Three Choices

plates

Please write a blog post (no word minimum or limit, though it should be achievable in <1000 words) that covers your initial choices for your project. It should include everything listed below:

1. Problem

• Lack of affordable and diverse food options on campus
• Eating alone
• Lack of opportunities to meet new people in a non time-consuming way
• Alternatives like Doordash; address the idea of people feeling deterred by expensive delivery fees
• Students don’t have time nor means (e.g. car) to travel farther for food

2. Market (as a reminder) & size (who and how big)

• TAM
  • Nationwide students 
  • 18.9 million college students
• SAM
  • Bay Area students: Northern California schools: Berkeley, SU, UCSF, USF, UCSC, Foothill College, De Anza College, Santa Clara University
• SOM
  • Stanford students: over 16,000 degree-seeking students enrolled in bachelor’s, master’s, professional, and doctoral programs
    • ~7,645 undergraduate students
    • ~9,300 graduate students

3. Tech stack and why

• Frontend: React Native (CS47)
• Backend:  Firebase 
• Authentication: School Credentials (to sign up with your school email) OR email verification system
• Payment system

4. BMC first pass (from in-class activity in 3A and your iterations)

Note: after our first pass of the BMC (pictured above), we continued to hone our target problem space and brainstorm potential solutions. See the other sections of this post for more details on our current project ideas.

5. Early ethical challenges to consider. 

• Non-Stanford students using our platform  (addressed if we
• Predators on college students
• How to mitigate disposable packaging waste
• Users’ personal information (ex: delivery address, CC info, email address/phone number)

6. Solution.

• A group food-ordering platform to help people enjoy food is convenient, affordable, and enjoyable. 
• User journey:

1. Signup for Plates account with school email
2. Choose whether to eat alone or with a plate
3. Browse through foods options for given day
4. Select quantity, order pick-up time
5. Select pickup location: 2 locations on campus 
6. Enter payment info
7. Pick up the foods at specific time