Connecting people through home cooking.

Our Story

Since I was a teenager, I loved cooking. I knew I wanted to be a chef and had many ideas for the future when it came to cooking. I used to experiment making food by creating my own recipes and mixing together different spices to add flavor to every dish which often impressed others. My dream was to bring together food from different cultures and open up restaurants all around the world.  

One day, I brought up my cooking aspirations to my parents. I told them I wanted to apply to culinary school and become a world-renowned chef. My parents looked at me in shock and shut down my idea pretty quickly. Disappointed, I knew it would be hard to pursue my passion for culinary school without their support.

Fortunately, I also developed a passion for medicine and soon applied to medical school. Although I never regretted my decision of becoming a doctor, there was always a “what if” in the back of my mind. What if I didn’t listen to my parents and went on to pursue my dream of becoming a chef?

Many years flew by and after my residency training, I moved to a small city in Connecticut. Having Iranian parents, I loved Persian food and to my surprise, there was not a single Persian restaurant in my new city. I found this interesting given there were nearly five thousand Iranians living there.

I started thinking, why hasn’t anyone thought of opening up a Persian restaurant here? I began doing research and soon realized that the majority of restaurant owners either fail completely or are not able to maintain a substantial profit to stay in business long-term. Looking into the reasons why, I found that one of the biggest reasons restaurants fail is the high expenses that come with running the business, such as paying rent, employee salaries, insurance, food, vendors, marketing and  more. 

This was when the idea of YouFeed was born. I realized there was an opportunity to enable talented home cooks to sell cook and sell food from their own kitchens by eliminating the need of owning a physical restaurant. In addition, the platform would give people like me who craved Persian food access to try authentic, ethnic cuisines from different cultures in their hometown.

The truth is, many of us know how to cook delicious food at home or know someone that does. However, most of us either don’t have the time, the patience, nor the resources to start a restaurant. It requires not only lots of money, but business and strategic knowledge, operative management, and marketing skills, among many other things. My goal is to remove all the barriers in opening a restaurant and allow those who love cooking to share their amazing dishes with their neighbors and local community while making extra income.

Since I was never able to become a culinary chef myself, I am hoping that with YouFeed, I can still fulfill that dream by connecting people who have a strong passion for cooking with those who seek out and appreciate delicious and authentic cuisine that they may not find in restaurants. I know one thing for sure: had YouFeed been around when I was younger, I would have been the first to sign up as a YouFeed chef!

I am excited to see where YouFeed takes us and how it will change the way we have access to home cooking.

Raman Mehrzad, MD, MHL, MBA
Founder and CEO