"Grounds is not a sprint - It's a long marathon with lots of obstacles and chicanes"

The Hamburg-based start-up FoodPal has set itself the task of uniting all areas of a healthy lifestyle with its app. If you're tired of counting calories or turning your entire daily routine inside out, FoodPal is the right place for you. In this interview, co-founder David Jakobs tells us about the company's beginnings and explains the app's features.

How did you come up with the idea of developing a nutrition app?

I myself always had the problem of being very thin and I found it difficult to build muscle. I quickly realized that it wasn't because of my training, but because of my diet. In order to achieve my physical goals, I got to grips with the big issue of nutrition and began to try out my findings on myself. Gradually, my physical successes became visible to others - first in my family, then in my wider circle of acquaintances. I began to coach others and created nutrition plans for them with paper, pencil and Excel spreadsheets.

By taking into account the many individual needs, the workload became so great that I could only serve a handful of clients at a time. That's why I was looking for a solution to make personal coaching and nutrition counseling scalable.

With the help of Alexander Lüdke (co-founder), this idea then became reality - artificial intelligence and a complex algorithm take care of the user as individually and well as otherwise only a personal nutritionist can.

What is special about your app, what do you do differently?

FoodPal's philosophy as a coach is to focus on the user as an individual with all his or her wishes and needs and, based on this, to create a personal nutrition plan that can be implemented sustainably and in the long term.

Usually, nutrition apps simply create a plan with recipe suggestions that are to be eaten. However, this then requires considerable restructuring of the user's previous habits and routines. In our experience, that doesn't work in the long run. In line with our philosophy, FoodPal therefore adapts to the user's habits, gets to know him better and better and constantly optimizes itself.

FoodPal thus offers all the advantages of personal coaching by a flesh-and-blood nutritionist - but is there for you day after day and around the clock as a constant companion - ready to hand in your pocket.

This is made possible by the use of artificial intelligence and a complex algorithm that is constantly evolving - in combination with a lot of experience in the field of nutrition and an extensive recipe and food database. We laid the foundation for this with FoodPal version 2.0 in September 2021 - but this is just the beginning of something really big.

Who is the app for?

Nutrition apps are now a dime a dozen. Most of them require you to either meticulously type in all the foods you consume to the grams - which many users perceive as annoying and time-consuming - or there is a static, set diet plan to follow in order to achieve the desired goal. In both cases, this is not feasible for most in the long term, because the effort is too great or there are too many cuts in personal needs.

Lose weight, build muscle, simply eat healthier - it doesn't matter, because FoodPal has the right type of diet on offer for everyone. By the way, also for vegetarians and vegans!

What functions does the app include?

Nutrition navigation system:

We are especially proud of the FoodPal nutrition navigation system, sounds fancy, - it is, because the nutrition navigation system helps you stay on the target route to your desired weight, even if you ever "get lost".

What does that mean exactly?

Our good intentions are put to the test every day. It's your colleague's birthday and he's bringing cake, the delicious-smelling fast food is smiling at you, or time was tight again and only the delivery service can save you? You can't always defend yourself against such situations, and you also want to take part in life and not always have to say "no".

Nevertheless, such situations throw you off your target route again and again and your set goal moves again a small piece further into the distance.

FoodPal's nutrition navigation system registers when you have deviated from your goal and automatically optimizes your nutrition plan, calorie intake, nutrients and recipes. This way, you can be sure that your nutrition plan will again perfectly fit you and your goals, even if cravings for fast food have won.

Pre-cook mode:

To save even more time and effort, you can activate FoodPal's pre-cooking mode. This will cook your dinner as a double portion, which you can reheat for lunch the following day - perfect for busy people.

Other features include:

• Recipe book
• Large selection of diets
• Recipe based shopping lists
• Statistics & forecasts about your nutrients, calories and weight history
• Alternative recipe suggestions for flexible exchange
• Tracking of sports & activities
• Extensive medical history
• Chat and live support

What were the biggest challenges you had to overcome in the beginning?

Since we had little know-how about app development at the beginning, we had to build our prototype with a hybrid framework, which meant that the layout consisted of web technologies. With this, we then launched into open beta as FoodPal 1.0 at the end of 2018. At first, everything ran stably and we were able to attract over 20,000 beta testers. However, as smartphones and their operating systems evolved, compatibility issues became more common - simply put, errors occurred frequently and loyal users could no longer access their nutrition plans.

Unfortunately, we couldn't solve the problem promptly with our app development expertise at the time, and so user numbers plummeted and we started to get bad reviews.

Fortunately, we managed to further expand and internationalize our team. Thus, we were able to completely redevelop and improve FoodPal. Since September 2021, FoodPal is available in the app stores with many new features - and we are happy about every new user.

What was the most valuable advice someone gave you during your startup phase?

We were able to give the most valuable advice to ourselves. Each of us founding members has started other companies in our past. Some projects were successful, others failed. Above all, the failed projects are valuable lessons that we can draw on today. The two most valuable lessons learned were:

• Don't think directly about revenue or monetization at the beginning or don't put this in the focus. Try to solve a problem as best as possible and try to generate the greatest added value for the user. If the user is happy and his problems are solved, the monetization models will emerge almost on their own.
• Founding is not a sprint - It is a long marathon with many obstacles and chicanes. Every obstacle can test your faith in the project. Only with a lot of perseverance and willpower are you able to cross the finish line.

What has been your biggest success so far?

The biggest emotional success is to see how many people use FoodPal and to be able to accompany their way to "their nutrition" - the great messages and thank-yous are the biggest motivation.

In terms of operational success, we have managed to generate over 40,000 downloads through purely organic growth and are seeing increasing user numbers every month.

We were able to convince an app development agency with over 200 employees to join forces with us, and several well-known media and retail companies have already taken notice.

What are your milestones?

• End of 2018: Launch of the open beta
• September 2020: Joint venture (app development agency)
• September 2021: Release FoodPal 2.0
• September 2022: 40,000 downloads
• For 2023, we will connect more languages and develop great new features that make coaching even more personalized and promote the fun of healthy eating.

Where do you see your startup in 3 years?

• FoodPal will be one of the top five nutrition apps, with more than 10 million downloads.
• In addition to the DACH region, FoodPal is expanding across Europe.
• Our artificial intelligence will be much more advanced and we will be able to coach even more personally and individually and help more people.

About the people:

We are a dedicated threesome with diverse backgrounds and specializations, whose roots criss-cross Germany. From Hamburg to Lake Constance and back to the Dutch border.

Alexander Lüdke is Co-Founder and our technical mastermind, responsible for development, artificial intelligence and backend.

Thomas Stewing is Co-Founder and CEO with years of experience in the management of larger companies like BASF and Berner.

David Jakobs is Co-Founder and CrossMedia Designer. He is responsible for UI / UX and all nutrition specific content.

More about FoodPal at: https://www.foodpal-app.com/de/

Thanks a lot!