Market Research and Ideas

To make it easy and be able to find the specific need and how we can approach it with a perfect solution, we decided to do a market research, starting with a methodology called observation. This is what we got:
easel.ly Here we can see different fridges and different food according to its owner. However, we saw that there are simple and very common dishes such as salads or spaghettis easy to prepare and that all the people observed share the same food but different ways. Just as quick fact, do you know that there are more than 8.000 types of salads and more than 5.000 different spaghettis sauces? But what we found was that people are used to do almost the same salad, the same meals over and over again. In the following pictures we can see different fridges and different food we found:

In order to design an application for superior to any similar service already on the market, we conducted surveys and questioned a wide array of potential consumers of Q-Concino. Even though our test subjects ranged in ages between 18 and 26, the majority of them faced similar problems when asked questions on why they didn’t cook. Interestingly, a large percentage of the people asked did want to learn to cook or advance his or her culinary knowledge, but either was never taught or didn’t have the tools necessary to learn (cookbooks, cooking lessons, etc.). Also most of the subjects being young adults either students or just entering the workforce said that the main reason cooking was such a difficult task was because they had very little time to shop and prepare a meal after their studies or work. The final main concern our test subjects revealed to us was that even though he or she had some knowledge in the kitchen, the lack of ingredients within their home made cooking a solid meal very difficult, forcing them to either order out from a restaurant or compromise with a simple snack or meal that lacked nutrition and was very expensive. From this research we looked at similar applications already available to see whether the concerns that were raised through our questionnaire were solved by these apps. Many of the applications were very broad and didn’t take into account for the ingredients available and listed very complex and labor-intensive recipes. Also none of the websites and applications targeted a specific type of person, which Q-Cocino would primarily focus on the Spanish population. With an exception to a few applications, the majority of the services we found we simply cookbooks on your phone, computer or tablet. None of them were interactive and customizable for the consumer to put value to.

Q-Concino would far surpass the conventional cookbook and create a new market for culinary applications. It would solve the questions and concerns that were raised during our research. With focus on simplicity, Q-Cocino would allow for its users to create delicious meals and learn to cook all while not having to put any extra time and effort shopping or looking through cookbooks. The problem we saw in our research allowed for us to create certain aspects of Q-Cocino that no other application had including: * Categories of different types of food (Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Etc.) * Recipes with allergies and dietary concerns (vegetarian, Vegan) * Recipes for those with time restrictions * Recipes with ingredients already purchased * Focus on Spanish culture

By: Silvia Rubio&Jack Formica