Generation Start-up: Foodics helps restaurant owners who have a lot on their plate

App-based software provides a system to manage orders, inventory and other operational issues

Foodics founder Ahmad AlZaini (centre, stood) holds a meeting with staff at the company's offices in Riyadh. Tasneem Al Sultan for The National

Ahmad AlZaini has learnt a lot in his relatively short career as an entrepreneur, but perhaps his most important lesson has been that one person can only do so much.

He closed down his first business, which offered website design, development and animation services, because he realised it was "basically a one-man show".

The company's growth was limited by the fact that Mr AlZaini could only work so many hours in a day.

In his second venture, which offered marketing, advertising, event management and other services, he sought to overcome this by working with a group of friends he had met at King Fahd University in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, where he had studied engineering.

While he chose friends with complementary skills – one had studied marketing, another finance and a third business – their work ethic also varied.

"Eventually, the business was run by myself only and the co-founders weren't sharing the same passion," he says.

"I met all of my friends and told them 'you are my friends, I'm entitled to keep you as my friends, but I've decided to shut down the operation'," he adds.

When starting his third venture, Alwans, with university friend Mosab AlOthmani, the pair consciously worked on ideas that are more easily scalable.

The first was an online booking platform for sports pitches, but the standout success was Foodics – a software platform for managing restaurants.

The inspiration for the company came from the cafes that Mr AlZaini, chief executive, and Mr AlOthmani, chief technology officer, went to during their student years.

"We sensed the lack of technology – especially in the ordering process. And restaurants faced difficulty in modifying or changing the printed menu," Mr AlZaini says.

"So we innovated it and came up with digital tablets for the menu, but eventually the idea has developed and improved."

The company began in 2014 essentially by creating apps for restaurants, which included an online menu that was easy to update.

"I regularly posted an advertisement in a newspaper. It said 'I can develop an app for you starting from 500 rials' ($133.33). The design of the ad was an iPhone with an app screenshot. Ninety-nine per cent of the calls were 'how much is the iPhone you're selling?'"

The business did eventually secure orders and developed quickly, though. From the ability to customise menus, more functions were added until it became a complete restaurant management system – taking orders, tracking changes and cancellations, scheduling cooking and managing inventory. It also provides a raft of analytics on hourly sales by staff members or category and can forecast footfall and order volumes based on past trends.

"If you are the restaurant owner, you should focus on the quality of the food, making your customers happier and leave the restaurant operation to us. We will automate so many processes – and we will keep automating processes down the road."

Foodics operates a software-as-a-service model, with users paying either a monthly or an annual fee. Most users pay annually, Mr AlZaini says, which lessened the effect of Covid-19 on its revenue. However, with many of its restaurant clients facing declines of up to 90 per cent in gross merchandise volumes at the height of the pandemic and others failing to reopen, it hasn't emerged unscathed.

Thankfully, Foodics isn't short of funds. It raised $8 million in seed and Series A funding, led by Riyad Taqnia Fund and Raed Ventures, and is currently in the process of securing a Series B round.

This has given it some flexibility in terms of negotiating with cash-strapped clients.

"We know that we cannot just keep asking for the bill to be paid during Covid. When the market opened, we had a very high customer satisfaction rate and we got more than 90 per cent collection on our dues in the market," Mr Alzaini says.

He puts this down to customer "stickiness" – that those who use the service value it so will carry on paying for it.

Its latest offer, announced earlier this month, is Foodics Capital. This is a $100m fund offering micro-loans to restaurants. It is a partnership with Maalem Financing, a Riyadh-based provider of loans to SMEs and individuals.

Foodics will introduce customers seeking loans to Maalem, but "our role here is more than a referral", Mr AlZaidi says.

It has a wealth of data on customers, which it can share with their permission.

"Maalem sees huge potential and sees this deal with Foodics as a big minimiser of risk. Since we know everything about the restaurants, there is no need for so many documentation requirements in order to validate revenue," he says.

It is currently promising customers who apply for loans that a decision will be given within 24 hours and the loan will be wired into their accounts within five days.

"Our plan to enhance it ... [is for] us to have instant approval and wiring will be within 24 hours," he says.

Foodics now operates in 22 countries. It entered Egypt earlier this year, which Mr AlZaini considers important for two reasons. One is the market opportunity – it has a population of more than 100 million with a growing middle class. The other is access to a huge local talent pool of engineers, digital marketers and others.

Further market expansions are planned, as are new business lines. It is branching out into the retail sector, which is similar to the restaurant business in many ways, but  much easier logistically given the limited windows restaurants have to prepare and sell food.

Ahmad AlZaini, chief executive and co-founder of Foodics, plans to expand the company's offering to the retail sector. Tasneem Al Sultan for The National

Funding for its growth will come from the Series B round, which Mr Alzaini hopes to finalise by the end of the year. And although Foodics has proven to be scalable, it has grown to employ more than 150 people and is still hiring, with an expectation that it will employ 300 people by the end of next year. But bringing in senior people around him has afforded him more time to work on strategy and focus on personal development. Mr Alzaini joined the US-based Endeavor group aimed at founders of high-growth start-ups two years ago. He is also planning to study for a Masters in Business Administration.

"When I started the company I was too busy to read or too busy to learn or educate myself," he says. "But when I joined Endeavor and I hired smart people in the company to help me, I decided to go back and continue my studies as well."

Q&A with Ahmad AlZaini, co-founder of Foodics

What new skills have you learnt since starting the business?

Trusting the right people and hiring the right people. And choosing the right investor. Mostly, I hire C-level executives who are much smarter than myself in order to learn.

You have to believe in yourself and in what you are doing. The skill you should have as a start-up leader is transferring your belief to your team. If you do that, you win another founder in your company.

If you could do it all differently, what would you change?

Together with my co-founder and my team, we could achieve what we are achieving today in two years. Hiring the right people and focus only on what matters. And [keep] away all of the distractions. And unfollow distractions on social media. I started unfollowing last year – anyone who is not talking in my scope or my interest, I unfollow them.

What other business do you wish you had started?

There are two segments I'm interested in ... in health, I believe that investing my time in automating medications [would be worthwhile]. There is big potential here, especially if you add technology, artificial [intelligence] and the data with it. Any antibiotic can be customised for any disease.

The second is FinTech. There is huge potential in FinTech. All of the world now has income on a frequency basis and nobody is smart enough to automate the consuming, or the investment, to grow the wealth of your wallet.

What is your five-year plan?

We have a clear plan in the coming four years, actually, to reach $100m ARR [annual recurring revenue]. I believe that we can reach this goal before even four years. We believe that we have a very strong product.