Taiwan’s EZTable will doggedly charge forth in Southeast Asia (#StartupAsia Arena)

Taiwan’s EZTable went onstage today at Startup Asia Tokyo 2014 to pitch its table booking and voucher app to a panel of investors from across the continent.

EZTable lets diners book table reservations at high-end restaurants through a mobile app. Restaurants pay to subscribe to EZTable’s business-facing app, and hostesses can accept reservations a smartphone. Consumers, meanwhile, can use EZTable to reserve a spot at the latest chic bistro, but they can also purchase vouchers on their meals, which EZTable takes a 10 to 15 percent cut of. That’s where the company earns most of its revenue.

“We’re similar to Groupon because we have an ecommerce model and have an ecommerce-driven relationship with our partners,” Chen told Tech in Asia in an interview before his pitch at Startup Asia. “But one obvious difference is that the face value of the Groupon coupon is usually about one-fourth of that of EZTable. We’re selling high-end coupons, that’s why we call them ‘vouchers,’ not ‘coupons.’”

EZTable was borne out of cofounder Alex Chen’s love for OpenTable, the San Francisco-based restaurant management software that’s best known among consumers for offering table reservations. Chen established the company with three other partners after returning to Taiwan from California in 2008, but scaled back OpenTable’s premise to suit the habits of Asian restaurant managers and diners. Ultimately, that meant offering a low-tech marketing tool to high-end eateries.

“In Asia, there are many small restaurants and night-market type places. Reservations are not really necessary in Asia. So we have to think… what types of restaurants in Asia will people make reservations for? We realized they would only make reservations for high-end restaurants – not necessarily because it’s crowded, but because the purpose of the meal will be for business,” Chen told Tech in Asia.

In Taiwan, EZTable has partnered with more than 700 restaurants that Chen considers “fine dining,” amidst a total market size he estimates to be about 1400. He also claims that EZTable generated US$7 million in revenue for the year 2013, and hopes to earn more than US$20 million by the end of 2014. Chen says that EZTable sends 300,000 customers each month to restaurants through its app, though he counts customers that accompany the person that made the actual booking or voucher purchase in that figure.

While EZTable has a loyal following in its home market, breaking into other markets hasn’t been easy. The company opened an office in Shanghai in January 2012, around the time it received US$1.5 in seed funding from Rose Park Advisors and Taiwan’s AppWorks. Chen told Tech in Asia that office has since been scaled back to focus on businessmen traveling in Asia, rather than local diners looking for tables. This summer, EZTable opened offices in Bangkok, Jakarta, and Hong Kong, where it’s currently putting its sales teams to work. I. It’s inked partnerships with TripAdvisor and China’s CTrip to help promote its deals across the continent.

Chen says that scaling EZTable’s business model remains difficult, but insists it’s not impossible.

“I can’t say I’ve really found the solution [for how] to partner with small- and medium-sized businesses in a scaleable way. But I still feel confident,” says Chen. “Think about ten years ago. Nobody could have imagined that everyone on earth would sign up for Facebook, but now, it’s normal. Facebook faced the same challenge about how to scale online. Now, the problem is on me. I have to think about how I can get as many restaurants to sign up on EZTable as quickly as possible. This is the challenge I think about every day.”

Judge’s comments

“In order for users to book, you need restaurant support. How do you motivate the restaurant side to use EZTable,” asks Taka Hasunuma of Recruit Strategic Partners. Chen admits that EZTable is a sales-driven organization. “I still go out and talk to restaurants,” he replies. “We promise that we can bring more customers to them and help make their business better.” He also adds that he provides iPads to some restaurants for free, and that Apple provides them with some additional support. “If you guys give us money we can buy more iPads,” he says half-jokingly.

The post Taiwan’s EZTable will doggedly charge forth in Southeast Asia (#StartupAsia Arena) appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Taiwan’s EZTable will doggedly charge forth in Southeast Asia (#StartupAsia Arena)