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Review my startup: Housefed.com 2.0 - idea is an Airbnb for food

19 pointsby emilepetronealmost 14 years ago
As a one-man startup, many thanks in advance for your feedback.<p>Housefed.com - find home meals all over the world to book a seat at. Opentable for your kitchen / Airbnb for food. Try new foods while meeting new people from the comfort of the host's home.<p>A little background- on March 28th, I released the 1.0 version to being building a community of people passionate about food. Since then the site has grown to over 2,000 users from over 400 cities in 75 countries.<p>I have had 2 test meals at my house in San Francisco that went brilliantly. Guests from Google, Yahoo, Linkedin, Yelp, and other smaller companies. From these events, I personally knew 25% of the guests ahead of time. While initially it may seem like an awkward concept, both events were incredibly fun as everyone met each other and found mutual acquaintances.<p>Right now there are 2 live meals in San Francisco- a Node.JS BBQ &#38; a Turkish Vegetarian meal.<p>This latest update was a huge shift as it made the meals / hosts front and center. In terms of UX, any advice the HN community has would be greatly appreciated. I am still trying to figure out the best way to present the content (meals, hosts, photos, &#38; users).<p>Background on me: My name is Emile. I left my last job last July, taught myself how to code, and blogged about the journey at proudn00b.com. A little over 1 year later, Housefed is the result of that journey.<p>Thanks again for your ideas &#38; comments.

7 comments

ig1almost 14 years ago
FYI. The general term for this type of business is a "pop-up restaurant", there was a thread on HN about them a while back which you might find useful.<p>Also I believe both maxstoller and richpalmer2 on HN have founded startups in the selling home cooked food space, so it may well be worth speaking to them about the legal aspects of it and their experiences.<p>Another startup in this space is <a href="http://www.gusta.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.gusta.com/</a> (actually founded by ex-AirBnB employees).
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petervandijckalmost 14 years ago
AirBnB for food, I like it :)<p>As for ux: I tried searching for "nyc", "new york city" and "san francisco", and nothing, so first thing would be to improve your search.<p>Good luck with this, I really like the idea.
drozalmost 14 years ago
This just seems really odd to me because you are skipping a number of "social requisites" for inviting someone into your home and furthermore for cooking/eating for strangers.<p>I just see this turning in to another craigslist. Starts off with good intentions, then it becomes exploited and ruined by people with spurious motives.<p>You may also want to watch the IT Crowd episode "Moss and the German" as to what else could happen :)
blackboxxxalmost 14 years ago
As a solo founder myself, I just want to congratulate you on launching what looks like an interesting and promising business. I'm particularly impressed you got the domain name housefed.com. Is there a story behind that?<p>P.S. I'll definitely check you out when you get into Canada.
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curtalmost 14 years ago
You're going to run into big trouble with the health department from day one. Cities are shutting down and fining kids lemonade stands.
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geeksRusalmost 14 years ago
Interesting idea - just a thought, I'd want to see pictures of the homes/kitchens before signing up.
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gobongoalmost 14 years ago
Your "EJ" moment will be someone dying of e-coli poisoning. Until then, have a ball!
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