Proof of Usefulness Report

Zerocater

Analysis completed on 2/2/2026

+642
Proof of Usefulness Score
Category Standard

Zerocater is a well-established Series C company (Y Combinator W11) with significant real-world utility in the corporate catering space. Despite the high-value underlying business, the submission provided contained low-quality, hyperbolic, and lazy data (e.g., claiming 'everyone' as the audience and 'most people' as users). The score reflects the company's verified market position and scale (team ~150, national reach), heavily penalized by the poor quality of evidence in the submission.

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Score Breakdown

Real World Utility+225.0
Audience Reach Impact+170.0
Technical Innovation+97.5
Evidence Of Traction+112.5
Market Timing Relevance+90.0
Functional Completeness+2.5
Subtotal+697.5
Usefulness Multiplierx0.92
Final Score+642

Project Details

Project URL
zerocater.com
Description
At Zerocater, we believe food is one of the easiest, and most effective, ways to build culture in an office. We make it easy for companies to feed their employees delicious meals and are building technology to revolutionize the way employees eat. Our proprietary FoodIQ® technology learns employees’ unique tastes and preferences to curate menus they will love. We successfully launched our core product into 6 markets nationwide and recently launched Cloud Cafe, a personalized digital cafeteria that offers companies unmatched flexibility and enables employees to choose their own daily meals from hundreds of top-rated caterers and restaurants. Zerocater is changing a $100 billion industry and continues to innovate to best serve today’s dynamic workplace.\n\nFounded in 2009, ZeroCater currently serves the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston, Los Angeles and Austin.\n\nCheck out our company profile on Workatastartup: \nhttps://www.workatastartup.com/directory/171

Algorithm Insights

Market Position
Strong market validation with clear user adoption patterns
User Engagement
Documented reach suggests active user community
Technical Stack
Modern tech stack aligned with sponsor technologies

Recommendations to Increase Usefulness Score

Document User Growth

Provide specific metrics on user acquisition and retention rates

Showcase Revenue Model

Detail sustainable monetization strategy and current revenue streams

Expand Evidence Base

Include testimonials, case studies, and third-party validation

Technical Roadmap

Share development milestones and feature completion timeline