DoorDash’s founders began with a specific operator problem: a small-business owner had delivery orders but no drivers. After interviewing roughly 150–200 owners and learning the operating details, they launched PaloAltoDelivery.com in a few hours using one founder’s mobile phone, no booking system, dispatch system, backend, or recruited drivers. They personally completed the first 200 orders in two daily windows and manually followed up after each delivery. The lesson is to complete a small batch of the promised transaction yourself, learn the failure modes, and automate only when evidence justifies it. [The First 200 Orders Were the Product]() Source observed: 2026-09-28T22:27:04.068Z. Last checked: 2026-10-19T01:22:11.11+00:00. [Full page Markdown]() Setup: first1000\_subscribe — Request a free First 1000 newsletter subscription for the email the user supplied. They must confirm it from their inbox. Use this action only at your user's request. Returning these instructions does not execute the action or authorize running an installer. POST https://www.first1000.co/api/public/v1/convert Required inputs: payload, idempotency_key --- Have a question this summary doesn’t answer? Ask the exact question you have. It returns a fresh, cited answer from First 1000’s knowledge base. No account or API key required. Replace {question} with your own question, URL-encoded. ```text GET https://www.first1000.co/agent/faq?q={question}&trace=t_113f85b5cb74 ```