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About five years ago, a colleague had an idea for a social/user-driven app for seasonal food (produce, meats, etc.) He called it something like Local Bee, and then we created a version (for Windows Phone 7!) of it over the weekend at a Hack-a-thon. We actually won, though it was small (13 teams). We called it P2P Farms! We made another version (for Android Auto, before it was even called that) at another event, where it would actually alert you right in your dashboard when you got close to specified items. Then our employer started to turn it into "a real thing", and renamed it Fresh! However, I left the company around then and haven't heard much about it since. At the time, I searched online, and found sites like LocalHarvest, Farmstand, RipeNear.me, LocalDirt, etc., each usually with a little different spin (some focus on specific food, some one farmer's markets, some on actual farms, and some on produce stands). So you can see the challenges - data, use case, implementation, monetization, etc. If it's from various feeds, they aren't standardized or consistent. They could update at different frequencies. They might omit huge swaths of geography. If it's from the users themselves (i.e. you "check-in" when you find a local produce stand selling fruit or beef jerky or something), you need MASSIVE adoption and participation, and you'll probably have a 10-to-1 ratio of people that want to consume vs contribute. And how long is the data useful? Maybe they bought awesome watermelons but 15 minutes later, the last few sold out. Can you get people at the stands to update their listings? What if you convince producers (farmer's markets, farmers) that it's worth their marketing dollars to get listed (and highlighted)? Does it follow the spirit of the app you envisioned? And do you combine approaches? Multiple ways of getting data in, keeping it updated, etc? I'm curious where you'll take this, so create an "About/News" section of your site (or Twitter) and keep posting! Edit: Also, I realize your approach "just what fruit is in season" varies from the above variations, and so the challenges and solutions do as well. I kind of went off on tangents there! Hopefully it gives you ideas anyway. |