EZTABLE

EZTABLE
易訂網
Industry Internet
Founded April 2008 (2008-04)
Founder Alex Chen, Brooky Yen, Jerry Yen, Peter Hsieh
Headquarters Taipei, Taiwan
Area served
 Taiwan, Mainland China, Thailand, Hong Kong, Indonesia
Products Online restaurant reservations, CRM, E-commerce
Slogan "Hack, everything"
Website www.eztable.com

EZTABLE (Chinese: 易訂網; pinyin: Yìdìngwǎng) is a Taiwan based company that offers online real-time restaurant-reservation service, founded by 323 Technology Inc. in Taipei, Taiwan, in Apr. 2008.[1] Similar to OpenTable (an American public company) in the U.S.[2] and Toptable in UK, EZTABLE runs a cloud computing based service, allowing users to search and reserve online. Reservations are free to users; the company charges restaurants a monthly service fee for their use of the system.[3][4]

The company has since expanded to cover more than 2,600 restaurants and five-star hotels in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand and Indonesia, with more than 1,200,000 members and more than 300,000 monthly active users.[5][6] There are over 6.5 million diners booked restaurants via its services.[6]

Reservations can be made online through personal computer, tablet computer and smartphone.[7][8] The company currently has agreements with 70% of Taiwan's five-star hotels.

History

EZTABLE was co-founded by Alex Chen, Brooky Yen, Jerry Yen, and Peter Hsieh in April 2008. OpenTable, the online restaurant-reservation company in the U.S., inspired the four. They found that consumers still used the telephone to make bookings in Asia, and decided to start their own online restaurant-reservation business in Taiwan.[9]

In Aug. 2008, the website began operations serving a limited selection of restaurants. EZTABLE focused on O2O (Online-to-Offline) strategies,[10] aiming to attract users online and direct them to physical stores in the offline realm. AppWorks[11] - a famous accelerator in Asia and Rose Park Advisors - an investment firm founded by Clayton M. Christensen (a professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School), and his son Matthew Christensen, invested $1,500,000 US dollars in 2012.[4][12]

In 2012, EZTABLE expanded its online services to e-commerce, by selling e-vouchers on website. The company also has a mobile application available in Apple's App Store, Google Play, and Windows Phone Marketplace that allows users to find and book dinner reservations.

As of January 15, 2015, the company disclosed that it has raised a US$5 million funding round led by MediaTek, with participation from UMC, food conglomerate I-Mei, AppWorks and Rose Park Advisors.[13][14]

Year Event
2008 *323 Technology Inc. was founded
*EZTABLE was launched
*First five-star hotel partner: Sheraton Taipei Hotel [15]
2009 *Entered Innovation Incubator Center, JinWen University of Science & Technology
*Received Service Innovation Project subsidy from Ministry of Economic Affairs, R.O.C.
*Website reached more than 50,000 members and was introduced in CommonWealth magazine.[3]
2010 *Joined appWorks Ventures and got investment
*Provided online cake ordering service with Sheraton Taipei Hotel[16]
2011 *Got NeoStar - Internet Entrepreneur Awards from Business Next magazine
*Got IDEAS Show - Internet IDES of Far Easton Telecommunication Co., Ltd. Awards from Institute for Information Industry
*Entered China Market
*Launched the first iPhone application with Subcontractor
2012 *Owns over 70% market share of five-star hotels
*Generating more than 1,000,000 reservation counts per year
*Started e-commerce: Share Shopping – selling e-vouchers[12]
*Rose Park Advisors invested EZTABLE $1,500,000 US dollars[12]
*Sina Weibo invited EZTABLE to be their partner in Taiwan market
*CEO, Alex Chen was invited to be one of HPAIR ASIA 2012 CONFERENCE SPEAKERS
2014 * Provided giftcard & point exchange services with CTBC bank, ESUN bank and HUA NAI bank.[17][18][19]
* Winner of Tech in Asia’s Startup Arena at StartupAsia Tokyo 2014[20]
2015 * Raised a US$5 million funding round led by MediaTek, UMC, I-Mei, AppWorks and Rose Park Advisors.[13][14]
* Oversea expansion to Thailand,[21] Hong Kong and Indonesia.
* Website and App seated over 6.5 million diners[6]

Services

For users, the service allows users to search for restaurants based on times, dates, locations and cuisine. Users can book restaurants online and purchase e-vouchers through the website. For restaurants, the service provides restaurant owners with e-commerce services, including reservation management, table management, marketing analysis, and e-vouchers.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "2011 破殼而出 三二三網路科技" (PDF). 創業創新育成雙月刊 (in Chinese) (經濟部中小企業). 2011. Retrieved 2012-12-05.
  2. ↑ "Alex Chen, EZTABLE: Where good food meets hi-tech". in2up. May 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-05.
  3. 1 2 "易訂網訂位也是門好生意". Common Wealth Magazine (in Chinese). Feb 2009. Retrieved 2012-12-05.
  4. 1 2 "Taiwan’s EZTABLE Raises $1.5 Million in Series A Round, Heads to Mainland China". Tech Asia. Feb 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-05.
  5. ↑ "一個餐廳訂位網 如何讓聯發科看上". 朱致宜 (in Chinese) (商業週刊). 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-20.
  6. 1 2 3 "EZTABLE Official Website". 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-20.
  7. ↑ "易訂網EZTABLE──訂到賺錢好位置". Digital Age Magazine (in Chinese). Oct 2011. Retrieved 2012-12-05.
  8. ↑ "Feature Friday: An Interview with Taiwan’s Rockstar Start-up EZTABLE". techorange. May 2011. Retrieved 2012-12-05.
  9. ↑ "我不要百萬年薪，我要宅經濟！". Cheers Magazine (in Chinese). 2009. Retrieved 2012-12-05.
  10. ↑ "訂位小動作，闖出2000萬營收". 30 Magazine (in Chinese). Feb 2011. Retrieved 2012-12-05.
  11. ↑ "Taipei-Based Accelerator AppWorks Launches $50M Startup Fund". Catherine Shu (Techcrunch). 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-20.
  12. 1 2 3 致昕, 劉 (6 Feb 2012). "破壞式創新大師來台投資小網站". Business Weekly (in Chinese). Retrieved 2012-12-05.
  13. 1 2 "Taiwan’s EZTABLE closes $5M funding round from MediaTek and UMC". 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-20.
  14. 1 2 "一個餐廳訂位網 如何讓聯發科看上" (in Chinese). 商業週刊. 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-20.
  15. ↑ "七年級菜鳥說動五星級飯店合作". Business Weekly (in Chinese). September 2011. Retrieved 2012-12-05.
  16. ↑ "易訂網隨時提供網路餐廳訂位服務". Economic Daily News (in Chinese). March 2009. Retrieved 2012-12-05.
  17. ↑ "中信＆EZTABLE推電子禮票券平台" (in Chinese). China Times. 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-20.
  18. ↑ "台新卡攜手EZTABLE 消費更便利" (in Chinese). 2014. Retrieved 2015-05-20.
  19. ↑ "王品/EZTABLE消費 享10%現金回饋" (in Chinese). 2014. Retrieved 2015-05-20.
  20. ↑ "EZTABLE wins Tech in Asia’s Startup Arena at #StartupAsia Tokyo 2014". Tech in Asia. 2014. Retrieved 2015-05-20.
  21. ↑ "EZTABLE offers fine dining with a click on a smartphone". Bangkok Post. 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-20.

External links

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