BaMana - Case Study
Timeline
12/21 - 6/22, 12/23 - 3/24
Tools
Figma, Illustrator, Photoshop
Background
During my studies in Shenkar, I joined a course in 'Intro' - an entrepreneurship club.
We worked in teams, investigated our ideas to understand if they had viability and refined them according to the insights we got.
The topic my team chose to focus on is an app that helps the users pick a restaurant and choose a meal according to their personal taste.
Our Team & Roles
Yulia Gur
Industrial Engineer
Avoids parsley
Tamir Burstein
Industrial Engineer
Hates broccoli
Yulia and Tamir who both specialize in industrial engineering and management were responsible for the research. This means Competitor analysis, market research, Go-to-market strategy, business module, and more.
The Problem
The growing variety of restaurants and dishes to choose from nowadays is nice but also overwhelming.
If someone avoids onions, for example, going through each meal on the menu to check for them can be a tedious process. Similarly, a vegetarian looking for a place to eat probably isn't interested in steakhouses.
We assumed that by hiding irrelevant options choosing will get easier.
User Survey
The Customer’s pain
I phrased a survey on Google Forms, we sent it to friends and relatives.
81 participants answered:
72%
Avoids certain foods
87%
Read most of the menu
27% of them ask the staff for advice
52%
Would prefer a personalized menu
Interesting things participants said:
“Cool idea, as a vegetarian and a picky eater I think it would suit me”.
“It’s a nice idea but I think there are similar apps, I use the Wolt, 10bis and Easy.”
“When sitting in a restaurant I will always prefer speaking with the employees. When ordering takeout I would prefer a detailed app that is easy to use.”
The Restaurant’s pain
We walked through restaurants, mostly in Tel Aviv and some in Ramat Gan, and asked restaurant managers and owners about their biggest difficulties. These were the results of 30 interviews:
To filter out options using their ingredients, we would need restaurants to enter what each dish contains. One of our concerns was they wouldn't be willing to do so, to our surprise none of them saw it as a problem.
The survey results from both the Client’s and the Business side gave us enough validation to continue with our idea.
Market target
The Global market
About $1.2 trillion a year
The Israeli market
About ₪20 billion a year
Competition
Out of 21 competitors, these were the most notable:
BaMana differentiates itself mostly in personalization. It has two competitors in that field, but they offer fewer options for personalization than BaMana.
Target audience
B2B Customers
Restaurants.
Coffee shops.
Bars with large food menus.
Especially businesses with:
A variety of options on the menu.
Crowds of visitors.
B2C Customers
people who are:
Picky eaters.
Indecisive.
Interested in a new culinary experience.
Has dietary restrictions & preferences.
Tourists.
The Pitch Night
Equipped with our presentation, one pager, and 4 main screens that represented our app, we gave a pitch in front of an audience and a panel of industry professionals who served as judges.
We managed to win first place :) which was very exciting.
Selected pages from our presentation
One pager
After our course ended I decided to continue to expand the app.
I started by updating the user flow, then wrote what I like and dis-like about our competitors’ apps, created personas, wireframes, and implemented the screens. I also illustrated for sections in the app that could otherwise be boring for users.
Personas
User flow
Wireframes
The solution
Tell us what you eat
In this section, users fill in their dietary preferences. This can include a diet or specific ingredients.
To meet as many needs as possible I came up with a system that allows the users to specify exactly how strict they are with each ingredient.
Browse restaurants based on your personal taste
The homepage is based on the user’s preferences, each restaurant receives a score depending on its match with the user.
This would hopefully help people make better and easier choices.
Choose dishes easily with a menu relevant to you
The highlight of this app, in my opinion, is the menu.
Users can effortlessly skip dishes that are irrelevant to them, even if they have uncommon allergies, for example.
For some this may not make much difference, but for others, it can significantly simplify their lives.
Conclusion
In this project, one of the most useful things I learned was that even if you have a very simple idea it would probably require more complexity than you would expect.
The teamwork in this project was very pleasant, everyone contributed, each one in his / her field. I think what helped us was our belief in the same, clear idea, and our mentor Ilan Gershon who gave us a sense of commitment and pushed us along the way.
Next project:
Make A Bento
Group project | Video game | Solo designer
A game that lets you design your own bento box while learning about some Japanese traditions along the way.
Contact
Feel free to contact me about anything 🙃