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Show HN: PlateJoy (YC S15) – Algorithmic meal planner with integrated delivery

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Re: Show HN: PlateJoy (YC S15) – Algorithmic meal planner with integrated delivery

#31

Post by bluejade »

caffeinewriter wrote: post #29

This is the first startup in a while I've been excited to spend money on. It looks great, and it looks like it already has a very mature feature set. The one thing I didn't see was the pricing on the delivery options. Is that live yet? Or is that a future feature?

Thank you! This is Daniel (from PlateJoy). Delivery happens via Instacart. They charge between $4 and $7 per delivery, depending on area. If you sign up for PlateJoy, and you don't see the Instacart button on your shopping list, let us know and we can activate it for you. (They are constantly adding zip codes, so sometimes we don't know that a zip code is available for delivery.)

Re: Show HN: PlateJoy (YC S15) – Algorithmic meal planner with integrated delivery

#32

Post by bluejade »

someone7x wrote: post #28

Can the meal planner take into account the capabilities of my kitchen? Say for example that I only have a microwave and George Foreman grill. How is recipe complexity managed? Can I select recipes that optimize for fewest dirty dishes?

Hi, this is Daniel (Christina's co-founder). You can specify appliances on the personalization page (though stovetop can't currently be unselected because it is necessary for many dinners). Lunches—with the "pack something quick" option—only use a microwave, so that can serve as a sort of work-around for people who don't have a range / hot-plate.

Complexity is handled by time preferences, which can be specified for each course (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks/dessert). Shorter times are less complex recipes.

Sorry, no "fewest dirty dishes" options, but great idea!

Re: Show HN: PlateJoy (YC S15) – Algorithmic meal planner with integrated delivery

#33

Post by danielvinson »

ctb_mg wrote: post #17

We tried Platejoy for 6 months. We found it was useful, but found a few caveats: It was very easy to back ourselves into a corner with food preferences such that you see the same set of 20 or so recipes recycled from week to week. This is probably our fault more than Platejoy's, but we are not especially picky eaters. Some recipes required ingredients that we just couldn't source. We live in the midwest and the close…

I order pretty much all of the obscure food/ingredients I use from Amazon - looks like Tahini Paste is widely available there. I'm not sure how much notice PlateJoy gives you to shop before you make the recipe, but it has to be less than Amazon's shipping?

Re: Show HN: PlateJoy (YC S15) – Algorithmic meal planner with integrated delivery

#34

Post by spotman »

cbognet wrote: post #2

Hi all, I lost 50 pounds a few years ago and realized that the options for healthy eating are limited to frozen meal delivery services or nutrition apps that never worked for me. So I started PlateJoy, which uses data about your lifestyle, preferences, and goals to help you plan what to buy and cook each week. We send customized shopping lists and recipes that match your preferences with optional grocery delivery of…

Cool idea!

Random Feedback:

- Made it through the survey, was expecting to create a password before you asked for money, so upon closing this window, I just realized that I am not sure if I have an account. On a hunch I re-entered my email and you did save my info so all was not lost, but had a moment of 'oh I'm just going to give up then!' Possibly make it obvious that you can return later, and possibly make it obvious you don't actually want a credit card today.

- The survey feels like more work than just browsing instacart. I get that your trying to really understand me, and I do think thats brilliant. I get that this is an investment into me saving time in the future, but after completing the form the meals that were offered to me do seem quite random. So this leaves me with the feeling that this service is going to take some trial and error and work on my part to get into sync with me.

- Possibly since I am not a picky eater with dietary restrictions, then I am leaving you too much wiggle room to read my mind. Therein, possibly this service would just move my innate ability to be indecisive about what I want to eat to you. If this is the case, then I don't know if I want to pay 10 bucks a month to continue to be indecisive.

- In making it all the way through to the "buy on instacart" page, I end up on instacarts site with an empty shopping basket. Not sure if that is intentional, but if that is a limitation then there is no way I am going to pay because that is where the lions share of time savings for me would come from, easily inputting stuff into instacart.

I will probably try to give your service a proper test and order some of the recommended recipes. I think if it really gets to the place where its with-out-a-doubt saving me time, and ultimately managing the food intake of my entire household, I would spend the 10 bucks for it, and if it does that without me even needing to intervene I would spend 15-20.

The product seems extremely sophisticated for an initial product offering. Wonder if there is a way you can focus on making the initial impression accomplish a smaller task first (like, "plan for perfect date night at home!") where the scope would be reduced to helping someone get 1 meal you design, near effortless, from instacart, surrounding dietary restrictions, rather than overwhelming users with wanting to deep dive into trying to digitize their kitchen 20 minutes into the product.

Keep hacking on it, could see this being powerful for busy people.

Re: Show HN: PlateJoy (YC S15) – Algorithmic meal planner with integrated delivery

#35

Post by stephenboyd »

cbognet wrote: post #2

Hi all, I lost 50 pounds a few years ago and realized that the options for healthy eating are limited to frozen meal delivery services or nutrition apps that never worked for me. So I started PlateJoy, which uses data about your lifestyle, preferences, and goals to help you plan what to buy and cook each week. We send customized shopping lists and recipes that match your preferences with optional grocery delivery of…

This looks great. I need a time-saving solution to the standard food problem and I don't want to take the Soylent plunge. But I'm filling out the questionnaire right now and I'm finding the list of ingredients to exclude is too limited. So when I type into the 'other' box, I can exclude feta cheese, but not cheddar.

Re: Show HN: PlateJoy (YC S15) – Algorithmic meal planner with integrated delivery

#36

Post by bluejade »

buckbova wrote: post #30

Who are the "On-demand advice from our nutrition-focused personal chefs" and how as a user would I gain access to this advice?

Someone from the PlateJoy nutrition team emails new customers during their first week to give tips and to be available as a point of contact. There are also follow-up check-ins if people don't have specific questions right away. Some people really get into it!

Re: Show HN: PlateJoy (YC S15) – Algorithmic meal planner with integrated delivery

#37

Post by bluejade »

stephenboyd wrote: post #35
cbognet wrote: post #2

Hi all, I lost 50 pounds a few years ago and realized that the options for healthy eating are limited to frozen meal delivery services or nutrition apps that never worked for me. So I started PlateJoy, which uses data about your lifestyle, preferences, and goals to help you plan what to buy and cook each week. We send customized shopping lists and recipes that match your preferences with optional grocery delivery of…

This looks great. I need a time-saving solution to the standard food problem and I don't want to take the Soylent plunge. But I'm filling out the questionnaire right now and I'm finding the list of ingredients to exclude is too limited. So when I type into the 'other' box, I can exclude feta cheese, but not cheddar.

What dietary preference do you have checked? Things like "dairy free" and "paleo" already omit cheese, except for those cheeses for which we have substitutes that match the overall dietary preference. If you type in "cheese", that will give you a list of every cheese used by our recipes that is not already excluded by your dietary preferences.

Re: Show HN: PlateJoy (YC S15) – Algorithmic meal planner with integrated delivery

#38

Post by stephenboyd »

bluejade wrote: post #37
stephenboyd wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This looks great. I need a time-saving solution to the standard food problem and I don't want to take the Soylent plunge. But I'm filling out the questionnaire right now and I'm finding the list of ingredients to exclude is too limited. So when I type into the 'other' box, I can exclude feta cheese, but not cheddar.

What dietary preference do you have checked? Things like "dairy free" and "paleo" already omit cheese, except for those cheeses for which we have substitutes that match the overall dietary preference. If you type in "cheese", that will give you a list of every cheese used by our recipes that is not already excluded by your dietary preferences.

I've only checked 'Clean Eating.' The cheeses in the 'other' drop-down checklist are feta, fontina, goat, ricotta, and shredded parmesan.

I just tried switching from clean to 'no preference' and saw the cheeses in the 'other' list expand to the ones I expected to see. I suppose its reasonable to exclude swiss and mozzarella from 'clean' eating, but ideally for me would be a 'clean-but-not-that-clean' option that restricts refined sugars and flours, but not dairy. That may be idiosyncratic, I know.

Re: Show HN: PlateJoy (YC S15) – Algorithmic meal planner with integrated delivery

#39

Post by caffeinewriter »

bluejade wrote: post #31
caffeinewriter wrote: post #29

This is the first startup in a while I've been excited to spend money on. It looks great, and it looks like it already has a very mature feature set. The one thing I didn't see was the pricing on the delivery options. Is that live yet? Or is that a future feature?

Thank you! This is Daniel (from PlateJoy). Delivery happens via Instacart. They charge between $4 and $7 per delivery, depending on area. If you sign up for PlateJoy, and you don't see the Instacart button on your shopping list, let us know and we can activate it for you. (They are constantly adding zip codes, so sometimes we don't know that a zip code is available for delivery.)

Awesome! It wasn't readily apparent that delivery is handled by a third party before signing up. I've used Instacart before, so it's cool that it's just an integration, but I wasn't sure if it was an addon I was missing somewhere that had to be added to my subscription before I checked out.

Re: Show HN: PlateJoy (YC S15) – Algorithmic meal planner with integrated delivery

#40

Post by bradyo »

This is great. It seems that I can't select multiple dietary requirements though (like vegetarian and clean eating). On Firefox mobile. Is that intentional or are some of the dietary requirement s non-compatible?

Also, is there any way to specify I'd like to meal prep more than just sharing a dinner with the next day's leftovers? E.g. Make a weeks worth of meals at once by scaling a particular recipe? I suppose I could do that myself buy having the software advise my grocery list would be awesome.

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