Looking to partner with Junior Developer/Sales person for freelance business project

[mubs100]

Hi,

I have a web system I have developed for online food ordering. The plan is to run websites for Restaurants and use Google and other means (Social etc) to get traffic and keep customers interested and coming back. It uses Paypal so it is very quick and easy for most web users to order even without a login on the site. It's much quicker and easier than other website solutions and Paypal only charges 2% vs 14% from the major App companies.

The idea is to have a few developers and sales people like myself each working on the same thing and sharing tech and tips on how to make the business a success. It would be good if someone with web development skills can do some of the coding, it wont be much but I have a few other things going on in my life and cannot always concentrate on coding.

Then you just need to go out there and ask food delivery places to do their website for them. This is the sales side and if you can target certain niches and areas then it would be good as word would spread and you can get new customers faster. It's not hard as many Restaurant owners dont have a clue and we will be taking a commission on orders so do not need to charge a lot up-front. Once we get a few decent sites up we should be able to start charging up-front fees if needed.

It would be a good side hustle for anyone who can code and enjoys getting out there. Additional avenues of interest would be local websites (forums, news, videos, events) which is very easy to do and tie-in with social media.

You can ask questions here or pm me.

 

[Easy_C]

First off: Thanks for doing this. I’ve advocated that we should favor in-group hiring.

Second is I think you’ve potentially got a good hook. Restaurants are generally going to like the prospect of “save an extra 10% off your top line revenue for online orders”. That’s HUGE in an industry where net income margins are often as low as 2-3%. It’s also appealing in a market where restaurants are struggling to control costs and survive.

Here’s the hard question I have to ask: Grubhub and Uber Eats are sometimes favored not because of cost but because they reach a large customer base.

Approximately what percentage of sales on average are discovered from competing apps, and how do you plan to mitigate that loss of market face?

 

[paninaro]

If you're looking for business advice on your model, I'm happy to provide it here. If not, that's fine too -- maybe you're just looking for business partners, and I'm too busy with my own business to take on any new projects.

 

[username]

What programming language(s) is your project?

I like your idea and it would be very benificial for restaurant owners vs Grubhub, Doordash, etc. when it comes to fees. The hardest part is convincing restaurants to give it a try. The restaurants can promote it on their own site, their social media, at the restaurant itself, and I think a few sites like Yelp will highlight you do online ordering. The other issue is the updating of the menu and pricing in the system. Even Grubhub and Doordash often have outdated and incorrect menus.

If you could land 100 or so restaurants you could be a take over target for several million dollars.

 

[redbeard]

Then you just need to go out there and ask food delivery places to do their website for them. This is the sales side and if you can target certain niches and areas then it would be good as word would spread and you can get new customers faster. It's not hard as many Restaurant owners dont have a clue and we will be taking a commission on orders so do not need to charge a lot up-front. Once we get a few decent sites up we should be able to start charging up-front fees if needed.

What is the pricing model for the customer? How much do they pay up front vs. recurring?

Restaurants are a pretty tough niche right now but that doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

 

[mubs100]

Here’s the hard question I have to ask: Grubhub and Uber Eats are sometimes favored not because of cost but because they reach a large customer base.

Approximately what percentage of sales on average are discovered from competing apps, and how do you plan to mitigate that loss of market face?

I don't see us as competing with those app companies in the same way...

App Company Model: Get Restaurant on platform -> Advertise App on Adwords for Restaurant Search (Advertising Cost + Competition for clicks with other apps)-> Onboard new Customer on app-> Send Order to Restaurant -> Get repeat orders from regular customers through app.

Our Model: Make a Custom Website for Restaurant -> Put the Website on Google Business/Maps (No advertising spend + No competition, each Restaurant only has 1 website, we do that one) -> Use Paypal Pay on Website (Users can order with one-click and we can take their name and address from Paypal+confirm with user the address is correct/option to update, make user login from paypal supplied data and send email with details)

So those apps are getting customers through a different channel to us: They use Good Adwords to get new Customers or customers are already on their app. We Use Google Business/Maps.

We have some advantages over the app companies even though they may have more customers and reach.

1. Custom Website: Customer interacts with Restaurant directly, cutting out App middlemen. Website is a richer experience, Restaurant updates, offers, photos of items, social media connectivity, local news connectivity. Apps do not give photos and their platforms present a very generic page for each restaurant.

2. Price: We are not paying for customers (adwords, marketing spend for apps who are competing with each other) so have the cost advantage.

3. Business-Customer Relations: Our model is better for facilitating a relationship between the Customer and the Business, feedback, discounts, updates etc The Customer can develop a relationship with the local business instead of the app. Apps do not open their data up to Restaurants (Analytics).

4. Further local integration: Local is the key here and using custom software means food delivery offerings can be advertised on local online media (Forums, Social Media, Local Youtube Streams). This step is about building up local YT channels, Forums, FB Pages etc and then advertise local food offerings there. I reckon anything local will integrate well with local food ordering. This would be it's own business (local online communities) but there are synergies and the restaurant stuff is a good complementary business so each can help the other.

The idea is that Custom Websites use the full power of the web for connectivity and multimedia and offer a different experience to customers and allow Restaurants a high-end solution to reach customers.

What is the pricing model for the customer? How much do they pay up front vs. recurring?

Restaurants are a pretty tough niche right now but that doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

I think my approach should be that I am willing to do this for nothing up-front because it is my responsibility to get customers for the Restaurant on their website. We want a commission model and we should be responsible for the online funnel.

What programming language(s) is your project?

1. Website in Native HTML/CSS/JS
2. PHP/MySQL Backend
3. Paypal Integration
4. Currently I am using Wordpress Woocommerce to hold all the products. This is just a backend db accessed via WP API, not a front end, might remove this and do it with 2.

 

[kel]

Glad to see threads like this, hope to see more. PHP/Mysql and wordpress means I am not your unicorn, but I wish you luck.

 

[mubs100]

Just to be clear...

I wouldnt be looking for an employee and this wont be my personal business. The idea is to open it up like a Network - you can use the Software to get customers in your local area and then we share tips/resources/code, as we would be in different locations and therefore not in competition.

A bit more like a Network/Guild rather than an individual business.

 

[Elipe]

Just to be clear...

I wouldnt be looking for an employee and this wont be my personal business. The idea is to open it up like a Network - you can use the Software to get customers in your local area and then we share tips/resources/code, as we would be in different locations and therefore not in competition.

A bit more like a Network/Guild rather than an individual business.

I've been wanting to do something like a guild for a while, but not necessarily one where we're all working on the same project. It would be a network of like-minded techies (programmers, computer engineers, network engineers, etc.) that would be working toward the common goal of a parallel computing industry built on a foundation of dissident-right ideological principles (anti-SJW, anti-subversive, more decentralized and distributed than mainstream computing). I can see us pulling the rug out from under the SJWs trying to subvert the FSF and its affiliates by doing something like this.

I don't know if I would be the right fit for what you're looking for in a partner, but I would be more than happy to help you form such a guild where people like you can find others to partner up with for undertakings like this. There are plenty of networks like this out there, but they're mostly left-leaning - even the "neutral" ones are dealing with SJW infiltration right now.

This may deserve a thread of its own... I don't want to steal your thunder while you look for direct help with your project.

 

[mubs100]

I just decided to put it out there here but currently I am working on it myself, I can also use other sites to find partners so not a big deal if I dont find anyone here.

 

[paninaro]

I'm not quite sure I see the big benefit of this business model to the two main stakeholders:

1. Restaurants. All the restaurants I order from already have a website, and for ordering, they usually give options of calling them, or using a major app like DoorDash or UberEats (often both), or have a web-based ordering system that's managed by a third party, like Olo or Snappy Eats.

2. Customers. It's pretty easy to go to that restaurant's site and order, if I know I want to order from a specific restaurant. Unless I'm new in town, I already have my preferred restaurants and I order from them over and over. If I'm in a new place, the apps are useful since I can just use one app like UberEats, and see all the restaurants on offer (filtering by cuisine, etc) and use a familiar ordering system, and the payment is handled by the app so it's easy. As for offering Paypal payments, Paypal is losing popularity among younger users, typically in favor of Venmo (yes, I know Paypal owns them), but even then you have to remember a login (even more hassle if Paypal requires two-factor authentication) and it's more friction than just typing in a credit card number.

Now, where is the hassle or issue you can exploit? Fees paid by restaurants. UberEats, DoorDash, etc usually take about 30% commission. They can do that due their large market share. The commissions are lower when ordering from the restaurant's website (the third-party web ordering systems take a lower cut), so I guess there's not as much to offer there -- it would be competing on the app side. I could see building an app that has a bunch of restaurants, so customers would go to your app, and restaurants would be happy to accept orders that way due to lower commissions. But it's difficult to change user behavior, and the other apps are well-entrenched. Maybe if you corner a specific local market, like a certain city, and convince a critical mass of restaurants to use it, then that can shift the trend. But that'll take a lot of legwork to sign up those restaurants, and it's costly. UberEats and DoorDash have very deep pockets. Then you have to scale up operations as well -- what if a customer or restaurant is having issues with your ordering system at 11pm on Tuesday? You have to be ready to handle and respond to it. That scaling is easy when you have thousands of restaurants as customers so you can spread that cost, but more difficult when it's just 20 or 30.

Ultimately it seems like your solution is "better marketing" but I'm not so sure that's the biggest issue restaurants face.

 

[mubs100]

If they already have a 'good' ordering Website then they wont need us. My experience is that there are few good Website ordering systems out there, most of them are not easy to use and have cumbersome sign-up forms that customers wont want to go through for that first 15 Dollar order.

Here where I am few Delivery places have decent website, one guy was using one provided by JustEast..and giving away 15% to them just to process the order.

or have a web-based ordering system that's managed by a third party, like Olo or Snappy Eats.

This is the closest to what we are doing and these guys are our direct competition. We aim to beat them by greater local knowledge and connectivity, multimedia etc. Their business model is just quick sign-ups and they use template sites for clients, I plan on doing a better job here. I think they are too far (remote) and dont actually have local relationships with clients.

 

[paninaro]

This is the closest to what we are doing and these guys are our direct competition. We aim to beat them by greater local knowledge and connectivity, multimedia etc. Their business model is just quick sign-ups and they use template sites for clients, I plan on doing a better job here. I think they are too far (remote) and dont actually have local relationships with clients.

Olo has raised $80mln in venture capital and has a staff of hundreds. That's tough to compete, but maybe you can offer a more customized solution that restaurants will flock to... assuming their customers (restaurants) are complaining about the quality of the ordering experience.