I turned a spreadsheet observation into a new revenue line for The Chefz: a meal-subscription marketplace inside their food-delivery app, powered by Techrar’s subscription APIs. I spotted the opportunity in our own numbers, designed the experience, pitched it with a video proof of concept, and saw it go live once Techrar’s APIs were integrated into The Chefz app. I then reviewed the live version and redesigned the whole journey for a multi-brand marketplace. The case covers three versions: v0 (the proof-of-concept video), v1 (what shipped) and v2 (the redesign handed to development).
The core question was not how to redesign a few screens. It was: how do you introduce a recurring subscription business model into an on-demand food-delivery marketplace without breaking what already works?
| My role | Co-Founder & Head of Product Design, Techrar product strategy, UX/UI, pitch and partnership lead |
|---|---|
| Partner | The Chefz, one of Saudi Arabia’s food-delivery and restaurant marketplace apps |
| Proposal | April 2025 |
| Scope | Opportunity sizing, business case, proof-of-concept video, end-to-end subscription UX inside The Chefz app, API integration model, brand onboarding and launch, v1 review, v2 Arabic-first redesign and developer handoff |
| Platform | iOS and Android (The Chefz native apps) + Techrar subscription engine |
The idea came from reviewing Techrar’s meals-sector data. Our meal-subscription merchants were already running over 20,000 active monthly subscriptions and more than SAR 20M in monthly GMV, without a marketplace behind them. Each brand was acquiring customers alone, through its own app.
The Chefz had the opposite profile: huge demand, a delivery fleet, and a single-order model where the average basket is about SAR 50. I saw that putting the two together would give The Chefz a recurring revenue line, and give our brands a distribution channel they could never build alone.
| Metric | Techrar meals sector today | Year-1 projection inside The Chefz |
|---|---|---|
| Active monthly subscriptions (daily delivery) | 20K+ | 40K+ |
| Average subscription price, incl. delivery | SAR 1,100 | SAR 1,100 |
| Deliveries per month | 500K | 1M |
| Monthly GMV | SAR 20M+ | SAR 40M+ |
The business case for The Chefz rested on three revenue streams:
(SAR 6M + SAR 15M) × 12 = SAR 252M projected annual revenue
There was also a timing argument. MealPlanet had raised $6M and was preparing to enter the Saudi market with an aggregated meal-plan offer. If The Chefz moved first, it could own this category inside an app people already opened every day.
The product insight underneath the numbers: a subscriber is not one order, it is roughly 20–25 deliveries a month. Retention, not acquisition, becomes the growth engine.
I didn’t want The Chefz to imagine the feature from a slide of bullet points. Before the meeting, I designed the full subscriber journey directly in The Chefz’s own visual language and recorded it as a clickable video walkthrough. The proof of concept let their team see their own app, with their own navigation, selling a meal plan.
Proof-of-concept video storyboard
Proof-of-concept video storyboard
The video storyboard, in order: the new home card → subscription hub → plan list → “Number of Days” sheet → meal selection → cart with delivery window → payment → Apple Pay → the new Subscriptions tab.