Startup Characteristics
Leaf Systems was founded by three undergraduate Business Informatics students in 2013. The aim of Leaf Systems is to provide restaurants with high quality ordering systems which enable customers to have an extraordinary dining experience. Further, the Startup wants to support restaurants with IT systems to improve their service by offering a fully interactive menu through the use of iPad applications. The iPads are provided by the restaurant and the restaurant's customers are then able to manually select items and press the order button. Leaf Systems offers two different versions of its product: A basic version with limited features and functions and a premium version which allows its customers to use the full package. Regardless of the version, the three students always customize their product so that the user interface fits the customer design. After a testperiod of 1 month, Leaf Systems offers their customers regular updates and special user services.
The MCEI and the University of Mannheim support Leaf Systems with important information and help the Startup to grow and develop. Especially the exisiting network enables the three founders to get to know other students interested in entrepreneurship and people who have already successfully launched their own business. Further, the MCEI provides Leaf Systems with office space to guarantee a qualitatively high business environment.
Personal Characteristics
Two of the founders, Patrick Marksteiner (21) and Patrick Neulinger (21), are both from Austria and have known each other since starting school together. During their school education, they competed at the INTEL International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburg/USA and achieved the 3rd place in the category Computer Science. After having worked for an IT company, the two are currently pursuing their bachelor's degree in Business Informatics at the University of Mannheim. They are jointly responsible for the development and technical part of Leaf Systems, as well as the conception of the system. Shenwei Ye (22) is initially from China and graduated from school in Bavaria. He and his family own several restaurants in the area of Mannheim and Shenwei is therefore able to provide first-hand expert knowledge in this field. He is responsible for the organisation and the overall management, as well as the direct communication with customers and spotting their most urgent needs.
The three founders are constantly looking for new ways to improve their product and business and would like to cooperate with other Startups and founders to develop their ideas even further.
Business Development
While studying at the University of Mannheim, one of the three founders, Shenwei Ye, came up with the idea of developing an automated food ordering system, realized with iPads. Since his co-founders really liked the idea, they started developing the system almost immediately. Only a few month later, Leaf Systems installed the first version of their electronic ordering system in one of their customer's restaurants. This was, however, one of the biggest challenges that the team had to master so far: They only had one night for the installation of the whole system at this first restaurant and the system had to be up and running the next day to convince their key client. Fortunately, the three founders succeeded in properly installing and integrating the system their customer was very satisfied with the result. This gave them a lot of motivation to proceed.
Leaf Systems' vision is to change the way of ordering food in the future. They want to give guests a completely new restaurant experience while also providing gastronomes with special IT solutions to improve their daily work in general and to maximize their utilization rates, sales and responsiveness to customer needs.
For further information on Leaf Systems, please visit http://leaf-systems.de
