‘We are not only colleagues but partners in my first startup MonMenu’ – Edem Yakubov; Back-End Developer, NERDZ LAB

People who create ideas! People who put cool ideas into practice. Can anything inspire more?

At NERDZ LAB, we especially appreciate people who are passionate about what they are working on and want to devote their time and skills to it. We encourage passion – that is our core value, and we feel extremely proud whenever our team members embark on new projects or generate innovative ideas. We are compelled to motivate our people to think big, come up with new ideas, and bring something valuable to the table.

Today we will tell you about a great idea ​​our developer Edem came up with, an idea which he and his team of Nerds have implemented recently, and it already gives a positive result for users. Welcome to an exciting talk with our Nerd!

Tell us about your project? Who is your target audience, and why did you decide to make it?

MonMenu is a project designed specifically for catering businesses offering a convenient use of online menus in the web page format.
To prevent further spreading of the Coronavirus, restaurants and diners switched to using e-menus but due to the time constraints, not all of the possible options turned out to be convenient and accessible for the customers.
What the visitors look forward to when going to a restaurant is having a good time and relaxing a bit, but because of the inconvenient e-menus, some of the visitors might have received a not-so-pleasant and relaxing experience. That is why our team decided to come up with the MonMenu project.

What makes your project valuable for the users and the clients? Why would they need it?

Well, the idea behind this project is to make e-menus comfortable to use for both visitors and the restaurants’ staff. For the visitors, it has to be aesthetically appealing with an intuitive user interface and a number of features such as language selection, nice pictures of the dishes, and a user-friendly interface for choosing a dish they want. In the nearest future, we also plan to add an instant order and payment feature that makes the whole experience much more convenient for both visitors and the restaurant staff.

For the restaurants, it also brings such improvements as making changes to the menu, adding new meals, and deleting obsolete offers. It can also help with accounting, save time, help with analytics, and even save natural resources not having to use all that redundant paper. The other benefit of our project is that most of its features are completely free of charge.

How did you come up with the idea for the project?

The idea came about when I and my friends came to that one specific restaurant and we tried to open the e-menu. One of my friends ended up opening the menu in Facebook stories, the other ended up on the Facebook page of that restaurant, and after a while, when we finally picked our meals, the waiter said it was all an old menu and most of the meals we wanted to order were not even available. That was one huge waste of time and we were kind of upset with all that mess. Lviv lives out of tourists, that is a fact; it offers tons of must-visit restaurants and pubs, and we would not like the tourists to end up having a mixed impression after visiting our city and its numerous restaurants. That is why we came up with an idea on how to improve that experience.

Who is in the team of creators and developers?

Most of our team are NERDZ LAB employees. I didn’t have to look for a long time, because I worked coolly and comfortably with these people on the company’s projects for quite some time. That’s why I decided to start my own project with them! They are real professionals.

What are your plans for future growth?

As for now, we work closely with several restaurants here in Lviv, though we plan to expand our network and would not stop at just one location. We constantly study the market and look for opportunities to spread our solution to more clients and help them solve their complicated cases. We are shooting for more, that’s for sure.

What are the main challenges you’ve encountered so far? 

Despite the solution we offer is free, there are establishments that are not yet ready to embrace the new things – some of them do not see it as worthwhile to spend a couple of hours to create a new menu. Sure, the functionality of the product we offer is not that broad, which is why some restaurants might consider it ineffective. However, as our current clients say, the tool is quite useful and we see its huge potential.

Did NERDZ LAB’s own environment play a role in launching that application? Which role did it play if any?

NERDZ LAB always encourages and motivates the team to come up with their own startups, which is why we decided not to waste any time and started working. Besides, with all the people around offering their help or providing constructive criticism, we constantly look for the optimal solutions that would benefit the final product and its users. We are a team of 43 people, each of whom is a unique person, and everyone brings something unique to the table – ideas, connections, and creativity. All of that means the world for our overall success.

Wrap Up

The whole NERDZ LAB team wishes Edem’s project success and is ready to contribute to its development in all areas! We are motivated by such cases and ideas as they indicate our growth and showcase the uniqueness of our team. Whenever any of our developers come up with an idea that could bring value to the clients, community, and our company, we do not hold back and give all the possible support to promote such ideas. NERDZ LAB will continue to be that comfortable environment for the birth and implementation of cool ideas!

Because NERDZ LAB – for ideas never seen before!