How A Y Combinator Food Delivery App Used Tiktok To Soar In The App Store

The net inclination is simple: A friend aliases family personnel looks into nan camera and tells viewers, successful a somewhat fierce tone, that they are astir to witnesser a position and that they had amended beryllium nice. 

That’s what Kendall, nan sister of Lucious McDaniel IV, did, and aft she stepped aside, her relative sounded his company, BiteSight, a nutrient transportation app that lets users watch videos of nutrient earlier ordering. It besides lets customers spot what their friends person ordered and bookmark places to effort out. The app plays connected really young group prosecute pinch contented — done short-form videos and recommendations from friends. 

McDaniel posted nan video and went backmost to work. Fifteen minutes later, his sister texted him that their station was going viral. “We were astatine 20,000 views successful 15 minutes,” McDaniel told TechCrunch. Excitement came, but past chaos ensued arsenic “parts of our app started to break arsenic we sewage much users.” 

The engineering squad worked astir nan timepiece to support BiteSight functional, while McDaniel took to making TikToks astir nan chaos, which ended up going viral, too. He said group loved nan “authenticity” down seeing what happens erstwhile “your app explodes overnight.” 

The video of McDaniel presenting this thought has since amassed almost 4 cardinal likes connected TikTok and a 4th of a cardinal connected Instagram, joining a inclination of young entrepreneurs utilizing TikTok and Instagram Reels to summation traction and woody flow. 

McDaniel told TechCrunch that nan thought to make this video came aft watching a friend partake successful nan aforesaid net inclination for his making love app. “It sewage complete a cardinal views, and he suggested I effort it for BiteSight.”

McDaniel, who is 24, said he, for illustration galore young people, realized he was eating excessively overmuch takeout, ordering from nan aforesaid 3 places because he couldn’t observe caller restaurants connected transportation apps. “I’d deed this wall of identical-looking restaurants pinch banal photos, and someway each spot had 4.6 stars.” 

He started keeping a spreadsheet of restaurants he’d recovered connected Instagram and TikTok, search existent reviews, and seeing what his friends thought astir said places. “When I realized different group were doing nan nonstop aforesaid thing, my co-founder Zac and I decided to build thing better: an app that really reflects really we observe nutrient today,” he said, referring to Zac Schulwolf, nan company’s CTO. 

McDaniel is nary alien to nan tech industry. He antecedently worked astatine General Atlantic, wherever 1 of his main attraction areas was edifice technology. He antecedently founded a payments institution called Phly, led merchandise for a recruitment software, and has moreover angel invested successful a fewer companies, including nan fintech Mercury. 

McDaniel and Schulwolf, 25, spent complete a twelvemonth building BiteSight, including information successful nan Winter 2024 cohort of YCombinator. They past did a constricted beta astir New York University successful April. In mid-May, nan institution launched an early type and did a spot of societal media marketing. In June, they made their viral video.

“What made our video guidelines retired was that what we are building resonates,” said McDaniel, who is BiteSight’s CEO (also known arsenic main eating officer). He added that “it’s clear that consumers, and particularly Gen-Z, are fresh for thing that feels caller and built for nan measurement they engage.” 

After nan video, BiteSight concisely became #2 successful nan App Store’s Food and Beverage category, bypassing Uber Eats, Starbucks, and moreover McDonald’s.

McDaniel said nan app besides gained much than 100,000 caller users and, though nan app is only disposable successful New York astatine nan moment, group successful different cities started messaging for a nationwide release. On nan edifice side, McDaniel said everyone from mini family-owned spots to concatenation restaurants has reached retired to partner and, of course, “we’ve had a surge of investor liking from folks who spot that this is wherever nutrient transportation is going.” 

He declined to remark connected nan size of immoderate upcoming backing deals, isolated from to opportunity he expects to person news to stock soon.

Of course, BiteSight has a batch of big, well-funded title for illustration DoorDash and UberEats. McDaniel believes, however, that being a startup successful nan property of AI will beryllium his advantage. For example, while astir of its competitors needed hundreds of engineers successful their early days, BiteSight tin activity pinch AI devices that execute 10x nan activity of a quality for overmuch little of nan cost.

“By utilizing AI to debar monolithic overhead and infrastructure costs, we tin do overmuch much pinch overmuch little and walk connected nan savings to nan mini business owners and customers who request it astir while still maintaining patient margins,” he said.