With food delivery down from its pandemic highs, it might be surprising to hear that DoorDash shares are up 28% in the last month.

One reason investors are bullish: the company has proven it has a viable grocery and convenience delivery business, per The Wall Street Journal.

This pins the company against new competitors…

… some of which are struggling:

• Instacart cut its valuation to ~$13B last month, down from $39B in early 2021, and reportedly plans to push its IPO to next year.
• Gopuff recently laid off ~2k employees, and pushed its IPO plans to next year as well.

While its competitors struggle, DoorDash has reportedly doubled its grocery delivery business since last year.

So what makes DoorDash different?

Users seem to be using DoorDash in a different way from its pure-play competitors:

• The average DoorDash order is under $50, compared to $100+ for Instacart.
• These smaller volumes suggest customers are likely using DoorDash to supplement in-store grocery shopping, rather than replace it, ordering “top-off” items to avoid extra in-store trips.

This use case could prove to be more sustainable than relying on delivery for all groceries in the long run.

DoorDash is relatively new to grocery and convenience…

… So is Uber, one of its top rivals in general delivery. Both companies are trying to hook customers with a $10/mo. subscription, setting up a battle for wallet share.

With ~40% of its 25m monthly users subscribed to DashPass, DoorDash seems to have a head start.

The world of air travel has had a cloudy couple of years.

Staffing shortages caused delays and cancellations to skyrocket, with 88k+ domestic flights canceled between January and May alone.

But you know what makes a flight delay easier to deal with?

A functional airport

The Wall Street Journal ranked the top 20 largest airports in the US across 19 factors, with some stark findings:

• California airports are the cream of the crop — San Francisco was the top-rated large airport, while Sacramento took the crown for top-ranked midsize airport.
• Avoid New York and New Jersey at all costs — Newark and JFK were the two worst-ranked large airports, while LaGuardia was the worst-ranked midsize airport.

The bottom line? Now might be the time to take that holiday trip to Hawaii — if your flight is canceled, at least you’ll have a nice place to pass the time.

When the whole world went digital, sales were no exception.

Today, there’s less customer face time (no pun), and more competitor research; less dressing up and door-to-door, more staying home and making phone calls.

Sales teams have been evolving. And none of them should jump into the next year without consulting the 2023 Sales Trends Report by Aircall and HubSpot.

Eight data-backed chapters on sales:

• Top six sales goals of 2023
• Tackling common challenges
• Making the most of phone calls
• Generating high-quality leads
• Building a resilient team culture
• Sales industry comparison (2021-22)
• Key sales and productivity metrics
• Insights and tips from pro salespeople

1) Russians Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova were arrested for heading Z-Library, a piracy site hosting 11m+ ebooks. The site went viral on TikTok, with students promoting it as the go-to spot for free textbooks.

2) Assuming Twitter were to hit 250m daily active users, and 1% of them were to pay for an $8/mo. subscription to the app, Apple would notch $72m in commission revenue within one year; Google would make $36m.

3) Today, two of America’s largest railroad unions will announce whether their members voted in favor of a new wage deal. If rejected, it could lead to a strike of ~60k railroad workers.

4) Sports betting site FanDuel projects its market will grow to $22.6B by 2030. The company commands a 42% market share, but will likely see fierce competition from Fanatics, the $27B+ merchandise company planning to roll out gambling services next year.

5) Almost exactly 10 years ago, Nintendo released the Wii U. The company sold 13.56m units of the console, which paled in comparison to its predecessor, the Wii, which sold 101m units. Still, people seem to have a soft spot for it.

🎼 On this day: In 1937, composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony debuted in Leningrad to a standing ovation over an hour long.

🎧 Podcast: Listen to this episode of Outbound Squad to hear how Anthony Natoli went from sales representative to strategic account executive at Lattice.

🐄 That’s interesting: Cows that eat hemp produce milk containing THC and CBD — and get high.

🧠 How to: Forget multitasking. Here’s why you should single-task instead.

🐦 Aww: And now, an improvised bird bath.