[flibble]

Co-founder of https://flipdish.com here (Unicorn whitelabel online ordering provider). We felt very similar to the author in 2015 — utterly frustrated needing to enter email address, be asked for a DOB!!, create a password etc before being allowed place an order. We set out to design an app that required a minimum number of taps from opening app to placing an order. By using geo-location, using a phone number for authentication instead of email (delivery drivers are going to want a phone number), having sensible defaults (like presuming you want to order for ASAP unless you say otherwise), we build an app where people can open it for the first time, register, order and pay in under 20s.

We initially automatically logged people in silently on Android by detecting their phone number, sending a verification SMS and intercepting it in the app. This was viewed as more spooky than good UX, so we had to reverse course a little and add another manual step in that case. But other little UX niceties remained, like extrapolating the customer’s name from the name of their iPhone (chances are you phone us called “[first name]’s iPhone”) to save them typing it in.

I think it would be quite difficult to manage a production system that lets people pay with cash but not log in, as it would be so easy for a single script kiddy to take all your restaurants offline by placing fake orders over and over.

You would be amazed (or maybe you wouldn’t) at how little business owners think about UX. We get so many requests to require a DOB before being allowed placing an order so they can send birthday messages to customers.

A nice summary of the state of affairs by UK comedian Michael McIntyre https://youtu.be/O5FeZti1cjs

[phoboslab]

Co-founder of https://topchef.de here (bootstrapped whitelabel online ordering provider, focusing on the German market). We felt the same. It's truly amazing how bad the UX of many competitor apps is and how little business owners think about it.

Sometimes it's an uphill battle to even explain to business owners why being on takeaway.com is stupidly expensive - after all, at the end of the month they _receive_ money from them, instead of paying a monthly subscription fee.

Congratz to your unicorn status :)