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Rate my startup: ChompStack, a mobile website builder for restaurants

chompstack.com

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Re: Rate my startup: ChompStack, a mobile website builder for restaurants

#2

Post by stevenwei »

http://www.chompstack.com

We all know how mobile unfriendly restaurant websites tend to be. Many of them are done in Flash, and don't work at all on most phones. Others force you to download PDF menus which take forever to load and have an annoying tendency to lock up my phone.

The irony, of course, is that I'm most likely to be looking at restaurant websites on my phone, when I'm around town looking for an interesting place to eat. There's nothing more frustrating than pulling up a restaurant website, only to see a Flash page that doesn't work, or a desktop website that you have to pinch, zoom, and scroll your way around.

I built ChompStack to make it easier for restaurants to create mobile friendly versions of their websites.

Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I feel like our biggest challenge with this service is getting in touch with restaurant owners and convincing them of the value of having a mobile website, most of them don't seem to be particularly interested in technology.

Re: Rate my startup: ChompStack, a mobile website builder for restaurants

#7

Post by pedalpete »

Very nice implementation, and clear market.

A friend has been talking about doing this for along time, as it is consistently felt that most restaurants do a horrible job with websites.

However, I wonder if focusing only on the mobile side of things is the right way to go.

I agree you've got yourself a market, but should a restaurant need to be updating two websites? If the same info is valid on both, why not provide a different css for non-mobile and be a one stop shop for restuarants.

You may also be able to provide some other related services which may provide a network effect and possibly a slight barrier to entry for competitors.

Re: Rate my startup: ChompStack, a mobile website builder for restaurants

#8

Post by wanderboy »

This is well-done.

I'm working on a similar project, and one thing I'd like to point out is that menus are not always simple databases. There are several menus that have paragraphs of information that relates to several menu items rather than just one. How are you planning on translating that information to a mobile application, if at all? I'm trying to find a good example of this "paragraph of extraneous info" from menus in a Google Search - I'll get back to you when I can.

Re: Rate my startup: ChompStack, a mobile website builder for restaurants

#10

Post by jroes »

stevenwei wrote: post #2

http://www.chompstack.com We all know how mobile unfriendly restaurant websites tend to be. Many of them are done in Flash, and don't work at all on most phones. Others force you to download PDF menus which take forever to load and have an annoying tendency to lock up my phone. The irony, of course, is that I'm most likely to be looking at restaurant websites on my phone, when I'm around town looking for an interesti…

Instead of charging a flat setup or monthly fee, have you thought about pivoting your business model so that customers can order through your app, and you charge a percentage fee to the restaurant owner?

I think skeptical restaurant owners would choose that no-risk option, and you'd probably make more money. Restaurant owners who think it'll be successful in making sales would probably be willing to pay a decent sum per month.

I agree with the other commenter that you are probably not charging enough. I think this kind of service has high value if it can demonstrably increase sales.

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