Gate Two Reflection
While working on our gate two deliverable, we also worked on our resubmission of gate one. We continued to validate the problem we wanted to initially focus on, which was food waste generated by restaurants. However, while doing so, we found that although restaurants were facing issues with food waste, the problem that took priority was the decrease in revenue due to lack of traffic. Due to Covid and its continuous ripple affects, restaurants are struggling to keep their doors open. We began to hone in on this problem and shifted to focus on how to generate revenue and drive traffic for restaurants.
Feedback
When presenting our gate two presentation, specifically, the slide that details our problem, we still outlined the food waste problem and added the decrease in foot traffic problem for restaurants. The feedback that we got was to focus our problem on the decrease in traffic instead of outlining both problems equally. I agree with this feedback because it can be confusing for the audience to see focus and target problem that we are going to attack.
For this deliverable we started to dive deeper into both sides of the markets we were serving and look for the best sales and marketing strategies to go-to-market. We received feedback on our marketing messages for our end-user, which was heavily focus on reducing food waste and helping small businesses. The feedback was to change these marketing messages more targeted to the needs of the end-user like suggesting if they are hungry, to check out our app. I agree with this more targeted and specific approach because I feel like it will drive up traffic to our website and app.
Also, for our go-to market strategy we decided the best fit for our model was through a direct sales and marketing channel. For the restaurant side we would have a sales team reaching out interact with restaurants (which would be our own CEO for the time being) and it would be a longer sales cycle. In contrast, our end-user sales strategy would be a shorter sale cycle and very minimal interaction through social media ads. We received feedback to expand our marketing and outreach strategy from solely social media ads to going out and handing out fliers, creating stickers, etc. to reach our end-users. I agree with this because social media ads can get so far and as a startup we should be thinking more outside the box to reach these consumers.
The Team
Our team has been working really well together along with our Mentor, Gloria, that has been very supportive and flexible with us. For each deliverable, we always run it by Gloria, which has been very helpful to get a more outside look. We learn a lot from the other teams, which helps us compare ourselves to them to see what we‘re missing and what we should change. For example, we saw how well the Slait team presented their ideas and put a lot of thought on their mock up and MVP. We also would want to implement that in the next deliverable to better illustrate our idea. Furthermore, we believe we should meet more with our mentor early on, instead of towards the end when we’re about to present.
Next Steps
Looking forward, we are starting to look into pivoting our idea to not only focus on helping restaurants sell their surplus meals. We want to create a platform where restaurants can connect with their customers and build a community where customers can view information postings and promotions, specials, deals, etc. This will help target the problem of increasing traffic and revenue for restaurants. We plan to develop more this idea and further validate it to better fit the restaurants needs. This pivot will also help restaurants post-covid times.
