Inspiration and Collaboration: Foodyexperience.com
I met Elena, who speaks with so much excitement and passion-something that I was not used to. She is authentic and really shows genuine feelings and her friendship. She creates a nice experience and “easy to digest.”
Elena Bisio is CEO of Foodyexperience.com. Foody experience is a website that helps people find a place where they can experience local food and/or wine with local people, founded in 2015. Foodyexperience is the Airbnb of food and wine.
Why did I interview her? I like how she is decentralizing the food business from the impersonal classic restaurants and food chains. She is creating more genuine experiences and creating jobs.
Elena’s inspiration comes from a strong passion for tourism. She was inspired by her desire for the most in depth and unique understanding of any place she visits.
“What better way to know the place then through the local people?” she says “but the process to finding local people who will host you is a big mess.”
She understands that the most classic and often, most effective way for connecting people is though food. Connecting people to the people though the places, earth, culture and emotions.
“Imagine for example you visit Genova and the Italian Riviera and learn how to make pesto sauce with the ancient mortar, to truffle hunting in the forest in Florence with an expert truffe hunter, go fishing with a local fisherman, live a week end in the countryside as a real farmer and so on.”
I am personally not particularly “foody” but as someone who is familiar with tourism and cares about creating new, rich experiences. I see that she is creating authentic and valuable experiences.
She is not just adding hosts by the crowd but takes her time to make sure the people who become hosts are serious and properly presenting themselves. She finds her website hosts by talking one to one with them and building friendships.
When I asked her about how she found her startup collaborators her tone changed a bit and became more serious. “Creating my team was the hardest thing, the hardest part.”
She explains that she started with a a completely different team and completely different idea of what the business would look like.
Elena stressed the importance that in a collaboration it is about peoples perspective. They have to be focused on the business. They have to have an idea of what it is like working in a small company.
She found her perfect team though an incubator program called H-Farm and networking through people she knew. The way this happens is always different and depends on the the place. She keeps her team together by reminding them of the mission of creating authentic food and wine experiences with locals.
Your individual experiences, skills and how it meshes together?
Elena Bisio — Ceo and Co-founder — graduated in Law, worked in the marketing and communication field
Michele Arleo — CTO and Co-founder — Web and Graphic designer worked for Banzai in Milan and other media companies
Simone Campinoti — Developer — used to worked 12 years for one of the most important digital companies in Italy, Dada
Rishabh Jain — Software Engineer
How did your current team affect your view of the business?
“My team helped grow the business, they shared their vision, talked about it, we asked each other feedback and gave each other confidence on our competences. Back and forward discussing is the way to create a united vision of the business and where we have to go. I think that this is one of the reasons you need a team, to grow. Peoples have different thoughts, point of views. In a team they are committed to providing this. Sharing visions is what makes progress.”
Elena’s favorite dish is Trofie pasta with pesto sauce a real local dish from italian riviera. By coincidence, this happens to be my favorite sauce!
It is believed that this dish originates fro Genoa and Ligurian adventurous sailors who needed a fresh dish but that could also easily preserve, thanks to the spices.
More about Foody: “it is the first food tourism platform for all travelers who want to organize, book and live authentic 100% local food and wine experiences anywhere they go. Definitely an innovative way to travel and discover new places because it connects travelers with local people who care about organizing and providing their local food and wine activities.”
How does Foody work? “it is simple, users can search options by the destination. You view all the listings provided by the local hosts in that area, select the activity they prefer and view all the related details such as the description of the experience, the price, pictures, the meeting point and so on. Then if interested you just need to send a booking request to the host and pay safely through the website.”
Elena was welcoming, friendly and invited me to visit her at Genova, where she is from. She wants people all over the world to feel welcomed apart of the scene and wherever they may go. She has no preference for the place in the world she works. In the future she will be expanding her business all over the world and help create more work. Hosts, sharing authentic rich experiences around Food and Wine.
