Solving Dinner & Building Wonder | Rich Przekop (VP, Product at Wonder)

CRAFTED. | The Tech Podcast for Founders, Makers, and Innovators

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Wonder aims to be a “super app for mealtime”, with people turning to it for everything from delivery to groceries to meal kits and more... It’s a very ambitious food-tech startup founded by Marc Lore, the legendary founder who previously built, scaled, and sold Diapers.com and Jet.com (to Amazon and Walmart, respectively).

Wonder is rapidly opening stores across the East Coast that, as they put it, feature 30 restaurants in one location. The theory is that that one location can be 30x as profitable as a similarly-sized operation.

Serving and delivering that many types of food, quickly, is an incredible operational challenge. And on this episode of CRAFTED., Wonder VP of Product Rich Przekop shares how his team has built custom software and data products to forecast demand, prevent waste, and make sure the food you want is ready for you.

Plus, how Wonder is building for today, but also keeping an eye towards tomorrow… The software Rich and team are building may someday be offered externally to power all manner of food/logistics businesses.

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Key Moments:

[2:27] The big vision for Wonder: “a super app for mealtime”

[3:28] What it’s like working with legendary founder Marc Lore

[5:08] How Rich got so into data (and how GenAI is now passing Wonder’s SQL test)

[7:32] The ideal customer experience at Wonder

[10:54] Why Wonder had to build custom software

[13:02] How and why Wonder built a simulator to help it forecast demand, reduce food waste and prevent stockouts

[20:04] How Wonder may someday whitelabel its logistics software and sell it to other companies

[23:23] The culture at Wonder and why “Marc is the cheerleader” and Rich plays the role of “Yes, but also…”

[26:00] The power of clear, measurable goals

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CRAFTED. is produced by Modern Product Minds, where CRAFTED. host Dan Blumberg and team can help you take a new product from zero to one... and beyond. We specialize in early stage product discovery, growth, and experimentation. Learn more at modernproductminds.com

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Help improve CRAFTED. Please take this quick 5m survey. You might win a prize. Thanks!