Comments on postThistle
Luke Beard
@lukesbeard · Creative Director/Co-Founder at Exposure
Bravo guys! I have consumed these meals many times and they are excellent!
Christoph Auer-Welsbach
@awchristoph · Partner, IBM Ventures | Deep Tech
Saw quite a few concepts of food delivery services. The bottleneck seems to be the behavior of the customer who is not eating on a consistent basis (time, location, etc.). Additionally, often not the food is causing health problems, but the way they eat and when. How do you plan to tackle this?
@awchristoph Great question. Our service is actually incredibly convenient for customers that may not know where or when they can eat during the day. We deliver all of your meals for the day in the early morning (as early as 6am) and all you need to do is refrigerate, grab before you leave for the day using our thermal bag and eat when it works for you. It's a bit like having an incredibly healthy and delicious meal "packed" for you. :) People are often inconsistent in their eating behavior because of how busy they can get during the day. This means that a lot of folks grab a convenient and often unhealthy option (e.g. fast food, bag of chips) or skip meals altogether. By having our meals by your side, you are able to actually eat a chef-prepared + nutritionist designed meal when it suits your schedule. :)
Ira Willey
@irawilley · AddictingGames, OneMoreLevel & FreeRider
How do you handle the actual delivery? If most of your deliveries are at 6am, what happens at apartments or situations where the person isn't at home?
@irawilley @awchristoph We actually have two delivery windows at the moment: 6-8a and 8a-10a. We give delivery notifications so that you know exactly when your order is arriving and when it is actually delivered. We also deliver everything in a thermal bag with ice packs designed to keep meals safe and fresh for hours so many folks have us leave with a concierge / doorman or in a safe place (e.g. porch or outside their door) and grab when they can.
Kyee
@kyee · Designer and Investor
I've been a customer / subscriber of Gousto here in the UK for a year now. They are very, very good and as far as I know dominate the UK market. A big selling point for me is they promote use of Organic ingredients. Given how health conscious the kind of people who would consider this service is, that should be a big focus imo.
Jack Smith
@_jacksmith · Serial Entrepreneur & Startup Adviser
I bought before when it was the on demand service and the food quality was very good (didn't try the juices, tried the meals)
@_jacksmith Thanks for the kind words! You should give the new service a spin (and try the juices!). :)
Eddie Wharton
@eawharton · Data Scientist, Dinner Lab
There is such a large opportunity around eating at home. To successfully feed yourself, a person has to manage supply chain logistics, menu curation, prep cooking & being a nutritionist. It requires way more time and skills than most people want to devote to food. Curious how you define healthy. Also, what is the price?
@eawharton Hi Eddie. Completely agree. We did a quick test and found that on average we saved 1.5-3hrs per day by eliminating having to source / prep / cook food ourselves. Throw in nutrition / menu design and the time savings is even more! Our meals start at $10 fully delivered. We believe the best approach to nutrition is focusing on the whole dietary picture – how nutrient dense foods are rather than focusing on a single metric such as calorie counts. Calorie counts offer a very narrow – and often misleading – view of nutrition. Many foods considered “light” due to lower fat or calorie content are chalk full of chemicals, salts, sugars or sweeteners and little else. By contrast, foods like avocados, nuts & seeds have higher calorie counts but are loaded with essential vitamins, minerals, and healthy fatty acids (e.g. omega-3s and omega-6s). That said, our foods are always proportioned optimally so you don’t have to worry about over-eating. And you can rest assured that a diet full of clean, healthy, nutrient-dense foods in the right proportions will help you feel your best, reach your optimal weight, and rev up your metabolism to leave you feeling light, satiated yet energized!
Simon B
@siburb · iOS Developer
The food photography is absolutely beautiful, and I really agree with your reasoning behind the subscription model - much easier to predict your ingredient requirements, and obviously wasting less is better for the environment and the bottom line.
Sheel Mohnot
@pitdesi · ThePitch.VC
@siburb Thanks so much! For the photos we have to thank our absolutely AMAZING photographer @lukesbeard, a generally awesome guy who is also the guy behind the incredible Exposure (https://www.producthunt.com/tech...), Exposure New Tab (https://www.producthunt.com/tech...), and Statshot (https://www.producthunt.com/tech...)
Corley
@corleyh · COO @ Product Hunt
@pitdesi @acefell thanks for sharing. I find the decisions behind your business model particularly interesting. Talk to us about the sources and quality of food, which is another area I hear is challenging! PS I just added Thistle to my subscriptions collection.
Sheel Mohnot
@pitdesi · ThePitch.VC
@corleyh We love talking about the sources and quality of our food! I'll get our head chef Callie on here when she gets free. We source locally (generally within 150 miles of SF), organically food as much as possible, and try to build relationships with the farms in the region. One cool thing we do in that regard - some of our farmers come and pick up our food waste (juice pulp, fruit/veggie skins, etc) to use as feed and fertilizer... full circle! We really lucked out by starting in one of the most food-rich environments on earth... there is so much amazing produce to be had within driving distance of us! But as we think about expanding to other cities, I think it'll get a lot tougher.
Navin Kulkarni
@navinkulkarni · Achieveee
Really liked the format of the site! Looks 'Unfairly delicious' :) Added to my collection of Subscription Based Products https://www.producthunt.com/@nav...
@navinkulkarni Hi Navin - We think it's 'unfairly delicious' as well. :) I'm Ash and i'm the CEO of Thistle and i'm happy to answer any questions you have. We're really excited about our new platform and think it's an awesome way for people to put their nutrition on auto-pilot. We would love any feedback from the Product Hunt community on how we can make eating healthy / organic / delicious food even more convenient.
Ian Mikutel
@ianmikutel · PM Lead, Microsoft OneNote
Where does Seattle rank in your next city list? How are you determining where to expand and in what order? Would love to know about the thought process here. Keep up the great work!
Magnus Burton
@magnusburton · www.magnusburton.com
I want this so bad!
Steve RAFFNER
@steveraffner · Innovation Agent, my friends call me "Q"
Feeding people with good/healthy food is awesome ! go on !
Sachin Agarwal
@sachinag · Founder at Braid and Product at Nylas
Hey, awesome to see. What's the reasoning behind not doing 1x or 2x a week? I'd love to do it for 1x or 2x a week to cover the days that I'm responsible for cooking; I suck at making vegetarian food, but we eat veggie during the week to reduce our carbon footprint (and I'm too old to eat enough meat on the weekends to wash it out).
Sheel Mohnot
@pitdesi · ThePitch.VC
@sachinag I can't believe that you of all people are eating veggie these days! We do have a 1-day trial plan (https://www.thistle.co/trials). 2x a week is a good idea, but we wanted to keep things simple to start. Thanks for the feedback, we'll try to get 2x up and running in a couple of weeks.
Luis Solano
@luisobo · Lead Platform Engineer @ Pixable
Looks fantastic! any plans on opening NY? – I'm getting hungry... 😜
@luisobo NYC is a great market! Hope we can get there soon. :)
jack rometty
@rometty_ · student
not availible in my area yet :( Sheel, how do you feel about Chicago?
Sheel Mohnot
@pitdesi · ThePitch.VC
@rometty_ I feel GREAT about Chicago. I lived there for 5 years before moving to SF and still have my place in Logan Square... I think Chicago would be a fantastic next market for us... Will keep you posted!
Andrew Benton
@andrewmbenton · CEO, Charge
Looks great. Wondering if there's a way to do short-term unsubscription though? Like a "Pause for a week" button? Would be useful for avoiding wastage while on vacation.
@andrewmbenton There is! From your account, you can pause anytime and resume when you're ready with two clicks!
Piero Borgo
@pieroborgo · CCO & Co-Founder, Leevia
@damicosimone check this out
Hey! I saw you guys some weeks ago but never pulled the trigger. Is there a quick summary of yous vs PlateJoy etc.? I've used Plated before (not that healthy, more cheffy driven)
Jack Smith
@_jacksmith · Serial Entrepreneur & Startup Adviser
@1wu platejoy seems to be offering grocery lists and mealplans. these guys make meals
@_jacksmith @1wu ah right. how does it compare to https://angel.co/farm-hill ? That's what my officemate uses in Palo Alto.
@1wu Jack Smith hit the nail on the head in that our meals are fully prepared. We also design each meal / meal day to provide the optimal amount of nutrition to make sure you stay healthy and energized. Re Farm Hill, as far as i know they aren't subscription and you have to order by a set-time the day of. We also provide meals / juices / snacks for all of your meals vs. lunch or dinner.
@acefell @1wu cool--are you quantifying nutrition in any way? my last data science project at Stanford with Palo Alto Medical Foundation did this: http://www.grellin.org with MD Lenny Lesser here in the Bay
Fletcher Richman
@fletchrichman · Partner, Kokopelli Capital
How do you guys compare with GreenChef? https://greenchef.com/
@fletchrichman Great question. Green Chef (as well as other meal-kit subscription companies) is solving for a different use case -- the aspiring chef who is intimidated by having to buy ingredients, find recipes and learn how to cook. A lot of our customers tried these programs and found that they were wasting many of the meals because they still didn't have enough time to cook them! Our meals are chef+nutritionist designed and fully prepared so that you can eat well and save time. We also offer the full-suite of meals, which includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks (e.g. healthy chia pudding) and our line of raw cold-pressed juices. We aspire to the best solution for customers who want to take all of the hassle out of eating delicious and healthy meals. Because we produce and deliver the meals locally, we are able to offer better pricing (meals start at $10) and fresher food compared to having to ship ingredients. Finally, our meals are focused on health in addition to taste, quality and variety. :)
Fletcher Richman
@fletchrichman · Partner, Kokopelli Capital
@acefell Great answer! It wasn't clear from the landing page that the meals are fully prepared - maybe just because I assumed it was a Blue Apron competitor. Excited for you guys to come to denver.
Heeya
@heeya_and · CEO, AND Corporation
Hey, I just added your awesome product on my Collection. ‘App for Life.’ http://bit.ly/appforlife I just look forward to see Thistle in our country. Thanks. Please, check it out. @pitdesi