Omer (00:11.840)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host, Omer Khan, and this is the show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies and insights to help you build, launch, and grow your SaaS business.
This Week's episode is a story about a guy who ordered dinner from a restaurant for himself and a few friends through an online delivery service.
After waiting for hours and not getting his food, he went and bought a pizza from a local grocery store.
He decided that he was never going to go and order a delivery from a restaurant again.
But he kept thinking that there had to be a better delivery solution for restaurants that track deliveries and help customers and the restaurant management know exactly where their order was and when they were going to get the delivery.
And he wished that someone would come up with a solution for this.
Eventually, he realized that he was the guy who had to solve this problem.
He's a solo founder who decided to move away from San Francisco and to his hometown in France to start his business.
In four years, he's gone from zero to over $2 million in annual recurring revenue.
He also got accepted in Y Combinator, something which he never believed he could do, which has really helped him to think bigger and grow his business faster.
And if it wasn't for a dinner he had with a stranger in France, he would never have even considered applying to YC because it just seemed too big of a goal.
So I hope you enjoy it.
Okay, let's get on with the interview.
Today's guest is the founder and CEO of Y Combinator startup Tracking.
The company provides a software solution to help restaurants get better control of their deliveries by connecting managers, drivers and customers.
Track in offers an online ordering system for customers, a dashboard for managers and an app for drivers, and a real time tracking solution for deliveries.
The company was founded in 2014 and has raised $400,000 to date and is based in San Francisco.
So today I'd like to welcome Bruno Didier.
Bruno, welcome to the show.
Bruno Didier (02:44.040)
Thank you, Amir.
Thank you for having me.
Omer (02:46.360)
Now, I always like to ask my guests just sort of what, get inside their head a little bit.
So what drives you?
What motivates you to get out of bed and work on your business every day?
Bruno Didier (03:00.040)
I think I'd say what motivates me is to solve problems.
I think the way I came up with the idea of tracking was just that I've noticed a really, really big missing solution for the last mile delivery.
And I just found this as a way for me to grow as an entrepreneur and it just became my passion and that's what I am.
I just like to solve problems.
And everywhere I would see a problem, I would try to find out of a solution.
Omer (03:27.970)
So tell us a little bit more about tracking.
I think the problem is fairly clear in terms of helping with deliveries.
What is different about tracking compared to maybe other solutions that are out there?
Bruno Didier (03:50.550)
The big difference about tracking is that one, it's focused on the food delivery.
It doesn't mean it can't work with other services, but it's really focused on food delivery, which means that we have features that nobody else have for the restaurant industry.
And two is that we are not just a delivery management software.
We also have an online ordering solution that allow us to provide a full control on everything from who you're going to deliver to, to how you're going to deliver to them, to how great your job is and how great the job you're doing.
What I mean by that is that are your customers happy at the end of the day?
Are your drivers doing a great job?
You control everything from A to Z and you don't have to worry about anything anymore and it's just plug and play.
You put this on your website and you're done.
Omer (04:37.800)
Tell me a little bit about your background.
What were you doing before you started tracking?
Bruno Didier (04:45.160)
So I'm an engineer.
I've been developing products for different startups, but I always had an entrepreneur mindset.
So everywhere I go again, I was just trying to find solutions to every problem I would find.
And before to start trucking, I was actually the CTO of a catering company.
So we had to connect restaurants and companies and we had to have them deliver the food.
And I realized that it was just a mess to manage food delivery.
You didn't know where were your drivers, you didn't know when they left, when they were supposed to leave, when they arrived.
And we would look really bad when the customer of 200 people company would contact us and say, hey, where is my food?
And you would not have any answer for them.
Omer (05:30.900)
So let's talk about tracking and how you got started.
Where did the idea for this come from?
Bruno Didier (05:38.260)
So I'm originally from France and I didn't really rely on technology and restaurants in France to order food.
And so when I came to the us I arrived in San Francisco and I felt like I could trust the technology and the processes and everything here.
So I had a party at my place with some friends and I ordered through Grubhub.
At that time, it was in 2010 or 2011.
And I thought everything would be great.
And actually everything was terrible.
After an hour of waiting, I contacted the restaurants and they told me that the delivery guy was gone and was on his way.
And half an hour later, nothing showed up.
Nobody was here.
I contacted the restaurant again.
They still said the same thing.
Omer (06:23.260)
And that's probably just a standard response for them, right?
Because they had no idea where the driver was.
Bruno Didier (06:27.740)
They have no idea.
They just said this because they are too busy on site and they just don't control anything.
And so we had to go to Safeway with my friends and to actually buy pizza because the food arrived two hours late.
And I never ordered again online after this.
Okay, that's definitely something wrong.
And the funny thing is that my neighbors where we're starting a catering business.
And from one job to another, I ended up working with them as the cto.
And like I've said, like, we had to deliver food to customers, and the experience was really bad as well.
And I was like, okay, we need to do something.
Everybody in the world is delivering and ordering food to get delivered to your home, but there is no one controlling anything.
And today we have smartphones.
We have everything.
We should.
We should build something.
And that's how I started to think about tracking.
Omer (07:19.100)
Okay, so you kind of had a, I guess a personal pain.
You identified a need.
And you also had some experience in the industry, which I guess helped a little bit and sort of gave you some familiarity with sort of what was going on.
How did you sort of turn this into, yeah, somebody should do something about this, into, I'm going to do something about this.
And what sort of were the next steps for you?
Bruno Didier (07:49.210)
Good question.
I think that's just what I am.
And I think that's an interesting question.
I see a lot of time is that can you become an entrepreneur or are you an entrepreneur?
And I think it's just the way I am.
I see your problem, and I'm not going to wait for somebody else to solve it.
I'm going to look for a solution.
If I don't find a solution, I'm just going to do it myself.
And so I was there, looked for a solution online, didn't find anything, started to work on this project.
It didn't go the way I was expecting with my company.
And I felt like as an employee, I was kind of wasting my time.
I just wanted to get back to entrepreneurial life.
So I had this choice to make.
Whether I would stay in San Francisco, get my nice job, my nice salary, or just leave my San Francisco life, go back to France and work on this project on my own and hopefully come back to San Francisco with this company.
My goal was to either stay or go somewhere else or if I would come back in San Francisco, it would just be with my company, with my own company, not as someone trying to look for a visa or a job.
Omer (08:55.220)
So why, why would you have to go back to France to work on it?
Was it because of a visa issue?
Bruno Didier (09:00.740)
Visa issue?
Yeah.
I had an H1B so I had to be employed by a company.
And in terms, even in terms of money, just doesn't make sense to pay a crazy rent just to stay there.
If you're going to spend the next three or four months in your apartment coding your own company, building your own products, why wouldn't you do it in a cheaper place?
So that was basically the main idea.
And the second idea was that if I would start this in France, nobody would see it and nobody would copy me or would have time to copy me.
Whereas if I would start this in San Francisco, might be copied faster.
Omer (09:33.700)
Well, I think some people would say there's an advantage to being in San Francisco because you're around lots of other startups and entrepreneurs, you've got access to investors and advisors and things like that.
So I would have thought a lot of startups would want to move to San Francisco as opposed to sort of leave to startup.
Bruno Didier (09:57.860)
That's an interesting topic, but the facts was that I was in San Francisco for two years already.
So I did co founded the startup as a cto.
I did meet with plenty of founders and I felt like I knew enough at that time to go back to France, start my own thing and come back to San Francisco.
I didn't want, my plan was to surround myself with the best wherever it would be in France or in San Francisco.
So if I had to come back in SF, it would have been either with investors or 500 startups, but someone I would have met through my connections, even though I would be in France.
But I got the chance to come back with YC and that's why I came back.
But I don't think it's.
Being in San Francisco is super expensive and you need to have a product ready, you need to have a market ready if you want to go fast and grow fast.
And I don't think it's the smartest way to, to start a company to be in San Francisco.
Omer (10:57.040)
Yeah, I think it's interesting because it's potentially motivational for somebody listening to this who's been Thinking I can't get my startup going unless I'm in San Francisco or I'm in the Valley.
And I think your story is a good example of, well, yeah, you might need to do that at some point, but in terms of getting started, you should be able to do that from anywhere.
Bruno Didier (11:22.410)
Definitely.
Yeah, you should be able to work on your prototype from anywhere.
Maybe just pay yourself a trip for one to two weeks if your customers are in San Francisco to meet with them in San Francisco.
But you don't need to be in San Francisco to start.
You might want to be in San Francisco to grow and to raise money and to enjoy the weather and the nice people and the energy and to learn, of course.
But when you have learned, when you have met those people and when you have enough knowledge that you can now find thanks to websites like yours, thanks to books and everything, you should be able to start a company from anywhere.
Omer (11:59.020)
So you went back to France, you started working on the product.
Was it just you or did you.
Bruno Didier (12:07.340)
So I met up with some friends, everybody was super excited by my Silicon Valley experience, so.
So they were all interested to chat and I decided to start this with one of my friends.
He would be the back end engineer and I would be the front end product manager, etc.
And so we started at 2, but as an entrepreneur again, I don't know if you can be an entrepreneur if you are an entrepreneur.
But he didn't have the patience to build this product and he didn't have the willing to quit his first job to focus full time on the company.
So I was the only one to be full time.
He was just doing this part time and after like four or five months he decided to quit because it was just too hard for him to manage the two.
And at that time I really asked myself what should I do?
But because we had won a national contest, because we had interests, I just wanted to keep going and I felt like that was the right choice.
Omer (13:06.280)
Tell me about the national contest.
What was this for?
Bruno Didier (13:08.920)
That's called in French Les Santin project, which is 101 projects.
And basically they had 2,000 entrepreneurs from France applying to meet with three of the best entrepreneurs in France.
I don't know if you've heard of Xavier Niel.
He started Free Telecom, he started engineering high school in Paris for free.
Starting now, the biggest incubator in France for free as well, two other successful entrepreneurs.
And they screened 2,000 applicants and then they made us come to Paris to pitch just in one minute, our product on stage.
And they selected 100 people out of those 2,000 to get €25,000.
And then to help them grow or to support them or to bring them traction or to bring them visibility.
Omer (14:01.750)
And so that was kind of your first source of funding.
Bruno Didier (14:04.390)
Yes, exactly.
That was the first way for me to grow and to hire some interns.
Omer (14:10.950)
Yeah.
In terms of getting your first customers, did that happen in France or did you sort of.
At what point did you sort of get over to yc?
Bruno Didier (14:24.150)
So we created this prototype.
We showed this prototype to people in Lyon, in Paris, in London, in New York, to my old contact in San Francisco.
Then we won these national contests.
Then we got some support from my city in Lyon and we got some good advisor.
And after this, what I decided to do was to go to a trade show specializing in the food industry.
And I knew who I should meet with.
And I found this person in the trade show.
He was a journalist, specialized in technology in the food industry.
And I pitched him the idea, I pitched him the fact that we were coming back from San Francisco, that we won this contest and everything, and he decided to write an article about us.
And maybe one week later, we started to get some inbound leads.
And the first customer was an alcohol delivery company who found us through the website and through this article.
Omer (15:19.950)
Let's talk about yc.
Bruno Didier (15:21.230)
So
Omer (15:23.790)
at what point did you sort of decide to try to get into Y Combinator?
Bruno Didier (15:29.470)
Yeah, so from the first customer, we grew 10x almost every month.
And we founded the company in March 2014.
And then in France, in July and August, everything closed.
So I wanted to spend the July and August in San Francisco to find a way to get back there by finding the right people.
And my plan was to apply to 500 startups or to go to the CES or to do the right thing to find the support in San Francisco.
But I got too much work to do because I wanted to build the online ordering system.
So I stayed in France and I got someone texting me on Facebook saying, hey, Michael Seibel, founder of Twitch, is visiting Lyon in September and he is looking to meet with startups.
Are you interested?
I was like, yeah, of course I'm interested to meet with Michael.
And the funny story is that we got in touch together, and the day he was meeting with startups in Lyon, I was actually in London trying to study the market and to show my product to other people.
And so he sent me an email and he said, it's going to be.
It was Friday, and he said, it has to be Saturday night because I'm leaving and going back to San Francisco on Sunday.
And so I had to change all my train tickets.
I paid like €200 of fees to change all of my tickets.
I canceled all of my meetings to go back to Lyon to meet with this guy.
And right before the meeting, I told one of my friends, I said, this dinner could change my life.
Would you like to come with me?
But she couldn't come with me.
So that's actually a good thing at the end of the day.
But basically I met with him at the restaurant that night.
And the funny story behind that restaurant is that when I arrived, the waitress closed the door at his face and she was saying, I'm sorry, you guys can't get in.
And I was like, oh, no, that's the end.
I'm not going to be able to meet with him.
I'm not going to be able to go to yc.
I'm not going to be able to do anything.
And so I had to go in and I asked to owner what happens?
And she said that because he has two bottles of wine, she would not let him go in.
And he bought two expensive bottles of wines that he wanted to drink for his dinner.
And so Dick basically got into a small argument with this.
So I had to convince the owner to let them in.
Finally, we did get in.
We did have a nice dinner for an hour and a half.
We were talking about tracking and how I grew.
And at the end of the dinner, he said, I think you should apply to yc and I think you would get in and I will help you with your application.
And that's how it all started.
I would have never thought I would have been able to get into yc, to be honest, without this dinner.
Omer (18:14.630)
Really?
Why is that?
Bruno Didier (18:17.990)
Well, I guess it's the French way.
That's what they tell you at yc.
Don't be French, be American.
You know, you need to be big.
Don't be a pussy.
You need to.
So that's.
Yeah, I just felt like 500 startups was enough.
I didn't think that I would be able to get into yc.
It was just too high.
But at the end of the day, it seems like I've done the right thing to get in.
And so that was a huge honor.
And that was the night he told me this.
To be honest, it was a Saturday, like I said, and I was super tired.
I just wanted to get home.
But I was so excited by the dinner and by what he said, that I just went out to party until 7am Just to really.
Omer (18:57.770)
So the only difference between before that dinner and then when you woke up on Sunday was before you didn't believe that you could get into yc, and then that conversation basically changed your mindset.
Bruno Didier (19:14.250)
Yeah, exactly.
And I didn't even look at how to get into yc.
I was just like, no, YC is just number one, and I'm not going to target yc.
It's my first big company, and I just forget about this.
Now that I know what YC expects, I understand why I got in.
But before this, I just didn't even try to look.
So you should just believe and try and just target as high as you can.
Omer (19:39.020)
Anyway, so let's talk a little bit more about how you acquired your first few customers.
You mentioned the.
The national contest in France and how that led to, you know, some.
Some press coverage and you getting your.
Your first couple of customers.
But beyond that, what else were you doing to get your, you know, first 10 or 20 customers?
Bruno Didier (20:07.740)
So at that time, I didn't feel comfortable enough yet to sell on the phone.
And I. I'm a people person.
I like to see how people react, and I like to.
To share things by the way you move or you talk to people or you look at people.
So I just went to visit, I think, all of the restaurants in my city and try to meet with every manager I can to show them my products and to ask for help.
I went there and I asked them, I'm building something to help you guys, and I need your help to tell me if I'm going to the right direction or the wrong direction and tell me your processes today and just help me build the right thing.
And I've done this.
And by showing that I was caring about their thoughts and their advice, it became a real relationship.
And not just they didn't see me being there trying to sell anything.
They just saw me as an entrepreneur trying to build something cool to help them.
And so they were the one asking to be kept in touch, and they were the one asking to be able to use the product after they saw what I was building and where I wanted to go with the product.
Omer (21:15.870)
That's a really interesting lesson there.
I think, for people is, number one, totally makes a lot of sense that when you're at the early stage, you want to be spending more time listening and asking questions and going out there and pitching your product and telling people why it's so great.
But the other thing I think is some people don't want to go out and have sales conversations and it's a very uncomfortable thing for many people to do.
But I think if you can kind of reframe that in your mind and say, I don't want to get any sales right now.
What I really want to do is just go out there and just do kind of more customer development.
I want to just go and talk to these people and sort of like you said, I want to get their feedback.
I want to figure out if I'm going in the right direction.
And I think that's a really great way to do it because, yeah, I mean that might lead to sales, it might not lead to sales, but you're going to gather valuable information, you're going to get out, you're going to talk to real potential customers and that's going to get you much further than sort of sitting in front of your computer trying to avoid having that face to face conversation with somebody.
Bruno Didier (22:27.860)
Oh my God.
Yes.
I remember the first.
I co founded the company as a CTO and we've been building a product for a year.
For a full year we only sat down in front of our computers and built the product.
After a year we released it and we realized it was all wrong because that was not the way people wanted to use this.
And that's why we tracking.
I did the opposite.
I just built a prototype, something I had in mind, something that would solve the main problem to these guys and just go out there and then show them what you have in mind and see from there where you should go.
But even though like you're saying, it's really hard to do this because I remember the feeling I had the first time I had to go out of my house after three months building this product and to show this to someone.
I was scared as hell.
I was just like, you feel like you are the one being judged.
You know, this is your baby, this is your product.
If they don't like it, they don't like you.
That's how you feel at that time.
Now I've learned a lot and I've evolved and that's an amazing feeling to do this many, many times because you can trust yourself, you don't feel shame the same way.
And you can step back and listen to the people, accept criticizing the right way and just make sure that.
And you realize it's not about you, it's just about product and about what you're doing.
But at that time I was super scared.
Omer (23:46.100)
Yeah.
And I think even if you're getting, you know, what you perceive as negative feedback, either there's going to be some lesson in there about what you can do differently or what you can do better with your business or your product.
And I think the other thing is to realize there will be people who never will be your customers.
And so just because you come across, you know, a number of people who tell you your, your product and your idea sucks, that doesn't mean much unless everybody you talk to is telling you that, right?
Bruno Didier (24:17.690)
Yeah, yeah.
You have to go by the number anyway, whatever.
Especially in the food industry, in the restaurant industry.
Anyway, I've Talked to the CEO and founder of Groupon or LivingSocial.
They all started the same way.
You have to go with the numbers.
You have to go to 100 restaurants and get five years and go from there.
But yeah, you can't stop because you hear no or because you hear your product is shitty.
But most of the time when you approach people by just asking for advice anyway, they would not be harsh with you.
They would be nice and respectful and they would just try to spend more time and help you because you're not selling anything.
You're just asking for help.
And that's really, really the big difference.
I think you just, you have to ask for help because it's a different relationship.
They are the one helping you, and you are just here listening to them.
Omer (25:03.290)
Like, how did you figure out that approach?
Was that something that just seemed like the obvious way to do it for you or was that something that you'd kind of picked up with your previous experiences?
Bruno Didier (25:14.090)
That's something I've picked up because, as I've said, I've met with most of my restaurants, most of the restaurants in my city, and at first I would just introduce myself as like, hi, I'm the founder of Trakkin.
We are building a software to help you manage your deliveries.
Are you interested in seeing it?
And they were just like, no, no, I don't have time right now.
If you introduce yourself as a salesperson, someone who wants to sell them something, they don't have time.
But if you talk to the human being behind the professional, if you say, okay, I'm just a young professional, young entrepreneur trying to build something to help you guys.
But to make this successful, to be able to help you, I actually need your time and your help so I can get something better.
So you are the master, I'm the students, you teach me what I should do.
And people love that.
People love to feel important.
People love to, to.
To.
To be helpful.
And you get tons of yes this way because you are talking to a different Part of the human being.
Omer (26:14.280)
So you started working on tracking almost four years ago.
It launched officially almost three years ago.
Bruno Didier (26:21.880)
Yep.
Omer (26:23.320)
Can you kind of share with the audience like in terms of like where you are right now in terms of the size of the business, either revenue and, or number of customers?
Bruno Didier (26:34.240)
Sure.
So we have about.
So we are used.
Tracking is used in San Francisco, in New York, in Chicago, in the UK in France, in Italy and probably some other countries.
I'm forgetting it's even going to be launched in Africa really soon.
So we are super excited by the growth.
We have about 2,000 restaurants on the platform right now and the last revenues we shared were about $2 million annual recurring revenue.
Omer (27:05.290)
I want to kind of dig into it a little bit on how you went from saying, I'm going to leave San Francisco, I've got this idea I want to start working on and zero customers to almost four years later where you're.
You're doing over $2 million in ARR.
So what, what do you think was some of the, the biggest drivers behind that growth and helping you get to where you are today?
Bruno Didier (27:33.440)
So first, I don't know if you're aware of this, but I'm a solo founder so I had to.
I have a lot of things to manage wherever it's a product or marketing or finance and everything.
So I had to find and ways to optimize my time.
So the way I started the company was to try to surround myself by the best and by people who had experience to avoid.
To make rookie mistakes and to save time.
To save time and to focus on growth and to focus on the right thing.
So I found support from my city.
I found support from those guys, those entrepreneurs in France, those big entrepreneurs in France found one of the best lawyers of my city who of course speaks English because I wanted to go back to San Francisco.
So I wanted to someone who would be familiar with the US laws as well.
So surround yourself with the right people to save time and to help you focus on the right thing for your company.
That would be the first one and then the second one would be to build the right product.
As I said, I've been spending time with my prospects, try to understand what they were looking for.
One thing I loved to do was to just give them the mouse, make them sit down behind the computer or behind a tablet and staring at them using the product and I would instantly see what I'm missing.
I would place a button on the top right of their screen and they would not see it.
And I was like oh my God.
They don't see that button.
It's insane.
I see it, but they don't see it.
It's just spending time with your customers, looking at them, how they use your product, what they expect.
The type of questions that they ask you is basically what you want to hear, because the question they ask is what your product is missing.
So if they say, how do I do this?
Or why can I do that?
That's what your product is missing.
So collect the right information, build the right products is definitely the step number two to be able to grow.
Omer (29:30.490)
Do you have an example of that?
You talked about the button on the right top of the screen, but was there another example you can think of that after talking to a potential customer and getting feedback, you kind of had this kind of aha moment in terms of there's something I need to do differently with the product that I just wasn't seeing before?
Bruno Didier (29:54.640)
Well, yes.
For example, how did I come up with this idea to add the online ordering system to the delivery management solution?
I was talking to a restaurant actually in San Mateo in the US Then, and he told me every time I get a phone call, I have to have two phones, my iPhone with Google Maps on it, and then the other one, of course, to talk to the customer.
But I enter their address on my iPhone on Google Map to see if the customer is far away from my restaurant and to see if I should or should not deliver this person.
Wow.
And I was like, well, we are still at that stage.
And when he told me this, then I went to other restaurants and I swear to God, if you do this, you will see the same thing as I see.
But go to other restaurants and look at somewhere in their kitchen or somewhere behind the cashier.
If the restaurant is delivering, you're gonna see a paper map on the wall with zones drawn on by pen on red or whatever.
And they use a paper map and that's, that's all they have.
Like, they have no tools.
Omer (31:07.890)
I used to see that in pizza delivery stores in London, like 20 years ago.
Bruno Didier (31:13.250)
Right?
Yeah.
Until we, until we take over the food industry, it's going to be there.
Omer (31:22.290)
You talked about surrounding yourself with the right people and sort of going out there and finding the best attorney lawyer that you could.
I think a lot of people would avoid doing that.
In terms of, okay, I'm, I'm early stage, I'm a startup, don't have that much money.
I don't know if I have enough.
You know, it's a good idea to start spending a Lot of money with, with a lawyer.
So why, why was it that you were sort of driven by.
Why did that seem like a good decision for you to spend that money?
Bruno Didier (31:50.690)
So first I won this national contest and I got the 25k with.
That's what allowed me to get stuff going.
And then I didn't found my company.
I didn't take or make any paper or make this a corporation before to get my first paying customer.
So until that time, I was just operating in stealth mode.
There was nothing when the first customer was like, okay, I want to use your product.
This is my credit card.
Start charging me.
That's when I contacted my lawyer and said, okay, now it's time to, to make this official.
But before that first customer, everything was just relationship I found and I've been recommended by a friend or by an entrepreneur in my city to talk to this lawyer.
But we didn't have any paying relationship yet.
It was just, okay, this is what I want to do.
This is what you can do.
When I'm ready, we will start working together.
Omer (32:48.020)
We've kind of been talking about what you attribute the success to in terms of going from 0 to over 2 million ARR.
So I want to summarize that.
We talked about surrounding yourself with the right people, whether it's a team, advisors, building the right product, and going out there and talking to customers or prospective customers.
And we also talked about how you went out and got your first few customers, initially from the press coverage, from the contest, and then literally just going door to door and asking for feedback and trying to learn from people.
And then that, you know, that kind of helped us sell itself beyond the first 10 or 20 customers.
What were some of the growth strategies that work really well for you to go from that to 20 restaurants that you have today?
Bruno Didier (33:43.190)
That's something I've learned from yc.
Before yc, I was just.
I didn't know any other way to sell, to be honest.
I was just like again, a rookie entrepreneur trying to make his way.
But arriving at yc, they basically told me, you need to find a wider funnel.
Like, you need to get way more leads and address way more leads way faster, to grow faster.
And we instantly thought of phone calls, of course, trying to do plenty of phone calls.
But restaurants get hundreds of phone calls every day to be sold something.
And going door to door would just take too much time.
So we went with email.
And honestly, email is not dead.
It's definitely a nice and still pretty interesting way to sell when you have the right content.
So we had to do content iteration into the email.
But we found that the best way for us to acquire customers through email was to actually create a newsletter that would include our new features.
Every time it would build something new every time you would explain how to use a feature of our product, it would be into this newsletter.
And this newsletter would of course go to our customers, but also to our prospects.
Omer (34:53.970)
How did you build this email list of prospects?
Bruno Didier (34:57.490)
Just went through the.
That's been a manual process, to be honest.
We just looked for all the big chains and the restaurants in different cities, have to go to their website, have to find their contact information, the email and go from there.
But that's been a pretty long and hectic job.
Omer (35:17.180)
So you built this list up and then you basically just cold emailed these prospects with sort of this newsletter and they could either opt out or kind of keep receiving updates.
Bruno Didier (35:29.030)
And it's funny, honestly, again, some leads received the email for six months and after one feature it would just trigger them to contact us right away.
And whatever the size of that prospect, it worked with a different site, different size, sorry, whatever it would be small restaurants or chains.
We had them thanks to that email.
Omer (35:49.030)
And from what I understand, you were using SEO was also kind of a component in helping you acquire customers.
Bruno Didier (35:56.390)
Yes, definitely.
SEO on the website, using the right words, looking at what people were looking for with Google and all the basic SEO rules that everybody should apply on their website?
I think.
Omer (36:08.550)
So were you.
Were you kind of.
Was this kind of like content marketing and creating a lot of lot of blog posts or was this really just about we're going to do a much better job at optimizing the site,
Bruno Didier (36:23.710)
the
Omer (36:23.790)
marketing site to acquire more people?
Bruno Didier (36:26.110)
It was a bit of both.
It was optimizing the websites and there's still a lot of work to do.
Writing a blog articles, including new features or new customers, or advice on how to help restaurants market themselves, or how to help restaurants do a better job with their delivery services, or how to find drivers or whatever it would be.
And also find ways to get big websites, putting your link out there, whatever it's on Reddit or social Networks or the TechCrunch article or those things.
Those things help a lot to get more visibility and to exist on Google.
Omer (37:08.780)
At what point did you hire people?
Bruno Didier (37:11.660)
After I got the 25k, I've hired interns and after I've got my first paying customers, I basically got loans from friends and I hired more people.
Omer (37:22.790)
And how many.
How big is the team today?
Bruno Didier (37:26.870)
Right now we are eight People.
Omer (37:28.390)
Okay, so.
Okay, so good.
So you're not doing this all by yourself.
Okay.
So we've kind of talked about just generally what you believe were some of the success ingredients to getting to where you are today and to 2,000 restaurants.
One thing I think is worth sharing with the audience is along the way, this journey of building this business, you ended up creating another product.
Bruno Didier (38:02.100)
Yes.
Omer (38:02.820)
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Bruno Didier (38:04.820)
Sure.
So on my way to selling trucking to restaurants in San Francisco after YC and during yc, one thing I realized is that here, especially in the us you have really, really strong and big food delivery companies and restaurants were looking for more business, of course.
But one thing that no technology or no one was working on was catering.
So everywhere you would go, on every website you would go, if you click on catering, you have to fill out a form, you have to get a quote, you have to read the PDF and to go back and forth by email.
It's like placing a normal order about 10 years ago.
And so they asked me for help on this site.
They said, you have the technology, what you're doing is great.
This is what we need.
And so that's how I started to work on an online ordering that would allow people to order catering, which is a big difference because catering you need, you're feeding 60 to 100 people.
So it's not, you're not going to order just 60 pizza.
You have to know, you order trays, you have to know how many trays, how many people are going to feed each trays.
You have to know if they are, if they are vegan, vegetarian, if they have allergies.
Like, it's, it's really, it is more specific, so it's harder to realize.
And then after I've built this technology, I realized that they didn't have that many visitors on their website anyway and they were asking for more business.
So I started to use my own technology, my online ordering system for catering and tracking to create a marketplace for catering.
And so this marketplace is called Moby Dish.
And that's growing pretty great as well.
Omer (39:53.750)
Moby Dish.
I'll include a link in the show notes to this, but this is M O B Y dish dot com.
Bruno Didier (39:59.830)
Yeah.
Omer (40:02.310)
How many customers do you have using Moby Dish today?
Bruno Didier (40:07.670)
We have about 200 companies using US today, including the big ones like Salesforce, Westfield, Target, Google, Facebook.
Omer (40:15.590)
Wow.
Okay, so.
And this is now operating in San Francisco, where else?
Bruno Didier (40:25.560)
San Francisco, South Bay and New York.
We are just starting in New York right now.
Omer (40:30.760)
And from what I Understand this is a profitable business on its own, right?
Bruno Didier (40:33.720)
Yes.
Omer (40:34.000)
Is that right?
Okay.
Bruno Didier (40:35.240)
Yep.
We are probably the only online ordering company that delivers that is profitable today in the U.S. wow.
Omer (40:43.960)
Okay.
So most the common conventional wisdom is focus on one thing, and you've sort of got two products going in parallel and potentially two different businesses.
How are you thinking about that?
Is that at some point it's going to kind of become, you know, one offering, or do you see them as becoming two separate businesses?
Where's your thinking at right now on this?
Bruno Didier (41:11.580)
I'm probably still thinking about it, but the great thing behind having those two products is that Moby Dish today is mostly a brand, but the technology is tracking.
So since we've started Moby Dish, we've been able to improve tracking dramatically, and we've been able to even be more accurate on what features are needed into tracking to help us help restaurants, help chains, and help other delivery services using us.
And since we've started Moby Dish, we've been able to power plenty of new food delivery service around the world that are growing right now, expanding to new cities.
And they don't have to do anything because we have the technology, we build the technology for them.
They just focus on marketing, on growing, and we take care of the rest.
So it's been a huge advantage to have both of them, and both of them are doing great.
So we'll see what the future has for us.
But basically, my team is selling Moby Dish and my developers and I are focusing on improving tracking because technology is tracking, selling is Moby Dish, and tracking is being found by SEO and everything we've talked about before.
Omer (42:27.979)
And so are you or your team having to spend time in terms of figuring out how to drive traffic to MobyDish.com as well?
Bruno Didier (42:37.500)
Right now, Moby Dish is growing organically.
We didn't really market it yet, so it's not that step.
We are not at that step.
We've been lucky enough to have customers who like us and everything, but that might come up after we are established in New York.
Omer (42:53.940)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's really interesting because a lot of people would maybe have come across this and said, now I've got to focus.
This is a potential idea, but it's going to distract me from focusing on my core business.
But you kind of turned it into an opportunity where it's actually helping you improve the tracking business because you're kind of basically your own customer in that sense, right?
Bruno Didier (43:27.020)
Yeah, we are our own customers.
We use tracking every day.
We understand and feel the pain if there is anything going wrong.
And we, we feel relaxed and we feel super happy when we build something that saves and change our life.
And our customers are super happy as well because again, we are going to the right direction and we thought about stuff we would haven't thought about if we didn't have Moby Dish.
Love it.
Omer (43:51.430)
All right, it's time for our lightning round.
I'm going to ask you seven questions.
Just try to answer them as quickly
Bruno Didier (43:59.910)
as you can, okay?
Omer (44:01.420)
All right, let's do it.
What's the best piece of business advice that you've ever received?
Bruno Didier (44:06.940)
Trust yourself.
Omer (44:09.420)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?
Bruno Didier (44:13.660)
Play bigger.
Yeah, play bigger.
It gives you the mindset to lead the next billion dollar company.
Omer (44:22.220)
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur
Bruno Didier (44:29.820)
being able to listen.
Listen to your employees and your customers and your market.
Omer (44:35.020)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?
Bruno Didier (44:39.660)
Reminders.
I use reminders and notes all the time.
Omer (44:44.780)
What's a new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the extra time and didn't already have two products?
Bruno Didier (44:52.460)
Yeah.
Every day I think I come up with a new startup idea that I share with my team, but I instantly forget about it because I have to go back to my business.
So you would have asked me yesterday.
Maybe I had the idea, but I keep forgetting about this.
But every day I come up with a new startup idea every day.
Omer (45:12.350)
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?
Bruno Didier (45:18.190)
That I'm a quitter for vacations.
I think I quit all of my jobs because I wanted to go back to vacation.
Really?
Yeah.
In France you have those two weeks period of time when everything closed and so you usually take two weeks of vacation.
So every time I came back to work I was like, no, that's not for me.
I want to go back to vacation.
I love to meet people, I love to enjoy time.
And I want to go back.
And I left every time for every job.
Omer (45:43.800)
So I know in France they just passed a law about making it illegal
Bruno Didier (45:49.630)
for
Omer (45:51.910)
expecting employees to also answer emails outside of business hours.
I mean, I think that's awesome.
Bruno Didier (45:59.110)
I mean, well, it depends if you're an entrepreneur.
Well, yeah.
But yeah, I think France and Europe in general have this sense of focus on life first.
And I think that an interesting side of I've learned in the US I know how to focus on being an entrepreneur.
And thanks to friends, I also know how to remember about my Life and about friends and human being and relationships.
I think you should not just be all European and just think about your life and I think you just should be the American way and only think about work.
I think you should be able to have the two combined and it's just all about balance.
Omer (46:37.230)
And finally, what is one of your most important passions outside of your work?
Bruno Didier (46:43.030)
I'd say it's people.
Maybe it was obvious, but yeah, people, human feelings.
The way they think, the way we behave, the way we feel, people.
Omer (46:52.710)
Awesome.
Bruno, thank you for your time or I should say messi beaucoup.
It's been fascinating talking to you and thank you for sharing your story.
I think there's a ton of lessons here for people to sort of take away from this and I think there are so many things that you know, you, you, you've done which are, you know, counter to what you know, conventional so called wisdom is in terms of, you know, if you need to start a startup, you got to be in San Francisco or you got to be in the Valley and, and well you were like I'm moving to France and, and you still made it work.
And you always hear you, you've always, you've, you have to have a co founder in order to build a successful startup and you've done it as a solo founder and you know, you hear things like work on just one thing and you said I'm going to build two products and, and you've kind of found a way to make that work.
So I love that and I love the way that I think it just, you know, and how you shared your story about sort of thinking differently about things like Y combinator and sort of, you know, whether you know, you're sort of, you have a good enough offering to be able to get in there.
So I think there's just ton of things that I think I really enjoyed listening to and I'm sure folks listening to this will get a ton of value from as well.
So if folks want to find out more about tracking they can go to Gotracking without the g@theend.com and they can also check out Moby Dish M o b y dish.com and I'll include links in the show notes for that.
If folks want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Bruno Didier (48:34.450)
They can shoot me an email.
I'd be happy to answer any question or help anyone who wants advice or who want to chat about their own project or their own issues.
My email is Bruno B R u n o tracking dot com.
Omer (48:47.250)
Awesome.
Thank you, Gane.
And it's been a pleasure.
I really enjoyed this.
Bruno Didier (48:52.370)
Thank you, Omar.
And I hope people will enjoy listening to us.
Omer (48:56.570)
I'm sure they will.
Cheers.
