# We Text

> Text every restaurant you like at once, and let the offers come back to you

- URL: https://envisageapps.com.au/blog/portfolio-item/we-text/
- Type: caseStudy
- Published: 2019-05-05

**Native app | Marketplace.**

**Outcome:** A booking flow with the phone calls taken out of it, and a discount attached to the far end.

**Project inclusions:** Native app, multi-venue broadcast messaging, offer inbox, wallet coupons with in-venue scanning.

## Marketplace App Development Australia — We Text Case Study

### Reversing who does the asking

Finding a table normally means ringing venues one at a time and taking whatever price is on the menu. We Text inverted it. A diner sets their preferences — meal, date, time, party size, suburb — and texts every participating restaurant that matches, all at once. The restaurants reply with exclusive offers sent straight to the diner's phone.

An accepted offer becomes a coupon in the diner's wallet, scanned at the restaurant for validation on the night.

### The Product

Two sides, each getting something the phone call could not give them. The diner sees a list or map of participating venues with cuisine, price band and location, composes one request, and watches confirmations arrive in a single thread. The restaurant fills a table it would otherwise have left empty, at a discount it chose, on a night it nominated.

### Key Features

- One request broadcast to multiple venues simultaneously
- Preference filtering by meal, date, time, guest count and suburb, with an option to include surrounding areas
- Offers returned directly to the diner's phone, with confirmed replies tracked in one inbox
- List and map views of participating restaurants
- Wallet coupons, scanned and validated in venue
- Booking accepted with a tap — no phone call

### Where it got to

We Text was built and never publicly released. The listing side worked and the offer loop worked; the engagement ended before launch.

Two-sided products fail on the empty side rather than the clever one — and marketplaces carry gates around offer terms, pricing representations and how a coupon is honoured. A [Launch Gate Audit](/launch-gate-audit/) exists to find those before launch rather than after. See the rest of the [portfolio](/case-studies-app-development/).

### Building a two-sided product?

**Talk to a team that has shipped marketplace and comparison apps.**