Guy Michlin is the founder of EatWith, a community marketplace offering authentic dining experiences in people’s homes around the world.
1. You mentioned that you were inspired to start EatWith after a trip to Greece. Can you describe the story?
Back in 2010, while vacationing in Crete, I was invited to dine at the homes of the Papadakis family. The connection was made through a friend of a friend. It was a small two bedroom apartment in a suburb of Heraklion (the main city in Crete). They were so excited to host a traveler for dinner that they invited their neighbors and their cousin from Athens to join. They offered me tips on places to visit, told me about restaurants where the locals eat, and even gave me a bottle of local Cretan liquor as a gift. For dinner, we ate an absolutely delicious Cretan dish known in Greek as “makaronia with kreas vodino and tiri athotiro” (spaghetti with meat and local Cretan cheese). It was amazing! After four hours, it was time to say goodbye. I originally planning on being there for only two hours, but the time flew!
In all my years of traveling, connecting with the locals has always made my experiences more meaningful. The best way to break the tourist bubble and enrich your connection to a place is to interact with real people in their own private spaces. After my evening with the Papadakis’s, this is exactly what happened. I was inspired. When I returned home, I shared my experience with my business partner Shemer, and we began to envision a global community of passionate hosts and guests. We imagined a website where users could discover charismatic cooks and delicious homemade cuisines around the world and then we made it happen. That’s how EatWith was born.
2. EatWith offers a different dining experience to what has traditionally existed in the dining marketplace. How are people responding to this different form of peer-to-peer dining?
Our aim is to create stronger connections between people through food and to create a totally new global dining category: eating out in people’s homes around the world. So far people love the EatWith concept which is spreading fast across the whole world. An EatWith experience enables guests, not only to enjoy a delicious home-cooked meal, but also to connect with new people, gain an unique insight into different cultures and to have a totally different kind of dining experience. And for the hosts, they have the opportunity to do more of what they love: cook, throw dinner parties and meet new people from around the world.
3. EatWith started in Israel and has now expanded to different countries across the world. Do you see Israel as a country where collaborative consumption can grow and thrive?
Yes, EatWith is now available in 20 countries throughout Europe, the US and the world. We ran our initial pilot scheme in Israel and the community continues to thrive and grow here in Israel. This is definitely a country where collaborative consumption can prosper. Services like Airbnb and Car2Go are already extremely popular here and as the “startup nation”, many sharing economy companies were actually born here in Israel so people are familiar with the concept. The cost of living is also very high here so people are always on the lookout for more cost-effective and efficient ways of doing things.
4. What is the top challenge that EatWith is facing now and is there a way this can be solved?
The EatWith community is growing fast and we’ve had thousands and thousands of host applications from across the whole world. So the top challenge I’d say we’re facing right now is how to expand quickly enough in order to meet the growing demand for EatWith experiences across the world. Before being added to our site, each EatWith host goes through a lengthy vetting process with written applications, interviews etc. And wherever you see the black and white “EatWith verified icon”, the EatWith experience (host, home and food) has been personally checked by EatWith. Processes like this are extremely important to us in order to maintain standards of quality and safety – it’s a big job!
5. Who do you most admire in the collaborative consumption community and why?
Obviously Airbnb for building such an incredibly successful global community. I’m also extremely impressed by what Lyft has achieved in such a short time. There’s also some very smart branding going on there – that pink mustache is everywhere!
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After Guy Michlin presented at Techcrunch Disrupt, EatWith has now expanded to over 20 countries and has been featured in Huffington Post, Fox News, and Time Magazine. They have raised $1.2 million from Israeli investors and are rapidly expanding to different cities across the globe.
Lots of sites have started all over the world encouraging eating with the local people. http://www.eatwithalocal.com began in 2009 in a little town in Wales, U.K. This site is free to use and free to join. Tourists are rapidly realizing that breaking bread with the local people is a wonderful way of getting to know the culture of country.
We have tested eatwith in Rom. Not what we have expected. 12 people on 3 tables. When you did not were on the correct table, no contact with others. For the price for Rom of $50 we got some pasta and 1 really small piece of meat like maybe a chicken wing. In any restaurant we could eat better and also meet more peope.
It was a “eat by” and not eat with people. The hosts were only serving like in private event.
We decided to become also a host and to really live this idea – but we got refused – we do not match.
Strange, having a large house, close to a very famous tourist place in Switzerland, both of us were travling lot’s in the world and have very good cooking experiences.
Just the comment “your application does not meet our hosting criteria.” Can’t be the deal. No details, nothing, We just felt disappointed, specially to compare were we were eating already. Just a joke here. Just started and already selfish. Don’t think this was the idea of the founder but looks like when earning enough money, you do not care anymore of your idea.