Profitboss screenshot
As DoorDash preps its IPO, it's clear that the restaurant industry has been a bit shaken this year. Between pandemic-related closures, pandemic-related pivots, and pandemic-related reliance on delivery services, the industry is experiencing a forced sea change in how it operates. Naturally, this type of bubbling cauldron of chaos in any industry creates pools of opportunity. Especially if you are good at project management and can design some web pages.
That's simplifying the process for sure, but the liquid pooling at the feet of the cauldron are where companies like Profitboss arise.
Profitboss is one of those intermediaries that exists to streamline some aspect of some business, while acting as an organized effort to enhance a service. That word jumble is to say that Profitboss steps in to help restaurants with online ordering so they can take advantage of delivery services like DoorDash and Postmates, without incurring the cost, and expanding their core business — selling food to people. This enables smaller restaurants hit hard by the pandemic to hopefully garner enough ancillary business to survive another fiscal quarter.
When a restaurant signs up for Profitboss, they get their own website that allows direct ordering by customers. You know there is that one local business with a terrible website that looks like Geocities threw up on their PC that needs this kind of upgrade. Deliveries are then made using one of the existing delivery services, but the Profitboss API feeds the drivers the information through the delivery service app they work for. Customers get hit with a mere $1.50 delivery fee (that goes to Profitboss) on top of the delivery fee for DoorDash or Postmates, which is still cheaper than if ordering straight through the delivery app(s).
To date, Profitboss has helped a tad over a hundred restaurants save a ton of money and avoid closure due to profit loss. The delivery services themselves take a cut from Profitboss’ cut, and the restaurants get to expand their customer base and ordering capabilities without having to build the infrastructure for it. Delivery drivers are constantly going to new restaurants, so this doesn’t cause any sort of disruption there. It would be classified as a win-win and was created by a young entrepreneur looking to save his own family business.
"I started [Profitboss] after an experience I had in saving my mom's business. It was the proudest experience of my life and I wanted to help others like her,” says 21 year-old CEO Adam Guild. “Profitboss is great for restaurants because it's free for them to use (while adding thousands in sales and saving thousands more) and is perfectly aligned with their incentives. It only makes money when it makes them a lot and never detracts from their profits. Just like I would want any service that my mom's business uses to be."
Logistics and online ordering is one of the pressure points that restaurants in the 21st century struggle with. That’s if they can avoid a visit from Gordon Ramsey. Creating a web page is one thing, enabling it to function as an online ordering and delivery system is another. That’s why a lot of restaurants sigh and sign up with delivery services that take a massive commission. This is a way around that and from the perspective of the delivery services, a slight loss of profit but the drivers are still making their cut. There are restaurants here that use services like DoorDash or BiteSquad, but prefer customers pick up the order themselves because that commission can be a death by a thousand cuts.
The adoption of Profitboss depends on restaurants. It is a service that will save them money and expand their business, but they have to be ready and willing to make that change. There are a surprising amount of stubborn restaurant owners out there, getting by with their janky websites and questionably stoned delivery driver in his weird gray van (the pizza place by my house). Regardless, the more solutions for small businesses during this tough economic period, the better.
