How we launched Order & Pay in less than 3 months
Hervé Degrève, the man behind launching Order & Pay, tells why and how sunday built its own solution for easy mobile orders in restaurant.
Hervé Degrève, the man behind launching Order & Pay, tells why and how sunday built its own solution for easy mobile orders in restaurant.
4 years ago, I scanned a QR code in a restaurant in Thailand for the first time, and I was sold. Instant access to the menu and ordering my Pad Thai in a couple of seconds was game changing. But more than that, it was simple.
However, it was coming out of lockdown and testing payment via QR code at Big Mamma, that I truly understood its immense value. But are QR codes just a fad? Mobile payments and their growth suggest otherwise.
Restaurant and their staff are less overwhelmed. Diners have greater autonomy and no longer have to wait. ‘Pay at Table’ was just the start.
Last October, I joined sunday to work on product extension and to diversify our offer. Thousands of restaurants are looking to go digital. But most of the restaurants we speak to nowadays want more.
Those driving these requests:
For the above, Pay at Table simply doesn’t cut it. The only solution that doesn’t overwhelm staff, is offering diners a way to place their orders digitally in a couple of seconds. And that’s exactly what we launched.
Step one. We acquired Canadian startup CHKPLZ, who had the existing stack for online ordering. This was a quick win, saving us time and giving us access to their experience and expertise.
We learnt a lot from CHKPLZ, from navigating market differences to the complexity of the product itself. After considering a few other acquisitions, we finally decided to build our own solution from scratch in November.
Fixed delivery date: 3 months. This was unheard of and if we were going to make it then we needed to double down.
At the time, we were only 8 months old and the launch of our core QR code product across 5 countries already required 200 full time employees.
Between the integration of POS systems, the guest web-app experience, the development of new features and all the rest, we had our work cut out for us. Without breaking apart functioning teams, we had a couple of members hand-picked to work on this new project.
To get there, I was given the chance to lead an amazing team with some of the most experience people at sunday:
Team aside, there were other drivers that got us here:
The vision and support provided by sunday’s cofounders
Victor and Christine backed us from day 1 and gave us all the tools we could have possibly needed.
Our existing product, Pay at Table, and all the features that go with it left for a quick and unfazed development.
We were lucky enough to lean against our partner Deliverect, connecting us to the market’s leading tech solution for POS connectivity.
They helped us understand the needs of our clients, what was of value to them to better prioritise our objectives.
Small team, focused meetings, workshops focusing on the essentials, minimum reporting, total confidence and autonomy.
From the start, the idea was to launch this product at TopBun in Marseille. The newest Big Mamma restaurant opened in February 2022 and is entirely powered by sunday
from the Big Mamma team to Cojean, the Pret a Manger of France, our first clients were committed, hopeful and supportive.
Since launching Order & Pay, we’re in this new phase of adapting and modifying the product to meet the needs of our different markets and clients.
From May, Order & Pay with sunday will be available in 11 countries. We want the product to work just as well in a local bar as in a food court which welcomes thousands on a daily. This next phase, as exciting as it may be, requires focus.
Adjust team roles, manage expectations and integrate this service into our existing suite will be the key ingredients for success and to making Order & Pay just as strong as Pay at Table… We’re ready and committed as ever to changing the way we pay in restaurants for the better.
Interested? Find more and book a demo of Order & Pay here.
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