Founder Interview
How Ayooh Signed 25 Restaurants and Reached 70 Monthly Orders as a Seafood-Only Delivery App in Alexandria (Interview with Founder Ahmed Shalaby)
- Interview Date
- July 28, 2021
- Interviewee
- Ahmed ShalabyFounder
Company Metrics at Interview Time
Restaurants on Platform (2021)
25
Monthly Orders (July 2021)
70
Commission Rate (2021)
15%
Team Size (2021)
1
Historical Snapshot
These numbers were reported by Ahmed Shalaby during the interview recorded in July 2021 and are a historical snapshot, not current figures. See Ayooh’s current numbers.
Key Takeaways
- 01Ayooh launched in January 2021 in Alexandria, Egypt as a seafood-dedicated marketplace
- 0225 restaurants were on the platform — 20 seafood and about five sushi
- 0370 consumer orders were placed through the app in the most recent month
- 04Ahmed charged 15% commission per order, less than half the roughly 35% he said Talabat was charging restaurants
- 05Ahmed was the sole team member, bootstrapping from personal savings while working full time as a mechanical engineer
- 06The app was built by a development company called Icoders, rented for $500 per month
- 07Ahmed budgeted 350,000 Egyptian pounds of his own savings to launch the business
- 08Ahmed was seeking to raise 500,000 Egyptian pounds for marketing campaigns, and said he might give up about 2% of the company for it
- 09Ahmed described Talabat, owned by Germany's Delivery Hero, as holding the biggest share of the Egyptian food delivery market
- 10Ahmed said he would quit his day job once the business made three times his engineering salary
Company Metrics at Time of Interview
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Restaurants on Platform (2021) | 25 | Founder interview, Jul 2021 |
| Monthly Orders (July 2021) | 70 | Founder interview, Jul 2021 |
| Commission Rate (2021) | 15% | Founder interview, Jul 2021 |
| Google Ads Spend, Monthly (July 2021) | $500 | Founder interview, Jul 2021 |
| Team Size (2021) | 1 | Founder interview, Jul 2021 |
| Year Founded | 2021 | Founder interview, Jul 2021 |
| App Development Fee, Monthly (2021) | $500 | Founder interview, Jul 2021 |
| Bootstrap Budget (2021) | 350,000 Egyptian pounds | Founder interview, Jul 2021 |
Growth Breakdown
Revenue
Revenue: Ayooh earned a 15% commission on each order placed through the platform — '[02:26] I make money from commission on order.' Ahmed put the previous month's take at roughly 2,000 Egyptian pounds in net revenue, and gave no other revenue figure during the interview.
Customers and Orders
The platform had 25 restaurants onboarded as of the interview, comprising 20 seafood restaurants and 5 sushi restaurants. Consumer order volume reached 70 orders in the month before the interview, a number Ahmed himself called small.
Team and Operations
Ahmed was the only person on the team, running the business as a side project while employed full time as a mechanical engineer. The mobile application was rented from a development company called Icoders for $500 a month, and he said that was where the bulk of his budget had gone.
Funding and Runway
Ahmed bootstrapped the business from personal savings, with a total budget of 350,000 Egyptian pounds. That budget was nearly exhausted at the time of the interview. A Founder Institute alumnus, he said the programme's funding arm had judged him still too early to back, and he was looking for 500,000 Egyptian pounds for a marketing campaign, offering about 2% of the company.
Growth Strategy
Undercutting the Dominant Platform on Commission
Ayooh charged restaurants a 15% commission against the roughly 35% Ahmed said Talabat was taking. Talabat, which he described as owned by Germany's Delivery Hero, held the biggest market share, and the price gap was his main argument for getting restaurants to sign up.
Niche Focus on Seafood
Ahmed identified a clear gap in the Egyptian food delivery market: major apps like Talabat carried some seafood restaurants but were not dedicated to the category. By focusing exclusively on seafood and sushi, Ayooh targeted an underserved segment in a city famous for its seafood.
Paid Digital Marketing
Ahmed ran small campaigns on Facebook and Google Ads, spending around $500 a month on Google Ads and the same again on Facebook to drive consumer awareness and orders. He said he was planning bigger digital and online campaigns next, because offline campaigns worked well in his market but were too expensive for his budget.
Superior Customer Service as a Differentiator
Ahmed reported good feedback from users that Ayooh beat Talabat on customer service, delivery and ease of use. Even so, he said customer acquisition was not easy.
Plans to Build a Full Operations Team
Asked how he would get to a thousand consumers, Ahmed said it would take bigger marketing campaigns and 'an entire team' to help with operations and customer acquisition. The money he was trying to raise, though, was earmarked for marketing campaigns only.
Best Quotes
“I live in Alexandria, which is famous for seafood restaurants and it's a seaside city. So we we are brought up to love seafood and fish.”
“The consumer buys seafood meals from restaurants, and I'm the middleman between consumers and restaurants.”
“Around 70 orders.”
“On board my application, have about 25 restaurants, seafood and sushi. 20 seafood and about five restaurants for sushi.”
“I make money from commission on order.”
“Because my commission is less than half what Talabat take from them. They are asking for them for around 35% on order.”
“In January this year. Seven months ago. But I I have a a good feedback from users about about my service that it's better than Talabat itself in terms of customer service and in terms of delivery, in terms of good application simple to use.”
“The budget I have for my bootstrapping is almost over.”
“I wish, I learned coding.”
What Happened Next
This interview captured Ayooh at its earliest stage, just months after launching in January 2021 with a single founder, 25 restaurants, and 70 monthly orders. At the time of recording, Ahmed was seeking his first outside funding to scale marketing efforts. Ayooh has since been dissolved, and the figures on this page remain a July 2021 snapshot.
View Ayooh’s current profile and metricsFull Transcript
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction and Background
- 1:23How the Marketplace Works
- 1:36Early Order Volume
- 1:50Restaurants on the Platform
- 2:26Revenue Model and Commission
- 2:57Bootstrapping and Day Job
- 4:11Growth Through Digital Marketing
- 5:28Competing with Talabat
- 6:58Launch Story and User Feedback
- 7:48Budget and Fundraising Plans
- 10:16Famous Five Rapid Fire
Introduction and Background
Nathan Latka
00:00Hey folks, my guest today is Ahmed Shalaby. He's building a very cool tool called Ayoohapp. It's a marketplace for online seafood ordering. He operates the company since 2021 in Alexandria, Egypt. He has a mechanical engineering background with a passion in tech, and he also has an MBA from the University of Northampton from back in 2018. Ahmed, are you ready to take us to the top?
Ahmed Shalaby
00:23>> Yeah, I'm ready.
Nathan Latka
00:24Okay. What's the passion for seafood? You're an engineer, but you also love seafood, I guess. Yes.
Ahmed Shalaby
00:30>> I live in Alexandria, which is famous for seafood restaurants and it's a seaside city. So we we are brought up to love seafood and fish. And I've been... My entire life,
00:49>> fish meal is the main main plate in our family. Mhmm. So here's come my my passion to seafood. And in other words, seafood is not is not a great focus for similar apps in the market. They are... There is a clear gap they are making in delivering seafood. So...
Nathan Latka
01:15And, Ahmed, just to be clear, who who who is buying seafood on your app? Is it consumers like me or is it restaurants? Restaurants?
How the Marketplace Works
Ahmed Shalaby
01:23>> The consumer buys seafood meals from restaurants, and I'm the middleman between consumers and restaurants.
Nathan Latka
01:30How many consumers ordered something last month?
Early Order Volume
Ahmed Shalaby
01:36>> Around 70 orders.
Nathan Latka
01:39Seven zero orders?
Ahmed Shalaby
01:41>> Yes. 70 orders per month last month.
Nathan Latka
01:45Okay. And how many restaurants delivered an order?
Restaurants on the Platform
Ahmed Shalaby
01:50>> On board my application, have about 25 restaurants, seafood and sushi. 20 seafood and about five restaurants for sushi.
Nathan Latka
02:02And just to make sure I understand, so last month, consumers like you and me, seven zero of them ordered something through the application. So you're just getting started. Is that right?
Ahmed Shalaby
02:12>> Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Missed small number,
Nathan Latka
02:16Well, hey. I don't I don't mind small numbers. You have to start somewhere. Your first... Congratulations on the first 70, but tell me how you make money.
Revenue Model and Commission
Ahmed Shalaby
02:26>> I make money from commission on order.
Nathan Latka
02:30Okay. What's the commission? What's the average order size?
Ahmed Shalaby
02:33>> The average order size around 250, and my my commission is around 15% of this value.
Nathan Latka
02:45Okay, interesting. So how much money did you make last month?
Ahmed Shalaby
02:51>> Roughly 2,000 Egyptian pounds net revenue.
Bootstrapping and Day Job
Nathan Latka
02:57K. And and what... Are you building this yourself currently? Do you own a a 100% of the business?
Ahmed Shalaby
03:02>> Yes. I'm bootstrapping.
Nathan Latka
03:05We love that. How are you... Where are you getting the money from to bootstrap?
Ahmed Shalaby
03:09>> From my savings.
Nathan Latka
03:11What were you doing before this?
Ahmed Shalaby
03:13>> Yes. I'm working as a mechanical engineer, as I said. It's my day job.
Nathan Latka
03:18So you still work as a mechanical engineer?
Ahmed Shalaby
03:20>> Yeah. Yeah. I'm not a I'm not
03:26>> what do you say it?
Nathan Latka
03:28Full time?
Ahmed Shalaby
03:29>> Full... Yes. I'm not a full time founder.
Nathan Latka
03:32Okay. Well, when are you gonna when are you gonna pull out the safety net? When are gonna quit the full time job and go all in on the seafood application?
Ahmed Shalaby
03:40>> Hopefully, when I three x my day job salary.
Nathan Latka
03:46Ahmed, are you married?
Ahmed Shalaby
03:48>> Yes, and I have two kids.
Nathan Latka
03:50What would what would your partner kill you if you quit your day job?
Ahmed Shalaby
03:55>> Yeah. Sure.
Nathan Latka
03:59That's the real reason you haven't quit and gone start up full time. Right?
Ahmed Shalaby
04:03>> No doubt.
Nathan Latka
04:04Well, you have two kids as well, so you have to balance. Right? You have real expenses.
Ahmed Shalaby
04:09>> Of course. Of course.
Growth Through Digital Marketing
Nathan Latka
04:11How you grow the business? I mean, it's impressive you've gotten 70 people to use it last month. How did you get them to use it?
Ahmed Shalaby
04:19>> Digital marketing, just small campaigns on Facebook and Google Ads.
Nathan Latka
04:25How much did you spend on Google Ads last month?
Ahmed Shalaby
04:28>> I spent around $500.
Nathan Latka
04:32Okay. $500.
Ahmed Shalaby
04:33>> And same for Facebook.
Nathan Latka
04:37Okay. So what... There is just you doing this right now. Right? You're the only person on the team?
04:45Is it just is it just you right now? One person on your team?
Ahmed Shalaby
04:48>> Yes. One person. Yes.
Nathan Latka
04:50Okay. So so what's
04:52the what's the plan? How do you
04:53get a thousand consumers on the application?
Ahmed Shalaby
04:58>> Bigger market campaigns and I I need a team. An entire team for helping me in operations and customer acquisition.
05:15>> Just I'm I'm planning for bigger market... Digital campaign and online campaign also as well. Because offline campaigns are campaigns are doing well in our market, but it's so expensive.
Competing with Talabat
Nathan Latka
05:28Who do you who do you compete with? Who... What's the biggest ordering app right now for seafood? Or do you compete with, like, Uber Eats?
Ahmed Shalaby
05:35>> In my in my niche, there is no competitor because I'm fully dedicated to rest... Fish restaurants and seafood. But Talabat having the biggest market share, also have some seafood restaurants on board.
05:54>> So I'm not cons... Assuming them, they are not a direct competitor. But you you may assume that, yeah, they are competitor.
Nathan Latka
06:03How did you convince the 25 restaurants to let you give them orders and give you a 15% commission?
Ahmed Shalaby
06:10>> Because my commission is less than half what Talabat take from them. They are asking for them for around 35% on order.
Nathan Latka
06:22What was the name of that company? Sorry.
Ahmed Shalaby
06:25>> Talabat. Talabat owned by Talabat. Owned, yes, owned by Delivery Hero, Germany. The mother company, Delivery Hero, if you heard about it.
Nathan Latka
06:35So Talabat is sort of like Uber Eats, essentially?
Ahmed Shalaby
06:39>> Yes. Yes. In Canada.
Nathan Latka
06:41Okay. Interesting.
Ahmed Shalaby
06:42>> We were... We had global ones in our market, but they are they quit Egypt because Talabat acquired all the market share entirely.
Nathan Latka
06:54When did you launch this business?
Launch Story and User Feedback
Ahmed Shalaby
06:58>> In January this year. Seven months ago. But I I have a a good feedback from users about about my service that it's better than Talabat itself in terms of customer service and in terms of delivery, in terms of
07:18>> good application simple to use.
07:22>> But still, the... Yeah. Customer acquisition is not that easy.
07:26>> No, it's very hard.
Nathan Latka
07:27You do have a beautiful app though. I'm looking at it right now. I can see your gray mullet for 80 Egyptian pounds, your carrouse for 120 Egyptian pounds, and you can add to favorite, add to cart, right?
Ahmed Shalaby
07:38>> Yes.
07:39>> Yeah. Very cool.
Nathan Latka
07:40Alright. Well, listen. This is a lot of fun. We... Now do you plan to keep bootstrapping or will you try and raise capital?
Budget and Fundraising Plans
Ahmed Shalaby
07:48>> The budget I have for my bootstrapping is almost over.
Nathan Latka
07:52How much did you budget?
Ahmed Shalaby
07:56>> $350,003 $50,100,000 Egyptian pounds.
Nathan Latka
08:02Okay. So 350,000 Egyptian pounds. Yeah. And where did you spend most of that on?
Ahmed Shalaby
08:09>> Mainly on the the application itself. The developer... The development company, I am hiring... I'm renting the application from them Mhmm. With mostly with mostly fees, $500.
Nathan Latka
08:22A month?
Ahmed Shalaby
08:24>> A month. Yes. Monthly... That is by seven months now. So the biggest bulk of money went to the mobile application developer.
Nathan Latka
08:33What is the... Who is the application developer? What's their website?
Ahmed Shalaby
08:37>> Icoders. Icoders.
Nathan Latka
08:40Okay.
08:41Interesting. Okay. Great. So so what happens after you go through the budget?
Ahmed Shalaby
08:48>> Yes. I've just run out of budget, so I am looking for a funding... Fundraise. And if you can see, Founder Institute... An alumni here from Founder Institute, and they are making funding lap. But they are seeing that I am still in the early stage, so they can't fund fund me at this stage.
Nathan Latka
09:10How much do you wanna raise?
Ahmed Shalaby
09:13>> For
09:15>> for marketing campaign only, I need just 500,000 Egyptian pound. Yeah.
Nathan Latka
09:24And guys, just so you know, you're doing the conversion, you know, he budgeted 350,000 Egyptian pounds, that's about 2,500 US dollars. So if he wants to raise 500,000 Egyptian pounds, that is affected about 4,000 US dollars is what you're trying to raise.
Ahmed Shalaby
09:38>> Yes.
Nathan Latka
09:39What percent of the company are you willing to sell if someone gave you 500,000 Egyptian pounds?
Ahmed Shalaby
09:47>> I didn't calculate numbers, but I might give two percent.
Nathan Latka
09:542%? That's not enough. I... That... I don't get... No one gets excited about owning 2%.
Ahmed Shalaby
10:00>> Also, the 500,000 Egyptian pounds is not that big number.
10:04>> Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. I agree.
Nathan Latka
10:05Well, hey, we're rooting for you, Ahmed. I hope this Only goes
Ahmed Shalaby
10:09>> one campaign can
10:12>> take... Eat that 500,000. Yep. Only one campaign.
Famous Five Rapid Fire
Nathan Latka
10:16Bet. Well, listen, we're all rooting for you and I appreciate you coming on. I think it's probably pretty late there. So thanks for making time for me. Let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite book?
Ahmed Shalaby
10:28>> My favorite book?
Nathan Latka
10:31Yep.
Ahmed Shalaby
10:32>> Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
Nathan Latka
10:35Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?
10:39The CEO?
Ahmed Shalaby
10:40>> Yep.
Nathan Latka
10:41In my my startup?
10:43Anyone who you're... A CEO that you're... That you like, that you're following or studying?
Ahmed Shalaby
10:49>> Elon Musk.
Nathan Latka
10:50Number three. What's your favorite online tool for building Ayooh? I
Ahmed Shalaby
10:58>> didn't start coding Ayooh, but I rented, as I told you.
Nathan Latka
11:03What's your favorite tool though? Just any tool you use to build the business.
Ahmed Shalaby
11:12>> Visual studio code maybe.
Nathan Latka
11:14Okay. Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?
Ahmed Shalaby
11:21>> How much hour of sleep?
Nathan Latka
11:23Yep.
Ahmed Shalaby
11:24>> Seven hours.
Nathan Latka
11:25And you said two kids or... And you're married, right?
Ahmed Shalaby
11:29>> Yep.
Nathan Latka
11:30How old are you, Ahmed?
Ahmed Shalaby
11:33>> 41.
11:34>> 41. Last question.
Nathan Latka
11:36What's something you wish you knew when you were 20?
Ahmed Shalaby
11:42>> I wish, I learned coding.
Nathan Latka
11:46Guys, there you have it. Daytime, he's a mechanical engineer on the side. He budgeted $2,500 to launch a side project, a marketplace, an app to order seafood in Egypt. Alexandria specifically, last month, 70 consumers placed at least one order. He made 15% commission average order size is $2.50 Egyptian pounds. So he did call it a couple $100 in US dollars revenue last month. He looks to scale 20 restaurants on the platform. He just launched it, looking
12:12at raising 500,000 Egyptian pounds for 2% or 3% of the business, about 4,005 thousand US dollars in the next couple of months. We'll see what happens. It's just him right now and it has been bootstrapped. Ahmed, thank you for taking us to the top.
Ahmed Shalaby
12:25>> Thank you.
Nathan Latka
12:27One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM Central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it deal or bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers, they try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it and the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday 1PM
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