Founder Story: From managing 1 restaurant to building SaaS for 2413 restaurants.

Hey Indie Hackers!

Every week, I send a marketing Case Study from a profitable Founder. Today I want to share with you a story about Aaron, a restaurant manager who turned into SaaS Founder in the same niche 👀

1. Explain your product to an 11-year-old

I’m Aaron D’Cruz, the GM of Maynuu. I operated a restaurant for 13 years and a bakery for 7 years. I sold them both in 2019 to learn how to code and pursue my first love - web development.

​Maynuu helps small restaurant owners make more money online. It’s an easy-to-use system for restaurants to get direct orders. They can set up their own online ordering site in 10 minutes.

They only need to upload one menu. The same menu can accept all kinds of orders. From prepaid reservations and QR table ordering to takeaway and delivery orders.

We want restaurateurs to take back full control of their businesses. Food delivery platforms take a hefty cut of their hard-earned sales. This is unaffordable for smaller eateries.

So, we made Maynuu completely free for restaurants - no monthly fees, 0% commissions. Our merchants get a 100% payout daily. By going direct, they no longer have to mark up their prices online to cover platform fees. This way, their customers save, too!

2. Who’s your ideal customer, and how do you acquire them?

Our ideal customer is Restaurateur Rita. She runs a small café by herself with the help of a few staff or family members.

Her problem is the 30% commission from food delivery platforms eats too much into her profits. If she were to mark up her prices on those platforms, her customers would complain.

She doesn't have the technical expertise to set up her own website to accept direct orders. So, she resorts to taking orders by phone, DMs, and WhatsApp. This process is tedious, time-consuming, and can get messy!
She wants to do what she knows best - prepare delicious food, and entertain customers.

Rita likes catching up on the latest news and trends on “boomer social media” like Facebook and Instagram.

3. How did you get your first 10 customers?

The first 10 customers were friends and family members who are small restaurant owners.

What has not worked:

• Twitter and Reddit (restaurant owners in Malaysia & Singapore don’t hang out there)
• Hiring sales agents (hard to motivate, and we are not good people managers)

What has worked:

• Trade shows
• Word-of-mouth referrals
• Cold outreach via Instagram DM

4. What’s your Best marketing decision and why?

We outsourced sales and hired a consultant. For a product like ours, the sales and onboarding process can be quite a lengthy one. As a small team, we did not have the time nor expertise for it. So it was a good decision to outsource it, while we focus on product management and operations.

Before outsourcing sales, we were getting about 5 signups a week. After outsourcing, it quadrupled to 20 signups a week.

We have since stopped using this tactic because it's very expensive. But it was a good decision because it helped to get us initial traction and early growth.

5. What’s your unpopular marketing opinion and why?

"Slow and steady wins the race."

We choose to focus on inbound marketing via social media, written content, and SEO.

3 key characteristics to get right:

• Be customer focused
• Measure results
• Maintain consistency

Choose the one medium you're best at and go deep. If you're no good at something, then don't force yourself to do it.

For example, I can't make a TikTok to save my life, but I am okay-ish at writing, so we go all-in on written content. Some tips I’ve learned: Don’t be afraid to inject some of your personality into your content. Use Hemingway Editor and aim for a Grade 5 (or lower) level of readability.

People are always looking for quick wins. They want to see 'hockey stick' growth in a matter of weeks. This often leads to them trying out questionable "growth hacks." I prefer to lay the groundwork first. Build a solid reputation, and the community will rally around you. Goodwill and word-of-mouth will do the rest for you.

6. If you could do 1 thing differently, what would it be?

I wish we had done email marketing from the beginning. Email subscribers are worth their weight in gold!

Email is the best marketing channel because you own the distribution. You're not reliant on some third-party platform. For example, Instagram and TikTok - if they shut down or get banned in your country one day, you're dead in the water. But someone's email address is yours to hold and keep forever (with permission, of course).

P.S. I share marketing case studies like that every week. Subscribe for free and don't miss the insights from profitable Founders ❤️