Social Belly Enters the Battlefield to Reign Supreme in Real World Kitchen Stadium
Following Airbnb’s wildly successful model of the sharing economy, many start-ups have since entered the heated battleground to be the Airbnb for food. The competition is fierce and the casualties are high. A simple online search for the “Airbnb for food” yields a list of 36 start-ups, out of which 10 have already perished. This week, Dimple Lalwani, the founder of the London-based challenger, Social Belly, gives us the dishes on how she started the idea and her mission to bring people together and reinvent dining.
Pardon the pun, but how did you cook up the idea for Social Belly?
The idea for Social Belly has gone through an evolution. I studied hotel management and specialized in entrepreneurship at Les Roches in Switzerland, one of the top universities in hospitality. After that, I came to London and my dream was to open a restaurant. I was really young and having a restaurant is a lot of responsibility, debt, and capital. So I thought I would move on from this idea. I hosted some dinner parties at my home and my home used to be a hub every Friday night. I didn’t know who everyone was, but everyone was a friend of a friend’s. Those nights were so much fun – good food, everybody would bring their own alcohol. It was one of these dinner parties, at 2 o’clock in the morning, when it hit me “this is it, it’s about bringing people together over food”. Food just makes people bond. It was Spanish food, but even if you are not from Spain, people appreciate the flavours and people appreciate the emotional connection to whatever you were cooking. Obviously, when it was done with love, it just changes the taste.
At the beginning, it was very much market research and then we moved to a website which was just a proof of concept. We had a lot of dummy buttons and A/B testing. With that information, we won a competition that gave us £50,000.
What is the name of this competition?
Get Started 2014. It was hosted by SimpleWeb which is this web development company based in Bristol and they decided to invest their money in a startup by hosting a competition.. It was a start-up competition where people vote on ideas and the finalists pitched to win. Winning the competition actually helped us to ‘get started’. The website that we have today was built by SimpleWeb. We have launched for about four months and now every time, we are realizing more and more that we are actually a meeting people platform rather than just a foodie platform. It’s connecting the right people together when you’re new to a city. We are building these relationships that don’t end when you put on your coat and walk out the door. That’s just the start of it. It’s literally about following up, being in touch with people, and doing things together. During the dinner party, you are getting to know each other and that’s where the relationship starts.
How would you describe Social Belly in five words?
I have it down to six: eating with strangers, leaving with friends. Now we are taking a slight pivot this summer. We thought, “why limit dinner parties only to people’s homes?” So now we trying to expand our idea and try to connect people in both people’s homes and in restaurants.
Since the start of Social Belly, what are some unexpected successes and challenges?
I think an unexpected challenge is that you never know what your users want, most times they don’t even know what they want! You really need to nail those questions. That’s been a challenge but also an opportunity as well because I love to learn from people. The past few months, as soon as we got a good user base, I thought, “Ok, now it’s a good time to talk to people. Time to pick up the phone and talk to them.
Some of the unexpected successes are the extent of the stories that we have been building. For example, there was one lady who met someone else during one of our community events. They met afterwards and one ended up giving the other a chef job. It was really, really good. This is what we want, to make London a lot more connected.
Do you have any love stories yet?
You know funny enough, people have been flirting. There are a couple of people who are talking to each other and have arranged a date. I hope it all goes well! A lot of people have asked me, “why don’t you move into the dating industry?” I met my boyfriend nine years ago and we’ve been dating for eight, but it all stemmed from friendship. Someone introduced us to each other and we were at the same point in our lives that summer and we ended up together. I feel like real relationships are built from that. You make friends but you never know, you might be making more.
Can you expand upon your vision of what’s next for Social Belly?
I would like Social Belly to be the easiest and fastest way for people to meet over food. So when you are new to the city, we hope to be the first app that you download, before you download any other travel app or dating app. Social Belly will be the app to get you integrated into your community. We are about making big cities small and connect different neighbourhoods.
You have probably attended a lot of dinner parties through Social Belly, what is the most unforgettable meal you have eaten?
All of them are amazing. I tell people not to think of me as someone from Social Belly, but just as another guest who is coming to enjoy the food. I think it was the first time I tried reindeer. We have two ladies, one is Polish and the other is from Norway. They do fusion cuisine with influences from Scandinavia. I’m not that adventurous when it comes to meats, but I thought I definitely need to go to this dinner party. Another unforgettable meal one is Jhenn’s Macaroni Monday. That shocked me because macaroni is so simple but she pulled out all the unusual toppings. I would recommend these kinds of experiences to anyone because it’s not about being vegetarian or vegan, it’s about getting to know different people, trying different things, and eating homemade food. Homemade food might mean something totally different to you than it means to me, but it’s about the values we hold as two individuals that brings us together to that dinner. We grow when we open our minds to everything!