Build an SMS Produce Bidding Tool for Chefs and Suppliers

1. 1

   Prove the spread manually first

   For two weeks, take real produce lists from a few friendly chefs and collect quotes yourself from three suppliers. If weekly savings are not visibly worth it on real invoices, stop; if they are, those numbers are your entire sales pitch, with the chefs' permission to share them.

2. 2

   Keep the chef interaction to one text

   The chef forwards the list they already type (or a photo of it); parsing the shorthand ('2cs roma, 1 flat straw, 10# yellow onion') into structured items is the hard technical work and the whole user experience. Anything that asks a chef to tag items in an app loses to the status quo.

3. 3

   Recruit suppliers with found money

   Regional produce houses and farm distributors quote by text all day already; you bring them consolidated demand they did not have to sell for. Start with three quality suppliers per metro; enough for real competition, few enough to keep relationships personal.

4. 4

   Deliver a decision, not data

   The chef gets one message: item-by-item best prices, the one-tap accept, and flags where a cheaper supplier means a second delivery. Let chefs split orders or lock favorite suppliers for quality-sensitive items; produce is not a commodity on every line.

5. 5

   Charge the side that saves money

   A flat monthly fee to the restaurant priced under the documented monthly savings. Avoid taking a percentage of order volume early; it motivates you toward bigger baskets instead of better prices and suppliers toward quiet workarounds.

6. 6

   Win one metro dense before touching a second

   Liquidity is local. Ten restaurants and three suppliers in one city is a working market; two restaurants in five cities is nothing. Chef networks are tight, so let the first kitchens' invoices recruit the rest.

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