NomNom: rise and death of the startup during Covid-19 pandemic
Idea.
The initial idea was:
Give ability to clients that are standing in long queues to cut in line based on surge pricing.
However, after talking with the owners of food places we came to a more relaxed concept of providing a preordering experience. Grabbing a coffee and croissant on the go for example.
User story for the end customer who just entered a coffee shop is next:
1. You are standing in a queue at a coffee shop (there is a queue on one side and a pick up on the other).
2. You can scan a QR code that is present somewhere near the queue, that will open a web site with a menu (simple menu of maximum 6 or some other limit number items).
3. You can tap on items which will then be added to the basket, or press on the clear button to clear the order.
4. Then you can pay on the same screen via Apple/Google Pay.
5. The screen shows a new page with a confirmation with a unique name like: Uncle of Johnny Depp, and suggest to download an application and go through the registration/provide feedback for the place.
6. You go to the pickup area and wait for the manager to call out your given name: “Uncle of Johnny Depp” when the order is ready.
7. Pick up the order.
Behind the scenes, as soon as you have finished the order we send a message to the manager with your order and confirmation of the payment. The initial proof of concept was sending just text message to the phone number. In the future, the plan was to integrate with the invoicing systems of the restaurants.
Here we have a clear offer to the end-user to decrease the time spent in the queue.
From the places-owners perspective, the possible values we would bring were:
- More customers served in a shorter time
- Digital loyalty/promotion program
- Customer insights data
- More rating/reviews/feedback
- Additional marketing channel
The business model would mean we would take a cut from each transaction that was made.
Competitors.
Taking all of this as input we started to look for potential customers and started looking at existing tools. We knew about UberEats, or JustEat and other big names in the space, but they are more focusing on delivery rather than pick up, and more on restaurants, rather than on coffee shops.
In 2010 there was an app for each possible idea, now in 2020, there are at least 3 apps for each possible idea. To our surprise, Singapore seems to be a booming market for this.
Some great examples of execution are:
- https://allsetnow.com
- https://nomnomby.com
- https://www.rushorderapp.com
- https://www.skip.com.au/
- https://eatsyapp.co
We were taking advice from Paul Graham and focusing on our customers and our product, rather than on competitors. So, this does not bother us at all, however, still, we want to know what is out there…
First customers and actual customer pain.
We have assessed a few interviews with places that are located in Greater Copenhagen are (I live here, and my co-founder is in Germany). Since it was a start of Covid-19 pandemic we felt that it is a good time, because all the places will have time to talk with us and we will have time to build a prototype, but we also understood that it is a horrible time for them because they might go out of business.
The number 1 request from all customers — we need more customers.
Pandemic.
As soon as governments started to close down countries, restaurants, and cafés — our idea seems to not be interesting anymore. The concept of cutting the queue does not apply if there is no queue. On the other hand, take away was becoming an alternative to sit-ins and people were starting to focus on using more cashless payments as a way of avoiding potentially spreading the virus through physical notes and coins.
We have talked with around 15 places where 3 wanted to proceed with us and collaborate. So, from these 15, we know that 4 have closed permanently, 2 are for sale, and none want to proceed with us as of now. Also, eatsyapp startup has stopped all operations:
Outcome
We are moving to the next new thing and are grateful for the experience that we got. It is sad to see that so many places have stopped their existence… and it looks like this is a trend that will continue over the next few months.
P.S. We would be happy to see comments according to mistakes & typos.
