Comment by jawns
5 hours ago
This feels like GasBuddy, but for food.
One of the reasons GasBuddy took off was that it wasn't just based on community reports; there was an incentive for gas stations themselves to accurately report their prices and keep them up to date.
It seems like you're trying to discourage businesses from participating (e.g. by not accepting sponsored placements), and that will have implications for your growth rate. I think you should look for ways to give businesses an active role, without eroding user trust in the recommendations, of course.
Think of the possibilities:
- Business can add coupons to its listing, making cheap food even cheaper
- Business can confirm a reported deal, adding to its credibility
- Business can provide full menu and a link to order takeout
I don't think any of those features would make users feel like the business is "buying" a listing it didn't earn.
Wow, thank you for this suggestion. This might be most sustainable way to update prices, as long as I set boundaries correctly. I will research how GasBuddy set up their data pipeline this week to see if we can benchmark.
I could be wrong but I think you’ll want to consider changing the name. The parent post is on point, but companies won’t be attracted by the “cheap food” moniker. Even “budget food” is more palatable for a restaurant to associate with.
This was our biggest concern as well. I already talked to few owners and negative connotation was making them reluctant to be on the site.. We thought about different name like "under10" "dimedrop" "Fooglemap" but none of them stuck. (We did like the name Fooglemap, but similarity to Google map will create risk of cease and decease letter if it ever becomes major.. so decided not to do it.)
Still torn on name change.. We want cool / memorable name.
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Man.. I feel like I owe you lunch for making this suggestions. Noted and definitely taking this to heart
Also good for time-based deals (for example, happy hour specials) where businesses really do want to get more customers in the door at certain times.
Yes, rather than relying 100% on customers. Business will be better at updating correct cadence.
Not really.
GasBuddy has a standard: price per gallon
But this is just a map of the lower-priced items, which are available everywhere. You can find a cheap sandwich, bowl of soup, slice of pizza, or taco virtually anywhere. There is no corresponding standard point of comparison (no "gallon").
There's the calorie. Not always a good metric of health, but it's still a signal.
$/cal varies meaningfully between home cooking, Costco, Chipotle, fast casual, sit-down, frozen meals, etc.