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Hacking The Boston Blizzard With Instacart

02/10/2014

in Productivity, Stories

Moving to Boston was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

It’s a beautiful city.

I’ve probably gotten more work done here in the past 6 months than I have in the past 6 years — including building a new wearable tech startup from the ground up, raising over $100k in funding (so far) and getting even closer to achieving my personal goals.

But then again, things like this keep happening…

South Boston on a “warm” day this winter

In situations like this, you’d be surprised how much harder it is just do basic day-to-day activities — grocery shopping, for instance…completely out of the question.

So what do you do when you’re all snowed in, but you have an empty fridge?

I used Instacart — an awesome service that delivers groceries directly to your door in San Francisco, Chicago and thankfully, Boston.

Check out everything I was able to order from the comfort of my home.

Also, special shout out to the very small Asian girl who had to carry 5 huge bags of food up 3 flights of stairs because I was so weak from hunger.

Wait, was I supposed to tip her?

 

 

Instacart is just one example of an excellent service that makes everyday activities easier.

What fun, convenient services do you use to enhance your life? Anything cool I should know about?

Let me know in the comments.

{ 11 comments… }

Nadeem February 21, 2014 at 3:10 pm

Wow, u seriously didn’t tip her. That’s where they make their salary. I know if you had 5 huge bags, she easily spent 1+ hrs just in the store and add in drive time to and from. Wow, sad.

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Maneesh Sethi February 21, 2014 at 3:34 pm

I tipped her quite a bit. But — they are paid $20/hour with no tip cause instacart charges more for individual items

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Nadeem February 22, 2014 at 2:57 am

Not sure where you got 20 an hr. I work out of instacart in chicago and am lucky to clear 15 an hr and that’s only if ppl tip decent.

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Amit Amin February 11, 2014 at 8:41 pm

I’m not a fan of their hidden surcharge of about 20%, but sometimes it’s still worth it.

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Chantelle February 11, 2014 at 8:03 pm

The Pavlok system sounds really interesting. Is there any additional information? Where can I read more? Are you using VC to raise capital or are you crowdfunding?

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Maneesh Sethi February 12, 2014 at 5:05 pm

Both! I’ll be announcing more when the time is right.

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Sean February 10, 2014 at 4:39 pm

heard on the radio today about a car that has a special key fob, that can warm up the car interior remotely; before you leave the house!! (though might not have been much use in your pictures Maneesh!! 🙂

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Patrick February 10, 2014 at 1:39 pm

Ahhh, brings back those wonderful, convenient memories of Webvan.

And yes, it would have been a good thing to tip her.

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Candice February 10, 2014 at 11:44 am

WOW! This is awesome for blizzards or laziness. I’m in Vegas we have sunshine 24/7, so my purpose will be laziness! lol Great convenient service though.

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Kimanzi February 10, 2014 at 10:11 am

We tried out Peapod and was pretty convenient. These services are great for the weather we deal with.

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George February 10, 2014 at 8:25 am

I WISH we had such a service here! Alas, small, podunk towns like the one where I live (with a population of only 9,000) don’t get such nice services.

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