Super Marmite, based in France, pitched this in 2010. I think it's still going.
Show HN: Like Airbnb but for food
31–40 of 112 posts
Re: Show HN: Like Airbnb but for food
#32One 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.
Millions of people already cook and clean for themselves and their family. Is it that hard to add one or two extra plates?
Many 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.
Re: Show HN: Like Airbnb but for food
#33One 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.
Millions of people already cook and clean for themselves and their family. Is it that hard to add one or two extra plates?
The 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.
Re: Show HN: Like Airbnb but for food
#34Underground 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.
Re: Show HN: Like Airbnb but for food
#35This 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
Thank you !
Re: Show HN: Like Airbnb but for food
#36I couldn't find my country on the list. I live in the US. Maybe "all over the world" really means "all over Europe"
I know, we need to get more hosts and we are working on it.
Thanks for the feedback !
Re: Show HN: Like Airbnb but for food
#37Underground 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…
Why 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?
Re: Show HN: Like Airbnb but for food
#38This is awesome ! What are your plans about expanding abroad ?
Actually, as soon as possible !
We still have a lot of work to do, especially to convert foodies into hosts and travelers into guests but we are working on it !
Re: Show HN: Like Airbnb but for food
#39nice work
Thanks !
Re: Show HN: Like Airbnb but for food
#40For 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_Priva...
What 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.
Addons: 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.