Ep 157 Allison Schaaf, the founder of prepdish.com, an online meal planning service that sends weekly downloadable real food, gluten free, and paleo meal plans. Listen as Nathan and Allison talk about how Prep Dish uses Facebook ads and influencers to acquire customers.

3 Key Points:

• A great way to acquire new customers is to reach out in places where current customers spend their time. (Blogs, social media, events)
• Prep Dish has had the most success gaining customers through influencers such as 100 Days of Real Food.
• For a meal plan service such as Prep Dish, the churn rate varies depending on the time of the year. This can apply to other seasonally dependent services.

Bio

Allison Schaaf is a chef and nutritionist who is also the founder of Prep Dish. She holds a masters in Nutrition Communications from Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:00 – Nathan’s introduction to today’s show
• 01:27 – Allison joins the show
• 02:08 – Prep Dish started as a personal chef company (that still exists) where customers would personally consult Allison for their meal plans.
• 03:00 – Prep Dish is a monthly prescription service for 14.99$ a month or 99$ a year.
• 03:26 – As of November, the service has around 1,100 paying customers.
• 04:48 – The churn rate for Prep Dish depends on the seasons, with January and August being the busiest months of the year.
• 07:19 – Some customers switch to a yearly plan to save money. Allison’s company sends out emails to ask if they want to switch.
• 07:50 – Screenshot
• 08:40 – Allison spent about 5K a month on Facebook ads for four months which generated about 40K in revenue.
• 10:14 – Nathan talks about Jamie Tardy, a coach Allison worked with.
• 10:53 – The average monthly subscriber yields 43$.
• 11:47 – Allison’s found that the best tactic for her business is working with influencers.
• 12:32 – Allison talks about working with 100 Days of Real Food.
• 13:35 – Another way Prep Foods reaches people is by surveying their customers where they spend their time online and acquiring new customers from those places.
• 14:09 – Prep Foods makes about 10K a month.
• 15:39 – The Famous Five

Resources Mentioned:

• Growth Geeks – The way Nathan hires growth hackers on a per project basis for things like info graphics, blog posts, and other growth projects
• Prep Dish – Allison’s business
• Twitter – Prep Dish Twitter
• Instagram – Prep Dish Instagram
• Facebook – Prep Dish Facebook
• Periscope – Prep Dish Periscope
• Automatic Customer – Allison’s favorite book
• Infusionsoft – Allison’s favorite online tools

 

Famous 5

• Favorite Book?— Automatic Customer by John Warrillow
• What CEO do you follow?— Her Husband
• What is your favorite online tool?— Infusionsoft
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be?— Take it from a nutrition expert, avoid gluten!

Credits

• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

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