Hangry: A Startup Journey

“Discontent is my driving force, my animus,” writes GrubHub cofounder Evans in his illuminating debut, an account of how the food delivery service grew from a scrappy start-up to a multibillion-dollar company. Evans describes how one night in 2002, he came home exhausted from his office job and was unable to find in the Yellow Pages information on which restaurants delivered to him and whether they were any good. That night he created a website that listed all the venues that delivered to his Chicago zip code, and as soon as he had one restaurant willing to pay for a premium listing on the site, he quit his day job. Evans vividly recounts his 80-hour workweeks getting the business up and running, his efforts to expand beyond Chicago, and the relief he felt when, in 2006, his cofounder joined the business full time. Together, they brought on investors and venture capitalists, and by 2018, the company was worth $13 billion. Evans is frank about the challenges he faced as the company grew, his fights with his cofounder (Evans favored independent restaurants over chains), and his temptations to quit, and the whole tale is shot through with humor: “Mostly, this is a story about how I’m cranky. And that crankiness turned into a hobby.” This punchy memoir delivers. (Nov.)