Ask HN: Feedback on a couple of startup ideas

Restaurant websites are abysmal, all of them. I've long wanted there to be a service that provides the following information in a non-flash, easy to consume format (in order of importance):

- Hours of Operation

- Menu with Prices and Pictures of the main dishes (if not every), in HTML, not a freaking PDF

- Phone number and address with easy way to find and print directions from my location

- Pictures of the restaurant in an easy to use, standardized slideshow (lightbox or other similar solution)

optional:

- Reviews from yelp and other services

- Ability to make a reservation online

- Backstory of the restaurant

I think there's huge startup potential in this space, but I imagine the difficult part is getting the restaurant owners on board. I'm surprised a CMS hasn't been popularized that allows restaurant owners to create sites that meet these specifications easily and uniformly. I suppose you wouldn't even need the restaurant's approval, though, because you could just set it up for them like Yelp and other services do and have users upload the pics, menu details, etc (like a wiki).

Anybody know if this has been attempted before?

I'm working on this right now. I'm starting with Orange County, CA at the moment and then I plan to roll it out to other places later. I am focusing on simple, informative restaurant pages with aggregated reviews and comments from other sites.

I plan to post the site on HN when it is ready. It is called Orange Dish.

Number 2: I don't think high-end restaurants want to show images of their dishes. For some reason it does not seem classy. Perhaps that's not an issue for the low/medium range.

I also don't think they would want to encourage their patrons to take their phones out during meals. Think this is still considered poor form, could be wrong though.

Think idea number one is the better one.

I wouldn't waste your time on idea #1. Idea #2 could fold out into a bunch of different paths, at least one of which has to be worthwhile.

Idea #1: You need to ask yourself why people buy gift cards in the first place. They buy them as gifts for other people, gifts to be given at a later date. Instant gratification is far less of a factor when it comes to gift-giving, which is inherently non-instant. The only reason anyone would ever need to print off a gift card would be if they totally forgot the need for it, with like 15 minutes to spare. While that may seem like a niche you can fill, it probably isn't. There are formal-ish standards for gift-giving, and the appearance of forgetting till the last minute is always, always, always avoided; the implication being that you didn't care enough about the recipient to remember to get the gift ahead of time.

Go for #2, and play around with the idea some more.

Number 1. http://www.cardpool.com has started doing similar. (but not competing with your ideas) When you buy one of their cards they will instantly email you the card's details so that you can use it online while they send you the physical card in case you want to use it in a brick and mortar.

Number 2. I would take a look at http://www.foodspotting.com for a potential source for an initial image database. Providing a professional photographer would also help.

They both will require quite a bit of footwork to get enough restaurants to buy in on the idea. Good luck if you decide to do either of them.

Yes. Cardpool started offering something similar, but their focus is completely different currently. Also, the thought of using foodspotting to kickstart things occurred to me as well :)

Based on how you described it, I believe that idea 1 will have better traction with restaurant. You offer them a low cost / low risk new customer acquisition channel.

Idea number two discribes a problem that customers might have, but you are trying to sell it to the restaurant owners.

If you go with option 2, you must think how the fact that the menues are boring and lack visuals affect the business. Maybe customers ask the waiter too many questions, maybe they spend too much time thinking what to order, maybe they return the dish or they simply leave unhappy because they didn't get what they wanted. In short, if you want to sell your solution to the owner - describe the owner's problem.

I like the first idea as specifically targeted towards the restaurant industry. we use to get snail mail discounts coupons from restaurants for your birthdays. those restaurants could be your initial target customers as well.

On a side note, I am looking for feedback on some of my ideas. would you mind recommending me something at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1773435 ?

I like number 2. Maybe you could entice the restaurant owners by providing a professional photographer.

There is potential to do cool stuff with the data you would collect like A/B testing different plating styles of the same dish.

On the other hand, my wife says she is grossed out by restaurants that have pictures of their dishes (maybe this speaks to the need for better presentation).

I agree - some of the things I envisioned - to collect metrics data on which dishes people are clicking on / engaging with the maximum. This can be fed back to the restaurant as well as the users can be presented with a 'most popular dishes' option as well.

Reading your ideas, I was thinking about number 2, and those demos of the Microsoft Surface awhile back, and I had this idea. What if insead of an "app" you had a web app where where resteraunts can upload photos/prices/descriptions of menu items, and get a QR code they can paste up in their resteraunt. Might be slighly less of an enterance barrier for customers.

Number 2 sounds good, but photographing food is insanely difficult. See:

http://photocritic.org/food-photo-tricks/

I think hiring an artist to make a drawing of the food may be cheaper :-)

It's funny but some of my friends and I have been looking at the second idea and have made some progress there. I'll takl to my friends and contact you if they seem interested.

I like (1) quite a bit for the following reasons:

a) Restaurants are responsive to the idea.

b) You can bundle your fees into transactions, rolling the product out at zero cost to the restaurants.

c) Once you build the core platform, integrating new clients is dirt cheap, eg add a logo / description, it's live.

d) You can build an overarching brand HUB as a connector to all the different clients.

e) Build in a viral component - instead of building for specific restaurants give restaurants a directory on "dinnerdiscounts.com/restaurantname/" and give restaurant a stack of cards to include in their diner's checks, or charge $10 - 15 to do a custom card.

f) Build a model around breakage where you require $100 in account accrual before you issue a check to the restaurant. This makes for incredible cash flow and margins.

thanks for all the valuable points you listed out. The one thing I didnt quite understand from your comment was the following: 'give restaurant a stack of cards to include in your diner's checks or charge $10-$15 to do a custom card' -- could you clarify if you get a chance. thanks.

Sure - I'm suggesting that you get the restaurants to do your marketing for you.

For instance you could print ~5,000 GENERIC, but tastefully designed business cards for $50 - 100.

EG - "Thank you for dining with us - we'd like to thank you with 10% off a gift certificate for your next visit. Just visit RestaurantDeals.com and search for us right away."

Once you run out of the 5,000 cards, reprint with updated messaging based on what you learn.

Then that messaging works for ALL the clients you sign up, and you give restaurants a stack of 100 cards that they can include in the receipts or checks they hand out to patrons.

Direct respons rates on cards targeted properly can drive up to say 3 - 5% which more than covers the cost of you handing out the cards, and helps you go viral since customers will also realize they can get discounts on other restaurants :)

Make sense?

Then offer as a premium service to restaurants cards printed with their own specific URL / messaging if they don't like the generic model.

To sell this vision work closely with a half-dozen restaurants, get them extraordinary results, and use their testimonials as your sales pitch.

1 is really good, 2 is a solution looking for a problem and i doubt it will scale. Idea 1 could be huge, because right now, there is no central gift certificate web site. It's a really good idea, but absolutely requires a good quality domain name, one you'd probably have to pay for.