The Foodastic Story

23 min readNov 10, 2017

Foodastic was a trusted community marketplace for people to order housemade fresh meals directly from local chefs and small producers.

Its mission was to help people eat better, at a fair price, where and when they need. All the experience was based on the principles of collaborative economy, using the ’reputation capital’ to build trust between the community members.

The foodtech marketplace was created in a laboratory of innovation that was part of the digital unit of the RBS Group, one of the largest Media conglomerates in Brazil.

The lab mission was to have a team specialised in creating disruptive products, in identifying markets that may suffer disruption, and in developing experiments to validate new business model hypotheses. Once the product/market fit was achieved and the scalability was validated, the lab spins off the product.

As an unit specialised in sensing and responding to market disruptions, the vision behind the Innovation Lab was to create new products that take advantage of the new trends that were arising from the consumer behaviour.

Some of the themes addressed by the Innovation Lab were urban culture, social entrepreneurship, conscious gastronomy, independent art and fashion, collaborative economy and disruptive technology.

In this way, the lab was targeting a new kind of influencer — an innovative group of people who had been challenging the current ways of doing business and had been revolutionising their way of living.

Made up of talented entrepreneurs and operating as a startup within the corporate environment, the first prototype of Foodastic was launched in December 2014.

From day zero to launching it, the team succeeded in the hypotheses validation, made a series of tests and developments in the prototype, and built a strong community around the brand.

Described below are some of the main product initiatives that the Foodastic team implemented.

Business Modelling

The team kicked-off the product initiatives by modeling the business first. They started by developing a clear vision of the opportunity, including global trends, market conditions, industry disruption and structural opportunities.

They ended up identifying a large number of potential customers with unsatisfied needs who could be satisfied with a unique new proposal. Following below are the motivational triggers that described the Foodastic customer target:

Considers food to be very important, but the options of products and services available do not fulfill his/her preferences in a convenient way and with an acceptable cost-benefit, so not complying with all his/her desire to eat better.
Has knowledge and is interested in a healthy diet, but values the taste and the visual elements of food a lot, as well as thinks of his/her individual taste when choosing the meals. Also the conscious question has significant importance: the environmental equilibrium, waste reduction and supporting local producers.
Embraces a culture of openness and believes work can equate to passion, community, and a force for positive change. Wants to do things with meaning and be open to new experiences. And, believes that it is possible to hack the world’s problems through the collaboration of individuals in online communities.

After establishing a shared vision of the opportunity, the team modelled the strategy, the value proposition, the customer journey, and sketched possible solutions, by making use of the Lean Product Management methodology.

One of the best practices the team used during this stage that caused a huge impact in their branding strategies was the Core-Story Canvas. In an economy where trust and attention are the scarcest elements, the factor that causes the biggest impact on making people follow a business is not about its functionality, but is about the story behind its creation.

The Core-Story Canvas communicates the product’s vision, benefits and values in a memorable and emotional way. And because a good story cannot be copied, it becomes a strong unfair advantage against competition.

However, it is not something that can be fake, it needs to be authentic. In this way, the team focused on telling a story that they truly believed and in which their customer target identify themselves and are inspired by.

What they came up with was the idea that Foodastic was not just a foodtech product, it was a new kind of organisation — one that is building innovative, purpose-driven new ways of doing business. A company that measures its success by more than profit embraces a culture of openness, and views work as more than a job.

Getting out of the building

Just after modelling the customer problem and the value proposition, the team ran the next three sprints, which were focused on getting out of the building and testing these hypotheses.

Targeting early adopters and influencers with the characteristics described before, their goal was to validate key hypotheses, explore and immerse the customer’s point-of-view, and start building relationships with the first 1,000 true fans — passionate users that will keep coming back and will refer you to potential new users.

By using the hypothesis validation methods of survey and pitch, and ethnographic research best practices, the team received 187 online survey answers, conducted 30 in-depth interviews, and promoted 3 food experiences.

Their exploratory research had the following script:

Tell me more about your eating habits.
What would you change about them?
What is the importance of eating habits in your daily life?
What are your biggest pains when trying to eat better?
What are the alternatives you have to solve these pains?

The interview success criterion the team established to validate the key hypotheses were as follows:

More than 50% of the interviewees must be interested in developing or cultivating better eating habits.
More than 50% of the interviewees must mention convenience as the main obstacle to improving their eating habits.

Besides recruiting people with the targeted profile by directly contacting them, the team promoted three gastronomic experiences that generated leads of potential customers.

These experiences were low-fidelity prototypes of the Foodastic value proposition. It consisted of food events hosted in trendy locations of the city where influencers usually go. The meals were prepared by the Foodastic Chefs — independent chefs selected by Foodastic curators.

Running these first three sprints focused on getting out of the building and testing key business model hypotheses has proved to be highly effective. The team gained many learnings and insights about the problem, value proposition, solution, target, channels, and branding.

The team achieved its goals by surpassing the hypothesis validation success criterion by far — 89% on the first one and 67% on the second — and by generating important leads of early adopters and influencers that kicked-off the Foodastic community organically.

Prototyping

As the key business model hypotheses had been validated, the team decided to persevere with their business model and to focus the next sprints on running experiments with a high-fidelity prototype.

The prototype consisted of selling and delivering housemade fresh meals prepared by the “Foodastic Chefs”.

Targeting the same type of customers they focused on before, the objectives were to continue validating key assumptions of the business model, incrementally build a small-scale prototype, continue engaging the community of first 1,000 true fans, and prepare the team to the launching stage.

Eleven experiments were carried out once a week, in which the team used the hypothesis validation method of concierge. Described below is the Foodastic prototype step by step.

Understanding Foodastic

After becoming aware of Foodastic directly from the team or from a friend who had referred it, the potential customers were directed to our landing page, where they could understand its value proposition and how it works.

In addition to the product description, they could also watch a video of how Foodastic solves their problems, access the most updated version of the marketplace prototype, and read the story about the people behind the business.

Once the customer joined the pre-launch opt-in list, an automated email workflow was triggered containing the following contents: how to order food from Foodastic, how to become a Foodastic Chef, how to join the community, how it can help you eat better, how it can help you eat at a fair price, how it can help you eat where and when you need.

Placing an order

The Daily Menu sales were opened from an email sent to the opt-in list and a post made in our Facebook group page, where the users could click on the link to place an order.

The orders were placed by the users in a form created on Google Forms.

Order fulfilment

The Chefs prepared the food in their own kitchens and brought the meals wrapped in Foodastic branded packaging to our Distribution Hub. After that, we arranged the food orders and organised the delivery route with the delivery men.

The orders were delivered in the place and time previously selected by the customers and there were some who posted about their experience with the meals in our community on Facebook — they were engaged in making Foodastic work and evolve collaboratively.

Lessons learned

After delivering the order, we sent a survey oriented towards hypothesis validation.

The next day, we compiled the lessons learned about the operation as a whole, gathered the information from the survey and got together with the Foodastic Chefs to establish some improvements for the next deliveries.

The main results obtained after the eleven experiments are described below. It is important to make clear that the eleven experiments were not identical, there were variations in the product, in the communication and in the survey; however, we can say with confidence that those results represented a consistent pattern in the experiments.

Achievements:

30% of the customer’s base had recurrent use of the product.
85% considered the food was within the expectations or above expectations.
83% thought the food was delicious, with 100% considering it an important criterion.
85% thought the food was healthy, with 100% considering it an important criterion.
76% thought the food was conscious, with 85% considering it an important criterion.
72% had the perception of fair price.
88% considered the service/product convenient and practical.
95% answered they would buy again.
95% answered they would recommend Foodastic to a friend.

Product/Market Fit Validation

As the eleven prototyping experiments had had satisfactory results, the team concluded that it was necessary to run the next sprint centred on validating at what point the Foodastic was towards the Product/Market Fit.

The idea was to gather all the data and learning takeaways they had had so far, run another batch of interviews with customers, and bring the team and decision makers together to decide. The main goal was to make a decision about launching the product and moving to the next stage of achieving Traction.

During this sprint, the team did 36 in-depth interviews with the End-Users and 13 of them with the Chefs, which were solely focused on validating if the Foodastic had qualitatively hit Product/Market Fit.

Described below are the P/M Fit validation goals defined by the team:

Validate if the target customers had the problem that Foodastic aimed to solve.
Verify which was the relevance of this problem in their lives.
Identify which items of the problem was considered the main “pain points”.
Investigate whether the target customers had understood the product and the value proposition of Foodastic.
Validate if the solution proposed by Foodastic solved the main “pain points”.
Check if they liked the solution experienced in the prototypes.
Understand what they liked the most and what they did not like.
Validate if they would buy it again and if they would recommend it to someone else.

Described below is the methodology used and the analysis of the results for both End-Users and Chefs.

Product/Market Fit validation with End-Users — Methodology used

The validation of the Product/Market Fit with the End-Users was made from a survey using an online form and a in-depth interview done by phone. All the users who participated either already had contact with the Foodastic prototypes or were members of its community on Facebook.

Both in the online form and in the in-depth interview, the end-users were segmented according to their personal profile (age, gender, profession, marital status, children, income), and their stage in the user lifecycle (Interested, First-time Customer, Regular Customer, Churned).

Thus, when segmenting people within each context of use of the product, the team could more easily find patterns in the responses and could reach more accurate conclusions regarding the validation of hypotheses.

Online Form

In the Online Form the initial goals were to validate if the target customers really had the problem that Foodastic aimed to solve, to verify which was the relevance of this problem in their lives, and identify which item in the problematic situation was considered the “pain point”.

Soon after, from a clear description of the value proposition and how the product works in practice, the next questions in the form were designed to validate if the solution proposed by Foodastic solved the problem in focus.

In-Depth Interview

In the in-depth Interview, the purpose was to investigate whether the person had understood the product and the value proposition of Foodastic, had the problem the team wanted to solve, liked the solution experienced in the prototypes, what they liked the most and did not like, if they would buy it again and would recommend it to someone else.

From the identification and comparison of patterns in the responses, the in-depth interviews resulted in valuable information. It brought insights about the assumptions of the business model and showed to the team if they were in the path towards Product/Market Fit.

Product/Market Fit validation with End-Users — Analysis of the results

The Problem

The initial stage of hypotheses validation was focused on the validation of the problem that Foodastic seeks to solve, which is the lack of convenience to eat better at a fair price. The main question here is what is considered “eating better”. Nowadays, people’s behaviour towards food is changing and just eating well is not enough for them. They want to eat better.

As a proof of that, 80% of the end-users answered that they were able to eat well at least five times a week; however, when asked if they believed they needed to eat better (being better an addition of Delicious + Healthy + Conscious), 85% of them answered “YES”.

From those, 60% talked about the lack of convenience, the lack of time and the difficulty of creating an eating habit as the main obstacles for eating better; and 23% of them also mentioned the high price.

To conclude, being able to eat better is a highly relevant issue for people today. The biggest obstacle is the lack of convenience followed by the high price.

Did they understand what Foodastic is?

A very important point before validating the Solution hypothesis is to ascertain if people understood the product’s value proposition, its benefits and how it works.

In the Solution hypothesis validation process, the team sometimes used a presentation of the product concept and at other times they used real experience with the prototypes. Then, seeking a better analysis of the user’s responses, the team tried to be sure they had understood well what Foodastic was.

In the Online Survey, 100% of the end-users answered that they had already known Foodastic and 70% of them said that they had already ordered some of our meals. In the in-depth interviews, the interviewers concluded that 100% of end-users understood what Foodastic was, and that 95% of them knew what its value proposition was.

The Solution

When validating if Foodastic could solve the problem in question, 70% believed that the benefits and operation of Foodastic would solve their main difficulty in eating better, and the main reasons mentioned were: 60% practical, 43% delicious and healthy, 30% fair price, 26% conscious.

When asked if they liked the solution they had experienced in the prototype, 100% responded that they liked, and half of them responded that they loved it. 97% considered Foodastic as a unique proposal (50% of those said that didn’t know anything similar to that and the other half said that Foodastic solved the problem that other services hadn’t solved yet).

When asked about what characteristic made Foodastic unique in the criteria Delicious, Healthy, Concious and Collaborative, the users answered: prepared by Chefs, variety of options, fresh ingredients, housemade, balanced, reduce waste, food origin is known, transparency, gathers Chefs, local producers and consumers.

Another positive point that the team could see was how effective the brand Foodastic is in relation to the values Conscious and Collaborative.

Market Fit

When seeking to achieve the Product Market Fit, besides validating the Problem/Solution Hypotheses it is also necessary to validate the Target Customers.

Due to the unique value proposition of Foodastic and as the team could see in the results of this dynamic, most of the end-users showed that they fit with the product.

The most relevant characteristics of those people are: 85% are aged between 20 and 40 years; 30% have household income of $3,000 to $6,000 per month; 50% have household income above $6,000 per month; 87% do not have children yet, and 80% have a job with a tight schedule and not in the Health or Nutrition field.

Conclusion

According to the results mentioned above about the End-Users, the team considered the Problem, Solution and Target Customers hypotheses validated. Even if the team had been using only prototypes, the current strategy, communication and product operation were functioning perfectly well with the target customers who considered Foodastic a unique product in the Market.

Regarding the product characteristics, the item Delicious and Healthy was satisfactory, but it was necessary to improve the Conscious and Collaborative points, because these last ones were crucial to differentiate Foodastic from future competitors.

Product/Market Fit validation with Chefs — Methodology used

Assuming that Foodastic can solve a problem that is relevant and of great demand for consumers and can do it in a unique way, being part of its marketplace as a supplier is a great opportunity for a Chef.

During the experiments and actions with the community, the team could validate a real interest from the Chefs, which they could confirm through the spontaneous reaction among the influencers, and which consequently brought a big number of people recommended to become Foodastic Chefs.

However, this just tells the team that they have interested users. To achieve Product Market Fit, it is necessary to have users that use the product regularly and that spread it to others. So, because Foodastic is a marketplace and the Chefs are the users that represent the suppliers side, it is crucial to find what factors would turn them into regular users.

As done with the End-Users, the Chefs Product/Market Fit validation was carried out with a survey using an online form and the in-depth interview done by phone. All the people who answered the survey had participated as Chefs at some of the experiments or were part of the community by being interested in the Foodastic value proposition.

Both in the online form and in the in-depth interview, the Chefs to be interviewed were segmented according to their personal profile (age, gender, level of study, professional experience, income working as a Chef) and according to their stage in the user lifecycle (Interested, First-time Customer, Regular Customer, Churned).

Thus, when segmenting the Chefs within each context of use of our product, the team could easily find patterns in the responses and could reach more precise conclusions regarding the validation of hypotheses.

Online Form

In the online form, the initial goals were to validate if the Chefs really had the problem that Foodastic aimed to solve, to verify what was the relevance of the problem in their lives, and identify which item inside the problematic situation was considered the cause of the “pain”.

Then, from a clear description of the value proposition with a demonstration of the product operation in practice and the benefits generated, the next questions in the form had the purpose of validating if the solution proposed by Foodastic solved the problem in focus.

Finally, by presenting the prerequisites to become a Foodastic Chef the team wanted to see if he/she considered themselves ready to fulfill the requirements and if he/she was interested. And supposing one of them had already participated in the experiment, the team asked if he/she would participate again and if he/she would recommend it to another Chef.

In-Depth Interview

In the in-depth interview, the objective was to investigate whether the Chef had understood the product and the Foodastic value proposition. If he/she had the problem we wanted to solve and liked the solution they experienced in our prototypes, and which solution item generated more value in his/her professional life. And, if Foodastic’s way of working made his/her participation feasible and if he/she identified themselves with its values.

The in-depth interviews resulted in valuable information. From the identification and comparison of patterns in the responses, they brought insights about the business model hypotheses and showed the team they were in the right direction towards Product/Market Fit.

Product/Market Fit validation with Chefs — Analysis of the results

The Problem

The initial stage of the hypotheses validation focused on the validation of the Problem. Foodastic can solve a lot of problems for Chefs, but the important thing is to know which item is more relevant to them, which is the “pain point” that the team should focus on solving.

The conclusion was that the main problem Foodastic solves for Chefs is the lack of support in building reputation, followed by the difficulty in publishing their work. Proof of this is that, both in the online form and in the in-depth interview, 100% of the interviewed said that they feel the lack of support in building reputation as Chef, and 62% reported having difficulties in publishing their work.

This conclusion proved even more precise when the team compared these answers with the answers of the other problems asked such as: difficulty in obtaining customer demand, not having flexible schedules, not having freedom to create and make what they would like to, difficulty with the meal delivery process, and no access to client feedback.

It is also relevant to say that Chefs invest time today to address this “pain point” and the main ways they publish their work are social media and online channels (92% said they publish their work through social media, 90% communicate with the clients by e-mail, and 65% have their own website).

Thus, the probable hypothesis to be confirmed as true is that Foodastic’s unique value proposition of being a trusted community marketplace — where all the experience is based on the principles of collaborative economy, using the ’reputation capital’ to build trust between the community members” — is able to solve the Chef’s main pain point.

Did they understand what Foodastic is?

A very important point before validating the Solution hypothesis is to be sure that the chefs understood the product’s value proposition, its benefits and how it works.

During the Solution hypothesis validation process, the team sometimes used the presentation of product concept and at other times they used the real experience with the prototypes. Then, by interpreting the Chef’s answers better, the team could be sure that they had understood well what Foodastic was.

In the online form, 100% answered they had already known Foodastic and 60% said they had already participated at least once as a Foodastic Chef. In the in-depth interviews, the interviewers concluded that 100% of the people understood what Foodastic was and knew what its value proposition was.

The Solution

When rating Foodastic benefits and operation, the Chefs responded that the main difficulties Foodastic solves are: to obtain customer demand (75%); to help with publicity (60%) and to build a reputation (60%)

When asked if they liked the value proposition, 100% said that they identified with the project concept, 85% considered it feasible to join Foodastic, 85% considered themselves able to participate considering the pre-requisites to become a Foodastic Chef, and 100% would like to be a Foodastic Chef. The response pattern was examined in both online form and in-depth interviews.

After that, the team asked the Chefs to analyse what their practical experience was like participating as Foodastic Chef in the experiments, regarding the characteristics that make Foodastic unique. From this research the team found the following considerations.

With regards to the items Delicious and Healthy, 100% of the Chefs believed they could deliver what was offered by Foodastic, that is: tasty food, housemade, fresh, balanced and assorted. In the Conscious criterion, 80% could use organic, but 60% of those thought it was still expensive, and 100% said there was a waste reduction because the orders were made in advance.

Regarding the Collaboration criterion, 100% loved the visibility and reputation generated, and 80% loved and thought advantageous direct contact with the customer. However, only 40% said they were able to participate actively, and the other 60% said they would like to have participated more.

Regarding the Convenience criterion, the Chefs made an analysis on how practical the experiment had been for them. 100% thought the work process was not so practical, but all the Chefs that answered the survey believed that it happened because it was a prototype and some of the problems can only be solved with long term use, when the product is officially launched.

In their opinion (100%), the item to be improved is the process as a whole (put up a menu weekly, take the dish photo, move to Foodastic Distribution Center), and 40% mentioned packaging improvement. When asked about the future implementation of a Personalisation feature, 100% responded that it was great and that they were ready to begin.

Regarding the Fair Price criterion, 80% found it fair for everyone involved, indicating the transparency as a major factor. When asked if their participation as Chefs in the experiment had paid off financially, 100% said yes, especially considering a participation in the Project in the long-term.

However, they reasoned that for the work to become one of the main portions of a monthly income, it would be necessary to sell 20–25 orders a week, which could be done in 2 or 3 days of deliveries per week. For such calculation, they consider the meal average price used in the experiments, which was $20.00 per meal and $5.00 for dessert.

In the end, 80% said they would like to continue participating as a Foodastic Chef, and 80% responded they would refer Foodastic to another Chef.

Market Fit

In the search for Product/Market Fit, it is necessary not only to validate the Problem/Solution, but also the Target Customers.

The main factor to make a Chef become a Regular Customer in Foodastic is his time invested as a platform supplier to be more worth than his time in alternatives available. Foodastic has a unique value proposition and the team could confirm in the dynamic results that most of the chefs “fit” the product.

The profile of Chefs who participated in this dynamic has the following characteristics: 62% are aged between 25 and 40 years, 75% have technical training, 62% have relevant professional experience, 100% are freelancers, 62% have monthly income (directly related to cooking) of $1,000 to $2,000.

Conclusion

Regarding the Chefs, and according to the results above, the team considered the Problem, Solution and Target Customers hypotheses validated. The strategy, communication, and operation of the product, even if only using prototypes, were functioning perfectly well with this kind of Chef profile, who considers Foodastic unique in the Market.

Concerning the chefs’ operational work, it was necessary to make the entire process more practical for them, from the daily menu creation and the capturing of meal photos to the moving to the Foodastic Distribution Center. It was also very important to improve packaging.

Community Building

From day zero to launching the first version of the Foodastic product, besides all the success achieved with hypotheses validation and prototype experimentation, the team succeeded in building a strong community around the brand as well.

Targeting the same type of customers they focused on before, the objectives were to build a community of influencers around the Foodastic brand even before the team released the first version of the product, to create a significant initial customer base — the first 1,000 true fans, and to validate the hypotheses and test prototypes more efficiently.

The strategy used was to identify groups of people that fit the target and then be part of these communities by participating and helping as members, identify the ones who became interested in the Foodastic proposal and invite them to co-create the product, and earn the trust of important market influencers.

Described below are some of the main best practices they implemented.

The Help 10/1 content strategy

The Help 10/1 strategy is centred on telling others’ stories ten times more than you would tell your own. The idea behind it is to help the community more than extract benefits from it.

The method explained: when you are building a community of influencers, the first thing they will do is to evaluate if they can trust your legitimate willingness to help, and if you want to collaborate with the group instead of simply promote yourself. If you show humbleness, when you advertise yourself people will truly hear you and will be willing to help too.

Making use of this practice, the team has built a new content channel especially created for community building called the Mini Full Life. It was a channel for engaging people who are building innovative, purpose-driven ways of doing business.

It was inspired by a new breed of thought leaders who believe work can equate to passion, community, and a force for positive change. Mini Full Life covers the intersection of urban culture, social entrepreneurship, independent art and fashion, maker culture, and disruptive innovation.

Working at the same time as a curator and an aggregator, as a facilitator with the local community, and as a storyteller, its mission was to help people, in the most convenient way, to follow the initiatives that are transforming their cities.

The team created different types of content, from blog posts to short documentaries, where the main focus was to tell inspiring stories about the people behind the initiatives that were happening in the local community.

The Innovation Lab authentic story

The method explained: when you talk about yourself, be as transparent and authentic as possible. Your values are your promise to the community — they establish trust. Your job is to deliver on those values consistently.

The team working behind the Innovation Lab where Foodastic was created, especially those who co-founded it, had basically the same characteristics that the target customers have. They believed in the same values of their audience. Thus, when they told their story the influencers identified themselves and became naturally inspired.

The focus on creating a relationship instead of a transaction

The method explained: your channels won’t be the only place where your community exists. Participate in their channels first, interact with the members by actively participating in conversations, meet people and help them.

Learn their language, identify audience topics and sentiment around those, and how people engage. And, understand what type of content they use with the different channels they are spending time on.

By being part of the local community through the Mini Full Life channel and telling an authentic story of the people behind the Innovation Lab, and because the Foodastic was inherently community-driven, the team succeeded in building a strong community of influencers around the brand. The result was an engaged community of true fans.

Launching it organically

As I described in my blog post on Lean Product Management the most effective way to launch a product is doing it iteratively, starting small and scaling over time.

By fundamentally basing their launching strategy on the principles of customer value, experimentation, and trust, the Foodastic team was able turn an idea into a loved product with speed and urgency, using minimal resources and costs.

The official version of the Foodastic marketplace platform

P.S. Foodastic had its first prototype launched in December 2014, but had to stop its activities in June 2015. The reason was the RBS group’s decision of cancelling a number of investments in innovation, which included the Innovation Lab, and caused the abortion of its initiatives.