
Gauging interest for a new Startup - Apane101
	I&#x27;ve spent the last 6 months building out a web app. It&#x27;s premise is Catering for home cooked meals. You can sign-up as a Caterer, or you can order as a consumer. There are different categories i.e. Italian, Chinese, Japenese, Indian and you can order a REAL home cooked meal from any of these ethnic groups. We&#x27;re creating jobs, and a greater selection of quality food for delivery! We&#x27;re launching in Toronto but will eventually expand into other Cities throughout North America.<p>I&#x27;d like to gauge interest!
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smt88
I've worked in restaurants. They're disgusting. If health inspectors could be
flies on the wall, they'd give every restaurant an "F".

What would happen when buying food from people who have zero regulation and
are competing with each other to save on costs?

When you increase competition, you create a race to the bottom. Price has to
decrease or people go out of business, and they will end up cutting corners.

By contrast, Uber is self-regulated. They have a lot of ways to keep drivers
accountable (GPS, for example).

With Airbnb, you might be put in a shitty place, but it's not going to make
you sick if someone skimps on the quality.

Food is totally different. Not only are you begging regulators to crack down
on you and force your vendors to get food licenses, you're definitely putting
customers at risk.

Are you going to monitor the conditions of the home kitchens? Are you going to
make sure there aren't any rats, or that food doesn't sit out in the "danger
zone" of temperatures, or that they throw away expired food? Or that they
don't store food in boxes on the floor?

You can have ratings, but you can't always taste danger in your food. Many
incidents of food poisoning happen after a perfectly enjoyable meal.

I don't know about Canada, but in the US, you'd also be the delight of any
lawsuit-happy lawyer. If you're advertising these services, making the
connection, and taking a cut of the proceeds, you're going to be responsible
for vetting the vendors.

All of that in mind, you should already have an airtight liability-insurance
policy.

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narrowrail
I know that in Colorado, a law was passed in 2012 (or earlier) allowing people
to prepare food in home kitchens as long as it's sold directly to the
customers (i.e. not wholesale). This has allowed many small-scale food
providers to sell their goods at farmer's markets.

Also, this could be useful for established catering companies which have
commercial kitchens.

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smt88
I googled the Colorado law you mentioned [1]. It wouldn't apply for the use
case mentioned by the OP. It seems to be restricted to food "products", like
baked goods or pickles. It has a lot of other restrictions that would make it
incompatible with the OP's service.

I agree about the catering thing, but it doesn't seem like that's the core of
their idea.

[1] [http://forrager.com/law/colorado/](http://forrager.com/law/colorado/)

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narrowrail
Interesting; I never bothered to know the specifics. I know of some people
violating these laws, but they are rather small (so, likely to remain under
the radar). My understanding is that there are commercial-grade kitchens one
can rent, but rates are cost prohibitive for truly small operations.

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IgorPartola
Not living in a large city in the US, sorry not interested.

Additionally, if I was living in, say, NYC, why would I have a random person
cook my meal instead of ordering excellent takeout? Not saying that what you
are building is a bad idea, just wondering how you plan to compete with the
hordes of restaurants that deliver and food delivery services for restaurants
that don't. If it's price, then you probably won't have much left over. If
it's novelty, I think it'll wear off. Now, if you allowed me to instantly hire
wait staff, that would be a much more interesting idea. For example, I
recently had a family party where I went running around like a mad person
trying to make sure everything was in order. Having wait staff take care of my
guests would have been great, but I don't want to hire anyone anywhere near
even part time, and I'd need someone roughly vetted and an authority I can
complain to if something goes wrong. I bet restaurants would go nuts for this
too.

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narrowrail
>I recently had a family party where I went running around like a mad person
trying to make sure everything was in order. Having wait staff take care of my
guests would have been great

That's what caterers typically do. So, while you seem to think you would not
be interested, you go on to explain a scenario where you _would_ be
interested.

I live in a small town (e.g ~20k), and we have 3 catering companies I can
think of off the top of my head. We also have lots of restaurants (more per
capita than San Fran).

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ASquare
Serious question - why are you gauging interest AFTER you've spent
time/money/energy building something vs 6 months ago before you even wrote a
line of code?

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Apane101
Fair question. Gauged interest 6 months ago, and seeing where we are in the
market now!!

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emcarey
really awesome startup in oakland is doing something similar and they are
AMAZING. check out [http://josephine.com/](http://josephine.com/)

