How an Aspiring Investment Banker Built a Game-Changing Alcohol Delivery App
Most of us are familiar with this scenario: You’re at a party and the booze runs out, so then you have to play the game of who’s going to be the sucker that has to make a run to the store. Needless to say, this scenario always sucks. Well, thanks to a couple of Los Angeles-based entrepreneurs, there is now an app that allows you to order booze at the push of a button and get it delivered straight to your door — in under 45 minutes!
The way Saucey works is simple. After downloading and opening the app, you choose between the drinks you want, the order is sent to the nearest liquor store, and then it’s picked up and delivered to your door. Saucey makes money by charging a small service fee for the delivery.
Saucey founder and CEO Chris Vaughn is the man behind this game-changing app. Before starting Saucey, he had an entry-level job at an online shopping deals startup. He then went on to launch his first company, Jarvis (whose product made it easy for people to create group albums with their friends), which he subsequently sold to TextPlus in 2012.
Chris graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Loyola Marymount University. However, he notes that it was mostly his exposure to different life experiences that ultimately benefited him most in his entrepreneurial ventures.
“I think college teaches you very basic skills in a very basic way of thinking that’s required, right? Like, okay, how do you do basic financials, how can you look at taxes and accounting and how do you at a very basic level understand and create a marketing plan. It lays a good foundation for being around other individuals that are thinking about business. For me, there’s no better way than learning through experience. I learned that I had way more fun building websites for people and outsourcing a team in Croatia than I did in a classroom. So for me, I think that the most educational experiences I’ve had is building things.”
The Saucey team consists of talents whom Vaughn has worked with for years, including head of product Daniel Leeb, who ran the iOS teams at TextPlus, chief engineering officer Andrew Zeck, who was a lead engineer at TextPlus, and chairman Richard Bealand, former CEO of digital marketing agency Hawkeye Media. Building a team of such experienced individuals is no easy feat, so when we asked Chris his philosophy on picking partners, here’s what he had to say:
“I think you’ve probably heard of this before and you’ll hear it again – it’s picking people that are absolutely brilliant, that are way better than you are and fills where you’re lacking. I think it’s being brutally honest with yourself as to where your shortcomings are and picking the right people that fill those gaps. In reality, the best teams just complement each other. I’m a big believer in responsibility-driven cultures. I can rely on [my co-founders] and they can rely on me to get the stuff done. It’s just adding people that have experience in categories that go beyond your own and just constantly building the absolute strongest group of people that you can that work really well together and share the same vision.”
“We’re just so passionate about what we are building every single day. We work seven days a week because we’re also like a service industry business. And it’s easy because it’s something that we love to do. So it’s looking for people that have undying passion for the project.”
Apart from creating a great product, the Saucey team has thought up some creative ways to market their app. During Memorial Day, for instance, they partnered with startup MeUndies to have underwear models delivering alcohol to customers’ doors.
This is the second company Chris has built after having his first one acquired. We asked him whether it was easier the second time around.
“I think it definitely gets easier in some capacities. I think the first time around, yeah, there’s all sorts of stuff and it’s very new. The second time around you’ve get it done a lot faster because you’ve done it before right. We look at our competitors, and for a lot of them this is their very first go-around, their very first company, and some of them it took almost two and a half to three years to get a prototype in market. It took us five months to get our prototype out, so that’s a testament to our experience.”
Chris notes that his company’s long-term vision is expansion to more cities, as his service is currently only available in mainly L.A. areas. They also recently released a new feature on the app called “Cocktails” that allows users easy access to cocktail recipes to make at home.
Originally Written by Benny Luo for NextShark
