People like Mikul Shah, Founder and Managing director at EatOut, are the pioneers of businesses going digital in Kenya. When he recently joined us as a guest at Un.thinkable roast, our monthly 10X Growth leaders meet-up, he shared his journey with taking restaurants digital, going back twelve years. When they started out in the tech space back then, they were lucky to be the front runners. Anything you did online then earned you very high ratings. They specifically targeted restaurants and offered them an online presence at a fee of 500 to 1000 dollars a year. The model has however changed over time due to the rise of social media.

Social media came and made everything a little bit easier for the restaurants. They could now easily have an online presence for as low as 5 dollars. The restaurants were no longer keen to pay for his services. EatOut then had to change their business model from charging a listing fee to transactional fees. They then moved into the corporate space, repackaging themselves as an advertising platform given the online community they controlled. While the transactional fees model hasn’t picked up yet, Corporate partnerships with the likes of Visa and Safaricom have brought in the bulk of their revenue in recent times. Mikul and his team went even further, venturing into the events industry with companies such as EABL, Tusker and Coca cola as partners. This business line was rapidly growing before COVID-19 pandemic came and nearly killed the events industry.

The strategic thinking and resilience of Mikul and his team has seen them stay in business through various cycles of change, both internal and external. Mikul is a great case study of constantly re-inventing yourself to keep up with changing business landscape and adapt to business challenges.

His business does not take a hit, it takes a turn.

Mikul Shah was a guest at Un.thinkable roast (our monthly 10X Growth Leaders Meet-up) in June 2020. Click here to apply for membership in Un.thinkable.