The last month has been hectic - managing my full-time research in the lab while working on the new start-up with Fabez, which officially launched two weeks ago.
The idea for a new menu ordering platform spawned last year during a peak PhD-thesis-writing procrastination period after my brother's new food truck was set to make an appearance at the 2024 Italian Festa in Carlton. He needed something that would relieve his partner from order-taking duties, freeing her up to help out in the kitchen when rush hour hit without sacrificing customer service. Of course, several solutions out there promised to be the perfect product for his needs. However, as he investigated, they were either insanely expensive or lacked the most basic features such as being able to sell out of products or push menu updates on the fly.
Between thesis-writing sessions, I hacked together a prototype that turned a .csv into an online menu customers could order from, complete with a restaurant-side POS view and SMS notifications. When I showed what I'd made to Fabez, I could tell he was impressed with the functionality, but the user experience and how it looked... "not so much". He jumped on board and within a week, he turned what looked like an undergrad coursework project into a professional-looking menu with a very intuitive ordering experience for Steaky Boys customers.
On day one of the festival, we fitted out Jacob's truck with the new ordering platform and pushed through a few test orders. Everything was working. We were stoked and had high expectations for the onslaught of customers with an appetite for steak panini. And then the rain set in. It poured and the only things rushing during lunch hour were the customers heading out the door.
By the end of the day, we'd received a total of just 6 online orders - 3 of which were pushed by Fabez and I. We were drenched and devastated but had high hopes for day two - the weather forecast was in our favour. At this point, I'd spent too much time away from writing that I couldn't attend the festival, but that didn't stop me from having a back-end view of the online orders open on my second monitor. As it got close to lunch time, a few online orders started popping up on my screen. By 11:30, we'd already beaten yesterday's tally of 6. As noon approached, orders were popping off; it was huge, the app was working and people were using it.
Since then, Fabez and I have put in the hard yards to polish and develop QRdrly into what it is today. These early times have been super valuable for both of us. With just a few businesses on board we've been able to work closely with those using the app and learn how to improve based on their feedback. It's been awesome to see small businesses using and benefitting from something we created - definitely looking forward to the future of QRdrly.