The food-tech companies in India have witnessed an exponential growth over the last few years. Currently, Swiggy and Zomato are the market leaders in the Indian food-tech industry. There were other players such as Foodpanda and Uber Eats, but they could not sustain themselves in the competitive market and, hence, sold their businesses.
The industry offers a massive opportunity for potential new players who can offer a unique and better experience to the consumers.
Suppose you are the Product Manager in a start-up that is looking to enter the Indian food tech industry. You need to build a food-delivery product in order to compete with the likes of Swiggy and Zomato.
Part 1: Understanding the Market
In order to launch a new product in the market, it is necessary to understand the market forces that have an impact on the success of your product. So, as a part of the market research for your food-delivery app, you must perform the following tasks.
a. Identify the target market for your product using guesstimate approach
Calculate the following:
○ Total available market (TAM)
○ Serviceable available market (SAM)
○ Target market
b. Apply the Porter’s Five Forces model on the food-tech industry and explain your analysis of the industry.
○ Add at least three bullet points for each of the 5 forces along with a
description summarising your key findings
c. Identify two direct competitors for your product and conduct a competitive analysis. Also, compare the features offered in both the products.
i. List the major players in the online food-tech industry in India.
ii. Identify two direct competitors for your product: DC1 and DC2.
iii. List down the company backgrounds of DC1 and DC2.
iv. Compare the business models (Comparative Analysis) of DC1 and
DC2. The analysis should include the following components:
- Value-added services
- Geographical reach (cities in which they operate)
- The revenue model (comparison of the overall YoY revenue and projections, number of daily orders, average order value, etc.)
- Shifts in the business model that either DC1 or DC2 had to
make in the past, and the reasons for doing so
v. List down the strengths and weaknesses of DC1 and DC2. - Compare what works well and what does not for DC1 and DC2
- What are the pain points that the customers of DC1 and DC2
are experiencing while using their services?
vi. Compare the product reviews and performances of DC1 and DC2. You
can consider the following parameters: - How many app downloads do they have? (across all OS
platforms) - What are the app ratings? (across all OS platforms)
- How is the user experience of the apps?
- How are the overall functionality and user feedback for the
apps?
vii. Predict the future initiatives of DC1 and DC2 and provide a reasoning
behind your prediction. - Part 2: User Research
After analyzing the market forces, it is also important to understand the user needs. So, in this part you must first form objective and hypothesis for your product, then carry out user research for your product and analyze the data gathered from user research. As a part of the user research for your food-delivery app. - Conduct user research after identifying the target user using methods such as interviews, surveys, contextual inquiry, etc.
a. Identify the objectives for the user research
b. Identify the hypothesis that would be validated or proven wrong by the user research
c. Conduct user research using the methods given below:
- i) For interviews:
- You would need to interview a minimum of 10 users.
- Create a questionnaire to test the identified hypothesis.
- Questions should be well-framed and must cover all the important aspects of your product.
- Conduct user interviews with at least 10 users using the questionnaire and analyze the data gathered.
- Create a survey questionnaire to test the hypothesis and fulfill the objective of the user research.
○ Questions should be well-framed and must cover all the important
aspects of your product - Analyze the data collected through the survey to check whether the
hypotheses are validated or not. The analysis should contain detailed graphs, calculations, charts, etc.
- Part 3: Business Model Canvas
The key business aspects for your product would now be captured in the Business Model Canvas, and you would need to summarise the key takeaways from your BMC in a brief description, where you would detail out any important points that could not go into the template due to space constraints. - Create a Business Model Canvas for your food-tech product. Mention at least 3 points for all the nine elements below:
o Customer Segments
o Value Proposition
o Revenue Streams
o Channels
o Customer Relationships
o Key Activities
o Key Resources
o Key Partners
o Cost Structure
Part 4: Product Artefacts
Translating your user research into personas & user journey maps is an important process while launching a new product in the market. So, as a part of building the product artifacts for your food-delivery app - Create a user persona for the food-tech product on UXpressia.
Please note that the persona should be related to the core group of your target market, for example, if you feel that a working professional would be a key customer for your food-tech app, then select that persona.
a. Export the user persona image in png format. - Create a User Journey Map for the persona created above in UXpressia
a. Export the user persona image in png format. - Part 5: MVP creation
Now that you have a fair understanding of the food-tech industry and have also evaluated the user needs, create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for your product.
● First, list down all the features that you plan to include in your product based on the user research that you have conducted.
● Second, select the must-have features that would go into your MVP. While listing down these features, also explain the rationale behind choosing them.
● Third, list down the “nice-to-have’’ features that you plan to add in the future product release versions. - Part 6: Sketching
Based on the insights that you gathered during user research, decide the features to be included in the product. After finalising the features, design the sketches for the different screens of your food delivery mobile application. Follow the below-mentioned steps for the submission of the sketches.
● First, list down all the features/functionalities that you plan to include in your product. These features/functionalities should be based on the insights gathered during user research.
● Second, based on the features you plan to add to your product, create the sketches of different screens/pages of the mobile application for your product.
● Finally, attach the images of these sketches of different pages in the “Sketch” section of the Submission template provided to you. Remember that the sketch of each page should have a brief description of its functionality.
- Part 7: Wireframing & Prototyping
Thus far, you have already developed some sketches for your product’s mobile application. Now, based on those sketches, you have to create the wireframes for the application. Once you have your wireframes ready, you will also have to create a prototype for your product. Follow the below-mentioned steps for the submission of the wireframes and prototype.
● First, create the wireframes for the screens/pages of your app based on the sketches you have already created. You can use any tool such as Whimsical, Wireframe.cc, etc. to create the wireframes.
● Second, you have to provide the navigational flow of these wireframes, i.e., you need to describe the navigation flow of how different screens/pages are linked to each other.
● Third, you have to develop a prototype by adding interactivity to your wireframe. To develop a prototype, you can use tools such as Marvel App, MockingBot App, etc.
● Finally, attach the screenshots of the wireframes of different pages in the “Wireframing & Prototyping” section of the Submission template provided to you.
- Part 8: Create an App
Use Appy Pie to create a functional app for your food tech product using pre-built templates for the food industry available on the platform. - The objective of building an app on Appy Pie:
Creating an actual app would enable learners to experience building and deploying an actual app, and we encourage you to spend quality time in creating all the screens based on your wireframes and designs.
a. Home Page
b. Restaurant or Food Selection Page
c. Checkout Page
You can download the project from the below link.
Added bonus: model solution by upGrad.