Curious Office takes a bite out of online cooking school Rouxbe |
Register here for our next TechFlash Live networking event, March 23, featuring an expert panel discussing the future of online advertising.
Curious Office takes a bite out of online cooking school Rouxbe
Who needs a fancy culinary school when Rouxbe is just a few clicks away?
Rouxbe (pronounced roo-bee) is an online cooking school which over the years has accumulated about 1,200 high-definition instructional videos where amateur chefs can learn everything from the art of chocolate making to the proper way to pit an avocado.
The company is based in Vancouver, B.C., though Seattle investment firm Curious Office Partners (the folks behind Imagekind and Inkd) holds an equity interest and has been assisting the startup on design and development efforts. Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield also is an investor and adviser.
Curious Office co-founder Kelly Smith is pretty excited about the concept, noting that the instructional cooking arena represents a "big market."
"Home cooks of all ages ... are motivated to become better cooks," he said. "They are tired of hit-and-miss recipe success and want to learn actual technique."
Rouxbe offers eight to 15 minute professional cooking classes, charging students $15 per month or $99 annually to "attend" the virtual courses.
"Unlike other online cooking sites that focus on recipes, celebrity chefs and short technique videos, the Rouxbe School mirrors an actual culinary curriculum, complete with instructional cooking video lessons, practice video recipes, culinary chef exercises, progress reporting, cooking quizzes, and personal chef support," said Smith.
The company -- led by CEO Joe Girard -- is currently looking to tap some Seattle tech executives to help turn Rouxbe into a household name, Smith said.
He declined to say who those people might be, but there's certainly a strong talent pool from which to draw.
For reasons that are beyond me, Seattle has developed into the capital of online food/restaurant startups. Just off the top of my head, I can think of AllRecipes.com, Big Oven, Foodista, Enjoymentland's Locavore, Urbanspoon and Recipezaar.
About John Cook
John Cook is co-founder and executive editor of TechFlash. He has been covering the technology beat for nearly a decade, writing about startups, entrepreneurs and venture capital, most recently serving as a reporter/blogger at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
READ FULL BIOGRAPHYRecent Sponsor Posts
Seattle University Software Engineering
Chinwe Okeke (MSE’08) pursued her graduate degree while working as a developer and technical analyst for the Boeing Company. She picked the SU-MSE program for small class sizes and real world learning opportunities offered through the academic service-learning and capstone projects.
The MSE program at Seattle University is geared for working professionals with classes offered in the evenings. The program builds upon the computing experience of its students and offers courses in a variety of technical and management areas of software engineering, with an emphasis on teamwork and a disciplined approach to problem solving.
Marchex is one of Seattle’s largest ad technology companies with 300+ employees providing call and click based performance marketing products, and managing over $100m in ad budget for tens of thousands of advertisers. Our customers range from local businesses to the Fortune 500.
Our talented and creative product engineering group is hiring.
If you are an innovative software design engineer interested in solving difficult problems at scale, across a wide array of technologies from Lucene to Hadoop to Asterisk and SIP then we’d love to hear from you!
Apply now.
Technology Tax Planning – Did You Take The Deduction?
Technology companies require professional advisors who can assist in all aspects of the business. The BDO Technology Practice provides a full range of services tailored to help address the changing needs of domestic and international companies. In addition to core audit and tax services, BDO professionals can assist technology companies with:
· Revenue recognition
· Business combination accounting
· R&D tax credits
· Compensation and benefits
· Business valuations
Backed by 38 national offices and an international network in 110 countries, we have the domestic and global footprint to serve growing technology companies. Contact sphilpott@bdo.com (audit partner), mreeves@bdo.com (audit partner), psmith@bdo.com (tax partner), tzambito@bdovaluation.us.com (valuation), tfiscus@bdo.com, Director, 206.624.2020
Job Listings
- LEAD SDET, Mobile Device Strategy and Commercialization - 705105
- Microsoft Corporation
- Sr. SDE - 712257
- Microsoft Corporation
- Principal SDE - Software Development Engineer - External - 704722
- Microsoft Corporation
- Software Development Engineer - Display Advertising
- Business Services Company
- Principal IT / OPS Program Mgr - 711209
- Microsoft Corporation
