In 2013, when he was in his final year of computer science at Split’s FESB, Nebojša Veron came up with the idea of launching an online food ordering service you might know today as Dobar tek.
It all began when Veron’s friend linked him to the owner of the fast food restaurant “Ketchup”, who also wanted to implement an online ordering system. As he was already developing the software, mostly by the customer’s wishes, Veron thought about making it more than just another software according to the customer’s order. Instead, why not create an online food ordering service that would be used not only for this fast food location but other restaurants as well?
The idea turned into a student startup, and with time, the project further developed and grew. Today, the Dobar tek offer features a hundred restaurants and over 50,000 users in Split, Zagreb, Rijeka, Sibenik, Solin and Kaštela.
Slobodna Dalmacija spoke to the founders about the development of the startup on February 21, 2019. Along with Nebojša Veron, Ivan Aras joined the team in 2014 after returning from Zagreb, where he completed his studies in market communications.
When recalling the beginnings, Veron says that he and friend his friend Mislav Tomić came up with around ten names for the online service, and finally decided on Dobar tek. The website launched on August 22, 2013.
“The first version of the page was designed by my friend Marijan from Dubrovnik, and we waited for the first order for almost a month. We made 400 flyers; this was our first marketing push. We invited people to order food over the internet and gave them instructions on how to do it. The first order was made on September 16, 2013, by our friend Jure at the cafe ‘Domaćin’ near FESB, where the students, who were our target audience, gathered together, which was the easiest thing for us as students. Jure drank coffee and ordered the delivery of two chicken sandwiches through our site. That’s how it started,” says Veron.
The founders said that as they were the middle man between the client and the restaurant, the primary challenge was to redirect orders mostly done through the phone to the Internet.
Since they were involved in programming and designing software solutions, they soon realized that they had to learn how to be successful in sales and marketing, how to manage money, manage the company, hire and develop the business.
To start attracting users, they put an ad on TVs in student cafeterias, designed for advertising content, for which the software was otherwise doing, and created a Facebook page. At the same time, their challenge was to include restaurants because, at that time, many restaurants did not entirely accept new technologies.
“However, we managed to include several more facilities and by the end of 2013, in 107 days, made 19 orders, one every six days. In the beginning, we provided the service free of charge to the restaurant, and later we decided on a commission system for orders. Given such a small number of orders and a lot of challenges, they asked us what motivated us to continue, and we replied that we wanted to do something according to our ideas, not by someone’s order, but as developers and designers. We wanted to change the online ordering market and improve it. We tried to adapt the application constantly to the needs of users,” said Veron, and Aras added that they are grateful for every comment they receive from the users.
They pursued their goal of creating a quality product and a great user experience.
It is interesting that after their studies, the founders were employed by other companies, and their spare time was dedicated to Dobar tek, when they looked for clients and developed the software to improve the online delivery service. The project started with four, and today, they are still a small team. If necessary, external associates are also engaged.
“To make Dobartek.hr the best it can be, we work within the departments of product development, sales, communications and business development. In short, we are focused on product development, expansion towards restaurants and new customers. We constantly think what else we can provide new users,” Aras says.
Even more interesting is that the entire project was created without outside investment.
“Dobartek is one hundred percent financed by the founder’s investments. We are extremely pleased that the project is growing, it is already self-sustainable, and all costs are covered. With the founder’s investments and the dedicated work of our team, we want to accelerate growth further and expand the circle of customers and users of the service. We see that we can do something great,” Aras explains, pointing out that he was motivated by building a quality product that survives.
When asked what lessons they learned through their business venture, they answered that they learned a lot from sales skills to managing a company.
However, it is crucial that nothing can be done without business investment, and that the competition is not a similar service, but the trusty telephone as most users still order by phone. Therefore, their goal is to move people from ordering by phone to the application.
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