Consumer App
Eat With Friends
A lightweight social dining platform built to test a simpler way of organising group meals.
A group dining app designed to take the hassle out of organising meals with friends.
The Challenge
Turn a broad social dining and restaurant marketplace concept into something small enough to validate properly.
Remove the friction normally associated with creating accounts and onboarding every person attending a meal.
Make it easier for one organiser to coordinate the venue, date, time and attendees without relying on an endless group message.
Build the product so restaurant and community functionality can be introduced later without making those features necessary for the initial launch.
Avoid confusing the proposition with either a restaurant reservation platform or a dating app.
"One meal, one link and one clear answer to who is coming."
What We Built
We simplified the concept around the smallest useful social interaction: one person organises the meal, shares a link and everyone else responds.
- A host account for creating and managing group meals.
- Meal creation including venue, date, time and outing details.
- Shareable invitation links that can be sent through WhatsApp, email, social media or messaging apps.
- Guest responses without requiring each attendee to create an account.
- Clear attendee and RSVP information for the organiser.
- A structure that can later incorporate venue records created through real platform usage.
- A beta experience deployed at eatwithfriends.co.uk for real-world testing.
Outcome
The beta turns an ambitious marketplace idea into a focused product that can now be tested against genuine behaviour rather than assumptions.
- Provides one clear place for organising a group restaurant or pub outing.
- Removes the requirement for every attendee to register before responding to an invitation.
- Reduces dependence on fragmented message threads for keeping track of plans and attendees.
- Creates a practical route for discovering which venues people actually use before building a larger restaurant directory.
- Establishes a working product foundation for testing whether the concept has value.
What This Included
- Reduced the initial marketplace concept to a focused beta that can be tested with real groups before significant investment.
- Designed the experience around the organiser rather than requiring every attendee to become a registered user.
- Created a simple invitation flow where meal details can be shared through the channels people already use.
- Built the product around social coordination rather than trying to replace existing restaurant booking systems.
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