Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

platejoy.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 50 posts

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

#41

Post by bluejade »

bradyo wrote: post #40

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 cou…

Hi! Some of the dietary preferences can't be combined because we don't have enough recipes to support the combination (at least not yet!). We're working on batch cooking, so that should help. Currently, it takes hacks to achieve that kind of thing (like adding more family members, e.g., Daniel, Daniel Leftovers, and Daniel Leftovers 2). If you have a slow cooker, you could select that in the appliances section and then just make sure that under time constraints, you select "more than 50 minutes" for dinners. Slow cooker recipes scale up well if you do that multiple family members trick. I hope that helps!

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

#42

Post by cbognet »

danielvinson wrote: post #33
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?

That's a great idea! You can create your new menu whenever you'd like (a few days in advance) so this idea will work fine.

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

#43

Post by cbognet »

rayne58 wrote: post #27
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…

I wish so much that you guys were located in NY so I could develop software for you guys :(. This is so similar to what my idea has been for 3 years now! I wish you guys the best of luck! No better way to help busy people than through educating them on the importance of what they eat every day and making it easy/affordable to do so.

Thank you so much!!

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

#44

Post by [deleted] »

bradyo wrote: post #40

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 cou…

[deleted]

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

#45

Post by cbognet »

spotman wrote: post #34
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 obvi…

Thanks so much for the feedback! Our conversion rate through the quiz is really high so we've not had reason to turn the product into more of a quick fix. We've a/b tested all sorts of flows and this one has worked best and customers end up happiest in the end. As you rate recipes and remove ones that don't look interesting to you, the system will get better at suggesting things we think you'll like. When you click "send to Instacart" you should land on a page where we have suggestions for each ingredient you'll need. So while your cart may be empty until you confirm the ingredients, the process should take only take a minute. Let us know how it goes!

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

#46

Post by bradyo »

bluejade wrote: post #41
bradyo wrote: post #40

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 cou…

Hi! Some of the dietary preferences can't be combined because we don't have enough recipes to support the combination (at least not yet!). We're working on batch cooking, so that should help. Currently, it takes hacks to achieve that kind of thing (like adding more family members, e.g., Daniel, Daniel Leftovers, and Daniel Leftovers 2). If you have a slow cooker, you could select that in the appliances section and th…

I tried simulating this by checking Clean Eating and either checking off the pre-populated meats or searching for meats I could think of and selecting all results and plenty of recipes came up, so it seems like these two dietary restrictions should be allowed to be chosen at the same time.

Also, I checked off the pre-populated "Beef" option and a recipe came up for breakfast involving sausage and another came up for dinner involving Filet Mignon.

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

#47

Post by cbognet »

bradyo wrote: post #46
bluejade wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! Some of the dietary preferences can't be combined because we don't have enough recipes to support the combination (at least not yet!). We're working on batch cooking, so that should help. Currently, it takes hacks to achieve that kind of thing (like adding more family members, e.g., Daniel, Daniel Leftovers, and Daniel Leftovers 2). If you have a slow cooker, you could select that in the appliances section and th…

I tried simulating this by checking Clean Eating and either checking off the pre-populated meats or searching for meats I could think of and selecting all results and plenty of recipes came up, so it seems like these two dietary restrictions should be allowed to be chosen at the same time. Also, I checked off the pre-populated "Beef" option and a recipe came up for breakfast involving sausage and another came up for…

Thanks for the feedback! We like to make sure we have enough new recipes for many months of using the service before allowing two categories to be combined, but you're welcome to hack it that way for now. Filet mignon was a glitch (we just fixed it) but the sausage is made of pork.

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

#49

Post by timtamboy63 »

aphextron wrote: post #21

I was all on board for grocery delivery with a customized shopping list, but you lost me at $59 sign up fee... You may want to rethink that.

Same! I was thinking about building this a year back and thought the best monetization model would be to add some overhead for the delivery.

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

#50

Post by cbognet »

stephenboyd wrote: post #38
bluejade wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rest…

Ah, your best bet would be a low carb plan. You'll still have dairy and whole grains in moderation but no refined sugars and flours.
Post reply on HN