"food-stagram" in an app.
beli is a social restaurant tracking and recommendation app founded in 2021. the app is based in the philosophy that friends know best. key features include personal restaurant rankings, personalized recommendations based on individual and friend reviews, a leaderboard that gamifies dining, and more.
currently, beli's main target audience is college-aged students. in order to grow its user base in a sustainable way, beli focuses on 1) user retention, and 2) user acquisition.
provide insights as a target user.
as a college student myself, i have first-hand experience with beli and how it has spread across campus. through a college consulting project, i collected 200+ survey responses and conducted 15+ interviews to understand current app usage of users across u.s. college campuses. i then mocked-up feature ideas to address insights from those responses.
ideate and mock up new features.
as a product consultant, i spearheaded three main features based on user interviews:
- discovery via swiping
- custom shared lists
- reposts
interviews, surveys, & focus groups.
inherently social features drive organic growth.
what distinguishes beli from its competitors (e.g. google maps, yelp) is its inherently social features. beli taps into one's closest network through social dining, and features such as tagging and shared recommendations organically onboard a significant portion of its users.
beli is one of my favorite apps—not just because i like to eat, but because i have seen how it has popularized dining into a social habit. i believe in the power of digital tools to bring people together in-person. beli has capitalized upon dining being a communal activity, and added additional reasons for convening. my personal vision for beli is that it further brings secondary networks together through shared interests in restaurants and proximity.
