Product Case Study: FeedAll
No one, regardless of who they are, should go without food at all, especially not for long periods at a time.
Intro
This is the case study of FeedAll, a product that addresses the United Nations SDGs goal 2 — Zero hunger. For the final phase of the Tech4dev’s Women Techster product management bootcamp I attended in Nov/Dec last year, myself and my team members came up with FeedAll, a hunger solution app aimed at providing easy access to affordable foodstuffs and making donation easier for individuals.
We followed the phases of the software development lifecycle, carrying out industry research, user research & interviews, analysis, design, testing and building the project up until a digital prototype.
As the team lead, I prepared a project brief to help my team members better understand the project. I assigned tasks and led standup meetings to check in on our progress. By the end of the project, we had a digital prototype, product requirement document (PRD) and a pitch deck for our product.
Product Overview
FeedAll is a hunger solution app where people can shop for healthy discounted foodstuffs, donate money towards feeding the less privileged and find local NGOS and charities around them where they can donate in-person. We also factored in ways to curb food wastage by partnering with farmers to sell their harvest excess on the app marketplace at an affordable rate.
Why ?
After multiple research into the food industry, we knew right away it was something to be tackled. Here are a few reasons why:
- Hunger is the leading cause of death in the world with over 2.37 billion people without food or unable to eat a healthy balanced diet food on a regular basis.
- No one, regardless of who they are, should go without food at all, especially not for long periods at a time.
- Roughly 1.3 billions tonnes of food produced in the world get wasted or lost
Problem
- Produce spoilage and eventual wastage from the harvests excess.
- The food donation process to the less privileged can be tedious.
- Many people find it difficult to eat three square meals a day.
- It is difficult for many less privileged Nigerians to get access to food.
- Fear of diverted donations.
Goal/Solution
- An app that provides an array of foodstuff and groceries to choose from, to be delivered to users.
- A list of local food banks and NGOs in the proximity of the user will be made available.
- Foodstuff will be categorized by type, price, food class, freshness, and number of calories.
- Groceries will be gotten directly from farmers, which guarantees that their source is trustworthy
- Users can make donations via the app without any hassle just by clicking on their phones, and from the comfort of their homes, or from wherever they are at a given moment.
User Research
For this phase, we put out a google form to help us understand users’ pain points and the best approach to solving this problem. I created a conditional form to help us specify each user roles — Shoppers, Donors & Farmers.
Key Insights from Entries
- 85% of shoppers are willing to user an app like FeedAll
- 70% of shoppers spend an average of 15,000–20,000 naira monthly on groceries
- 66.7% farmers face revenue loss due to unsold harvest overflow
- 83.8% of donors want a seamless donation platform
Key Suggestions from Entries
- For shoppers: Varieties of food at reduced price, Affordable delivery rates, easy navigation, easy filtering, detailed note on products, and order tracking.
- For donors: Seamless payment platform, fast payment, flexible donation plan.
Target Demographics
- Low income earners
- Well meaning individuals
- Farmers
- Local NGOs
- Food banks
- Charities
User Persona
After carrying out user research, we better understood our users’ pain points and were able to come up with user personas for each user role.
User Flow
Our user flow explains how a user will navigate the app and perform any of these 3 actions — shopping, donation, and locating a local NGO around them.
Competitive Analysis
- ShareTheMeal
Pros: They are an initiative of the UN World Food Program, have multiple awards for social impact, all currencies are accepted, it has a global reach, subscription feature available.
Cons: No in-app purchases, only money will suffice, no education on the importance of healthy eating.
2. Olio
Pros: In-app purchases , lend/borrow items feature, homemade food and craft sales, forum for connection.
Cons: No subscription features , Not 100% based on food (hunger eradication), Farmers not necessarily involved.
3. Chowberry
Pros: Recognized by the UN org, marketplace for the sales and purchase of food products approaching expiration.
Cons: No farmers involved, app is web based only.
Mockups & Wireframes
This was where I first started designing as I was tasked with creating mockups and wireframes for the project.
Low fidelity wireframe — Using a pen and paper, I was able to sketch a low-fidelity wireframe of what the application would look like.
High fidelity wireframe: My first time using Figma and it was funnnn! I had to watch a few videos on YouTube on how to use it but overall the experience was amazing. I created screens for — splash page, onboarding, homepage, shop page, single product page, donation page, payment gateway, NGO locator page. So apologies for what you see below, I promise you that I am much better now haha.
MVP Spec
The initial solution aims to ensure that the users experience the complete value of shopping for affordable healthy foodstuffs, donate money to feed the less privileged and easily locate NGOs/Charities around them from the comfort of their homes.
Assumptions
- For the scope of the MVP, farmers will sell their entire stocks
- Users will mostly use the shop discounted foodstuffs feature
- Farmers will agree to paying a 20% partnership fee from their monthly revenue made on the app
Features
- Sign up using Gmail or email only
- Automated donation statistics
- Search and filter foodstuffs by categories
- Online payment gateway for purchases
- Online payment gateway for donations
- Donation and purchases tracker
- NGOs/Charities locator
- Farmers are notified of orders via email and in-app
- Users are notified of purchases, donations and information of selected NGOs/Charities
- Shoppers can leave reviews on purchased goods
Success Metrics
- % Of users who successfully use at least one FeedAll service (either to purchase food, donate money or locate a local food bank) within one month of registering/total registered users
- Anything greater than 70% would mean a successful MVP
Conclusion
For the overall outcome of the project during demo day, our presentation and hard work were met with amazing feedback as well as critics which we went back to work on and iterated. The best part was that we had a perfect score of 100% on our project report. Go team agile!!! 🥳🤩
My Key Learnings
The bootcamp was where I first started my journey into product management and the first time I applied my learnings to try and solve a problem. The experience for me overall was amazing to say the least, I was track cohort captain and I was a project group lead 😊. Below are some of my key learnings:
- I learnt to be a leader
- I learnt to listen actively and value people’s opinions/suggestions
- I learnt to take criticism better
- I learnt how to design
- I learnt ways to better understand user pain points
- My slide presentation/pitch deck skills greatly improved
- I was able to better my people’s skills and become a team player.
