Blue Apron is a great company with a solid product that could easily make a good profit. The problem is that they can't sell themselves to VCs as a fun way for couples to cook and spend time with each other. They have to disrupt the dinner market, and convince VCs that they have sky-high evaluations.
Presumably there are some economies of scale, startup costs, and minimum volume to make all this work. But, yeah, with some clever PR and promotion you'd think you could get a business of this type to the point where it's a fairly attractive niche business. With less pressure to max out revenue per customer now it could even be a more attractive product that could more easily survive alongside grocery delivery.
But, as you say, there's all this growth pressure to win the land grab and dominate the category which puts customer acquisition costs through the roof.
[Added: Having said that, I think churn is always going to be a problem with a business like this once the novelty wears off.]
