Hyperlocal Slow-Hour Restaurant Deals App

1. 1

   Pick one dense area

   A single downtown, campus, or neighborhood with lots of restaurants close together. Diners must be able to walk to a deal in minutes, so tight geography is everything.

2. 2

   Recruit restaurants with the right pain

   Target places with obvious dead hours: a lunch spot dead at 3pm, a bar empty at 4pm. Sell the idea of filling empty tables on demand, not another standing discount.

3. 3

   Make posting a deal effortless

   A restaurant taps to offer 20 percent off for the next two hours, capped at so many redemptions. If it is any harder than that, busy staff will never use it.

4. 4

   Draw diners with the thrill of now

   Push nearby deals as they go live. The pitch to locals is a spontaneous cheap meal right now. Notifications and a live map are how you get people off the couch.

5. 5

   Solve both sides together

   Diners will not open an empty app and restaurants will not post to no one. Seed a cluster of restaurants and a base of local diners in the same small area at the same time.

6. 6

   Charge only on results

   A small fee per redeemed deal or a low monthly for restaurants keeps it fair. They pay when they get a filled table, which makes the value obvious and the pitch easy.

Do not take our word for the money. Put your own numbers in and see what this idea has to earn before it works. Free, instant, no account needed.

Best for: Local hustlers who can sell to restaurants and rally diners

Not for: Anyone who underestimates the two-sided chicken-and-egg problem. This needs diners and restaurants to arrive together, which is genuinely hard and why many deal apps stall.