This seems like an opportune space for a startup to compete in. You could easily sell the online reservation service for a fraction of what OT is charging and just skip the hardware nonsense. The hardware and table management system could be a separate product or service.
Build the web app portion that allows reservations to be made from the customers perspective, just like they have now. Integrate it with Twilio so that the restaurant receives an automated call and can confirm/deny the reservation on their end, without having to deal with a bunch of new hardware. You just tell them that they're going to receive a phone call with the reservation information and the options. There's little or no training required on their side, no additional hardware, minimal integration, no new systems. It's a more organic transition for a restaurant when you're trying to talk them into becoming a customer.
Innovating technology wise in the restaurant space is pretty tough cause sooner or later you're going to hit the wall of having to integrate with a dozen or more point of sale providers, no matter what you're trying to do (mobile/online ordering, reservation/waitlist systems, reporting systems, etc).
Oh, and because of their incredibly low profit margins, most restaurants can't afford to buy this type of tech. And the ones that do typically keep it for 5+ years between upgrades.
The worst part is dealing across vendors though. The APIs are incredibly inconsistent between them, and some are frankly, crippled.
solves the problem of having access to seating data and provides a compelling upgrade option compared to alternatives. hardware just needs to be a "dumb" Internet terminal (likely with a touch screen and print capabilities).
But there are a lot of issues. How do you confirm to the customer that their booking went through? What if no-one answers? The customer experience just isn't that great.
A reservation/waitlist system that doesn't interact with the restaurant's point of sale system is mostly pointless as you need to be able to track real time table availability.
Just out of curiosity, who are "the hedge funds" and how do you know this? Is there some way of researching who is shorting what?
I don't know of any way to research who is shorting what other than SEC filings. Mutual/Hedge funds have to report this information on a quarterly basis.
The accumulation/distribution line is strongly inverse to price(It's an indicator based on buy/sell volume. Normally, an accumulation precedes price rise while a distribution is in tandem with a selloff. When shorting, the long-term trend goes the opposite way - there's more buying than selling, yet price consistently drifts down. Caveat: being based on a composite of price/volume/time, it's not totally accurate and even changes dramatically across time scales. )
Market-maker quotes on Level II behave unusually in response to buys or sells(on small, low-volume stocks in particular, MMs are sometimes colluding forces and will "paint the chart" with tiny trades that, in a fair market, would not affect quotes).
Message boards for the ticker symbol suddenly see the appearance of paid bashers who will repeat negative news multiple times a day.
---
With a lot of heavily shorted stocks, the company is fundamentally weak to begin with. However, even a very solid company is vulnerable if it's starting from a low market cap. So - in general - take the appearance of a large short position as a sign to either join them or get out. To see a short squeeze the float has to be very tight, and the stock needs to be forced into a speculative frenzy with good news or just big buyers. The long-run odds always favor companies failing.
OPEN is a big-board stock with a large valuation and volume right now, so I wouldn't expect shorts to be obvious enough that you can see these indicators. As well, their dirtiest tricks are reserved for pennies. They have the lowest risk there, since market cap is so small that they can absorb most price rises.
Plus if you have access to one of the online idea boards for hedge funds, you can see the write ups from analysts that believe OpenTable is a short -- sometimes they disclose whether or not their fund is short the company as well.
I am counting 4 of those write ups right now.
Any more info on these?
That's why Groupon, Yelp, and OpenTable all have massive sales forces dedicated to finding and acquiring new restaurants. This costs money. The same pretty much applies to every other restaurant technology company, ever. (Particularly point of sale companies.)
It's debatable whether the startup fees should be included in the per-table cost anyways, given that is a sunk cost.
Wherever you see high valuations and high returns on capital, competition is bound to come in, which gradually reduces returns and valuations.
There's a pretty big network effect.