FoodEz

There are currently 200,000 job vacancies in the hospitality sector in the UK alone. This does also count for a lot of countries in the EU. This shows that this sector is desperate for a solution, and the pandemic has only made this problem worse. Furthermore, customers themselves face a lot of grievances when wanting to eat out. This is what inspired the idea of FoodEz, an app that will be able to reduce the staff deficit by allowing restaurant owners to provide their services with more ease.

The app FoodEz makes the whole process of dining hassle-free for both the staff and the customer. You will be able to look for restaurants, see availability to book, see events, order ahead, order in person and pay through one app. Due to the market research we have done, talking to restaurants like Pizza Express, Salisbury Arms, The Pear Tree and more. We concluded that the app should be flexible in what functions will be used for the restaurant. Restaurants operate differently from one another and should be able to tailor an experience just how they want it, so this flexibility is important.

This app is convenient from a customer’s perspective because it reduces the number of applications needed significantly. A restaurant experience requires you to go to google/TripAdvisor, the restaurant website and payment/order app. This means that you need around 3 applications to enjoy a restaurant. This app reduces it to 1. From a restaurant owner's perspective, it reduces a lot of apps as well.

There is currently no product that provides the service we are providing. A couple of competitors might do certain segments of the service we are providing, but we believe that we can do each of those individual segments better. This is because knowing who booked which table will help provide the information to make the ordering process work more smoothly and vice versa. E.g., OpenTable is the main competitor that does booking, but it doesn’t know what is happening inside the restaurant. People were still able to book a seat without availability inside, creating issues for management (as was the case with Pizza Express).

To set up this platform we have decided to build it up in phases so revenue can be made sooner. Our competitor Jamezz.app has a service that does the online ordering and paying but disconnects the relationship of the restaurant with the customer. When it comes to the experience a lot of restaurants value this connection. They see waiters as salesmen that connect with the customer, by having this connection while ordering they are able to sell more. They see the payment process as a waste of time for both them and the customer. Being able to pay through a QR code with all your orders connected, will release the table sooner, reduces the workload and allows for the customer to leave whenever they please (the idea is liked by e.g., Pizza Posto). Since no other company offers their payment service in this way, this will be our USP and the perfect niche to enter the market.

To make money our business model works by providing our service with a tier system. Different tiers will give additional functionality at a higher price. Additionally, we are looking into a freemium version to see if we are able to add more restaurants quickly with reduced functionality. This model is similar to the competitors we have analyzed.

Currently, we are working on a prototype for the app which we are developing ourselves. Since my partner has a computer science background and I have an engineering background, we are both familiar with programming. This also means that we can and are willing to help and give advice to other people on the programme regarding the development of an app or other programming-related applications. I have self-taught myself Java and XML which are the primary programming languages needed for app development. So far, these services have been free, however, we want to pay for database services so we can build the business. Additionally, we are getting to the stage where we need to think about how to acquire our first customers and get beta testers. This requires different components like branding, general confidence and knowledge on how to grow our networks. Since these aspects are relatively new to us, advice regarding these stages will be vital as it will aid us in working through and completing them.
We think this programme will be such a big opportunity for us. Getting the chance to be able to work freely on this idea with the professional and financial support it offers, would be very exciting. If we are lucky enough to get the chance to be chosen for the Prometheus Project we will be able to take the critical next step.

Furthermore, we would like to give our game plan in how we want to set up a successful business. The following 5 steps are to be completed.

Customer discovery
The first step to complete is prototyping. The most important aspect for our business regarding prototyping is customer discovery, which should answer the question: “is the service truly useful?”. Restaurants are only going to pay if they think it is useful. The original idea we had looks significantly different from the idea we have now. This is due to the market research we have done. To ensure that our idea is useful we have to present our prototypes to customers and ask for feedback. This continuous verification with the customer is critical. In terms of the technical aspect of prototyping, we need multiple services and skills to complete this. My partner already has programming skills and I have self-taught myself programming languages Java and XML. We are currently prototyping in android studio. Additionally, we need services like AWS (Amazon Web Services), Wordpress and domain names. This is where our primary funding will go to.

Feasibility
To ensure that our platform will be able to operate for the long term there are a number of resources that we need to have. This includes for administration aspects like licenses, IP protection and business registration. For financial assets, we have to find potential subsidies, sponsorships, or crowdfunding and for technical aspects, platform architecture, data management and security. These are a lot of factors to be considered to continue the business.

Customer Validation
When we have finished the application, it is important to alpha test it and then beta test it with potential customers. We are aware that this step can be quite hard to complete since potential customers need to take a risk to test an unproven product. That is why we think that the professional support of this programme would be very important in this phase. There are a lot of factors we must validate such as a selling strategy, how long before a sale, the price and more. It is hard to sell a product if we don’t have answers to these questions.

Customer Creation
For this step, we will have to acquire our first customers and launch the product. We have to start marketing by presenting and educating our customers about the product we have. Getting the professional support to achieve this would be crucial. Looking at similar businesses, trying to aim for an initial one sign-up a day would be a good strategy.

Company building
After we have some permanent customers, we will be busy managing the business and the app. This means that we need to acquire a head of marketing/sales who will reach out to customers and sell our product, to boost our customer's acquisition process. Furthermore, when the first feature is shown to be successful, we want to start on building the other features mentioned and create the whole platform. For this, we need to get experienced programmers that can improve the platform.
Based on the bestseller “The Four Steps to the Ephiphany” ~Steven Gary Blank.

We thank you for your consideration.