Web-based table ordering service, in response to the global pandemic.
Why make seatd?
seatd is a company founded by myself and 3 others in lockdown of 2020. In response to the pandemic and the closing of hospitality venues, we wanted to provide a solution with a low barrier to entry, which did not require installation of a native app.
seatd was that solution. We offered it for free to any venue that wanted to use it, and processed around £3 million in transactions. The service is still active, although its use is (thankfully) no longer mandated by the government. From conception to launch took us 3 weeks, with rapid design, branding, and build happening concurrently.
Venues could upload a full menu, including customisation options, upgrades, and dietary flags to seatd.
Features and Research
When the pandemic arrived, we knew we wouldn't have much time to create something to help. Rapidly, we approached our contacts in the hospitality industry to discover what an MVP would look like. The rough feature set we arrived at was:
• Ability to take card payment through the app.
• Add multiple items to an order and have them delivered to a specific table.
• No download or account creation.
• Dietary requirement flags.
• An 'admin' app, where the venue could see the orders currently in flight, and mark them as complete when they were delivered and paid for.
• The admin app should also allow the venue to administer the menu, item availability and prices without our input.
...
Clearly, we had a lot of work to do.
The live orders interface of the admin panel. This was running concurrently on an iPad in the venue's kitchen. It also ran in browser with no need for a download.
Build and Release
Our team consisted of myself, responsible for branding, design, and front-end development. I was partnered with a developer that I had met during my time at Google, and continued to freelance with.
The other two members of our team were two marketing and sales experts, responsible for the build and release of the Viper App in Manchester.
In 1 week we developed the basic bones of a brand, acquired domains, and set up a basic landing page for sales enquiries.
In 2 weeks we had our entire customer-facing UI, and the bones of our admin app.
In 3 weeks we had launched the customer app, and were developing the backend.
After our first month, we were live, and actively taking orders in 45 venues across the north west, London, and the south east.
We released with customisable branding and colour schemes, to allow our web app to fit into the brand of the venue.
Post-flight, Testing, and Results
At the peak, we were in around 100 venues, and grossed around £3 million in processed transactions. The entire app only cost us our time to build, and was built on serverless, real-time technology which cost nothing to use.
We partnered with Stripe to process our transactions, and they would take a standard fee. The app itself was build in Angular, a technology similar to React, or other javascript frameworks. This allowed for super responsive, robust code, which was able to be debugged live whenever an issue arose.
Over the year or so of the pandemic, we introduced new features, such as loyalty schemes and discount codes, and paid-for add-ons (e.g. Champagne instead of Prosecco +£20).
Whilst the app is no longer in mainstream use, it was an epic exercise out side of my day job. Being featured on the Gadget Show was definitely a highlight, and you can view the site at the link below.
