Please describe your proposed solution.
The background:
When Grubhub, UberEats, DoorDash, and other similar food delivery apps were introduced, they brought an effortless and convenient way to order food by choosing from one of the many available restaurants nearby. Nothing like that has ever been possible before. Unsurprisingly they immediately attracted millions of users worldwide. The audience capture was so impactful that if a restaurant wanted to attract customers, they had to be on one of the platforms and had to sign any draconian agreements the app overlords would offer them to sign. Each of those apps is a great tool. But in the hands of corporate middlemen, slowly, step by step, they imposed enormous fees on the restaurants. The restaurants eventually passed the costs to the customers. And instead of decreasing their fees, the apps cut the expenses by lowering earnings for those who are the least in control - the delivery drivers, who often struggle to get even the minimum wage.
The problem:
- Revolutionary tools like the Internet and food-ordering apps helped a few individuals to monopolize the market.
- A small group of people in charge of the apps is driven by self-interest, which results in high restaurant fees and low driver pay.
- The audience capture and convenience of the apps don't leave many options for restaurants and delivery drivers.
The reasons behind decentralization and how decentralization can fix the problem:
While those apps are great tools, and their creators deserve the rewards, we believe the Internet and software should help to create a better society instead of helping centralize power and resources in the hands of a few. By providing open-source solutions and decentralized infrastructure based on Cardano, we can eliminate unnecessary middlemen in the process, drastically reduce high fees, reduce the overall cost of each order (especially pickup orders), and significantly increase drivers' pay. Additionally, by leveraging the token economy philosophy, we can find new ways of monetization for the builders and early adopters.
Centralized entities like banks, music labels, insurance companies, food delivery apps served their purpose in the 20th century. They all were the best solutions available. The blockchain, however, gives us a completely new toolset. And it opens new possibilities and provides better solutions to deal with the problems our society faces. Cardano-based projects like ProjectNEWM help to eliminate the music labels from the equation and provide a more fair redistribution of the profits among music artists. We can do the same in the food delivery industry by eliminating high fees on pickup orders and redistributing locked profits among drivers on delivery orders.
Which problems can be solved in food ordering?
- We can significantly decrease fees on pickup orders by removing centralized entities from the equation.
- We can increase drivers' pay by sending all the fees directly to drivers instead of the app owners.
Both problems are important to solve. But we believe it's better to handle one problem at a time. We will start by reducing fees on pickup orders. This problem is easier to solve, requires less funding, and we can prove that our idea is working. Plus, 75% of all food orders in the US are pickup orders. While the app can be used in any country, we will launch in California - one of the most popular places for food ordering on Earth. When thousands of customers and restaurants already use the system and transact on the Cardano platform, adding drivers and food delivery will be much easier.
Important: This funding will help us to implement a solution for pickup orders. The driver app and delivery orders are not included in this proposal. While we mention our plans for drivers and delivery orders in this proposal, this problem is harder to tackle. Let's handle them one at a time and deliver a strong proof of concept first.
The solution:
The solution will benefit all participants in the food pickup process. Restaurant fees go to zero. Customer fees become significantly lower than in any other available service. Drivers get 100% of the delivery fees. Participants will also receive our utility token for different actions they perform for the network. Smart contracts will transparently redistribute the earnings between restaurants, drivers, customer support members, and builders. We will also use our utility token to measure everyone's involvement in the project. There won't be any sale of the token. The token will be paid for different types of work performed for the network, so there is no expectation of profit derived from the efforts of others. The token will be used for governance purposes, and the participants will be able to vote on the network's decisions, like whether we should pay more to drivers or reduce delivery costs for customers. Additionally, tokens will be used to purchase different priveledges in the system, so those participants who proved their understanding of the internal works of the system will be able to gain a slight advantage over newcomers.
An interesting side effect of the utility token and the fact that all our apps are open source: people will be able to clone the code and span multiple delivery services competing with each other with different governance settings. Some can provide better pay for drivers, and others can vote for higher user discounts. The best approach will win.
The solution consists of multiple apps and smart contracts:
- Web App. The web application is available in your browser to order food and find restaurants near you.
- Mobile App. Mobile apps for iOS and Android provide a seamless transition from apps like DoorDash to our new app. Our team has a UX designer responsible for user research and ease of use. We put extreme emphasis on simple transition, even for people who have no idea what Cardano and cryptocurrencies are. We will leave an option to pay in fiat. Fiat currencies will be internally converted into ADA so that every fiat transaction will be a transaction on the Cardano platform. But the users who use Cardano and ADA will gain immediate benefits and better offers. We hope it will motivate more people to understand the ecosystem and gradually switch from fiat to ADA.
- Restaurant Admin Panel. Every restaurant will be able to access the app that will notify them when new orders come in. The app will also allow editing their menu and other information.
- Customer Support Admin Panel. The web app will help to manage the system's data, track the status of the orders, cancel orders when needed, onboard new restaurants, and so on.
Parties and how they benefit from the system:
- Customers. Customers will benefit from eliminating restaurant fees on pickup orders, resulting in huge discounts. The discounts are parameters in the system that are governed by the utility token and can be changed by the community to achieve the best experience for all parties. We will almost eliminate fees and leave a minor fee (10 times smaller) to support builders and customer support members.
- Restaurants. We will entirely get rid of restaurant fees.
- Builders. Builders will be rewarded with the minor fees paid by the customers and the utility token's monetary expansion.
- Drivers (Future Versions, not included in the current scope). Drivers are the second primary beneficiary of the system. We plan on the biggest chunk of the profits going to the drivers. However, the distribution of the earnings in the system will be governed by the utility token and can be changed in the future by the community vote.
<u>Web App Map: </u>
<u>Web App Menu:</u>
<u>Mobile App Restaurants:</u>
<u>Mobile App Menu:</u>
<u>Restaurant Admin Panel:</u>
How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?
The proposed solution is a marketplace that can attract hundreds of thousands of active users to the ecosystem. Let's look at DoorDash as a competitor and analyze some of the DoorDash statistics:
- DoorDash generated $6.58 billion in revenue in 2022, a 34% increase year-on-year
- DoorDash had 32 million active users who use the app at least once a month
- Doordash has more than 390,000 grocery markets and partnered restaurants on its platform.
- Doordash is available in over 4000 cities in North America.
- 75% of all food orders in the US are pickup orders
Even if we can attract only 1% of their audience, it's already 320k orders per month. And nothing sells better than the idea of a 20% discount on everything. We believe even a minor investment in marketing can attract enough people to make it worth the investment.
Benefits for the Cardano platform:
- Even assuming a minimal success of the app, it will attract thousands of users to the platform.
- The ability to use fiat that’s converted into ADA internally will add even fiat-based users to ADA transaction statistics and will help easily onboard new users.
- We will conduct professional UX research. One of our top priorities is the easy-to-use interface. We believe it will help attract a new audience who didn't know much about crypto before.
- The product will be a perfect example of how the blockchain can change the way people conduct online business using open-source software. And this example will be built on Cardano.
- It's perfect timing for an app built with governance in mind. Cardano is at its latest stage of development. Governance has become more important than ever. Cardano has all features we need to make the app succeed. There is also a high chance of a bull run around the moment of our launch. Rewards in the form of utility tokens will be very attractive to the customers.
- Cardano will have one more real-world applicable use case with a real-world utility that is easy to understand for non-tech people.
- We will use the Cardano logo on every delivery and pickup food bag just because it is cool!!!
How do you intend to measure the success of your project?
We need to establish metrics so that if we succeed in each of them, it would mean the automatic success of the project.
Let's define the target goals first:
- Our apps should be up and running and bug-free
- Target areas are chosen based on available food order statistics
- Restaurants in the target areas are integrated with our system
- Customer support is up and running
- A Cardano-based utility token is integrated into the system
- Become profitable, so we don't need an investment for the second part of the project (integration of the drivers)
Based on the target goals, we need to track progress for the following metrics:
- Number of restaurants we onboard in selected areas monthly
- Number of transactions conducted in the system monthly
- Number of users converted from fiat to ADA and using crypto wallets directly
- Average revenue per customer
- Customer acquisition cost: how well do our marketing campaigns perform?
- Customer conversion rate and A/B Testing
- Customer churn rate: how often do customers return?
- Customers Feedback: App Store reviews, Freshdesk requests, Customer support queries
- Restaurant conversion rate: how easy is it to onboard new restaurants?
- Restaurant churn rate: why do we lose some of the restaurants?
- Social Media Engagements
- SEO performance: how many unique visits do we get from search engines?
- Cardano community feedback: is there anything we can do to add even more value to the Cardano ecosystem?
Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?
We pursue the following goals when we share the results of our work:
- We want to understand what can be done better to improve our users' experience.
- We want to know how we can help the Cardano community and platform to grow.
- We want to share our updates and announcements.
- We want to show the community that we meet the deadlines and deliver on our promise during every milestone.
- We want to be able to make accurate predictions and estimations about the future of the project based on growth metrics.
- We want to find new possible collaborations inside the Cardano community to help each other and the platform grow.
- We want to increase awareness and publicity for the project and the Cardano platform.
- We want to gather insights from experts in the industry and outside of the industry.
For every of the described goals, we can define detailed steps for sharing the results and outputs of our project:
<u>1. We want to understand what can be done better to improve our users' experience</u>
We want to engage with our audience in the most transparent and informative way. And we want our audience to be able to discuss our project and share their ideas openly. The online community on Discord, Telegram, and Social Media will help to exchange ideas and get real-time feedback from restaurants, customers, drivers, and the community. We will convert the gathered feedback from the online groups and our Freshdesk tickets into Github proposals.
<u>2. We want to know how we can help the Cardano community and platform to grow</u>
We will engage with the Cardano community through the same online channels (social media, online chats, and groups). But also through conferences and online and real-life events and Q&A. The ideas and suggestions will be converted into Github proposals.
<u>3. We want to share our updates and announcements</u>
Social media, online chats, our website, and our blog will help to share updates with the community. Participation in startup-oriented podcasts, YuoTube video blogs, and industry-specific conferences can help share the details outside the community and spread the word.
<u>4. We want to show to the community that we meet the deadlines and deliver on our promise during every milestone </u>
Publicly available Scrum boards with task statuses and estimations will help the community understand the project's state and how close we are to promised results.
<u>5. We want to be able to make accurate predictions and estimations about the future of the project based on growth metrics.</u>
We will share our current metrics and statistics of growth in the publicly available dashboard. Revenue, customers and restaurants acquisition and churn rates, and other metrics (see "How do you intend to measure the success of your project?" section for reference).
<u>6. We want to find new possible collaborations inside the Cardano community to help each other and the platform grow</u>
Collaboration with other Cardano projects is essential and can help leverage the experiences of each other to grow. We will prioritize real-life meetings and constant online collaboration through mediums like Twitter Spaces or one-on-one calls and meetings with leaders of other projects.
<u>7. We want to increase awareness and publicity for the project and the Cardano platform.</u>
We will publish research papers, guest articles, and case studies. Participation in startup-related podcasts and YouTube vlogs can help attract founders and investors outside the Cardano community. The same can be said about participation in conferences, tech, and industry-related events.
<u>8. We want to gather insights from experts in the industry and outside of the industry.</u>
The priority is networking and meeting new people with an influence outside of the Cardano community and sharing our vision and story and how the Cardano platform helps to build decentralized businesses in an innovative way. Sharing the necessity of strong basics, decentralization, and a strong community behind the web3 project can explain why Cardano is better than other platforms.