MASTER MENU - This business is now sold!
The Master Menu was born in 2007 when I was living in Newcastle. I remember the daily routine of sifting through mail and instantly condemning over half of the dross and drivel to the bin. Putting myself in the position of the restaurant and takeaway owners, I instantly saw a niche in the market. By the time the leaflet had made the journey from the printer to my door, they looked dog-eared, weathered and crumpled.
The area I lived in was densely filled with students and as a result, had many takeaways for them to choose from. Within 3 days, I had signed up 10 of the best takeaways in the area. It was an instant hit. I had calculated that I could design, print and distribute the whole brochure for almost 50% less than each takeaway would have to pay if they were to go it alone.
The most memorable moment was the first day the brochures were distributed - this was way before online ordering was cool.
We could monitor every single order phoned into the takeaway. We knew from the takeaways' own admission that for every 10,000 leaflets they distributed, they would be lucky to generate 100 orders from their work - approximately 1% ROI. So when I saw the first 100 orders flood in that evening. I knew it was going to be a success. 500,000+ orders on, the takeaway owners still love the concept and so do our customers!
After my recent departure from the BBC Apprentice, we had a surge of visitors, over 1M before the site collapsed, this brought in a lot of interest, fast forward 6 months, we had then partnered with another startup and joined forces, bringing a whopping 850 takeaways online before selling the database shortly after to the market leaders.
The Master Menu was born in 2007 when I was living in Newcastle. I remember the daily routine of sifting through mail and instantly condemning over half of the dross and drivel to the bin. Putting myself in the position of the restaurant and takeaway owners, I instantly saw a niche in the market. By the time the leaflet had made the journey from the printer to my door, they looked dog-eared, weathered and crumpled.
The area I lived in was densely filled with students and as a result, had many takeaways for them to choose from. Within 3 days, I had signed up 10 of the best takeaways in the area. It was an instant hit. I had calculated that I could design, print and distribute the whole brochure for almost 50% less than each takeaway would have to pay if they were to go it alone.
The most memorable moment was the first day the brochures were distributed - this was way before online ordering was cool.
We could monitor every single order phoned into the takeaway. We knew from the takeaways' own admission that for every 10,000 leaflets they distributed, they would be lucky to generate 100 orders from their work - approximately 1% ROI. So when I saw the first 100 orders flood in that evening. I knew it was going to be a success. 500,000+ orders on, the takeaway owners still love the concept and so do our customers!
After my recent departure from the BBC Apprentice, we had a surge of visitors, over 1M before the site collapsed, this brought in a lot of interest, fast forward 6 months, we had then partnered with another startup and joined forces, bringing a whopping 850 takeaways online before selling the database shortly after to the market leaders.
