3. Do you want to eat affordable and authentic
local food when you travel?
OR
Do you want to make some money sharing your
favorite local recipes with travelers?
4. We connect people who want to
experience an authentic home-cooked
meal with hosts who want to provide
one.
5. How Do We Connect People? :
By Providing a Web Site 'Food Routes' where
customers can search for hosts by: location, reviews,
meal dates, and much more
By ensuring security with our Host Identity and
Address Verification program
By building a Community where users can blog, share
their 'Food Routes' experience, or win awards in the
best 'Food Routes' picture contest
6. How Do We Connect People? :
By enabling hosts to earn income.
By supplying customers with hosts' neighborhood
information, including transportation and off-the-
beaten path places to see and experience near host's
home
By providing easy payment options
7. Hosts and Guests register on the ‘Food Routes'
Website (prototype link: www.dish4all.ning.com ) as
Members. Registration is Free and Easy. Once
registered, member can post and book events.
9. What question were we trying to find an answer
to?
Is there an interest in our Service?
Who are the customers?
What is important to our customers?
Would they be willing to spend money on the hosted meal
service?
How user-friendly do customers find our prototype website?
10. Our Assumptions prior to survey:
Customers split into two major segments: 'foodies'
and 'budget travelers'
For budget travelers price is critical decision factor
Customer are interested in using the service when
traveling internationally
The most important factor for customers is
authenticity of meal
11. What have we done and what did we find ? :
We conducted 15 Face-to-Face interviews and
received 23 responses to the survey
Survey Link:
'Food Route' Survey
14. Our Survey Basic Demographics :
HOUSEHOLD INCOME
Less then $2K – one respondent from South Africa,
$5K to $9K – one out of 3 Russian respondents,
Over$200K – one Indonesia and one USA,
Rest normally distributed
16. I like it! I was a little confused about what to do. I did
not see where I would sign up as a guest for a meal. I
clicked on the Honduran meal, but there was no option
to make a reservation. Maybe there could be a
monthly feature at some point, of a "lucky" host or a
"most popular" host, or "voted best host", etc. I loved
the photos of the food. It looked fabulous!! I think it
is attractive enough to interest people.
Linda, California
17. Cool concept! Will definitely use the service and know
quite a few people who would like to be a host. Easy to
follow. Will be nice to incorporate some kind of a
navigation tool to find the host. Also would want to
see the rating of the host by previous guests.
Andrey, Moscow
18. I would use the site when I travel to find an
interesting place to dine. Need to make sure site has
advanced search capabilities and also want to see
previous customers reviews.
Kevin, Florida
19. I would use the site for take away or delivery. It would
be good to have house pictures, to see overall hygiene
of the house. The site will be depending on people
reviews, so I would like to find some recommendations
from the owner's website. Some host that has been
tried by the owner of 'Dish for all'.
Mrs. Wafa, California
20. I may use it. But I am not sure if it is safe to go to
someone I dont know, unless it is a well known chef or
person. I recommend some celebrity chefs to be as a
host for low budget meal, and the money will go to
charity. Competition between top chiefs in town as a
host to raise credibility of the website in the
beginning. Add credibility degree it is different from
reviews, like Amazon.com when they guarantee the
seller.
Mrs. Sarah, New Mexico
21. Would definitely use the service, but not host. Would like to try
different authentic food, especially in countries where the average
restaurant food can be poor. For example Egypt and much of the
middle east unless you go to top notch restaurants. Would like to see
a picture of the person and their home so I can assess level of hygiene
and if I am comfortable with the type of person before selecting to go
with them (from a security point of view). Business should provide
hosts some guidelines around hygiene and information about what
travellers might like (eg in certain countries, only offer tourists
bottled water and no salads unless washed with boiled water). I would
expect to pay the same or a bit less than a casual restaurant in the
country (amount would depend on the country)
Adrianne, Sydney
23. Customer Feedback Summary:
Good news – there is interest in the service, with
the majority (89% based on survey data) customers
expressing an interest in the offering
Criteria for success - some assumptions were not
correct and face-to-face interview reveals that
although there is definite interest in the service
there are also lots of concerns and questions
24. Significant Customer Findings:
•Customers are concerned about security and hygiene
•The company name 'Dish' and tag-line “Where dinner is
always ready” was confusing to some customers.
• 'Dish' is major satellite provider
• The word “diner” in the tag-line is misleading as in
some countries the main meal is lunch and tourists
may be interested in this meal, or other meals
25. Significant Customer Findings:
•Contrary to our original assumption lower-then-
restaurant price is not the critical factor. Based on a
survey data:
95% were willing to pay up to $20 for a meal per person
82% up to $30 per person
60% up to $40 per person
18% up to $50 per person
10% up to $80 per person
•Site usability is critical. For the final version of the site we
need to make sure site is easy to follow.
•It will be useful to provide functionality to allow Guests to
request certain meals from the Host.
26. Significant Customer Findings:
•There is no clear 'foodie' and 'budget traveler'
separation.
•In addition to the 'authentic meal experience' one of
the main interests is to 'meet new people'
•The interest in the service is not limited to
international travel as originally assumed. Based on
survey data 32% of customers are interested in a
hosted home-cooked meal in their home-country.
28. Business Model and Prototype Changes:
•Name changed to 'Food Routes‘ from 'Dish'
•Tag-line changed to 'Where your meal is always ready‘
•Introduced into our operating model a Host Identity and
Address Verification program where the host can chose
to participate by providing required documentation
•Building a 'Food Routes' community to encourage
customer interaction. For example, providing blog space,
running 'best picture' contests, 'Host-of-the-month'
awards, celebrity chefs charity meals, etc
29. Business Model and Prototype Changes:
•Include in the web site/ mobile app neighborhood
information, transportation information, and pictures of
the host and their pictures
•Need to conduct separate survey concentrating on
hosts, as building host network is critical. To be successful
hosts in addition to the cooking skills need to have friendly
and outgoing personality and home that is clean, secure
and easily accessible for the customers.
31. Target Market:
• Our target market was Australians and Americans who are
travelling on holidays who are foodies (segment 1) or budget
travellers (segment 2)
• We identified the top 5 international destinations of Australians
and Americans:
• We sourced the statistics on the number of international trips by
Americans and Australians from government web sites
• We adjusted numbers to exclude:
• Business trips
• Trips where travellers were visiting friends and family (who
presumably had no need to find other sources of home cooked
meals
32. Target Market:
•Where there was data missing we assumed Americans and Australians
had similar travel profiles (business vs leisure vs visiting family and
friends)
•We then assumed a % of the trips were done by foodies (20%) and
budget travellers (20%), and the percentage who would be interested in
the service (20%)
•We assumed on average there would be 2 people at each meal event,
and each host would provide on average 12 meals per annum
•We then developed a simple revenue model for the business
Sources:
•Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, US Department of Commerce (US Residents Traveling to
Overseas Destinations 2011)
•Australian Bureau of Statistics (Australian Residents Departing Temporarily Internationally for
Holidays)
33. Market Analysis Key findings:
• The top destinations for Americans are Mexico, Canada, UK,
Italy and France
• The top destinations for Australians are NZ, Indonesia, USA,
Thailand and the UK
• Based on our described methodology we estimate:
• The market size to be 1.3m meals per annum
• The market value to be worth $7.8M to us based on our
current assumed pricing structure
Current assumed pricing structure:
•Host Sign up Fee = $5
•Booking Fee = 10%
•Commission = 15%
•Avg Meal Price = $30
34. Market Analysis Key Conclusions:
• The simple revenue model highlighted the following about our
business model:
• Slim margins
• Volume dependent, but large scale economics
• The need to have a low-cost cost structure
• We realized that we were being too conservative in limiting the
market segment of travelers to only two countries (US and
Australia)
35. Market Analysis Key Conclusions:
• Market size is estimated at $7.8M
• Customer surveys pointed that there is a potential for market
size increase pending additional research:
• We queried whether there would be interest in local meals in
countries which are very similar culturally to the customer’s
home country and received positive results.
• Our Customer research also showed there could be interest
in a local home cooked meal even in customers home country.
36. Market Size Key Actions:
•As a result of our market analysis we decided to expand the
market opportunity to include travelers from Western Europe
who are also travelling to our top destinations. (This has yet to
be sized)
•We will investigate adding a third target segment (besides
foodies and budget travelers) which resulted from our customer
interviews: travelers on long term assignments who get tired of
restaurant food daily and would prefer home cooked meals.
(Hypothesis is that this is a small segment)
•To have a low-cost cost structure, we should empower hosts
to do their own marketing activities through our web/mobile
channels (eg special dinners, promotions etc)
38. There is customer interest in the service and adequate
market size at $7.8M.
Adjustments to business model are needed and are currently
being made. Further customer face-to-face dialog is essential
with additional emphasis on communicating with hosts.
With the changes made we believe the opportunity is worth
pursuing to the next steps.
steps
