Dining Experience Optimization

A breakdown of how a dinner service company optimizes the dining experience by breaking it into distinct moments and touchpoints.

Core Dinner Moments

• Greeting phase
• Initial seating
• Early connection period
• Information and food sharing
• Bill handling and end-of-meal experience

Business Approach

• Focus on operations and user experience optimization
• Break down dinner into distinct "moments between moments"
• Measure success through dinner experience quality, not traditional metrics
  • KPI: Number of great dinners per week
  • Don't focus on clicks or daily active users

Operational Structure

• Heavy emphasis on operations team
• 70 employees focused on ops
• Managing 18,000 dinners weekly
• Present in 300 cities
• Available in 18 languages

Growth Strategy

• Simple Facebook ad: "Dine with 5 strangers matched by algorithm every Wednesday"
• Strong organic growth through word of mouth
• Extensive press coverage (400+ outlets)
• Leverages current social trends:
  • Post-COVID loneliness
  • Social disconnection
  • Dating market changes
  • Need for real-life connections

Revenue Model

• Monthly subscription-based (~$20/month)
• Crossed $10M annual run rate
• Took 7 months to reach first $1M
• Additional 7 months to grow from $1M to $10M

User Experience Focus

• Algorithm matches diners based on personality traits
• Weekly Wednesday night dinners
• Restaurant selection and booking handled by company
• Separate bill payment at restaurant
• Focus on creating natural social flow