1. Opportunity Execution Project
FOOD ROUTES-

2. TEAM FORMATION
Maria Botchkova, Francisco Kattan, Adrianne Chen, Abdullah Sukkar
Four strangers, scattered across the globe:
Saudi, Australian, Honduran & Russian
Meeting for the first time through the Stanford Venture Lab
course.
Diverse range of skills and experience:
Combine over 50 years in product development & management,
marketing, strategy, HR, IT, systems implementations,
finance, sales, operations, project management,
and consulting
And a shared interest in : Travel and Food!
Food Routes

3. How the business model works and makes money
Interest in : Travel, Food and New Experiences!
We connect people who want to experience an authentic
home-cooked meal
to hosts who want to provide one .
The problem this company solves is:
For guests: being able to get authentic local meals when traveling. Targeting to those
travelers who want to experience local cuisine and local environment beyond what can be
offered in the restaurant.
For hosts: being able to earn extra income from assets they already have: a home,
cooking skills and local food knowledge.
The company makes money by taking a booking fee and a percentage of the meal price on
meals organized through the site.
Food Routes

4. How the business model works and makes money
“Guests” register for free, and can organize meals with hosts or join a scheduled meal. The
value they get includes ability to search and set up meals in their destination country with
the host of their choice, read previous guest reviews and hosts' ratings, research host
neighborhood information, etc.
Hosts register by paying a nominal registration fee for their identify and address
verification, and can then advertise their food/experience to guests. The value they receive
is the ability to reach a large audience of interested customers.
Each meal booking is charged a booking processing fee. 24 hours prior to the meal the full
booking fee is charged (which is transferred to the host, minus the company margin even if
the guest does not turn up).
In the early network building stage all hosts will be verified by company staff, house
pictures will be required. The registration fee will be waived for the promotional periods.
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5. Why we are confident this is a profitable business
Market Size.
We initially sized the market to include
only US and Australian travelers in their
top 5 travel destinations. This resulted
in a modest market size estimation
of1.3m meals worth roughly $45.5m.
However based on customer feedback we
believe the proposition has greater
relevance than just Americans and
Australians. We refocused on adventure-
seeking tourists and top 8 destinations
determined by largest tourist arrivals
and high interest in trying a local-
hosted-meal as discovered by our
survey and interviews.
Source: Wikipedia chart based on World Tourism Organization Statistics
MARKET SIZE = $ 4.6 billion and growing
346.5m tourists * 38% tourist looking for ''off-the-beaten path experience” *$35 meal fee
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6. Why we are confident this is a profitable business
Customers want the product
We asked customers (surveys and open-end interview questions) and got an
overwhelming “yes” that people have an interested in using the service (89%).
Naturally, not all 'interested' will become a paying customer, but another
encouraging outcome is 38% surveyed identified themselves as tourists that
prefer to travel off-the-beaten path and 100% of those had interest in
service. Those 38% is our main target.
Customers are willing to pay for the product
We tested customer price point and found that “price” was not the main
driver for using the service. People are willing to pay $30-50 per person per
meal. At this price point we are not looking as a “fast food” or “budget food”
proposition. A small percentage (9%) where even willing to pay more, if the
experience was unique/special.
Both Fixed and Variable costs are low
Our costs are relatively low and fixed once the concept is set up and running
within a country (mainly marketing and IT support). We don't necessarily
require outside financing at the early stage. To break even (annualized) we
need to get to 6.3k meals booked, representing a 0.005% penetration of our
preferred countries.
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7. How we dealt with Business Model Risks?
A core value in our model is TRUSTED HOST Network and VIBRANT travelers community.
Failure to build and maintain either is a key risk. Another key risk to our business is low
technical barriers to entry.
To minimize risk our strategy is to :
 Focus our host business development by taking a country by country approach - be the
‘first-mover’, lock in the best hosts, and concentrate on maintaining host relationships
 In addition to global partners and distribution/marketing channels maintain relationship
with country specific partners: local travel sites, travel booking services, B&B hotels
 Build vibrant travelers' community, through encouraging blogging, sharing, best picture
contests, and various monthly community events
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8. Opportunity Execution and Next Steps
We conducted 5 marketing experiments:
Key Findings Key Decisions Made to Improve
Conversion Rate
•The social media campaign (Facebook page)
was most effective (44% Conversion Rate) •Sent traffic to new Marketing Page instead
and least expensive. of Prototype
• Paid campaigns (Pay4Tweet) performed •Rebranded from DISH Network to Food
worst. Routes
•Customer Acquisition Cost through •Changed Tagline to better reflect value
Facebook and Email are lowest and present proposition
the best ROI for future campaigns
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9. Opportunity Execution and Next Steps
Based on the results from completed marketing campaigns we believe that we need to
concentrate on acquiring additional 3 - 6 hosts first in the top 1-2 tourist destination.
Once 3-6 hosts are signed up and several introductory events are conducted we will
proceed to work with 'influencers', to get the articles published about the service on Trip
Advisor', 'Lonely Planet' and/or similar publication.
Once we got some support will spread the word using social networks.
Our current conversion rate is 35% and our most challenging issue is directing traffic to
the website. Working through ‘influencers’ and having events scheduled to review and
discuss will help drive interested traffic to the site.
To facilitate host signed up we plan to have a conference event in the target city. That will
allow for face to face communication which will eliminate some hosts concerns that we
encountered and also will allow us to personally verify hosts which will minimize guest
security concerns. The cost for the event is estimated at $200. The first target location
is Malaysia. Once the service is established we will move away from face-to-face marketing
to make sure that the acquisition cost for hosts remains low.
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10. Links to Our:
Marketing Video
Landing Page
.
FaceBook Page
Prototype
Stats 12/12/12:
69 view of the landing page,
9 signed up for updates,
8 active users on the prototype
sites
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