Raph

founder of thoug

[Raph @raph_thoug]

Dubai has some of the best restaurants in the world, and most people go to the same five.

We're building Thoug | ذوق, a membership that gives you points every month to eat for free at restaurants worth discovering.

For people with taste. Launching soon in Dubai.

https://t.co/pV3v3yNh6E

[Raph @raph_thoug]

A question I hear a lot from restaurant owners: "what's the catch?"

Fair. Hospitality has been burned by plenty of platforms that take a cut of every table.

Our answer: no commission, and they choose the dish and the hours. We only win if those new guests come back.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

@VikasAlwys "You can't do everything" gets harder once early customers start asking for things. Every request sounds reasonable on its own. The discipline is saying no to good ideas so the one thing you do is clearly worth showing up for.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

@guilleflorvs The last line is the real insight. Picking is becoming a commodity, access isn't. Founders with options choose the investor who makes the next hire or the next big customer easier. Curious whether the model also learns from the deals it didn't win.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

@Finsee_main The traffic question is the one that matters. Price and currency can lift revenue for a quarter, but wages and occupancy get paid for every open hour whether guests come or not. More visits in the slower parts of the day is the cheapest way to shrink those cost lines.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

@tambi_jalouqa Easy money usually comes with someone else's timeline attached. Saying no early is cheaper than unwinding a yes later. Did the same apply with customers at POSRocket, restaurants asking for custom work that would have pulled the roadmap off course?

[Raph @raph_thoug]

@mariannehere Agree on #1. The part people underestimate is the time it takes. A founder account works when people can watch the thinking change over months, wrong calls included. A polished launch week can't fake that.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

@foodandwine The most useful city guides tell you what to order, not just where to go. Knowing the one dish a kitchen is proudest of changes the whole visit, especially at places you'd never find on your own.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

@moneycontrolcom Price rises land hardest on regulars, because they know exactly what that dish cost last month. The places that keep them usually hold the price on the one or two plates people come back for, and find the margin elsewhere on the menu.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

Before Thoug, I spent years looking at businesses through spreadsheets.

Restaurants humbled that habit fast. The numbers matter, but no model tells you whether a dish is worth crossing the city for.

You only learn that at the table, and by listening to the people who run it.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

@davidhenkes When a meal costs more, guests stop forgiving the average dishes. A higher price raises the bar for every plate, not just the signature one. Trimming the menu down to what the kitchen does really well usually wins people back faster than adding new items.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

@agazdecki Underrated part of the 20-hour version: you still have the energy to notice things. A lot of good decisions come from having time to step back, and that's the first thing that disappears at 80 hours.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

@InvestInJapan Lunch is usually the first thing to go when people tighten up, because it's the easiest meal to swap for something at the desk. The places that hold up give people one specific reason to come at that hour, a dish worth leaving the office for, not a cheaper version of dinner.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

@jonathanmaze Managing for the next generation shows up on the menu too. A private chain can keep a short menu for decades and get very good at it, while a public one gets pushed toward a new limited-time item every quarter. Consistency compounds. Novelty has to be bought again.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

@Rajeshwarkp From the conversations I've had, discounting is what worries owners most. A deep discount fills a table once and teaches guests to wait for the next offer. The places that hold their margins usually compete on a reason to come back, a dish or a welcome, not on price.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

@LauraBlumenthal A lot of that thinness sits in the hours nobody sees. Rent and salaries are paid for the whole day, but most of the revenue arrives in a few busy windows. Even modest traffic in the quiet hours can change the maths more than another price rise.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

@MagnusGrimeland "Fail fast" works for testing an idea, much less for anything built on trust. In local businesses, the first few months are mostly people deciding whether you'll still be around. Quit at month four and you never find out what month twelve looked like.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

@NYMag The "worst" table is often the one with a story. Guests aren't really booking a seat, they're booking something to talk about afterwards. Owners rank tables by space and sightlines; diners rank them by how the night feels.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

5/ And it should end with a name you remember. If a member leaves knowing where they'll bring friends next month, both sides won. That's the visit we're designing everything around.

[Raph @raph_thoug]

1/ Most of our time at Thoug goes into talking with restaurants. Lately I've been asking the opposite question: what should a member's visit actually feel like? A short thread:

[Raph @raph_thoug]

4/ It should leave room for the rest of the meal. The featured dish is the introduction. Our bet is that plenty of people who sit down for one plate stay for dessert, coffee or another dish they didn't plan on.