Austin Start Up WaitHappy at SouthWest Food Service Expo

Over the years Monkee-Boy has helped dozens of start ups — big and small — transform their ideas into reality. It’s usually fun, there’s almost always great energy and, at the end of the day, we feel like we’ve had a small part to play in that company’s success. This one, however, was different.

Seemed Like a Good Idea at The Time

A couple of years ago, we were sitting around at lunch after launching a particularly challenging project. We were discussing what could have gone more smoothly and what could have gone horribly wrong, but didn’t. In this moment when we were equal parts charged up and exhausted, someone came up with the “brilliant” idea (btw those are sarcastic quotes around the word brilliant). The idea that we could build and market a viable software product as an in-house project. The idea that this product would be fun and inject a sense of community in our little agency. The idea that we could build it in our spare time.

Well, we were pretty much right on until the last sentence about our spare time. We ended up creating an entirely new company with dedicated designers, developers and marketers to bring it in for a landing.

So, after several starts and stops, thousands of lines of code, one platform change, numerous ridiculously large PSD files, and lots of coffee — we’re proud to announce WaitHappy’s official debut at the 2013 Southwest Food Service Expo.

What is WaitHappy?

WaitHappy is a web-based app with an optional mobile app that helps full-service restaurants make their customers happy! This solution provides an easy way for restaurants to dazzle their customers from the minute they think about dining out until they pay the check and leave. Here’s a brief description of the components:

• WaitHappy Time Traveler is a mobile app that allows guests to search for restaurants, remotely view wait times, add themselves to lists, see where they are in line, receive paging notifications to their phones, and leave real-time feedback about their experience.
• The mobile app works with the WaitHappy Mission Control portal — cloud-based software that helps restaurants attract new customers, manage their wait lists, tables, comment cards, and track customer experience.

We are in the final stages of testing and tuning our pet project for its official release later this month. Of course there are always a few things that have to wait until the next release, and a couple of features that we are already coming up with new ways to improve. At the end of the day, we’re pretty proud of how everything has turned out and can’t wait to introduce the world to our “brilliant” idea (that time the quotes were not sarcastic).

The expo will take place June 23-24 in Dallas, Texas. We’ll be at booth #2736 – we’d love to see you there!

Have more questions about WaitHappy? Visit the support page to get in touch here ».