For investors
Making friends as a grown-up is hard. Let us fix that.
Lebomo seats five strangers around a real restaurant table, every week. Initially, we do not plan to charge members a fee, but the model could change with time. We are at the very start, and we want investors who feel this problem in their own lives.
The problem
You do not lose friends. You lose the places where friends happen.
School did it for you.
You sat in the same room with the same people every day. Friendship happened by accident.
Work does it badly.
Colleagues become friends sometimes. When the job changes, so does the circle.
Cities make it harder.
More people and less time. Everyone is busy, so nobody makes the first move.
Friendship takes hours that adults do not have.
Hours together needed, per a 2018 University of Kansas study by Jeffrey Hall.
Our answer
A table. Five strangers. One evening a week.
Food is the oldest reason for strangers to sit together. We take away the awkward part: the planning, the choosing and the first introduction. Our aim is memorable weekly gatherings that lead to lasting friendships that extend beyond the initial meeting.
It is building community through community engagement, with a positive social impact on every city we enter.
The business
Free for members. Paid by the people who gain from a full table.
These are three ways we expect to earn. They are hypotheses, not results. The first ninety days will tell us which one works.
Restaurants
A quiet Tuesday or Wednesday is lost money. We fill it with six guests who order a main and a drink. Restaurants could pay a small fee per table or per guest.
First test: ten restaurants, one city, four weeks.
Brand tables
A coffee roaster, a bank or a bookshop sponsors a themed table and meets its customers in a warm room. At the start, members join free.
First test: one sponsored table a month.
Companies
Employers pay to seat new joiners, relocated staff or whole teams with people from outside the office. Loneliness is a retention problem too.
First test: one employer, one new joiner cohort.
What we will not do: charge members for a seat, sell member details or put a paywall between a lonely person and a table.
Where we are
Day one. Here is the plan.
The first 90 days
Four questions we will answer with real dinners.
We would rather show you evidence than a forecast. Here is what we will measure and share with you.
Do strangers come back for a second dinner?
Measured by the share of first-timers who book another table within 30 days.
Will restaurants fill quiet nights with us?
Measured by the restaurants that ask us back and what they say they would pay.
Can event captains run a table without us in the room?
Measured by table ratings on nights with an event captain and no staff present.
What does it cost to open a new city?
Measured by total spend from first restaurant signed to a table running every week.
The raise
We are raising a seed round to prove the first city.
Draft split of the funds below. We will confirm the figures when we talk.
Pilot city and restaurants
Tables, venues, host support and the cost of every dinner that goes wrong.
Product and matching
The member app, the matching quiz and the tools event captains use on the night.
Hosts and community
Recruiting, training and looking after the people who run our tables.
Who we want beside us
Investors who believe grown-up friendship is a real problem. Patient people, ideally with a background in hospitality, community, consumer social or city-by-city launches, and a few doors to open.
Why I am building this.
I am Saurabh Maskara. More about me on saurabhmaskara.com. I like to write books, and I have spent most of my life building businesses across India and Africa.
I realised that making friends after you graduate college is incredibly hard. It is usually client dinners and then your coworkers, and you do not really meet new people. It is time to change that.
I know this is not the first time someone has tried this. Still, any contribution to this space makes the world a more pleasant place. We have only just started, so the model will change with what people need.
There is one twist. We are making it all about the community, and that includes our captains. They will be able to shape it, and it will be about them.
We are doing it properly, in fewer cities, one table at a time, with help from people who are already doing this in an informal way.
Pull up a chair.
Tell us who you are and why this problem matters to you. We read every note.