Butter Systems
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Butter Systems (Butter) was a San Francisco restaurant-technology startup founded in 2013 by Sam Brin (the younger brother of Google co-founder Sergey Brin) and Jon Li, backed by Y Combinator (summer 2013 batch). It replaced the paper restaurant menu with a locked-down tablet at the table: diners could browse an interactive menu, order food and drinks without waiting for a server, and request the check, while restaurant operators adjusted menu items, pricing and promotions on the fly through a web back office. It launched publicly in July 2013, live at Bumble in Los Altos, and raised roughly $120,000 in seed funding from Y Combinator and Fenox Venture Capital. It shut down in 2014.
02 / Butter Systems FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Butter Systems shut down in 2014, but no detailed public account of the company's failure reasons - from the founders or any post-mortem - could be found.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Founded and launched
Sam Brin and Jon Li founded Butter Systems in San Francisco; backed by Y Combinator's summer 2013 batch, it launched its tablet-menu product in July 2013, live at Bumble in Los Altos, raising roughly $120,000 from Y Combinator and Fenox Venture Capital.
- Shut down
Butter Systems shut down in 2014. No detailed public account of the failure reasons was found.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Butter Systems was founded in 2013 in San Francisco by Sam Brin and Jon Li, backed by Y Combinator's summer 2013 batch.
- 02
In July 2013 it launched its tablet-based digital restaurant menu - locked-down tablets at the table for browsing, ordering and paying - live at Bumble in Los Altos.
- 03
It raised roughly $120,000 in seed funding from Y Combinator and Fenox Venture Capital.
- 04
The company shut down in 2014.
- 05
No detailed public account of the failure reasons or any post-mortem exists; no lessons were publicly documented.
- 06
No reliable realized loss figure with clear subject, period and basis has been disclosed; funding raised is not a loss.