They Made Restaurant Software Free. Oracle Bought Them
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Quick question before we dive in. Last week, I asked about your location because I’m planning to host a series of founder sessions. Think real talk about starting and growing businesses, sharing strategies, and tackling challenges together. If that sounds like something you’d be into, hit reply and let me know if you prefer virtual or irl! Now, onto today’s newsletter…
Welcome to another deep dive in our $100M Business Strategy Series. Today, we're breaking down GloriaFood, a company that started with a radically different idea in food ordering: by making it free and ended up being acquired by Oracle. Their secret? Turning the traditional restaurant software model on its head.
Think about it, back in 2013, restaurants were stuck between two bad choices: paying massive commissions to food delivery platforms or dealing with clunky, expensive software. Remember SAP? 🤢 That's when Oliver Auerbach, fresh from building Avira's freemium business to over 100 million users, saw something others missed: small restaurants needed better tools, but they needed them at zero upfront cost.
✨ Yoela’s Picks
My favorites of the week:
👊 Story: From Free to Freedom
While everyone was building commission heavy front-end applications, GloriaFood took a different path. Starting in Bucharest, they made a bold bet: create the world's first completely free online ordering system for restaurants.
Here's what makes GloriaFood's story fascinating: Oliver had spent years traveling for work, ordering food in different countries, and experiencing firsthand how broken restaurant ordering systems were. But instead of building just another ordering platform, he took the lessons from his Avira days, where he helped pioneer the freemium model in antivirus software and applied it to restaurant tech.
And here's the genius part: Rather than trying to compete with the big platforms' marketing budgets, they focused on making their product so good and so free that it would spread through word of mouth. By May 2014, they released their complete free ordering system. By 2021, they were serving over 21,000 restaurants worldwide, leading to their acquisition by Oracle MICROS. The takeaway? Sometimes the most disruptive move isn't building better technology, it's changing who gets access to it.
🤫 Framework: The Free-to-Scale Playbook
Most restaurant tech companies try to extract value upfront. GloriaFood created value first. Here's how they did it:
Start with Free, Not Cheap: They made their core product completely free, not just a trial or basic version with a hidden upgrade.
Build for the Underdog: While competitors chased big chains, they focused on small, family-run restaurants that couldn't afford expensive software.
Remove All Friction: No commissions, no setup fees, and self-service onboarding meant restaurants could start immediately. It was a yes and go.
Monetize Through Growth: Only charge for premium features after restaurants saw real value and need more advanced tools based on their business growth.
Power Word of Mouth: By solving real pain points for free, they turned every successful restaurant into a natural evangelist.
📈 Opportunities Hiding in Plain Sight
GloriaFood's success reveals several untapped markets ready for a freemium revolution:
AI-Powered Vendor Marketplace for SMBs 🏭
Pain point: Small businesses struggle with finding reliable, affordable suppliers—they either overpay or spend too much time vetting vendors.
Key insight: Marketplaces like Alibaba or Faire cater to larger or niche businesses, but local service providers and small retailers need an AI-powered tool to match them with the best suppliers.
Your move: Build a free AI-matching tool that recommends vendors based on price, shipping time, and past performance.
“Ghost” Local E-commerce for Physical Stores 🏬
Pain point: Local shops (bakeries, flower shops, indie retailers) want online sales but lack the tech expertise, time, or money to set up a Shopify-style store.
Key insight: Most e-commerce tools require upfront effort, but what if a store could go online instantly with no work?
Your move: Offer a zero-effort store generator—pull inventory from social media, POS systems, or uploaded receipts.
AI-Powered Micro-Franchise System 🏪
Pain point: Many people want to start a side business but lack expertise in branding, operations, or marketing.
Key insight: The success of franchises (e.g., McDonald’s, 7-Eleven) is built on repeatable systems—but there’s no plug-and-play model for micro-entrepreneurs.
Your move: Offer a free micro-business starter kit (pre-built website, AI marketing assistant, supply chain connections).
The playbook is clear: find industries where software costs are blocking small business growth, make the core product free, and build premium features that naturally become necessary with success.
💬 Quote: “The greatest gift you can get as a founder is someone not believing in something you're doing. While proving people wrong probably shouldn't be your primary motivation, it really is a powerful one.”
When GloriaFood announced their free model, everyone said it wouldn't work. "You can't build a sustainable business giving away software," they said. But 21,000 restaurants and an Oracle acquisition later, that skepticism became their greatest validation.
The doubters weren't just wrong - they were the signal that pointed to something big. And in an industry obsessed with charging more, the most valuable move was charging nothing at all.
Your takeaway: When everyone tells you your business model is impossible, you might just be onto something worth building.
With love,
Yoela
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