FOOD! This is that magical four letter word that instantly puts an infectious smile on our faces. From scrumptious entrees, a bowl full of warm soup, salads with some mouth-watering dressing, delicious main course to some sinful desserts, we all most definitely live to eat.
For hardcore foodies, pampering their taste buds is surely enough to put them in a blissful state of mind whereas their worst fear without a doubt is unpalatable food. To make sure that you only feast yourself with lip smacking cuisines there is a new app in town called DinnDinn.
It is the food lovers’ paradise! This app is the first of its kind as it is completely dedicated to food. Through DinnDinn you can share photos of your favorite dishes, look for great recipes and share your delectable recipes.
Meet The Geniuses Behind the App!
The young masterminds of DinnDinn are Jeremy Markham and Kyler Juckins. The duo was born on the very same day of the same year and they met in a high-school automotive class. They have always been ambitious and it is due to this trait that they went on to co-found DinnDinn. Presently, they both are still in school full-time where Jeremy is studying Finance and Kyler is study Political Science.
Know More About DinnDinn
Food! And pictures! DinnDinn is about sharing photos of dishes, drinks, and desserts whether they’re from a restaurant, the user’s kitchen, someone else’s kitchen, or even a food truck. It’s a great tool that offers the potential for people to see what a menu item looks like before ordering it. The app also enables users to find and share recipes in the kitchen, track one’s daily intake to help with fitness goals, and to find other users who are gluten-free, diabetic, or vegan.
The Inspiration Behind It All!
“When the idea of DinnDinn was born, we were sitting around in Kyler’s kitchen one day eating and reflecting on some of our previous ideas and why they didn’t work. It wasn’t some amazing moment like movies often portray, but a moment where all of the puzzle pieces seemed to fit together and the idea just kind of poured out of our heads. Our conversation was about how we can connect people in a way that isn’t like the other social media apps available – and then we simultaneously looked at each other and the food that we were eating and realized that food would be the medium through which we would connect people”, says Jeremy.
What Problem is the App Solving?
The problem this app is solving is that there isn’t a dedicated food app that caters to different groups of foodies like restaurant goers, fitness minded foodies and those who love to cook. Even people who are gluten-free, diabetic and vegan can greatly benefit from DinnDinn. This app only focuses on food and doesn’t place any emphasis on the decor, atmosphere or cleanliness of a restaurant.
“Eating is an emotional experience that starts with the eyes, continues on to the tongue, moves to the brain, and finishes with the heart. When people post on DinnDinn they have to decide whether they ‘love’ or ‘hate’ the dish, drink, or dessert that they’re posting. It can be tough to decide whether you really ‘love’ or ‘hate’ a dish, but the idea is that people really only like to share things they feel strongly about. Don’t forget about our virtual tongue, either! It actually helps you meet people based on what tastes you have in common”, adds the team.
On Challenges Faced & Competitors
The biggest hurdle faced by the team was developing the app and subsequently raising funds to make development possible. The duo did go through a short phase where they decided to learn to code and make it happen. However, it didn’t work.
“After realizing that we had to find funding, we quickly learned that not many people were willing to give the type of money we needed to two eighteen year-olds. Luckily, we were able to connect with an Angel Investor out of Aspen, CO who shared our vision for the app and played a very important role in getting us to where we are today. More recently, we had to find a developer to add to our team to update the app to iOS 7. Along with the update came a revised marketing plan that implemented many of the things we learned prior to the update”, adds the team.
In terms of competition, Instagram and Twitter seem as potential competitors. However, people haven’t had a really user-friendly app dedicated solely to sharing food and meeting other foodies. Thus they’ve had to settle with posting their food pictures on those two platforms.
On Expansion Plans & Target Audience
The team’s ultimate goal is to become the number one place for people to share pictures of food. At the moment they are primarily focusing on building their user base and really identifying their target markets.The next step in their plan would be to work with restaurants and online news websites to place DinnDinn in front of potential users on a more consistent basis outside of the app stores and other social media platforms. As the amount of content grows they want to create and share a monthly email or article showing all the top posts of the month.
Four specific types of people who make up their target audiences are restaurant goers, people who like to cook, fitness minded individuals, and people who are either gluten-free, diabetic or vegan.
“DinnDinn is great in the fact that while it can cater specifically to the needs of each target audience, it can also bring all of them together in a way that you won’t really find on other social media platforms like Instagram or Twitter. Each target audience brings with it an extremely dedicated following that is really into their respective interest. DinnDinn will help those different groups come together through the virtual tongue and nearby posts, among other things” shares the team.
On Plans of Monetizing
The team wants to stay away from any type of in-app advertising as much as they can while also keeping the app free for users. Their plan to monetize DinnDinn is by way of data mining. When a user submits a post they include a picture, whether they ‘love’ it or ‘hate’ it, any additional comments, and the restaurant they were at. Additionally, on the back-end, the team can see exactly what time the post is created. All of this data can be packaged and sold to restaurants, market research firms, etc. The data generated on DinnDinn can be a great tool for restaurants because the team can show them what is or isn’t selling during lunch or dinner specials, what menu items are receiving mostly positive or mostly negative reviews on DinnDinn, and much, much more. Further, it is important to note that the team is NOT selling any personal information in the process.
To sum it all up, if you love food, then DinnDinn is the app that you much have on your phones for indulgence.
Interested to know more about the app? Then do make it a point to visit: http://www.dinndinn.com
