
Calling All Foodies: Y Combinator’s Foodoro Launches Online Farmers Market - vaksel
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/10/calling-all-foodies-y-combinators-foodoro-launches-online-farmers-market/
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pg
We've been eating these for the last couple weeks, and they're excellent:

[http://deesminiorganicdoughnuts.foodoro.com/products/crazy-e...](http://deesminiorganicdoughnuts.foodoro.com/products/crazy-
eight-sampler-45-doughnuts-8-flavors)

You have to be in the Bay Area to get them though.

~~~
alabut
Wow, I've never seen YC fund a direct clone before. I'm not saying that's the
case, it just _really_ looks like it to a layperson. Foodoro looks very
similar to Foodzie, just better executed (widgets, more shipping options, less
cluttered design, easy to use navigation, etc).

But it's so similar that I just can't get over it. And it's not just similar
in terms of business model and timing of the startup's launch, but even the
home page layout! A big full-width "featured foodmaker" box with a grid of
"featured products" right below.

Considering fooddude is aware of other startups from the _"several other
competitors in this space"_ comment, I have to ask if this isn't just a
blatant rip of Foodzie?

~~~
spoiledtechie
Food Sells and when they make it nice looking, it prolly sells a ton more.

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rarrrrrr
I wonder if there's any value in "solving" the shipping cost problem by having
something like Amazon's Prime -- an upfront fee of $80/yr then free 2 day
shipping?

It changes shopping psychology. Once Prime is purchased, people want to buy
many things to increase the return on their investment. :)

~~~
fooddude
We believe there is huge value solving this shipping issue, especially for
perishable foods. I've heard from an insider that Amazon Prime hasn't made
money yet... and they have massive economies of scale.

We're definitely thinking about how to take steps to making shipping more
palatable for consumers.

~~~
comatose_kid
But I've heard that they more than make up for it through the increase in
purchase volumes.

~~~
jonknee
Nothing like trying to make up for a loss with volume! (Speaking as a prime
member, I have a sneaking suspicion they are losing money on a lot of my
orders. However more frequent those may be.)

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divia
I was thinking of buying some of the Marvelous Marinara
([http://couplaguysfoods.foodoro.com/products/marvelous-
marina...](http://couplaguysfoods.foodoro.com/products/marvelous-
marinara-26-oz)), but I'm reluctant to buy food if I can't read the ingredient
list, and I didn't see one. I'd excited to see how this develops though, since
I'm often trying to buy food online.

~~~
fooddude
Great point... if you email me jay@ then I'll get that info for you directly
from the "coupla guys" who make the stuff. We'll post it to the product pg,
too

~~~
divia
Done. Thanks very much :-).

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mynameishere
Almost ordered something until the shipping costs doubled the price.

~~~
fooddude
Shipping perishables can be expensive, especially when you're talking about
ice cream or meat or vegan tamales.

What we're hoping to do is get enough foodmakers to sign up so that we can
have more regionalized products that don't have to travel as far (and hence,
have lower shipping costs). One extreme example we have currently, is Dee's
Mini Organic Doughnuts, which have $0 shipping costs for the consumer but also
have a limited delivery area (SF Bay Area). Imagine if there were many mini
doughnut makers in small and large cities...

~~~
tlb
Yeah, but when you get the ice cream it's packed in dry ice. You can have a
Moment of Science as you drop them into warm water.

If you put a fair dollar value on your time, it's shocking how much a trip to
the grocery store costs.

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immad
Congrats guys. Looks really good

Edit: Since I got karma for not saying anything, I will add that

a) I stayed over at Foodoros and ate lots of food so I can guarantee it tastes
ridiculously nice

b) It is a big market and they are going to be massively successful because
they are smart and get it :)

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tptacek
Foodoro might have trouble competing with the likes of Zingermans, who offer
most of the same benefits, but also act as extremely reputable curators for
the goods they offer.

This also goes against the "foodie" trend of "locavorism", trying to source
everything from within 100 miles of where you live. On the other hand, that's
also a business opportunity; for instance, I'm trying to source a whole side
of local heritage pig, and the "sales interfaces" of good local farms is
predictably awful.

~~~
fooddude
Zingerman's is a terrific store--some refer to them as the tastemakers of
specialty food. But we think that Zingerman's represents a different way of
doing things.

First, they warehouse and ship products themselves which means added distance,
less freshness and limited warehouse/shelf space. The margin structure can be
tough for the small producer dealing with a physical retailer.

Second, we want people to connect more directly with foodmakers. Zingerman's
makes the products their own in a sense. They don't have any photos on their
website, for instance--they illustrate them all in the Zingerman's style. And
Zingerman's has been pushing their own private labels heavily.

Finally, you're absolutely right that the tools consumers are forced to use
are pretty bad. We want to make it as easy to buy from a small heritage pig
farmer as it is buying from Amazon.com.

~~~
tptacek
So, you don't carry inventory or have purchasers? How does fulfillment work?
Just curious; you're more of an Octoparts than a Dartagnon?

~~~
fooddude
You are correct. Although we have a fully integrated e-commerce cart and
checkout so users don't have to leave the site. On Octopart, I think it links
off to the vendor's website.

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utnick
Looks pretty tasty.

Do the sellers on the site have to undergo any verification or inspection? I'm
not sure, but I would assume that food in grocery stores has to get a license
and be inspected by the FDA or something.

Basically, how do I know they aren't putting lead in my food?

I'm not really paranoid just curious how this process works.

~~~
jjk
All our foodmakers on our site are licensed and certified to sell food. We
have a pretty rigorous standard on who can list on our site, so it's very
unlikely you'll find lead in your product. In fact, most of the food on our
site is much healthier than something you'd find at the supermarket.

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HeyLaughingBoy
This is a great idea!!!

Now for another idea that someone may want to run with: a similar concept for
local farms that don't ship -- pickup only.

The idea came to me because I live on a small hobby farm and I produce eggs
(thinking of getting a few pigs for meat & goats for milk...). Much more than
my family needs, but not worth the effort of marketing and selling them, so I
just give away the excess; nobody refuses farm-fresh eggs! There's another
farm not far from here that sells bison (buffalo) meat, but you must preorder
months in advance. His sales are from a big sign out on the road.

What I'm proposing is a site where small farms that want to sell their wares
but simply don't have the time to do consumer sales & marketing could list
what we have available, customers in the city (we're about 40 minutes outside
Minneapolis/St Paul and not far from many suburbs) could prepay online and
then pickup what they need when it's ready and the site can take a cut of the
proceeds, or better yet, advertise local restaurants, cookbooks, etc to make a
profit. Then the "little guys" like me can make a few extra bucks, the
consumers get local, fresh meat & produce, and everybody ends up ahead. I'm
not very interested in webapps, so I'm not likely to pursue the idea, but I
think it's viable.

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rarrrrrr
From someone who orders lots of food online -- nice work. I've been wishing a
site with this purpose existed for years.

I will note that the prices seem quite high for many items compared to similar
items available elsewhere, but from a business standpoint I suspect that's OK.
To my knowledge, the demand for organic food has always exceeded supply.

~~~
fooddude
The prices for many items are high. But all of this food is literally crafted
or gathered or produced by hand. For instance, one lady wakes up on weekends
at 4AM to harvest seaweed at a beach.

We think that the gifting will drive a big portion of sales--for the same
reason that people by cut flowers to give to people. And food tastes much
better, too!

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callmeed
Sooo ... I (along with partners) have a similar marketplace launching < 2
months. We've already got vendors on board.

That would make 3 startups in the space. I suppose there's nothing to stop a
vendor from using more than one place, so it will be exciting to see how this
space plays out.

The site looks great–nice job.

~~~
fooddude
We've looked at the market and it's pretty big...and there are already several
other competitors in this space. But, I'm a believer that competition is good
for the consumer and us.

Thanks for the kind words!

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brandonkm
This is pretty amazing. I would love it if there was a way to view various
types of food and merchants by region. I'm from the Raleigh, North Carolina
area where we have many awesome local farmers markets. However, i'm at college
in the midwest and would love to be able to get some of these items online. I
have no doubt that this will take off, but when it does and all the various
merchants from nc sign up, being able to find them quickly and easily will be
a great addition.

~~~
fooddude
we have a filter by state if you click on "Foodmakers" from the top navigation
bar. as we get additional merchants to join, we can work to make regional
search more useful.

what products from NC do you miss the most?

~~~
brandonkm
Theres a number of bakeries that I really miss getting stuff from. Also,
salsa, coffee, sweet tea, jelly, and barbecue sauce were always the best at
the farmers market. I'm going to be down there for my spring break, when I
stop by i'll be sure to let some of the merchants know about your site.

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senthil_rajasek
This is amazing! I am reading Omnivore's Dilemma (great read BTW) and it
explains how the US food industry causes 1/3 of the carbon emissions, mostly
in shipping and farm equipment usage. They call this the hidden cost that we
all ignore.

A site like foodoro can connect local producers and consumers.

A example of a farm that sells only locally and never ships their produce ( to
reduce carbon foot print ) is <http://www.polyfacefarms.com/>

Congratulations guys!

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bluefish
How are you handling the images of the products? Just curious because I find
some of the pages (especially the single product pages) really eye catching
but some of the product listing pages like this one:
[http://foodoro.com/search?filters=c12&sort=popularity](http://foodoro.com/search?filters=c12&sort=popularity)
are a bit more visually confusing (at least to me).

Still, nice idea, nice work.

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ddispaltro
I had the little mini dough nuts:
[http://deesminiorganicdoughnuts.foodoro.com/products/top-
sel...](http://deesminiorganicdoughnuts.foodoro.com/products/top-
sellers-3-flavors-45-doughnuts)

Their tasty goodness was well received.

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johns
Site looks nice. Since you're watching this thread, the front page slideshow
doesn't work in the latest Chrome dev build.

~~~
fooddude
Gotta love x-browser issues... We'll take a look, though it's probably lower
priority for us. It works in Chrome release version.

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truebosko
This looks very cool, I can't wait to see if something like this gets adopted
to other countries and cities

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dylanz
mmmmm... metrosexual homer wants little flavor donuts...

But seriously, congrats on the launch.

My only gripe is that there are too many things to select from, and that the
average gluten will go broke wanting to try every damn thing listed on the
site.

Wild Nori? Sold!

~~~
fooddude
Search and discovery is a tough nut to crack, but we think constantly about
how to solve it as we grow the marketplace.

On the flip side, discovery can be very rewarding. I'm glad you like the Wild
Nori--I had no idea such things existed until recently...and I spend a healthy
chunk of time looking at cool food companies.

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andreyf
Interesting design choice in your favicon... where have I seen that before?

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adudley
congrats!!

