Zest

By teaching users to learn a foreign language through interactive, entertaining lessons, Duolingo became an app with nearly ten million daily users, and a company valued at close to six billion dollars.

Zest aims to follow in this company’s footsteps with its mobile platform for cooking.

Zest is targeting users in their early- to mid-20s, a demographic referred to as “Gen Z.” More than ninety percent of this group says they’d like to become better at cooking. But only a third of them cook from home on a regular basis.

Access to cooking content has never been easier, yet delivery apps like DoorDash and GrubHub are setting record numbers. What’s going on here?

The problem is that existing resources, while convenient, are problematic. For example:

Social media influencers create entertaining cooking videos, but there’s rarely actual instruction or guidance in them. Online and hard-copy recipes offer step-by-step instruction, but it’s up to the individual to find and try recipes they want. Finally, meal kits are a popular option. But these are expensive — they can cost as much as five times the price of simply buying the ingredients and cooking at home.

That’s why Zest is taking a page out of Duolingo’s book. Its mobile platform provides comprehensive education across the entire cooking spectrum, from the grocery store to cleanup. As the company says, it’s a cooking teacher, shopping assistant, and recipe database all rolled into one platform.

With Zest, the recipes, instructions, and techniques are always a mix of not too hard and not too easy. This is achieved by placing the user in a “zone of proximal development” based on their current skill level and kitchen capabilities. As the user improves, the recipes and techniques grow with them, keeping them in what Zest calls its “Goldilocks Zone.”

Just like Duolingo, Zest aims to make cooking a fun, engaging habit, instead of leaving users scrambling from one meal to the next.

Zest was created by a team of Gen-Zers who understand the challenges of cooking first-hand. They’re supported by the company’s Head of Culinary, Julie Ottusch, who earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard and then studied culinary education at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. She spent a career in high-end restaurants and kitchens, most notably the three-michelin-star Alinea in Chicago.

With its app, Zest is targeting a seven-billion-dollar market, made up of those ages twenty to thirty five who cook a handful of times per week. Over the past six months, the company has achieved 1,000% growth despite zero dollars spent on marketing. Its videos have tallied more than twenty-five million views, and Zest is currently bringing in around $100,000 in annual revenue. Notably, the company is backed by Techstars, a prominent accelerator for seed-stage startups.

Zest generates revenue through a “freemium” business model. It offers a free “get to know your kitchen” plan and a home cook plan that costs ten dollars a month. Ninety-five percent of revenue generated is gross profit.

To scale its business, Zest has a three-phased plan:

Phase 1: Skill tree — this is the company’s current phase, and provides convenient growth at users’ skill level in the kitchen.

Phase 2: Social — once it’s become a trusted resource in terms of how to cook, Zest will create resources for users to share successes and stories about food.

Phase 3: Marketing — finally, Zest will create an equipment-selling marketplace and sell its platform to enterprises as an employee benefit.

Team Background

Jake Gutstein - Co-Founder & CEO

Jake is a three-time startup founder who sold his previous company — eo, a bike sharing startup — in 2020.

Previously, he worked as a business analyst with Shore Capital Partners, a venture-capital firm, and Deloitte, a consulting company.

He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University.

Julie Ottusch - Head of Culinary

Julie is an experienced chef who has worked in some of the top restaurants in the U.S.

After earning a degree in English from Harvard, she studied culinary education at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. From there, she became a pastry chef and line cook at multiple restaurants, including Alinea, a Chicago-based restaurant that earned three Michelin stars.

Amrit Saini - Co-Founder & CTO

Amrit has a decade of software-engineering experience.

Most recently, he was a software engineer with Precoa, an advertising company. Before that, he held the same position with Abercrombie and Fitch, a clothing retailer.

Earlier in his career, he was a software engineer with LexisNexis, an IT-services company. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Ohio University.

Co-Investors

TechStars

Prominent accelerator for tech companies. Investments include Uber, ClassPass and Twilio.