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Launch HN: Kitchenful (YC S21) – Weekly recipes with integrated shopping

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Re: Launch HN: Kitchenful (YC S21) – Weekly recipes with integrated shopping

#41

Post by cschiller »

iandanforth wrote: post #28

How do you compare to platejoy? I find their idea good but the workflow frustrating. I pay for plantoeat but their grocer integration is pretty poor. Edit: Also I should note that "free" trials that automatically start charging are becoming illegal in Europe for good reason. It's a dark pattern we've just gotten used to. You should avoid that model. One reason I've stayed with plantoeat is that they don't auto-renew.…

Platejoy and plantoeat are great products!

We focus on two things which I believe set us apart: (1) creating personal suggestions each week based on your preferences, diets and goals, which are currently reviewed and curated by real chefs (2) taking care of placing the order for you with your favorite grocer. Meaning the order process for you is seamless. You simply choose the meals you would like to cook, and any other specific products (like beverages, snacks, etc.) and place your order with 1 click.

We’ve found that this combination solves a bunch of problems existing solutions still have from a user perspective.

Thanks for the point about the auto-renew. I can personally relate to this. We decided to go for the auto-renew on a monthly basis, meaning our users can cancel anytime with limited downside and without the need to commit to long time spans. But we’ll definitely take another look at the opt-in models, thanks for the hint!

Re: Launch HN: Kitchenful (YC S21) – Weekly recipes with integrated shopping

#42

Post by doosomah »

cschiller wrote: post #20
doosomah wrote: post #15

Great idea! I wrote some code to generate nutritionally complete, minimalist diets. It got some traction, but I never managed to integrate it with recipes/prices. lkm if you want to try to integrate it.

Thanks! Generating nutritionally complete, minimalist diets sounds super interesting. Feel free to link it here or write to me at cs@kitchenful.com so we can take a look.

Email sent!

Re: Launch HN: Kitchenful (YC S21) – Weekly recipes with integrated shopping

#43

Post by DantesKite »

I hope you succeed. I believe this space is massive. Especially considering the permutation space of recipes and how nobody has tackled the problem well, even though thousands have tried.

But maybe with food delivery, it’s a problem that can be successfully tackled since you’ll get feedback on customers. That’s a sweet data pipeline.

Re: Launch HN: Kitchenful (YC S21) – Weekly recipes with integrated shopping

#44

Post by cschiller »

koevet wrote: post #12

Cool idea, I had a similar hitch to scratch and have been playing with the idea to build something like that (for personal use, but ended up using https://hay-kot.github.io/mealie/ ). I'm in Berlin and I wasn't aware you guys were already operational here. A couple of notes: I signed up for the trial and answered the questionnaire. To me, it is not clear what happens next. I didn't receive any welcome/confirmation em…

Thanks for the feedback and apologies for any confusion! The lack of clarity about the next step after signing up is our bad, we are currently working on making the process clearer. Happy to see Berlin users here!

Re: Launch HN: Kitchenful (YC S21) – Weekly recipes with integrated shopping

#45

Post by nend »

cschiller wrote: post #26
coffeedoughnuts wrote: post #23

There's no indication anywhere that this works for UK customers - other than some logos part way down the page for Ocado, Waitrose and Sainsbury's (all UK only AFAIK) and there's no context to the logos... Does this work in the UK?

Sorry for the confusion with the UK logos. Unfortunately we’re not operating in the UK yet but are definitely looking into it.

As a potential US customer, I was also a bit put off by this. Do you support all US zip codes? What kind of recipes would I be able to order if I sign up, assuming the availability is partly based on my delivery address?

The free trial requires a credit card, I don't want to give you my credit card without an assurance that you have food I want to pay for, or that you'll be able to deliver to me.

Re: Launch HN: Kitchenful (YC S21) – Weekly recipes with integrated shopping

#46

Post by daanng »

cschiller wrote: post #41
iandanforth wrote: post #28

How do you compare to platejoy? I find their idea good but the workflow frustrating. I pay for plantoeat but their grocer integration is pretty poor. Edit: Also I should note that "free" trials that automatically start charging are becoming illegal in Europe for good reason. It's a dark pattern we've just gotten used to. You should avoid that model. One reason I've stayed with plantoeat is that they don't auto-renew.…

Platejoy and plantoeat are great products! We focus on two things which I believe set us apart: (1) creating personal suggestions each week based on your preferences, diets and goals, which are currently reviewed and curated by real chefs (2) taking care of placing the order for you with your favorite grocer. Meaning the order process for you is seamless. You simply choose the meals you would like to cook, and any ot…

what about Emeals or Mealime or Mealboard or PrepDish or Yummly or Prepear or Eat This Much?

Re: Launch HN: Kitchenful (YC S21) – Weekly recipes with integrated shopping

#47

Post by LaffertyDev »

Hi! I feel like I'm part of your target demographic. I almost signed up, but a few things stopped me.

* I echo that free-trial-rollover-to-paid is off-putting

* I can't seem to find information about the people who are putting together your recipes. Who are they? Where are they from? Where have they cooked?

* I also can't seem to find UI information about your app. Particularly, how easy is it to regenerate meals? Is nutritional information shown?

* What guarantees are there that if I save a recipe, that it will continue to be saved? (i.e. for your 2nd party recipes, what if a C&D comes in or you lose the license?)

* What import/export features are there in the App? Can I load in my own recipes that will be included in your rotation? Can I export your recipes into 3rd party utilities or into a markdown format?

Any one of these is mild, but taken together it walked me away from signing up for the free trial. I'm actively looking for products in this space and I'm 100% willing to pay $10/mo to remove the dinner frustrations from my life.

The featuresets I'm looking for:

* Recipes by high-trust sites and chefs (NYT, seriouseats, etc.)

* Easy meal generation (echo all of your points above and in this thread!)

* Easy meal re-generation

* Individual recommendation controls (thumbsup/thumbsdown individual recipes)

* Avoiding vendor lock-in (easy recipe import/export in a sane data format)

* Cross-platform (mobile ios/android, mac, linux, web)

* (Bonus) open-source

One technical question, how are you handling meal collation? I'd love to see your high-level technical stack there. Any ML? Individual recipe linking? Very curious :)

Re: Launch HN: Kitchenful (YC S21) – Weekly recipes with integrated shopping

#48

Post by mbg721 »

With all this inadvertent mention of Christianity, one thing that did come to mind is seasonal dietary requirements--Catholic and Orthodox needs for Fridays and for Lent. I don't think the big meal services really address that, but it's not as difficult logistically as e.g. Kosher food, so it could be a useful market.

Re: Launch HN: Kitchenful (YC S21) – Weekly recipes with integrated shopping

#49

Post by hans863 »

cschiller wrote: post #33
ichydkrsrnae wrote: post #19

I've thought about this myself, but it's an idea before its time that will fight a desperate fight against one big problem: quality. Quantity is easy. Quality is hard. People who cook for themselves want to choose the ingredients that go into what they're cooking. That's often the reason people cook for themselves: I decide what goes in my body. I really, really want to know if the green bell pepper has three lobes o…

True, the picking quality is a big factor for the experience. Especially when it’s about shopping for ingredients for a meal. We try to improve this by placing the order on behalf of the customer, so we can optimize the product selection for the cooking experience and have the option to guide the pickers with comments/chat towards the most appropriate products or suitable substitutes if something is out of stock. Bes…

Yes, do this and I’ll sign up. I live in Berlin and live next door to an edeka. I’m happy to do the shopping myself for fresh food every day after work. All I need is a shopping list in my phone that I can pull up from my phone when I head downstairs to buy food.

Re: Launch HN: Kitchenful (YC S21) – Weekly recipes with integrated shopping

#50

Post by spiderice »

cschiller wrote: post #33
ichydkrsrnae wrote: post #19

I've thought about this myself, but it's an idea before its time that will fight a desperate fight against one big problem: quality. Quantity is easy. Quality is hard. People who cook for themselves want to choose the ingredients that go into what they're cooking. That's often the reason people cook for themselves: I decide what goes in my body. I really, really want to know if the green bell pepper has three lobes o…

True, the picking quality is a big factor for the experience. Especially when it’s about shopping for ingredients for a meal. We try to improve this by placing the order on behalf of the customer, so we can optimize the product selection for the cooking experience and have the option to guide the pickers with comments/chat towards the most appropriate products or suitable substitutes if something is out of stock. Bes…

> we are considering to give the user an option to simply export the optimized shopping list, so it can be used for offline shopping

The fact that this isn't included already is a bit of a red flag for me. It's a meal planning service that won't even give me the list of ingredients if I want to buy them myself?

Besides that, it does look interesting. I may sign up for a free trial after showing it to my wife and seeing if she'd find good utility in it. We've done grocery delivery for about a year, but we're on the verge of stopping. So having an exportable list of ingredients is obviously a must before I get too attached to your service.

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