How talabat can help you find the entrepreneurial spirit in COVID-19

Last week, I had the privilege and opportunity to deliver a keynote speech at Gulfood, where I spoke about how talabat can help restaurateurs become better entrepreneurs. 

I also spoke about what keeps me up at night - and that is planning how we can make our products and services better for our customers, to enable them to feel confident in stepping into the unknown, and in return, provide a more secure future for families and businesses alike in uncertain times. 

In this article, I want to take you through our case-studies at GulFood, of three entrepreneurs, Mohamed, and his Japanese restaurant Sakura, Mahmoud, who is leading the expansion of Malak al Tawouk, and Khaled, a successful entrepreneur who has founded Just Burger amongst other F&B concepts, and how they successfully utilised talabat to solve different opportunities and challenges they had in their respective businesses.

 It’s a ten-minute read, and is very UAE-centric - due to GulFood this year, however, if you are an entrepreneur anywhere in the region, who is unsure of how to grow your business, and wondering how talabat can help you out with the services we provide - it is well worth the read.

Mohamed and his Japanese Restaurant, Sakura.

Firstly, let’s talk about Mohamed, and his Japanese restaurant Sakura. Mohamed is an Abu Dhabi local, who absolutely loves Japan, and more importantly, Japanese food. However, he could never quite recreate the taste and experience of Japan when he is back home in Abu Dhabi. That was his trigger to start up Sakura. 

When lockdown started, like all other businesses in the UAE - Sakura lost their dine-in customers, and, as many entrepreneurs did, joined talabat. At first, we helped Mohammed and his team connect with their local communities, through our free delivery based on a customer’s proximity to their local restaurants.  

From Mohammed’s point of view, sales were going ok, but he really wanted to push his restaurant to the next level, and enable his customers to enjoy the same experience and taste of Japanese cuisine that he holds dear.

We suggested that he might consider trying our talabat Performance products - specifically cost-per-click, which raised his restaurant's visibility on the talabat app. Mohammed agreed, and that is where the magic started. 

In his own words, he describes the experience in working with cost per click as ‘spectacular,’ and he’s really happy to share that in the last part of H2 and this year, his talabat orders have grown over 500 percent, while his return on income from his investment in cost-per-click, was 4x. 

We’re very humbled to be able to work with such a passionate entrepreneur, in his first restaurant, and help him achieve some great results. We look forward to continuing to be part of the success story that is Sakura.

Khaled, and his Burger Chain - Just Burger

From Japanese, to burgers! Let me change tact a bit, and tell you about how we've helped Just Burger, who first started on talabat in 2016, to enable dramatic growth in their delivery business through the use of talabat Go (or tGo), our delivery fleet.

I don’t really need to introduce Khaled Al Shanqati, the founder, as we all know him as one of the brightest young Emirati minds in the F&B business. 

In 2017, the Just Burger team had a problem they needed solving. After an internal study, the team found that an increase in orders had meant that their delivery fleet was difficult to manage - and expensive. They found that in some cases they were paying almost 100% of the order value as delivery cost. It was also time intensive, and the team was being drawn away from other operational and revenue generating opportunities, such as marketing growth.

In 2018, Khaled made the decision to trust talabat with their last mile delivery through our TGO service. And two and a bit years later, it has turned out to be a major success for the brand.

Through our platform, Just Burger has experienced phenomenal sustained growth in the past 24 months, growing orders 2.5x, through using our talabat performance products.

This has translated to an increase of thousands and thousands of burgers a month.

Delivering so many burgers could have been a logistical nightmare for him, hiring riders, managers, or a different logistics supplier. However, thankfully he trusted us, to manage his delivery through tGo, and his delivery headaches have disappeared. 

Now his burger-loving customers get a consistent streamlined experience from order to delivery, with fantastic service, and fast delivery, and his team and business can focus on what they do best, outstanding burgers!

He’s certainly seen the benefit of outsourcing his delivery to help grow his business.

Mahmoud, expanding Malak Al Tawouk in the UAE.

Malak Al Tawouk started in Lebanon in 96, and expanded into the UAE in 2020, when Mahmoud secured a deal to franchise it in the UAE. What a year to do it, right? Thankfully, they’ve expanded rapidly, with 5 stores in Dubai.

At talabat, we have had a great working relationship with Mamhoud, the Managing Director, starting six years ago - when he was working with Cravia, on brands such as Zaatar w Zeit and Cinnabon. 

When we knew we were going to open our first cloud kitchen in Abu Dhabi, we approached Mahmoud, and Malak Al Tawouk with the proposal of expanding their business. 

Mahmoud has told us that it was a no-brainer, as Cloud Kitchens offered very little risk for them as a brand, are a very low investment, and the kitchen was in a great location - and they were honoured to be our first partner signed up to our cloud kitchens.

The expansion went well, and we’re now proud to say that our Abu Dhabi Cloud Kitchen makes up 20% of Malak Al Tawouk’s business through talabat.

What this story shows is the ease by which to open up another location through a Cloud Kitchen, but also the value of great strong relationships and partnerships. Of the nine years we’ve been in the UAE, we’ve worked together with Mahmoud for six of those. 

He’s been able to rely on us to deliver fantastic results for him, and has trusted us with his business activities, multiple times. And every time, we’ve continued to deliver for him.

While Malak Al Tawouk are a medium sized business here in the UAE, Cloud Kitchens are perfect for start-up delivery concepts, or an established single restaurant, looking to further enhance their business in different parts of a city, or different emirates, and soon, different countries!

These stories are great, but what does this mean for me?

I encourage you as entrepreneurs to conduct a 360 degree review of your business, what you are currently doing, and really understand where different services will enable you to grow further.

For me, when you are doing this review, there are two costs - the actual dollar cost, then the time and opportunity cost. With most of our solutions, we’re able to save our partners on both, giving them time back to really focus on doing what they do best, focusing on revenue-generation, such as making amazing food for their customers, rather than having to focus on back-end tasks.

At talabat, we’ve been the leading food delivery app in the region for 17 years, having partnered with over 50,000 partner restaurants throughout the region, with a 54% rise in partners last year. 

We have the technical knowledge, the expertise, and the know-how. I would encourage you to give your Account Manager a call or an email to explore how you can really grow your business, even during COVID.

We’re here to deliver for you.