As Delhi gears up for New Year festivities, Baromeeter helps party-goers find the right deal
Online deal discovery platform Baromeeter has partnered with more than 200 restaurants and cafes across Delhi-NCR, and provides exclusive offers.
At a glance
Startup: Baromeeter
Founders: Rishabh Vyas
Year it was founded: 2016
Where is it based: Delhi
The problem it solves: The platform offers exclusive deals/offers for popular restaurants, bars and more in Delhi-NCR.
Sector: Deals discovery
Funding raised: Bootstrapped
“We all have that one friend who has the responsibility of finding the best place to meet up and have fun. Unfortunately, I was that friend, and getting the best deal that suited everyone always used to be a task. That’s when the idea of Baromeeter struck me,” says Rishabh Vyas, the 26-year-old Founder & CEO of Baromeeter.
The platform, launched in 2016, claims to be a 360-degree solution, helping users discover great places to eat at and socialise in popular restaurants, bars and more in Delhi-NCR.
Baromeeter offers restaurant deals/offers, restaurant reservations, party/group bookings via BOM Deals and BOM Deals Aggregator and socialising at restaurants/cafes through BOM Social.
An MBA in marketing and finance from Institute of Management Technology, Hyderabad, and BBA from Amity School of Business, Rishabh had hands-on experience in the restaurant and F&B industry for a few years before he took the plunge into entrepreneurship with Baromeeter.
But like every entrepreneur, Rishabh too faced challenges while starting out.
“Initially I was fooled by app developer companies as I was a ‘non-techie’. Though this was the biggest mistake I made that cost me money as well as time, it never stopped me. But then I got my CTO on board; he has strengthened the product to the next level,” Rishabh says.
Currently, Baromeeter has operations in Delhi-NCR with 50,000 monthly website visitors and 200-plus partner restaurants and cafes in Delhi-NCR with brands like Imperfecto, Junkyard Café, Garam Dharam, Out of the Box, Boombox, Jungle Jamboree and many more.
Rishabh highlights that Baromeeter also receives over 1,000 deal bookings and 200-plus party bookings monthly.
How does Baromeeter work?
Baromeeter is an all-in-one platform and has the following three features - BOM Deals, BOM Social and BOM Deals Aggregator (BDA) that seamlessly function together to create a niche in the market.
BOM Deals offer real-time and the best discount deals at cafes across town. The deals are created and posted by the cafes themselves (via dashboard services) and curated by the Baromeeter team, giving users relevant information required for booking the best deals with ease.
“Getting 100-plus party bookings on call, we have created our own market. With BDA, Baromeeter dares to take party bookings to all new heights,” Rishabh says.
BOM Deals lets users explore the best deals and offers at top restaurants and cafes in town. The feature also allows booking deals online at a favourite restaurant and lets users reserve seats beforehand. It also offers pay later option at the café after redeeming a deal.
“Users are also able to view happening nights going at all our partner tie-ups and book seats for the same along with any deal that’s on,” Rishabh says.
The BOM Social feature lets the user chat and connect with everyone at the venue.
Rishabh highlights that adding the socialising aspect to the platform came in later when he saw many of his single friends open Tinder at restaurants to find matches.
“We intended to take the virtual Yahoo chat room to another level by giving it the much-deserved reality check,” he adds.
With BOM Social one can discover people sitting at the same venue, find friends chilling at the same place and meet them. The feature also lets users measure the crowd at a particular place before going there.
Starting from the list of choices in the desired location and negotiating with managers for the best quote to going to the venue in person to give the advance, BOM Deals Aggregator claims to be the solution.
Understanding the unit economics
Rishabh highlights the Baromeeter has multi-fold revenue model, which includes:
- Monthly subscription from partner restaurants for priority listing and marketing preferences
- Charging Commission from partner restaurants for booking parties (group parties like 1-20 people)
- Marketing and posting of cafe events
- Convenience fee for booking deals on the portal (minimal fee charged that is determined by popularity of the deal)
However, listing deals on the platform is free.
Creating a niche
The restaurant and table booking space has seen booming activity over the last couple of years.
Zomato became another player in the segment with the acquisition of the US-based NexTable, a restaurant reservation and table-management platform. The new service is called Zomato Book. Vir Sanghvi-curated EazyDiner, a review and table reservation platform, raised $3 million Series A recently co-led by existing investor DSG Consumer Partners and new investor Saama Capital. TripAdvisor has ventured into the space by acquiring Dutch-based IENS.
The online deals space for restaurants is now crowded with popular brands like Dineout, Littleapp, couponzguru, Groupon and eazydiner, among others.
Paytm recently acquired Little Internet, which runs the deal discovery app Little to expand its online-to-offline (O2O) reach.
Rishabh highlights that Baromeeter’s focus is currently not on competition but on building several unique strategies that will help the platform create a niche in the crowded restaurant deals space.
Tracing the future roadmap
Backed by a team of 10-plus people, the Delhi-based startup has raised funds from friends, family and is looking for angel investment to venture into other cities and scale operations.
Going ahead, the platform is planning to expand geographically into other cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, etc. The platform is soon launching an app aimed at entering the socialising space and will compete with major players like Tinder, Trulymadly, etc.