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22nd May 2017

This new Irish app lets people skip those dreaded queues at lunchtime

JOE

This is a genius idea.

A new food app that lets you skip the chaos that is morning and lunchtime queues has been invented by two college graduates.

Bamboo lets you pre-order whatever you want, pay and earn loyalty rewards and skip the queue once your order is ready.

When you open the app, you can scroll through all the cafes and restaurants around you. You can tap into a store, browse the menu and place an order.

Luke Mackey and Alan Haverty finished college last year with degrees in marketing and computer science and together form the perfect duo for what could become a very successful app.

The app is being tested out in Dublin first, with more than 30 venues already signed up. The company plans to expand into other cities overseas.

Its demographic is 18 to 35-year-olds who live and work in cities and with college finishing up for the summer.

Order ahead. Skip the queue. Be a boss. ?

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Speaking to Silicon Republic, Luke Mackey said: “You’re building quite powerful product when it has the ability for people to make purchases with it more than 10 times in a week – religiously.

“The opportunity is massive, we’re offering people an easier way to pay in one the highest spending categories for human beings – food and beverage.”

The app was created on the back of the idea of contactless cards and Apple Pay, which gives customers an alternative for quick payment when they are at the counter. However, it can’t stop the delays before that.

“My co-founder Alan Haverty is a computer science grad, an award-winning one at that,” said Mackey. “He manages most of the tech, I just ask ‘is this possible?’

“It’s not just us, we’re lucky to have an amazing team of five and the reason we get so much done is because we all work outrageously hard.”

The app was launched in February in Dublin and since then has received 5,000 downloads with an expected 30% month-on-month growth with the help of Enterprise Ireland.

Topics:

App,Tech