Lifestyle

The Founder of Phoodieur Talks Food Porn and Restaurant Recommendations

By Allison Wild at Cornell University

Searching for a dope place to have your weekly brunch with the squad? Trying to satisfy your late night cravings for ice cream, burgers, or fries? Looking for the new hottest spot to take pics to up your Insta game?

All of your hangry problems can be solved with Phoodieur, a restaurant recommendation app that pairs eye-popping food porn with honest, super-simple critiques to enable foodies to efficiently evaluate dining experiences. Say goodbye to reading long restaurant reviews or searching endlessly on social media for that lobster mac and cheese you’ve been dying to try. Phoodieur simplifies and accelerates the process of discovering new and exciting dishes by allowing users to explore restaurants through stunning photo-based menus.

Founded in February 2015 by a Cornell hotelier and a Stanford techie, Phoodieur was first released in October 2015. Currently, the app is available in New York City and Ithaca, but there are plans to expand into other metropolitan areas later this year. We got the chance to find out more about the incredible startup by talking to one of the founders and the woman behind the idea, Sara Yun.

Spoon: Where did the idea for Phoodieur come from?

SY: The idea for Phoodieur came when I moved to New York City after graduating from college. I was new to the city and, being the foodie that I am, was in constant search for the best restaurants and food to try in the city. However, every time that I was trying to pick a place, I went through this long, drawn-out process: I would look on Yelp to figure out what nearby places match up with the kind of food that I was looking for. Once I found a potential restaurant, I would go straight to Instagram to see quality photos of the food and ambiance.

I would end up going back and forth between these two sites constantly, trying to match up what I saw on the menu with actual photos on social media, and a task that should have taken 5 minutes turned into 45 minutes. When I saw my co-workers at the time doing the same thing, I realized that I wasn’t alone in this quest of finding that perfect dining experience. I knew that there had to be a better way to streamline the process of finding a restaurant – it needed to be visual and efficient, with high attention to detail.

Spoon: Was there one particular moment when you decided to create Phoodieur?

SY: Deciding to create Phoodieur happened in several waves, not just one moment. There was one evening when I was sitting down and talking to my parents about the idea towards the end of summer. I was super-excited and couldn’t wait to start this venture. I knew that in some way, shape, or form, I was going to make this happen.

The second realization came in the fall when I had already started working on the app outside of my full-time job at Ernst & Young.  I was on vacation in Korea with my mom, taking a break from the corporate world and life in New York. It was sometime during that trip that I realized that, if I really wanted to do this, I was going to go all in. I was only 23 and, knowing that I had nothing to lose, I should be taking a big leap for my dream. When I got back from the vacation, the decision had been made. I left my full-time job and went full steam ahead with Phoodieur.

Spoon: What was the most difficult part of launching Phoodieur?

SY: When we started working on Phoodieur, we had a good handle on the scope of the project; however, executing it and getting all of the moving parts to work together proved to be more difficult than expected.

There were unforeseen variables, obstacles, and contingencies constantly popping up that we had to learn to manage on the fly. Things didn’t always go perfectly as expected, but those mishaps taught us how to think quickly, be flexible, and pivot when needed. It was a very valuable experience for our team that has only made us stronger.

Spoon: What is your favorite part of Phoodieur?

SY: Seeing everything come to fruition. After we’ve worked very hard on a long initiative or a challenging problem, resolving the puzzle and watching things fall into place is incredibly rewarding.

Spoon: What are Phoodieur strongest features?

SY: 

• It’s visual. We provide picture-based menus that allow people to see everything that they could be ordering at a restaurant. Not only does this feature make it super easy for people to decide whether they’d like to dine at a particular restaurant, but it also organizes food pictures in a way that they can actually make sense of what it is and when it’s offered. No more having to read long wordy paragraphs or one-off reviews, because the picture says it all.

• It’s powerful. Phoodieur provides menu data and users tag their photos to actual dishes on the menu. Users can search by menu item and see all of the different dishes that are being served at various restaurants. It provides the capability to search for things using a bottom-up approach. You can find exactly what you want to eat, then see what restaurant it’s offered at, instead of searching for restaurants and then looking at the dishes offered.

• It’s fresh. The app is visually pleasing, clean, and modern. We’ve designed it so that it’s focused completely on the photos and visual media. It’s easy to use and is made for you to just get lost in. Every page leads to several other pages of drool-worthy photos, and it serves as a vehicle to enter a never ending world of food porn. Phoodieur positions itself perfectly at the intersection between beauty, practicality, and entertainment.

• It has your back. Users can create visual bookmarks of their favorite dishes and restaurants in their own collage. Collages allow users to organize their dining interests in a creative manner, gather recommendations from their friends or fellow foodies, and discover more dishes and restaurants to explore. Never again will you need to guess what you ate at that restaurant that one time or struggle to remember that one dish you saw online that you’ve been dying to try. Once you save it to your collage, it’s just one-click away. You’re all taken care of.

Spoon: What advice do you have for other aspiring entrepreneurs?

SY: 

Spoon: What were some challenges that you have come across in your journey?

SY: Something that very little people know is that this company has been built solely with family, friends, and friends of friends. It would be lying to say that it hasn’t been challenging to manage both professional and personal relationships simultaneously.

As a team, we’ve had to learn how to communicate effectively in our own way, respect our boundaries (and sometimes, lack of boundaries), and understand how each other operates. There’s a reason why people say to not work with family or friends–because things get messy and not everything is so clear-cut. However, despite these challenges, I’ve found that working with friends and family has been one of the most rewarding things about Phoodieur.

I’m building a dream with people whom I care dearly for and love. We’ve learned to understand each other and work extremely well together as a team. For us, this app means much more than just business, money, or material success. It’s our passion, our relationships, our life, and our ‘ride or die.’ 

Spoon: Where do you think the future of Phoodieur lies?

Sara: We see Phoodieur becoming the Internet of restaurants. We’ve laid a foundation for it to be a hub that will connect all things related to the restaurant space. We want Phoodieur to be a one stop shop for all restaurant-related experiences.

Spoon: Where do you see Phoodieur in five years?

Sara: With the app’s increasing growth and adoption, we see Phoodieur becoming the go-to restaurant app in New York City, among other metropolitan areas world-wide. 

Be sure to find Phoodieur in the App Store, on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter.

Want more awesome food-related apps? Check these out:

• This App Is Basically Tinder for Foodies
• Yooka: The Scavenger Hunt App
• The Best Food Delivery Apps