With technology, it doesn’t get any easier than this: go online, choose a place and restaurant, check for availability, and reserve a table for your lunch or dinner.
That is what Malaysia based Table App aims to do. Based in Kuala Lumpur, Table App provides free online restaurant reservation service for diners and guest-management solution for restaurateurs. Diners can easily head to the website and reserve a seat at their favourite restaurants in Kuala Lumpur.
So are people using Table App? Apparently so: Table App’s cofounder Benson Chang told Vulcan Post that, it has sent over 10,000 diners to more than 60 restaurants currently listed on Table App. Most diners reserve the tables at their desired restaurant through Table App’s official website, but the team is increasingly seeing more reservation made from their mobile app, which has garnered over 1,000 downloads so far.
Vulcan Post also spoke to Benson about their future plan, and if they are planning for any expansion. For now, the team is based in Klang Valley as there is a higher concentration of restaurants there. Once they built up enough liquidity in terms of diners bookings, they will looking into expanding to Penang and Johor.
Online restaurant reservation is something new in Malaysia
Growing Table App has not been without its challenges, as online reservation with instant confirmation is very new concept in Malaysia.
“We had some users who made a reservation through us but they still call and email us to double check whether the booking is confirmed, even though our system sent them a confirmation email. What we are pleased with is that most of our diners give us positive feedback after using Table App,” Benson told Vulcan Post.
Another challenge is that Singapore based restaurant review site HungryGoWhere has also expanded its footprint to Malaysia, posing a threat to Table App. However, the team is not too worried about HungryGoWhere Malaysia.
“The market is huge and we are not even capturing 1% of the market. It is good to have positive competition because they will also help us to educate the users and merchants,” Benson noted in confidence.
Benson currently runs Table App with his cofounder David, and they have four staffs growing the company. Benson received financial backing from his brother which helped a lot in sustaining the company before they generate any revenue.
Will Table App be successful? There are no reasons why it cant: Singapore based Chope, which provides exactly the same service to Singaporean, managed to raise a S$1.8 Million investment from Singapore Press Holdings at a S$6.5 million valuation last year. At the time of the funding, Chope had 224 restaurants on its platform, and diners makes about 10,000 reservations a week.
Looks like Table App is a quarter way to 224 restaurants.
Read also: NUS startup BigSpoon is on the quest to improve restaurant services