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Hypotheses and Tests Submission

Before we can fully understand what our hypotheses are we need to answer the following questions: How will we acquire customers? How will we make money? Is our product technically feasible? And How will we differentiate from competitors?

The first and most important hypothesis is whether or not people would be interested in using our app. That seems fairly common sense, but entrepreneurs usually spend time and money building products that nobody wants, so it is important to find out sooner rather than later. First, we will build our minimum viable product, which consists of either a landing page or a simple mobile application or both. Since we do not have any product awareness, we will search for potential early adopters at the Eccles School of Business. The first customers will allow us to watch as they use the app or landing page and receive instant feedback on the product. We will incorporate this feedback into the further development of our mobile app, assuming people are interested enough in the product during the testing phase, if not we will have to determine whether to pivot or persevere with our idea.

In the beginning, the likelihood of having a lot of users is low, therefore we will have to keep in touch with our early adopters through both email and phone. After we have more than a few users sign up with their email on the website, we will track their actions through email, and the website itself. We will track things such as How many people logged in on the website? Of those users how many logged in a second time? Of those users, how many referred the application to friends? How many users clicked on the promotional emails? We will collect both raw data and useful ratios such as user retention to help gauge how viable our initial product is.

Hypothesis 1: If given an app that quickly displays options of places to eat, then people that are in a hurry and can’t decide on where to eat will be able to save time in making faster decisions.

Our first customers will likely be college students at the Eccles School of Business. Since the app will be free the only barrier to the students is creating an account. We will set up a booth that promotes our app in both the business building and Lassonde which will encourage early adopters to sign up. The stand will allow students to test the app on our available smartphones, or start them on a landing page by using one of our laptops. We will also provide a QR code that will guide them to our landing page which will then prompt them to download the beta app, which will be an MVP of our product allowing them to use it directly on their personal devices. This will provide us with instant feedback based on the user experience that the students had while using the app and directly interacting with us. We will learn from this initial feedback and test our basal hypothesis and choose how to make changes to our app such as improving its quality or changing our idea completely. We will also devise a research study at the U that allows students that sign up to use our product and provide feedback. We might implement a reward system that appeals to volunteers accordingly. After we find early adopters at the school of business and who indicate enthusiasm and excitement for our product, we will branch out to other university departments, and gain popularity through word of mouth and referrals.

Hypothesis 2: If we continue to improve based on customer feedback and increase our food options, then we will be able to build our brand through referrals and word of mouth, and gain popularity to support long term profits.

At first, our revenue streams will come primarily from advertisements and will be our foundational stream of revenue. This stream of revenue will be reliant on restaurants advertising on our platform with the goal of reaching a consumer with a food suggestion based on their interests and input at a given moment. Ideally, our platform will appeal to advertisers because it offers a unique space where people are already in the mood to eat, but it refines that appetite toward a specific food item or meal. Instead of offering advertisers a generic advertising platform such as Facebook or Instagram, it provides them with a platform specific for finding food items on the go. We will contact local restaurants at first, offering them a chance to advertise on our platform by demonstrating the benefits it offers them. This will be similar to the MVP we offer students at the U, if not the same. Advertisers will use our app to determine whether or not they are willing to use the platform to advertise their products to consumers.

We will devise different versions of the same product to test if customers are willing to pay for a premium subscription later in the life of our prototype, offering another potential revenue stream. With our subscription test, we will do different groups to charge different subscription rates or no rate at all to see what customers respond best to. Since our prototype is a standard web and mobile application it is feasible to offer a premium subscription service, but this hypothesis needs to be tested once we determine how feasible restaurant advertising will be on our platform.

Hypothesis 3: If we have enough users on our platform, then partners such as GrubHub and OpenTable will see a partnership with us as a great opportunity to drive more business.

We will differentiate from competitors by implementing features that are appealing to delivery apps such as GrubHub, or DoorDash so that their services are enhanced. If they like our idea they will implement our app into theirs by either creating a partnership or purchasing the technology from us. Some of the tests we will devise are specific to the industry and not a hypothesis in particular. We will interview companies like Eatsee, our direct competitor, and ask them questions about the industry and their customers, trying to get as much information as possible. This will give us insight into the industry, without fully releasing a product to the public.

Hypothesis 4: If we make our app available on popular app stores along with having a website and landing page, we will be able to best reach our customers.

In order to reach the largest customer base we will offer our app on the various app stores that are used. In order to help us reach different customers, whether they use Android or Apple operating systems, our app will be listed on the Apple App Store and Google Play. With this, we will offer access to download our app from our own website and landing page. Having a website allows us to provide users with more information regarding our company mission, expansions or upgrades we plan for and allow customers to contact us.