ordrin

Not just the world’s coolest lollipops. via thefancy

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:37:00 -0400

Not just the world’s coolest lollipops. via thefancy

Welcome Luis E. Fabian!

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 20:52:00 -0400

A restaurant prospers or fails for a million reasons, but few are as powerful as location. And when looking for talent to staff our establishments- from servers to software developers- it is tempting to let geography guide our search as it does our store fronts. We recruit from the local college, the local Meetup, the friends of friends we can meet for coffee. But talent is a global community bounded only by the borders we impose.

Today we are thrilled to welcome Luis to Ordr.in. Luis comes to us from Madrid (Spain) via the brilliant Jovenes con Futuro program, part of StepOne, placing high quality Spanish devs with U.S. companies. Competition for these developer is fierce and we are excited to get one, doubly so to work with Luis.

Luis has wide ranging experience, from big systems work at a major telecom to just about everything at a startup. In his spare time he built a paid traffic app for android that is very popular. And, until this year, has never missed an Atletico Madrid home game.

We didn’t find Luis at a Meetup. Luis didn’t find us because of a friend of a friend. It was StepOne coupled with our deep belief that talent can be found anywhere that made this match. A great team getting better. Welcome, Luis!

Sympathy with style

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 21:26:05 -0400

Sympathy with style

SXSW Panel Picks: Vote Now!

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 18:11:00 -0400

That time of the year is rolling around again — SXSW is fast approaching. Yes, the number of proposed panels is staggering, but there’s plenty of fantastic sessions out there to check out and vote up.

These are our official office picks, starting with a very special panel that features Senior Ordr.in Hacker, Ricky Robinett. Check em out and cast your vote!

Sweet Memes Are Made of This: How to Go Viral

From tactical tagging to tweeting at influencers, the panel will discuss the “how,” “when,” and “who” of strategic creation, so companies can target the best audience that will want and need to share their content.

Michael Selvidge, Twilio
Lian Amaris, Songbird
Ricky Robinett, Ordr.in
Peter Shankman, Vocus Inc

Food, Tech & Music: The Future

Synergies in food, tech and music are emerging - how can we accelerate these networks and create a more sustainable future of food and health?

Eytan Oren, Eytan & The Embassy
Tim West, Cerealize.com | Grub.ly
Danielle Gould, Food + Tech Connect
Destin Layne, GRACE Communications Foundation

Food Startups and Financing the Future of Food

This panel will discuss the kinds of startups being funded, deal mechanics, navigating pitfalls, and the implications of crowdfunding on food startups and innovation.

Matt Wise, Founderly
Wade Roush, Xconomy
Andy Donner, Physic Ventures
Ryan Caldbeck, CircleUp

Using an API vs building in-house: which is king?

Taken from their own experiences and partnerships, the panellists will discuss dos and don’ts and debate when to build yourself or buy from someone else.

Jeff Lawson, Twilio
John Collison, Stripe
Jim Franklin, SendGrid
Scott Kveton, Urban Airship

The Learn To Code Movement

This panel of experts will explore the opportunities of learning to program, career options and the outcome of the growing online market for education.

Adria Richards, SendGrid
Sasha Laundy, Codecademy
Rob Conery, Tekpub

Vote for these winners, or take a look at what else is being proposed and vote for your favorites!

Farewell Summer 2012 Interns!

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 16:52:00 -0400

When the summer started I blogged about the great interns we recruited and our hopes for them. Turns out they exceeded our hopes. Jason, Joanne, Michael and Susie. An amazing bunch. I asked Joanne to write about her experience, what she learned and how she feels. Her words (barely edited) are below.

——————-

It’s a familiar routine now, march past Beecher’s and through the glass doors and into the clunky elevator, wait for a couple minutes, and greet the wood panels of the office on the 7th floor.

This, I am leaving.

In a day, I’ll be heading back home to cornfields and gas stations so I wanted to say a lot of things in this blog post, share what I’ve done, lessons I’ve learned. But I’d rather say one thing that will stick. So here it is:

I’ve learned here what it means to be part of a team.

At Ordr.in, all of us believe this company will really change the restaurant industry. We are committed and passionate, motivated by the vision and encouraged by good company. All oars are in and we’re rowing hard and fast.

But we also get away from those devilish little monitors that can box us off to grab and eat lunch together, share good stories together, update everyone on our work together.

We stop to celebrate finished projects, closed deals, awesome ideas and acknowledge the people behind them. (And when I say celebrate, I don’t mean a casual “hey nice job” I mean pull-out-all-the-stoppers celebrate).

We gather to talk about ideas, product visions, or a new phase in product development. There are spontaneous ice cream runs, ping pong games, and heated competitions over Google Doodle. It’s really great fun. But we also work hard and the combination of work, fun and acknowledgement is what makes this ship sail. We created a website about our internships for future interns.

Thanks team for teaching me how fun and rewarding it is to be part of a team.

I am sad to leave. Truly.

——————

We will miss you, too, and all the interns. We are very proud to have all of you in the Ordr.in family.

Make your restaurant mouth-wateringly irresistible with great food photos

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 11:37:37 -0400

CNN has a great blog post by Derrick Chang on taking mouth-watering photos of food. This is critical for restaurant marketing. Customers respond to images of food. Having no images, boring images or sloppy images of your restaurant are missed opportunities — or worse, active turn-offs to browsing potential customers.

Start with great looking food. Not everything looks good in pictures. Pay attention to colors, contrasts, and moisture (seriously, no dried out veggies). And please arrange the plate nicely. Brown stew in a bowl 30 minutes from the pot isn’t going to look good.
Pay attention to light. Even without fancy lighting you can take great food pictures. Avoid flash which can be harsh; natural light is often best. Experiment with time of day, move from table to table. Keep at it until the light is warm and bright.
Get in close. Food details including texture bring the item to life. Don’t be afraid of your camera’s macro setting to get right…up…close.

And now two of my own tips:

Use them. Once you have your best pics — and only use your best — post them on Facebook, tweet them, pin them, post to Foursquare and Yelp. Create social media contests by asking customers to guess the menu item. This isn’t art, it’s marketing.
Refresh them regularly. Taking great pictures of food can take a little time but is a great investment. New images are instantly engaging to customers and can help your website and social media profiles. I recommend a few new pictures every month, especially when you release new menu items.

Need some inspiring examples? Check out our Pinterest boards on food styling and restaurant design.

Groupon is not to blame

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 09:56:00 -0400

Last week another restaurant-Groupon faceoff went public, featuring Back Alley Waffles in Washington, DC. Back Alley claimed Groupon’s slow payment cycle was to blame for a business-killing cash crunch. Groupon fired back saying they were paying on the agreed-upon schedule, and that only 18% of the daily deals sold had been redeemed.

It is easy to blame others when business goes south. Ruby Tuesday once blamed “winter weather” for missing sales targets. Groupon makes a tempting target. But the facts are on Groupon’s side and provide an unfortunate but helpful lesson to other operators.

Let’s run the numbers:

Customers bought a $16 coupon for $8.
733 deals were sold, generating $5,864 in sales.
Back Alley earned half ($2,932) payable in 3 monthly installments
132 deals were redeemed.

Note: the restaurant is publishing somewhat different numbers but the difference is not material.

My gut (and I’d love some operators to weigh in) is that the gross margin on an artisinal waffle is at least 60%. That means for every Groupon redeemed, Back Alley Waffle incurred tops $6.40 in direct cost. Cost = $6.40 x 132 = $844.80.

Let’s play that back: Back Alley Waffle earned $2,932 at a cost of $844.80.

Even with a slow payment cycle, Back Alley was out $844.80 while waiting for their first $977 installment.

There are two big lessons here. The first is to make sure you have enough cash on hand to invest in your business post-opening. If you get to opening day with nothing but loose change, you’re probably toast. As a new restaurant Back Alley was just figuring out their operations and doing so with what they describe as “no money”. Sudden success, even before the Groupon, made the learning curve doubly hard. So why then spend money you don’t have to get customers you don’t need? Operators should to align their marketing investment with their business goals.

Second, know your operating metrics. The cost of the campaign is not forgone revenue ($16 X 733 = $11,728) and should not include indirect costs. Did Back Alley add staff specifically to serve 132 Groupon customers over a month? Did they pay more rent or need a new licence? The only costs are the direct costs of cooking and serving waffles for the customers who redeemed.

I don’t think daily deals are for everyone. I think a daily deal can be dangerous if not done right. But this deal looks like like it accomplished what was intended- customers acquired profitably.

Twitter for Restaurants: A Guide to Getting Started

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 13:38:00 -0400

Ordr.in is in the business of simplifying digital life for as many restaurants as possible. With that goal in mind, we’re launching a new series of social media guides for restaurants: How-to guides for restaurants to understand how to make social media work for them to build their brand, handle customer service with care, and attract new customers.

Our first guide is Twitter for Restaurants — an overview of how a restaurant can get up and running on Twitter. The rewards for the restaurant that does Twitter right can be so worthwhile in the long run, so take a look at these Tweeting best practices and make sure your restaurant is maximizing its impact on Twitter.

Our Twitter guide for restaurants is short and concise — easy to print out and tack onto your wall. We hope restaurants everywhere trying to understand the art of the tweet will find our guide to Twitter a useful resources. So share and share alike!

image credit: Twitter ad for @pancheros at their ames location. by Brood_wich, on Flickr

TwilioCon 2012 is coming

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 10:19:28 -0400

The second annual TwilioCon is fast approaching, and we’re thrilled that our own Ricky Robinett, hacker extraordinaire, will be a featured speaker at the SF-based event.

If you don’t know Twilio, you should: They’re making telecom accessible for over 10 million developers worldwide to be able to automate phone calls, text messages, and more. Next generation communications are essential to what Ordr.in does for restaurants, and Twilio makes it easy.

Ricky’s apps have been used by hundreds of thousands of users and covered in multiple media outlets including CNN, Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Mashable, VentureBeat and the Today Show.

TwilioCon early bird registration ends in just a couple of weeks, so take a look at the schedule and speakers. And let us know if we’ll see you there!

Bread & Ink - Breakfast by eyeliam on Flickr. Aren’t...

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 14:00:00 -0400

Bread & Ink - Breakfast by eyeliam on Flickr.

Aren’t you hungry? Damn right you are. Super close up of the food shows texture. Helps make the image real and attractive.

Greater Winnipeg Central Business District Restaurants...

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:55:12 -0400

Greater Winnipeg Central Business District Restaurants Amusements and Dwelling Units (1948) by Manitoba Historical Maps on Flickr.

1948 map of “Restaurants and Amusements” in Greater Winnepeg

Ecommerce Hackathon

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 18:55:00 -0400

The story of New York’s tech scene is laced with ecommerce success. From Doubleclick serving ads to Seamless serving food to Gilt, Birchbox, Rent the Runway, Fab, Warby Parker… New York is a transactional town.

In this grand tradition, on August 4-5 Etsy and Dwolla are organizing an ecommerce hackathon. Ordr.in is sponsoring with some other amazing companies- Twilio, Zappos, Busted Tees, Sincerely, Stripe, Kiip… you get the idea. Awesome tech, awesome people, awesome chance to build something that makes real money.

Anyone who knows Ordr.in knows we <3 hackathons. But when you combine pure hacker hustle with money, big things can happen. It makes our API sing with joy.

How Restaurants Should Work With Their Web Designers

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 10:46:10 -0400

Many restaurants hire professional designers to build their website, but hiring a professional doesn’t guarantee a great result.

We talked to Jill Parks, Creative Director of Savannah design firm Sans Sheriff for tips on what to do (and not do) to give you the best chance of getting an amazing restaurant website that works for you and your customers.

Before you build your website

Picking a designer. Website design is a collaborative process. A great portfolio is a must, but you have trust and communicate with them.
Know your message. Help your designer by telling them what’s most important to you. Online ordering? Reservations? Your menu? Your famous chef? This will provide the designer with an organizing principle.
Invest in quality images. It rarely works to “sit there with a regular ‘ol camera and take food pictures,” says Jill. You are selling food; the food should look tasty. A good designer will have an unbiased, educated eye for what photos work best.

During the build

Be upfront about what you want. Having examples of websites you like will help focus design discussions set appropriate expectations up front.
Listen to the designer. It should be “a collaboration…a give and take,” says Jill. but remember that just as “the restaurant is the expert on food, the designer is the the expert [on web design].” Trust is key.

After you launch

Track site analytics. There are free tools your designer can give you so you know what your customers do on your website- what pages they see, buttons they click, etc. The data you get from analytics will tell you if you built the right site.
Update your website. Check-in every few months to make sure the site is working for you and your customers. Just like you review the menu with your chef, review the analytics with your designer. You must have a way to update site content yourself or budget updates from your designer.

A website is often the first experience a customer has with your restaurant. You should take building and maintaining it seriously. If you use a designer, use one you like, trust and respect. You’ll get a lot more out of working with them.

Related:

Dos and don’ts of your restaurant website.

About

Jillison Parks is Creative Director of Sans Sheriff Studio, multimedia designer and creative consultant with over fifteen years of experience in graphic design, technical writing and information management. She recently designed websites for Angel’s BBQ, Papillote and the Moon River Brewing Company.

New Ordr.in Developer Tools- Woot!

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 11:35:00 -0400

Developers rejoice! Ordr.in just released v2.0 of our API wrappers, making it easier than ever to build an Ordr.in food ordering app. Brand new Python, Ruby and NodeJS packages plus a PHP library. All available for your coding pleasure.

Changes include a lot of debugging, enhanced documentation, and new schema to make them more easily interoperable. Angels weep! Special shout our to interns Michael Lumish and Jason Teplitz for their great work.

And please send us your feedback. As always we’d love to hear from you.

Get the Right Data to Manage your Restaurant Effectively

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 09:57:19 -0400

Let me guess: You have a full house, you think you’re making money for your restaurant. Diners are cleaning their plates, you think you have your customer base under control. Your servers are pulling in the big tips, you assume you have a successful staff. All of this might be true – or it might not. Using these metrics to run your restaurant means you’re missing key facts to help you make smart decisions for your restaurant.

Do customers recommend your restaurant? Word of mouth recommendations tell you so much more about your customer cultivation efforts than a clean plate. Your consistently full house? It doesn’t mean you’re maximizing profit per turn. And tip percent? You are measuring how much your staff earn, but not how much your staff are earning for you.

Successfully tracking restaurant operations metrics like guest satisfaction, profitability and server performance means putting in place a data capture and reporting system — not a hard integration but one that does require work. Sadly, few independent restaurants bother.

If your POS isn’t helpful, try services like GuestMetrics and Avero. Or see how much help OpenTable or other restaurant-specific CRM tools might be. There are no excuses for ignoring key metrics to help manage your restaurant!

Every restaurant needs a loyalty tracking system that tells you how likely your customers are to recommend you and how often they dine with you. You should also know the gross margin per item and have tactics to promote high margin items. And you definitely should track your servers’ success in driving high revenue, high margin turns in addition to tip percent.

If you know these numbers you’ll make smart decisions for your restaurant based on the right metrics.

The Infographic: Foursquare in the Big Apple

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 17:15:58 -0400

Foursquare Use in New York Restaurants

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 09:50:00 -0400

We’re pretty much data fanatics at Ordr.in. It’s a calling. We finally decided to put our data nerd-dom to good use: Check out our first infographic, Foursquare in the Big Apple. Over one month, we tracked checkins, new visits and tips at 618 NYC restaurants using the Foursquare venues API. And when the data was in, we turned it over to the ever talented Susie Forbath, our design intern.

The process gleaned some useful and sometimes surprising information to help restaurants better understand their Foursquare customer base.

Some key takeaways

NYC restaurants receive on average 9 check ins from Foursquare users each day.
On average, Manhattan restaurants get more Foursquare check ins each week than the other four NYC boroughs combined.
61% of Foursquare check ins on Saturdays in NYC are from new customers; and Monday-Wednesday is slow for checkins but heavily from loyal, repeat customers.

You can see the Foursquare infographic and the full dataset. We’d love to hear your reactions in the comments below. And if anyone at Foursquare wants to give us access to the firehose… Jus’ saying.

Most intimidating soda fountain. Ever.

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 10:36:28 -0400

Most intimidating soda fountain. Ever.

Three Metrics to Beat Sales Fatigue for Restaurant Operators

Sat, 16 Jun 2012 17:59:00 -0400

We talk to many restaurant operators. All of them are suffering from sales pitch fatigue. The steady flood of daily deals solicitations, loyalty program offerings, and social/local/mobile ad listing opportunities has taken a terrible toll. The problem is that there are some pretty good services on the market; tools that can really help a restaurant attract, engage, and retain customers. The key is moving quickly to separate the worthwhile from the worthless.

There are three numbers every restaurant operator should know cold. In combination, these three numbers make for fast and fairly accurate assessments. Adopt this quick analysis technique for restaurant sales tool decisionmaking, and I bet 95% of sales pitches can be cut off in 5 minutes or less. The three metrics are:

Trial Volume (the number of new customers generated by a program)
Retention rate (percent of new customers who become loyal)
Frequency of purchase (number of times a loyal customer dines with you)

Since you already know your gross margin per customer (right?) and you can apply your sniff test to the sale person’s assumptions, you can easily compute the value of a program.

Gross Margin x Trial Volume x Retention rate x Frequency of spend.

If this number looks great relative to the program cost and other things you can do, you have a winner. If not, move along fast.

Welcome Ricky Robinett

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 09:02:49 -0400

With total excitement I am thrilled to announce Ricky Robinett has joined our team as Senior Developer and head of APIs. It’s a great day for Ordr.in.

Ricky comes to us from TargetSpot, a company we deeply respect, but he is perhaps best known for his presence on the NY hackathon scene. He’s built everything from fakegirlfriend to worldoffourcraft, he and his team took the gold medal at the Hacker Olympics, and last month he was a judge at Hack the Midwest. In 24 hours Ricky churns out products, not just hacks. He’s a smart, effective, curious developer who makes everyone around him better. But also, Ricky is a really nice guy.

Ordr.in has received many accolades but nothing gives us more satisfaction than the quality of people who choose to work here. Ricky joining our dev team is a great example of that. We look forward to all the terrific things we will do together.