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Show HN: SoupNextDoor - GrubWithUs for personal chefs

9 points by dgunn 15y ago

dgunn 15y ago
Hello HN. For those who do not want to click, the premise is a GrubWithUs for private chefs or an Airbnb for food. We have about 20 chefs in NYC who will cook and host meals in various locations (houses, restaurants, bakeries, apartments, friends' space, etc) The business model currently is to make a booking fee (about 15%) on each seat purchased on the site. We're doing some testing with a few chefs preparing for our official launch in January. We'd love some feedback. I'll be here for questions. Ask me anything.
- aspir 15y ago
  Are you familiar with the home concert movement with musicians? Its essentially what you're proposing, but in a different industry. You may want to do some research to see if they've run into any problems, just so you know what to look out for. I personally don't know too much about it, except that every party in the home concert ecosystem absolutely _loves_ it. The hosts throw an awesome party for their friends at a reasonable cost, and the musicians get paid while entertaining a grateful audience with what they love to do. I don't see how this would be any different -- good luck!
  - dgunn 15y ago
    I hadn't actually heard of that. Very cool concept though. Our software is generic enough that something like this could easily spring up. As in, we don't limit our event to food only, we're interested to see how our users bend the site to their own will. Thanks for the good wishes and such an interesting comment.
joshu 15y ago
I love the idea. I wold swear I saw another one of these before, though. Not sure how well they are doing, though.
- dgunn 15y ago
  You're probably thinking of Housefed.com. He took the site down a while back I guess. I actually contacted the owner and chatted a (small) bit. Housefed was by far what I would consider to be the most popular of any of these types of services, but I don't think he could get a biz model that worked for him. I'm glad you like the idea. We're doing it a little differently than we've seen so far. Seems to be working out thus far, of course, it's still very early.
  - skadamat 15y ago
    I had a 90% similar idea to Housefed and talked to Emile as well. The main issue with Housefed / this thread's idea is that your site basically allows people to sell food without a permit. I would stay away from things like house events, because if even a few incidents happen at a house food event and people blog about it, you won't get in any legal trouble as long as you be careful in your TOS, but it's VERY bad PR for y'all. (e.g. remember the AirBNB fiasco?). GrubWithUs makes sure their chefs are accountable for what they cook / prescreen all cooks. Private cooking is a whole another legal monster, lots of things to worry about. I think as long as you educate end users and watch how you word things legally, you should hopefully be okay :). If y'all are ever looking to expand to Austin, let me know I'd be glad to help out / put you in touch with the startup community here!
    - dgunn 15y ago
      We've heard this a lot and couldn't agree more. Originally we tried to find a market of home cooks that wanted to host events but (fortunately) we couldn't find them which led us to the pros. They were easier to find and they have the added benefit of being legal and much less likely to poison our consumers. That said, it's going to happen at some point. Someone will get sick, it's inevitable. We're prepared to do anything we can to reduce the impact of a media fire. We're staying in NYC at first not just to make it feel more exclusive, but because it makes it easier to know ALL of our chefs personally. Which we do. So we feel comfortable putting diners in their seats.
      - 15y ago

9 points by dgunn 15y ago

dgunn 15y ago

Hello HN. For those who do not want to click, the premise is a GrubWithUs for private chefs or an Airbnb for food. We have about 20 chefs in NYC who will cook and host meals in various locations (houses, restaurants, bakeries, apartments, friends' space, etc) The business model currently is to make a booking fee (about 15%) on each seat purchased on the site. We're doing some testing with a few chefs preparing for our official launch in January. We'd love some feedback. I'll be here for questions. Ask me anything.

aspir 15y ago
Are you familiar with the home concert movement with musicians? Its essentially what you're proposing, but in a different industry. You may want to do some research to see if they've run into any problems, just so you know what to look out for. I personally don't know too much about it, except that every party in the home concert ecosystem absolutely _loves_ it. The hosts throw an awesome party for their friends at a reasonable cost, and the musicians get paid while entertaining a grateful audience with what they love to do. I don't see how this would be any different -- good luck!
- dgunn 15y ago
  I hadn't actually heard of that. Very cool concept though. Our software is generic enough that something like this could easily spring up. As in, we don't limit our event to food only, we're interested to see how our users bend the site to their own will. Thanks for the good wishes and such an interesting comment.

joshu 15y ago

I love the idea. I wold swear I saw another one of these before, though. Not sure how well they are doing, though.

dgunn 15y ago
You're probably thinking of Housefed.com. He took the site down a while back I guess. I actually contacted the owner and chatted a (small) bit. Housefed was by far what I would consider to be the most popular of any of these types of services, but I don't think he could get a biz model that worked for him. I'm glad you like the idea. We're doing it a little differently than we've seen so far. Seems to be working out thus far, of course, it's still very early.
- skadamat 15y ago
  I had a 90% similar idea to Housefed and talked to Emile as well. The main issue with Housefed / this thread's idea is that your site basically allows people to sell food without a permit. I would stay away from things like house events, because if even a few incidents happen at a house food event and people blog about it, you won't get in any legal trouble as long as you be careful in your TOS, but it's VERY bad PR for y'all. (e.g. remember the AirBNB fiasco?). GrubWithUs makes sure their chefs are accountable for what they cook / prescreen all cooks. Private cooking is a whole another legal monster, lots of things to worry about. I think as long as you educate end users and watch how you word things legally, you should hopefully be okay :). If y'all are ever looking to expand to Austin, let me know I'd be glad to help out / put you in touch with the startup community here!
  - dgunn 15y ago
    We've heard this a lot and couldn't agree more. Originally we tried to find a market of home cooks that wanted to host events but (fortunately) we couldn't find them which led us to the pros. They were easier to find and they have the added benefit of being legal and much less likely to poison our consumers. That said, it's going to happen at some point. Someone will get sick, it's inevitable. We're prepared to do anything we can to reduce the impact of a media fire. We're staying in NYC at first not just to make it feel more exclusive, but because it makes it easier to know ALL of our chefs personally. Which we do. So we feel comfortable putting diners in their seats.
    - 15y ago