For one reason or another, I’ve been keeping my latest startup mostly under wraps (at least as far as my personal blog and Twitter are concerned). I recently came to the realization that I’m constantly talking/posting about what I will do and not enough about what I’ve done. This time, I just wanted to keep my head down, hustle, and ship (and talk about it later).
But I’m proud to say, this little startup of mine has officially launched in beta. It’s called Restaurant Engine.
In a nutshell: It’s a turnkey, hosted website solution designed specifically for Restaurants. I won’t cover everything about the service here since you can read about it on the site. In this post, I just want to touch on a few “behind the scenes” aspects of the project.
Building on the Collaboration Model
As I’ve written about extensively inthepast, I’m a firm believer in the collaboration model for web design production. The key to creating awesome work on the web is to team up with the very best craftsmen in the business. And to constantly grow and mix up my network of collaborators to keep things fresh, grow and learn alongside A players in the industry. This approach has taken my client web design business to the next level.
With Restaurant Engine, I’m applying the same approach to a template-based web design product. I looked to my awesome network of designers and developers to help create the design templates (themes) found on Restaurant Engine, as well as the RestaurantEngine.com site itself. The plan is to continue to bring in leading web designers to create upcoming templates for our customers.
Re-Thinking a WordPress Themes Shop
Restaurant Engine is a different take on a WordPress themes shop. It’s a hosted service, with a customized experience and feature set tailored specifically to the needs of restaurant owners. Much like a web designer who hosts the customized websites he/she builds for clients, Restaurant Engine does the same, only with more automation. A Restaurant Engine subscription gives the customer web hosting, a website powered by WordPress (with custom-tailored functionality and options), choice of any theme in our collection, and of course dedicated customer support.
From my experience running ThemeJam (a traditional WP themes shop) I found the customer-base has it’s limitations. We can make the following assumptions about a customer who purchases and downloads a WordPress theme:
They know what WordPress is.
They know how to find and purchase their own web hosting.
They know how to install WordPress on their web server.
They know how to install a WordPress theme.
They know how to configure WP settings properly, find and install the right WP plugins for their needs.
They know how to create an effective site map and develop a content strategy.
Despite how far WordPress has come over the years, you still need to be somewhat of an expert to launch an effective WP-powered website.
So with Restaurant Engine, my aim was to simplify the barrier to entry by automating the whole process of launching a custom-tailored WP site. The key to the equation is to focus tightly on a specific niche- in this case, Restaurants.
Technical Stuff
And now, a few notes about the tech going on behind the scenes of Restaurant Engine:
In case you haven’t guessed by now, it’s built using WordPress Multisite.
Every customer’s site is a site on the network. There’s also a “template” site, that is replicated whenever a new site is created. The template site has one of our themes pre-activated, various settings pre-configured, and a base sitemap and pages pre-created to get things started.
Signup and Stripe Recurring Payments
I’m really excited about this part. Working with the talented Pippin Williamson, we implemented a custom signup form which simultaneously initiates recurring subscription payments (with a free trial period) processed by the Stripe, and creates a site and account on the network for the customer. Stripe truly is an amazing game-changer in the world of online credit card processing. Absolutely brilliant user experience for managing customers, orders, charges, discounts, etc. No monthly fees. All cards accepted. I can’t say enough good things…
Customer Support
Another piece I’m really excited about is the customer support system. After investigating several options, I’ve settled on Tender app for the support system and Knowledge Base. For live chat support (and pre-sales chat), I’m going with Snap Engage.
Both services offer the ability to embed widgets. So I’ve actually integrated both the support forum and live chat support right in the WordPress dashboard:
So that’s what has been keeping me busy (and quiet) over the last 6 months or so. I expect this will be my primary focus for the remainder of the year (at least). As always, feedback welcome… And if you happen to know anybody in the restaurant business, you know where to send them
I’m about midway through the Steve Jobs biography and this quote really stuck out to me. This is Jony Ive, Apple’s lead product designer, describing Steve Jobs’ frequent visits to the closely guarded design studio at Apple:
“This great room is the one place in the company where you can look around and see everything we have in the works… Steve will graze by the tables to see where all of the products are heading. He can get a sense of the sweep of the whole company, the iPhone and iPad, the iMac and laptop and everything we’re considering. That helps him see where the company is spending it’s energy and how things connect. And he can ask, ‘Does doing this make sense, because over here is where we are growing a lot?’ or questions like that. He gets to see things in relationship to each other which is pretty hard to do in a big company. Looking at the models on these tables, he can see the future for the next three years.”
This was a real eye-opener for me. I instantly realized how Apple is able to keep such a focused product line, with each product serving a specific market beautifully. And it’s how they achieve the same simplicity and feel, consistently across all products in their line.
But it also shows us how important product design — and the design of the product line as a whole — is in making big-picture decisions at Apple.
The fact that they craft all of their products in the same room shows us how fluid and integrated their design and internal review process is. And it shows how Steve Jobs was truly a designer in the way he approached business strategy. One thing that is central to any design process is to consider the relationships between different elements, their push and pull with one another, their hierarchy of importance. That applies when you’re designing a product, a web page, a TV commercial, and clearly in the case of Steve Jobs and Apple, the design of a corporate strategy.
Like many entrepreneurs, I consume content like it’s my job. I think because in many ways, it is my job.
Daily reading, watching, listening, and interacting is what keeps me going. I’m constantly on the lookout for something new to learn that might help me get ahead in some way. Or sometimes I just need to hear someone else’s story to get inspired to take action. It’s how we as entrepreneurs stay in tune with what’s next: where things are moving and what we can do to align our work with where everyone else is headed.
So I want to take a minute to thank and share some thoughts on a few of my favorite content creators I’ve been following during the past year. I honestly would not be where I am today without the work of these folks, who consistently put out interesting, insightful, useful, and valuable content on a regular basis.
Man, it’s a trip to go back and read my blog posts (here, here, here, & here) from the turn of the last few new years. It’s good to revisit my mindset and goals from years past.
This year, I’m going with the unordered-list format.
It was this time last year that I reached out to my friend, Dave Yankowiak, to see if he’d be interested in partnering to start up and co-host a new web show for freelance web designers. Luckily, he agreed and by early 2011, we had posted our first episode of Freelance Jam.
I’m thrilled that the show has continued on for 18 episodes during 2011, with many more to come in 2012. We’re having a blast planning and producing these shows. It takes a lot of hard work, time and some cash investment (at no profit) to keep this show going. So what makes it worth it?
Here’s a list of things that I get out of co-hosting Freelance Jam:
1. Staying Involved in Our Community
The web design industry, particularly those working independently, is extremely community oriented. Maybe more-so than any other industry. We thrive on sharing ideas, teaching each other, and inspiring great work from one another. The show has given me the opportunity to learn, teach, and get to know the folks that work alongside us (yet across the globe) every day. This is the single reason that keeps me motivated to keep doing the show and growing our audience.
I had an in-person meeting with a prospective new client yesterday in New York City.
These are few and far between for me, since I work from my home office and serve clients and customers all over the world. Almost all meetings are held over the phone, skype, and email. But every so often, I’ll hop on a train to NYC for a client meeting.
Almost all meetings that I do have would be considered sales meetings — an initial meeting prior to giving a proposal. Basically everything after this can be handled remotely, from signing contracts, to discussing progress, and site launch. So here is my approach to the rare sales meeting:
