In September at midventuresLAUNCH, Moshe Tamssot, Conrad Fuhrman and Conrad Styczen were the winners of the People’s Choice Award of midventuresLAUNCH with CookItFor.Us “It all started with an idea back at Social Dev Camp run by Tim Courtney,” said Tamssot, “and there we were three guys that didn’t know each other but had 36 hours to come up with a business. We won there and it got us a spot in midventuresLAUNCH. The idea that has garnered the team so much attention is called CookItFor.Us, an online portal where people can post recipes and other people can bid to cook it for them. If it seems simple, that’s because it is. “We have two types of people we are connecting,” said Tamssot, “Cravers and Makers. Cravers are people that find a recipe that they want to have made for them and post it on our site. Then, people with access to certified kitchens bid on the right to make them.” Here’s how it works: You find a recipe for Pecan Pie and thinks it sounds incredible but don’t cook. You post the recipe to CookItFor.Us and make it available to the community. Other people browsing the site see the recipe you are craving. If they like it enough, they might say, “Hey I want this too!” and add their name to the list of Cravers. As the list of Cravers for a particular recipe grows, the original Craver to post the recipe awards the bid to the Maker. The value for the Maker comes in bulk. In our example, there could be 20 people that have signed up for the Pecan Pie. The Maker now knows how much profit they are making from an order of 20 Pecan Pies and all the Cravers get their delicious Pecan Pies in their bellies. It’s win-win. Tamssot is quick to point out its actually win-win-win because now the Maker that has won the bid needs ingredients to make their orders. “We put the order out to ingredient suppliers so that the Maker has an opportunity to get the best deal on ingredients and increase their profit margin,” said Tamssot. “We are very excited by the way our model can grow quickly.” CookItFor.Us is now in the process of looking for funding as well as strategic partnerships with food media, restaurants, bakeries and commercial kitchens. Their site is in beta and they are looking for Cravers and Makers as well to kickstart everything.
