Built an app to teach beginners how to cook
Ourselves
Health and Wellness
Summary:
We wanted to help people save money and live longer by cooking habitually. We got to the top of Reddit's r/cookingforbeginners and received hundreds of heartfelt emails from users who cooked their first meal with Cookin. While the mission made sense, the business model ultimately did not. In the process we got to learn from every first startup mistake in the book.
What we did:
User interviews, testing and market research
UX and UI design for responsive web app and native iOS app
Front-end development in React Logo and brand design
Ran social and referral marketing experiments to acquire over 3500 users
Ran a test kitchen to develop over 300 unique recipes
Pitched to VC firms and startup competitions, ultimately raising $45k
Hired employees and managed a network of freelancers
It’s a really amazing tool for saving money and eating healthier. I’ve had issues with my weight and tracking what I eat, but this helps me manage my diet while staying in budget. I’ve also been loving learning how to cook!
Nathan P., Cookin user
The basic concept was this: 12 item grocery lists and 3 recipes to use 100% of the perishable ingredients. The meals only required one pan and followed the formula of cut stuff up and add it to heat.
We spent A TON of time researching. We followed people around the grocery store to collect data then would run exercises like this to discover insights like the fact that shopping was a big impediment to cooking.
Running the test kitchen for a summer to develop over 300 one-pan recipes using only simple ingredients.
Creating wireframes before starting to code. The goal was obviously to make it as simple as possible.
We chose bright natural colors with contrasting dark grey and white for a punchy, bold feel. We wanted to highlight the beautiful photos that came from the test kitchen.
Cooking intimidates beginners. Cookin was a less formal, easier, more relaxed way to start. The logo is an interpretation of a single stove burner as all of our recipes were one-pan or one-pot.
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