Language
Persian
The purpose of the Persimmon program
Executive Summary PERSIMMON is a Mobile Health (mHealth) application which uses AI, IoT, AND Big Data to develop a holistic health and nutrition application which removes the complexity of healthy eating for users and their families based on their tastes and lifestyles. Being family-focused and learning and fixing personal eating habits is our biggest competitive advantage over other similar apps. PERSIMMON is the first mover in the mHealth industry to use AI technology, big data, and IoT combined to make eating and staying healthy easy and enjoyable for its users. We have developed a team of experts with extensive experience in application development specifically for the technologies we intended to use, and we are building the beta version of the application right now. Highlights Diet, recipe, and healthy eating apps are crucial for improving the user's lifestyle and prevention of noncommunicable diseases. However, most users use these apps for just a short period, because important lifestyle aspects are ignored in these applications: • No app on the market has a holistic approach to family health that ours does • None of the exiting apps is built to learn and fix eating habits • The focus of most apps is on making your own food and not eating out • Users’ budgets are an important factor which is ignored by most apps Our aim is to reduce the complexity of eating healthily so that choosing to eat healthily becomes easier than ordering a pizza. To achieve this goal by the help of technology we took out all the hassles and chores related to healthy eating. Persimmon platform helps the users to choose, buy ingredients, plan, and cook/order your favorite food for you and your family based on: Cooking time Users’ tastes Ingredients in the fridge Nutrition data Budget Daily/weekly activities Routines and habits Age Climate Objectives The PERSIMMON team came together a year ago to refine our vision of employing technology to bring health, happiness, and wellbeing to people. We developed the idea of a Persimmon app and established a road map to bring our vision to life. We started on the building the beta version immediately and designed the architecture of the app. We employed a team of coders working with Mani (PERSIMMONs CIO) to develop the application. Our first goal is to finish the beta version within the first 3 months. We will then demonstrate the capabilities of the application. Due to the complexity of the technologies (Big Data, AI and IoT) used to construct and to ensure the smooth running of the app we have worked with various coders and experts in their fields. This has required high investment to reach our goal within our timeframe. The founders’ team is provided with the investment. After launching the beta version, receiving feedback, and debugging the application we plan to employ a team of DevOps to further improve and develop the application. Our goal for the first year is to reach 6400 users. We believe that the first year's user base will put us in a good position to reach a total of $1.25 million in revenue at the end of the second year. By improving the app function, promoting the application digitally, and help f the network effect we are expecting an exponential growth of revenue at the end of the 3rd year and we have a target milestone of $3 million. Current status, and milestones achieved Idea Development Team Building Beta Version release Advertising to attract users Start selling 6400 Users 700 K Profit TIME 2019 2020 Month 3 Month 4 Month 7 Month 12 Month 24 BUDGET (CAD) 0 0 127,000 85,300 169,500 381,200 934,100 Mission Statement PERSIMMON is a holistic health and nutrition app which removes the complexity of healthy eating and makes it easy and enjoyable for users and their families to improve their health. Our mission utilizes technology to establish a long-term relationship with our users to improve their and their family's eating habits We believe that healthy eating and improving eating habits can bring health, happiness, and wellbeing for people. Redundant, distorted, and complex data about health, and busy lifestyles, affecting people’s diet. We want to use technology to decipher the complexity and make a healthy lifestyle as easy as possible. Our vision is to become a company that employs technology to bring health, happiness, and wellbeing to our users. Keys to Success PERSIMMON’S Business Model is a free-to-download and uses the application. The main source of revenue is: • Percentage of sales on local groceries and restaurants suggested through the app • Advertisements from local grocery stores, food markets, chefs, kitchen appliances etc. • Selling health and wellbeing data to universities, governments, and researcher centers. Company Overview PERSIMMON uses AI, IoT, AND Big Data to develop a holistic health and nutrition application that takes out the complexity of healthy eating for the users and their families, based on their tastes and lifestyles. Nutrition and health are closely related, and our app could lead to a reduction of non-communicable diseases—specifically, chronic diet-related diseases which are a burden to Canada's healthcare system (healthcare cost of obesity alone is projected to rise to $8.8 billion by 2021.) mHealth apps are so useful to track and advise users on healthy lifestyle choices, but most users use these apps for only a short period of time. We believe this is because important lifestyle aspects are ignored in these applications. Most mHealth apps focus on one user’s health and lifestyle which makes it hard for families, partners, or people how are living together to use together. It's hard and not cheap to make food separately for each individual family member. For example, in a family with children, the health and wellbeing of children is likely to be the parents' priority and making 3 different meals based on the parents’ and children’s dietary requirements and tastes is not easy and nor is it affordable for most families. Our PERSIMMON app is designed to plan for family members’ health and wellbeing. PERSIMMON collects data about each member of the family individually – or collects and shares the data from each member across PERSIMMON apps - and builds and suggest recipes, and meal plans based on the family’s tastes and diet as a whole. Most mHealth apps are not designed to learn and fix users’ bad eating habits. For example, for a person with sugar addiction, cutting sugar from the diet the day after beginning a healthy diet has been shown not to work. Changing and diet and lifestyle should be gradual. Persimmon uses AI to collect the user’s eating data during the first week of use and, by making gradual changes in people’s diet, will fix the user’s eating habits “If you want to eat healthily you need to make your own food!” this is the presumption of most mHealth apps, but studies show that people are spending less and less time preparing their own food. Therefore, using these apps is no longer convenient for most of us. In the PERSIMMON app, you can enter your eating habits, how frequently you eat out or cook for yourself. The application makes suitable suggestions based on your eating habits. Also, PERSIMMON is connected to the local restaurants, so you can even order your food through the PERSIMMON application. So, the people who don’t have time to cook or want to eat out can use this app to plan their meals also. The user's budget is an important factor that is ignored by most apps. PERSIMMON’s will make suggestions that are within the family’s or person's budget
PERSIMMON is a platform where users and food suppliers like supermarkets and restaurants meet each other. So, the marketing function has two responsibilities. Firstly, attracting users, secondly, attracting food suppliers to register on PERSIMMON app. Customer service and support teams cover both the users’ side and the business side at the same time. Hours of Operation The users can use the persimmon app 24/7 but ordering food from supermarkets and restaurants is limited to the operating hours of those businesses. We will need to provide customer support for the users and food businesses simultaneously during these operating hours. Description of Business Products and Services Our aim is to reduce the complexity of a healthy lifestyle, so choosing to eat healthily becomes easier than ordering a pizza. To achieve this goal with the help of technology we took out all the hassle and chores related to healthy eating and built the Persimmon platform: Persimmon helps you choose and buy ingredients, and plan and cook your favorite food based on: Cooking time Users’ tastes Ingredients in the fridge Nutrition data Budget Daily/weekly activities Routines and habits Age Climate Persimmon uses IoT, AI, and BIG DATA to find, suggest, and order a portion of food which “you need to eat”, “you like to eat” and is “as easy as possible”. Persimmon is about the best food choice at the best time to make eating healthily easy and enjoyable. How It Works The user Downloads the persimmon app (android and IOS). The user can also register, login, and access the data through the website. The user enters their personal information (login details, weight, height, allergies, dietary requirements etc.) The app connects to users’ gadgets and other health apps to collect more information. The user enters information about the user’s family. Permission can be granted to connect information across accounts. The user allocates a weekly food shopping budget for the family. The app collates data about eating habits, including how often they eat out. This information will be updated automatically using AI. The user sets some health goals. These goals could be individual goals or a goal as a group. The app requests permission to connect to home appliances (IoT). At the same time the app updates and collects regional and international nutrition data to maintain accuracy. The application combines all data and produces health & nutrition suggestions and recipes. Persimmon generates a weekly shopping list Persimmon suggests some local supermarkets to order your shopping online Persimmon receives a percentage of sales If you are eating out, the app will suggest local restaurants or takeaways. Persimmon receives a percentage of sales The user will see some adds from local businesses relating to their lifestyle. Persimmon charges the local business for the advertisement Anonymized data collected from the user’s lifestyle could be used by universities and research organizations. This information can be another source of revenue If the restaurant or supermarket doesn’t have delivery, PERSIMMON will link to a local delivery company. We need strong relationships with local businesses. Information we collect from local businesses will help us provide a better service to our customers. In addition, a strong userbase will encourage local businesses to participate in our network and play an active role in our platform. The problem that this product solves Over the past century, as infectious disease rates have dropped, the rates of non-communicable diseases—specifically chronic diet-related diseases—have risen. This is due in part to changes in lifestyle behaviors and dealing with these diseases has become a burden on national healthcare systems. The annual cost of obesity alone to Canada’s healthcare system is projected to rise to $8.8 billion by 2021.*2 Most of these diet-related diseases can be prevented by adopting a healthy lifestyle. Nutrition and health are closely related, but people are spending less time preparing and planning their own food now than 10 years ago. *3 This could be worsening the situation. Busy lifestyles can be one of the reasons why people can’t find time to focus on eating healthily. In most cases, people find eating healthily time-consuming, confusing, and complex. Factors such as specialized ingredients, accounting for personal tastes, family members’ tastes and eating habits, and finding time dedicated to cooking. Diet, recipe, and healthy apps are crucial for improving lifestyle and preventing non-communicable diseases. But most users use these apps for a short period because important lifestyle aspects are ignored: • No app on the market has a holistic approach to family health that ours does • None of the exiting apps is built to learn and fix eating habits • The focus of most apps is on making your own food and not eating out • Users’ budgets are an important factor which is ignored by most apps To solve these problems and encourage users to use the PERSIMMON app long-term – not just for weight loss but for a healthy lifestyle – we are: • helping users pool data by linking accounts with family members or friends so users can eat and stay healthy with the company. • using AI and big data to learn the user's habits. The data will make the usage of the app enjoyable and gradually reduce unhealthy habits. • suggesting options for eating out while staying on track to achieve your set goals • providing budget-friendly options. Competitive advantage Our competitive advantage is being among the first mHealth apps to use AI, Big Data and IoT combined to bring better consumer experience for its users. Being the first mover help us to collect more users and more data to improve our services The technology we use help us in: • Having a holistic view of the person/family’s lifestyle with the lens of healthy eating. • IoT makes everything easy and fast. • AI & Big Data helps us to analyze the user's lifestyle and eating habits in detail and suggest the most suitable and enjoyable options. Suppliers PERSIMMON is a multi-sided platform which has the network effect. Which means the suppliers and consumers are both meets on the platform. the supermarkets and restaurants supply to the users and PERSIMMON platform supply the customers to the restaurants and supermarkets. This concept will be described more in the “PERSIMMON as a platform” and “Network effect section” more. In the first year of operation, because we didn’t recruit a CMeO yet, we need to rely on the consultants for the medical and healthcare advice and information we use in our app. So one of the main suppliers in the first year is the healthcare is consultants and advisors. By recruiting a CMeO in the second year we will have the expertise in-house. PERSIMMON as a platform Persimmon is a multi-sided platform which connects customers, restaurants, supermarkets, food manufacturers, and healthcare researchers. “A platform is a business model that creates value by facilitating exchanges between two or more interdependent groups, usually consumers and producers. In order to make these exchanges happen, platforms harness and create large, scalable networks of users and resources that can be accessed on-demand.” applicoinc.com The PERSIMMON app users are seeking guidance and an easy way to track their health and eating habits and suggest to them daily meal plans to stay healthy or reach their health goals they can see suggestions from the restaurants and supermarkets which fit their diet. Users can access all these services for free. The users allow the PERSIMMON platform to use their eating and lifestyle information anonymously to improve their AI engines and for healthcare research purposes. Universities and healthcare research centers are another part of the PERSIMMON ecosystem. They can access the user's eating and lifestyle information. These organizations will pay for access to data. These organizations can access data for free if they help the PERSIMMON platform to improve its healthcare advice and suggestions. Restaurants and supermarkets can access the PERSIMMON user pool and supply the suggested healthy foods or ingredients to the users. For example, if the application suggests an omelet for breakfast to a user, a local restaurant can suggest the delivery of a similar omelet to the user, or a local supermarket could suggest eggs. The PERSIMMON platform claims 20% of any sales charged through the platform. The service provided by restaurants and supermarkets saves users time on shopping or food preparation. Restaurants and food manufacturers can advertise on the PERSIMMON platform. This targeted advertising helps users broaden their options for healthy eating. Business Model The Persimmon app is free to download and use. The main sources of revenue are: • Percentage of sales made on suggestions through the app. • we are charging 20% of the sales price if a restaurant or supermarket sales to PERSIMMON users. • Advertisements from local businesses This local or international business can advertise to the PERSIMMON user bases. The advertiser can access demographics and other lifestyle and eating habits of PERSIMMON users and show them targeted advertisements. • Selling anonymized data to universities Governments, and researchers centers. Network Effect The PERSIMMON app has a network “A network effect is the effect described in economics and business that an additional user of goods or services has on the value of that product to others. When a network effect is present, the value of a product or service increases according to the number of others using it.” Joseph Farrell and Paul Klemperer. which means any person who downloads and uses the app creates value for the whole PERSIMMON ecosystem. Having a high number of active users encourages local businesses to sell and advertise their products on the PERSIMMON app. At the same time, having a high number of restaurants and supermarkets on the app means more options and convenience for the app’s users. Like any company with a network effect, PERSIMMON should choose aside to focus and grow first. We believe that focusing on the user side first will be more effective for our business model because our app can function without the restaurants/supermarkets and still useful to the user. This means it will be easier to convince users to download and use the app compared with if we began by focusing on the other side of the platform. Customer Service As mentioned before, PERSIMMON is a multisided platform to provide a service to its customers, and the type of service is not the same for all types of PERSIMMON customers. In this section we have summarized the service which each customer type receives, we described why they would use our product, and what our competitive advantage is in each customer segment. Users: Users receive tailored diet and lifestyle advice plus food and recipe suggestions for reaching their healthcare goals. The advantage over similar apps: • Being family-focused • Uses AI to learn your habits to make using the app enjoyable while changing bad habits • Connects to supermarkets and restaurants and suggests eating out options for users who eat out more frequently • unlike most mHealth apps the user can set a budget and PERSIMMON will recommend options within a budget • Using IoT makes staying healthy easier and convenient for users Restaurants and supermarkets: the restaurants and supermarkets receive the marketplace service from PERSIMMON app. It means that they can sell the products to the PERSIMMON users. The advantage over similar marketplace apps: PERSIMMON makes recommendations to users based on their nutrition and dietary needs; therefore customers are more likely to buy recommended products. In other words, the suggestions are more targeted compared with the marketplace platforms. Restaurants and supermarkets and food manufacturers: in addition to marketplace service, PERSIMMON can sell advertisements service to the Restaurants and supermarkets and food manufacturers. In addition to the marketplace service, PERSIMMON can sell advertisement spaces to businesses. The advertisements are more targeted, and this is a good opportunity for local businesses to promote their products to nearby users. At the end of the day, most of the people buy their food locally. Manufacturing PERSIMMON is a service company.