We just launched the beta for Get It Now in San Francisco and one of my todos here at Postmates is it to write a blog post about the launch and for that matter, start this entire company blog. I should point out that we’re a team of 11 now, all native speakers, except me — I’m German. German but nice, how my good friends like to point out. I will give this my best shot, but I apologize ahead of time for the clear abuse of the English language that will without a doubt happen over the course of the next couple blog posts.

San Francisco, like many other cities, is highly driven by its neighborhoods and people’s favorite places within them. Almost everyone I know has a favorite place in the city. A favorite restaurant, a beloved deli, a tasty food truck or friendliest brick & mortar store. The problem is that these places are not always in reach. They often only operate one location in a city so unless you’re nearby, their products aren’t available. 

When we launched Postmates last December, we made it our mission to offer all of these local places an Amazon like delivery experience through our existing Postmates app but we’ve also had to face the reality that we can’t change a city over night. We would love to sign up every retail store in the city, capture their inventory, unlock it, make it searchable, turn it into a store front and make ordering form your local stores seamless, more resourceful and faster than shipping your items across the country. The reality is that we won’t get this task done anytime soon if we don’t hack the system a litte bit.

Hacking the system

So instead of waiting until we signed up every merchant in San Francisco to use Postmates, we decided to give you magic powers to order anything from your local stores, whether they currently use Postmates or not. Get It Now is at its heart a huge warehouse that you can access and have items purchased and delivered from at any time. We use our own urban logistics platform to coordinate an army of Postmates equipped with credit cards to get you the best of San Francisco in under an hour.

Think late night Pizza from Little Star, skipping the brunch lines at Dottie’s or ordering delicious food from Mission Pie. Suddenly your favorite places are within reach regardless of where you are in the city.

Ordering through the app is intuitive and easy. You can browse the items in our featured places or search for any place in your city and write us a shopping list of thing to buy. Going forward we will make things even easier, with the integration of complete menus from your favorite places.
We also decided to change the price structure for our Get It Now app. For the beta period your very first delivery is free, subsequent deliveries cost $7.99 plus a 5% service fee on all purchased items.

If you haven’t already, head over to our sign up page, download the beta version and send us your feedback at: bastian@postmates.com. In return, we’ll reward you with a free delivery.

Finally here are some of our favourite places in San Francisco:
Hard Knox Cafe on 3rd Street by David
Chow on Church St by Sean
City Beer Sore on Folsom St by Bastian

Place an order this Saturday and chances are it will arrive with one of our limited Cinco de Mayo party packs. Our party packs include Margaritaville tequila mini shot bottles, mini Mexican flags, mini piñatas, margarita style shot glasses and party poppers to spice up your Cinco de Mayo celebration.

We will give away the surprise packs throughout Saturday in San Francisco, so go ahead and place an order or download the Get It Now beta app!

We’ll also be featuring the best Mexican restaurants and places in San Francisco in the Get It Now app on Saturday. Use the opportunity to order some tasty Mexican food or drinks for your party. On Saturday our Postmates are available until midnight. 

If you’re lucky enough to get one of the party packs, we’d love it if you’d share a picture of your party on Twitter!

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been working hard to implement your feedback into the new Get It Now app and are excited to announce an entirely new menu system. Rather than typing an item list, you can now select items from a mobile menu, built directly into our app. 

To debut our new menu system and celebrate Mom, we’ve teamed up with That Takes The Cake to bring you a great deal for Mother’s Day: 6 cupcakes for the price of 4! 

Select That Takes The Cake from the list of Featured Stores in the Get It Now app and choose the Mother’s Day special from our new menu. And if cupcakes aren’t your thing, you can also order Mission Pie via our slick new menu. 

If you have the app, simply update and you’re good to go! (And if you don’t, sign up here: postmates.com/getitnow) 

The wait is over. You can now download Get It Now from the iTunes Store. Also, check out a few press snippets about our launch below:

By leveraging their existing network of couriers and equipping them with credit cards, Get It Now enables customers to order from their favorite local restaurants and merchants from their mobile phone. The app provides access to virtually any store in the city and businesses that do not traditionally offer delivery such as Little Star Pizza, Mission Pie, the Apple Store, Walgreens or Nordstroms. 

“The most exciting part of what we’ve built is that we’ve entirely unlocked the city’s local inventory,” explained Bastian Lehmann, co-founder and CEO of Postmates. “Our goal is to provide an Amazon shipping experience with same day delivery, from any store in the city. Think of Get It Now as the largest warehouse in this city…with no warehouse at all.”

Get It Now has been in private beta for the last eight weeks with a little over 1,000 users. In that time, the company has grown its available courier capacity to fulfill nearly 1,000 deliveries a day and is averaging over $116 in revenues per user each month. 

Built on Postmate’s existing urban logistics platform, Get It Now utilizes complex algorithms to determine the price of a delivery based on the required effort. Several data points contribute to the estimate including information such as time of day, optimal route, and vehicle type. 

The infrastructure that powers Get It Now is already in use by a growing number of startups and local businesses in the Bay Area. 

“Delivering supplies to our washers to keep up with customer demand is critical to our business,” explained Travis VanderZanden, CEO of on-demand car wash startup, Cherry. “Postmates is simple, reliable and provides a seamless process from start to finish. They may make it look easy, but they’re solving an extremely complex problem.”  

And thanks to all our friends at TechCrunch, BusinessInsider, TheNextWeb, DigitalTrends and BetaKit for the coverage today!

“Postmates Debuts ‘Get It Now’ iPhone App To Bring On-Demand Couriers To All Of SF”

“Postmates launched Get It Now, a delivery service that will bring you anything in an hour” 

“Meet the Startup That’s Going to Completely Change the Way You Buy From Stores”

What better way to enjoy the gorgeous weather we’ve been having here in SF, than a picnic?! This weekend, we gave 15 users everything they needed to have the ultimate picnic, from utensils to umbrella straws to goofy sunglasses and mustaches.

Our picnic kits were delivered all over the city to groups of friends at Golden Gate Park, couples on Baker Beach and families at Crissy Field. 

Thanks to everyone that tweeted us photos from your personal picnics. It looked like a blast! 

This weekend, we delivered 25 couples everything they needed for the perfect date night in. Each package contained a bottle of wine from Rewinery, a box of delicious treats from Batter Bakery, a candle, plates, utensils, and a handful of rose petals.

As we predicted, the most popular restaurant of the evening was House of Prime Rib, with 1300 on Fillmore in a close second. 

While we ran out of packages extremely fast, it was a blast to see users tweeting photos of their dates and sharing stories from their evening. One couple took their food and package up to the Marin Headlands to watch the sunset and another couple even invited friends over for a double date! 

While we managed deliveries, our team joined in the fun and had dinner together as well. It was a great excuse to hang out with our loved ones and, of course, eat Bastian’s famous German potato salad.

Thank you to everyone that participated and especially to Rewinery and Batter Bakery for providing the goods! We’re already cooking up our next promotion, so stay tuned…

The 4th of July is one of our favorite holidays.

Considering our founding team is 1 part German, 1 part British and 1 part American, we understand how important it is that we have the freedom and the resources to build Postmates into a thriving business here in the U.S. 

It’s also the perfect time to see Get It Now in action. Last night, customers turned to Get It Now to get everything they needed for the ultimate 4th of July. Postmates delivered hamburger meat, ice cream and sodas for a family BBQ, ping pong balls and miller lite for a beer pong tournament, outdoor grills, a handful of Tony’s pizzas for a large get-together and tons more. I even turned to Get It Now after realizing my guests were showing up in 30 minutes and I needed a 3 gallon beverage dispenser for margaritas. 

All in all, we had a blast. 

So much so, in fact, that we decided everyone may be in need of a little hangover cure this morning. Which is why we assembled 30 “hangover kits” complete with items from gatorade to 5 hr energy to alka seltzer. These puppies will perk you up after last night’s festivities and help you get through the day.

Because, honestly, whose idea was it to have 4th of July on a Wednesday anyway?! 

This community is awesome. Whether you’re tweeting to friends and colleagues, sharing on Facebook or posting photos of your deliveries, it’s clear that you love sharing the experience of Get It Now.

To thank you for spreading the word and helping grow this community, we’re announcing Give One, Get One. 

1. Click “Invite a Friend” in the Get It Now app

2. Invite friends via Facebook, text message or e-mail and they’ll receive a free delivery

3. Once your friends redeem their free delivery, you get a free delivery in return.

The best part? There’s no limit to how many free deliveries you can earn! Invite your colleagues, your roommates, your mom’s knitting club, you name it. The number of free deliveries you’ve accumulated is easily visible in “Invite Friends” so you can track your amount at any point. 

We’re so excited to announce the winner of yesterday’s #OrangeOctober costume contest. This customer’s costume really pulled at our heart strings and stood out from the rest (well, probably crawled). She also happens to be our youngest Postmates customer….congratulations to little Ava and her parents Erin and Warren.

Enjoy the week of free deliveries! 

We had such an overwhelming response of awesome costumes that we decided we simply couldn’t choose one winner….

So, to all of our other incredible users that submitted photos (below), we’re giving you an entire day of FREE deliveries.

Good for use all day tomorrow, Friday November 2, use Get It Now to your heart’s content. Get breakfast, lunch, groceries, dinner, or maybe some makeup remover for that Avatar costume ;)

Thanks again to everyone for the awesome participation! We’re lucky to have such a creative, supportive community here in San Francisco.

<3 Postmates

Pizza and Chinese take-out will always be an option on Postmates, but many of you have learned there’s so much more. We’ve looked at all of our deliveries to find the best, the fastest and/or the strangest food delivered by Postmates in 2012.

Of course, we couldn’t keep this data secret. Here’s the best of Postmates this year: 

1. The Fastest Food of SF: Chicken Katsu Curry

JapaCurry Truck had the shortest wait time on our platform this year. So, next time you have a few minutes before a meeting, think Chicken Katsu Curry and think quick.

2nd Place: Spicy Basil Chicken at Abacus
3rd Place: Genoa Salami at 1058 Hoagie

2. The Top Snack After 10PM: Sour Patch Candy

You’ll be surprised at the orders after 10PM. One thing San Franciscans have in common is a particular affection for Sour Patch Candy (all kinds!!) after dark.

2nd: Kashi Oatmeal Cookies
3rd: Mac and Cheese Bar from Bullitt

3. The Foodie’s Cuddle Buddy: Vegetarian Samusa Soup

Imagine, it’s cold and wet outside. You’re cozy in pajamas, but hungry. If you’re like most, you’ll order a Vegetarian Samusa Soup from Burma Superstar pronto.

2nd: Tomato at American Grilled Cheese
3rd: Chicken Pho at Turtle Tower

4. The Condiment FTW: Roasted Garlic Aioli

Umami Burger is great, their various spicy and salty condiments are even greater. In fact, the Roasted Garlic Aioli had all of us begging for more.

2nd: Diablo Sauce at Umami
3rd: Jalapeño Ranch at Umami

5. The Up-and-Comer: Korean Steak Sandwich

When everyone else has a Super Duper Burger, the Postmates innovators are exploring foreign territory like the Korean Steak Sandwich at Rhea’s. It’s the fastest growing popular item on Postmates!

2nd: Salt Cod Rice at Mission Chinese
3rd: Super Burrito at The Little Chihuahua

6. The Way We Like Our Eggs: Wild Mushroom Benedict

Eggs. You want them perfect. So, the folks at Mission Creek piled on caramelized onions and truffle monay sauce, then sent it to you immediately. We think brunch will never be the same.

2nd Place: 2 Eggs at Brenda’s Soul Food
3rd Place: Mixt Cobb Salad at Mixt Greens

Looking forward to 2013! 

Whether it’s Russet Fries from Roam Burgers or the Carne Asada Burrito at Papalote, you know Postmates is here to deliver what you need. We thank you for sharing an incredible year with us. Feel free to share all of this with your very hungry friends by clicking below.

We’re working fast to make every menu in San Francisco available to you on Get It Now. Here are just six of the many new menus we’ve added in the past weeks! 

Le Soleil

Considered “a marriage of Vietnamese and French styles presented gourmands a unique contrast of flavors.” This Inner Richmond Vietnamese restaurant has a coveted 4-star rating on yelp and people screaming about the coconut ice cream and Pho. 

Haig’s Delicatessen

Another Inner Richmond favorite, Haig’s is traditional Mediterranean restaurant known for their spicy hummus plate and falafel sandwiches. 

Suzu Noodle House

Found in Japantown, Suzu Noodle House is one of the best ramen spots in the city. Too small to go and eat there, Suzu is the perfect order-in for yet another foggy day.

Queen’s Louisiana Po’ Boys

How high is your spice threshold? If you’re always looking for something seasoned, cajun and Southern, you’ll smile when you to see the menu at Queen’s. Yelpers recommend the gumbo and sweet potato fries, sounds good to us.

M.Y. China

Celebrity chef, Martin Yan, runs this Chinese restaurant found in Union Square. #nuffsaid. 

Hakkasan

Black Truffle Roasted Duck? Four words that had us sold, and only one of the mouth-watering dishes on the Hakkasan menu. This American Cantonese fusion restaurant is glowing on Yelp and our friends say almost everything is recommended.

Hungry yet? Just know we’re constantly looking for new menus to add to Get It Now. If you don’t see the menu for a restaurant you want, tweet us (@GetItNow) and we’ll add it! 

Because bra & undie emergencies are the worst!

Fashion emergencies. They happen, and for many women in San Francisco preparing for New Year’s Eve, these annoying emergencies will happen more than once.

That’s why we jumped to power the holiday emergency concierge over at True&Co.  From now until NYE, open Get It Now and you’ll find the True&Co Holiday Shop available for you or a lady friend to get everything needed for those tricky strapless or one-shoulder dresses. 

P.S. Guys, don’t feel left out. Be the knight in shining armor, and help your lady in her hour of need! 

Check Out The Holiday Shop Now!

Just a quick little update that we have new menus for some of your favorite restaurants. Some may be closed during the holidays, so why not check them all out! 

Not in any particular order, we’ve added the following menus: Gung Ho, Wonderland, Fraiche Yogurt, Icebee, Red Door Cafe, My Father’s Kitchen and Chile Lindo Empanadas.

Now that’s how you kick off a new year! 

It’s officially 2013. So as you draft out your New Year’s Resolutions or Anti-Resolutions, we thought we’d deliver you the First Supper of your Year. Kick off the new year with any meal you want, because in 2013 you’ve earned the choice.

Your First Salad

If you live in San Francisco, you’ve heard of the famous Tea Leaf Salad at Burma Superstar. Make your first supper a salad and stick to that new year’s resolution.

Your First Thali

Whether it’s fish, mussels or vegetarian, the assorted platters or “Thalis” from Gajalee will have you excited for the new year.

Your First Burrito

The folks at La Taquera make miracles with their Carne Asada burritos. We think your first supper should include a miracle.

Your First Slice

2013 is the year to appreciate details. Details like crust and the art of the deep dish pizza. Little Star knows this and delivers.

Your First Burger

Again, it’s the year for details. Roam believes this and accompanies their veggie, beef, bison or turkey burgers with the finest ingredients available which makes for one helluva first meal.

Your First Pho

Who says your first meal of the year can’t involve a piping hot frothy bowl of Pho? Don’t believe them. Get the Turtle Tower specialty, and bundle up to thank yourself for a great year passed.

2013: The Year of Choice.

You know our mission. We want to deliver anything in the city to you in under an hour. Want Mission tacos but live in the Marina? No problem. We’re here to unlock the city for you this year.

We’re Growing Fast. 150K Miles Fast.

2012 was an amazing and busy year for us because you kept loving and using Get It Now. We launched just seven months ago here in San Francisco but our Postmates already travelled over 150,000 miles last year - that’s almost 6 times around the earth!

But, 2012 was only the start. Here is what to expect in 2013:

The best experience

Here is a promise, we will keep pushing what’s possible throughout the new year. We will continue to ramp up our supply, we will continue to provide the best tools for our couriers and we will work even harder to reduce our delivery times. The current average delivery time is 39 minutes - Let’s compare it in 2014!

More cities

We love it here in SF, but we feel the time is right to take the Get It Now experience to other cities, as well. To accomplish this, we’re hiring General Managers in our upcoming launch cities! Sounds like a great opportunity for you? Apply.

Android support

Our most requested feature in 2012 was to add Android support. It’s true that we’ve neglected other devices. We believe that at the time, it was right to concentrate on a single platform. This allowed us to test features and implement changes without worrying about an additional port. However this year, we’re looking for great people to join us in launching an Android version.
 

Finally, here is to the many mistakes and things we got wrong in 2012! We delivered the wrong items, didn’t respond fast enough to feedback and neglected important bugs. While we cannot promise these things won’t happen again in 2013, we’ve tried to learn from our mistakes and taken necessary steps to improve. We’re using tools like Asana and Uservoice (thanks guys), and we’ve built our own communications to get faster in replying to your feedback.

If you were affected by our mistakes in 2012 - we hope you’ll give us another try in 2013! Better yet, tweet and tell us how we can improve (@Postmates).

With an agenda like this, we will be busy. Join us in 2013 and help us be even better!

Thank you,

Bastian
  

We’re hiring:

City General Managers in Seattle & New York (Business)

Launch Team Member (Growth)

Director of Growth & Strategy(Growth)

Product Designer(Creative)

Android Engineer (Engineering)

Generalist Engineer(Engineering)

iOS Engineer(Engineering)

Didn’t see what you wanted? Find more opportunities on our Jobs Page.

At Postmates it is our goal to provide all of our customers with world-class service that is not only fast and reliable, but is one that they can trust. Yesterday we experienced the first incident where a courier working on the Postmates platform violated the trust of one of our customers. During a delivery to a shared office space yesterday afternoon the courier was responsible for the theft of an employee’s personal phone. After speaking with the customer in depth this morning, we were able to resolve the situation to the customer’s satisfaction. 

This incident has both surprised and saddened us and we want to take this opportunity to address a larger issue: office safety in an era of increasing e-commerce.

Our location logging systems coupled with the security camera at the office location enabled us to properly identify the courier and correlate the stolen item’s location and the courier’s location for this specific incident. The combination of these practices enabled a better outcome than if these practices were not in place. However, not all deliveries are as extensively logged, and not all offices have security cameras. It is because of this that we want to talk about what can be done to help ensure a secure office environment. We recommend a few measures:

• Establish a process for greeting visitors and accepting deliveries
• Store personal items out of sight
• If possible, investigate adding security cameras even if only for high-traffic areas

For our part, Postmates will double our efforts to improve the quality and security of our services. Our current measures include background checks and extensive in-person interviews, followed by ongoing tracking, customer ratings, and performance analytics. We will work to improve these measures and add new ones.

In all, I understand the importance of feeling secure when you order something to your home or office and we certainly don’t take your trust for granted. I respect that trust immensely and will continue doing everything in our power to keep earning it in 2013 and beyond.

Bastian Lehmann

CEO of Postmates

Vote & Enter to Win Two Tickets to the Crunchies! 

We’re excited to be nominated in the Techcrunch 2012 Crunchies -  an award ceremony to celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the past year. Great companies like Airbnb, Lyft, TaskRabbit and Uber stand amongst us for the Best Collaborative Consumption Service of 2012 award, and we couldn’t be happier.

Still, this nomination got us thinking. You’re the reason we received this, you’re the real winner here. So, who would be the best person to hang out with the Silicon Valley elite?
Well, you!

We’re bringing a Get It Now fan (and one of their friends) to celebrate with us at the Crunchies ceremony on Jan 31st. You can vote for anyone - you’re not required to vote for us to enter. Just tweet us (@Postmates) with the hashtag #CRUNCHIESFTW to let us know you voted. We’ll select one of you and give you 2 free tickets to join us at the Crunchies! 

P.S. You can vote every day. So, what are you waiting for? Click below and vote! 

Click here to cast your vote

Let’s celebrate… at least for today.

Finally a holiday to get behind. We’d like to remind you today is  National Ditch Your Resolution Day. So, no more salads when you’re dreaming of carbs or cheap frozen meals when you really want swordfish ala Cotogna. You have one weekend to reward your hard work. Let’s get to it.

Today, you’ll find an entire list of restaurants and places to help you Ditch Your Resolutions in style. Find it in Get It Now and keep reading for a few ideas:

(Re)Introducing Donuts & Coffee

Typically the first combo to go on the resolution list and often the most missed. Celebrate this new holiday with Philz and Dynamo Donuts. Just order in the mornings and use it as an excuse to be productive… or not. 

Carbs, You’ve Been Missed

The carb can be your best friend - particularly in pasta and pizza form. We say ditch the greens and order a nice pasta dinner from SPQR or a deep dish from Little Star. Just kick back & love it. Blame it on the holiday.

Just A Little Fried Chicken

Get it Asian-style at San Tung Chinese Restaurant or with soul at Hard Knox Cafe. Any way you like it, there can’t be a better way to break a New Year’s Resolution than a little fried chicken.

Sugar Never Felt This Good

We found the most dangerous page on the internet: 7x7’s 50 Treats to Eat Before You Die. Don’t pack it all in 2013. Start with coconut cupcakes from Kara’sand the toffee cake at Starbelly.

Enjoy the holiday!

Find the Ditch Your Resolutions list in Get It Now and enjoy the weekend. 
P.S. Pretend like this never happened on Monday. We won’t say a word. ;)

Hundreds flocked to Sundance this week to watch some of the most creative new films of the year, but as they face the snow you can snuggle up at home and enjoy some of the classics. Host a film festival this weekend - and eat well while you’re at it.

Here’s how:

Friday Night = Deep Dish Dark Comedy Night

Think Fight Club, Bad Santa and The Cable Guy. Friday night means deep dish and movies that make you laugh at the worst times. Little Star and Patxi’s are the appropriate choice for those deep dish needs.

Saturday Morning = Breakfast with John Hughes

Ah, the eighties. Relive the past with Planes, Trains & Automobiles and Uncle Buck early Saturday morning. Get breakfast delivered from Mama’s or Mission Beach Cafe right before The Breakfast Club starts.

Sunday Afternoon = Eat Heavy with Trilogies

Hopefully you’ll be queuing up in sets of threes come Sunday with classics like Indiana Jones or Star Wars. You’ll want to pair your trilogies with food that lasts like Nopalito or Dosa.

Cheers to Sundance in Your Pajamas!

Hopefully you’ll be queuing up in sets of threes come Sunday with classics like Indiana Jones or Star Wars. You’ll want to pair your trilogies with food that lasts like Nopalito or Dosa.

It’s Beer Week, Bro!

(And We’re Handing Out Six Packs Like Candy)

It’s here. Beer Week has finally hit the city!

As you make intelligent decisions on your ale, lager and stout choices, we thought we’d give you the one thing any good friend can: a guide to booze pairings.

But we’re not done. We’ve got 10 free six packs here in the office, and it’s up for grabs! At exactly 5:00 PM, find our Beer O’clock store in Get It Now packed with free beer.

It’s first come, first serve. So open Get It Now at 4:59 and get one of the 10 packs of free beer!

For the Lagers 

Lagers are the light beers, so you’ll want to spice things up with these. Anything from Little Chihuahua or the ribs from Roadside BBQ should do the trick.

For the Stouts

You’re headed straight to the beef with this one. No matter if it’s an Imperial or an Oatmeal Stout, get anything from Phat Philly (bonus points: add cheddar beer sauce fries!) or the Port & Stilton Burger from Umami.

For the Ales

Your IPA will need a bestie, that bestie should be deep fried. Pair your ales with a fried porkchop, fried chicken sandwich, barbeque fries… the list goes on at places like  Hard Knox Cafe or Show Dogs.

Now all you need is to… 

Find more beer, of course. Check out 7x7’s list of activities, spots and ideas for this glorious week. Have fun, and remember we’re always available the morning after.