TableCrowd

What is TableCrowd?

TableCrowd is a real life social network where you can meet people over food for business networking, common interests, romance or friendship. 

People join ‘crowds’ that interest them (e.g. startups or new to town) and then members of the ‘crowd’ organise dinners for the group to meet offline in restaurants. With TableCrowd, users turn online connections into real life relationships.

Our vision is to become the market leader of real life social networks.

What's the opportunity for TableCrowd?

There is an increased need to form new business, platonic and romantic relationships caused by changing social factors, including:

1. Increase in career changes: A job for life is now a thing of the past (average of 10 jobs in a lifetime).

2. Increase in romantic relationships: A partner for life is a thing of the past (marriages are down and divorces are up!).

3. Increase in population mobility for work or personal choice.

This increased need provides an opportunity for a platform that turns online connections into real life relationships - and this is TableCrowd!

The market

The market is 18-60s with online profiles - 32m people in the UK and 150m+ in the US. Our target markets include:

1. People who want to network for business (10m now networking on LinkedIn in the UK).

2. People who are new to town (1.5m people relocating within, or to, the UK each year).

3. People with common interests (2m people with shared interests networking in the UK).

4. Singles (9m people have online dating profiles in the UK).

The social dining market sits between the social networking market and dining out / restaurant market (combined worldwide market valuation in excess of $100bn).

Marketing & user acquisition

We have in-house capability for pay per click and have used Facebook's self service advertising platform since they opened it - and we have used it effectively.

Where are we now?

Our site is live in beta, with the re-launch of templates using responsive technology imminent.

We have run over 170 tables.

We have over 3,500 members.

We have 3,000+ restaurants in our database.

We have over 50 growing crowds, 2 with over 600 members, 4 with over 400 members and 10 with over 100 members.

We are revenue generating from 3 proven revenue streams.

We have a relationship with ClickTonight, so can market to its six figure database.

The team has worked together successfully for a number of years. The team previously founded dating and parties website ClickTonight, which reached profitability and a 6 figure database. The team includes the right blend of marketing, technical, legal and commercial experience including experience of taking a company from inception to exit.

Kate Jackson (Co-Founder & CEO). Kate has 5 years experience running a tech and events business after co-founding ClickTonight in 2007. She is responsible for strategy execution, product development & project management. In Kate's previous life, she was a commercial lawyer for top City London practice Addleshaw Goddard, advising start ups to multi-national businesses. See linkedin profile.

Stephen Jackson (Co-Founder & Strategy). Stephen has 5 years experience running a tech and events business after co-founding ClickTonight with Kate Jackson in 2007. Stephen is responsible for strategies, ideas and financial modelling. Stephen’s background is trading financial markets working for investment banks Chase Manhattan and ABN Amro. He then moved to proprietary house FCT eventually running their Gibraltar based operation. See Linkedin Profile.

Rob Liddard (Founder & Marketing). Rob is an online marketing guru with experience of email marketing, social media & pay per click and is obsessed with continually optimising results. Rob previously traded interest rate futures, outrights, spreads, flys and more elaborate strategies. See Linkedin Profile.

David Fitzgibbon (CTO). David started a career in software development in 1998 and has experience of technologies including Ruby, Rails, MongoDB + Mongoid, ElasticSearch + Tire, JQuery, Twitter Bootstrap and more. He built the entire TableCrowd technology. Previously founded and exited Premier League Fantasy Football App on Facebook app (1m+ users). See Linkedin Profile.

Jean Marc Gimenez (Senior Interface designer). Jean Marc has 18 years experience in user experience interface design for web and mobile, as well as creative direction, marketing and branding. He designed and continues to evolve TableCrowd's interfaces. He is experienced in graphic design, typesetting, responsive design, HTML5/CSS3 coding, as well as systems and database design and integration.. See Linkedin Profile.

Juan Roldan (Advisor). Founder & CEO of Mentez, the leading social game publisher in Latin America. He has grown the database from 0-22m members and the company valuation to excess of $100m. Juan has experience of taking a company to exit from inception and is involved in all strategic company decisions. See Linkedin Profile.

The company is revenue generating and has already proven 3 revenue streams:

1. Affiliate restaurant commissions - we receive a commission per seat booked. Proven.

2. Booking fee - users pay a flat booking fee to join a table. Proven.

3. Coupon model -  advance payment for coupon, of which we keep a percentage, which can then be redeemed at the meal Proven.

The company has 2 more planned revenue streams to be introduced Q2/3 2013.

4. Subscriptions & micro payments

- users pay a monthly subscription fee to run their own crowd and grow their own community (model currently used by meetup.com).

- micro payments for access to additional site features (model currently used by badoo and twoo)

5. Sponsorship

- sponsorship fees from companies wishing to align their brand with relevant crowds.

- fees from companies selling additional services to relevant crowd members (e.g. taster public speaking or social media sessions at startup dinners with upsell potential - deals already agreed).

TableCrowd provides an intimate networking experience for people to turn online connections into real life relationships.

TableCrowd gives users choice, flexibility and control. We have a seamless booking platform with 3,000+ restaurants, meaning users can either join existing tables or create their own tables, when and where they want and themed to their own preferences.

We are market leader for social dining in the UK and the technology and business model is fully scalable and can be replicated in other jurisdictions.

Relationship with ClickTonight, which has a six figure database that can be converted to site users giving the company a major head start.