Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

anyone here in this startup community in this field?

I am not classicly trained, but very eager to start this type of business. I`ve been mentoring under a prof chef and hope to have a real business plan within a year.

thoughts? advice? direction!?

Thanks...very green when it comes to this research!

Well now that you are being mentored by a chef, I would suggest you also learn the ins and outs of the restaurant business while you still can, especially on how to manage one.

If you are just planning on being a Chef, learning how to market yourself is a very important skill. I would definitely suggest taking a marketing course, and networking with chefs who work at major up-scale restaurants in your area. They could provide you with very valuable advice. Always keep your mind open to new ideas.

Hope this helps, and good luck to you!


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im not looking for restaurant work... or how to manage a restaurant...

i really want to cook for people/families in their homes.

 

thank you for the guidance!

I have done sites for 2 related businesses:
One does meal delivery services that you can order online. The ready-made meals come frozen and are easy to prepare - and really tasty.
The other does catering. (They did meal delivery but are phasing it out.)

I always thought it would be fun to be a personal chef, like to show up at someone`s house for a dinner party, make all the meals in a really nice kitchen, etc. But I thought out a few hurdles:
1) It`s time consuming. You can only be at one house for each meal!
2) What if the people don`t have good kitchen equipment ... do you bring all your own equipment, food, etc? I can see bringing in the food, but carting around my entire Calphalon set might be hard. I especially considered the homes that I would be doing such a thing in - they are often larger, in the hills, so you can`t just push a cart up there. It usually involves stairs. Maybe you could find a way to efficiently box things and use a dolly?

I thought about who I could partner with to spread my business - this is a strong word of mouth business. Good examples might be personal trainers and nutritionists. My angle would have been healthy, organic food prepared into delicious meals. I would have to do a lot of shopping at the local organic markets.

I also thought about what other services I could offer to make the business more profitable. One example would be to make ready-made meals for people on a diet ... like prepacked meals you deliver in the morning or once a week that are either refrigerated or frozen. You would have to figure out all the calories in each one for this to work, and possibly work with the client, a nutritionist and the personal trainer - all one team. You could spend a certain number a day a week focusing on this side of the business, say like Mon-Wed, and then do your personal dinner parties on Thur-Sun.

Another one would be fun, themed dinner parties ... like where I would provide all the food, decorations, dishes, everything. Like if they wanted to have a fun Hawaiian party where roast bbq pork was served on little straw plates, or clam bake night where you passed out those seafood bibs and baked the thing in a big pit in the yard (a makeshift pit is not hard to make on a patio with some bricks).

A big concern is location. This obviously won`t work in the middle of nowhere, Kansas. You would have to live close enough to network in an affluent area - people who could pay top dollar for your services.

Anyway, those are my ideas. Feel free to steal them - benefit from my daydreaming because I`m never going to get around to it!

What`s that chef-concierge business...I forget? Ah...wait..."Personal Chef." Do a search under Google for that term.

Meghan,

You might want to try browsing some of our members in the Marketplace.

http://www.startupnation.com/marketplace/products/food-bever age/

or private message some of our members through searching:

http://www.startupnation.com/NET_ROOT/search/searchResults.a spx?zoom_query=chef&type=member

(you may want to try some other keywords also)...

Good luck!

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Brian Cleveland,
Web Producer,
StartupNation

Hey Meg!

I am a CIA dropout, which means I started Culinary school and never finished and that is pretty common so don`t worry about training. Get your food safety cert and look into insurance.

Find a niche and add on additional items to float you during the down times.  I was a personal chef but then after 911 and the dotcom bust I was the first luxury to go.  I cooked for families and let the food in their refridge.  Then I did parties for the same families and some of their business`.

Good luck and feel free to ask me anything.

 

Cali

 

An online cooking show!

Start a website that shows videos of how to cook different foods. You could categorize the videos and make them searchable. To monetize the site you could sell kitchen gadgets that you actually use, cookbooks, downloadable recipes, etc. Upload the videos to Youtube and you should get some viral marketing. Just be sure to find your target market (single men who can`t cook(do the show in a bathing suit and you`re a hit)), or busy mothers, etc. You could do a contest to allow users to give you their favorite recipes, choose the best one, and then cook it on your show.

Just some thoughts...

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