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Grubwithus (YC W11) Brings Strangers Together Over Social Meals
- brandnewlow 16y agoMet the Grubwithus guys at the last HN Chicago meetup and they impressed the heck out of me as guys who enjoy and have experience running businesses. Best of luck to them!
- cfontes 16y agoOfftopic - I envy you guys so much for having HN meetups, I think I am the only Brazilian that reads HN (very unlikely), because nobody answers me about a Brazilian one.
- ianl 16y agoI gotta echo this, I live in Halifax Canada and wish there were some meet ups here !
- brandnewlow 16y ago<troll>You should envy us! The last Chicago one had about 30 people show up and was far and away the best one I've ever been to. There's great people here in Chicago.</troll>
- alextp 16y agoI'm another brazillian who reads hn and comments regularly enough. Live in são paulo, phd student in machine learning at unicamp.
- phowat 16y agoAre you from Rio de Janeiro? If so feel free to email me.
- cfontes 16y agoNope :( I live in Campinas... Close to São Paulo
- toumhi 16y agoGuys, I'm not Brazilian but you should check out http://hackernewsers.com/users.html?User[city]=&User[countryId]=76&User[timezone]=&yt0=Search http://hackernewsers.com/users.html?User[city]=&User[cou... there are some people from Brazil :-)
- patio11 16y agoDitto. (I regularly get back from HN meets wondering where all these crazy talented people hide out at when not at HN meet ups.)
- brandnewlow 16y agoThat was one of the most madcap fun evenings I've had in a while. It was great seeing people pop out of the woodwork and hearing about what they're working on. Great to see GrubWithUs taking flight!
- benzheren 16y agoDoes the site actually check gender? Saw several female only meals with reservations from guys.
- eddylu 16y agoYeah it's a little confusing. Those are actually the YC alumni that will be speaking to female founders
- jetaries 16y agoCongratulations. I am looking forward to the dinner.
- mayank 16y agoFor those browsing, it's well worth the read. Their positioning as an alternative to the groupon model is very interesting. I wonder if they think they can match the same scale though, even if it's just for restaurants. Overall, great idea! I'm going to give the Chicago version a try.
- anemitz 16y agoNice. Rock on, guys!
- jacquesm 16y agoWhat a neat idea! Having food together is the best way to socialize anyway, time flies and you have something to do, no awkward silences :) Maybe this is something to market to the airbnb userbase? Serving food to strangers for a fee is bound to raise some eyebrows though, this time not from jealous hotel operators but from the people that lord over food safety and cleanliness in commercial settings, especially if you also serve alcohol.
- petercooper 16y agoYeah, though "underground restaurants" have been steadily growing in popularity nonetheless. A British example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/feb/10/underground-restaurants-london http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/feb/10/undergrou... I also watched a Jamie Oliver documentary series about food in the US and he managed to wangle his way into similar places in a few US cities (mostly oriented around Mexican food).
- jacquesm 16y agoWhen you advertise online using a public service it's not very underground any more.
- cfontes 16y agoI don't agree with that, a lot of underground bands and artists use online only advertisement like last.fm and deviantart.com and still are underground. It's just about the way you market it... you can narrowcast your marketing to only the people you wanna hit, so you keep the underground feeling but get more customers.
- ianl 16y agoDepends how you define underground, as long as it is not popular in the mainstream I think you can consider it underground.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- wccrawford 16y agoI'm not even a very social person, but I think this is a great idea. If I'm bored sometime, I might just try it.
- johns 16y agoSomeone needs to build this for dating.
- eddylu 16y agoA few people have actually dated after meeting on Grubwithus. Job offers too. These things happen semi-serendipitously, which makes it better, because everyone goes to the meal with the context of meeting new friends, not some awkward dating context.
- lifestyleigni 16y agoI agree completely. When there are preconceived expectations it can cheapen the act or make it seem less genuine. When there are no expectations or ulterior motives beyond interesting conversation, the most real and genuine things are forged. It's better when things come up natural in conversation.
- jjcm 16y agoOut of the box it seems very speedatingesque. While amazingly fun if you have a good group, one bad guest might ruin the night for the rest of the group. If this takes off, then awesome - a new way to meet people. However I think that the grubwithus guys are going to hit quite a few social hurdles along the way.
- csallen 16y agoCongrats, looks great!
- jclemenson 16y agoGreat idea. Suggestion: for me location matters more than date so maybe add a map view?
- daishin 16y agoMap view is a good suggestion. We are hoping with more volume we can release something of this sort.
- kadavy 16y agoI tried this a few weeks ago in Chicago and it was great. One of my favorite parts is that we didn't have to worry about splitting up the bill. I'd love to set up grubwith.us's open only to my friends. Paying in advance also eliminates the flake factor. This will probably change as I say this: but women outnumbered men 2 to 1 in the dinner I attended (8 & 4). What other social startup has an early adopter profile like that?
- daniel-cussen 16y agoWomen were only outnumbered 2 to 1? Though that's not completely successful, that's pretty good.
- sparky 16y agoOther way around.
- cachemoney 16y agoI just wanted to say thanks for not demanding permission to post to my wall when I linked my facebook account.
- daishin 16y agohaha yea we hate that ourselves
- shashashasha 16y agoAlso for not having the "access my data at any time" permission which every app seems to want to do these days
- namityadav 16y agoGreat idea! And I'm impressed that you're so responsible with Facebook. All the best!
- atomical 16y agoGreat idea.
- DaniFong 16y agoGreat idea! I'm already signed up :-)
- rjett 16y agoHow are people grouped together? Are people able to screen the other people that they'll be eating with? Maybe that would take some of the serendipity out of it, but it could also help curb some of the superficial conversation that occurs upon meeting someone for the first time.
- daishin 16y agousers can check out each others profiles and decide if they want to eat with them or not
- stx103 16y agoThis reminds me of Rirkrit Tiravanijas work, a contemporary artist who uses the experience of a shared meal and its underlying mechanisms to create a space where strangers can connect (usually it takes place in a gallery) and form new communities.
- jl 16y agoWe're hosting a bunch of grubwithus dinners in the Bay Area with YC alumni for women interested in learning more about startups: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2144852 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2144852
- duck 16y agoEither these guys are confused or they missed the notice: http://www.grubwith.us/restaurants/la-briciola-san-francisco/meals/77# http://www.grubwith.us/restaurants/la-briciola-san-francisco...
- emmett 16y agoActually it's an opportunity for women who want to get into startups to talk to YC founders - most of whom happen to be men.
- duck 16y agoMy bad, that makes total sense now. I was the one confused.
- narrator 16y agoI wonder if there's such a thing as startup groupies. /joke
- pbiggar 16y agoI was at some YC parties with some girls who really seemed like groupies (from a distance, I didn't actually talk to them).
- rdl 16y agoI was stupid and bought a seat to give to a female potential-startup-founder friend of mine (mainly because it was the last seat, and she's already asleep), but it signed me up instead. Oh well.
- brandnewlow 16y agoAlso, FWIW, the new home page is LIGHT YEARS better than the old one. Great job. Got a designer referral?
- boredguy8 16y agohttps://www.grubwith.us/signup https://www.grubwith.us/signup The "What city will you be eating in" lists S.F. after "other" -- straight alphabetization? Struck me as rather odd.
- daishin 16y agoThanks!!!! We will change that out to put "other" last
- yaseming 16y agogreat idea. i will definitely try it out when it comes to boston!
- raquo 16y agoGreat idea in itself, but also because services that give implicit dating opportunities always win.
- yesbabyyes 16y agoI'm sure you've thought of this, but fwiw: you should do this for big corporations. I thought of something like this as a tool for bigcos and large companies, where on my experience people tend to have lunch with the same small click, and not having particularly fun. If they could have lunch with a random group of colleagues from different parts of the company say once a week to start with, I think that would really spark new ideas and improve any company.
- daishin 16y agoThanks!!! We are currently rolling out companies through our Grubwithus Groups, whereby companies can have meals around topics like "team building," "strategy,""dept A meets dept B," etc. Company members will join the Group and will get notified when there are meals for them to reserve. We are hoping to roll out lunches in the near future and like you said, it would be awesome to have fun company lunches to meet other colleagues.
- kin 16y agoGoodness, I can't wait until this hits LA and SD!
- daishin 16y agoThe more people sign up in those spots, the quicker we will launch. Should do well in both those areas.
- d3x 16y agoEvery single one that I want to go is Females only. Dont you think that men would also like the opportunity to lern from YC founders?
- scottshapiro 16y agovery cool - looking forward to a berkeley dinner!
- dools 16y agoAm I the only one here that finds the use of the term "Social" as it refers to "Social Media" to describe a social activity that is possibly the most ancient form of socialising, disconcerting?
- mattdeboard 16y agoNo, you aren't. Social is just a buzzword meaning "meeting strangers by means of web technology."
- acangiano 16y agoLove their 404: http://www.grubwith.us/oops http://www.grubwith.us/oops
- daishin 16y agoExcept that means something went wrong on your end!
- brianbreslin 16y agolove this idea. groupon+eventbrite+opentable of sorts so i hope they clarify on the checkout that tax + tip aren't included. I would have loved to have had something like this in Miami, as we used to organize geek dinners every so often and it was ALWAYS a pain.
- zacharypinter 16y agoLooking forward to a Denver/Boulder addition. Cool idea.
- twakefield 16y agoExcellent idea guys. Congrats on launching.
- timjahn 16y agoAwesome job Eddy and Dashin! Love what you guys are doing :)
- daishin 16y agoThanks Tim! We'll have to grub with you when we are in Chicago.
- galuggus 16y agoCommendable. Really well executed. How about linking up with online communities. I'm sure a lot of people on reddit would love this for no-fuss IRL meet ups. Likewise forums/ online games etc. Well done
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- daishin 16y agoYES! There a ton of use cases we will have to look at. We are getting a bunch of requests through our create your own meal side of things. http://www.grubwith.us/meals http://www.grubwith.us/meals We can and will totally create a reddit group and host meals on there.
- jnsaff 16y agoWe are building a similar site with a bit different approach, ours is a free site which encourages people to create their events at their homes or public places, also bring together communities and create a framework for small businesses, a bit like farmers markets or the like. Check us out at: http://eatwithme.net/ http://eatwithme.net/