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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

#31

Post by stevenwei »

kaiserama wrote: post #24

Looks really well executed. I would definitely do some legwork on the operator front. I tackled this same problem about 2 years ago and found that operators simply aren't able to understand the need for this type of service (maybe it was the timing). Keep in mind that many don't have a website and some don't even use email, so explaining why they need a "mobile" website makes for a potentially hard sale. Someone disc…

Thanks for the feedback.

I agree, the biggest challenge is with operator awareness. Most restaurant owner's priorities look something like this:

1) Food 2) Service ... 9544) Website

My hope is that with the mobile internet growing as it is, more restaurant folks will begin to understand that their customers are using their phones to look up restaurants, and showing them an empty Flash page or making them download huge menu PDFs is immensely frustrating and delivers a poor customer experience.

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

#33

Post by URSpider94 »

jolan wrote: post #13
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…

> 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. I could see that being the case. I don't think they understand how infuriating it is on the consumer side. Maybe publish some success stories citing the amount of increased revenue. Another ide…

+1 for this idea. Maybe you want to consider giving free service to some early adopters in return for the ability to analyze the impact on your business. Ideally, you would spread this out across a few different target demographics, like pizza joints, Chinese/ethnic, late-night, etc., so that your potential customers would identify with the results.

Even the most conservative restaurant owner is going to be swayed by a clear financial benefit.

Also, convincing potential customers to take the plunge is the kind of task that (good) salespeople excel at.

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

#34

Post by stevenwei »

josefresco wrote: post #29
natep wrote: post #26

I really like this idea! I don't have a smartphone, but I would like to support you if I could. Do you have a page listing all of your customers, so I could go to them and tell them it was because of your site? Speaking of which, how are normal people supposed to find these mobile sites? Maybe you could have restaurants pay you to list them in foursquare or equivalent.

I had a similar question about how the service connects with your site. Does it use a custom DNS record or does this mobile site sit on an island?

Right now we're doing a simple redirect to the mobile version if the user browses to the restaurant's normal website.

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

#35

Post by stevenwei »

natep wrote: post #26

I really like this idea! I don't have a smartphone, but I would like to support you if I could. Do you have a page listing all of your customers, so I could go to them and tell them it was because of your site? Speaking of which, how are normal people supposed to find these mobile sites? Maybe you could have restaurants pay you to list them in foursquare or equivalent.

Well, the way I find local restaurants (on my iPhone) is:

1) Pull up Google maps and search for restaurants. 2) Pull up Yelp/Urbanspoon and search for restaurants.

Then I often find myself wanting more information than Google/Yelp/Urbanspoon provides, so I end up going to the restaurant's listed website on my phone. 99% of the time, the website isn't in a format that I can easily use on my phone.

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

#36

Post by cmeranda »

vibhavs wrote: post #21
cmeranda wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I created that logo and I hate it too. Any other ideas? I'm a horrendous graphic designer but I'm down to try again, and I agree with your points entirely. We were sort of pushing to get it done at the time. We could consider 99designs.com at this point I suppose.

Why not remove the icon and leave the text logo as is? FWIW, I think just the text looks good.

That was my original plan but I needed something for Twitter, etc. Maybe I could do what HN does (along with many others) and just use the first letter in a box when I need a smaller graphic. Thanks for the suggestion!

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

#37

Post by cmeranda »

tortilla wrote: post #18
cmeranda wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I created that logo and I hate it too. Any other ideas? I'm a horrendous graphic designer but I'm down to try again, and I agree with your points entirely. We were sort of pushing to get it done at the time. We could consider 99designs.com at this point I suppose.

Replace the burger with a menu (keep the bite).

Tough to figure out a menu icon: how can you immediately know what a menu looks like, maybe a rectangle with some fake lines of "text" and a wine glass pic? I've seen that somewhere...personally I think maybe the bite was my mistake (despite our chosen name) because it doesn't scale down well.

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

#38

Post by stevenwei »

josefresco wrote: post #20
jroes wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Forget online ordering, just sell lead generation. I could sell your service to my local clients but not easily for 15/month. If you tracked leads you could easily sell your service on commissions alone.

Do you mean lead generation to potential restaurants, like an affiliate setup?

Or lead generation for restaurant customers?

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

#40

Post by aresant »

Solid idea, great implemntation, beautiful landing page.

On your "Features" tab you do a great job actually focusing on "Benefits" (most people just list the features!).

I'd propose that you change that menu title to "Why Do I Need Chompstack?" or just "Why ChompStack?" and then retitle the headline to:

"ChompStack generates more customers by making your site accessible to mobile visitors."

Then rather than opening up with "Why go mobile?" - find some real data illustrating the "pain" for restaurant owners:

"72% of restaurant websites don’t work on mobile phones . . .”

Or

“Your website is broken for up to 50% of your visitors!

Support those stats by doing a quick restaurant survey from your local listings and I bet the number is crazy!

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