Kyle
A new L.A. based startup has emerged out of a young businessman’s need to stay thin. Jason Lewis, founder of Thindish, says that while he was an advertising executive with worldwide firm TBWA/Chiat-Day he traveled so much he noticed he was putting on some weight. His wife noticed too. Lewis told startupfounder.info his wife said: “I’ll always love you… but it would be nice if you started to take care of yourself.”
So he went on a conquest to find out how he could continue his rigorous travel schedule, take clients out, and maintain his weight line. He and his wife combed through the menus of most of the places he liked to eat out and found the nutritional values of the dishes those restaurants served. From there Lewis sought out dishes that were less than 600 calories.
He stuck to those 600 calorie or less dishes and was able to drop 70 pounds. Well if it worked for him he knew it would help for others as well, and Thindish was born.
More after the break
Lewis has been working on thindish for about a year now and has already seen some major interest. The site launched about two months ago and is already seeing 10,000 visits a month. Thindish has 480 restaurants signed up at the moment providing their menus to Thindish. Those 480 restaurants accound for over 70,000 locations nationwide.
Restaurants have access to the Thindish nutritional analyzer where the restaurant inputs their ingredients and then Thindish’s research partner ESHA Research returns an analysis which is then uploaded to thindish for users. Restaurants get to try it free for 5 days and then pay $99 per month with no commitment.
The restaurant customer has free access to all of Thindish’s information so they can pick meals that are less than 600 calories. Users can filter restaurants by location so they have a choice of venue.
Lewis has found that 75% of their mobile traffic is coming from iPhone users, so an iPhone app is next on his plate (see what we did there). After that he has plans for an Android app and then optimizing the site for mobile across all platforms.
Thindish isn’t just for folks looking to lose weight. Diabetics and other health conscious consumers can benefit from Thindish. Lewis tells nibletz:
We currently have the full nutrition listed on the site. We include Calories, Fat, Saturated Fat, Tran Fat, Cholesterol, Sodium, Total Cabs, Dietary Fiber, Sugars, and Proteins. We also have additional qualification for dishes such as High Protein, Low Sodium, Low Fat, Low Carb, Diabetic Friendly, Gluten Free, and many others. Here’s a link to the list of qualifications we provide. http://www.thindish.
com/nutritional-standards
Thindish has received a “friends and family” round of funding but with the momentum they’ve picked up already they are ripe (see what we did there again) for investment.
Find a meal that’s good for you while you eat out just visit Thindish here.
