
Ask HN: Finding initial customers and validating need – online meal ordering - blakeloverain
I&#x27;m working on a prototype for a SaaS-based online ordering system for prepared meal services, and I need suggestions on how to find the customers (independent chefs). The service would be something they plug-in to their existing site.<p>The ideal customer would be an independent chef who provides a variety of services, a bit of personal chef, a bit catering, etc - but not successful enough in any one aspect that they are F&#x2F;T in such. Someone who probably  already has a web page on their site saying they&#x27;re available for meal delivery but don&#x27;t have a shopping cart to take orders. My service would take a much more immersive&#x2F;interactive experience to set it apart from a traditional shopping carts. Independent cafes who are interested in providing prepared meals to their customer base would also be good candidates (though they may need the idea planted in their minds first).<p>The problem is that google is probably not the best way to find these prospects. Out of 100 services I browsed in several cities via various keywords, I may have found 5 worth contacting. I&#x27;m concerned this is such a niche that I won&#x27;t be able to find a large list easily. But maybe they&#x27;d be better qualified&#x2F;more likely interested anyway.<p>I&#x27;d be open to suggestions on how to find them and either reach out or attract. I don&#x27;t need thousands of prospects&#x2F;signups - I just need 10 serious&#x2F;passionate individuals to start (and get something built, tested, with feedback, maybe some word of mouth too), and ideally a way to get between 10-25 each month. If cold contacting works best, I don&#x27;t mind sticking to that, but I need a better way than google. Maybe some sort of industry related social forums or blogs.<p>I plan on offering multiple pricing options to see whether they prefer a fixed 3% of each order or prefer a flat $30 or $50&#x2F;mo with limitations. I&#x27;ve made assumptions of how many orders they&#x27;d be taking and average order size to guesstimate the 10-25 customers a month.
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blakeloverain
I've contacted several prospective customers and have a few positive
responses, that there is potential market for my service. I'm not sure if I
can learn any more from people without actually having a (paying) MVP to work
with. I'd imagine that at some point, especially when there are two tiers of
users (chefs and customers), that the only real definitive experiment is to
create something worth trying out. Obviously at first I can just work with a
teaser/concept page and see if enough sign up.

Since I'm aiming for a broad market (any food establishment who wants to offer
prepared meal services), finding an approach to get a rush of traffic (via PR,
bloggers, buzz, etc) seems to make the most sense. Having analytics seems to
make sense at that point. I don't think asking theoretical questions to
restaurants will get me anything more. I'm imagining that once I reach a point
in the size of the list that I would then work on the MVP.

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blakeloverain
One thing I'm wondering is whether it might be appropriate (and successful) to
simply ask small independent cafes (those who could benefit from more
business) whether they want to expand into offering prepared meals. Or would I
get shot down 10/10? Would they want to focus more of their business on such,
or do they want to stick to those dining in? Would they want an online
ordering system when people could just call or come in? That's something I'm
not entirely confident in. As of right now I don't have much of a value
statement that could make it obvious. The "pain" of having people
call/email/come in or the "convenience" of online ordering might not be
distinct/contrasting enough.

~~~
tixocloud
The best way to know is to ask them. Not sure how many HN'ers are cafe owners,
so it's best to go around to your local neighbourhood and start asking them
right up. But first, I would start with coming up with the value statement and
validating that with your target customer.

Think about the value you're offering them by having them go into prepared
meals. To me it sounds like your value is about opening an additional revenue
stream. Then think about what independent cafe owners will have to go through
to adopt prepared meals as part of their service. When you have your thoughts,
have a chat with them to validate your assumptions.

From my personal experience, my challenge (and it might be yours too), was
that there is no such thing as "small retailers" target segment. At the
beginning, I went after retailers and found all kinds of even smaller segments
to drill down to. There are shoe retailers, restaurants, pharmacies, fashion
retailers, etc. And each of these smaller retailers all had different wants
and needs, which makes software development complicated as hell.

~~~
blakeloverain
How would I validate the target customer without them insisting on seeing a
website? Is it reasonable to develop a concept page they can view the gist of
things and then reaffirm that they want to learn more, see a demo, try it out,
etc?

The tricky part that I experienced with my last startup attempt was that one
prospect was very eager to start using something before I could validate
others. I stupidly spent 3 months on developing an initial version only to
realize after the fact that I was going after a tough market.

How do I stall them without rejecting them forever? I could develop a very
basic MVP (based on my assumptions/their feedback from the concept page) in
approximately 2 weeks - so I'm imagining that it might be appropriate to
suggest I contact them when something is ready. After all, I came to them, not
them to me - so they can wait, right?

How many moderately interested prospects are enough before I work on an MVP?
How will I know that the market will scale - ie I didn't just find a fluke set
of eager prospects?

I was going to contact places via Facebook initially (so I can somewhat gauge
their business size based upon the # of fans) and simply ask if anyone's asked
about prepared meal services and if they've would consider using an online
ordering system. Might it be worth at this point saying that I'm merely doing
research (and need to get enough validation before I work on it further)?
Would it be reasonable that those who actually DO validate my hypothesis would
consider being customers?

I'm a bit vague on the value statement (my hypotheses on the convenience may
be overrated) so how do I go about developing a better value statement, based
on interviewing people in the industry? It could be that customers ordering
extra takeout is good enough for most places and want the instant
gratification of picking up same day. Prepared meal services is a bit
different model as people usually order 3-4 days in advance and only pick up
once a week (unlike takeout orders). The advantage to the business is they can
take a list of orders and prepare the food in batches more efficiently
(efficiency/prep is key for any food service business) and that they'd have
subscriptions (meal plans) which would bring in residual income from those
committed to ordering.

Should I search for similar businesses who already HAVE this type of service
(whether online or offline ordering) and ask what they gained from it and what
their overall experience has been like (ie positive/mixed) and ultimately what
they've learned and would recommend to any places looking to add this service.

~~~
tixocloud
> How would I validate the target customer without them insisting on seeing a
> website? Is it reasonable to develop a concept page they can view the gist
> of things and then reaffirm that they want to learn more, see a demo, try it
> out, etc?

That's the advice I got when I reached out to someone much more successful in
startups than myself. Like you, I got carried away myself and wanted to build
something. But it wasn't until I spoke to other people that I understood that
it wasn't really something lucrative yet. The point is that we have to do
everything we can to minimize our time building someone that only 1 person
wants. So low-fidelity prototypes, slides, anything you can to convey your
idea would be ideal.

I've also been advised to start charging right away - for me so far, this is
hard. And quite possibly it's an instant sign that we're not solving a very
painful problem, which is why no one is willing to pre-order yet.

> How do I stall them without rejecting them forever? I could develop a very
> basic MVP (based on my assumptions/their feedback from the concept page) in
> approximately 2 weeks - so I'm imagining that it might be appropriate to
> suggest I contact them when something is ready. After all, I came to them,
> not them to me - so they can wait, right?

Yes, it might be the case that you reach out when you're ready or you have
some news for them. And you'll know you have enough when you keep hearing the
same problems from prospects over and over again. There's no magic number. But
once you stop learning, then you'll know it's a problem worth solving since
many people have said they want it. If you're doing something that's really
useful, you won't lose them.

But you're right, we don't know if it will scale! So you've validated that
your solution with all the folks you spoke with. And even when you start
charging, you'll have to continue speaking with people to see if there are any
other features that are missing that will make your startup scale.

Yes, you are doing research at the moment. And there are multiple hypotheses
to test for: Is there a problem? Are prepared meal services the solution to
the problem? Are people willing to pay for prepared meal services to solve
that problem?

> I'm a bit vague on the value statement (my hypotheses on the convenience may
> be overrated) so how do I go about developing a better value statement,
> based on interviewing people in the industry? It could be that customers
> ordering extra takeout is good enough for most places and want the instant
> gratification of picking up same day. Prepared meal services is a bit
> different model as people usually order 3-4 days in advance and only pick up
> once a week (unlike takeout orders). The advantage to the business is they
> can take a list of orders and prepare the food in batches more efficiently
> (efficiency/prep is key for any food service business) and that they'd have
> subscriptions (meal plans) which would bring in residual income from those
> committed to ordering.

Exactly, the value statement that you come up with initially is an assumption.
You'll have to test to see if your customers and your customers' customers
value the same thing as what you're trying to deliver.

> Should I search for similar businesses who already HAVE this type of service
> (whether online or offline ordering) and ask what they gained from it and
> what their overall experience has been like (ie positive/mixed) and
> ultimately what they've learned and would recommend to any places looking to
> add this service.

It's something you'll have to test but that's a good starting point since they
are already familiar with the concept. You can ask them how they got into and
why did they get into it -> their responses could then be part of your value
statement. You'll also have to figure out the value for the people who are
ordering prepared meal services as well.

------
iamflimflam1
> Independent cafes who are interested in providing prepared meals to their
> customer base would also be good candidates (though they may need the idea
> planted in their minds first).

Why not go around your local area and talk to the cafes and see if there is
any interest?

