How does ChefSteps make money?

Brockton_20327

I absolutely love this website and believe the content you create is top tier.

I'm curious to how your company makes money - how are you able to give away your content for free and continue to "keep food on the table"?

Thanks,

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Tim_Sutherland_52834

In the words of Joe Strummer, et al., "... daddy was a bank robber..."

Matthew_Snyder_68770

I think they had significant venture funding when they launched.

grandpa.yum

they also have the paid courses

nykidies

Altruistic Foodies......

Chris_Young_80640

Okay folks, to avoid rumors, here is the best answer I can give you about how we keep our lights on.

ChefSteps is not profitable. That's probably obvious. We've been able to get this far because our friend Gabe Newell (yes, that Gabe Newell) believed that our team was capable of solving some very big problems in the kitchen that should be solved. With so many of us coming out of the hospitality industry, we had a strong belief that we shouldn't be giving people the bill before we shared something of value. So our first goal has been to create and share something of value with the world.

Sharing our ideas and knowledge has helped us build a community of passionate cooks that helps us make better decisions about how to help people become smarter cooks. People often ask me what business we're in, and for a long time I found it very hard to describe, but it was Gabe who really helped me understand that ChefSteps is in the business of making our community happy.

Publishing our ideas, and engaging with as many of you as possible is just the beginning. We believe there are things we can and should do that will make many of you much happier in the kitchen. And we're working hard on turning those into reality. The new community tools that are under development are one example; we know the old commenting system and the current forum make it hard to share ideas and collaborate with like-minded cooks. So we're making these better (see the beta-testing help request elsewhere in this forum). And you'll see another sneak preview of the kinds of things we're thinking about next Tuesday. Later this year you can expect some much bigger announcements from the team at ChefSteps about what comes next. Suffice to say, we're dreaming very big, but it's not going to be possible without your help.

mike.minasian

Thanks for the update Chris. It was amazing to meet some of the team today at the office. Tim was kind enough to host me for a user interview this afternoon. I must say I'm very excited for the Tuesday release! I really think you guys are doing great work, and have the ability to do some amazing things.

tshewman

Thanks Chris, much appreciated. Hope we can provide the help needed. I had to look up Gabe Newell.....maybe bc I was born in Canada. ;-)

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Chris, thanks for the information. ChefSteps is a truly amazing community and I look forward to seeing it become all that you hope and envision it will be. Whatever assistance I might provide is yours for the asking!

borgech

As I wrote on my twitter account (@PhaDeFoodLabs), I love ChefSteps, and reading this from Chris makes me love what you do more! I just wanted to say that here too, and I can't wait to see how it evolves. I look forward to being involved in what I think is a revolution in how the world will learn to cook, and cook together.

Theo_82615

awesome..... I love your site. it introduced modern cuisine and the science of cooking to me. My culinary world will never be the same again. Keep up the great work!!!

gerasimus_1239481

ChefSteps has an amazing community to be honest