The Problem...
The Requirements...
Cook as little as once or twice all week.
Easily swap or skip recipes.
Enjoyable meals, for any diet.
Avoid allergies & foods that dislike.
Short cooking times - under 20mins.
Meal plans for busy modern lives & schedules.
Prepare meals for friends & family too.
Help hit wellness goals & sustain progress.
Subscription to fund new recipe development.
🚩 THE STARTER
8x User Interviews helped identify the requirements & prioritise them. 2x Team Workshops then focused around 'how might we' statements, in which the team brainstormed & landed on a novel recipe data structure & design concept. Over the course of several sprints, we iterated & developed a brand new product, bringing it to market within 6 months.
💔 PRODUCT PIVOT
Shortly after launch, we used analytics & surveys to identify that we needed to re-balance our core demographic. Creating personable customer profiles, mapping-out their lives & interests, which helped the team picture which feature was targeting which customer. It also helped us identify more recipes that could be used across a wide variety of healthy meal plans. We were noticing that a larger audience of females were using the product than previously, so we pivoted and were able to focus less on individual 'short-term' diets.
The Solution...
Adjustable recipes for anyone... or 2
1
Select a diet plan
Add ingredients you dislike
Add a partner (or "fry solo")
2
Enter age, height & weight
Select weight & exercise goal
Automatically or manually decide
3
Change cooking days
Swap-in fave recipes
Skip to eat-out (e.g. Nandos night)
Enjoy any recipe
& forget calories.
Customers could now select any recipe inside the app and know that it, or any other replacement recipe, had the exact calories & portion size they need. It would not contain any ingredients they couldn't eat. Tomorrow's meals were ready to refrigerate too, keeping them on track!
The Result...
The MealPrepPro launch & subsequent product pivots were hugely influential in my growth as a PM. Product-market fit was achieved within 6 months. This small dev team now competes against brand giants with huge budgets & corporate structures.
Unlimited & unique meal plans
The possibilities are endless, with the amount of personalisation. Hundreds of recipes for each plan to choose, each swappable & with ingredients to substitute.
Male to female pivot
We switched the core demographic soon after launch, from those seeking a professional nutrition plan for their training goals, i.e. 60% males. To those seeking to generally eat healthier, i.e. 70% females.
Loyal paying customers
Going from a one-time paid download to a recurring subscription model, transformed the business. The company could hire an in-house content team to develop new recipes each & every week.
More than macros.
MealPrepPro succeeded by providing highly personalised meal plans for people with any modern lifestyle, schedule or diet. A big pivot came from originally having a high-protein focus at launch (which males had desired).
We soon assigned new customers to more general healthy, mediterranean & budget-friendly plans. This helped grow & better retain paying customers.
Over 1k recipes
scaleable to any calories
11 diets to support
health & weight loss
12k
Happy, active, recurring customers.
A successful launch & loyal customer base.
6x
Customer Lifetime Value of prior product. Additional 31% improvement after launch.
72%
Would recommend the subscription to others. Most satisfied users jumped by 26%.
Customer Feedback
What MealPrepPro customers say about the product...
"Life changing! I have struggled with anorexia in the past and had to stop using MyFitnessPal because of it. But I still wanted a way to track my macros and eat healthy foods without it controlling my life. This app does it.
I love how you can swap meals out (over time you start to find your fave recipes) & you can trust that each meal is balanced and hits all your macros."
WrightyKattie
Apple App Store
"The recipes only take 10 to 15mins to make & the ones I chose were sooo delicious that I’m completely sold on this app!
I’m a horrible binge eater & I’m horrible about planning meals & snacks on my own. I have a feeling this is my key to weight loss success."
MsRoRodone
Apple App Store
"Most delicious meal preps anywhere! If anyone is sitting on the fence about buying this app, then get off the fence and buy it. There’s no way you’ll be disappointed.
Macros done, taste delivered - perfect."
Nachtjenevel
Apple App Store
The Learnings...
What was the biggest takeaway?
To always step back and validate who is your customer. By defining each of our target personas in detail, we could design meal plans specific to their needs. We mapped-out their interests, life situation, favourite foods etc, based on anecdotes as well as analytics data.
We quickly came to realise that many people adopting different plans had differing needs, and that we were under-serving the biggest market of all - those seeking a generally healthy meal plan (without specific macros). This allowed us to pivot the product and recipe development to grow that audience much quicker.
What was your favourite part of the project?
My favourite part of the project was also the most chaotic. After 6 months of heavy development time, consisting of weeks of late and long hours, we managed to ship the product on-time to coincide with a social media launch. In spite of a crazy first 48 hours, those final weeks consisted of heavy prioritisation, feature-cutting, incredible focus, teamwork & communication.
Following that, taking a week out to conduct Usability Testing for the first time with new customers was also eye-opening. Watching my colleagues reactions to those using the product for the 1st time was priceless. I now never skip Usability Testing.
What would be done differently next time?
Launching with fewer 'macro-specific' diet plans initially may have helped. Plans such as high-protein, keto, high-carbs etc are not as popular as more generic plans, such as Mediterranean, Flexible or Budget-friendly. Resource was spent dedicated to pleasing a smaller addressable market in the early months, despite this pivot coming later. More thorough research sooner may also have given us this insight.
With that in mind, I would also have talked to customers in greater detail sooner during the design phase - we quickly found there was some confusion during onboarding, when customers were creating their 1st plan. They did not have their 'aha moment' until later swapping their 1st recipe.
How could the product be improved today?
Engaging users each day & week, to check-in with their progress and to help them see how to better hit their wellness goals. I would consider finding out what from each persona, what type of bespoke written content they'd like to see, both in & outside the app.
The loyal community is a huge strength of the product and something to be explored further. Introducing some social features would be worthwhile, e.g. to see how many others are cooking their favourite recipe this week, a way to invite friends to adopt their plan also, or to allow customers to share their weight-loss story. This would be the right research project to embark on next; how to help people to harness healthy habits for themselves & others. As well as getting some validation of these ideas - via surveys, fake doors & prototyping.
