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Because it's very hard to get small businesses, especially restaurants, to signup for unproven new services. This is why you had companies like Groupon spending

• potatolicious 12y ago
  That's an excuse, not a reason. "Because doing the right thing is too hard" is not a valid reason for doing the wrong thing. "Let me do the wrong thing, I promise (disclaimer: not a real promise) to do the right thing once I've gained sufficient profit" is even less of a reason.
  • gfodor 12y ago
    Bullshit. Many, many startups have a chicken and egg problem like this and artificially create demand or supply through 'questionable' tactics in order to prove the business model simultaneously to themselves and to their potential customers. This guy can now go into restaurants and tell them how much people are willing to pay for their reservations. Nobody else can do that, and that just might make the difference to getting those restaurants on board with his product. Once the engine is humming then of course not only will it be unnecessary to keep doing what he's doing but it won't scale anyway. There's often no other option and the ends in fact do justify the means if the net result is a more efficient market for both parties once it has been bootstrapped up "in the small." Of course, this requires you to not be an evil scumbag and be honest with yourself, but I see no reason to assume a path of execution is inherently evil, the intent and overall strategy greatly matters.
• lotharbot 12y ago
  according to another comment in this thread, there are startups in New York that are doing it the way I suggested (ie, partnering with restaurants at the beginning).