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COMPANY NAME:
The Restaurant Hotline Pty Ltd (1300 Eat Out)
FOUNDER:
Stewart Noble
ORIGINS:
Concept was born in 2005 with founder sick of using Sensis and Vodafone only to get through to closed or fully booked restaurants. Service went live in September 2006 CAPITAL RAISE: Own funds and a small business loan
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1300 EAT OUT CONNECTS RESTAURANT SEEKERS WITH RESTAURATEURS
THE PITCH:
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1300 Eat out is a free service for people wanting to book a restaurant. Restaurants pay a fee for clients introduced, with an option of paying an extra annual subscription fee for greater exposure to restaurant seekers. The company’s main goal is to become the automatic first option, nationwide, for people wanting to book a restaurant.
1300 Eat Out is Australia’s only dedicated restaurant booking and information service that operates both online and offline, as the first service of its kind to introduce a dedicated hotline for people interested in dining out. 1300 Eat Out members benefit from a frequent diner program and already have over a dozenlocations around Sydney accepting Dining Dollars, a voucher form of currency valid at multiple restaurant locations exclusive to 1300 Eat Out users.
Sixty-eight percent of people in Australia have access to the internet, while 98 percent have access to a phone, meaning online-only operators are missing out on a third of the market!
Over 1.3 million people dine out in Sydney alone each week. Approximately 110,000 make phone bookings. Yellow pages online generates more than 3.3 million searches for restaurants and placed over 270,000 calls to restaurants nationwide last year.
Future plans include the introduction of SMS request functionality (get a recommendation on your mobile) and the creation of re-seller relationships with other online providers who wish to offer online bookings from their own sites (using our infrastructure).
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Reuben Buchanan
Integral Capital Group
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“An investor’s initial concerns are always about capital preservation. Investing into an early-stage venture like this is a big ask for anyone other than an angel investor. Building market awareness for “1300 Eat Out” will be a big mountain to climb. Don’t bother approaching any VC or PE funds – too early stage. However, if these guys can secure an angel investor, and get all the best restaurants signed up, they may be in with a chance. Seek, Wotif and Realestate.com.au did it – so there is still hope if they have the smarts, determination and the capital.”
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Karl Scott
Gadens Lawyers
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“The mobile phone has become our ubiquitous communications device. With the degree of convergence evident here and overseas, its reach and scope of use is only going to expand in 1300 Eat Out’s target market. Voice, data and web at your fifth finger in a user-friendly format. Their challenge will be building the number of quality restaurants, getting deep enough information on them, working on the customer experience – and of course making it pay.”
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Peter Christo
Christo Partners
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“This is a succinct and clear value proposition for people looking at this business. It then follows through with some market facts that validate it as a business opportunity. As an appetite-whetter, it works. There is, however, no hard ask for what they want from the audience. Overall, a solid Pitch!”
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To get your business profiled in ‘Elevator Pitch’, visit the Anthill Forum
