So I’ve applied for a government grant to help with funding for Alfred, and as part of making it to the second stage, I have to do something I’ve been dreading… a 3 minute pitch!
And while I know you’ve probably heard the story about how I struggled with my weight already, any feedback about my pitch will not only be greatly appreciated, but increase the chances I’ll be successful.
Thanks in advance!
At Alfred, we believe anyone on the planet can be healthier, so they have more energy for the things they love.
And when I was playing Rugby for Australia, the biggest drain on my energy was my lack of control around food, and the impact it had on my self-esteem.
While I was lucky that being a big eater was almost a job requirement, I hated what I saw in the mirror, and returning to the "fat club" after every off-season was demoralising.
But once I stumbled across tracking what I eat, I got out of "fat club", lost 15kgs since retiring, I have more energy for my work and family, and done it all while eating normally and having 3 young kids.
I'm also more confident and resilient, which I believe is the result of regularly having more energy, and being tired less.
I believe many people are chronically tired as a result of modern lifestyles, and when friends and family couldn’t lose weight using the same tool I’d used, I got frustrated and wondered why.
But I learned that despite studies showing that keeping a food diary is one the best ways to lose weight, most people find tracking what they eat too complex and time consuming to do regularly.
Also, bodybuilders and most of the fitness industry have convinced people they need to eat perfectly, weigh their food, and count every calorie in order to be successful.
But from my experience, simply being mindful when eating has worked a treat, and the easiest way I've found to be mindful, is to track what I eat… without being obsessive.
So with that in mind, we built Alfred- a meal tracking service that helps track your food for you.
We do the work of searching through food databases and estimating calories for the user, in a similar way to paying an accountant to do your taxes.
Our competitors boast to having millions of food items in their databases, but the people we've spoken to, find the huge selection overwhelming, and are happy to pay a small monthly fee to outsource the work.
So how does Alfred work?
Users simply send us a photo or text of their meal, and either myself or a nutrition student from the University of Canberra looks up the nutritional info, estimates the portion size, calculates the calories and returns the results to user before their next meal.
Alfred then remembers the user’s food preferences and eating patterns, and predicts what they’ll eat next to save them time and effort.
Image recognition technology is rapidly improving, and barcode scanners can quickly identify many foods. But not all foods have barcodes, and many of our users either forget or don’t want to take a photo every time they eat.
And while it’s unlikely our current approach will scale globally, we have ideas about how to make it work, and believe it’s currently the easiest solution available that covers all food tracking scenarios.
Alfred was launched for free on Christmas Eve last year, but we recently introduced a subscription and have 130 subscribers paying $4.99 per month, and processed over 16,000 meals along the way.
The Alfred team includes Dom Millar (Xero & Karbon), Nash Khanal (ANU Computing & AI Graduate), Duncan Buchanan (Xero) and myself, and if we win the icon grant, we’ll use it to fuel our expansion into the USA and other countries with high obesity rates and smartphone usage.
Alfred is currently only available on iPhone in AUS and NZ, with the Android version coming soon.
And in order to launch globally we need to:
Provide 24/7 support (currently 18/7)
Restructure our database so users only see foods available in their area or country
Increase our meal process capacity from 1000 to 100,000 meals per day
and begin automating the meal review process.
So in summary, I believe an answer to a large part of the obesity epidemic is to create a fun and simple food diary app that:
Helps people easily understand how much energy is in food, and how much they need to function well.
Help people better understand their eating habits and how much energy they’re consuming (and burn) daily, so they can be informed and make better decisions.
And as Apple CEO Tim Cook said recently “Data changes behaviour”.
I believe everyone wants to be healthier, but are confused how to go about it, and if we can give people the right data at the right time, and present it in a way they can understand… then I believe anyone can improve their health and live a happier life.
Thanks for your time.
I wish you all the best with the pitch Ben. Public speaking is literally my worst nightmare so I cant help with much advice there, but I do work for an ad agency, and we pitch a lot. 3 minutes is a really short time, so you cant fluff around too much. I would present it as: Here is the problem (obesity levels) and back it up with both data and personal experience. Then here is our solution. Talk about why it works in human terms. I think you already explain all this stuff really well, so it should go really smoothly. Also make a nice looking presentation deck. No powerpoint!
Well done Ben, a great pitch and I am sure you’ll be successful. If I had one comment to change the pitch slightly, if you can help the listener personally relate to the struggle of weight loss and how Alfred will help them. Not an easy thing to do but if successful they then have a personal connection to Alfred. If you have a wordsmith available who can work their magic, it may help. Just my 2 cents mate, and you may disagree… that is allowed.