Joe Steele, CEO of Bookatable, chats with Ben Goldsmith about how Bookatable have grown to put millions of diners in touch with 12,000+ restaurants in 19 European countries every single month. If you enjoy the episode, please up-vote on ProductHunt: Podcasts.
0:00 Intro: How the Bookatable business evolved from Livebookings.
1:54 Why Bookatable's offering to restaurants is key to success.
3:00 Supply versus demand
4:40 It's a crowded market for both restaurants and customers... how does Bookatable achieve cut-through on such scale?
7:30 Bookable isn't just for good deals, you've got a deal with Michelin! How does that work behind the scenes?
9:05 Who are your customers? Does the Michelin deal help bring in more foodies?
10:30 Running a marketplace business with lower margins and/or purchase figures is hard: how you make the numbers work? How do you get the best LTV out of your customers?
13:00 Great advise from Joe Steele to future marketplace entrepreneurs: if you're running a marketplace business, your P&L needs to be built and structured entirely differently to other businesses, as success looks different to you.
15:10 Who is Bookatable's key demographics?
17:40 Is there a mobile versus desktop split in terms of experience or user behaviour?
19:30 Bookatable is huge now. Does the service differ from city to city, or country to country?
21:10 Stockholm v London v Munich: the differences in expectation for both restaurants and customers.
23:20 How should a marketplace business enter a new market? And why you shouldn't just try and 'copy/paste' your business model
