

Show HN: My weekend project, MealMogul.com - tomblomfield
http://www.mealmogul.com

======
tomblomfield
I like cooking, but making a meal for just myself or my housemate seems pretty
inefficient.

So I spent a few hours this weekend knocking together a site that allows
people to post "meals" that they will be cooking in future. If you live
nearby, you can eat a (hopefully) delicious home-cooked meal for £4 - £5. A
restaurant in the area would typically cost £10-£15.

It's a little like GrubWithUs meets AirBNB, although I'm doing it purely for
fun - I hack away at a startup as a day job.

If you're in London, pop by to one of my meals in the next few weeks!

~~~
mattslight
Tom, I'm working on a project similar to GrubWithUs (blog.eatsocial.net). We
are a team of 3 and just started working every weekend on this about a month
ago.

How many of you are working on this?

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dgurney
My advice would be to show more content before you make people sign in with
Facebook. Since I don't like connecting things to my Facebook profile I
clicked out of the site, when otherwise I might have been interested and spent
more time exploring.

~~~
jbigelow76
Too many questions left if somebody isn't willing to sign in to an unknown
service with FB (which I am not).

I'm guessing this like an AirBnb for meals?

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pamelafox
There was a site similar to this in SF, HouseFed, but it looks like its down
now. Another variation here is Munchery, where the meals are actually made by
chefs.

I love cooking and hosting meals at my place, but I don't actually want to
meet new people through my meals or make money. Instead, I just want to catch
up with people I haven't seen in a while in a way that doesn't involve
drinking (the default around here).

But I find it hard to figure out who to invite for meals, because I'm not sure
who's around on any given night, and I don't want to invite too many people,
and I don't want to invite someone too many times (and have them feel bad for
having to say no so much). I wish I could just say "tonight I'm making X, come
over if you're interested, reply by X so I can buy appropriate portions."

I've tried using G+ circles and Facebook lists, but everyone's on different
networks and has different rates of response.

Anyway, that's my problem, would love an app with a solution. :)

~~~
mattslight
Another similar site in the UK is HouseBites.co.uk.

They are revenue making at the moment (note sure on profitability).

I am workimg on a similar project st the moment EatSocial.net where the focus
is on eating out rather than eating in. Think meetups in restaurants.

Early blog posts about it here: <http://blog.eatsocial.net>

http:

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sgrove
This looks awesome for someone like me - balancing cooking, healthy food,
regular meals, and running a startup time is a major PITA. Food is regularly a
burden rather than a joy.

Having a homecooked meal from someone nearby? Sounds totally spot on. It could
be quick if I want to leave (could be some social issues), WAY cheaper than
delivery, cheaper even than eating out, and presumably it'll be healthier than
just drinking tea and alcohol instead of eating (my usual diet).

That said, critical mass if the big challenge here - sites like this take a
huge amount of focused effort. Feet-on-the-ground city-specific events,
marketing, networking, etc. And mealmogul could face an even bigger challenge
for people like me who live in SF without a car, but up on Twin Peaks with few
people around.

That said, I'd love to be eating home cooked meals from my neighbors soon, so
I hope they can find a way to explode in SF!

~~~
jamest
Completely agree with the sentiment that food often becomes a burden rather
than a joy.

Love the idea and congrats on knocking it out in a weekend.

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yangez
Consider describing the service more on the front page in terms of what it
does and how it works. Currently, without logging in, I have no idea. Does
everyone pitch in to cook pot luck style? Do you deliver these meals to
different places for a fee? Do people just show up and buy dishes? Getting me
to sign up is much easier if you resolve this uncertainty.

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ypcx
Add more login options. Currently I have FB and G+ in my /etc/hosts as
127.0.0.2 -- a little detox. I'm writing this comment because I know that from
developer's perspective the FB-login-only may seem a good thing (I've been
there), but it puts many people off, for many reasons. I know this is only a
prototype etc., but for later.

~~~
tomblomfield
Thanks for the feedback. I'm using Omniauth, so it's really simple to add
different login options.

I'll put it on my list for next weekend!

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MercuryCreative
How do you get around restaurant and food prep regulations? Once an event is
public and payment is made for services some very strick government controls
come into play. Or am I misunderstanding what is going on here?

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marquis
I was just talking about doing this with friends every friday, we all love to
cook and show off - it makes me spend a week investigating food preparation to
impress. I've been in cities before where groups of friends have an open night
once a week for a $5 tip. Works really well, especially once you get traction
and a random group of friends show up every time. Great concept, good luck!

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swecker
I've had dinner with many people in their homes, and at my parent's house my
mom hosts a home-made dinner every Sunday in an open invite sort of fashion
like this, so I am familiar with and really like the idea, but I have a
question that a lot of the clients might have.

In this situation (possibly complete strangers meeting for the sole purpose of
eating) what is the norm for after dinner socializing? I think it'd be fair to
say that some people would just leave after they're done eating, but how does
a host go about inviting their guests to leave? Or would hosting such a dinner
automatically entail at least a round of talk afterwards?

If you can keep it simple, than it'd be easier to host. I just say this cause
my mother's dinners usually last all evening long, and that isn't something
I'd personally be willing to host, although a small dinner would be much
easier for me to manage.

Not that you should try to regulate it by any means, but would you have
readily available advice to users?

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prawn
I don't use Facebook so I couldn't get very far. And I like cooking, but I
wouldn't be keen to host absolute strangers in my house - I'm guessing that's
the idea?

I wondered if you could have something like this but the host would cook a
dish if they got a minimum number of takers and perhaps pick-ups were an
option/encouraged/forced. So there'd be a tipping point to make a meal happen.
If I already have a broad social group, but I want to make a bit on the side
from my cooking, it's barely worth the $x to risk having some nutbag show up.
But it might be worth me cooking twice a week for a minimum of 10 people each
time, and charging $8. Then they drop in at a certain time to eat or pick up
their containers/bags and away they go.

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ebaysucks
I'd like for this service to take off. People spend much more on eating out
than on hotels, so an AirBnb for meals makes a lot of sense.

Just pick one area of London and market the hell out of it. Make sure there is
a variety of food styles available every night.

~~~
tomblomfield
That's the plan - I'm going to try to start in North/Central London.
Islington, Camden & Shoreditch (home to the infamous Silicon Roundabout).

Short of actually flyering local homes, does anyone have any ideas for cheap &
effective local advertising? I've got some Facebook ads running, but
targetting more locally than just "London" doesn't return many people.

~~~
mattslight
Advertising this could be one of your biggest costs. Reduce the requirement
for advertising by devising a traction plan, if you haven't already. You
already have the right idea by targeting a small area first and then
expanding.

There is a similar site to yours already launched in London, fairly well
established called HouseBites.co.uk - have you studied their model? Mike from
HouseBites gave a talk at YCombinator London about 1 or 2 months ago. Did you
see this talk? There is a video floating around somewhere.

Some of the logistical issues were discussed which may give you some
assistance on for Meal Mogul.

I am also working on a different yet related project EatSocial.net (see
blog.EatSocial.net) - think meetups in restaurants. Would you be interested to
meet for a chat? I am based in London and would like to hear more about Meal
Mogul.

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skadamat
Badass! I wanted to do something like this in Austin, Texas but haven't had
the time just yet.

------
dr_
Interesting idea. While it would be nice to have alternative log in options, I
do give you credit for making the facebook log in just that - logging in,
rather than asking for permission to post to my wall, etc. etc. etc. which
turns me off right away from most sites. Another advantage to using facebook
for log in is that fact that you are basically inviting strangers into your
home, so it wouldn't hurt to know something a little about their identity in
advance.

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jurre
I think it's a cool idea, but I didn't really get what it was at first. I
thought I would be able to share recipes and view other people's recipe's, and
now I'm disappointed that I don't have that Chili recipe :(

Also, will you be adding closed events where I can invite friends? Seems like
a convenient way to not forget who I promised to eat with/cook for and what
I'll be making.

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ralphsaunders
Don't know what the idea is and it's asking for access to information I have
on facebook. Sorry, but no.

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zobzu
"to continue, sign in with FB"

well, sorry, no.

here is the ONLY decent "global sign in" solution that i know of btw:

<https://browserid.org/>

not going to sign in with anything that offers anything _less_

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araneae
You need to make sure <http://mealmogul.com/> goes to @ as well as the www
subdomain.

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drumdance
Love the idea. In my case I can't really host meals because my place is so
small, but I'd love to attend & participate in others.

------
patrickaljord
Looks like <http://www.super-marmite.com/> by @shingara

~~~
tomblomfield
Yeah, it looks very similar to super-marmite - I'd not seen that before.

I guess the key is just getting critical mass in an area, since it's
effectively just a marketplace. Super-marmite seems to be very Paris-focussed
at the moment.

There's also housebites.com, but it's a bit more upmarket and focussed on
takeaway/delivery.

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kqueue
I would put some effort and change the default bootstrap css theme because it
looks like many other websites.

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FedericoElles
You need someone for the German localisation/translation? I'm helping you!

------
noduerme
I really, really like the idea, but I hate Facebook and I won't have an
account with them. Otherwise I'd definitely host a meal.

~~~
ascendant
Yeah, maybe next steps could involve logins via other sites like Google,
Twitter, OpenID, etc?

~~~
ansy
Or, you know, just use a login name with a password? Why do identities need to
be connected by default? Who really thinks making up a name and password is
too much trouble? Are the Hacker News and Reddit models really so bad?

~~~
lachyg
Facebook is great for a site like this, as it ties someone to a real identity.
Excluding the few who don't want to use Facebook isn't a bad compromise for
the great service it provides to site owners.

~~~
darklajid
Define 'real identity'. Either this site is meant to allow people to connect
w/o knowing each other. Or it's for close friends (and in that case I don't
see the point).

Facebook: 50% of my (heh.. Hate that site. Admittedly meager selection of 60
friends) have a pseudonym as name. Among my 2nd level friends that's even more
common. It's really _uncommon_ to have a real looking name, not some play on
words or weird spellings of something that not even remotely resembles your
name. Ah yeah - and my privacy settings _should_, unless Zuck decided
otherwise lately, make it impossible for anyone to see much about me anyway,
so my 'real identity' is worth zilch.

~~~
lachyg
None of my friends have pseudonyms, none of my extended network do either,
it's all full, real names. I'm of the belief Facebook enforces proper names
(even for Snoop Dogg!)

