Kerbside viability report

01The idea in one line

Kerbside answers: “What's this gathering, and who will be there?”

It's a place + time + lineup question that no one currently answers well in South Africa.

Origin story: spotting food trucks in a random parking lot and wondering “Why here? Who else is coming?” That instinct — discovering a live, ephemeral gathering — is the wedge.

02The problem

Discovery in Cape Town's mobile-food and pop-up scene lives on Instagram and Facebook, which means:

• Not searchable

  You can't ask “which trucks are near me today?” or “what's at Oranjezicht this Saturday?”

• Follower-gated

  You only see accounts you already follow — so you rarely discover new favourites.

• Organizer-centric

  Posts often feature popular vendors only. The long tail stays invisible.

• Ephemeral

  Stories vanish in 24 hours. There's no lasting “plan for this weekend.”

Today, each organizer and each truck posts in their own silo. Kerbside aggregates that behaviour into one visitor-friendly place.

03Why this can work

• Cape Town already loves food trucks and weekend markets (Oranjezicht, Neighbourgoods, and others are habits, not experiments).
• Vendors already announce locations — Kerbside aggregates existing behaviour instead of inventing new habits.
• Clear two-sided value: vendors get reach beyond their follower count; visitors get one place to plan the weekend.
• No local incumbent owns the “real-time + event lineup” position.

04Risks & headwinds

1. 1

   Cold start (top risk)

   Users won't come without vendors; vendors won't update without users.

2. 2

   Data freshness

   If locations go stale, the product fails. Updates must be one-tap — not a form.

3. 3

   Manual updates decay

   People forget. Expect light nudges (e.g. WhatsApp) or organizer bulk posting later.

4. 4

   Market cooling

   The food-truck craze is softening. Validate demand before over-investing.

5. 5

   Thin early monetization

   Banners and boosts only pay once there's real traffic.

05Competitors

Takeaway: the tech isn't novel. The moat is local density + market-lineup framing + freshness. Win Cape Town deeply before expanding.

06MVP features (v1)

Principles: no account needed to browse; vendors self-manage.

• Map + list of vendors, filterable by cuisine and “open now / this weekend”
• Event / market pages — the key differentiator: lineup of who's there, when, and where
• Vendor profiles — photos, cuisine, socials, upcoming locations
• Vendor dashboard — edit profile + set location in as few taps as possible
• Optional account only for favourites; “who's active this weekend among my favourites”

This site is the static demo of the user-facing half (dummy data, no accounts or backend).

07Future features (post-MVP)

• Alerts when a favourite is live nearby
• Organizer accounts to publish whole market lineups (freshness + bulk onboarding)
• Non-food stalls (clothing, crafts) on the same primitives
• Simple vendor analytics and, later, pre-orders
• Boosted placement during events
• Reviews, trends, “trending this weekend”

08Monetization

Design for it. Don't build the machinery yet.

• Now: banner slot in the layout + a boosted flag on vendors — zero cost, avoids rework later.
• Not yet: ad-serving, payments, or boost purchase flows.
• Strongest near-term model: pay to boost visibility while active at an event — contextual and tied to real value.
• Longer-term (from Roaming Hunger): connecting organizers with vendors for bookings may matter more than ads. Not for MVP.

09Overall viability