Where’s The Foodtruck

That's the question foodies all over the world are asking.

Finding a problem, and the search for a solution.

For the decade prior to starting this business, I managed and operated national, corporate restaurants on the Las Vegas Strip. With the experience, knowledge, and expertise I had acquired, I decided to pursue the goal of owning my own business, in the form of a restaurant. As my proof of concept, I decided to start a gourmet foodtruck. This is how many foodtruck owners begin their journey.

The chances of success and even survival of a foodtruck are lower than traditional brick and mortar restaurants. In researching the foodtruck industry and planning my concept, some of the problems and difficulties unique to the industry became clear to me. But being aware of a problem and being able to solve the problem are two different things, and my success depended on solving the problem. I had to find an answer to the question: how will I best ensure the success of my new business?

To find the "how" to achieve greater success, I spoke with existing foodtruck owners. They told me that they need more new and repeat business, increased business during slow times, and increased high-ticket sales, i.e. catering. But to accomplish this, they need customers to physically be at their location to spend money. And to get customers at their location, they need customers to know their location. It's pretty simple, but for a mobile vendor like a foodtruck with an ever-changing location, this is a BIG PROBLEM!

How do customers find you?

This is the first, and biggest, problem every foodtruck must solve. Many rely on social media and word of mouth, but depending on ever-changing algorithms and customers' desires to promote your business isn't reliable. I began to develop a solution that would solve this problem for foodtrucks throughout the industry. The primary goal: allow foodtruck operators to easily share their exact location with nearby customers. With that goal in mind, we built a mobile app that allows foodtrucks to share their location using GPS, uses push notifications to increase traffic, and is easy to use. And for the foodies out there, we built an app for them to find and discover their favorite gourmet foodtrucks.

Feedback, new iterations, and continued growth.

If there's one thing true to business, it's that getting feedback, trying different solutions, and constantly improving is the key to success. We launched the app in April 2018 at The Great American Foodie Fest in Las Vegas. For the rest of the year we focused on usage, bugs, feedback, and improvements. Thanks to vendor and customer feedback, we added the following features: deals & daily specials, local events, and a catering tab (vendor app only), and we're now developing secure, in-app ordering. We allow any foodtruck across the U.S. to create a profile, but our focus is currently on a few mid-size markets (Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Colorado Springs, and Charlotte). Over 400 foodtrucks have created profiles on our app, and we have over 20,000 active user downloads. 

Here's a map of May's customer activity, shown as hotspots. Over 80,000 push notifications were sent out to nearby foodies at the perfect time. What an impact!

Why are we fundraising now?

We have had great success to-date, but there's more opportunity as we continue to develop our roadmap. We're on the right track, with foodtruck operators saying things like:

I LOVE Where's The Foodtruck app! The app makes it easy for anyone to find their appetite and the GPS is on point. I’ve gained much more than just customers and followers from this app, I’ve gained family! Great job!

-Cody T., owner of The Spice is Right (more testimonials)

To continue on our path and take the business to the next level, funding is the rocket fuel.

First, in-app ordering is a must-have at this point. We've started development and our developers are capable of making it an amazing feature. Not only will this feature generate revenue, but it will provide a new level of analytics to share with foodtruck operators.

Second, add to the WTF team. At this time, I'm the only full-time employee. We've received help from good advisors and infrastructure support from StartupNV, a startup incubator. The rest of the team is outsourced. We'll hire salespeople to help with outbound calls to foodtrucks and account setup, and a sales & marketing manager to develop content and strategy for ad spend.

The minimum raise of $50k will help us accomplish these goals; both are projected to increase revenues considerably. There will be enough funds for some paid marketing as well.

Funding in the $100k range will allow the addition of a top-level sales & marketing partner and, with this partner's help, we'll invest in more marketing and development of content and copy. The marketing budget focuses highly on digital ad spend to increase user downloads, foodtruck signups, and catering lead generation.

Funding over $100k gives us a larger marketing budget. We'll expand our sales team and hire a catering manager. With enough investment, we'll also explore the possibility of continued software development as we progress on our features roadmap.

Thank you for considering investing in Where's The Foodtruck. Please share our campaign page, and invest what you're able to. With your help, we'll be able to build a strong team and even stronger company, one that will see amazing growth and success.

You'll be proud to say that you were an initial investor in Where's The Foodtruck!