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Comment by chefsurfing | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for the writeup Anna. Founder of Chef Surfing Eric Knudtson, please A.M.A.

Can I suggest not getting the geo info when using the site? It was confusing for me and several other people I've shown it to in the last minutes, as we get various cities with no entries, and it's not clear what cities/countries have actual chefs available. Once I selected Mexico for example, it was fine, but it's not clear where the service is actually available.

Great suggestion, thank you Marquis! To everyone in California, we do have a few chefs signed up in San Francisco [1] and Oakland [2] although we've only just started to promote the site in the USA.

[1] https://chefsurfing.com/en/chefs/united-states-of-america/ca... [2] https://chefsurfing.com/en/chefs/united-states-of-america/ca...

"In 2013, their ambition is to reach 5,000 registered chefs and get 1,000 bookings via its platform."

Was there a typo here, or does this mean that most registered chefs on the site do not get booked?

This is no typo. To date we have only booked 169 chef services. We are focused on delivering bookings for the chefs however due to the open nature of our platform we have no way of knowing how many bookings a chef actually receives as a benefit of being on ChefSurfing.com ( we link directly to their own external site if they have one ) and it is very likely that once a chef and customer have contact with each other they maintain this relationship without Chef Surfing being involved.

Some of the chefs we are close with have called us after working a job they received via Chef Surfing and told us about how the customer would like to do more business together and asked us "if that's ok". That's not just ok with us, it's our goal ( getting the chefs more work and higher pay ).

Ah, makes sense. Thank Eric!

that's cool, but it means that when i look at the site there's little to tell me how popular or good different people are. i don't know how you can do it, but getting more feedback would help a lot, i think (but i will try it anyway, i suspect, in the next few weeks - santiago).

Great feedback Andrew. I think we need to change the design and make it more clear, however we do request that every completed "order" receive a review and comment from the customer. We also allow chefs to receive written endorsements as well which are publicly displayed on the site.

The chefs are sorted by reviews, endorsements and other quality-ensuring factors so that the first chefs you see are those we know most about and know deliver great service.

What could someone expect to pay for a 2 person private dinner?

It really depends on the chef and city you are living in. In Santiago, Chile service prices start at 10,000 pesos ( ~20 USD ) per guest. If the size of your party is larger the price can be lower however that is generally the starting price. One chef in Santiago ( Chef Nancy Bavestrello [1] ) delivers meal packages at a lower price if the order volume is higher.

[1] https://chefsurfing.com/en/chefs/chile/region-metropolitana-...

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