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The land of 🍣Sushi🍣

THIS WAS MY RAW PROCESS LAST NIGHT.

I recommend we build a sushi ordering app.

I’ll explain why sushi ordering, why not the other ideas/opportunities, and how we should approach the opportunity.

Agenda (see side nav on the right!)

Evaluate the opportunities

Decision summary

How we should execute on sushi ordering and validate along the way.

Actual next steps

V1 defined - strategy, features, happy path flow

Validation

Go to Market

Metrics

A note on my Methodology

I read the prompt, then started speaking aloud and went through my typical process when someone asks for my feedback on an idea. I took the prompt as written, and some statements I assumed as true. This means it’s pretty subjective and all my opinions would likely change with more data/info.

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Let’s evaluate the options

Evaluation question

Inventory Management

Sushi ordering app

Sushi delivery

Customers

Restaurants

Restaurants Consumers

Restaurants Consumers Drivers

What VALUE can we offer?

Do those vibe with small business owner psychology?

Save money (maybe) from less waste

Save time (maybe)

More revenue (restaurants)

More convenient than existing options (consumers) if done right

More revenue (from deliveries + more orders)

More convenient than existing options (consumers)

More delivery revenue for drivers? Unlikely.

How do we make money?

Saas monthly fee

% of Order transactions

% of Order transactions % of Delivery fee

Revenue formula

# of Customers * monthly fee

% of $$ sold

% of all $$ sold/fees

How complex of a V1 solution do we need?

THIS IS ALL PENDING VALIDATION

Inventory database. Custom formulas on storage, duration, alerts, location, consumption.

Should tie into orders, for consumption but may not be 1:1. You may have 2 chefs in the same store consuming different amounts of fish for the same roll.

Sales is directly to the SMB restaurant owners.

Billing

Menus (mostly static, could scrape existing sources)

Pricing (mostly static)

Ecommerce shopping cart (integration)

Payments (stripe)

Back and forth between Consumer & Owner (possible integration with existing tools) (most complex)

Orders confirmed

Changes requested (insufficient inventory)

Order updates

Could be a very simple addition to the sushi ordering app. Let owners offer their own delivery service, for a fee.

Then offer our own, for a similar fee but we handle the logistics.

This one is much more complex as we have to deal with the supply of delivery drivers.

What has to happen for GTM to be successful?

SMB Sales with GTM assets (training, onboarding, faq, marketing)

National sales strategy, geography shouldn’t matter.

SMB have to be sold and onboarded ahead of time

Consumers have to find & engage with the app

Geographically limited to optimize the consumer experience (avoid having only 1 sushi restaurant listed in NYC)

Add into Sushi ordering & start training SMB

Consumer + SMB sales

Thoughts

Simpler GTM Harder PMF → Hard revenue Easy to validate

Harder GTM

Simpler PMF → Easier revenue

Harder to validate

Harder GTM Could be simple feature Could be complex PMF - driver supply

Initial Validation

Create a compelling pitch customers understand

Get pre-launch signups

Get pre-launch deposits $$

Restaurants:

Create compelling pitch & demo they understand

Get pre-launch signups.

Consumers:

Market has validated intent.

Interview & Test value of our app features

Validation

Will restaurant owners purchase this software?

Will consumers order sushi from our app? Will restaurants welcome the additional channel?

Will consumers order sushi from our app? Will restaurants welcome the additional channel? Will restaurants want to do their own deliveries? Will restaurants want another 3rd party delivery service? (not likely)

There are no rows in this table

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Decision Summary

Inventory Management: Don’t do

❗️Value for small independent restaurants is not validated or obvious.

Would need to clearly define amount of waste we could prevent. Same with “time” but time savings doesn’t always equal cost savings.

Even though product is likely “easier” to build, the lack of clear path to product-market-fit means this idea needs more validation.

Sushi ordering app: Build towards validation

Value to restaurants is real, and something new owners are “very motivated” to adopt.

Value to consumers is convenience and should be further validated. However, I’m confident there’s a market where this could thrive. We need to research this more.

Starting with an app to order sushi ahead of time as dine in or takeout, is a great starting point to a platform that may expand to other value offerings once we gain traction.

Sushi delivery app: Do delivery later

❗️I believe we should save delivery, as a future feature of a sushi ordering app.

A sushi ordering app requires us to launch to 2 user groups. Delivery requires a 3rd user group, complicating GTM requirements and increasing development scope.

Without proven levels of orders going through the app, drivers will demand higher fees due to the uncertainty of driving for this new delivery service.

It’s unclear how we can lower the cost of delivery fees below current 3rd parties; which per the prompt:

Owners are frustrated by the high commission charged by leading 3rd party applications, ranging from 20-30% on each order. Up to 40% of sushi restaurants we have interviewed do not work with any 3rd party apps.

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Actual next steps:

Research

Restaurants

Talk to restaurant owners

How do restaurants take our orders? How do they provide updates on those orders? What’s possible here? What’s ideal?

Prepare a pitch and get restaurants to sign up for the app

See if they will pay NOW to be listed on the app and promoted

A demo would be helpful here, but doesn’t have to be functional.

Learn about the features we need on V1

What % of owners would offer their own delivery service through the app if we built that functionality?

Consumers

Talk to sushi eaters. Offer to pay for sushi and have people order sushi right then.

Market

Find out data about sushi order sizes - to help estimate revenue potential

Find data sources that may enhance the experience:

google ratings, reviews, address, operating hours, etc.

Menus, pricing (would be great to automatically list the restaurant via web scraping so the owner has very little onboarding work to do)

From this research and testing → define V1

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Let’s build a 🍣sushi🍣 ordering app!

Strategy

Build the easiest and most convenient sushi ordering app. Gain traction. Earn Revenue.

Allow restaurants to offer their own delivery service for an added fee. Restaurants collect entire delivery fee.

Analyze the data on sushi delivery, from our ordering app to decide if we expand into sushi delivery ourselves, or integrate with 3rd parties for restaurants who don’t offer their own delivery.

Analyze the orders and explore if the ordering app provides a competitive advantage to build an inventory management platform that adds explicit value to restaurants.

App description (not gtm copy):

An app where people can order sushi from local restaurants, for either dine-in or take-out.

Features

Features that make this app better than existing solutions for the consumer:

This app is all about conveniently finding the best Sushi. But we know that Sushi is very, very subjective to the individual so lean into the unknown and allow users to search by their own preferences. Also focus on speed to order. Ordering should be a delight, not a chore.

Searching specific to Sushi

Specific roll or menu item

Menu variety

Avg price for basic or specialty rolls

Who offers delivery

Rating

Location (map view)

Wait time??

Which offer delivery and delivery cost/time?

Optimize order flow

Once they’re ready to order, can we order menu items based on their original search?

Is there a better order flow?

search → see restaurant options → select a restaurant → order from menu

Can we skip steps and still have it be a good experience where users won’t feel lost or taken advantage of?

This may not be worth any effort since people are used to an existing order flow.

Create data specific for sushi restaurants

Have users rate their orders based on Sushi relevant metrics. Examples may be:

Authenticity?

Variety?

Quality?

Value?

Speed?

This helps improve our user experience over time.

Order feedback loop must be 🔥

Communication on orders needs to be as good as possible.

Notify the user when the order is being prepared and/or estimated time of completion.

Notify the user if their order has to be changed due to restaurant running out of ingredients

FUTURE: If this happens, would be awesome if we notify the user and ask if they want to transfer their order to a new restaurant, or change their existing order. Then we do the work for them.

Notify the restaurant of any changes and collect payment updates up front so the restaurant doesn’t worry.

Features that we need to have an app that can take sushi orders

Backend

How do restaurants take our orders?

How do restaurants give updates on our orders?

Restaurant database

items for searching

integration for restaurant meta data

rating, location, contact info, all the google maps stuff

menus

pricing on items

shopping cart

payments

includes accounting so we know how much of each transaction we’re collecting, the system is taking, and the restaurant is getting paid.

Orders database

Order uuid

Status (updates)

Details (timestamp, cost, etc.)

Items

Payment status

Front end (ish)

location sharing

displaying results in list

displaying results in map

apple/google pay

push notifications for updates

Features we won’t build initially, but should be investigated for the future

Allow delivery services (& fees)

Offer our own delivery service (maybe)

Reporting for restaurants orders, revenue, etc.

Restaurants running sales/deals and notifying the consumers

A quick sketch of the happy path flow

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Validation

Have to keep validating along the way.

Do we have restaurants signed up?

Will restaurants pay to be on top? I’m not sure this will work for an unknown app. However, if they are willing to pay, then we have more confidence in our plan.

Can we integrate with tools and data sources we need for V1?

How frequently are restaurants changing menus and pricing?

are there data sources to leverage for this? Or do we need to let them fix it in the app? If that’s the case, how do we prevent orders against wrong prices?

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Go To Market

First get the restaurants, then get the consumers.

Solve the hard side of the network: Restaurant supply.

Focus on a single geo region

This is a network tool. The more suppliers, the better the consumer experience.

Try to get full saturation of sushi restaurants in that region ahead of launch

Are there Sushi restaurants without websites? Not on Google? How can we get them signed up in the app?

Do we have to offer an “order now, and pay with cash when you get there” feature?

Test various methods to get consumer attention on the app

location based advertising (billboards)

restaurants referring users to the app (on the website, flyers in the restaurant)

discounts on first orders

Devise a loyalty program

I’m not the expert here but I know a few people who are. Learn from them and deploy.

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Success metrics

Are restaurants benefiting?

Count of restaurants actively taking orders each day/week/month

Are consumers engaging?

Count of unique consumers purchasing sushi each day/week/month

Other detailed metrics to track, monitor, and investigate:

Are we adding value to restaurants, and will they stay with us?

Count of total restaurants signed up

Count of restaurants actively taking orders each day/week/month

Orders per restaurant in a given timeframe

$$$ per restaurant in a given timeframe (last month, this app brought in $xxx to your restaurant)

Churn and/or Retention ratio for a given time period

Value to consumers

Count of unique consumers purchasing sushi

Avg order amount, over time

Number of orders, over time

geographical regions with orders

what are people searching by?

what variables matter most when ordering sushi?

Conclusion

Go back up to “Actual Next Steps”

I recommend we build a sushi ordering app.

Let’s evaluate the options

Decision Summary

Actual next steps:

Let’s build a 🍣sushi🍣 ordering app!

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