19A - Idea Napkin 2

19A – Idea Napkin No.2

1.     You. I wear many hats. I am a wife, mother, student, United States Airman, and avid weightlifter. The many hats that I wear contribute to many of my talents and skills. Some of my skills include time management, being self-disciplined, and leadership/followership and never giving up. If I were to start my business concept, I would want to be actively involved. I have been tracking my food for years now and would like to make the process easier for the food tracking community. I would also like to educate large chain restaurants on the opportunity that exists for them with a scannable menu. I think I would be an extremely dedicated individual in making this one of the best food tracking apps available.

2.     What are you offering to customer? Every person is looking to make something easier in their life or save time. The scannable menu is built to cut down the time it takes to track your meals and allows you to be more present with your friends and family while also making it easier to stick to your diet. Since chain restaurants are also a potential customer for the menu I am offering them a new way to connect to the health conscious customer which in turn may create a new market for them.

3.     Who are you offering it to? Demographic: In 2017, 43% of people who regularly use food tracking apps are between the ages of 18 and 45. I would like to focus on this demographic because they already know the hassle that can come with eating out and needing to track your food.Also, food chains that are already required by the FDA to provide calories on their menus (any restaurant with over 20 items on their menus).  Psychographic: People who find health a priority. People wanting to prevent weight gain or loss. People training for a sport with a strict caloric need.

      Also, I want to market to large chain restaurants like Chilis, Red Robin, Appleby’s, etc. who have already taken steps forward in making their menus offer healthier food options.

4.     Why do they care? Customers who regularly track their food will find this useful because it cuts down the time and manual work they must do to stay on track. It’s another tool to help them be successful in tracking. It can be used as an upgraded version of MyFitnessPal for $10.  

      Millennials and Gen Z are demanding healthier food and restaurants are responding to that by creating more health conscious menu items. Having a scannable menu will show their customers they care by being more transparent about their food and possibly opening a larger market.

5.     Core competencies After researching the information for competitors in this area, there are none. This would be a new concept. Many food tracking apps already offer the ability to scan the barcode of a grocery store item and this happens to be one of the best upgrades in food tracking apps. I would like that same ease to also be available when eating out.

I believe the 5 elements do fit together. The weakest part of the business concept is figuring out what costs will be endured by the restaurants. I think conducting interviews with restaurant managers may help me understand what type of costs they endure when updating a menu and what a good price point would be for the menu.

Two main points that I took out of my feedback was I needed to find a way to market my idea to the restaurants and think more on how I intend to do this. Another point was I need to start thinking about what my app will look like to the customer. I needed to start to develop my own ideas into what a “perfect food tracking app” will look like and how it will differ from others. I was able to incorporate ways I intend to market better to restaurants to purchase scannable menus.