Oddle’s secret sauce to profitability

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Hi there,

It’s almost Diwali. In India, that means every ecommerce firm is doling out deals – some too good to pass up. Good deals, thankfully, are not location specific, of course, which is why my sibling called me from the other side of the globe at a godforsaken hour just because the timer was running out on a Black Friday preview sale, and she found a deal she liked for the both of us.

But offering a deal that’s too good to pass up when no one on the block is doing that – well, that’s a big bet. Restaurant tech platform Oddle started offering such a deal and the risk has paid off – the firm’s revenue has grown 9x in the last two years.

In this week’s Big Story, my colleague, Melissa, notes how when other food delivery firms were charging up to 35% in commission fees from restaurants, Oddle was taking just 10%. Almost 70% of its leads in Singapore still come through word-of-mouth publicity, founder Jonathan Lim tells Tech in Asia. “We definitely got lucky but it wasn’t an accident,” he says.

While Oddle is now in the early stages of scaling up its lending business, its food delivery business is profitable. One reason for its success is that Oddle still takes the same commission fee. Consistency has its charms.

Consistency is also a theme in the way Monk’s Hill Ventures operates. For instance, despite startups seeing a downtrend in valuations, the firm tells my colleague, Tian Wen, that it won’t do more deals purely because they’re cheaper.

More on the firm’s focus on sound first-principle fundamentals and investment plans in Making Waves.

— Nikita

THE BIG STORY

Oddle built a profitable food delivery business. Here’s how

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Oddle’s profitable food delivery business has freed up resources to invest in reservations and payments – as well as lending.

MAKING WAVES

Recession Run: Valuation cuts don’t affect Monk’s Hill Ventures’ plans

FYI

NEWS YOU SHOULD KNOW