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Los Angeles is coming into its own as a startup community, with its own distinct features. One particular distinction, is that given the diversity and international presence, Los Angeles is becoming a staging ground for many tech companies looking to launch in the US. This could be because people from LA are traveling the world and have found inspiration for concepts back home, or former international students have gone home for entrepreneurship and are familiar with the community here, or businessmen and women are simply recognizing the potential that is in Los Angeles. Either way, LA is growing as an international presence for innovation.
Last week, SideChef launched (Yahoo article here). SideChef provides a step-by-step guidance system to cooking, which can help even the most amateur chefs cook a fantastic, seemingly-complicated meal (worked for me), and started a community of recipe-creators, home cooks, and general food fans. It incorporates a ton of features, including voice-command, self-timers, grocery lists - everything you need to make a meal happen, as well as features like game incentives, direct communication tools with original recipe uploader, in order to grow a strong community (read press release here for more).
What's more amazing is the international scope of the team. While LA is the headquarters for its North American based operations, a majority of the team, including some developers, are located in Shanghai. There, the team consists of a multinational group, citing countries of origin including France, the UK, China itself, representation from the various corners of the US, and more! This has allowed SideChef to approach cooking from a unique perspective, finding ways to both highlight unique differences in cultures in order to share the specialty of different nations, and find common bonds that tie us all together. Because of this, the SideChef team has managed to navigate through pitfalls such as unit conversions and language/ingredient access issues, which have plagued even the most brilliant minds in the past (sorry NASA).
As Los Angeles' startup community continues to grow, I look forward to seeing an increased global presence, as well as teams that comprise of people from all sorts, bringing unique perspectives and solutions to problems, serious or otherwise.
(SideChef is currently looking to work with cookware companies, restaurants, cooking schools, and more, as well as in the process of writing a white paper about the intersection of food and tech. For those interested, feel free to reach out to [email protected] for more information!)
EDIT: Check out this video showing how SideChef can be the "HER" of your kitchen (hope Joaquin Phoenix can handle it).
DOWNLOAD the app HERE: http://bit.ly/1hWtMNv
And use the code BUILTLA for extra points when you first sign up!
