How does Bob's bar attracts the right audience?

Welcome to the 30th edition of the GrowthX Newsletter. Every Tuesday & Thursday I write a piece on startups & business growth. Today’s piece is going to 94,400+ operators & leaders from startups like Google, Stripe, Swiggy, Razorpay, CRED & more

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For the readers that have never been to a Bob’s bar (Bengaluru pop culture), think of a restaurant which gets customers from age of 18-50, isn’t expensive on the food (500 for two)or alcohol (only 20% higher than MRP for most types).

The place attracts the audience which does not make this a shady place but something that you would hang out without worrying about the bill or post alcohol battles.

Here’s why a cheaper alcohol place attracts the right audience & what you can implement when you are giving away your product at discounted rates.

The location
If you take a close look at the restaurant locations (Koramangala & Indiranagar), you will find both the locations closer to high income residential apartments + offices. This selection is by design. No one is going to travel from other areas (>5km) in Bengaluru traffic to get to these areas. Location selection is for audience curation.

Learning : Think about from where you are acquiring the users plus how are you creating entry barriers for users that you don’t want.

The menu

The menu is limited compared to an average restaurant. This helps reduce the meal preparation time, plus the menu is designed to get people to eat and move on from eating to drinking.

Another interesting thing is the option to choose half & full options for almost all bar snacks. Hints at serving smaller groups/ couples too.

Learning : Typically larger crowds create all the nuisance in any restaurant. The product offering optimised for a specific audience (smaller groups) solves for it. If you are into social products, this is something to ponder upon to shape the demand.

The vibe

The place does not have a dance floor → Again hinting at audience selection. Each aspect of the vibe → Including the parking experience → no bouncers to enter → great table selection → insanely good service & food → All combined with the right type of crowd walking in.

Learning : You can’t decide what the user will use your product for but you can always put guardrails on what they can’t do. Think of this next time you are building onboarding flow / engagement flows.

That’s all for now.

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