Graze Mobile App Progress

[millerad]

It has been a month since our first conception of the Graze Mobile App. I have done another post, but I would like to write a few posts as we develop the App and business, so that we can get some outside input.

Graze is an App to connect Food Trucks with hungry citizens nearby. Trucks will be able to have a full profile on the app including pictures, reviews, menus, specials, and most importantly their current GPS location while they are open. When a user follows a food truck on Graze, they will get a notification whenever the truck is open nearby. Users will be able to search through Food Trucks around them that are open now, later and normally open nearby.

So far we have started a "Founders Club" this is a club for users to pay $25 now before the App launches, and when the App launches they will receive $300 of credit to be used in Graze, and a "Find Us On Graze" magnet for their truck. We have 9 trucks in the founders club. There are 200 spots total, and 191 left. We are taking 10 trucks from 20 major US cities. After some interest from the UK we are also allowing users to sign up from around the world, but it will not affect our US count.

I just got in the first draft of our "Find Us On Graze" magnets for our truck: Our Find Us On Graze Magnets 1st Draft The trucks will put these on the side of them so that their customers will know to go download the App to find the truck in the future. After seeing these car magnets in person we have decided to add both the App store logos so that people will know it is an App to download. It is really awesome to see some physical progress for what we are doing.

We had our first meeting with the developers this morning, during the call I felt great about it; but after we got off the call my partners pointed out that during the call they felt as if there was a disconnect with what the developers thought the functionality is. Today I will put together a flowchart of how I want the Users and Food Truckers to use the App and how the experiences will cross over. Before I show them that tonight, I am going to have the developers explain to me the flow that they have in mind about the App, so I will know for sure if there are any problems that I need to correct.

In the coming month, while the App is developing we will continue to work on growing our founders group and building our following on social media and other platforms.

Check Out Our Website: www.grazemobile.com

Facebook/Instagram/Twitter: @grazemobile

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

I deleted some of your links -- it makes your thread a solicitation, not a progress thread.

Other than that, seems like something really interesting and viable.

 

[millerad]

I will keep that in mind from now on. I will keep the forum updated with our progress.

 

[Van Halen]

Cool idea, its going to need alot of users for it to work.

Edit: Didn't realise, the trucks are yours? Its not like uber where you have people both being the taxi driver and driven?

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

So does a group of users (say, from a construction site) summon trucks to their location?

 

[millerad]

So does a group of users (say, from a construction site) summon trucks to their location?

No, they won't be able to summon trucks. The trucks will be able to notify via push notifications that they are open to all their Graze Followers nearby. Users will be able to search through trucks that are open with a map of where they are open at.

 

[millerad]

Cool idea, its going to need alot of users for it to work.

Edit: Didn't realise, the trucks are yours? Its not like uber where you have people both being the taxi driver and driven?

By Trucks i mean Food Trucks. The goal of our App is to help these small businesses reach their target consumers easier and grow their businesses.

 

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[millerad]

Feeling a little bit dismayed after our conversation with our developers last night. We hired a team of developers out of India for $6000 to develop the Graze App. There was some disconnect between what we want out of the Graze App and what we are developing. At one point we had to stop the call about the App and explain to the developers what a food truck is. We will be keeping up with them and having twice weekly meetings to check their progress. Does anyone know of a good way to show them quickly how we would like the app to flow? How we want the UI to feel?

 

[Tryptofy]

Does anyone know of a good way to show them quickly how we would like the app to flow? How we want the UI to feel?

Are you maybe looking for something like Marvel (google marvelapp)?

 

[PedroG]

Feeling a little bit dismayed after our conversation with our developers last night. We hired a team of developers out of India for $6000 to develop the Graze App. There was some disconnect between what we want out of the Graze App and what we are developing. At one point we had to stop the call about the App and explain to the developers what a food truck is. We will be keeping up with them and having twice weekly meetings to check their progress. Does anyone know of a good way to show them quickly how we would like the app to flow? How we want the UI to feel?

You can use a tool like Balsamiq to draw out the entire user interface. And make sure you provide every single detail about what you want each button to do, and what error messages should display, etc. Never assume the developer knows anything.

 

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[millerad]

Everything is going so much better after our most recent meeting with the developers. It was clearly a language barrier between the two of us, after @Tryptofy suggested using marvel I was able to develop a much better wireframe. I will continue to recommend marvel to others in need. Anyone who is reading this, any advice for adding value to a food truck app?

 

[millerad]

I woke up at 4:30 this morning to work on Graze before going home for a bit, to wish my fiancé a good day before she headed to work and I headed to class. Now I'm sitting in my night Calc 3 class working on Facebook ads and customer acquisition strategies.
Maybe I am doing these updates too frequently, but I think I am saving everyone a little bit of patience by using the same thread over and over again. I will create a new thread after our second month is finished. It really helps me to type these things out. Then if anyone offers feedback it really helps. We now have had the developers working on the design for a little over a week, and I am not proud to say that we just finished our wireframe this morning. Well it's done anyway.
We have decided to populate Graze with Food Trucks before it is launched. We are going to crawl an existing Food Trucks database and add every food truck to the App that currently has a Food Truck name and email address listed. Users will be able to see all trucks that are on the App and not signed into the App. They will be able to request a truck on the App and Graze will send them an email to let them know a customer has requested them. They will also receive an email notification every time that a user interacts with the truck. We are hoping that by first inviting them to the App, knowing that they have been added already they will be prompted to create their account. If this does not motivate them to create their account, we are hoping that a user messaging them on the App will motivate them to activate their account and log in.

 

[millerad]

We Have Filled Our First City!!
We set out to get 200 trucks signed up. 200 From each major city in the US. We now have 16 Trucks signed up for our founders club. 10 of those 16 are here locally for me in Phoenix, which means that Phoenix is now full. Coming up we are going to give away a ton of free stickers and work on getting the rest of our cities founders club filled up.

Thank you fastlane community for your support. I will keep you guys updated as we journey this road!

 

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[AdamMaxum]

Sounds like a cool idea. Any idea on generating revenue? I assume it's free for users and the food trucks pay some sort of monthly cost?

Your talk about the Indian dev's scares me for you...especially since it sounds like you might not know much about app development. Working with India peeps is a serious pain in the butt. You have to monitor them constantly. You have to be very very clear all the time. They will tell you they understand something but have no clue and then you find out they had no clue after they've spent many hours building something. I would only work with an Indian company if they had an English speaking point of contact that actually understood English and most importantly, understood the concept your trying to create.

You better have crystal clear outlines, designs and functionality points for every screen of the app. Just some advice, as I have dealt with these issues in the past almost every time I work with an India company. You'd be better off working with Ukraine, Armenia, or one of the other countries over there. Stay away from India and Pakistan developers if possible.

Oh, and the last thing to worry about is at the end of the project you find out they wrote crap code and you're going to need to repay someone else to re-do everything when you want to make changes or upgrades to the app over time.

 

[millerad]

Sounds like a cool idea. Any idea on generating revenue? I assume it's free for users and the food trucks pay some sort of monthly cost?

Your talk about the Indian dev's scares me for you...especially since it sounds like you might not know much about app development. Working with India peeps is a serious pain in the butt. You have to monitor them constantly. You have to be very very clear all the time. They will tell you they understand something but have no clue and then you find out they had no clue after they've spent many hours building something. I would only work with an Indian company if they had an English speaking point of contact that actually understood English and most importantly, understood the concept your trying to create.

You better have crystal clear outlines, designs and functionality points for every screen of the app. Just some advice, as I have dealt with these issues in the past almost every time I work with an India company. You'd be better off working with Ukraine, Armenia, or one of the other countries over there. Stay away from India and Pakistan developers if possible.

Oh, and the last thing to worry about is at the end of the project you find out they wrote crap code and you're going to need to repay someone else to re-do everything when you want to make changes or upgrades to the app over time.

I know a little bit about App development. I am a third year computer science student. I am familiar with almost every flavor of programming language. We are coaching them along nicely, we check with them several times a week and make sure that everything is going well. We started with a fully defined Wireframe and told them to build that on iOS and Android.
Food Trucks will have either a Free, $30, or $50/month option. My goal is to have 1000 trucks signed up for any of the three plans by our first month of launch. They will be added to the App automatically, all they will have to do is claim their truck and create a username and password. If a truck is unclaimed, users will be able to request them on the App.

 

[AdamMaxum]

I know a little bit about App development. I am a third year computer science student. I am familiar with almost every flavor of programming language. We are coaching them along nicely, we check with them several times a week and make sure that everything is going well. We started with a fully defined Wireframe and told them to build that on iOS and Android.
Food Trucks will have either a Free, $30, or $50/month option. My goal is to have 1000 trucks signed up for any of the three plans by our first month of launch. They will be added to the App automatically, all they will have to do is claim their truck and create a username and password. If a truck is unclaimed, users will be able to request them on the App.

Ok good. Sorry to assume otherwise, just worry about people running into a bad experience wasting time and money down that path.

1000 trucks ambitious! I like it. Just out of curiosity whats the food truck market look like in terms of numbers of trucks out there across the country? Are food trucks pretty much everywhere now? Or only in the major metros?

 

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[millerad]

Ok good. Sorry to assume otherwise, just worry about people running into a bad experience wasting time and money down that path.

1000 trucks ambitious! I like it. Just out of curiosity whats the food truck market look like in terms of numbers of trucks out there across the country? Are food trucks pretty much everywhere now? Or only in the major metros?

We are doing some concrete market information gathering now, but we think more than 10,000 around the world. We have had some interest in the U.K./Sweden as well.

 

[StevieB]

So does a group of users (say, from a construction site) summon trucks to their location?

I believe this could add tons of value to an app like this. You could have an option to were the food trucks can have "requests" for locations, to say large groups in advance. Have a calendar to were they could book a time slot that wasn't filled for that truck (they would have to maintain their time availability) then groups could request bookings, filling in info like party size, what type of event (if any) etc.. Get the foodtrucks feedback on what their requirements would be.. I'm sure they would appreciate the app more if it helps fill up their schedules with warm leads for activities.

 

[Aaron T]

OK, I am a Developer and Software Entrepreneur and I love a good software business progress thread. So while excited for you I come across this:

Feeling a little bit dismayed after our conversation with our developers last night. We hired a team of developers out of India for $6000 to develop the Graze App

Oh man. This is scary.

Your talk about the Indian dev's scares me for you...especially since it sounds like you might not know much about app development. Working with India peeps is a serious pain in the butt. You have to monitor them constantly. You have to be very very clear all the time. They will tell you they understand something but have no clue and then you find out they had no clue after they've spent many hours building something. I would only work with an Indian company if they had an English speaking point of contact that actually understood English and most importantly, understood the concept your trying to create.

AdamMaxum is on point here. I know you are a 3rd year comp sci student, but that does not mean you are knowledgeable. I have been doing this literally my whole life and I am still not as knowledgeable as I want to be. BUT I do know that outsourcing all the things software to India for that price is going to be bad unless you are super clear up front. Here are some of my success criteria for working with Indian Offshore developers specifically:

• Have a working prototype even if it is just a series of interface screens (Invision) that show how it works
• Have a great UI/UX person (local to you) that you can sit down with do all of the graphic work and design to show them
• Have the requirements as much as possible extremely well defined and documented before engaging with the team (Agile doesn't work with Indian offshore teams for fixed bid projects as well as you think)
• Communicate daily and with video (English is not used very well and visual communication helps a lot)
• Realize there teams will churn faster than you would like and it can be problematic
• There will be a lot of agreement even when your asks are not easily possible (you at least understand some development so be wary of this)
• Did I say communicate frequently, daily?
• Write as much of this as you can or at least do code reviews with them to make sure you are getting good work
  • I really can't stress this point enough. If you can read the code, find a local dev that can do this for you for little money. It is so important.
• Use tools like Balsamiq (mentioned above) to provide designs and sketches and ideas as they will need it
• Realize that the fixed bid amount above isn't often what you end up paying and realize that what you get in return usually falls far short of the goal if said goal is ill defined.

There are honestly better places to get good mobile app development. I have had an incredible amount of luck with Developers from Eastern Europe, Philipines, South America. There are tradeoffs with all but worth it. I have had fantastic experiences when working with India. I have great relationships with excellent teams there. But the one thing that the good ones have in common, is that they are not cheap.

Your best bet to success here is to do as much of the actual prototype development as you can. This is very important since you are getting a degree in Computer Science or at least studying it. With modern Android development tools, also with Swift on iOS it is fairly easy to learn and get a great prototype done. Even get the full Minimal Viable Product done before expanding completely.

I don't mean to be a downer and I am honestly rooting for you. I want you to succeed because this is a great idea and one worth completing. I just see warning signs early on here and this is one of my main worlds. It could be that you already have very tight requirements, and a full design up front. I am assuming from what I read so forgive me if I overstepped.

 

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[millerad]

OK, I am a Developer and Software Entrepreneur and I love a good software business progress thread. So while excited for you I come across this:

Oh man. This is scary.


AdamMaxum is on point here. I know you are a 3rd year comp sci student, but that does not mean you are knowledgeable. I have been doing this literally my whole life and I am still not as knowledgeable as I want to be. BUT I do know that outsourcing all the things software to India for that price is going to be bad unless you are super clear up front. Here are some of my success criteria for working with Indian Offshore developers specifically:

• Have a working prototype even if it is just a series of interface screens (Invision) that show how it works
• Have a great UI/UX person (local to you) that you can sit down with do all of the graphic work and design to show them
• Have the requirements as much as possible extremely well defined and documented before engaging with the team (Agile doesn't work with Indian offshore teams for fixed bid projects as well as you think)
• Communicate daily and with video (English is not used very well and visual communication helps a lot)
• Realize there teams will churn faster than you would like and it can be problematic
• There will be a lot of agreement even when your asks are not easily possible (you at least understand some development so be wary of this)
• Did I say communicate frequently, daily?
• Write as much of this as you can or at least do code reviews with them to make sure you are getting good work
  • I really can't stress this point enough. If you can read the code, find a local dev that can do this for you for little money. It is so important.
• Use tools like Balsamiq (mentioned above) to provide designs and sketches and ideas as they will need it
• Realize that the fixed bid amount above isn't often what you end up paying and realize that what you get in return usually falls far short of the goal if said goal is ill defined.

There are honestly better places to get good mobile app development. I have had an incredible amount of luck with Developers from Eastern Europe, Philipines, South America. There are tradeoffs with all but worth it. I have had fantastic experiences when working with India. I have great relationships with excellent teams there. But the one thing that the good ones have in common, is that they are not cheap.

Your best bet to success here is to do as much of the actual prototype development as you can. This is very important since you are getting a degree in Computer Science or at least studying it. With modern Android development tools, also with Swift on iOS it is fairly easy to learn and get a great prototype done. Even get the full Minimal Viable Product done before expanding completely.

I don't mean to be a downer and I am honestly rooting for you. I want you to succeed because this is a great idea and one worth completing. I just see warning signs early on here and this is one of my main worlds. It could be that you already have very tight requirements, and a full design up front. I am assuming from what I read so forgive me if I overstepped.

Your information is very good. This is all stuff that we have been figuring out over the last couple of years. I wish that you would have told me all of that 3 years ago, when I got my first website designed by Indian developers. Thank you!

 

[millerad]

It has now been two months since our conception of Graze. My two partners and I have been working fervently.

Some background: Graze is an app to connect Food Trucks to hungry citizens nearby. Trucks will pay a monthly service fee to be on the App(There is a Free Plan); and users will be able to follow, message, and review trucks that they visit and know of. Currently we are taking sign ups for our Founders Club, which will give trucks who sign up before we launch, a good amount of App credit when we launch. This is to make sure that we have active trucks on the App when we launch.

September in review: We signed up 22 trucks for our founders club and have decided to pre populate the App with Food Trucks from around the nation with their email addresses. Trucks that are pre signed up, will get a notification when we go live to claim their truck. If a truck does not claim their truck, users will be able to click a link to invite them to the app again. This was our biggest problem with other Apps that we found out there. That they either sucked, or that there were no food trucks on them. We are hoping that by pre-populating that we can crush both sides of this.

We are giving away 5,000 free Graze stickers as well. To anyone who wants them, and to all of our founding members.

For the month of October, I am going to focus on growing the founders club, and letting each of the ~7,000 trucks that we will pre populate the app with that they will be on the App when we launch and who we are. What I am struggling with now, is what is a cheap, effective way to notify people/users who like food trucks that we have this App, and we need them to use our App to look for food trucks.

Thank you for reading!!
www.grazemobile.com

 

[AllenCrawley]

Congrats on the progress. FYI, I've merged your 2 progress threads. We don't need multiple progress threads on the same project/business. I've also edited your title.

 

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[millerad]

Congrats on the progress. FYI, I've merged your 2 progress threads. We don't need multiple progress threads on the same project/business. I've also edited your title.

Thank you, didn't know that was possible. I appreciate the help!