App For Your Appetite

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APP FOR FOR YOUR APPETITE

How a new Aussie restaurant search app is helping people with food intolerances dine out stress-free.

Words: LJ Charleston

20 AusBiz.

El Salem knows how difficult it is to find places to eat that cater to her specific diet: gluten and dairy free, and low FODMAP. On most occasions, her only choice when eating out was spending ages searching menus for meals she was able to eat. She was also tired of hassling waitstaff with an endless array of questions. “I’d just hope for the best at whatever restaurant my friends were going to. I always felt like a pain, and I hated being the person who couldn’t eat stuff all the time,” El says. “The problem is that people with dietary requirements cannot easily find restaurants that cater for them or know what the quality of those options are for which they are often paying extra, such as for vegan cheese or gluten-free bread.” Seizing the opportunity to fill the gap in the market, El created the Eatwell app. It’s like a Tripadvisor or Google Maps for people with dietary requirements. Users can input any dietary requirement, allergy or diets they have, and the app shows them restaurants that are recommended by other users with the same needs. Then, they’re shown specific menus for what they can eat. “My biggest success so far has been our user feedback following our launch. It was so positive with users saying it solved their problems of finding great places to eat, and they only wanted extra features like interacting with others like them on the app. “Prior to developing our app, I did seven rounds of design getting

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“I always felt like a pain, and I hated being the person who couldn’t eat stuff all the time.”

feedback and iterating with 80 user testing participants in our target market, which paid off,” El says. The Eatwell app helps you find the best places to eat, rated and reviewed by others with similar food issues. You can rate and review places to eat for all your dietary needs. If you have any allergies or are on a particular diet, the app has also got you covered. It takes away any dietary-related stress by showing you a menu just for you, instead of showing the food you can’t eat. El says the start-up journey hasn’t been easy, but it’s been an enormous help being part of the Fishburners start-up community “My main challenge at the start was to understand how to build an app, designing it, and how to go about finding good, cost-effective engineers. I simply asked every software engineer friend I knew, as well as posting on the Fishburners Slack channel if they knew anyone who could help, which led to the two engineers we have today,” El says.

“It’s great being supported by people who’ve been in exactly the same boat, and are so helpful whenever we have questions. It’s impossible to have all the skill sets needed to successfully launch a business, and a community that’s so responsive and helpful is invaluable.” El is now focusing on growing communities around the Eatwell app, which focuses on bringing people together through food. “People with food intolerances usually feel like the odd one out without any decent restaurant options. We cover Sydney and are expanding to Melbourne restaurants in the coming months, and hopefully to Queensland and New Zealand,” El says. “I’d advise other start-up founders to always focus on the user and you can’t go wrong. Instagram polls are the quickest and best way of seeking advice on specific questions. And constantly try to seek longer one-toone feedback from users and solve for their pain points.” eatwellapp.com.au

JAN/FEB 2022 21