Foodloggr is a Perth startup aimed at solving the problem of monitoring food and calorie consumption. We spoke to founder Matt Healy to find out more.
//SN: What’s the idea behind foodloggr?
Traditional food logging apps require more effort than they really should. You have to search for food items in an enormous database, where official entries are mixed in with user-submitted entries, and a lot of the time those databases are very US-centric. This makes it difficult to track what you are eating, often leading to just giving up on using the service. foodloggr aims to simplify that process – you just enter what you eat, that’s it.
Foodloggr also has a social component. You can link up with your friends via Facebook or email, which allows you to see each other’s food log. This is another great, simple way to keep yourself accountable. Your friends can give you an upvote or downvote for each entry in your food log, which counts towards your “food score”. The idea is that it might make you think twice before choosing junk food over something healthy.
//SN:Who are you aiming this at?
I see the target audience for foodloggr being primarily people aged between 18-40 who are health-conscious and comfortable with technology.
//SN: What’s the business model?
At the moment there is no revenue being generated by the product – it’s still in its infancy, so the plan is to accumulate a user base over time and introduce some form of monetisation later on. This will most likely be in the form of a “pro” version of the software with extra benefits like reporting and analysis.
//SN: When did the idea occur to you?
At the start of June this year I decided to commit to a “No Junk June” and really make a determined effort to be mindful of everything I was eating. To ensure I succeeded with this, I wanted to log everything I ate so I wouldn’t be tempted to cheat. I’ve used various food logging apps before and always gave up because they required too much effort to continue using. That’s when I came up with the idea to build foodloggr.
//SN: How did you come to the decision to build the product?
This is very much a side project. I’ve recently been learning Python and the Flask framework just to keep my skills up to date and relevant in the industry. There’s only so many tutorials and exercises you can do to learn a language – you really need to sink your teeth in to a project to really learn it. So when I had the idea for foodloggr, it was a no-brainer that I would build the product, as it would kill two birds with one stone – allow me to continue practising Python and to also build a cool product that people could use.
//SN: How long has it taken you to do that?
The development of foodloggr started around mid June. I currently work full time, so could only work on foodloggr at nights and on weekends. I went through a few lulls where I didn’t touch the code for a couple of weeks, and few periods where I would be up until midnight each night just banging out features.
Finding a name for the product was the hardest part – I think development had stopped for a couple of weeks prior to release just so I could devote time to picking a name. The site went live in late August. Overall I’m pretty happy with how long it took the product to go from an idea to something that anyone in the world could start using.
I’ve worked on several side projects before but they’ve always sort of fizzled out as I lost interest. foodloggr is the first one that I’ve really had a keen interest in and developed to the point that it could be publicly released. That being the case, I really enjoyed the experience of getting foodloggr off the ground.
//SN: Is it just you, or are you going to build a team around it?
At the moment it’s just myself running the site. I’m a full stack web developer, so am pretty proficient in the technical side of things, but eventually I will probably need some expert help in the design, marketing and business side of things.
//SN: What’s next for the product?
I’m going to continue mostly with new feature development for foodloggr. There are still a few key features that I want to add to the core product, particularly focusing on keeping the users engaged and keeping them coming back. After that I’m probably going to look at developing some specialised modules for subsets of users, from which I will hopefully be able to create a revenue stream.
While this is going on, I’m also going to be showing the product to various health and nutrition organisations around WA and the rest of the country to try and get a bit more exposure and user signups.
//SN: How can the startup community help you?
There are so many amazing people in the startup community, especially in Perth, that I can bounce ideas off and hopefully gain a bit of wisdom from. I think the startup community will be most helpful to me in terms of getting the product out there in front of people, more so than the technical side of things.
//SN: Thanks a lot Matt, and good luck with it!
