Last week we caught up with Briac Lescure, Pierrick Paul and François Raynaud de Fitte, the three young co-founders of PopChef, a mobile app that provides hand crafted meals delivered to your door in 15 minutes for less than 10 euros.
How does it actually work? Just whip out your smartphone, click on the meal of the day, scan your credit card, and Pop! A delicious, healthy meal, created by a chef that same morning, will be at your door in 15 minutes. Easy, right?
Only seasonal ingredients are used and meals are delivered in 100% biodegradable packaging made from sugarcane.
PopChef launched at Paris Founders Event Winter 2015 and we were curious to get some updates on this flavourful, fairly-price, conscious business, but firstly let’s find out how everything started out and the obstacles these three young entrepreneurs faced along the way.
How did the idea of PopChef come about?
We used to work in the same company. Everyday, the only choice we had for lunch was either a boring “boulangerie”, or an expensive and time-consuming restaurant. There was no way to eat a healthy and varied meal without waiting 20 minutes in the queue or spending a fortune. We decided to create something extremely simple and good, that we could use everyday.
What has been the greatest challenge you’ve faced setting up the business?
The biggest challenge has been, and still is, logistics.
Being able to deliver meals in most of Paris in under 15 minutes is very hard, especially when you want those meals to arrive hot. This requires a rather robust technology that Pierrick developed internally and the ability to know where your drivers are at all times, as well as how many meals they carry. We overcame this barrier by testing many different systems, most of which didn’t work at first. We did a lot of mistakes, and our beta clients received meals that had spilled, that were cold, and sometimes even the wrong meals. But they were patient and so were we. Today we are proud to say that our average delivery time is 11 minutes and that our meals are nice and warm and ready to eat!
What is PopChef up to at the moment? Any news to share?
Fantastic news, because we are spreading across the entire “rive-droite” of paris, that we plan to cover very soon. We have closed our seed round with fantastic entrepreneurs : Marc Simoncini, Xavier Niel, Jacques-Antoine Granjon, Thibaud Elzière, and we entered the HEC incubator. Our traction has been growing since the day where it all began : on a stage at the Palais Brongniart.
Where do you see yourself in the long term?
We intend to be the biggest restaurant in Paris. We think that we can completely replace the nearby restaurant by providing more varied and healthy meals, for the same price and in shorter time. We want you to eat PopChef everyday and never get bored or feel like you’ve eaten the same thing twice.
PopChef actually launched at our Paris Founders Event this Winter, what happened to PopChef following your pitch at #ParisFounders?
We actually launched during #ParisFounders ! The pitch was a way for us to showcase our product for the first time in front of a great audience of entrepreneurs, who were precisely our target for the beta version. The next day, we sold out all of our meals to the same people who saw us pitch, and have been gaining traction since then.
How did #ParisFounders help you?
#ParisFounders was not only the opportunity to get our first customers, but also to meet awesome people who pitched alongside us and supported us afterwards. We actually use a few of the startups that we saw pitch at #ParisFounders in our day to day life. We were also happy to get to know Liam and the Rude Baguette team a little more.
See 5 new products launch on stage at #ParisFounders – join us for our Summer edition on July 7th!