I have an idea for a “killer dapp” that could be a game changer.
It’s called Purple Chef – you cook food from home and sell it to your neighbors, like Uber but for home cooking.
The idea is perfect for a decentralized network, because it’s in a gray area legally to cook food from a non-commercial kitchen and then sell the food to the public.
For example, the first digital currencies like egold were centralized and shutdown by the government. Bitcoin’s decentralized nature is the reason it still exists.
The first centralized home cooking networks like Josephine.com were also shutdown by the government. Thus a decentralized home cooking network that the government cannot shutdown, would be ideal.
Why is it potentially a “killer dapp” and a game changer?
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Most dapps are trying to replace a centralized version of their service and they don’t do it as well.
A centralized version of this service simply doesn’t exist. -
Because everybody has to eat. Home cooking is both superior in quality to restaurant food and cheaper to make because there’s no overhead.
- A restaurant has to pay rent, employees, utilities, permits, payroll, etc.
- A home chef has no overhead.
If it became socially acceptable, safe, and easy to order from home chefs, the restaurant industry could be as disrupted as the taxi industry was from Uber.
- Is it safe?
A food safety protocol could be developed that is safer than a restaurant.
This would be necessary in order to have the moral high ground to challenge the health code that puts home cooking in a gray area legally. For example, Uber was illegally operating in New York City when their drivers did not have taxi medallions. However, the moral reasoning for the taxi medallions was to keep the public safe. Because Uber was generally very safe, they had the moral high ground in challenging these regulations. The public overwhelmingly supported Uber, making it politically impossible for New York City politicians to clamp down on Uber.
Similarly, we would need a protocol SO SAFE, the public would overwhelming side with us, thereby making it politically difficult to shut us down, along with it being practically impossible, the same way bitcoin is impossible to shutdown due to it’s decentralized nature.
My mother is a retired health inspector and has been advising me on this topic.
Since I already test launched this food network 2 years ago, I have a good working model on how it could be done.
A) The entire food preparation must be live streamed by the chef wearing a camera necklace.
B) Food must be purchased same or prior day and expiry dates shown on camera.
C) Hand washing and cleanliness of the cooking area must be shown on camera.
D) Review system from customers.
The reason I believe it can be done safer than restaurants, is because the entire food preparation is filmed. This creates a HIGHER STANDARD than what currently exists in restaurants.
For example, a minimum wage chef at a restaurant might skip washing their hands because of low moral, might blow their nose in the middle of cooking, might scratch their balls in the middle of cooking.
Health inspectors visit restaurants twice a year. They have no way of enforcing hand washing.
If someone gets sick from eating at a restaurant, it’s in the restaurants interest to cover it up. There is no universal review system that could immediately detect that someone became sick from eating the restaurant’s food.
If a home chef prepared food that made someone sick, it could be immediately detected by the review system, and that chef shutdown immediately. Furthermore, the live stream footage could be reviewed in order to find the cause.
- Is it legal?
It’s illegal to cook from a non-commercial kitchen for the public. If it’s a “private network” it then becomes a gray area in the law. We would simply have customers agree to join a private network, the same way customers agree to join Costco which is a private membership club.
- Can health inspectors shut it down?
Because the network would be decentralized, there would be no central entity to shutdown. Health inspectors would have to go after individual chefs. However, history has shown they will go after individual chefs. Josephine.com had a network of over 40 home chefs who all received threatening letters from the health department. It scared the chefs, they stopped cooking, and the network collapsed.
The way around this is to never record the exact location of the chefs. It would be a delivery only service. You could have the relative location like a street name, but never the exact location.
I’ve spoken with numerous health inspectors. The general consensus from health inspectors themselves is it would make it unenforceable. A health inspector would have to do a stakeout or under cover operation by ordering food and then following the chef back to their location. On a network with hundreds of chefs, the health inspectors simply do not have the time. Unless it’s actually unsafe and people are getting sick, they would likely lack the motivation and energy.
Now it’s possible that I’m wrong and they would still find a way to shutdown the operation or scare the chefs into compliance. That’s really the key question that would determine ultimate success or failure.
The economics of home cooking have been shown to be quite favorable. Home chefs can out compete restaurants until the health inspector comes a knocking.
- Will customers order from a home kitchen?
Yes, I launched a test network 2 years ago and had numerous happy customers. While some people are uneasy with the idea of ordering from a home kitchen, many people are perfectly fine with it. A good review system where you can see hundreds of positive reviews about an individual chef, along with live streaming, would likely overcome any hesitation remaining.
- Can chefs make money? Is it lucrative?
The data from my test launch two years indicates yes. However, it would likely take a chef sometime to build up a repeat customer base in order to make income.
- Will customers order using crypto currency?
No. My test launch indicates people do not want to use crypto currency. The best case scenario would be to allow them to use cash for the first 10 to 20 orders, and then force them to use crypto currency after they’re already hooked on the service.
- What will it take to do a successful launch? Why didn’t your launch 2 years ago succeed?
I tried to receive funding from Stellar 2 years ago. I launched the network with one chef, myself. I got a number of customers. I did a number of live stream cooks. It was fun. But I lacked the resources to take it to the next level. The issue is scaling. Imagine trying to start Uber in 2010 and you are the only driver in the city. It’s just not going to work. You need serious funding to get it off the ground.
Ideally, the network would launch with 5-10 chefs instead of 1 chef. If a customer goes to the network and there’s only 1 chef and they don’t like what they’re cooking, game over. It doesn’t work. 5-10 options, okay, I can order from this network twice a week. 30-50 options, I can order from this network everyday.
Although getting the network off the ground would be challenging, the good news is there is monopoly potential and/or a high networking effect. The most lucrative investments are often technology monopolies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Uber, etc.
- How does it make money?
This is a challenging problem. You can’t have a central entity making money that can be targeted or shutdown.
There are two options:
A) It doesn’t make any money. It could be like Wikipedia, extremely valuable to the world, but doesn’t make anything.
B) A crypto currency could be issued that enables control over the platform and it’s revenue.
For example, you tax the chefs 10% of their revenue. This revenue is paid in Ada in proportion to another crypto currency issued on Cardano.
For example, we’ll call this new currency Purple. You own 10% of all Purple coins. When the chefs pay 10% of their income, they send Ada to all the purple coins. Since you own 10% of purple coins, you also receive 10% of the Ada paid in rent.
Any thoughts? It’s pretty much just a dream or idea. Without funding, I cannot do it.
It just feels so perfect for a decentralized platform and the economic benefits to society seems absolutely massive. How many poor people eat fast food 3-4 times a week and need a better alternative? And over half the population is either overweight or obese because of unhealthy restaurant food.
