Get In: How we created a new product on our Startup

André Tamiazzo
Nov 7 · 6 min read
Our famous Startea — 1 guy brings the subject and the other one brings tea.

Get In was the most challenge project I’ve done through my career. As my first startup, it was the biggest school that I could ever have.

Designed and built by a few talented minds, it became the leader in waitlist management for restaurants in Brazil, with more than 2.5 million people booked during the first 4 years of operation.

Facing some typical startups problems, my partners and I were having some big financial problems.
Every restaurant in the world has a counted budget to be invested in technology, and at that time it was clear to us that our product wasn’t complete enough to embrace a reasonable part of that money.

To solve that and focusing on creating the best casual dining experience for our users, we’ve created a 4 pillar’s journey that would guide our products for the next few years.

Our New User Journey in 4 pillars

The 1st and 2nd pillars

The first and second pillar was already solved by our B2C products, which includes a website and iOS / Android apps.

In these applications, the user has access to a restaurant’s list filtered by location and cuisines. Inside the restaurant page, it’s possible to find the establishment’s description, photos, location, reviews and two ways to book a seat: booking a table through a conventional reservation or get in line remotely, by joining the waitlist while in route to the restaurant.

After consolidating the first two pillars in the market by conquering more than 300 partner restaurants, 200k registered users and an NPS above 8, we launched our new product called Get In Order, a new platform that will solve the third and fourth pillars.

The waitlist feature on iOS version

The 3rd pillar

Get In Order is a self-order menu that allows customers to place their orders directly to the kitchen, just using a tablet on the table.

We help restaurants to grow their business by optimizing labor costs and increasing their profits by raising the average table ticket.

While the guests are placing their order, with the help of great photos and clear descriptions, the restaurant staff can now just focus on the part of the experience that needs a human touch. We give them the training and freedom to offer guests more information, focus on upsells and create a more pleasant dining experience.

Our Self-order Menu operating in a restaurant

Finally the 4th pillar

After the first 6 months of operation, this new product had accomplished more than 60k items ordered in 11 partner restaurants. It was a game-changer for the company.

Now we had the technology and connections to start a new relationship with fintech companies. During the following months, we’ve met with all the biggest players in the market trying to arrange our new payment partner — and we did!

As a work in progress, this new product is about to be launched — and Get In will finally complete the user’s journey.

B2B video

The design process in a nutshell:

"We want to see your design process."
— Said every interviewer.

1st Phase — Discovery: understanding what we are going to solve.

Using all the connections that we built in 4 years, we’ve talked a lot with experts and users trying to understand their main problems and necessities. In this process, we’ve got a lot of interviews and market research.

This phase allows us to create the new user’s journey of getting out to dinner. Besides, we understood that our company should have products that can help restaurants to solve daily operational problems.


2nd Phase — Mapping Ideas and Flows: Exploring different solutions.

In this phase, we explored new technologies, interfaces & business models.

We mapped all stakeholders and possible competitors, studying them case by case. These studies support us to create new business theses to be validated on the market.

Our main goal at that point was to create an exponential product that would impact the restaurant inside operation, with a high average ticket sale (about R$1k a month per restaurant).


3rd phase — Validation: Creating the MVP.

To validate our new theses, we knew that our company would have to get a 2nd round investment to build the 3rd and 4th pillars.

To manage that, as the product leader I was responsible to create all the new visual assets and presentations to new investors.

During that period I created a high fidelity prototype using the Sketch App and Principle software.

Prototype video made in Principle Software

Besides, I’ve created a pitch deck presentation with some videos to support this new journey that we were trying to discover.

After the new round of investment came, we hired 2 developers to help us to create our new product in record time — about 3 months! 💪


4th phase — Exploring the Market Fit: Refining the product and getting traction.

This was, and still is, the most complicated phase of the company.

The new product has proved itself by numbers that it reduces operating costs in restaurants, and on the other hand, increases table average ticket! Great news, right?

These OKR’s were in our business theses the whole time, and we successfully validated them!

But unfortunately, we faced another big problem for startups: traction.

In Brazil, with all high costs to maintain a company, it’s really difficult to keep things on track if you don’t have a sustainable cash flow.

Besides, selling disruptive technologies to well-managed restaurants with dozens of employees is not a simple task. The entire sales process usually takes some months, with a lot of meetings and showcases. It’s important to convince the manager and waiters in the salon that your product will help them to achieve their daily goals and optimize their operational work inside the restaurant. Trust me, it’s not easy at all!

Been an entrepreneur in Brazil is like going to a rollercoaster. You will have ups and downs several times on the same day!

You will not have just one job. Sometimes you will be responsible for the coffee, clean the office, arrange the happy hour, manage people’s problems or even reply to angry customers.

Work in a full-time job as an entrepreneur has really opened my mind to challenges. It made me feel pleasure about working with people that I admire and made me push myself harder to learn more from my mistakes.

It taught me that it is really important to work hard every day trying to be the best version that I can.

Product team overview

André Tamiazzo

Written by

I’m a Designer building digital products and experiences based in São Paulo. Online Portfolio: http://www.andretamiazzo.com/

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