Dumped $3,000 into a fancy meal kit delivery app that flopped

Back in 2019 I was convinced people wanted gourmet meal kits with local ingredients, so I spent about 3 grand building an app and marketing it around Portland. The whole thing was just me and a friend working nights and weekends. We got maybe 20 signups in the first month and most of them cancelled after the first box because the produce went bad too fast. I didn't test the supply chain at all, just assumed farmers would be reliable. The money went to a developer who ghosted me halfway through the beta. Has anyone else poured cash into something that seemed perfect on paper but just died on arrival?

2 comments

2 Comments

blair_gibson7812h ago

Maybe the real problem was assuming local meant reliable... supply chains are brutal.

kimr335h ago

Blair_gibson78 brings up a good point. Read this piece the other day about a farm co-op that went all in on local delivery last spring, then got wrecked when a late frost wiped out half their crops. Everyone thought they were being smart bypassing the big distributors, but you're right reliability is a whole different beast. Those small scale suppliers can't just pull from a warehouse in another state when things go wrong. Makes you wonder if we've romanticized local a bit too much.