Tablebooker
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Tablebooker
Restaurant sector
cooperative company with limited liability
Belgium
It’s an application made for restaurant owners by restaurant owners
Steven Schutter
Julien Verheughe
Steven Schutter, Kristof Bossuyt and 3 others
Summary
Tablebooker is a software application for restaurant owners. It enables them to manage their affairs and let their customer’s book tables online. Which results in a more efficient booking process and more tables being booked.
Background
One of the 5 founders saw a similar product when he was on holiday in the United States called Open Table. They brainstormed and considered the possibilities in Belgium. After doing a lot of market research they concluded that restaurant owners had a certain interest in the concept.
They invested their own money into the business and started working for Tablebooker after their own jobs. Because they had a very complimentary team they were able to use that money until they had their first customers. When they started generating revenue they hired a salesperson. They then received their first investment in the company to help them stay healthy and balanced as a company. They also took a credit loan from the bank, which helped them to be comfortable for the next few months.
Tablebooker or Tablemanager (for the restaurant owners) is a digitalized calendar/agenda that is used for bookings. No more paper, but an online platform which can be accessed through your computer/laptop, tablet, cellphone, etc.
Mission
The mission of Tablebooker is to help restaurant owners to make their booking calendar more accessible for the consumer (on several devices). They also want to make it more convenient for the customers to book a table.
Vision
Tablebooker wants to integrate technology into the world of restaurants. Most restaurant owners are still working the old-fashioned way and don’t even consider the opportunities that it-applications can offer.
Values
Privacy, ethicality, ergonomics
Business Model
Tablebooker works with a subscription based model. The restaurant owners are able to choose between 3 different packages. 30,60 or 90 euro each month. It’s clear that these kind of models only work when a certain volume of customers is reached. But when the market is large enough and the competition is not that high there is a high possibility of success.
Next to the monthly subscription that is payd, customers also have the possibility to use additional services where a price per unit/use is asked.
The main USP of Tablebooker is that it was made for restaurant owners by restaurant owners. So not a huge IT-company that just made an app. Everything has been taken into consideration to provide a user-friendly and highly efficient application. It’s also a product that’s been made only for restaurants, it is not a generic application that can be used for other kind of businesses.
Because the amount of experience in the group, they didn’t really need to contact organizations that could help them as a startup. All of the founders were experienced in a relevant area and together they had enough knowledge to go on their own. The only thing they did was ask feedback from as many people as possible, so that they could validate or correct their assumptions.
At the moment another company has acquired them. The main reason for that is that they had a cash flow problem. In hindsight Steven tells us that they should have altered the subscription model a little bit. Instead of working with a monthly subscription model they should have gone with a yearly subscription model in order to generate more cash flow at the beginning.
They used a lot of channels to market their application. Some examples are flyers, fax and other traditional methods. The channel that was the most successful was a Facebook ad campaign that they did, but it was still only a fraction of what word-of-mouth was doing for them.
Growth
There was a linear growth since the start of the company until the acquisition. After the acquisition the new owners brought in a sales team, which resulted in a faster growth then before Tablebooker was acquired. More specifically, they were able to attract 15 to 30 new customers each month before the sales team was in place. Now they attract about 70 to 100 customers each month.
Customers
The main and probably only type of customer of Tablebooker is the restaurant owner. They are the ones that the application needs to be sold to.
Competitors
In the Belgian market there is one direct competitor called Resengo, which offers a similar service as Tablebooker. There are also companies out there that offer a more generic application that isn’t only aimed at restaurant owners but also at other kinds of businesses. In general those companies can’t provide the same quality because they are not focused on one market.
Conclusion
The main threat the company had to the deal with was the problem of cash flow. They were signing customers but because of the monthly-based subscription they encountered cash flow problems because they had to wait for the money to come in. Other threats were finding good employees, reaching the restaurant owners. In the future large platforms like Tripadvisor, Booking.com could prove to be serious competitors if they decide to launch a similar product.
The fact that they have a high quality application with a lot of functionality gives them the opportunity to attract a lot of restaurant owners. There is also the opportunity to integrate Tablebooker into other platforms (something they are currently looking into).
Steven also gives some advice for young startups and entrepreneurs. First of all think a lot about your business plan, more specifically how you are going to handle the cash flow. Secondly try to offer an open and transparent product. Thirdly, make sure you gave a good and complementary team.
They didn’t run into a lot of problems at the start of their venture. The only issue was that there wasn’t enough capital at the beginning. But the obstacles that they faced came a little bit later. There were some internal issues that had to be resolved, the origin of those issues were mainly miscommunication between partners. But the main issue that they had to face was the issue of cash flow, which is explained above.
Tablebooker would like to become the go to application of the restaurant market when people are booking a table online, in Europe.
Posted on 06/05/2016