Using Social Media for Meal Prepping Business

Introduction
The implementation plan for the Meal Prepping business is to design the organizational structure: the company will necessarily have to be organized as a non-profit with 501(c)3 status to ensure that big donors can write off donations, which is a major incentive for many who wish to support non-profits. The business will need to be self-sustainable, however, and cannot count on relying on federal dollars, as the government itself is already heavily in debt and future years are likely to see big cuts in federal spending. The business’s success will thus depend upon partnering with other local businesses to gain visibility, using crowdfunding (Zhou & Kuo, 2018) to gain seed money that will support early investment in the business’s development, and using social media in the same way Elon Musk at Tesla has done to turn his $10 a share electric vehicle car company into a world-saving environmentally-friendly car company with a mission (Malhotra & Malhotra, 2016). In other words, to get this business to grow it needs to be marketed as an idea that people want to get behind and support.
Physical and Technological Resources
Physical resources depend on capital accumulation, and as a non-profit with a mission-oriented vision for the business the appeal to donors will be the articulation of the vision and the ability of the company to get that vision out to the public. Social media will be a tremendous help in this avenue, as it will allow the company to gain traction at the grassroots level and seek celebrity endorsement (Stever & Lawson, 2013), which can greatly enhance brand visibility and assist in crowdfunding to get the company’s brick-and-mortar store open and operating. Sponsorships are another effective way of providing an income stream (Lunt & Nicotra, 2018).
The technological needs of the business are going to be substantial as well. The modern app business model used by Uber and Lyft as well as Doordash and other service oriented businesses is one that could be utilized here as well. Families that want to sign up for meal delivery can use the app to place an order and ensure that the child will have a meal at dinner time. The organization will be able to rely on volunteers for delivery of meals after some training on how to engage in safety and security best practices. The volunteer delivery service will require that the business is able to gain suitable traction with people who want to help feed American children in a way that does not require them to have to work in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter, which can be an off-putting idea for many and keep them from serving those in need. The delivery app will allow those who want to volunteer and feel good about contributing to the betterment of the community to pick up the meals from the meal prep location and then deliver them to the waiting children. The app will need to be developed and an infrastructure built out at an estimated $35,000 based on going labor rates for app development. Volunteers and full-time employees will be required in terms of human capital (drivers and cooks) and a supply chain will have to be instituted (costs here will range between $250,000 and $450,000 annually, depending on demand).
Volunteers will reduce costs and be relied upon whenever possible for delivery services. Cooks will full-time employees in order to ensure stability and consistency in the kitchen. IT support will need to be kept on staff but maintaining a clean, simple to use app without frills will eliminate overhang of having to store and secure reams of Big Data. The goal will be simple, effective, and free—and that will mean combining volunteer assistance with paid workers to deliver a quality product for kids in need.
Implementation Schedule
The first step is to pitch the idea to the public by launching a social media campaign with video uploads on YouTube explaining the service, which can then be linked via the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and the Twitter reveal using the hashtag #EveryKidEats. Celebrity endorsement will sought and since it is a good cause it should be simple to obtain endorsement from celebrities who want to support missions such as this one. That will further encourage grassroots support and giving to the campaign so that the brick and mortar location can be opened and the meal prep service and app begun. The first month will be the capital funding. This will include the social media campaign, the seeking of sponsorships and big donors, and the development of the app, the meal prep division and the scouting and locating of a brick and mortar kitchen where kids can eat and hang out and read in a safe environment.
The second month will be a busy one as supporters will want to see their donations being put to work. The kitchen will have to open, volunteer help secured, and full-time cooks employed. Managers will be required to train employees and the second month will focus on building out the human capital infrastructure so that by month 3 into this project, the business is ready to open its doors and start feeding America’s youth. Each dependency in this step will focus on specific tasks. In all there are four: 1) achieve a successful social media campaign to increase brand visibility and secure funding, 2) secure volunteers and full-time workers, 3) develop the app, and 4) outfit the kitchen for service. The critical path to success will depend upon an integration of these four drivers, but the main two will be the crowdfunding and the celebrity endorsement, as these will go hand in hand.
Project Review Processes and Indicators of Success
The review process will begin with the social media campaign. The first task is to make the YouTube videos explaining the goal and mission of the non-profit so that the public can get interested and want to support it. The video must hit specific points—why the business matters, how it will help, and why people should donate so that it can succeed. Second task is to get the crowdfunding platform going: the same points need to be communicated on the platform. Third, the campaign has to be promoted. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are how it will be promoted—but some contact with celebrities will be required in order to get recognition for the business. The appeal of the business will be measured by number of followers on social media, number of likes, and donations on the crowdfunding platform. Weekly goals for numbers will be devised based on long-term view of first year funding. If numbers are not being met, more networking will be required, and more reaching out to alternative channels to help get the campaign the traction it needs will be pursued. Following this, the review process will shift to the IT development of the app: it will need to be designed, developed, tested, and implemented. Support will be required for the go live week but beta testing should be a way to iron out the kinks along the way. Constant review and feedback from social media followers about the app will be helpful, and indicators of success will be a continuation of likes, positive qualitative feedback, and growth in app downloads among the targeted community.
How Entrepreneurship Factors into the Plan
Entrepreneurship factors into the plan based on our willingness to take action, to try an innovation approach to a long-standing problem in the community, to embrace creativity and the communal spirit that is driving the success of firms today—companies like Tesla that want to create a better tomorrow and thus rely on caring investors to help make that vision possible. Intelligence, of course, is needed and so too is solid leadership, which has of late been one of the big problems facing Musk as CEO of Tesla (Yauney, 2014). There will be a need to coordinate and collaborate with others—from kitchen management to volunteer management to IT support and so on. There will also need to be coordination with community leaders who want to assist in helping to spread the word about making sure kids are fed and helping to gain support from big donors like Fortune 500 companies, which are bound to have a stake in the community and have a corporate social responsibility program that will allow them to contribute in an effort to promote and foster greater sustainability. The protection of intangible assets such as intellectual property will be dependent upon the ability of the company to patent its approach, though this is likely not to be successful. The best protection will be a solid build-out of the infrastructure and a quick capture of the market as there is no other organization out there doing this type of work.
Conclusion
The implementation plan for this business is to start by raising awareness of the company’s mission. As a non-profit it will depend upon having the support of donors, both big and small, and that means having a very visible and appealing brand. Messaging is going to be highly important and that is where the social media campaign must come into play. This campaign will have to be monitored and reviewed to make sure that channels are being maximized and networking is done correctly. Once the funding is secured, the build-out can begin.
References
Lunt, T., & Nicotra, E. (2018). Event Sponsorship and Fundraising: An Advanced Guide. Kogan Page Publishers.
Malhotra, C. K., & Malhotra, A. (2016). How CEOs can leverage twitter. MIT Sloan Management Review, 57(2), 73.
Stever, G. S., & Lawson, K. (2013). Twitter as a way for celebrities to communicate with fans: Implications for the study of parasocial interaction. North American journal of psychology, 15(2).
Yauney, R. H. (2018). Leadership Development: A Study of Elon Musk. Marriott Student Review, 2(2), 4.
Zhou, S., & Kuo, C. (2018). How Social Media are Changing Nonprofit Advocacy: Evidence from the Crowdfunding Platform in Taiwan. The China Nonprofit Review, 10(2), 349-370.