Opening a restaurant isn’t an easy task and it requires funding, planning, and hard work. The restaurant industry is pretty competitive, and many establishments fail within their first year.
Despite these challenges, there are some entrepreneurs who have found creative ways to make the process easier, crowdfund their own restaurant and stand out in a crowded market through supercommunities.
A notorious success case in the hospitality industry is FlyFish Club, a restaurant that was able to be funded with digital collectibles. Let’s explore how.
What is FlyFish Club
FlyFish Club is a seafood restaurant and entertainment concept based in New York City and founded by entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk and other partners. The restaurant was created around digital collectibles and funded by its supercommunity.
The idea behind this dining club is that it can only be accessed by members of its supercommunity without needing a reservation, and the membership is given by digital collectibles.
Gary Vaynerchuk and his partners created FlyFish Club as a way to innovate in the hospitality industry, looking for an alternative way to fund a restaurant, create a member-only establishment, and provide guests with a one-of-a-kind experience.
Something interesting and different from this dining club compared to others is that the membership can be easily transferred to other people, as it’s attached to the digital collectible.
In such an international place like New York City is, this makes lots of sense, as one may move to somewhere else and give or sell their collectible to somebody really easily and in a matter of seconds.
The founders of Flyfish Club aim to create a new standard for the hospitality industry by leveraging the power of its supercommunity and creating a unique dining experience. They hope to establish themselves as the leaders in the field and inspire other establishments to adopt similar innovations in the future.
Creating a restaurant loyalty program with a supercommunity
FlyFish Club launched 3035 digital collectibles with different designs at around $7000 each before it even started to be built. Gary Vaynerchuk and his partners proposed a plan (or roadmap) for the restaurant to be constructed in the following years.
They launched 2 different memberships for those who collected the digital items: the common one, which gives access to the restaurant and a cocktail room, and the “Omakase” membership, which gives access to a special Omakase sushi room and unlocks special meals, on top of the common rewards.
All the digital collectibles sold out in little time, giving the founders a head start of around $20 million to crowdfund the business with their supercommunity.
Rewards for food lovers
As part of being a member of the FlyFish Club supercommunity, you get access to the restaurant’s loyalty program, which consists in access to:
- The restaurant at any time, without reservations
- The cocktail lounge to meet other members of the supercommunity
- The special Omakase room and special meals if they had the Omakase collectibles
- Special in-person events and Zoom calls with the founders
Conclusion
Flyfish Club is a restaurant that is pushing boundaries in the hospitality industry and exploring new ways of funding a dining club and creating an exclusive dining experience through the use of supercommunities.
Only time will tell whether this concept becomes a new industry standard, but it’s definitely an interesting and innovative way of creating a restaurant loyalty program with a supercommunity that can give the establishment a head start and be transferred easily between people.
