The Full Story
Taste The City's Story
Taste The City was born from a simple yet powerful concept: people love to connect over food. The company created a digital platform that allows people to explore cities through progressive dining experiences, visiting 3-5 restaurants in a single evening without the hassle of planning, reservations, or separate payments.
"We create a digital platform where people can explore restaurants and hop between different restaurants in an evening all in a pre-planned, prepaid manner with digital guides," explains Joanna Pariseau, CEO and founder. "You don't have a physical tour guide with you, and usually people explore about three to five different restaurants in a night and get to explore the neighborhood as well as delicious food and local restaurants."
The concept is particularly appealing for team-building events, where colleagues can engage in meaningful conversations while experiencing diverse culinary offerings. The progressive format naturally encourages everyone to mix and mingle, creating more connection points than traditional sit-down dinners.
Despite having an attractive offering for corporate groups, Taste The City struggled to reach the right decision-makers efficiently. They knew HR professionals and corporate event planners would love their unique team-building experiences, but lacked an effective system to connect with these potential clients.
Sales Outreach Predicament
Like many startups, Taste The City faced a common dilemma: they needed to grow their corporate client base but couldn't dedicate countless hours to manual prospecting. The traditional sales approach would have required researching potential clients, crafting personalized messages, sending outreach, and following up—all while running day-to-day operations.
"There's no way that I would have had not only the time, but I would have had to go and research and find all of the individuals that fit our profile and then I would have to individually message them," Joanna recalls. "And because I am not a super technical person, I would be probably copying and pasting it over and over... and the nature of the startup, we just didn't have time to do it."
The challenge was particularly acute because corporate group bookings represented their "bread and butter"—these larger events delivered significantly better returns than individual bookings. Without an efficient way to reach corporate decision-makers, they were missing crucial revenue opportunities.
Additionally, Joanna recognized that authenticity was paramount in their outreach. "I've seen a lot of AI messages come through and I find that you can spot them really easily," she notes, highlighting the importance of maintaining their genuine brand voice in any automated solution.
Partnering with PipeRich AI
When Taste The City partnered with PipeRich AI, they discovered a solution that went beyond traditional automation. The implementation process began with a strategic consultation to identify their ideal customer profile.
"We worked on building the profile of the person that we were actually trying to connect with, which was like an HR professional or somebody that was going to be planning those internal team events”
What set PipeRich AI apart was its ability to capture Taste The City's authentic voice while automating the outreach process. "What was really great about PipeRich is that we were able to tailor that to really think about our tone and how we were coming across, so it seemed very authentic," Joanna emphasizes.
The implementation was seamless, requiring minimal time investment from Taste The City. After the initial strategy session and messaging development, the PipeRich AI sales workers took over completely, allowing Joanna and her team to focus on their core business operations.
Valuable Relationship Building Autopilot
Once PipeRich AI was deployed, Taste The City essentially gained an entire sales team without adding headcount. "It's like having a person that's working for you, probably like 10 people that are working for you in the background and just out there as your salespeople," Joanna explains.
The AI sales workers operate around the clock, identifying potential corporate clients, initiating conversations, and nurturing relationships—all while maintaining the warm, food-loving personality that defines Taste The City's brand.
Rather than immediately pitching their services, the AI creates genuine connection points with HR professionals and event planners. "We were able to work with Jeff and he really guided us in how we should actually speak to people at the beginning, that it shouldn't just be like this sales message right away, but just kind of a warm reach out," Joanna notes.
This approach led to building meaningful connections on LinkedIn, resulting in more than just immediate sales. "Now I have a network of over 2,500 HR professionals, and now my posts when I do anything about a team builder is actually seen by that entire network," Joanna shares, highlighting the long-term marketing benefits beyond direct sales.
Most importantly, the system required virtually no management from Taste The City after initial setup. "The automation takes everything off of your hands in a way that the hours that I would have had to input—the cost covered it so much," Joanna explains. This allowed her team to focus on what they do best: creating memorable culinary experiences.
From Meals to Team Building Feasts: The Impact
The impact of implementing PipeRich AI was both immediate and substantial. "We have just seen our sales volume explode really from this capacity," Joanna reports. "We're seeing corporate inbound corporate requests now for groups and team builders every single week."
In fact, the volume of leads generated exceeded their expectations. "In true startup fashion, we underestimated the volume that we would get from the pipeline that PipeRich was actually giving us," Joanna admits. "We had so many messages that I couldn't actually keep up with it at the time."
The quality of these leads was equally impressive. While their social media marketing typically brought in bookings for couples or small groups, the PipeRich-generated leads were for much larger corporate events. "When we leverage our social media, we get a tasting for two people coming through—awesome, that's fantastic. But how much work and effort we actually had to put in to get those two people, versus when we're actually getting a sale that's inbound from PipeRich, we're getting groups of 10 to 12 people... and it's automated, we actually didn't have to put any effort in."
This influx of larger bookings drove significant revenue growth, even during traditionally slow periods. "We had one of our best sales months yet in December, a month that we actually didn't think that we were going to get really any volume because of Christmas parties and everything, but it was the opposite. And I attribute a lot of that to the sales that we got through PipeRich."
Beyond the immediate sales impact, Taste The City gained a valuable marketing asset in their expanded LinkedIn network. Each post about team-building now reaches thousands of relevant decision-makers, creating a compounding return on their initial investment.
"The automation is like having 10 people working for you."
"The fact that it's just automatic—it's like having a person that's working for you, probably like 10 people that are working for you in the background and just out there as your salespeople," says Joanna. "The automation takes everything off of your hands in a way that the hours that I would have had to input—the cost covered it so much. It was fantastic when you compare the two."
"I tell people all the time, honestly, it's just such an easy service. It's really wonderful people to deal with, and we always like supporting other local businesses and local startups. I can't say enough good things about PipeRich—you are not going to regret your decision other than just be prepared because you're going to get a lot of inbound sales!"