ProductStripesBarsumo (formerly Orderflow) · Co-Founder, Business & Product Development · 2017 – 2018
Taking a B2B SaaS platform from zero to real restaurant-group traction
Co-founded and built the product for a B2B SaaS platform automating supplier ordering for bars and restaurants, going from nothing to three major restaurant groups as customers.
50+ customers in under 18 months, $2.5M+ in supplier order GMV processed
The problem
Bars and restaurants were managing supplier ordering the way most of the industry still does — phone calls, paper, and spreadsheets, with no easy way to reconcile invoices or track spend against stock. As a two-person founding team with no brand recognition, the challenge wasn't just building the product — it was proving the value to skeptical, busy operators fast enough to get real usage before running out of runway.
The approach
- Ran continuous customer interviews with bar and restaurant operators from day one, using their actual ordering pain points — not assumptions — to prioritize what got built first.
- Built the initial feature set around what drove retention, not what looked impressive in a demo: order-again, invoice reconciliation, AP tracking, and stocktake on iOS/Android.
- Sold and onboarded customers personally in the earliest stages, using that direct contact to keep shortening the feedback loop between what operators asked for and what shipped next.
- Prioritized landing a small number of major restaurant groups over volume of small accounts, since group-level adoption gave more usage data and more credibility per sales conversation.
The outcome
- 50+ customers onboarded in under 18 months, including three major restaurant groups: Black Sheep Restaurants, Dining Concepts, and Jia Group.
- $2.5M+ in supplier order GMV processed through the platform within two years of launch.
- Retention-driving features (order-again, reconciliation, stocktake) identified directly from customer interviews, not guessed at in advance.