

How a Homeless Guy Inspired My Startup - kfrimpon
http://therealkofi.com/2012/08/06/how-a-homeless-guy-inspired-me-to-launch-my-startup/
Check out the inspiration behind my new startup MealTics.com. We allow restaurant customers to purchase meals that get donated to local soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Every month we give out cool prizes to random MealTic customers in our raffle.
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smoyer
Hmmm ... I think you're onto something great here but I have another idea to
pitch to you. I think it's great to allow the restaurant's customers to
purchase meals, but I'm more of a bulk purchaser (yes ... I got the 50 pound
bag of popcorn kernels).

At the end of each day, a restaurant has food that is perfectly good but
hasn't been sold. What if you find a donor who's willing to pay the restaurant
to package the left-over food into meals for delivery the next day.

The restaurant would earn at least a "processing fee" and the food wouldn't
end up in the dumpster. I'm sure this idea could be further refined with input
from your advising restaurants.

In any case, I hope you end up feeding a lot of people!

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betelnut
Scale is going to be critical here - it has to make sense for a shelter or a
food bank to pick up whatever a restaurant is offering, and there's probably a
threshold number of meals below which the cost of gas and travel time doesn't
justify picking up the meals. Meanwhile, if the shelter collects and saves up
its tickets, the restaurant has to be ready for bulk orders, so to speak.

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kirillzubovsky
Just FYI, something I learned from trying to sell a software product to
restaurants - unless they said yes and paid, the answer is "no." When you hear
"keep us updated...", that's a polite way of telling you to screw off, they
have more important things to do. Take it as it is, my experience, but don't
be surprised if after all, no one participates.

