Mani Prakash, CEO, RadYes
Middle East social commerce platform RadYes wants to equip restaurants with tools to sell their dishes through the restaurants' social media accounts, website and even WhatsApp.
With the global coronavirus pandemic compelling people to stay in their homes, this has led to an amplification of the melancholia around restaurant-made dishes, especially on social media platforms like Instagram. This, in turn, has resulted in social media playing a significant role in guiding consumer purchases- according to Instagram’s research in 2019, 130 million accounts tap on shopping posts to learn more about products every month. As such, it’s only apt that brands jump to social media to become an inherent part of consumers’ daily screen time, while also making the purchase journey as seamless and efficient as possible.
And this is where RadYes comes in- launched in January 2020, this Middle East social commerce platform wants to equip restaurants with tools to sell their dishes through their website and social media, including WhatsApp. Designed as a simple solution for restaurants to grow in the competitive market space without onerous commissions, RadYes is a fully integrated tool with multiple third-party partnerships for delivery, SMS, and payment gateways.
Leading the enterprise is CEO Mani Prakash, who started his career as a software engineer, which he deems it quite useful now considering his realm of work. “It taught me a lot about thinking on a granular level about products, the way they are built and how an end user experiences them,” he notes. He transitioned to investment banking in the UK, followed by stints in Zomato and Americana, where he led key launches like online ordering and digital transformation. Prakash has seen the impact of the foodtech industry and how it's transforming consumption, and it’s quite easy to see how this mindset aligns perfectly with RadYes’ vision.
Source: RadYes
“RadYes, as a concept, was built from having intimate knowledge of how the foodtech industry has changed and helped restaurants, but also seeing just how much of a gap existed in the way restaurants were marketing themselves and sold their products,” says Prakash. “There is a real need for brands to start adapting to the way customers are engaging and transacting with the brands they use.” RadYes was the result of a market gap and market maturity level, Prakash notes.
Having seen the sides of both brands and aggregators, the RadYes team can attest on how convenience was a much-needed factor in the consumer’s purchase journey. “Brands were pushing for more initiatives to stay connected with their customer base. However, they need the best-in-class tools, ‘aggregator-style’ thinking, agile platforms, and techniques to do so. Market maturity is a natural evolution of the online commerce. Social and more importantly, conversational commerce is the next thing (in fact, it is the mainstream in the Eastern half of the world already). And the brands need sophisticated and relevant tools for this type of commerce.”
According to Prakash, empowering merchants to take ownership of their brand is the main driver behind all new initiatives at RadYes. Choosing UAE as a starting entry point was a natural decision- besides being a venter of innovation in the MENA region, Prakash says that the country offered a matured market fit as well. “Business potential or product market fit was seen very early,” he says. “And with increasing market maturity, we are seeing exponential growth in signups and adoption.”
Dashboard platform
Source: RadYes
Indeed, with the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, restaurants faced government mandates to close or lessen dine-in options (with some even temporarily closing or shutting down as a result), and as such, RadYes presented F&B brands with an alternative revenue stream. The startup is, according to Prakash, currently in its hyper growth stage, given its timing in the market and the significant traction it has attained for itself.
“COVID-19 actually helped us test the traction of our brand and product very quickly. Due to the shift in the operating model from dine-in to delivery, we had to scale and learn at the speed of light.” In under a year, the team built a “360-degree ecosystem,” consisting of a seamless platform, backed by over 100 partners across payment gateways, SMS gateways, logistics and last-mile providers, point-of-sale systems, and several others.
The COVID-19 pandemic also defined a large part of the company’s strategic approach. “It helped mature the market to a point where we’re not educating customers on the importance of social commerce anymore; we’re educating them on how to do it well, and at a profit,” says Prakash. “It’s often said that problems are opportunities, and that’s the mindset here at RadYes. We had to learn to scale up very rapidly, which was a huge learning.” Currently, the brand is serving over 3,000 businesses across the F&B, retail, e-commerce, beauty, and pharmaceuticals sectors.
