Alice Cheng on Connecting the Industry through Her Company, Culinary Agents

#76. On this episode of The meez Podcast, we sit down with Alice Cheng, founder and CEO of Culinary Agents, a groundbreaking platform connecting talent and businesses in the restaurant and hospitality industry. Alice shares her incredible journey from a role in IBM's mailroom to executive ranks on a global scale at the company. 

After a decade-plus career climbing the corporate ladder at lightning speed, Alice made the bold decision to leave and launch her own start-up. Inspired by helping her friends in the restaurant world with resume writing and contract negotiations, she realized the industry lacked the online tools needed for finding jobs and hiring the right people for their restaurants. 

In 2012, Culinary Agents was born, a place for workers to easily discover and apply to great opportunities and an all in one hiring and recruiting solution for restaurants. Tune in to hear how Alice turned a personal problem into a pioneering solution that's reshaping the future of hospitality.

Where to find Alice Cheng:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Where to find Culinary Agents:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• TikTok

Where to find host Josh Sharkey:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• TikTok
• Twitter

In this episode, we cover:

(01:07): Alice's background
(08:46): What influenced Alice's determination and hard work
(14:21): Finding mentors and asking questions
(19:36): Culinary Agents 101
(24:14): How Culinary Agents has changed over the years
(29:33): The future of Culinary Agents
(31:56): What keeps Alice up at night
(33:30): Thoughts on hiring
(43:49): What makes Alice blood boiling mad

Transcript

[00:00:00] Josh Sharkey: 

You're listening to season two of The meez Podcast. I'm your host, Josh Sharkey, the founder and CEO of meez, a culinary operating system for food professionals. On the show, we're going to talk to high performers in the food business, everything from chefs to CEOs, technologists, writers, investors, and more about how they innovate and operate.

[00:00:21] Josh Sharkey: 

And how they consistently execute at a high level day after day. And I would really love it if you could drop us a five star review anywhere that you listen to your podcast. That could be Apple, that could be Spotify, could be Google. I'm not picky. Anywhere works. But I really appreciate the support. And as always, I hope you enjoy the show.

[00:00:41] 

So I'm excited to learn about you and your background. I know Culinary Agents because I've like used your services in the past with my restaurants. And I think I may even have tried a few times like with, I have a tech company now. I didn't know much of your background until this came about. And thanks to Ursula for connecting us.

[00:00:56] 

But you were at IBM for a long time and somehow like interfacing with Netflix. Can you just tell me a little bit about your background before Culinary Agents just so I have a sense of like how the hell you got to where you are? 

[00:01:07] Alice Cheng: 

Yeah, I worked in food when I was younger, like my first, second, third jobs, all simultaneously, you know, in a restaurant, I was front of house, I also did, um, serving with the catering company on the weekends, and I did that for a couple years, and I loved it, and it really got me into that whole, like, excitement and grind, and 

[00:01:24] Josh Sharkey: 

Are you from New York?

[00:01:25] Alice Cheng: 

I am, I'm born and raised here. I mean, my parents immigrated here from Taiwan, and so there was, you know, and part of that whole, I would say, um, movement, and it was important that I got, you know, I would say, uh, you know, both an education as well as a real job, real job, quote unquote, and so while I love the hospitality industry, it was always, you know, you know, understood that I was going to go do something else.

[00:01:49] 

The interesting thing is, is I was on track to be a professional musician. And I kind of had this moment and I was like, I don't want to do this. Like, why am I even, you know, doing this to get into a good school that I, you know, want to get into and then change majors. So I said, forget it. I'm just going to move to move back to Manhattan because I went to high school in Rockland County, which is also not upstate New York.

[00:02:09] Josh Sharkey: 

My family's from Rockland County, Spring Valley. 

[00:02:12] Alice Cheng: 

Oh, I went to Nanywet. 

[00:02:14] Josh Sharkey: Yeah. 

[00:02:14] Alice Cheng: 

And, uh, and so I, I went to college in Manhattan at FIT and I was working full time and going to school full time. So a double. And the interesting thing is I, I was trying to get into an advertising firm and back in the day, I'm going to date myself back in the day, you know, you printed out your resumes and you like walked door to door, right?

[00:02:34] 

I remember thinking so hard about like what kind of paper I wanted to print it on and I couldn't get my foot in the door, even at an entry level position in all these major advertising firms. And, you know, I got a temp job in the mail room at IBM. And I was like, you know what? It fits my schedule. Let's do it.

[00:02:48] Alice Cheng: 

I need to pay rent. And very quickly after I started, I caught the eye of, uh, the manager of the assistants because I was, you know, really hustling the mail and like going above and beyond. And I got offered a full time position as an assistant or a secretary, you know, call them assistants. And I jumped at the opportunity and what was great was I supported the advertising and digital and media group at IBM.

[00:03:10]

And I got to be part of all these. transformative deals that were happening with the NBA.com, PGA.com, NFL.com, and also working with the advertising firms that I ultimately wanted to go work for. Um, and so I loved it and I was going to school full time. And what happened was at that time, IBM came up with, um, this idea to basically break these little startups out within the company that was funded by the company to really kind of push forward the agenda of innovation and, you know, get in front of and work with these startups.

[00:03:41] 

And so I got an opportunity to jump in there because I was, you know. Working, you know, I was always the one taking the jobs that nobody else wanted, and I was always there, you know, first, uh, in the morning, sleeping on my desk, and I took these roles, and it was great. I became a video specialist, and they transferred me to Silicon Valley.

[00:04:00] 

I was working with Google, Yahoo, Netflix on their strategies on how to, um, look at unstructured content, you know, what the business models are, how you Technically you can do it. And I started with Netflix actually as a solution specialist. So, um, I got brought in and I just thought it was just amazing.

[00:04:18] 

And when the opportunity came, I ended up taking over the relationship for IBM. So I worked with them on their transition from DVDs to digital. And it was just incredible, you know, time.  

[00:04:29] Josh Sharkey: 

So, sorry, just, just, I'm not sure I understand, like, so how was IBM, because IBM was advertising with, like, what was the, like the relationship between IBM and these companies?

[00:04:38] Alice Cheng: 

Good point. IBM was the, uh, you know, servers and back then laptops also infrastructure technology with these kinds of newer areas that, you know, digital in particular, we would, um, partner with, you know, solutions, other third party, um, businesses that basically built their platforms on top of our software and services and, um, Uh, this is like pre cloud computing.

[00:05:00] Josh Sharkey: 

You were just doing like the, the server management. Gotcha. Yeah. 

[00:05:03] Alice Cheng: 

Before cloud was really a thing, people actually purchased servers and had server farms. I used to be on my hands and knees, cleaning up dust bunnies and the server farms, making sure that, you know, serial numbers matched what they needed to, and it was, it was really awesome.

[00:05:17] 

And throughout this time, I got really kind of exposure to startups and, you know, their culture, their beliefs, how they operated, which, you know, was Spending my time at a large company was, which was also awesome, was very different and to kind of tie it back to culinary agents full circle, you know, I spent my free time with my friends who were in hospitality and I would hear them.

[00:05:39] 

You know, complain about, or, or doom scrolling Craigslist at three o'clock in the morning looking for, you know, side hustle or the next job and, you know, just frustrations from the business owners, you know, drawing straws to see who was going to be on Craigslist duty that, you know, next week and have to like manage that on top of their daily, you know, duties.

[00:05:58] 

And I was like, isn't there something better, you know, isn't, isn't there something like a LinkedIn meets match.com for jobs? And, you know, the answer was always no. And I had the idea six years before I started Culinary Agents to build this technology. 

[00:06:11] Josh Sharkey: 

It's interesting when you have the idea and it takes that long for it to come to fruition because that happened to me as well.

[00:06:16] 

So now I understand like what the insight was, but like what was the, that time between you, between you having the idea and then finally deciding, all right, screw it, I'm going to go do this. Was there like one big thing? thing that catalyzed you taking that leap or was it just sort of bubbling up over time or?

[00:06:31] Alice Cheng: 

It was, it was a combination of like bubbling up and then, you know, me giving myself the pep talk of like, there's just never going to be a good time. You know, I was always like, well, let me save a little bit more money. Let me, you know, I just got a big promotion. Let me just ride this a little bit. One of the things that feeds into the hospitality career paths section of culinary agents is the idea of, you know, I started in IBM in a very unconventional way.

[00:06:52]

I left the company 13 years later as one of the youngest executives worldwide. And back in the day, it was a very kind of widely understood thing that you join these companies, you stay for 30 years, you retire. And, you know, Over the years, you follow certain paths and that's just what happens, right? And so for me, because I didn't get in traditionally, I wasn't recruited from an Ivy League school, I, you know, I, I got in kind of through the back door or side door, I forged my own path.

[00:07:17] 

I was very intentional about the jobs that I took, um, and made sure that I was, Getting what I wanted out of it, even though I was, you know, wildly underpaid at the time because of the way that I came in, but, you know, just really focusing on what, what job do I want next? Who has it? How can I learn from them?

[00:07:32] 

And how can I utilize what's available to me to really build my own career path within this giant company? As a result, I ended up mentoring and actually. Being the poster person, poster child for talking and motivating the younger folks that were coming into the company to show them, you know, all the different resources and how they could manage their careers within this giant, um, company and how great it was.

[00:07:55] 

And so there is this kind of thing that, you know, I was, I felt with, that was missing with my friends, quite frankly, who I was helping them write their resumes. I was, I was writing their statements of works when they had an opportunity to do like a one off consulting, you know, gig. And I was like, you need an agent, right?

[00:08:11] 

You need, you need like a Jerry Maguire. You need somebody to, you know, cheer on your behalf to make sure that, that, that you're not being taken advantage of. And then to make sure that they negotiate, you know, what you're worth. And that didn't really exist either. And that's kind of how I initially came up with Culinary Agents is like, be your own agent.

[00:08:26] 

How can we build the tools and enable people to represent themselves, to get the information they need, to connect with the employers, to find, you know, side hustles and gigs and all these other things without having, you know, by taking, you know, Out all the kind of in between awkwardness of like having to sell yourself and put yourself out there and like brag about yourself and everything.

[00:08:46] Josh Sharkey: 

So, when you were being so intentional about like each of the jobs that you took along the way, did you have guidance? Was that your parents telling you, hey, make sure you think about this path or was it just a, like, did you just happen to, to realize that at a very young age, that you just need to be that intentional?

[00:09:01] Alice Cheng: 

My mother passed when I was younger, um, so my dad.

[00:09:04] Josh Sharkey: 

How old were you when you?

[00:09:06] Alice Cheng: 

Ten. Ten. And so my dad who immigrated as a traditional Asian father had to really kind of readjust and all of a sudden he had, you know, two teenagers or I was 10 and my brother was 13 and, and he had to really kind of set aside his like, you know, his, his beliefs and his own pursuits for, um, entrepreneurial pursuits.

[00:09:24] 

that, you know, he was kind of living the American dream. He had his own company, he was doing well, um, and you had to just stop everything and basically, you know, focus on us. And so for me, I always, I always worked. I, you know, I was the one that, that was the, the mall rat. I went from job to job simultaneously.

[00:09:39] 

Like, I just wanted to, to get out there and get experience. So I've had this kind of independence and drive throughout my life. And, you know, I'll be your number one cheerleader, but I'm, you know, not the best at promoting myself isn't how it always works. You know, for me, it was, it was a combination of, of survival of like, okay, how, how, how do you do this?

[00:09:58] 

And then, you know, I also, and maybe when you're younger, you have, you're more fearless. You know, I very intentionally asked one of the most senior members of IBM to be my mentor. And I did what I felt was needed to keep that relationship. I was proactive, I updated them, I was extremely polite and respectful.

[00:10:19] 

I made it my thing to seek out what I wanted and ask for help. And I found time and time again, and that takes itself, you know, even to this day, is that, you know, when you ask for help or you let other people know your intentions, you'll be surprised. Because gen in general, especially in hospitality, A lot of people want to help each other, but if they don't know what you need help with or what you want, it makes it that much more difficult.

[00:10:42] 

So I'm always like, you know, I was out there saying like, I, I'm not good in the area of sales. I really want to get into sales. And when I told enough people about that and when, uh, the opportunity to be the relationship manager for Netflix and the territory came up, you know, I got tapped on the shoulder and was like, do you want to do this? That's how I've navigated my roles. 

[00:11:04] Josh Sharkey: 

It's interesting. I was actually just talking about this like two weeks ago, uh, with a friend of mine who's the CEO of another company about just sort of mentorship and like asking for help. And one, I mean, I don't know how you knew that early on to like ask for that.

[00:11:18] 

I remember like, I wish I had known that when I was 20 and starting in kitchens and things like that. It was like finding a mentor and asking for help. But I think something that maybe he gets left out. I'm curious what you think about this. Because I'm hearing the way that you sort of went into IBM and like starting at the bottom and and like sort of doing whatever you can to sort of move up.

[00:11:35] 

I feel like you do have to also like earn the help, you know, like, yes, ask for it. Make sure you're very clear what you need, but then show like, hey, look, I'm, I'm, I'm like taking the things that you've taught me and and taking action and showing that and people want to help so much more. When you do that, I'm curious if that's something that you like actively thought about, or clearly you did that in your work, but if you thought about when you were like finding mentors.

[00:11:59] Alice Cheng: 

Yeah, that's so important. I actively do that. And at the time I also was very aware and actively did the two way street thing, you know, mentor, mentee, there's a lot of gray area, there's a lot of confusion, and there's a lot of just, I don't know, people think of mentors, you, you know, you can ask somebody to be your mentor, but if you're a mentee, you have responsibilities as well.

[00:12:19] 

And I think what worked for my particular situation was that I, I was like a super hard worker, but I was also in this kind of emerging, exciting part of the company that my mentor is interested in and he used to proactively tell me, you know, every time we have these meetings, I actually learned something from you as well.

[00:12:37] 

And I always made sure I brought information to him that he would be interested in and he could use in his kind of talks at the higher level. And he used to say, like, I'm, I'm kind of far removed from. clients and, you know, because he just doesn't have time for it, you know, but when he would gain some insights or ask me specific questions, it would help him and it would round him out and he would share that with me.

[00:13:00] 

So, yes, as a mentee, you know, your responsibility is to make your, you know, Old school saying like make your mentor proud, you know, you, you need to be, if you're asking for help and you want to be the best, you know, in a certain area or you want to learn more, you need to put the time and you need to be proactive and you need to show that you're taking that advice and you're putting it into practice and then you're following up and closing the loop, right?

[00:13:24] 

Because especially these days, also, you know, it's easy to ask somebody. for time, or can I pick your brain? And you know, that kind of gets a little old as well, because then sometimes somebody picks your brain and then you never see or hear from them ever again. Other times it's, you know, there's, there's a lot of thought.

[00:13:39] 

And relevancy that came with that request. And with that comes, that's how you build the relationship, right? You can have, you can have quick coffees, brain picking, but the relationship is built over time. And this particular person was, was my mentor for 13, or I would say at least 10 of my 13 years there.

[00:13:57] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. It's something I'm getting more excited about as I kind of like I'm getting older, cause I get so many emails from people asking questions or advice about things, and it just reminds me of like, Oh, wow. Yeah. That's how I asked. And it really is, it's more on the mentee. It's like, it's up to you to like, be very clear about what is it that you're actually trying to gain out of this.

[00:14:15] 

And it's, it's on you to like, figure out where you can, you know, derive value from this relationship. 

[00:14:21] Alice Cheng: 

And send updates, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, I, I just. I proactively sent the updates. I put, I got with his assistant and put time on the calendar. You know, I was, he, it wasn't like, he was like, Hey, you have time to meet.

[00:14:34] 

You know, I was just like, here's an update. You know, if we didn't have time, you know, I sent the update. I sent my thank yous. Um, I showed appreciation and then I, I did. I'm proud by working really hard and, and doing great things for the company. And that was also motivating for me as well. Right. I wanted to do those things.

[00:14:50] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, a hundred percent. I see it also with, I mean, this is more maybe in the entrepreneurial space when you bring on like an advisor that's getting equity or something like that. And I've heard other founders just be like, maybe upset because they're not getting enough value out of this advisor. And, and that's on you, not on the, you know, like you chose for them to come on board.

[00:15:07] 

As long as you're very clear about like the things that you, that you need and you're, and you make sure you ask the right questions and you follow up. It's not very often that like the person advising is the reason why you're not getting the value. 

[00:15:19] Alice Cheng: 

Right, right. And I will say, you know, one more thing about this is I talk about a lot and I really love the idea of, you know, I call virtual mentorship and it's the idea of like, okay, a mentor mentee relationship doesn't necessarily have to be like one on one and you know, there's different ways to have a relationship, but.

[00:15:34] 

In hospitality in particular, you know, it gets challenging sometimes, whether it's physical or you don't work with this person, you don't know them, you don't meet them, etc. Our hospitality career paths, which is about over 500, I call virtual mentors. It's basically how they got to where they are and then advice they have for aspiring and existing and peers of, you know, the hospitality industry.

[00:15:58] 

What's amazing about this is that you can derive value and advice from these folks who you admire or you, or even people you may never have heard of, but their career path is very interesting or inspiring to you. And these are proof points. These are proof points and examples of like ways that you can take the foundational skills and your learnings from wherever you are in your career and take it in any direction, right?

[00:16:22] 

One of the beautiful things about this industry is that and each step of the way you're learning a set of skills, whether they be technical or soft skills. And you can take them with you, whether or not you decide to stay in the industry or go into another part of the industry or leave the industry completely. And there's not that many industries where you can say that, actually. 

[00:16:42] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, yeah, 100%. This show is brought to you by, you guessed it, meez. meez helps thousands of restaurants and food service businesses all over the world. Build profitable menus and scale their business successfully. If you're looking to organize your recipe IP and train your team to put out consistent products every day in less time than ever before, then meez is just for you.

[00:17:05] 

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[00:17:31] 

Visit www.getmeez.com, that's G-E-T-M-E-E-Z. dot com to learn more and check out the show notes moving forward because. We're going to be adding promotions and discount codes so that all of you lovely and brilliant meez podcast listeners get a sweet deal on meez. If I have a question or if I want to walk through something, I use loom and I'll just like record myself asking these things or maybe showing a screen and then I can send it to somebody and then I don't need to book time in the calendar.

[00:18:09] 

And I've raised capital this way, by the way, where like there's investors like, Hey, like send me all the information and like, tell me all about this. And, uh, on a loom and I've raised capital by like never meeting somebody and just, you know, sending these looms back and forth. And I think I totally agree this asynchronous, you know, like support mentorship is like something that didn't exist before.

[00:18:28] 

It sounds like that's something that's part of what you're working on at Culinary Agents. Is that right? 

[00:18:32] Alice Cheng: 

Yeah, we don't have the actual kind of feedback that way. It's more of like one way feedback. Um, but yes, I mean, it's, it's the idea of like, if you're looking for advice, inspiration, lessons learned and examples.

[00:18:45] 

Of how people have done it, you know, and you want to consume that information on your, you know, when you have time and on whatever device you want, like we're here for you. Um, and you know, that kind of feeds into this whole idea of, especially, you know, pre COVID and then of course during COVID, all the information in the press, everything about the industry, you know, especially.

[00:19:06] 

kind of takes a negative skew, right? And for us, the whole thing was, you know, how do we create tools to better support this amazing industry and the people, right? There are so many incredible stories. There's so many examples. Um, and everyone, you know, is basically spending their time and effort. Taking care of other people.

[00:19:25] 

So how can we give them better tools to take care of themselves, promote themselves, get better jobs, and then push the professional agenda, you know, across the board. You know, that's, that's what we continue to strive for at Culinary Agents. 

[00:19:36] Josh Sharkey: 

Well, let's see, let's talk about Culinary Agents because it obviously it's evolved a bunch. What is it today? What are like all of the services that you are providing and who you're providing for? 

[00:19:45] Alice Cheng: 

Yeah. Yeah. And this is our 12 year anniversary. So very excited. It's amazing. Thank you. Thank you. It's like, I would say different segments of the 12 years had its own excitements and challenges. What we are today is we are the go to hiring platform for the hospitality industry.

[00:20:00] 

We have about 2 million users on the site, hospitality users, and about 48,000 businesses fine dining on fast casual. food service, uh, hotels of all shapes and sizes. We were kind of the, the first, not kind of, we were the first before AI was a thing. We're really focused on this matching, AI driven matching algorithm to help talent discover employer brands and to help Uh, employers have better recruiting tools, and so, you know, we have a full platform of job marketing and applicant tracking to support businesses, flexible based upon needs and season, et cetera, but we focus on the talent, you know, our, our mission.

[00:20:39] 

is to help talent succeed in this industry, in their career. And, you know, you break that down and how do you do that? Of course, you make it easy for them to find information about employers, about the industry, um, you know, mentorship or just advice and inspiration. And then what does that look like beyond that?

[00:20:56] 

Right? And, and we continue to do that. And that's what's really exciting and, and drives, drives kind of, us in this, uh, next phase.

[00:21:05] Josh Sharkey: 

That's awesome. So anybody looking for a job that come on, I didn't realize that you have an AM, AI model that's like driving some of this, what are, what are some of the heuristics that are used to sort of point a person in the direction of, you know, business A versus business B in the, in the model?

[00:21:19] Alice Cheng: 

Yeah. So there's a couple of things without giving our trade secrets. I mean, um, we, we are set up, you know, as a two sided marketplace. So when people come in and they, uh, create their profiles or putting, you know, their skills or information, et cetera. Based upon their resume and then when businesses are posting jobs, they're doing something similar.

[00:21:35] 

So our, our algorithms really look at, you know, percentage of matching, if you will, based upon the requirements from the business and what talent, what skills they have and what they're doing and what they want to do. And so as you can imagine that that continues to evolve and it gets quite exciting on the back end, but even some basic discovery tools to help talent was if they're looking at a particular job, we tee up other opportunities in the area that are similar that might fit their needs.

[00:22:01] 

And so it ends up being a tool that a really makes. People feel welcome, right? And I think that's important. We design it specifically so that if you're a dishwasher, a busser, an executive chef, a general manager, you know, we're speaking your language. The tools are relevant. You're filtering jobs by Michelin awards, if that's what you're looking for.

[00:22:23] 

Um, or you just want to find something within a three block radius of where you you know, live or, or something closest to the train or, or has good transportation. So. And I think that's really important in general and why we're so proud to create this tool specifically for hospitality is that there's different needs, different needs and nuances for both sides, from both talent and businesses.

[00:22:46] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I love that. And is it sort of an extension of what a individual like recruiter would do? Are you, are you doing recruiting, you know, on a one to one basis in it, in addition to this sort of like aggregate marketplace, or is it primarily that this marketplace, this two sided marketplace? 

[00:23:01] Alice Cheng: 

We are primarily the technology platform. We do have a lot of recruiters, both independent recruiters and also in house recruiters who use our platform to find the talent they need and then hire them. And that's really, that's really our goal is to enable. I mean, we are enabling whether you are the. owner, uh, operator, and you, you have a small mom and pop, or, or, you know, your needs are, you know, not too complicated, we've got everything for you, um, and, and, and it's cost efficient, or you have a whole suite of tools for free.

[00:23:32] 

It's really important for us to offer. value first and offer a lot of it for, you know, the hardworking businesses and the hardworking people in this industry. And we continue to do that as part of the core of our development. 

[00:23:45] Josh Sharkey: 

It's awesome. It's awesome. Well, I read, I don't know where I read this. I think I actually read it on Culinary Agents, a quote that you had. It's generally starting and growing a business doesn't get easier. It gets harder and it evolves. Which is so true, right? Things don't ever get easier. They just get different, a different kind of hard. I couldn't agree more, but you're, you're now 12 years in. What's gotten harder over time for you? And, and like, how has the business sort of like changed in significant ways since, since day one?

[00:24:14] Alice Cheng: 

I would say, you know, 12 years in, it has been, So incredible to make it to this point, starting out as, uh, I would say a traditional tech startup, uh, fundraising and how challenging that was back in 2012. Um, and I'd say fundraising in general is difficult across the board, but. Fundraising as a single female non technical founder was extremely difficult and quite frankly, you know, my 13 years of IBM experience, um, worked against me in a lot of cases because people thought I would, you know, didn't have the grit or I was institutionalized and I've had these words said directly to me and, you know, that just fueled me more.

[00:24:49] 

I was like, Oh, this is happening. You know, I cashed out my 401k and I was like, we're in. But so in the beginning couple of years, the challenge was, you know, you're, you're, you're in this, you're in the thick of the, the start of the tech startup fundraising engine and all of that excitement as well. And that competition.

[00:25:07] 

So you're building from scratch. You're trying to figure it out. You're trying to please all the audiences and you're trying to do it in a scrappy, you know, bootstrapped way. And then the second phase, as you, you kind of get the business underway, you've got clients, I was very fortunate to. Even before funding secure, a lot of amazing clients that just understood that there was a need for this and was willing to use it and give feedback.

[00:25:30] 

And we committed to take that feedback and put it into the product so that, you know, they had a hand in really making this, this relevant tool for them and for the industry, you know, so the first, first couple of years, the challenge was always fundraising. And once you raise the money, it's like, okay, how do you raise the next round?

[00:25:46] 

And. You reach a point where you kind of hit a fork in the road and you're like, what, you know, what does raising the next round mean to us in a positive and a negative way? And once you kind of get, take a step back a little bit, you realize, you know, the best way to move forward and build. The company and the products that you want to, to do what you want to do is to own your own, your own destiny, control your own destiny.

[00:26:09] 

And how do you become an actual business that can actually fund yourself and build and prioritize what you want to prioritize? Because, you know, that's what your customer wants because they're asking for it, right? And to have that. level of freedom and autonomy is so liberating and it's really incredible.

[00:26:26] 

So then you enter kind of the next phase. Once you, once you reach the point where you're like, I don't depend on outside capital in order to survive, you can think about things a little differently. So the next challenge is, you know, me in general, like I want to do everything right now, all at once and help everybody.

[00:26:42] 

Right. And so the challenge is prioritization. Like, how do you take all the things you want to do and then put it into A logical roadmap, right? If you're talking about product development, you know, there is just logical sequencing and then agreeing on how to, you know, what's more important than what. And then building out the, the product and, and company and services, you know, as, as you can to make sure you still have that autonomy.

[00:27:07] 

So, you know, that's kind of where we are now is I, my challenge is, is like, I can't keep my excitement in. I know that sounds cheesy, but we have a huge thing that we're working on that, um, we're very excited on that we'll be releasing in the next couple of months here that, you know, Um, kind of takes us into the next phase.

[00:27:25] Josh Sharkey: 

So what's the timing? So it sounds like you were raising capital, maybe venture capital for a while, and then at some point it's like, okay, we're going to, we're going to get to profitability. How far into the business was it that you, that you decided, okay, we're going to stop raising capital and we're going to get, we're going to get profitable.

[00:27:40] Alice Cheng: 

Yeah, well, we've raised series A in 2015 and that was the last time we took capital. Good for you. So it was, you know, we, we, we launched international as part of, um, as part of the agreement with our series A lead. And that was a great learning experience. And you know, we decided that the focus was, was the US it is the US, um, there's still so many, so much opportunity here, you know, there's 500,000 or so independent restaurants Uh, and cafes and bars in the United States and we want everyone to use our free hiring tools, right?

[00:28:15] 

We built it for them, you know, just, you know, how do we get that out there so that people can, can save some effort and time and headache potentially. And so they can focus on, you know, their business and other things. 

[00:28:27] Josh Sharkey: 

First of all, that's amazing. Congratulations that you haven't raised in over 10 years.

[00:28:31] 

It's funny. I'm having this conversation right now. We raised a series a couple of years ago and we're raising a little more cash now, but like, that's the conversation I'm thinking about is that, you know, is that, that path profitability irrespective of raising more capital, just like not having to rely on, you know, outside capital anymore.

[00:28:46] Alice Cheng: 

Yeah. It really is a game changer. 

[00:28:48] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. I mean, just the, there's no way around the unfortunate, you know, bias that you have to make some decisions relative to how it will impact the next round of funding, which is sometimes good for the customer and sometimes not. Not necessarily, right? It's like, you know, you have to, you have to grow at a certain pace if you're, if you're a venture backed business and, um, it can kind of like change your decision matrix in a way that isn't necessarily, uh, the best thing for the business long term, which is a tough, it's a tough scenario.

[00:29:16] 

So it's really commendable that you did. I was actually looking at CrunchBase while you were saying that to see, uh, we have some similar investors, but well, we have similar investors. It's amazing. And the fact that you're now like 10 years in. It's huge. You know, I am curious, you said you're working on these new products, like, what do you, what are you excited about?

[00:29:33] 

What, like, if you could give any more information about like what, what is coming up and also like what's your day to day like now, right? This is, you're over a decade in, like what, what's a typical like day or week in the life of, of Alice? 

[00:29:45] Alice Cheng: 

My day to day? Well, I would say one of the things that we intentionally did is keep a small but mighty team. I have the most amazing team. full stop. You know, that's important on several different levels. You know, we're really thoughtful about resource planning. We're really thoughtful about what we really need. Um, and then taking a look at the existing team and see, you know, is this an opportunity for someone or does somebody have capacity or somebody excited about this?

[00:30:10] 

And that really has served us well in many different ways. But my day to day is kind of split into a couple of different categories. I, I still am heavily involved in all the internal product development, testing, QA. Uh, I want to touch everything. I, I really sweat the small stuff. Client feedback, wishlist items, et cetera.

[00:30:28] 

And, you know, making sure that myself and my co founders are on the same page because they run respective units that drive the rest of the business. I really focus on clients. I have a whole section of my day that's either following up, circling back, checking in, proactively doing something for customers.

[00:30:44] 

Our client success team is, you know, I'd say everyone's important, but it's, it's a really key part of how we operate. We're a very, we're a very proactive client success team. We don't have a sales team. I spend my day to day. Being that and being the relationship manager for a lot of things. So problem solving, getting into the weeds of stuff and really looking at, I try to block off some time every day to just, just brainstorm.

[00:31:08] 

Like I, I'm an ideas person. I get excited about stuff. I like to throw. Wild ideas out there to see, you know, how the team will react sometimes just to be like, could we like, well, I couldn't, well, let's try this, you know, and those are kind of luxuries that I think I get to have, um, because I have such an awesome team to take care of, you know, a lot of the stuff that I used to have to, you know, they used to keep me up all night, you know, answering help tickets at two, three, four, five in the morning was my day for many, many years.

[00:31:36] Josh Sharkey: 

How big is the team?

[00:31:37] Alice Cheng: 

We are 16. Uh, full time here in, in the U. S., in New York. Yeah. 

[00:31:45] Josh Sharkey: 

Gotcha. And you got some offshore folks as well? 

[00:31:47] Alice Cheng: 

Yeah. To help with, uh, some data stuff. 

[00:31:49] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Same. 

[00:31:50] Alice Cheng: 

But yeah, you know, we just lean, keep it, keep it lean and, uh, grow as needed. 

[00:31:56] Josh Sharkey: 

What do you like most? Like, what keeps you up at night right now? Other than, you know, Logan. Beside my toddler. Yeah. 

[00:32:03] Alice Cheng: 

That's one of the best changes. Uh, as far as business evolution, uh, and what keeps me up at night is very different now than what keeps me up at night, you know, well, what kept me up at night earlier on. You know, I almost feel guilty a little bit by saying, like, I sleep great at night, you know, like, you know, we, uh, and this is largely due to the way we have been operating.

[00:32:25] 

I'm what keeps me up is more like the excitement of the stuff that's coming up, you know, I always want to do more quicker. So I feel like that's both my superpower as well as my Achilles heel, because I'm always like, okay, come on, come on. Even though. I very well know that things take time to develop and I know the process and I know the framework.

[00:32:43] 

That still doesn't stop me from asking like, okay, can we do it a little faster? Like, you know, bring it up a little bit. And so those are, those are the things that, you know, really get me excited. And, and, Well, I'm jealous. Doesn't quite keep me up, but. Yeah, you'll get there. You're getting there. You are.

It's funny how different running, 

[00:33:01] Josh Sharkey: 

I mean, I've been running restaurants my whole life and running tech companies is such a different beast, especially a venture backed one. I mean, it's, by the way, it's amazing. I love it. Like, it's so much fun and moving fast is really fun, but yeah, there's a lot of things that keep me up.

[00:33:15] 

You know, I wouldn't mind getting it if you're okay with it. And I don't even know if this is like in your purview, but I have to assume it kind of is, which is like hiring. Yeah. Right. And sort of tactics around hiring, because I've been getting really, I've been digging down, like going down this rabbit hole of hiring and job descriptions.

[00:33:30] 

And I don't know if you ever read Who by Jeff Smart and what's his name? Uh, Randy Street. He's got, there's like this a method of hiring. Do you know what I'm talking about? 

[00:33:39] Alice Cheng: 

I haven't read that, but I know what you're talking about.

[00:33:40] Josh Sharkey: 

Anyways, it's a, it's a really cool, it's, we use it like for when we're, when we're hiring, but like you mentioned in, um, well in Culinary Agents, uh, like things that you look for in a new hire, say positive attitude and willingness to learn, problem solving, you can say that.

[00:33:52] 

Collaborative, um, trust, trust came up a lot, I believe. But like, I'm curious, like, if you have, like, like systems or processes or tools or, like, methodologies that you use yourself or maybe, maybe more so, like, to, to sort of, like, share with your customers, like, here's how we think you should measure and quantify and find the things that you want out of an employee.

[00:34:13] Alice Cheng: 

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, you know, the answer to this somewhat depends on, you know, the position and the type of what you're hiring for, et cetera. Um, I think in general, one method that we typically enjoy is we do a scorecarding method for our hires where, because we usually have multiple people who are part of the process and it's interesting.

[00:34:32] 

We all, you know, one thing that I think is important is getting on the same page with, uh, the leadership or whoever is going to be involved in the hiring process on What are you looking for? And once you have the handful, a handful of things, right? These are the technical skills. These are the soft skills.

[00:34:47] 

You know, what would be a cultural fit for what you're looking for, or what are specific skills that are current gap that you must fill with this hire, right? And once you have that agreement and then you go your separate ways and have your interviews or you, or you evaluate and everybody scores independently, it's a really interesting, um, and quite thoughtful conversation when you come together and you see, you know, how or why people thought.

[00:35:09] 

You know, a certain category was stronger or weaker, et cetera. And typically if you have a couple of different candidates and you score card them all, you see who has the higher score and why it, it, it makes the conversation a little bit more, the process more organized and focused on, you know, what we agreed upon was the most important and what clearly, or who clearly is the person that's the best fit.

[00:35:33] Josh Sharkey: 

Yep. Yeah, I'm, I'm a huge believer in this scorecard as part of the expertise part of that, that payment that I was talking about, we do a similar thing. We weight each of the attributes depending on the, on the role of like, you know, if these are the 10 attributes we're looking for, like this one's weighted heavier than this one.

[00:35:46] 

And then we do sort of like a larger scale of stack ranking. Is there anything like sort of like non contrarian or, or, or something that novel that you've like seen or patterns that you've seen? You're like, people should know this when they're hiring, that they might not actually, that might not necessarily be looking at typically, yeah.

[00:36:03] Alice Cheng: 

You know, it's one thing, one thing that I would really emphasize that is one of those kind of obvious, not so obvious things and more so in the past couple of years is employer branding. Like employer brand has been something that we've been talking about for, you know, almost since the beginning that we started.

[00:36:16] 

And now I think it's more important than ever because there's, there's more tools and information out there for potential candidates to research or to follow. And over time, you know, you should know that you're kind of always. Hiring, whatever you're putting out there, whether it's social media, the organizations you support, the beliefs, what your leadership is saying, these are all kind of little pieces that make up a picture of what you might be like, not just as a destination to to dine or to have, you know, to enjoy yourself, but also to work, you know, giving thought and an intention to what you're doing.

[00:36:49] 

Bye. Are you putting out there and what is your culture and what do you agree on as being, you know, your focus, your mission, et cetera. And making sure those points are permeated through your job descriptions, through, you know, what you're putting out there or on your employer page or whatever, making it easy for talent to apply to your jobs.

[00:37:07] 

I mean, that's something that we found really On a regular basis. It's like, well, if you're hiring, but nobody knows how to actually apply or to send you a resume or what you require from them to include in that message, you know, sending a, uh, an email to an info app box, um, when you want to work there is not, you know, it doesn't feel good on, on the candidate side either.

[00:37:28] 

So it's thinking about this experience of what you're putting out there and how you want to engage with your potential candidate, because that's the first step. Relationship point is them reading what your requirements is or potentially doing some research on social channels or your website to learn a little bit about, about you and then them deciding, Oh, wait, am I, do I want to work here?

[00:37:47] 

I didn't, you know, what, what's being said about them. And that is something that we always emphasize is should be part of like the early planning, especially, you know, we're talking about fall hiring season now, like all employers should be. giving some thought to this and doing a little housekeeping clean up across their job descriptions, their, you know, what they're putting out there on their website, making sure that the jobs are easily found on your website.

[00:38:08] 

We have free career pages. There's so many free things. Please take advantage of them and let us know how we can help. I think all the little pieces, they fit together and they, they are meaningful. 

[00:38:16] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, we'll make sure to put that in the show as well. The links there. And by the way, I totally agree. Like you, it's a, it's a two way sale.

[00:38:22] 

You have to also sell them on why they, you know, why they should come work here. I want to talk about job descriptions for a second because I mean, and by the way, this is an HR nightmare, but like, I hate job descriptions and in a perfect world. And I actually do this somewhat, you know, with, with what we do.

[00:38:37] 

And again, there's, there's some differences with like, you know, kitchens versus other types of roles, but like. I just don't like the idea of putting duties into a job description. I like, you know, what is the result that we're looking for? Or like the rules of engagement. You know, here's our first principles.

[00:38:51] 

Here's our values. Like here's our non negotiables. And that's it. Because the duties will change, but the result is what you're looking for. And I find that like, well, every time I would write a job description, I'm like, okay, what? What am I missing? What things will I do? I want them to be able to do that, like, that if I don't put in here, they're not going to do.

[00:39:09] 

And I'm like, you're always going to forget things. And then there's this list of here's the things that you're supposed to do. But none of that really matters. In my mind, it's like you're creating this sort of task driven organization as opposed to a result driven. It's like, Hey, I want you to increase customer account by 50 percent over the next two years.

[00:39:27] 

That's, that's your, you know, that's your role. And here's how we operate as a company, what we believe in and, you know, have at it. But I'm, I'm curious, like your thoughts on that, because I'm sure sometimes, especially from HR perspective, it's, it's important, but like, has that changed over the years for you guys?

[00:39:42] 

Or how do you, how do you think about job descriptions in that, in that regard? 

[00:39:45] Alice Cheng: 

Yeah, I mean, I, I'm, I'm with you and I totally get that, you know, I think it's always good to put like, you know, the, the blanket statement that basically says like, you're not limited to these things, but, and like, you know, all, all the other positive things that entice people to want to apply to your jobs, you know, there are, uh, you know, specific reasons why you would want to put your, your duties there.

[00:40:08] 

Um, some of it could be legal. I think these days. You know, depending on the state, depending on the city, depending on the requirements and just to be safe, setting expectations, I think is more of the point is that these are the tasks and responsibilities. I think it's also important because it kind of shows, I don't like the word transparency because then it implies that you're not transparent, but it does lay out there like, hey, this is what's going to be asked of you.

[00:40:30] 

And I think it's fair to say to, to the person who is looking at what is going to be asked of them to set that expectation. Like you will need to do these duties. Whether or not that individual, one of the things that we really encourage talent to do, and we're building more tools to help them here is, is better understand the skills, uh, and, and requirements of the job and from that particular employer, and then do a self assessment.

[00:40:54] Alice Cheng: 

Like, do you really have all those skills? Right. And, you know, you can apply to the jobs, even if you don't have those skills, but how do you, How do you set the expectations for yourself, as well as for the potential employer that, you know, these are areas that you're working on, or you have some experience, but not, you know, potentially at the level that they require, et cetera, right?

[00:41:13] 

Because you're trying to get the conversation going and you want to start that relationship with as much information and honesty as you can. 

[00:41:22] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I think, um, okay, it's almost like here's some examples of things that we're going to expect you to do. Right. But especially today, and again, this is not.

[00:41:30] 

That's not necessarily the case in kitchens. Things are changing so fast. Like, if you had a job that you had a job description for from a year and a half ago, it would say nothing about how to leverage, you know, language models to do your job faster. And before that, it would have said nothing about, like, hey, you should probably learn, like, some, you know, spreadsheet formulas because it's going to, But like, as technology evolves and as innovations evolve, you, you sort of like can start to like apply these things to make yourself better at this, at what you do.

[00:42:01] 

And I find that like those, that's for me, like they become so limiting. It's like, well, it didn't say in my job that I should. You know, use chat GPT to come up with these things. No, it didn't, but it would be a lot better if you did. Hey, yeah, I don't know. It's, it's really tough. You know, I think, I guess it's the language you use, you know?

[00:42:17] Alice Cheng: 

I would think also, I guess my comments there would be, think of the job description as the high level directional, the high level, right? Directional exactly is what we're looking for. The details. Right? If, if you're hiring somebody who is, you know, is a critical thinker, uh, is flexible, all those other things, you know, problem solver, then hopefully, you know, if they're the right fit, you can kind of guide them with, uh, some of those more detailed things, but, but, but I get it, it's not, you know, there's not a direct, like, Perfect way to address some of these things.

[00:42:52] 

And I think that's one of the, the challenges, best practices, but then there's also encouragement that the employer, you know, has their own unique characteristics shine through, right? So you put the boring, but then how do you put a little bit of pizzazz that says like, Oh, this is a mission driven company.

[00:43:09] 

These are the organizations they support. They have, you know, internal training programs that, you know, I really want to learn more about or I want to be a part of, you know, they say that they, you know, put employees first and I actually know they do because there's examples of that and I've talked to my friends that work there, right?

[00:43:25] 

So all these things happen, right? And employers can really use that to their advantage. 

[00:43:31] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, okay. I'll stop asking questions about that. Yeah, I know. Hey, anytime. Well, you know, I asked, I've been asking this more recently, off and on, and it's more, there's a purpose to it, I promise, but um, what makes you really angry? Like blood boiling angry?

[00:43:49] Alice Cheng: 

When people are rude to service workers. I see red immediately. I don't, I can't even help myself. Um, like I actually think my, I've been told my face turns red right away too. And specifically like servers and, and people in that, um, in that type of role. I don't know if it's because I spent so many years doing a lot of that stuff, but I just think it's, there's no need for that.

[00:44:14] 

And I just feel like it's, it's just, you know, people have bad days, but if you know, really rude or disrespectful to your server, that really. 

[00:44:25] Josh Sharkey: 

Why do you think it makes you, I mean, it's how, I mean, see, of course, nobody should do that. It's terrible. But why do you think that specifically is the first thing that comes to mind? It's like, that makes you, like, you know, so angry. 

[00:44:36] Alice Cheng: 

There's this, this natural kind of stigma that comes with, you know, working the industry and service in particular. And that has changed so much over the years where, you know, we push the professional agenda, we show how people, um, progress in their careers and.

[00:44:52] 

It's such a noble profession that I think part of, part of me gets upset because the person who's receiving it nine out of ten times, you know, they have to, they take it, they take it. It's not like they're going to retaliate and, you know, maybe they do, but it's this like unfair, unfair exchange and this entitlement of like, you are serving me.

[00:45:11] 

That just gets me very, like, you're, you know, I don't know. It's, it hits all the, the wrong, 

[00:45:20] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I feel ya. I think 

[00:45:22] Alice Cheng: 

I'm getting red just thinking about it, actually. 

[00:45:26] Josh Sharkey: 

Well, so the other question that I had asked that we went to sort of your day to day, but what's, what's next? You have a million things you're thinking about, but like, what's the, you know, what's on the horizon for, for you and for Culinary Agents?

[00:45:36] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:45:37] Alice Cheng: 

Yeah, I'm so excited. We have, you know, we're, we're the go to hiring platform. We want to be the go to career hub, and we still have so many businesses that we need to, uh, get our, um, free tools in front of, and I think that's something. That we haven't been able to prioritize over the years because we've been so focused on, you know, getting the products we rounded out is letting people know that exists, right?

[00:46:01] 

We need to eat our own cooking basically and, and start shouting it from the rooftops. We're so excited to offer all these grape free. tools to help businesses and talent. And we are, you know, focusing on getting that message out. 

[00:46:16] Josh Sharkey: 

Nice. Well, everybody should know about it and we will make sure that everybody has the link culinaryagents.com I’m assuming right?

I don’t remember the URL. I just Google it every time. Well, I've used it many times. It's an awesome platform. And, um, I'm just glad that we had a chance to spend more time getting to know each other and, and, uh, I love what you built and I'm just, congratulations on how far it's come.

[00:46:37] 

And it seems like. You're only getting started, so. 

[00:46:40] Alice Cheng: 

Yeah, thank you. Yeah. And same to you. I mean, I feel like this is the beginning of more, uh, conversations, uh, off, offline, off recording. 

[00:46:49] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh yeah, I already have a million ideas, don't worry.

[00:46:51] Alice Cheng: Yeah. 

[00:46:52] Josh Sharkey: 

Thanks for tuning into The meez Podcast. New music from the show is a remix of the song Art Mirror by an old friend, hip hop artist, Fresh Daily.

[00:47:00] 

For show notes and more, visit getmeez.com /podcast. That's G E T M E E Z dot com forward slash podcast. If you enjoyed the show, I'd love it if you can share it with fellow entrepreneurs and culinary pros and give us a five star rating wherever you listen to your podcasts. Keep innovating.

[00:47:17]

Don't settle. Make today a little bit better than yesterday. And remember, it's impossible for us to learn what we think we already know. See you next time.