a treat down memory lane: we are one!

by Preston Wong
What would you say is one memorable day of your life? Is it your 21st birthday? Or your graduation ceremony? To others, it may be their first day at work, their wedding day or the birth of their first child.
For me, 5 September 2017 — exactly one year ago — is etched in my memory. It was the day when our child, the treatsure app, was officially born and delivered into the world. It felt surreal as our team had finally survived and outlived the birth pangs, countless kicks and resistance (rejection from merchants, grant bodies and institutions, even Apple for the app) to get to market launch, and all the plans on paper had finally come to pass.
That first day of operations, I remember teaming up with my sister on the streets of City Hall and Bugis to try to get people to download our app. It was tough. Even with some freebie dangled at passers-by, most were sceptical of this so-called first food-saving reservation app they have never heard of in Singapore, while others shunned us like the plague. “There is no free lunch” they say, but we gave out a free snack anyway! Others commented, “It’s too good to be true”, but indeed we are true to be good too. After much hard work and persuasion on the streets, we slowly managed to get our first user downloads as the hours went by.
A few weeks later, I personally distributed flyers door to door at several blocks of flats near one of our merchants. To our amazement, one of the flyers actually landed in a news editor’s home. I believe it was a divine arrangement for us to be featured in the media, and that definitely opened up doors for greater awareness and visibility of treatsure. Even as recent as last week, someone from China told me that she read about us in that first feature, almost a year after it has been published. Our team is truly humbled and grateful for all these media features and mentions in the past year.
But beyond just media exposure, a large part of our user base growth has been through user outreaches, whether on campus or at public events and showcases. Being alumni of NUS, our university had to be the first stop. We subsequently forged partnerships with SMU student clubs, and were invited to large-scale public sustainability events such as the Feeding the 5000 carnival in March and the recent Singapore Sustainability Showcase. It was at these events which we got to interact personally with potential users and ordinary people. We are heartened that many are now getting aware of the massive food wastage issue we are tackling and they wish to play a part in this narrative too.

People often remark that for a marketplace platform, there is always the ‘chicken-and-egg’ conundrum of which came first — users or merchants? But for treatsure, there was clearly one group that came first — the merchants — albeit only a small number at launch. Thankfully, over the months, more merchants came on board, including some bigger and notable brands. Many of these partners actually look beyond revenue, genuinely support our startup’s mission and hope to help a homegrown brand succeed. I must say we are touched by their personal stories and grateful for their extraordinary kindness and patience to us. We salute each of these early adopters of a product that never once existed, and they are indeed courageous visionary leaders, whom we need more of to drive industry transformation and business innovation.
Over the past year, we have also expanded our range of products from pastries to salads to beverages to recently, buffet food items with our first-ever takeaway buffet-in-a-box experience at Grand Hyatt. Any food item that has a shelf-life — short or long — can now basically go on our platform and we definitely hope more categories will pop up in time to come to benefit as many users and businesses. Alongside this expansion, our app has undergone several enhancements and developed new features all thanks to users’ support, patience and constructive feedback. And without being too much of a spoiler, you’ll be glad to know a new user interface and experience is coming your way this month too!
As a startup which has been on the market for only a year, we are indeed still early in our life cycle and have not hit critical mass islandwide. Nonetheless, we are encouraged more are getting to know about our brand and the message to treat food as treasure. We also take delight in helping to save food from waste, and are thankful for those who have supported us in one way or another or wrote in to us with your encouragement notes the past year. This surplus food space is young but growing, and we’ll continue to work hard to innovate and develop new technologies and solutions.
What’s next for treatsure one year on? Stay tuned this month!
