What is EatDrinX?
EatDrinX, co-founded by Matt Guignard and Pramod Mendonca, is a mobile application that provides specials, features, menus and events based on the users geolocation for local restaurants and bars. Restaurants can showcase their food and drink offerings to customers and consumers benefit because they can easily find the best deals for food and drink on any given day.
How did you start up your business?
EatDrinX was a wonderful culmination of people and experience. Understanding the food and beverage industry provided insight into building a digital marketing solution to showcase establishments that offer food and/or drinks.
EatDrinX was originally Matt’s idea but he required a developer to turn his idea into a reality. Matt ended up meeting Pramod at one of EPICentre’s Startup Mashups and the rest was history. They continued to discuss the idea and, in January 2016, went full steam ahead with development. They just recently launched their minimum viable product in March. They received positive responses from local businesses and general consumers, which fuelled their fire even more, and also received funding in March through discussions with an investor.
How did you get involved with EPICentre?
EatDrinX originally ended up at the Downtown Windsor Business Accelerator. After teaming up with Pramod, a University of Windsor alum, they decided to apply for space at EPICentre because of the resources available and the pool of student talent available to them. They joined EPICentre at the beginning of May 2016.
What does the future hold for EatDrinX?
The future is bright for EatDrinX. The restaurant industry is a huge, untapped market and they are already thinking about expanding to other cities within Ontario and across the border into the US. Because of the simplicity of the product, their branding and easy access, they believe that their product is the future of the restaurant industry.
As they move forward, EatDrinX hopes to add plenty of new features based on customer response to further enhance the application.
What advice would you like to share with local tech entrepreneurs?
Matt and Pramad believe that hard work and passion are two key components in running a successful startup. When you start a company, you can forget the 40-hour work week but as long as you’re following your passions, it’s completely worth it in the end.
They believe that young entrepreneurs should continue to pursue their dreams and learn from their failures along the way as that is one major key to future success. Networking with other entrepreneurs and talent is also a must and they offer these words of wisdom to future entrepreneurs: “Don’t give up no matter how challenging the task might seem.”
For more information about EatDrinX, visit their website or follow them on Facebook and/or Twitter:
Website: http://eatdrinx.com/
Twitter: @EatDrinX
Facebook: http://facebook.com/eatdrinx
