La Belle Assiette : A French « Lean Start-up »
LA BELLE ASSIETTE: A French Lean Start-up
La Belle Assiette is a "Lean Start-up", created in 2012 by Stephen LEGUILLON (24) and Giorgio RICCO (27). This "marketplace" (Market Place) enables Internet users to book a home chef. The chef is selected by the customer according to his or her culinary specialties. In addition to preparing the menu on the spot, he or she provides table service and takes charge of the entire dinner, right through to clean-up. The only service not included is beverage service.
Of Franco-Irish origin, Stephen LEGUILLON studied at Warwick Business School (Great Britain) before joining ESCP Europe. During his studies (in the 2000s), he was struck by the lack of easy access to home-delivery restaurant menus. So, in 2008, he founded "Appetise.com", an online ordering service for restaurant deliveries. With this initial experience, Stephen became a credible entrepreneur. Another prime investor believed in the La Belle Assiette project. From the outset, he became a shareholder in the project proposed by the two business school graduates. Stephen came up with an innovative restaurant concept: La Belle Assiette. The two transformed this idea into a "Born Global" company (created from the outset with international development in mind).
The company's development is therefore that of a "Lean Start-up"; in other words, since its creation, and even if the beginnings are very promising, sales and profitability are not in line with the cash requirements for large-scale development, which is nonetheless necessary on the Web and internationally. It's the learning process in direct contact with the market that will define the business model (lean strategy). Initial investment is limited. The main expense item is human resources. The company's two main functions are marketing-sales and ICT (information and communication technologies) development. The marketing and sales team absorbs around 50% of financial resources, compared with 20% for Web development.
From the outset (2013), La Belle Assiette had to focus on international markets, for two reasons: firstly, the need to cover the web as widely as possible, while adapting to the culinary cultures and customs of different countries; and secondly, the need to find private capital. Financial resources are far more developed in England, for example, and of course in the United States. These two good reasons will naturally lead the young company to develop according to the "Born Global" model.
What's at stake is the success of a perfectly organized and controlled network model. Indeed, Stephen insists on the efficiency of the formal processes he and Giorgio have put in place, which underpin the credibility of La Belle Assiette. While adapting to different cultures in terms of organizing meals cooked at home and/or away is plausible for young entrepreneurs, knowledge of the professional and social networks in each country would imply a level of autonomy for local teams that could chip away at the well-oiled workings of La Belle Assiette.
After three successful trials in Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg, the big German and English markets have been on the way since 2014. A major fund-raising round in 2016 could enable the company to expand in the medium term, at least in the United States. Against this backdrop, investors are assessing performance using a new method, specific to start-ups: Web Analytics or KPI (Key Performance Indicator) Analysis.