From the lec­ture hall to entre­pre­neur­ship: stu­dents devel­op going-out app

The two stu­dents Mar­wand Ayu­bi and Baran Yarali are study­ing busi­ness infor­mat­ics in their 3rd semes­ter at HHN. They got the idea for their start-up through their exam project: An app that com­mu­ni­cates between guests and ser­vice staff in the restau­rant and club scene to con­ve­nient­ly process orders, reser­va­tions and payments.

Semes­ter three in the Busi­ness Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems course: The lec­ture “Soft­ware Tech­nol­o­gy and Mobile Sys­tems” is on the syl­labus and the stu­dents have to design a mobile app for their final exam. Mar­wand Ayu­bi and Baran Yarali are there­fore work­ing on a gas­tron­o­my app that will han­dle order­ing process­es between guests and restau­rants. Whether it’s a sal­ad, a piz­za or a steak — guests should be able to select their food and drinks con­ve­nient­ly from their seats in the restau­rant via the app — with­out hav­ing to wait for ser­vice staff. This will be made pos­si­ble by a QR code on the tables in the restau­rant. The desired pay­ment method is also to be freely selec­table. “That was our basic con­cept for our final exam at Heil­bronn Uni­ver­si­ty,” says Mar­wand Ayu­bi. “And while we were work­ing on this basic idea, we thought, let’s think this top­ic further.”

As the two con­tin­ue to brain­storm to that end, they lay the foun­da­tion for their com­pa­ny. “We just kept spin­ning the theme. We start­ed by expand­ing our basic idea to include more loca­tions. Night­clubs and bars are now includ­ed as well,” says fel­low stu­dent Baran Yarali.

The two stu­dents would also like their app to have oth­er func­tions: Users should also be able to decide which restau­rant is best suit­ed to their spe­cif­ic needs. “That saves hav­ing to use search engines, for exam­ple,” explains Baran Yarali. Mak­ing reser­va­tions inde­pen­dent­ly is also very impor­tant to the two men as an option. Their vision is crys­tal clear: “We want to be an ‘all-in-one solu­tion’,” Yarali continues.

So the goal is an app that can sim­ply orga­nize every­thing to do with going out — even before the vis­it: reser­va­tions, order accep­tance and selec­table pay­ment meth­ods.
“After arriv­ing at the restau­rant, guests just scan their QR code at the table, and that’s it,” says Mar­wand Ayu­bi. “The restau­rant man­age­ment now knows that the guests are there, the food arrives at the table a short time lat­er, and after their stay, vis­i­tors* can sim­ply leave the restau­rant or bar again.”

Lec­ture shapes founders of tomorrow

The fur­ther devel­op­ment of the app idea pro­vides the final input that moti­vates the two to found their own com­pa­ny. It had been clear to both of them for some time that they would like to set up a com­pa­ny togeth­er one day. Their visions and goals have now become real­i­ty — both have recent­ly become the man­ag­ing direc­tors of their own start-up com­pa­ny. The uni­ver­si­ty also pro­vid­ed sup­port: “Our pro­fes­sor in the course, Ms. Mah­sa Fis­ch­er, sup­port­ed us in our plans and pro­vid­ed us with impor­tant con­tacts. We are real­ly very grate­ful to her for that,” says Mar­wand Ayubi.

Guest and restau­rant talk via the end devices used in each case — The restau­rant man­age­ment receives the order and impor­tant infor­ma­tion, for exam­ple about the omis­sion of cer­tain ingre­di­ents in the meal, direct­ly on the devices already in use in the ser­vice. “We also plan to offer pre-installed ter­mi­nals. But the app will be instal­lable every­where. So it’s not nec­es­sary to pur­chase a new device from us to offer this ser­vice to guests.” 

The name of the new Heil­bronn-based start-up has to remain a secret due to ongo­ing audits, but the young men are already reveal­ing one thing: It could be pos­si­ble to down­load their free app in mid-2023. 

(Source: From the press release of Heil­bronn Uni­ver­si­ty, July 04, 2022)

Mar­wand Ayu­bi and Baran Yarali (l.t.r.)