Mint

Defining the Problem

The Market

As the economy becomes more globalized, people become increasingly disconnected from the source of their food. Communities have started to become more conscious of what they eat and where their food comes from.

We believe that there is value in buying seasonal produce from local vendors. With the rise of health and environmentally conscious consumers, we want to make the process of shopping for fresh and sustainably sourced produce more convenient.

Understanding our Users

User Interviews

We have two core user groups: the consumers and the farmers. We went to local farmers’ markets in Berkeley to conduct user interviews and develop a deeper understanding of our users.

Using the takeaways from our research, we created user personas and corresponding high-level user stories to define the demographic of our main users.

Our Consumer Users

During our interviews with consumers, we tried to understand their

grocery shopping habits
cooking and diet habits
farmers' market habits
painpoints when grocery shopping
decision-making process when purchasing items

We found that:

Time and efficiency of shopping trips is a major pain-point for users.

Users value haptic feedback as a measure of freshness when shopping for produce.

Users feel discontent when having to wait to attend farmers’ markets.

A graphic that displaying information for a made-up persona. At the top, vector art of a woman with straight hair. Underneath, the name Susan Kuang displayed in big font. Underneath, it says "I want to foster connections with local vendors that share my values."

A graphic that displaying information for a made-up persona. At the top, vector art of a man with straight hair. Underneath, the nameJack Miller displayed in big font. Underneath, it says "I want a convenient way to access fresh product without the usual hassle of shopping."

Our Farmer Users

During our interviews with farmers, we tried to understand their

sales strategies
business operations
experience with marketplace and delivery services

We found that:

Farmers don’t want to lose out on connections with the communities that they serve.

Farmers struggle with marketing their businesses.

Marketplace services should aid in usual business operations instead of adding extra work.

A graphic for a business client persona. At the top, a vector art of lettuce over orange background. Bay Area Organics, the Mid-Sized Farm. "We want to expand our reach of markets to serve health-conscious patrons."

A graphic for a business client persona. At the top, a vector art of a farmer over a green background. Hernandez Produce, the Family Farm. "We want to deepen connections with the loyal clients that we service in our community."

A graphic for a business client persona. At the top, a vector art of a leaf with arrows cycling around it over a purple background. Clean Soul Farm, the Innovative Eco Farm. "We want to empower sustainable consumption of fresh produce."

Market Research

Competitor Analysis

We identified our indirect and direct competitors, then conducted an in-depth analysis of our top 3 competitors, evaluating their performance in categories related to our initial value propositions.

Competitive Analysis Chart for Mint, Amazon Fresh, GrubMarket, and Farmbox California.

For fresh & local delivery, all competitors meet the requirement.

For "buy from farm of choice", only Mint meets the requirement.

For "connection with farmers", both Mint & Farmbox California meet the requirement.

For "autonomy over produce choices", all companies except Farmbox meet the requirement.

For "organic and sustainable", only Mint & Farmbox meet the requirement.

For farmer end of marketplace, both Min & Farmbox meet the requirement.

A key takeaway is that Mint meets every requirement.

Refining our Value Propositions

After our multiple rounds of research, we obtained a better understanding of our users and the short-comings of our competitors. We then refined our previously defined value propositions based on these insights.

For consumers:

Have easy and convenient access to the freshest produce from your local vendors.

Build meaningful connections with farms and businesses that share your values.

Exert autonomy over the type of produce that you consume.

Control the environmental impact of your consumption.

For farmers:

Strengthen connections with loyal clients in your surrounding community.

Access new avenues to market your brand and mission to a broader audience.

Grow your business conveniently without over-reliance on another party.

Building the Product

Validating Our Idea

Since our idea relies on a double-sided marketplace, we had to focus on supplying one side. Our primary business goal is to recruit a small group of farmers to try out our service, and prove its quality to consumers.

We hypothesize that consumers will then begin signing up for our service, which allows us to prove the magnitude of demand to more vendors, allowing more onto our service as a result.

By focusing on acquiring a small group of vendors to try out our platform, we have more time to choose farms we believe would provide the highest quality of business for our consumer users.

Validation Methods

Test run of our service

We partnered with a farm at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market to deliver fresh produce to the surrounding community. We launched a form for orders online, and delivered orders from the market to those who had made a purchase.

our team with the orders

our first customer

orders from the market

Preliminary Survey

We asked community members about their connection with their foods origins, their satisfaction with their current produce options, and pitched our idea to them.

We found that

92%

felt disconnected from their food's origins

79%

felt dissatisfied with their current produce options

83%

were interested in trying out our service

Creating the Product Backlog

After validating our idea, we started defining features for our product backlog.

high level user stories

broken down

specific user stories

We added each specific user story to Jira, where we ranked the stories by level of importance according to our value propositions and difficulty of execution.

Starting from our highest ranked user-stories, we engaged in a conversation-confirmation process to better understand the issue we are trying to solve for our users and define specific metrics to measure the success of features.

Example of the conversation-confirmation process for one specific user story.

Example of a conversation-confirmation for one specific user story.

Final Product

Mobile Mockups

After creating our conversation-confirmations for our user stories, I started building prototypes for the mobile platform according to our priority roadmap.

Consumer Facing End

Empowering conscious consumption

We want to give consumers autonomy over their produce selections and the businesses they support. Thus, consumers have the choice to shop by item or by farm, and filter results based on metrics that consumers care about: organics, sustainability, seasonality, and more.

Fostering meaningful connections

Consumers will have access to information about vendors, such as their history and mission. We have included a “badges” feature where we award farms for sustainable and ethical practices. Consumers will be able to “favorite” farms and continue to support them.

Flexible purchasing

We will have both delivery and market pick-up methods to account for the diverse needs of our user base. Consumers can choose the option that works best for them.

Two screenshots of the Mint interface overlayed. The interface in the background shows a search filtering feature. The interface in the foreground is the homepage of the interface,

Marketing Collateral

In addition to completing the designs, I was also in charge of creating all marketing materials for Mint.

A variety of screenshots of the Mint mobile interface displayed over a green background.

Mint: Digital Farmers' Market

Background

Team Acknowledgements