We are half-way through our research project on Citizen Apps. Below, you will find our findings from our conversation with Dean Jenkins who created the PapayaHead App.
Developer: Dean Jenkins
Bio: Dean holds an Executive MBA degree from the University of Washington. Prior to establishing PapayaHead, Inc. in 2006, Dean spent 14 years working as an Enterprise Software Program Manager at Intel Corporation. In addition to his work at PapayaHead, he serves on the Pastoral Staff at Mountain View Church in Tumwater, Washington.
App in Focus: PapayaHead
Federal Citizen App Program: Department of Agriculture’s “Apps for Healthy Kids”
Recognition: 2nd Place
Description of the app: PapayaHead is a family meal planning website and app that allows family members to fill out a unique and individual profile of food preferences. Logging things such as likes and dislikes, as well as allergies and other nutritional requirements. From these profiles, a family can build meal plans for the day which display the nutritional value of their meals and its impact on their profiles. In addition, the plans, recipes and shopping lists may be printed.
Who is the app intended to serve: Families and individuals looking to coordinate and plan their meals.
Why was the app developed: The initial motivation was for a website application to meet his own meal planning needs for his family. He always had the desire to be an entrepreneur and start his own company. Dean saw this as a business opportunity to do something he cares about and start a successful business.
The application was not developed for the contest. It was already under development. A registered dietician on their team heard of the contest and recommended they participate since they met the challenge’s criteria.
Examination of other apps: The team looked at what was available like Jenny Craig, they found that nobody was doing what they were specifically proposing to do. Other programs were doing bits and pieces, but not exactly what they were trying to build.
How was the app developed: They spent 2 years planning (benchmarking and functionality), and came up with the functional requirements that answered what they would want to be able to do with it. The PapayaHead team worked with an offshore development firm to build the web app, but due to communication issues and other complications, the app turned out to be more of a prototype. However, through the process they learned about things they hadn’t considered before. In addition, to technical roadblocks, they also had to pause development a couple times to fund raise, primarily from friends and families.
He launched a beta version in 2009 to gathered user feedback and addressed necessary changes. The app did a full launch in 2010. This app was a web-based application. They do have a derivative product that uses the main engine on their web app which was recently launched.
Communication of app availability: They started out using word of mouth to share their product. They sent emails to ask others to look at PapayaHead, to provide feedback, and to share it with others. They did some small Facebook ads, but did not spend much on a major marketing push and relied on word of mouth.
Issues of privacy: The best way to ensure the privacy and security of users is to limit the data they collect. All large organizations have breaches of security, so there really is no system that’s 100% safe from a breach. They just limit the data they collect in order to better protect their users. They do have system protections in place like firewalls. Within the application, rather than ask for sensitive things directly such as, “Do you have any heart diseases?” they would ask, “Do you want a healthy heart?”.
Realization of original goals: They would like to see more users on their site. They were hoping the site would go viral on its own, but unfortunately this hasn’t been the case. They have more features they want to add, but it’s a slow and gradual process.
Overall Challenge experience: In sum, Dean noted it was enjoyable to go to DC, but it would have been better to see the First Lady Michelle Obama there since she sponsored it. They were hoping to be able to get a picture with her it would have enhanced their experience.
Advice for federal agencies:
- After looking at other challenges, these challenges aren’t something an entrepreneur is able to take too seriously because the prizes and amount of effort going into most of these isn’t significant. Right now it seems more directed towards hobbyists and enthusiasts. It’s hard for someone who is looking to turn this into a serious business to take these challenges seriously.
- Some winners may want to take things further and turn their thing into a company. It would be more beneficial for the challenges to have the goal of helping their winners build companies that continue to tackle these problems if they so choose. It would be better putting together a larger prize because the current prize offerings for most challenges aren’t something you can gain much from. Even better, would be to provide connections and mentoring to build a business. Something similar to GE’s challenge.
- The only feedback they received from the challenge was being informed that they had won 2nd place in the challenge. People like Steve Wozniak and Mark Pincus were among the judges for the challenge, but they did not interact with them at all. It would have been extremely beneficial to receive feedback from them or, even better, have a chance to talk with them and others, such as venture capitalists.