Our Product team works to constantly improve Fiksuruoka–Foodello’s online store – to make reducing food waste a recurring habit for our customers. Among other things, it’s a lot about testing new features in different markets, and scaling them to tens of millions of people through a fast and agile process.
When Eljas Jalo, Team Lead in our Product team, started working at Fiksuruoka 3,5 years ago, he’d been working as a consultant for many years. The idea of focusing on just one product felt good. Also working in an influential role in a fast-growing business was a great next step for his career.
He was the 10th employee at Fiksuruoka, which has now grown into a group of 56 people in Helsinki and Amsterdam.
Katja Tallberg, our Lead Designer, on the other hand, had been designing digital services for 15 years. In the beginning of 2022, she considered several different options for her next career step, but ended up choosing Fiksuruoka.
“I was told that at Fiksuruoka it is possible to take ownership and make an impact on the small team’s development work, all for a good cause. These things piqued my curiosity, and made me want to join. Now they have completely come true, even better than I expected”, Katja says.
“We make independent decisions on how to develop our online store – so that reducing food waste would become a recurring habit to our customers internationally.”
“The problems we are solving with our tech team are extremely interesting to me. How can we support our customers in making a habit out of reducing food waste, and at the same time help them save money?", says Eljas.
There are several reasons why products end up in our store with great discounts – best before date is just one. Because of the changing product packaging or incorrectly calculated consumption, they might be under the threat of going to waste. These products are given a new chance to end up with customers.
“We do a lot of technical improvements all the time to make the service so functional that a new customer immediately understands what it's all about”
Katja says that it’s the matter of deeply understanding the customer’s motivations for buying food waste products, and leveraging that knowledge. Saving money is an important motivation for the customers.
“We influence the customer to just try it for the first time. We do a lot of technical improvements all the time to make the service so functional that a new customer immediately understands what it's all about – that this is not a traditional online store”, Eljas continues.
Katja and Eljas say that it feels meaningful to develop a product that you can stand behind ethically. The core value is to reduce food waste, and only that.
“In the team we have this joke: it’s our dream that one day our store will be empty. The point is not to sell for the joy of selling, but to sensibly reduce food waste. That's our mission, which is simple to explain to anyone”, says Katja.
“It’s our dream that one day our store will be empty.”
“In the tech team we act as a gatekeeper to ethics, when optimizing the store. We could always try new things to make more sales, like creating a sense of urgency. But we want to develop a service that feels good to use again and again – something that we’d love to use ourselves”, Eljas says.
“Testing new things with different methods is a huge part of our job in the tech team. We collaborate with, for example, our marketing, data analytics and customer service experts closely to test new features, and to decide which things to further develop and scale”, Katja says.
One of our testing methods is that there’s a hypothesis of something that could be beneficial to the customer. Then the tech team creates MVP versions, and those can be tested by beta testers. The successful functionalities are identified based on data. Then they are refined, and scaled to different markets.
“Less than 6 months ago we started testing a hypothesis of a new category feature. The customers would be able to follow their favorite product categories, and receive notifications when, for example, coffee appears again in the selection. The coffee selection is not always the same, so it makes sense to follow the whole category, not specific products”, Katja explains.
“In total, up to 20 million people could be using the new feature after 6 months.”
The feature was first tested in Finland with a small group, and then scaled up to a larger test group. Finally, the feature was fully released in Finland after a few months.
“It has now also been released in the Netherlands and Belgium. In total, up to 20 million people may be using it after 6 months”, Eljas says.
The development of Fiksuruoka–Foodello’s online store is a collaboration between several teams. Everyone works towards the same mission.
“After all, our Product team is a central part of what the whole company does.”
For example, for a new feature to be released, there can be an e-mail marketing professional taking care of the email notifications to go with the new functionality. Our data analyst then monitors and analyzes how the whole feature is working. The customer service team is informed of what functionalities are being published, and how customers can be supported in using these.
“We have regular status checks with the teams we work most closely with. After all, we’re a central part of what the whole company does”, Eljas says.
“What is great about the small company is that we all know each other. During the day, anyone can just come to chat about an idea. We listen to everyone's suggestions”, Katja says.
“We’re definitely not just a feature factory implementing features when ordered. Far from that”, says Eljas.
The tech team has the autonomy to decide what things to focus on. They design, implement and iterate the new features. There are some high level strategic focus points according to the company’s strategy – they act as guideposts for the development work. Otherwise, the tech team has full ownership.
“Full ownership also means that we have to prioritize a lot, because the list of great new ideas would otherwise be endless.”
“Any of us in the team can suggest what we should do. There is no hierarchy, but we get to build things that are in line with the company's strategy. It means that we have to prioritize a lot, because the list of great new ideas would otherwise be endless”, Katja smiles.
Opening new markets in the Netherlands and Belgium has been a massive, company-wide effort for us at Fiksuruoka–Foodello. And we’re only just getting started with growing internationally – more new markets will be opened in the coming months and years.
“Before starting to expand internationally, the maximum number of customers was 5 million in Finland. Now it has already reached tens of millions. The product must also in the future make it possible for a growing number of visitors to use the store simultaneously”, Eljas says.
But growth is not just about making the product work as well as possible. The Product team has grown from 3 people to 9 in just one year. The headcount of the entire company has grown massively. Therefore, building the team, building connections between our people, and developing the collaboration requires a lot of focus.
“When the company is growing, building the team, building connections between our people, and developing the collaboration requires a lot of focus.”
“When growing a team, there is a growing need to figure out how to build the best working methods for ourselves, too. And we are allowed to take full ownership of that”, Katja says.