 "Burrp fights to reclaim its place in the food chain")
One of the early Indian start-ups, Burrp was once the most popular restaurant listing site in the country. It was easy to use and its snappy name and smart marketing tactics soon endeared it to users and funders alike. But, then, it lost its way; upstarts like Foodiebay (now Zomato) drove it out as did poor business decisions and profligate spending. It fell into the domino pile of busted start-ups even as the food tech market was hitting high notes, sometime in 2011.
New business heads, Pradeep Prabhu and Abhishek Chhajlani, are quick to own up. "Burrp did make some mistakes. One of the errors was to become a listings platform for everything," says Prabhu.
Swing to October 2015: the food tech market had crashed. FoodPanda and TinyOwl were mired in their own crises. Zomato and Swiggy were cornering the market with two different business models. Burrp went in for a soft relaunch and it is now looking to raise the pitch with diners and merchants alike, offering them smarter platforms and stickier engagement formats.
The big mistake that Burrp made was that it lost track of its key functionality: food.
For those who have forgotten, here is a quick playback. Burrp was acquired in 2009 by Infomedia, part of Network 18. The start-up was helping people discover restaurants online and had been started in 2006 by Deep Ubhi and Anand Jain. It worked on an ad revenue based model and was fast rising the popularity charts. But, in came competition in 2008. Foodiebay, which later rebranded as Zomato, had better user interface and more venture capital (VC) money.
What did Burrp do? It started listing spas and salons as well. And it went completely off the rails when it started TV listings. The flawed logic at the time was, Prabhu explains, "You are run by a TV company and TV listings are a natural progression." By 2011, Zomato took over the market. And in 2014, the VC-funded food tech buzz grew. In came the cavalry and by September 2015, the market crashed. "If the resources had been redirected to orders back then, we would still be on top," rues Prabhu.
In search of the elixir
In its new avatar, Burrp is looking at tweaking its old business model, without straying from the core.
Restaurant discovery, especially, if it is for online ordering is not really a pain point, experts say. People order, typically, from just three restaurants but for dine-ins, they want to find new places, and that's where Burrp wants to bake its bread. It currently has 65,000 restaurants listed and Prabhu insists that it can add 10,000 every month. Burrp is currently in 14 cities.
"But this is just the bread. Transactions will be our butter," said Prabhu. They gave their transactions platform a test-run with a 'New Year's Eve' party invite microsite. Parties across venues were listed and people could buy passes online. The company says it pulled in orders with an average ticket size of Rs 11,000 and made Rs 1,000 per pass on an average. But that means another diversification from the listing model. So has Burrp really learnt from its mistakes?
Yes, say Prabhu and Chhajlani. "Burrp still holds some mindshare and everyone else is solving small parts of the problem. We want to be a one-stop shop for all problems," says Prabhu. Transactions will be driven not just by food orders but by events as well. But events won't be randomly picked. According to Chhajlani artificial intelligence powers the app to map user behaviour and suggests restaurants they would want to visit or order from. It will not be a passive platform anymore.
But how many events will major metros have ? Besides, Bookmyshow has successfully captured this market. "They don't do food related events," says Chhajlani. For Burrp, even Sunday brunches or karaoke nights at popular bars are events. "We won't do just listings, we will encourage people to book a table. If it is a brunch, we will ask users to pay for the entire meal at Burrp and after our commission, we will pass the rest to the restaurant," Prabhu adds.
Neighbourhood dealers
Next in line for Burrp is offers, hyperlocal offers. It will tie up with small local restaurants and push deals within the community around them. But, offers are discounts by another name and that route has been tried and discarded.
"We will not be discounting. Not one bit," explained Prabhu. These offers, Chhajlani explained, will be driven by the merchants alone. Burrp does not have VC money to burn and has strict targets to maintain. "We aim to break even soon," said Prabhu. The team also hopes to someday become an integral part of the restaurant chain. "Making an ERP for restaurants so we can help them decide on SKUs is the Holy Grail and maybe we will do that someday," said Prabhu.
But for now, Burrp needs downloads. It has had 500,000 so far and it is time for a marketing push. However, the company said, it won't run a high-decibel marketing campaign, or plaster its logo on banners, or launch a TV campaign. It will start something to get the app back in circulation by April. "We have been given a few million dollars and we now have to decide between our wants and our needs," said Prabhu. Now, that is always a tough ask.
New business heads, Pradeep Prabhu and Abhishek Chhajlani, are quick to own up. "Burrp did make some mistakes. One of the errors was to become a listings platform for everything," says Prabhu.
Swing to October 2015: the food tech market had crashed. FoodPanda and TinyOwl were mired in their own crises. Zomato and Swiggy were cornering the market with two different business models. Burrp went in for a soft relaunch and it is now looking to raise the pitch with diners and merchants alike, offering them smarter platforms and stickier engagement formats.
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Down the rabbit hole
The big mistake that Burrp made was that it lost track of its key functionality: food.
For those who have forgotten, here is a quick playback. Burrp was acquired in 2009 by Infomedia, part of Network 18. The start-up was helping people discover restaurants online and had been started in 2006 by Deep Ubhi and Anand Jain. It worked on an ad revenue based model and was fast rising the popularity charts. But, in came competition in 2008. Foodiebay, which later rebranded as Zomato, had better user interface and more venture capital (VC) money.
What did Burrp do? It started listing spas and salons as well. And it went completely off the rails when it started TV listings. The flawed logic at the time was, Prabhu explains, "You are run by a TV company and TV listings are a natural progression." By 2011, Zomato took over the market. And in 2014, the VC-funded food tech buzz grew. In came the cavalry and by September 2015, the market crashed. "If the resources had been redirected to orders back then, we would still be on top," rues Prabhu.
In search of the elixir
In its new avatar, Burrp is looking at tweaking its old business model, without straying from the core.
Restaurant discovery, especially, if it is for online ordering is not really a pain point, experts say. People order, typically, from just three restaurants but for dine-ins, they want to find new places, and that's where Burrp wants to bake its bread. It currently has 65,000 restaurants listed and Prabhu insists that it can add 10,000 every month. Burrp is currently in 14 cities.
"But this is just the bread. Transactions will be our butter," said Prabhu. They gave their transactions platform a test-run with a 'New Year's Eve' party invite microsite. Parties across venues were listed and people could buy passes online. The company says it pulled in orders with an average ticket size of Rs 11,000 and made Rs 1,000 per pass on an average. But that means another diversification from the listing model. So has Burrp really learnt from its mistakes?
Yes, say Prabhu and Chhajlani. "Burrp still holds some mindshare and everyone else is solving small parts of the problem. We want to be a one-stop shop for all problems," says Prabhu. Transactions will be driven not just by food orders but by events as well. But events won't be randomly picked. According to Chhajlani artificial intelligence powers the app to map user behaviour and suggests restaurants they would want to visit or order from. It will not be a passive platform anymore.
But how many events will major metros have ? Besides, Bookmyshow has successfully captured this market. "They don't do food related events," says Chhajlani. For Burrp, even Sunday brunches or karaoke nights at popular bars are events. "We won't do just listings, we will encourage people to book a table. If it is a brunch, we will ask users to pay for the entire meal at Burrp and after our commission, we will pass the rest to the restaurant," Prabhu adds.
Neighbourhood dealers
Next in line for Burrp is offers, hyperlocal offers. It will tie up with small local restaurants and push deals within the community around them. But, offers are discounts by another name and that route has been tried and discarded.
"We will not be discounting. Not one bit," explained Prabhu. These offers, Chhajlani explained, will be driven by the merchants alone. Burrp does not have VC money to burn and has strict targets to maintain. "We aim to break even soon," said Prabhu. The team also hopes to someday become an integral part of the restaurant chain. "Making an ERP for restaurants so we can help them decide on SKUs is the Holy Grail and maybe we will do that someday," said Prabhu.
But for now, Burrp needs downloads. It has had 500,000 so far and it is time for a marketing push. However, the company said, it won't run a high-decibel marketing campaign, or plaster its logo on banners, or launch a TV campaign. It will start something to get the app back in circulation by April. "We have been given a few million dollars and we now have to decide between our wants and our needs," said Prabhu. Now, that is always a tough ask.