Cofounder And Lead Engineer
Jp
Cofounded in 2013, acquired 2015. "Airbnb for cooking lessons." Customers go to a cooking instructor's home to have a cooking lesson. Cooking instructors make money giving cooking lessons at home.I was technical cofounder and the only developer, responsible for everything technical.Also contributed to the early strategy of the business, heavily influenced by YCombinator and Eric Ries: fast experimentation and iteration, doing things that don't scale, emphasis on building something people love.Initially we targeting travelers to Japan, offering Japanese cooking lessons at the home of a local Japanese cooking instructor, but found it hard to reach potential customers without a marketing budget. So we pivoted to targeting Japanese customers in Japan, offering international cooking lessons at the home of an international cooking instructor living in Japan. We started a cooking meetup group that allowed us to meet our target customers and launch the product. This worked well and we expanded rapidly, eventually getting acquired in 2015 and partnering with the Tokyo Metro transit system in 2016.http://cookbiz.jp/soken/culture/tadaku/ (Japanese)