I love to cook, and love to try new foods. After watching Anthony Bourdain eat with families all over the world, I thought - I want to do that! So I made Housefed.com - an Airbnb for food / OpenTable for your kitchen. What do you guys think?
With 200 registered users, I launched it this morning and am opening the site piece by piece. I think people will not want to eat with a host without seeing their food first. So part 1 is aimed at photo-sharing and growing the community. After a user has uploaded 5 pics, they can apply to become a host. Once there is an initial group of hosts, I'll open the site for meal booking.
Hosts will be able to create meals other users can book a seat at. Hosts will be able to filter the users prior to booking. Users will pay through the site prior to getting directions to the host's home.
I think this will be great for people who love to cook, love trying new foods, and especially travelers. Trying real pad see ew with a Thai family would be mind blowing (at least to me).
In terms of the legality of booking a meal at a person's home, I am not sure. Each state/country has their own regulations so until it grows to a point where that is a problem, I'm not worrying about it.
What do you guys think about the site / strategy? Thanks for your time and thoughts.
Emile
Emile@housefed.com
PS if you remember the HN post 'Quit Job, Learning to Code' back in July ( http://goo.gl/cxNsr ), that was from me. I have been at it since then day and night. Thanks to everyone who has helped over the last few months. You too can learn how to code.
I think the concept has real potential but right now I think the first impression (what people see, the design, the explanation, etc) is really sub-par. As someone else posted, I went there to work out what the deal was, saw some photos of food (some uncooked/unprepared) and couldn't work out what was going on, so I bailed. And I think I could be a potential customer or host - I love travel, food, I've used AirBnB a few times, etc.
I think starting with photo-sharing is a bad idea, or at least it should not be a focus. Rather, hand-pick people (even with key dishes in mind) to feature on your front page. Have a pilot dinner or two, even if you have to find random tourists and offer to cook them dinner, and get a case study/testimonial or two up there with photos of the guests with their hosts. Just don't call them case studies/testimonials but something more natural and homely.
Ditch "food porn" - people don't want to eat at someone's house because it's fancy or the photos are pro, they'll eat there because they want the local experience. They want authentic homely French in a village cottage. They want Chinese with a multi-generational family in the hutongs. Ditch "airbnb" until you can better explain what you're doing.
There is a risk that people will not see your site as a meal-booking thing. They will see it as it is now and then never bother with it again. You're right to try and get feedback early and keep things moving, but I reckon your MVP needs to be closer to your eventual concept even if your withhold actual bookings for a while.
I'm a web designer in Australia who works remotely with a few people in addition to my local clients. If you want some cheap help with your design and/or to bounce off for feedback /ideas for free, email me (email in profile).
First impression: WTH is this? Waste of time.
After realising what the deal is: Could see this going international and being awesome.
Yes to everything prawn says. Tell us what the site does and please take down that food porn reference. It gave me a strong negative reaction, and I'm guessing you don't mean to associate your service with an industry that requires regular disease testing for participants....
Strategically, one option for bootstrapping might be looking for specialty food-related experiences. Perhaps launch in one or two specific markets (around SF?) and call some wineries and other food-oriented travel destinations and offer to market their products. Offering trips+experiences will justify higher prices and gives you a viral hook by encouraging users to get discounts for group travel. I'm much more likely to invite friends to a weekend outing than to the house of a stranger.
My reaction to "food porn" wasn't for the same reason as you, but just because I don't think the final product here is food porn. Food porn is slick photography of stunning meals. There might be a few home cooks that can manage that, but I don't know if the majority will and it creates a huge expectation otherwise.
Your second point made me think - Housefed Pro could even be in-kitchen dining experiences offered by winery kitchens, restaurants, etc?
The concept could be awesome in Asia, but when scams like the tea-house scam (China) are rife, it would have to be heavily policed/vetted or very much reliant on honest reviews.
Here's a suggestion: ask at least ten friends to "register" so that the front page isn't dominated by just you.
Also, here's a crazy idea, but awesome if you could pull it off somehow: remember the Brazil episode where Bourdain visits a lady who cooks for tourists in her home?
You need to find her and get her registered on your site.
Yes x1000. I had no idea what Airbnb for food meant. Although I know what Airbnb is, when I saw the phrase for some reason I thought air delivery of food.
"I love to cook, and love to try new foods. After watching Anthony Bourdain eat with families all over the world, I thought - I want to do that!"
You should take that quote and put it on your main page.
Abstract advice: I would consider that, unlike in accommodation, the main decision making factor for choosing a meal is going to be the skill and personality of the host. To repeat, people will care more about who is making the food than what the food is. Building your site to encourage a personal connection to the hosts will help you immensely.
Concrete advice: De-emphasise food pics on the homepage. Get portrait photos of your hosts holding their favourite dish. Use those photos to make a 'hosts' gallery that shows off each host, where they are, how many positive reviews etc.
I am a very active host on airbnb (holson farm in Mountain View) and have been talking very seriously with my wife about branching out into restaurant-ing a few nights a month, so I am very interested in your start up. However in order to convince me to join I would have to believe that the number of people you would refer to me (and the added convenience of you handling the money) would be more important than the added risk of being shut down because my name is out there. (I'm not saying that you don't provide that value, I'm just saying that I would worry about it).
Also, are you thinking of this more like a dinner party (you eat with the hosts and all the other guests that night) or a underground restaurant (hosts have a few tables set up at their house for private parties) or both?
I'd be happy to share with you my thoughts on this as someone who was going to do this anyway, before your service existed if you are interested. (benjie@anybots.com)
(Sidebar: your place sounds cool! Will definitely consider it the next time I'm down there from Portland.)
I am completely ignorant about the legal hoops involved w/food prep/selling, though I feel it's implicit in the open-ness and formality of sites like Housefed/Munchery/Mealtik that they consider themselves legal, at least by some interpretation (like room & board? like school bake sales? Like farmer's markets with prepared food? I am legally clueless... yet can think of many places in life where I'm paying for food in non-traditional environments.)
Just as AirBnB has come under fire from "real" hotels in NYC, I'm sure this will food-at-home will come under bureacratic heat... if it gets traction.
(Even in Portland, which I think just passed 600(!!) food carts in 2011, "real" restaurants decided (years too late) to start complaining that food carts weren't legit (though they do have health inspections, business licenses.
http://www.portlandfoodanddrink.com/2010/09/are-food-carts-g... ))
If it's not too troublesome, can you go into where you think the hard line is for in-home food selling?
I think the issue is with prepared food (especially hot food) and I have to imagine that there are licenses, health inspections, etc that restaurants need to have, and if I could start a restaurant without one, then wouldn't everyone?
However I've been doing more research and found this quote:
Ken Sato, principal environmental health inspector for the San Francisco Health Department, says an underground restaurant would only be investigated in case of a complaint.
"We'd issue a notice to cease and desist operation," he says. "
Thanks for posting this. Portland + Seattle also have underground restaurants (which got so trendy they bore a legit manifestation, "Family Supper" ah, Portland...)
I did some research about this since yesterday and found mostly information for selling food you make in your house, but sell outside your house. They call it "cottage food," (i knew the expression, but not what i meant legally). I found out that "cottage food acts" are enacted state by state, and that Oregon (where I live) has a permissive one.
As for serving food right in your house, i haven't found much info yet.
I think the local health-code issues you'll need to deal with are a deal-killer.
Renting a room in a house is accepted and legal just about everywhere. Selling food often requires a permit and health inspections.
I remember hearing about some people in Oakland who were GIVING away food to homeless people, and they got shut down because it was not being prepared in a commercial kitchen.
And my sister was considering making cakes professionally in a Denver suburb; similarly, she was told she needed to be using a commercial kitchen.
After I discovered AirBnB I was hoping someone would implement a food-based version. Well done!
I like the photosharing idea and your home page setup has that minimalist feel that's trendy right now. I'd get rid of the uninspired "Most Likes" sidebar title/tab title though. Something more snappy like "Top Chefs" would pop out more and be less confusing IMO.
Great concept! I try look for local (as close to home-cooked) food when visiting other countries and this is fantastic.
I recommend reaching out to http://www.try2cook.com/ and having her sign up on your site. She has a great cooking class near Buenos Aires that I took that would be perfect for this app (and helping it grow).
I remember your original post. It was the day before I actually registered here (your blog title may have influenced my own self-deprecating choice of username :-) ).
Although what you have at the moment is more a teaser than an MVP, I love the concept.
To make it useful to travellers you're going to need to add in cities and maps. I'd love to try a real pad see ew with a Thai family, but preferable one in the part of Thailand I'm actually staying in.
A veggie filter might be a good idea too as I'm not sure your food porn is so appealing to them
Went to front page. Saw a bunch of photos of food. Didn't see where I could buy food. Left.
Saying "airbnb for food" is not a substitute for explaining what you do or having a user interface which visibly allows the actions you want a user to perform.
Exactly. AirBnB had two RISD designers on the founding team. The startup that succeeds in this space isn't going to be the one with the best technical chops, it's going to be the one with the best designers, social skills, selling ability, etc.
There's not even an About Us page. If I hadn't seen "AirBNB for Food" in the HN article, I would have figured that it's some sort of 40 million dollar project to let you share pictures of food you've eaten.
I was worried for a bit because I thought there's new competition for our Munchery (http://gomunchery.com), which is much more like Airbnb for food. :)
Hmm. I think this will be very much like AirBnB for food, but it's in a gestation stage w/kitchen show-off shots to build a community first.
There's also Mealtik, which is AirBnB for food.
Ultimately, I hope all three (or more) you folks go big, as the biggest problem will be skeptical customers and perhaps buzzkill regulators (like AirBnB in NYC is up against).
Having a bunch of momentum + market examples and flavors is the best way to get past all this.
Aka GrubWithUs Residential. You have a big challenge because eating dinner with someone at their home is really intimate. I wouldn't start with photo sharing-- you need to start working on the dinner mechanics right away. Go low tech. Pick a single city, find a couple people willing to host, then send out invitations through existing social connections. Maybe get people to commit to 5 dinners up front for $100. I would also look at having a fundraising component (25% to charity?) because now the dinner can be ABOUT something. You can't just get a bunch of random people together and hope the conversation works out, you need some common cause or interest to act as social lubricant.
Brilliant. Lose the Airbnb reference. Landing page should clearly and concisely tell me, the random passerby, exactly what you do: "Get a home cooked meal by a fellow foodie"
I would lose the "food porn" bit... I understand it's a Bourdain reference and I love his show but I think it would jar with a lot of folks who don't know that.
I'll be blunt, and I hope you take this all with the understanding that I'm only trying to help. I've tried to point out specific things you can do/add wherever possible. With that said...
Your home page is incredibly confusing, primarily because there is no call to action. Even though I know and use Airbnb, "Airbnb for food" could still mean several things, and I'm not even sure what the # of countries has to do with anything. Suggestion: ditch the Airbnb comparison and put up a 1-sentence elevator pitch followed by a 1-sentence call-to-action. Example: "Housefed.com lets you find and eat with talented chefs in your area. Get started by _______."
Continuing on the call-to-action thread, there isn't even anything for me to do! Am I supposed to search? Am I supposed to click on the food? Clicking on the food takes me to an equally confusing page with nothing for me to do there either. Suggestion: add an obvious thing for me to interact with (search box? I don't even know what...) and lose the sorting features, which add nothing to the first impression.
After signing up -- even though nothing on the site makes me want to -- nothing changes! I still have no idea what to do on your site, or where to do it. Suggestion: let a not-logged-in user browse the available food and understand WHY it's posted (so that they could eat it, I assume), and then invite them to sign up with a statement like: "Want to eat this and other delicious meals in your town? Sign up and get housefed!"
I suggest you spend a lot more time studying http://airbnb.com and the subtleties of their homepage and UX. Notice that their home page tells you EXACTLY what to do ("Find a place to stay.") and shows you HOW to do it (by filling out one field that tells them "Where are you going?"). I can use and browse everything on their site without logging in or signing up, and they detour me to the sign-up page only when absolutely necessary.
I remember your original "noob" post. Congrats on making it this far. Seriously. Most people would've given up long ago. Keep at it. I think your site fills a real need (at least, I would use it, fwiw).
- as said by somebody else, I'd remove the reference to Airbnb. Not many people know what Airbnb is and "Airbnb for food" doesn't really explain what it means.
- I'd also remove "food porn". I wouldn't be surprised if many people are uncomfortable with the word "porn" even if it's about food.
- right now, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing on the site or what the site is all about. I see pictures, I click on them but then there's barely any information: what am I looking at? Why are you showing this to me? What can I do with this?
- I know you're just starting and thus have to feed some content yourself but seeing "Emile P." all over the frontpage is not great. You might want to limit the number of pictures by the same person there. Even if you get traction that might be something that you would still want to change for the case of someone uploading a bunch of pictures at once.
As for the sign-up, I'm not sure why you want to limit users to put their first name and only first initial of last name. This seems a bit restrictive and I'm not sure if there's a good reason behind it. I could see having just "Name" and they put whatever they want?
Since your current focus is on the pictures, I might do a couple of things: show more and/or bigger pictures on the homepage, possibly removing the username/likes/comments metadata (with them showing on hover?) and make sure your pictures are of the best quality possible (maybe not quite professional, but at least edited a bit). As a comparison, look at what Instagram looks like when you start it up without an account: a page full of good-looking pictures of different styles, by different people…
Hope this helps, congratulations on the launch and good luck!
Disclaimer: I'm no expert or designer, this is just my humble opinion :)
That sounds lovely - but I think the legality thing is something to investigate early. I think a lot of places have rules about restaurants having hygiene certificates and passing inspections - maybe having a meal exchange would bypass that (like you can try other peoples' food as long as you also host every so often?). If you're taking money, I'd talk to a lawyer early (or friendly person with legal knowledge at least!)
Also, it might be worth starting on a specific scene first so you concentrate your community (your local town, your uni alumni, conference attendees at local tech conference or whatever).
This was my initial thought too. When you start selling food for money things get complicated quick. If you look at some of the actions against shared kitchens and such it's disturbing. You'll want to look into this ASAP as it's complicated by locality and directly impacts your business model. It might be that you could have "food points" that you get when you cook and spend when you eat and essentially trade meals but I'm not sure if that's actually ok legally or if it works with what you're thinking about.
Great idea -- I've long wanted a tool to help organize voluntary, opt-in communal cooking around where I live. It's beyond stupid for 100 single adults within a block of each other to cook 100 single servings every night.
But this could enable something much less repetitive and less obligatory than a shared cooking schedule between friends (something I've tried--everyone cooks for the others one day a week, etc.).
Anyway, if I were you I would consider this market in addition to the tourist market akin to that of airbnb. The tool probably wouldn't need to be much different, but the marketing might be.
It's a lovely concept (I hesitated to use that adjective there, but it is!) - so I would drop the line "Everyone loves a little food porn". It just conotes, you know, porn. With strangers. And you might lose some people who aren't familiar with the phrase.
Im working on the exact same concept (it isnt ready for public launch yet). The major hurdle Ive run into is the legal side of things - it is illegal to "sell" any type of potentially hazardous food i.e. hot food from a home kitchen no matter what state. You can sell baked goods like cookies, jams, jellies and so on from a home kitchen from a handful of states though.
The concept is unclear to me. Is this basically about ad-hoc restaurants, where people cook for guests, and the guests can browse through hosts by looking at pictures of food they cooked? If yes, why don't you write that on the home page?
And why do you only show the food? I'd be interested to see pictures of the hosts.
Also, location would be supremely important. Where are these hosts located?
EDIT: Some more feedback: Photos should look way better. Encourage hosts to use DSLRs. Show some tips on food photography.
Make sure that browsing through the finished site shows just 1 pic per host, with all the other pics grouped together at the host page.
Apart from that, fantastic concept, wish you luck!
There is so much wrong with the statement at the top of your site.
#1 LOTS of people have no idea what Airbnb is. This service by itself is very niche.
#2 Can you even use the name of another company like this? Do they want you to associate yourself with their service?
#3 Everyone has food porn? Really? The LAST thing foodies want to think about when looking for food related websites is pornography. In fact, for many, just the words on the page make for a disgusting feeling.
Do you plan on allowing people to charge for hosting? If so, aren't there some serious health code issues that arise (at least in the U.S.)?
Friends of mine work at a non-profit that wanted to sell espresso at their center and they ran into all kinds of health code issues due to just having milk. Apparently as soon as you introduce perishable items, all kinds of red flags get raised and you need inspections, etc.
I've actually heard of this before, there are a few but they tend to stay small. Not sure what they are officially called but I called them underground restaurants.
They only do it once or twice a week but they serve lots of different types of food, they usually are done by local chefs. But that's usually very high class food.
I also suggest not comparing yourself to another service on your home page and explicitly saying what you do.
This is big in Tuscany, where you can book meals with families, i always thought this can work elsewhere especially in cities like new york with such diverse cultures
Right. Tho the pop up restaurants that I've heard of have been set up by chefs with some sort of following via a previous venture... this thing here ain't that.
I like the feedback someone else gave on showing photos of the people. Since this is more 'socialize here' than 'sleep here,' (unless it pivots into house-based on-availability takeout) I'd prefer to see photos of people + their interests than photos of the food.
It's saturday night, am I looking for someone making turkey sandwiches in Eugene, Oregon, or am I looking for some cool people to meet and have a few hour conversation with? Am I buying a conversation or the food? I think I'd be buying a conversation and an opportunity to meet new people. The meal is secondary.
My ex-girlfriend and I had a recurring conversation about meeting people and making new friends in our mid-20s. It's a good question, one I'd like to see tackled: "What does a non-dating 'dating' site look like?" Howaboutwe.com is sort of what I'd like to see done in this space, but a site like this that arranges social events / group 'friend' dates to meet people in your community based on food / interests / conversation? That's right up my ally.
Great job launching an MVP. I'd love to see what comes next.
1. If you have no idea what Airbnb is, which many people do not, then you have no idea what to do at the site and you'll probably leave.
2. I know what Airbnb is and still could not figure out Housefed was until I read your post here.
It sounds like a fun business. I think you should be more explicit on the front page as to what exactly it is. I would definitely try this out if there was a host near me.
I think it's fine. For now. It is likely that your early adopter will have heard of AirBNB, and that phrase "AirBNB for food" carries high information density about what your site does.
But you probably don't want to the the brand of your company in the longer term to AirBNB.
Looks like a fun idea and I'll sign-up and give it a shot as a customer. One business suggestion: don't describe yourself as "Airbnb for food" on your main website. That's fine for HN but many potential customers will not know/care what Airbnb is.
One other suggestion is to spend some time looking at the GrubWithUs site; it has a great design for this type of service.
1. You don't explain what you're doing and why I would want to do it. Even with all their publicity I would wager that 90% of the people you are driving to your home page have never heard of AirBNB. Calling yourself the AirBNB of food might work when you're pitching the idea to a VC but doesn't work on the actual website.
2. Two thirds of your potential customers will be using Internet Explorer. I know it's not fair but that's reality in 2011. In IE you cannot even see the fields to sign up.
If in fact I can buy dinner at different peoples houses every night that's a really cool idea. In my state you couldn't do it legally but you've researched all that right? To succeed you need more than a cool idea, you have to execute.
Love the idea. Rails Rumble a few years ago produced this: http://tablesurfing.com/ which never actually launched, but I was really hoping it would have.
Comments:
Without the "airbnb for food" tagline on the site, nobody would have any idea that this site is anything more than a bad Foodgawker clone. Nothing about it lets users actually do anything other than share pictures.
If that's the goal, make it clear how to do that or let us know when it will be possible.
That is right. I don't think it will be for everyone. Instead of going to a restaurant, I would rather meet new friends & try real local food. But thats just me, and I am a hardcore foodie..
Why would you choose to use airBnb when there are small hotels and motels?
The answer is two-fold:
1) Cost. People cooking food and hosting guests don't have the same running costs as a restaurant. It may just be a bit of side-income or maybe they're breaking even and doing it out of passion.
2) The experience and locality is different than hotels and motels. I could see this being big in young, hip areas like SF (Mission, Haight Asbury) and Brooklyn.
Because I can have a decent meal for a similar price to paying someone. Airbnb you get a nicer place to stay for a far lower price. I mean not saying this is a terrible idea just saying it doesn't work for me.
Congrats on following through on your goal, and for shipping! Really cool idea. The service may not be for everyone, but ones who use it may become fanatics. There are definitely regulatory issues with this in my mind, probably for all of the US and many other countries as well, but one thing I love about the Internet is how it challenges and sometimes breaks conventional models and rules.
It's something I might be especially likely to use if I moved to a new city, and wanted to meet people, and try something different for the hell of it.
There is a social angle to be worked here. Maybe allow users to post profiles? I'd be much more likely to try this if I could see that interesting-looking people were going to the same dinner as me.
I can't say that I would invite someone into my home for a few bucks, but it definitely is intriguing. Then again...I wouldn't rent out my couch to random strangers, so don't use my opinion on the deciding factor to go ahead.
Look forward to keeping track of this and seeing how it progresses.
I heard Brian Chesky (Airbnb's cofounder) on Gigaom talking about announcing other categories in 2011 on top of housing (which sounds like a natural extension).So kudos to the guy who executed this but I can already see this space is going get ultra competitive pretty soon.
I think you are OK if you have people be "members" of your food club. It's only when you're cooking for walk-ins.
Even so, I am something of a foodie and a home cook, and I wouldn't feel comfortable cooking for paying strangers, or paying to dine with them. To me, something that helped organize and plan potlucks would be more appealing, (like "Meetup meets Cooks Illustrated" perhaps). But maybe that's just me.
there are a couple startups in this space (GrubWith.Us, gogrubly.com, maybe others?). what differentiates housefed? is it the international angle? the kind of foodspotting-esque type focus on user-generated photos?
any plans for adding descriptive content so that the comments aren't just "is that [fill in the blank]?
Btw, I'd love to see a lot more positive user feedback before I sign up. I'd say get some good traction from friends/beta testers before spreading it too widely. Oh and I agree with others: lose the food porn reference.
Good luck!
WOW thanks for the feedback! There are a few bugs I missed in my testing - so I've taken down a few of the features. Everything will be back tomorrow (with a new homepage). Thanks again!
Am I the only one who thinks the local and federal food regulatory bodies are going to have a field day with this?
I hope you have a solid legal team in place to deal with the inevitable FDA, USDA, state heath boards, and local restaurant licensing regulators that are very likely to take notice if you grow.
I had never heard of Airbnb before. Once I got on your site, I went to their site, clicked around for a while, tried to get the gist of it. Then came back here to comment because I still don't get housefed.
I don't think I should have to go learn a totally different site in order to understand the tagline of your site.
If you've never heard of Airbnb before, perhaps you're in the wrong place. Airbnb is a YC company and is one of the (if not the) hottest startups out there.
With 200 registered users, I launched it this morning and am opening the site piece by piece. I think people will not want to eat with a host without seeing their food first. So part 1 is aimed at photo-sharing and growing the community. After a user has uploaded 5 pics, they can apply to become a host. Once there is an initial group of hosts, I'll open the site for meal booking.
Hosts will be able to create meals other users can book a seat at. Hosts will be able to filter the users prior to booking. Users will pay through the site prior to getting directions to the host's home.
I think this will be great for people who love to cook, love trying new foods, and especially travelers. Trying real pad see ew with a Thai family would be mind blowing (at least to me).
In terms of the legality of booking a meal at a person's home, I am not sure. Each state/country has their own regulations so until it grows to a point where that is a problem, I'm not worrying about it.
What do you guys think about the site / strategy? Thanks for your time and thoughts.
Emile Emile@housefed.com
PS if you remember the HN post 'Quit Job, Learning to Code' back in July ( http://goo.gl/cxNsr ), that was from me. I have been at it since then day and night. Thanks to everyone who has helped over the last few months. You too can learn how to code.