{"id":4897,"date":"2026-08-04T16:11:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4897"},"modified":"2026-08-04T16:11:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:11:44","slug":"doordash-ceo-tony-xu-once-thought-his-87-billion-company-would-only-make-100-million-he-tells-founders-to-be-greedy-and-dream-bigger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=4897","title":{"rendered":"DoorDash CEO Tony Xu once thought his $87 billion company would only make $100 million. He tells founders to be \u2018greedy\u2019 and dream bigger"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cI think a lot of times you kind of, as an entrepreneur, have to take the greedy algorithm,\u201d Xu recently said on the Uncapped with Jack Altman<\/em> podcast. \u201cYou have to keep going all the way and seeing if there\u2019s more.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a lesson he\u2019s learned when trying to secure seed funding for DoorDash in the spring of 2013. Just months after the company\u2019s inception, with only around 150 customers and $10,000 in sales, the four cofounders submitted an application to start-up accelerator Y Combinator. When asked how much they think their business could make one day, the entrepreneurs gave an estimate that seemed aspirational in the moment\u2014but pales in comparison to how much the $87 billion giant reels in now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cI estimated something like $100 million of revenue,\u201d Xu continued. \u201cThankfully, we\u2019re a few orders of magnitude off.\u201d<\/p>\n

In reality, the company reached that annual revenue in 2018. DoorDash\u2019s first quarter revenue this year hit a whopping $4 billion\u201440 times more than the founders\u2019 original revenue projection in just a single quarter. Meanwhile, total orders across America and more than 40 other countries have also increased 27% over that same time, amounting to 933 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In reality, the company reached that annual revenue in 2018and it\u2019s only hit the gas since DoorDash\u2019s first quarter revenue this year hit a whopping $4 billion, reeling in 40 times more than their original revenue projection in just a single quarter. And its success has exploded beyond its Silicon Valley roots. Total orders across America and more than 40 other countries have also increased 27% over that same time, amounting to 933 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very hard as an entrepreneur when you\u2019re working out of your apartment, to know what that size could be one day,\u201d Xu said. \u201cTurns out a lot of people eat food.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Founders say it\u2019s important to be \u2018delusional\u2019 and \u2018crazy\u2019\u00a0<\/h2>\n

Founders who have launched billion-dollar businesses are being candid on the methods to their madness. Whether it be \u201cdelusional\u201d or \u201ccrazy,\u201d many say embracing unconventional thinking is what helped them make it big time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Chess.com cofounder Danny Rensch started his online empire when his life was on the brink of collapse. Although he initially believed his vision was unrealistic, he credits a bit of that self-delusion to the platform\u2019s success. And after years of elbow grease and persistence, Rensch has scaled Chess.com as a go-to destination for digital chess, and reached a $1 billion valuation in 2023. Now, the beloved gameplay business hosts tens of millions of matches daily, with hundreds of millions of users tuning in from around the world.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe idea that Chess.com could actually be what I thought it could be required me to be delusional,\u201d Rensch, told Fortune<\/em>last year, referencing the same wisdom as his friend, Bonobos cofounder Andy Dunn. \u201cThe belief that you see something that doesn\u2019t exist yet, and how delusional that is, is the requirement for every successful entrepreneur.<\/p>\n

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Billionaire Mike Repole says that craziness is key to success. The serial entrepreneur cofounded and sold beverage companies Glaceau (Smartwater, Vitaminwater) and BodyArmor to Coca-Cola for a combined $9.7 billion. But along the way, he admitted that he \u201cfailed\u201d multiple times; two third of start-ups bow out within a decade, so it\u2019s imperative that founders keep going, even when signs tell them to turn back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe first five years for an entrepreneur, I call the survival years. Every single day, you could go bankrupt,\u201d Repole said in an interview with the School of Hard Knocks last year. \u201cI started crazy\u2026Crazy people change the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he isn\u2019t alone in his founder philosophy. George Arison, a longtime entrepreneur and CEO of the LGBTQ+ dating platform Grindr, told Fortune <\/em>that being \u201carrogant and crazy\u201d are prerequisites to succeed as a founder in America. Arison owned up to being both of those things, and being motivated by seemingly impossible feats. Now, Grindr boasts a market cap of $3.2 billion, and is growing rapidly year-over-year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my motives in life is doing impossible things; that\u2019s how I\u2019ve shaped my life,\u201d Arison continued at Fortune<\/em>\u2019s 2024 Brainstorm Tech conference. \u201cMy whole life is impossible; I\u2019m now here doing this, and look at where I was born. Nothing\u2019s actually impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Sotomayor lets $656 million terror verdict against Palestinian Liberation Organization stand<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cIt’s very hard as an entrepreneur when you’re working out of your apartment, to know what that size could be one day,\u201d DoorDash cofounder Tony Xu said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[358],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entrepreneurs"],"yoast_head":"\nDoorDash CEO Tony Xu once thought his $87 billion company would only make $100 million. 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