Alia Fatima Lalla was one of the many persons in Qatar whose careers were adversely affected due to COVID-19 outbreak. But, instead of losing hope, this 23 year-old commercial trained pilot decided to bring an addition to her pilot background.
Although no one in her family has done business, she decided to test her entrepreneurial skills by starting an innovative business.
Looking for an idea to start a new business, she realised that there is potential for an app which can help food lovers to reserve seats in restaurants and hotels across Qatar in an innovative way.
Although there were many naysayers doubting her new entrepreneurial journey, she decided to take plunge into the world of business, and launched UTSeat app.
“There was a gap between restaurants reservations and potential customers. My app has filled that gap by connecting restaurants and customers,” Alia told The Peninsula. “My app is the first Qatar based app providing this kind of service and introducing this new concept in the Middle East. There are other different apps in this field but they are registered in other countries,” she added.
After much deliberations and taking market feedback, the first-generation entrepreneur registered the company with Qatar Financial Center.
Alia Fatima Lalla
“The idea to launch my app came from my own experience of facing the difficulty in getting my preferred seats in restaurants. I realised that finding a reservation in restaurants has become a problem for food lovers and families," she said.
"After reaching restaurants, customers often find that all seats in a restaurant are full. Customers are told either to be put on a waiting list or come after sometime, which is embarrassing for them,” she said.
The UTSeat app solves many problems encountered while dining out as it allows customers to book their favorite seat, just like at the cinema, in a restaurant with their smart phones.
This app gives live status seats in restaurant and gives customer an idea whether the restaurant is crowded or not.
“When it comes to eating out in restaurants, this app is one stop shop for people. Customers get real time restaurants status, live view of the restaurant, menus and many other sophisticated features” said Alia.
Within just short period, the app has seen positive response from customers. The app has been downloaded by over 10,000 users and has been ranked n° 5 in the top charts in the App Store for food and drink apps, since the launch of app in December 17, last year. The app witnesses around 20-30 reservations per day and this number is continuously increasing.
Encouraged by the positive response from the users, Alia has plans to expand her team and number of restaurants in the app but also making it a worldwide service. “Currently there are 20 dining restaurants and cafes listed in the app and more are onboarding currently. My plan is to increase the number of restaurants in my app to at least 100 in next six months,” said Alia.
“This is the future of dining experience, it will help restaurants and the community in operating in complete safety and in a fun way.”
