Shaun, the CEO, and Founder of Eatsy, describes this company as the UberEats for dining out. Put simply, it is a mobile app that allows diners to order, pay and split the bill when dining out.

Backed by Quest Ventures, this restaurant technology company is looking to change the game in the F&B space.

Read about our other F&B maverick, Dr. Koh, and his Orca BOS system.

An ardent supporter of Manchester United, this isn’t Shaun’s first foray in the startup world. Prior to Eatsy, he held a corporate development role at RedMart. In that role, Shaun’s primary focus was on all capital raising events, strategic initiatives, and investor relations. He assisted the company in the eventual acquisition by Alibaba-backed Lazada in Nov 2016.

When you can’t find Shaun at his office, he’s likely to be reading somewhere quiet or playing poker with his friends.

Find out his story below.

Eatsy Group photo
The Eatsy Group

  1. Sell us your company/service in 300 words?

For every meal with your friends, you’ll always need to get the waiter’s attention, wait for your bill, and split it with your friends after the meal. We are a mobile app that eliminates all these hassles – where diners can order, pay and split-bill through your phone when dining out or taking away. We are offering a convenient solution to diners, just by using One App for all restaurants on our platform. Diners – after your meal, no hassle required. Simply #WalkOutLikeABoss!

Through this simple action, we also help restaurants to automatically capture individual diners dining data to help them identify, reward and retain all their diners.

  1. What is stopping you from having the largest company in the world?

There’s an African proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Building a scalable international restaurant-technology company has always been the company’s focus since Day 1.

We know that we are not just building a product for the Singapore market. However, our vision can only be achieved, if and only if, we have a great team in place. My focus at this stage is to make sure that we lay the necessary groundwork for a solid foundation so that when it is time for us to expand out of Singapore, we already have the necessary playbooks and systems in place to scale up fast in each city that we expand into, and in the most capital-efficient manner.

  1. If you could change one thing about the tech industry in Southeast Asia, what would it be?

In the context of the F&B scene in Singapore, the SME Go Digital Programme that was put in place last year definitely created more awareness and willingness to experiment with various digital solutions. However, I feel that one of the biggest challenge faced by the F&B merchants that we spoke to so far ongoing digital revolves around the high mobile payment charges per transaction.

In Singapore, going cashless could mean that the merchant has to pay around 3.5% with a 50 cents fixed costs per transaction. In China, merchants only have to pay an average charge of 0.40% per transaction. Putting this into context – for an average order of 20 dollars, the merchant has to pay one dollar twenty cents in mobile payment charges, instead of 10 cents in China, where the speed of adoption of going cashless has been nothing short of amazing.

This cost impacts the already thin margin that F&B merchants have to deal with, hence the understandable reluctance for merchants to adopt cashless payment methods. To speed up the adoption of mobile payments in Singapore, measures need to be put in place with the banks or a ceiling to be put in place on credit card charges to reduce the barrier required for an F&B merchant to come onboard the mobile payment train.

  1. Name one person in the region, who is making a difference in Technology?

Masoyoshi Son – the founder of Softbank. He has been an unstoppable force over the last year with his $100 Billion Vision Fund

  1. What would you want people to remember you for, 100 years from now?

100 years from now, I want to be remembered by my children & grandchildren as a good-hearted family man who loved & cared for his Wife, family members, friends and the needy in society.

About Shaun

Shaun Heng is the Founder and CEO of Eatsy, a mobile platform that allows diners to order, pay and split the bill when dining out. Through this, restaurants automatically capture individual diners’ dining data to help them identify, reward and retain all their diners.

Before Shaun begun his entrepreneurship journey at Eatsy, he held a corporate development role at RedMart, where he assisted the company in the eventual acquisition by Alibaba-backed Lazada in Nov 2016. Shaun started his career as an investment banker at Standard Chartered Bank.

………………..

Views expressed by the interviewee are not necessarily shared by Tech Collective. Some minimal editing is done for clarity’s sake.

To read more great interviews with your favourite startups, click here.