Olio, food sharing app, validated using WhatsApp and has now over 6 million users
So, last week I started a newsletter about tech for good companies. I'm writing how they started, business plan, impact, monetisation, etc.
Olio is the second company I'm writing about. The first one I talked about Ocean Bottle.
My vision with this newsletter is to become Indie Hackers of Tech for Good companies. Let's see what the future reserves.
For now, I'm sharing how Olio, a food sharing app, validated their hypothesis with a WhatsApp group with 12 people.
I pasted the newsletter edition below to make it easier to read.
Olio’s co-founders give super valuable lessons on how to test and validate hypothesis without building, start small, move fast, iterate, pivot, grow.
I will closely follow their next steps and see the plans to impact 1 billion people, reduce the hunger even more and be profitable.
🌰 Good business in a nutshell
Company Olio
Problems Food Waste / Hunger / Climate Change
How they started Whatsapp group
What they do Neighbours/Businesses share unwanted food with those who want
Business model It connects people wanting food or items with sharers
Areas of impact Food Waste / Social Good / Climate Crisis
Saving the world 65,312,492 Portions of food have been shared
How they make money Businesses pay a fee to give unwanted food
Funding $53.1m
Who started everything Saasha Celestial-One and Tessa Clarke
Their mission: 1 billion OLIOers by 2030
📖 The long version
Problems
- Over 30% of the food produced globally is wasted.
- $1 trillion. It’s the annual value of food waste globally.
- 25% of the world’s freshwater supply is used to grow food that is never eaten.
- In most developed countries, over 50% of all food waste takes place in the home.
- All the world’s nearly 1 billion hungry people could be fed on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the US, UK and Europe.
Ok, we have all those catastrophic, massive-scale problems to tackle. But how to start? What is the most pressing problem? Where should we go to begin?
Facts from Olio's website
How they started
Would you ever imagine starting a massive food waste fight, setting up a Whatsapp group of 12 people?
Yes, you got it right. Olio tested and validated their assumptions by creating a Whatsapp group in North London. 12 people living close to each other and sharing surplus food for 2 weeks. No fancy app, no state-of-the-art software development skills, no ratings, no user profiles…Nothing. Zero.
“This was a great proof of concept: we didn’t need to spend time developing sophisticated technology, user profiles, reviews, and ratings, it just needed to be slightly better than Whatsapp.“ — Tessa Clarke
What they do
Olio brings back the sense of community, connecting neighbours sharing surplus food simply taking a photo and sharing on the app.
Businesses can also share their surplus food, joining the Food Waste Heroes Programme. This programme has been the key element for Olio’s strong growth in the last few years.
Nowadays, neighbours can also share non-food items.
Business Model
- Neighbours with surplus food share it on the app (in purple)
- Supermarkets, grocery stores, events organisers, businesses in general request collection via Food Waste Heroes Programme (in black)
- The army of Food Waste Heroes collect the food from businesses and share it on the app (in green)
- People from the neighbourhood request the food shared (in blue)
- Food Waste Heroes or neighbours giving food, meet the requesters (pink arrows)
The growth-hack
The team of Food Waste Heroes allowed businesses like Tesco, Eurostar, Costa Coffee give food at scale.
Explain like I’m five
If supermarkets, grocery shops, you or your neighbours have unwanted food, simply open Olio and share it. Someone will open the app and might request your bag of salad.
The Food Waste Heroes are the real superheroes, going to supermarkets, collecting all extra food and sharing on the app.
Areas of Impact
- Food Waste
- Social Good
- Climate Action
Saving the world
- 8,653,000,000 Litres of water saved
- 65,312,492 Portions of food have been shared
- 62 Countries OLIOers have successfully shared in
- 6,310,450 OLIOers have joined the Free Sharing App
Their mission: 1 billion OLIOers by 2030
Impact page
Let’s talk money
Olio makes money via Food Waste Heroes Programme.
How the programme started: early adopters hated food waste, so, they had nothing to share on the app and businesses were too busy to post unwanted food on the app.
How to solve this conundrum? They matched people with plenty of time to post and share but had no food waste, with those businesses that didn’t have time.
Olio charges a monthly fee from businesses joining the programme. Over 100 companies have joined. The fees cover approximately 30% of the company’s costs.
Why should a company pay a fee to have unwanted food collected?
- In some countries, like France, it’s forbidden by law to throw edible food away
- Some companies already pay for traditional waste collectors
- Positive marketing with employees and also with the public
- Be truly involved in ending the hunger worldwide
Why does Olio charge a fee from companies?
- There’s a heavy investment in tech to support the programme
- Olio manages a team of over 65,000 volunteers
- Investments to promote the programme
Total Funding
They have raised $53.1m in funding so far.
Moments that are worth all the efforts
30 million meals rescued through Tesco’s (the third-largest retailer in the world) partnership
Save the world, join the cause
Who started everything
Saasha Celestial-One
Tessa Clarke
References used to build this report
https://olioex.com/about/our-story/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48934122
https://www.mcjcollective.com/my-climate-journey-podcast/olio
What are the three main business lessons you've learned?‘First, start small, really small. Second, test, iterate and learn as quickly as possible. And third, having a clear mission/ purpose that is undeniably good for the world is the most powerful of all secret weapons!’ — Tessa Clark
