Mat Weir: First Table founder and CEO on the growing demand for the app's half-price fares

Despite feeling the brunt of the current economic climate, figures suggest the hospitality industry is seeing some growth. 

The Restaurant Association suggests that the industry saw $15 billion in annual sales, a growth of 5.8%. 

More Kiwis seem to be eating out, and one way they’re doing so is with First Table, a scheme that gives consumers half price fares when dining at off-peak times. 

Founder and CEO Mat Weir told Mike Hosking that over half a million people have signed up on the website or app over the last decade. 

He said that some restaurants are doing well and others are struggling, and they’re focused on helping restaurants solve a small part of their problems. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Back to the hospital industry where we discovered that despite
and we spent a bit of time on this yesterday,
we discovered that despite the narrative that things are dreadful,
are the numbers actually tell a different story. We are
seeing the industry breaking over fifteen billion dollars, which is
growth of five point eight percent. That's nationally places like
Queenstown and Hire and from feedback, First Table seems to
be as popular as ever. First Table is a local
invention basically half price or special deals when dining it

(00:22):
off pick times. Anyway, the founder and CEO, Matt Wei,
is with us on this Matt Morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Good morning Mike, thanks for having me on the show
this morning.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Not at all ten years and booming is that a
fair description?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, ten years. It's been a long journey, but yeah,
things are tracking well.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Over a million accounts.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
What does them mean?

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Half a million accounts? It's half a million New Zealanders
who have an account open and use it.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
That's right. That's over half a million people who have
signed up on the website or the app over the
last ten years.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
And are they one offs or regulars or what?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
A lot of them are one offs? But then there
are certainly people that are using the platform on a
regular basis. There are customers that are monthly using First Table.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
What's your read on the I mean, the reason I'm
interested is because we have this picture at the moment
where everything is absolutely miserable, and yet when you actually
look at the stats, the money's up, the number of
people are up, the number of outlets is up. What's
going on?

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, I think that's I think some restaurants are experiencing
chat challenges right and some are doing well. So it's
not just a plain story of everyone's having a hard
time at the moment. So it's something that we're very
much aware of and we're very very much focused on
helping restaurants solve a small part of their problems.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
And so are people. Is there still an awareness thing
around this or is everybody know? And if you know,
you use it?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
So First Table. I mean, as we said, there's five
hundred thousand people who have created an account, but we're
doing it. We're doing a lot in sales and marketing
at the moment, so we're bringing on a lot more
restaurants and a lot more diners. And also the word
of mouth element is one of our strongest referral channels.
So people are definitely talking about First Table at the moment.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Good stuff. Nice to talk to you, Matt, Appreciate it
and go well with it. Matt Wia whose First Table
founder and CEO. And I'm just looking through the various
places in christ Your Strawberry Fair in christ which you
can't beat that. If you can get that for high price,
you're laughing. The Bunker's fantastic, Queenstown half price, it's not bad.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Going for more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live
to news Talks.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
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