What does your business do?

App DuJour is a two-sided web app that creates a customized menu-feed consisting of dishes from nearby food trucks and restaurants, based on the user’s GPS location in real-time. It can be customized according to the user’s dietary lifestyle, budget and allergy preferences, to deliver a customized survey of dining options. Moreover, App DuJour is an hassle-free marketing tool that allows restaurateurs to upload vibrant photos of their dishes, along with mouth-watering descriptions that appeal to customers. Searchable tags are applied to each dish to allow customers to find what they are looking for as efficiently as possible.

How would you use the grant money?

The $1,000.00 grant would be useful in several small, yet very important capacities. With the first version of the web app complete in late fall, we are opening our beta period this spring. $225.00 would be used for trademark filing with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The remainder of the funds would be allocated to offset app operating costs and cover sponsorships for at least two Triangle food events in the Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina area to increase brand awareness.

What would the grant enable you to do that you can't now?

The grant money would ultimately allow us to extend our time in a free beta period by two to three months, which may not sound like a lot, but would be critical in enabling us to quickly grow an early and engaged audience while further refining App DuJour’s user experience.

If Idea Cafe's Grant helps your biz reach greater success, how will you "pay it forward" to help others in some way?

App DuJour was always intended to be more than just a revenue-generating endeavor. From the start, the company's vision was to build a platform to build bridges between small businesses and potential patrons, as many of these businesses do not possess large marketing budgets. In the short-term, we will hold quarterly or semi-annual contests to sponsor food menu photo shoots for new food trucks and restaurants, less than a year old to help those businesses make a strong first impression. Looking forward, one long-term goal to pay it forward is to design a stand-by program where App DuJour partners with relief organizations like the Red Cross to coordinate with food trucks and restaurants in and near areas that are affected by natural disasters, to provide hot, healthy meals to volunteers and displaced community members as part of a food truck armada, similar to the way volunteer citizens with boats made up the "Cajun Navy” for search and rescue during Hurricane Katrina.