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Наталя ХандусенкоStartup
10 September 2026, 13:34
2026-09-10
"In Ukraine, the level of environmental awareness of consumers turned out to be lower than in Europe": the startup Meal for Deal changed the direction of development a year after its launch. What did they bet on?
Ukrainian startup Meal for Deal, which aimed to reduce food waste and save users money, decided to change the direction of development a year after its launch. From now on, the platform focuses on providing marketing and technological tools for promoting coffee shops, restaurants and cafes. Founder and Fullstack developer Vyacheslav Vodopyanov spoke about the results of the first year of work, the reasons for the changes and new features of the service
Ukrainian startup Meal for Deal, which aimed to reduce food waste and save users money, decided to change the direction of development a year after its launch. From now on, the platform focuses on providing marketing and technological tools for promoting coffee shops, restaurants and cafes. Founder and Fullstack developer Vyacheslav Vodopyanov spoke about the results of the first year of work, the reasons for the changes and new features of the service
The first year of a startup — the first insights for change
The first year after launch turned out to be a stage of searching for optimal solutions and adapting to the Ukrainian market.
"2025 was quite calm - all efforts were directed at finding partner establishments in Kyiv. We launched advertising campaigns on Facebook and Instagram to attract new establishments to the platform. Applications for registration through advertising were received, but we were unable to bring the owner of the establishment to the final point - registration in the Meal for Deal system. The owners either lost interest or simply stopped getting in touch," says Vyacheslav Vodopyanov.
The team realized that the reason was too long onboarding, so they decided to move all the functionality of managing the institution from the mobile application to the website. From now on, there is no need to download the application — this stage has been completely removed, and to register an institution, you just need to go to the website. This decision gave results and allowed us to quickly attract two more institutions.
Reasons for transformation
The reason for the change in global direction was the specifics of the Ukrainian market. According to the developer, the level of environmental awareness of consumers in Ukraine is currently lower than in European countries. This prompted the team to transform Meal for Deal into a marketing tool that allows you to find nearby establishments and order special offers with big discounts. For partner establishments, the team launches promotional campaigns on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook completely at its own expense.
What Meal for Deal is offering now
Two months ago, Meal for Deal significantly expanded its functionality by analyzing the market of QR menus and related services. After registering, establishments receive access to a control panel with the ability to customize it for their own brand, connect POS systems, set up zones and QR codes for each table. In addition, the options “Delivery” with a flexible radius and pricing, “Takeaway”, as well as “Order at the establishment” are available. The latter function allows the client to scan the QR code on the table and place an order in 2–4 minutes, bypassing the wait for the waiter during peak hours.
Meal for Deal calls its main advantage over competitors — services such as ChoiceQR and Poster Site — its completely free model.
"The key difference is that we offer all the functionality for free, because we understand how difficult it is for Ukrainian business now, especially in the HoReCa sector," emphasizes Vyacheslav Vodopyanov.
Currently, the startup is deliberately working exclusively with Kyiv institutions to optimize marketing costs and focus on the Kyiv audience.
In the technical part, the team actively involves artificial intelligence, although it emphasizes the need for constant human control.
"Artificial intelligence is actively used in development, but it requires constant control: we clearly understand the logic of its decisions, but each result — generated code, proposed architecture or correction — requires careful verification. AI significantly speeds up development at the code writing stage, but the main part of the team's time now falls not on the generation process itself, but on reviewing, testing and bringing the result to the required quality — correcting errors, eliminating irrelevant solutions and adjusting it to the architectural requirements of the project," shares the Fullstack developer.
What's next?
Meal for Deal's future plans include improving the platform based on feedback from restaurateurs, expanding integrations, and gradually scaling the service to other cities in Ukraine.
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