Consumers to consumers food tech startup. Airbnb of the food industry

Ygg is an online platform that connects producers of home cooked food (Chefs) with consumers. We aim to be the first large scale consumer-to-consumer (C2C) company in the food and beverage (F&B) industry. Our competitive advantage will be the network effect generated by our first mover advantage in the food C2C market as well as our focus on delivering satisfaction to our ecosystem which includes Chefs, consumers and employees. Just like how Airbnb is dominant in spite of competition, we aim to have such a wide base of users that it will not make much sense to switch to a different competing platform.
Our research has shown that there is unmet demand for both suppliers and consumers of home cooked food. A portion of the population crave home cooked meals when they miss meals at home. Home chefs who want to sell their products do not have a platform where they can access a large customer base. In addition, customers of existing food delivery services feel that delivery has much to be improved on in terms of variety, speed of delivery and customer service. More than 90% of home cooks we surveyed were willing to list their food for sale and more than half of consumers would be willing to purchase food from non-commercial establishments. The market is thus ripe for Ygg to provide an effective solution and this is also supported by the various market analyses we have conducted.

Aside from a platform for Chefs to list their food, Ygg will also provide a delivery service. Revenue will be earned by charging a commission from the listed price and a flat rate delivery fee. Assets will include a motorcycle fleet while the main operating expenses will be wages, fuel and maintenance. If our coverage of Malaysia reaches our objective of 80,000 meals delivered daily, our gross margin in the long term can exceed RM 100,000 per day. This long term target will require venture capital financing. It naturally follows that international expansion is planned once the Ygg business model has been proven successful.
In the short term, before chefs start to list on the Ygg platform, we will hire an in-house chef to cook tasty and affordable meals on demand to establish our presence with consumers. The chef will be based in Johor Bahru and serve the Molek area, a business district with a lack of easily available good food. Once we can deliver 100-200 meals daily and establish smooth operations, we will commence inviting Chefs to list on Ygg upon passing our quality checks.
Our initial funding requirement is RM 200,000 which will allow us to purchase assets such as delivery equipment and give us enough working capital to last us around 6 months, by which time we target to have achieved our short term meal delivery goals and be able to operate sustainably on that scale. Once that milestone is achieved, we will seek further funding to expand regionally.

The Ygg team, comprising Royston Tieh, Perry Chen, Luke Lim, Shaun Yeap and Ellis Choy are excited to spearhead the next revolution in the F&B industry and are committed to sparing no effort to ensure that Ygg will be successful.

The Ygg business consists of 2 main parts, an app-based online marketplace and a delivery service. The online marketplace is where our Chefs list their food offerings and users can place orders. Ygg will have our own in-house delivery service.
The Ygg app is designed for ease of use by both the Chefs and our users. Aside from having a virtual shop front where Chefs can post food photos, descriptions and prices, the app will also let the chef set a quota for each dish as well as the time period that dishes are able to be ordered. Users will be able to request delivery within a particular time window and make special requests to the Chefs. Real time delivery status as well as time estimate will be available. Various payment options will be accepted including cash and electronic payment. A review section will be provided for users to provide their feedback on the quality of the food. Users can opt for self pick up at a discount to save on the delivery fee.
Our Chefs will mainly be non-business owners although Ygg will also invite food stall operators such as hawkers to list on the app. Those without a valid licence to sell food will have to undergo a hygiene course to provide assurance to our users that the food will be safe to consume. Quality of food will be verified by Ygg tasters before Chefs can list on the app.

Finances

Ygg will generate revenue by charging for its services. There are 2 main sources of revenue, which are the commissions from the chefs and the delivery fees. These will be in line with the industry norms.
Ygg will take a commission from every transaction conducted on the Ygg app platform. We will charge 25% of the listed price.
We will charge a RM2 delivery fee for each delivery. This will help to offset the costs associated with delivery personnel wages, petrol and maintenance of our Motorbike fleet.

Taking a conservative view, if our delivery coverage in Malaysia after 2 years can reach the coverage which Deliveroo has in Singapore after 1 year, we could be delivering 80,000 meals a day in Malaysia and generating a gross margin in excess of RM 100,000 daily.

Perry Chen has a double honours degree in engineering and business from the National University of Singapore. Perry has worked 3 years for oil giant ExxonMobil where he led numerous projects and troubleshooting efforts which saved millions of dollars and earned him multiple awards. Also a decorated former national level athlete, Perry enjoys strategy games, travelling and savouring good food. Perry will lead the business development and operations strategy for Ygg.

Luke Lim is accredited by ACCA to be a Certified Accounting Technician and has experience in the logistics and supply chain sector. Luke has managed vehicle fleets and has led customer service and operations teams. Luke will lead the sales and operating team for Ygg. His love for the pork rib dish bak kut teh is legendary.

Shaun Yeap has a master of science degree in Computer Games Programming and also a degree in interactive software technology. He developed the core of the Ygg application. Shaun is by nature a thinker and he believes that everything has a reason for existing or happening. Shaun will lead the full-stack development for Ygg.

Ellis Choy graduated with a degree in Interactive Software Technology and has 3 years experience with mobile programming specialising in SMS mobile payment and 2D multiplayer games. His two loves are aesthetics and food and as a result, he likes to discover food that evokes a sense of beauty. He studied that because it gives aesthetic pleasures and he loves to create it with codes. Ellis will ensure that the Ygg application has an intuitive user interface and a fantastic user experience.

Ygg was founded to meet the craving for home-cooked food. The founders were lamenting how late hours at work led to eating out during one leisurely yum cha session and discovered that we missed the food cooked at home, especially after too many days eating at hawker centres or ordering food delivery. Home cooking, a labour of love, was still the most healthy and delicious. Having had meals at one another’s homes in the past we agreed that all our families cooked tasty meals. What if, we asked, there was an app where we could order fresh home cooked meals delivered to us instead of the common restaurant options available on existing food delivery apps?
Will home cooks (we call them our “Chefs”) want to sell their food for some extra income? We did some surveys and it turns out that housewives thought it was a great idea. Others who liked being able sell food in a non commercial setting included those for which the sales would be an important supplement to their income and those for which cooking and/or baking was a hobby they wished to be able to make some money from. Our surveys also told us that people wanted an alternative to restaurants for food delivery.
And that’s the story of how Ygg came about. Ygg is a platform to connect Chefs with lovers of home cooked food with maximum convenience.
Ygg is short for Yggdrasil, also known as the “World Tree” or the “Tree Of Life” in Nordic mythology. Its roots and leaves touch different worlds, connecting them together. Likewise, we imagine that our Chefs provide nourishing food to our users who in turn provide welcome cash to sustain the livelihoods of our Chefs.

We request an initial funding of RM 200,000 to prove our concept in the area of Molek, Johor Bahru. A quarter of these funds will go towards asset purchases of delivery, kitchen and office equipment. The rest will be working capital for 6 months to fund wages and operational and marketing activities.
As Ygg is essentially a network good, it is crucial to seed our food sharing platform with food that will readily be available for order and delivery. To this end, we will hire a full-time in-house chef who will be able to provide a limited menu of dishes on demand from a central kitchen. The price of each meal will be kept under RM10. 2 helpers will be provided to the chef to facilitate order acknowledgement, kitchen operations and food packaging. A team of 5 full-time delivery personnel will do the deliveries.

This proof of concept testing will differ from our envisioned full scale service in several key areas. Firstly, there will be no home-based chef to provide food as their offerings will likely be limited in variety and their availability window for food preparation is likely to be small. Our full-time chef will ensure that all orders will be met. Secondly, we will only accept cash until we have sufficient scale to justify adding electronic payment. Lastly, we will provide the distance between the central kitchen and the location of delivery but no time estimate until we reach the right scale.

The location of Molek is ideal for testing the Ygg concept. It is a commercial district with limited food outlets and travelling in and out of Molek as well as parking are inconvenient. Office workers make do with average and crowded food establishments or send people out to take away food for consumption in the office. By targeting several blocks of offices in Molek, we will be able to carefully control the exposure of Ygg and hence ensure that our fledgling cooking and delivery team will not be overwhelmed. Scaling up within Molek will simply be a matter of increasing the Ygg exposure to more office blocks.

We aim to be cash flow positive (from operations) by month 3 of our operations and have the capability to break even within 6 months. The basic monthly fixed costs amount to RM15-20k. In the median scenario where we deliver 250 meals/day, our monthly operating profit will be RM10k. Our stretch target of 750 meals/day would mean hiring additional chefs and monthly operating profit may hit RM50k.