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Restaurant-side GTM — two acquisition loops

Loop 01 · AI curator network — the unconventional loop

We don't cold email restaurants. We become the cool food account that features them.

How it works:

1. AI picks a target restaurant in our market (CZ / US / DE)
2. AI generates a high-quality reel from photos of that venue — same content style as any food curator account
3. We post the reel from our food-curator IG accounts (e.g., @thefoodie.nyc - check our NYC account) — accounts built specifically for organic restaurant discovery
4. We tag the restaurant in collaboration mode — the post then appears on the restaurant's own feed too
5. The restaurant sees their venue featured by a credible curator → conversation opens organically

Conversion funnel (validated in NYC, Q1 2026):

• 60% engagement rate — conversation opens with the restaurant. vs ~2% from cold outreach — 30× hit rate.
• 60% of tagged restaurants repost the content organically to their own feed
• 10% convert to customer
• CAC: \$70 per acquired restaurant (against AI generation + posting infrastructure)
• Scale ceiling: 50–100 curator accounts with current ops infrastructure

Scale of the curator network:

• We can run 100–150 curator accounts in parallel (CZ, US, DE, expanding)
• Each posts ~3 reels per day
• Combined daily reach: tens of thousands of impressions across the curator network
• The curator network is its own revenue stream. We're already inserting beverage brand placements into curator stories — we charge brands for those impressions too, on the same CPM logic

Why this is unconventional:

Most restaurant SaaS plays cold email and cold call. We built an organic discovery network that restaurants want to be on. By the time a sales conversation happens, the restaurant has already been featured, already received traffic, already trusts the curator brand. The CAC is reels cost, but it produces a customer who came to us — not the other way around.

Loop 02 · Brand channel — ~zero CAC

Once a brand commits to HeroContent as a trade marketing partner, they sell us into their existing restaurant base for free.

How it works:

1. Brand signs HeroContent as trade marketing partner
2. Brand reps onboard restaurant accounts from their existing client network
3. Restaurants activate to receive brand promos through HC
4. Near-zero incremental acquisition cost — the brand sells the platform on our behalf

Conversion data:

• 12% conversion observed in early outreach when the restaurant was still paying a subscription
• We're now testing the free-for-restaurant tier (brand revenue covers the platform) — conversion should rise materially. Updated number coming as the test matures.

Channels brand partners use:

• Mass email blasts to their existing restaurant client base
• Field reps and distributor sales teams actively pitching HC to accounts
• Distributor events, trade activations, regional brand meetings

Compounding effect: every new brand partner brings their restaurants with them → marginal restaurant CAC trends toward zero across the platform.

Brand-side GTM — how we sign brand partners

Two parallel paths to land brand managers and platform-level brand contracts.

Path 1 · Top-down through known network

Strategy: enter at the highest level inside the brand — CMO, marketing director, head of trade marketing. Not through procurement, not through brand-side junior hires.

Channels:

• Warm introductions through advisors and existing pilot partners (Jakub Loos at Coca-Cola opens doors at PepsiCo / Keurig Dr Pepper / etc.; Tomislav for US enterprise sales)
• Paid intro platforms — specifically intro.co, where we pay to buy a senior executive's time for a focused 30-minute conversation. Higher hit rate than cold outbound; shorter cycle than waiting for warm intros to materialize
• Brand-side referrals — every successful pilot partner becomes a reference for the next conversation

Sequence:

1. Introduction (warm or paid)
2. 30-minute conversation — pitch the network, the math, the playbook
3. Pilot proposal — we organize everything, brand approves and signs
4. Pilot performance review (10–30 day campaign window with measurable lift)
5. Long-term commercial contract

Path 2 · Through marketing agencies (e.g., WPP, Publicis, Omnicom)

Strategy: get into the agency partner network so brands hear about HC through their existing trade-marketing channel.

• Big-agency account managers handle CPG brand portfolios and recommend tools to their clients
• We become a recommended platform inside the agency stack — puts us in front of multiple brands at once, with the agency endorsing the choice
• Lower per-deal margin (agency takes a cut) but higher coverage and faster cycles per brand

Combination: Path 1 builds credibility through anchor enterprise wins. Path 2 scales reach across the brand universe. Running both in parallel.

Geographic strategy

• CZ — deepen. Home market. Coca-Cola pilot live. Build the playbook, prove the unit economics, accumulate case studies.
• US — scale. 4 paying restaurants live in NYC, 10+ in pipeline (Q1 2026 validation). CPM is 4–5× CZ. Foodie loop validated at 60% engagement rate via direct door-to-door + Instagram outreach. The \$1M raise activates US Country Manager hire (Q3 2026) + first US-side brand sales lead.
• DE — early. First revenue. Opportunistic for now; deepens once US playbook is repeatable.
• Series A timeframe: UK, France, Spain — high beverage brand presence + restaurant density.

Milestones — 18 months · \$1M raise

Path to seed: \$3M+ ARR · 4 brand advertisers · US scale · 18 months.

Why this scales

Curator network compounds. Each new curator account adds reach and produces more discovery without a proportional cost increase. The same accounts also generate brand-placement revenue — the acquisition channel becomes a monetization channel.

Brand-channel CAC inversion is the structural moat. As brand partners onboard, they bring restaurants with them. More brand partners → cheaper restaurant acquisition → more inventory → more attractive to the next brand partner. Two-sided flywheel.

Brand-manager-layer sales compress dramatically after the first anchor in each holdco. Inside Coca-Cola, the playbook is already systematized — every additional brand inside the holdco is a 4–8 week cycle.

What we're testing now

• Free-for-restaurant tier — does Loop 02 conversion jump from 12% materially higher when subscription disappears?
• Multi-brand simultaneous campaigns across the same restaurant network — when 3+ brands run in parallel on one venue, does revenue per restaurant compound cleanly?
• Tier 2 / Tier 3 pricing systematization — moving Coca-Cola from base CPM toward outcome-based pricing as the offer-integration playbook firms up
• Curator account self-monetization — what's the ceiling on brand placements inside curator stories, separate from restaurant-account placements?

Strategic synergies (Series A timeframe)

DoorDash, Uber Eats, Delivery Hero have built their own ad networks (\$1–2B run-rate each). Their restaurants overlap with ours. Long-term: deeper integration with delivery aggregators where brand campaigns run through both restaurant-owned channels and aggregator platforms in unified flow.

Already had preliminary conversations with DoorDash and Bolt. Not core to this raise — opportunity in Series A timeframe.