some real money, I said $10 each.  We’re talking Big League Chew, new GI Joe’s, and a McDonald’s Happy Meal kind of money now! 

He sat back and gave me a long look. I still remember this.  Keep in mind, it’s the 1980’s and it was a very cash-centric economy. 

He told me to go grab his wallet and bring it to him. 

I did.

He put it on the table and said open it.

I did.

He asked what I saw…

I saw a lot of cash, he agreed, and said I should count it. 

I did. 

It was over $400. 

He asked me what I thought about that. 

Well, I thought he was rich.  That’s a lot of gum, toys, and happy meals! 

But I didn’t know what to tell him.

He asked me who would be buying the pizza address markers I wanted to sell.  I said it would be to people in the neighborhood.  He agreed and asked if I thought the neighbors were like him.  I said yes, I knew them all.  Absolutely. 

He looked back at the wallet, implying a lot of money in there, and asked me again, how much would I charge for it?

Oh, I get it.  I thought….  And clapped my hands together! 

$15 dollars each!  Now that’s serious money, I was thinking.

With a twinkle in his eye, he smiled and told me now I was getting it, but there was just one problem.

A problem?

He asked me to look in his wallet again.

He asked if he had $15 in there.  Of course, you have hundreds of dollars in there!

His smile told me he knew something I didn’t know and he was taking a lot of pleasure in it.

He told me – in fact – he did NOT have $15 dollars in that wallet.

I was very puzzled.

He pulled out the cash and wagged a bill at me.

He said “Justin, I don’t have $15 dollars, I only have a $20”.

I was dumb struck, was he suggesting an even higher price?  From my first $5 price to $10, then $15 and now it’s $20?

He said, “Justin, you’ll sell this for $20 dollars because that’s what will be in everyone’s wallet and you won’t have to make change.”

Amazing, time to see if I was right about the idea and he was right about the price!

We had a bright red moped that my parents would let me drive on special occasions. It had a basket on the front and would go about 40mph.

With the moped and my light pink stenciled concrete block in the basket, I made my rounds to the neighbors houses. Stopping at each house, grabbing the block and confidently going to the front door.

Ding dong. Knock knock.

The door would open and I’d give a big smile and hello.

“Don’t you hate seeing the pizza driver go up and down the road with your pizza? I made this so you can put it by the road and get your pizza faster” I’d heft the block up so they could read my address.  “I can make you one with your address just like this, only $20”.

Dad was right, no one batted an eye, and I watched the neighborhood moms and dads flip their wallets open and hand me a $20 bill.

I ended up making a dozen or so of these address markers within a few months. 

The pizza problem was solved and it made an impact on how I thought about problems and solutions and the impact I could make.

Today, I simply call this my 4 word tagline. Love People. Create Value.

How does this relate to you?

Whether you are a mature business or a startup, you can see a fundamental pattern here.  It is what I call VIM.  Vision, Intention, Means. 

No matter the endeavor you have in mind it starts with a vision, requires intentional action, and the means necessary to accomplish it. This is how you succeed is by ensure all three elements. 

And of course, as an entrepreneur there are many essential lessons in this story that I’m sure you noticed.

• Solve a meaningful problem.

• Be open to useful feedback to improve or refine your idea.

• Listen to trusted advisors who are further along on the journey then you are.

• Pricing by cost alone is not the answer.

• Know your customer and their buying conditions.

• Be resourceful.

• Be courageous even if you haven’t done it before and don’t let others hold you back.

• Adults buy from ambitious kids :)

Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Do you see VIM in your work? What are your childhood entrepreneurship lessons? Leave a comment and let me know.

 #GSD

Appreciate you,

Justin