An app for food deals in Mangaluru restaurants

How about having a free mug of draught beer with any two specials from a nearby restaurant? If you are in Mangaluru, you can download for free an android app called Waverr on your smart phone for such live deals.

Waverr, which is yet to be registered as a private limited company, is a startup of eight engineering students from National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK) in Mangaluru – four from third year and others from second year batches of engineering.

Thakur Rahul Singh, co-founder and head of product, told Business Line that the deals on Waverr have a limited shelf life, and are dynamic -- they keep changing daily or weekly. The app shows countdown timer as to how long a deal is going to last.

Asked about the need for such an app, he said the basic line of thought was that even restaurants would need to actively go online. Why stick only to restaurant reviews on websites?

“We primarily aggregate restaurants on a common platform where they can engage with their customers,” he said, adding that Waverr neither does food reviews nor delivers food.

Singh said that Waverr facilitates restaurants instant access to hundreds of customers in the neighbourhood in quick time.

The app helps restaurants use mobile phone as a platform to advertise and market themselves.

A customer is attracted to Waverr because of the deals and offers at restaurants. This provides restaurants with a specific target group with a high conversion rate, he said.

As of now, the founders have tied up with nearly 20 restaurants in Mangaluru for this. The target is to get at least 35 on board in the coming weeks. They are looking to launch in Bangalore by mid-June.

Nikhil Kumar, Head of Technology of Waverr, said Waverr is incubated at the Science and Technology Entrepreneurs Park (STEP) at NITK. The founders work from here when they are not attending classes in the college. STEP provides them with office space, legal help etc. along with some funding as they go along, he said.

Singh said that the founders have invested around ₹15,000 in this venture to cover the technology costs.

Waverr was launched on March 19 for public beta testing. Till date, it has had 500 downloads. More than 100 deals have been activated on Waverr, he said.

The target user base is in the age group of 18-35 years, who are more likely to eat out frequently.

On the revenue model, he said Waverr is in its testing phase. Restaurants will be charged a subscription fee once the testing phase is over, he said.

COMMENT NOW