Inexperience with delivery has forced many restaurants to partner with third-party services - ClusterTruck's competitors - with mixed results. Long-established restaurants, with the exception of pizza chains, generally are not well equipped to capitalize on this trend. American spend a lot of money eating out." "The good news for (Baggott) is food is a massive market. "I think they can keep expanding pretty quickly," Dale said. Food-delivery sales are on pace to grow from $30 billion today to $220 billion by 2020, according to a July report from Morgan Stanley. People love eating outĬlusterTruck is tapping into a surging demand for delivery across the U.S. "The business model is working very well and we want to scale as quickly as possible," Baggott said. By the end of next year, Baggott expects to operate in between 10 and 20 cities, including Charlotte, Minneapolis, Atlanta and Fort Worth, Texas, where the company already has signed leases. "Right now, we think about growing the business and thrilling our customers."ĬlusterTruck has expanded to about a half-dozen markets, including Bloomington, Denver and Columbus, Ohio. "Well off into the future, that's all a possibility," he said. "It's possible he could want to (go public), but I don't see that as something he wants to do."īaggott insisted he doesn't have a specific exit in mind. "My gut is he's going to keep adding locations as quickly as possible and some big food conglomerate, like a restaurant-type group, will come in and buy it," Dale said. and a former CEO of Compendium, who worked with Baggott, said he expects ClusterTruck to follow a path similar to those other ventures. If we want to stop growing and start squeezing margins, we will be very profitable, but at this point in our existence it's all about growing."ĬlusterTruck has reported raising more than $30 million from investors since May 2015, according to Security and Exchange Commission filings, but the total is likely greater than that. Baggott's track record suggests his projections - whether it's a revenue target or becoming a global brand - have some basis in reality.īaggott, who co-founded ClusterTruck with Dan McFadden, already has helped launch two successful Indianapolis companies: ExactTarget, which sold to Salesforce for $2.5 billion in 2013, and Compendium Software, which sold to Oracle in 2013 for an undisclosed price.įrank Dale, the CEO of Indianapolis deal management company Costello Inc. That's what our investors are hiring us to do. "Our goal is to grow as fast as possible. "We're a high-growth, fast-growing startup," Baggott said. ClusterTruck is not profitable, but Baggott said it could be if that were the goal. He declined to disclose details of the company's financial performance to IndyStar. 'Our goal is to grow'īefore ClusterTruck launched in April 2016, Baggott said it would become a $1 billion business. That's because those companies mostly deliver food from partner restaurants, an extra step that adds complexity and time to the process. Customers are required to meet drivers, or in some cases bicyclists, at their curb to save time.ĬlusterTruck has differentiated itself by delivering food faster and fresher than competitors such as GrubHub, DoorDash and Uber Eats.
CLUSTERTRUCK DRIVER
ClusterTruck's platform sets a schedule for each item to be made and handed off as the driver arrives. Once a driver accepts the order, the monitors that hang along the kitchen indicate that it's time to start cooking. Workers don't begin making the order until a driver has agreed to deliver it and is en route to pick it up. When customers place an order, it shows up in ClusterTruck's platform, which it calls "the cloud" (a name that might be the least creative thing ClusterTruck has come up with). The company's website and app list about a dozen virtual food trucks, with names such as Pizzeria Camion and Taqueria Rapido, which amount to one giant menu of food made by the same people in the same kitchen. If the company were to expand in Indianapolis, that likely would mean opening another kitchen to serve a different area.ĭespite the clever name, ClusterTruck does not deploy a fleet of food trucks. ClusterTruck serves a radius of six driving minutes from its Downtown Indianapolis kitchen. "Our job is, let's win in the United States and let's get in some other countries." How it worksĬlusterTruck's delivery time averages 21 minutes in Indianapolis, according to the company, in part because of the narrow zone in which it operates.
"I envision this being a global company, for sure," Baggott said in an interview. But that's not enough for ClusterTruck CEO Chris Baggott.