Kevin Harrington of Shark Tank fame has a reputation for being fiercely selective in who he lends his name to. So when he partnered up with Restaurant.com, it was presumably because he saw something special in the business. Let’s take a look at what that special something was, and why it could mean Restaurant.com (OTCQB: RSTN) is one of the most undervalued opportunities on the market right now.
When Shark Tank’s Kevin Harrington explained why he partnered with Restaurant.com, the announcement contained one key phrase.
“[Restaurant] owners are getting the business they need, and customers get savings, and that’s what they want.”
On the face of it, it’s a relatively innocuous snippet from a speech that touched on grand concepts like trust and innovation. But, if we dig into it just a little, it reveals why Restaurant.com (RDE, Inc. | OTCQB: RSTN) might just be one of the most under-valued, under-the-radar companies right now.
In a moment, we’ll take a look. But first, here’s the man himself, Kevin Harrington.
First, Let’s Talk About Creating Value
There’s a common piece of advice given out in life and business — if you want to make money, create value, then capture it.
But, as everyone knows, that’s easier said than done.
Of course, hard doesn’t mean impossible. That’s why, over the years, common methods for thinking about value have emerged. One of the most common here is the problem-solution framework.
For those who’ve never heard of the problem-solution framework before, the concept is rather simple. Identify a problem, and provide a solution. If you can do that, then people will flock to you. It’s just basic common sense.
Second, Let’s Talk About What Restaurant.com Actually Does
We won’t delve into all the intricacies of the Restaurant.com platform here. But before we move on to dissecting the significance of Kevin Harrington’s statement, we do need to at least understand the fundamentals of what Restaurant.com does.
So let’s take a quick interlude to cover the basics. If you’re already familiar with the platform (millions already are), feel free to skip ahead.
Restaurant.com in a Nutshell: Restaurant.com connects diners with restaurants. It provides restaurants with a comprehensive marketing platform. And it provides diners with discounted restaurant dining experiences.
Restaurant.com For Diners
How this looks in practice for a diner is pretty simple. By simply browsing through the Restaurant.com platform, diners can locate dozens of restaurants in their location. Then, once they find something that appeals to them, they can then proceed to purchase a dining certificate at that restaurant at a steep discount.
Here’s one example offer:
Restaurant.com For Restaurants
As for how this looks for restaurants, that’s a bit more involved. But first, let’s just get one thing clear. Restaurant.com is a lot more than a crude platform for promoting simple one-off discounts.
In reality, once we scratch the surface of the simple discount offers and user interface, what we find in Restaurant.com is actually a sophisticated “Martech” (marketing tech) platform for restaurants.
For now, we’re simply going to gloss over what being a restaurant martech platform means. After all, we’re really here to discuss what Kevin Harrington saw in Restaurant.com. But, to give a brief overview, the Martech side of Restaurant.com includes two key components.
Restaurant Marketing Component #1: The first of these is a remarketing tool. For those who don’t know, remarketing is basically what happens when you browse something on Amazon and suddenly see ads for it everywhere. Restaurant.com provides a similarly powerful tool to restaurants, with the key difference being that its remarketing is conducted through email rather than online ads.
Restaurant Marketing Component #2: The second key component of the Restaurant.com Martech offering is its affiliate marketing platform. Again, to use Amazon.com as an example, affiliate marketing is what drives the thousands of blogs and websites out there recommending products on Amazon.com to do so. If those blogs can successfully convince you to buy something on Amazon.com, Amazon rewards the affiliate with a cut of the sale. Restaurant.com does the same with its affiliates.
What’s Any of This Got to Do With Kevin Harrington and Restaurant.com?
If you’ve been paying attention, there’s a good chance you’ve picked up on why that one innocuous phrase Kevin Harrington made means so much.
But just to make sure we’re all on the same page, let me spell it out for you.
Problem: Every restaurant owner wants more customers. But most marketing is difficult, expensive, and comes with zero guarantees.
Solution: Provide a zero-risk marketing platform that drives diners to their tables and only charges them for successful conversions.
And there you have it — the value-generating problem-solution statement for Restaurant.com. Except, there’s just one problem. We’re forgetting the back half of the Kevin Harrington statement. The part about customers getting what they want.
As a reminder, here’s Harrington’s key phrase once again: “[Restaurant] owners are getting the business they need, and customers get savings, and that’s what they want.”
If you break this statement down, there are actually two possible problems and two possible solutions hidden in there. The first, we already touched on.
As for the second problem-solution, here it is.
Problem: Most people would love to dine out more often, but not everyone can afford it.
Solution: Offer a way to dine out for less.
In a nutshell, Restaurant.com has essentially hacked the value-generating equation in a way we rarely see. By effectively killing two birds with one stone, Restaurant.com has tapped into two both sides of an absolutely massive market (we’re literally talking about hundreds of billions a year in the US alone, and trillions globally).
Guess there’s no surprise now why Kevin Harrington chose to partner with Restaurant.com.
Now Here’s Why Restaurant.com Is Deeply Undervalued
By now, it’s pretty clear that Restaurant.com has tapped into an extreme value-creating proposition. But if you cast your mind back to the start of the article, I also mentioned that Restaurant.com is deeply undervalued.
Here’s why.
When RDE, Inc. (OTCQB: RSTN) acquired Restaurant.com back in March 2020, the timing could not have been worse. After all, that was right about the time Covid-19 started decimating the restaurant trade, along with everything else.
Over the course of that year, the company traded for around the $1 a share mark, give or take. By 2021, that had picked up to about the $3 a share mark. As a reminder, the restaurant trade was still in a full-blown crisis at this stage, with many states still imposing harsh sanitary measures.
Fast forward to today, and RDE, Inc. is still trading at, you guessed it, around about the $3 a share mark. And that’s despite business more or less returning to normal, a full-blown cost of living crisis driving more consumers than ever to seek out discounted options, and a substantial growth in traffic to the platform (just last month alone, Restaurant.com jumped 21 places in its category ranking on similarweb.com).
And let’s not forget there are revenue figures to back this up (RDE, Inc. grew its annual revenues by almost 34% between 2021 and 2022).
In other words, in Restaurant.com we find:
- Extreme value creation by addressing two sides of a massive market at once.
- A deeply undervalued company given the current lack of a full recovery in its post-Covid stock price.
- An enduring cost of living crisis which has resulted in substantial growth in consumer demand for Restaurant.com.
Essentially, what we have is one of those rare opportunities to capture an undervalued asset at an opportune moment.
For more information on RED, Inc. and Restaurant.com, visit:
- The Restaurant.com platform here.
- The RDE, Inc. investor website here.
- The RED, Inc. Yahoo Finance page here.
About Restaurant.com
Restaurant.com offers marketing incentives for more than 20,000 restaurants across the United States, including multiple coupon options and is owned by RDE Holdings (OTCQB: RSTN)
Media Contact:
Plato Data Intelligence
144 E44th St
New York NY 10017
PlatoAiStream.com
Zephyr@platodata.io
(Featured image by Spencer Davis via Unsplash)
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