How free meal planning is changing food research

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Speaker A: Kia ora koutou kato welcome to business is boring. Appetize started as a way to make dinner decisions easier, faster and better. But in solving that what's for dinner dilemma, Toby and Elise Hilliam unlocked something much bigger. A new way for food brands to understand and serve their customers. Today we'll be talking about how they built the platform, uncovered its FMCG data. Superpower rebranded for the next stage, and what's next for this fast growing business. Tina Koro, thank you for being here today. Hey, so it's so nice to have you two on the podcast. As you know, over the years of working with and getting to know you too, um, have really enjoyed the way you execute, the way you build a business, your approach to business, how you learn and move, and yeah, super exciting to get to chat about that today.

Speaker D: Can't wait. Bring it on.

Speaker E: We've been talking about this for, uh, how long? It's so nice to finally be doing it.

Speaker D: I know.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, it's so good you're over from Sydney and we'll get to Sydney, I think, a little bit later, how you've moved there. But, yeah, great to have you in while you're in town. So, yeah, first up, like, what is appetize and what was the spark that kind of started what the first version of what became appetize was?

Speaker E: Yeah, well, I can talk to how we sort of started, I guess. Tobes is very entrepreneurial. Um, when I first met him, he said to me, I'm never gonna work for someone else. So at that point, I knew that I was in for a wild ride. Um, and so, yeah, we sort of started off appetizer purely from our own frustration. We were trying to plan what to eat for dinner each week. We were working full time on other things, and we were just constantly looking at each other sideways, like, are you gonna make the decision or am I Or. And we were just eating the same five things over and over and over. Again. And so I think it was probably quesadilla number 20 that we did.

Speaker D: Good quesadillas, good quesadillas.

Speaker E: Um, we looked at each other and thought, look, Tobes has got epic entrepreneurial skills. And I studied nutrition at Otago University. So there was kind of a pa. Perfect little marriage of um, skills there. And we thought if there's not the solution then we should try and build it. We tried meal kits and things but there's a wealth of uh, issues with those, cost sustainability, all those sorts of things, restrictions and so yeah, we thought let's give it a go. And so the very first thing that we built was an online meal planning and shopping list tool. So we would send out five recipes each week that would bundle together and yeah, help people choose what to eat for dinner each night. Removing that what's for dinner dilemma essentially. But yeah, it's definitely evolved a lot so I can uh, let times dive into where we are now.

Speaker D: Yeah, it's definitely different than that. I think that's still the heart of what we do. We've got about 90,000 people now who pick and choose recipes to cook. They make shopping lists for the week and they place orders straight through the supermarkets. And so that generates about 5 billion monthly data points on um. Which is, yeah, just a lot for our uh, one data engineer to process. But it's basically what people are searching for, filtering by um, flavours that are in growth occasions that people care about products people love to buy. And we've been able to package that up and yeah, work with about 130 food and beverage companies across Anz. Helping launch new products, helping win at those category reviews, helping reach the right consumers. So this humble little consumer platform which is our initial vision has since, yeah, really taken a big turn which has been pretty cool.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And kind of invented a new category of behavior based kind of FMCG insights of like not what people say they like to cook.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: But you've got their shopping list, you can see what recipes they went nah or year to, which is really tell us about how you kind of like identified that that was the opportunity. Because you first started out, didn't you thinking you'd. Or rather ask the question, how did you first think that it was going to make money as a platform?

Speaker D: Yeah, well we were four, uh, dollars a week subscription and you know, it was going pretty well. I remember we set ourselves a goal to hit 2,000 users.

Speaker E: Yeah, that was our goal.

Speaker D: Oh no. Geez. Looking back at that. Yeah, we're like a thousand users we had that in, like three or four days. We're like, oh, man, we've done it. We've done it.

Speaker A: Paying $4 a month, 1,000 people a week. $4 a week, just like that.

Speaker D: And it was in a couple of days. And I thought, oh, man, have we built the next Uber Air? I was like, job done. And, you know, then just consumer is really tough. Um, and so we got probably a year or so in. We explored different ways to grow. Retention was always a huge issue. And we were talking to a friend who runs a beverage company, and he was like, I have no idea who buys our products. I don't know if they're buying 10 of them to go and have fun on the weekend and go to parties. If couples are buying them to have nice romantic dinners, don't have a clue. And so all of our marketing spend is very hit and hope. And it just kind of like, I sort of sat there wondering, I love this guy. But I was like, is this a him problem? Or is this, like, is this kind of common knowledge or is this an everyone problem?

Speaker E: Is everyone doing this blindly?

Speaker D: Yeah. So that kind of sparked just a huge curiosity because I thought, geez, we know what I think at the time, there's probably 30,000 people. I said, we know what they search for, what they filter by, the cuisines they love, the decisions they make, and this is all real behavior, no guesswork. And so we started talking to different brands. We were super lucky to get in front of Fonterra really early. I thought, geez, if they've got the problem, I most must. And so that just kind of. Yeah, that's what really opened our eyes. About 10 customers from Fonterra down were like, yep, we all have a similar problem. And so then, yeah, game was on. It's time to solve a new problem.

Speaker A: And like, how do you go about, um, you know, because even growing to 30,000 people using the platform isn't a massive achievement in a small market. When you're charging for, essentially, recipes online, when there's no shortage of, like, things you can Google and hear about someone's life story and then eventually get to a recipe or something. Right? But, you know, there is no shortage of, like, recipes. Right? But how did you create something that's still the heart of the business that delivers so much value to users that you get enough data to be able to then sell to fmcg?

Speaker E: I think it was just about understanding deeply who was using the platform. So at the very start, we sort of mapped out all the different people that would likely use it. But there was one Persona that we just, like, honed in on. And her name was Sarah, and she was a mum, 42, two kids. Um, her and her husband both work full time. And so she would come home and just be like, ugh, I need dinner now. Like, there was that constant burden on her. And so every team discussion we would have, we would sit and be like, okay, what sort of meals does Sarah like? What sort of technology does she use? Like, what does her life look like? And how can we slot into that so perfectly? And I think our, like, deep obsession with Sarah and her family meant that we, yeah, weren't this, like, waffly Google website where there's like a thousand things that Sarah does not want to be reading. We knew that she just needed to come in really quickly, see recipes that she liked, be able to quickly add them in, sort her preferences out, and then go straight to the supermarket and either pick it up in store, um, get them delivered, or shop at her local fruit and veggie shop if she wanted to. And I think we still have that customer obsession now, even with our, like, B2B side of the business as well. And I think that's helped steer us really, really well as the product evolves. And we're like, focusing on now two different customers entirely. We still know them incredibly well. And I think people talk about how that's so important, but we've, like, seen it with our own eyes that that's really helped us, um, sort of like, keep moving ahead and, yeah, getting more households involved.

Speaker D: I think a small build is the. We're right. We've got these, like, super clear Personas we're focusing on. But also there's a really common tension with, I guess, free consumer platforms, where typically if they're free, it's because you're an advertising business. And which means, you know, you mentioned the huge blog you have to read first. They're trying to rank with SEO, put ads all over the place. Typically, free means really average consumer experience. That's the friction. And so I guess where we're so fortunate is the FMCG companies are obsessed with consumers and they have no way to reach them because they sell direct from through a supermarket. And so it's in our best intention to build the most incredible consumer experience possible. The better we build that, the more information we can collect, the better we can help our brands. So there's this almost like a harmony between our model versus kind of, I guess. Yeah, versus this tension of, okay, more ads or more Kind of annoying to increase revenue.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker A: And you turned off that revenue, like you said to all the people who were paying you $4 a week, hey, this is now free. And then put the whole service up to be free for everyone in order to provide a better experience and get bigger data sets. Right. Like, how does that feel? As founders who fought real hard to get that revenue and be like, push the button on the email and like, how does that feel?

Speaker E: It was terrifying.

Speaker D: It was horrible.

Speaker E: I still remember, like, sitting the team down and being like, okay, we're thinking of doing this. What do you guys think? And we looked at a few other competitors who might have followed a similar path. And I think it was really helpful seeing revenue come in from businesses and, like, how much revenue we could get from that. Fonterra had signed like a large contract at that point, and so I think we had some security in that sense and we could see the potential for that to just boom. And the restriction was we just needed sticky consumers and their biggest friction was the $4 per week. And so also our ult. Our ultimate goal at the start of building appetites was to just make this accessible to as many people as possible. So it was pretty awesome to find a way that we could actually do that. And so I think while it was like, nerve wracking and we were like, to the board, is this a terrible decision or not? I think we could all see the potential that was gonna come. And it also stuck with our values and goals of trying to make it accessible for everyone. And so, yeah, but we were so nervous and we thought that we were gonna have backlash from people and they were gonna be like, you're like the meta of food, you know, sell. I think one thing we did quite well is just explain to them, like, this is how we are going to use the data. It's nothing personal. There's no way that Teagle can come and contact Simon and try and sell him chicken. Um, it was all aggregated and, um, private. So we had one person out of the. I think we had 60,000 households when we turned over, and we have one person asking us to not use the service.

Speaker A: So we're like, that's a pretty, pretty good, um. And people really understand, right? Like, you know, especially if it's not linked to themselves. If it's just, hey, people in your neighborhood and with your kind of family unit, we go, these are the trends in your zone. And we share that with people. People like, well, that's pretty benign, you know, like, you know, compared to, you know, when you click the terms and conditions on most things, like here's hoping, like you're, you're very clear about how it's used and it's all very benign stuff but that like when you have two customers in a business, so m, you've got the people using the meal planning app and you've got to be obsessed, which is a great, great word, right. About them having a great experience and also the FMCG customers that can be really hard to have kind of two views. How do you run the actual kind of day to day so that you stay, you know, there's no data business without this being great. Right. And you've got to do all the things of like a food brand. You gotta like make great recipes and like they've gotta be actually what people want and beautifully presented and then marketed to people and shared with people in a way that's like top of the game versus a whole lot of other things. That's quite a big, big old hard thing to do while also doing this other thing. How do you manage that kind of um, juxtaposition?

Speaker D: Yeah, it is tough. The big thing that we've focused to get everyone aligned on is that we all need to be deeply obsessed with our consumer platform. Like although the revenue is coming from our uh, FMCG brands, we don't have a business without this incredible platform. And so everyone, customer success who don't deal with the consumers at all, everyone is obsessed with the consumer experience, the users of the experience. And so that's where we start. Um, the focus, I guess where it does get challenging is probably in marketing is probably our most challenging. Um, engineering is incredible. There's got a group that works on consumer and a group that's working on our uh, B2B product. Marketing will be our biggest challenge. Um, showing up digitally when you type appetize, it's, you know, how do we determine if it's a FMCG brand searching appetizer or a consumer? So there are lots of challenges. Um, but we're a year in now. We've ironed out a lot of the kinks and I'm sure there's still plenty more to come. But it's really around just positioning in market and we haven't really built a huge positioning yet as a B2B company. A lot of our uh, efforts are all just outbound kind of educating. So I think that's our next big nut to crack is um, letting the world know there's two and trying to figure that out. But lots have Done it.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, let's chat to that as well because, like, it's a really interesting job to do to establish a new category. Like, you know, obviously research for food brands. All great FMCG brands access research. So that's not new. But to go like, hey, you've never heard of this exact way of building a panel. You might know of panels and you may not be used to the kind of questions you can ask or the kind of data or the kind of insights you can gather from this particular stuff. So how do you go about getting new language and then getting it in front of the right people?

Speaker D: Yeah, it's been a real challenge for us. I think we're finally. What I've learned in any startup is you can't argue with momentum. So when we had no customers, and I'm trying to convince someone this is a great idea, very difficult. When you say there's 130 other brands, here are all these great case studies, it becomes a lot easier. But in the beginning, you're looking for a certain. Much like we have our Persona in consumer, we were looking for a certain type of Persona within those business. And it's someone who just didn't stand for like, the status quo, who understood that there were challenges, the existing way of doing things, and who were very innovative, disruptive, creative themselves. And so those people are quite hard to find, but they're out there. And when you sort of share with them, like, hey, this is how things were currently done, all via claimed behavior, um, wouldn't it be incredible if you could truly know what people cared about, what people cooked, what people wanted? And it's almost starting to give them a bit of hype. And then they go, yeah, well, that'd be amazing. And then you can kind of open the door and, well, that's what we do. And so we had to position things with lots of pilots starting really small, which we're trying to like. Yeah, you don't want to offer too many trials in Saslane, we'd always make them pay, but we'd do these small pilots build momentum. And then once they got a taste for it, it was just we were away laughing. So, yeah, starting really small, trying to de risk it as much we could, and building from there, I think a

Speaker E: lot as well, which, like you did really well at the start, was building a lot of good relationships with those initial customers and sort of like showing them that they're on this journey with us and building that trust. Um, and yeah, getting their feedback on what was working well. And Wasn't I think was super important. And then that helped them become champions in their company and then like bring the rest of the company on board as well.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: And you do a great job of like championing the leaders in this space which is you know, such a great playbook for category creation. Right. You're like, hey, we're working with the leaders like Janet, like big company here. And then next thing you know, like other people like oh, Janet's smart. I want to be like Janet. That's a great, great strategy. Right?

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've had a slide. We kind of um, and ah, whether we use. Should use it all the time. But we sort of have these two pictures and one is of kind of this certain Persona who's you know, creative, disruptive, innovative, you know, values, great ideas, all these things and we have kind of someone who's not you sort of put it to them, which one are you? And we just be really upfront like hey look, our offering's not for everyone. This of is kind is kind of what you would expect working with a brand like us. It's the brands who want to build great products, who want to be different, want to stand out. What do you want to do? And no one likes to admit that they're not who they are. I'm the boring one.

Speaker A: I got sold into it because I couldn't admit how boring I was. And then like just to kind of round out this first bit before we come back and chat to like how you've built the company and the culture and moving into Australia and some other cool things. Um, like while you're coming up with this new model you're also probably finding out yourselves like what kind of insights you can actually generate and stuff. So like what are some of the things that like food brands get from understanding how tens and well, hundred thousand odd. Right Families um, or households shop and what kind of insights do they get and why are those valuable to them?

Speaker D: Yeah, you're so right. I mean we just found out this morning that we've just thinking about our

Speaker E: Slack messages this morning.

Speaker D: Yeah, it's like almost daily our engineers be like oh, we've just discovered that we this and if you combine these data points you would be able to show this and the team just gets pretty excited. But I think the there's a couple of core areas we do really well. New product development is a huge one and I think all brands are chasing that new winning idea. And a lot of innovation in food companies exists of uh, a gm, an owner Showing up going, hey, I would like us to create this new flavor and it's going to be gherkin barbecue sauce patties. Okay. And most people will just fall in line and do it. And so what we're trying to help them understand is, okay, this is what people are searching for. Here are a whole bunch of unmet needs. Here's like a huge opportunity in a category based on what people are actually trying to cook with. You should use this. And so they use us to kind of understand the opportunity for innovation. They then use it to test, so they'll actually try and test with our consumers. And then they use the insights to sell that into the supermarket. So we've had huge wins with innovation, huge wins with category reviews.

Speaker A: And so an example of that, would that be like, Korean tacos, which, you know, kind of appeared everywhere recently. And people are like, hey, we're going to launch a Korea taco thing. And we've got data from appetizers that it's the most fastest growing recipe that people are adding. And so we think that, you know, there's a real market for it. Is it that kind of thing?

Speaker D: Yeah, there's two that are kind of more recent and products are in supermarkets now where, um, you take like Barker's, who they have a whole bunch of awesome products and they are playing a lot in the meal solutions space. They want to have sauces, jars, marinade, marinades, that sort of thing. So when a consumer's doing their shopping, rather than mixing a bunch of sauces together, they just buy a packet. And so they were wanting to see for young shoppers who are, what are the most popular things that young shoppers in New Zealand are, uh, eating. And we were able to show them a bunch of those meals that have repeatedly cooked people coming back to them every week.

Speaker A: Butter chicken lasagna.

Speaker D: You got it. Yeah.

Speaker A: Is that still one of the most. Is that still one of the most popular on the side?

Speaker D: There's so many weird and wonderful dishes that just.

Speaker A: Butter chicken lasagna. And you look at it and you read the ingredients and you look and you're like, that would be yum.

Speaker E: Yeah, it was so terrible for me. But yeah.

Speaker D: Oh, yeah, yeah. It's very much a fake way.

Speaker A: Lasagna's already pretty calorific.

Speaker D: Throw some bunches.

Speaker A: Yeah. But you're able to go, these are the things people actually love cooking.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. And then so from them they're able to go, okay, well, if we create a product, would that be feasible? And then that's Normally how it's driven, whereas normally the other way of doing it is just going to ask people, you know, what new flavour would you like? Or if we made a flavour would you buy? Which, you know, I'm not discrediting that style, but it's more around presumptuous, like, yeah, would you. You're sort of incentivizing them to help you get to your answer.

Speaker A: And most of the answer's like, sure,

Speaker E: I guess, yeah, Most people will say yes, but will they actually do that?

Speaker A: Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe. Pretty much never thought about it.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. So it's. I don't know. A lot of, uh, it is innovation, as we've been helping at the moment, is helping brands find that next winning product and then helping them de. Risk selling it into the retailers. And I think now we're starting to get, I guess, a bit more credibility with the retailers. I think in the beginning a brand would go in, they're like, what's appetize? Whereas now most category managers or supermarket owners are like, yep, we know who they are. They work with lots of our brands. So we're starting to get a bit more cred in the insights world, which is good, but you start with zero, which is pretty brutal.

Speaker E: Yeah. Because the brands need to sell that. Like, they come up with the product and then they need to sell it into the supermarket. So they need to convince this category manager, like, there's limited space on the shelf, so they need to convince them, like, yeah, you need to derange a few of our, uh, competitors, SKUs or whatever, and then put our ones in there. And so they need to understand why. And why is yours gonna win and why is that? All they care about is that it's gonna sell so that it makes them money. So you need to go and prove that. Like. Yep, we've done some research and this is gonna work.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And like, what people are, uh, increasingly cooking or coming back to is a good heuristic. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, That's. Well, let's come back in a moment and like. Oh, just to round out the part, like, so New Zealand and Australia, like, what kind of level, how many people are you working with now?

Speaker D: Like, we have about 135 food brands. Um, it's probably somewhat even split now. I think New Zealand might still be slightly larger.

Speaker E: Aussie's catching up.

Speaker D: The Aussies. Yeah. Super close, considering we sort of started there this year.

Speaker E: Yeah. And, um, in consumerland, we're at 85,000 households. And I think Aussie's about 45,000. So they just took over. Indeed. Which was kind of fun. Milestone for us.

Speaker D: Bittersweet.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker E: Yeah. So we're now more Australian in our consumers, which is quite cool.

Speaker A: You're like, um, weet Bix, you know, Aussie kids, our wheat Bix kids. The first time you see that ad, you're like, my childhood was a lie.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker D: Garbage. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: Yeah. That's okay. Well, let's come back in a moment and just kind of chat about. Yeah. How you've built to that level and what happens next.

Speaker E: Cool.

Speaker A: So I got to know you two through, um, you know, investing through Brand Fund and then working on the rebrand with you, which was such a lovely process because you had such a great team. Everyone. It's like the best job in the world where you have so much value and such, customers that love you and everyone's got this great energy. But you hadn't touched your brand for the last year or two because you've been building the, um, FMCG part of the business, and so it wasn't in the same place you were. And those are the best jobs because you're like, well, why don't we just, like, make the thing as good as what you do? And that was great fun. Tell me about what it's like as a founder. I think it was really interesting the way that you two shared the story, what it's like, you know, changing the name of the company you have going through that process, like, taking the team along and, like, what the kind of results are.

Speaker E: Uh, yeah, I can talk about what it was like, going through it. It was. I think it was the perfect thing. Retrospectively, it was like one of the best decisions we've ever made. I think at the start it was really hard. Remember when PU came to us and we're like, we're gonna change. We're looking at changing the name. And at this point, we'd been married to this name for two years. It was kind of like our identity.

Speaker A: And it was Menu Aid.

Speaker E: And it was Menu Aid. Yeah. So really did what it said on the tin for the consistent side of it. And so. But we had identified that it was no longer fit for purpose as we were, like, evolving into this B2B professional business. Our colours were bright orange, bright green and white. Like, it was offensive. And so it was confusing when offensive was polite, but it was confusing when we were going into these FMCG companies and they were like, but you're just a meal planning app. And they were. The Mari matchup wasn't There. And so I think we knew deep down that it had to happen. But it was also like, yeah, you're kind of parting ways with your baby a little bit. And, uh, yeah, I remember when P. You said, we're gonna change the name, and we were like, I just can't see anything else working here.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker E: And like, P, you guys were great at coaching us through that. And I think we tried to come up with names internally. Radish was thrown around there, uh, for quite some time. And previously, very gently, uh, guided us towards appetites, which now I, like, couldn't imagine it being.

Speaker A: Radish is quite a cool name. It was just appetize felt more in the zone. But, like, yeah, Radish is quite. Quite rad, I guess.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker E: Helen talked about getting a radish tattooed on her.

Speaker A: Yeah. Shout out to Helen because she rules. Yeah.

Speaker E: Yeah, exactly. Um, and so I think it was, like, quite an emotional journey to go through that. Um, and I think what really helped is the end result was so awesome that it was just like. I remember we had to, uh. Cause we'd, like. Once we got the brand, we then had to build the platform to match. And so that took us quite a long time. And so I think it was really hard because we had appetise sitting there, but we were still selling menu aid. And that sucked because we loved appetize at that point. We had the merch. We had, like, the office was all kitted out. We were ready to go, and we were just sitting on this old, ugly brand that we didn't love anymore. So that's when we knew, like, this is the perfect decision to make.

Speaker A: You as a team are a great example of, like, the strategy. There was like, go from kind of an admin aid to a fun food brand. Like, all the exciting things of food, like, go, uh, from admin to appetizing, which makes the name make lots of sense. Right. And you completely kind of personified that with everything you did and you hadn't had. You know, a brand is more than the logo or the name. You m. Hadn't had all of the stuff that you could just, like, put into the world. But then having the colors and the recipes and the, you know, like, um, even the aprons, you know, all of these things that, like, made it real, and then you just kind of have executed it so well.

Speaker D: Yeah. Thank you. I was gonna say pretty much exactly what you said around, like, it's been great having this, like, new identity, but it sort of felt like we were just in the Wrong. Like, the brand is how you show up. And we just didn't feel like we were menuate anymore. We felt like we were evolving into something new. And so I think getting that help and being able to kind of shape and kind of give us this new vehicle to run with has been so helpful. And I just. Yeah, you always think the worst. You think consumers are going to care and get frustrated and you think the team's going to struggle and you think your customers know who you are.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker D: Your friends and family are like, what, you know, you'll be at a barbecue in 10 years time being like, aren't you still menu aid?

Speaker E: But some people do still call us menu aid.

Speaker D: Yeah, it does have a little bit, but yeah, I think we. Yeah, you realize very quickly that, like, you know, people move on, people pick things up pretty well. And we just. It was flawless. Like, we just. Within a couple of weeks we were. We were appetised and yeah, never looked back.

Speaker A: Executed the change really well. Like, great, great comms and everything, but also managed to get like a, uh, better than normal share of media coverage and trade coverage. Right. For what is essentially like business changes, name. There's not necessarily. Or, you know, updates, usually brand colors and stuff and all the rest of it as well. Not necessarily news, but you kind of turned it into enough publicity that you also managed to get like a meaningful jump in customers, which is genius. Like, really. You know, you can use a rebrand as a way to reintroduce yourself to the market and show people what you're about. And then if that's something that people like more, it's really cool to see an actual example of it, like, really having good results.

Speaker D: Yeah. Oh, for sure. We've been so fortunate with pr. Uh, we just pretty much like every couple of months, we're able to land pretty good coverage. And you're so right, you know, going to an agency and saying, hey, we're just changing our name. So what? Yeah, I think going free was an awesome story. They loved that. Um, dangling in the kind of insights opportunity. They love that. And yeah, we've sort of found we've made a real effort in building good relationships with like, key journalists at different spots. And, um, yeah, it served us well going forward. So it's. Yeah. And see, I think we jumped by like 15, 20,000 users very quickly, which when you had like 30 or 40,000 is very significant. And so, yeah, it was just awesome.

Speaker E: So reassuring to know that we'd like, gone down the right path and that this time and capital Investment was worth it. It was just like a big filf.

Speaker A: And it's a big job. Right. Like, redo thousands of recipes and the kind of structure around them and reshoot a bunch of stuff and, um, make a new website and make another website for the insights part of it and then, like, update the app and like this. A lot of, you know, it's not a small undertaking to, like, change your brand significantly at all.

Speaker D: Yeah. You don't realize. It's just, like, how many things it touches. Small things. Just the mail you get from the bank. Just about attention. Menu Aid. Or just like, so many subscriptions and all these random things. We have a Slack channel called, uh. Sounds a bit brutal. I think it's called Killing. That's what it's called.

Speaker E: Nuke. Menu Aid.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker D: Something.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: And people still find things if it's like, oh, I've just seen this menu aid thing.

Speaker E: Legally, our name is still Menu Aid and we just operate as appetizers because that was just too hard to deal with initially. Appetizers.

Speaker A: And I think it's all right, like, you know, when you say you think consumers are gonna care, but, like, we're also used to things changing names or changing up, and you're like, oh, that thing's evolved a bit. Cool. And that's generally your whole thought process. Or you go, ah, not what I would have done, and whatever. Like. But it doesn't matter, you know. Great.

Speaker E: Exactly. Yeah. And I think when the platform leveled up at the same time and it looked so much nicer and more appealing and, like, fun to engage with, they were like, cool. This is a great upgrade rather than, like, oh, you've changed everything and frustrated me. I think that really helped too.

Speaker A: Uh, another thing I've seen you do really well as a team is, like, you've done a bit of build in public, talking about kind of like culture, and you do a lot of sharing of, like, the things that connect you as a team, um, you know, through LinkedIn and your audiences. And that's really cool because, I mean, you started out in Christchurch and then you two have moved to Sydney and started the office there. And that's why that great growth is happening in Australia. Right. Tell us a little bit about, like, growing from one to two markets. What it takes to kind of operate like that hybrid kind of model. And. Yeah, what you've learned about that culture and operational stuff.

Speaker E: One thing I think we've done quite well from the start, and I remember it being really controversial with some of our first mentors was We've always hired for cultural fit over, uh, skills. And that can, like, some people might really disagree with that, but we think, like, if you, if we could sit and work with you and like, go through the tough times together, then everything else you can learn. And obviously there needs to be a base of skills there. But I think that's set us in really good stead as we've grown because it means that each person that we hired, they just slot in and come in and, like, get stuck on with it. And so I think that. And we've done exactly the same thing, hired really intentionally in Australia as well. And because we, yeah, uh, we know that they're setting the foundations for that team. And then I think going from one to two markets. We spoke to a bunch of different founders about it and they, all of them say, like, that is just a struggle and it's. You're never gonna have, like, the two teams are never going to be as cohesive as the one team when they see each other every day. But I think we've just, like, tried to set up the same foundations in Australia as we have New Zealand. We've got lots of traditions that we do and just like, moments of tools down and coming together and creating a bit of, I don't know, community within the team. And we also have started now investing quite heavily in bringing the teams together. So our team in Aussie is not very big. There's five of us, including Tobes and I. And so, yeah, in June we brought the Australians over. Ironically, two are Kiwis and one's mixed. So there's actually no Australians in the Australian team. Sorry about that. Um, but yeah, brought them all into Christchurch and, like, spent a couple of days off site just connecting and getting to know each other because there's only so much that you can connect with online. And then, yeah, like, Leena's been doing online games to bring us together and we're just trying to not forcibly bring people together, but, like, create fun environments where people liked and enjoy spending time together. And then the more that you enjoy the people you work with, the more you're going to enjoy work and do better work. I think has always sort of been our, uh, ethos around culture. Appetise. Um, nothing forced is probably like our, ah, biggest thing.

Speaker A: I think, like, food's about hospitality and sharing and, like, time together and like, it's just such a natural fit, you know, and that kind of value.

Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of it is like, what would we like to do? And Then we sort of say to the team, would you be interested in doing this as well? And a lot of the time they are. So yeah, it's quite cool.

Speaker A: And like, yeah, thinking of that culture fit thing, we had a thing at Vend where um, one of the things that we asked was would you want to sit like or go to San Francisco with this person and you have a couple hours in like the airport and then the flight and then all the thing and like, you know, so it was like the 12 hour test, like would you want to sit next to this person for 12 hours? And I came on halftime so

Speaker B: I

Speaker A: need to pass the six hour test. All the crush it like it's quite, it's quite a good thing because you're like, oh man. Like you do spend your most of your life, you know, and it's really m meaningful stuff, right? Yeah. And then kind of thinking about like the Australian market and building out into that like you know, from a small market like this. It's so vital to build out there. Like what are the differences and similarities that you're found between those two markets and selling to those customers?

Speaker D: Um, I think the challenge we have with New Zealand is if it's a founder led brand or it's a brand born here, they have a lot more say around innovation, creativity. But a lot of the brands that are here are kind of um, sort of like satellites of an Australian or a global business. And so budgets are tied up elsewhere, decision. Everything just gets trinkled down to New Zealand. And I find New Zealand's this interesting space where we punch above our weight massively with great innovation. You've seen that we're all part of the tech ecosystem startups. But I feel like there's also um, a huge part of us who kind of are opposite to that. I went to this interesting leadership chat in Auckland where they showed this big chart on the board around AI and it was saying these are the countries who want AI to be banned or regulated most heavily. And New Zealand was fifth in the world which you know, pretty incredible of like a country that's so innovative and creative and big exporter and we're you know, wanting this new frontier innovation ban. So I find a lot of the New Zealand companies, it's high friction to get things over the line. It's a lot slower. I found in Australia it's complete opposite these, these brands are so hungry and they're wanting that tiny edge over their competitor. So they're just open to trying new things, test and learn, giving it A go. They almost, for corporates, think a little bit more like a startup. What. So selling there, uh, is sometimes we try and do a discovery call and learn about their problems, but often on those calls it's like, cut the crap, man. What's it going to cost me? Can we get going? Yeah.

Speaker E: Great.

Speaker D: And I'm like, we can do that, definitely. Yeah. Well, I like that model. Whereas New Zealand, it's meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting. So I don't know, I found Aussies seemingly, dare I say it, are just, especially at least in corporate, who we sell to, they're pretty fierce and they want to move quickly and they think quite big.

Speaker A: That's so interesting because like m, you know, five odd, six odd times our population, but about 100 times as much money in that country. And so there's like, you know, more scale, so a bigger prize, more tolerance for spending money. Bigger budgets.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like they just are able to kind of think and act a bit bigger than places where it's a bit more zero sum. Here it's like, well, it's 10 grand for this or I guess we're not doing the Christmas party.

Speaker D: Yeah, you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker E: Literally, often the people you speak to in New Zealand are like, we have to do this or this. Whereas in Australia it's like, yeah, we can do that, let's just go and get in with it. Which is quite cool from the consumer side as well. It's actually surprised. We knew it was going to be similar, but it surprised us how we've just been able to literally put the appetised consumer, uh, sorry, platform into Australia and it's just like, yeah, now at 45,000. And, um, I think that's been hugely helpful. We were worried about different ingredients and things like that, but it's been super easy and we haven't had any friction, which is.

Speaker A: But they're like butter chicken lasagna today.

Speaker D: It's a global.

Speaker E: Exactly.

Speaker D: The thing that we haven't been able to put our finger on though, is that the Australian audience is more engaged, so our consumer statistics in Australia are stronger, which to us just doesn't make any sense. The value props the same on the website, the platform's exactly the same, the recipes are the same, but yet we have stronger engagement with our, uh, Australian audience, which, yeah, better planners.

Speaker A: And, you know, I mentioned butter chicken a couple times, but also just in the interest of fairness, like, you can go and choose all kinds of healthy meals, all kinds of like family. You can, you can filter by all kinds of, uh, 3,000 recipes. 3,000 recipes? Yeah. That was the, that was like the surprise. Like, oh, we had no idea people would be so interested in that one.

Speaker D: Right, yeah. It's so fun being able to just see things on TikTok and Pinterest Instagram and go, meh, let's just chuck it on there and see, see what happens. It's a trend at the moment, which I have no idea how it'll land.

Speaker E: But don't talk about it. It makes me feel.

Speaker D: Nah, nah, let's get it on there. You mix banana with mints. Yeah, I know it looks as awful as it sounds, but apparently it's like really, really, really good. So you're just like, I know. And so I'm convincing Helen to put it on there. She's a bit hesitant, but I think just let the people decide if banana and mints are a match made in heaven and then we'll connect dole and silver ferns or something.

Speaker A: It feels kind of like something that would look pre digested or like horrible.

Speaker D: Yeah, it looks awful but apparently it's really good.

Speaker E: Joe's still are.

Speaker A: And as a couple of like final thoughts like, yeah, what advice do you have for businesses that are, ah, you know, pioneering a new category and then having to make, you know, brave choices, change that core focus, build out a new thing, turn off the funds, you know, and it's worked out fantastically. Right. Like the progress has been wonderful, um, since that hard decision. But yeah, like, how would you help kind of founders make tough decisions and change?

Speaker E: Uh, mine would be. Mine is all about like trust your gut. I think no one thinks about the business more than you and your co founder, co founders do and like gather as much advice as you can from people that you trust and that you value their opinion on. But ultimately like you and your co founding team know what is going to be best and you just have to back yourself and bring your team along on that decision. Um, so I think, yeah, that'll probably be mine.

Speaker D: Yeah. And I think founders, what makes us so special and unique is we often see something that no one else does very early. And so often you have this perspective on the world where you go, I think this is how the world should work. And most of the time people tell you like, you're absolutely nuts. And a lot of the times you are, uh, and you're wrong, you're wrong lots. And we see that lots of startups fail, but every now and then you're not and you create a new category and you can build Something that changes millions, if not billions of lives. And I think the advice is, like, you've had this idea for hopefully something category defining and new. What do you got to lose? You know, you're either wrong and you can go great, you know, told you so, or you're not. And I think like, that bet is always worth taking. And so I think that's like, with ours, we're like, when you're early, it's about taking as many bets as you can and staying alive to sort of prove that you're not crazy and that this will work. And I think you kind of earn the right to just get to the next day or the next week or the next month. And yeah, it feels a bit nicer now that you're a bit bigger. Uh, and you're not looking at days, you're still looking at years. But yeah, in the beginning, it's like, you just gotta try.

Speaker A: Love it. And as a final thought, what will success be for appetise and for you personally?

Speaker D: Um, I think we've always going back to the consumer side. We've always thought, wouldn't it be incredible to have a billion people using our platform? And it's a big, scary number. But we think everyone needs dinner and everyone wants to eat great food. And so why can't we be the one to solve that problem globally? I think what that means for food brands is, you know, better products that show up in market and ultimately a world where consumer brands are able to know what people are looking for and can make the right decisions. I think for us personally, we've. It's a really, like, fun phase to be in where each new day is, like, unknown territory. And so being now like a global business and having multiple markets, we sort of get really excited what the world would look like in, I don't know, markets 3, 4 and 5. And it's like creating something that has an impact on the world. I think for us, we're like, that's pretty cool. And we're enjoying kind of the small wins we're getting in that space.

Speaker E: Yeah, totally. Cause I remember when I left uni and I had finished my nutrition degree, and I just remember looking at Toby, like, what am I gonna do with this information that I have and how, like, the world is in a pretty dire state in terms of nutrition, and I don't wanna just go and sit in a hospital room and feed out, like, plans. And so I think to get it to a point where I feel like we've made like, that's actually Come to light and we've been able to make a positive impact is pretty epic. And so just trying to, yeah, as Toby said, get that into as many people's hands as possible.

Speaker A: That's really meaningful. Right? Like cost of living, crisis health, crisis time, poor world. And being able to give people a way more cost effective way to, uh. Because you are so this smart thinking behind it in terms of, you know, ordering the right stuff across multiple recipes and all the rest of it and give them good nutritious access and make it free. It's like, yeah, that's really cool.

Speaker D: Yeah. We had. There was so early in our journey, there's this amazing woman who basically got in touch and said, hey, I live with my daughter, my daughter's daughter and her husband. And her husband. Um, there's six of them in the household. She's like, since using appetizers, it was menu. I then I've saved $200 per week on my groceries. And you think, geez, you extrapolate $200 a week out over a year. It's like a family trip to Rara. It's whatever you want it to be. It's a lot of money each week. And to the point now she stops people in the store, she'll say, you know, a mum struggling or someone who looking a bit rattled and she goes, hey, get your phone out. Use the. She's like our biggest champion.

Speaker E: She is, yeah.

Speaker D: Um, I think the final point I'll add just on the success look like thing. Cause you never get told this, you never even think about this when you start a business. But it's the impact you can have on your team's life. And so I think of um, this amazing woman in our business, Kittianna. She joined, we're her first ever job. Software engineer. And our sort of original CTO was like, he wanted to place a bet on her. We thought he was a bit nuts at the time. It's like your first bet is someone who's never had a job in their life and they're gonna come build our product. He's like, yep, she's awesome. She's still with us now. She's sort of gone from never, you know, working for a company to a senior leading teams, running us some of our biggest projects. And you think, geez, like what is she going to go on to do after appetize? And I think that's been cool seeing like the internal promotions. You can get all these things where you go, we did that. Like we've kind of given people this hopefully huge leapfrog or career accelerant. And you don't think about that when you're starting it. You're not thinking about what it'll be like for everyone else. You sort of think about what it'll be like for you and the world. But you forget these people who are, like, backing your crazy idea. They're kind of as crazy as you are to be like, yeah, we'll jump on that.

Speaker A: Oh, it's been so cool to see how you've grown the team and the business and. Yeah, thanks for coming and sharing some of the story and can't wait to see where you take it next.

Speaker E: Thanks, AI. Thanks for being a great part of the journey.

Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you so much to Elise and Toby Hilliam. Thank you to. Oh, and you should go to Appetize IO and you should sign up. It's free. It's real good. Thank you for having us along in your ears and listening. Uh, thank you to everyone at the Spin off who helps make this happen, like our wonderful producer, Jin. Uh, and thank you for having us along. This is the last in this series, so keep an eye out for new things coming Inohora, The Spin off podcast network.