We get this question often – and it’s the most important question to ask. We created Manna to improve the home cooking experience and to give people a platform to build community around food. We firmly believe our business can and should serve our users while generating revenue – so we planned for monetization, long-term sustainability and growth in our very first meeting in April 2019. Manna is an environment that attracts and retains high-intent users who are using the app to engage with food activities. We have dynamic data points to help us build meaningful revenue entry points and eventually, sustainable revenue streams.
Strategic in-app ad placements are effective in generating early revenue, but for the health of the platform and the user experience quality, we’re also planning beyond ads to create a multifaceted revenue and growth program. For a more in-depth look into our monetization plans, see the Manna deck attached to the profile. But here I’ll highlight a few main areas where Manna will monetize:
Grocery Delivery:
The next feature we have cooking up at Manna is Meal Planning and grocery list creation. Because of the unique way our app is designed, if any user makes a meal plan from recipes they have saved in their cookbook, it can easily and instantly be parsed out into a grocery list. And as our technology improves, we can add a pantry feature that keeps track of which ingredients you’ve used and which you still have.The goal is to create a seamless loop between the features. The more you use the app, the more useful it will be.
We can monetize these features by partnering with grocery delivery companies, and taking revenue share on the B2B end. This means that we can provide our users relief from the arduous process of grocery planning and shopping, without them incurring extra costs.
This has been an effective revenue driver for some competitors in the space, and is especially relevant now as grocery delivery is a rising trend. A survey from Coresight Research showed that 52% of people had ordered groceries online in the last 12 months, more than double the figure from two years ago. (See source: https://www.supermarketnews.com/online-retail/online-grocery-sales-grow-40-2020)
This growth trend is more relevant now than ever as people don’t want to leave their homes if they don’t have to.
Printable Cookbooks:
One of Manna’s main value propositions is giving power to the user. Allowing our users to eat and cook how they like. One benefit of this customization is that people can over time build out cookbooks with all their favorite recipes. Some from their grandma, and some from the internet but with their own personal spin.
By partnering with a printing company (i.e Moo), Manna can offer users the opportunity to take their digital cookbook and make it a reality. This could serve home-cooks who want their go-to recipes in a hard copy, to people looking for a unique and personalized holiday gift for friends and family, to taking all of nona’s verbally passed-down recipes and codifying them officially.
Printed cookbooks also foster opportunity for the Manna community to engage with and support one-another. Manna opens up opportunities for unknown but talented home chefs to build their audience and let their spin on food be known.
Premium Subscriptions and B2B Opportunities:
Our aim for Manna’s reach in the food space is not just with home cooks. We’ve heard from chefs and restaurant owners that there are pain points in the restaurant space that need resolution as well.
Many restaurants struggle on traditional social media platforms. They find it difficult to target an engaged audience. Manna provides a platform of users who are specifically engaged around food. Additionally, the customization tools Manna provides can aid restaurants tweaking and scaling recipes as their menus evolve over time.
Manna will charge restaurants monthly for a premium subscription that includes prioritized exposure to the Manna audience, as well as kitchen management tools. Our blue sky goal for the B2B is to also offer ingredient supply in a similarly seamless way to our grocery customers.
Scalability and Sustainability:
Our goal is to build a sustainable and scalable product that can evolve and grow with our usership. We need WeFunder investments to realize this dream. We’ll use funds to build new features, create infrastructure to implement monetization schemes, improve the user experience, hire developers, designers, community managers (and more!) and build strategic revenue generating partnerships.
Thanks for joining us.
– Josh Abady, Co-Founder + COO