From Idea to Brand: What I Learned in Two Years Building FoodOS

2 years ago, FoodOS was just an idea💡. Today, we’ve turned that idea into a brand that helps restaurants build their custom websites and apps. I’m a Flutter developer and I know it very well than any other tech and it gives me at least 3x boost. Let me explain how, starting with what I’ve learned over these past 2 years.

Is It Easy to Bring Your Ideas to Life? No — But It’s Possible

Our idea was simple: to build a platform that offers custom apps and websites for restaurants. Together, we even took on more complex projects for numerous companies. Initially, we thought we could complete the platform in 3–4 months, dedicating just a few hours each day & weekends. However, we soon realized how challenging the implementation would be.

The first two weeks were great. Both of us were excited, and our motivation was at its peak. Zesan focused on designing the UI/UX, while I handled the coding. Together, we analyzed our competitors, discovering many cool features we wanted to incorporate into our platform. This made the project big then bigger and even increasingly complex.

As the weeks passed, our motivation waned, and our progress slowed because we didn’t have enough time to code, analyze our competitors, and research the market. We decided to hire someone to help with the coding so that I could focus on other aspects. However, I quickly learned that building a team would be one of the biggest challenges I would face.

We know how to build, but finding who can build is hard

When it comes to team building, finding the right person with the experience and skills to build our platform is challenging. That’s what I was thinking at the time. I own the second most-followed Flutter YouTube channel and know many great developers, so I thought it would be easy. We onboarded one awsome dev to our team who would work part-time on our project, planning to utilize weekends and a few hours on weekdays. The first few weeks were great; everyone was excited and highly motivated, and we made good progress. But then, things started to slow down.

We reached a point where our progress as a team was slower than what I could achieve alone. To make matters worse, there was eventually no progress at all. Our team member admitted he didn’t have enough time. We decided to hire two more people, thinking he could manage them, and we could finish faster. It sounded like a good plan.

Now, with a team of five, the same scenario unfolded: after a certain point, there was no progress. I had enough. I felt like I was wasting time and money and wanted to quit. But for some reason, I decided to try one last time. We onboarded just one more person instead of hiring three developers, bringing us back to a team of three [Me & Zesan founder and one dev]. This time, the progress didn’t stop after a few weeks; it kept getting better and better. But how?

In one year of trying many strategies to build the perfect team, I learned a lot. Finally, I realized the problem was me, not them. I thought they would take my idea and vision as their own, but that’s not the case. I needed to take care of them, communicate, and share thoughts. It takes time to understand each other. If it still doesn’t work, they might not be the right person for you. Find the next one. I found mine after three trials; I was lucky. For you, it might be the 9th one or the 1st one, but with time you will get better at it.

Here are the things I wish I had known earlier:

• Regular Updates: Ask your team to keep you updated at least once every two days, no matter how big or small the update is.
• Team Communication: Create a group so each team member can see each other’s updates. This keeps them motivated. It worked great for me.
• Appreciation and Support: Appreciate each update, and if they face problems, talk with them.
• Monthly Meet-ups: If working remotely, gather your team at least once a month. Meeting, seeing each other, and bonding in person creates great long-term connections.
• Experiment and Adapt: Try new things and see what works and what doesn’t for your team.

Now we made a lot of progress, the product is almost ready. But what about clients/customers?

You made the best product, but if no one knows about it, it doesn’t matter

If you are like me, a developer, then this is the beginning of stepping out of your real comfort zone. We know how to build, but not how to sell. You might think, “I’ll hire someone else to do that,” which is a good idea, but I believe, “If you can’t sell your product, no one can.”

Until now, I thought people loved my idea, but do they really love my product? Trust me, most of the time we are wrong. For FoodOS, we were lucky — restaurant owners loved our idea. If I were to build FoodOS again, I would first test the market or try to understand what my target customers think about my product instead of gambling a lot of time and money on it. There are many ways to do this. If you’re interested, please let me know in the comment section. I will write another article on it, or you can read “Million Dollar Weekend” by Noah. I love how he explains it.

Remember, there are always a lot of people in the world who will love your idea or product. The problem is finding them. For FoodOS, our plan was simple: find the right customers through content creation, cold outreach, and paid ads.

Content creation is a big part of marketing, and it can be identified as value-added marketing. You might be confused, so let me explain. For FoodOS, we launched a podcast where we invite top restaurant owners to share their experiences and advice for new restaurant owners. We found that restaurant owners love the podcast because it provides valuable insights. They watch these videos for free, but the cost they pay is their time. Those who invest their time in your content are more likely to pay for your product in the future. And it works!

We haven’t tried cold outreach yet, so let’s talk about paid ads. If you have the budget, paid ads can speed up your journey in finding the right people. I’m also a bit new to this, but here’s what I’ve learned so far. It’s better to go step by step as recommended:

1. Free Content: Start with free content. This helps you identify which platforms your ideal customers use.
2. Cold Outreach: Next, use cold outreach to gather specific details about your potential clients.
3. Paid Ads: By this stage, you’ll know which platforms are best for you and have valuable data such as interested customers’ names, emails, and other details. You can use this data in your paid ads. Most platforms allow you to upload this information, meaning you can target people who are similar to those who have already shown interest in your product. You can also add other interests and demographics, providing the algorithm with the data you’ve painstakingly gathered and it optimize your ad targeting very well.

When running paid ads, how much can you afford to spend to acquire a customer? For us, we set the expense limit to be twice the amount a customer pays us in their first month. This means that from the second month onward, we are profitable. We don’t have plans for funding right now, and by using this tactic, we ensure that we are not burning through our money. So far, this strategy has worked great for us.

Your first few customers are incredibly important. I believe they have the potential to either elevate your company to the top or bring it down to zero.

If you’re still reading, it means my article has added some value to you. Thank you for reading — you are awesome! This article is already getting quite long. Please let me know in the comment section if you want me to continue with part 2. If this doesn’t add value to anyone, it would be a waste of time to write more on it.

Your feedback is crucial, and I appreciate your time.

Happy building.