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HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly

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Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly

#11

Post by shuleatt »

hugh3 wrote: post #6

The idea was born based on the observation that most people can’t remember what they had for lunch two days ago. However, stopping to take a photo (and optionally sharing it publicly) adds both accountability and an element of fun. A bunch of my friends will occasionally post pictures of their meals on facebook -- either because they're eating out somewhere particularly awesome or because they've cooked something the…

Agree with the iPhone app. We do have a basic Facebook integration that allows users to post to their feed. Also agree with deemphasizing the calorie/health aspects, though overtime, I still believe the stronger value prop for an app like this is to become the mint.com of eating rather than another food porn site. But, yes, in the near term more emphasis on social, food porn, etc is prob the way to go

Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly

#12

Post by shuleatt »

YuriNiyazov wrote: post #4

Man, I saw you guys present at the Quantified Self Meetup in NY (either late last year or early this year) and I thought, man these guys have a great idea, and are waaaay ahead of my "track your daily activities" project. Sorry it didn't take off!

Awesome! That was great fun night. We've tried to hold true to our roots with quantified self/personal tracking. However, most feedback (here and from friends) suggests we pivot away from this

Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly

#14

Post by shuleatt »

ebiester wrote: post #8
ebiester wrote: post #7

Why wouldn't you have an iPhone app? It would make sending the pictures much easier. It's a small revenue stream, but it is one.

Also, why not pivot into the diet/accountability market? It seems a bit skeezy, but people might pay for it.

It's possible. One thing we looked at was working with personal trainers, or programs like weight watchers. Another variation was to use mechanical turk to 'guesstimate' calorie counts and charge as a premium service

Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly

#16

Post by benatkin »

fleitz wrote: post #5

What is the objective of the pivot? Cash? Users? Pictures? Something else?

Sounds to me like they're startup enthusiasts, and want eat.ly to get bigger and better without sacrificing the stability they have right now, with their full-time jobs.

In other comments, people are saying the iPhone app is important. I think they already know this, and what would be more interesting to them is any shortcuts they could take to build their iPhone app.

I think they ought to find an iPhone developer who has developed an app similar to what would be needed for eat.ly, and is in a similar position where they are enthusiastic about startups but not doing it full-time.

Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly

#17

Post by shuleatt »

prometheus2002 wrote: post #3

First off, have you measured the time it takes to load your site? It seems awfully slow to me (maybe it's the HN posting that's slowing it down) and could be a reason people are not spending more time on the site. Before you change your vision, have you considered reducing the friction to use the site? Having to email photos and put in the name of the restaurant is cumbersome compared to opening a phone app and takin…

We're definitely aware that site is uuuber slow. Because we're 100% bootstrapped (and not generating revenue) we recently scaled down from Engine Yard to a small instance on Slicehost. We figured we'd cut our costs while deciding what to do. EY was about $240/mth but 10x faster

Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly

#19

Post by icey »

With regards to encouraging users to contribute photos: Have you thought about creating a few short blog posts about good ways to photograph food? Things like lighting, angles, how to try to take a decent picture using a smartphone, etc?

Food is pretty hard to photograph well, we tend to have overly high standards for what a good food photo looks like because of all the food porn around these days. Just like regular porn, the real thing is going to look a little different. If your users hate the pictures they're getting when they take pictures of their food, they're never going to upload them. They'll probably give up completely after a couple of attempts.

Re: HN:Help Pivot Our Startup -- Eat.ly

#20

Post by shuleatt »

icey wrote: post #19

With regards to encouraging users to contribute photos: Have you thought about creating a few short blog posts about good ways to photograph food? Things like lighting, angles, how to try to take a decent picture using a smartphone, etc? Food is pretty hard to photograph well, we tend to have overly high standards for what a good food photo looks like because of all the food porn around these days. Just like regular…

Well version 1 was really not meant to be about the quality of photos (i.e. food porn), but if we do move in this direction it's a great suggestion
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