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Problem
Young people are wasting money and feeling bad
...and they don't know how to fix it.
Despite the fact that cooking at home offers substantial financial, physical, and mental benefits, only 1/3 of Gen-Z cooks from scratch. Even though over 90% of young people say that they would like to become a better cook, and access to cooking content has never been easier, the same group is ordering DoorDash in record-setting numbers.
Existing content is at an all-time high but is scattered across platforms, formats, and over-indexes on teaching recipes — instead of offering the knowledge and confidence to cook habitually. The alternatives aren’t succeeding at giving young people the tool of cooking.
Solution
A personalized culinary mentor and best friend
Zest believes that everyone should have the ability to cook food for the people that they love, including themselves. So we created a platform that actually creates a habit out of cooking, instead of leaving users scrambling from one meal to the next.
We provide comprehensive education across the entire cooking journey, educating users from the grocery store all the way through cleanup. By emphasizing support and encouragement during the most challenging moments for home cooks, we’re able to push them through the same barriers that held them back in the past.
Product
A cooking teacher,
shopping assistant, and recipe database
powered by a proprietary knowledge graph.
In Zest, the recipes home cooks see, the knowledge they're served, and the techniques they learn will always be an optimal mix of "not too hard" and "not too easy." We do this by placing cooks directly into a "zone of proximal development" based on their current skill level and kitchen capabilities. As the user improves, the recipes, techniques, and ingredients grow with them, keeping them in our Goldilocks Zone.
Traction
1000% growth in the last 6 months + a huge social media following
With our freemium business model, MRR has grown to $7.3k today and grew 1,000% since mid-summer 2022 with $0 spent on marketing.
Through our organic social media strategy and founder-forward brand approach, Zest has earned a loyal following of fans and supporters over 170,000 strong.
Since we released the very first iteration of our product in January of 2021, we've capitalized off of our large audience and grown steadily and cost-effectively, doubling Paul Graham's benchmark of 5-7% WoW growth for early-stage start ups.
Customers
Users across the
globe are loving Zest
Enough with our toxic relationship with food
Gen Z has a rocky relationship with food. Our team knows it because we have lived it first hand. Feeding ourselves takes time away from our schedules, takes money from our wallets, and adds stress to our lives. Most solutions attempt to minimize the time, lower the price, and maximize efficiency. But in doing so they’ve completely eliminated the connective, healing, and human elements of food.
Through the power of knowledge and confidence, Zest is going return to our generation the agency that they deserve when it comes to food.
Business model
Freemium SaaS model
Zest offers two pricing tiers: a free get-to-know your kitchen plan and a $10/month home cook plan.
Our strategy is to deliver tremendous value to home cooks through our free plan, and make it a no-brainer for any home cook to be on Zest. As cooks grow, some of them gain more dynamic curiosity and upgrade to unlock the content in our home cook plan.
As a mobile application, >95% of revenue generated is gross profit.
Market
Home cooking is about to experience a digital boom
$7B Serviceable Available Market
While food and beverage has one of the lowest e-commerce penetration rates, it is by far one of the largest consumer markets. To date, only 5% of the food & beverage market has experienced digital disruption.
By contrast, books have 70% digital penetration, apparel has 40%, and furniture has 30%. The overall market size for food & beverage online will grow massively over the next 10 years and Zest will be at the forefront (HelloFresh 2021 annual report).
Competition
More fun, better support, more personalization
There isn’t a single digital culinary resource that provides the same end-to-end support that Zest offers. Our experience is designed to cultivate a habit, and our proprietary skill-tree AI curates recipes and skills that align with each user’s skill level, always keeping them in the “Goldilocks Zone” for learning.
Vision and strategy
The next evolution
of cooking at home
In the next 5 years, Zest will become the dominant way that people cook.
Funding
Backed by Techstars
We have bootstrapped effectively to date limiting outside capital to notable investors such as Techstars.
"
I saw this team work and can say with confidence that they are the group to get this done. People love this product and the market opportunity is huge. I can't wait to see it blow up."
—Neal Sáles-Griffin, Managing Director, Techstars Chicago
Founders
Meet the core team
Jake Gutstein
Co-Founder & CEO
A three-time founder, Jake exited his last company — eo — a dockless bikeshare, in 2020. Jake also worked at Shore Capital Partners and Deloitte Consulting.
Amrit Saini
Co-Founder & CTO
Amrit holds a decade of engineering experience, having worked on LexisNexis’ core search team, Abercrombie’s core web team, and Express’ in-store returns app.
Savannah Cooper
Co-Founder & Head of Design
Sav has an unparalleled ability to distill swaths of information into intuitive designs. She is a James B. Angell Scholar in UX/Design from University of Michigan.
Graham Kirstein
Co-Founder & Content Director
Graham managed omnichannel media for Simon Sinek’s online education startup and is an accomplished comedian & performer.
Julie Ottusch
Head of Culinary
Julie attained degrees from Harvard University and Le Cordon Bleu, Paris. She was a Chef de Partie at Alinea and additionally has a background in NGO education.
