Decide Where to Eat By How Your Food Looks: Startup DaFoodie

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What is the story behind DaFoodie?

I stumbled on the idea after posting pictures of entrees I’d ordered from various restaurants on my Facebook page. I got a lot of comments from people asking me where I ate it and saying things like “Wow, it looks good! Where did you eat it?”. So that got me thinking…

When you have a little cash to drop on a sit-down restaurant, how do you decide where to eat? Do you go to the same old places? Do you rely on recommendations from friends or from people who post reviews on local Web sites?

If you’re a visual person like me, you’d probably rather see an example of a restaurant’s food than read about it. While restaurants have menus, most of them don’t have photos.
That’s the reason why I started this mouthwatering site, DaFoodie.com.

A lot of times when I went out to eat I had no idea where to go, and the name of the restaurant doesn’t say much. To me, obviously, the pictures say a lot more.

What makes your company unique in its industry?

I decided to actually make a site where all you look at is pictures of food. Instead of deciding on the restaurant first, you decide what you want to eat first and then find where to get it.

The site’s interface and concept are simple: go out to eat, take a decent picture of your meal, and upload it to the site to share with others. There is no requirement to sign up, sign in, or fill out information beyond selecting the location and category of food and typing in the name of the dish.

The idea is to pitch in for the greater good of everyone’s eating experiences.
Orlando-based visitors to DaFoodie can search randomly, by 10 locations, or by 10 categories of food.

I don’t plan to clutter the site with a lot of text or browsing options, although fans can choose to be a fan of the DaFoodie Facebook o twitter page and comment and connect there.

The goal is to make the site very simple. I’m not going to have food reviews; I’m not going to have ratings. That is done very well by other people.

Future plans for the company?

We’re trying to make it really easy for people to submit by email, by Twitter, by Facebook, mobile/iPhone through the Web site, foursquare etc.

Most importantly, we want to add support for multiple cities, providing location base advertising opportunities and other analytics tools for restaurants to see the value in the website.

What was the start-up budget?

Less than $3,500

$150 Incorporation
$250 logo
$450 web design
$110 tshirts
$55 biz cards
$1756 smart car wrap
$45 Facebook & Stumble Upon ads
$40 in Gift Certificates for a promotion
$20 a month in hosting

Amhed does the backend work, I do the user experience design and social media/content side.

Year Founded:

2009

URL:

http://www.dafoodie.com

Founders and Ages:

Gustavo Hernando (27)
Amhed Herrera (25)

Where can people find the company?

http://www.facebook.com/dafoodie
http://www.twitter.com/dafoodie

Help DaFoodie Out By Answering Their Questions!

Question 1: I find it challenging to get out there and asking people (restaurants) for money (advertise)

Question 2: Taking suggestions with a grain of salt. I want a simple site and need to avoid feature creep

Question 3: Its hard to do everything in the business but at the same time I cant afford help.

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Tags: amhed herrera, dafoodie, gustavo hernando, startup profile, young entrepreneur

Category: Entrepreneur Interviews