Idea: Follow My Diet – Help users follow their diet’s guidelines when eating out

MVP: Eating within a diet’s guidelines is challenging for most, and is further complicated when eating out at restaurants. FMD solves this problem by detecting when a user is in a recognized restaurant, and showing only those menu options that meet their diet’s rules (the app would also show how to custom order at restaurants to stay within the diet). At launch the top 100 restaurant chains in America would be supported, representing the majority of all American restaurants – crowdsourcing additional restaurants and menu items should enable coverage to expand quickly from there. FMD will also enable the tracking and optimization of a user’s diet over the course of time – fall off track and the app will let you know what sorts of food choices would put you back on track for the rest of the day or week.

Market:

Roughly 15% of all Americans (45m people) are trying to follow a particular diet at any given time, with total spending in the diet and weight-loss industry exceeding
$33B last year. FMD could market the app toward existing diet providers in the space, as a management tool for their clients. FMD could also find a market in the management
of diabetes and other diseases where diet is an integral part of managing a long-term chronic disease.

With a large potential user b2c user base, freemium or advertising-based business models might make the most sense for FMD – but the possibility of a disease-management oriented approach remains open as well.

Idea Score (0-10 scale, up to 2 points per question): 4.5 points

(Overall this idea scored relatively poorly – I think pivoting it toward the health management space, perhaps diabetes or other food-related disease management, could strengthen the business case substantially)

Feasibility of MVP / Market Entry: 1

A substantial amount of restaurant menu data needs to be gathered and maintained in order to enable the app to function – but most of this is readily available and can be parsed online. With major restaurant chains commanding a huge market share in the restaurant industry, it should be possible to gather this data pre-launch in order to enable a functional product at launch.

Revenue Market Size or Eyeballs: 1

While the market size is large (as discussed above), advertising-supported products need to gain substantial scale in order to support a meaningful revenue stream. Since FMD is initially focused on helping dieters eat out, restaurants may be interested in sponsoring the app in order to drive traffic.

In a Growing Market? 1

The market for weight-loss and diet solutions is well established, and on the whole can no longer grow faster than single-digit growth rates. But the market for apps
that help manage diet-related diseases continues to grow rapidly, providing a strong potential growth niche.

Difficult, Barriers to Entry, and Competition 0.5

Numerous competitors exist in the diet app space, and apps even exist to find healthy restaurant options – but none attempt to analyze the mass market restaurant space. This is the opportunity for FMD – fast casual and similar restaurants can be hard to navigate for dieters, but it seems that there are no apps that attempt to solve this menu navigation process in a comprehensive way.

Riding Hype or a Trend? 1

Digital health apps, fitness trackers, and similar are a fast growing space. While diet-related apps operate at the edge of this space, the relationship may provide some halo for a business like FMD.