Even between the best of friends, divvying up the bill at a restaurant is a delicate matter. Between near strangers, let’s call it impossible. Most people’s go-to solution is to split the check evenly, which almost always sets up someone - usually the guy who passed on drinks and an app - to get screwed.
This dining dilemma is encountered by many, and you know what happens when a group of people at Harvard Business School comes across it? They fix it. At least that's what SplitNGo, a startup run out by founder Andres Sarmiento out of the Harvard Launch Lab, is looking to do.
The startup CEO, who describes himself as obsessed with efficiency, came up with a mobile-friendly website that lets diners calculate how to best split their bills at restaurants.
Breaking the cycle
It all started when Sarmiento was at HBS. He and his new classmates would go out to nearby eateries, where the awkward check situation created an unspoken but understood competition to out-order each other.
“When we all went out to dinner, we were all strangers who didn’t know each other enough for there to be trust,” Sarmiento began. “We couldn’t handle the bill like, ‘I’ll buy this time, and you can take it next time.’ We would try to split the check evenly. It started a cycle of everyone trying to order more so that they could get ahead.”
“We had come up with a joke expression that ‘the lobster’s the limit.’”
“With everyone ordering more and more things, what should have been a $25 bill would be a $45 one,” he went on. “We had come up with a joke expression that ‘the lobster’s the limit.’”
In addition to this worsening struggle to split the bill, Sarmiento also observed how the vast majority of diners’ interactions with the wait staff revolved around the check at the end. It didn’t make sense to him for a number of reasons. He started to think about eliminating the multiple trips waiters have to make to have customers complete the transaction. Rather than spending most of their time bringing diners their bills, grabbing cards, bringing back the bills for a signature and swinging by again to collect the signed copy, Sarmiento wants to free them up so they could give customers better eating experiences.
Coming up with a rudimentary prototype of SplitNGo, Sarmiento and his co-founder camped out in the corner of The Breakfast Club in Allston - down the street from HBS - and tested it. They befriended the owner and waiters, being allowed to print off bills after tables ordered. Taking that order information, they’d manually enter it into the system they designed and had any customers willing to pay through their solution do so via PayPal.
“We could only do 5 tables at a time,” Sarmiento said. “If we took on a sixth table, we couldn’t type fast enough.”
“Even though it was ugly, we found some people were curious and wanted to see at least see their bill on our software,” he explained. “Half of them were willing to pay through it. We figured if people were interested in paying through the prototype - which was clearly designed by me, by an engineer - there’d be more people opened to using a finished product.”
Mission accomplished
Flash forward a year later to today: SplitNGo is a polished, stable and secure payment solution through which diners can pay for their food. Whenever you see you’re at a participating restaurant, all you have to do is go to the site - which is purposely not an app to save you download time - enter your code and you can see your bill. From there, you can choose to split the bill evenly, selecting however many people you’re covering, or you can pay item-by-item so you’re only responsible for what you ordered.
And there’s no wait necessary. You can view your bill and pay as soon as you’ve finished ordering - without having to flag down your server and have them make multiple trips to your table just to settle up.
“We’ve removed the payment delay,” Sarmiento told me. “It makes tables turn faster, which is better for restaurants, but also better for customers. Waiters are able to give them the attention and service customers are looking for in an enjoyable dining experience.”
On average, SplitNGo lets eateries turn tables up to 20% faster, saving them time and making them more money. All while giving diners the power to pay on their terms.
For anyone eating on the run
Although the name implies that you’re splitting a bill with a group of people, Sarmiento explained that his online payment solution offers solo diners plenty of benefits, as well.
“A lot of people think that it’s about splitting only,” Sarmiento said. “But it can be used in any situation where you need to pay. If I’m in the airport and in a rush because my flight is coming soon, I now don’t have to get a crummy sandwich because I’m strapped for time. I can actually go to a sit-down place because I know I can pay and get out when I need to.”
“The same goes for anyone who’s heading to Fenway for a game or the theater,” he concluded. “Any situation where you have a deadline, you now still have to time to have a real dining experience.”
Image via Andres Sarmiento.
