- Deliveroo CEO Will Shu went from grinding 100-hour weeks on Wall Street to creating a solution to London’s lack of late-night food delivery. More than a decade later, he’s walking away with nearly $250 million after turning his midnight cravings into a $4 billion DoorDash acquisition. From biking orders himself to battling a rocky IPO, Shu’s all-in approach has helped fuel his entrepreneurial mission.
For Will Shu, food delivery is personal.
As a former investment banker at JPMorgan in London, he was dismayed with the lack of late-night delivery options that could satisfy his appetite working 100-hour weeks. But instead of resigning himself to supermarket meal deals, he saw a business opportunity. That insight became Deliveroo, his food delivery service founded in 2013.
More than a decade later, Shu turned Deliveroo from a fix for his midnight cravings into a multinational food delivery powerhouse. Earlier this year, DoorDashagreed to buy the British rival for nearly £3 billion (around $4 billion). Now, Shu is preparing to step back as CEO—and walk away with about a $250 million windfall from his 6.5% stake.
“I have decided that now is the right time for me to step down,” Shu said in a statement to Fortune. “Taking Deliveroo from being an idea to what it is today has been amazing.”
Deliveroo’s path hasn’t been without setbacks, including a rocky initial public offering in 2021 in which shares plunged 30%. Still, Shu has been guided by a simple mantra: to go all in.
“When it comes to entrepreneurship especially, you can’t hedge yourself. You have to dedicate yourself 100% to your one idea and be the person that cares about it the most,” Shu told Raconteurin 2024.
“As part of that, you also have to step outside your comfort zone and take risks. You will learn from the successes and failures and hone your ability to improvise on the fly, which is one of the most important qualities in any entrepreneur.”
From 100-hour workweeks to building a $4 billion company
While Shu wasn’t someone who always had entrepreneurial dreams, his commitment to his idea was evident from the start. In the early years, he would personally hop on a bike and do deliveries himself to understand the company from the eyes of a driver.
“I would say, ‘hey I’m Will, I founded the company.’ No one ever cared. Because they just wanted their food, right? So they just shut the door in my face,” he told The Grocer in 2023.
Even though the company just had eight employees, a few thousand employees, and a not-so-great website, it was Shu’s level of commitment that impressed Martin Mignot, Deliveroo’s first investor
“When you see that level of insight and then of commitment and greed and intensity, it’s a no-brainer,” Mignot told Fortune earlier this year.
Mignot’s early spot of the company helped turn him into a multimillionaire by the age of 30. And for Gen Z looking to follow in his footsteps and find the next Shu and Deliveroo, his advice is simple: research the top 20 VC firms and make a list of their recent investments.
“We live in an incredible time where everything is getting more accessible,” Mignot said. “Don’t limit yourself to a single geography, think global, do your due diligence and just go along for a ride.”
