Good morning,
If there's one thing that makes 30-year-old Nabeel Alamgir fume, it's watching eateries pay exorbitant fees to tech companies.
In an industry known for razor-thin margins even in ideal circumstances, third-party delivery platforms like GrubHub and Uber Eats can charge commissions of 15 to 30 percent per transaction. "At that point, it's almost pointless for the restaurant to even take your order," Alamgir tells Inc. "They're not making any money." More than 110,000 U.S. restaurants in the U.S.--one in six--permanently closed in 2020, according to the National Restaurant Association. Of those that have survived, many have been forced to rely heavily--or exclusively--on delivery and take-out orders.
Alamgir believes his New York City-based startup can provide a more sustainable solution. Instead of charging a per-order commission, Lunchbox operates on a SaaS model, charging restaurants a flat fee of about $200 per month per location. The startup's early clients include Clean Juice, Mexicue, Zaro's Family Bakery, and Chip City, as well as Alamgir's previous employer, Bareburger.
Lunchbox, which raised $20 million last October, is hardly the only company trying to tackle this problem: Startups like ChowNow, Toast, and Olo all operate similar platforms. Read our story to learn why Alamgir is rooting for all of them, too--even though they’re his competitors. And check out more of Inc.’s restaurant industry coverage from the past year: |
0 Comments:
Post a Comment