Product Strategy

"Meal tracking made easy and guilt-free." — emealia meets you where you are.

Product vision

What	AI nutrition companion — free-text input, honest ranges, calm bands, one forward-looking tip
What it's not	Calorie counter · barcode scanner · diet app · judgment tool
Core posture	Intuition over arithmetic. Eat by feel, not by math. Companion, not referee.
Format	Mobile-first PWA — installable from browser, no App Store cut
Markets	Germany (primary launch) + USA (simultaneous). All copy EN + DE. GDPR applies.
CI	Dark mode only. No light mode planned.

Three core promises (equal weight)

Easy — one sentence in plain language, no weighing, no barcode, no database
Guilt-free — no red, no shame, no number as verdict; a treat is allowed
Intuitive, not mathematical — bands give a sense of the day, not a sum; you build instinct, emealia does math silently

Personas

emealia is not only for weight change. The product must feel useful for people who simply want to eat more consciously, understand their day better, or support a specific health context without turning food into homework.

Persona	Primary need	Product implication
Healthier eating	Eat healthier without a strict diet or weight target	Non-weight goals are first-class; Today bands can mirror nutrients the user cares about
Weight-aware user	Lose, gain, or maintain weight calmly	Weight tracking and energy targets are available, but never define all progress
Busy beginner	Cooks little and knows little nutrition theory	Plain-language coaching, low-friction logging, no dense setup
Dialed-in user	Already knows macros/micros and wants lighter tracking	Custom bands, details page, history, and export matter
Medically motivated	Doctor/nutritionist reason to watch nutrients	Careful non-medical copy; no treatment advice; clear data export

The 6 non-negotiables

N1 No red in nutrition feedback. Ever.
N2 No numbers on the main daily view. Bands + qualitative labels only. Numbers one tap away.
N3 Free trial, not freemium in the base product. Optional add-on layer later — core loop is never gated.
N4 AI free-text logging is the only primary input. No barcode scanner as primary.
N5 Value before registration. Pre-signup demo = hardcoded data, zero AI calls, zero cost; real usage requires registration.
N6 No nutrition state may look like a failure. Technical status may be shown transparently.

Pricing

Market	Trial	Monthly	Annual	Save
DE	30 free AI estimates · all features · no card	€5.99	€39.99	−44%
US	30 free AI estimates · all features · no card	$6.99	$44.99	−46%

Trial model (superseded 2026-07-07)

The trial is credit-based, not time-based: usage_accounts.trial_credits_granted defaults to 30 (admin-configurable via [usage] trial_credits in backend/config/admin.toml, currently 30), consumed one-per-AI-estimate and checked by UsageMeter.check_entitlement(). Earlier drafts of this doc (and the CLAUDE.md root context) describe a 168-hour clock-based trial — that model was replaced by the credit model per the 2026-07-07 market analysis and is what SqlAlchemyUsageMeter actually implements (trial_credits_used < trial_credits_granted); the 168 h wording is stale and should be corrected at the source.

Annual default in checkout — secondary monthly toggle
Break-even ≈ 13–15 paying users (covers ~$56–63/mo fixed infra + AI at 100 users)
Trial starts at the first real AI estimate reservation — not at registration; a separate per-user daily cap (20/day) and a global daily cost cap (13,333/day) apply on top, both admin-configurable
Stripe Tax enabled — EU VAT (DE 19%), US sales tax; valid invoices
Price is constant (founder decision 2026-07-03) — one price per market; no retention/win-back discount, no lower price on the cancel screen
No hardcoded prices — every price placeholder in the frontend is filled from the backend prices object (GET /config/prices)

Business model

Layer	What	When
Base plan	Full core loop — logging, bands, AI parsing, daily tips, history, stats	Launch
emealia Plus	Add-on subscription: recipe suggestions, deep micros, photo logging, advanced stats + export, "level up a meal"	Post D7 ≥ 30%
Micro-transactions	Not used — Stripe fixed fee (~25–30¢) kills economics at €1; recurring add-on wins	Never

Rule

Instrument premium-candidate features through UsageMeter from day 1 (free, invisible). Introduce Plus once base loop retains D7 ≥ 30%.

KPIs & targets

Metric	M3	M6	M12
D7 retention	≥25%	≥30%	≥38%
Meals / active user / day	≥1.5	≥1.8	≥2.0
Trial → paid	≥10%	≥12%	≥15%
AI correction rate	<40%	<30%	<25%
Daily tip open rate	≥15%	≥20%	≥25%

North star: weekly active loggers with ≥4 logging days/week.

Weight tracking remains a core optional surface, not a niche add-on: even users whose selected goals are healthier eating may want to check weight occasionally. It must be available from Profile and statistics/history, but it is never the North Star and never the only definition of progress.

Kill conditions

Condition	Action
D7 <20% after 200 users	Stop acquisition, redesign core loop
AI correction rate >50%	Fix parsing + portion defaults before scaling
Daily tip opens <15%	Coaching cadence / copy not landing → rework
AI cost >€0.08/user/month	Audit all AI calls — something is leaking

Human gates (founder must clear)

G1 — Band comprehension: 5 testers shown dark-mode daily view. ≥3/5 must understand bands unaided. Required before Epic 2 UI is finalized.

G2 — AI calibration: 30 real meals (15 DE / 15 US) parsed; correction rate must be <40% before scaling acquisition.

AI never merges its own PR — human review checkbox always required.

Build phases

Phase	Focus	Gate
0 · Foundation	Monorepo, BCE skeleton, DB, CI, deploy	—
11 · Design tokens	Tokens, logo, dark-mode CI	—
1 · Pre-signup demo	Hardcoded demo — value before registration	—
2 · Today view	Core daily bands UI	G1 band comprehension
3 · Logging	AI meal parsing, validation, fallback	G2 calibration
6 · Registration after demo	Value before registration; real usage starts after registration	—
7 · Auth	Google Sign-In (OAuth Authorization Code) via `AuthBoundary`, session cookie via `SessionCodec`, registration, session management	—
4/5 · History + Stats	History, statistics, weight tracking	—
8 · Trial + Payment	UsageMeter enforcement, Stripe checkout	—
9/10 · Profile + Micros	Profile, targets, micronutrients	—
12 · Meal history context	Keyword match, repeat logging, bounded history-informed suggestions	—
13/14/15 · Launch blockers	GDPR, Security, Observability — run from week 1	All green before launch

Onboarding goals (canonical set — prototype feedback 2026-07-03)

The one required onboarding input. Multi-select from: understand eating habits · improve nutrient intake · healthier lifestyle · more energy · build muscle · lose weight · gain weight · watch specific nutrients · medically motivated — plus optional free text.

No "maintain weight" option: if neither lose nor gain is selected, maintenance is certain — it may be set implicitly for AI messaging, never asked.
Lose and gain are mutually exclusive — the only hard contradiction; everything else combines freely (build muscle + lose weight is valid and common).
Goals are stored as a plain list (+ free text) — no derived flags; energy direction is derived from the list at target calculation.

Coaching

Coaching uses selected goals, cooking level, nutrition knowledge level, dietary preferences/free-text context, and logged meals. The AI API receives only the needed bounded context and returns one forward-looking daily suggestion plus every-other-day review suggestions. Meal history may inform recommendations up to a defined recency/volume limit, but the product must not promise that the AI learns over time or becomes a defensibility claim.

Marketing

Comparison SEO — "MyFitnessPal too complicated?" · "track without weighing" — high-intent, low competition
Short-form video — 6/week; 30 s demos, myth-busting, build-in-public; content angle: move from counting to instinct
Community — Reddit (r/nutrition, r/loseit) genuine; no spam
Micro-influencer seeding — gifted access, align with guilt-free angle
Paid ads — only once D30 ≥ 15%. Budget: €0–200/month pre-ads.

Core message (all channels): "Meal tracking made easy and guilt-free." · "Eat by feel, not by math." · "emealia meets you where you are."

Open founder actions

Set Anthropic monthly spend cap in Console — do this before any key is used in prod

Sign Anthropic DPA before first EU user data is sent to the API (Epic 13.1)

Add Impressum §5 DDG — legal entity details required for German market

Create AWS account eu-central-1, set up Budget Alarm + Cost Anomaly Detection from day 1

Create Google Cloud OAuth client (already implemented, story 7.1a — GoogleAuthBoundary) — a real client id/secret is still needed for beta; Apple Sign-In (7.1b) and any Auth0 EU tenant are not built and not required

Add ANTHROPIC_API_KEY to GitHub repo secrets (enables AI reviewer bots)

Run G1 band comprehension test (5 testers) before Epic 2 finalization

Run G2 AI calibration (30 real meals) before scaling acquisition

iubenda privacy policy + ToS (GDPR + CCPA) — Epic 13.4

Medical / general-wellness disclaimer (legal counsel, H10) — position emealia as a general-wellness / informational product, not a medical device and not medical advice (no disease claims → outside EU MDR / German HWG). Passive notice at registration + inline notice on the free-text preferences/context field (medical info kept as context, never acted on as advice). Feeds a versioned medical_safety AI-prompt snippet. Research + draft EN/DE copy: emealia-app/docs/research/medical-disclaimer.md; story 13.14. Counsel confirms wording, Art. 9 lawful basis, and whether an explicit checkbox is needed.