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This Startup Sold 30K Pizzas Over a Weekend Without an Oven - a Playbook for Launching Profitable Tech Companies

I remember a simpler time when the floor was lava and pizza was just about salami and cheese.

I guess times have changed. A lot.

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In 2023, the German food startup ‘Lanch’ opened 70 locations overnight - the biggest restaurant opening in Europe ever. Their innovative business model allowed them to do it without signing a single lease.

So, what do they do?

Lanch creates food brands for influencers.

Wait! Don’t tune out yet! The concept is actually genius and it will provide us with a playbook on how to start and grow profitable tech companies.

But first, we need to understand the trend they are riding.

Let’s dive in. I promise you, it will blow your mind!

Money, Fame, and Built-In Distribution

Advertisers have lowballed famous people forever! But that is changing.

What do I mean by that?

If a famous person signs an advertising deal with a company that company will earn more from that deal than what they paid the famous person. That makes sense. Otherwise, it would not be worth it for them to even do it.

That means stars are only capturing a fraction of the value they create.

Nowadays, people with audiences are waking up to the fact that it’s better to not just collect a check. Instead, they try to own a share of the businesses they are advertising for. That way, they can capture more of the value they create.

And some stars are throwing their weight around. Big time.

Here are a few prominent examples of people building huge businesses on the back of their audiences:

• Rihanna’s fashion company Fenty is now valued at $1B

• Ryan Reynolds just sold his beverage company Aviation Gin for over $600 million

• Mr. Beasts snack company Feastables is valued at ~$1.5B

Obviously, none of these stars are running these companies themselves. They are just the face of the brand. Instead, they partner with operators to take care of the day-to-day.

I know. None of us is Rihanna or Ryan Reynolds.

However, this whole thing is not limited to A-list celebrities. Every niche influencer out there is mostly monetizing through sponsorships. But they are all sitting on gold mines.

And this is where Lanch comes in and builds companies for these people.

Let’s look at the details of how that works!

A Brilliant Concept in a Nutshell

In one sentence:

Lanch is building a scalable platform that allows influencers to launch food brands.

This allows influencers to do what they do best. Marketing. Lanch abstracts away all the complexity involved in running restaurants.

But Lanch does not run the restaurants either.

On the backend, Lanch builds partnerships with existing restaurants. These partners are the ones that actually cook the food. The food then is sold through delivery apps. Lanch only has to organize regular delivery of fresh ingredients.

This creates a win-win:

• The restaurants sell unused capacity

• The creators monetize in a scalable way without managing the restaurants

• Lanch sits in the middle and collects a lower double-digit cut of everything that is sold.

This asset-light model allowed Lanch to open 70 restaurants overnight when they launched their first brand “Happy Slice”.

Let me reiterate!

What I think makes this business so genius is the alignment with the influencers.

It is not uncommon for a high-growth startup to spend ~40% of all the money they raised on marketing (mostly pay-per-click ads). Lanch, however, makes advertising part of its business. The partnership with the influencers ensures that everyone involved has a financial interest in selling as much merchandise as possible.

One could say, that their business has distribution built-in.

Pretty good, no?

In the last section, we will see how we can leverage the same logic of built-in distribution to build a successful (tech) product.

Building a Distribution-First Tech Company

First, I need to mention that we don’t have to create a tech product.

We could just go straight ahead and export Lanch’s model for something other than restaurants.

Let’s take fashion as an example!

On the frontend, we partner with fashion influencers and a brand with them.

On the backend, we find a network of manufacturers that make the clothes. The clothes are then sold through branded online stores.

Done.

However, the opportunity in software is much larger. The margins are bigger and software is much more scalable.

There are already tons of examples of creators successfully leveraging their brands to launch and grow software products.

Some of them include:

• Famous productivity influencer Ali Abdaal launching a productivity app

• Fitness influencer Nick Bare launching a workout app

• Creator Nathan Berry building an email marketing platform

This is where we can come in.

Here is the basic playbook:

• Choose a niche that you love. Are you a fitness nut? Do you care about productivity? Are you into finance?

• Reach out to influencers in the space and pitch them on working together.

• Here are a few things to consider:

  • Don’t go for Mr. Beast-type-famous. These people are hard to get to. Sure, punch above your weight but a smaller audience can already be powerful

  • Be realistic about the value of the audience! Let’s say someone has 500K followers. You might be able to convert 1% of them to buy your software. If your software is a note-taking app that costs 5€ that means you are making a total of 5000€. Depending on your situation, this might be not worth the effort. Find someone who can repeatedly drive high-value users.

  • Don’t get exploited but the influencer might have more leverage. Coding skills are the commodity here. Their following is what is hard to replicate. You might need to give up a significant stake. Let’s say 20-40% - or more.

  • Look for an influencer with capital. If you are partnering with someone who has a significant following (which you should) that person might be able to fund some of the development

So far so good.

This playbook should get you to a decent-sized business. However, if you don’t partner with someone like Mr. Beast it won’t be huge.

But what could you do if you want to go big, but don’t have A-list celebs in your Rolodex?

How to Go Big

The answer, to the question above, is: More of the same!

With one win under your belt, you now have cash flow and a name. This should make it easier to find new influencers to partner with.

Then you can scale in two ways:

1. Conquer an entire niche. Leverage your cash flow and network to launch/acquire new businesses within the same niche. Let’s say you are in the fitness space. You partner with more fitness influencers. Every time you do that, you can launch new apps. Calorie-tracking. Apps for different types of workouts. Meal planning for different diets - keto, vegan, low-carb. The list goes on.

2. Be like Lanch! Become very good at building a certain type of app. You could focus e.g. on CRM tools. Then go from one niche to the next. The rest is similar. You partner with someone who has an audience and launch a CRM tool together. You can do this for accountants, lawyers, and marketers. The list goes on.

I hope this gives you some food for thought and sparks a great idea!

I sincerely hope you find this useful!

If you have feedback or questions, send me a reply or hit me up on LinkedIn or X.

Lots of love and see you next time!

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