According to Jon Petersen, one of company’s founders, the aim is not to make a quick buck from selling banner ads, though they would undoubtedly be able to do so given how much Singaporeans love to eat.
Instead, they plan to monetise buUuk by allowing bar and restaurant owners the chance to work with them. This is because apart from just being a restaurant guide, buUuk also holds electronic coupons that can be redeemed for free drinks or food.
Using buUuk, a restaurant owner can give discounts to people in the vicinity to attract customers on a slow night. This is very targeted marketing and is possible because the iPhone is location aware. “People get marketing messages all the time. This device has the ability to give information rather than spam,” says Jon.
The company plans to roll out buUuk in different markets and also to other industries which have ‘perishable’ inventory, like theatre or concert tickets. Because a play or a concert goes on whether it is full house or not, something like buUuk can help to put bums on seats by offering discounts an hour before the curtains go up. Better to sell a ticket at half price than not to sell the ticket at all.
That is why the company is also interested in learning about what people want in an application like buUuk. The company can then take that experience to go on to build similar apps for other industries. “We hope to attract a large number of users so that we can learn about what such groups want and need,” says Jon. The company aims to get about 20,000 to 30,000 users.
The people behind buUuk all bring different things to the table. Jon himself has plenty of experience with location-based applications, having developed SinGeo and iSinGeo. He is responsible for the database that buUuk runs on.
Besides Jon, three other people are involved in buUuk. One of them is the prolific iPhone developer Muh Hon Cheng, who is responsible for SG Buses, SG MRT and SG ERP, among others. Hon Cheng developed the interface that accesses Jon's database. Another partner has a background in building large, scalable IT infrastructure, while the fourth partner is the CEO of a software company with experience in marketing and fund raising.
The company is already talking to bar and restaurant owners about working together. The idea is still new to these businesses but some are starting to nibble. The attraction is that there is little downside for the restaurants or bars. They can give out discounts (that they would have given out anyway) and they do it on a low cost platform (because they don’t have to print anything). BuUuk is even talking about allowing restaurants to use their service for free, in exchange for a commission on the sale. That way, there is no downside for restaurant owners at all.
Some companies have already decided to give this a shot. BQ Bar is offering either a free beer or a free martini if you show the e-coupon from buUuk on your iPhone, for example.
Now that buUuk has been released, the team is already thinking of improvements to it. “We’ve got ideas for social networking features,” says Jon. The idea is to allow people to have conversations about food.
As it stands, buUuk is a great product with lots of potential. And if it keeps finding a way to give out free beers, the sky’s the limit.
BuUuk is available for free on the Singapore App Store.
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