Simmer

Existing food delivery applications present a fragmented and often frustrating user experience. Customers must navigate multiple platforms, sift through numerous restaurants, and ultimately choose from a vast array of dishes, increasing the likelihood of selecting a subpar meal. Simmer aimed to streamline this process by curating reviews specifically for individual dishes across all delivery services.

Simmer's approach involved users selecting a dish through their platform, with the delivery logistics handled by existing companies. This allowed Simmer to generate revenue through affiliate commissions on each order. The core innovation lay in aggregating and analyzing existing online data from sources like blog posts, social media, and newspapers to determine the best-reviewed dishes in a given city. This was achieved using a custom-built sentiment analysis tool.

The founders envisioned Simmer as the primary destination for users seeking food delivery recommendations. The team brought experience in engineering and data science from the University of Chicago, along with prior experience in the food technology sector at companies such as Lolli and Pops and Blue Apron.