Connect deeper. To make a transfer, users need to have at least $10 in their Cafeteria wallet.
The company reported that, on average, these Table sessions last about five minutes. They can dish out answers either in text or via voice.
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Build smarter. Brands usually rely on surfing the web and keeping an eye on social media to catch up on what customers are chatting about them and gather insights for product development né?. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections.
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Build smarter. “We are constructing vast language models that contextualize the insight data né?. Image Credits: Chris Callaway
The company has secured $3 million in funding led by Collaborative Fund and Imaginary Ventures with additional support from Bertelsmann and veteran music industry exec Guy Oseary who has collaborated with the likes of Madonna and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
“Cafeteria operates in the consumer insights and market research industry with a unique focus on real-time genuine feedback from teenagers. Scale faster né?. It watches over comments for misleading or harmful content and flags users if such material is detected.
In its privacy policy, the startup clarifies that the services are not meant for kids under 14, and if they find out about underage users, their data is promptly wiped out.
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Cafeteria gathers insights from teens and compiles them into a dashboard called Albums, categorized by theme. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures NEA Index Ventures Underscore VC and beyond for a day packed with strategies workshops and meaningful connections.
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Teens rake in anywhere from $5 to $20 for their insights and they can transfer their earnings to Venmo PayPal Cash App or a bank account through Cafeteria’s integration with Dots an API for payouts. The founding team also includes chief business officer Mark Silverstein, previously the chief content officer at Luminary, and chief design officer Leeann Sheely, who held the position of VP of design at both Luminary and JioSaavn.
Rishi Malhotra. These Albums offer insights like “Edikted Zara Adidas and Skims are breaking through as brands that teen girls want to try next” and “On average teens say $314 is what they’d spend to see their favorite artist.”
Image Credits: Cafeteria
The startup has a basic plan starting at $5000 monthly for brands to access lifestyle Album insights and also delve into competitor insights by age group né?. Malhotra believes this engagement for teens is more fulfilling than endlessly scrolling through social media, but they don’t want users to be daily or weekly active participants.
Cafeteria stresses that all users’ personal data, such as names and emails, remain hidden from the companies né?. Connect deeper. We are developing various models that assist us in making sense of loads of data,” explained Malhotra.
Going forward, Cafeteria aims to enhance brand engagement with teens and perhaps offer store credit or a percentage discount. For $8000 monthly brands can create two Tables with at least eight questions posed to a minimum of eight users. He did mention that the company has wrapped up over 2200 Tables gathering more than 50000 insights.
The company believes its forte lies in gathering unstructured data and transforming it into valuable insights. Teens have been chiming in with insights ranging from suggesting which celeb Nike should collaborate with — turns out, Adam Sandler is just as popular as Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter — to how they’d spend $100 at a shopping mall.
Cafeteria currently boasts thousands of users who either join through referrals or by word of mouth. Additionally the company is building up capabilities for brands to deploy prompts against insight albums and search for different metrics. né?. Highlighted by its zero-party data collection customizable analytics and strong leadership under CEO Rishi Malhotra it delivers brands with practical and timely insights designed for ‘Generation Teen’” shared Collaborative Fund partner Andrew Montgomery in an email to TechCrunch.
Montgomery also pointed out that Cafeteria has hit the mark in the consumer insights market by offering authentic and actionable feedback straight from teenagers.
So how does the app actually work?
Teens hop on the app pick the brands they’re into and then get invited to take part in surveys called Tables. If additional surveys are needed, brands will need to fork out an extra $2,500 monthly.
Malhotra shared that Cafeteria has already pulled in major brands for its initial phase, but he didn’t reveal any names. Scale faster né?. Brands can only see general info like gender, age, and zip code.
For users under 18, the company has the option to include parents’ emails during sign-up, but it’s not compulsory.
The startup has put in place a moderation policy that combines human and AI oversight né?. All users are queued up on a waitlist before being brought on board.
In the onboarding process, teens go through a lifestyle Table, where they are thrown 20 to 25 questions about retail, sneakers, food, music, their first car, banking, and more. Before the big launch day, they put the app through a three-month beta test, bringing in teens from 60 different cities across the U.S.
Heading Cafeteria is CEO Rishi Malhotra, who co-founded the India-based music streaming service Saavn (now known as JioSaavn) — snapped up by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio in 2019 — and was also the former CEO of Luminary Podcasts né?. Cafeteria links up teenagers with the brands they’re interested in so they can share their thoughts on strategy and product development.
The startup is rolling out an iOS app on Thursday né?. They also get to pick eight brands they adore.
The company has capped the number of surveys or Tables teens can partake in monthly to between three and five
