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Comment by rcarrigan87 | Hacker News Reader

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rcarrigan87

This seems like a fairly easy idea to test without any capital investment but a bike and a landing page.

1. Throw up landing page explaining service

2. Have people put in orders via email or form submission

3. Ride bike to grocery and deliver items

4. Collect cash or use Square upon delivery

Market test complete. Failure with minimal $ committed.

It worries me that an idea that could be done for so little capital is able to raise money. These are heady times.

Question to OP: did you ever consider targeting caregivers who would like to cook for their loved ones but can't leave the house for significant periods?

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This is the common advice I've seen for being lean but step #2 is really hard. How do you get people to put in orders on a brand new webpage? It's far from trivial to get an audience for your landing page and kind of goes against lean to throw 5k in ad money to validate something. Who has that kind of money to throw around?

step #2 is the absolute hardest part. If you can't figure out #2 then why invest in staff, logistics, a refrigerator...? The idea is to only focus on traction(#2). If you can't get traction then you don't have anything.

I agree but I can't help but think a subscription model would have benefited this service. Require people to buy 1 meal a week/month, try to automate it, reduce friction from the user's process of meal planning; these are things that may have actually gone the extra mile for the user + increased orders.

Granted they may have tried this

Another thought, to prove the concept, spend $20 to print flyers, stand out at the grocery and explain to people what you're doing. If after awhile no one is hitting the page and placing an order, then maybe you need to rethink your idea.

Facebook laser targeted ads work wonders here if done correctly:

> UK, London, Single Men/Women, Interest:cooking, TV shows: Biggest loser or Hells Kitchen.

> Then send them to Landing Page.

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