Urban Bakehouse: Building a food delivery marketplace, from scratch.
Hi there!
I'm Paolo, and I'm the solo founder of Urban Bakehouse, a food delivery marketplace, focussed on Independent Bakeries in London (UK).
Customers can find fresh and artisan bakes in their neighbourhood and bakers can enjoy a fully fledged e-commerce platform, tailored around bakers needs.
The platform just launched a month ago and although I haven't quite cracked the chicken and egg problem of Marketplaces, the company is already operating in East London!
What do you guys think of the business proposition? Would you buy Artisan bread online? Or, if you were a Baker, would you join the platform?
Feedback from the fellow hackers is more than welcome, and of course AMA!
You could go straight to a bakery:
https://www.urbanbakehouse.com/shop/gift-bakery
or enter your postcode here and find if you're covered:
Looking really good. i liked the landing page (cannot use the service as I'm not in UK). Well done Pablo.
Thank you Rodrigo!
Congrats! Do you sell through mobile app where people do not need to put their zipcodes?
Thanks! The mobile app is almost done but not published yet, as we need more bakers onboard first. Technically speaking, both on web and mobile the location can be retrieved via API, although the postcode makes it easier to deliver to a different place from your current location (think about office, or home delivery when you're not physically there)
I think we are working on similar stuff. Please DM me if you want to show what you have been doing. I am interested... My email is on my profile.
Sure, let's have a chat. I'll send you an email
Sounds cool, love to see those kind of business on IH! Two things that came to mind: 1. As a bread loving German I love to see, feel and smell bread before buying, this might be my strongest argument against buying it online. 2. however, I love indie artisans/creators like bakeries, and think products that make it easy for ppl to explore them might be interesting. Have you thought about offering boxes with products from different bakeries so that ppl can get a taste of them, and when they fell in love with a specific one, they can then order from them through your platform? In Munich there’s the company „LocalHeroBox“ which sells boxes of products from local artisans/producers. Maybe interesting for u to have a look at them. Hope any of this is helpful! Curious to see where this is going 👍
Thanks a lot!
Yes, as a passionate foodie myself, I share that feeling/fear too. Despite that, London has a vibrant food scene, and many small, artisanal micro-bakeries do sell online, via social media and... word of mouth. Once the customers do know the bakery, they happily become regulars.
Regarding the boxes, I think it's a great idea to promote the bakeries and the platform too, but to be fair, the company is self-funded and that would require a delivery service that wouldn't make it sustainable at this stage.
At this moment, each bakery is in charge of delivering within their area, and I'm happy if that also helps to keep their fees low and create more community oriented businesses.
I think time will tell... but the biggest challenge now, is how to crack the chicken and egg problem, typical of 2-sides marketplaces.
Yes I understand being self-funded might make experiments like the box difficult to do. You could, however, try selling only 10 of those and see what feedback you get (maybe you have to deliver them yourself at the beginning :P but would also give you a possibility to talk to your customers and get to know them at their doorstep), or you could even crowdfund it to minimize financial risk/constraint. Just some ideas 🤷♂️
As I’m considering to build a marketplace myself I hear your pain of solving the chicken/egg problem! 😂 Happy to chat and exchange experiences sometime soon! In case you wanna Chat, I have my E-Mail & Twitter in my IH profile.
The biggest issue with the box is that simply there aren't enough bakeries in the same area to make it possible.
Growing the supply side is my main focus now as without it, customers won't have a reason to use the platform...
Crowdfunding is actually something I haven't thought yet... But perhaps it's more likely to get that than a VC onboard at such an early stage...
I'll be happy to connect and hear more about your marketplace, most of the pain points are similar and perhaps I can share some of the things I've learned so far.