Brothers From Algeria Launch Dynamic Pricing Food Delivery App
Mohamed Merzouk and Sidi Ahmed Merzouk are the co-founding brothers of Gebni, a food delivery app in New York City. Photo: Nina Roberts
Published in Forbes on December 29, 2017
Gebni is a new restaurant food delivery app that applies dynamic pricing to determine discounts. Two entrepreneurial brothers based in New York City, Mohamed and Sidi Ahmed Merzouk, originally from Algeria, co-founded Gebni, which officially launched in February 2017.
For many harried city dwellers across the U.S., restaurant delivery is a necessary service. The Merzouk brothers discovered the convenience of restaurant delivery while living in Manhattan’s East Village.
“We started heavily relying on food delivery as a way to feed ourselves,” explains the eldest Merzouk brother, Mohamed at 28-years-old. At the time, he was a full time student earning his Master’s in Finance at Pace University while working, with vague notions of a Wall Street investment bank future, not a scrappy startup.
They loved Seamless and used it to order from local halal eateries and their favorite diner. “I always ordered Lox Benedict,” swoons 26-year-old Sidi Ahmed Merzouk, “even at night!” Pointing to his brother, S. A. Merzouk says, “He would tell me, ‘It’s a breakfast meal,’ I’m like, ‘I don’t care, I like it!’”
“We quickly noticed it was very expensive,” notes M. Merzouk, despite the proliferation of competing delivery services, from Grubhub to Uber Eats, evident by the armies of delivery people on bikes zipping through the streets at all hours, hauling big, boxy bags full of restaurant meals.
As the financial reality of food delivery hit, but the Merzouk brothers were too busy to cook, they began researching affordable food platforms. All they found were occasional promo codes or coupons hidden in their junk mail folder, often expired.
They wondered why there wasn’t some type of “happy hour” for restaurant food delivery, discounted prices during slow hours? The Merzouk brothers began surveying friends and random people at bars: If an app offered discounted restaurant meals delivered, would you use it? The answer was always, yes.
The Merzouk brothers have exhibited entrepreneurial flair ever since their mother gave them a foosball table as kids. They dragged it to the street in their Algiers neighborhood. “We let the kids play with it and for every game, they would pay us a dollar. That’s how we became business people!” laughs S.A. Merzouk. “We made enough money to buy ourselves bicycles that summer,” M. Merzouk chimes in.
In late 2015, they began to work on Gebni, which is pronounced with a soft g, and translates to “bring me” in spoken Algerian Arabic. It now has more than 700 participating restaurants in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens; establishments near Fordham University in the Bronx will be added in the near future.
The 5-person Gebni team works remotely or in the renovated basement communal room of the Merzouk brothers’ apartment building in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, amid a red pool table and minimalist sofas. They recently received a second round of funding, they’re not making the amount public; the first round was $150,000. They add that the Gebni app has been downloaded several thousand times.
Gebni’s dynamic pricing is based on an algorithm that discounts each dish according to demand. Discounts fluctuate in real time and can range from a minimal 2% to a substantial 35%, even on a $10 item. If a restaurant has a delivery fee it’s clearly stated; tips are not included in the price.
For example, Numero 28 Pizzaria in the East Village recently offered $5 to $6 off various pizzas; a mozzarella and soppressata filled calzone with salad for $11.14, a $6.30 discount. Chickpea's chicken kebab with chipolte hummus had a $2.91 discount, the final cost, $5.54. The Lamb Pasanda dish at Mughlai Indian Cuisine had a $4.85 discount and Petite Abeille’s Frittata Ardennaise had a $5.18 discount.
How did Gebni move from a need, to a concept, to a functioning app? Did their Algerian background influence the Gebni business model? The Merzouk brothers explain.
Nina Roberts: Once you figured out there was a need for Gebni, how did it come to fruition?
Mohamed Merzouk: We started talking to restaurants and asked them why they were offering discounts to their physical customers but not their online customers. Online ordering can reach thousands of people instead of just a few passersby who might notice a restaurant’s sign.
Restaurants also told us that these delivery services take a commission fee, starting from 11% all the way to 42%. The average in New York City is about 20 to 25%.
NR: What is Gebni’s commission fee?
MM: We are not public about that. I mean, we talk about it with the restaurants. Let’s just put it this way, it’s low enough that restaurants can give a substantial discount to the end consumer.
NR: Is Gebni a free app? Do users pay to join?
MM: The app is free, there is no joiner's fee. All users have to do is create an account.
NR: Why did you choose dynamic pricing discounts for Gebni?
MM: Coming from a finance econ background, we understood that the value of our dollars during off peak hours should be worth more to restaurants.
We want people to pay a fair price that reflects current demand for that meal, instead of an arbitrary price set by someone that doesn’t really understand market economics, supply and demand.
NR: How do restaurants and users find you?
MM: I physically went around to different restaurants and pitched them the idea in the beginning. On the user side, we went to colleges and set up tables because college students are always looking for ways to save money. We’ve also experimented with paid social media marketing.
NR: Did you always know you wanted to be entrepreneurs?
MM: We grew up surrounded by entrepreneurs. My grandpa is an entrepreneur we looked up to. He came to Algiers from his remote village on foot to find a job at just 11-years-old. He had, I think, eight sisters and one brother; he was the provider for all of them because his father passed away.
When we were very young he would take us with him to meetings, every single business he had, and tell us stories how he started them.
Sidi Ahmed Merzouk: At the time we started Gebni, I was taking my GMAT classes and applying to business schools. But I fell in love with Swift and found a software engineer bootcamp.
NR: Has being immigrants from Algeria impacted Gebni?
MM: I think wanting to make food accessible to a broader part of the population, that’s something we learned back home. We were taught to think of food and helping the community. In Algeria, people usually don’t go hungry because if you have a family member who is not in a good financial situation, you are supposed to help them out—even neighbors, it doesn’t have to be just family.
SAM: Also, waste. I was working at a health food store as the general manager, every time I came home, I would talk about how much waste was being generated.
MM: From a cultural standpoint, wasting food was always a no-no. Gebni is a more efficient way to price food, it can help move inventory quickly and prevent waste.
This Q&A has been edited and condensed for clarity.