We’ve all been there. An afternoon catch up with friends turns into a takeout order, at which point it’s time to decide who takes the job of picking up the food. The argument over who leaves the house to pick up a takeaway order can cause serious schisms between friends, especially on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
With meal delivery service costs increasing, it’s becoming more and more difficult to find a cost-effective option that provides fast and cheap food delivery with minimal fuss.
A new food delivery startup is planning to change things up, however. Although is seems like the food delivery is already well beyond saturation point, with services such as UberEATS, Postmates, Amazon Restaurants, Waitr, Drizzly, Doordash, Saucey, and more all providing restaurant-to-door delivery, an innovative new startup is drawing on peer-to-peer inspired frameworks to create a social delivery service aimed primarily at college students.
JoyRun is a new food delivery app that has recently raised just a little over $10 million USD in funding for their dynamic and fresh take on the practice of delivering food to hungry college students.
While the technology behind the JoyRun solution is relatively standard, the model itself is different than others in the market. In this article, we’ll check out JoyRun and find out how it works to see how it measures up to other food delivery services.
What is JoyRun?
JoyRun describes itself as a food delivery service for friends, by friends. The platform, unlike UberEATS and other more top-down, commercialized food delivery services, is intended to connect users with their local community and allow them to make a few extra bucks while picking up a food order.
The JoyRun platform isn’t designed to provide full time employment like most of the other options on the delivery market, but is instead devised as a method for individuals already picking up food to knock a few dollars off their total bill, and maybe even pay for the meal entirely.
The JoyRun presentation is decidedly different from other delivery apps. Boasting no minimum order size, no markups on menu items, no surge or timing-based pricing, and no costly and exorbitant delivery fees, JoyRun is a refreshing take on the delivery game. Joyrun also isn’t dependent on integration with a specific restaurant, and doesn’t have to be endorsed by the food supplier to work- the entire process operates from the user end.
The platform has been picked up by news platforms such as Fortune, and VentureBeat, who have lauded the system for providing flexible earning options to anybody in the community and providing a unique social feed that connects diners and deliverers in the immediate area.
The JoyRun platform doesn’t rely on tech gimmicks like drones, self driving cars, or robots to function. Instead, the system is geared around good old-fashioned human interaction, providing a standardized method of allocating favors between friends, coworkers, and roommates.
How JoyRun Works
The core concept behind JoyRun is simple. Users download and install the app, and can use it to both perform deliveries as a “runner”, or make an order themselves. Make no mistake, however- JoyRun isn’t intended to function as an income platform for professional runners.
JoyRun deliveries are performed by diners that are already heading out to a restaurant or takeaway place that are happy to pick up an extra bag or two for a small financial incentive.
The app presents users with a detailed, high resolution map of the movements of other JoyRun users in the local vicinity- those that are already out and about, those that are heading out to pick up food, and other individuals that are seeking to make an order. Users are able to select anybody on the move that is heading either to or in the general vicinity of their chosen takeaway place, and tack their order on top.
If the individual that is picking up the order accepts the run, they’ll pick up the new order alongside theirs and drop it off on the way back, earning themselves anywhere between $0 and $5, depending on the preferences of the runner.
The solution is ideal for high-density communities where there are many groups ordering from the same restaurants and food providers, making the targeted marketing toward the college demographic from JoyRun a stroke of genius.
The payment method utilized by JoyRun to perform transactions is a little clunky, but it works. The ordering party pays for the meal they want via the app, and the runner pays for the order out of their own pocket. After delivery, the runner is reimbursed the full amount of the order plus their runner’s fee, minus a cut that is taken as part of the JoyRun profit scheme.
There is a small amount of overcharge on each order to compensate for any pricing differences that may occur on the runner’s end, but this small surplus is credited back to the orderer’s account after the order has taken place.
A major advantage of the JoyRun system is that the payment platform, Quickpay, processes payments overnight, meaning there’s no need to wait for minimum credit levels or long withdrawal process times for runners.
The JoyRun Story
JoyRun is the brainchild of Manish Rathi, who describes the development process of the platform as a solution that works alongside traditional order-sharing habits, likening the platform as the UberPOOL to Uber’s original Uber Black Car service.
The app, according to Rathi, is not intended for those that only want to order food, but those that are willing to both order and perform deliveries.
JoyRun Verdict
Joyrun is offering hungry consumers the ability to access cheap, fast, and personable food delivery as well as potentially make a quick buck or get their meal entirely free. By building on the backbone of an already-existing set of social rules and favors, JoyRun is set to be one of the biggest players in the food delivery game by the end of the year.
If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to get fresh food delivered cheap, JoyRun is your best bet.
