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Show HN: Like Airbnb but for food
- MyBoon 13y agoWhat is your Business model ?
- negrit 13y agoWe take a 16,7% on every booking request. https://www.cookening.com/en/faq/guests#answer2 https://www.cookening.com/en/faq/guests#answer2
- bridgpal 13y agoIsn't this what http://eatfeastly.com/ http://eatfeastly.com/ does?
- negrit 13y agoFor those who want to know the tech stack. We are running on heroku(the european datacenter)[1] and amazon S3, we use RoR with some pretty nice gems(active admin, devise, ...) and Jquery for the JS. For metric we use Mixpanel and Google Analytics. For our emails we use Amazon and Mailjet. The are on the european DC because of the Safe Harbor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Safe_Harbor_Privacy_Principles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Safe_Harbor_Priva...
- Pyramids 13y agoWhat kind of resources are you using currently on Heroku? Is infrastructure a noteworthy portion of your spending? (10-20%+?) Either way, cool concept, I'd definitely consider using it.
- negrit 13y agoAddons: Heroku Postgres, Memcachier, New Relic, SSL Endpoint. 1 worker, a few dynos. We don't spend a lot in infrastructure. Thanks and let me know if you use it ! My twitter handle and my email are in my HN profile.
- jcase 13y agoWhen the EU region was announced[1] last month they weren't Safe Harbor compliant (yet). Has that changed? [1] https://blog.heroku.com/archives/2013/4/24/europe-region https://blog.heroku.com/archives/2013/4/24/europe-region (near the bottom).
- negrit 13y agoYou're right, I did a bit of a mic mac there. They are still not compliant with Safe Harbor in the US. Anyway since our company is located in France, the french privacy law allow us to use a hosting located in EU (instead of a US SafeHarbor one). Heroku did the EU launch just for this.
- jcase 13y agoInteresting, thanks!
- Forgotlogintwo 13y agoNo. "It does not currently address data residency or jurisdiction concerns. You should assume that some portions of your app and its data will be in, or pass through, datacenters located in the US."
- enoptix 13y agoVery interesting concept! How do food & restuarant laws apply in Europe? I know here in the US, restaurants need regular inspections by the local board of health. And restaurant is defined as "a facility that prepares and sells food directly to consumers for immediate consumption." Presumably if people are paying the host, that host is now operating a restaurant. I can already see the food lobby going crazy over this one in the US.
- ArikBe 13y agoThis. I had the exact same idea (although locally oriented) about a year ago, but then I found out that all places that serve food commercially in the Netherlands require that someone on the staff is in possession of a "Social Hygiene Diploma"[1] and the health services would shut down basically anyone who attempted to do this. I hope you guys do well, I think there's a lot of social value in this concept. Food can bring people together in special ways. [1] http://www.sho-horeca.nl/cursussen/spoedcursus-sociale-hygiene?utm_source=Bing&utm_medium=CPC&utm_term=hygiene%20diploma&utm_campaign=SEA http://www.sho-horeca.nl/cursussen/spoedcursus-sociale-hygie...
- jbverschoor 13y agoActually, there was a Dutch site featured on I think DWDD. www.thuisafgehaald.nl Was not really a success
- negrit 13y agoThank you !
- lenazegher 13y agoI think this is just another way it's "like AirBnB". I assert the vast majority of AirBnB rentals break either local laws regarding guest houses or hotels, and/or the provisions of the lease in rented accommodation. Perhaps this service can spare itself from liability from the unlicensed action of its users by including in the ToS "you must have all valid licenses required by your jurisdiction if you choose to charge for hosting a meal". Edit: I would imagine thing become even more complicated if guests receive wine or other alcoholic drinks as part of the meal.
- resu 13y agoI think this is a fantastic idea! I would definitely try it out if it were available in the areas I am planning to travel to. Any plans to expand to Asia?
- negrit 13y agoThanks for the kind words ! We currently have hosts in Chile, Canada, ... so Asia should come soon. Basically as soon as someone open a table in Asia it's done. If you are asking about our marketing strategy, I don't know yet.
- desireco42 13y agoThis is so weird that it has to work. My first reaction was that it was dumb and no-one would do it, but this is exactly the first reaction to most things that turned out to be success. I definitely wish you all the best. Plus I see you are focused on Europe, which is probably place where good cuisine is highly valued.
- negrit 13y agoThank you !
- antoinec 13y agoThis is awesome ! What are your plans about expanding abroad ?
- erik14th 13y agoLooks pretty nice, I just miss a 'cursor:pointer' in the 'contact the host' button.
- negrit 13y agoThank you for the feed back, I'll tell our UI/UX guy !
- zevyoura 13y agoThis reminds me a lot of the phenomenon of Pop-up Restaurants[1]; your site is very much like a booking interface for pop-ups. Good luck, I love the concept. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop-up_restaurant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop-up_restaurant
- negrit 13y agoThank you !
- iamwil 13y agoOne thing you guys should be worried about is the effort it takes for someone to host. Airbnb can be as much or little time and work intensive as the host likes. That makes it easy to host. With hosting a meal, it's always going to be time and work intensive, which limits the number of people that would be willing to do it on a continual basis. Solve that, and you might have something interesting on hand.
- evv 13y agoMillions of people already cook and clean for themselves and their family. Is it that hard to add one or two extra plates?
- iamwil 13y agoMany more eat out or over the sink. Even families have been eating out more since fast food became more prevalent (at least in the US). Has the trend reversed? I'm not saying it won't work. It's something that people miss when they think of this idea. Perhaps it works best in countries with a strong home cooking tradition, rather than the US, like the ones listed on their homepage.
- NoPiece 13y agoJust talking about dinner, most people eat at home most of the time. Here is one study from 2005 on that: RESTAURANT MEALS FOR DINNER LAST WEEK? None: 47% 1 night: 27% 2-3 nights: 21% 4+ nights: 4% http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500160_162-1060315.html http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500160_162-1060315.html This poll was conducted among a nationwide random sample of 936 adults, interviewed by telephone October 30-November 1, 2005. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points.
- kansface 13y agoThe cleanliness standards for guests is much higher. Plus, there are all sorts of dietary restrictions- this may not be more actual work, but putting a mental hurdle in front of users will reduce conversions.
- groundCode 13y agonice work
- groundCode 13y agowhat's your tech stack btw?
- kornifex 13y agoHere ! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5752057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5752057
- negrit 13y agoThanks !
- evv 13y agoI couldn't find my country on the list. I live in the US. Maybe "all over the world" really means "all over Europe"
- untog 13y agoWell, welcome to the Internet most countries outside of the US experience every day. (a little snarky I know, but the US is fantastically sheltered in this regard. I know plenty of people that have no idea that Hulu and various YouTube videos are unavailable to people outside of the US)
- negrit 13y agoI know, we need to get more hosts and we are working on it. Thanks for the feedback !
- SippinLean 13y agoCool idea. I wouldn't really want to eat food prepared by someone I didn't know if that food/kitchen isn't subject to health inspections. The answer to the "What about the hygiene?" FAQ doesn't do enough to assuage my fears in this regard. It says tables are "manually reviewed by the team". Reviewed with the stringent standards of the health dept?
- negrit 13y agoThanks for the feedback! It means we have to improve the FAQ on this part. Hosts cook and eat with their guests, so it's a very good way to be sure about the quality: First because hosts eat it as well, second because they'll have a direct feedback, and it's not very pleasant to serve bad food to people when they're eating with you. In fact, we think there's a fear of a risk more than a real risk. There's less risk to eat something that has been cooked at home, in smal quantities, than something in a big restaurant with food that has stayed in a fridge for several weeks... Actually, have you often been sick when invited by friend or family? Reviews we're doing are based on information provided by hosts (description, pictures), as well as email or phone contact if needed. And the review system will help. Risk averse foodies will eat with hosts with no reviews, less risk averse will go to hosts that already have a good reputation on the system.
- jsavimbi 13y agoGreat idea. One thing that bugged me out right away was the sign-up form: http://i.imgur.com/hfYmbXF.png http://i.imgur.com/hfYmbXF.png That needs to be a lot simpler and inviting. Let me play with the app first and then pitch me the membership and make it as light touch as possible. Keep in mind that I may see anywhere between 2 and 10 new apps a day and a speed bump such as the one you have up there doesn't make adoption easier. Other than that, best of luck.
- mmahemoff 13y agoSuper Marmite, based in France, pitched this in 2010. I think it's still going. http://www.super-marmite.com/ http://www.super-marmite.com/
- negrit 13y agoIt's still going. We know them pretty well :)
- jnsaff2 13y agoI was a founder at http://eatwithme.net http://eatwithme.net but have since left the team. Feel free to shoot me questions, should you have any.
- wingerlang 13y agoWhy did you leave?
- teawithcarl 13y agoUnderground food sharing (trust). Make it "karma points" (not cash) ... important to be unregulated, like the "volunteer" payments with SideCar. Imagine tens of thousands of locations in each city, with most people's points netting to near-zero. In other words, you give as much as you take. Cooking vs eating - self-cancelling at nearly 50/50. Open trade in points, reputation scores, and trust. People without time to cook may barter other reputations. A vast cashless ecosystem. Cuisine and location both, discovery via online maps. Any home, any vehicle, anywhere that trust, reputation, and freedom may actually develop. Personally, I believe "regulation" leads to the unsafe (thinks McDonalds) food ecosystem we have now.
- saraid216 13y agoWhy is it that people who come up with these thought experiments can never resist talking about their beliefs? Do you have a plan of implementation? A seed network to beat the cold start problem? An actual, non-exploitable prototype for aiding discovery? A way to demonstrate trustworthiness? Survey results to show enough people willing to cook in order to provide sufficient supply to meet demand? Or is this just a pipe dream?
- teawithcarl 13y agoIt's called future prototyping. The Tommorow Project, by Intel. http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/research/tomorrow-project/the-tomorrow-project.html http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/research/tomorrow-pro...
- saraid216 13y agoIt's called refusing to face reality. Preaching sermons doesn't change the world. Make. A. Prototype. You know what's awesome about Bitcoin? I'm not a Bitcoin fan. I think it's silly, though I admittedly don't have the chops to properly evaluate it. But you know what I can't help but respect about it? It exists. It's in the wild. It's real. No matter what wankery I choose to criticize it with, I have to square that with the actual effects it's producing. No plan survives contact with reality. You cannot anticipate everything. This is goddamn Hacker News. Make a prototype.
- ziggster 13y agoThere's a new company in SF planning to do something similar called Bigtable. Planning to launch soon http://bigtable.co http://bigtable.co
- negrit 13y agoThanks for the tips. I will follow them :)
- kaoD 13y ago"Like X but Y" might be the worst elevator pitch ever. Or the best. I can't decide.
- negrit 13y agoWell it's punchline for HackerNews, not a pitch for YC
- ferrantim 13y agoI love how no one (yet) on this thread took this as an opportunity to trash france and it's startups. A sign of a very successful launch! Congrats to the cookening team. Love the idea. Will use next time I'm in Paris!
- negrit 13y agoThank you !
- radio4fan 13y agoLooks like the same concept as http://eatwith.com/ http://eatwith.com/ I'm going to my first eatWith event tomorrow night...
- negrit 13y agoIt is actually the same concept. Let me know how it went with eatwith. My email and my twitter handle are in my HN profile.
- hawkharris 13y agoIt's very smart of Cookening to provide information about WHY users should connect with Facebook. As a privacy conscious user, I find that this is missing from many sites. I might be willing to share my information, but you have to explain what's in it for me in a straight-forward way.
- negrit 13y agoThank you ! This should definitively be a best practice.
- k-mcgrady 13y agoI love this idea and it seems like a great way to bring people together in real life through technology. Like others though I think this could have trouble with laws and probably to a greater extent than AirBnB. How liable is the host if there is an food poisoning incident for example? Is Cookening liable at all? Anyway, good luck, it's a great idea.
- theklub 13y agoKinda sad that the first thing we have to worry about is how we could possibly be sued while having strangers over.
- negrit 13y agoIn the terms and conditions, we're explaining Cookening is the third party. That's also why we're using a payment system that makes the money go directly from user to user, even if payment is made on our website. That said, our job is also to make sure everything goes well, and if something happens, we'll have to handle it.
- hariis 13y agoI love this idea but don't like the idea of paying. How about instead of paying money for the meal, have an option where you can host the hosts in return at your place. May be this doesn't belong in this app or may be it does..
- skue 13y agoVery interesting idea, and great website! A question: I'm curious whether you put a lot of consideration into the review system? Asking hosts to invite strangers over and publicly rate their hospitality, cooking, and home is asking a lot. Yes, Airbnb does something similar, but renting a room feels like more of a business transaction. Having dinner guests share a meal is more personal and intimate - and it would be easier for hosts to take reviews personally. Also, how will you deal with hyper-critical guests who leave mostly negative reviews? A few negative "foodies" like this could be a morale crusher for early hosts. In any case, good luck!
- nano111 13y agoKeeping track of violations of rules publicly would be a minimum kind of ratings
- negrit 13y agoThis is a very good remark. That's the reason why we have this three notes : food, place and hospitality. As you see, we're asking guests to review the hospitality, not the person. As always, it is very important to us that guest expectations before any booking are the right ones: hosts do not commit on serving food like in a restaurant, they commit it is home made, they commit on a meal structure (number of courses) and they'll respect food specifics mentionned by their guests.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- blt 13y agoI don't like the name. It sounds all jumbled and gross, the opposite of a delicious meal.
- negrit 13y agoYeah yeah. In French we say: "les goûts et les couleurs, ça ne se discute pas". I let you think about it.
- klous 13y agoYou should look into Housefed, it was a startup that did a very similar thing, the person is now doing Tindie.
- negrit 13y agoThanks ! I will check it out.
- adman7024 13y agoGive this Quora post a quick read http://www.quora.com/Will-Airbnb-for-food-be-a-successful-business-model http://www.quora.com/Will-Airbnb-for-food-be-a-successful-bu... Dozens of ventures have failed in this niche space .. wondering if Cookening has found the secret sauce.
- negrit 13y agoThanks for the link !
- michaelbwang 13y agoI've thought about launching an idea like this in the US. After doing some research, it proved to be too difficult to execute because of foodservice regulations and ensuring safety. I like your concept, especially emphasizing the benefits of home cooking. Here are some things I think you should think carefully about: -how do you ensure safety on both ends (buyer and seller)? -why would someone want to use your platform instead of doing their own underground restaurant? -how do you vet hosts? Is there a vetting process for hosts? -how do you ensure a pleasant group meal dynamic? Would love to chat more about this if would like. This is an idea I would really, really like to see succeed!
- negrit 13y agoHey Michael ! I'll try to answer to you questions: >-how do you ensure safety on both ends (buyer and seller)? We do review the hosts manually. For the guests, they have to talk with the hosts in order to make a booking reservation so I guess if they don't get along nothing is going to happen. We also have a review/rating system. >-why would someone want to use your platform instead of doing their own underground restaurant? Well, it's not only for money but also for the pleasure to share your food, culture, ... with someone else. And in order to start an underground restaurant you need to get known, it might be kind of hard if it's underground. >-how do you vet hosts? Sorry for my broken english, but I don't understand this question. >-Is there a vetting process for hosts? Yes > -how do you ensure a pleasant group meal dynamic? We have a blog[1] where we are trying to tell our hosts how to organize/... the event and how to deal with the culture difference. My twitter handle and my email are in my HN profile, you're welcome to ping me ! [1] http://theartof.cookening.com http://theartof.cookening.com
- ngrandy 13y agoThis is an exciting concept that has been tackled by many teams, few of which have yet been able to reach significant scale. But I believe it will happen. Feastly (http://eatfeastly.com/ http://eatfeastly.com/) is a similar approach that is active in the US. (I'm an advisor) The restaurant industry is massive (in the US, it's three times the size of the accommodations industry) so winning even a small slice is a win.
- resu_nimda 13y agoThis is somewhat off-topic, but it seems kind of odd that they went with a "ly" name but didn't use that TLD, especially since "feastly" doesn't make a lot of sense except to associate with that trend. It looks like a cool service though, I requested an invite.
- negrit 13y agoThanks. I can't wait to see what Feastly will look like. I wish them the best of luck ! It's a tough battle out there but it's very interesting !
- SocrateInShorts 13y agoHannibal Lecter would love this
- negrit 13y agoTwist: I'm Hannibal Lecter !
- gregschlom 13y agoHehehe, the "Airbnb for food" tagline reminded me of the http://incubatorincubator.com http://incubatorincubator.com: Specifically: "AirBnBForY. AirBnBforY specializes in incubating companies that are the "AirBnB" for their respective industries (e.g. "The AirBnB for pantry space" and "The AirBnB for condiments" (A lot of people aren't making full use of their mustard, ketchup, and other condiments. AirDiments creates a marketplace by which people can use each others condiments)."
- negrit 13y agoHaha, I didn't know this parody of ycombinator.com So, "AirBnBForY" is the punchline for the HN post but we obviously don't pitch it like this :)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- lexap 13y agoIsn't this basically kitchensurfing.com?
- contingencies 13y agoThis looks well executed ... if you're in NY, and want the chef to come to you.
- aatifh 13y agoLooks good. Actually, there are many players out there in this market such as: http://eatfeastly.com/ http://eatfeastly.com/ https://kitchen.ly/ https://kitchen.ly/ http://bigtable.co/ http://bigtable.co/ (Coming soon) And some more here: http://www.quora.com/Food-Tech-Startups/What-companies-are-doing-or-have-done-Airbnb-for-food http://www.quora.com/Food-Tech-Startups/What-companies-are-d... It's a good idea this Airbnb for food. Winners will emerge. May the force be with you. :)
- negrit 13y agoThank you for the kind words. You forgot to mention many other websites on the market :)
- Aga 13y agoVery nice concept! I hope this catches fire like Airbnb! At least here in Finland "Restaurant Day" [1] has already become somewhat of an institution, so I bet there's potential for Cookening too! A minor detail: I'd appreciate the _full_ price to be displayed with a side note like "including Cookening service free 3€". Or is the service fee per group? In that case it could be something like: "15€ per guest + 3€ Cookening service fee per group" With the current layout the service fee feels almost hidden. Best of luck with this! [1] http://www.visitfinland.com/article/restaurant-day/ http://www.visitfinland.com/article/restaurant-day/
- negrit 13y agoThank you ! I'll forward the feedback to our UI/UX guy !
- anonymous1983 13y agoThere was another company that tried this concept. I forget the name, but they are not hosting dinners in restaurants for a group of random people and turning a profit. I remember they said something along the lines of burden on the host was too much.