How is foodjunky.com taking a bite out of the massive on-demand food ordering industry? By taking an all new, better approach to the numerous, conventional food ordering platforms today that charge restaurants a steep service fee every time a customer places an order online, effectively damaging margins.
foodjunky.com makes it possible for restaurants to expand their business without having to fork over a large percentage off the top to a third party. And we’re doing it by making our platform completely free to use for restaurants — translating to a broader customer base, improved cash flows, and greater sustainability in the long term.
With the rise of the tech-powered on-demand economy, convenience has truly become a commodity. Look no further than the evolution of food delivery in the 21st century. With just a few easy clicks on the computer or taps on the smartphone, diners can order food from thousands of restaurants that don’t traditionally offer delivery and have it arrive at their door without ever picking up the phone or getting up from the couch.
From the consumer perspective, these services perfectly appeal to the modern need for instant-gratification and simplicity, but behind the scenes — and from the restaurant’s standpoint — the trend can be hard to swallow.
Case in point: major online menu aggregators like industry behemoth GrubHub typically charge restaurants around 14% of every order placed, while restaurant margins are only 13.5% on average. What’s more, they hold funds in an account for up to 40 days before doling them out, which can leave a restaurant cash-strapped during the interim.
The big takeaway: The market is two-sided. If you’re in the restaurant game, subscribing to delivery services in the digital age means reaping the benefits of an instant online presence by reaching customers you wouldn’t normally reach. But on the other hand, many times it means that you’re working harder for less.
foodjunky.com is on a mission to change that.
At foodjunky.com, we’ve figured out a way to tap into the 96% of the national restaurant industry that is currently underserved in the online space.
Under the standard model, the customer still pays for a delivery fee set by the restaurant that would apply even if they placed their order the old-fashioned way via phone. But the true value that foodjunky.com offers end users is the unmatched convenience we provide when it comes to the ordering process — especially group orders common to many businesses.
If you’re in charge of ordering food for your company’s meetings or events, you’re pretty much left with one of two options: you can either cater and end up with heaps of wasted food (and money), or you waste valuable time passing around a menu and finding out what everyone wants.
With foodjunky.com, we make it possible to coordinate large orders in just a matter of minutes. How do we do it? We’re glad you asked!
foodjunky.com offers 3 core service options for diners, including individual orders, group orders and catering. Here’s how it all comes together in one simple platform:
Discover
Log on to the foodjunky.com platform and discover local dining gems that you wouldn’t normally be able to find online. Users can filter searches by delivery or pickup options, cuisine type, and more.
Choose
Once you’ve picked your restaurant-of-choice, either select food items for yourself, coordinate a group meal by inviting others, or order catering in minutes using our interactive menu design. For group ordering, each diner receives the restaurant’s menu via email and can customize their orders.
Submit
Once all individual order selections are in, the order is automatically submitted to the restaurant and the payment is processed.
Enjoy
foodjunky.com handles everything else on the back end. All service fees are billed directly to the customer by credit card at the time of the order and the restaurant handles the deliveries. All that’s left for you to do is dig in!
foodjunky.com is launched, live, and ready to scale. We’ve already expanded into over 500 markets across 42 states and we have over 1,000 restaurants on average joining our platform every single month — making foodjunky.com officially the fastest-growing food ordering startup in the country.
Company Timeline
A Rapidly-Growing User Base
We have 10,000 orders processed through the platform so far with an average order size of $185, and over 7,300 users. We provide service to a number of high caliber corporate customers that regularly place large orders for meetings, corporate events, and VIP luncheons, including:
Investor Backed
foodjunky.com is part of the Quicken Loans Family of Companies, and we have received funding from Founder and Chairman Dan Gilbert.
Major Name Partnerships
We recently locked down a partnership with Yelp, which averages 165 million unique monthly visits combined (mobile web + mobile app + desktop). We are in beta testing with UnitedHealthcare with the intention of providing an ordering platform for their business customers and track the macro-nutrient information of their orders.
We’re now in the position to build on our momentum and accelerate our customer acquisition efforts in 3 main areas.
Channel Partners
We offer a revenue share to acquire new customers.
Restaurant Advertisements
We encourage restaurants to advertise to their current customer base to use foodjunky.com as a convenient channel to order food directly.
Referrals
We offer incentives to our restaurant network to market to their existing customers. We supplement the program using direct sales, email marketing, social media, SEO, and PPC advertising. We will also be pursuing marketing efforts in unconventional spaces such as podcasts.
Want to learn more about foodjunky.com and their vision for the future? Make sure to request access to the Business Plan tab of the profile to find out how you can get involved!
Travis Johnson | CEO | Travis is a self-described foodie, and came up with the original concept for foodjunky.com in 1998 while completing a business plan assignment at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Upon graduation, he returned home to Chicago where he led product development and sales at in-store marketing agency, Gamon International, patenting five products during his tenure, including the IQ Maximizer used by Campbell’s Soup. Outside of foodjunky.com, Travis founded the Detroit chapter of Bootstrappers Breakfast, the largest startup meetup in Detroit, and mentors at Techstars in addition to mentoring local youth groups.
Jeremy Jongsma | CTO | Jeremy brings more than a decade of technology experience to the table from the commodities trading industry. He has a strong track record of designing and implementing growth plans for small companies looking to rapidly scale their IT infrastructure, most recently serving as CTO of Barchart. Prior to that, Jeremy launched a successful online media startup catering to the financial industry. Outside of foodjunky.com, he is an avid runner and general fitness fanatic, and devotes much of his time and energy to training and raising money for cancer research through marathon racing.
Andy Waldman | Co-Founder | Andy has over 14 years of experience in IT, having performed roles ranging from support and administration, implementing client-facing systems, to designing mission critical database platforms. Some of his accomplishments include designing and implementing the databases behind the credit systems used by Redbox and Redbox Instant, developing a multilingual web-based customer service application used by Ocean Spray, and providing administration and support of a mission critical series of applications and databases used by Ameritech/SBC (now AT&T).
Phil Boardman | Co-Founder | Phil is a senior architect with over 16 years of industry experience covering a wide array of technologies. His experience includes engaging with private equity clients to identify key application architecture and operational concerns to potential acquisitions. Phil also executed a mission-critical venture for a large media rental company, provided ongoing IT strategy and implementation for a professional association, led DevOps for a technology re-launch of a major electronic retailer’s website, among other accomplishments.
Corinne Thomas | Chief Operating Officer | Corinne is foodjunky.com’s first hire with over 6 years of experience in human resources, PR, and project management. She architected and managed the launch of Quicken Loans’ employee referral program. Corinne also landed the partnership deal with Yelp from leveraging contacts on the initial call, to onsite negotiations. She is a team player and has worked across companies and teams to integrate disparate systems to work cohesively together.