Designing and building Flipr, an app for live restaurant offers

The problem

A restaurant carries fixed costs whether its tables are full or not, and the usual discounting methods cost margin without any guarantee that they fill empty seats at the right time. The customer, for their part, does not know where today’s offer is, and stumbles over discount codes and haggling at the till.

The solution

The idea behind Flipr is to tie the offer to time: a live offer that changes every hour, with a discount of up to 75% on the same menu, appearing on the map the moment it starts, with a countdown. The customer signs up with a phone number and swipes right to save the offer to the wallet, then walks in with no booking; the staff enters the phone number and the invoice number and the discount applies automatically.

What was built inside the product

Design decisions

The identity speaks in a direct, live tone: large bold type, a dark ground set against a lime accent, real dish photography, and motion that makes the flip part of the brand. The name “Flipr” rests on the idea of flipping: an empty restaurant into a full one, and a price into a saving.

The lightest possible path was designed for the customer: the phone number is both identity and discount, so there is no payment app, no code and no booking. On the restaurant side, the staff’s role is limited to entering two numbers.

Where it stands

The landing page is published in Arabic and English, and the app is launching on the App Store and Google Play. The restaurants, discount levels and ratings shown on the page are illustrative examples of the product’s shape, not live offers.

What this means for your business

If your business has spare capacity at certain times, the question is how to turn it into demand without lowering your price across the board. Ideas like this begin with a concept that defines who earns, and when, before any design.